| 00:00 | (music playing)
|
| 00:12 | Stefan G. Bucher: I always enjoy having
that little piece of art that wasn't there before.
|
| 00:18 | (music playing)
|
| 00:34 | Whether it be the catalogs or
my books or the monsters, working
|
| 00:41 | all night on the drawing and then
coming back the next morning and seeing that
|
| 00:45 | piece there and going, okay, that
wasn't there before I got to it.
|
| 00:50 | That's reversing the chaos of
the world within that rectangle.
|
| 00:54 | (music playing)
|
| 01:01 | I think that's why I
am attracted to design and illustration.
|
| 01:06 | It just felt good to do.
|
| 01:07 | I mean I just enjoyed having drawn something.
|
| 01:11 | That was always my thing
was just to get the ideas out.
|
| 01:13 | (music playing)
|
| 02:04 | The way that projects come into my life,
just something pops into my head with
|
| 02:08 | enough force for me to notice.
|
| 02:10 | From that, I immediately try to put it
on paper, and then I have this second
|
| 02:16 | thought of okay, here is who I can
talk to about getting that printed or
|
| 02:20 | doing something with it.
|
| 02:21 | And then other times somebody will
approach me and say, "We love what you do.
|
| 02:29 | We like to do something with you.
|
| 02:30 | Is there something that's on your
mind that you've been wanting to do?"
|
| 02:40 | Typecraft, I've been doing all my
jobs for last five, six years, and I just
|
| 02:47 | consider it a huge part of what I do.
|
| 02:50 | To deal with print and to use print as
an instrument is still a really vital
|
| 02:55 | skill for designers, and so for me it's a
point of pride to use all the machines here.
|
| 03:03 | (crosstalk)
(machines printing)
|
| 03:21 | In some ways because of the economic realities
of it, so much of it has migrated online.
|
| 03:27 | I also think that everybody is so used
to working on the computer that there is
|
| 03:31 | a certain mindset of well, it's done,
it's designed, I am going to hit Print,
|
| 03:36 | and that's what happens,
and you just don't worry about it.
|
| 03:39 | Or there's just not that much of an
interest in it, where for myself that's just
|
| 03:44 | what's exciting to me.
|
| 03:45 | I mean, it's easy to sort of make the
sweeping pronouncement of like, oh, well,
|
| 03:50 | print is still vibrant and
everything. I don't know.
|
| 03:53 | Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. I just love it.
|
| 03:55 | (music playing)
|
| 04:10 | We are at L.A. Louver,
who are sort of my big, serious client,
|
| 04:16 | the respectable side of my business.
|
| 04:21 | Once you have the sort of triumvirate
with Typecraft where we have all been
|
| 04:25 | working together for so long, we can
sort of push the boundaries a little bit
|
| 04:29 | of what can be done.
|
| 04:31 | (music playing)
|
| 04:37 | You look at this and you think
okay, well, it's embossed, big deal.
|
| 04:41 | But to get it embossed so that this
tiny type shows up well, but then to emboss
|
| 04:47 | it with enough force to have this get
a real nice relief into it, it doesn't
|
| 04:53 | work, which they pointed out to me,
because you have to really womp this good to
|
| 04:59 | get it in there, so you
can even feel it and see it.
|
| 05:02 | If you do this with the same force,
it just destroys the board. It warps.
|
| 05:07 | This all fills in.
|
| 05:08 | And so I said, "Well can we run two dye
strikes in register?" which they don't
|
| 05:15 | usually do because it's
really hard to register that stuff.
|
| 05:18 | But again, because I have such a good
client in L.A. Louver, and we've built up
|
| 05:24 | so much trust over the years, there is a
chance to do that and to just say okay,
|
| 05:29 | no, I think this can be done.
|
| 05:32 | And they are saying, "Well, we
think you are right. Let's try it."
|
| 05:37 | I realize that it's sort of silly to say
well, we are pushing the boundaries and
|
| 05:40 | then I'm holding up something that's this big.
|
| 05:42 | But to me and to them and to Typecraft,
this is pushing the boundaries, and we
|
| 05:47 | were damn pleased with ourselves
that the bindery was able to do that.
|
| 05:51 | (walking up steps)
|
| 06:01 | Stefan: Okay. You may remember this.
Lisa Jann: Oh nice!
|
| 06:06 | Stefan: It's Rogue Wave, original,
original and new flavor,
|
| 06:10 | Stefan: original and lime flavor.
Lisa: I love it! That's great!
|
| 06:12 | Stefan: There you go. And our very first and our very latest.
Lisa: I know, it is. It's like the circle is complete.
|
| 06:20 | Stefan: Together at last.
|
| 06:22 | Lisa: Well, everybody is going to be
really excited to get this.
|
| 06:25 | How do you feel about your original
design for it in terms of how we came to this?
|
| 06:29 | Stefan: I think it was a stupid idea. I really do.
(Lisa laughing)
|
| 06:34 | I mean it was difficult and I
sort of--I did it the first time
|
| 06:37 | Stefan: and kind of just--
Lisa: You were showing off.
|
| 06:39 | Stefan: I was showing off, but I was also kind
of hacking my way through it, and this
|
| 06:43 | time I really, knowing the design much
better, I worked it with a lot more care,
|
| 06:49 | which made it just exponentially more difficult.
|
| 06:52 | But that's the thing.
|
| 06:53 | I mean, if you do it and you know
going in how difficult it's got to be,
|
| 06:57 | you would never do it.
|
| 06:58 | I mean, stumbling sometimes is
the only way to get it done.
|
| 07:01 | Lisa: Well, we are grateful for your flash.
(laughing)
|
| 07:04 | Stefan: Thank you. Thank you very much.
|
| 07:07 | The first job that did with Louver, I
really wanted to impress them bad, so I
|
| 07:12 | just put every single thing into that catalog.
|
| 07:15 | It's got a double hit of fluorescent ink.
|
| 07:17 | It's got that angle cut.
|
| 07:19 | It's a flip book, so that because it
encompasses two shows, in this case 2001,
|
| 07:25 | 2005, and here it's 2007 and 2009,
and part of the brief was that you don't
|
| 07:32 | want to put any artist out, so you don't
want to have anybody be in the back of the book.
|
| 07:36 | You want everybody of equal importance.
|
| 07:39 | So I thought okay, well then we will
put the forward and the table of contents
|
| 07:44 | in the center of the book,
and then we work out towards the edges.
|
| 07:47 | We'll make it a flip book, so that
one side is 2007 and the other side is
|
| 07:51 | 2009, which makes it hideously
difficult for the printer and confusing to the
|
| 08:00 | bindery because there are also no
straight page numbers, but there are
|
| 08:04 | year-specific page numbers.
|
| 08:06 | The angle cut matches the italic type
in one year, but then of course for the
|
| 08:12 | other side you have to take regular
Roman type and tilt it 12 degrees in the
|
| 08:18 | other direction so that it
matches the angle of the page.
|
| 08:23 | I see myself as sort of the print
guardian of this artwork, where it lives as
|
| 08:30 | the original, and it lives in the
gallery, and that's their job, and then I see
|
| 08:33 | it as my job to make it look as
beautiful and as close to the original on the
|
| 08:37 | page in a way that still
feels true to the piece.
|
| 08:41 | Whatever I put in there in terms of
design has to usually be quite subtle.
|
| 08:45 | I mean nothing should detract
or distract from the art itself.
|
| 08:50 | (music playing)
|
| 08:55 | I am secondary.
I am the support staff.
|
| 08:58 | I am not the artist.
|
| 09:01 | Every project to me is a data set, whether
that be a show of paintings or a set of photos.
|
| 09:10 | Within that set is the shape it wants to take.
|
| 09:16 | I work at it until I find that shape.
|
| 09:18 | (music playing)
|
| 09:36 | Around the time I was, I must have been
like 11 or 12, I figured out that there
|
| 09:41 | was a small print shop just
literally down the road for me.
|
| 09:44 | After I think getting some stationery
made, I was like, wait a second, I can
|
| 09:48 | give you drawings and then you
can print based on those drawings.
|
| 09:52 | I thought, "That's great.
I've got to get in on this."
|
| 09:55 | You would print these cards.
|
| 09:58 | I would make Christmas and Easter cards,
get them printed black and white, and
|
| 10:04 | then just fill them in with markers.
|
| 10:07 | Here is a Christmas card where it was
variable--it was a variable data card way
|
| 10:14 | before variable data where I actually
then by hand would write in everybody's
|
| 10:17 | name on the naughty side of the
nice-and-naughty ledger, and then it says,
|
| 10:21 | "Well, you know, we'll turn
a blind eye to it this year."
|
| 10:24 | And I did--I was already into
getting different texture paper.
|
| 10:27 | I look back on why did I even print these?
|
| 10:31 | Why did I feel the need to have my own
custom-printed Easter and Christmas cards?
|
| 10:36 | I think it was just, it was an excuse to
get something printed and to make an artifact.
|
| 10:42 | Because when it was printed it became
real, and it wasn't just, you know, a
|
| 10:48 | drawing that a kid made.
|
| 10:50 | It was an actual thing.
It was an actual product.
|
| 10:53 | That's what made it real to me.
|
| 10:56 | Partially from the cards, I also got
into writing to artists and writing to
|
| 11:03 | cartoonist and illustrators.
|
| 11:05 | In the pursuit of that, I somehow
stumbled on the Donaldists who are an
|
| 11:10 | organization dedicated to the
scientific study of Donald Duck comics, that
|
| 11:15 | satirizes the German culture
of having a club for everything.
|
| 11:21 | So as a 12-year-old, the only way I
could get in on that, on that action, was
|
| 11:25 | that I was able to draw Donald.
|
| 11:27 | And this is actually the very first
drawing of mine that was ever printed, was
|
| 11:31 | this one, which I copied from
a book on how to draw a Donald.
|
| 11:35 | I was 12 at that time, and you'll
notice that I kicked that 5-year-old's ass.
|
| 11:41 | And this was sort of the
watershed moment of 'printed'.
|
| 11:45 | Not just printed where I paid for it,
but printed by somebody else with their
|
| 11:50 | imprimatur of 'this is worthy of
being printed' in a magazine that went to
|
| 11:56 | people that I admired.
|
| 11:59 | So this is issue 54 and then by issue
65, 9 issues later, I was on the cover,
|
| 12:09 | with a split fountain I want to
add, and raised gold printing.
|
| 12:16 | Then this issue is actually full of
my stuff, so this was the--this was the
|
| 12:21 | title page for the cover article.
|
| 12:27 | And this was the illustration for the
readers letters column that my friend Elke
|
| 12:32 | ran, and she was the one who initially
put the first drawing in, and so ever
|
| 12:36 | since then I did all her column headers.
|
| 12:41 | And I am still friends with her today.
|
| 12:42 | She was my proto-Internet.
|
| 12:44 | She was working at that time on her
doctorate in history but took the time to
|
| 12:50 | write basically a letter a week with me.
|
| 12:53 | She was my nerd friend that would say
'Yeah, you know, the way you think, there
|
| 12:57 | are other people like you.'
|
| 12:59 | And so the fact that somebody would take
the time to write me these long, funny,
|
| 13:02 | really funny, beautifully written
letters was just--it saved my life.
|
| 13:11 | And of course then for book
reports I would do covers.
|
| 13:15 | This is how I prepared for the stuff
is that I spent hours and hours on these
|
| 13:18 | report covers and then probably spent hour
upon hour, two total, on the report itself.
|
| 13:25 | But it helped me think about it.
|
| 13:26 | And then I, you know, it's topography,
sort of art nouveau stuff, with a weird
|
| 13:33 | sort of neon green leopard-spot pattern.
|
| 13:36 | Oh, then there are pickle brines because
it's the chemistry report, so there are
|
| 13:41 | pickle brines with NaOH pickles
instead of you know salt brine.
|
| 13:50 | Then for the actual exams we had
to bring our own prepared sheets.
|
| 13:56 | This was a WERTE UND NORMEN, which was
basically an ethics class which is Values and Norms.
|
| 14:02 | And that little character who shows up
in all the stuff from that time was sort
|
| 14:06 | of my little avatar, like I wanted to
have my sort of drawn stand-in for myself.
|
| 14:11 | So he shows up in just about everything.
|
| 14:14 | And you can see from that the
embarrassingly long hair, which also shows up in
|
| 14:20 | this pseudo-woodcut for my art class
papers, and bevel metal type, which was a
|
| 14:30 | few years before I got a computer, so I
obviously already had the desire to do
|
| 14:33 | bad computer Photoshop type by hand.
|
| 14:37 | And then I spent about 10-15 years
after I got the computer making everything
|
| 14:41 | super, super clean and Helvetica and neat.
|
| 14:45 | And now, 18 years later, now that I've
got the computer thing out of my system,
|
| 14:51 | now all of a sudden I am right back to this.
|
| 14:55 | (music playing)
|
| 15:12 | After being kind of, you know, the
designated school weirdo, to come here where
|
| 15:18 | all the other school weirdos ended up
too, and to be in a building with 1,500
|
| 15:23 | people that all cared about the
same stuff I cared about is a pretty
|
| 15:27 | mind-bending concept.
|
| 15:29 | (music playing)
|
| 15:48 | This is just some
foundation work, and you know, this is
|
| 15:52 | basics of photography.
|
| 15:53 | It's just gorgeous.
|
| 15:59 | I mean look at the lighting on that,
and look at how that sits in the frame.
|
| 16:06 | Whenever I come into the
Illustration Department, it just blows my mind.
|
| 16:09 | It just, I just love it.
|
| 16:12 | I want to have all of them.
I want have them on my wall. I covet.
|
| 16:19 | I went to interview at two schools in Germany
because I thought, "Well I am a German student.
|
| 16:25 | I live in Germany. I should go to college in Germany."
|
| 16:28 | And then I interviewed with them and I
they were like, "Oh yeah, this is great stuff.
|
| 16:30 | Yeah, you are accepted. Sure, no problem."
|
| 16:33 | And I thought, "Okay, that was too easy."
|
| 16:35 | Then I came here and I thought--you
know I was kind of looking eye level, and
|
| 16:40 | then it was like, oh! I see!
|
| 16:46 | And that's what I wanted.
Like I wanted--I wanted that.
|
| 16:49 | I didn't want this. I wanted that.
|
| 16:53 | And I think that's still, I mean that's
certainly still how I pick the jobs that
|
| 16:57 | I do, or the things that I
get excited about, is 'oh!'
|
| 17:04 | And this space definitely had that.
|
| 17:06 | (music playing)
|
| 17:20 | You take a lot of foundation
classes, and you take all those
|
| 17:22 | sorts of great classes that are
high in fiber and good for you.
|
| 17:26 | You take, you know, lots and lots of
live drawing and perspective and basic
|
| 17:31 | typography and basic lettering.
|
| 17:33 | And I think looking back those are some
of the classes that I enjoyed the most.
|
| 17:38 | Just seeing people do that level of
work was unbelievable because I was doing
|
| 17:42 | lettering at home and I just thought,
"Well, this is as good as you can do it if
|
| 17:46 | you don't have a computer," or "This
is as good as you can do it you know
|
| 17:49 | without being a professional lettering person."
|
| 17:53 | I just never thought it was possible.
|
| 17:55 | And as soon as somebody said, well,
you can do that, I was like, "Oh!
|
| 17:57 | Well, if you say so, I guess then I can,
and I guess then I have to reach that level.
|
| 18:04 | If you are telling me that I
can then just show me how."
|
| 18:08 | I just want to immediately sit down
and copy ten of these things.
|
| 18:16 | Ah, man! I've got to learn how to do that.
|
| 18:20 | Lieblich, which means lovely in German,
and truly it is lovely. Look at that.
|
| 18:29 | One of the drawing rooms.
|
| 18:31 | I would spend a lot of time in here
just sitting here and drawing from a model.
|
| 18:40 | I am okay at it when I practice,
because it was like going to the gym, and I
|
| 18:44 | just haven't gone to the gym in a while.
|
| 18:47 | But also, it would seem not polite to
stare, and so that's why I never learned
|
| 18:54 | how to draw faces or to
draw a person really well.
|
| 18:57 | So this was sort of my one chance to do
that, and it was so intimidating, and it
|
| 19:03 | was so hard, but it was fantastic.
|
| 19:05 | And it was probably the period when I
learned the most in my work, improved the
|
| 19:11 | most in shortest amount of time, just
because it was emersion learning. It was just 24x7.
|
| 19:16 | All day every day was doing this and
just really teaching my hand to do things.
|
| 19:25 | Because before, I was just working on my
own, and I was measuring myself against
|
| 19:28 | really kind of remedial stuff, and here
all of a sudden I was measuring myself
|
| 19:31 | against people that really
knew what they were doing.
|
| 19:35 | So I was kind of scared out of my mind
the entire time, but I also loved it.
|
| 19:41 | I keep switching into new areas of
design and illustration and art because I
|
| 19:46 | want to recapture that experience of
learning so much in such a short amount of
|
| 19:50 | time, because you get addicted to that
thrill of improving that much in such a
|
| 19:56 | short amount of time.
|
| 19:58 | (music playing)
|
| 20:37 | Well, the last day of school was December 18th,
and my first day of work was January 18th.
|
| 20:43 | I was hired by Wieden+Kennedy,
and I was recruited off of campus.
|
| 20:50 | I thought, "Well, it's not my dream,
but it's a lot of people's dream."
|
| 20:54 | It was a really--they're a hot agency,
and they're really--they do amazing
|
| 20:58 | stuff, and all the advertising
students wanted to work there.
|
| 21:01 | And so I went to Portland, and I just
couldn't figure out how to be productive
|
| 21:07 | and useful in that environment.
|
| 21:10 | I would just churn out comp after comp
after comp after comp because that's
|
| 21:14 | what I was asked to do.
|
| 21:15 | Just keep generating stuff.
|
| 21:18 | I had 600 comps for one campaign that
yielded I think three print ads, and there
|
| 21:23 | was a new creative director that had
come in at that point, and he looked that
|
| 21:27 | stack and he said, "What is this?"
|
| 21:29 | I said, "Well, these are the 600
comps I did for this series of ads."
|
| 21:32 | And he said, "That's insane.
|
| 21:35 | Why would you do 600 comps?"
|
| 21:38 | And of course, I mean at this point
already I'm having a kernel panic because
|
| 21:44 | now I have two masters that are telling
me two separate things, and I don't know
|
| 21:47 | who to please first.
|
| 21:50 | And I went into a slight panic, so my
writer, my writing partner Jed, rescued me
|
| 21:56 | and said, "Well, you know, in
fairness, that's what they asked him."
|
| 21:59 | And the new creative director
said, "Well, that's just stupid.
|
| 22:05 | We hired you for your opinion, and how
can you have 600 different opinions?"
|
| 22:11 | And I always remembered that, and I
think the entire year of dysfunction and not
|
| 22:17 | being able to cope with the software of
that agency was worth it just for that
|
| 22:25 | comment, to say that they hired me
for my opinion, which is always what I
|
| 22:32 | thought it should be because that's what--
because my opinion is what motivates
|
| 22:36 | me to work, is to make my opinion manifest.
|
| 22:39 | Well, and after a year of trying my
very best to be nice and helpful, as I was
|
| 22:52 | taught to be, I had my performance
review the day before the Thanksgiving.
|
| 23:00 | And my creative directors asked me to read
it all out to them, and they said, "My god!
|
| 23:06 | That is well--that is just really nicely done.
|
| 23:09 | That is well put, and you seem to
have a really clear understanding of
|
| 23:14 | yourself, and you seem to have a really
clear understanding of what you want to
|
| 23:16 | achieve in the next year.
|
| 23:18 | Having said that, we feel that you've
exhausted your potential here at the
|
| 23:23 | agency and that it would probably
be in your best interest to look for
|
| 23:26 | opportunities elsewhere."
|
| 23:29 | So at that point I picked up my jaw from
the floor, tried very hard not to burst
|
| 23:35 | into tears because of course I
hadn't slept because I was busy writing my
|
| 23:40 | self-evaluation, and just exhausted.
|
| 23:43 | And so I had to sort of leave with my
tail between my legs, but as soon as I
|
| 23:49 | drove back across the California
border, everything brightened up.
|
| 23:56 | The sun came out, and I thought,
"This is great!" and I had some interviews
|
| 23:59 | lined up with record companies.
|
| 24:02 | And then I got the job at Maverick,
and I was designing record covers, and
|
| 24:08 | it was just the best time ever.
|
| 24:11 | (music playing)
|
| 24:19 | CDs for me were the first mini-books.
|
| 24:21 | They were the first thing that people
would invite into their homes and keep.
|
| 24:28 | You'd go back to it, and you'd pay
attention to it, and you'd play with it, so
|
| 24:32 | it also gave me a chance to
design in a lot more detail.
|
| 24:36 | (music playing)
|
| 24:52 | When I crack open a book
for the fifth time and I find something
|
| 24:56 | that I hadn't noticed before, and when
I listen to an album that I've had for
|
| 24:59 | 10, 15 years and all of a sudden I
notice a detail, that makes me happy.
|
| 25:04 | So I want to provide that for somebody else.
|
| 25:07 | (music playing)
|
| 25:28 | It was the perfect job to
have at that time, to just work my
|
| 25:33 | fingers to the bone, stay all
night at my desk, and design these CDs,
|
| 25:40 | oftentimes against the explicit wishes
of my boss, who said, "Just, you know,
|
| 25:44 | scan some stuff in.
|
| 25:45 | I want to get my hands dirty on this one too."
|
| 25:49 | And I wasn't having that. I was just like,
"No, no, I've scanned them. Now I have these files."
|
| 25:55 | Immediately started retouching them and
immediately started putting them into a
|
| 25:58 | layout just because I couldn't help myself.
|
| 26:01 | And he was pissed at me, often, because
he would come in in the morning and it
|
| 26:06 | was done, and it was always such a high
turnover at the company in terms of the
|
| 26:12 | work that then they just have to roll with it.
|
| 26:17 | About a year in, I really wanted to
art-direct my own project, and there was a
|
| 26:22 | band that came in and they were called
Luxe then, and later were renamed Solar
|
| 26:27 | Twins, and I listened to their album,
and I just fell in love with them, and I
|
| 26:30 | thought, "This, I want to work on this."
|
| 26:33 | And at the time, I had made myself
valuable enough where I actually felt
|
| 26:36 | confident enough to say, "I want
this album. I need this album.
|
| 26:41 | I need to work on this, or I'm out."
|
| 26:44 | I made like my--I had my big diva
moment of like either I get this or I'm
|
| 26:47 | walking away from this, and they said,
"All right, all right, do the album."
|
| 26:52 | And I was so in love
with them, David and Joanna.
|
| 26:57 | I had such a band-crush on
them. I loved the album.
|
| 27:01 | They were smart, funny, wonderful people.
|
| 27:06 | We liked the same music.
|
| 27:07 | We liked the same album art.
|
| 27:09 | We just had a meeting of the minds.
|
| 27:11 | And at that point, I
stopped being a professional.
|
| 27:15 | I just became an amateur.
|
| 27:17 | I did it for the love.
|
| 27:19 | So, I had no perspective.
|
| 27:21 | I was obsessed with that album.
|
| 27:23 | I poured every single free minute I had into it.
|
| 27:27 | I drove to Bakersfield and shot
refineries against the wishes of security
|
| 27:34 | guards and gave them fake rolls of film
so that I could get the footage that I
|
| 27:38 | needed for the backdrop that I was
going to composite into this space that I
|
| 27:42 | was creating for them. I was nuts.
|
| 27:44 | I was gone, and it made me hard to be around.
|
| 27:50 | But I needed to shepherd my baby,
and I needed to get it out, and I basically
|
| 27:57 | quit right after I signed
off on the press sheets. That was the end point.
|
| 28:02 | That was my mission was I needed
to deliver the Solar Twins payload.
|
| 28:06 | And as soon as that was the case, I went
and I started doing my own thing with 344.
|
| 28:12 | (music playing)
|
| 28:21 | The name 344 came from
the location of the office being at the
|
| 28:25 | merge of the 210 and the 134 freeways.
|
| 28:29 | And 344 was just a way of getting
back to how I had grown up and how I had
|
| 28:33 | started getting into art, which was
just to make things and to make as
|
| 28:37 | many things as possible.
|
| 28:38 | (music playing)
|
| 29:00 | I went back to the tradition
of doing holiday cards that were my own.
|
| 29:07 | It was also the first time that I let my
natural visual language get into the work.
|
| 29:17 | That was just my handwriting
basically, coming out of school.
|
| 29:21 | I was really shy about that.
|
| 29:22 | (music playing)
|
| 30:11 | To do the work that I do takes, for me,
a lot of concentration, and that's
|
| 30:18 | really hard to do when there are
other people even just awake, I think.
|
| 30:23 | The phone rings and emails comes in,
and so during the week I just--I have to
|
| 30:29 | lock myself away and be sort of monastic
about it, so that I can get the stuff done.
|
| 30:35 | Working at night just really suits that.
|
| 30:44 | Artists are supposed to have a haunt
or something where you have--there's a
|
| 30:48 | particular bar or coffeehouse that you
hang out with, and this is pretty much
|
| 30:54 | mine is it's my local supermarket at
night, where the whole night crew knows me,
|
| 30:59 | and they pretty much look forward to me
coming in because they know it's quitin'
|
| 31:02 | time when I show up.
|
| 31:05 | When my work shows up somewhere, I'll
bring them some samples and in exchange,
|
| 31:10 | they let me slip in the door at 1:59 a.m.
|
| 31:11 | At one point, I came in and they started
giving me hard time where they said, "It's 2 a.m.
|
| 31:20 | The Ralphs is now closed, except for Stefan."
|
| 31:24 | I mean that's VIP treatment of a very
different sort of vampiric kind, and
|
| 31:27 | I'm okay with that.
|
| 31:33 | Where people give me a hard time is
sort of like 'oh, the late hours, and why
|
| 31:37 | can't you just be like
everybody else and work a normal day?
|
| 31:41 | It'll be so much easier' or 'wouldn't
it be nice?' Then people try to make that
|
| 31:47 | distinction of like 'yeah, but that's
your work, but what about your life?' and
|
| 31:51 | I just don't draw that distinction.
|
| 31:54 | The most important thing is that at the
end of the night there's something there
|
| 31:58 | that wasn't there before.
|
| 31:59 | There's a drawing, or there's a
piece of lettering, or there's a few more
|
| 32:03 | pages of the new book.
|
| 32:06 | And I really enjoy being around other
people and hanging out and having food and
|
| 32:11 | doing all the social stuff that
everybody else does too, but it's just not as
|
| 32:16 | important to me as getting the work done.
|
| 32:21 | That's sort of the great satisfaction.
|
| 32:23 | That's how I communicate, and that's how
I sort of put myself out into the world.
|
| 32:30 | (music playing)
|
| 32:48 | Usually, you have an image
in your mind and you watch yourself fail at getting
|
| 32:53 | it on paper over the course of hours,
days, however long, and with this,
|
| 32:59 | everything comes out of that ink blot.
|
| 33:01 | (music playing)
|
| 33:29 | You're creating the image
without having it in your head.
|
| 33:32 | You're just working off the shape.
|
| 33:35 | It was so liberating to start with
something that's violent and wild and
|
| 33:41 | not under my control.
|
| 33:46 | These all started in the car.
|
| 33:48 | I was driving around.
|
| 33:50 | I was actually driving home.
|
| 33:55 | It was in the afternoon. It was sunny out.
|
| 33:57 | I was kind of going through a
tough time at that moment of my life.
|
| 34:02 | For some reason, I had a
vision, which I am not prone to.
|
| 34:08 | Stuff doesn't just pop into my head,
but that day for some reason I saw one of
|
| 34:11 | the monsters on my arm, just sort
of coiled around and looking at me.
|
| 34:16 | I sort of knew that it was something
special, that it wasn't just another idea.
|
| 34:23 | Initially, it was a series of
monsters called the Upstairs Neighbors.
|
| 34:28 | As I was trying to get the Upstairs
Neighbors their book deal, it was taking
|
| 34:32 | a long time and so I thought I should--I
need to keep myself interested in the project.
|
| 34:37 | That's why I started filming them,
and that's why I started putting them online.
|
| 34:44 | I never thought that people would
actually really come and watch it in a big
|
| 34:48 | way, but all of a sudden, through
the support of some other blogs like Ze
|
| 34:51 | Frank and Speak Up at the time, I had hundreds
and thousands of people every day showing up.
|
| 34:57 | (music playing)
|
| 35:26 | One of the great big tricks of it,
such as it is, is that I just
|
| 35:32 | use the cheapest possible
paper, so I don't get precious.
|
| 35:35 | I've tried doing it with Canson paper,
this really sort of fancy stuff, and I
|
| 35:42 | get completely paralyzed.
|
| 35:43 | So instead, it's just this,
and I take a few drops of Sumi-e ink.
|
| 35:48 | Then I just take a duster can.
(air duster spraying)
|
| 35:59 | So now my task on it isn't
to create something, it's to find something.
|
| 36:08 | I think I see something. There you go.
|
| 36:15 | These pens I inherited, or this brand
of pen, was one that Norm Schureman used
|
| 36:23 | who was a great mentor of mine.
|
| 36:25 | I used to watch him draw when I was at
Art Center, and he drew incredibly fast.
|
| 36:31 | I wanted to get that, but I
can't draw as well as Norm.
|
| 36:35 | Certainly I can't draw as fast.
|
| 36:38 | So I just thought, "I will
film it, and I will speed it up."
|
| 36:41 | And I usually start by putting one
of the eyes in, because we also don't
|
| 36:48 | want the little guys to get pissed
off that I'm working on them and they
|
| 36:52 | can't see what's going on. They hate that.
|
| 36:55 | I don't know.
|
| 36:58 | Whenever I hear people talk about their
characters as real things, it's sort of
|
| 37:03 | saccharine and annoying.
|
| 37:06 | But now that I make these characters
every day, it's hard to resist, because
|
| 37:11 | they do have a life of their own.
|
| 37:14 | I'm just the caretaker.
|
| 37:19 | I'm released on my own recognizance with these.
|
| 37:22 | So I don't have anybody standing
behind me going, 'Well, you know you have to
|
| 37:27 | hit certain deliverables with these monsters.
|
| 37:28 | They have to function a certain way,'
which in some ways makes it harder because
|
| 37:35 | there is no outside force, but the
outside force is the web community, and it's
|
| 37:40 | the people that love the monsters
and that keep coming back to see them.
|
| 37:45 | There were actually people that would
email if they weren't posted on time, and
|
| 37:49 | they would say, "Are you okay?
|
| 37:51 | We're missing our monster today.
We're missing our daily monster."
|
| 37:54 | That's fantastic motivation.
|
| 37:58 | I have a whole bunch of
friends and family of the monsters.
|
| 38:04 | They'll say, "No, come on.
|
| 38:05 | Do it," and as soon as I put pencil to paper,
then the monsters have their own gravity.
|
| 38:15 | It's kind of how they did the moon shot,
where you had the earth, and you had
|
| 38:20 | the moon, and you have to kind of
shoot out of the earth atmosphere,
|
| 38:24 | and then once you get to this point, then
the gravity of the moon pulls you around.
|
| 38:28 | That's sort of how this is.
|
| 38:33 | The greatest thing is the day after is
to just sort of wake up again and see the
|
| 38:37 | whole stack that appeared.
|
| 38:43 | Let's see. And this happens too, where I don't
actually know what he's going to do right
|
| 38:49 | now, but I know where the arm could go.
|
| 38:53 | So I'll just put it here,
and we'll see what it does.
|
| 38:58 | I'm going to give him a doughnut.
|
| 39:06 | The monsters are ink-and-paper improv,
where it's always 'yes, and...' but if
|
| 39:15 | you planned out the drawing,
you would say 'Oh, man!
|
| 39:17 | I screwed that up because I ran out of
paper.' But what I'm trying to do with
|
| 39:21 | these is to push myself and to challenge
myself to figure out a way to make that an asset.
|
| 39:31 | Another monster of a certain size.
|
| 39:45 | Of course he's going to be
intently focused on said doughnut.
|
| 39:58 | And who knows how many Sharpie fumes
I've inhaled over the last five years,
|
| 40:04 | probably way too many.
|
| 40:05 | People always ask me if I get
high when I draw these. I don't.
|
| 40:15 | I don't know. If I got high,
I'd probably be an accountant.
|
| 40:18 | All right, we'll give him
some real nice, big teeth.
|
| 40:28 | He'll have a green tongue, so that he can
almost get right up to the doughnut there.
|
| 40:40 | He is so close to it he can taste it.
|
| 40:45 | Since he is eating all these doughnuts,
let's give him some cavities as well, so
|
| 40:49 | the kids can learn something. So, there you go.
|
| 40:58 | (music playing)
|
| 41:13 | There was a teacher, Norm Schureman,
who was running one of the first
|
| 41:16 | Entertainment Design classes at Art Center.
|
| 41:19 | I saw the work that they were doing,
and I said, "I've got to get in on this."
|
| 41:22 | I mean I was an advertising student who
was already trying to get into graphic
|
| 41:25 | design, but I saw that and it was like
movie monsters and spaceships and stuff,
|
| 41:29 | and I was like, this is the action.
|
| 41:30 | This is where I want to be.
|
| 41:33 | So I talked to Norm, and I said,
"Will you please let me take your class."
|
| 41:37 | He said, "I don't know man.
|
| 41:38 | Advertising students can't draw.
You're going to have to show me some stuff."
|
| 41:42 | So I made this board.
|
| 41:44 | I actually built a model
spaceship out of a milk bottle, out of a
|
| 41:47 | half-gallon milk bottle, and then did
this drawing and showed it to him, and
|
| 41:51 | he was like, "All right!
You can take my drawing class."
|
| 41:56 | After I took his class, he actually
asked me to help him on this restaurant
|
| 42:02 | design that he was working on at Six
Flags Magic Mountain called the Magic
|
| 42:05 | Dragon Pizza Kitchen.
|
| 42:07 | So I helped him design this
dragon family based on his characters.
|
| 42:13 | To him it was also, it was work product.
|
| 42:18 | When you showed him drawings, he would
have no problem just drawing onto it,
|
| 42:23 | because to him it was all
just part of the process.
|
| 42:25 | I mean there was no sort
of veneration of the piece.
|
| 42:30 | There wasn't 'this is an original
and you mustn't touch it because it's
|
| 42:33 | valuable.' To him it was,
'this is just what you do.
|
| 42:35 | This is just like talking.' These guys
taught me, and Norm especially, but all
|
| 42:40 | the students, they taught me a
totally different way of thinking.
|
| 42:44 | Because for graphic design and
advertising, it's all about sketches, and it's
|
| 42:48 | all about you have to
sweat an idea for three months;
|
| 42:51 | otherwise, it's just by
definition no good, because you haven't
|
| 42:55 | tortured yourself over it.
|
| 42:57 | These guys, it was, well, it's a family,
so you're going to have the grandfather.
|
| 43:02 | Okay, well if he is a
grandfather, maybe he has a fez.
|
| 43:06 | Since it's a pizza place, and he is
the leader of a pizza conglomerate, he's
|
| 43:10 | going to have pizza wheels on his
fez instead of a Freemason symbol.
|
| 43:15 | The little boy obviously has a
propeller cap, as they all do, but then he also
|
| 43:19 | has a balloon that's made up of
pizza, because that's that world.
|
| 43:24 | So that's the way they think,
and that's what I learned from them is to just
|
| 43:28 | growing stuff and just keep adding
little details into it, instead of this what
|
| 43:34 | is the most minimal, most powerful idea for
expressing it in a poster format, or in a logo?
|
| 43:41 | This was just yeah, you know,
we'll make a better pizza balloon.
|
| 43:47 | And the little girl has a whirligig,
and so she blew on the whirligig and of
|
| 43:52 | course she is a dragon, so
she incinerated the whirligig.
|
| 43:56 | Makes perfect sense, right?
|
| 43:57 | I mean totally logical. Totally linear.
|
| 44:01 | Now that I'm looking at this,
actually I'm thinking well, there is also your
|
| 44:04 | direct line to the Time Travel Mart.
|
| 44:08 | That kind of thinking is
exactly Time Travel Mart thinking.
|
| 44:12 | (music playing)
|
| 44:26 | Basically, you have to imagine
it like a 7-Eleven for all of
|
| 44:29 | your time-travel needs.
|
| 44:31 | So whatever time period you
travel to, we've got you covered.
|
| 44:34 | So if you go to the future, you have
TK Brand Anti-Robot Fluid, pure artesian
|
| 44:38 | protection, though as it
says back here, "Warning:
|
| 44:42 | does not work on plastic robots."
|
| 44:46 | One of the first things that I worked
on for the store were the Time Traveler
|
| 44:50 | Brand leeches, nature's tiny doctors.
|
| 44:53 | Basically, what the idea is that every
time traveler needs products that are
|
| 44:58 | appropriate to the time period, and we
are here to provide those products for them.
|
| 45:09 | One of our signature products
is the can of Mammoth Chunks.
|
| 45:15 | This is a 5-pound can of mammoth stew for $9.99.
|
| 45:19 | You go okay, why do I pay $9.99 for a
can of mammoth stew, is that every dollar
|
| 45:24 | goes to funding the tutoring center.
|
| 45:27 | We repackage product because
that does go to help the kids.
|
| 45:31 | Well, the way this all came about is
that Dave Eggers, who is the man behind
|
| 45:37 | McSweeney's and The Believer,
wanted to start a tutoring center in San
|
| 45:41 | Francisco and didn't have zoning for a
tutoring center, but he did have zoning
|
| 45:47 | for a commercial space.
|
| 45:49 | So they put in the Pirate Store that
leads to the tutoring center in the back.
|
| 45:54 | And that's what this is all about.
|
| 45:55 | I mean that's why this is all here.
|
| 45:57 | Yes, it's a cool, fun thing to do,
but it exists as an anchor for the tutoring
|
| 46:02 | center to let the kids come in and take
creative writing classes, get help with
|
| 46:06 | their homework, and be exposed to
some really amazing creative energy.
|
| 46:10 | (music playing)
|
| 46:18 | Mac Barnett, who was
the creator of the store, he had gotten my
|
| 46:22 | name from Sam Potts, who designed the
Superhero Supply Company in Brooklyn.
|
| 46:26 | He said, "Well, if you're going to LA,
you should talk to Stefan," which I was
|
| 46:30 | very flattered by, because at
that point I hadn't actually met Sam.
|
| 46:35 | And as soon as they came to me and
said, "We're doing a Time Travel Mart.
|
| 46:39 | Will you do a product line or two for us?"
|
| 46:42 | I said, "I'm doing it, but I'm
only doing it if I can do everything."
|
| 46:48 | After I had immediately said yes, I went
to a 7-Eleven, and I thought okay, what
|
| 46:52 | makes a 7-Eleven look like a 7-Eleven?
|
| 46:55 | Well, it's that every product looks
different from every other product in that
|
| 46:58 | it's just this complete smorgasbord,
and that's why I say it was like design
|
| 47:03 | improv, because they would send me copy,
and then I would immediately sit down,
|
| 47:07 | and I would take two hours and I would
design it, and then it was on to the next product.
|
| 47:10 | (music playing)
|
| 47:35 | Oh cool! Check that out. Wow!
That's actually pretty nice. Dang!
|
| 47:46 | So they did these just based on
drawings that I made for the book.
|
| 47:53 | So what we are looking at here are
proofs for my next book and for some products
|
| 47:58 | that are coming with my next book,
which is called You Deserve a Medal:
|
| 48:02 | Honors on the Path to True Love.
|
| 48:04 | The idea behind the book is that dating
and relationships are such hard work, so
|
| 48:10 | is thought okay, we need to create
medals for people that are dating.
|
| 48:13 | Right away, I have Norm
over my shoulder doing that.
|
| 48:18 | This would have been a Norm thing, to
say, "Well, you know it's a broken heart,
|
| 48:21 | so you put a crack in the damn medal."
|
| 48:23 | That's a Norm thing.
|
| 48:25 | This brings it all together.
|
| 48:26 | I mean this takes the Donaldist
ethic, it takes Art Center, it takes my
|
| 48:31 | writing and the illustration, and it's
probably the first time that it's all
|
| 48:36 | completely come together.
|
| 48:45 | This is the end point of about a year and
a half of work to launch this medals book.
|
| 48:57 | This is the first project that I have
done that's not only my own book, but
|
| 49:03 | that's also a book that's about life.
|
| 49:07 | I always say I talk about life, love,
and graphic design, and graphic design
|
| 49:11 | tends to take the forefront
because usually I talk to other graphic
|
| 49:17 | designers, or I talk to other illustrators,
and this is much more the 'life, love, and' part.
|
| 49:27 | I'd gotten out of a long relationship,
and after I sort of got my bearings again
|
| 49:32 | a little bit, I just started online
dating and went on a whole lot of dates and
|
| 49:38 | just meeting people.
|
| 49:39 | I met some really amazing people but
then got to the point where I was almost
|
| 49:45 | freaked out about meeting people
offline because I thought, "Well you know I
|
| 49:49 | don't know anything about
them. How old are they?
|
| 49:51 | How do they vote. Do they want kids.
Do they not want kids?"
|
| 49:54 | Real life was kind of freaking me out.
|
| 49:56 | And I remembered a conversation I had
with a marine at the airport on the way
|
| 50:05 | to one of the talks. And he said, "Oh!
|
| 50:08 | You know, I am a nurse, and I got
lot of crap for not serving on a boat
|
| 50:11 | during my basic training."
|
| 50:12 | And I said, "Well, why
are you telling people that?
|
| 50:15 | You know, why don't you just
not mention it?" He is like, "Oh!
|
| 50:18 | They can see it on my ribbons.
|
| 50:19 | They can see it on my medals,
because they can read that like a resume."
|
| 50:24 | And then I was sitting on a first date
and I thought, "This is what we need.
|
| 50:31 | We needs medal for dating."
|
| 50:34 | Then I immediately went
home and started drawing.
|
| 50:36 | I started making sketches and writing
and then figured okay, well I've got
|
| 50:41 | to find somebody to put this out so that I
have a deadline that will sustain me through that.
|
| 50:46 | (music playing)
|
| 50:56 | (music playing)
(chatter)
|
| 51:13 | Tonight is really sort of--it's like
|
| 51:16 | the launching of a ship.
|
| 51:17 | Everybody gets together at the dock,
you put down the logs, then you push the
|
| 51:21 | hull into the ocean.
|
| 51:23 | It's not an advertising thing, it's
just--it's really, it's a celebration to
|
| 51:27 | put something out into the world and
to have it be the end point of something
|
| 51:32 | and the beginning of something else.
|
| 51:36 | Another little thought
made manifest into the world.
|
| 51:40 | (music playing)
(chatter)
|
| 51:50 | So, this is the very first
medal that I did, which is
|
| 51:52 | the Order of the Pumpkin Medal for
receiving your nickname in a relationship.
|
| 51:59 | (laughter)
|
| 52:00 | And that has now in the
book become the Order of the Honey Bear
|
| 52:04 | because we couldn't get the rights to pumpkins.
|
| 52:07 | And then I thought this will be a
whole new way of doing these books.
|
| 52:11 | This will be a new era of
efficiency in book making for me.
|
| 52:15 | I am going to hire a great
illustrator to do this for me.
|
| 52:19 | I art-directed Jeff McMillan,
who is an amazing illustrator.
|
| 52:23 | This is the Medal of First Love.
|
| 52:25 | So I was like, "It should have cherubs
and a kissing couple and a centaur and
|
| 52:31 | a unicorn and love arrows and clouds and
chrome, and then there should be curlicues here.
|
| 52:39 | So that was sort of the end of Jeff's
patience with me, and at that point I was
|
| 52:48 | talking to Jen and Jen said, "You should do it.
|
| 52:50 | You should illustrate it,"
and I said, "I don't want to."
|
| 52:51 | But she said, "No, no,
it'd be great. It'd be great.
|
| 52:54 | You should draw it. You should
really--you should just do your thing."
|
| 52:57 | (laughter)
|
| 53:00 | So this is the--
you may recognize the ostrich.
|
| 53:03 | That's the very first sketch of that.
|
| 53:05 | And I don't draw that well, and I had to
do this at four o'clock in the morning,
|
| 53:11 | so it was like okay, I have to model
for myself with a timer, and I don't keep
|
| 53:17 | furs around the office, so I did it with towels.
|
| 53:21 | (laughter)
|
| 53:25 | And as you can see, I've
given myself a little bit of extra muscle
|
| 53:31 | tone, and I've done a little
bit of upstairs action as well.
|
| 53:37 | (music playing)
(chatter)
|
| 53:54 | None of that stuff ever happened to me.
|
| 53:56 | Male speaker: I am sure not.
Stefan: No, no, no tear stains in this book.
|
| 54:00 | Female Speaker: Working my way into to the
Persistent Online Dating Medal.
|
| 54:03 | Stefan: Oh yeah?
Female speaker: It's a scary world out there.
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| 54:06 | Female speaker 2: I think I'm at the Self Respect Medal.
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| 54:10 | Photographer: I want to make sure everyone's face is
happily in this fabulous photo. All right!
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| 54:15 | Stefan: I hope that this is the first of many
projects that talk about life and not
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| 54:21 | just graphic design.
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| 54:26 | The best thing about it is that it's done,
so that I can think of the next thing.
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| 54:32 | And I don't know what the next thing is yet.
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| 54:35 | Well I kind of...well, now that
I think about it, I kind of know,
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| 54:39 | so now I actually feel kind of anxious
because I have something that I should
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| 54:43 | put on paper right now.
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| 54:45 | But for tonight it's about finishing
this and then tomorrow is the next thing.
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| 54:49 | (music playing)
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| 55:00 | (music playing)
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| Collapse this transcript |
