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An interview with Marc Johns.

Here are some highlights from my interview with the talented Marc Johns. This was a class assignment, and I was convinced that no one as busy as Marc must could possibly have time to humor my questions. Amazingly, he agreed, and his answers were thorough and thoughtful. Thank you, Marc!

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HC: What are the best and worst things about working in a creative field? 

MJ: It’s very stimulating and freeing and wonderful but can also be maddening and too personal and fill you with never ending doubt. But for me, it’s the only way to go.

HC: You’ve become very popular in the past few years—I feel like I see something of yours every time I turn on my computer (I’m a Tumblr addict)! How has this growing popularity affected you and the way you work? 

MJ: I’m quite aware of and stunned by the amount of reblogging of my work that happens on Tumblr and elsewhere. But I’m extremely grateful for it, because it allows my work to be seen by God knows how many people. As an artist you hope to connect with an audience, and the way I’ve done it has worked pretty well. I am conscious of what makes for something that is viral or ‘blog-worthy’, but I try not to make that the focus of my work. I want to explore and make things up and try new things and be amused. Sometimes it really resonates with people, sometimes it doesn’t.

HC: You’ve worked as a graphic designer as well as an artist/illustrator. Can you tell me a little about that side of your work, and the relationship between your design work and your art/illustration? Is it difficult to “switch gears?”

 MJ: I recently quit my day job in graphic design, and now focus solely on art and illustration. I sometimes feel like my drawing is a reaction against my graphic design side. Working on paper, away from the computer, leaving the mistakes in, no grids, etc. These are the things I love about drawing. As much as I love design, I’m not terribly interested in things that are too polished. It gets boring. It’s machine-made, or Photoshop-made with the help of a designer. I think humans are more interesting that machines or software. That being said, I can’t help but to think like a designer and focus on layout, composition, alignment etc. when it comes to putting my drawings together. So design will always be in me.

HC: What do your kids think of your work? Do they inform your process at all? 

MJ: They are amused by my work, and sometimes confused, just like grown-ups :)
My kids are a terrific source of inspiration. The way they look at the world is so precious, and it helps me look at it in the same way, with fresh eyes.  Also, reading children’s books every night at bedtime has been insightful.

HC: Do you have any words of advice for up-and-coming students who are about to enter today’s creative industry?

MJ: I would say that the best way to make your mark is to create your own content. Design the things you want to design, draw the things you want to draw, tell the stories you want to tell. Put them in your portfolio, even though they are personal work and not client work. If your portfolio is full of boring projects, then you will get hired to do more boring projects. A side note: most paying design jobs are boring. That’s why personal projects are important: they keep you sane. I was lucky enough (or silly enough) to make a bunch of nonsense drawings that amused me, put them on the internet over the course of a few years, and now people (magazines, tech companies, non-profits, etc.) come to me and pay me to make more. It took a long time, but I now have the best job in the world.