For some gratifyingly good music and a surf through the twists and turns of a designer’s creative brain, take a look at the award-winning website www.brutalgiftland.com by Mark Shepherd.
INMYX: On your site, your homepage has various sub-sections: COLD_ELF, BORING NATURE and BRUTALGIFTLAND. Is Mark Shepard behind all three?
Mark Shepherd: Yes, I started back in 1994 as an illustrator and used Brutalgift as the studio name. BORING NATURE began the summer of 2004 from a conversation with my nine-year-old niece (our walk through her backyard became “boring nature.”). COLD_ELF is the most recent incarnation, which started summer of 2005. I wanted to explore the emotional immediacy of sound. It quickly became another way for me to keep a journal of my thoughts and feelings. I like sound that creates specific moods, especially the contrast between the dark and the sun-shiney or sugary!
INMYX: Wonderful sounds accompany the navigation of your site. Are you a musician turned sound designer?
Shepherd: I guess you could say my first experience in sound was music. I love a good melody. Sound for me conjures up specific memories. Also within the site it functions as a cue or non-cue for what is to come, or just another way for the user to establish a favorable relationship with the content.
INMYX: The BORING NATURE Manifesto states: “You’ve got to sing, lots of things could sing for you, but to strive for fulfilment you must sing.” As a collection of research images, videos and t-shirt designs, BORING NATURE really isn’t boring. What is it?
Shepherd: Well it could be. I am not sure anymore. I like the mundane in life, the stupid and awkward, the things that often get overlooked, pushed aside or forgotten. Boring is not meant to be read as a negative trait. I think boring has gotten a bad rap, and there are lots of synonyms for the concept. One of my favorites is jejune, meaning naive, simplistic and superficial. These are the things life is made of! Same goes for the COLD_ELF sounds — I approach sound in the same way, I gather the “boring” pieces and mix them into some kind of potent glob. This is the true potential for BORING NATURE to occur!!!
INMYX: Looking at your illustration and design work, one sees so much layering and collage. You must have a huge image bank! Your sound pieces also are very layered with voice, sound, and melody. Where do you get your basic material?
Shepherd: I do have my own library of garage sale items, thrift store finds, etc. There is so much JUNK in the U.S.A. It just keeps coming. I like the feeling of older material, not just for its nostalgic properties, but also for its banality and printing quality. There is something nice about colors that fade, drawings that are dated, and type or patterns that recall certain memories. I look in my sketchbooks and combine and recombine images from my library when I am lost for ideas. Ideas never come first for me, or rarely. It seems better to place one thing next to the other to see what kind of resonance they share.
INMYX: What makes your site exciting is the combination of your portfolio, wacky animation, found images, AND sound. When creating the site, did you ever worry about combining your professional portfolio with your more personal creativity? In other words, is your website your business card, your journal or your sketchbook?
Shepherd: Very good question. I think I have had a long-time battle with my desire or ability to separate the professional and the personal. Many friends, art directors and fellow designers have asked the same question. I really can see a need to separate the two, but often I enjoy the projects that combine my artistic abilities with a design problem (and vice versa). I do employ a more focused strategy when there is a need to communicate more directly. However, I do have a tendency to muck it up with my personal work. I am getting better at knowing when to hold back.
Hopefully, the BORING NATURE section is playful and odd enough to hold visitors’ attention and reveal my thinking process — without frightening away clients. Some get it, and some don’t. The idea for the site was to keep adding material, like a blog, but life gets in the way sometimes, and sitting in front of the computer is not my favorite activity! I have to keep collecting junk, which gets me out there in the real world.
Mark Shepherd is a freelance designer based in Portland, Oregon. www.brutalgiftland.com won the Design Forte award from NetDiver.net and was a featured site in Digitalthread.com. See also his online magazine project www.thebruise.com!
Links:
www.brutalgiftland.com
www.thebruise.com
