THANKS MAX: ANALOG LESSONS FOR A DIGITAL DESIGNER
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Adam Polansky We talk a lot about change; about the need to keep up and the dire results that will come about if we don’t. I began my professional career in design without computers, and I’ve seen the shift from magazines and newspapers to the desktop and the laptop, to the touch screen and the wearable. Now we’re entering a time when interfaces will be abstractions rather than devices, and great experiences result from feeling understood rather than being served. Over 30 years ago, I was lucky enough to have a great teacher. In spite of the changes, certain things remain true. These truths I learned working with a humble but brilliant man named Max, who taught me about more than just design. Let me share his lessons with you.
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THANKS MAX: ANALOG LESSONS FOR A DIGITAL DESIGNER
- 1. Adam Polansky @AdamtheIA apolansky@redearthia.com 2015THANKS MAX ANALOG LESSONS FOR A DIGITAL DESIGNER
- 2. Adam Polansky @AdamtheIA apolansky@redearthia.com LETTER TO A JUNIOR DESIGNER
- 15. Adam Polansky @AdamtheIA apolansky@redearthia.com TAKE YOUR EGO OUT OF IT
- 16. Adam Polansky @AdamtheIA apolansky@redearthia.com TAKE YOUR EGO OUT OF IT
- 24. Adam Polansky @AdamtheIA apolansky@redearthia.com LOOK AT WHAT’S IN FRONT OF YOU
- 32. Adam Polansky @AdamtheIA apolansky@redearthia.com PLAN AHEAD TAKE YOUR EGO OUT OF IT PATIENCE CREATE A FOUNDATION PERCEIVE VS. PRE-CONCEIVE LOOK FOR NEW COMBINATIONS YOU’RE ON A JOURNEY
- 33. Adam Polansky @AdamtheIA apolansky@redearthia.com MAX WALLACE JR. 1933 - 2011
Editor's Notes
- I want to read you a letter. It’s from friend of mine to another designer in a manner of speaking.
- Cenyydd Bowles is a favorite of mine. He’s a designer, speaker and author. I read this when he published it on A List Apart and I thought it was one of the most thoughtful expressions of caring advice I ever read. So…while you think about that, shift gears with me for a couple minutes
- In 1963, When President Kennedy was coming to Dallas, the Morning News planned to run a map of his motorcade route in the paper. The young Creative Director suggested that not be done. He was ignored and the map was in the paper the next day.
- In 1963, When President Kennedy was coming to Dallas, the Morning News planned to run a map of his motorcade route in the paper. The young Creative Director suggested that not be done. He was ignored and the map was in the paper the next day.
- Later on November 22, that creative director walked-out of a storage room in the Dallas Schoolbook Depository where the News had some offices. A stranger walked past him and took up a position where he could see the parade route. From the window in that room he shot the President of the United States and put Dallas on the map in the most horrific way imaginable. The creative director was investigated by the FBI and found to have no part in the events leading up to what would be a turning-point in history; a history that might have played-out very differently if the News hadn’t published that map.
- The name of the young man who left the room moments before was Max Wallace. In the 50s and 60s he was the Director of Art and Photography at the Dallas Morning News and later the Creative Director for the Zales Corporation. One of his loves was teaching. Rather than take a position at a university, he opened an agency and hired people like me.
- If I were talking to the younger me it would be this guy. In 1982, I started working at a small ad agency for this remarkable man. It was a sort of apprenticeship. From Max I learned about mechanical drawing, typesetting, print production and photography. I also learned about business development, account management and client relationships how to build and develop them.
- Now, my father was in Advertising and PR when I was growing up and I remember some of the people he worked around; what we now call Mad Men but they weren’t like Don Draper or David Ogilvy. They were loud, smelled of cigarettes and hair cream. Their suits never quite fit right and they were kind of frantic. Those were the people who shaped what I thought of when I thought of an Ad guy. Max was neither Don Draper nor was he like anyone I knew I advertising. He was calm. He was a tall lanky guy with a slow East Texas drawl perfectly willing to let you think he was as country as it gets when he was usually the smartest guy in the room. He knew what to worry about and what to let go. He never raised his voice and never showed frustration although he chain-smoked like a freight train and drank Coca-Cola like they were going to quit making it tomorrow. More than once I’d see a client raving about some campaign or other that needed to run in some unreasonable period and even though they were flipping out, I’d look over at Max who’d just be smiling and nodding. He’d take a draw on his cigarette and throw me a wink. He was totally unimpressed with anything glamorous. He was more influential than he ever let-on and he was a tinkerer. He was always feeding his own imagination and inviting anyone along for the ride.
- Good lord knows I cost this man money in the form of wasted materials, film and time. He would show me how to do something once and leave me to it. I would bring him the product of my work and he would speak in his slow way that always sounded like he was slightly amused as he told me what I’d done wrong and how I could fix it then he’d simply say “Okay, try it again.” I couldn’t have a better mentor. I also learned to play darts thanks to Max. There were two of us in the art department and we got into the habit of tossing our Exacto knives at the other’s desk. We liked the “thunk” and “fuh-nuh-nuh-nuh” when it stuck. The problem was, we were breaking the points off the knives and going through blades at an unusual rate. I don’t think I mentioned this…Max was cheap. One day Max came in with a cheap dart-board, cheap darts and the rules of a game called Cricket Xeroxed from the Encyclopedia Brittanica. He said, “Those blades are getting expensive. The next time you feel the urge to throw them at each other, get up and play a game of darts instead. We got pretty good and if we were going to throw sharp things around the art room nobody was injured and it didn’t cost us money in supplies. A lot of great ideas were born in front of that dart-board.
- Good lord knows I cost this man money in the form of wasted materials, film and time. He would show me how to do something once and leave me to it. I would bring him the product of my work and he would speak in his slow way that always sounded like he was slightly amused as he told me what I’d done wrong and how I could fix it then he’d simply say “Okay, try it again.” I couldn’t have a better mentor. I also learned to play darts thanks to Max. There were two of us in the art department and we got into the habit of tossing our Exacto knives at the other’s desk. We liked the “thunk” and “fuh-nuh-nuh-nuh” when it stuck. The problem was, we were breaking the points off the knives and going through blades at an unusual rate. I don’t think I mentioned this…Max was cheap. One day Max came in with a cheap dart-board, cheap darts and the rules of a game called Cricket Xeroxed from the Encyclopedia Brittanica. He said, “Those blades are getting expensive. The next time you feel the urge to throw them at each other, get up and play a game of darts instead. We got pretty good and if we were going to throw sharp things around the art room nobody was injured and it didn’t cost us money in supplies. A lot of great ideas were born in front of that dart-board.
- Preparing to speak to an international audience about Design is daunting. As a strategist, I get asked to look into the future a lot and try to offer my thoughts on what it holds for different platforms or technologies. I don't want to be that guy who sounds like he has it all worked out. While preparing this talk, I came across something on-line that reminded me of Max…my teacher…and all these stories came flooding back to me and as they did, the things I learned from him came back too. Actually they never left but for the first time, I could trace the history of my career in design back to him and see how, through the years his influence has been with me all this time. Even though he taught me about very specific types of design, the term designer has come to encompass so much that we have some universal things in common. I had the chance to learn from someone unlike anyone I ever met before or since and I want to share a little bit of that with you today.
- One of our accounts was a Cookie Shop, we did print-ads for magazines and newspaper, radio spots and occasionally we supported on-site events. When we did, Max made sure that we never carried less than three cameras. One might be loaded with color film, one B&W, and one with a faster or slower film depending on the light available. This way all we had to do was aim, focus and shoot. Sounds pretty archaic but that’s what we did to eliminate steps so that we stood a better chance of catching a moment. Plan ahead. Check your gear. Do you have all your supplies? Are they ready for use? Do you keep supplies in reserve? Can you predict what will happen all the time – No of course not but experience will tell you what to pack. Also, when you’re done, someone else will have to take what you do and make something from it whether it’s a printer, a machinist or a software developer. If you haven’t thought-through the details, you’re going to be asked about them and either everything stops or worse yet, you won’t be asked and you’ll get a surprise coming off the end of the press. Plan ahead because you may have to live with the result if you don’t. Max told me a story once. When he took over the A&P department at the News, the photographers would run-out, shoot-up a bunch of film and drop it off to be processed. If it looked like crap, they would send it to the art department for air-brushing to clean it up. Max made the art department off-limits to the photogs. If they didn’t plan and take what they did seriously, that crappy print would run in the paper and several did before they got the message. Plan ahead
- One of our accounts was a Cookie Shop, we did print-ads for magazines and newspaper, radio spots and occasionally we supported on-site events. When we did, Max made sure that we never carried less than three cameras. One might be loaded with color film, one B&W, and one with a faster or slower film depending on the light available. This way all we had to do was aim, focus and shoot. Sounds pretty archaic but that’s what we did to eliminate steps so that we stood a better chance of catching a moment. Plan ahead. Check your gear. Do you have all your supplies? Are they ready for use? Do you keep supplies in reserve? Can you predict what will happen all the time – No of course not but experience will tell you what to pack. Also, when you’re done, someone else will have to take what you do and make something from it whether it’s a printer, a machinist or a software developer. If you haven’t thought-through the details, you’re going to be asked about them and either everything stops or worse yet, you won’t be asked and you’ll get a surprise coming off the end of the press. Plan ahead because you may have to live with the result if you don’t. Max told me a story once. When he took over the A&P department at the News, the photographers would run-out, shoot-up a bunch of film and drop it off to be processed. If it looked like crap, they would send it to the art department for air-brushing to clean it up. Max made the art department off-limits to the photogs. If they didn’t plan and take what they did seriously, that crappy print would run in the paper and several did before they got the message. Plan ahead
- This may sound a little harsh but stick with me here. If you want to sign your art at the bottom go find a coffee-shop to show your work – this as advertising. The client doesn’t give two shits about your portfolio. I lived with phrases like “I’ll know it when I see it.” You heard that one before “That’s great! What else do you have?” I would spend hours going through pages of layout pads doing sketches for the client, mechanicals or detailed layout until they saw what they wanted. I lived with this crap and still do sometimes. Finally, at some point I would strike the right chord and they would parade it my work around showing everyone what “they” designed. To a young designer, it was soul-crushing because I not only killed myself to reach that point, I lost my own point of view somewhere along the way and I was taking orders. I knew it and I hated myself for it. No one likes to be told to “shut-up and color”. Today, it’s a combination of the audience and the business needs and businesses are discovering that a great experience IS good business but you as a designer have to find the balance. This may sound paradoxical but the less I am married to an idea, the better I can defend it and keep my point of view because I could be objective and to paraphrase Cenyydd, put evidence behind my opinion rather than force. In other words, it wasn’t about me. Take your ego out of it.
- This may sound a little harsh but stick with me here. If you want to sign your art at the bottom go find a coffee-shop to show your work – this as advertising. The client doesn’t give two shits about your portfolio. I lived with phrases like “I’ll know it when I see it.” You heard that one before “That’s great! What else do you have?” I would spend hours going through pages of layout pads doing sketches for the client, mechanicals or detailed layout until they saw what they wanted. I lived with this crap and still do sometimes. Finally, at some point I would strike the right chord and they would parade it my work around showing everyone what “they” designed. To a young designer, it was soul-crushing because I not only killed myself to reach that point, I lost my own point of view somewhere along the way and I was taking orders. I knew it and I hated myself for it. No one likes to be told to “shut-up and color”. Today, it’s a combination of the audience and the business needs and businesses are discovering that a great experience IS good business but you as a designer have to find the balance. This may sound paradoxical but the less I am married to an idea, the better I can defend it and keep my point of view because I could be objective and to paraphrase Cenyydd, put evidence behind my opinion rather than force. In other words, it wasn’t about me. Take your ego out of it.
- When you love and practice a craft, there is no down-time. Get your sketchbook out, go burn-up some film and spend some time experimenting in the darkroom, write some code, draw on the whiteboard. Whether it’s Music, sports or any creative effort practice puts certain tasks in the back of your mind so you don’t have to think about them deliberately and gives your head room to be really experimental and creative.
- In 1902, a young American engineer named Willis Carrier was waiting for a train. He was watching fog roll in across the platform, when he had a sudden idea: fog is the condensation that occurs when air is rapidly cooled. In that instant, he had the idea for what would become the condenser – the air conditioner. That is considered one of the few Eureka moments in the history of innovation. The truth is they come very seldom. But, if you think about it, Carrier was an engineer, he became one through practice otherwise do you think he would even have been able to translate fog into the notion of a condenser; maybe not so spontaneous as it sounds. I think his practice prepared him to capture an idea.
- In 1902, a young American engineer named Willis Carrier was waiting for a train. He was watching fog roll in across the platform, when he had a sudden idea: fog is the condensation that occurs when air is rapidly cooled. In that instant, he had the idea for what would become the condenser – the air conditioner. That is considered one of the few Eureka moments in the history of innovation. The truth is they come very seldom. But, if you think about it, Carrier was an engineer, he became one through practice otherwise do you think he would even have been able to translate fog into the notion of a condenser; maybe not so spontaneous as it sounds. I think his practice prepared him to capture an idea.
- Innovation is as much about discarded ideas and the energy it took to come-up with them, as it is about one great idea. Max taught me to get your ideas out. Look at them and toss them aside and keep going but go back.
- Somewhere in that pile of cast-offs may be one golden concept but it still needs work to refine it. Innovation is about having the presence of mind to capture those concepts so that you CAN examine them, break them down, poke holes in them and maybe deliver on them. Innovation is another word for the creative process. Creativity deserves your energy and requires practice.
- Innovation is about having the presence of mind to capture those concepts so that you CAN examine them, break them down, poke holes in them and maybe deliver on them. Innovation is another word for the creative process. Creativity deserves your energy and requires practice.
- I remember announcing to my father that I wanted to be an “Idea Man”. You’d have thought I said I wanted to be a lawyer for the mob. He went on to make it clear that Idea men were a dime-a-dozen when people who could bring an idea to reality were at a premium. He wanted to be sure that I took that to heart. Being a 6 year-old, my mind was pretty cluttered back then but that one stuck.
- When I was in art school, we had to draw an apple that was sitting on the table in front of us. That seemed easy enough. We already know apples are red with kind of a pinched bottom and a curved stem sticking out of the top. That wasn’t the apple in front of me. It was the apple I carry around in my head. I had to really look at the apple with all its variations in color, texture and shape I learned the importance of taking the information from what I truly saw, not from what I already thought. Dealing with people is like that too. After a while you have this idea about “the marketing guy, the lady from finance, the software developers. Just like the apple you need to really observe them, meet them, talk to them, learn something about their sensibilities. Find out what makes them different. What is their superpower? They might run true to stereotype but give them a chance to break that. Look at and really see what’s in front of you.
- Most of my work took place on 10 x 13 pieces of Crescent board or past-up board. It’s a thick board with one bright white side. Even for the time prepping them the way we did was a little old-school. I cut-up the board from large parent sheets, using my T-square, aligned and then taped them to my drawing board, marked-out an 8 ½ x 11 space creating registration marks that the printer would use to line-up the artwork on his camera. I would draw-out the page in blue pencil because the camera would not pick that up. I would build my way-up to a finished piece of what we called camera-ready art. It might consist of hand-drawn illustrations, Photostats or halftones (Look at a newspaper to see how the photos are all different sized dots of black or color.) hand-drawn lines or borders using zip-tape and text.
- Text…yeah. Today you can drop text into a document or design and play around with the size, spacing, kerning, leading, and the font itself. Back then, it required the typesetting machine. A big, blue monster that displayed what you were typing in little red lights on a single red line like a miniature Time-Square. At the most I had 7-8 fonts to choose from; Helvetica and Optima being the most common. I could also do sizing and things I just mentioned with one important difference: I had to know all those things in advance because the type was the result of a photographic process that gave a me a long strip of paper that I stuck to my drawing board with rubber cement or wax where I cut it out by paragraph, line, word or individual letter. I used the blue-pencil to create a sort of scaffolding to represent my sketches and I pasted the type onto the Crescent board. I had to have a clear idea of a finished product in my mind before I could begin that work. Draftsmanship was crucial. I had to lay down a foundation.
- They say the best evangelist isn’t the one who tells you how to act but shows you in their own behavior. I never knew Max’s politics, I never knew about his religion but I knew he was patient. As long as I knew Max, he never lost his temper with me in spite of the fact that I had the attention-span of a squirrel drinking Red Bull. His wife used to say that in 50 years, she only saw him get mad once. She knew he was mad because she saw his jaw clench up and then only for a little while. Patience - Not everybody cares about the same things you do as much as you do. Try to understand where their passions and pain lie because just about everything that motivates people, boils down to those two things; seeking pleasure – avoiding pain. If you can feed one or make the other go away, you’re going to gain trust. People trusted Max because he always seemed to understand them. When an engineer knows you respect their ability to solve complex problems, when you can acknowledge that brand manager is on the hook to deliver certain business results, when a client knows you understand the goals they envision and you can communicate how you’ll help with those things, you will gain their trust. Without patience, you will never even reach the understanding. With patience you’ll earn trust and respect and willingness from others to support you and your ideas.
- My own journey in and out of the design world has been a patchwork of successes and failures but no matter where I found myself he always came to mind when I was faced with a challenge. In a way he remained my mentor. The journey really is the thing. If you pay attention you will notice, you’re surrounded by people who’ve been where you’re going and they don’t have to be older than you. Maybe you’ll have a great mentor. You might have to go look for one but you all have access to information that wasn’t as easy to find when I was younger. Find it. Read it. Listen to it. Even without direct guidance, you can still learn from the experience of others.
- Over the years I lost touch with Max. I tried to locate him from time to time and I didn’t have any luck until one day I found him on-line. I found his obituary and he’d passed away just a couple of months earlier. I collapsed back in my chair and thought about how, for many years, I felt like squandered my time with him. I must have disappointed him. I could have learned more from him, I could have done a better job for him. I realized something.
- My feelings all where rooted back in the early 80s. I may have disappointed him in 1984. But now I think it just took me longer to learn what he was teaching. Max may have known that all along.
- If I could talk to the younger me I would tell me this last lesson: In 1983 I hung-out with models and other creatives. I was running hard in Dallas at night and I didn’t have to wait in line to get into the good clubs. I was an arrogant little shit who thought he’d “arrived”. The truth is I was years and miles away from success. So hear I am today. My family is not rich. The house needs work. Our relatives make us crazy and the cat shits in the garage, but I’ve been married for 23 years to the love of my life. I have a daughter who’s made me forget or care about what it was like not to be a dad. I work in a field that has one of the most welcoming professional communities and I work in a place that drives me always to be better than I am at things I love with people I respect who do amazing things from their hearts. For those reasons, if the music stopped right now, I could say I was successful but I’m still on the journey. That’s success too.
- I roamed around a bit this afternoon and if you were looking for some sort of comprehensive guide to something; I never planned to offer that. Maybe I was just lucky but I think if we’re prepared when opportunities come along, we have a hand in making our own luck. I’ve learned many lessons over the years and I have many more to learn. I’ve had more teachers than I can count and I still do. They are supervisors and peers, acquaintances and close friends but Max was special as was the time I spent under his guidance. The lessons didn’t all take right away. I have to remind myself to practice some of them but as I re-examine them now, I suppose they are as meaningful to a good life as they are to good design. If it was luck then I wish that luck to all of you.
- Thanks Max …and thank you.