Michael Cina - Cofounder, YouWorkForThem

Michael Cina is the cofounder of the renowned design studio YouWorkForThem and currently runs the Minneapolis, MN studio. He has experimented with many forms of design and is well known for his remarkable typographic work that can be found at youworkforthem.com With a current client list including EA Sports, Victoria’s Secret, Pepsi, and U2, Michael’s passion for custom typography is changing the design landscape in which we all live.

In this interview, Michael gives us a peek into the dynamics of a successful design studio. He also explains why he works under a clay manufacturing building and reveals what, and who, inspires his work.

Notes on Design: Can you describe your studio?

Michael Cina: We work in the basement of a clay manufacturing building in NE Minneapolis. It is very industrial and no frills. It has a service elevator, room to grow, a loading dock and high ceilings. These were all the things we were looking for. Functionality plays more of a role than aesthetics.

Michael's Desk at YouWorkForThem

A lot of agencies want to appear to be cool, relevant, and exciting. Agencies in Minneapolis will get video games, pool tables, kitchens, etc. They also expect you to live there. When we work here, we work hard, but the atmosphere is light. Normally we are able to leave before 6pm every day as well. Working is not too glamorous and on a visual and surface level is very boring most of the time.

What I try to encourage is creativity and hard work. Being creative takes work and intent. You have to apply yourself to really push your personal boundaries or you just do the same things over and over. I think it is pretty obvious that what we do is effective if you look at the amount and the quality of work we produce.

YouWorkForThem Archives and Photo Shoot

NoD: Your space sounds pretty amazing actually, despite the lack of video games. What projects have resulted in the need for a service elevator, loading dock and high ceilings?

MC: We need it for getting large shipments and storage. We sell books and get big shipments in occasionally.

NoD: Can you describe a typical work day?

MC: It may sound cliché but there is no typical work day. A consistent thread is endless e-mail, post mail, customer service, drink espresso, and address random jobs that pop up all day. One day we are working on books, the next day we are working on custom typefaces for a company.

Our office does concentrate on typeface development and that is normally what we are doing. Right now we just put some books live on the site, shipped product, and I just released a typeface named Mullino. We are working on stock sets for YWFT and Travis has two typefaces in progress. I am working on three personal typefaces for YWFT, interviews, helping interns, and working on an YWFT catalog/magazine.

Michael Cina designed this poster for his first Solo Show at First Amendment Gallery in Minneapolis.

NoD: May we ask what and who inspires your design work?

Sister Corita Kent is extremely inspiring to me in many ways. She was an amazing person, author, and artist. My graphic design inspiration would have to be Emil Ruder. His ideas and work in graphic design are extremely interesting, but he was an odd character in his personal beliefs. The people who usually inspire me are just normal people that do extraordinary things in life, normally not related to work.

Normally I keep a sketchbook with me and try to record as much info in there as I can.

NoD: What projects are you working with now?

MC: We just finished a project for EA Sports, doing a custom typeface for Victoria’s Secret, doing visuals for U2 Concert, last year [we] did a very large project for Pepsi.

Another cool project that we are working on is starting a custom aspect of YWFT called Select. We will be going for more high-end custom and consulting work like we used to. We have not publicly done client work for 5 years now. I just finished the logo for the division and we will start working on the website next week.

We also have a number of magazine contributions in the works. Grafik Magazine just asked me to do a little editorial in the back of their magazine on my favorite letter. I have a ten page feature in Relevant Magazine where I list my top 8 designers right now. Groove Magazine (Germany) is doing a 4 page feature on my album cover art. JPeople Magazine in Japan is featuring my work in a new issue. Digital abstracts just posted an interview also. I am happy with my new typeface and the work I have been doing for [ record label ] Ghostly International.

NoD: So, what is your favorite letter…?

MC: Favorite letter is original drawing of ‘g’ from Gill Sans.

Michael Cina's interpretation of the original drawing of Gill Sans g

Thomas says:

I am a freelance graphic designer.Over the course of 5 years, I conceptualized and designed all the branding, corporate identity, website design and illustration work for COMPANY A - at a reduced hourly rate. It was a small startup company with a website product, and I had a somewhat personal relationship with the owner.

Now, there was money exchanged for design services, with this set hourly rate paid for the work. There was also - however - a COMPANY A promise of a lot of future work once the COMPANY A product was sold.

No agreement was ever signed, and ownership of the copyright was never discussed. There was an inherent promise to compensate us once the product was acquired, but that has not materialized.
COMPANY A was recently acquired by a major Magazine, which will bundle the COMPANY A product into their features on their website.

So basically the product was sold, but i’ve been cut out of any profit or promise of continuing work. The Magazine’s creative director is now requesting original art files from us as well, so they can take over the maintenance and further marketing of the product.

My questions are as follows:

1. From what I have read and researched, COMPANY A never really held the copyright for all of this creative work. would that be the case in this scenario?

2. The COMPANY A product was sold in it’s entirety to this Magazine. would they have gotten assurances from COMPANY A that it did indeed have full rights to the copyright ownership?

3. I would like to approach COMPANY A and ask them for compensation for the rights to that ownership. i really just want to obtain a fair settlement that might be based on retroactively paying me my full rate for all the hours i had put into the past work. not sure how to do the calculation…

Thanks you very much for any help and guidance with this matter.

- Thomas

Hello Thomas,

- Jean

Friend of NoD and New York Fine Artist Annika Connor (Instructor of Watercolor at Sessions Online) has invited all NoD readers and subscribers to attend the Company Launch Party for ACTIVE IDEAS PRODUCTIONS.

AI Productions, Inc. is an innovative corporation whose mission is to serve the artistic community by facilitating the presence of emerging artists and educating the public about their work.

This event is free and all interested parties are invited to attend, though RSVP is required. At the party, there will be 100 gift bags for VIP guests and donors to the Point Suite project.

Tuesday, December 9, 2008
8pm - Midnight
Mr. West
559 W. 22nd St. & 11th Ave., NYC
Sponsored Bar from 8pm - 10pm
Cocktail and festive attire

Please RSVP to: annika@aiproductions.org

For more information about AI Productions, please visit:
www.aiproductions.org

For information about AI Productions current project, please visit:
www.pointsuiteartbook.com

Currently AI Productions is creating a fine art book entitled Point Suite whose purpose is to enlighten the public about the ever-increasing artistic activities of our international contemporary art community.

The Point Suite art book is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. Contributions on behalf of Point Suite may be made payable to Fractured Atlas and are
tax-deductible to the extent permitted by the law.

To donate directly to Point Suite, please visit
www.fracturedatlas.org/donate/883

Please feel free to share this information with your friends and colleagues.

In contrast, a design consultant positions themselves as a collaborative partner, facilitating the problem solving process. As Jagdish Sheth noted in his book Client for Life, “in the twenty-first century the knowledge workers who excel will be those who transcend simple expertise and are able to provide insights to clients in the context of a collaborative, learning relationship.” Designers that make the leap from craftsperson to collaborator, who don’t necessarily have all the answers, but at least boast a methodology for facilitating design thinking, will be able to position themselves as a trusted consultant. As such, a designer does not tell; rather, they listen. They do not control. Instead, they collaborate. In addition to being able to offer expertise in a specialized area, the design consultant provides a broad and sophisticated body of knowledge. (Sheth 2000)

Tim Bruce, principal of the Chicago based design firm lowercase takes client collaboration seriously. Bruce noted that involving clients at key points in the process is critical. As he puts it, “We involve the client for certain projects, like annuals. We do this for several reasons. One, they have good ideas. Two, it brings them along because they help create it so they end up supporting it. We do this more with businesses that are public companies where there are layers of groups that we need to sell through.”

“There are only two ways to secure design’s opportunities: reputation and personal relationships.” So says Rick Valicenti founder of Thirst, the internationally recognized design firm dedicated to taking their client to the edge of the “Discomfort Zone.” As Valicenti notes, graphic design, like most professions, is about the quality of the relationships we form with clients. Design is collaborative work and requires that both designer and client pull together. Clients hire designers to help them solve business problems; designers push clients to communicate their unique value in fresh and unexpected ways. The resulting tension can actually push development of ideas that are balanced and that consider multiple sides of a problem. Gaute Godage, founder of the world’s leading independent computer game developer, Funcom, notes that managing this tension can only be achieved through trust.

Personally, I’ve been a fan of the Extract filter for a while. With it, you use a “highlighter” to roughly define the edge of the object you wish to extract, and Photoshop comes pretty close to what you’re looking for. The results can be a little rough or jaggy, but usable or easily fixable in many cases.

Extract makes quick work of this tree, though it does leave me a bit of cleaning up to do.

Sadly, it seems Extract didn’t have too many fans… it’s not part of the CS4 release. But, if you have been a happy user of Extract in CS3, you can copy it from your CS3 plug-ins/filters directory and place it in the same directory for CS4. When you relaunch CS4, it will be sitting happily in your Filter menu.

An even better extraction of an object can be done with layer masks, which have always been a little misunderstood in Photoshop. In CS4, layer masks are a bit friendlier thanks to the new Masks panel.

Taking the same tree example, I begin by making a selection of the area I wish to extract. You can use any selection tool you like for this or a combination of them, same as any detailed selecting you routinely do. It’s OK if it’s a bit rough.

: Marching ants surround the tree I'm about to extract using a mask.

Now I head to the Masks panel and click the “Add a pixel mask” button. I immediately see the extracted tree and transparent background, and can carefully adjust the edges with the Feather slider and the Mask Edge button.

My tree is ready to place over a brand new background.

The beauty of this method is that you can modify the mask any time. Click on the black and white mask in the Layers panel, and your Masks panel will invite you to make any adjustments that you’d like.

I can’t entirely understand the loss of Extract in CS4, but layer masks aren’t quite so misunderstood for me now, and they will finally work their way into my regular Photoshop routines.

People smarter than I think the project is confusing, long overdue, and that the process of revision is broken.

Joe Clark and others have created a project to correct and extend the 1.0 Guidelines, a WCAG 1.1, if you will. Their project is called WCAG Samurai. Born out of frustration with the WCAG 2.0 direction, WCAG Samurai attempts to move the world of Web accessibility forward, without the help of the W3C.

They may be right, but Web developers still need guidance on how to create accessible Web sites. If clear, correct information isn’t available, then either no information or wrong-headed information will fill the void.

One thing I like about the direction of 2.0 is how they’ve tried not to dictate what technology or techniques are used for various “success criteria” (a new term in 2.0). That seems smart to me, to future-proof the guidelines, if you will. On the other hand, many of the guidelines are confusing or contradictory.

I’m no expert on Web accessibility, but I have been trying to build accessible sites for more than 6 years with the help of writing by people like Joe Clark and Molly Holzschlag. Recently I was lucky enough to work on updating a Web accessibility course that Molly developed for Sessions. The update tries to make the transition from WCAG 1.0 to 2.0 . . . boy, that didn’t feel much better than a poke in the eye with a stick!

It was a lot of work, and in the process of that work I had to create a cheat sheet for myself so I could keep track of the changes between the two WCAG versions. Anyhow, I thought I would share that cheat sheet with you. If you have any suggestions for updates, please let me know. In no way do I think this is the definitive cheat sheet, so I welcome your help.

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Cheat Sheet

Links:
http://alistapart.com/articles/tohellwithwcag2
http://wcagsamurai.org/
http://joeclark.org/access/webaccess/WCAG/
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/webstandards2008
http://www.molly.com

Part coffee table artifact / part required design history reading, the book is a must for anyone interested in branding. It is a double dose of communication strategy and the history that proves its effectiveness. My history-buff, non-artist partner enjoyed it as much as I did, as the visual devices are brought to life within a vivid historical context. The swastika, Little Red Book, Lenin’s goatee, stylized Futurist posters, and gothic typography are among many examples used to manufacture messages of the totalitarian state. The author makes the case that these visuals function in the same fashion that corporate branding systems work today.

The comprehensive range of visual argument is especially relevant during an election year in which visuals of our American state eek through every surface.

The four main chapters outline the 20th-century regimes of the Nazis, fascists, and soviet and Chinese communists. Each demonstrates a forceful lesson about the principles of branding as embodied by the fürer, Il Duce, Comrade Lenin, and Chairman Mao. Heller outlines the “effective branding [that] is centered on a core narrative” with eloquent essays and lavish representations of historical photos, posters, flags, books, portraits, stamps, and charts.

Heller is at his best here: his painstaking research of the power of visual language when in the hands of tyrants is a gift to the discipline. The book is comprehensive and intense, but not intimidating. The writing is serious and courageous, but clever. Iron Fists contributes rigor to the growing scholarship of graphic design.

There wasn’t much chance that Adobe could beat the buzz surrounding last year’s CS3 announcement, since that was the first version of the suite to include applications purchased from Macromedia, like Dreamweaver, Fireworks, and Flash. And, realistically, CS4 isn’t the type of update every designer and her mom will run out and buy right away, but for you antsy early adopters, let’s have a look at some of the features that will get you ready to hit the preorder button…

Photoshop’s Content-Aware Scaling: This is one of those features that looks super cool and will be a blast to play with, even if you only need it professionally once in a blue moon. Content-Aware Scaling means Photoshop can “see” which objects in your image are most important, and when you squash or stretch the image, it will scale those important objects proportionately. Imagine it like this: You’re scaling a panoramic image to fit a more vertical orientation. The background squashes as you’d expect, but the people in the shot scale in correct proportion instead of getting squashed too.

A screenshot from Adobe of content-aware scaling in action

Dreamweaver’s coder-centric tools: Dreamweaver has long been loved by front-end Web designers, and hated by many back-end programmers, but recent versions have worked to combat this. CS4 introduces excellent code-hinting for JavaScript and Ajax frameworks (not just Spry!), a built-in browser for testing, and integration with technology like Subversion.

Flash’s keyframe-free, symbol-free tweening: Sick of manually creating keyframes and symbols for every motion tween? Flash handles the dirty work automatically, saving you a ton of time and saving you from those danged dashed lines on the timeline when you forget to convert to symbol… or am I the only one who always does that?

InDesign’s Live Preflight: If catching all those linking and font errors at the end of a long design process is frustrating, Live Preflight may be one of your favorite new InDesign features (of which there are quite a few, actually!). With Live Preflight turned on, you’ll be warned of production issues while you work, not at the supposed end of your project. Sounds pretty basic, and not terribly unlike the (new and improved) Links panel, but what makes this powerful is that you can create custom preflight profiles that catch just what you need to know about, and none of the rest. Time will tell if there’s enough in the Live Preflight feature to cover all of your usual preflight tasks, but it looks promising,

After Effects and Premiere’s metadata: For you videophiles, you won’t see tons of crazy new effects—the CS4 update is far more utilitarian, and most would agree that that’s a good thing. One of many productivity enhancements is the ability to add metadata text to your work. This makes entire projects as well as clips and layers totally searchable. You can use quick nicknames or even use Speech Search to turn dialog into searchable text.

Above are just five of the big new things you’ll find in Adobe CS4 products; that said, CS4 is not a must-buy for every Adobe product user. But, if you’re like me, the allure of a shiny new interface, some cool-to-have goodies, and some workflow improvements might just be enough to make the switch.