CRYSTAL ZAPATA
by MATTHEW JAMES-WILSON
Chicago based multi-media designer and artist, Crystal Zapata, explores process and motion through her focused profes-
sional work and experimental personal work. Coming from a background of dance and collage, Crystal has approached design with resourceful techniques and a deep appreciation for movement. While studying at Columbia College, Crystal carefully amassed an arsenal of both digital and analog skills, which she makes an effort to utilize throughout her work. After graduating Crystal was welcomed to the team at the esteemed Chicago design studio, Normal, where she and her fellow designers have employed their unique sensibilities to designs for local and national clients. In addition to her work with Normal, Crystal has taken on an array of personal projects and freelance design work, creating tactile, risk-taking work for musicians, clothing brands, and editorial publications.
Like many of her peers, Crystal has come up in an era of design when the financial woes of print media has coincided
with the limitlessness of digital media. Although the communities and processes of art and design have quickly become more digitized, Crystal has been persistent about experimenting with physical materials and collaborating with local peers. One of her most consistent clients, a bi-monthly dance party at the Hungry Brain in Chicago called Bricktown Sound, has given her the opportunity to regularly expand her work in a low stakes setting. I first came across Crystal’s work through the designs she’s done for Chicago bands like Lala Lala and Resavoir, and I’ve always loved her ability to reaffirm another artist’s sound through visual art. Her motivation to problem solve and work outside her comfort zone is admirable in an industry fraught with people taking the safe way out. While visiting Chicago, I paid Crystal a visit at her home in Logan Square, and we discussed presenting work to clients, the power of collaboration, and the value of experimentation.
Where are you from and where do you live currently? I’m from Skokie, which is a suburb of Chicago, and I now live in Chicago. Skokie is still on the CTA, which is the public transportation here. It’s on the yellow line, which is the train with only two stops. It’s still access-able from the city, so it’s not too far away. But it is a Suburb. What role in your life did art have while you were growing up there? Did living so close to Chicago impact the access you had to things when you were younger? Or did the internet have a bigger impact on what you saw? I feel like I always sought out something other than what I was getting in my physical existence on the internet. I didn’t really have friends who were interested in art in the way that I was, or interested in music the way that I felt I was. Even clothing was like that. It was exciting for me to go online and discover that there were communities of people who were dressing in ways that I felt excited about, or were making work that I had never seen before. I also really loved magazines and going to the bookstore was a really important time for me to discover things on my own. So I was just always looking for something else, and I didn’t think that anything that I wanted to be a part of was accessible at that point. Especially being a young person—how do you really find a community of people
like the same music as you if you don’t go to school with anybody who likes that music? I guess you log on, haha. I remember being really obsessed with Nylon in like 2008. I still have the first one that I bought. Scarlett Johansson is on the cover, and it was when she was trying to be a musician, so she’s posing with this electric guitar. But Courtney Love, Kim Gordon, and all of these other really cool people were in that issue. I was just so excited about it and I was just like, Who are these people? I can’t believe this exists. I want to learn more and be a part of it. But I didn’t know how because I lived in Skokie. At least I had the magazine! Once you started using the internet more and starting having an awareness of some sort of “counterculture,” what were some of the platforms that you used? Was the internet mainly a resource for you to find stuff at the time, or did it eventually become a place that you put your work and ideas as a teenager? Definitely both, but it started out as a place that I was finding stuff. I remember being on MySpace and hearing Uffie for the first time when I was in middle school, haha. I had never heard anything that sounded like it before and I thought it was so cool and exciting. At the time Nylon was also doing these video podcasts. A lot of websites use to do video podcasts or blogs, and they would up-
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