[This Treehouse Friend's interview contains explicit language. Viewer discretion advised.]

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[Treehouse Friends]

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Here we are at the 4th annual In Control Conference in Orlando, Florida.

I am myself Mat Helme. I'm joined by

Aaron Draplin, and we're here to talk about some design.

How you doing, Aaron?

>>It's cool, man, it's under 70 degrees.

This is a dangerous climate for a man-mountain like myself to come down to.

>>'Cause you're coming from Portland, correct?

>>Yeah, Portland, Oregon. So I mean, coming down here, anything below that—

it's just tricky.

I have like February cutoffs and stuff for—

[laughter] Yeah, you know. I went to Austin in March one time,

never again. Never again.

>>So for those who don't know who Aaron Draplin is,

can you explain or describe yourself and what you do?

>>Sure, I know, like it's going to sound cooler than it is or something,

but I make logos, you know, I work for myself.

I'm 39 years old, I'm from Michigan, but I live out in Portland, Oregon,

and I work on—cut my teeth on—snowboarding brands,

and still do, and then I transitioned over into a lot of identity work.

And then, rolling the dice, I'm making—

I have a little memo-book company called Field Notes,

I work with Jim Coudal and a bunch of people way smarter than me

up in Chicago, and we make Field Notes memo books,

and all sorts of other crusty little pursuits—

posters, bad hats, as much as I can do to get away with it.

I don't like to wear pants, right?

So, the metaphor is that in my shop, you can come there and be comfortable

at all times. Clients, all of them, you know. And sure, I'm appropriate,

but it's more this bigger idea of like—Can you work and get away with it

and keep it kind of cool?

And I've been able to do it for over a decade.

That's it, yeah.

>>So how did you get started in design?

>>I come from a family that's pretty creative.

My dad, he sold tools all his life, but he was kind of a wood worker

and worked around the house on all kinds of cool projects—

Just a creative guy in his own right. My mom, too.

Basket weaving or whatever she was working on,

there's all sorts of things over our childhood.

But instead of video games when we were kids, we had LEGOs,

and we had colored pencil sets, lots of sketchpads and stuff.

Drawing—all my life I've been drawing.

So out of high school, you have to go pick some shit. Based on height, weight—

I'm going to be, what, a plumber or something, whatever—

[both laugh], based on IQ—

I knew I wanted to go into art, but I also knew I didn't

want to go into some sort of weird,

sort of heartbreak-illusion fine art world.

So, when you got a little deeper into what visual communications sort of was,

there was a trade quality to it that made sense.

Also, 19 is really where I learned how to use a computer.

I was on the cusp of this world—this industry behind me,

1 day behind where I came in,

1 horsehair brush to make a logo.

So I got to see a pretty distant, you know, like, oh man,

this technology coming in now is changing everything.

So I have a pretty big appreciation for basically all the people that lost a job.

And I've always kind of remembered that, so every little job I've had

in design, it's been a weird step to see how to use the tools as simple as possible.

You see what I'm saying? >>Uh-huh. [nods affirmatively]

>>To answer your question, that would have been 1993.

>>That's how you got started?

>>I mean, yeah, that's it, I mean it was like,

to go start getting jobs, I didn't really get a job for about 8 or 9 years.

I went snowboarding with my buddies first.

I went and worked in Alaska.

I had a job at a newspaper doing PageMaker.

It was a trade.

I mean, I wouldn't even call it a design job.

I loved it for that, you know.

So to go back to school to learn about, that there's this really finite

different focus set of directions that you can go in with this stuff,

making it, you know, publication design, or crazy crazy skittery scad—

this is the late 90s, you know—movie title design,

or whatever the hell people were doing back then.

You know, I picked print and logos, and function over fashion.

And, you know, got my 1st job when I was about 27, and have not looked back.

>>And what was your 1st job, your 1st gig, and how did you do that?

>>Well, there's degrees to it; my 1st job was sort of like

not having to dig a ditch.

My 1st job where it was a job I completely loved was for Showboarder Magazine.

I worked with a great group of guys, and I was an art director.

The title was—I was like the maker.

I just made all the pages. I did the art.

But then I got my 1st studio job, was with Cinco Design Office.

You know, they rolled the dice on me, and it was—

You see what I'm saying, there's different degrees.

Each one was a triumph for me, personally, but then—

My 1st studio gig—Each one of them I did long enough to realize

I want to go see what's next.

But when you get to the coolest one, Cinco, can I just go make it on my own?

So 2004—I've been on my own viciously since.

And I'm never going back.

>>So you loved freelance, and—>>funlance.

>>Funlance, there we go.

>>How about this? Just being open to like, kind of whatever, you know?

Big jobs, little jobs, ugly jobs, tough jobs, great kickass big loot jobs.

I'm kind of open to all of it, and, oddly enough,

if the guy doesn't have any money, I do a lot of those, too.

Where someone just needs help.

A friend or a colleague or somebody who's starting something cool,

I do a lot of that stuff, because there's just a beauty to

making someone look a little bigger than they are.

Or giving them a fighting chance with a good idea.

There's something subversive about that that I get off on.

Because that's what we did with Skateboard, and then Snowboard.

We made our own brands.

If it's not out there, you go invent it, and, man, I'm so thankful for that.

When people come to me, and we're working on something, I'm not really—

Sure, the loot's got to be right, If they're even in that category.

But changes, extra revisions—I'm not one to get too bummed out about that.

In the end, it's not digging ditches.

I did that. It sucks. I'm never going to—You know what I mean?

If I boil the shit down, it is such—It's such a laugh track.

I did this talk like 42 times last year.

I've got 25 gigs just up until June this year; we're in February.

And I'm going to go anywhere they'll have me

and just tell the kid small is okay.

Bigger—We're all gunning for the big job.

But why? So you can work more, so you make some principal a bunch of cash?

I don't even know if they've been in situations to understand what I'm even talking about.

You know what I mean?

Every dollar I make, they are from my hands

It might not be as cool as what—big shoe company,or fashion or some shit,

but it's my buddies sometimes.

Or it's some guy that just didn't have any sort of idea what he was doing,

and I could go in and not make him something that he couldn't manage,

just make it what was appropriate for his problem.

That's good design, too.

I get talking, man, I warned you.

>>You're passionate. >>Should I be interviewing you?

Where are you from? >>I'm from upstate New York.

>>Really? Whereabouts? >>Near Albany. Cobleskill, very small—

>>God, if you're here, who's guarding the town?

>>Uh, I got a brother.

[laughter] >>I'm going to go speak in Albany in the fall.

It's going to be great.

>>But I completely relate, because I'm coming from the same atmosphere,

and I think my 1st job was pulling weeds out of a field when I was 13.

So I know bad jobs.

[laughter] >>Or just how about, I don't know, there's just a bigger elephant in the room of

listen, listen, these things cost money to go to.

And that's cool. It's fun, everyone go to them. They're cool, it's fun to go see the shit and

get a goody bag and hang out, and you'll learn a ton of stuff.

But this idea of a kid getting right out of high school and then right into college

and right into a job, and I meet a lot of people who are sort of empty.

It's not about the money they're making; they want more creative control,

and stuff—I just haven't been able to indulge in that stuff.

Every stupid little job—pizza, chairlifts, whatever—

We were creative how we tackled it.

You learned to hate your boss, very creatively, in some shitty situations.

But you make it fun. We knew it was a stepping stone.

Now I meet these kids, you know, whatever—

I'm 39, I still feel like a kid.

But now I have to remind them, are you shitting me?

You're complaining, because—First, we get to work on nice computers,

you're clean, you're dry, you make a ton of cash, or enough,

and I think they might go back to their job and

look at it a little differently Monday morning.

I just have a lot of perspective.

Every job, I—Nothing ever feels like creative control or really bump someone out of—

Someone says, you know, well shit, we didn't like anything you showed us.

Well, okay, we go back to the drawing board.

I do it so much, I'm not afraid of that.

Sometimes I strike out, you know what I mean? You got to just keep fighting.

>>Now when you present projects to clients, is it usually face to face?

Is it usually through email?

>>Oh, man, it used to be buddies in the chairlift

would come down to Portland, and we would cage match in my basement.

So every little piece that we were, let's just say, allowed to make was a triumph.

It never felt like you're having to, like—You get to make it.

You would get to make this napkin. We get to,

it's just a napkin, who cares about the napkin? Who cares about the tag?

But we would take each one of those as a little opportunity to do something great.

When you have nothing, all of it tastes good, every little piece.

Now, all these years later, I can handle the guy on the phone

at Big Company X, no problem.

I'm a nice guy on the phone, I'll watch my language, I'll dot my i's on my emails,

I'll sign all the paper work professionally, all that kind of shit.

As much as the kid will just show up in my shop, I'm kind of up for whatever.

But strategically, I kind of like that no one's in the shop.

And I'm presenting to someone via PDF,

which is just—you know, the shit looks so good.

You kind of get drunk on a nice form on a nice big wash of white.

So I always try to make a little dirty element

and pound it into some concrete, pound it into some wood,

put it on a little embroidery or something—

Show some real context to these things I make, because

there's an asterisk that comes with every little round.

Let me talk to you first before you go and not quite get this thing or

miss the context or something.

So they're not in the shop, that's this new paradigm.

I don't have to live in Portland, I could live in the woods maybe

and still do this stuff, so I don't know.

When they're in town, they come in, I talk so much, as I'm doing right now.

It's fun. I loosen them way up, so they can just enjoy it.

It's logo, it should be really fun.

>>It seems like you design and thrive off passion for design,

and a lot of yourself goes into these pieces.

So I can completely understand how you're saying—

>>I meet enough guys who don't like their job.

They don't want to work.

I like it. It's hard for me to really—Much to the dismay of

family, girlfriends, friends, whatever—

Girlfriends, that sounds horrible.

My better half—there. You got 9 or something, you know, whatever.

Cut all that shit out—[laughter]

But just, much to the dismay of people around you, I can't

really deduct work from just enjoying it.

I worked last night until 2 in the morning in the room, and

there's nothing romantic about that.

I could go out and—what do people do, dancing and shit?

We're in Orlando, what do you do? You go out and have a nice meal,

maybe you take photos of coffee with your phone,

stupid things that stupid people do.

I can't—it's all a big game of just like getting away with it.

I have a hard time, I hear these guys wish more, whatever—

professionals aping their job.

Man, you're so lucky to do that.

That's their deal, you know. I know what I've got, I know what I could go grab,

and I keep it sort of—I bite off way more than I can chew.

But it's never too much—you know what I'm saying? I just have to work late.

>>Do you find yourself forming a process to creating these logos?

Do you do anything to maybe keep everything fresh?

>>Yeah, yeah. Sorry, I'm digging around at the sound guy back there,

losing it, but—there's an unsolicited advertisement.

You talk about this with your friends?

Come on—[laughter]—put that in there.

I'm working on things I don't know if I even want to show you.

>>We just won't show them. >>Well, you know, it's the idea of

I'm working on logos at all times, some goofy idea.

I'm always sketching, so the process might be—

I actually like plane rides now.

I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm a man of size.

I fall through the cracks, sure.

The plane, it's just packed in there, but I have 5 hours or 4 hours

to chip away at email, draw, sketch, make lists, analog shit in here.

And I've learned to use that really, really well.

I feel bad when I watch a movie on there.

When I get back to my machine, I've got stuff to go start building on.

I can sit down and just start vector, too, but that's not usually the best.

I invent things a little better than I would on paper starting

or just looking at other things—I mean, it's like if someone comes to me

and they have this little company X, as part of process, I do my research.

I say, "What do you want to be?

"What could you be? And what do all the other turkeys

"that you're going up against look like?

"Great, that's what you're going up against. What do you want to aspire to be?

Who makes the big bucks but looks like shit? Let's go look at them, too."

And we look at all that stuff, and that just gives me better targeting.

I'm bearing down on all that stuff.

Sometimes the funnest part should be actually making the things, but

I think it's this weird sense of like way-finding.

To say, okay, these little pieces of vocabulary now are fair game,

are strategically—they didn't use orange anywhere else in this.

Let's use some orange—or whatever that would be.

Sometimes it's really arbitrary.

I'd like to say it's some scientific 47-point plan or some shit,

but it's nasty. [laughter] And it can come to you at any time of day.

So I keep this really close to me. >>Do you find it coming to you a lot subconsciously?

>>Well, okay, this is going to sound—Put on your surreal filter.

This is going to sound weird, but—not that all this other shit sounded proper—

I dream logos.

I've sold a couple. In my brain, you're sleeping.

Great mysteries of the cosmos, and you fall off into this dead sleep,

and I wake up and I design something in my sleep.

Now get it on paper, and then oftentimes it's out there.

But I've sold a couple of those.

Where does that shit come from? So that is some subconscious shit.

I don't think dreams are as magical as people trump them up to be, but

that's been a great little one in the quiver.

That's a real kick in the ass, you know what I'm saying?

You work all day,—Or I've toiled over shit in a dream.

Like reworked something in a dream, you know like you do that, repetitive—

It's a nightmare at that point.

I'm kind of open to all of it. What I'm not open to is sitting down at 9:01

and leaving at 4:59.

I can do it creatively, sure.

But I'll play my guitars, look at records, look at bullshit, read blogs,

look at things, and start my job at 3 o'clock.

And then do 2 hours of the most concentrated nectar you've ever—

I just turn everything off, all the phones off, and piss my girlfriend off—

I was really working, and in that little hour or 2 hours,

I solve it all.

That might happen sometimes at 4 in the morning.

So bad, so bad for your body and shit, but I love that, too.

>>It's good design. >>That doesn't happen to insurance salesmen.

Maybe it does, I don't know. [laughter] >>It might.

>>Or web coders.

We'll have a little fun with these guys.

>>If you were to give any bit of advice or the best advice to someone just

starting out in the design industry—

>>Keep it fun. >>What would that be? >>Keep it fun.

You're lucky to do it.

Before I had to sweat figuring out how to make a payment with this stuff,

I loved it because it was just like—it was a hobby before it became

a fight. So the heartbreak one experiences when they get a big old

paycheck for 3,000 bucks, Uncle Sam takes a check, you have to pay some

stupid rent, this, that, you know, and you've got 47 bucks left over

to pay for your life, right?

That's some character-building shit.

That was a little less for me, because I kind of look at it as

I've got 47 bucks to do something awesome, right?

I still do. Get a book to design. Because I've worked other stuff always

kind of waiting.

Okay, we're going to do this winter pushing chairs, because that's going to get me

a free pass.

And we're going to go west in a year or something.

We have to work all summer long to save that money, and then

when you get there, it's like this idea of being cognizant of the moment.

I'm a grass-is-greener kind of guy,

but I also know how to stop myself and take a note

and really think about that time and—

Advice: Enjoy that shit while it's going down.

Enjoy the ugly, you know, and

don't let it become a job.

It's going to, it's going to.

As my dad used to say, put shit on you.

It's a stupid thing, but it makes it rough for you, it gives you a hard time.

Part of this position that you're in is being graceful with that.

Being able to—water off a duck's ass—technical term.

Let it bounce off. Whatever. Chances are they got some title because they're

lying, cheating, and stealing to get to that point.

It'll catch up with them.

I see young kids wanting the big job, but big isn't always best.

I'm giving out a lot of little pointers—I'm just trying to think of my day.

When we're done, I'm going to go back up and work.

The things that I savor are the phone calls with my buddies,

because they're my friends. Do I want to be on the phone

splitting hairs over some ad? Hell, no.

But that's the currency of their life, and in a lot of respects mine, too.

But I'm sort of thankful it's them.

When I have to get on the phone with some professional, I'm cool with it, too.

I'm just a little different.

>>Well, I thank you, for the great insight.

>>Do something nice with it.

Say nice things about me, you guys.

Cool logo, by the way.

>>How can we follow you?

You're on Twitter and Instagram?

>>I'm on the Internet. I'm draplin.com.

I got a cousin of mine every now and again who calls me and says,

"Hey, I think it's time that I got draplin.com for a while."

[laughter] I'm on Twitter as draplin.

I think I have Facewiz—Don't go to Facebook, it's just sick of all that shit, but

come to the site, it's daily, sort of.

It's all free rad content. I number my tweets,

because every tweet means something.

And I'm real tired of having to read about coffee.

And parting your hair, and shit that says LOL or fart,

or whatever serious shit you guys are tweeting.

So I number my tweets, and you won't get any tweets about sports

and that kind of shit on the Draplin feed.

A little something, but— >>Cool. Thank you, I appreciate it.

>>Thank you guys. I was going to go in for a kiss! Shit!

Did anyone die behind us?

[laughter] That was another—

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