Max · Where did you study? How Long have you been in the biz?
Mark · I went to college at UC Santa Cruz, a public university about 75 miles south of San Francisco. They have a good design program, but it never even occurred to me to take a course. I graduated with a degree in Sociology.
My father was a Professor of Computer Science, so I had grown up with all sorts of computers, early modems, etc around the house from an early age, and I pretty much dismissed all of it. There was the fun novelty of sending an international email that would take about 8 hours to arrive, but it really held little interest for me. Still, even though I wasn't always paying attention, I guess some of that early computing knowledge stuck with me.
In college, the club/rave scene began really picking up in the U.S., and I got together with a few partners to stage some events. As I became immersed in that scene, I started noticing this whole world of club flyers and graphics that hadn't really been around before. At the same time, Raygun and a lot of the 4AD artwork was coming out. I already had a Mac, along with a few basic design applications. I went out and got books by David Carson and Neville Brody, and literally copied their designs to learn how they had done what they did.
As I started understanding the tools a bit better, I went back to school to the Multimedia program at San Francisco State. I took about a year's worth of classes there, enough to make me feel comfortable working on both print and web projects, and then started working professionally as a graphic designer at c|net — that was around 9 years ago. Actually, the first Plinko site was just done in order to get hired as a designer somewhere.
My first design job was at c|net, where I stayed for about a year. I truly did learn more there in the first 2 weeks than my entire stint at San Francisco State. It was a really vibrant, exciting place at the time, and my first boss was a former art director at the New York Times. I was lucky enough to pick up a lot of the education I'd missed from not going to a proper art/design school from her. Once she left c|net, I quit within a month or so. Soon after, I convinced my then-girlfriend Irene Ng to quit her design job and join forces as Plinko. That was back in 1997, and we eventually got married in 2002.
Max · What kind of artist/designer would you call yourself?
Mark · As much as I'd love to be called an artist, I definitely lean more towards the designer side. We did recently have our first gallery "show"-- it was 50% prints, and 50% photography, so I'd like to step out in that direction more.
I'd like to think of ourselves as versatile. There's amazing designers who I really admire that put their stamp on everything, but we've never really been about that. Some people have said there's a "Plinko look" but I don't really see it. I get quite bored rather easily, so trying out new styles and strategies is the best way for me to keep things interesting. Plus, we're always working with different clients, and I don't want them to feel as though we're bullying them into making their project look a certain way.
Max · What kind of projects interest you the most?
Mark · Honestly, I would probably give a different answer next week, because these things just change so quickly. At the moment, I'm really enjoying working on projects where there's an element of humor. Something where either the client gives us the freedom to make it funny, which I think is a real rarity these days. People are so concerned with needing it to either be "cool" or "important", and I don't think either of those leave much room for humor.
The most obvious example of our current projects has been designing the "Haggis-On-Whey World of Unbelievable Brilliance" books, where we get to create page after page of really graphically stylized work that's just absurd.
On the Web side, I've become really revitalized over the past year as the promise of convergence really seems to be happening. There's just so many nifty Web apps and sites popping up all over the place. I think it's an incredibly exciting time to be a designer.
LINKS
www.plinko.com
BOOK
Rethink Redesign Reconstruct
Mark · I went to college at UC Santa Cruz, a public university about 75 miles south of San Francisco. They have a good design program, but it never even occurred to me to take a course. I graduated with a degree in Sociology.
My father was a Professor of Computer Science, so I had grown up with all sorts of computers, early modems, etc around the house from an early age, and I pretty much dismissed all of it. There was the fun novelty of sending an international email that would take about 8 hours to arrive, but it really held little interest for me. Still, even though I wasn't always paying attention, I guess some of that early computing knowledge stuck with me.
In college, the club/rave scene began really picking up in the U.S., and I got together with a few partners to stage some events. As I became immersed in that scene, I started noticing this whole world of club flyers and graphics that hadn't really been around before. At the same time, Raygun and a lot of the 4AD artwork was coming out. I already had a Mac, along with a few basic design applications. I went out and got books by David Carson and Neville Brody, and literally copied their designs to learn how they had done what they did.
As I started understanding the tools a bit better, I went back to school to the Multimedia program at San Francisco State. I took about a year's worth of classes there, enough to make me feel comfortable working on both print and web projects, and then started working professionally as a graphic designer at c|net — that was around 9 years ago. Actually, the first Plinko site was just done in order to get hired as a designer somewhere.
My first design job was at c|net, where I stayed for about a year. I truly did learn more there in the first 2 weeks than my entire stint at San Francisco State. It was a really vibrant, exciting place at the time, and my first boss was a former art director at the New York Times. I was lucky enough to pick up a lot of the education I'd missed from not going to a proper art/design school from her. Once she left c|net, I quit within a month or so. Soon after, I convinced my then-girlfriend Irene Ng to quit her design job and join forces as Plinko. That was back in 1997, and we eventually got married in 2002.
Max · What kind of artist/designer would you call yourself?
Mark · As much as I'd love to be called an artist, I definitely lean more towards the designer side. We did recently have our first gallery "show"-- it was 50% prints, and 50% photography, so I'd like to step out in that direction more.
I'd like to think of ourselves as versatile. There's amazing designers who I really admire that put their stamp on everything, but we've never really been about that. Some people have said there's a "Plinko look" but I don't really see it. I get quite bored rather easily, so trying out new styles and strategies is the best way for me to keep things interesting. Plus, we're always working with different clients, and I don't want them to feel as though we're bullying them into making their project look a certain way.
Max · What kind of projects interest you the most?
Mark · Honestly, I would probably give a different answer next week, because these things just change so quickly. At the moment, I'm really enjoying working on projects where there's an element of humor. Something where either the client gives us the freedom to make it funny, which I think is a real rarity these days. People are so concerned with needing it to either be "cool" or "important", and I don't think either of those leave much room for humor.
The most obvious example of our current projects has been designing the "Haggis-On-Whey World of Unbelievable Brilliance" books, where we get to create page after page of really graphically stylized work that's just absurd.
On the Web side, I've become really revitalized over the past year as the promise of convergence really seems to be happening. There's just so many nifty Web apps and sites popping up all over the place. I think it's an incredibly exciting time to be a designer.
LINKS
www.plinko.com
BOOK
Rethink Redesign Reconstruct
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