ventilate.ca - Ryan Dunn Interview

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1. How would you describe the studio atmosphere at Nike?

I have just started a new job in Beaverton, OR, with Nike. I am currently Lead Designer for their Active Life/Energy - Brand. The vibe here vs. Digital Kitchen is much quieter. Though music is playing from a boom box here, there are so many closed spaces and conferences where people can converse (no pun intended) that you don't get the passer-by-bustle that the smaller Digital Kitchen has. Plus I'm new here, so I don't have a crew of people I can chat with on the regular.

2. What has been your greatest project challenge?

Well my greatest challenge ever was with Digital Kitchen, on this project for a regional phone company called Cincinnati Bell. We had 3 weeks to finish 3 different commercials, one of them had a 60 second version and a 30 second version. The reason it was crazy was because, in that span of time, I had to fly to Cincinnati and shoot still images of the entire city, for collage reference materials, and then fly back to Chicago to shoot green screen live action of talent that we would build the collage worlds around. This was insane, and we had a couple evenings where we didn't go home, and stayed at work overnight into the next morning. I vow to never do that again. Seeing the sun come up makes me nauseous!

3 Please describe the concept and design process behind each of the following projects:

Six Feet Under

The original Six Feet Under titles were happening right when I arrived at Digital Kitchen, so my involvement in it was next to nill. However, I do know that the beauty of that project is how the elements came together in perfect harmony. Design, sound, editorial, and typography all sang together in concert. I believe that if any one of those items wasn't created just right, that the whole piece would suffer. It is just a wonderful example of timeless design, not bound to any trends. The project on my website was an inspired take-down of our title sequence, promoting the release of the first season on DVD. I got to have fun with simple classic type relating to clean environments, and beautiful still-lifes.

Sopranos

Well this project was a collab between myself and Andre Stringer, now cofounder of Shilo Design. We took this project from concept to completion, and it was a great example of retaining creative control while running uphill the whole way as far as client interaction. Originally, the whole promo was going to be reflected in a macro shot of an eye (Tony's eye) representing all of his sins. At the end of the day, we got less literal and more figurative in creating a tonality that spoke to the darker murk and mystery behind one's decisions. The final piece came together, I feel, because the editor and myself kept a very open dialogue, and continued to push one another.

Innovators

This was another designer's design direction that I took over and saw to fruition. I was sent out to Los Angeles, and given 3 weeks to create approximately 10 minutes worth of ancillary graphics for an hour long documentary. My interpetation of the design was to create a colorless void, representative of all humans not deemed as "Innovators" by the show, and introduce a stylized color bar with 8 colors, depicting the 8 innovators we were watching. From the title sequence itself, to the introductions from the innovator profilers, I like that we achieved a relatively fresh approach with a very strict and tight timeline (I was designing, building, and animating about 30 seconds worth of material in a single day, revisions included).

4. Can you give us some insight on any of your up-coming projects?

Now that I am with Nike, it is much more difficult to disclose (it was at Digital Kitchen also), but I will say that I am organizing a very large event in Los Angeles that revolves around Football (not the American kind).

5. You recently participated in Nando Costa's Brazil Inspired Book. What was your expressed impression of Brazil?

Well now it's not so recent, but yeah we worked together on that project. I take credit for helping him finalize the title of the book too hahah. My interpretation was that I didn't want to pretend I had some subtle insight into the culture. I knew Nando, and understood certain cultural phenomena existed (ie. Their soap opera infatuations). I took that bit of knowledge and created these almost generic environments around the single events. Also, it was my work in that book that led to my eventual being hired and moving my life to Oregon to work with Nike.

6. How would you define "Creative Genius"?

I feel a creative genius is anyone who can repeatedly outdo themselves with work better than their last piece. A lot of creative minds have a masterpiece that occurs early in their career, and live in the shadow of that achievement their entire life. A genius can take that masterpiece and use it merely as a stepping stone, again and again. I don't think it always needs to be such a grandiose demonstration of that ability to be deemed genius, but people like Gondry or Fukasawa really make you wish you were in their head for a week, just to understand how you can execute thoughts so regularly.

7. Did you study film or motion graphics? Have you come across any good resources you would recommend to up-and-coming motion graphic artists?

I went to MCAD (Minneapolis College of Art and Design), and studied Digital Media. That included both interactive multimedia and motion graphics at the time. These days there are a few schools putting out great talent in the motion realm, most notably OCAD (Otis College of Art and Design) in Los Angeles. I think that the most important thing someone can do, in or outside of school, is to always question yourself. Whether you get inspired by tinkering around with a plug-in, or take pride in reading and studying other great work, always question how that applies to you as an individual, and how that can translate to your creating work with a voice in it.

8. Who is Ryan Holsten and what was http://www.invertebrae.com ?

Ryan Holsten was the man that existed before he married his wife. Ryan Dunn is the man that exists today. Invertebrae was at first a portal to begin all portals. It consisted of many of the forefront voices on the web today (Australian In Front, Designiskinky, Evil Pupil, to name a few), and was a fun little stint on the map of the web's past. Later it became an online educational tool, housing a handful of workshops from various creative minds (David Carson, Andy Polaine, James Sommerville, to name a few), but didn't' quite materialize the way it was conjured up, and fell apart after a student enrolment of about 400 persons. I wish that one would have worked out, but we didn't have the proper time, money, or resources to see it through the right way. Today it is merely a memory.

9. What was the last great book you have read?

Well, these days I'm quite the Science Fiction/Fantasy freak. My boy Andre ((Shilo)) thinks that's a funny hobby, and tells me they are essentially male romance novels, and maybe he's right. I don't really give a shit though. I am a sucker for the epic hero tale. My favourite author, and subsequently book, so far has to be Gene Wolfe's book "The Knight". He builds a world and develops a character without you even noticing, you just suddenly are into (and I mean INTO) the whole scenario, and don't even know how you got there. The way he cobbles words together is poetic without being incomprehensible, and he makes you feel like he's writing from another time and place, alongside older greats like Dickens or Tolkien. I picked up his book, loved the shit out of it, and then found out that he was living 3 blocks from where I was at, 45 minutes outside of Chicago. Wild, right?