The Workbook 34 Photography edition is now arriving on tens of thousands of desks. The man who shot the cover shown above, Gandee Vasan, is a multi-award winning photographer and artist who spent ten years creating conceptual images for advertising firms in London and Amsterdam and worked at Getty Images creating some of their most evocative images. Prior to those jobs, he was an award-winning portrait painter. Gandee is also responsible for some of the most cutting-edge work in the early days of digital image manipulation, including restoration of the ceiling of the Queen's House in Greenwich, England entirely by digital means.

The Workbook 34 Illustration edition is arriving on tens of thousands of desks. The man behind the cover shown above, Raul Colon, has years of experience as a successful illustrator, and provides some insight on the cover, his influences, and the creative industry as a whole.

What was your inspiration behind this image? Is there a certain place, memory, or experience that played a part?

This piece was commissioned by Nordstrom stores for (I think) Hispanic month. The theme is about romance or kissing. I wanted to convey the tropical feeling I had experienced on the islands, and of course there's nothing more romantic than the bliss of a sweet kiss under palm trees. The floating figures were influenced by Marc Chagall.



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Zave Smith is a brand new Workbook Photographer. He just created his portfolio last week and saw positive results pretty quickly...

So you really landed a photo shoot within hours of setting up your portfolio?

My workbook.com portfolio became active at 7:00 p.m. last Tuesday, and at 9:30 I received an email inquiry from an ad agency in central New Jersey. The art buyer said she saw my portfolio and wanted to talk with me about shooting a series of portraits of their staff. This just happened last week so we are still working out the details on this assignment. Right after I received that inquiry, feeling very lucky, I drove over to the Chester Casino and put all of my savings on black. I really need that gig right now.

What are 5 words that sum up your style as a photographer?

My clients say they are attracted to my sense of color and my ability to create images that while usually highly produced, feel very authentic. Recently a producer I work with said to me, “Zave, your set is your playground and your camera is your toy”. My images tend to make people laugh, smile, or evoke a sense of humanity. Clients also appreciate how much joy we bring to their projects. We are often told that our shoots are the most smoothly run shoots they have ever been on.



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By Allison McCreery for POPfoto

Bill Cahill is an LA-based award-winning advertising photographer specializing in product and liquids. One of the sought-after masters of his craft, Bill is called to shoot splashes, pours, bottles and high-end tabletop and conceptual product for a client list that includes Coca Cola International, Sprite International, Campbell’s V8, Tervis, Murad Cosmetics, Belkin Electronics, Sonicare, Dove Dishsoap and Proctor and Gamble among others.





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By Allison McCreery

Caterina Bernardi is an award-winning San Francisco based advertising and editorial photographer. The driving forces behind her career are immense talent, a sophisticated eye for beauty, a uniquely passionate vision and a love for photography that has her chasing the light and remarkable settings and landscapes around the world so that we may share her inspiration in the pages of international magazines and in ad campaigns for some of today’s top brands. The passion for creating beautiful images is grounded in a capacity to live and see in such a way that the magic and the mundane co-exist and to transport viewers to this place with both her commercial and personal work.





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WB: I'm a genie and you've got three wishes. Go!


How did you get started using unconventional materials in your artwork?

Originally I started an art series of bean and noodle celebrity portraits. I wanted to take macaroni art to the next level. When I felt limited by the color palate, I started using candy and yarn. Then, I just started using anything and everything in my mosaics. Now I try to match the medium with the subject. Like Snoop Dogg out of Marijuana, Amy Winehouse out of pills, and Dog The Bounty Hunter out of dog food.

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Jacob Thomas' Workbook Portfolio

Joanie Bernstein : art rep

Workbook would like to welcome illustrator Scott Bakal to our site! Scott’s new portfolio can be found here: http://www.workbook.com/portfolios/bakal/ - with many more updates to come!

Scott has worked for loads of clients including The New York Times, The Washington Post, HarperOne, John Wiley & Sons, Wall Street Journal, Time Inc. and many others. He’s been recognized by all the major illustration competitions including the Society of Illustrators, SILA, 3x3, HOW International Design Competition, Spectrum, American Illustration, Creative Quarterly and Communication Arts and has received the honor of being published as one of the 200 Best Illustrators Worldwide by Luerzer’s Archive. He's also won a Silver Medal from the Society of Illustrators and Gold and Silvers from Creative Quarterly.

Recently, he was awarded the 3x3: Magazine of Contemporary Illustration’s Artist/Educator of the Year – the interview is posted below and on newsstands now, he’s featured in an article in CMYK Magazine #49

Tell us about your early schooling, did you always want to be an artist? Do you come from an artistic family?

I didn't come from an artistic family at all; no one really knows where 'the art thing' came from.

I went to elementary school in Connecticut then later when I was eleven in New York. My Mom saw that I loved to make pictures all the time and would bring home some paper from her data processing job so I had something to draw on. She recalls one of those parent-teacher nights when the art teacher asked if I had any art training.  She replied. “No.”  He then asked, “Then how does he know about light source and shading?”  To answer that nearly 30 years later, I guess I just was really good at observing things.

When I was around ten I took a course that lasted a couple of weeks with a local cartoonist—I’ve forgotten his name—and learned how to draw some of his cartoons. But I was already copying Beetle Bailey and the cartoons in Mad Magazine so while I was learning something, I wanted to go beyond what he was doing. Even so, I remember going to that class as one of the most enjoyable times in that part of my life.

When I had to start thinking about college, I thought about the usual jobs; doctor, lawyer, and plumber--I wasn’t interested in any of them. I purposely took English in summer school before my senior year so I could open up room for more art classes. Those classes gave me the courage to make the decision to go to art school.

Your parents seemed to have instilled a strong work-ethic, what was behind that?

That’s from my Mom. Raising three kids on her own was tough and since I was the oldest, I had to help keep the family functioning while my mother worked two jobs. I sort of became caretaker of my brother and sister making lunches and dinners sometimes. When I was able to get a job, I contributed money to the household to pay for food and even the mortgage. Our family had nothing so the only way to survive was to work hard and get things done.

Now that I am older, I work as hard as ever and enjoy it. Making art really isn’t a job to me anyway; it’s just what I do as part of my day-to-day life.



What were some of your early influences? Other artists you admired? That you admire today?

It all depends on the time frame. Before college I really had a limited knowledge about artists. The artists who did the Dungeons & Dragons hardcover game books made an impression and I started collecting Weird Wheels trading cards when I was ten. I had no idea who the artist was until about two years ago; it turned out to be Norman Saunders. And I remember being exposed to Matisse in high school.

You have to realize that I came from an environment where there wasn’t art in any form other than what popular culture was around me. I remember being embarrassed hanging out with my college friends who rattled off artists names I’d never heard of. It was the same for classical music, I maybe knew one of Beethoven’s symphonies but these guys knew so much more. I found myself constantly trying to keep up because they’d come from a home environment where they were exposed to so much more than I.

Now it is sort of an addiction, I‘m always searching for information about things that interest me: art, illustration, music.

What were your early impressions of illustration? Were there any particular artists who influenced your decision to become an illustrator?

I am not sure I really understood what it was to be an illustrator up until I actually started college. Going through my foundation year into my second year at SVA, I started learning the names of some illustrators but couldn’t identify their work.  Fortunately I’d get a copy of one of the Society of Illustrator annuals and could start connecting names with the work. Remember, this was pre-Google so it wasn’t as easy to find what someone’s work looked like. You really had to dig for the information.

The first illustrator I actually met in person was Lisa Desimini; she came to my sophomore class to give a demonstration. Her stories and description of her various projects confirmed that illustration was the right track for me. Years later I met her again along with her husband, illustrator Matt Mahurin, at a group show I was in and it reminded me how her talk had set me on my path.

I understand you applied at several art schools, what was your portfolio like back then?

I put together a twenty-two-piece portfolio to get into art school. I used the same portfolio to apply to the University of Hartford, Fashion Institute of Technology and School of Visual Arts. The first half of the portfolio was the basics: Rendering spheres and other 3-d shapes, figure drawings and still life drawings using different media--mostly pencil and charcoal. The second half was book covers, album covers and posters that I both designed and illustrated. As I mentioned earlier I didn’t realize just what an illustrator did so I applied as advertising major. Looking back it was much more of an illustrator-focused book, I just didn’t realize it.



Did you become an illustration major right away?

During the college application process the woman who reviewed my portfolio asked me if I’d rather be a painter or someone who worked in an office on advertising campaigns. Naturally, I chose the former so I became an illustration major.

Why did you end up at the School of Visual Arts instead?

The University of Hartford art school accepted me but the university didn’t because my SAT scores were dismal. They were afraid I couldn’t keep up with the academic part of the curriculum. I ended up taking the ACT, which schools also accepted and did pretty well on that one. The whole University of Hartford-thing was actually to placate my Mom who had plans on moving back to Connecticut.  But I really wanted to go to school in New York City.

I was accepted into both the FIT and SVA undergraduate programs. It was a no-brainer. I remember seeing bumper stickers that said: America’s Leading College of Art – School of Visual Arts. I bought into it and honestly, I still think it is one of the best art schools out there.

Not being a state school, SVA must have been expensive?

You’re right, thanks to loans, loans, loans I was able to get in. My mom took out parent loans herself and even my sister who was just starting working at the time sent me money to help pay for transportation and food when things got tough.

For the first year I ended up living at home in Long Island, working at two supermarkets and commuting into the city for school and doing a work/study thing at SVA a couple of days a week. My Mom moved back to Connecticut during my second year so I had to find a place--still out in Long Island and pay rent and all the things that comes with that.

Working in supermarkets did have its perks. I’d worked in the produce department since I was sixteen and it happened to be next to the meat department so not only did I have a steady income I also had a ready food supply as well. I’d like to personally thank those markets for unknowingly keeping me well-fed.

How did you get your first big break?

I’m not sure there’s such a thing as ‘big break’ in illustration. But getting my first paying job was pretty easy. About 3 months after graduating I sent out about 50-100 postcards and within a month I got a call back from ABA Banking Journal for two black and white spots; I look at that moment fondly even today. I got a few other jobs—I think I made somewhere around $1400 that first year out of school.  The following year I made over $4000. It kept going up from there with a few big dips especially around 2001.

Your work is mostly editorial, have you had any opportunity to work in advertising?

I’ve been focusing on editorial the last few years on purpose with a plan to move to other markets when I feel its right.  I did book jobs and advertising projects in the 90s and would certainly like to get back on those horses again.

How has your work progressed, how is today’s work different than when you were first starting out?

My work is much more personal now. The images and elements I make sometimes come from abstract thoughts or from the world around me just twisted slightly to work within my mindset. Starting out I had what I call it the ‘little guy on the globe’ way of thinking. I was too wrapped up in marketing and trying to tailor my work to the markets that left me feeling miserable about being an illustrator for a while.

Talk with us a bit about your process? What type of sketches do you provide the art director?

When doing a job, I don’t like being prompted by the art director initially but love input once things get rolling. The problem is that once a visual direction is implied, it pulls me away from exploring other ideas that may solve the problem better. It becomes problematic if I’m treated like a hired-hand.

After I read a manuscript, I think-- a lot--sometimes just in my head, sometimes on paper. I try to understand what I am illustrating by putting myself in the situation of the subjects in the article. And most often I’m trying to find the emotion behind it. The sketches I send art directors are usually nothing more than thumbnails. The art director and I have a dialog about the direction. Most times, they just pick one and I am on my way. I create a final sketch for myself in which I work out the proper composition and elements in the art. Then I go to final.

Someone recently posted an observation on Drawger about my work. He said that when he first sees my illustration, he feels what the article is about before he understands it. To me that’s okay, I know that sometimes people ‘get it’ right away and sometimes it takes time.

What do you think about the current state of illustration?

It depends on what you are talking about. Personally, I’ve done over 100 jobs this year and been part of a few good exhibitions so it’s going pretty good. If we’re talking about the illustration business as a whole, I think it has seen better times.

It’s a frustrating topic for me because I watch the industry lose control of itself more and more over the years. Contractual terms and stagnant fees are the biggest issues. The fact that artists take these sorts of jobs regularly just frustrates me more. I know we don’t live in an idealized world, people need to do what they need to do and we’re all independent contractors but artists should think carefully before they sign a contract and take a low fee offer. It sets precedents that are hard to retract.

The last thing I want to be is preachy or tell anyone what to do. I just sometimes think artists don’t really know how valuable they actually are in the industry and don’t treat themselves or their businesses as importantly as they should. I guess that’s why I focus on the new generation and trust that I can somehow help change the industry through them and get them to know their value as artists.  One can hope.



You’ve been in more gallery exhibits lately; do you approach your personal work differently than your commercial work?

It is different. When I do an assignment, there’s already an underlying idea embedded into it that I have to work off of to create an image. My gallery work is completely free of that. I just paint what I think is fun or if I have something to say, I’ll say it.

When do you find time for your gallery work?

I actually had to cancel some exhibitions because I ran out of time; even with an intern handling my busy-work I just couldn’t pump out enough art and deal with my regular life.

You recently moved from New York to Boston, what prompted that move? Have you gained more business by being in Boston, or lost business by not being in New York?

I moved to Boston because the Massachusetts College of Art and Design hired me as a full time professor and it’s been a great experience. I haven’t lost any business moving to Boston although I have lost my day-to-day connection with the city and state I love. It was a big decision that I didn’t take lightly but I needed a new adventure. Plus, even with all my successes my mother hasn’t really thought I had a real job for the last 18 years until this current teaching gig. I’ve got great health insurance now so she thinks I have a “real” job.

Have you ever had an artist representative? If so, why; if not, why not?

Yes, I’ve had two, both for one year. After about ten years of running the business myself I wanted to see if they could make me more money. I was disappointed that they didn't do much for me so I dropped them. I’m not against the idea of getting another rep but the arrangement would be much different. Since my work is mainly editorial now, I really don’t need an agent to get me that type of work. I just don’t understand the concept of giving someone 30% of a $1000 job that illustrators can get themselves.

When did you become a member of the Society of Illustrators? What prompted that decision?

I became a member in 2005 but have been going to various receptions and events there since 1993.

To me, the Society is the hub of contemporary illustration in the world and it is incredibly important. I can imagine a huge hole in the industry if the organization didn’t exist. It’s a big part of my life because of its wonderful history, the people I work with there and how the things I do as a volunteer and member can affect the illustration world in a positive way.

And you’re very active in the Society.

As soon as I was accepted, I joined the Student Scholarship Committee; a year later, I became its chair and still hold that title.

There is nothing more satisfying to me than standing on stage during the Student Scholarship Gala in May announcing which student won a $5,000 award. Then shake his or her hand and give them a check just because they made an amazing piece of art.  That check can change a student’s life.

I’ve also been on the Executive Committee since 2006 and currently I serve as the Board’s Treasurer.



Let’s talk about your experiences as a teacher, what do you feel the role is of an instructor?

I’d like to think that the role of an instructor (in part) is to incite learning, especially self-learning. It is one thing to walk into a classroom and ‘teach’ meaning talking about whatever subject is on the table and then leave the room.  To me that is talking at the students instead of talking with the students. In my classes I ask students questions to try to get them to think about what they are shooting for and why. Telling students what to do and how to do it is one thing, and viable but getting them to take that information and apply it to themselves is my goal.

Also I try to teach by example. I don’t claim to know everything about art or design and if I don’t know the answer to something, I don’t bullshit them. I say ‘let’s figure that out together’ and engage them and help them through solving the problem. What I teach, I do. I constantly bring in books, information and often tell horror stories or success stories about projects I’m doing. I’m pretty open about my feelings and opinions and try not to gloss things over. That’s real. That’s what the students deserve.

What is your advice to graduates entering the field today?

I think too often, new artists and illustrators don’t believe their value is as important as it actually is in popular culture. Far too often the illustrator is expected to take on low-paying jobs with the dream that ‘exposure’ will somehow make up the difference.

For example, the illustrator has been made to feel grateful for the opportunity to have their work printed on a box of tea and is expected to cower to the client’s terms and prices. What many illustrators don’t take into account is that their work is what helps promote, sell and increase profits for whatever is being sold. Whether it’s for billboards, book covers, newspapers, magazine covers, album covers, movies, animations or packaging, know your value in the market and never short change yourself and never have a client dictate how you run your business.

Final words to teachers?

More and more often I hear about programs and curriculum that seem to lose focus on the goal: to create excellent illustrators. Creating courses because they’re ‘fun’, fulfill the whims of faculty or the administration, or to make sure students have jobs when they graduate in a field that isn’t related to their major is a disservice to the student and the program. The heart of being an illustrator is a good drawing, thinking and picture-making ability. The students are there to become illustrators. Make them great illustrators.

Final words to practicing illustrators?

Know your worth.

And finally, what’s in your future, personally and professionally?

I have a bunch of projects in mind. I’ve been obsessing over the American Revolution lately, especially the years leading up to it. Since I live in Boston now where it all started there‘s a lot of that history around me. Maybe something will come from that. I just glued down pages from a 1959 German book on eight small canvases for an upcoming show in Los Angeles—I’m not sure where I am going with it but I am having fun exploring where it might go. Mostly, I just want to enjoy life and experience whatever I can. It’s a short life we have and there is a lot to fill it up with.

Interview by 3x3 Magazine

Chicago-based food photographer Jeff Kauck has been shooting food for more than twenty years. He has worked on 11 cookbooks, been nominated for a James Beard Award for the Spiaggia cookbook and just finished "Salad as a Meal" with Patricia Wells. We sat down with Jeff to talk about visiting Wells on her Provencal estate to shoot "Salad." We also talked about what food photo nerds can do to improve their own shots and how he's never seen a food stylist use hairspray or shaving cream to spruce up food. Plus, he gave us an early peek at some beautiful photos from the book, due to hit bookstores in April.

Chicagoist - So, you're shooting this cookbook for Patricia Wells, you're going to France, you're looking at food - how involved are you in the process? Are you standing back and taking pictures or are you interacting?

JK - It depends. I've done eleven cookbooks and they're all different. With Patricia, like most of the chefs, they have a list of recipes that they want shot. You walk through them each day, and then you look at plates and settings. It's very collaborative. Then you look at the location where you are going to shoot it, whether it be in the dining room or wherever it is. Generally speaking, when someone goes to pick a photographer (there are a million guys out there shooting cookbooks) they are looking for a particular style that they think is compatible with what the chef is looking for.

Chicagoist - What do you think is different about your photography?

JK - My background is very different. All of my training is as a watercolor painter. To the best of my knowledge, I don't know any other photographer like that - they all learn how to be photographers from photography school, whereas all of my training was from painting. Other than that, you develop a style that you become known for. Mine is clean and very fresh looking, so if a chef is looking for that, they call me.

Chicagoist - Do you do your own styling, or do you have a food stylist?

JK - I don't do any of the styling - either a stylist does it or the chef, or it could be somebody on the line. What's very common, as in the Spiaggia cookbook for Tony Mantuano, his cooks would send out the dish and the stylist would re-plate the dish to make it a little more artistic.

Chicagoist - As soon as we hear the words "food sylist," our heads are filled with visions of fake food and hairspray and shaving cream. Does that sort of thing really happen in high-end cookbooks?

JK - You know, I've gotta tell you (and you're going to say I'm lying) I've been doing this a long time and I've never seen that in any side of food photography! I think that is carryover from the 50s when the lights were so hot that they would literally bake the food. We shoot real food. There's no need to shoot artificial food - I've sure heard a lot about it over the years, but I've never done it.

Chicagoist - You've done a lot of work for commercial clients - even if you're shooting a product for Kraft, you still shoot just the product?

JK - When you are shooting food for a chef, for a cookbook, they want you to represent the dish. But they are the first to admit that they alter the recipes all the time based on the day, so there are some variations. When you are shooting for a large client, there is no variation and it has to be the same, either by weight or by volume or both, for legal reasons. Everything is on the up and up - real food, real ingredients.

If i were to go to sell my car right now, it's filthy and full of junk and covered with salt from the winter in Chicago. I can take that same car, empty all of my junk out of it, wash it and it looks brand spankin' new. Same exact car. That's what they do - they put their best foot forward, but it's entirely real.

Chicagoist - Everyone seems to have become obsessed with beautiful food photography in the last few years. But, I wonder if people have a problem with cookbooks. They see the beautiful photographs, and they make the recipe, but there isn't a connection - the book doesn't tell you how to make your food as beautiful as the photographers make it look.

JK - I think it's like a fashion magazine. They don't necessarily show you how to iron the skirt and do the hair, but they show you an example. What i'm told is that recipes that don't have a photograph are rarely made. If there's a photograph next to the recipe, people use it as inspiration. They can't get there, but they use it as inspiration to try to get close.

Chicagoist - With this latest cookbook for Patricia Wells, was there anything that was particularly different? An all-salad cookbook is different from being on the line at Spiaggia!

JK - Well, it was different in the sense that it was shot in Provence, at her estate. It's breathtaking. I can't tell you how much respect I have for Patricia Wells. She's a person from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, who is self made, and she is so good at what she does. Throughout history, the best painters in the world would try to get to Provence in the summer; Manet, Monet, all those guys. We were there at that time of the year, shooting, and it was amazing.

Chicagoist - Did you do any artificial lighting at all?

JK - I didn't even take any lights with me! Every time you turn around, there is better light. You just have to be aware and use it.

Chicagoist - Speaking as a profesional, what can you suggest we do to make our food photographs look less blurry and disgusting?

JK - First off, turn your strobe light off. It's an awful thing, turn it off. Then, put your food in open shadows or try to find light that's beautiful in the room where you are, and shoot that light. Don't cry to create anything better than nature, nature is the best of the best.

Chicagoist - You say no flashes, no lighting, so what sort of equipment is essential? Just get a decent camera and point it in the right direction?

JK - I think, honestly, the cameras today - there are no bad cameras. Compared to even five years ago, any camera in today's market will do a great food photograph, and I've seen breathtaking photographs of food taken with an iphone. The resolution is poor, so you can't do a lot with them, but they are stunning looking photographs.

Chicagoist - Did the subject matter (only vegetables and salads) change anything for you? Are the colors a challenge?

JK - Well, salads wilt fast, especially in the heat of the summer in Province, so you have to move quickly. Patricia has this vast garden, and she would go into the garden in the morning and pick everything that she was going to plate that day. So, you're talking stuff that's incredibly fresh. Patricia would bring me into the kitchen and tell me, "This is the dish, these are the components, where do you want to shoot it?" I would look around and pick a spot, and in a few minutes she would have the dish ready. So you have to have your camera ready to go and then the dish comes out, and you can play with it for five or ten minutes. After that, it doesn't look as good.

Chicagoist - How many shots to do you take to get a "real" one for the book?

JK - I still say, after a long time, that one out of ten is a great day, one out of twenty is a normal day.

Chicagoist - Is it all digital, or do you use film?

JK - I don't own any film cameras anymore, everything is digital.

Chicagoist - Do you do any touch-up editing?

JK - I don't do any photoshop retouching at all. I'm old school; I like to fix it before it goes through the camera. I use Lightroom to process the files, i shoot raw and then i process them as JPEGs for submission. Once the editors have selected the final collection, I process them all as 16 bit RGB, which is very high quality.

Jeff Kauck's Workbook Portfolio

Jeff's Website

John Burns lettered the Ruffles brand—not anything else on the package—just the brand. He also lettered “Sara Lee”, “Lay’s”, “Baby Ruth”, and “Intel Inside”. You know his work, so we thought you might like to know something about him and the way he works.

WRKBK: How would you describe your particular style as a lettering artist, and how has it changed over the years?

JB: I was trained as a graphic designer, so my approach to lettering has not been based on creating a style, but solving design problems. I’ve always worked in as wide a range of styles and techniques as possible—from loose, gestural, calligraphic mark-making, to very tight, typographic hand lettering. Through the years, I’ve gotten much freer with my calligraphy, and perhaps ironically, my attention to typographic detail has also increased. Or, more simply put, my range has become broader.

WRKBK: What inspired you to pursue a career in hand lettering?

JB: In second grade, my teacher asked me to letter a poster for the classroom. It took me all day, and I didn’t have to do any of the other work my classmates had to do. I was hooked. Later, when I started my lettering career, I realized that I had talent in this area, I loved the work, and there weren’t a ton of other people doing it. That sounded like a good combination to me.



WRKBK: Specifically, how did you get started and how did you land your first few lettering jobs?

JB: From an early age, I could draw well—especially portraits. In high school, I took a mechanical drawing class in which we had to draw technical shapes without the use of a compass, t-square, or triangles, so I developed an accurate and steady hand. I then went to Carnegie-Mellon University, majored in Graphic Design, and studied calligraphy and typography. By the time I did my first lettering project in college, I already had a good understanding of what letters should look like, and I had the technical drawing skills to pull it off.

After I got my degree, I veered off the graphic designer path, and worked as a professional actor (not all career paths are straight, you know). I toured with the musical “Godspell”, and appeared as a clown on “Mister Rogers Neighborhood”. Next came stints as a magazine art director, and an in-house graphic designer, where I designed brochures, mailers, and the like.

But, I found that lettering was my true passion. I built up a lettering portfolio, then mailed samples of my work to package design firms. If you think about the packages in grocery stores, how many of them use a standard typeface for their branding? Almost none, right? So, working in that industry has served me well. About 12 years ago, an artist rep friend of mine said that I needed to advertise in national publications like the Workbook. That was a good move for me because it got my work out to a larger audience.

WRKBK: How have you evolved as digital technology has become more essential?

JB: When I started in the field, all my lettering was done with pen and ink on board. When computers became the standard of the industry, it was clear that I needed to learn the new technology. At first, I was worried that computers would take over my business. But I soon learned that my job was to create letterforms that didn’t already exist, and the computer was simply a tool to accomplish that. I have lost some jobs to the proliferation of calligraphic fonts available these days, but a new, unexpected part of my business has evolved—that of refinement. Art directors will start with an existing font, then they’ll hire me to add personality and refinement. Clients like their graphic identity to be unique. Creating those proprietary identities has become a specialty of mine.

WRKBK: Do you enjoy the creation process more or less as result of technology's increased role?

JB: Interestingly, the creative process has remained basically the same. I still do all my sketches and preliminary studies on a drawing board. The big change is that when I do typographic lettering, I now do my final art using the pen tool in Illustrator. It’s faster and easier than the old pen-and-ink-on-paper days, and it makes changes a whole lot easier. So, I enjoy it much more.



WRKBK: What is the most challenging aspect of your job today?

JB: Drumming up new work. I’m fortunate that I’ve worked in the field for many years, and I get most of my work from repeat clients. I really value those art directors, and I work hard to maintain good working relationships by doing strong work in a timely fashion. But getting work from new clients is extremely valuable for the health of my business.

WRKBK: How has the recession effected your job, and have you adjusted your marketing efforts?

JB: My business has mirrored the economy. But of late, I’ve been very busy, and hope that that will continue. For marketing, I’ve stayed with my commitment to having a page in the Workbook. In addition, I send out a monthly Constant Contact email of a case study, to art directors I work with. I want to keep my name in front of them on a frequent basis, and show them my most recent work. Some art directors use me for only one type of work, and I like them to know about the full range of my abilities.

WRKBK: How do you protect your work from infringement, copycats, etc?

JB: My clients register the trademarks for the commissioned lettering I do for them. And to my knowledge, there has been no infringement. And I don’t worry about copycats.

WRKBK: As far as the hand lettering community, do you consider yourself to be part of a close-knit community where there is a lot of comradery, or are there a lot of rivalries due to competition for projects and jobs?

JB: The calligraphy community is very close-knit, especially in the San Francisco area, where I used to live. I count many of the professional calligraphers as close friends, even though we may be competing for some of the same projects. Conversely, I’ve met very few other hand letterers, so I’m free to simply admire their work from afar.

WRKBK: What has been your most positive and rewarding experience?

JB: I used to teach lettering at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. One day a former student came back to visit me, and said, “Darn you, John Burns, I can’t go by a billboard and not be upset by bad letterspacing!” I had done my job.

John Burns lives and works on the Big Island of Hawaii. You can see his work at: www.johnburnsworkbook.com

www.johnburnslettering.com

You can see case studies of his work at:

http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs042/1102000766072/archive/1103388152769.html