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DON’T BE A DESIGN ZOMBIE It's not about pushing pixels around, it's about making people think. We chat with iconic image-maker James Victore about getting out of the office and into trouble.

An Interview with James Victore ames Victore is a man of action. He believes that knowing about jazz and wine Jand auto-racing can make you a better designer. That graphic design is about experiences and stories and using your hands. That the best designs punch you in the gut – or, at the very least, stop you in your tracks. When I visit his Williamsburg work/live studio, Victore is charming and humble, describing himself as still being “the unknown designer at age 50.” This is, of course, entirely untrue. (Aside from the fact that he’s not yet turned 50.) While you may not know the man, you very likely know the work. Once you see a Victore image – many of which live in the collection at MoMA – you rarely forget it. With the release of the new book, Victore or, you do when a client emails you wanting some- Who Died and Made You Boss?(Abrams, $40), thing, and you’ve already knocked off for the day? which collects 25 years of his work in a hefty vol- Chris laughs about how we give them the ‘stiff ume designed by Paul Sahre and introduced by arm’ – it’s Tony Heisman running through the Michael Bierut, the name and the striking body crowd [Victore makes the sound of a football of work should now finally go hand in hand. player knocking guys down]. This isn’t necessar- On paper, Victore’s designs feel like muscle cars ily the word I want to use, but you have to ‘end with a coiled charge concealed just beneath the train’ people. We know the difference between surface. In person, he exudes a similar kinetic urgent and important and not everything is spark – affably skimming from topic to topic, urgent. as we talk about art (“Franz Kline’s work really blows my skirt up”), work (“I can’t You mentioned “making deci- pay attention to everything at sions” earlier as part of the way you function efficiently. Do you “We’re like theonce”), and life (“Ask for more. Always. Ask for more time, ask army. We get think a lot of people get bogged for more creativity, ask for more more work down by that? money”). done by 9am Part of the problem these days than most is there’s so much choice. At What’s a normal day for you? some point, someone just has to I like to think we’re like the army. say: We’re going to do it like this We get more work done by because I want to do it this way. 9am than most people do in people do in a Because, if you don’t, you’re go- a full day. Chris [Victore’s sole ing to be churning out oatmeal. co-worker] comes in at 10:30am full day.” You look at some graphic design or 11am. We decide on what today, and you can tell that no- needs to be done. We rarely work body is in charge. past 5pm. We’re pretty efficient. We make decisions. I look at the agency system, You’ve been doing a few little films for the book and it’s such a waste. That’s why people like Time release. Is that new territory? How did they come magazine come to us. They know they can give about? it to us on a Wednesday, and it will be done on The publisher wanted a little flat, static image Friday. for the book for the website. We weren’t really feeling that. [He plays me the promo video that So how early do you get your start? ‘Early’ is a they made.] So this is a great example of how we relative term. work. We had 5 minutes to think about it. So we It depends. Usually between 4:30am-6:00am. said let’s get out of here. Let’s go under the Bo- It’s a good time for me to write, and to have dhi tree where genius is. So we went around the some quiet time, and to catch up on emails corner to the Italian restaurant, had a pizza and and things that need to be done. Or get a lot of a bottle of wine, and halfway through we said: sketching done. “You know what would be really funny? A book with chickens walking around on it.” So you keep to a pretty regular schedule. What do 2

Quote/Unquote Ellie Cassidy 3

An Interview with James Victore You look at some graphic design today, and you “iPhones are killing can tell that nobody is in charge. So we come back to the studio, and Chris calls our discipline, killing Iowa. “Do you have chicks? Yeah, we have chicks. How much are they? $34 for a dozen. Excellent, our ability for we’ll take a dozen chicks.” So that’s Thursday af- ternoon. They say they’ll be hatched by Tuesday, solitude, and killing and then they’ll ship them. The next Thursday I get a call from the post office, “You have a per- our ability to be ishable package here.” So I’m standing in line, and I hear “cheep cheep, cheep cheep.” bored.” That must have been a neat experience. drawn on napkins? Because they’re free, they’re Yeah, and we have a story – more than just not thinking about work. making some little thing. So I called Chris and said, “Chicks are here, we iPhones are killing our discipline, killing our ability need a tripod, a video camera, and some bar- for solitude, and killing our ability to be bored. And beque sauce.” So we shot the thing in the af- it’s fast, right? We’re obsessed with efficiency, and ternoon. I kept them one more day, because I sometimes we forget how much faster drawing is. wanted to be with them. And we learned how to My third students [at SVA] aren’t allowed to use feed and care for them. Then Saturday morning computers. It really frustrates them because they we took them to McCarren Park and handed don’t know how to use their hands. But I say lis- them off to a farmer who will raise them. That’s ten, I know how much time it takes to boot up a how we do stuff. We just make it up. computer, and open InDesign, and you get a box, and you type a letter in it. And you make it this You have this quotation on your book cover from big. Then you make it this big. Then you make it William James, “Distraction is the most corrosive this big. Then you make it this big. Then you move disease of the 20th century.” Why’d you choose it over here. Then you make it red. Then you make that? it this big. And it’s like: You’re not designing! You’re Distraction today is this [points to my iPhone, organizing. That’s easy. Worry about that later. which is recording our conversation]. I believe And this is stuff I learned from heroes. It’s the that these things are killing our discipline, kill- work you do before you ever put pen to paper. ing our ability for solitude, and killing our ability That’s the important part. to be bored. Children need to learn how to be bored. They don’t need to be entertained all the Is there anything else you tell your students? time. Being conscious of your habits is one – and creating good habits. Being conscious of your So you like time away from computers. Do you do peers, the people you’re around. You know, there all of your sketching and writing on paper? are some people in your life who are like zom- Paper, and not in the studio. I’ll go to a bar or a bies [Victore raises his arms straight out, speaks restaurant. When I did the book, I left the studio in monotone] “Be like us…” and they are some every morning and I went to the park and sat for people who are good for you. So you have to look an hour, hour and half. I brought an idea, and I around every once in a while and take stock. You wrote longhand in one of these big sketchbooks. might even be married to a zombie! Then I would come into the studio and work dur- ing the day. Afterwards, at 4 or 5 o’clock, I’d go to my bar, sit with a beer or two, and refine it. Or write on a new idea. So it became this really nice process of every day. And it became a habit. I can’t do the think-work in the studio. The stu- dio’s for putting stuff together – for work-work. And if we’re not doing work-work, then we leave. How many great architecture ideas have been 4