Lorin Brown is a 23 year old graphic designer from Wayne, PA. He is a recent graduate from CalArts and has worked with GOOD Magazine, Stussy, Faesthetic Magazine, Arkitip, and the New York Times. His area of design interest lies in publication and apparel design. His favorite thing about Valencia isn’t Jack in the Box. He is not married and is inspired by music. This is his interview.
Peter Kaplan is a designer and educator who lives and works in Los Angeles, California. He is a designer in the Student Affairs department at California Institute of the Arts where he handles printed collateral for the Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater (Redcat). Peter also teaches typography and publication design at CalArts.
Could you start off by telling us what you were doing before CalArts and how you got into graphic design?
Yes I can, I studied graphic design for my undergrad at the University of Delaware and worked as a designer in NY for about seven years following school. That was when I applied to CalArts.
Maxime Francout AKA Max F. is a French illustrator/designer living and working in Montreal, Canada. He loves fine art, design, drawn typography, and illustration. He makes drawings, paintings, t-shirts, books, magazines and exhibitions. Besides that, he hearts skateboarding, ping-pong and chai lattes.
When did you first discover that you wanted to do design/illustration for a living?
I discovered lately that I could and that I wanted to do design. I first started as a colorist for comic books in France, and as an illustrator for children’s books before I got to a more personal and underground production. It took me some time to master this style that has emerged over the time. Initially I’m just someone who likes to draw on a street corner. I grew up surrounded by the skateboarding culture influenced by people like Mark Gonzales, Ed Templeton and Fost. Gradually I was able to establish partnerships with clients in time and consider a career in design and art. It’s not difficult to be an artist but living off your art is something different. Personally I’m not entirely living off my work because I don’t want to do compromises on my drawings, I don’t have enough fame to sell expensive pieces of art, besides I’m not even sure that i want to. I see art and design as something fun, I don’t really take it seriously and I think I’d quit if I did.
Jason Munn is originally from Wisconsin but now calls Oakland, California home. Arising from a love of independent music, design, and making for the sake of making, his posters soon became a fixture in the local independent music scene.
He started The Small Stakes in the fall of 2003, and it has since unfolded into a successful independent design studio, producing nationally and internationally commissioned work in a range of print materials, including book covers, album packaging, T-shirt designs, screen-printed posters, and illustrations.
Jason’s work has appeared in Print, Communication Arts, Step Inside Design, Computer Arts Projects, Étapes, ReadyMade, and Creative Review. His work has also been featured in numerous exhibits and is part of the permanent collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Read the interview after the break.
Together, Danae Moore and Jesse Lee Stout (MFA students in the Graphic Design program) created the biggest “posters” to ever grace the walls of CalArts for the Christian Schwartz design lecture. Read more about it with an introduction from Danae and an interview with Jesse!
Mark Kulakoff lives in downtown Los Angeles in the Hellman Building, which was supposedly the tallest building when it was built in the early nineteen hundreds. He has one roommate and a dog that is his. Interview by Devin Dailey.
The Australian show Designer People did an episode on Ed Fella who is faculty in the graphic design program at CalArts.
