FEATURE | INSPIRATION: THE CREATIVE PROCESS AT WORK
Jennifer Morla
President/Creative Director
Morla Design
San Francisco CA
Morla Design has created images for some of the country's largest brands. Besides Nordstrom and Discovery Channel's retail stores, the firm built the look for Levi's Original Spin. They also designed a signature line of upholstery and panel fabrics for Luna Textiles, collaborated with Razorfish on a web site that explores the nature of communication, and produced the 2000 Annual Report for the San Francisco International Airport. This eclectic body of work raises some fascinating questions about where the firm's chief creator, Jennifer Morla, turns for inspiration. Also a mother, painter, sculptor and graphic design teacher, Morla easily finds enrichment in every role she plays.
Even before she gets into the office at about 11:00 a.m., Morla's morning consists of "rituals" that are subtle, yet important sources of inspiration. Among these is getting her two girls off to school. Their "take on a situation," she explains, enhances every aspect of her life. Then, over a double latte, Morla reads The New York Times from cover to cover, a practice that she says gives her understanding of the larger world and how society relates to design and vice versa. "Something can come from this daily knowledge ritual that enhances a project I'm working on," she explains.
Also a fan of literature, Morla sometimes finds inspiration in the pages of a novel. "I'm thinking, hmm, that's a very interesting premise here, and I take that premise and bring it into this annual report I'm working on." Reading, especially fiction, effectively takes her mind off work, family, all of the demands of her life. She explains, "You're engaging in the scenario that the author is putting forth and it's a wonderful way of getting lost. I think we all need some activities that are active, but in a way are cleansing, too."
Painting is another of Morla's personal pursuits, and one that has a more tangible influence on her work. Morla maintains that these large-scale encaustic (oil on wax on canvas) paintings inspire her fabric design, and in fact have influenced a collection of rugs she's now designing for Elfin: "I could be using spirally type motifs and although they're not literally translated, that sort of aesthetic gets metamorphosed into other aspects of what I do."
Inspiration also comes from working with students at the California College for Arts and Crafts, where Morla teaches a senior graphic design class. "It's completely invigorating and inspiring," she explains. "I get many students who take a fresh approach because they don't have a history, like perhaps I do, and so they see things in a new light."
Yet despite more than 15 years as a graphic designer, Morla can summon a fresh approach every time she begins the process of working on a new project. While others might spurn meetings as a barrier to creativity, Morla finds inspiration in these interactions with her clients. "We just let our minds sort of pick up on all the possibilities of the potential for how this project could manifest itself; it's extremely exciting," she explains. For this reason, one of the biggest barriers to creativity for Morla occurs when clients cancel meetings at a point where she's ready to share ideas. "This is just one of the pragmatic things that gets in the way of creative," she muses.
DISCOVERY CHANNEL STORE PACKAGING
The Discovery Channel called upon Morla Design to create their total brand identity and packaging
systems for implementation throughout their various retail stores. The project scope encompassed
shopping bags, gift boxes and product packaging. Surface graphics include geometric spiral
illustrations that layer and move to create moiré patterns and reinforce the Discovery
theme. This piece is part of the permanent collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Client: The Discovery Channel
Art Director: Jennifer Morla
Designer: Jennifer Morla, Angela Williams, Yoram Wolberger
THE MEXICAN MUSEUM 20TH ANNIVERSARY POSTER
Morla Design created the Mexican Museum 20th Anniversary Poster to commemorate the Museum's
commitment to the collection and exhibition of Pre-Colombian, Colonial and Contemporary Mexican
art. The benday portrait of Frida Kahlo and the quintessential image of Our Lady of Guadalupe combined
with lotteria imagery, vivid color and 19th century Mexican wood block type, celebrate Mexican culture
and the Museum's anniversary. This piece is part of the permanent collection of the San Francisco
Museum of Modern Art.
Client: Mexican Museum
Art Director: Jennifer Morla
Designer: Jennifer Morla, Craig Bailey
Photography: Courtesy International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House
SAN FRANCISCO INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT 2000 ANNUAL REPORT
The San Francisco International Airport 2000 Annual Report commemorates the opening of the new
International terminal. Morla Design documented a visual history of airport construction milestones
over the past eight years. The "pocketbook" size format (5"x 6") is a compendium
of site photos, art installations, icons, and graphs which highlight the building's progress and completion.
Client: San Francisco Airport Commission
Art Director: Jennifer Morla
Designer: Jennifer Morla, Hizam Haron
Photographer: Richard Barnes, Fred Cramer, Thomas Heinser, Daniel Stachurski, and others
THE CCAC INSTITUTE: POSTERS (FABRICE HYBERT)
Morla Design created a series of announcements for The CCAC Institute, one of San Francisco's newest experimental
art venues. Working with extreme budget constraints, each poster incorporates letters from each show's title to create
dynamic graphics that give the shows their own unique visual voice. Applied as barricade posters, they create a
dynamic presence when used in multiplicity. The experimental typographic vocabulary reflects the nature of the
art shown and creates a recognizable identity for The CCAC Institute.
Client: California College for Arts and Crafts
Art Director: Jennifer Morla
Designer: Jennifer Morla, Sara Schneider
David Vogler
Creative Director
Mutation Labs
New York NY and Santa Monica CA
What gets in the way of creativity for David Vogler? Self-imposed deadlines, he says. The kind where "you put a gun against your head and force yourself to think up an idea, which is almost always the recipe for not coming up with an idea." The stresses of his surrounding environment don't bother Vogler, though. The chief creative officer of Mutation Labs thrives on the cacophony of information and stimulation that surrounds him in New York City. A software and content development studio that strives to blend the disciplines of good design with design for software, Mutation Labs serves clients like New York Times Digital, Nickelodeon (nick.com and nickjr.com), and the Walt Disney Company, as well as developing their own products like TheManShow.com, the satiric and slightly raunchy popular web counterpart to The Man Show on Comedy Central. The studio also has an office in Santa Monica and Vogler travels to the West Coast monthly, but his primary inspiration, he says, comes from living and working in New York City.
"When you're living in New York, you're assaulted on every level," he explains. "The sights, the smells, the sounds, what's in the air, that whole combination can't help but keep you on your toes. It's not for everybody, but you never fall asleep at the wheel living this kind of lifestyle in the middle of a circus."
When Vogler has a design or creative problem, he often finds himself processing it in the back of his mind while traveling to work by bike or by foot, completely awash in the sensations of the city. "Whether it be typography on a terrible bus ad or graffiti that some kid has spray painted on a sidewalk, or the sound of a radio station in a car whipping by, the serendipity is just washing over you whether you like it or not," he relates. "It's about opening up your eyes and ears and accepting all sorts of streams of influence."
He relishes these experiences and actually adds to these data streams a host of newspapers like The New York Times and New York Post, and web sites like news.com, which he devours throughout the day in an almost ritualistic manner. A self-described media glutton, he also "admits" to listening to Howard Stern on the radio every morning. Not only does Stern cover the headlines of the day, but delivers a dose of what Vogler calls "instant gratification pop culture." "Kid culture" as he refers to it, is a critical source of inspiration for his work because so much of it is produced for the youth market.
"It's really pop culture that fuels and inspires me," he explains, "and I'm much more juiced up by what's happening on the streets than in a stuffy museum." For that reason, he says he rarely takes advantage of New York's museums, and his appreciation for the arts leans more in the direction of seeing a good movie — Chocolat was his recent favorite — and watching The Sopranos on HBO. Like Morla, Vogler freely admits that he occasionally needs an outlet that entertains his mind without asking anything in return.
"The highlight of my wretched 100-hour work week existence is when, every Sunday night, I come home and order some Chinese take-out, lock the door, take the phone off the hook, isolate myself and watch The Sopranos," he says.
Another critical source of inspiration, for Vogler, is his ability to tap into the kid within himself. "People have told me that I'm like Tom Hanks in Big," he laughs. "But that little David from 30 years ago is still there and is my muse and guide for all the things I do. This has helped me a great deal in coming up with design solutions and product ideas for companies like Nick and Disney."
DISNEY'S DAILY BLAST
The first subscription entertainment web site for kids, The Blast combined classic Disney content
with fresh, edgy original entertainment. This site was the industry's first major web product to be
created with the Flash authoring tool. The Disney Blast was a grand prize winner at the 1997
Macromedia Users Conference.
Client: The Walt Disney Company
Creative Director: David Vogler
Art Director: David Vogler, Kayvan Sotoodeh
Copywriter: Tricia Nelson
THEMANSHOW.COM
"Juggy Girls on trampolines, time to loosen those blue jeans . . . it's The Man Show!"
As co-owners of the property, Vogler's new company designs, engineers and maintains the popular
web counterpart to Comedy Central's The Man Show.
Client: The Man Show and Mutation Labs. Inc.
Creative Director: David Vogler
Art Director: Dave Ehlers
Copywriter: Rick Rosner, Paul Raff, Ken Neville
Account Manager: Ken Neville
Photographer: Various
NICKELODEON GAK
In the early 1990s, Vogler was the man at Nickelodeon Consumer Products responsible for such
notorious and award-winning creations as "Gak," a garishly colored goo that literally
became the hands-on manifestation of the Nick Brand.
Client: Mattel and Nickelodeon
Art Director: David Vogler
Copywriter: Mattel
Account Manager: Mattel
NICK.COM
Nick.com is consistently ranked as the
number one web site for kids. Vogler's design direction for nick.com is considered to be the gold
standard for kids' interface design and has spawned a host of imitators.
Client: Nick Online
Creative Director: David Vogler
Art Director: David Vogler, Michael Redding
Copywriter: Deb Levine
NICKJR.COM
The nickjr.com web site combines content
and navigational solutions for both parents and preschoolers. The site shares many convergent
initiatives with the television network.
Client: Nick Online
Creative Director: David Vogler
Art Director: Colm Fox
Copywriter: Various
Photographer: Various
Client: Nick Online
Creative Director: David Vogler
Art Director: Chiaki Darcy
Copywriter: Various
Photographer: Various
Miriam Lisco
President
Walsh & Associates Design and Marketing
Seattle WA
Like Vogler, Miriam Lisco's inspiration often comes from surrounding herself with information. But she pursues her data in fact-finding missions that relate directly to a problem that she is trying to solve. When embarking on package design for Washington Cheese, for example, she promptly marched across the street to the grocery store's cheese section for inspiration. Unimpressed with anything she saw, Lisco experimented by placing distinctly different products in the middle of the cheese display to observe the effect. Her conclusion: the package should have a green label. The company's reaction was 'Oh no, green won't work because that says mold in cheese.' Yet Lisco was so inspired by her initial idea, that she continued to research visuals that incorporated green. The result: a cow illustration that exudes personality, set against a hunter green background. This, she believed, would say, "take me home." And it did: within three months of distribution, sales were up 30 percent.
Packaging, along with logo design, brand integration work and advertising, are the major areas of focus for Lisco's Seattle-based firm, Walsh & Associates Design and Marketing. With a diverse client base ranging from Federal Express and Seattle Children's Home to a purveyor of chocolate and an architectural firm, Lisco takes an intellectual approach to inspiration. As with the cheese packaging project, she gathers information about the industry and the competition and studies it. She likens the process to a bull's eye, with the gathering stage as the outer circle. "I just keep working around this thing and then I let it go and walk away from it," she explains. And then during a quiet evening, she'll pull it all out along with some sketches from others on her staff, and spread it around her. "I'll reassess the whole thing and decide what the real messages are. And once I've done that, I go home to bed. I still haven't put anything on paper. I literally process all that information while I sleep — this is weird, but I do — and then when I sit down and work on the project it's rare that I don't have a pretty clear direction."
To get in the right frame of mind, Lisco begins each day with a three-mile walk, accompanied by a double short non-fat latte from one of Seattle's top coffeehouses. This ritual, she says, refreshes and prepares her for a day that is often filled with the chaos of phone calls and meetings. And chaos, predictably, hinders her creativity: "If it's too hectic around, I can't think." She also finds peace in one special setting: her living room. Decorated in cream and white, it's graphically uncomplicated and helps her to "level out."
Other sources of inspiration for Lisco include movies — especially anything by the Coen Brothers — and surrounding herself with books and calendars on Italian art. In fact, her current favorite reads are a tabletop book of works by Leonardo da Vinci and a paperback called How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci by Michael J. Gelb. She's really excited about Gelb's book, which describes the essence of da Vinci's genius and offers steps for heightening creativity.
WASHINGTON CHEESE
My inspiration came from standing in front of a cheese section and seeing the blandness — all
yellow and white labels. I looked to the left in the pasta section and pulled the beautiful green
packaging into the cheese section. What a difference. It said organic, Northwest and fresh. I was
told not to use the green because it said mold. Fortunately, I didn't listen. Near bankruptcy when
we started the project, the company showed a 30% profit in three months and sold to Simplot in
Idaho a short time later.
Design Firm: Walsh & Associates, Inc.
Art Director/Designer: Miriam Lisco
S & T CONSULTING
Design Firm: Walsh & Associates, Inc.
Art Director/Designer: Miriam Lisco
Calligraphy: Jane Shasky
FRAN'S CHOCOLATES, LTD.
My total inspiration came from eating an entire case of Fran's Chocolate and realizing that I had
never tasted better chocolate. The only solution was to convey that message beautifully and elegantly.
Design Firm: Walsh & Associates, Inc.
Art Director/Designer: Miriam Lisco
Calligraphy: Glenn Yoshiyama
CHUGACH HERITAGE CENTER
I was really struggling with the direction because the logo had to reflect the culture of the Chugach
natives. After going through all the materials I had gathered and absorbed, I was going nowhere. I
had been through every book at Barnes & Noble on Alaska and the Chugach natives. I had gone
through all the resource material I was sent, and I had studied every travel brochure on Alaska. I
went into work on a Saturday (the logo had to be shown the following week and the pressure was
on) and poured over the resources again. There it was — a very bad fax of images from their
native rock carvings. It was at that point I knew exactly what I needed to do — build those
images into the lettering. When they were presented to the natives on the board, it brought tears
to their eyes. I had captured their history and culture in a single image.
Design Firm: Walsh & Associates, Inc./Straight Arrow Consulting
Art Director/Designer: Miriam Lisco, Darrell Peterson
Lou Dibacco
Owner/Creative Director
DiBacco & Company
Avon CT
Lou DiBacco is something of a Renaissance man himself. Owner and creative director of DiBacco & Company, a small graphic design firm in Avon, Connecticut, DiBacco is also an R & B musician, photographer, and amateur astronomer. These eclectic interests all contribute inspiration to DiBacco's design work. Music, he says, "has a tendency to bring you somewhere that you haven't gone before." For example, learning the way Motown great James Jameson played the song, I Heard It Through the Grapevine, gave him a better understanding of Jameson's creative process thereby influencing, at least on an intellectual level, his own pursuits.
Likewise, DiBacco believes his hobby of photographing people has improved his insight into human nature, which in turn helps him develop stronger creative for certain audiences. And shooting and working in the darkroom on his gelatin silver prints is a process that calms and soothes him at the end of the day (a day which begins, by the way, with a mug of coffee and real cream). He also finds solace in the eye of a telescope. "I like to look at galaxies far away and just think about the immense space in between us. It puts the pressure of projects back into perspective since the mind can make them bigger than they should be," he observes.
DiBacco works best when he has just the right amount of pressure. Too little, he says, is not enough to "get it going." That's often the case in the beginning of a project. Too much pressure is also a roadblock. When that happens, he picks up his guitar, shoots some baskets or watches a game (basketball, baseball, or football) on television. "Sometimes inspiration comes from doing something just totally different from the project," he says.
While he cites his own creative outlets as primary sources of inspiration, DiBacco occasionally visits galleries and museums. It was during one such visit to the Museum of Modern Art in New York, about 20 years ago, that he was profoundly moved by a major Picasso exhibit — Pablo Picasso: A Retrospective. "It was a major influence on me, on my work, and it sent tremors through the whole design community," he explains. He maintains that this is because Picasso's approach, "tactile, rigid and full of motive," stood in complete contrast to the "metallic, air brushed" style of that era. "I think many of us, after seeing the show, became aware that a new direction needed to be set," he recalls. "It was a turning point."
One particular work, Bull's Head, epitomized for DiBacco the full potential of true inspiration. "Picasso was seeing something ordinary," he explains, "a bicycle seat and a handlebar, something that was there in front of his eyes, and he took those elements and rearranged them to create something brand new. That's the business we're in."
AD CAMPAIGN FOR ESLEECK MANUFACTURING COMPANY, INC.
Our client was introducing a new grade of paper to be used for letterhead, envelope and business cards.
The target audience was designers, art directors, people like us. I proposed the idea of "as individual
as you were" because no one had ever heard of Esleeck Papers and wouldn't it be cool, young
designer, to be the first to use a product from this company. I mean, that's part of being an art
director/designer, isn't it? Being the first to discover something? That idea evolved into "aspire to
a higher level." The inspiration comes from the fact that all designers have their designer heroes,
whose work is admired for its consistency and uniqueness. Hence, "Use Esleeck Cotton 100 and
get closer to greatness." We way over-exaggerated the admiration part and had fun with the
creative. We talked to a few designers who graciously donated their images for the campaign.
Creative Director: Lou DiBacco
Art Director: Rich Denver
Copywriter: Alan Maislen
Esleeck Clients: Jim Alexander and "Brub" Collina
Photographer: Rick Whittey
AD CAMPAIGN FOR LITCHFIELD BANCORP
The bank wanted a campaign to mark its 150th anniversary last year. Our immediate question was,
okay, who cares besides the bank? And they're not our target here. So we focused on real people with
real needs today, and took an "in-your-face" visual approach. I think the inspiration came
from being a banking customer myself. And how I hate it when banks talk to themselves and not to
their customers.
Art Director: Lou DiBacco
Copywriter: Alan Maislen
Account Manager: Wendy Gladstein
Client: Mark Macomber
Photographer: Arthur Simoes
Whether engaged in appreciation of another artist's work, enjoying Kung Pao Chicken and HBO, creating design in a different medium, or surfing the web, each of these designers has revealed that inspiration is seldom a sudden strike of lightning from the heavens. It's an ongoing, '24-7' process. All have rituals and releases outside of their graphic design work that — however circuitous — provide the very foundation for their ideas. Jennifer Morla sums it up well: "I'm not sure where the nucleus of inception comes from . . . it's all very fluid. You make time for the things you want to do. I tend to do a lot of things and I want to do them all. They enrich each other and add to the creative process."