bryan kahrs is a 31-year-old designer living and working in troy, ny i met bryan while participating in the cut&paste design tournament. bryan has been kind enough to give a great interview. below are the questions with bryan’s answers.

dc: you’re doing your thing in troy, ny. how is that?
bk: troy has been very good for me. i moved up here with my wife 3 years ago, not knowing much of anything about the area. my biggest fear of course was leaving nyc as i knew i wouldn’t go back once i stepped out of it. the fear has subsided though, it was an excellent decision to move here.

as for design, my career is advancing in the direction I have always wanted it to. id29 (my employer) has created an environment that supports learning new skills and actually applying them to client projects. we are relatively small, and thus each person takes on many different responsibilities in a way that makes each project very valuable to those involved with it. in a way i have my own self to blame if the finished piece isn’t up to par, as i follow it from beginning to end. this sounds like a simple enough setup but i’ve never had a position that had the freedom and responsibility that my current one does.

dc: this question is a little out there, but bear with me. i’ve been thinking a lot about geographic boundaries and how something so subjective can become very symbolic and almost concrete. for example, i mention “tennessee” and, among other things, that long trapezoid shape that defines the tennessee state borders comes to your mind. what kind of bearing, if any, does that kind of thing have on what we do as designers, the idea of abstract representational shapes? i know, it’s out there, but i could be an interesting conversation.
bk: it first leads me into the topic of work we would want to always do vs. work we are usually involved in doing. perhaps user interface and packaging designers are able to flex this more than most of the other sects of design. i would love nothing more than to challenge people with design and push the limits of simplicity in shape so that it still retains the original message. i rarely have these particular challenges though in a working environment. every so often I get to rethink this practice or apply some form of it to my work, but it is rarely the focal point of piece or project for me. i do however feel a designer should have a strong understanding or at least recognition of the strength of shape and message. shape as communication has been a part of everyone’s life since birth, so it is only natural to want to build upon that common relationship and push new ideas with familiar shapes.

dc: what’s you desktop wallpaper right now?

dc: reading any good books right now? which ones and why do you like them?
bk: i go through phases on books, and tend to read them more in the summer. i loved no country for old men (the movie) and wanted to read something by that author so i read blood meridian. i thoroughly enjoyed it for the style of writing, and the constant cycle of violence, monotony, and smart dialogue. i finally read slaughterhouse five and really enjoyed his writing style for that as well. i guess that is my theme, i tend to like books that have a writing style that is more train of thought-esque.

the book I have probably most returned to and enjoyed is geek love. violent, absurd and completely normal all in one book.

dc: why is graphic design important, i mean, why does what we’re doing really matter at all?
bk: of course it matters. i see so many things on a daily basis that look bad, or they fail at doing what they were meant to do (my personal opinion of course). stores have bad signage, a companies logo has no real meaning to it, a map has misinformation on it, a website can’t be navigated and a thousand other things. we as designers can make our surroundings better and improve the overall value of visual design. graphic design is a great field to be in. if you go to a restaurant and they have a terrible identity system going on, you can talk to the owner about making it better for him. i can walk by a new store being worked on, pop my head in and ask if they need any help with design. there aren’t many professions that have the accessibility for work as ours does, and I find a great deal of importance in that. to summarize: graphic design is important when you get to design something of importance, the rest of the time it is important in that it allows you many opportunities to make a living. a balance of expectations and reality.

dc: what’s your favorite paradesign discipline (i.e. photography, typography…) and why?
bk: it would be silk screening / printmaking. i was trained in traditional graphic design-print focused as opposed to digital, and had the luxury of taking serigraphy, lithography and etching classes while i was in school. the process of printmaking is really liberating to me in that it is very technical and requires quite a bit of patience. i think it has a lot do as well with printmaking’s history in communication design and how it led into our field. i remember learning about the stenberg brothers in school and seeing the litho posters they made and just being blown away by it.

i have quite a bit of respect for typography as well. the actual art of making type is not something i excel at or even come close to being able to comprehend as far as process, but i have the utmost respect for it.

dc: other designers’ workspaces are always interesting. can you send us a picture of yours?

bk: that head on the speaker was my attempt at one of bert simon’s papercraft heads. it ended up looking more like henry rollins so i gave it a cop ‘stache. i use the wacom exclusively now, that mouse on the side is for when other people in the studio have to access my computer. the books are your standard one, grid systems, carson, brody, designer’s republic and a lot of software books (i hate not knowing anything about a certain program so i tend to collect books just in case i need to jump in).

dc: you and i were in the 2007 cut&paste contest together. what did that teach you?
bk: probably that i shouldn’t have taken it so seriously, and preparation had little to do with the outcome. it was a fun event to be involved in though and i was glad to be a part of it. the irony of it was being involved in something like that after i had just moved out of the city.

bryan kahrs sez, “i wish my tax dollars would be spent on new ideas, not band aids for old ones.”

happiness is finding cash in your winter jacket.