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Tell us about your beginnings. I was very fortunate to go to the High School of Art and Design in New York. Before I went there I didn't know you could make a living as an artist. As a kid all I did was draw. I pulled in the grades-I'd get A's and B's, but all I wanted to do was draw. My parents were concerned about how I'd make a living, so my sister Janet, an elementary school teacher, heard of the High School for Art and Design and opened the door for me to take the entrance exam. When I got there, I went from being a big fish in a medium-sized pond to being a minnow in huge ocean of talented people. It opened my mind to a world where art could be not only a living, but also a lifestyle. By the way, do you agree with Mrs. Glicksman-that you'd have been a lousy illustrator? The talent that was rampant in the halls of The High School for Art & Design at the time was simply astounding. I suppose that I have always felt that by comparison, I was most definitely "lousy"-at least by A&D standards of that time. It's funny, though. Earlier in my career, I produced a good amount of award-winning work, which, because of budget considerations contained much of my own illustration. Can you give us another example of a Mrs. Loueyism and how it plays out in your work? One thing my mother always said is that success is defined not by what you start but by what you finish well. The same goes for design and business on a day-to-day level. We approach each project as a golden opportunity. Nothing should ever get in the way of a great solution. What led you to open the studio and "go it alone"? I was very fortunate to have had the opportunity to intern and be employed by some very important studios while still in high school. I was able to work with some great designers and learn the lifestyle early in my career. The studio got started while I was in between jobs and began taking on some freelance assignments. I was planning to go back on staff but one job led to another and fortunately kept going for fifteen odd years. If I knew what it entailed, I most likely would have never done it. Ignorance is truly bliss. I had the support of a great partner (Regina Rubino) and great clients. Looking back, it seems like there were times when it was a real struggle. We were young designers learning how to run a business. Not having a weekly salary was a very unsettling feeling. Realizing that that big check received did not belong to us but to the company cash flow was a good learning experience. These days, I am very fortunate to work with Karen Dacus on a day-to-day basis, who is from the MBA school of thought-and, of course, my amazing and talented staff, designers Javier Leguizamo, Daniela Fahrig, and Juliana Suterman. It's a great team of people to get through the day with.
Jim Berte was always one of my favorite designers. His typography and vision are humbling and amazing. He exemplifies the inspiration of the Miles Robert Runyan days, which helped define the Euro-California style still prevalent today. I love Gauguin's work and lifestyle as well. The passion, honesty, and lack of fear in the strokes are a constant inspiration. Architects, writers, scientist, actors, surfers, athletes, and any character wandering the world seeking art and creation in any niche or form they can find also inspire me. Can you describe Louey/Rubino's style and niche? I can sum up our style in three words. Simple, intelligent, and beautiful. I do think that people would like to categorize us. I've always tried to avoid that. We do annual reports, image and branding, collateral and marketing, for such a wide diversity of clients. If we were to have any niche, it would be that we're business-driven, aesthetic, passionate individuals, inspired by challenges. We're charged with giving our clients a voice, and we look at any communication vehicle to do so. We are also charged with having a mind and a sense for our clients' business rather than to be a pair of hands to them. Our clients will come to us looking for a brochure and we'll say you need a DVD. Those are just tools to communicate with. And we're passionate about creating something beautiful and intelligent from those. You can have a very intelligent message that's not well designed, and you can have a very beautiful image that's well executed but isn't interesting, nor does it say very much. My thinking is that great design has to be a mix of the two. Design is like looking at a human being, and to be truly beautiful you have to be both from the inside and the outside. Who has been your most inspiring client? The Hyatt folks are one of those clients where we inspire each other. This is a company that understood the concept of globalism long before everyone else did. They work with people first, and the business is a byproduct of that. They've taught me how to be a citizen of the world. What you learn in working with them is that the days of isolation are gone. In terms of moving product, every design you do has to be very sensitive to how it will be interpreted overseas. It teaches you to be a much more sensitive person-rather than a person who sees the way I was brought up, or the city I live in, or my country, as the best in the world. That way of thinking is very antiquated.
The design was driven by content-we looked at the articles, the people being featured, we looked at their style. And the design came out of what fit that person best, and our interpretation of that person. These are also profiles of other artists and designers, and that makes it intriguing. It's also very challenging, because you want to be very honest. I would think that designing editorial content is as close to acting as you can get in design, because you the designer have to embrace the character and then interpret it in an art form, whether it's on stage or in a layout. You're taking essentially a script-which is the content-and you have to reinterpret it and set the stage. You have to choose fonts and layouts that embody that personality. That's what great design does. You decided to use InDesign for ALT Pick Magazine, rather than Quark. Why is that? It was taken on as an experiment in working with a fully integrated creative package. I think the folks at Adobe have a very firm grasp on the mind and spirit of their customer and are able to produce a portfolio of products to truly reflect that spirit of care and understanding. >> Read the Louey/Rubino journal of using Adobe InDesign to create the latest ALT Pick Magazine - Contributed by Tiffany Meyers >> See more work from Louey/Rubino >> See other member spotlights on the member spotlight index >> Find out more on how to become an altpick.com member |
