DJG Design

Oct. 2008: Questions Asked by: Ercan Ucer / Grafik Tasarim / Turkey Design Magazine / Take 2

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1. How do you name yourself other than being a versatile designer?

In the past year and a half I’ve come to realize that I’m not really a graphic designer. It’s definitely in there and will always be because design is a poison, like any vocation or skill can be. But, I’ve always approached the way I work as an artist first, and I don’t fancy myself an artist either. I am what I am, though I can’t always be so selfish. Am I an illustrator? I guess there is a collision of the three. Add this to a love for getting my hands dirty, plus a celebration of youth and American pop-culture mixed with Eastern European and post-WWII American Design – B.C. (Before Computer) and the product is me? “Versatile” is too defining of a word for me and way too classy. I simply like to say I make things. Each day is new and I haven’t a clue what I’m going to do.

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2. What is the relationship between marketing and your designing process at different areas? (poster, packaging, logo…etc)

A design is a marketing tool, no doubt. I haven’t really worked on a large scale setting with this, but I have in terms of marketing on a small scale for rock concerts and prospective CD buyers. Though, a designer plays eye-grabber, a designer is not really a marketer, but I guess it helps to attract attention or sell something. I had friends in college who studied marketing as well as design and they’d probably be more equipped to answering this question. It’s an area I’m not familiar with other than thinking of ways to attract people to get excited for a musical group, a sound, feeling or expression by way of putting a stamp on a poster, CD or logo design. It is a marketing tool especially when working with a client. It certainly is not only what the artist-designer can bring to the “product” (Though, I do think this can apply at a certain larger level with selling something), you’re also working for somebody and trying to sell an image or an item. In the case of a show poster, you’re selling a concert venue or the place the poster is hanging or even the music scene and the city and environment. I think this can be a tricky walk. I’ve been fortunate to have some small success with great clients and great projects to where things work out well. I guess it helps that independent music graphics kind of start out in left field to begin with, to where they are approached more like an art project than a product? Though, I don’t think that the work should not limit itself to a certain kind of audience. I think it’s great when the work speaks to anybody. There are times though where things don’t mix well, whether under the weather by design, client-wise or consumer. It’s just part of the deal. The work isn’t always going to be a homerun. Another deal is the way people interact with communication in marketing. Today I find that technology has a lot to do with people getting information for a rock concert via social networking sites, musician, ticket and concert venue sites. I don’t think that something like the poster will ever be dead, but technology can almost make a poster feel second-rate, a collector’s keep-sake and more for show than for the actual show. Logos are very interesting when it comes to marketing for bands because they are generally slapped onto many-many products. I’ve worked with a lot of music-related designs, but I’ve also made logos varying from a lawyer to an internet-computer company to a church before. So, these different applications encourage me to find new ways to talk to other audiences who come searching for something that isn’t entertainment, but I approach these designs with the same techniques and tools I use with the music graphics. I try to give something unique, and of a new take, to get a double-take.

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3. Can you tell us about your working environment and your different feelings or extraordinary events that inspires you?

Ever since I was a child growing up on a farm, my working environment has been outside and especially in my bedroom. Working environments also extended to anyplace I had my eyes open. I certainly believe in a home base or comfort zone of operations, but a lot of my more thorough processing happens while out and about and then I bring it back home with me to make. Currently I work out of a basement in my home. I’ve constructed a work space out of wood found in the street. I call it my “club house”. I love it down there despite my continual problem with having a work space that barely has room for me to work in! I collect and store a lot of things around me and still have a lot of my childhood things around me, along with piles and piles of supplies, research and things I’ve found or see the potential in for a future use. I have a mind-set that if I can’t use it today, I can easily use it in 50 years. I’m a major fan of extraordinary events and tend to find humorous and peculiar ones to be more my taste, and more-so in retrospect of the event. I feel to be blessed with a certain quality that attracts odd circumstances, or maybe it’s all in my head? Extraordinary has its own brand of “something”, but more often I find inspiration in places, events and things that are fairly run-of-the-mill and everyday ordinary for anyone, which can give them an added cushion of “extra” for me. On my website I’ve made a list of my history, the things that have been the everyday ordinary for me, but might seem very out of ordinary to others. It all depends on perspective and where you’ve been.

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4. When did you discover the impulse that led you being a designer?

This impulse to leave behind a paper trail of some sort on my impression has always been kicking around in me. I didn’t fully know it at the time, but I believe it started when I was young as I don’t remember a time when I wasn’t doing or making something. It’s a large part of my make-up. Much of it has to do with my farming background and watching my Dad and his Dad and others always doing or working on something whether it was building fences, planting crops or tending animals. I also owe a lot to my Grandma, for her hands-on making skills and to my parents for allowing me to grow-up fully plugged into the American pop-culture of books, toys, music, movies, video games and sports. Now, I just feed off of my former self and continue to feed for the future. It’s not work to me when it truly works and I enjoy myself.

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5. Is looking at life always from a different angel, the designer’ s necessarily ego?

Most any area of most any job, skill, talent, business doesn’t come without some ego hurdling. The ego is amped further within the arts. Inflated achievement comes with ease when your voice gets a little loud in a “scene” or beyond. I’d like to think I’m fairly grounded, but it’s hard not to feel the eggs weight the other side when I’m told I could be sitting on a couple of golden ones. Working a day job can help matters, but it can also be a nightmare with time management. I have to just tell myself that I am a man and a man who happens to make things. Still, that can be hard. It doesn’t mean that I’m better than somebody or am a “somebody” because I’ve found a certain something within me. I just enjoy my life and feel very fortunate to even know what I want to do with it. I think one needs healthy doses of reality and a whole heap of humor to make it too. Besides, I have no answers. If you know somebody with it all figured out, have them call me! What helps me is to find comfort and ease is venturing back into my child manner. I’m much more content and find peace when I’m either looking at the world through a certain lense that I might qualify for, or just making and enjoying the act of celebration in creativity. The moment I start to think too much about it all or answer questions, that is when it can get a little dangerous in the head. I’d like to think gaining wisdom through age and maturity helps. I know that my energy and will-power have died some, and of late I’m leaning on this as a benefit. I think I say and do some dumb stuff today, though I’m positive it’s a little less than yesterday!

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6. Can you inform us about graphic design’ s one of the important field, package design and your sketches? / Tell me about the sketching and process of packaging.

There is a certain amount of image longevity that becomes attached to packaging. I’m not experienced in much more than musical CD packaging, but I think a long life span especially applies to this in the iconic halls of pop-culture, even on small levels. Though, that’s not the reason to put into making something and/or package something but if you can add some meaty eye candy, then so be it. I love poster design because there are endless possibilities to exhaust, many ways to work reach-and-grab-of-the-moment and intuitive, and if something doesn’t work all-around, it’s throw-away and will die soon like house flies. CDs are so different, at least for me, and they can be quite intimidating and intoxicating. Sometimes another designer’s great CD package makes me not wish to do another one, and in a good way! With my own process, I do a little bit of sketching, but more-so the process and evolution of the CD package is the sketching for me. If I’m rewarded with an ample amount of time to work on a CD I usually make it happen in three different sessions, or what I call “incubation stages”. This allows me time to sit on ideas and to come back to them with fresh perspective and clear head, to play or spin off ideas and avenues. When figuring out an image or “look” for an album, I like to at least digest the music or get a track listing. With the way in which I work, I tend to feed off of my day-to-day (sometimes minute-to-minute) emotional handy work. It can be a little strange though as I can easily obsess over wondering the what-might-have-been with something like a CD package or anything. I think that a CD package for me can be extremely different given what day I’m at. I do believe my best packages have come down on me at the last minute, intuitively and usually on the lowest of budgets. And I mean cheap, major cheap.

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7. What are the benefits of making global designs for the designer?

I love a body of work, one that breathes and not only serves as a timeline for the maker, but also for views and observations on life itself. Ideas that can extend globally even, throughout time. I think that a great body of work can extend to anybody, anywhere in the world. And even if it is for some other body like a client, it is always from its original body of the creator. Anything that goes global is still connected to that first breath of singular life. Due to technology, it’s so much easier today to go “global” with designs, even if one does operate on a small scale. I think it’s great to put the work out there, to share, even if it’s not marking up or wrapping up a popular product. In today’s fast-paced world of millions and billions of images and things flashing, it really does mean a lot that my meager things have made it in some strange little way. Even, if it’s just a grin or a double-take by someone looking at a little poster on a wall or in a magazine or a global internet billboard or world-wide magazine and book distribution. Though, a part of me still likes to keep some things to myself. And I’m odd because I personally don’t like to attract attention to myself with graphics on the shirts I wear or product logos on bags and things.

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8. Can you explain the relationship between marketing and designing?

I’m not sure if I was successful, but I tried to answer some of this in question 2. With this one I’ll try to wrap it into the way that I work, to where my designs act as marketing tools for me, as well as the product they are pushing. Until recently I’ve never had to market myself in conventional practice. For the first six years my work itself was the marketing. Everything from a poster to a package and a logo has been on the same level with causing a “Trickle Down / Word of Mouth” marketing effect. And I’ve been fortunate to keep fairly close relationships with my clients due to a small industry I work in. These clients have brought other clients. For my first two years I was living and working with several bands in a house. I didn’t have to leave and would get new work constantly. At times I’d just make things before I was even asked. Some of the best marketing can come in poster making and that is how I started to gather some attention. Posters have a short shelf life in comparison to packaging and logos, so there is always a new one to tack up. And if a poster doesn’t succeed, then it’s easy to just make another one. It’s just a poster and practice is good. After a while people start getting curious and come looking for you.

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9. Does any of your designs have an unforgettable story?

The “Whatever Makes You Happy” CD package design I made in my basement in June of 2002 for the band Elevator Division, is one of my most memorable moments. It was a special run of 250 handmade CD packages and my idea came at the last minute. I made an image of a hand shooting off its index finger like a missile that married the themes for the album perfectly, with reflections of war and failed relationships. It was the idea of shooting off one’s options and making decisions. It was fitting for the band-music but also for the national-world climate. Each one was hand-cut from cardboard and stencil sprayed and rubber stamped. Inserts were copied, cut, folded and glued. At the last mist of red spray paint, a crack of thunder shook the massive home’s foundation and I bolted from the basement and out the front door to a down pour of rain. I leapt off the front porch and slid head first down the front lawn embankment and into the street flowing like a river current. The drug dealing squatters of the home across the street were on their front step looking at the fire in my eyes and the red paint streaming from my ears, nose and mouth. It was a high much higher than that of chemical substance.

-djg