Josh McKible

Josh McKible - Method of Exercising a Cat

Josh McKible - Method of Exercising a Cat

Tell us about your background?
I’m currently living in a suburb of Tokyo, Japan but I’m originally from Upstate NY, from a town called Newburgh thats about an hour north of NYC. I did my undergraduate studies at SUNY Purchase, I went in for painting, but came out doing sculpture. Mostly mechanical, kinetic kinds of things that tended to break down or explode (sometimes on purpose). I think that’s where my fascination with how things work started. I then went to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago for an MFA. I came out doing sculpture and kept at it for a few years, until I discovered the Mac. That gradually lead me into graphic design, first as a hobby then as a profession. I art directed a few different magazines in NYC for a few years, until I started doing illustration full-time in 2004.

Josh McKible - Car Exercises

Josh McKible - Car Exercises

Are you a freelancer or in-house?
Full-time freelance, although technically I’m an employee of my own company, MCKIBILLO, INC.

Software of choice?
Adobe Illustrator, plus Pixelmator for sketching and blocking out rough ideas. I’m on a 21.5″ iMac with a second 24″ monitor setup and a Wacom tablet. And SomaFM.org continuously streaming in the background.

Favorite clients/jobs?
The kind where I get to work in the most visually appealing way, “prettiest” for lack of a better word, but where the information is still clearly presented. I love it when a client trusts me enough to push the edges a little. I also like to inject some humor when I can and where it’s appropriate.

Josh McKible - Car Exercises

Josh McKible - Car Exercises

Any advice for illustrators just starting out?
It’s trite but true… follow your bliss, do what you love. Your style and technique will follow from your interests. I took a pretty winding path to find out what I both enjoy doing and what I’m good at. What that means in practice though is to not do anything half way…. find something and then work at it as hard as you can until you really master it.

Tell us about your Nanibird project? Where did it come from and where has it taken you?
As much as I love pushing vectors all day sometimes I just have to make stuff. And if I can collaborate with other designers, even better. NaniBird is a free papertoy I designed, but that also acts as a platform for other artists to work on. So far it has attracted about 100 submissions. Personally though, it’s been a really great outlet and has allowed me to collaborate on a number of projects that otherwise I never could have. It’s been published in 2 books already, led me to organizing a show of papertoys here in Tokyo, I designed a poster based on it for display in Shibuya station in Tokyo (Shibuya is one of the busiest transit points in the world)  and I’ve been invited to submit designs for an upcoming book of Papertoy monsters. And I just recently designed a custom NaniBird for a 40th Anniversary of Woodstock held in San Francisco. It’s led to a lot of very fun and interesting side projects. It’s also just really nice to work in a style and medium so different from my usual work.

Josh McKible - NaniBird

Josh McKible - NaniBird

Josh McKible aka MCKIBILLO’s work can be found at mckibillo.com, Drawger and Nanibird.com.

Max Gadney

Max Gadney - Spitfire Infographic

Max Gadney - Spitfire Infographic

What’s your background? Where do you live, where did you go to school, how long have you been illustrating?
I live in London and went to Middlesex University. I trained in graphic design but have always been interested in information graphics. When I led the team at BBC News Online, half of my team were info-graphics people, so I got into it again in a big way. Towards the end of my time there I started doing work for WWII Magazine, after meeting their editor at a conference (luckily with a load of pre-drawn graphics – including the assault rifle one.)

Are you a freelancer or in-house?
At BBC News, I was in-house. Most info-graphics people who work in the news that I know are in house. My WWII magazine work is freelance.

Software of choice?
Illustrator. Wacom tablet. SketchUp for 3d basics (that I then trace). Being a freelancer and doing this around my day job, I’m finding the iPhone good for drafting scripts on the go & in cafes. I also carry around various sketchbooks. I also made a book of magazine templates ready to scribble on using InDesign created PDFs uploaded and printed as sketchbooks at lulu.com.

Max Gadney - Process

Max Gadney - Process

Favorite clients/jobs?
Being at the BBC for 10 years of major stories was very good. Iraq wars, Elections, London/NY/ terror attacks/ tsunami etc all made for important moments to use visual storytelling. Some of the best infographics were done for the daily small stories. A newsroom lives by its ability to do the smaller stuff well – not just the big specials.

WWII Magazine is a great team to work with – Bill and Caitlin in senior editorial are really constructive with their feedback and Wendy the Art Director always edits a little too. The final results are always better than what I first send – any creative person needs a good editor – a good second pair of eyes. We have a simple back and forth of iteration. Any major disagreements would be hard to resolve with remote working at this distance (I’m in London – they are in Virginia) – so it’s great that I totally trust them.

Max Gadney - Silent Wings Over Normandy

Max Gadney - Silent Wings Over Normandy

Any advice for illustrators just starting out?
Focus on an area that interests you as you will only be top class if you can alter the editorial story of the work. Don’t just be a drawing robot. Seek to inform, to question, to understand first what you then intend to pass on as edited and better articulated knowledge.

Hang out where people are – go to conferences – go to the bar at conferences – talk to people at conferences. That’s what I did and that is why I have the WWII gig.

I think video skills are becoming important – but most important is the ability to understand a problem – to be curious and ask questions about what readers or viewers would want to know – no just figure out how best to draw the thing(s).

On business – The writer Drucker said that the purpose of a business is to make customers. You will need to get out there. Read The E-myth Revisited by Michael E. Gerber, all about creating your own business. Designers can be very insular, you will need to get our there and hustle for work.

Max blogs about his process, infographics and visual communication at MaxGadney.com. His work can also be seen on Flickr.com.