D is for Design - But It's No Trap!

An Interview With Designer Brandon Peat

Part 1 of 2 (link to Part 2)
Click on any picture to enlargify

Brandon Peat always seems to be smiling. For example, looking for various images including a potential profile picture to use, I found him doing something fun or goofy like kneeling before Imperial Stormtroopers (‘these ARE the clever guys we’re looking for! Rebel scum...’) or smiling with friends or family. Heck, he even illustrates himself sporting a whimsical smile – as well as a killer beard and fluffy full head of hair (yes, I notice these things... more and more, sadly) – for his homepage or other self-promotional pictures.

And why shouldn’t he be smiling? Along with being a relatively new father (‘Three-Peat’!), Brandon is also having fun as a relatively new freelance graphic designer who is making in-roads in several areas. He’s got an exciting portfolio up to enjoy, he offers a wide range of skills and services, plus he has some ‘just for fun’ (+/-) projects going on with some pals that will keep him a mainstay of some of the more popular ‘cons’ for years to come!

You’ve probably heard of Brandon already without maybe quite knowing it. He – and his talented wife Emma – recently made a big splash on the Interweb scene with their ‘A is For Ackbar’ alphabet book designed for their son. Although not an official income-generating project by any stretch of the imagination, it certainly struck a cord with many folks who seem to drive a non-ending industry of Star Wars based memes and cross-over tee-shirt ideas. But having said that, it was / is obvious to us that Brandon’s talents go way beyond this ‘educational exercise’.

As such, we’re happy to present this young man’s work and stop and have a chat with him on his way ‘to the stars’... oops, we did it again, huh? Blast it, it must be a trap!! Aaarrgh... let’s force our way onward, OK? Groooaaannn...

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Welcome Brandon! Can you tell us a little bit about what you’re working on these days and your background please? What inspired you to become an artist-slash-designer?
Thanks Ziggy, good to be here!

As always, I’m working on a little bit of everything – a website design, a tattoo illustration, the GUI for an iPhone app, and of course updates to my own website and portfolio.

In terms of my background, I had always been interested in art, but it wasn’t until late high school that I decided to pursue a career in graphic design.

Design was the most interesting form of art, to me – you’re trying to make it aesthetically pleasing, yes, but you’re also trying to convey a certain message or work within a set medium. It’s art-based problem solving, which means it’s a far less subjective discipline than “fine” art. There are bad solutions, good solutions, and maybe even one best solution, which is a very appealing and motivating idea to me.

Jumping right into the Grade A, Parental Unit type questions: What prompted you to incorporate yourself as an independent ‘LLC’ agency and return to freelance work? You decided to do this relatively quickly after your experience as an Art Director and Interactive Developer at a local ad agency, didn’t you?
Yeah. I was hired a few months after graduating college at an ad agency in Fort Wayne, Indiana. I worked for them for two and a half years while doing a little freelance on the side from time to time.

I decided to go full-time freelance for several reasons. Greater creative freedom was definitely the driving motivator, as was greater upward mobility for both my career and salary. You see, I had been hired as a print designer, but during my tenure there I did a lot of on-the-job learning and moved into a multimedia designer/developer role – a far more valuable and marketable position. However, the agency didn’t seem to have long-term plans for a multimedia department and I didn’t foresee any opportunity for a raise or promotion. That was December 2009, when the American economy was at a pretty low ebb.

Conventional wisdom would seem to argue against quitting your job at such a time. But I perceived (correctly) that with the economic downturn, individuals and corporations would re-evaluate their established advertising and design strategies, and look to trim their budgets however possible. A poor economy is actually a great economy for freelancers, because we can operate at a much lower cost than larger agencies – a very attractive selling point for cash-strapped businesses.

So I went into business for myself on January 1st, 2010. I officially incorporated fairly quickly after that – though I hadn’t initially thought about doing so. The primary impetus was tax season. Self-employed individuals are required to file quarterly returns, so when I took my first freelance quarter income sheets to my accountant, we looked at my projected income/expenses for the year and he advised me to incorporate.

If you’re doing even halfway decent on income, incorporating as an LLC could save you several thousand dollars on your returns, plus you only have to file annually. I would definitely recommend that any self-employed individual meet with an accountant and see how best to hang onto your income!

I’m curious as well how you best promote yourself as a ‘jack of all trades’? Is there some trade-off in terms of being able to offer so many services vs. being seen as a ‘specialist’ in a given area?
That’s the stigma, yeah – the old adage is that “a jack of all trades is a master of none.” But I don’t think that holds true at all in the design world.

Graphic designers, by the nature of our job, have to be multitalented, able to work with different mediums, styles, and content. Our goal is to develop a unique look for each client, after all, so we don’t want to be good at just one thing. Every designer who went to college for print-based design is already skilled in a wide variety of disciplines such as layout, illustration, logo development, and photography. And though web and multimedia are different mediums, they operate on the same principles as any other area of design, and are in ever-increasing demand. In this day and age, a designer who doesn’t at least have some basic multimedia know-how risks being left behind.

As you mentioned, I do promote myself as a ‘one-stop shopping’ design destination. That’s because I have a very diverse skillset rivalling what you might find across a typical ad agency. I’m well-versed in traditional design disciplines such as illustration, logo and brand development, and print layout.
I also specialise in multimedia ventures such as website design and development, and even video/animation with such programs as Flash, After Effects, and Final Cut Pro. I am a skilled writer/proofreader and am completely comfortable meeting with clients or giving presentations, having been an award-winning member of my high school and college speech teams.

The reason I can successfully operate as a one-man operation is precisely because I do have such a wide skillset “in-house.” I don’t advertise a service that I don’t in turn specialise in.

When you have a client that may need more than your current skill-set allows you to offer, do you ‘shop out’ to other professionals in the area or within your networking base?
Absolutely, though this doesn’t happen often. Whenever possible, I will learn whatever is needed to win the work and make it shine.

This past Thanksgiving, your ‘career’ took a very special turn as you and your wife added ‘parenthood’ to your list of achievements! Congratulations! How has becoming a first-time father at least started to affect your creative process or work, if at all? Granted, I know the lad isn’t perhaps old enough to start using your pens to create wall murals (just wait!!), but still...
Since I work mostly from home, being a dad is both awesome and difficult. I love love love being around for so much of Tycho’s early development, helping to take care of him, etc., which is something that a lot of day-job dads can’t do.

On the flip side, that means I have to focus on my work with the distraction of a crying – or even worse, an adorably cooing baby – which can be very tough at times. You definitely get a lot more adept at multitasking and doing work with just one hand.

It was also during the ‘run up’ to Tycho Maximus’ birth (what a fantastic name!), that you and Emma developed together the project that has undoubtedly gained you the most exposure, namely, the ‘A is for Ackbar’ alphabet collection (fans, you MUST click on the image that starts Part 2 to see all the characters in their full fantastic glory)! Now I don’t wish to beat this well-documented project to death, but just humour me with a couple of questions, please:

I understand that you did the sketching for the project, with your talented artist wife doing the ‘conversion’ into Illustrator. How often have or do the two of you still collaborate on at least design projects together (noting that, yes, I understand the mechanics behind at least the parental collaboration bit...)?
Haha, yes. My wife, Emma, is also a graphic designer, and it’s great being married to someone in your discipline – they don’t just empathise with your stresses, but actually understand them. It’s also nice to have a knowledgeable expert under the same roof as a sounding board.

Of course, two opinionated artists won’t always see eye to eye, and we have very different design sensibilities. So there’s bound to be occasional head-butting. It’s also the reason Emma and I don’t directly collaborate together as much as we simply consult each other, like we did here as well on this ‘Cowboy Bebop’ picture.

We’ve discovered that art is the one thing we will argue about. In fact, we argued so much about how to execute the Ackbar project that it almost didn’t happen! But you learn how to overcome disagreements like that in marriage, or at least you should.


Continued in Part 2 ‘The Empire Strikes Brandon’...

No wait, that was Part V, wasn’t it? I never could follow that...

D is for Design - But It's No Trap!

An Interview With Designer Brandon Peat

Part 2 of 2 (link to Part 1)
Click on any picture to enlargify

Brandon, looking some more at your widely covered ‘A is For Ackbar’ project, some folks have included all of these pics, from Ackbar to Zuckuss, on their own sites or even in their Flickr catalogues, etc.. Is that cool with you or do you feel like that’s going a bit too far? Oh and despite temptations, I’m not going to do quite that much ‘borrowing’...
It’s all good. Once you put something online, it’s out of your hands. I expected the images would wind up on other sites, and as long as they left the disclaimers stating where the illustrations came from, people can find their way back to my site.

The good thing is that with all the publicity, our authorship of the images is pretty well documented, and people won’t be able to pass these off as their own work. Still, there’s a reason we didn’t release the hi-resolution source files!

Getting back then to other, perhaps non-Star Wars related issues:

I really enjoy your portfolio of illustrations, very nicely done! Again though, you offer a variety of pieces created in very different styles. Is this something you try to do to show your range of skills? Or does your selection have to do more with personal preferences? For example, I’ve been comparing your more digital works like those above to your various ‘Rad People’ portraits.
I guess it’s a little of both.

Working in a variety of styles and mediums keeps it interesting for me, and I do feel that certain styles work best with certain subject matter.

Brandon, now that you are running your own agency as an official LLC 'entity', do you ever find yourself getting bogged down with ‘management’ issues? I mean, do you ever find the project planning or even financial aspects to be frustrating?
Oh, most definitely. I’m the sole breadwinner for our household, supporting my wife and son with my career. So I definitely take the business aspects seriously, but they can be very time-consuming.

I’ve found that I have to allow an average of 10 hours per week for administrative stuff. That includes invoices, estimates, client meetings or correspondence, portfolio or website updates, researching potential clients, printing and mailing art orders from my online store, and more – all stuff that I don’t get paid for but still needs to happen in a timely and regular manner.

Additionally, I can’t control when projects arrive on my desk – or, often, when they’re due. So I might have almost nothing to do one week, followed by a crazy week where all my clients have new jobs with fast turnarounds. You learn to make good use of the downtime to deal with the managerial stuff, so that when the work hits you have time to take care of it.

Flexibility is key – freelancing has actually prepared me pretty well for being a father!

Considering this, you’ve also mentioned that you are ‘gearing up’ for a big business push in 2011. What do you have on tap to see this through?
So far I’ve been largely targeting my local market in Fort Wayne, which has treated me well and given me a solid first year of business. This year I’m looking to expand into nearby markets such as Indianapolis, which has a lot of great design agencies I’d love to work with.

What about the ‘Rad Project Discount’? What are your targets with this promotion?
Yeah, that’s the other half of my new business push. Most of my work is with agency clients and in the multimedia realm, so I’m looking for smaller clients with creative print design needs. You know, folks like bands that need album design, authors needing book cover illustrations, etc. The fun and creative stuff!

Historically, I’ve usually given these sorts of project a cheaper rate anyway – I’m simply making it official. You can learn more about the discount on my website at

http://www.brandonpeat.com/me/raddiscount.html .

You once stated in your blog that ‘the difficult thing about being a graphic designer is that a lot of your work never sees the light of day’. How has dealing with either the rejection or even lack of even an opportunity to show your work changed – if at all – working freelance compared to the company environment?
In an agency environment, several designers are usually generating ideas for the same job. These ideas are reviewed and refined within the art department, then with the account executives, and finally presented as options to the client. In an ideal situation, that means the client is only seeing the best ideas. In practical application, it doesn’t always work that way. It can also be difficult not getting to communicate with clients directly, but having to present concepts through the AE’s.

Personally, I much prefer working one-on-one with a client. It simplifies the working method immensely. Now, rejections do seem much more personal in this sort of client relationship, but so is the praise for a job well done.

The reality is that graphic design is a principle based on rejection – rejecting bad ideas at every step of the process, hopefully resulting in the best final idea and product. It’s easy to get an ego when you feel you’re on a hot streak, but it just takes one client to bring that all crashing down. Learning to deal with disappointment is a crucial skill for any designer, agency-employed or no.

Now, I’m going to put you on the spot: you’ve worked on some obviously fantastic illustrations, as well as logo and brand development, print layout, and multimedia projects, just to name a few. But if you had to choose, RIGHT NOW, one area you’d like to focus on, say, after you’ve just won the Megabucks lottery: which one would it be and why?
Ooh, good question.

I love the multimedia stuff and it definitely pays the bills, but I’d have to say that my first love is definitely illustration and print design. If money wasn’t a concern, I would totally be an eclectic illustrator.

Finally, looking at your current ‘to do’ list :

What’s the current status on your ‘War of Eternity’ project that you are – or at least were – working on with Christopher Arndt?
The War of Eternity is a sci-fi/fantasy universe that Chris and I have been working on for a very long time. We self-published the first novel in our series, which we were very proud of, but gradually realised that it wasn’t going to take the story in the most compelling direction for future instalments.

So the project is currently on hold as we further brainstorm the overall concept and storyline. It’s definitely happening, but it’s a back-burner project to our respective careers and lives.

Is that the same as ‘Black Rose’? Or is this another ‘not really fantasy but kind of, yeah’ project you’ve got going on?
Yeah, Black Rose is another reason that Eternity is on hold!

Black Rose is an independently-published comic book series. It depicts a fantasy world entering an industrial revolution, a world facing war between the magic-using nation of Ishtakar and the steampunk country of Athelica. The series follows a brother and sister through the tumultuous evolution of their world.

Though technically a fantasy story, Black Rose is not a high fantasy – there are no elves or dwarves here. Our goal is gritty realism and believability. To use some famous examples, it mixes the rich world-building of high fantasy such as Lord of the Rings (ooh, great segue to show Brandon’s illustration of JRR.Tolkien below!) with modern, character-driven storytelling like that of Battlestar Galactica.

The amazing art for Black Rose is done by our good friend Aaron Minier, who brought Chris and me onto the project to co-create and write. Chris is the primary writer, while I do the editing, lettering, and all the print and web design. The comic will really be shifting into high gear over the next couple of years and we’re very excited about where it’s heading.

You can learn more about the project and purchase issues and art direct from us at

http://www.blackrosecomic.com

or even via our Facebook fan page!

And finally finally (or ‘Finally: The Final Chapter’), where would you like to see your business or especially your art heading in the near and/or distant future?
You know, I’m very happy with where I am right now, both career-wise and artistically. I’ve always been very critical of my work, and feel like I’m only just now getting good at the subtle nuances of design.

I was recently offered a full-time in-house design position at a software company and went through several phone interviews with their staff. They asked me what my dream position would be, and I found myself having to think fast, because in truth I already had it. I politely declined the position.

The one thing I want to avoid is complacency. I always want to learn new skills, I always want to improve my work, I always want to meet new clients. I’m incredibly lucky to be able to do this for a living, let alone work from home, and I hope I can keep doing it for a very long time in the future.

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After two and a half years as an Art Director and Interactive Developer for a prominent Fort Wayne ad agency, Brandon Peat did the craziest thing you can think of in an economic downturn and decided to quit his job! However, this allowed him to return to his roots as a freelance designer eventually incorporating himself as an LLC. He already has an impressive client list and range of awards to his credit, not to mention that he’s a regular at comic ‘cons’ to plug at very least his on-going collaborative work with the title ‘Black Rose’!

Brandon brings a wide range of skills plus several years of on-the-job industry experience to the table, as well as knowledge of new and emerging technologies. Among his myriad of talents, he specialises in illustrative design and interactive Flash development, though he has experience in just about every imaginable area of design, enjoying being able to bounce between them as the job requires.

Please check out Brandon and his work at the following links, or drop him a line at brandonpeat@gmail.com. He’d love to hear from you and - if he’s not currently busy changing a diaper - have a chat!

Links

Home
Blog
Store

‘Black Rose’



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All pictures, videos and other media are used with written permission of Brandon Peat, including all current or previous business affiliations related to same, or are available in the public domain (noting copyright and other restrictions, accordingly). No further reproduction or duplication is permitted without contacting the artist directly.

Some pictures have been modified slightly or combined only for the purpose of space limitations. In all cases, we invite you to visit the artist’s site(s) for more!