Grew-Up An Avid Role-Playing Game Nerd, Now A Comic Book Artist Maestro: What’s Up With Tony Moore?

Tony Moore is an American comic book artist (and cosmic cowboy), whose work consists mainly of genre pieces, most notably in horror and science fiction, with titles such as Fear Agent, The Exterminators, and The Walking Dead. Tony’s illustrations don’t … more

Tony Moore is an American comic book artist (and cosmic cowboy), whose work consists mainly of genre pieces, most notably in horror and science fiction, with titles such as Fear Agent, The Exterminators, and The Walking Dead. Tony’s illustrations don’t just speak to comic collectors, but he is certainly an icon in that space. His work as an illustrator represents the art of great storytelling and character development. In this awesome interview we scored, Tony shares his horror movie recommendations, cool shit to put on our radar and he offers a lot of aha moments. Read on …

 Describe your style as an artist and describe your “job” (for dummies that don’t know, or for us who just want more detail): Hmmmm. Gruesome… Funny? I grew up reading MAD Magazine and old horror comics, so in my mind, horror and humor together are like peanut butter and jelly. I’m a reference hound and a detail obsessive, but i also think expressive cartooning in a must in visual storytelling. As for my job, I wake up every day and fill myself to the gills with caffeine and sit in my pajamas, drawing robots and monsters and the rugged men in tights who punch them. I mostly make my nut in comics, but I’ve done poster work for movie companies and album covers and stuff, too. When it comes to comics, it’s a lot of time in isolated deep concentration, trying to visualize every scene from multiple angles, and move though them and frame each scene in an engaging way that captures the mood of the thing, and then portray the events in a relatable way using body language and facial expressions. Basically, if a comic book were a movie in production, I’m everybody on the set except for the guy who wrote it. Design, lighting, cinematography, direction, acting… you name it, I have to put it on the page.

Were you the kid in school growing up that doodled in his notebook all class instead of taking notes? If so, what class actually kept your attention? What was your go-to thing to illustrate in your notebooks? I drew all the time in school, but it wasn’t that I wasn’t paying attention, it was more that i had to keep my brain occupied or it shut down. If I was just sitting there letting information wash over me, even if I was trying to take notes, if it wasn’t a creative kind of subject, then it was all just water off a duck’s back. But if I was drawing, I could usually take minimal notes and remember everything the teacher told me. I had a chemistry class first thing in the morning in high school, and my teacher noted to my mom that if i wasn’t drawing, then I clearly just wasn’t awake. The only classes I took that didn’t engage me were my math classes. I was in the Advanced Placement programs of most of the subjects I took, and got good grades in everything despite being a terrible student. I just kind of hated (and continue to kind of hate) doing math. I was a really avid role-playing game nerd, so I loved Dungeons & Dragons, Cyberpunk 2020, and all the White Wolf games like Vampire: The Masquerade. So, I loved drawing elves and orcs and vampires and monsters, and all the crap that pays my bills now, only slathered in teen angst.

At what point in your life did you become confident or receive a compliment that gave you the reassurance you were on the right path creatively? In preschool, I had a lady offer to trade me a painting i had done for a wooden toy tow-truck. I don’t even remember what the painting was of, but clearly it was awesome. A little later, I had my first solo art show, still when i was in preschool, and a guy from the local paper came out and interviewed me about it. I thought I was King Shit of Cool Town, and was sold on the artist’s life for the rest of my days.

Do you have any staple trademarks a viewer could find in all your work? Rugged men with big chins and stubble, and people who get hit in the head and their hands curl into weird spasm poses. My grandfather was a tough as nails old son of a bitch with a wry sense of humor and a chin like a goddamn cinder block. In my head, all heroes basically start with my grandfather as the basic template, and then I mix and match the details. The other thing, with the hands, I stole from Don Martin, because I always thought his work in MAD was hilarious, and you’d be surprised at how common head trauma is in comics and how often I get to apply it.

For us non-comic illustrators, and us non-comic writers can you explain the process of how it works collaborating with a writer? How much does the illustration influence the creative story? How much freedom do you have? Basically, I get what looks like a movie script, and then I set out to make that into a series of images that tell that story. Different writers have different styles, and different projects require different relationships with the writers. I’ve been fortunate enough to largely avoid assembly line-like jobs where I’m just another cog in the machine. I mostly get to work with my friends, who welcome the creative collaboration. We tend to talk on the phone a bit and cook up some action scenes or cool visual set-pieces to pepper into the stuff they’ve got going, and every once in a while, I might have some missing piece that helps pull the events together story wise. Once the script comes, I’ve generally got whatever freedom I want, but I generally feel like that at that stage my job is to effectively tell the story at hand. If the proposed pacing or panel layout isn’t as affective as I think it could be, I’ll rejigger it a bit to make sure the events that need to happen are there and it carries the appropriate mood. That’s the job. Tell the story. Pretty pictures are nice, but if you can’t tell what’s going on, then I’ve screwed it up. And then lastly, the writers will often give it a last pass, fine-tuning the dialogue to work as well as possible with the art I’ve given back to them.

Is there a particular writer that you felt screamed your style and complimented your visions most? Rick Remender and I have been partnered up for several years now, and we get along like a house on fire. And I think when we get to spit-balling ideas and starting to cook up some stuff, we make some really fun stuff. I don’t wanna toot our collective horn, but you dragged it out of me. Magic. Okay? What we make is magic. Seriously, though, we’re on the same creative wavelength and we’ve been afforded a lot of opportunities to bring some crazy shit to the table, and I’m super proud of all of it. He’s an artist too, and we speak the same language, creatively speaking, like some kind of creepy art twin hive mind.

What comic book character that you have illustrated (or that someone else has drawn) do you feel best represents you? Heath Huston is the protagonist of Fear Agent, which I co-created with Rick Remender. I put a lot of myself into him, and i imagine him physically as a tough-guy idealized version of myself, if I wasn’t a sedentary, soft tub of guts with great hair. He really is the biological lovechild of myself and Rick. I think in some weird sad way, he’s a real portrait of the both of us, for better and worse.

What is your spirit animal? The dung beetle. Nature’s Sisyphus.

With Halloween on the mind, do you have any special plans? Traditions? Favorite horror films? We feel like it might be your favorite holiday, so do tell? I wish. I’m a dad and under deadline, so no parties for me. I used to love to go all out. Big parties, and spend a day or two building a ridiculous costume. I live out in the sticks now, so I don’t even have kids wander by for Trick Or Treat. That said, though, my kid is two and a half years old now, and she’s getting big on the idea of dressing up as stuff, as well as getting a metric ton of candy, so hopefully i can ignite something there and live vicariously through her and a mutual love of the holiday. That said, I’ll try to soak up all the greats, especially the stuff from the 70s. Last House on the Left, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Exorcist, and of course, Rosemary’s Baby. A horror movie marathon is pretty commonplace in my office, like once every couple of weeks at least. It’s one of my biggest passions, right behind comics. Halloween is my Christmas.

What is overrated culturally right now? What is underrated? Ignorance is overrated. We live in a culture where anti-intellectualism is celebrated and I think it’s really damned sad. Science is criminally underrated. I think the Curiosity Mars rover gave us a tiny little cultural taste of what it felt like when we put men on the moon. But we don’t do that anymore. And while we all can’t be astronauts, I think astronauts are like the superheroes of science, the faces that boys and girls can look up to and idolize, and get kids interested in the big ideas science has to offer. I’ve got a 2 year old daughter and all I want is for her to look at the stars and know that those are other places, not just lights in the sky, and to really try to understand the complex beauty of the universe we live in, not just be another dead-eyed Wal-Mart zombie caught up in the stupid trivialities and pointless melodrama on TV, and frankly, most of most people’s lives. I want her to think big, dream big. I’d much rather her be excited to hear Neil Tyson and Alice Roberts than to have any care for what Snooki and The Situation are about. If I can pull that off, I think I will have been a pretty good dad.

What is something or someone you recommend the people reading this interview have on their radar? Marvel’s MARVEL NOW stuff is going to be hot. They’ve got some really inspired recruiting on the books coming up in that line. My pals Rick Remender and Jason Aaron are doing some of the most exciting stuff I’ve seen in years over there. Also, Rick and I are proud to announce the first of 2 omnibus collections of our baby, Fear Agent, which comes out late this year from Dark Horse Comics. It’s a gargantuan tome of sci-fi space opera/western fantasy, and handsome as all Hell. A really beautiful presentation of some of my favorite work of my career. Beyond that, Jason Aaron and RM Guera’s SCALPED series just wrapped up, and i think it’s one of the best damn things ever printed. I can’t recommend it highly enough.

Lastly, what are you working on now? I’m really excited to talk about this one, finally. I’m working on part of that big MARVEL NOW event that I mentioned before, with Brian Posehn (Mr. Show, The Sarah Silverman Program) and Gerry Duggan (Attack of the Show, Infinite Horizon), on the relaunch of DEADPOOL, who is Marvel’s resident smart-mouthed mercenary, with probable deep mental health issues. It’s not a reboot, but just kind of a fresh reestablishing and jumping on point for folks who might have been interested in checking him out but were dissuaded by the years of backlog. This story involves a necromancer/political zealot who, in an effort to save America from itself, has resurrected all the dead Presidents of America. Of course, they come back evil and twisted, and must be stopped. Since they can’t have The Avengers seen going toe-to-toe with the country’s great icons gone corrupt, SHIELD recruits the one guy who has the skills, lack of scruples, and the plausible deniability to get the job done. It’s really funny, and absolutely brutal. I’ve drawn more viscera in the first few issues of this book than I have possibly in the entire rest of my career combined. Still, it’s considerably more lighthearted than just about everything I’ve done, so the cartooning is a bit more relaxed and a real joy to work on. We’re all having a ridiculous amount of fun on it, and I don’t think any of us thought we’d ever get away with it like we have.

Follow Tony Moore on Twitter and on Tumblr for updates on his projects and the things he has to say.
Also we recommend you check out this awesome video that Threadless made on Tony Moore in Zombie Country!

And as a bonus check out this new zombie image Tony recently completed …

Illustrator by Day and Light Painting Artist by Night: What’s Up With Darren Pearson?

Darren Pearson aka Darius Twin by day is an illustrator for True Religion clothing making many of their graphic tees, patches, embroidery and graphics. By night he is a light painter, using the city of Los Angeles and the air … more

Darren Pearson aka Darius Twin by day is an illustrator for True Religion clothing making many of their graphic tees, patches, embroidery and graphics. By night he is a light painter, using the city of Los Angeles and the air that surrounds him as his pallet. Painting the city in all different shades of neon and bringing to life desolate areas of the precious locations he finds on his after hours explorations. Here is an interview revealing what’s up with Darren Pearson …

What is overrated culturally right now? What is underrated? Celebrity is overrated. Education is underrated.

Who is an artist that you recommend the people reading this interview have on their radar? This guy Jeremy Ville is awesome.

What is the best advice you have been given that you constantly remind yourself? Never give up.

What is your spirit animal? A hawk.

What got you into light painting? I saw a photo by Gjon Mili of Pablo Picasso drawing a centaur with light in 1949, it made me realize it was possible to etch on space with light. It was like “who killed roger rabbit”, but the cartoons didn’t need any post production, they’re real!

What is your favorite color light? And in what photo do you bring your favorite color of light to life best? I like RED light, it always catches the eye, and it’s aggressive …

Explain your set-up/gear for a basic night out light painting the town? I try to pack light and not bring anything cumbersome so I can hike into locations without making too much noise or being clumsy. Typical set up is a Canon 7D, 24mm nikon lens, sturdy Tripod, and a good LED light-pen or two.. Possibly a spotlight and multi-colored gels which I carry in a backpack and bag.

How has your work progressed? Can you show and explain an example of something you did years ago and something more recently? It got more complicated. I was experimenting at first, seeing what proportions worked, how the colored lights reflected off of different surfaces, and how to work the technical process of shooting long exposures. Here is a past example of my work taken in January 2008:

Now I have a better understanding of space and proportions, how long the moon takes to light an environment, and how to balance the subject I create within the frame. Here is a present example of my work taken in April 2012:

Always out on the go you are constantly exploring the city. What is a precious spot you recently stumbled upon in your light painting adventures? Sunken city in San Pedro is a pretty cool place …

Tell us a story behind your favorite light painting project: I hiked 11miles in a day carrying camera gear & camping gear through Yosemite Valley, up and over Cloud’s Rest, and set up camp at the base of Half Dome. And shot this photo:

The next day I hiked another 10miles with hurting knees holding onto two walking sticks for leg supports. I wouldn’t do it again, but I’m glad I made it back, and my knees aren’t killing me now.

Watch a video with Darren Pearson in our creative series “Profiles”

Follow Darren Pearson’s work on his regularly updated Darius Twin Flickr profile.

Astronaut, Scientist, Awe-Inspiring Photographer, Explorer At Heart: What’s Up With Don Pettit?

There are a select few who truly dare to test our limits and explore the fringes of what we know at the risk of their own lives and astronaut Don Pettit is no exception. Not only is he one of … more

There are a select few who truly dare to test our limits and explore the fringes of what we know at the risk of their own lives and astronaut Don Pettit is no exception. Not only is he one of the very few qualified for space travel, but while willingly spending months aways from family and friends aboard the ISS (International Space Station), he did a remarkable job capturing some of his experience to share with the world. I had the pleasure of speaking to Dr. Pettit about his photography, his experience and thoughts on exploration.

You have some amazing photography and you also write poetry. What sparked your interest in these mediums? I’ve been doing photography ever since I was in sixth grade: I had a browning camera that shot 120 film and did all the chemistry for developing and printing it myself so I have been taking pictures ever since I was a little kid. I just love photography and I take pictures wherever I go: it could be a mundane or exciting place and I am always taking pictures most of the time just for me but when you go to an extraordinary place, I feel compelled to share the experience with those that don’t have the opportunity to go. So that is part of the motivation on the pictures. With the poetry, again, I’ve been writing poetry ever since I was a little kid and most of it is pretty awful but it’s ok for me cause I’m the one that gets to read it. This is the first time that I’ve really shared my poetry with folks, and again, I was compelled to because it is another medium to help share the experience and I also think, “how could somebody fly in space and not write poetry?”

Regarding your photography, I read a bit on how you mentioned it’s rather difficult to shoot in space. Were these skills that you developed practicing in your youth, or do you feel that you had to learn like a whole new approach while in space? There are a set of skills that a photographer develops throughout your career where you are kind of one with the camera and the subject that you are going after. Taking pictures in space from a detailed timing point of view is no different from wildlife photography where you might have to set up in a blind for a week and a half to get a picture or a rare bird displaying its feathers for a mating dance or something. It’s no different from a skill level point of view and what is technically required, than figuring out how to set up in the cupola space station and keep all the reflections off of these seven windows from interfering with the shot that you want and figuring out, technically, what the best camera and lens and settings in order to get the pictures you want.

Do you have a particular ritual before you get into the zone regarding shooting? Yeah, what I do is I get in one zone, the creative zone, where it’s like, “I want to get a picture of this subject,” maybe its star trails. And then, “I want to show it like this, and this, and this.” So you have this vision in your mind about what you want to show. Then you get into the cupola, and then you got to switch your mind into technical zone. Where you have to say, “ok, do I see reflections? What are the shutter speeds I want to use? What are the f-stops, which lens is going to be the best? Which camera is going to be the best?” Cause we’ve got quite a few different kinds of cameras, some of them have been on orbit longer than others and the longer they are on orbit the more damaged the CCD sensors get from the cosmic rays. There may be one camera that works really well for high speed photography during daytime with a long focal length lens, and another camera body that’s better for longer exposures for nighttime and they may be both the same [type of] camera and you just have to know your camera equipment well enough to know that, “ok, for nighttime photography, for star trails, I may use this camera body, but for daytime pictures, for this, and this, and this, I’m going to use that camera body.”

If you’re kind of floating in a creative bubble, I find that I make a lot of technical mistakes, which ruin the picture, so I swap back and forth between a technical, logical, gotta make sure everything is following a check list kind of ritual, so that I have everything set technically to photo. Then you have to swap back to the creative zone where you say, “how’s the composition? Is this the subject I want?” And then maybe right in the middle of shooting one subject you get another creative idea, you say, “wow, I want to shift from doing star trails to photographing sprites,” which is this upward directed lightning. So all of a sudden you may start in on star trails and then right in the middle you’d say, “wow, there is an amazing thunderstorm down there, I’m going to set up for sprites,” so you quickly change to another subject.

Is there any particular subject matter that you’ve enjoyed photographing the most? Well particularly the nighttime Earth is one of my specialties and particularly because video cameras are not sensitive enough to record it. Only recently have we had cameras that have sufficient sensitivity and resolution to record somewhat close to what we see out the windows at night. It’s amazing and astronauts have been seeing these views for fifty years and have not been able to adequately convey them to the people of Earth that don’t get a chance to fly into space. So one of the things I wanted to do was capture the dynamics of what happens during orbital nighttime. One motivation is, “let me see if I can’t figure out how to share what goes on in orbital night with those that don’t get to go into space.” The pictures now are pretty spectacular and you put them into these movies where you make these time-lapsed sequences, and it does a pretty decent job of capturing what is going on, but still, just like watching a video of somebody laying on the beach and calling that your vacation, it’s not the same.

You’ve mentioned that you’re a scientist by profession and an explorer at heart. Do you feel that you have a particular, all-encompassing, philosophy regarding exploration? I think when you talk about exploration it is something that has to be tailored to the individual and fortunately human beings are all good about tailoring their own beliefs to exactly what fits themselves. When you just talk about exploration you can read historical accounts of people from Europe who thought it was absolutely ridiculous to get into a sailing boat and try to explore for a new world. In historical hindsight we almost find these kinds of criticisms of exploration whimsical or extremely short sighted but those oppositions, at that point in time for exploration, were written by people who firmly believed you know, “why go over the hill when we have things to do where we are?” And that’s a basic philosophy, I think, of “not to explore.” Then you have someone else that says, “why not go over the hill because it is there. Maybe we’ll find something better than what we have.” What I found is those two philosophies are at odds but they’re complementary and no amount of discussion will change a person from one philosophy to the other. In order to make our society work we need both kinds. In fact, we probably need more people who are situated in, “the here and now, lets make it work where we are located,” cause that’s why we have food to eat, and clothes to wear and things like that. Then you need a small part of your population that says, “what’s over that hill, let me go there to see what I might find.” If everyone where that way I think we’d run out of food. [laughs]

See more of Dr. Pettit’s photography in the gallery below:

day-night-terminator

During his time in space, Dr. Pettit blogged about his experience here.

Mr Craig Ward on “Popular Lies About Graphic Design” and the Art of Words

Art director, typographer and all around creative guy, Mr Craig Ward, not only enjoys playing with the design of words, but he has a lot to say when it comes to graphic design. So he put his words of wisdom … more

Art director, typographer and all around creative guy, Mr Craig Ward, not only enjoys playing with the design of words, but he has a lot to say when it comes to graphic design. So he put his words of wisdom down on paper and on December 1st (now available for pre-order) his first book will release titled – ‘Popular Lies About Graphic Design‘. We got a sneak peek of the book and the details in the interview below (scroll down).

What lie or who lied to you about graphic design that triggered you to write this book? I don’t know think it was one lie in particular as opposed to an accumulation of bad advice … In industry you can end up working with and for all sorts of people of varying ability who can try and project their own opinions on you and your work. Because they’re more experienced, you take this information and run with it and it’s this passing on of diseased knowledge that makes people say stupid things like ‘All you need is an idea’ or ‘Nothing is original anymore’ or ‘Symmetry is bad’ … It’s for that reason that I’m always wary when students email me or ask for advice. If they ask a specific question I’ll reply but I don’t like giving advice. You spend 10 years doing something and people expect that you know what you’re talking about and that can often not be the case! What worked for me might not work for anyone else, it’s really important that everyone finds their own way through their career.

What is the thing you want the average person (non designer) to takeaway from your book? If a non-designer wants to read the book I’d have to question their motives, but I think what I want everyone to take away is the importance of forming your own opinion about your work and your working practices. There are thousands of so-called authorities out there telling us about this year’s look, the latest trend, how things should or shouldn’t be done etc, that I think people have become used to being spoon fed opinions which they simply regurgitate as their own. There’s also an undercurrent of subjectivity throughout the whole book and, while there may be many perceived ‘lies’ about Graphic Design, there is rarely a singular truth either.

What is your favorite “word” you have ever designed? Not really a word, but I like this USA piece from 2010 because it’s creepy and was something I had no control over – it was completely a product of the process. It’s an image taken through a microscope of some cell cultures growing on the surface of a plastic relief made from a ‘Made in the USA’ stamp on an aluminum pen. The cells are Chinese Hamster ovary cells and I love the irony of something Chinese actually ‘making’ the USA… I like this kind of work in my portfolio because I feel like I can enjoy it more. It was something I conceived of and set up but, in the end, it exists because it wanted to exist, I was an observer in this instance.

What is your favorite font? Impossible question! Changes daily. Hourly even. I like to appreciate each font as I use it. I am drawn to high contrast fonts – those with very different stroke widths like Didot etc but that’s not appropriate for everything.

What is your favorite word? To say? Or to look at? I really like swearing – but there’s a reason of course, and that’s because swear words are satisfying to say. They’re chunky and round and meaty… and they sound great with a British accent! ‘Bollocks’ is an excellent word but ‘mollusc’ has a similar shape to it so that’s also good… I like reading longer words with a rhythm and repetition to them. Words like ‘verisimilitude’ or ‘Mississippi’. I can’t even explain why. I worked with a guy once whose favourite word was ‘pamphlet’.

What client project challenged you most? I think, the project that challenged me most was the music video I shot recently for Ryan Teague. It was completely out of my comfort zone and was conducted on a shoe-string budget. In addition, I was acting as Director and Producer basically and I had to rely on other people’s knowledge as it was a completely alien subject to me. I like to be involved with every stage of every project – it’s important for me so I can retain a sense of ownership – but, when you’re working with 2,000 volts of electricity in sub zero temperatures it’s usually best to step aside…

At what age/point in your career did you realize you were good at what you do? What a loaded question! I never really think about being good at what I do – in fact I had an argument with an Italian girl in a bar last week about this. It’s just something that I really enjoy doing – I used to just play with type in my spare time to relax and forget about work – and I think it’s that enjoyment and maybe the relaxed way in which I approach my projects that comes through in the work. I rarely know how a project is going to turn out and that excites me and, hopefully, the people I work with so I think that gives the work an energy.
I’m such a politician. I completely swerved your question there. At age 27 I guess I created the You Blow Me Away series and that was the first time I’d stepped back and looked at my work and actually been really, really proud of it. So, maybe then I thought I was ‘good’.

What is your go-to graphic design book you use for inspiration? I’m trying to not look at what anyone else is doing for a while, I found myself spending too much time looking through other people’s work. I do love Saul Bass and when I’m floundering I like to look through his monograph, ‘A Life in Film and Design’.

What is a quote or lyric or message you want to leave off with? “You gotta love what you do, chief.” – Lou the Police Officer from The Simpsons –
and “A lie told often enough becomes the truth.” – Vladimir Lenin –

And now for a preview from the book …

Visit the official website of Mr Craig Ward to see more of his work. And of course we highly recommend jumping on the pre-order for his book “Popular Lies About Graphic Design” (releasing December 1st).

Also be sure you watch the extraordinary music video that we featured earlier this year that Craig directed.

No More Boring Cones! Ampersand the Conery Bringing Life to 100 Year Old Flavor

It’s safe to say ice cream now comes in every flavor under the sun. You can get green tea, goat cheese, sweet potato. Hell, even bacon or beer! We’ve come a long way from the simple beginnings of vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry, mixing them all together if you were feeling extra fancy, and yet, one thing hasn’t changed. The cone. That is, until Ampersand the Conery came into the picture. The first ice cream cone debuted in 1904 at the St. Louis World’s Fair. Over 100 years later, it looks the same, and tastes pretty similar too. Mena, Brian and Jerry of Ampersand the Conery are on a mission to change that, with their Kickstarter project introducing a whole new line of ice cream cones. Instantly intrigued by their incredible video, we wanted to know more about the trio, and their mission to update the stale ice cream cone. (And yes, the extra ice cream we enjoyed as a result was research.)

Tell us a bit about yourselves, and how Ampersand the Conery came to be. How did you get from being three friends in grad school, to business partners funding a Kickstarter project? Ice cream cones are stale. They are literally dull and bland. Biting into one rarely feels exciting. We asked ourselves what would an exciting cone look like and started imagining from there. These questions started to form as part of a school project. In an innovation class, our professor asked us to invent a new brand. After some research, we realized that ice cream cones could use a jolt of energy. This insight was so intriguing that we kept developing the idea outside of school.

Before we get too far ahead of ourselves – who’s the foodie? M: We’re afraid to call ourselves foodies. For myself, a foodie is a title that comes with a lot of connotation, and I don’t know if I can own up to it. It’s a title that’s similar to calling yourself a writer or a photographer; the spectrum of what those titles mean is so varied. Everyone and nobody can be a writer, a photographer, a foodie. But I do know that I enjoy food and being adventurous with food, I’m intrigued by exotic and interesting combinations, and I can appreciate when food is presented beautifully.

Three people can be tough. How do you work to compliment each other? How do you reflect your personal tastes (no pun intended) while still maintaining a successful group mentality? That this partnership works is part luck and part design. We naturally gravitate towards different mind-sets that complement each other. Mena has a great eye for aesthetics. Jerry is a natural at executing. Brian enjoys thinking about the symbolic value of brands and products. That doesn’t mean that each one of us couldn’t handle some of these other responsibilities. We do share in all of them. But we’ve also learned to get out of each others’ way, which has allowed us to come as far as we have.

Do you have any rituals to your creative/work process? M: I’ve read that Kafka and Kant, Benjamin Franklin and even Murakami have very strict rituals. Their days start at a certain hour, begins with a cup of coffee; they spend X hours doing this, X hours doing that. We don’t have that. At one point this summer, we were located in three different time zones which made it hard to do things together. The closest thing we have to a ritual is our evening chats. There were days when we had nothing to talk about, but still logged onto Google Hangout and forced ourselves to enjoy each other’s company.
B: I don’t have rituals, but I do have a method filled with chaos. When I’m working on a problem, it’ll stay on my brain full-time. And so everything I encounter becomes a lens through which I consider the problem. If I’m watching TV, I’ll keep connecting what I’m watching to the challenge at hand, in this case cones. It gets increasingly random. Anything becomes fair game – a phone handle, a quote from a newspaper article, watching how people react when they’re stuck in traffic. It’s odd and sort of magical how connecting dots is completely unpredictable.

Where’s your favorite place to go for inspiration, both online and off? M: As a group, we’re inspired by food culture, by the menus that we encounter at restaurants, by the food trucks in Portland and the venders at the Mill City Farmer’s Market in Minneapolis. I went to China this summer and every dessert was available in a green tea, red bean, and taro. I’m also a silent follower of many food blogs. The Subjectivist and Lottie + Doof top the list. We made a peanut butter sesame cone because there was peanut butter and sesame oil on the kitchen shelf. This is the story of how most of the flavors we’ve experimented with came about. But we also take suggestions; my roommate is responsible for honey lavender.
B: Lately I’ve developed an addition for Instagram- the use of hashtags on Instagram is brilliant. Clicking through an Instagram hashtag is like falling into a rabbit hole where you enter a universe more vibrant and complex than you had imagined the minute before. Getting a glimpse at the cool and unusual things that people do is amazing inspiration when you’re trying to encourage a new way of eating a classic treat like ice cream.

Tell us a story behind your favorite flavor. M: I have a little notebook filled with ideas for ice cream cone flavors –- flavors like wasabi seaweed that none of my friends want to try. But my favorite flavor that we’ve perfected so far is pistachio. We use lightly salted pistachios and that extra kick of salt in the cone is unexpected and fantastic.
B: My favorite flavor is oatmeal. It’s something that we haven’t perfected yet, but it was our first working flavor. We had tried cooking cones before and had fallen short. We weren’t even able to roll them into cone shape. Simply on a lark, we tried using oatmeal cookie batter as a new base. To our surprise, it worked. That was the eureka moment where all sorts of possibilities opened up.

Your Kickstarter video (and accompanying graphics) are some of the best around. As a food brand, I can understand why visuals are important, but Ampersand is particularly eye-catching. Why was the visual component so important to you? We got lucky with our video. A friend connected us with an animator who understood that we had recently graduated and have loans to pay. Making the video was a slow process – and it had to be because collaboration and getting the best work was important to us. The video was in constant revision. We originally wanted our Kickstarter to launch in August, during the ice cream high, but delayed the launch because the font wasn’t working or we wanted new icons, or we wanted to adjust the background color. We wanted to give our Kickstarter backers the closest reflection of what our final product is going to feel like. We want them to be able to imagine the kind of brand we’re trying to create, but we didn’t break the bank doing it. And our product shots? Instagram filters. The camera quality on the iPhone is better than a point and shoot.

What is something/someone you’d recommend our audience has on their radar? M: I follow Kinfolk Magazine on Instagram. They have dinners that I dream to be part of. I admire Mast Brothers Chocolate and how they are so sure of who they are. It’s reflected in their chocolate, the packaging they use, and their collaboration with Stumptown Coffee. This Must Be the Place is a current Tumblr favorite, and Narratively is the Kickstarter project that’s excited me the most. I recently discovered Milkmade in NYC; they deliver two pints of specially crafted ice cream to your doorstep every month. This month Milkmade has created hay(!!!) ice cream with chunks of ginger snaps. They’re really pushing the envelope when it comes to provocative flavors.
B: The guys at Mission Chinese Food in California, and now NYC are doing amazing things with food on a regular basis. Their ability to tell a story through food and the creation of a restaurant is fascinating to watch. Their impulse is to consistently reimagine the rules that are supposed to be followed. In fashion, the designer Jun Takahashi also shares this mindset. He’s beginning a collaboration with Uniqlo, which is set to grow dramatically in the US. They’re the Gap and H&M of Japan rolled into one. In literature, the writer Zadie Smith seems like her auto-pilot is set on brave-mode. Not that she’s attempting to shape her public persona so that people see her this way, but she just doesn’t accept any other way of telling a story.

What is a piece of advice you consistently find yourself reflecting upon? Who shared it with you? Our professor, Kelly O’Keefe, whose innovation class this all began in, told us to let passion and not money dictate what you do. We ask ourselves all the time “do we love this more than we did yesterday?” The moment that stops being true is when we’ll stop.

What are you most looking forward to you in this endeavor? What flavors are you each especially excited for? We are really excited to announce our fall lineup consisting of three Autumn inspired flavors which we will be making available to all of our Kickstarter backers! If we had to choose just one of those flavors, “Apple Pie Crust” makes us the most excited. There is nothing more American than a piece of apple pie a la mode, and an Apple Pie Crust cone flavor is a great example of what Ampersand is all about– creating opportunities for pairings that elevate moments of sweetness.

What is an inspirational quote or lyric you want to leave off with? “If I could lick the sunset, I’ll bet it would taste like Neapolitan ice cream.” – Jarod Kintz –

For more information on Ampersand the Conery, and to support their mission to bring you sophisticated ice cream cones, visit their Kickstarter page.