REBECCA TRAWICK: Today's program is
presented as part of the Wignall Museum's Home Edition,
a series of curated artist talks, workshops,
and discussions featuring artists and cultural workers.
My name's Rebecca Trawick.
I'm the director and curator of the Wignall Museum.
The Wignall Museum is a teaching museum an interdisciplinary art
space that introduces Chaffey College students, faculty,
staff, and community members to innovative contemporary art,
objects, practices, and ideas.
We want to take a moment to recognize that we are situated
on the Rancho Cucamonga campus of Chaffey College, which
resides on the traditional and unseated lands
of the [? Tongua ?] people.
We offer our respect to the elders
both past, present, and future.
Without further ado, I'd like to introduce Justin and then hand
the floor over to him.
Justin is an independent designer, activist,
and collaborator living in Omaha,
Nebraska, focused on making it beautiful,
moving people to action, and getting good things done.
He works primarily with community organizations,
political campaigns, and change-making entities
in need of branding, graphic design, web design, and art
direction.
His self-initiated projects and collaborations
explore ways to move forward important causes and ideas
with design, art, and other forms of creative expression.
So please welcome, Justin Kemerling.
JUSTIN KEMERLING: I like to approach design
by thinking about trying to make design matter.
And so this will be a presentation, discussion,
and review on the subject of design
in the middle of everything.
The middle being, like, the middle
of the country and then also the middle being,
like, in the middle of this crazy, tumultuous time
in this country, specifically.
And so I think it always helps to have some context.
I gave you a singles reference.
So that's one thing.
I think there are three things about me you should know.
I was in a punk band in college.
I love The Clash and a lot of those punk rock sensibilities,
DIY, ways to do things--
kind of dovetails into a grassroots aesthetic,
punk rock attitudes like, we didn't have any money
and we just made things in our own weird way--
from songs to short films to design.
So punk rock foundation definitely
informs a lot of the work that I do.
I became very interested in political science in college.
This is a poster by James Victore
who is a very great designer that I admire and look up to.
He's probably 10 or so years older than I am.
This is one of his posters.
He made lots of posters that made him very
famous in the design world.
And so I try to apply political science in the readings
that I did in college to a profession.
And that profession happened to be design.
So taking Howard Zinn--
those sorts of, like, Noam Chomsky--
political left writers and thinkers
and trying to apply that into a modern career that existed.
And so I also am from Nebraska, which is
in the middle of the country.
You don't get any--
you probably get bonus points if you know where it is.
I actually had a client the other day
who was like, where do you live?
A lot of people don't know where Nebraska is.
It's in the middle of the country.
I live in Omaha.
It is about--
Omaha, Council Bluffs metro area has 1.2 million people
who live there.
So that's like a middle sized city.
I live in an older part of the city.
We have lots of good food.
Conor Oberst in Bright Eyes is from here.
He is my age if that, also, helps give you any context.
So, yeah.
I like Instagram.
That's probably my favorite social media network.
So here's some shots that may give you a little bit more
visual info on me.
I like President Obama a lot.
I love The Clash.
I like to vote.
So I'm going to talk about work, but I
think the poster is something you can always
keep in mind when I'm going through the work.
I think the poster is probably the purest form
of visual communication if you [? need ?] a 2 by 3 foot space.
In a flash, you must arrest the viewer's attention
of a passerby, alter his or her perception,
change it, reinforce it.
Make it see something differently.
Surprise, delight, inspire, motivate.
Those kind of things you're all trying to do in a poster.
And you don't have an infinite scroll, you don't have a gif,
you don't have video, you don't have a lot of things
that screens provide.
Even though the poster can be--
these are some old pos-- this was 2005.
I tried to find an organization that I thought
was doing interesting stuff and it was like, hey,
I want to make some posters for you.
And so I worked with the community organizer
on this project to get liquor licenses removed
from a town that was exploiting Native Americans
and their distress by profiting off of their alcoholism.
And it was a pretty terrible situation.
So we made posters for this march that we did.
I just always really liked posters.
And so here's some that I made during the Iraq war time.
This was about immigration.
So this was my way to use design to try to say something.
And I knew I wasn't really going to be an artist.
I didn't really have that kind of thinking.
I was always looking for a problem to solve
or an opportunity to find and use design
to make that issue seemingly--
give it more attention.
This was for the ACLU a few years ago.
This was a campaign out in Los Angeles.
Some Obama stuff.
And so my business that I've been doing, now,
for over 10 years--
10 years and a quarter--
we work with progressive change-makers and do-gooders
is, basically, how I framed it.
And that has become the work that we take on.
And I think everybody says, design is all about intention.
And so in the process and practice of design,
you're intentional in what you're making-- a logo, a brand
website, a space.
And so I wanted to be very intentional about the career
and the work that I was going to do.
And so before I set out 10 years ago to work on my own,
I sat down and I wrote out these principles on paper.
And I was like, OK.
Now I can always refer back to them.
So I wanted to do work that is part of things, experiments,
delights, is optimistic, gives a damn, is community minded,
moves people to action, points us in a direction,
picks a side/annoys certain people,
makes things better, and has heart.
And so that was what I wanted the work
that I was going to do--
to encompass in some way.
I had to have a few of these for the project to make sense.
And so I'll just talk about five examples of that really quick,
specific projects that I think do one of those things
really well.
And so one of those, I wanted to do work
that moves people to action.
And so this was for a group called--
Bold Nebraska is the organization.
But they became known as the pipeline fighters.
It was a multi-year, multi-channel campaign
to stop the TransCanada pipeline also known as the Keystone XL
pipeline.
This is still going on all these years later.
And so this was a poster that we made.
There was a study that came out.
The corporation had said that the pipeline expected
to have 10 leaks over the life of the pipeline which still
seems like a lot when you're talking about a pipeline that's
going over the aquifer, which is the largest
underground freshwater resource in the country--
stretches from Nebraska to Texas.
And so the pipeline was going to go over this.
And so we made a poster showing this underground water
resource.
And there was an independent study
that was done that said that there
would be 91 leaks over the life of the pipeline.
So we put all the leaks on this poster for effect.
And yeah, sold it to raise money.
And so we did a lot of stuff around--
this was my first major client project
when I was going out on my own.
And we did all the branding for the organization.
But then it became like a really good opportunity
to do lots of other stuff in terms of campaigns.
This was a clean energy campaign.
This was a campaign to get people
to vote for inclusive cities, to protect the land.
So it became an opportunity to bring design
to all these issues that we thought were important
and visualize them and get people inspired
to get involved, to vote, to get involved in their community.
This one, we actually branded the Ogallala aquifer.
[? I ?] made this little [? mark, ?] worked with
a typographer to make some custom letters.
It was actually voted America's best-tasting water
by this organization.
And so we wanted to play that up and brand aquifer So
that people would know that like, hey,
this is like a pretty good thing you have going on here--
middle of the country with all this great water below it.
Maybe don't screw it up by putting a dirty pipeline
over it and threatening that.
So we made some patches out of that.
This is Ben.
He was an activist on the ground.
He's got a couple of patches, there.
Got a pipeline fighter bandanna.
So a there were lots of legal things that happened.
So they have to do State Department
reviews of energy projects.
And so this was out in Western Nebraska
where they had a hearing with the State Department.
And you could go to this event.
But you couldn't bring signs.
And so we all brought our bandanas.
And so whenever anybody was speaking
that was in favor of stopping the pipeline,
we held up these bandanas so it became a cool visual.
And we rallied around-- this is Neil Young at a protest in DC.
He's getting his pipeline fighter bandana on.
And so we made a poster out of that idea which was kind of fun
and got a lot of people excited.
A lot of people have this poster.
And it was a 18 by 24 screen print.
And anybody that was part of the movement and the effort
definitely got it and felt really
stoked when they saw that.
And so posters, as a thing, is they also
allow for ways to use what an organization stands for,
to really visualize what they stand for.
Like this, Nebraska Appleseed organization
is a nonprofit, non partisan, public interest law firm
who does lots of legal stuff.
And so I started organizing this poster
show to work with a bunch of designers
to visualize their core values, the issues that they work on,
the things that are important to the organization.
We screen printed them, we had them
available at their annual fundraising event,
and we sold them to raise money so that the organization could
get some additional funds.
It didn't make a ton of money, but the point
was that it was investing in a way
to visually tell the story of the organization
and get people inspired about what this organization was
all about.
People bought them, put them in their houses.
We have lots of state senators that
have copies of these posters that are hanging
in their office in the capital.
Seen them around lots of places.
So we've done it for--
I organized it for seven years.
And now it's been organized by another lady for the last two.
So definitely just a fun way to bring visuals
and messaging and other ideas--
help them tell their story in a way that a bunch of lawyers
aren't used to doing.
They're used to talking about laws
and trying to make sure that immigrants don't get deported.
And we did a bunch of shows just to bring in the community,
help them reach different audiences.
And the last thing that we did was we pulled them all together
and made a book.
So we had seven years of posters for this book.
There was about 60 posters.
There were 30 different designers that
were involved over those years.
So it was a nice way to bring it all together
and have this good project that the organization could talk
about with their donors and funders and ways
to build that community presence.
So aside from working with organizations,
also will work with groups and organizers on art projects.
This one was Manifest Justice.
It was in Los Angeles in 2015.
It was organized after Michael Brown was killed in Ferguson
and several other black men were killed by police.
So this guy, who I had worked with for many years, who
was Shepard Fairey's publicist, and helped
commission the Hope poster in 2008.
And so he became a good contact for working on cool projects
with.
He would do all these big, large-scale art shows.
So this one I did all the branding for
and a bunch of signage.
And he organized all the artists and space
to bring in all these really great, awesome pieces of art.
They had all this cultural programming
where you learned about prison spending and the situations
with private prisons, police brutality, all
of the challenging things that are facing communities
and this idea of like, we've got to organize
around these really heavy issues and do positive things.
This was just a way to bring art into a space
and bring people into space and have
all these organizations talk about what they were doing.
And these are some icons that were
made to talk about the different programming that was going on.
That was a fun, little branding project.
This other organization is in Omaha--
a very community-focused arts organization.
And so one of the things that has been nice, too, about this,
they have a physical building.
So partnering with them over the years,
we've got to do signage and help the vision of what
Brigitte was all about.
Brigitte is amazing.
And so I think working in this space,
too, I meet a lot of great people.
And the idea of working with people who
are really passionate about making their communities
better--
North Omaha is a historically black community in Omaha,
which is segregated.
They have lacking city services, they
have years, decades of redlining and systemic racism
that has made that community-- presented it
with a lot of challenges because the city has looked
the other way as it has been able to just
deteriorate and not have the investment
and the hip stuff that has happened
in other parts of the city.
And so Brigitte is from Detroit, originally.
And she moved here and she started this organization,
put it in North Omaha, and has used the arts
to bring in other parts of the community
and to really push for positive change
in that part of the city.
This was a lot of like-- when we were doing some of the--
looking at the process of design,
we looked at a lot of the history of the area, and 1963
meeting flyers, how communication
was done back in the day, color tinted paper, big, bold type--
big, bold type never goes out of style.
And so we used this set of materials
that we did and found in the research part of the process
and informed a lot of the stuff that we
did in terms of event flyers.
These are a couple--
they had art shows every first Friday,
I think, in the beginning.
We did mailers and talked about all the positive stuff that
was happening in the community because a lot of people
didn't know about it.
This was in 2014.
It was a pretty big year.
They had all these artists come in.
They raised some money.
They had a tool library, they had a community garden,
they had a space to come together and have
a meal and a conversation--
just a really positive place, overall, that
has been really good for the city
and bringing different parts of the city into North Omaha,
having North Omaha have--
getting more investment, getting more positivity,
outreach to the youth, all sorts of really good stuff
that this organization has been able to do.
And then finally, we do some self-initiated projects.
We haven't, really, this year because we've been
so busy with work projects.
But we always try to have--
me and the network of people that I work with--
some sort of project that's kind of ours that we're doing.
This is our space.
This is where I'm at right now, under the round and round
sign in historic [? Dundee. ?] This is the office.
This is the old layout of the office.
It's a little different, now, but it still
has this basic look.
I drink a lot of coffee in the space.
And so the spaces let us exist in Omaha and work
with a lot of Omaha non-profits and community groups,
but then also do projects out of here.
This was a poster site that we did after 2016
where we basically curated all of the best posters
that we saw online in response to the election
and where we wanted the country to go, and put them
on a site for easy access for people to either download them,
buy them, share them.
So these were just some of those collection of posters
just from people all over that were making posters in response
to the situation.
There's a lot of creative response to terrible times
and so a lot of good art because the times
have been so terrible.
This was a series of posters that I
was doing as a response to really specific things
in the news that we called B.S. [? was ?] around gun violence.
"You are not alone" was a mental health-focused poster strike
for unions who were striking for rights.
"Yes we care" was an immigration-focused thing.
Some of these you had to be following news to get.
And then, yeah.
The poster is definitely-- this was about gerrymandering.
This was about global warming.
Of all the projects that are going on,
the poster is a great way to lend some time.
So this was a planned parenthood poster
that I did pro bono, paid for the printing.
And then they had it auctioned off
and sold to raise some money.
But it's a good way in this space of making visual content
and sharing it online, in person--
trying to get messages out there and moving the needle,
in a way.
This is the great Ernie Chambers.
He is term-limited, again, in our state legislature.
He's from Northern Omaha.
He has been fighting to stop the death penalty for decades.
He's just a rad guy who has inspired lots of young people
to run for office.
Nebraska has a lot of young millennials
who actually serve in the state legislature which is awesome.
And so as the old guard of progressive leaders
steps aside, we [? do ?] feel like we have
some good young ones coming in.
And so really, I think that design is
pretty applicable to anything.
And I feel very fortunate that I've
been able to apply it to the things I've applied it to.
And really, I think graphic design breaks it
down and shouts it out loud.
The message that it shouts can be anything, really.
And that's up to you, the maker, or the designer, or the artist.
Whatever you want to be.
And this is all coming together in the last 10 years.
I decided that I wanted to make a book about all the projects
that had been worked on.
And so these are the five tenants, or categories,
that all the work fit in as the type of work
that I wanted to make when I set out and was
guided by the idea of having a career that--
I could be free to choose what I wanted to do.
I wanted to work on things that work
in the cause of social change, social justice.
I wanted to work within a community
and work for the community in a way,
and then use design to push ideas and use it as a power,
as a tool, to make change.
And then [? I ?] mean graphic design,
you can have a lot of fun with it.
You can be very hopeful with it.
And so the book is almost done.
Again, I've been too busy to finish it.
But we'll have it out there at some point.
So, yeah.
That is a very fast 75 slides of stuff.
REBECCA TRAWICK: Great.
Thanks, Justin.
So a large number of our attendees
today are members of the AIGA student club.
So as you all know, you've already
sent your questions to us.
And so Andy will read through those.
But of course, if you want to ask
in-person or with your own voice, by all means,
you're more than welcome to do that.
So we can start with Andy and--
but y'all jump in or raise your hand if you'd like to, also,
ask a question or if something else came up during
the presentation.
ANDY HADLE: As Rebecca said, there are plenty of questions.
And those of you who are in the audience, please feel free.
But we do have one, actually, in the chat,
I think is very important before we
get to a lot of graphic design questions--
is, what was the name of your punk band?
I'm sorry.
That's from [? Trevon ?] Carroll.
JUSTIN KEMERLING: It was called--
it had several names.
It was called Hootenanny, it was called M80,
and then it was called Rocket FM.
those were the names.
The thing about the punk band--
being creative, I think you go through a process
where you're terrible.
but it [? is ?] the spectrum it applies, right?
So I think I worked out a lot of the terrible ideas
in that punk band.
And then it wasn't like I was starting over
with terrible ideas in design.
It was like I could apply those like, oh, look
at all this bad shit we did when we were in this band.
Let's not make those mistakes, again.
So, yeah.
Just as an aside.
But those were the names.
ANDY HADLE: This is my question, following up on that.
Is that where you started?
Is that the turning point, you feel,
when you were in this punk band that kind of
brought you into this social awareness?
JUSTIN KEMERLING: Yeah.
It was.
Definitely.
In Lincoln, which is a college town,
there were just lots of politics in the scene of kids
that went to those shows.
There were lots of food activists and sustainability
activists.
There was lots of anti-war kids, anti death penalty kids.
There was a very notable Black Panther case
from the 80s in Omaha.
And there was lots of organizing around trying to get
this case looked at again.
So there was specific Nebraska issues that--
I was just from a small town and I didn't really
know much about stuff.
So we were exposed to lots of activism and kids
who were engaged and just a lot more worldly
and just into trying to do stuff with the music
and then just organizing outside of the scene of kids
into some of the non-profit organizations that
were in the city.
ANDY HADLE: So following up on that,
from [? Cabrina ?] [? Alviar, ?] she has a question.
How do you start looking for non-profit work?
And what are some reputable nonprofit--
I'm sorry.
I'm saying that wrong.
How do you find these reputable organizations?
Are you just going after what you're passionate about?
Or are you really digging in and searching for them?
JUSTIN KEMERLING: Yeah.
Initially it helped to know kids who
were like, oh, I volunteer for this organization.
Or oh, I'm going to this rally.
Or I support this organization or I know
that someone who works there.
Like the Nebraska Appleseed projects, they approached me,
but it was a kid that we used to go to shows together.
He's the development coordinator there, now,
and tries to raise money for them.
And so he knew I wanted to use design
in a way with issues and stuff.
And he's like, [? we ?] work on all this stuff
and we're terrible with telling people about it.
Maybe we do it [? with like ?] something
that we can use designs.
So we both came up with the idea of the poster show.
And so I knew him, I trusted him.
Through him, I found the organization
that he was a part of was really cool.
And so I think going back to the size of Omaha, too-- and Omaha,
Lincoln--
it's not super big where you can get lost in it.
But it's not small where nothing's happening
on a large enough scale.
Because Nebraska Appleseed-- it's
not like they have huge budgets, but they
have money to spend on marketing and communications
and development, making sure that they're getting membership
and people to get engaged with legislation
they're trying to pass, so.
There's money that goes to communications people.
They're going to try to get a petition drive happen,
you need to pay people to get signups,
you need to pay people to get how that gets all packaged
and stuff.
So design is just a part of all that mix
of messaging and getting your message out to the people
that you want to care.
ANDY HADLE: Maybe on the topic of getting that message out,
I have a question from [? Alast ?] [INAUDIBLE]..
She says, in today's world when we
are exposed to so much stimuli and information,
how can we use design to cut through this inundation
and apathy or, essentially, cutting
through the noise, if you will?
JUSTIN KEMERLING: Yeah.
Yeah.
I wish I knew that.
When I was in school, they always
talked about you see like 3,500 messages a day.
I mean, now with social media, I don't know if that--
I've not seen a new stat.
But you're always going to be inundated
with being sold something.
And so I think in my mind I'm like, well,
design is used to sell stuff or push ideas.
We just need more of the other kind.
We live in a consumer society, which is all fine and good
to some extent.
But if there is just more of the type of design
that is advocating for a more just, sustainable world,
I think that is the type of work that I
think is really interesting.
Then it just comes down to like, well, how does the work look?
You have good design, you have bad design,
you design that's done by really talented people, you
design that's not.
You have trend design.
But the idea of like, how do you reach who you want to reach?
Then it comes down to target audience.
Is it older?
Is it younger?
Is it the internet age of design that there's
lots of memes and gifs?
I mean, I worked for the Obama campaign.
And at that time, it was--
I don't know if that was the first election with Twitter
in 2012.
I wasn't involved in 2008.
But the graphics that we were pushing out,
we made them all textured and layered and gritty.
And they all were targeted, specifically,
to either women or Latino voters.
And we had specific things that we were trying to do.
And it just looked different because everything
in that apparatus--
Facebook, at the time, was super flat.
And so you have some stuff that was-- it was like a-- just
like a thing like, well, let's just
make everything layered and textured so it stands out more.
So you start to think about the actual ways
that you execute design.
That's why I think it's helpful to be connected to both worlds,
where you have the design community like,
oh, now we're talking about responsive web design.
And everything's flat because everything's got to load fast
and everything has to look good on a phone.
And then you have the activist community
of like, what messages resonate.
And the generational stuff is becoming
such a like, how do you communicate with baby boomers?
Like OK, boomer.
All of these cultural things and digs.
And then there's the aspects of trolling and the far-right.
I think it's crazy.
But how do you reach through all of that?
It always comes back to like, who's your audience
and who are your supporters?
If you're a organization--
I'm working with an organization now
that has lots of Instagram followers.
They're younger.
And so I am working for them.
They have their vision of what they want their self look like.
So we kind of steer the design to make sure
that they're excited about it and their image is
what they're presenting and want to put out there.
How that kind of reaches people kind of
remains to be seen in terms of--
we've gone through the infographics craze
of all this illustrated data.
And then now gifs--
that guy, Yossi, that I was working with--
we did the Manifest Justice campaign.
He's all into memes and gifs and making everything move now.
I think everybody is just trying to reach something
and trying to get that like, click or donate, which--
[? I don't ?] know, ultimately, if that's a great goal.
But its the goal that's to be had [? at this ?] moment.
Hopefully it changes.
I mean, I haven't seen a physical poster, aside
from the ones that we have in our space, in a while
aside from my Instagram.
The square is the new screenprint.
ANDY HADLE: Which is funny because things
used to be in a square.
When [? we were ?] talking about digital formats, like the TV,
used to be a square.
JUSTIN KEMERLING: Oh, yeah.
ANDY HADLE: Now it's kind of circling back.
Kind of going off that-- you may have already
answered this question-- but from Devin Gonzalez, when
presenting work to a client, do you separate your activism work
from your more corporate work?
Or is it all just together?
JUSTIN KEMERLING: Yeah, I don't really have any corporate work
anymore.
It's all in some way--
if people want to--
well, I had a regular advertising
for like seven years where I learned
how to work in the business of this, working with printers,
working with developers, working in teams
with a [? counselor, ?] copywriters, traffic managers,
the workflow of the day to day.
Because I didn't really go to a good design school.
And so that experience--
I learned how to do the mechanics
of a career in graphic design.
But when I left, I was doing--
I basically had two jobs.
It was like the 9 to 5 job.
And thankfully, it was pretty much 9 to 5.
It wasn't like a "work until you die" kind of ad agency
like some are.
So I would work 9 to 5.
And I would come home and I would work, maybe,
six hours on my own stuff or stuff
with non-profits that I was just like, hey,
I'll make these flyers for you for free
or give me a couple hundred bucks and I'll do a logo.
Or I'll do your website and maintain your website.
And so I was doing all this other stuff
that just kept spiraling and growing
because I wanted to be a community activist designer
and be the person that community organizations came to
for design stuff.
And doing that long enough, I had enough work
to just be like, OK, I'm going to go do my own thing.
And I'm just going to show this work.
This is the type of work that I want to do.
So I didn't have a portfolio that
had any of my other corporate stuff
because I didn't want to do any of that.
And this Bold Nebraska project, which was the pipeline fighter
project, happened at that time.
Timing, really, was everything.
It seemed like lots of people contacted me that had been--
either saw stuff or they were starting things
and timing was just right.
And so I was working with Participant Media,
who's out in Los Angeles.
And then Startup in Omaha.
Did Eli Pariser's TED Talk slides.
That was a project that I had early on.
And that world of people just kind of--
seems like everybody knows everybody else.
And so just through contacts and networks,
the work just kept going.
ANDY HADLE: So you mentioned you had to start somewhere.
You know, you have to--
you had to make money in the beginning, I'm assuming.
JUSTIN KEMERLING: [INAUDIBLE].
ANDY HADLE: A question from Vanessa Hernandez-- she asks,
how do you make sure you're not being
taken advantage of as a designer, maybe, starting out
at least?
JUSTIN KEMERLING: Yeah.
I think it's good to get--
I mean, having an agency job experience was
good to understand how to work with people when it comes
to money and projects and formulating
some kind of formal documents and statements
of work, what your invoice is, how you scope this product.
This is the scope.
This is what I'm going to do.
This is how long it's going to take.
I'm going to do three rounds of revision.
You will get four options.
Even the very tactile things, which I really like doing--
just mechanics [? on ?] how to make a design project happen--
which get more complicated with websites and planning
and their site map, wireframes, design,
and there's development resources.
And so being very clear up-front about everything that happens.
Now
I'm in that spot where I've been doing this long enough where
it's like, there's a certain mountain.
People think you know what you're doing because you're
40, which isn't always true.
And it is a lot easier to take advantage of younger designers.
Thankfully, I never got taken advantage of, personally.
I know people that have.
And it sucks.
It is not cool at all.
There are some people that I just can't believe--
not getting paid or just being jerks.
So it's tough because you want to make sure that--
[? your ?] projects where, OK, you should pay me 50% upfront.
When it's done, I deliver all the files
and you pay me the rest.
Even just getting down how you want your payments to go.
And AIG has lots of resources in terms of getting paid,
making sure you're behaving ethically
as a designer, your coaching and inspecting
your client on how to behave and act ethically with designers.
Or it's like, this is your work.
This is your time that you're putting into this.
You should get paid for this.
It's not like, you only get paid if I like what you did.
That's not how it works.
And then you get into like, I charge hourly.
I charge by the project.
I do logos.
This is how much this is.
I do a website.
This is how much this is.
And I think just as long as you're
upfront about that, that helps the process.
And sometimes you're just like, I'm getting this vibe from you
and I don't think we're going to be a good fit working together.
It's easier to do when you have work because you can be like,
this is the type of work that I do.
This is my style.
This is who I like to work with.
And if you don't fit into any of that,
we should probably not work together
because you're not going to jive with everybody.
And I've had clients in this space of the do-gooderism
and it's just not a good fit.
And the project, kind of, sucks.
But you get through it and onto the next one.
And we just don't work together [? anymore. ?]
And there's clients that have been around like 10 years.
So it's all learning and giving and taking.
Hopefully, just make sure you get paid.
Otherwise, you got to go work at a real job.
ANDY HADLE: Nobody wants that.
We have a question in the chat from [INAUDIBLE]..
She asked, is there a blacklist out there
of exploitative companies or clients?
REBECCA TRAWICK: Or a Google doc?
Or something.
JUSTIN KEMERLING: Yeah.
So there's a designer, Jessica Walsh, who--
they run a firm in New York.
And they're definitely trying to be
more mindful of the types of projects
that they do and work with.
I don't know of any list.
I know that they put out lists around--
with the Black Lives Matter protests--
I think it was favorable companies.
Omaha had a list that this guy put of companies not
to shop at, that were hostile.
I don't know of a blacklist, overall.
But there are companies, definitely,
that I wouldn't work with.
But, yeah.
That's a good one.
REBECCA TRAWICK: [? Is ?] it about doing your research?
JUSTIN KEMERLING: Yeah.
Doing your research.
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
JUSTIN KEMERLING: Because, yeah-- sometimes new startups--
you have no idea in terms of the type of work they do.
It's definitely tricky trying to land good clients
and working with good clients [? to ?] make sure that you're
being treated fairly.
REBECCA TRAWICK: Have you ever had to get legal assistance?
JUSTIN KEMERLING: I haven't.
I have had friends who have, though.
REBECCA TRAWICK: So I have a question, if I can jump in.
I love that list that you created about 10 years ago,
the list of principles to work by-- or live and work by,
potentially.
So I wonder if--
has that list changed over time?
And if the world is getting you down,
is it also a source of inspiration?
Or does it feed you?
Does it remind you why you're doing what you're doing?
JUSTIN KEMERLING: Yeah, I think so.
I think it's always nice to refer back
to that because sometimes you're just like,
I just want a project that's delightful.
So sometimes, you can refer to that and be like, oh, yeah.
This is why I was starting to do this work in the first place.
It's been five years, now, since we
started this space that I'm in, which
is called Round And Round.
And at that time, I added a 12th one
because I wanted work that was free to be weird just
to have a little bit more fun.
And sometimes turning and letting
and code and colors and builds and Pantone
is just like, too many numbers.
So you just kind of want to get--
want to have clients that are cool
if you just do some weird stuff or a space that
allows for that.
[INAUDIBLE] so you can keep it--
keep it fun.
Because design is a pretty creative space.
So it's typically very loud in the office.
We listen to music all day.
We're in a neighborhood, so there's
good places to get lunch and support local food places
and businesses.
And before the pandemic, we tried to have events here.
It's not a huge space, though.
They were typically people who were running for office.
We never had an open house and I regret doing that, now,
because I don't know if we will for a while.
We were always going to have one around the five year mark
and then this happened.
At some point we'll have a party.
REBECCA TRAWICK: Six years.
JUSTIN KEMERLING: Six years.
REBECCA TRAWICK: The new five.
ANDY HADLE: We have another question in the chat Devin
Gonzalez.
Devin, do you want to ask the question yourself?
DEVIN GONZALEZ: Sure.
First of all, thank you for speaking with all of us.
We all appreciate it.
But my question is, a lot of your work deals
with some heavy content, obviously.
So how do you keep the subject matter
from you bringing it home or it affecting your mental health
for lack of a better word?
JUSTIN KEMERLING: Yeah.
The good thing about the design, the process of design,
is that you're always, typically, doing something.
So even though some of the issues are pretty heavy
and the content itself--
I've learned to just quickly get into, well, now
we have a job to do.
And just do the job.
Like this organization I'm working with now,
they deal with a lot of police violence issues.
And everybody on that side is super passionate about
like, we need to do this because lives are on the line.
But even from their perspective, it's like, OK.
Now we're all in our roles--
data researcher, messaging person, web developer,
designer.
And [? it ?] helps to try to feel like you're constructively
doing something because--
yeah.
I certainly go through my moments of being like, oh, this
is terrible.
I think after 2016, it was all the network of people--
I mean, it was rough.
Everybody thought the world was coming to an end.
And that wasn't wrong.
So I think the actual--
it's the same way.
Well, shit.
I'm going to go to a protest.
You've got to do something.
DEVIN GONZALEZ: So you feel like you're
doing something about it.
So that relieves that stress or that worry a little bit?
JUSTIN KEMERLING: A little bit.
I mean, when the pandemic happened,
I was super depressed for a month maybe.
And I would tell that to all my classes
like, well, it's nice to be able to focus on actually doing
something rather than just feeling
like you have to be afraid of humans and stay inside.
So I think the constructive things
of getting through down moments is always like, well, shit.
Now we gotta do something.
So let's turn up the music and get after.
That can be pretty empowering.
It feels like a design career can be very--
you can wield power visually.
Like that James Victore--
a designer [INAUDIBLE].
That's how he talks about designs [? all ?] the time.
When design is used at it's best, it does that.
It doesn't do it all the time. [? It takes work. ?]
But it definitely has that potential.
REBECCA TRAWICK: Great.
So I know we're almost out of time, unfortunately.
But thank you, Justin, so much.
We have such gratitude for you spending your time with us
this evening.
So one really quick question, and then Roman
will close us out.
But I just wanted to ask, what are you reading, watching,
listening to--
film, podcast, publication, graphic novel,
et cetera-- that's giving you life right now?
Anything you can recommend?
JUSTIN KEMERLING: Yeah.
So someone asked where they can get the book.
It'll be at that URL when it's ready.
There's nothing up there now.
I seriously love music.
I listen to [? KDXP ?] every day and they are my gateway
into all of this amazing stuff.
So there is a new--
there's this band called Salt, which
no one knows who they are.
But they put out amazing music that
is really made for this moment.
I've been getting into the Beastie Boys
more because they put out their book.
And they have their special, which is really awesome.
And so I think anything that feels really terrible--
having a good new album, really, just goes super far.
And there's a punk band called Idols that is relatively new.
I think last year they had a really great album.
We saw them in Kansas City.
And it seems like that is--
everything evolves, right?
There are all these punk bands that I love and they kind of,
like--
runs their course.
And Idols is like the new punk stuff.
They put out an album, it just feels of the moment.
It still feels like punk but it feels new
and it feels like someone just threw some cold water on you.
Like, this is what punk is now!
And it's great.
So I think there's a lot of community building
that happens in music scenes and a lot of like, well,
just do it yourself, which I love about music scenes.
There's a good music scene, here,
in Omaha which lots of people are part of and try to support
that and [? who I've ?] done super discounted work for over
the years to try to push that cultural force [? along. ?]
It's super important.
REBECCA TRAWICK: Thank you.
JUSTIN KEMERLING: Thanks for having me, everybody.
This was nice.
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REBECCA TRAWICK: Take care, everybody.
Be safe.
Stay well.