Closing out the week with another post on typography. And creativity. And someone who creates type. It's a cycle. Hopefully it inspires you to create something great - like the logo for a social networking site.
In case you missed the other posts on typography:
Become a Type Snob and
Type Snobbery Part II
Creatives You Should Know: Juan Carlos Pagan
from Creativity Online
Self-professed typeface geek Juan Carlos Pagan had already made a name
for himself long before he joined DDB, New York as a designer six months
ago. The Parsons grad was busy indulging his love for typography at the
inaugural Type@Cooper postgrad class at Cooper Union, when his friend
and fellow designer Mike Deal called him to collaborate on a project.
Little did they know, they were working on what would become, arguably,
the creative industry's logo dujour, for Pinterest.
Pagan says the brief from Pinterest founders Ben Silbermann and Evan
Sharp called for a logo with a custom typeface. The original featured
Bello Script by Underware, "which is a beautiful typeface, but it's
something that anyone license," he explains. "They wanted something that
was nostalgic, but not overly nostalgic. It had to work on really small
screens because most of the interaction with the logo would be on a
mobile device or screens."
The process of creating the logo came naturally, and the pair was free
to take creative risks, Pagan says. "Ben and Evan were really great at
expressing what they were looking for and they have a high level of
respect for craft and design. They see it and feel it and understand the
significance of it.
That's the only reason we were able to do some of
the things we did, like using a discretionary ligature, for instance."
For non-typography geeks out there, he's referring to the ornamental
connection of the logo's "s" and "t." Says Pagan, "That not only helped
the logo feel right, but it adds that bit of craft and quality I think
they were looking for."
The Problem with P
The biggest challenge? "We had this ongoing joke of getting the right
degree of 'P-ness,'" he laughs, bringing out the twelve-year-old boy in
all of us. Initially the pair believed that having the P mimic a pin
would be a "little too obvious," he says. "The whole entire time, we
were like, 'No, no pin. Let's just make a beautiful P and that's it.'"
But toward the end of the project, they decided to give it a go.
"We
didn't want to make it too sharp because that's evil. And we didn't want
to make it too soft because then it would be a nub. It was really about
nuancing the right degree of suggestion of 'pin,' and we got to a place
where we were like okay, maybe it's a little obvious but it's okay
because it feels right. If this P is going to have to live by itself,
then maybe it should be a little more conceptual in that sense. I'm
really happy with that decision because it really helps people interact
with the logo."
Beyond Pinterest, Pagan has also worked as a designer at G2 and MTV,
where he worked on the identity for MTV Scratch. Now at DDB, he's has
applied his smart design and typography sense to the agency's work for
the
Art Directors Club, the
New York Lottery,
Hertz,
including the latter's a standout poster campaign with a fun, art deco
vibe, featuring a variety of slightly tweaked typefaces, courtesy of
Pagan.
The posters featured illustrations from Studio AKA designer Chris Gray.
"I took Chris' work and started really developing the individual
typographical language for each poster. It could have been easy, you
could have just had him do it and slap type on top, and that would have
been fine. But I really felt that even though it was a campaign, each ad
deserved a unique typographical voice. The typography relates to the
art."
At Creativity, we've noticed that the work out of the agency has
gotten a lot more interesting over the last several months. CCO Matt
Eastwood and ECD Menno Kluin say Pagan is one of the factors behind the
shop's creative renewal. An unusual creative process also helps. "Menno
and I have weekly, if not daily conversations about the things we want
to create, the people we want to work with and how that fits into our
clients' needs," says Pagan. "And out of those conversations we approach
creating stuff and proposing things to our clients. If they like them
and if they're on par with strategy, we'll move forward with it. It's
unique. We're a global agency, but here in New York, we act really
nimbly. We act like a small design studio and I love that. We approach
projects with this idea that we can make them.
When asked about his thoughts the state of design in advertising, "I
don't think it's as bad as a lot of people think," he says. "The truth
is I think a lot of things lie within mediocre. It's like a microcosm
for society and people--10% are exceptional, there's 80% in the middle,
and then 10% that's horrible. Design, in terms of advertising, a lot of
it you're seeing is in that 80%. You're seeing it, but you're not
really seeing it. You're not really engaged. I think we're striving here
to do the top 10%."
Which, he believes, can not be reached on talent alone. "It's tough to
excel to the top," he says. That's hard work. There are a lot of
talented people in the industry, but I think the people who get to that
10% are people who have an extremely high aptitude for hard work."
When he's not killing himself over ads, Pagan tends to another outlet for his letter-driven obsessions, his own foundry
Pagan & Sharp, launched with fellow designer Lucas Sharp.
Juan Carlos Pagan--More to Know:
If not doing advertising:
I'd be designing something. If I wasn't designing for advertising, I'd
be designing something. I have a type foundry on the side with Lucas
Sharp so on weekends and nights I'm designing typefaces and licensing
them. I'd be doing that full time, or I'd be designing a building. I
need to be making something on some level.
On what his family thinks of his career:
I had an interesting experience explaining to my grandparents what I do,
but they don't quite get it. They get that I work in advertising, but
they think typography just exists, that it's like air, which most people
should, and it's fine.
On his favorite typeface:
I go through momentary fits of things I'm really drawn to. Right now,
I'm really interested in Fleischmann and William Addison Dwiggins and
his M Formula, which kind of informed my latest typeface. It involves
really sharp points on the inside, the counterforms, and these really
round smooth points on the outside, and the tension and contrast they
create and how they read when they get really small. That's really
fascinating to me.
Little known fact:
I have a pretty extensive library of books. I read a lot of philosophy,
whether it's pre-Socratic Greek or postmodern existentialism--that
sounds shitty, but I read a lot of philosophy. Maybe that's weird for a
designer.
E-reader, or book?
I like books-- a lot. I romanticize reading a book. I love holding the
book, smelling it. I love being on the train on a cold Winter's day with
a cup of coffee and a book. I can just ride the train back and forth.
There's something soothing about that.
My roommate has an iPad and he reads on it and it seems wonderful. I'm
not hardened. I have an iPhone, I read and write emails on it, but I do
enjoy the book, the page flipping, making creases. My room is books,
it's like my bed, my computer and books.
