♪♪
-I'm never happier than when I'm working on something
that is related to music.
I do plenty of design work outside of music, and I'm not
sure if that has to do with my childhood or what.
I just have a strong relationship to music.
♪♪
I'm a local graphic designer.
I've worked at The Rocket, and I've worked at Sub Pop Records.
My role at Sub Pop Records is VP of creative.
I work on album covers, I work on advertising.
My technique, it's a mix of digital and analog.
So I will cut up things, I will draw out type and images
and then scan it in and then mess with it in the computer.
Kind of a messy collage style.
I don't really know exactly what I'm gonna do
until I kind of get into it.
And so the process itself kind of helps dictate
where I'm going.
I have kind of a sketch in my head, but that process
of collaging, the happy accidents along the way, are,
I would consider, my style.
Each row is separate from this, so you don't need to
line that up with that at all.
Do this Sonic Guild poster next.
Maybe a little closer, but yeah, there you go.
Perfect. I tend to be more inspired
by what's around me.
There was a period of time when I was first making posters
that anything that I sort of saw on the ground,
I'd pick up.
Xerox, really big.
A Band-Aid was really compelling to me.
It was a bloody Band-Aid that I turned into
an Afghan Whigs poster.
So for me, almost anything is inspiring.
I did art my whole life, ever since I was little.
I was grounded a lot as a child, so I spent a lot
of time in my room.
So I did a lot of art.
I made my own album covers, I made my own T-shirts,
I made my own cassette tapes.
I started designing posters in 1986
for my first band, The Funeral Party.
♪♪
About halfway through college, probably my junior year,
I took a graphic arts class, and it was in that
class that I realized that everything was designed,
and I had this epiphany.
And so everything after that was all art classes,
And that's kind of how I finished out college.
♪♪
I worked at The Rocket from 1990 to 1994.
The Rocket was a local music publication.
So I was kind of a junior designer
for the first two years, and I became the art director.
And so I was art director for a year.
My dream.
It was my dream, you know?
Like that's what I dreamed of doing in college.
And here I was, I had to pinch myself.
♪♪
We're at the Sub Pop waterfront space
that we are currently trying to open right now.
I'm orchestrating the hanging of some artwork
that we had from our headquarters.
I did this one when Mudhoney played on top
of the Space Needle.
In 1994, the owners at Sub Pop reached out to me
because they wanted to start an art department,
and they asked me to be the art director.
So on a daily basis, I work on records.
So I spend most of my time working on album
covers, talking to bands.
Working with bands is some of the most
gratifying work that I do.
They are incredibly creative people themselves,
and so I often take a back seat to some of the work
that comes in from them.
And it's a real joy to have their artwork come in
and get to work on it and get to work on it with them.
I love to collaborate, and so it's a great process.
Pigeonhead, Mudhoney, Postal Service,
Nirvana, Beach House.
I mean, I could name a million.
♪ ♪
I've got an upcoming exhibit at Sparklebarn.
It's a gallery in Ballard.
There's gonna be a lot of new posters
that I've done in the last few years.
For the most part, it's just gonna be a retrospective
of everything that I've done since I started
doing graphic design.
Come by and see some things you've seen a million times.
You know?
I'll have film posters, I'll have rock posters,
I'll have album covers, I'll have CD covers,
I'll have ephemera.
You would be amenable to that?
Just junk I had in my storage unit and threw it out.
When people see my work, I want them to experience
somebody who's experimenting with graphic design
in a way that maybe some other people aren't.
I want them to feel inspired, but mostly I just want people
to have a really good time.
♪♪
The best advice for young people is
just go do what you wanna do.
Like that's what I did, is I just started making posters.
Just stick with it, do the thing that you wanna do,
And it will happen.
♪♪