Interview with designer Damien Mason
Damien Mason is a talented designer from Adelaide. By day he develops websites, creates cool stuff in flash, and illustrates. By night, he creates awesome t-shirt designs of the kind you see here! Everything from vibrant vector designs, to more hand drawn creations. One of my favourites is his tribute to the Ninja Turtles above, titled Never Forget That They Were Ninja.Along with his desire to create and try new things, Damien’s working on a new comic series with one of his friends, runs an Iaido Dojo called Zen Shin Kan, and is managing to somehow also be a family man!
Damien’s website has a great range of his designs and you can see his sketches and articles about his process in his blog.
Pop over to his Red Bubble store where you can purchase prints and select the colour and size of your t-shirt with each design. And this is super cool – you can buy laptop, iPhone, iPad and iPod skins and cases from Studio6.
How have you got to where you are today?
The how of it is pretty straight forward. I’ve always been driven to draw. I don’t have any formal training, which as little as 30 years ago might have been a barrier to entry, but with the internet it’s much easier now to find resources, tutorials, or just fantastic inspirational work from other artists.
With the onset of print on demand sites (like RedBubble or Studio6) the only cost I have up front is the time it takes to create, and since I’m doing something I love that’s not such a worry.
The why is a more interesting question, and one that’s difficult to answer. I create because I need to create, because if I don’t, I’m racked by an overpowering sense of ennui. I also think… that I don’t want to leave the planet after 80 years, with no record of my being here.
In a few words, describe yourself…
I’m an Iaido practicing Buddhist with a young family and a wacom tablet.
What are you spending your time on at the moment?
Along with my usual tees, I’ve actually started a new project – writing a comic. I don’t want to illustrate it myself, because I want to write without worrying about my own limitations as an artist, but lucky for me I have a very talented friend who’s keen to draw it for me.
I’m also playing with watercolour – which is a huge change from working digitally, with very little room for error, but the challenge is good and I enjoy the feedback you can get from paint and paper – they almost have a life of their own.
Do you have a ritual for getting into the creative mindset? Or a creative process?
I guess my process is to start everything on paper, and as rough as possible. There’s a danger that working in a program like Illustrator you’ll produce work that lacks the movement and emotion art should have, so by beginning on paper you can play and keep things a bit looser. The other part of my process is generally a mad rush as once I get to the last couple of hours I can’t stop until I’ve finished the piece.
What or who inspires you?
Oh man, everything! I recently put together an “Influence Map” which you can see on my website. Some of my influences include David Lanham, Studio Ghibli, Scott Wegener, James Jean, Quinton Hoover, Tara McPherson and Mike Mignola.
A lot of comic artists, since good comics are like cheap art books. Also fellow illustrators on RedBubble, since often you’ll see work in progress, or experimentation, and you can better pick up how they have achieved that final incredible artwork.
I’m certainly inspired by anything that demystifies the process.
What are you most proud of?
Although I’ll sound like a complete dork, I’m most proud of watching my 2 year old son travel through life without being too scared, or a bully, or a brat. Nothing else I’ve achieved will ever equal creating a happy, well functioning human.
Apart from that, I think it was selling a print in a group show a few years back. I would love to have my own exhibition, it’s one of those “one day” things for me, and the thought that someone out there liked my work enough to hang it on their wall is a pretty big deal.
It’s also cool that people hang my stuff on their chest, but a big framed print seems a bit more permanent.
When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
I really liked dinosaurs (and lets face it, they’re awesome) so I wanted to be a paleontologist. Or a Ninja Turtle.
