Jessica Hische: evaluation

Transcript context

…Well, I can't look at the old logo anymore now that I've gotten this thing coming together, so I'm really excited for this to come out. Just a couple closing questions. One is you have a lot of other stuff going on that is not just typography and logo refreshes. You have children's books, you do lettering for classics, you have a store in Oakland. Talk about all these other things you got going on in case it might interest people. Sure. Yeah, of course. I'm based here in The Bay, as we've talked about, and I have a studio in Downtown Oakland. My studio is like Barbie's creative Dream house, where the top floor is my office, that's where I'm right now, and then the bottom floor on one side is a workshop. I do a lot of printmaking. I went to college at a school that was very focused on interdisciplinary work, and I feel like I bring a lot of manual analog processes into my work a lot. I find it really important to make physical things as a part of my creative process, so I do a lot of printmaking. On the other side downstairs is a brick and mortar store. I've always wanted to have a brick and mortar store because, as an artist, I think having people have a physical connection to your work can be really important. I think one of the reasons why people hire me to do things for them is because one of the gifts of working with someone that is a real nerd professional about whatever it is that they do is that they bring you along the journey and give you the language to talk about the thing through their eyes and through their experience. To me, the funnest thing for me is actually telling clients and teaching them about all the things that we are doing along the way so then they go out into the world as a newly-minted type nerd and can communicate all of these things to other people. That connection is just really important. The connection to the work, the story behind it, I feel like that's one of the ways that we create lasting work, is understanding that the work exists because there's a story behind it. Things, if they're just created because of the aesthetics or they're just created quickly or whatever, it's really easy to discard them because there's not a story behind it. But if you think about all the objects in your life that have followed you throughout your life, what's a thing that you've had since you were in fifth grade or whatever that is still magically in your possession in your house? You have that because the story of that thing is so important to you. I think that the work that we create, the design that we create, can have that. It can be imbued with so much story and meaning, that when we think about moving on from it, we're like, "Ugh, but this." I think that's one of the ways to build a lasting brand, is to just make sure that the story of creating it feels so real, and visceral, and important. The store is a way for people to have a physical connection to other work that I create, like the prints and things like that. With the kids' book stuff, that's also about creating lasting stuff. I like creating physical things in the world. I like repackaging things that I've learned in therapy in a way that kids will appreciate and enjoy. I'm just always thinking about what's a way that I can say a thing that has been said before but hasn't been said in this way. If I can turn that into a physical object that people can have and appreciate, all the better. ing about what's a way that I can say a thing that has been said before but hasn't been said in this way. If I can turn that into a physical object that people can have and appreciate, all the better. But yeah, I don't know. While, professionally, what I do is considered very niche, I feel like all the things that I do are quite diverse, because they tickle different parts of my brain. I have to use my hands in different ways and my mind in different ways. It's how I've been able to generally avoid feeling burnt out as a creative, is just being able to move on between different kinds of work and just feel excited about different things at different times.…

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