Works make progress

Eichenseer, Rabbit, Run, 2009.

Jay Ryan left bloodstains on the posters he made in the late 1990s, as he was starting his own studio. Since he couldn’t afford a screenprinting machine, the now-famous designer explains, he kept hurting his fingers when pulling his heavy squeegee across the paper by hand—hundreds of times.

Ryan shared this anecdote August 6 during the first Speaker Night of “Public Works”, a lecture series and exhibition at the West Loop’s Andrew Rafacz Gallery (835 W Washington Blvd). Both events are organized by Chris Eichenseer with Annika Welander, a producer at Eichenseer’s design firm Someoddpilot, and cosponsored by the AIGA Chicago.

We recently took a stroll around Someoddpilot’s Ravenswood nabe with Eichenseer, 35, to ask what an awesome art and design exhibition like “Public Works” is doing in summer’s gallery doldrums. The show includes recent artistic experiments by Eichenseer, Chicago artist Cody Hudson (who designs as Struggle Inc.), New York–based Justin Fines (Demo) and Andy Mueller (OhioGirl/The Quiet Life), who lives in Los Angeles, as well as a small selection of their commercial projects from the past decade.

The impetus for “Public Works,” according to Eichenseer, was Someoddpilot’s tenth anniversary. “I was thinking about the work we had done and the people we know as a result,” he recalls. Many of the firm’s clients come from the music industry, including Pitchfork, Drag City Records and the Empty Bottle. Hudson, Fines and Mueller are likewise known for their work with independent businesses.

Eichenseer believes that—although such clients are profit-seeking entities—they’re conscious of the public good. “These companies are all putting things out there that are enjoyed by legions of people,” he says. “Given that common ground, I thought it would be neat to bring them together to share their history and their process.” Eichenseer hopes the series will answer the questions about finding gigs and handling money that many young creative types are considering because of the recession, as they ponder striking out on their own rather than waiting for jobs that won’t materialize.

Ryan shared the first Speaker Night’s bill with Pitchfork publisher Chris Kaskie, who regaled the standing-room-only crowd with stories about the website’s many redesigns—for years, he admits, it ran “on bubble gum and Popsicle sticks.” The lecture series’ other two installments should continue the informal but informative vibe: On Friday 21, Fines and Eichenseer team up with Jason Teegarden-Downs of Delicious Design League, another rock-poster powerhouse. On August 28, Harper Reed, Threadless’s chief technology officer, joins Firebelly Design founder Dawn Hancock.

The audience’s attention may wander, however, to the exhibition’s screenprints and other eye-catching pieces, which evoke the designers’ popular commercial work without “the baggage” of band names, as Eichenseer puts it. To adhere to the “Public Works” mission, the designers priced their work so low that they expect to only break even. (Most pieces cost $65–$500; the most expensive is $1,200.)

We couldn’t stop staring at Eichenseer’s self-portrait Rabbit, Run (2009, pictured)—in part because its crazed look belies the designer’s affable demeanor. He tells us the title refers to the John Updike novel. “The book is about somebody who acknowledges there’s this fire in his heart for more,” Eichenseer says. “There’s something in that in the ambitions of the people in the show—this never-ending quest to do more or try more or try the next thing. The best thing I could say about my business is that it sometimes contributes something positive to the community. By doing [a job for] the Empty Bottle or whatever, for a lot less money than I should, that’s me donating something to the culture. That connection is really important to me.”

The “Public Works” Speaker Series continues Friday 21 at Andrew Rafacz Gallery from 7–10pm.

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