This week on Creative Loves we welcome Slide Sideways, a creative studio based in Tacoma, WA, run by Jacqui and Scott… Together they make hand silkscreened posters and a range of soft goods as well as producing a variety of graphic design work.
Can you tell me about your work space? We live in a small house two blocks up from the Puget Sound. We have a room dedicated to only our work, but we often find ourselves spreading out onto our giant salvaged bowling lane table in the dining room when we need more space. Our office has a large flat file for holding all our prints, two of the walls have shelving where we keep our books and other random bits of inspiration. Our desks face opposite from each other, so we are back to back, which makes it easy to just turn around when we want to talk about a project we're working on.
Have you always been creatively driven? We both have always been creative people, since early childhood, and have always had a very diy attitude when it comes to creating. We met in design school and after graduating, worked at a few in-house design firms, where we soon realized we missed the hands on side of creating. So we made a plan, quit our jobs one day, and started our very own business. It slowly changed from our original intent of just making handmade goods, into a full graphic design studio, which works perfectly for us.
What inspires you, where do you go for ideas? When we're not at home designing, we literally are outside somewhere. Weather we are surfing in the Pacific, hiking on Mt. Rainier, or just taking a walk or bike ride around town, outside is where we like to be. And I think it's pretty evident in our work that much of our inspiration comes from the outdoors. We also enjoy a good estate/garage sale for finding vintage treasures and old found objects. We love going to towns where the signs are hand painted by the shop keepers or old bill boards on the sides of brick buildings have slightly faded and weathered away. Everything is beautiful when you look at if from a different point of view or angle.
Please tell us about your current Creative Loves…
Photography - Pia Jane Bijkerk & Anna Wolf
Graphic Design - Geoff McFetridge & Invisible Creature
Blogs - Fine Little Day, Design*Sponge, 101 Cook Books, Grain Edit & Quality Peoples
Books - Hand Job by Mike Perry
Magazines - Surfers Journal & Pure Green Magazine
Shops - Assemble & Reform School
What is a typical work day for you? Jacqui: I'm usually up by 7am and in the Summer sometimes earlier. I do a little yoga, get dressed, eat breakfast, then check my emails. From there it really depends on what projects I have for the day. Sometimes I have a design project to work on, orders to get out, administrative type stuff, fabric to cut or new product to sew. A trip to the post office and lunch is thrown somewhere in the middle. I also have a food blog (http://sogoodandtasty.blogspot.com/) where I enjoy sharing the food I make. So I'm usually in the kitchen one of the days during the week photographing. The day always seems to get filled up pretty quickly and before I realize it, it's dark outside and time for dinner. I've gotten a lot better at keeping work off limits after we've eaten dinner, unless we are really busy. I used to feel like I needed to constantly be working all the time, but that's draining for me and I need the evenings to watch a movie with Scott or get in some reading or personal craft making. Scott: I get up a little after Jacqui (but I also go to be a little later than her too). I get dressed, check emails, then eat breakfast. And same as Jacqui, it really depends on what projects I've got in the works. Sometimes I'll be screen-printing, other times designing. Then it's dinner and possibly a movie, then I usually spend the evening working a little more before heading to bed.
How do you approach each project? When we are designing a new piece for our shop, it usually comes very naturally. The shop is meant to be our fun place to come to and design the ideas and images that we've come up with and want to share. So we start with an illustration and figure out which application it works best on; weather that's a poster or a fabric item, then screen print and sew it up.Our process is a little different when working with a client. We first have to get an idea of what they want, gather inspiration to see if we're all on the same page, then get to the design part. We use Illustrator and Photoshop mostly for these projects.
What projects are you working on at the moment? Well, October through the end of the year is our busiest time. This last season we did 5 craft shows, it was crazy! So now that our product making has slowed down a little bit, we've been putting a lot more energy into design projects for clients and new ideas for this year.
What has been the most interesting or exciting project you've worked on? Well, we're usually always pretty excited about the projects we're working on, simply because we get to decide what work we take on. But last year a few of our illustrations we're published in a book called "Live Now" published by HOW Books. There was a lot of our favorite designers in there, so it was an honor to be included among them.
In terms of your work what couldn't you live without? A pen/pencil, paper, each other, and music/podcasts.
What do you love most about what you do? Working together has been, by far, one of the best things. Being able to do the thing you love each and every day, with your favorite person in the whole world is a dream... at least for us. Also seeing how much other people and artist enjoy our work and joining in on the art/craft community gets us pretty jazzed.
What do you want to do in the future? We'd love to be doing pretty much exactly what we're doing now, for many years to come. Hopefully in our own little house with an actual studio by the sea, living sustainably and creatively each day.
Where are you happiest? When traveling down the open road, camera, pen, and paper in hand. With good food and surrounded by all our amazing friends and family. That's what keeps us happy.
Thanks Jacqui & Scott!
1 comments:
What a wonderful peek into their creative lives, thanks, Lottie! I love their produce bags, and just put it on my wishlist.
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