Nov 9, 12:31 AM by Marko
Interivew with Kevin Cornell at bearskinrug.co.uk
Marko: Hello Kevin !
Wait… that’s not a question. Right? Or is it? (man, I’m way out of my league here…)
Marko: haha!
Marko: For our reader’s could you tell something about yourself? (year old and other stuff)
I am 28 years old. I live outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with my Superwife Kim, in a very courteous house that is trying to only break once a month. Currently, the upstairs toilet is the problem of choice.
Marko: How are you doing these days?
How do you think I’m doing? My upstairs toilet is broken! But, other than that, I’d say I’m feeling pretty happy; I made tacos for dinner last night.
Marko: When did you first encounter a keyboard or computer?
Let’s see… if I’m doing the math correctly it would probably be 1986. That was when our family got it’s first personal computer. I did nothing of note on it, except maybe almost beating King’s Quest; I never figured out to kneel before the king at the very end, so I never won. Two-hundred years ago, I would have been beheaded for that, so I’ll settle for feelings of crippling failure instead.
Marko: What is your favorite art work /website!?
Hmmm. You ask the tough questions, Marko. It’s difficult to have a favorite, because my tastes are always different depending on the day. And you have to wonder if the “favorite” website is the one you go to most often, or the one you enjoy the most when you’re there. I’d say I most often visit Coudal.com. But for the website I enjoy the most when I’m there, it’s probably White Ninja Comics [ http://whiteninjacomics.com/comics.shtml ]. I only remember to go every couple months or so, but there’s always a huge backlog for me to enjoy.
Marko: when you launched bearskinrug.co.uk are you happy with the result of the site?
I think so. My main goal with this last incarnation was to create something I could constantly be stretching, and pulling in different directions, content-wise. It’s been flexible enough, although there’s some updates I need to make for the New Year so it can accomodate more illustration work.
Marko: What do you do in your spare time (I do realize that spare time, in this context, is pretty relative)?
Whatever I can do to turn off my brain. I have a bit of a problem getting out of “work” mode, so any time I can forgot who I am and what I do, I’m happy. Video games do a fine job of erasing “self”. Drinking is also effective, but then I have to wrestle with the paranoia of “drinking to escape my problems”. I also find that if someone pokes me with a stick every couple of seconds, all my worries flow from my body, except for torturous strain of indefinite poking.
Marko: Do you have a favorite drink? How much of it do you drink?
Coffee is probably my favorite drink. So much of the pleasure I get out of coffee is the ritual of making it. You always appreciate the drink you work hardest for. I suppose if I had to get a glass of soda by mixing up a batch of syrup and carbonated water, I’d prefer a delicious cola in the morning.
My second favorite drink would probably be flavored seltzer water. It’s way better for you than soda, but you don’t have to sacrifice taste and bubbles. Never sacrifice bubbles. Bubbles are what our forefathers fought and died for. Bubbles, and freedom.
Marko: Would you care to give us a brief overview of what a typical day is like for Kevin Cornell?
Let’s see. I wake up early. I’m definitely up by 6:00, but if I’m not sleeping well it can be as early as 3:00. This isn’t as bad as it sounds. I’m most productive in the morning, and it’s a safe bet that my best work is done before noon. In a creative line of work, you need to understand when creativity arrives in your body, and do the work then. You can force yourself to be creative outside of that time you have to, in order to maintain a full-time job but it creates more stress. And stress takes the enjoyment out of being creative.
At noon, I eat lunch, and then get back to work. Afternoon work is generally just tying up the ends I left loose before lunch. After all that work is done, I prepare for the
i Afternoon Anxieties
This is the time of day, somewhere between 2:00 and 4:00 where I start to worry about things, and feel feelings of doubt and impending doom. I believe in equatorial countries, this is where a siesta would take place. I suppose since I’m in a temperate zone, I get a less-effective siesta, where I don’t actually get to sleep, but I still get to experience a complete halt in productivity.
After the
i Afternoon Anxieties
pass, I probably get back into the groove of some job or another. Then I work diligently until Kim comes home from her job a real job, as opposed to my fantasy camp lifestyle. Then we’ll eat dinner, clean-up a little, and move to the couch. Kim starts making monkeys for sockmonkeydrawer [ http://sockmonkeydrawer.com ], and I usually draw in a sketchbook or something while we watch TV. Then, when 9:00 rolls around, we fall asleep on the couch like septuagenarians. And then the cycle repeats; the circle of life is complete.
Marko: I am always wondering how people such as yourself go about getting work? How do you do it?
Oh… there’s no consistent formula, I tell you that much. The best thing to do is have a site in place, and try your best to let visitors to the site know you take freelance work. I’m a relative newcomer to illustration, with no formal representation, so I don’t have jobs crawling out of the woodwork. Most of my work comes from people I worked with as a designer, who now have become art directors and are in a position to hire an illustrator. That’s really how I came to illustrate for A List Apart. Stan [ http://jasonsantamaria.com ] needed an illustrator; and I was there in front of him, waving my hand. That’s really the key you need to get the attention of the Art Directors.
Marko: Who are some of your biggest influences?
Well, I suppose this gets said in a lot of interviews, but there’s “too many to count”. Chris Ware is an excellent figure to emulate; illustration, design, production, writing \‘d1 he does his damnedest in every area he can. I love Bill Watterson for his craft, and his dedication to preserving the honesty of his creation. I don’t know if I could cite particular designers, but I can definitely cite artistic movements as an influence; I admire the bauhaus ideal of functional creation, and the belief that artists are merely craftsmen from which art only serendipitously springs. The Arts & Crafts movement has a similar belief.
Marko: Is your background in design? What was the progression into web development and design like? How did that take place and why?
Yep. I went to school originally to be an illustrator, but then switched to design when I realized illustrators have to have a head for business to be successful. My first year of employment was as a print designer, but I became really interested in Flash around 2000, and wanted to move in that direction. It’s odd; I actually learned Flash before I ever learned HTML. Interactivity added a whole new dimension to designing; an extra level to communicate to people with. Not to mention there was so much unexplored territory in terms of designing for the web; designing for print, and especially print advertising, had been boiled down to a formula 20 years earlier. So I jumped ship to web.
I was lucky enough to have steady employment through the next five years, which were relatively volatile times in advertising (web design in particular). Through that whole period, I used Bearskinrug as a playground where my creative side could grow, while my agency work forced me to understand the strategy and business side of design. Now, I’ve moved back to illustration because the business side doesn’t scare me anymore. The cycle repeats; the circle of life is complete.
Marko: If you were not a designer/programmer what would you be?
Probably homeless. I couldn’t maintain steady employment if I wasn’t allowed to flush out the pent-up creative juices.
Marko: How do you like our site mcville.net?
It’s getting the job done. The nav gets a little confusing when it opens up, because there’s nothing differentiating those sub-pages from the main pages. And I’m not sure about the font. But who cares what I think? Do you like it? You should have no problem telling me to fuck off. Design is so subjective.
Marko: What kind of music do you fancy?
I have three kinds of questions I don’t answer: ones about religion, ones about politics, and ones about music.
Marko: What’s your favorite food?
Pizza. Then breakfast sandwiches. Then, Vietnamese food.
Marko: Where do you get out on Saturday’s?
Wherever the winds take me. That’s a metaphor. I don’t actually go where the winds take me. Unless I’m out sailing.
I’m never out sailing.
some relaxing question to follow
Marko: Chinese or Thai (food)?
Probably chinese. But they both look pretty unappetizing to me.
Marko: Coke or Pepsi?
Pepsi, I believe. Their insidious, subconscious marketing have worked better on me than Coke’s insidious, subconscious marketing.
Marko: html or asp?
Hmmm. Well, the Asp is the most dangerous snake in Egypt; I’ve never heard of the Html, but I imagine it’s less dangerous so that’s my choice.
Marko: Do you watch television? If so, do you have a favorite show?
The Simpsons still holds a power over me that no other show can match. I have tapes and tapes of
The Simpsons I put on while I work; it puts me in a creative frame of mind. I also watch a lot of Food Network, particularly
Good Eats I have tapes and tapes of Good Eats episodes, and they pinch-hit for The Simpsons sometimes.
Marko: What would we find in your favorites bookmarks-bar?
I don’t do near as much web-surfing as I used to. But I have a ring of sites I check out daily:Stan’s site, Rob’s site, Inkfinger, Coudal, Signal vs. Noise, Drawn. There’s a huge number of other sites I really like, and designers I have tremendous respect for; but if I went to their sites every day, I’d never get a thing done.
Marko: What inspires you? This doesn’t have to be design related.
Outward inspirations are too numerous to list… but I do have a value system to inspire me. I try to have my work have a point, or a reason, and be honest. It’s been a good guide so far.
Marko: Thank again for having this interview, cheers m8!
Yes, cheers from this end as well! Thank YOU for considering me interview-worthy…
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