Kit Hinrichs: Creative InspirationsIntroduction| 00:00 | (Music playing)
| | 00:08 | Kit Hinrichs: The most important things that I have
ever done, and I always do it innately, is tell stories.
| | 00:15 | One of the main things that we do, as
designers, is to make things clear and
| | 00:19 | understandable, so someone else can take
that information and go forward with it.
| | 00:23 | Because I'm just the collector, I end
up having all this stuff that I have
| | 00:29 | collected over forty, fifty years.
| | 00:31 | There's this kind of stimulus
that happens when it's around,
| | 00:34 | so it's really quite wonderful.
| | 00:36 | When we saw the plans for this and we
saw the wonderful curve that you see
| | 00:42 | within the atrium here, we thought
"Why don't we take that particular form,
| | 00:46 | replicate it again and again, and be
able to create a symbol based on that?"
| | 00:51 | My awareness was there. I was kind of
ready and then here, I get flooded with
| | 00:57 | some great typography by some of
the great designers of the world.
| | 01:02 | As I've gotten further and further into
this, it's gone from being, "Oh, here's a
| | 01:06 | few samples of things," to really being
this all-inclusive, and I use the term
| | 01:11 | obsession, because that's what it is, to
now over 5000 pieces in the collection.
| | 01:17 | For anyone who is wondering about this
whole thing about, well, this is only a
| | 01:21 | young man's business, I'm
still a young man inside!
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| Getting an education| 00:00 | (Music playing)
| | 00:07 | Kit Hinrichs: I went to Art Center College of
Design and it has been instrumental in how I
| | 00:13 | kind of think about design and how I use design.
| | 00:17 | So, ten years ago, they asked me to
come back and be on the Board of Directors,
| | 00:23 | which was a real honor for me, certainly, to do that.
| | 00:26 | So, the president at that particular time
said, "Our 75th anniversary is coming up.
| | 00:32 | We'd like to do something that
really represents the school."
| | 00:35 | As we started talking, I kept saying,
"It's not about the school. It's about the
| | 00:38 | impact of the students once they
have graduated from the school."
| | 00:43 | I started out when I was in grade school,
drawing. I guess I would draw most of the
| | 00:48 | time when I was four or five years old.
And as a typical boy drawing Cowboys and Indians,
| | 00:55 | whatever, at that point, I didn't realize it,
but kind of telling stories with my drawings.
| | 01:00 | And as I got further along in grade
school and so on, you get all these nice
| | 01:05 | things where the teacher
says, "Oh! That's nice, kid.
| | 01:08 | Can you do the painting of the turkey for us?"
| | 01:11 | So as a consequence, you start getting
kind of known for being someone who has a
| | 01:15 | little bit of a bent toward illustration,
or design, or something, even though it wasn't
| | 01:20 | called that at the time.
| | 01:23 | That progressed, obviously, through
high school and I happened to have a very good
| | 01:26 | teacher there who said, "There is this
college in Los Angeles called Art Center College."
| | 01:35 | I thought, "Great! Sounds good!"
| | 01:37 | Because the thought of doing
something that I actually love to do and might
| | 01:41 | actually be able to make a living
out of would be very interesting, and
| | 01:45 | sure enough, it worked.
| | 01:48 | I was very fortunate to get in, because I was
one of the few high school kids that got in.
| | 01:54 | Most of the students there were 22 to 26
years old. Some were on the GI Bill.
| | 02:01 | This goes back a few years. This was 1959.
And I thought, "What a wonderful thing to be
| | 02:07 | able to do something that I really love to do."
| | 02:09 | So, as a consequence, I had a four-
year training at Art Center, which, in the
| | 02:16 | middle, I took a year off and went to
Germany and worked in Germany for a year -
| | 02:24 | nothing to do with design, nothing to
do with anything. I was in what I call my
| | 02:29 | 'do-gooder' days, when I went and
actually worked in the boys youth home and
| | 02:34 | helped boys from the east zone who had
gotten out and their families were still
| | 02:39 | stuck in Eastern Germany.
| | 02:43 | So, I was working there for a year
and learned a tremendous amount of things,
| | 02:46 | which, a lot of it was just
understanding other cultures, that the American
| | 02:52 | culture is fine, but it is not everything.
| | 02:55 | So, as a consequence, because of
travel, I got exposure to different
| | 03:00 | publications. I got a whole range of
international exposure that I just wouldn't
| | 03:05 | have gotten if I had stayed in
school during that period of time.
| | 03:09 | So, when I returned to Art Center to
finish school, it had completely changed how
| | 03:14 | I viewed design and how I viewed
the field I was going to go into.
| | 03:20 | I had a better perspective of what
concepts meant, how they changed from
| | 03:24 | culture to culture.
| | 03:25 | It changed a lot of things,
but it also changed my grades.
| | 03:29 | I was a much better student.
| | 03:32 | I had a broader experience level,
myself, so it enabled me to think a little
| | 03:38 | better about the assignments I was given.
| | 03:42 | You have to work like hell
to get through that school.
| | 03:44 | It's a very, very tough, stringent school.
| | 03:48 | The day after I graduated,
I was in the Marine Corps.
| | 03:53 | It was like I didn't miss a beat,
because I was so used to being somewhat stressed,
| | 04:00 | a certain amount of primarily, really
emotional, as well as physical difference,
| | 04:05 | when you went to the Marine Corps and boot camp.
| | 04:08 | But it was certainly an interesting
experience and gave you a perspective of
| | 04:14 | the rest of the world, because, like
Europe, you get exposed to a whole group of
| | 04:19 | people you would not normally get exposed to, if
you were just sitting at home, where you grew up.
| | 04:26 | Going into the Marine Corps, or any
service, you get exposed to a range of people
| | 04:31 | in this country who you also would not
normally have run into. They're not the same
| | 04:35 | economic group you were probably a part of.
| | 04:38 | Racially, there's a much broader
mixture than you get to somewhere else.
| | 04:42 | So it was, again, another way of
understanding who people are, how they react to
| | 04:47 | things and I found that also very
important in my design career, and having that
| | 04:54 | kind of exposure, early on.
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| Workspace| 00:00 | (Music playing)
| | 00:17 | Kit Hinrichs: Welcome to San
Francisco and welcome to our office.
| | 00:22 | This wonderful space we have, we've been
here for about 15 years, a little more
| | 00:27 | space than we need right now.
| | 00:29 | So, when we had three partners here, we
needed all the space with what was going on,
| | 00:35 | but now that it's really Studio
Hinrichs, it's going to be a little smaller
| | 00:39 | space, so we decided to actually move around
the corner and open a new office a little later on.
| | 00:44 | On the second floor of our space, we
have a great library. We have a kitchen.
| | 00:49 | We have all kinds of storage space.
| | 00:50 | So, it really is a very
practical thing for us to have.
| | 00:54 | So, we have books organized by
the way in which we would use them.
| | 00:57 | So there will be books on typography,
books on designers, books on illustrators
| | 01:01 | and then books by country,
books by culture that's going on.
| | 01:06 | So, it allows us to pull things pretty easily.
| | 01:10 | So, we've created this wonderful war room,
as we call it, that allows the entire
| | 01:15 | staff to come together if they need to.
| | 01:21 | Because I'm just the collector, I
end up having all this stuff that I've
| | 01:27 | collected over forty, fifty years.
| | 01:29 | Some I have had since I was the child.
Other pieces I've had for two weeks.
| | 01:34 | So, it's a whole range of stuff that's in here.
| | 01:36 | There's this kind of stimulus
that happens when it's around.
| | 01:39 | So, it's really quite wonderful.
| | 01:43 | Then the rest of the space is all open-plan,
| | 01:47 | so that way the project coordinators
and the designers can kind of hear each
| | 01:52 | other as they're doing things.
They can easily get information from just that
| | 01:58 | kind of communal source
that's there all the time.
| | 02:05 | This backspace is one of the places
where the interns work most of the time.
| | 02:10 | We're still putting comps together.
| | 02:12 | No matter what we do on the
computer, we still prepare things here.
| | 02:19 | Belle Hau, who's been with me for over 25
years, is a person that always makes me look good.
| | 02:25 | It's just been amazing how she has done
this for this period of time and we've
| | 02:28 | gotten to the point to where I can do a
rough sketch like this and sure enough,
| | 02:34 | she can turn it into something
that just looks absolutely fabulous.
| | 02:39 | This is Maya, Belle's dog, a
wonderful, wonderful husky.
| | 02:44 | He's become kind of the office dog.
| | 02:46 | It's been terrific.
| | 02:51 | As the team has gotten smaller, because
it's only me now, there is not a number
| | 02:55 | of partners, I have a smaller team of people.
| | 02:58 | Gloria has been with me for two years now.
| | 03:00 | Gloria: Three years.
| | 03:01 | Kit: Three. They grow up so quickly!
| | 03:07 | And Audie, who's a Project Coordinator
here. And so we end up find ourselves
| | 03:10 | working as teams quite comfortably.
| | 03:13 | Since my computer skills are lacking,
I'm dependent on all of these designers
| | 03:24 | who really are much further
along than I will ever be.
| | 03:27 | It also allows me to do much more work
because I can work with four or five people and get a
| | 03:32 | certain volume of work out. So, it's great.
| | 03:37 | One of the things we've been doing, and
have been for many years, is @issue,
| | 03:40 | the magazine, and we're actually doing
an online version, a blog of it.
| | 03:44 | So An has been instrumental in
helping us get that going and keep it
| | 03:48 | going, because it's a little bit of
a hungry beast that, three to four times a week, we
| | 03:53 | need to feed it with something new.
| | 03:56 | John Schleining has been an
integral part of this office for
| | 04:00 | John Schleining: Ten years.
Kit: Ten years, my god!
| | 04:03 | Anyway, it's great to - he has really
helped build the office and has brought a
| | 04:06 | new kind of level of sophistication to
what we do when we go out and pitch work
| | 04:11 | and what we do when we
get the work along the way.
| | 04:14 | So, it's a very important part of
the business side of what we're doing.
| | 04:18 | As I enter this third chapter of my
career, the idea of taking this 10,000 foot
| | 04:24 | space and keeping to populate that,
doesn't make a lot of sense for where I'm
| | 04:28 | doing both financially and
what I want to do personally.
| | 04:31 | So, I've found a space, literally
around the corner from where I am.
| | 04:35 | I've kept virtually the same smaller team
I've kind of put together in the last two years.
| | 04:41 | They will be the core of this new space,
but it's just a little more personal in
| | 04:47 | way it's put together.
| | 04:48 | So, I'm hoping to be able to show
you that in its final form, as we get
| | 04:52 | further along with it.
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| Starting a career in design| 00:00 | (Music playing)
| | 00:08 | Kit Hinrichs: When I went to New York, Push
Pin was a very big thing, so Milton Glaser, Seymour
| | 00:13 | Chwast were very important to me, certainly
| | 00:17 | Herb Lubalin at that time,
very strong in typography and very unique.
| | 00:21 | A lot of people from that period
of the 60s and early 70s, when I was
| | 00:28 | influenced, but I think every generation
is influenced by whoever hits them when
| | 00:34 | they're in their early 20s to their 30s.
| | 00:37 | Those are the people who influence what
you're going to do the rest of your life.
| | 00:40 | It's not that you don't have continual
refocusing of what you're doing, but a
| | 00:47 | lot of the people who've influenced you
hit you at that particular moment when
| | 00:51 | you're that sponge,
absorbing all kinds of great stuff.
| | 00:54 | As soon as I finished my six months
of boot camp, I was on my way to New
| | 00:59 | York, because everybody who graduated
from Art Center, if they were going to
| | 01:04 | make it in the field, they went to New York,
because that's where the world was happening.
| | 01:08 | So really, never having been to New
York before, I kind of got there with my
| | 01:13 | little portfolio and my dayglo
pink and orange design inside.
| | 01:20 | I showed it to all these New York design
firms and they were like, "I've never seen
| | 01:27 | this before. What is this stuff?"
| | 01:29 | So, they were very impressed, if nothing else,
because it was different than what they'd seen.
| | 01:34 | I was offered job by the advertising
agencies, but once I was offered a job by a
| | 01:39 | design firm, I didn't look back.
| | 01:42 | I went right into
working with a design office.
| | 01:45 | They did a lot of things.
| | 01:46 | There was - they did a couple of magazines.
| | 01:50 | They did promotional work for paper companies.
| | 01:53 | They did a range of things, of which I
found very interesting, because the whole
| | 01:58 | idea of not just doing one thing for
one client was always of interest to me.
| | 02:03 | Because I could draw relatively well
and was pretty proficient in being able to
| | 02:07 | have different ways in which I could
express the designs, I got to do a lot of
| | 02:12 | illustration as an integral part of that.
| | 02:15 | I went to another even smaller design
firm, and this is where I met my first
| | 02:21 | partner, Tony Russell. He was a Brit.
| | 02:27 | He was working there on a freelance basis.
| | 02:29 | I was the assistant to the group.
| | 02:32 | He had a completely different background.
| | 02:34 | He had a very strong typographic
background, as almost all the Brits do.
| | 02:38 | Now at the same time, Tony, I'm sure,
never used pink and orange in his life,
| | 02:45 | so, as a consequence, there was this
kind of blending of I kind of brought this
| | 02:50 | left coast stuff that you'd get from
California and he brought Europe to me.
| | 02:56 | So, a few months after we worked together
at this place, we opened our own office
| | 03:02 | called Russell & Hinrichs.
| | 03:03 | So, Tony and I started out, just the
two of us, in one room in an apartment
| | 03:10 | building, doing, at first, individual projects.
| | 03:16 | We were both like two freelancers sharing space.
| | 03:19 | At that point, it was two tabletops,
made out of doors, to a couple of sawhorses,
| | 03:28 | a couple of chairs that we had
gotten from Salvation Army.
| | 03:32 | That was our office. It's small.
| | 03:37 | It's very simple, but it
had a lot of places start.
| | 03:40 | So, as a consequence, Tony and I
worked together for about seven years.
| | 03:45 | We went from just doing small things
individually to truly collaborating on
| | 03:49 | things to where we merged ourselves financially.
| | 03:53 | So, it was no longer just two
guys working in a shared space.
| | 03:59 | We found that because I had a certain
illustrative background to what I was
| | 04:04 | doing, I could visualize a lot of
the ideas we had and his typographic
| | 04:10 | training actually helped what he
was doing in some of the booklets and
| | 04:14 | brochures we were doing.
| | 04:16 | I learned from him and we both kind of
learned from each other for that period of time.
| | 04:20 | At some point, Tony and I had a
bit of a falling out, which I was sorry
| | 04:29 | about, but it happened.
| | 04:32 | So as a consequence, we
ended up splitting our office.
| | 04:38 | My wife and I, who had also been
working at the office at that time, we opened
| | 04:42 | up our own office called Hinrichs
Design Associates and Tony stayed in our
| | 04:47 | existing operation and continued on there.
| | 04:50 | Several things happened at that point
that were really helpful. One was I
| | 04:57 | got contacted by the head of McCall's
Magazine, the Art Director at that time, saying,
| | 05:03 | "We have a monthly section that
we'd love to have you do for us."
| | 05:07 | It was eight pages every month.
| | 05:10 | Now it, in itself, was not like the best
thing I've ever done in my life, but the
| | 05:15 | idea of something that had national
exposure every month and gave me the
| | 05:20 | opportunity to work with dozens of
artists around the country, again, was
| | 05:26 | another opportunity to expand my own
personal knowledge and also to learn from
| | 05:33 | other people who brought
something different to what was going on.
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| Typography as art| 00:00 | (Music playing)
| | 00:08 | Kit Hinrichs: As you can tell,
typography is a very important thing for me.
| | 00:11 | It's important for all designers, but
I've kind of embraced it, as I oftentimes
| | 00:14 | do with things and get really
obsessive about some of this stuff.
| | 00:19 | So when the opportunity came up for me
to have a retrospective, I thought,
| | 00:23 | "Well, why don't I actually put into practice
what I've kind of believed for a long
| | 00:28 | period of time in saying, 'Isn't there a way
we can incorporate typography as art and
| | 00:35 | literally make it the art for the poster.'"
| | 00:37 | When you have a face like mine that
is simple enough with a white beard and
| | 00:43 | round glasses, it's pretty simple to
kind of take that and synthesize that into
| | 00:49 | very simple typographic forms.
| | 00:51 | And so as a consequence, when I was
doing this poster, that whole thing was done
| | 00:57 | that way and, literally, my biography
is in the beard, and so that's a real
| | 01:02 | biography and then these are all letter forms.
| | 01:07 | The entire thing is made up of letter forms.
| | 01:09 | So, it was just an interesting thing to do.
| | 01:12 | It was inexpensive to produce, from that
point of view, and distinctive, and has
| | 01:19 | not only - yes, it has got some
awards and all of those things, but it's
| | 01:23 | something that I am just
amazed about how iconic it is.
| | 01:26 | I mean people walk along, and they
say, "Oh, that's you in that poster."
| | 01:30 | I mean it's amazing how
something as simple as this can do it.
| | 01:33 | Between my face and typography, it seemed to
be something that could actually work very well.
| | 01:38 | One other things that I found changed
when I came back from Europe was, because
| | 01:42 | of some of the publications I'd seen,
because of the use of typography in a way
| | 01:47 | that just was not being used
in United States at that time,
| | 01:51 | to me opened up a whole other world of how
typography can be an integrated part of
| | 01:56 | how you tell a story.
| | 01:58 | It's not just in what the words
are, but the scale of the words and the
| | 02:01 | typeface that you choose and the
emotional value that typography has.
| | 02:07 | And that comes from just seeing it everywhere.
| | 02:12 | And an example, although maybe an
obvious example, is the way in which
| | 02:18 | we understand money.
| | 02:22 | Money, at least in the US, has a very
distinctive typographic quality to it, in the
| | 02:27 | way it's put together.
| | 02:30 | And so then when you use something
like that, that even has a little bit of
| | 02:34 | a sense of that, you get a financial edge
to what it is that you are actually communicating.
| | 02:40 | So understanding that there is type
that is used in all kinds of things,
| | 02:46 | from stop signs, to manhole covers, to
sale signs, to money - all those things
| | 02:54 | use typography as a way of
communicating ideas about who they are,
| | 02:57 | and what makes them special.
| | 02:59 | When I was in high school, I had
bought a little platen press, had four
| | 03:07 | typefaces, and I used to set type for
various organizations in school, made a
| | 03:13 | few extra bucks doing it, and learned a
little bit of a craft in doing that, and
| | 03:20 | even though it was really very, very
Mickey Mouse, in a way, it was something
| | 03:26 | that gave me an exposure to
something I hadn't been involved with before.
| | 03:31 | And so my awareness of typography was
there in the idea of handset type and
| | 03:35 | metal type and all of what you had
to do to make words look good together,
| | 03:42 | because of the way in which they were
spaced or tracked at that time, the way
| | 03:46 | they were kerning the type.
| | 03:48 | All of those things were very real and
tangible, and so my awareness was that
| | 03:54 | was there. I was kind of ready and
then here I'd get flooded with some great
| | 04:00 | typography by some of the
great designers of the world.
| | 04:04 | And as Tony and I began chatting and
so on, I would sit there and go,
| | 04:09 | "I don't know whether it's twelve on fourteen
or twelve on sixteen, or whatever," and not
| | 04:13 | that I didn't know what it was, but he
would say, "No, with that size type and
| | 04:18 | that measure, you should be
using this particular leading."
| | 04:22 | It wasn't as a something I learned.
| | 04:23 | It was a something that he knew, and that's
kind of led me through the rest of my career.
| | 04:29 | Those kind of things were just amazing to me.
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| Faces| 00:00 | (Music playing)
| | 00:26 | Kit Hinrichs: This is a cover we are looking
on right now, for a magazine down in Los Angeles
| | 00:30 | for Cedars-Sinai's Hospital.
| | 00:33 | It's really on personalized medicine
that deals with your particular DNA and who
| | 00:38 | you are as an individual.
| | 00:40 | So within that, we thought, "Well, we
could make the face up out of G, A, T, C,
| | 00:46 | the pieces that actually are
the building blocks of DNA."
| | 00:50 | So we were looking at whether we do the
whole thing with handwritten or whether
| | 00:53 | we do it all with typography, and it
makes a very nice combination of things as we
| | 00:57 | go forward and then starting to
play with, - does the type actually kind of
| | 01:00 | meld through the cover? - that sort of
thing, are all kind of stuff that we play
| | 01:04 | with it at this point.
| | 01:05 | If you look at every magazine stand in
America, every month, it is filled with faces.
| | 01:12 | usually of beautiful women or good-looking
men, who are on the cover either because
| | 01:16 | they are celebrities, because they are
models, because it's about beauty and all
| | 01:21 | kinds of things like this, but
people like to look at other people.
| | 01:27 | I think that is a human trait that
you can't kind of walk away from.
| | 01:31 | And it's for good reason that you
find as many faces on the cover of
| | 01:37 | publications, because people are
engaged by them. Someone is talking to them.
| | 01:43 | And so I found myself, of course, as
all human beings, attracted by the same
| | 01:48 | thing and saying, "But how can I make this a
little different than just another beautiful face."
| | 01:54 | Again, over the years, looking at a
number of things that have been done, I found
| | 02:00 | that you can take a face, but the way
in which you interpret that face is what
| | 02:05 | makes it fresh and different.
| | 02:07 | So when we were doing the piece for
Simpson Paper, that had all of the people
| | 02:13 | who were forecasting the future to go
through and have a Richter, a George Richter
| | 02:22 | image done as a map with a fault line
in it communicates all kinds of things.
| | 02:29 | It's a great story.
| | 02:31 | It's also about him, and it's
also very specific to the subject.
| | 02:36 | And so as many times as you can go
through and say, "Can we bring a face which
| | 02:41 | everyone wants to look at and make
it unique to that particular subject?"
| | 02:46 | you have got a double-win in my opinion.
| | 02:50 | It may be just the simplicity of how
do I take a person that would represent
| | 02:55 | that story in a new way?
| | 02:57 | Those kinds of things have
stories to tell within them.
| | 03:02 | So I use faces an awful lot
to communicate along the way.
| | 03:06 | I bet I have used faces, 200-300
times, easily, in my communications,
| | 03:13 | I think, most of the time, in a
relatively fresh and new way, not always the same
| | 03:18 | thing over and over again.
| | 03:19 | And so, I have a little more
flexibility because I don't have to be limited to
| | 03:25 | one particular subject along the way.
| | 03:29 | I have a lot of latitude in doing it.
| | 03:32 | If I find that it's - we're becoming too
- doing two things that are too much the same,
| | 03:38 | by repeating things, then I get rid
of that and don't do that, but I've found a
| | 03:44 | number of things I can do with
faces that are unique and not redundant.
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| San Francisco| 00:00 | (Music playing)
| | 00:07 | Kit Hinrichs: I had been in
New York for about 13 years, and
| | 00:12 | my parents were getting a little bit older.
| | 00:14 | My wife's parents were
getting a little bit older.
| | 00:16 | We thought about - "Well, if we're ever
going to return to California, maybe now
| | 00:21 | would be the time to do it."
| | 00:23 | And at the time that we were thinking
about that, I didn't want to walk away
| | 00:27 | from the business we developed when
we were in New York. My entire
| | 00:33 | professional career, at that
moment, had been in New York.
| | 00:36 | And so I made a number of friends with
number of people there, a couple who were
| | 00:42 | just terrific designers, one is Marty
Pedersen, who is now the publisher of
| | 00:48 | Graphis, and Vance Jonson, who was a
teacher of mine when I was at Art Center.
| | 00:56 | So, we went into
business as a bi-coastal office.
| | 01:02 | So, we opened an office in San Francisco.
| | 01:03 | My wife and I came out here.
We opened the office and about
| | 01:09 | two and half years later, or so,
Neil Shakery joined us, so it was Jonson,
| | 01:14 | Pedersen, Hinrichs and Shakery.
| | 01:16 | And it was the mid '80s and so we
were interested in doing corporate annual
| | 01:23 | reports and doing publications for
large corporations, because there were a
| | 01:27 | lot of large corporations here who
were going outside, and so we hit at a
| | 01:34 | very good period of time and so we
did very well in a short period of time,
| | 01:38 | when we arrived here.
| | 01:40 | We happened to hit at the time to
where there were a lot of corporations who,
| | 01:43 | if they wanted really good
work done, they went to New York.
| | 01:46 | They didn't buy services in San Francisco.
| | 01:50 | There were some wonderful designers
here, doing great things, but they were -
| | 01:54 | it was a very insular society and I am
not saying we completely changed that,
| | 02:01 | but we did bring a different
perspective, a more international perspective to
| | 02:06 | what we were doing.
| | 02:07 | We went into Embarcadero Center,
which was probably the newest high-rise
| | 02:13 | building in San Francisco at that time,
and although it was a small office,
| | 02:19 | it was a very professional office,
as far as corporations were concerned.
| | 02:22 | We picked a place that was high profile.
| | 02:25 | It made us high profile, what we did.
| | 02:28 | It made us part of the corporate community.
| | 02:30 | As a consequence, we were able to get
a number of very large, international
| | 02:36 | clients who were here, who were looking
for that service in San Francisco, and
| | 02:41 | so that made a big difference for us.
| | 02:43 | So, Marty Pedersen, Vance, Neil, and then myself,
we had a very nice ten year run of doing that.
| | 02:52 | And then Pentagram came along and
first talked to Marty Pedersen in
| | 02:55 | Switzerland, and said, "Would you guys,"
meaning all of us, "like to join Pentagram."
| | 03:04 | It would expand Pentagram into the US,
because it had been established for six or seven
| | 03:12 | years, but was really two guys, two partners.
| | 03:17 | So we - it ended up, ultimately, that only the
three of us in San Francisco ended up joining.
| | 03:23 | Marty wanted to buy Graphis, which he
did, and so he ran that and Vance went on
| | 03:30 | to run his own design firm.
| | 03:32 | So the three of us in San Francisco
became the San Francisco office of Pentagram.
| | 03:36 | That was in 1986.
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| Project: California Academy of Sciences| 00:00 | (Music playing)
| | 00:10 | Kit Hinrichs: Being in San Francisco, there is
this wonderful California Academy of Sciences,
| | 00:15 | which we were asked about a year-and-a-
half ago to create an identity for them,
| | 00:20 | which then continued not only from
the outside, for the identity for all of
| | 00:24 | emotional pieces, but also inside.
| | 00:34 | When the Academy came to us, they had
hired Renzo Piano to be able to put this
| | 00:40 | absolutely fabulous building in
the middle of Golden Gate park.
| | 00:44 | It's where the old
academy had been for 150 years,
| | 00:47 | so it's a very strong tradition
in San Francisco to have this thing.
| | 00:53 | When we were creating the identity
itself, it was like how do you create
| | 00:57 | something that is unique to the place
and still has kind of presence, not just
| | 01:01 | another abstract symbol?
| | 01:03 | So when we saw the plans for this
and we saw the wonderful curve that you
| | 01:08 | see within the atrium here and that also
is reflective in all of the other hills
| | 01:14 | on the roof, we thought "Why don't we
take that particular form, replicate it
| | 01:19 | again and again, and be able to
create a symbol based on that."
| | 01:24 | It's in three different colors. Each
one represents a different aspect of the
| | 01:29 | museum and it used to be marketed as
three different groups and now they want it
| | 01:35 | to be brought together as the
California Academy of Sciences.
| | 01:39 | Then we did all of the promotion
pieces for them, as it went forward, I mean,
| | 01:43 | virtually every thing that
identified the academy along the way.
| | 01:47 | Laura, who is one of our associate partners
who was here, who is now gone on to London,
| | 01:55 | was very instrumental in putting
this whole symboling program together.
| | 02:03 | The building was underway when they
engaged us and the director had just been
| | 02:09 | brought on, so it was a relatively
short period of time, but he wanted to have
| | 02:13 | a modern clean symbol. He wanted it to
represent all the different complexities of this place,
| | 02:20 | but understanding all of this is
about life. And so we thought that this
| | 02:25 | symbol that we're creating for this
is also about life. And so its somewhat
| | 02:30 | radiant aspect - kind of sun aspect of it -
also represents that as a source for all things.
| | 02:38 | This will be a successful place if
there wasn't a single symbol on the outside
| | 02:43 | and there was just a word on it.
| | 02:45 | At the same time, what we do in setting
up the typographic system, creating a new
| | 02:50 | identify and entirely new
communications program is what talks about the space
| | 02:56 | and the experience you are going to have.
Then when you come here, it's realized
| | 02:59 | because everything has
been put together so nicely.
| | 03:05 | One of the things, since we were not
going to be involved in creating the
| | 03:08 | exhibitions themselves, but had
some limited corporate exposure there,
| | 03:14 | they asked us to do the Donor Wall.
We kept thinking, because they something
| | 03:18 | like 300 individual scientists there
who were doing things, that as you go in
| | 03:24 | and you pull out drawers, it's just
like pulling out all these specimen drawers
| | 03:29 | with all these things in it.
| | 03:31 | So we thought if we could do the
same thing as turning a specimen drawer
| | 03:34 | vertically, putting it on the wall, the
rarity of the object that is being shown
| | 03:40 | would designate the amount of money
that you had donated. So there are fewer
| | 03:45 | butterflies, because they are five
or ten million dollars. Then there are poppies.
| | 03:59 | An interesting thing, when we started
doing this, was that - we thought,
| | 04:03 | "Well, it would only - it would stop here,"
because that was the number of heavy
| | 04:07 | donors that they had done.
| | 04:09 | But then as people started to see what
this could be, then that got to extending
| | 04:14 | it on the other side
because of more people who joined.
| | 04:17 | It's been very effective.
We've loved doing it and we love being able to
| | 04:21 | make something that is really unique
and celebrate the donors who have been
| | 04:24 | part of it.
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| Pentagram| 00:00 | (Music playing)
| | 00:07 | Kit Hinrichs: When people
say "What does Pentagram do?"
| | 00:09 | you go on the website and you start to
look up any of this long list of things
| | 00:14 | from any of the offices.
| | 00:16 | We have done some very unique work for
a lot of high profile companies, or we've
| | 00:22 | made some companies who were there
but no one paid attention to them, all of a
| | 00:26 | sudden, be a little stronger.
| | 00:30 | Pentagram began in, now 35 years ago, in London.
| | 00:36 | The reason that it was called Pentagram
was because there were five partners at
| | 00:39 | the time, three different disciplines:
| | 00:41 | graphic design, product design, and
architecture, which was also very unique
| | 00:47 | at that time. This is the sixties.
| | 00:51 | I was certainly influenced by them
because of my first British partner who made
| | 00:56 | me aware of these guys in London,
who were doing interesting things,
| | 01:01 | primarily in the UK and on the
continent, but were starting to do things in
| | 01:07 | the U.S. Then, of course, when they
opened an office in New York, that also
| | 01:11 | brought it closer to our world.
| | 01:16 | People asked me "Well, how long did it
take you to decide?" - about 30 seconds,
| | 01:22 | because here is a group of people who
are the most admired designers in the
| | 01:29 | world and they would like
you to be their partner.
| | 01:32 | It's pretty hard to turn that down.
And also, we got invited to the dance, and
| | 01:38 | so we were very happy to be part of it.
| | 01:41 | That's another group of people,
another exposure to an international group.
| | 01:48 | I learned from all of those people as well,
| | 01:52 | because we spend twice a year, four or five
days together, of which we teach each other.
| | 01:59 | So I call them the world's smallest
design conferences because we just were
| | 02:06 | presenting the work that we did
within that last period of time.
| | 02:09 | My partner does a piece in
Berlin or in Japan or in Buenos Aires,
| | 02:16 | I am aware of what it is because they
tell me, in first hand knowledge, how that
| | 02:21 | was put together, how it worked, how
it was received, what the problems were.
| | 02:26 | It's insider information, and so as a
consequence, any one of my partners and
| | 02:32 | certainly, I, grew dramatically
from what I learned from my partners,
| | 02:37 | because you really got to see the best
of what was going on. You got to hear
| | 02:41 | the excitement from your partners who are out
there doing some of the best work in the world.
| | 02:49 | At the point that I left Pentagram, I was
the oldest partner in Pentagram, had been
| | 02:54 | there the longest, not of all partners,
but of the current group of partners.
| | 03:02 | Pentagram is an organization that evolved
depending on the people who were part of it.
| | 03:09 | Now that I am not there, there will
be someone else to step up and do other
| | 03:12 | things along the way, as it has always changed.
| | 03:15 | So, I'll be interested in seeing, ten
years from now, fifteen years now, how it
| | 03:21 | has evolved and what its
focus is at that moment.
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| Project: Muzak| 00:00 | (Music playing)
| | 00:07 | Kit Hinrichs: The thing when we did muzak was
this simplification from the whole name down
| | 00:12 | to a single symbol.
| | 00:14 | As they went forward, it wasn't just a
matter of, gee, how do we change their identity
| | 00:19 | that way? How we change the way
we communicate about them?
| | 00:22 | Simpler, stronger messages as you go
through, not overly complicated things.
| | 00:26 | And then it's all kinds of music.
| | 00:28 | It's not just elevator music.
| | 00:31 | Then to go into imaging, it's the
same kind of work that we do, visually, for
| | 00:36 | a corporation, they do, musically.
| | 00:40 | Usually, the change has
happened in the corporation already,
| | 00:44 | but they have no way to let
people know that it has changed.
| | 00:48 | When we came in with muzak,
they were doing these things.
| | 00:52 | They had already done a lot of this stuff,
| | 00:54 | but no one outside had any
idea that it had been done.
| | 00:58 | So I went in, met the guys in their
very sophisticated offices, with great
| | 01:03 | music playing and you talk on a very
sophisticated level about what it is
| | 01:08 | they're trying to achieve, and they
give you a story of saying when they were
| | 01:13 | working with Ralph Lauren, that they
had talked to all the senior vice presidents
| | 01:18 | about what they were going to do, how
the retail environment was going to change,
| | 01:22 | how music was an important
part of creating their signature.
| | 01:27 | And the contract went all the way up to
Ralph to sign and Ralphs says, "I can't sign this."
| | 01:33 | Muzak is not comparable to our brand.
| | 01:38 | And that was a real wake up call for
them, when someone won't work with you
| | 01:42 | because they think your
brand is not up to theirs,
| | 01:46 | and it is every other way except in
kind of understanding of that brand or the
| | 01:51 | image of that brand.
| | 01:54 | And as a consequence, they said,
"We've got to find some way to change that."
| | 01:57 | So, they engaged us to come in and
work with them and we did exactly that.
| | 02:03 | We, instead of changing the name, which
we could not do, so we said, "Okay. Well,
| | 02:09 | "if we are not going to change the
name, then we will change the visual image
| | 02:13 | that it has," and so we created a symbol for them
and then we created a complete program for them.
| | 02:20 | We organized all of their franchise
owners to have a consistent look to the
| | 02:26 | way they did things.
| | 02:27 | We then, because of Jim Biber,
our architectural partner, he did their
| | 02:33 | offices down in North Carolina - brand
new offices - and they were so cool that
| | 02:39 | they had their clients coming and
saying, "You guys are cooler than we are."
| | 02:43 | And all of that really changed, not
only how their clients viewed them, but how
| | 02:49 | they viewed themselves.
| | 02:52 | And so it's not at all unusual for
us to come in after a lot of the heavy
| | 02:56 | lifting has being done.
| | 02:59 | And we're really, we're the voice, at that
moment, of letting people know how it's changed.
| | 03:06 | We don't change the company.
| | 03:08 | They changed the company.
| | 03:10 | We just help them make it clear to
the audience they want to talk to.
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| Studio Hinrichs| 00:00 | (Music playing)
| | 00:06 | Kit Hinrichs: When I left Pentagram, when I
decided to leave Pentagram, I thought, "I want to
| | 00:11 | do something that is really more uniquely me,"
which gave the name of this as Studio Hinrichs,
| | 00:19 | even though I still have a little
bit of a hard time picking up the
| | 00:21 | phone and saying that.
| | 00:23 | But as I'm now 68 and for those - for
anyone who's wondering about this whole
| | 00:32 | thing about 'well this is
only a young man's business,'
| | 00:36 | I'm still a young man inside and
this is a business that is continually,
| | 00:44 | intellectually challenging and it
does not stop at a certain point and
| | 00:48 | you just repeat yourself. It is something
| | 00:51 | that has no limit to it if you
want to continue to engage in it.
| | 00:56 | Almost everyone who knew Pentagram probably
knew half a dozen of the partners by name.
| | 01:04 | It wasn't just a name at the top
and there could be a rotating shift of
| | 01:08 | people underneath it.
| | 01:10 | So, we had always been an organization that was
certainly personality-driven, to a certain extent,
| | 01:19 | that it was kind of a club of stars,
people who had done very well on their own
| | 01:25 | but now, collectively, have even
more influence in the world.
| | 01:32 | And that is certainly true.
| | 01:35 | At the same time, you have a
responsibility to all of your partners, a financial
| | 01:40 | responsibility as well as a, I'll call it a
design responsibility - in that you don't
| | 01:46 | do things that embarrass yourself
or your partners in what you are doing.
| | 01:52 | So, all of that is a little bit part of
what Pentagram, not requires of you, but
| | 01:58 | we all feel that responsibility.
| | 02:00 | It's not oppressive.
| | 02:03 | It's just kind of there.
| | 02:04 | You need to be aware that
| | 02:06 | you're part of this and
you need to carry your weight.
| | 02:10 | In going on my own, which is really going
back to what I was 40 years ago, when I
| | 02:16 | first kind of had the
doors across a pair of saw horses,
| | 02:21 | the simplicity of just having, I'll
say, I hate to call it my vision, but an
| | 02:26 | idea of where I'm going,
what I'd like to do,
| | 02:30 | to do something new, fresh, maybe something
I wanted to do but just haven't done before,
| | 02:37 | that is very exciting to me.
| | 02:39 | There's no doubt that I can't do it alone.
| | 02:42 | I have a team of people who work with
me and within this particular period of
| | 02:48 | time, it's actually like starting over again.
| | 02:51 | It's been very interesting. Everyone I know,
| | 02:56 | clients, design friends, colleagues,
have all said, "Isn't this exciting for you?"
| | 03:03 | It's like "Isn't that great for you?"
| | 03:05 | And I have to say, I feel that way.
| | 03:07 | I feel this is something that I can't
think of anything better to be doing at
| | 03:11 | this point in my life. And I get
excited every morning I come in. And it's
| | 03:16 | wonderful to think about starting over again.
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| American flags| 00:00 | (Music playing)
| | 00:12 | Kit Hinrichs: As you will see some of this,
this is where I live and so I try to put a lot of
| | 00:15 | the stuff that I have kind of a
obsession about, with the American flag, and I
| | 00:20 | tried to bring it into my life in as
many ways as I can. And it also finds its
| | 00:25 | way, certainly, into my profession.
| | 00:30 | I've found that I start focusing on more
unique things, one-of-a-kind things, the
| | 00:36 | quilts, the Navajo weavings, the things that
a single person did, I would say out of the
| | 00:42 | goodness of their heart, but
out of the spirit of the country.
| | 00:45 | I have a friend who has a
wonderful collection of flags,
| | 00:49 | but he collects flags
because of their historical value.
| | 00:53 | They also are pretty graphically strong,
| | 00:55 | but he has the flags from John F.
Kennedy's limousine, when he was shot.
| | 01:05 | Now, that has great historic influence.
| | 01:09 | You couldn't tell it from any
other fifty-star flag that's out there.
| | 01:12 | It looks exactly the same.
| | 01:14 | It wouldn't make any difference to me,
because there is no expression in the way
| | 01:18 | in which that's created that,
to me, is any different than any other
| | 01:21 | manufactured flag of the period.
| | 01:24 | So, I am very much involved in how it's
executed, the quality of the expression.
| | 01:30 | Within the collection, there is
a variety of media that is used.
| | 01:34 | Certainly, one of the big
Americana things are quilts.
| | 01:38 | We have a quite wonderful family
heirloom that my great, great, great, great
| | 01:44 | aunt had sewn in 1865.
| | 01:46 | That got passed down.
| | 01:48 | I used to take it to show and tell at school.
| | 01:50 | I am often asked about which one of the flags
do I like the most or have most interest in.
| | 01:56 | It is a little bit like "which one of
your children do you like the most?"
| | 02:00 | but that has the most emotional value to me.
| | 02:08 | As I have gotten further and further
into this, it's gone from being "oh, here
| | 02:11 | is a few samples of things" to really
being this all-inclusive, and I use the term
| | 02:17 | obsession because that's what it is,
| | 02:19 | to now over 5,000 pieces in the
collection. And some of these pieces above
| | 02:24 | here, you can see the variety of stuff,
again, that you find, from beadwork to
| | 02:30 | this wonderful Centennial flag, which
was done in, obviously 1876, and it had no
| | 02:39 | relationship whatsoever to
the number of stars that are in it.
| | 02:41 | It just happens to be
something that made the number.
| | 02:45 | So I get a great typographic kick out of
this one. I get a great flag kick out
| | 02:50 | of it and it's just an interesting graphic.
| | 02:53 | One thing, when I was able to find this
nice doughboy, which is a weather vane.
| | 03:00 | And I have only seen one of these, so I
think it is a one-of-a-kind. I don't think
| | 03:04 | it is a mold that was made and then replicated.
| | 03:08 | So, it's a beautiful World War I piece.
I don't know whether it was done in
| | 03:13 | memory of someone who had fallen
during that period of time, or just in support
| | 03:17 | of the country during the war.
| | 03:21 | This is all buttons and ribbons and
things which are really just fabulous to
| | 03:26 | find, and individually are not that
significant, but collectively make a very
| | 03:31 | good kind of portrait of a
country at a period of time.
| | 03:36 | I also get into posters and banners
of all kinds that there are out there.
| | 03:44 | Being in the profession that also
allows me to do a lot of publishing, or doing
| | 03:48 | it, usually, for other people, I thought,
"Well, there is an interest here to do this,"
| | 03:53 | so I went ahead and put together a
book together with Delphine Hirasuna.
| | 03:57 | So anyway, you can see there's this
great variety of stuff that gets done.
| | 04:03 | It's all pretty graphically very
interesting. It is everywhere.
| | 04:09 | The flag is on so many things.
| | 04:12 | I wasn't as interested in what was
happening in a contemporary fashion, but
| | 04:17 | historically - where all this kind of
enthusiasm came from about the flag, because
| | 04:21 | it's unique in this country.
| | 04:24 | So I began looking and all of a sudden
I just would find piece after piece,
| | 04:29 | whether it was a quilt or a postcard
or a toy soldier or whatever, they all had
| | 04:36 | some link to the American flag on them.
| | 04:39 | It's been a very interesting and
rewarding collection, as I have gone through.
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| @Issue| 00:00 | (Music playing)
| | 00:10 | Kit Hinrichs: Design was, until
the last ten, fifteen years, was an add on.
| | 00:15 | It was something - everything has
been done by the engineering department.
| | 00:18 | Everything else has been taken care of
and it's in the box and we need to
| | 00:21 | kind of decorate the box before it goes out.
| | 00:24 | That's about where design had
been relegated at that point.
| | 00:28 | In today's world, they sit at the
table at the beginning with everybody about
| | 00:33 | how we're going to make this product successful.
| | 00:35 | Things like, companies like Apple,
their advertising, their promotion, the
| | 00:39 | boxes, the products themselves, all those
things works seamlessly with each other.
| | 00:44 | Design, again, isn't just to make it look pretty.
| | 00:47 | It's to make it function better.
| | 00:49 | So we said, "How can we make some of the
visual language real and understandable
| | 00:55 | to the business world," and that there is
no doubt that the design world needed to
| | 00:59 | understand business as well, and
understand what their point of view was.
| | 01:07 | Delphine and I are co-founders of @issue.
And it was founded 15 years ago,
| | 01:14 | Kit: 16 years ago.
Delphine Hirasuna: Yeah, 1994.
| | 01:16 | Kit: with the Corporate Design Foundation
to build some kind of a bridge, magazine
| | 01:22 | bridge, that linked business and design
to each other, because as all designers
| | 01:29 | know, we end up educating
our clients one at a time.
| | 01:34 | So we thought, "If there's a way that
we could create a tool that would work
| | 01:38 | for both audiences to talk to each other in
the process, that could be a valuable thing."
| | 01:44 | We also thought that the idea of the
Harvard Business School case study was
| | 01:50 | something that business people
understood, in the way it was done, and so the idea
| | 01:54 | that we might be able to do that sort
of thing for design, because in all the
| | 01:59 | 10,000 cases at Harvard, they are not on design.
| | 02:03 | So here is something on a new subject,
to a certain extent, to an audience who is
| | 02:08 | not used to reading about it as part of
the business story and in a form of which
| | 02:13 | they could be used to.
| | 02:16 | Delphine: We worked on a number of projects together.
| | 02:19 | One day we were talking about how
clients don't really understand how designers
| | 02:25 | go about trying to solve
their business problems.
| | 02:29 | Having come out of corporations, I was
thinking about how designers don't know
| | 02:34 | how to present their story to show
business that they understand. And so every
| | 02:41 | major story we did, we tried to - we
really did seriously vet it, in terms of
| | 02:46 | 'is it a business success story?'
| | 02:48 | 'Is it a design success story?'
| | 02:52 | Kit: When we did FedEx, it's like, it's not only,
I think, it's a good, solid piece of design,
| | 02:59 | we got interviews with guys from
FedEx and they said, "Well, by changing the
| | 03:04 | "color of the paint on the planes, they
were cooler. They were lighter. They were
| | 03:09 | cheaper to produce. So, it was less
heavy to -- so we used
| | 03:13 | Kit: less gas in the process of doing it."
Delphine: less fuel.
| | 03:16 | Kit: It's a very interesting
Delphine: less maintenance.
| | 03:18 | Kit: side affect of things on the way.
| | 03:21 | Delphine: Yeah, so trying to give a financial
costs thing, I think somewhere in here we
| | 03:25 | said, "Just eliminating the purple
field from FedEx's 10,000 tractor-trailers
| | 03:31 | enabled the company to save nearly
$10 million and labor and materials."
| | 03:36 | I mean, those kinds of things do
resonate with business. And we didn't just
| | 03:42 | present a very precious design,
because there are some designs, in my opinion,
| | 03:47 | that are beautiful or interesting, but
from a corporate standpoint they don't do
| | 03:53 | anything to increase sales.
| | 03:56 | So, every story was approached
with that way, from that perspective, and our
| | 04:02 | rule was if a story makes it into @issue,
| | 04:06 | it has to be a success both from a
business standpoint and a design standpoint.
| | 04:11 | Rather than the designer lecturing the
client and saying "you just don't understand
| | 04:16 | how we're trying to solve your
problem" or the client lecturing the designer
| | 04:20 | saying "how is this budgeted and what
are the metrics on it" and all of that, to
| | 04:26 | say, "can we come up with a neutral
vehicle that would really present both the
| | 04:32 | business side of the story and the
designer side of the story" in how they went
| | 04:37 | about trying to solve a problem through design.
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| Business + design| 00:00 | (Music playing)
| | 00:06 | Kit Hinrichs: Warner
Communications also contacted us,
| | 00:10 | and they were looking for some
different, fresh advertising design group to help
| | 00:20 | them with their annual report.
| | 00:23 | They were involved in the motion picture,
the record business, all those things,
| | 00:27 | which are used to being highly paid,
and you get the best talent because that's
| | 00:31 | what ultimately makes the bottom line better.
| | 00:34 | I certainly understand that when I was
starting in the field that there were a
| | 00:39 | lot of things - I was
just learning my own craft.
| | 00:42 | I didn't really have much of a
business perspective on what was going on.
| | 00:46 | So as a consequence, I was solving
things as a designer solved things and I
| | 00:51 | talked to my clients as if
they were also designers,
| | 00:54 | or that they cared about
was what I had to offer.
| | 00:59 | One of the most important things that
we have to offer to our clients and the
| | 01:05 | reason they come back again, and again,
and again, is not because you are a better
| | 01:09 | designer than somebody else is.
| | 01:12 | It's because they trust you
to do what is best for them.
| | 01:17 | And once I understood that, it
changed the way in which I talked to people.
| | 01:21 | When I talk to business people, I don't
talk to them about: there is really new
| | 01:28 | great color that's coming out, or there
is this great photographer who is doing
| | 01:32 | some wonderful things. I may know that.
| | 01:34 | I may want to use a person because - for
various reasons, to be effective in what I'm doing,
| | 01:40 | but I'm first having to solve the
business problem that's been put to me.
| | 01:46 | And I certainly spend probably, even in
sophisticated clients, I spend a lot of
| | 01:50 | time educating them about how they can
be more effective with the use of design.
| | 01:56 | Even though we may have - and we will continue
to educate people on a client-by-client basis,
| | 02:04 | there has been a movement within the
entire business community to be more aware
| | 02:08 | of the value of design.
| | 02:10 | And that's a real plus.
| | 02:13 | The downside is, in my opinion, I
don't know if you've ever heard this quote
| | 02:19 | from Milton Glaser that was "We spent
20 years trying to educate the business
| | 02:26 | "community about the value of design.
| | 02:28 | Now they understand the value and they think it's
too valuable to be in the hands of designers."
| | 02:34 | Unfortunately, that's where we are today.
| | 02:36 | I find that as corporations
understand that value, then they do have - they
| | 02:45 | focus internally about how they
can market better with design.
| | 02:51 | And so a consequence, they come with
solutions to the designer. Instead of
| | 02:57 | saying, "Here is my problem,"
| | 02:59 | they are saying "Here is the solution
that we have found through our research,
| | 03:03 | "through the focus groups we have had,
| | 03:05 | "through all the other things. These are
the kinds of solutions we need to have
| | 03:10 | and we would like to have you implement them."
| | 03:12 | To me, it's a complete step backwards.
| | 03:16 | If they took advantage of what
designers have to offer by saying "Here is our
| | 03:21 | "particular problem. Here's an
audience we are trying to talk to.
| | 03:25 | "We are not being successful in doing
that, or our competition is doing a better
| | 03:28 | job. What do we need to do to make that better?"
| | 03:31 | And that's the creative process.
| | 03:33 | It should be something at saying "I have
got a problem. How can you help me?" and
| | 03:38 | let the designers do the best job for you.
| | 03:40 | Warner Communications, fabulous people that way.
| | 03:45 | They just said, "Here is our
problem. Give me some solutions."
| | 03:50 | And they were terrific in being able to
evaluate those problems, evaluate those
| | 03:57 | solutions that you'd give to them,
| | 03:59 | and say "We think this is really right for us,"
| | 04:02 | but they didn't try and give us
the solution for us to execute.
| | 04:06 | They let us come back to them and I
think that every successful designer who is
| | 04:10 | out there will tell you the same thing.
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| Storytelling| 00:00 | (Music playing)
| | 00:08 | Kit Hinrichs: The most important things that I have
ever done, and I always do it innately, is tell stories.
| | 00:14 | Now, when I was a kid, the
drawings that I did were telling stories.
| | 00:19 | And I'm not the only person
in the world who does this,
| | 00:22 | but it is one of the most
effective ways of telling stories, of
| | 00:26 | conveying information.
| | 00:28 | One of the main things that we do as
designers is to make things clear and
| | 00:32 | understandable so someone else can take
that information and go forward with it.
| | 00:37 | It's just not to entertain ourselves.
| | 00:39 | It's actually to help
somebody else do something.
| | 00:42 | Very simply, when we talked about
the Pentagram Calendar, it was a
| | 00:47 | typographic calendar.
| | 00:50 | We wanted something that was very
strong, as a brand, on the cover.
| | 00:53 | It's got good scale,
something that's compelling.
| | 00:57 | 365, one, is understood
immediately as 'that's a year.'
| | 01:02 | By combining and splitting two
different typefaces, putting them together says
| | 01:07 | it's about typography.
| | 01:08 | It's not about one
particular kind of typography.
| | 01:13 | It incorporates at least two and maybe
millions of typefaces that are there,
| | 01:18 | because you very simply
communicated the combination of those two faces.
| | 01:23 | And then as you progressively do this,
the next year you go, well, you know, if
| | 01:28 | since there are twelve different typefaces,
if we go through and show all twelve on the
| | 01:34 | cover, but in overlapping sequences,
you create an entirely new image.
| | 01:41 | It's the table of contents for what
you're going to find inside and every
| | 01:45 | year it's new and fresh.
| | 01:47 | Those are very simple little stories,
| | 01:51 | but they communicate an awful lot about things.
| | 01:54 | Because we make all of these choices
about the things that we put together, it
| | 01:58 | is the thinking of the overall, of all
the pieces together, understanding that each
| | 02:04 | one of those pieces has a
little bit of a story to tell.
| | 02:08 | If you choose the right pieces to come
together, and you put them together in
| | 02:12 | the right kind of order, it makes it so
much richer and more understandable for
| | 02:18 | people as they go forward.
| | 02:20 | So there is no doubt that we have the
advantage, as designers, to pick all kinds of things.
| | 02:26 | They can be historical paintings.
| | 02:29 | They can be contemporary sculptures.
| | 02:31 | They can be typography.
| | 02:33 | They can a whole range of things,
| | 02:35 | but put together in a new and
interesting fashion makes it much more
| | 02:39 | compelling for people to want to get
engaged in, and they understand it, because
| | 02:43 | of the way in which it has been organized.
| | 02:46 | And so a good portion of what
designers do is take that information, put it
| | 02:51 | together in a new package, in a
new way, and it's a new, fresh story.
| | 02:56 | And so whether it's designing a
magazine or it is a branding story, or it's an
| | 03:03 | exhibition, whatever, there are links
that have beginnings, middles and ends.
| | 03:09 | There are things that relate
to each other along the way.
| | 03:13 | You start to think of, 'how do I tell
something over a period of time,' starting
| | 03:19 | along a particular point ending on another.
| | 03:20 | And what pieces along the way are
going to help explain that story in a more
| | 03:25 | interesting and engaging,
creative fashion and that's what we do.
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| Interview with Lynda| 00:00 | (Music playing.)
| | 00:07 | Lynda Weinman: Hello! I am Lynda Weinman, and I
am so happy to be here today with Kit Hinrichs from
| | 00:11 | Studio Hinrichs in San Francisco.
| | 00:13 | Thanks for joining us.
| | 00:15 | Kit Hinrichs: It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you.
| | 00:17 | Lynda: Well, I happen to know, because we
both have an Art Center College of Design
| | 00:21 | affiliation that's a little bit
different, but I happen to know that you are
| | 00:24 | passionate about education, as am I.
Would you like to talk at all about how you
| | 00:28 | see education changing for the
graphic designer in today's Digital Age?
| | 00:34 | Kit: I oftentimes compare when I entered the
field as being - there was cave painting
| | 00:38 | and then I entered the field.
| | 00:40 | A lot of things have transpired
within that 40-year period of time;
| | 00:45 | from it being very much of craft in the
way in which things were put together,
| | 00:49 | and now there is so much technological
aspect to things that are required of
| | 00:57 | kids when they go through school that
I think it's important that we not lose
| | 01:03 | the creative thinking part of it in
the process of trying to put as much
| | 01:08 | technical information into it.
| | 01:10 | So, whether we need to change the
period of time that kids are in school,
| | 01:15 | whether we need to adjust whether it's
in a single place, whether there is more
| | 01:20 | distance learning, whether it's
just ways of which that can happen, I think
| | 01:24 | that's going to be the new
paradigm of where we go forward with this.
| | 01:28 | Lynda: I totally agree, and I think it's
difficult to actually know how to gain
| | 01:33 | that type of experience.
| | 01:35 | What do you do to foster your own
creative thinking, and that of your staff, and
| | 01:40 | what do you recommend for people in
order to hone that ability in themselves?
| | 01:44 | Kit: Well, one of the things that I find
with so many of a number of young interns
| | 01:51 | who've come, and who work, and
oftentimes stay with me for several years,
| | 01:56 | they have so much technical knowledge that
they have learned at the time, which
| | 02:00 | actually enriches my part of the field.
| | 02:03 | At the same time, they oftentimes have
not had as much time to spend on kind of
| | 02:08 | the creative thinking.
| | 02:10 | That doesn't change.
| | 02:11 | You still need to work first with
ideas before you get into executing them.
| | 02:15 | So, I am am always trying to say, "Be sure
that we have the right idea before we
| | 02:20 | decide on what typeface and what
photographer and what illustrator or whatever
| | 02:24 | it's going to be, along the way."
| | 02:26 | It's so easy to rush into things without
having a clear idea of where we are going.
| | 02:31 | Maybe there's just this experience of
having done it for so long, but that
| | 02:35 | still, to me, is a key moment of why we
are in the field and how we stay ahead in the field.
| | 02:43 | Lynda: I know that you do have an internship program.
| | 02:46 | Can you talk a little bit
about what that's been like?
| | 02:49 | Kit: To a certain extent, I think because
the field itself has changed - you
| | 02:55 | used to graduate from school, you went
out and got your first job, your entry
| | 02:59 | level job, because of the economy,
to a certain extent, the requirements of
| | 03:04 | just hiring someone and having to go
through all the process of coming in as an
| | 03:09 | entry level person,
| | 03:11 | the opportunity to come in as an intern,
whether you are still in school and
| | 03:17 | learning things to help you while you
are in school or it's your first job out
| | 03:21 | of school, we think that's
a very important aspect.
| | 03:25 | Whatever you learn in school is an
entry to the field, and I think the field is
| | 03:31 | where you really get the master's degree.
| | 03:35 | Lynda: What are you looking for as you are
hiring young designers and young interns?
| | 03:39 | What kind of skills do you value over others?
| | 03:43 | Kit: There is a number of things in that,
and it hasn't really changed that much,
| | 03:47 | even though the technological side of
things is a crucial aspect of their entry
| | 03:52 | level into the field today.
| | 03:54 | Typography, to me, is one of the things
| | 03:56 | that still is a very important part of it,
because that is the kind of glue that
| | 04:02 | puts everything together,
so I work very much on that.
| | 04:05 | It is about ideas, and so I always
love to see the kind of ideas that they
| | 04:09 | are working with.
| | 04:10 | One of the other things: some people
think it's only the portfolio that they
| | 04:13 | bring, but now, to me, it's as much how
they work and react and communicate with
| | 04:20 | you is as important to me, because I
can help foster their skills in their
| | 04:27 | portfolio, but I can't make them
someone who really can communicate well and
| | 04:32 | understand and talk well with people
and are civil with their mates in the
| | 04:39 | office, or with clients.
| | 04:41 | In many cases, they may well be the
voice of the office, the face of the office
| | 04:46 | when they go out, and it's important
that they actually represent who we are.
| | 04:51 | So, we look very much at their
character, as they go forward.
| | 04:56 | I wish I could teach all of that.
| | 04:57 | Usually it comes in far
ahead of before they come to us.
| | 05:00 | Lynda: Yeah, it makes a lot of sense.
| | 05:03 | Now, when I was speaking to you
before we started this interview, you made
| | 05:06 | a comment that was memorable to me,
and it was, we are in a down economy
| | 05:12 | and I think I asked the question, "Are
you busy?" and you said, "Oh yes, I am
| | 05:16 | always busy. I am not only busy with work,
but when I don't have work, I do my own work."
| | 05:21 | I thought that was really profound and
something I would love for you to talk
| | 05:25 | about and something that I think a lot
of designers who are new to the field
| | 05:31 | might not understand, that it's not
only paid client work that one should keep
| | 05:36 | busy with, but the importance
of doing work during down times.
| | 05:40 | Can you talk a little bit about that?
| | 05:42 | Kit: We are always in a learning mode, no
matter where you are in your career;
| | 05:47 | whether you just came out of school or
whether you are 40 years in the field, as
| | 05:50 | I am, I think we are always
learning and doing things.
| | 05:54 | So, it's important to me not just to
be busy, but to be busy doing something
| | 05:59 | that actually expands your mind.
| | 06:02 | So, I have other things.
| | 06:05 | One, I do a lot of pro bono work,
| | 06:08 | so I am busy doing things that
hopefully help other people in the process.
| | 06:13 | So, that's one aspect of it.
| | 06:15 | There are some times that I may not
being paid for working with a client, but I
| | 06:20 | will expand that job to expand the
possibility of more work that may happen with
| | 06:26 | that client by adding that extra effort.
| | 06:29 | Third, I am an American flag collector.
| | 06:33 | I have collected for 40 years and
enjoy that process - not only in collecting,
| | 06:40 | but also I put on exhibitions, work
with my son in doing that, which has been
| | 06:45 | fabulous, and I just really enjoy the
knowledge that I've learned in the process
| | 06:52 | of that particular aspect of my life.
| | 06:56 | Lynda: In addition to being a renowned
graphic designer, you are also a businessman,
| | 07:02 | and you have been a businessman most of
your career, in the business of design.
| | 07:06 | And I think as the world is shifting
towards so many designers needing to go
| | 07:13 | off on their own and establish
themselves rather than working for big firms, we're
| | 07:17 | sort of seeing the decentralization of
the field, in a way. Anything that you
| | 07:23 | Lynda: would like to share about the business of design,
Kit: Sure!
| | 07:26 | Lynda: things that people should keep in mind?
Kit: Sure!
| | 07:29 | Kit: Your clients oftentimes come to you
not because you may be the best talent
| | 07:34 | that is out there, but they trust that
you are involved in their business; you
| | 07:38 | care about their business.
| | 07:40 | That's a very important thing, and
why we may pick a doctor, we may pick a
| | 07:46 | plumber, we may pick a designer:
because they are interested in what we are
| | 07:51 | doing and how they can help us.
| | 07:54 | I think if you have that attitude,
it comes through to your clients, whether
| | 07:59 | they are potential clients
or clients you already have.
| | 08:03 | It's a very important part of,
I'll call it "repeat business."
| | 08:06 | They trust you;
| | 08:07 | you know you are doing the right
thing, and you have to genuinely care about that.
| | 08:12 | It's not something you just pay lip service
to, but it's a very important side of things.
| | 08:16 | I learned a little bit. I have had
people say, "Oh, you are an icon," and then I
| | 08:21 | always kind of cringe at that,
| | 08:24 | in that my father used to say to me,
"Don't believe your own press releases."
| | 08:30 | I think it's a very important part that
we always have an understanding of who
| | 08:34 | we are in the field, who we are with,
and we are equal to everybody that we work with.
| | 08:40 | One of the other things that has changed
in the world a bit from when we started
| | 08:45 | in it: we really work in
teams and work with other people.
| | 08:49 | It is not a star business where
you are the only one who is doing it.
| | 08:53 | You really have to work with a number of people.
| | 08:55 | You have to work collaboratively,
because the world is too complicated now to do
| | 09:00 | something only on your won.
| | 09:02 | You need to be able to extend your
vision to them, to have them share that
| | 09:06 | vision of where they are going,
and to be able to make that happen.
| | 09:10 | That, to me, is one of the best things
that I can do in business, and that has
| | 09:13 | really helped in the clients I work
with and the people I work with, in
| | 09:18 | creating the work we do.
| | 09:21 | Lynda: Well, my last question is going to be
about the economic downturn and how it's
| | 09:27 | affected the graphic arts.
| | 09:30 | Also, there's sort of a new movement
afoot because of the more global economy,
| | 09:37 | and there is a lot of what's called
crowdsourcing today, where there are
| | 09:42 | websites where you can get
a logo designed for $100.
| | 09:45 | There is a very different kind
of competitive climate going on.
| | 09:48 | So, do you have any advice?
| | 09:51 | Clearly, you have been able to maintain
your stature and your business and you
| | 09:58 | had the advantage of emerging in a
whole different economic climate and time,
| | 10:04 | truthfully, so that you
could build a reputation.
| | 10:06 | Your career path is probably
really different than what people today
| | 10:10 | would experience,
| | 10:11 | b ut do you have any thoughts about
how to make yourself stand part in this
| | 10:15 | highly competitive new age?
| | 10:18 | Kit: One, I don't think there are any silver bullets,
| | 10:20 | for, "Here's the five things you do and
they always work, and you always will be
| | 10:24 | successful doing so."
| | 10:25 | But I think that there are things that
you do do that engage your clientele,
| | 10:32 | or your potential clientele in doing things.
| | 10:35 | But to take advantage of every
opportunity that is out there.
| | 10:39 | Sometimes they seem like, "Oh well, I
can't take job on because it doesn't
| | 10:43 | pay enough money."
| | 10:45 | It's important for us to always be busy
doing interesting things, and you never
| | 10:50 | know where clients come from.
| | 10:53 | So, I am always engaged at all levels,
whether I am doing a major program for an
| | 11:00 | international client, which may in
turn open on to other clientele, or a very
| | 11:06 | small local company that we'll do work
for - the opportunity is there to be
| | 11:12 | able to raise your visibility by doing
interesting work all the time and always
| | 11:17 | being idea-based.
| | 11:18 | The idea-based thing is what
really continually drives things.
| | 11:22 | When I was at school, we always
talked about doing things with strength.
| | 11:28 | Never do things that are kind of
wishy-washy or middle of the road;
| | 11:32 | you always did things with strength.
| | 11:34 | Even if they were wrong, you did them
with strength; you made a statement. And I
| | 11:39 | have always done that.
| | 11:40 | I have never tried to just
kind of slide through with things.
| | 11:45 | I have always tried to make very clear
statements with what we do, and that has
| | 11:50 | kept me in stead during the downturn.
| | 11:54 | I'd love to say there were other
things in there that do that, but a good
| | 11:57 | portion of that is really doing what
I've always done, and that's kept me working.
| | 12:03 | Lynda: I think it's a great advice, and I
want to thank you so much for sharing
| | 12:07 | your expertise with us.
| | 12:08 | It's really been a treat. Thank you!
| | 12:10 | Kit: It's been a pleasure. Thank you, Lynda!
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