Uncover the Surprising Mind Behind Your FAVORITE Logos! An interview with Gerard Huerta

I remember doing the, the Boston lettering for, for that album. This had nothing to do with Boston or the album or anything, but I had a book on fairground, um, artwork fairground, you know, oh, just all of these rides and everything in England. And there was the great, it was the greatest typography on there.

And I just remember this lightning bolt zero or o uh, from somewhere. And that became the basis of it because for some reason in that moment that just. Felt right and influenced me and, and, and then I developed the kind of whole thing around it.

Welcome to the marketing team of one podcast where we have conversations about the issues one person marketing team face when trying to meet their goals with limited time and budgets. Now, here's your hosts, Eric and Mike. Ladies and gentlemen. I just wanna say this is really one of those episodes of the podcast that we're, we're not gonna talk a lot about marketing.

I know that's a marketing team of one podcast. This is a lot about brand and I am so lucky to have with me today. One of the icons, the gold standard, some of the work that he has done is cultural touch points for so many people, especially in my generation. I grew up in the seventies and eighties listening to music and a lot of the work that he did for CBS records was.

Incredible. Still timeless. You'll see it everywhere, but that doesn't explain his whole career. He did a lot of work around mastheads and magazines, and he is Gerard Huerta, one of the great American designers. Thank you for joining us today, Gerard. Well, thank you for that. That was, um, I didn't know who you're talking about for a moment.

Well, if anybody, I'm just gonna start off by telling everybody to go to Gerard Huerta on Instagram. Uh, that is probably my favorite feed, although his, his website is incredible and shows so many of his amazing pieces of work. Maybe you've heard of a little band called A CDC. I don't know if anybody's heard of 'em, but he did their original logo still out there in the wild.

And, uh, going strong. Boston, the first Boston album cover, uh, you worked with Paula Cher and, uh. How do you say Ro Roger? Roger Heen. I also want to take this opportunity, maybe it is more of like a job interview with you if you have any overflow. I just want to show you, this is a piece that I did when I was 11, so inspired by you.

Of course. You can see probably not quite at the level. And of course the, the, the, the lightning bolt was too challenging. I couldn't go there at that age. Um, I've since, you know, improved a little bit. This was maybe from when I was 12. You can see I drew three things when I was a a kid and it brought me to become an artist and, and a designer who I am today.

But it was biking bicycles, cars, and album covers, and mostly the typography on I album covers. I'm gonna stop talking here because I've said a lot of things and I want to hear more from you, but you. We're gonna talk a little bit about brand today. You call yourself more of a lettering artist, or how do you categorize your talents as far as the contributions that you've provided for albums and some of those mastheads?

I call myself a lettering artist or lettering guy because that's what I spend my time doing is drawing letters. Um, my entire career has been drawing letters or numbers. Um, and of course there's more to it, you know, there's, there's the, you know, the logos, the illustrations, the watch dials, all these different sort of categories I guess, that, uh, I've been in.

But they rely on the drawing of letter forms, of custom letter forms, um, not type, um, things which are drawn. And that, and that's the most important aspect of all of this is the drawing aspect because that's where, uh, the invention takes place. Yes. You're working and designing everything begins on tissue paper, is that correct?

That's correct, yes. Amazing. You know, I like to say that in, in, in drawing, you know, you sit at a table and there's sort of this therapeutic thing to it. And, and I like to think that the drawing, it's, it's in the tissue. You just have to kind of find it with your pencil and eventually it, it, it, it does reveal itself.

Um, and then you tighten it up and, um, execute it. Whether it was ZI in the old days, olden days, or, um, through Adobe Illustrator. Um, in terms of vectorizing, the artwork. Right, right. Let's go back and just start at the beginning. You grew up in Southern California, orange County. Um, started off as a art kid, much like myself, uh, and maybe a lot of designers out there.

Um, grade school, loved drawing. Is that painting? That's correct. What was your passion then? That's correct. I, I, I was one of those. People that used to draw, and I, and I, a little side story, I had an aunt who lived with my grandparents and she would paint and her room was covered in oil paintings and things that she had done.

And I would, I would go to my grandparents' house and just stand there and, and look at these things forever. Mm-hmm. Um, and I fortunately have a couple of her paintings still that, that I admire and love. One happens to be a portrait of my dad. Wow. Which is very special to, to have for me. Um, but. Um, I, I just love the, I love the idea of taking three dimensions and turning it into two dimensions, um, and, and fooling the eye, I guess.

Um, you know, it's very, it's very much like kids you talk to who are, uh, magicians, you know, it's all, it's all, it's like fooling somebody. You're, you, you're, you know, you, you do something, you draw something and you're fooling the eye. Um, just as a magician, fool somebody in terms of a trick. So, um, so I just enjoyed that when I was young and I, and I did a lot of drawing.

Um, and then eventually when I got into high school, I, you know, I, I excelled, did quite well, and, um, went on to art school and you went to, uh, a little school with what called, uh, the Art Center College of Design. Um, so we can relate on that. I don't think our football teams played each other. My, my art school football team in years probably weren't in the same.

Football team. I, I mean, I can't even go into how there was no time to do anything but your assignments ever. Um, can't even imagine, um, leisure time in that, in that world. Um, it was, you know, it was kind of a grueling, grueling, uh, experience, um, because you had five classes, um, and then most of them were all day each day, and you got assignments from all of the teachers.

So, um, to, to sort of accomplish your assignments. Um, it took a lot of time. So it, it, but, but it, it worked out well. I think everybody got their a thousand hours in, uh, in school. So the, the rigor was definitely necessary to get you used to. Uh, the working world I would imagine too. 'cause it doesn't go away.

It's not Well, it's, that's, that's true. I, I know when, when I finally did get my job at CBS finally, meaning it took me two months to, to get a job. Um, I, the job had firm hours, nine to five and you go home. That, that was kind of it. And then I would go home and I wouldn't have anything to really do. So I really started running out and getting freelance work.

Um, and then the transition was I got so busy doing freelance work that I needed the daytime to kind of rest during work at CBS. Um, so I could accomplish work during the night for, for the freelance work. And then eventually I left because I knew CBS would continue to use me. Um, so leaving there was, was, you know, not that big issue.

I just managed to do the work, freelance as opposed to, uh, on staff. So you took a big risk when after graduation, well, maybe part of your training at Art Center was to open your eyes wide to the world of probably at that point in time, it might've been called commercial art. I know that that is called something maybe different now, but, um, commercial arts, and that's a good term.

I, I like that term. And, and so it, it, you had told me before, right away you're like, okay, we're going to New York. We gotta go to New York. And you dragged maybe three or four or five other designers who you had gone to school with there and right after graduation migrated out, uh, over, back to the East coast.

Yes. Um, I graduated, I got married the following week and moved to New York, uh, the following month. So it was sort of a quick, a, a quick three, um, major life changes, um, right away. Yeah. But going and doing that, you then pounded the pavement and said it took you about two months to get a job at CBS records.

Yes. Um, it New York, um, it was a horrible time to move to New York. New York was going broke. Um, there were no jobs. I, I had a list of six people I wanted to see, and they all told me I'd hire you in a minute. But we have no work. We just don't have any work. And, um, fortunately my wife managed to get a job right away.

Um, so she was working and bringing in some money. And I managed to pick up some freelance jobs from, um, a couple of people, including John Berg, my, who became my boss at CBS. Hmm. He gave me some work to do. Um, um, and then eventually, um, I printed up a card a little, well, actually a big business card, kind of an oversized card.

I did some artwork with my name and I went back and passed it around to, um, the people that I'd seen. And I got back to my apartment and got two job offers that day. Nice. Um, so, uh, one was cleaning up typeface and the other one was becoming an album cover designer. So it's kind of no. Real comparison there in terms of what I chose.

Well, yeah, you were 22 years old and, and honestly, when we look back at the history of graphic design, and not to get, you know, scholarly on the audience here, but this was really the golden age of graphic design. Everything was hand done. The computer really hadn't started, you know, building into the process of what we do as commercial artists or designers.

At the time. Everything was hand done, airbrushing, uh, photo retouching was done on the actual negatives and, you know, painting by hand. And it was very analog process. But at that point it was, I would call, I would label it a high water in, in design and advertising and communication, just because it was, it just seemed like culturally, it, it, there was this ground swell that, you know, think of the music from the seventies and the sixties.

That is still looked at and honored as, as a high point too. And you were lucky enough to then go work at CBS records at the point in time too, just to speak to New York? Yes. It was a horrible place to live. Maybe because of the, you know, problems culturally, but when you look at the business of graphic design and advertising, it was the center of the world.

Maybe Chicago was competing in the advertising world, but for sure publishing was the center of the world was in New York City at the time, correct? Yes. It, it, there was, there was so much work, the, so many places to go and, and pick up freelance work, for example, magazines, um, as you said, publishing, book publishing, um, advertising records.

Um, it, it really, um. It was really the place to go and the place to be, I think for me. Yeah. So, um, and you know, once, once I started working all of the kind of nonsense of New York, um, just sort of went away. I was not, I was not that conscious of it, um, because I was working on these, on these jobs. And, um, and the, the other thing that I wanted to mention, um, being at CBS and working on album covers, you had this 12 and a half by 12 and five a surface to cover.

Hmm. Um, which was really pretty incredible when you think about it now when, you know, we look at, you know, music now and it's streaming and we have a little image of, you know, this big on our phone. You know, that was, that was big. It was a, you know, it was a nice big piece of real estate to work on. So, um, that was, that was pretty terrific.

Great opportunity. Yeah, and I think that maybe it speaks a little bit to the popularity of the, the rise again now in popularity of vinyl. I know that, um, some of the people, uh, younger generations are going back and investing in vinyl and, and I think part of that experience is sitting there. Yes. Well, laying on their bed or whatever and looking at that album cover Yeah.

And really getting into it, you know? Mm-hmm. Yeah. It definitely was an experience that is kind of missed now with, with, uh, with streaming, you know, to have the printed lyrics and all of the credits and who played what, and, and, um, you know, the, you know, and then of course the image of, of the cover, uh, a possible logo.

Um, there was a lot there besides the music, which was really great. So your job as this young gun who just walked in the door at CBS and of course there was probably a lot of established people there already that were, had made a name for themselves, loved their job, was just as excited, maybe more so than you were about the having to work there.

Uh, the opportunities that came to you were castoffs. I think maybe if we wanna categorize it that way, that they, these established designers were, I'm gonna work on the big famous stuff, this new band, ac dc or Ted Nugent or, you know, foreigner, we who are these? Just give it to the young. That, that definitely happened.

You know, I was definitely sort of low man on the totem pole, but what, what it did, it gave me an opportunity to, to get in at the beginning of a person's career, just like the beginning of my career. Yeah. For instance, when I worked on A CDC, I think the first, um. Album. I may have been 24 years old as they were, you know, they were kind of in their mid twenties.

Um, so, you know, you sort of, you sort of grew up with, with the groups. Um, you know, Ted Nugent the same way. He had just come off another band and it was his first album, so. I worked on it and then just, uh, continued to work on, uh, five or six other ones that, um, we, we use the same hand lettering style so that he had a, a sort of image, corporate, corporate image for Ted Nugent.

Um, so, um, it, it, it really is kind of interesting foreigner, the same way foreigner I worked on, um, uh, with Bob Derin, the art director, and it was, it was their first album that I created a, um, piece of lettering that went on to be used as a logo. And that's sort of what happened. It wasn't, oh, let's create a logo for these guys.

Hmm. I was just sort of creating a piece of lettering for a particular album and then it would continue to be used. Um. I mean, a good example is Blue Oyster Cult. I had worked on a piece for an a Live Al album on your feet or on your knees, and it was sort of this, um, chrome looking silver, I don't know, goth looking lettering.

Um, and when they did their, um, big collection of everything they did, which, you know, 850 albums, I dunno how many, a bunch of albums, bunch a CD set, it was actually a CD set. Sure. And they, they used this lettering from 1975 Wow. As the, um, as the lettering for that. So, um, it was, you know, it was kind of, um, kind of cool, um, yeah, to kind of bring it back to brand and, and to try to somehow relate it to my podcast theme, which is about branding and marketing.

Yes. There is a strength to the work that you did that transcends time. People nowadays, when they do go make the 850 album, you know, box set for Lewis Cult, they're gonna go back and look at, okay, what was the touch point? Or what was the most popular? What did the fans really dig their nails into as and love?

And yes, most of the time it was something that you had, you had worked up and what you do as opposed to an album design, let's say, you know, the Boston album or that, you know, maybe high Voltage by AC CDC. Those album covers are cool and they're very iconic, but you can pull out your element from it and then build out kind of a whole brand system with that, which as a designer you're like, okay, great, lemme get my mitts on that.

And start to build out all kinds of fun little tools, uh, as where an image on an album maybe isn't as easy to work with like that, right? So yeah. Uh, no, it was, it, it was, it was kind of a cool thing to, you know, do some lettering and then just see it sort of, you know, live on, I guess. Yeah. Um, but I had no idea when I was working on it that these groups would live on forever.

You, you know? Yeah. It's, it, it would sort of, uh, you know, you do it in time and, and then, uh, you do the next job. It's sort of the, the routine. Well, and, and yeah, like you said, you show up with your lunch pail at 9:00 AM at CBS, you know, and you go to work and, and you go home at five and, you know, you put in your time and every day is just you're working on stuff.

There were, the opportunities that were there though, were just incredible at the time. I mean, you probably in hindsight look back and say that, but at the time you were. You are just like, I'm just working and I'm happy and I'm having problems. It's, it's a job. Yeah. It's a, it's, it's a job. I mean, I was into it for sure.

But, um, yeah, but you, you know, you weren't thinking beyond what you were trying to accomplish in the moment, I guess. And you got to work with a lot of fascinating people. I mean, the, the album cover you work with Paul Cher a little bit on that, who's of course a another Yes. Design icon in the world. Right.

Paul Cher and Bob Dere and John Berg. Ed Lee, um, there Erie, um, Myron Linberg, AB Sussman. I mean, there was a whole, whole group of, of, um, people that gave me work. You know, that was the, that was the great thing about it is you would establish this relationship and then you would go on, um, and work with, with these people forever, you know, for a long time.

Um. That was pretty, pretty great. So, so in your free time in the evenings or lunchtime, you'd wander the streets of New York and go speak to other publishers, it sounds like, and you would sell your wares to them. And it could be anybody, it could be publishers. Uh, I think one of the more fascinating stories, and it speaks a lot to your approach in the sense of you are gonna do the work for that's appropriate for the job or for the client, whatever their requirements are, as opposed to some other designers that we know out there that maybe have just one style or a, a certain look and feel that people go to them for and they just.

Pump that stuff out all the time. You're different. You're, you are adaptive, you are flexible. I mean, looking at, you've done the Adweek brand, uh, or masthead at the time, I'll call it a brand. Mm-hmm. Uh, that's an incredible piece. The Architectural Digest, I think they're still using that too. Correct. Um, I think they've switched over to an ad.

I think that's, that's what it's known as over time. You did, well, speaking of time, you did the Time Master that was back in the nineties, popular up until I think 96. Um, but that's what was fascinating is you did a lot of that work. You did ac DC logo, then you did the time logo, like within the same. Yes, within three months, four letters each.

Four letters within three months, who would know the same person would do them? You know, that was, um, that was kind of a, a, the, the nice thing about approaching everything in terms of the client and what's appropriate to the client is that you, uh, and, and you know, and, and we're talking about letter forms, so mm-hmm.

Things can go in so many different directions and, um, I know there are people who say, I have a style. Oh, I recognize that piece. That's your style. But it, I really. Think of it more in terms of that might be a style for country music, or that might be a style for, uh, a corporate logo for a bank, or that might be a, you know, there, there are many different styles and I think that was something that, um, I could easily adapt to because of, of my, um, consideration of what the client needed.

And that led to an opportunity. I, one of the cool stories you talked about when we talked earlier was your work for the Monterey uh, golf. Yes. Monterey Peninsula Country Club. Yeah. Yes. And, and, and is that Pebble Beach, or is that a different It's, it's in Pebble Beach, but there are other, there is the Pebble Beach Golf Club.

I don't know if they call it the golf club, but it, there's Pebble Beach. Um, I think there's about three or four of 'em there in Monterey. It's quite a, quite a beautiful, um, it's, it's incredibly beautiful. The, the whole area is incredibly beautiful. I mean, I remember standing on the 14th hole with the Monterey Peninsula Country Club and just watching Porpoises jumping in the ocean, you know, and sea lions hanging out.

Um, so it really is quite incredible. Um, but, um, yeah, I, I've been lucky to work on things like that, you know, that are kind of unusual, I think unusual for me. Um, um. I don't know. I, I don't know if I would've picked me to do that job based on the work that I did, but it turns out they picked me to do that job because they didn't know what they would get from me because I, I didn't have a style in terms of the work.

So that was, that was really their qualification for hiring me, uh, which was kind of cool. That's amazing. Yeah. I, I, the story you told, I mean, the people that they brought in, you said it was 15 different firms that they were Yeah, it was a lot of high-end design firms, of which I would, uh, I certainly wouldn't.

Wouldn't pick them to be in competition with me. 'cause I'm certainly not. I'm, you know, I don't think of myself in that, in that world of, you know, some of these people, I won't mention any names either, but, um, but the, the comment that was made by Eric Heiser, who was the sort of the go-between, between the logo committee and myself, um, he said we knew what we would get from them.

We had no idea what we get, we would get from Gerard. So we chose him and that was, um, I think I considered that a high compliment. Well that speaks a lot to them. They were willing to go for the ride, you know, which sometimes take a risk. A lot of clients wanna take a chance. Yeah. So that's a great story.

I love that. Um, so going back letter forms. Did you train with sign painters? I mean, you studied typography, I'm assuming in. At Art Center, but your process was never to like, I'm gonna start with tracing, Kalon typeface. Um, you kind of have an innate knowledge or understanding of how a lot of people work.

Yeah, I, it, it's, it began in terms of the, the lettering part of it, it began the semester, um, right before I started at art Center. Uh, my mother got me a job at a store. She was working there. And the, the, my job at the store was to draw signs, these little cards, and with a chisel point marker, I would write the name of the product on it and put a big price on it.

And so I did a summer of this, just doing these signs. Um, uh, so, so I got a sense of spacing and weight and letter forms. And then when, um, when I got to art center, um, anybody who was a. Uh, illustration, major advertising major graphic design major. You had to take lettering, you had to take a lettering class, and the lettering class was very specific.

You did a serif, sort of a serif title, uh, sp Syrian script title, um, a uh, saner title and I forget what the other one was. Um, I think it was another serif, but like a, like a sort of dedo type serif. Anyway, so. I managed to just breeze through this class. It was very easy for me because I love the tightness of it.

I love the NZI inking and the whiting out stuff. And I, that was just me. Okay. And, um, I like to say it was probably the most hated class at Art Center because people hated lettering. They just hated having to do this nitzy little thing. And for me it was great. So when I got into the second semester, um, I had a teacher who allowed me to do other assignments that, that might have been portfolio pieces as opposed to sort of the standard, um, lettering, you know, lettering to assignments.

So, um, and that, so that sort of defined. A direction for me. I could draw letters much better than I could draw heads. Mm-hmm. So that kind of pushed me in that, you know, in that, uh, direction. So it, it, and, and just to elaborate on the story, when I got to a semester in advertising, I remember my teacher took me aside, Mel San, he was really a great teacher.

He was from New York. And he goes, you know, you're not doing very well in this class. You know that. And I said, well, I'm sorry Mr. San, but I don't like advertising. Um, he said, well, we're having a portfolio review next week, so bring in your portfolio. We'll figure out what to do. So I brought in a portfolio full of lettering and some illustration and, uh, he said to me, why didn't you show me this in the beginning?

I would've given you a different assignment than the class because obviously you don't like advertising, but you love this and, and this is the direction you're going in, and I would push you this way. So Umhmm. I, I probably should open my mouth more and, and, and talk to, you know, talk to the instructors and say, look, I'm not really into this thing.

You do, but I'm into this. And, um, anyway, so he, he was great and, and when it came to graduation, he went to bat for me because the head of the advertising department do want to graduate me. 'cause I had no ads in my portfolio. Wow. Wow. Think of, uh, the world without you, uh, graduating and going to New York.

That would've been huge loss. I think when you start working, I'd love to know what the first, like you get an assignment. And now I'm sure your door is knocked on constantly. Okay. Being at the level that you're at, do you start off really loosey goosey and like just kind of charcoal on newsprint? Like do a quick little rendering, maybe three or four studies, we'll call it.

It, it really is, um, it really is a process of just drawing it, you know, if you, you know, if, you know, if somebody has a, you know, a band let's say, okay. Mm-hmm. And I, and I have done surprisingly enough, I've done probably seven or eight band logos in the last five years. I'm awesome. It's sort of full circle.

Yeah. You know, they would look me up and see, I had done this stuff in the seventies and that's what they want. They want that look or they want, you know, whatever it is. Um, but so essentially what I do is I just sit down with a blank piece of tracing paper and a pencil and I just begin drawing the word or words.

And seeing what happens with, with, with scripts or what happens with, with sort of gothic letters or, or crif letters and just seeing what comes out of, um, out of the words. Um, and then. After doing, you know, sort of a page of 'em, maybe eight or nine or something, I'll just check off the ones I want to tighten up.

And, um, at that time I would tighten them up with either a marker, black marker, um, or type pencils. Now I'll usually scan 'em in the computer and actually draw em to the computer much tighter. Um, but that's the, the process really for me is about drawing. You know, I remember when the computer came in and I, I would do these lectures at classes and I would, I would tell the class that, you know, you have these computers and the, the, the talent that we had is we could do smooth edges, we could do perfect weights or strokes because we'd measure everything in income.

That way you have this computer that does that for you. Hmm. So. If you have perfect strokes and smooth edges, but you have a lousy drawing, it doesn't, the computer's not gonna help you. It's still gonna be a bad job. So it's very important that the drawing be good, and then, you know, you can adapt your perfect strokes and your smooth curves to it, um, and, and have yourself a nice job.

Um, so it, it's all based on that original drawing. I wonder today, and I'm not super familiar with the, the current way that, you know, people are taught this in college and art schools and things like that, and I would hope that they would maintain some of that hand work, because I think there's a process that happens when you're working with your, from your head down to the pencil, right?

Mm. It's a little bit different than the head down to a computer mouse or, or a, you know, a, a hockey puck with a, mm-hmm. What did you call it when we were it? A bar of soap. Bar of soap and a fishing line, bar of soap, fishing line. Not that they're, you know, I mean, I guess our instincts as human beings, as we begin with pencils and crayons and drawing that way.

And so maybe there's a little bit deeper connection to that. Maybe, I don't know. In the future, uh, you know, kids growing up on, on, uh, you know, computers, the, the mouse is actually more natural for them or something like that. But it does feel like there's a quicker translation to get to those good quality ideas when you are just working in a pencil mode first.

I know that that's something that I encourage a lot of people to start to do. Uh, it's hard 'cause you kind of feel like you're not doing well maybe if you don't have the basic skills. But drawing is one of those things that. I feel, and maybe you do too, that is, you can learn it, you know? Mm-hmm. Practice it, you're gonna get better, you know?

Yeah. Well, the, the sad thing to me is when you go into art class, now, it's a series of computer stations. Mm. Mm-hmm. So I think what happens is the kids are encouraged to work directly on the computer, but my sense is what happens is you, you have, you, you develop this ability to select fonts, select images, and assemble them, and then that's your creativity.

Um, which it, it, which, it's not that creative that, you know, that the stuff exists already, you know? Mm-hmm. The, the thing that's nice about drawing is what you do doesn't really exist yet until you start to work on it and, and put it in your language, you know, whatever it is, you know, whatever it is you do.

Um, so I, I wouldn't have a portfolio that I have if I did draw, because it would be a portfolio of existing things, uh, fonts, for example. And I, I do get that all the time. Do you ever use fonts? Yeah, I use fonts when I have to do a business card and put type in. Yes, I use fonts, but I don't use fonts to develop a logo or, um, do an illustration or any of that, um, that comes out of the drawing.

I think that's what, you know, I wanna emphasize to our audience a little bit, is the integrity of a good solid brand that is timeless or, you know, artful or draws deeper. You know, deeper meaning is that it probably could look like it starts as, and I mean, you look at your portfolio of work and your drawings and it's like, wow, that is a perfect kalon, or a perfect, you know, type name, insert name of typeface here based on your history and, and, and experience working with those fonts and understanding how letter forms work.

Uh, but there is this process that I think needs to be considered all the time is that you're not making something that. It can be. It can come from something else for sure. And everything that we do, mm-hmm. Is inspired by everything we see and look at it. Sure, of course. Sure. But having that hand touch or having that, you know, analog human influence on it, I think is what elevates it and makes it something that, you know, if you're an art director or a creative director and you're working with another designer, you don't want to keep going back and having your logo redesigned over and over and Oh, oh, we're tired of looking at that after three years, let's do a new brand.

You know? Well, that's expensive. You don't want to have to do that. Yeah. You wanna be able to work with somebody like yourself that. Make something that's timeless, that lasts 50 years. You know, the other thing that I, I think I should mention too is, you know, there is reference involved right now.

Reference is all in my head, but at, at one point in my career, um, I have a lot of books here, ton of books, and I would go to those books like the Tin Can Book. It was full of illustrations of old tin cans. Well, there's some really great letters on there and if I could find. Uh, the coolest r in there, I would rip it off and I would create a whole thing around it.

Um, I remember doing the, the Boston lettering for, for that album. This had nothing to do with Boston or the album or anything, but I had a book on fairground, um, artwork fairground, you know, oh, just all of these rides and everything in England. And there was the great, it was the greatest typography on there.

And I just remember this lightning bolt zero or oh, uh, from somewhere. And that became the basis of it because for some reason in that moment that just felt right and influenced me and, and, and then I developed the kind of whole thing around it. So reference, I think, um. Is kind of an important aspect of it.

Um, the other aspect about reference is if. People don't know what your reference is. That's even better. That's even greater, you know, because then you seem really creative. Right. So, um, uh, so anyway, I used to rely on books a lot and there's been some great, you know, the Universal Penman, George Bickham, universal Penman, which is full of sped Syrian writing.

I mean, there, there, there are some incredible letter forms in there that could be adapted to a baseball script. You know, it just happens to be very thick and thin. But, you know, you take it and flesh it out and do something with it. And boy, I've got this great p this is fantastic. You know, so, um, so reference at one time was a big, you know, a big part of it.

A big part of, of developing it. Yeah. I can remember. Yeah, go ahead. Well, I can remember working with some illustrators and, uh, I worked with, I was fortunate enough to work with a gentleman named Jim Smith in, in Minneapolis who did, you know, the Hams Bear illustration and uh, lucky Charms. Okay. Yeah, he was, we shared a studio together.

In fact, his studio was gigantic. His space was the whole corner office, and it was maybe, I dunno, 600 square feet of which 350 square feet was his reference morgue. And it was just pictures that he had collected over the last 50 years from magazines. Um, and there's something to be said for that. Now. We call it the internet, probably.

Yes. Right, right, right. Uh, but I don't, I don't know. I love the, the, the generic or, or not the generic, the, um, randomness of you looking at really different, what you would think would be completely unrelated things that actually do relate back to the assignment and the job at hand. Um, there's something to be said to that randomness that is.

Probably that as humans we're like innate to make those connections, and then we're like, oh, wow. There, there it is. That's magic. Yeah. I, I, I think it's, it's, um, it's trying, it's trying to do something that's a little bit different, you know, something, what, you know, what is it that can give this a unique look, you know?

Mm-hmm. Some kind of unique look. Um. And if you look at some of those letter forms like Boston, I mean, they're really squirrely. They're some really Yeah. Crazy things going on there, you know, that, uh, I don't think my lettering one teacher would particularly like, but, um, but I, I guess the, the, the thing is you learn the rules so you can break 'em, you know, that's kind of the, the, yeah.

The essence of it. Although you do stick to, there's certain things like letter spacing, um, like weights of, of characters and things that, um, are important and need to be, you know, need to be addressed all the time. Yeah. The, the, the balance, I think is always something that, like you said, you, you, you draw out the word because the word itself is a unique entity unto itself, and it needs to be treated as such, not just, I'm gonna type in Boston.

Oh, there you go. Perfect. Okay. It's good to go. No. You need to look at that as its own unique mark and kind of transcend that. Correct. Is that kind of the process you think? Well, that's, that's true because it, it, you know, as you know, fonts, you have sort of the lowest com common denominator. That's what a letter is because it's gotta work with all these other letters.

Right. But if you have a fixed relationship, um, you got two letters that are neighbors and they can interact differently than mm-hmm. What happens if you type the two letters, uh, next to each other. Um, and that, and that was something I always got into. I loved, I loved the playfulness of, um, what you can do with things like the leg of an R or the, you know, a capital T and you know, there, there's just, there's so much there that's not.

Um, in a, in a font, um, yeah. That you could take advantage of. You know, that's something I think I, I kind of got into early on because I, I did, um, I did like playing with, with letters, playing with relationships of letters, um, and how they developed into a word, because our minds, you know, it's, that's what a logo is.

When we see a logo, our mind knows instantly what it represents. If we've seen it enough, if it, it's gotten enough exposure. And it's those little, little things that, um, you know, that, that, you know, your eye sees that it immediately recognizes. So, yeah. I think too, you know, mentioning going back in time to historical, that's, you know, they, they had even less technology than you had even the se mm-hmm.

In the seventies, you know, they had, I, in fact, one of my favorite pieces that I've got hanging on my wall as a logo of design for the McCormick company. Uh, back in the 1890s and it is all done with ink and white paint Yeah. To knock out and washes over the top of it. And it's just one of those, you can see that there was an artist at work here.

Uh, we could call 'em designers, whatever, but at that time there was so much more maybe mind expansion with the possibilities of what they would do to make their market unique, you know? Yeah. Well, let me, let me show you something that's sitting, sitting up here. Let me, I'm gonna grab mine too. We can show off our course.

Okay. I got mine at an antique shop a million years ago. You go first. Well, as, as I. Said before when we, we spoke earlier or yesterday about the, um, I'm in a space that's the Southport Freight Station. Oh. And it's on the New York New Haven Railroad. Oh, wow. And this is something that's been here, you know, for, it's part of this freight station, and it's a piece of Jesso board.

And this is probably screened silk screened on. They probably made a bunch of these. Yeah. But look at this craziness going on here. I mean, it's just, it's it's fantastic. It's, it's, and it's, it's, um, you know, this is the corporation. Yeah. So, you know, some of the things that people used to do to, for an identity are really kind of great.

You know, it's, yeah. I mean, and it really, I mean, of course a lot of it fell off. Yeah. It got a little too nuts. Right. But, uh, right. Yeah. Yeah. It was insane to see the, the experimentation at the time. This is my, oh, yeah. Look at that. Isn't that great? I mean, look, and that's all ink washes. Oh, yeah. To get those tanks and everything.

It wasn't, it's fantastic. They picked a 50% screen. Yeah. And whatever it was, you know, just amazing. Yeah, it's great too. I love, the part that I love is the telephone number is just one, three four. Oh, is it? Yeah. So there was telephones at the time, but not many numbers. Yeah. Yeah. Three numbers. No, some of that, some of that old stuff is pretty fantastic.

Um, it is fantastic because there were guys that like me, I mean, if I, if if I was born a hundred, 200 years ago, that's what I would be doing. Probably. Yeah. You know? Um, so. Oops. Well, we've geeked out on type and boy, I didn't think we'd get this nerdy about it, but holy cow. I love where this has gone. Let's maybe talk a little bit about those magical people that you had worked with, um, John Berg specifically.

I know that you had worked, um, with some of the people at Pushpin Studios. Look that up. People that, that, that is a, a name from a bygone Arab of New York. I don't think pushpin exists anymore, but Milton Glazer, Seymour Qua, uh, some of the legends, lub, herb Lublin, um, these are, yeah. Um, John, well, John Berg, as I said, was my, my boss at CVS and, um, just one of those incredibly creative guys, creative art directors.

Mm-hmm. Um, um. Probably, I think he said he was fired from every job he ever had because he, he insisted on doing it his way. But, um, he was an amazing, you know, amazing person to work for because he, he just had a very openness about looking at a problem, looking at a, a design problem. And, um, you know, rather than sort of doing this, he was doing this, you know, which was really kind of refreshing, I think, to see.

Um, so he, he was, he was pretty great. He was, he was pretty, um, pretty, I think that speaks a little bit too to kind of what you were talking about as far as opening your, your view of the world to all of the things that are out there as opposed to just, I'm just gonna look at these bank logos from the last five years and design another bank logo that fits in exactly with what that is now.

That said, obviously the bank might want that. Yeah. But your job, I think, as a designer and a, and a brand specialist is to say, okay, here's one like that maybe. Right. I try not to show things that they might pick and I'll not be happy with. Good. Because that, that can happen. You know, that can certainly happen more, more often than not.

Yeah. So if, you know, if you're gonna do three designs, six designs, um, my feeling about it is you better like the worst one because that could be the one. Um mm-hmm. Fortunately, most of the time it never is, but, um, but that, you know, that's always one of those considerations in, in, in doing work. But I, you know, we, we really are in a business of, of.

A lot of rejection. And I say that because, you know, if I'm hired for a logo and I do 10 logos and they pick one, I've got a rejection rate of 90%. You know, it's, that's kind of the way you can't fall in love with what you do. You know, you, you, you have to be able to sort of do it, move on to the next one and move on to the next one, move on to the next one, and then, you know, be able to let go, um, of all these, these things you've done.

And I, I, sometimes when I'm working and I get stuck, I'll go back in the computer and I'll look at sketches, um, or drawings that were rejected and. Sometimes things come out of that where you'll go, gee, you know, that was really kind of a cool solution. Um, or a cool s or a cool R or a cool a or something.

I'm gonna take that and I'm gonna work around this and see if I can come up with something. Um, so, you know, that's, that's happened a lot of times. So I always save those things. I save the, all those, you know, all those variations because, you know, I took the time to make them. Yeah. So, um, you know, there might be something in it.

I don't know. I, I think there's probably a couple of 'em I've used 20 times and they never get used. They never get picked. But, you know, you're recycling some of those things because you get, you know, you hit a wall, I guess. Yeah. Tough game. Yeah. We're, we're in a tough game, aren't we? It's tough. Now, do you, have you ever considered, like, I know I'm thinking of like Charles Spencer Anderson in Minneapolis.

He, he took sign art, you know. Yes. From the fifties, thirties and stuff, and he built out an entire art. No, he did a whole, yeah. I mean, he built a career on, on a look, a design look, which is, yes. You know, that's, that's really interesting. I mean, illustrators do it all the time, but designers, that's very unusual.

Have you ever thought about doing like an archive, like a hut archives of all the words that you've set or built or designed and like, um, here's this word a million times. There's so many, you know, there's so many of, of those things like I, in posting these, these drawings on, uh, Instagram, but mostly on Facebook.

'cause Facebook's gotten, I've gotten deeper into, um, some of these things because I've been doing it longer. I have done the word country, I don't know how many times, and they're all different. The word the, I could, I could do a book on just the word, the, um, because I've, I've drawn that so many times. So, um, there's, there's so much.

I mean, there's just, you know, there, there's, you know, there's 50 odd years worth of this stuff that, you know, I've got the, I've got all the pencil drawings here, all the finished drawings here, and, um. Uh, frankly, a lot of times I'm going through 'em and going, I do not remember doing this. I can't even, I don't know the art director.

I don't even know what it's for. You know, that that's starting to happen a little bit. I hope it's not Alzheimer's, but I, I think it's just, you know, it's, it was just, it was a job you just did and kind of went on and, and it never. Sort of never went anywhere. It was one of those ephemera, you know, do it for magazine, it's gone.

You know, that kind of thing. Uh, geez. My brain is on fire thinking of how we could work together on making the book, the book of the, the books sounds boring. That's pretty cool. A anything you would like to, that I'm kind of breezing over? We talked about so much yesterday. I was trying to have chat, GPT make me a list of everything we talked about.

And I'd like to thank my wife Deborah, and my kids. My, you know, my kids have been great. They're, they're all kind of type nerds in a way, in a funny way. Hmm. Um, and I mean, type, I mean, my oldest one, he can look at something. He knows what typeface it's, I don't, I can't even do that. I don't. Wow. You know, he's just, he is just kind of, uh, visually, you know, that way.

But, um, um, it is, it is kind of funny how. Some of this stuff does glom onto 'em. Um, but none of 'em have any interest in drawing at all. I don't think. This is something that I've told my kids is that art seems to be so much more appreciated by a wider group of people than when I was doing art back when I was doing it.

It was kind of this, oh, you're a weird art kid, you know? Yeah. And you just like to paint pictures and stuff. Um, that seems to, well, you know, there, I think there's a lot, there's a lot to that because one of the phenomenons we have now is tattoos. Everybody's got tattoos. And what is tattoo? It's art. It's body art.

And, and if you get a tattoo, it's permanent. Well, I mean, they can remove it, but I, you know, who wants to go through that, but, right. It's, it, it's interesting how. That's has spawned a whole group of people that love imagery because they're willing to put something on their body and live with it for the rest of their lives.

I have no tattoo, so I, you know, I, to me, I, I can't think of anything I would want on my body that I would wanna live with for the rest of my life. And I don't have a whole lot of years left. So it's, it's one of those, you know, it's one of those funny things to me that, um, that the fact that you would do this is crazy to me.

I, in fact, I have a, um, a, my, I have it, I think posted on, on both Instagram and Facebook. I have collected ac DC tattoos of the logo that people have had put on their heads on their chest, on their belly, on their arms, on their, the, the, it's, it's amazing to me. That people would take those four letters and permanently put them on their body.

It, it's fascinating to me. I, I loved your caption too on the, on the Instagram post that says something to like Sister Mary would be Oh, that was, yeah. Sister Mary Julie, the one that gave me a b in our class. Oh, I showed her. And it's like 50 photographs of people, you know, like you said, the back of their heads, they're, you know, right on the belly.

It's all over. It's crazy. It's nuts. It's, it's, um, it's really funny. I don't know, it speaks to the power of brand though, like, you know, getting back to that point. I mean, I suppose that is very powerful to do that. Yeah. Yeah. I'm ink free myself. I'm not a tattoo guy. But you're right. There is something about this tribalism that's built into our culture now that I think helps people relate to others.

Mm-hmm. And, you know, find. Solace in a group or in a tribe. And I think that the tattoo, uh, culture, it's funny when we go to the waterparks or you go to the beach, you're like, wow, I am in the minority. I'm one of maybe 10 people here who does not have a tattoo. Everybody, grandma's, if there's ever a tattoo convention in your area Yeah.

Go. I encourage you to go. I, I have done logos for a, there's a gentleman in, uh, Connecticut, Tom Ringwald who has, um, he sells tattoo inks, tattoo supplies. All kinds of tattoo stuff. And every year he has a convention up at Mohegan Sun at the casino. And I went for the first time this year, this last year, uh, because I had done his, his Tommy Supplies logo, his, uh, Starbrite inks, and recently his tattoo convention logo.

Uh. So I wanted to see it, see it in use and see what Yeah, yeah. You know, see what was going on. And it was really fascinating because you would, you would see these, you'd just walk by these booths and people are getting tattooed, you know, and then other people are selling all kinds of crazy, you know, colors of ink.

And, and I, it's, it's, it's a whole subculture that's just phenomenal. It really is. It's, yeah. You know, it's, it's, but you know, we're, we're that way in America, you know, we have classic car culture, we have, uh, motorcycle culture and bike culture and all these, all these different things, you know, guitar collector culture, and, um, and they all have their own, you know, their own thing.

That, um, um, it's, it's pretty, pretty fascinating. It's, it's, yeah, there, that's a good point. Again, it kind of speaks again to that getting outside of what you think is, and looking for influences in those different areas. I know I love car culture, you know, um, low Rider. I love to go to low rider shows and see how, you know, and part of it's the typography, I'll be perfectly honest.

I mean, yeah. It's big out there. Um, well, and it, and it's also, it, it's interesting how it's, it's less than my generation, although there are people in my generation who have tattoos, but mm-hmm. Younger people, it's like a, a, a, you know, it's like, you know, it's like buying, you know, buying a hoodie, you know, it's a fashion thing, you know, it, it, it's, it's fashion.

It really is. It's, it's, but you're kind of stuck with it. Yeah. Yeah. I think the only tattoo I'd get is something maybe I'd have to commission you to do, and then I could just say, this is a. An original. Oh, well I've done that. In fact, on my Instagram I've got a few tattoo designs that people are walking around with that they specifically wanted something and, and okay, let's do something.

And, and um, all of a sudden I've got about, I dunno how many I've done, maybe 12, 15 tattoo designs for people. An original. The original. They're, yeah, they're accustomed to that person. So, uh, yeah. So. Amazing. Did I interrupt you? Thanking your family? I didn't mean to Oh, no, no, no. I was just, you know, they, I I I, I just have such a great set of family and kids and, and daughter-in-laws and all that stuff, and, and, and I'm very, I feel very fortunate, um, um, that they're all doing their thing and, and doing well and, and.

You know, it's great when, you know, you go out to dinner and they pick up the check. It's, you know, it's, it's really, there you go. Yeah. Yeah. In fact, my, my middle son, it was really great. He, he, one day we went out to eat and he goes, oh, dad, you got college. I'll get the check. I thought that was pretty, pretty funny.

Yes. One of those moments as a parent where you're just kind of tear up a little bit and you're like, I didn't, yeah. I feel very fortunate and, and kudos to my wife for, you know, being the mom, so Yeah. Being the captain. Yes, exactly. If it's like my, my house. Right. I think one last thing I've, that I wanted to touch back on was.

One of the great quotes from our conversation earlier was talking about career, and I think it transcends design and brand and marketing and things like that. And I think it's important to hear from you who had so many amazing opportunities, put yourself in those spots where you were able to get those opportunities.

And I think, uh, you know, how did you approach that and what would you say would be something that we could tell people now who may struggling or looking for opportunities or wanting to be the next Gerard Juta and, you know. How, how did you get those opportunities? Because I think when I look, when, when everybody looks at amazing design and amazing art, there's the client side, there's the opportunity side to that, where some of us are like, oh, well, of course they're in New York at that time.

Well, I, you know, I live in Peoria. I can't, you know, do a architectural Digest, uh, cover, um, speak a little bit about that. Maybe proximity. Um, well, I, I, I think I did address this, um, yesterday when we spoke about, um, how I sort of looked at the career this way in that, number one, you have to be at the right place at the right time.

And number two, you have to look at every job as being your absolute best work. And if you keep doing number two and number one keeps happening, you're in the right place at the right time. They'll find you, they'll seek you out. They'll see your work, they'll see your name, they'll call on you. And that's just kind of the way it's been.

I think it's, it's, it's uh, um, I mean I would, I would get called in, uh, to somebody and they said, well, I saw, I, I saw your name on an album cover and I really liked the work that you did. So I would get a job from them. So, um, get credit. That's a real important thing is make sure you get credit if you do artwork, if, if it's something that's unique and something you're proud of, see if you can get a credit line.

'cause I would always try to do that when I started out. And, um, it turned out to be free advertising and very good advertising. Uh, so, um. But again, I think the, the important part of it is how you approach the job and, and doing your best at it and, and being, um, and looking at it and saying, what am I gonna think about this in 10 years?

Am I gonna be embarrassed about this or am I gonna say, Hey, that was pretty good. I did a pretty good job on that. So I, I, I think it's, it's just the, the commitment to the job, the commitment to the work, um, is, is really important. And, you know, the, the money thing, it's kind, I'm, I'm just gonna mention this because what happens a lot of times is you might bid a job at a certain price and you say the job, you think it's gonna take about four days.

So you've kind of based your, your price on that and you know, a few other things, the usage and whatever. And so. You do, you, you, let's say four days goes by and you're half done. You, you can't stop. You have to, you know, you have to commit to completing it in, in its best form that you, that you could do and take the loss.

That's just what happens, or, or, you know, embarrass yourself or go to the client and say, oh, I need more money. But, um, but I think it's, it's always the commitment to the job. I think, that you have to keep doing, to keep going. Um, and that's, I think what's helped me is, is that kind of commitment to, to the job.

Um, I mean, and I, and I, you know, I, I look at jobs that I've done and I, I've thought, boy, if I put a outline around all of these words and everything. I am just doubling my time. This is like the most ridiculous thing that I could possibly do, but guess what? I start putting the outline around and I do it.

And you know, back when we used to ink things, that was, that was a commitment to do that. That's a lot. Um, but I couldn't help myself, you know, it, it was like, this will be so much better if I do this. And so you did it. That's why people keep calling you to the experie, I think. I hope. Yes, I think so. Yeah.

Yeah. And you, you're still working, I mean, if you want to take this moment to promote yourself. Obviously I'm still working. I'm, I'm being maybe a little more choosy about jobs that I'll do. Um, but, um, no, I'm still, I'm still working. I'm not working at the, at the frantic pace I used to, but I, I'm enjoying working at the pace I'm working.

Um, and then when I'm, when I'm slow, I, I do this series of vintage guitar art, I call it vintage guitar art, where I take a, you know, um, unique instrument from a certain time and I, I render it, um, in Illustrator and, um. And I have about eight of them traveling with a, um, an outfit called the National Guitar Museum.

A gentleman named Harvey Quist has put together a museum that travels. Um, and it, so it's been really great for me. 'cause I can say, oh yeah, I've been in the New Mexico Gallery of Art, I've been in Australia, this, and I've been here and there. I have had artwork in all of these galleries, but it's because it's been part of this traveling museum.

So, um, that, that's been kind of cool because it's. Totally separate from, you know, working for clients. I'm just doing it 'cause I love to do it. So if I'm ever out on the East Coast, yes, please look me up. I'll gimme a call. Definitely. I'd love to visit. Okay, Eric? It'd be great. Yeah. Yeah. It would be so fun to just see your space.

I know that. Um, you know, it's, it's a mess. Just historic. Well, this has been an incredible conversation. I hope our audience has taken away some, some of the gems that we've uncovered here. Uh, you truly are an American master. Your work is in the modern, uh, is in the Museum of Modern Art. Uh, that, that speaks to something right there, I think.

Uh, your legacy is gonna live on and on and on and on. Uh, the work that you've done is again, historic and is everywhere, and everybody can recognize that. There's very few designers that have that cache. You know, it's incredible to be able to talk to you today and here your story and see that hey, you're just a regular guy who's just incredibly talented.

Uh, super smart. Well, thank you. Thank you for your super gracious, thank you for your kind words. And, uh, I enjoyed talking to you. I enjoyed, uh, the conversation, so well, thank you so much and, uh, look 'em up again. We'll put all the links in, the descriptions in the show, uh, to your website, your Facebook, your, all that stuff.

And, uh, thank you again Mr. Gerard. Okay. Thank you, Eric.

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