Command Z

The Inaugural: Issue 01

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22 May, 2018 Q&A WITH JESSICA HISCHE STUDENT SHOWCASE: BEST OF 2018

Inside Aaron Draplin’s Life as a Designer and Illustrator

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TABLE

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CONTENTS

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Features

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Jessica Hische Q&A

Student Showcase

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Showcase 2018

Cover

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Aaron Draplin Make This Shit Fun

Departments

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Letter from the Editor Typography

Design Essentials

Motivation

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A LETTER FROM THE

EDITOR

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t is with immense pleasure and gratitude that I welcome you to our inaugural issue of Command Z Magazine. Allow me to introduce myself, My name is Bryant Azucar. Command Z’s Editor in Chief.

Beginning with our first ever issue, we will learn from each other about the Graphic Design community and its ever changing environment in today’s society.

Firstly, let me say that I am a Graphic Designer, and design enthusiast, who has been obsessing over design since I was 15. First introduced to design back when we were still on Photoshop CS2, my road to design began with making little graphics for blogs and forums. And now, I am making my own magazine.

Here at Command Z, we firmly believe that the future of design, resides in your hands – our readers. Young designers, artists, entrepreneurs, illustrators, and more.

With this brand new magazine, we hope to inspire and educate you with the latest trends, tips and tricks, and ins and outs of the design world.

Here’s to you, the next generation of designers.

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The Inaugural Edition

—By Jeremy Larch

S

taying true to our vision of educating designers, and students, every single issue of Command Z will have a typography department dedicated to exposing you to the wonderful world of type.

For our very first issue, we are showcasing the typefaces of Command Z. These two carefully constructed typefaces have become the backbone of our magazine, holding it together with two geometrical modern sans serifs.

Here are the faces that makes us, us.

Mercenary Mercenary is a geometric font family made up of seven weights with italics. Great for almost any use, Mercenary is a versatile workhorse typeface. Mercenary has a neutral feel, allowing it to be used on numerous projects across different platforms.

Quantify Quantify is a versatile easy-to-use functional display font with a strong personality, especially its uppercase, which makes the designer’s work easier. You could use it in editorial, magazine, product packaging, branding, etc.

Mercenary Ultra AaBbCcDdEeFfGgHhIiJjKkLlMm NnOoPpQqRrSsTtUuVvWwXxYyZz 1234567890

Mercenary Regular AaBbCcDdEeFfGgHhIiJjKkLlMm NnOoPpQqRrSsTtUuVvWwXxYyZz 1234567890

Quantify Bold AaBbCcDdEeFfGgHhIiJjKkLlMm NnOoPpQqRrSsTtUuVvWwXxYyZz 1234567890

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DESIGN ESSENTIALS Best Laptop of 2018

—By Rory Williams

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hen choosing a laptop for your daily design work, there are many things to consider. One is power versus portability: you need something that’s thin and light enough to throw in your backpack, but also powerful enough to run your suite of creative tools.

Whatever your preferences, if you're in the market for a new machine, our pick of the best laptop for graphic design will help you select the right option.

Microsoft's Surface Book 2 This is the second generation of Microsoft’s Surface Book family, which slots in above the 2-in-1 Surface Pro and ultraportable Surface Laptop in Microsoft’s Surface line-up. The first-generation Surface Book was well received as a genuinely powerful alternative to the MacBook Pro. For creatives it brings a party trick; the entire screen is detachable, so it can be used with the Surface Pen for artwork, note-taking, annotating and much more.

In a sense, it takes the concept of a convertible laptop as far as it can go.

Naturally, as it’s from Microsoft,

everything about Surface Book 2 has been designed to showcase the very best of Windows. If you don’t think you will have a use for the tablet portion of Surface Book 2, then take a look at Surface Laptop (or, indeed, the equivalent 13 or 15-inch MacBook Pro). If you’re not going to use it, you’ll be paying dear for something you simply won’t need.

Microsoft has made no secret of the fact it is targeting creatives who have been traditional Apple customers. There’s no doubt that as far as touchscreens and styluses go, Apple has put all its eggs in the iPad Pro basket - and a mighty

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fine job it’s doing there, too. As you’ll know, they’re hands down our favourite tablets.

Unlike the original Surface Book, Microsoft has finally given us USB-C on the side of the laptop, even if it hasn’t gone cold turkey on USB-A like Apple; there are still two older ports as well.

There’s also an increasingly-rare fullsize SD card reader, which is great for photographers.

If you want a productivity powerhouse AND an excellent tablet/pen experience then you can do no better than Surface Book 2 in a single device. It’s a fantastically well-designed, premium notebook that’s great for creatives, especially considering the new features of the Fall Creators Update, such as Windows Mixed Reality. But it’s not the right option if you want just a traditional clamshell laptop.

Our Verdict If you’re happy using Windows and want a laptop-tablet convertible, you can do no better; the screen is astounding; the design is fantastic and it's the best Windows tablet, too.

FOR Supreme power Excellent design Great experience with Surface Pen USB-C at last AGAINST Heavy compared to rivals Rather expensive Surface Pen costs extra

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essica Hische

a letterer, illustrator, and self-described ‘avid internetter’ – she recently told Command Z more about her work and influences.

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DB: P lease could you tell us about your background?

JH: I have always loved to draw and did a lot of letter- the end of my junior year in college, not knowing that ing on classmates’ trapper keepers in grade school (bubble letters and graffiti-ish versions of their names). I applied to the Tyler school of art while in high school not knowing I would end up a designer or letterer but simply because I loved to draw, and I especially loved drawings that were detailed and technical (rather than loose and expressive).

When I took my first graphic design course, it all started to come together. I loved that design was about problem solving rather than being self-expressive, and that every project had a solid starting point. I started doing lettering for projects toward

lettering was in and of itself a separate industry (one that was not at that time at the level of popularity it is now). I graduated with a BFA in graphic and interactive design in 2006 and began working for louise fili, where I discovered that there was a way to make a career out of manipulated and custom type.

Overtime I have also built up a second career as a freelance illustrator this lead me to becoming a fulltime freelance illustrator and letterer. most of my recent work has focused on lettering but I still love to work on illustrations when I get the chance.

DB: W hich project has given you the most satisfaction so far?

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JH:

DB: H ow would you describe your style to someone who has never seen your work?

JH:

I ’d describe it as warm and approachable lettering, with a balanced level of detail, not overwrought with fussy ornamentation.

DB: W hat has been the biggest singular influence on your work?

JH:

aving parents that encouraged H me and allowed me to explore my passions from a very early age. I knew plenty of kids growing up that were artistic but were pushed toward more ‘practical’ careers and not toward what they actually loved to do. Without this encouragement early on, I might have never ended up pursuing my passions.

very project that I work on gives E me satisfaction in new ways. When I worked on the titles for Wes Anderson's moonrise kingdom, I was so proud and excited about the end result and just so happy to be able to be a part of something so big. That said, I didn’t have as much authorship with that project as I do with other smaller projects (when you work with someone like wes, he has a vision and it’s your job to carry it out), so all the work I take on helps to create a balance of satisfaction.

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DB: W hat's the thing you enjoy most about working in print?

JH:

here’s so much I love about seeing T my work in print. It’s magical to be able to run your fingers over the printed texture of something you created digitally, especially when special printing techniques are used. There's something that happens in the translation from digital to print that just adds an extra layer of specialness that is really hard to achieve digitally.

I also love the finality of it—when it’s printed, you can’t open up the file and fuss with it, endlessly replacing and upgrading the images like you can for a web project. ‘The ink never dries on the web’ is something I heard said once and there’s something really nice about being able to truly conclude a project and move on to something new.

DB: W hat do you know now that you wish you knew upon graduating?

JH:

hat taking care of your body is T important for productivity. I spent a lot of my early twenties with bronchitis or other afflictions as a result of overworking myself. That I take time to exercise, eat well, and sleep somewhat regular hours, I avoid big bouts of sickness fairly well.

DB: W hat's the last thing that made you say 'wow'?

JH:

J ust the other day ben barry posted a picture of a laser cut poster he created that said ‘howdy’ with tons of beautiful filigree laser cutting around it – my actual response was ‘holy moly.’

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DB: D o you have any superstitious beliefs?

JH:

I ’m not a superstitious person, but I do get a little angsty when I find myself saying negative things, thinking that it will somehow come back to haunt me. I’m an outrageously positive person and a nearly pathological optimist but we all have bad days and sometimes I feel like if I’m putting out bad energy I’ll just get more bad energy back, so I try to turn it around quickly so I’m not outputting negativity to the world.

DB: What compels you to design and what other compulsions do you have?

JH:

I love solving problems, I love helping others with the skills that I have, and I just love the whole process of making things—coming up with ideas, roughing out sketches, tightening up sketches, drawing in illustrator and making endless tweaks.

It's all very meditative for me and I’m probably the least stressed out when I can just spend days drawing / designing.

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1 3 2 4 Jessica's Tips

“The small things matter if you’re going to be a letterer. Try to make sure that if you stripped away all the swashes, the letterforms would still stand strong.”

“‘Putting content first’ is always a big thing for the web developers but it should be for designers too. People often say to me ‘Where do you get your inspirations?’ and think I use secret libraries. Just listen to the thing you’re creating work for. Design students are often so desperate to create something that sometimes they skip out the research; you have to base everything on good research.”

“Lettering is drawing and calligraphy is writing, not everyone remembers that.

Type design is a letterform-based system.

Lettering is a custom one-off artwork.”

"If someone has their Illustrator settings all off when they open up your work it will look wrong and everything breaks so make it as idiot-proof as possible by having as little kerning as possible.”

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STUDENT SHOWCASE The future of design starts with these students. From all over the country, we received submissions from the design programs that keep our field growing and expanding.

BAYBAYIN NEW: DECORATIVE TYPE

36 DAYS OF TYPE

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19 FIERA DI SANTA LUCIA PASTA DOLCE

THE LITTLE KITCHEN

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BAYBAYIN NEW: DECORATIVE TYPE Inspired by the Philippine writing system Baybayin during the pre-colonial period, a customized typeface entitled 'Babayin New' was developed.

This pre-colonial Philippine writing system originated from Java, Malay, Sulawesi, Bengal and Champa.

Gian Wong Manila Philippines

36 DAYS OF TYPE 36 Days of Type is a project that invites designers, illustrators and graphic designers to express their particular view on letters and numbers of our alphabet.

Charlie Davis London, UK

THE LITTLE KITCHEN The Little Kitchen is a take-out and catering service built on a love of good food, locally sourced ingredients and high quality produce.

The objective is to serve simple, homely food to people on the move.

Aiden Nolan Huddersfield, UK

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PASTA DOLCE

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Pasta Dolce is a company that sells various types of pasta for dessert purposes. Many people might not even know this exists, but yes, it is chocolate flavoured pasta. They come in different sizes and colors.

Mary-Frances Cacciatore Montreal Quebec, Canada

FIERA DI SANTA LUCIA Pasta Dolce is a company that sells various types of pasta for dessert purposes. Many people might not even know this exists, but yes, it is chocolate flavoured pasta. They come in different sizes and colors.

Matteo Vandelli Faenza, Italy

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WORK HARD AND LOVE THIS SHIT By: Marcelene Jackson

Surprise.

That was Aaron Draplin’s reaction when he got the call from HOW—to feature him again. According to the Portland, OR, graphic designer, the story hasn’t changed all that much. And to his point, there’s no lack of Aaron Draplin or Draplin Design Co. coverage on the World Wide Web. So much so, that I felt a bit of trepidation about the interview. What could I unearth that hadn’t been covered before? And why would someone read this story?

My trusty go-to list of questions weren’t going to work for me. I didn’t want to write something that’s already been published. And I certainly didn’t want Draplin to roll his eyes during our chat. I realized I needed his help to build a new narrative. So I came clean and asked: What do you want to say that hasn’t been said before?

It broke the ice and set the stage. We didn’t focus on his work for Nike, Ride Snowboards, Sub Pop Records, his numerous posters, album art and logo designs, nor his personal Field Notes brand, and we deliberately avoided his Lynda.com logo design tutorial that went viral last year. Been there, done that, and he designed the T-shirt.

Instead our organic, candid and, as you’d expect from Draplin, entertaining conversation covered age, gratitude, family, and a book. While it sounds more Kumbaya than you’d expect from this born-andbred Midwesterner, it comes with its fair share of self deprecation and the occasional f-bomb.

Draplin doesn’t beat around the bush.

“How much more of this story do you want to hear?” He asks, honestly curious. “I’ll just never really be comfortable with being some kind of commodity.” He wonders about the saturation level, and admits that the pressure’s on, because the big names in design reinvent themselves.

“Every three years, there’s a new talking point, taking a year off, a documentary,” he explains. “I’m just trying to get away with shit—that hasn’t changed.”

AARON DRAPLIN

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At 41, Draplin wears his “middle age” as a badge of honor. “Every year I know myself a little better.

Every year, there’s a refinement process.

“I can remember being 20 and talking to a 45-yearold. They were old. They were different. They wore a different type of clothes. They were beat down and said things like ‘my old lady,’ ‘those bastard kids.’ It was really cliché. Now I can’t tell when a guy is 55.

It’s just how they carry themselves and how they laugh. My favorite rock ‘n’ rollers are 55 years old and you wouldn’t know it, because of the way they run their lives. That’s inspiring.

“There are weeks I work every day. You don’t get to put them in the bank. That goes to Uncle Sam. And they go and drop fucking bombs on developing countries with it or whatever the latest bullshit they’re doing. It hurts. I would hope they’d go build homes for people. I’d feel a little better about that.”

With age comes self-reflection, and Draplin is grateful. “Aren’t we lucky to be alive, to punch into design every day? As I get older, it’s better to be chill about stuff.”

And chill he is. He didn’t get to be design’s big draw without his share of critics along the way.

Finger-pointing is a waste of time, but the web hands everyone a bullhorn, and it’s frustrating.

“That’s something that people expect from me, to be an incendiary character just for the sake of doing it. That is not the case, I wouldn’t do it,” says Draplin, throwing in a technical term for good

measure. “You don’t want to shit where you eat.”

Draplin’s genuine love for design surfaces when he speaks about life after the limelight fades—and make no mistake, he knows it will. “When all this stuff fizzles, I’ll go back to living the life of why I got the call in the first place. Working on my own, loving it, and not knowing any better. That’s kind of a cool thing.” His gruff demeanor, plain speaking, ball cap, and healthy beard led one wag to call him the “Yukon Cornelius of American Design,” but, Draplin says, “there is nothing blue collar about what I’m doing. We live manicured lives.”

Yes, he likes to work with his hands, mocking things up, the very analog and tactile qualities of design, but the reality is Draplin can usually be found pecking away at the computer in his shop, a hotel room, or on a plane. The prolific designer makes his way to design events large and small across the country. He travels on Wednesdays, speaks on Thursdays, and returns home on Fridays.

“The more I get done on the plane, the more time I have free on the weekend,” Draplin says with a chuckle, “to have fun like normal people.”

TIME OUT Though he loves what he does, he’s tired and questions how long he can keep up the pace. “Why are we working so much? Because we don’t know any better,” he says adamantly. “It’s all we know

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how to do. The world just holds us down. I got ahead by working a ton. And then what? How much more money do you need?”

He’s finally stopped worrying about money, because—honestly—he doesn’t even have the time to spend it. This has been tough for Draplin. He grew up in Traverse City, MI, and has seen people struggle. “And I have these carrots dangling in front of me,” he explains, “how can I say no to any of it? “You’re taught to budget, to be smart and to keep everything in the positive. Then you wake up and realize, uh-oh, that wasn’t the way to do it.

“I don’t know how to solve becoming smaller.

I don’t know how to solve becoming healthy.

I don’t know how to solve not working so goddamn much.”

But he’s trying. Draplin now leaves the shop at 8 instead of midnight. It’s baby steps. And it feels like a luxury.

“I don’t ever want to worry,” Draplin admits. “I know what it’s like to have nothing. I haven’t had to think about buying a record for about seven years.

That to me is such a success.”

WIRED FOR SOUND “I know Aaron hoards music of all kinds,” says Robin Hendrickson of ATO Records. “I get to see him flexing and working out album art that bounces off the classic tradition of record covers.

His first comps are a thrill. He’ll show you a wide range of possibilities, some you asked for and some you didn’t. It’s like the ideas are exploding out of him, almost too fast to capture. His work is clean, but never sterile or boring. Somehow it reflects his personality, which is gruff but never unkind.”

Hendrickson continues, “He’s clearly studied—and absorbed—the language and history of 20th-century American vernacular graphic design, but his work never devolves into retro pastiche.”You can’t have a conversation with Draplin without sensing his respect for design—its history, its unsung heroes, and his contemporaries. He stays on the prowl for overlooked graphic treasures and celebrates them. Sure, he’ll drop the occasional Saul Bass or Eames reference, but he’s not precious about it. “I don’t want to be too professional, too serious, too on point or on strategy, because people choke on it”

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“

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AARON DRAPLIN

VERY YEAR I KNOW E MYSELF A LITTLE BETTER. EVERY YEAR, THERE’S A REFINEMENT PROCESS. LIKE FATHER LIKE SON

Visit draplin.com and you’ll find an entire section—an anomaly in the business of design— dedicated to his father, Jim Draplin. You see the love, and then hear it when Draplin speaks about him. “We lost my dad a year and a half ago. I don’t want to be the person who doesn’t talk about this shit. He died. I’m trying to make light of it, because he used to make fun of that shit.”

Draplin’s tone is light as he describes his dad as an incredible character, larger than life, who sometimes opened his shows for him. He admits sometimes the crowd didn’t know what to make of him. “He was as comfortable in front of a tool-and-die shop as much as he was in front of a bunch of nerdy designers, telling crass jokes, Don Rickles style. I’m so thankful I celebrated him viciously while he was around.

“I mimic my dad in terms of my design career: the business practices of how to enjoy your life and how to make things—how to laugh. That’s what I took from him,” explains Draplin.

“It’s been cool to apply it to the stuffy thing of design. It’s been refreshing to defy some of that shit with it. People don’t know how to laugh.

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AARON DRAPLIN

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“Dad kept me on my toes. He always made time. So getting in front of a client just reminds me of how my dad could loosen things up.” Draplin laughs, then continues.

“And look at me talking so much about my dad all the time. He always hogged the limelight. Still is! I need the world to know that without my mom, I’d be nothing. Fact.”

ON PAPER That practice of loosening up came in handy when John Gall, creative director at Abrams, called about making a monograph. Draplin countered with, “Don’t you do this at the end of your career?” Excited and equally leery to get a big-league call, Draplin plans to keep it little league—as authentic and naive as possible. “It’s got to feel real to me,” he says.

Abrams has a history of publishing books by great designers and, though it’s early in the process, you can bet the Draplin book will be a bit of a departure. It won’t be a typical design monograph. How could it be? And Gall recognizes the value in that.

“I’ve been looking at younger/mid-career designers and wondering why they don’t have books, and if there is even an audience for such a thing,” Gall explains. “Most graphic design books we see are super expensive monographs by older or dead designers. I started looking at people the same age as Stefan Sagmeister was when Abrams published his first book. These are designers who came of age during the internet and social media era. These are voices we haven’t really heard from in book form yet. And they have a lot to say about how to make it in the design world today.

“Aaron’s style is rooted in utilitarian American design, but not totally as he’ll happily incorporate a lovingly designed Swiss grid. “He’s the designer all the kids want to be when they grow up. He has opinions and he’s willing to express them (even if he has to step on some toes), but he’s also a really nice guy with a strong sense of where he came from.

He makes beautiful things that you want to have. Beautiful lovingly printed objects. Aaron makes being a graphic designer look like the best job in the world.”

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MOTIV ATION A look into 2018's best design book.

—By Elizabeth Maldonado

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t could have been Never Use Comic Sans. Or Never Use Arial. Or—dare I write it?—Never Use Helvetica. Instead, Douglas Thomas chose Futura.

An entire book on one font can seemingly appeal to only one “type”: a true type nerd. And yet, like the hit documentary Helvetica, this book goes far beyond a myopic view of a typeface’s construction and explores how a typeface has shaped and was shaped by our culture and society. Never Use Futura traces and deconstructs the layout of the page on which Futura sits: our world.

Author Douglas Thomas makes clear that, despite its simple lines, the typeface is anything but simple. Designed by Paul Renner in 1920s Germany, Futura entered the world at a time when “typefaces were on the front lines of culture” and was quickly swept into a maelstrom of political turmoil.

With Hitler’s rise, the Bauhaus closed, Renner was arrested (as well as Jan Tschichold and many others), and modern art was generally deemed insulting and impure. In "Entartete Kunst" (Degenerate Art), the Nazi Party’s exhibition to shame modern art, Futura appeared in prominent posters, contrasting starkly with the blackletter faces signature to Hitler’s propaganda. Yet, when the Nazi Party discovered that blackletter faces had Jewish origins, they abruptly switched to using Roman typefaces, including Futura.

By this time, Futura had landed a spot on type boycott

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posters distributed in the United States—in the “Nazi-type” column.

Faces made in the U.S. were promoted as alternatives. And there were numerous alternatives. Yet, as Thomas points out, it is mostly through this prolific imitation that Futura firmly established itself as a model for geometric sans serif type.

textbook nor an opinionated ramble on art history. It tells a smart, incisive story about the way one typeface became woven into our cultural sentiments and movements. New designers will start to notice Futura everywhere. Seasoned designers will see layers of meaning in Futura (and its look-alikes) everywhere.

For Thomas, Futura is not simply a typeface. As Thomas puts it, “Futura is really more about a more far-reaching idea … It is an aesthetic idea about modernity—clean lines with a slight human touch, embodied in a name filled with hope.”

In either case, Never Use Futura may change the way you see our world.

And it almost certainly will change the way you use Futura. Which, with an important caveat, Thomas says you should do. “The key to choosing Futura is to make it your own. Know its history but challenge its past— keep it fresh; make it new.”

With a foreword by Ellen Lupton, Never Use Futura is neither a dense

“ EVERYTHING IS DESIGNED, FEW THINGS ARE DESIGNED WELL.” —BRIAN REED

“ DESIGN IS A SOLUTION TO A PROBLEM; ART IS A QUESTION TO A PROBLEM.” —JOHN MAEDA

“ DESIGN IS INTELLIGENCE MADE VISIBLE.” —ALINA WHEELER

“ THE ULTIMATE INSPIRATION IS THE DEADLINE.” —NOLAN BUSHNELL

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