If you haven’t already checked out our chats with Holly Wales and GMunk ahead of their appearances at Semi-Permanent Portland then you’ve been missing out.

We caught up with amazing designer and Portland local Shawn Petersen ahead of his appearance at Semi-Permanent to talk the digital age, Rolling Stone, and all things Portland.

LAEM: As a designer living in the digital age, how do you keep things new and interesting?
S: Over the past 5 years or so, the emergence of online inspiration reservoirs like Pinterest, ffffound, Dribble, etc. have helped to democratize and spread design trends faster than ever. As a result, contemporary design culture has been homogenized to a certain degree. In our digital era, is anything really “new”? Does it even matter? As Paul Rand said “Don’t try to be original, just try to be good”.

Style is not as interesting or important to me as it once was, and it’s no longer the main goal that inspires me to work. I’m now driven less by how things look and more by how things work. In order to keep things interesting, I tend to focus on tinkering. For me, it’s about making functional design – tools that can be used for entertainment or utility. The more stuff I can make and send out into the world for people to use the more I learn.

The more I learn how to make useful things, the more skilled I become as a designer. Fundamentally, I want to create experiences that people can interact with. Something that can move them emotionally or something that makes their life easier. If I can do this then I’m always in a state of education, and keeping things new and interesting comes from educating myself – by learning from the people around me and by the experiences I make.

LAEM: What are the key elements (for you) that go into providing someone with the ultimate digital experience?
S: It all starts with innovation. Innovation in weaving together technology, development, and storytelling. This happens by creating an environment where designers and developers can sit side by side and collaborate. The more overlapping that happens between these two disciplines, the more amazing a project can become.

When designers and developers can come together to solve a visual and technical problem, innovative breakthroughs can happen. The more both disciplines are able to overlap, the more we’re able to discover and innovate. My two main goals for any digital project are to make it as simple as possible and to include surprising interactions that feel smart and effortless. These two ingredients underpin any great experience. Most great digital experiences start with a simple story that’s supported through the right features.

It always a disconnect for me to see an amazing digital design that doesn’t have a compelling story or to see behaviors that don’t fit a storyline. Interactive elements should feel like characteristics – essentially, the core personality of an experience.

LAEM: You’ve had some pretty big clients like Rolling Stone. Do you ever get nervous in these situations?
S: I was lucky enough to start out my design career working for large clients. Was I nervous at first? Yes. But, I’ve been working with large clients for so long now that it’s just what I do.

Much like surfing or teaching it’s become second-nature, but it never gets old or boring to me. Working with clients like Rolling Stone, Google or Nike is always a unique challenge and I always learn something new. Sometimes it might be where to start in solving a problem, or simply how to define the problem I’m trying to solve.

A lot of the time it’s about finding simple solutions to problems that appear to be really complex. Over the years, I’ve learned to trust the process involved in working with large clients, as messy as it can be. It’s always worth it and I know that it will always deliver something compelling.

LAEM: As a Portland local, what do you think is great about the Portland design community?
S: I moved to Portland in 2007 from San Francisco, so I’m not sure I consider myself a local yet. But, from the perspective of a non-local, there are two unique characteristics to the Portland design community that set it apart from any other. The first is community. Portland is home to the strongest and most active design community I’ve ever encountered. It’s a community built by individuals and studios that are constantly making, creating, and sharing. The studios support the design students, and the design students are energized and inspired by the studios.

It’s a wonderful reciprocal relationship that is thriving and producing talent in droves. There seems to be no bubble in the growth of the design industry here. Our design community is continually growing and thriving, and there seems to be a place for everyone who wants to be involved. The second is our can-do spirit. This is a city where it rains most of the year, yet we still have one of the highest rates of bicycle commuters in the U.S.

This should tell you a little something about the nature of the people who live here. We are do-ers. We are makers. Nothing stops us. This spirit is what transforms our community into a super active, supercharged group with an unmatched enthusiasm to create. It’s what shapes the authenticity of the work being made here.

Craft is at the core of the Portland design community, digital or physical. It’s about making and doing no matter what, and loving every minute of it.

LAEM: What made you want to get involved in Semi Permanent?
S: I’ve always admired Semi-Permanent’s commitment to creative people, both artists and designers. Plus, I’m a super fan of Design is Kinky: the DK people have been amazing advocates for artists, designers, creativity for a really long time.

To find out more, visit Semi-Permanent. Also, be sure to check out Shawn’s work on the interactive table in the video above.

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First participating in Semi Permanent in Sydney in 2004, Bradley Munkowitz (a.k.a. GMunk) knows his stuff. After a long and illustrious career as everything from an interior designer to a creative lecturer, he’s now speaking at Semi Permanent in Portland. We caught up with GMunk before the event to talk holographs, lectures and everything Semi Permanent.

LAEM: You began your professional career as an Interactive Designer. Can you tell us about that?
G: My first gig out of college was with the super team over at Vir2L Studios, which shipped me off to London to collaborate with some of the top international designers in the world. I was coming from a film background in college, so it was an interesting challenge to fit into the Interactive World. I ended up taking a huge interest in the Flash Technology and made a series of Interactive Films and websites, all taking huge inspiration from my surroundings in the UK. This was all back in the Dot Com boom so there was plenty of interest in pushing the medium and coming out with fresh design and animation. These experiences early in my career were instrumental in the development of my animation and design acumen.

LAEM: What is the best bit about your job?
G: Depends which job! In all seriousness, it’s tough sometimes when timelines and budgets limit the possibilities of a brief, but that’s just the name of the game with client work. I think the secret is to mix these client jobs with capable personnel jobs to help bring the vision to life in a smooth fashion. Another secret is to have a healthy serving of personal work thrown into the mix where you can express your creativity and design sensibilities within your own flavor. But to answer your question, the best bit about the job is to be able to be creative all day while using ever-evolving technologies, all while challenging yourself to improve and evolve by constantly studying the masters and being motivated by your peers.

LAEM: Tell me about the holographic content you were involved in making for the film Tron.
G: What an experience that was! Basically, myself and four other graphic superstars dropped into Digital Domain and rocked out almost 12 minutes of holographic content over a 12 month gig. In all honesty, I learned more in that one year than I had in the previous 10, mostly by watching how Kosinski and VFX Supervisor Eric Barba interacted on a daily basis. In dailies I would study how they refined shot after shot through months of work; it was incredible and a total design boot camp. For our own contributions to the film, we were given a lot of freedom to make it awesome, and I can’t thank Joe and his producers enough for the opportunity.

LAEM: You seem to draw a lot of inspiration from science and space. What else influences you?
G: I have to admit I’m hugely into psychedelics, and yes, space and sci-fi. Taken together, the cerebral psychedelics with futurism and galaxies lends to a perfect aesthetic that is so unbelievably rich with ultra-fresh awesome-ness. I strive to bring that flavor into all of my treatments; sometimes it works, and sometimes not so much. In terms of what else influences me, I’d say graphic design, interior design and architecture, illustration, concept art, photography and optical illusion art are all high on the list. I also love hipsters and fashion as I like to stay tuned into the latest and greatest.

LAEM: You give lectures fairly often. What makes you want to keep doing it?
G: I mean, you can’t complain about free flights and hotels to wonderful cities and conferences to share thoughts about art and design with some of the best heads in the world; it is a wonderful gig. Plus it was at conferences that I’ve received some of my biggest career breaks and opportunities so I feel a sense of duty to continue to give back to the community.

LAEM: What made you want to get involved in Semi Permanent?
G: Funny enough, my first involvement was 9 years ago when I was living in Sydney and I was an alternative presenter for the great Nando Costa. That was my first session with the conference and I just thoroughly enjoyed it, especially working with the two founders Andrew and Murray, who I had been in touch with previously during the Dot Com boom in the late 1990′s; Design is Kinky, oh hell yes… I recently returned to the rotation last year, giving sessions in Sydney and Auckland, again having an amazing time at both conferences. I honestly think Semi Permanent is one of the top conferences on the circuit, mostly for the quality and diversity of presenters they bring in. They also take very good care of you and are just the sweetest people; I mean, most Australians are. This year I’m very very excited to be a part of the Portland Semi Permanent as PDX is my favorite US City and I’m honored and excited to inspire my fellow Oregonian faithful.

Check out Semi Permanent for more information.

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Heading to Melbourne for its second year, the Semi-Permanent creative conference will showcase presentations from a dozen highly talented artists from around the world.

Covering a diverse range of genres, the speakers confirmed so far include legendary UK visual effects agency Framestore, Perth based photojournalist Claire Martin, American graphic designer Andy Jenkins, UK agency Big Active and local Melbourne illustrator Leif Podhajsky [above]. More speakers will be confirmed soon, so check the website for updates. The event is on 17 and 18 September at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre.

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Our friends over at Semi-Permanent, which is the biggest annual design conference in Australia, have given us five double passes to give away to the Perth leg of the event on April 8. So if you’re a Lost At E Minor subscriber, and you want to attend, or if you’re not yet a subscriber but sign up now, leave a message under this post with why you want to go along and we’ll randomly select five lucky winners of the passes, which are valued at $300 each, on April 1st. [read an interview with Amy Sol, one of the guest speakers at Semi-Permanent Perth this year]

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We’re big fans of the work of American illustrator, Amy Sol. So we were excited to hear that she’s winging over to Australia as a guest speaker at this year’s Perth Semi-Permanent, which is taking place on April 8. We asked her what she was expecting to find on her first visit to the country: ‘I’ve always wanted to visit. I loved to look at National Geographic articles about Australia when I was growing up and always hoped to actually visit someday. I don’t have any expectations at this point. I’m just looking forward to seeing the cities, maybe some wildlife, and perhaps meeting some cool people’. Can you give us a sneaky window into what you’ll be talking about at Semi-Permanent? ‘Well, you’ll have to actually be there to find out because I’m no good at curriculums! I’m really excited and nervous but that is obsolete in comparison to how grateful I am for even being invited. I just want to share what I can with the audience and hopefully offer some insight to the artists or interested people attending’. You are exhibiting pretty regularly. And you draw a lot of girls. What is it about the female form that you particularly like capturing? ‘Yeah. I like to draw girls. I often attach personal metaphors to my characters, but they will vary greatly with each work’. Who are the artists that are inspiring you at the moment? ‘Range Murata, Kay Nielsen, and other “golden age” illustrators’.

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