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Frank Chimero 107
An illustrator, graphic
designer, and writer in
Springfield, Missouri,
USA, Frank teaches
design and typography
at Missouri State
Unviersity. He also
frequently contributes his
writing and illustrations
to Thinking for a Living
(www.thinkingforaliving.
org). He believes in
simplicity, honesty,
humor, enthusiasm,
keeping busy; lots of
little things over one
big thing. Inspired
by the mid-century
aesthetic, Frank tries to
recapture the sense of
optimism, playfulness,
heart, and charm
that’s characteristic of
the period. Chimero’s
fascination with the
creative process,
curiosity, and visual
experience informs all of
his work. Each piece is
the part of an exploration
in finding wit, surprise,
honesty and joy in the
world around us. For
Frank, the work is play,
and the play is work.
Frank Chimero
www.frankchimero.com
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108 1,000 Ideas by 100 Graphic Designers
291 BE HONEST. An open path of
communication is built upon trust. Be honest
to your audience. This idea is relevant to
every other form of communication, and
I think it applies to visual communication.
Honesty isn’t just about audience. Be honest
to yourself as well. Do the things you’re
passionate about. Avoid the things that you
hate, if you can.
292 C
ONSISTENT VOICE IS MORE IMPORTANT
THAN CONSISTENT STYLE. Voice is about what you
say. It’s content. Style is about what you’re
wearing. It’s aesthetics. The prior informs
the latter, not the other way around. Clothes
don’t make the man. They don’t make your
work either.
293 D
OES IT HAVE HEART? If it does, make
it. If it doesn’t, why spend the time on
something that doesn’t have spirit?
294 H
AVE MODEST EXPECTATIONS. Spend
a lot of time choosing that one thing that
a piece of design or an illustration should
try to do. Then, work your ass off trying to
fi gure out the absolute best way to do that
one thing.
295 D
ON’T BE SCARED OF YOUR TOOLS. Use
them, don’t fear them. For instance, while
sketching, I recommend using cheap paper.
If the paper’s cheap, you won’t feel bad
documenting your bad ideas. Getting the
fi rst, awful ideas out of the way is crucial:
very rarely does any one hit it out of the
park on the fi rst try. If I had a sketchbook
fi lled with nice, expensive paper, I’d feel
obligated to make the fi rst idea I sketched
brilliant. That pressure would paralyze me.
Tools should be enablers, not disablers. If
something is more intrusive or intimidating
than it is useful, get rid of it. It’s not a tool,
it’s a toy. Or worse, a creative boogie man
that you’re inviting through your front door.
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Frank Chimero 109
296 EXECUTE. An idea on the page is
worth 100 times more than an idea in the
mind. You can only judge and be judged by
work that’s executed. Eventually, we all
realize that most of the ideas that look great
in our mind look dumb once they’re real.
But, at least you now know.
297 E
DIT. Delete unimportant things.
Even if you love them. If it isn’t spectacular,
it gets cut. Kill your darlings. Be a cold-
blooded killer. Ruthless. Delete. Refi ne.
Improve.
298 B
EING TOO COMFORTABLE IS DANGEROUS.
Most creatures die in their sleep. Keep
moving, or get eaten. The only things you
should be absolutely comfortable with in
your creative process are your tools.
299 T
HERE IS NOTHING KEEPING YOU FROM
DOING THE SORT OF WORK THAT YOU WISH. What do
you want? It’s a hard, yet crucial question.
We all do creative work to get happy. It’s
why we let it beat us up, and it’s why
we keep crawling back to it. Figure out
precisely what you want, and realize that
if no one will pay you to make it, you can
still make it for yourself. And you still win,
because you’re happy.
300
Embrace the subconscious. In the
studio, I have a sofa for naps with
a couple pillows. The pillow is kind
of comfortable, but mostly not. Just
soft enough to relax you. But, just
stiff enough to keep you from falling
fully asleep. Right before you fall
fully asleep, your brain is making all
sorts of connections between all of
the unrelated thoughts in your brain.
There’s no fi lter from your conscious
mind saying: “This makes sense. This
other idea doesn’t.” Without that fi lter,
you can consider more possibilities.
So, grab something to write with, fi ll
your head to the brim with research
and what you already know. Then,
take an almost-nap and get ready to
document the ideas that fi nd you.
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301 THE IDEA IS USUALLY THE TOUGH
PART. I believe that for a project to
fl ow most effi ciently, the answer has
to come very intuitively. So when it
doesn’t immediately present itself,
frustrating times normally follow. When
this happens, I generally just start
doing miscellaneous research—listening
to a podcast like
Radiolab
, reading a
book by Malcolm Gladwell or Marty
Neuemeier—anything to get me thinking
while the project is in the back of my
mind. If I’m feeling really lost, I might
look back at my older work, or someone
else’s work to see how I or they have
tackled a similar problem, just to gain
a perspective. Then after that initial
thinking/research, I try to take a
break. It’s good for me to get up and
do something else; maybe I’ll go to the
store. It eases some of the pressure
for me, therefore allowing me to think
more clearly and refl ect upon that initial
thinking.
302 W
HEN IDEAS OCCUR, TRY TO EXECUTE
THEM RIGHT AWAY ON THE COMPUTER. Other
times, I’ll scribble down my ideas using
words in my sketchbook or on post-it
notes. For example, I’m working on an
album cover, and here are some notes
for a set of concepts I produced. It’s a
temporary solution, because I certainly
can’t understand what I wrote a few
days later. I have to still be in that same
mindset to interpret it.
303 T
HE IDEAL CLIENT. Description:
one who gives you a modest timeline for
a good fee, let’s you do whatever you
wish, and then doesn’t complain when
you’re six months late with the delivery.
This, surprisingly, happens, and if it all
works out, both parts will be very very
happy.
304 TRY TO KEEP A VERY ACTIVE ONLINE
LIFE. Whether it’s through Twitter,
Forums, Blogs, Flickr, Facebook, or
whatever. So far, I haven’t really placed
priority on gaining new projects as
much as I have just trying to gain new
connections and friends within the
design community.
305 L
OVE BOOKS. I’m usually so
distracted by the pleasant visual design
of a book that I have a hard time
reading it. My favorite books though,
are the ones that get me thinking,
motivate me, and usually are about
something other than design—but
still related to design (like marketing
or psychology). Some authors include
Malcolm Gladwell, Paul Arden, Jonah
Lehrer, and Marty Neuemeier. Also
just scavenging around thrift stores
for older books with unique, authentic
designs tends to yield good inspirational
results.
306 W
EB PORTFOLIOS. So far, my
portfolio has only been presented
online. I maintain a website that
showcases what I feel is the work that
best represents me. I also maintain a
Behance site with the same projects.
And then I have a Flickr, which I
generally use to just throw up new
work, whether it was a quick doodle, a
serious piece, or even a preview of a
new project I’m working on. With clients
and prospective clients, I’ll usually send
them my portfolio website, and my Flickr.
I only send those two, because I’ve
heard stories about how some clients
hate receiving PDFs, and an easily
navigational website is often a better
way to communicate your brand than a
generic PDF.
110 1,000 Ideas by 100 Graphic Designers
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307
B
USY VS. NON-BUSY. If I’m busy and
in the “zone,” my workspace will be
horribly chaotic with books, notes,
pencils, pens, paintbrushes, drinking
glasses, bowls, papers, etc. Even my
cat likes to get involved in the chaos.
If I’m not working on anything, I
prefer it to be clean.
308 PREFER A MORE RELAXED
ENVIRONMENT. I’ll put on some music, or
even have a movie/TV show playing in a
corner of the computer monitor. Music
I tend to enjoy is generally something
atmospheric, like Animal Collective, Nice
Nice, Brian Eno, Neu!, or even Igor
Stravinsky.
309 R
ESEARCH IS ONE OF THE MOST
IMPORTANT ASPECTS OF THE DESIGN PROCESS.
I believe that one should never stop
researching during a project. In order
for me to begin the research, my brain
has to be working properly, so I’ll have
some coffee or tea, and put on a podcast
which will help me to start thinking. Then
I’ll do some visual research, by either
looking through my archive folder of
saved images or looking on Ffffound or
through my bookmarks to see if anything
inspires me. I’ll think of keywords and
search through Wikipedia, on Flickr, or
Google Images to see what comes up,
and often fi nd myself on many random
tangents. I’ll look through my selection
of books, I’ll write notes, etc. I try to
immerse myself with a ton of related and
unrelated imagery and information to
how I perceive the project.
310 DOING LITTLE EXPERIMENTS WILL
GREATLY INFORM YOUR WORK. There are
two things that have stuck with me
throughout my career as a designer.
One is a quote by Paul Arden which
states: “Experience is the opposite of
creativity.” Whenever I’m stuck on a
project, I think of this and realize that
anything is possible. You don’t have to
have a big name in design to be able
to accomplish what you wish—you just
have to do it, and you can do it however
you wish. Intuition is an important asset
to creativity, and you should value it. The
other thing is something I came upon
when researching for a project in my
fi rst year in design school. It was how
Stefan Sagmeister sometimes generates
ideas, and he has three processes
that he recommends. One is a timed
outcome, whatever you can generate in
a few hours. Second is picking a random
card from a deck of Brian Eno’s
Oblique
Strategy
card set. And third is picking
a random word from a dictionary and
starting from there. To me, it’s not the
process of these recommendations
that are important, but it’s the idea of
doing something random to generate
a random idea. I believe that exploring
new experiences, techniques, cultures,
mediums, and collaborations is a great
way of bringing a fresh approach to
your work.
Gavin Potenza 111
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