Graphic Content: True Stories from Top Creatives

By Brian Singer

63 top creatives speak out on art, inspiration, life, and random things that happened.

"We watched as 60 yards away this man fought for his life. And I felt like a coward."

"The pole they have behind the spot in the parallel parking test? Yeah, I hit that."

"I pretty much punched her in the face with the palm of my hand."

"Then, with his usual perfect timing, Belushi crashed through the French doors, looking for the cognac."

"It was at that moment that a duck shit directly into my mouth."

Find out who said it, inside.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Release date: Feb 7, 2014
• ISBN: 9781440333316

Brian Singer

An Adams Media author.

Book preview

Introduction: a long story short

We’re sipping Scotch on the porch of the Country Inn & Suites in San Marcos, Texas. It’s the final night of the Creative Summit and Eric Baker breaks into a story about his favorite grade school teacher and reuniting with her after many, many years. We’re captivated as he speaks, and I’m touched deeply by his story. As I sit in wonderment at how amazing life is, it strikes me that these kinds of stories, the ones we share over drinks or at dinner parties, are often the most meaningful.

Now, I doubt that anyone has ever sat back and thought to themselves What the world needs now is another book about design. (Actually, I suspect quite a few people think that.) But what about a different type of book? Something more than career advice for young designers (be true to yourself, follow your dreams, blah blah blah).

You have stories. The time you got arrested in Rio and had to bribe your way out of jail, or the time you took your 101-year-old grandmother skydiving. There was the night you met Robert Downey Jr. in the Men’s restroom, and the prank you played on your high school principal. These are the experiences from your life that you share with friends to amaze, surprise, and entertain them.

So here we are. What follows is a collection of true stories, as shared by a variety of creative types who graciously agreed to contribute. Some may shock you or make you laugh, while others will stir up deep emotions. At least one will bore you (we all have that one friend; you know who I’m talking about). So grab a glass of Scotch, put your feet up, and let’s start at the beginning.

­— Brian Singer

Mrs. Allen

by Eric Baker

It was 1959, San Diego and I was just a weird ten-year-old kid, who wanted to be a Beatnik. This was the during Eisenhower years. Conformity was the rule of the day.

At the start of fourth grade, I was praying I would get Mrs. Allen as my teacher. She was young (maybe twenty-eight) and very beautiful and funny. The gods shined on me, and I got the best teacher I ever had.

Naturally I was madly in love with Mrs. Allen. At the start of the year she gave the class reading aptitude tests. I scored high and she began to bring me books to read: Jack London, Mark Twain, Hemingway. I gobbled them up—partly, I think, just to impress her—and books became a huge part of my life.

I was a troublemaker and jokester, always disrupting things. Once while reading to the class I was talking (naturally) and she told me to be quiet. Ten minutes later, same thing. She said Don’t do it again. I did and she threw the book and hit me right in the back off the head. You could do that then. I deserved it!

At the end of the school year she was expecting her first child and my mother knitted a pink and blue baby blanket for the baby. She came back to school to visit with her new baby girl, but I never saw Mrs. Allen again after that.

As I got older I would think of her often and wondered about her life. I tried everything to find her; called the school, the board of education, Google, Yellow pages … nothing.

Several years ago I was at my neighbor’s house having coffee and I told him the story. He’s a big-deal reporter at The New York Times. He was at his computer and asked me her name: Yvonne Allen. Southern California? Yeah I said. Here is her phone number and address.

I called right away, got voicemail but did not leave a message, after about the fourth call a woman answered the phone. I asked Is this Yvonne Allen? The woman said, No, this is her daughter.

I said I know this is a long shot but was your mother a teacher in the 1950s in San Diego?

Yes, she said.

Oh, Thank God I said. She was my all-time favorite teacher and I just loved her.

Hesitantly the woman asked, Did my mother ever throw a book at you?

Yes, I said, and I deserved it!

You’re Eric Baker, she said. You were famous in our family. You were my mom’s favorite student, and I was the baby your mother made the blanket for. It was my favorite blanket.

Amazing. I asked if her mom was there and she said no, she was in the hospital. I said, I hope nothing serious. She replied, Yes, actually she has terminal cancer and not a lot of time. I was so sad. The daughter, Leslie, said that her mom would be home in a few days and to call back.

A few days later I called and Leslie answered the phone. She was excited I had called. Mom, she said, "I think you’ll want to take this call.

Hello?

Mrs. Allen, this is Eric Baker. It’s been a long time, but I hope you’ll remember me.

Shrieking laughter. Oh, Eric, it is so good to hear from you.

We talked for over an hour, laughed and cried. I told her how madly in love with her I was. She laughed and said she knew. I told her how the love of books she had instilled in me was a huge part of my life and that I actually earned a living designing books and other things. It was just a wonderful, poignant experience.

I sent her some of the books I had designed and spoke with her the day after she received them. I had designed a book by Baudelaire called Invitation to the Voyage. It was a love poem. She said it was her favorite. I told her it was the one book I was most proud of.

A few days later I called and Leslie answered. I asked after her mother and she said, Eric, I’m sorry, but Mom died yesterday. I knew it was coming and while I was sad, I was also happy that, at the end, we were able to connect.

Before she died I said, Mrs. Allen, since I am almost sixty, can I call you Yvonne? She laughed and said, Of course you can, Eric. You’re an old friend.

Leslie told me how happy she was that we had reunited after so many years. It was a wonderful thing that had happened. I was lucky; Mrs. Allen was the best.

Eric Baker is an independent designer specializing in branding and identity systems for a number of hospitality, publishing, retail, entertainment and cultural concerns.

Along with branding he produces a wide range of work in the fields of hospitality, publishing and corporate communications. He is a founding partner of Lost Image Desk, a visual research firm in San Francisco and New York.

He is author and coauthor of numerous books. His most recent book, American Trademarks, A Compendium, was published in 2010 by Chronicle Books of San Francisco in July, 2010.

For the past 20 years Eric has taught at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan.

A two time recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts Design Grant for his independent design history projects, his work has appeared in Print, Communication Arts, How, Domus, Metropolis, Blueprint, ID Magazine, The New York Art Directors Annual, British Design and Art Direction, The New York Times, Vanity Fair and Graphis.

A native of California Eric studied at the San Francisco Academy of Art and the California College of Arts and Crafts.

Scrabble story

by Marian Bantjes

I have a lot of long-distance friends, but not so many close-to-home, real-life touchable friends.

A few years ago, one of these non-virtual friends—who I will call Jim—told me that he had been playing online Scrabble for a couple of months and that he was feeling pretty confident. Confident enough to take me on. I’m not a Scrabble wizard, but I’m pretty good; I’m also known for being deeply competitive and for my emotional outbursts when I lose. I said, Sure! When do you want to come over?

He didn’t want to come over. He wanted to play online, through Facebook. I was not yet a member of Facebook and at the time I was highly resistant to becoming one. I thought it was preposterous that I should have to join this stupid online community (in which I am now, years later, deeply entrenched) just to play a game over the internet with one of my few local friends! But I do actually live on an island, and Jim was across the water, so I agreed. I joined Facebook.

We were on the phone, and he talked me through how to find the game and join it. He said, Now I’m going to invite you to a game, and because I started the game, I get to go first. We continued to talk on the phone for a few minutes, and he said, Okay, I’ve made my first move, and you’re really, really going to hate me, because I’ve used all seven letters.

WHAT?!?! I cried in disbelief, and then I opened the game. Sure enough, he had played NIELLOS.

What the hell is that?

He said, It’s a kind of black, used in etching ink.

We rung off, as I contemplated my move. I was devastated by this start, and flabbergasted by the word and the speed that it had been put down. Furthermore one of the letters was a blank, and I know how much harder that makes it to find a word, as your mind has to run through that many more possible interpretations with possible letters.

NIELLOS. I looked it up. Technically you can’t pluralize it. Etching? What does Jim know about etching? It’s so obscure, and he had made the word while we were talking on the phone! Who does this?

I continued to play, and he was playing very well, having already mastered the words running down the sides of other words to make multiple miniwords. Increasingly upset, I started to rave about this to my friends. That evening I went to my friend Peter’s house for dinner, and upon hearing my outraged rant, he said Do you think maybe he’s using some kind of online helper?

I was stunned—it had honestly never occurred to me. An online Scrabble helper? Do you think there is such a thing? (I am so naïve.) Peter said, Let’s look! and went to the computer.

First hit, an online scrabble helper wherein you could type in the letters you had (even set up the board as it was beforehand). I put in Jim’s letters, randomly, including the blank.

NIELLOS. The highest possible score for those letters, in the exact position Jim had placed it on the board. I looked at Peter. Peter looked at me. I started putting in some of our subsequent moves, and while I was guessing at Jim’s letters based on what he had played, the results were remarkably similar.

I was stunned. But I thought, well, he’s a new player, and he’s only ever played online, maybe he doesn’t know this would be cheating. I went home, and wrote in my Facebook status line Marian is suspicious of the way Jim is playing Scrabble.

Two minutes later the phone rang. Jim says, Whaddaya mean?

Well, I said, You know … NIELLOS … you put it down pretty quick. It’s pretty obscure. I just think, maybe… maybe you had a little online help with that.

I’m really insulted you would think that.

Well …

No, I’m really pissed off. I would never do that!

Okay, if you say so—

No. I can’t believe this, I can’t believe you’d accuse me of cheating!

Okay! It’s fine, if you say you weren’t cheating, then you weren’t—

No, it’s not fine—

Oh, come on.

No. I’m really mad; I’m quitting the game.

Come on. It’s fine. If you say you didn’t do it, you didn’t do it. Keep playing!

No. I’m mad.

He hangs up on me. I call him right back, and he doesn’t pick up. I call him later, and it goes through to voicemail, where I leave a message, Jim, I’m sorry. Really, don’t be like this. Call me back.

The next day, I log on to Facebook, where I now have two friends: Jim and—wait a minute. Jim has unfriended me! The Scrabble game is gone, and I have only one Facebook friend. I email Jim and apologize again, asking him to call me. He never does.

A month goes by, and this has become my story du jour. I tell it to everyone I meet. No one, not even very good Scrabble players, have ever heard of NIELLOS. Everyone, everyone, thinks he was cheating. I’m still incredulous—not that he may or may not have cheated—but that he would act this way. That he would discontinue our friendship over something so insignificant. I try again to contact him, to no avail.

Two months later I’m telling the story to Jonathan Hoefler at a conference. On the subject of Scrabble, he says, I’m what I’d call a good living room player.

That’s a great description; it’s how I would describe myself, I say. And thus began my online Scrabble–playing with Jonathan. We were perfectly matched and playing was fun, complete with witty reparté and anguished but lighthearted loss on either side. We continue to play word games online to this day. Meanwhile Facebook took over my life.

But Jim, despite a few more attempts on my part to contact him—including one on New Year’s Eve—stayed away, long after I stopped telling the Scrabble Story, until about a year after the event. He came to see me, and we failed to see eye to eye over the incident. It took a long time to get back on good footing with each other again, but we did so only with the understanding that we must never speak of Scrabble again.

NIELLOS, my ass.

Marian Bantjes lives and works from an island off the west coast of Canada. She has been variously described as a typographer, designer, artist and writer. Her work has been published in books and magazines around the world, and is included in the permanent collection of the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum (Smithsonian) in New York. She is a member of Alliance Graphique Internationale (AGI). In 2010, Thames & Hudson published her book I Wonder, and in September 2013 they published a giant monograph of her work, titled Pretty Pictures.

Not letting go

by Alex Bogusky

Photo: Chad Poorman

When I was in my early twenties, I spent all of my time at the beach windsurfing. The bigger the wind and the waves, the better. Most days, these sort of conditions keep people off the beach.

But on this spring day it was windy and wavy, and unusually sunny and warm. Florida is famous for its undertow, a tidal condition where the water being pushed up on shore creates invisible rivers flowing away from shore. Beach goers get swept out, and in their desperation to swim back the way they came, they fight a losing battle against the rip and eventually tire and slip under the water. (Tip: If you’re ever caught in a rip, the best plan is to go with it until it pulls you out past the breakers. Then swim parallel to shore and find a better way in.)

The more water that pushes up on the beach (in the form of waves), the stronger the rip. And on this day the rip was bad. The warning flags were up all along the beach, but hey, it was sunny, how bad could it be?

I was sitting in the sand with my wife, looking out at the surf and waiting for the wind to pick back up so I could go windsurfing. Suddenly we heard a shriek from down the beach. A woman was hysterical and pointing at her son sitting in an inner tube that was getting sucked out through the surf. A group of men ran into the water. Some still in jeans and T-shirts. After a few minutes of commotion, they reached the boy and began to pull him in. But one of the men had been caught in a particularly nasty bit of rip and surf. He was swimming hard but making no progress and with each passing wave it seemed like he surfaced more slowly and with his head just barely above water. I pointed him out to my wife and said that I thought the man was drowning. I stood up and told her that I thought I should go out there and try to get him, but she got angry and reminded me how drowning victims often wind up drowning their rescuers. Which I know is true.

We watched as 60 yards away this man fought for his life. And I felt like a coward.

A wave swept over. He came back up. Another wave. And he came up again. A bigger wave crashed down and he came up. But face down. He certainly wouldn’t drown me now. I knew the beach and the currents, and I knew if I tried to reach him from here I’d be swept right past him so I ran up the beach 20 yards and jumped in. I put my head down and swam as fast as I knew how. The rip was taking me out quickly and I popped my head up to try to find him. I was in a good spot to reach him. I put my head down again to just swim. The next time I looked up he was right next to me. As I reached out to grab the back of his tank top and pull him to me, his head was down and the current pushed him deeper. You think odd things at times like this, and I thought, This guy doesn’t care at all. He’s not going to be any help. Of course, he couldn’t help. He was drowned.

As I flipped him over, his eyes were open and lifeless. I wrapped my arms around his chest and found out he was a big dude—200 lbs. to my 165. This was gonna suck. As I swam with my legs I pumped his chest and started talking to him, telling him to hang on and stay with me. The pumping and squeezing of his chest was doing something and foam started to come out of his mouth.

The problem was that the waves he had been in were the same waves we were both in now, and I was swimming for both of us. Pretty soon it dawned on me that I was starting to drown, too. I knew that if I let go of him I could make it back to shore, but I wasn’t sure we both could. A big part of me—maybe the rational part—wanted to let go. But it was impossible. Not impossible as in I couldn’t live with myself, but actually physically impossible. My arms would not let go. Later I learned that this phenomena is not uncommon. It’s why police officers sometimes end up being pulled off of rooftops by jumpers, and why police are told not to grab jumpers. Because if they do, they probably won’t be able to let go.

So all that was left to do was to kick. Keep kicking and praying. I believe we all pray at times like this no matter what we believe the rest of our days. Finally, I kicked and hit something solid. Sand. The bottom. I stood up and started to drag him in. Soon the other men who had rescued the boy reached us and took him from me.

The woman who was shrieking earlier was letting out sounds I’d never heard before. The drowned man was her husband.

On that day, there had been so many close calls that the paramedics had their trucks moving up and down the beach, and they were there as we pulled the man on shore. They began CPR instantly. I was sick, sad and exhausted so I just walked off to find a quiet place to sit. Within minutes the ambulance and the family were shuttled off. My dad read in the paper the next day that the man had survived. Knowing he was alive and that their family was still together was an indescribable feeling.

Years later, when we launched the Truth® campaign I would feel that feeling again a thousand fold knowing that hundreds of thousands of kids would decide not to smoke because of the advertising we made. Who would have thought you could save more people with an ad than by playing lifeguard.

Alex Bogusky’s career in communications began over twenty years ago when he joined Crispin and Porter Advertising in 1989 as an art director, eventually running the agency a decade later. Under Alex’s direction, Crispin Porter + Bogusky grew to more than 1,000 employees with offices in Miami, Boulder, Los Angeles, London and Sweden, and with annual billings over $1 billion. During Alex’s leadership, CP+B became the world’s most awarded advertising agency. In 2008, he was inducted into the Art Director’s Club Hall of Fame. And in 2010, Alex received the rare honor of being named Creative Director of the Decade by Adweek magazine.

Always drawn towards a cause, Alex created groundbreaking initiatives such as the Truth campaign, which was named the most successful social advertising campaign in U.S. history. He has worked with Vice President Al Gore to debunk the notion of clean coal with TV spots directed by the Coen Brothers. And in 2011, Alex conceived and launched 24 hours of Climate Reality, the most highly viewed streaming web program to date.

Having left CP+B in 2010, he and his wife Ana keep busy helping non-profits with their