On this episode, Jp Avila, Associate Professor of Art & Design at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington talks about the importance of narrative as a basic principle of design, distilling information as a currency of the future, and the struggle of staying in the moment versus chasing the next carrot.

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Chad:

Welcome, to this is Design School. This month we have a special meta episode for you. My name is Chad Hall and today I will be solo interviewing my college Jp Avila who normally cohosts on the show with me.

Jp:

Hello.

Chad:

So, Jp I am really excited to interview you. I know on our very first, I think we called it…

Jp:

Episode 00.

Chad:

Episode 00.

Jp:

Yeah.

Chad:

…we sort of interviewed each other. And, at that time, what was that like four years ago now?

Jp:

I think so, sometime in the summertime.

Chad:

We had absolutely no idea what we were doing.

Jp:

Never even touched a microphone before.

Chad:

Yeah. And so, it was essentially us just talking in a relatively unstructured way. But, I think today, now that we are in our 3rd season it would be fun to kind of circle back to that and actually spend some time interviewing you in a more structured way.

Jp:

Sure.

Chad:

So, Jp can you give us a little hint at kind of what your journey of design was in kind of where you started and how you found it.

Jp:

So, I originally went to school to become a journalist and that was my career path for many years before… in high school and then part-way through college. And, one of the things that I was also interested in doing was the yearbook, at the time we had yearbooks, we had printed yearbooks. And, I went to a small liberal art school in northwest Indiana called Valparaiso and I needed a job. I heard that you could work for the yearbook or work for the newspaper and they’d pay you. So, I thought, “Okay, that’s a good way of doing it.”

So, I went and worked for the yearbook as the photo editor and after a little bit of time I got to become the editor-in-chief of the yearbook. At the time, the advisor for the yearbook was the graphic design professor and he said, you know, “I like the way you are thinking about these things and you’ve got an interesting eye, why do you not take one of my classes?” I was like, “Well, I don’t know.” I think I was like, “Okay. Fine, fine, fine, yes why not?” I need the credits.

So, I took one of his classes and being the cocky 19 year olds that we all are at that age, I decided to take an advanced level design class. And whoa, was that eye opening. But, it also kind of gave me this awakening as to what I was missing from journalism.

Journalism for me is about storytelling. It is about having a complete understanding of the way that a beginning, middle and end happens with facts and with details and really drawing a picture. Now, all of that that I just said is in relation also to I would say graphic design which combines visual imagery, visual narratives and combines them all together. So, taking journalism and graphic design for me was really about having the complete package; text and image. Complete narrative. Complete use of structures that I thought were only in one area.

I really fell in love with it and I didn’t look back after that.

Chad:

Was it something about involving more senses?

Jp:

Probably. I think it was very much a visual sense, the things I could not get across in text I could certainly get across in imagery.

Chad:

Yeah.

Jp:

Or, the combination of the two made much more sense, especially typography and imagery combined together really was wickedly wild. And, even to this day I think that is the way I kind of each my classes and that is the way I approach design still is about narrative.

So, after that I worked for a bit, had a little studio, and then went back to grad school. I was missing the classroom. I was missing the camaraderie, like the you and I are sitting across from each other and we chit chat about design and that was important. That was something that I often missed especially in large groups. At Valpo I had a really core group of friends that had this same sort of interest in design, interest in the arts, interest in journalism and I really miss that. So, grad school for me was coming back to that, coming back to the critique, coming back to the late night, the sweating, the hard work, the, you know, the blood of it all; of really getting into it.

And, I really found that the importance of what I was finding in school was not just the camaraderie of it all but the ability to think of projects beyond just one more deadline, beyond the, “I need this for a job.” And, so I started to think about teaching and how did that work? And, I still do freelance, I still did freelance. I do not do as much as I used to these days. But, I found that it became much more enjoyable to teach students these ideas of visual narrative and the importance of combining the text and imagery together more that just, “Here is the program. Go get a job. Here is the technique. Go get a job.”

At the end of the day learning technology is a dime a dozen and it becomes much more easier to do in the 21st Century in the 2010s than it did in the 90s because of YouTube, because of Lynda.com. You don’t need to go to school; to grad school. You don’t need all of those things. And, quite a few students these days have that experience in high school. So, my job as an educator, my job as a senior designer is really about teaching them that skill that they are going to take into the 2020s, into the 2030s, which is narrative, which is understanding that information is a very powerful commodity that requires both text and image because we are such a highly visual community these days.

Chad:

Yeah. So, you went to grad school.

Jp:

I did, yeah.

Chad:

What was your focus of your time there?

Jp:

So, I went to the School of the Art Institute in Chicago and I got a Master of Fine Arts in Visual Communications and I did my thesis in Nonlinear Narrative Structure. What that is is I got my Masters in Storytelling. Or, if at dinner parties I could say I got my Masters in Comics.

I looked at the way people tell stories visually and in more than just your beginning, middle and end way of storytelling, or in narrative structure. And, what that does is, especially for design or for any type of work in visual communication, it is how do you get the point across? How do you get the narrative across? How do you get the story across? More that just giving them the introduction, the middle part, and the end part. How do you mix it up? Or, how do you give them the plot at the end, how do you give them the introduction in the middle, and so forth? It is very important especially as we think about the way that narrative online, narrative in the interactive web sense is very nonlinear. I can jump in through a search engine deep into a website without actually seeing the introduction of it that kind of work definitely has helped over the last 20 years.

Chad:

So then how did that evolve into the work you did for your thesis? I remember it was very kind of personal based project that you did.

Jp:

It was, yes. So, I did a… I have a really good friend from Valpo named Liz Warful who is actually a professor now at Valpo. And, she was coming back from the Peace Corps and we were chit chatting about projects that we would love to work on and showing her what I was doing. She was thinking about going back to grad school and we came up with some ideas, it was roughly about the midst of the Iraq War at the time. We were looking at different stories that were being told about the Iraqis, as well as the Americans, and the war itself. We came across an organization that was doing relief efforts for the Iraqis. It had been in the Middle East for several years, especially since the Gulf War, and had all of these stories about how the experiences were happening. And, what we were interested in exploring was more than just, here is the American sign of the war or here is the better side of the war. What we wanted to explore was that there is no good, there is no bad, there is no neutral. There is just what happens. How do you tell a story through the facts? Especially when you are not the one that is in the story, right? So, it is not just my personal story, but I am trying to convey that story through the lens of two or three other people.

Looking at story telling more than just a perspective of, “I have the right opinion because I am the one telling the story.” Or, “I want to tell your side of things through your lens,” I am doing air quotes, “is problematic,” because you are still trying to build from your own perspective and so how do you, how do you dissect that into the minute pieces that make sense through those moments? It was a form of storytelling that was very much about pieces not so much just about in the beginning, in the middle, and then in conclusion of it. It is fragments of it. Which then I try to take into, to use in a variety of different ways and throughout the last couple of years of work when I was still doing those types of pieces and hopefully continue on with that.

I try to instill that into students these days. The importance of narrative is a fragmented piece that we are trying to… Maybe if you think about it as a string, you are trying to pull that string and realize that string is bringing everything with it, you know, if there was stuff on the line, it is bringing everything down with it. It is up to you to how much do you pull that string and bring it all with you or just little fragments of it.

Chad:

Do you ever want to go back?

Jp:

Oh yeah, all the time. I have tinkered with the idea of going back for a PhD. There is not a lot of PhD’s in my area of study. I think about it often. I think, you know, am I still relevant? Am I in design? Or, in teaching? Or, in my interest areas? Or, do I need to do stuff? And, of course, the meta answer is yes, you should always be doing stuff. You should always be learning something new, and I think I am. But, am I doing it fast enough?

You know, I am the type of person that I finish a project and before I hit submit for that project to be done I am already thinking, “So what else can I do after this? What is that moment?” There is no breather to think back for the post mortem of, “Okay, here is what I learned, here is how I did it, here is what I learned or would do differently for the next project. It’s hit submit. Okay, I am already starting the new project now.

Chad:

What is the next carrot?

Jp:

Yes, yes, yes.

Chad:

I love carrots. What is the next carrot? I mean you have been teaching, I mean, you are still pretty young but, yet you have been teaching for over a decade.

Jp:

Yes, going on 14 years now.

Chad:

Yes, almost a decade and a half. And, I mean, how is that? Well, maybe we should not jump ahead quite yet. Maybe we should talk about the teaching first.

Jp:

No, I am fine, let’s just keep going.

Chad:

Well, I mean when you first started teaching you had quite the reputation.

Jp:

Did I?

Chad:

Oh yeah.

Jp:

And what was that reputation, Chad?

Chad:

You know what that reputation is.

Jp:

Oh yeah. Yes, all right.

Chad:

You were just soft and gentle. Soft and gentle, in moments…

Jp:

Yes, when needed.

Chad:

…in moments. I would say soft and gentle outside of the classroom one on one when people needed some pick me ups.

Jp:

Once I have broken them then I came back to support them. Is that what you are saying?

Chad:

Yeah.

Jp:

So, did you, before you started taking my classes did you already know my reputation?

Chad:

Oh no, I had no idea.

Jp:

Oh okay.

Chad:

Yeah. But, your approach to teaching I think was very different the anyone else I have ever learned from.

Jp:

Yeah.

Chad:

I think you were approaching teaching your classes more that like you were expecting that we were almost like graduate students of the experience you had, you know, was very fresh for you at the time.

Jp:

Yeah. yeah, definitely.

Chad:

And you have high expectations. You were expecting us to do things on our own outside of class and not be spoon fed. You kind of set a high expectation for the work and the kind of the level we were supposed to achieve. What was your driving factor behind that?

Jp:

I felt that at the time you are right, that I was fresh in my mind of here is the grad school experience. And, made me feel like I wonder if I could do more with them. I wonder if I gave them the push if they could rise to that challenge. And, I always thought to myself, why not prepare them for grad school? Why not prepare them for a life of curiosity the way that I would like to have had that undergraduate experience? And, so I think that is how I approached it, especially at the beginning. It was here is what I did in grad school, let us do a slightly diluted version of that so that way we can survive. And, here you go, let’s get started. Here is the expectation that you are here to learn and so therefore let’s start learning.

Chad:

But, on the flip side of feeling a little bit behind on skills what I felt miles ahead of was how to think.

Jp:

And, how did you survive?

Chad:

Oh, it was painful.

Jp:

Painful to learn the technology or painful to be in that mindset of you are technologically behind but you are intellectually ahead.

Chad:

Well, intellect being intellectually ahead and then going into an entry level position, is a hard place to be.

Jp:

Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay, yes.

Chad:

Yeah. Now we are going to come back to the carrot question.

What keeps you going every day? What is the next carrot? You know, you’ve since started a family and gone through all those things as well and that obviously intersects with how you approach designing and things like that?

Jp:

Definitely, yeah.

Chad:

What is next?

Jp:

Well, I would say that what’s next professionally, I do not know. I think that I have definitely felt comfortable teaching, you know, now doing it 14 years and sometimes the same class multiple years, multiple times in the year. So, I definitely feel that there is a comfortability there.

Chad:

Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

Jp:

Ah, that is where the carrot comes in. I hate being on autopilot, you know, that is, hence where the carrot comes in. So, I have started taking on some other types of classes or doing some other things with the university and with students that are definitely out of my comfort zone. And, I think that, the idea of pulling up my sleeves and getting dirty and working and sweating a little because I do not know what is going to be, you know, like the next project. Or, I do not know how the students are going to approach this next project is exciting. It is thrilling because it means that it keeps me on my toes. It keeps me young. It keeps me active.

Next step, personally, I think is trying to figure out what do I want to do with this with my one wild and precious life. What do I want to do with the rest? As you said, I am fairly young. I don’t feel fairly young. I feel that I am in the middle at this point. And, what do I want to do? Looking back at what I have done, I feel like I have done a lot. But, do I still have a lot left to do? I don’t know. I hope so. I really do. I can continue teaching and I think that I would still be good at it. But, is that really where I am now? I do not know. I want to continue to help students. I still want to be very active.

I think I want to be more active in my community. I sit on a couple of boards, I am, hopefully cross our fingers, going to be sitting on another board that I am really excited about. I have a lot of different causes that I am involved in. But, really the biggest cause that I am involved in is my family. My daughter is still fairly young and is impressionable. In fact, she just told me the other night when we were working on something and I left her after we were doing the sketches and I said, you know, you continue them and I will work on some emails and some other things I was working on for a type class. And she had said, “I want to be a designer when I grow up.” And, I was like, “Oh. Oh, really?”

And, there was that moment of what do I do? Do I make a joke because I am a big joker, especially with her, about being a designer following in my footsteps? Or, do I give her that moment of encouragement and insight of, “If you want to do it, here you go.” And, I gave her the encouragement instead. I said, “I think you can do it. I think you can certainly do this. But, you should be able to know that you are doing this for yourself and not for me. You should definitely think that design is about the sketching you are doing here or what you see me doing on the computer. But, it is also about so much more. And, when you get old enough I will talk to you more about that if you want. You know, we can take a look at the books that I’ve read and some of the articles I’ve written, and stuff like that.”

So, she took it with a grain of salt. But, hopefully I set the kernel of her future of moving forward then. So, I feel that, personally, that is my carrot now is my daughter. And, I kind of have foregone the idea that this really about me anymore. That it is not a hoping for a lifetime achievement award, it is not hoping for the glam and glory of design admiration and stuff like that. I think especially in 2018, in the U.S., it is really about teaching my daughter the rights from wrongs. It is teaching her the knowledge that she needs, the mindset of how to be a strong, independent Latina in the 21st Century. How the importance of education is not just a luxury anymore, it is a necessity. The importance of design education, whether she becomes a designer, a doctor, a lawyer, an accountant, a stay at home mom, a family member, a whatever it is she that she wants to do. It is equally important to understanding the way that we deal with technology and deal with information. And, hopefully that will influence someone else as well.

Chad:

If your daughter does become a designer, when it is time for her, when she has gone to undegrad, you know, if she goes to school. When she enters the world as a designer, what do you think will be different about the field at that time, and what will be the same?

Jp:

Oh, that is a good question. So, in essence what is life going to be like in 2030 or 2040 is part of.

Chad:

And, what will be the designer’s dilemma?

Jp:

in 30 years, is certainly going to be the issues that, or the scenario that designers are going to need to figure out.

I think when she is out in the field and if she would become a designer, I think that the issues are going to be related to information still. I think it is only going to get exponentially larger and more important to understand and how to decipher or collate and regurgitate information in a way that is useful for not just the individuals but for the community. I think we will probably have a resource problem and information is going to be a currency as much as any sort of resource; water, minerals, food, and so forth. And, I think that being an information advocate or an information, no let’s use the word knowledge, a knowledge advocate or a knowledge buyer and seller or creator, is going to be one of the things that she will have to deal with. And, that the rest of us will probably have to deal with in one shape or form.

I think being a younger designer in the future is going to a process that is what we do as senior designers now. There is going to be this expectation that you know so much coming out that you are just running. I think it is going to be faster and faster as we move forward. I think that is a good telling because I often worry about that especially even right now being a print designer, being a 2D print designer, am I doing a disservice by teaching students who will touch print design a little less each year? As opposed to being an interactive designer or a UX designer? And, I come back to the thought that my form of design, my form of visual communication is about narrative. It has never been about technology and is has always been about the stories that we tell, the lives that we live and the experiences that we have. And, I think that is broadly applicable regardless of the medium. So, I feel that I got something to teach in 20 years, if I am still teaching.

Chad:

Well, I think if we think about it that way, one question, one maybe final question for you would be…

Jp:

Sure.

Chad:

…as we decided to do this podcast it was both an interesting decision for both of us because audio is not a format that is comfortable for us.

Jp:

Yes. (laughs)

Chad:

So, when we think of different mediums to work in, what have you learned from working in audio, using that lens?

Jp:

Well, I have found that my secret passion is definitely audio. I may not be good at it. I am not a musician. I am definitely not a singer. I do not think I have the voice for it. But, I have found that thinking of the audio space that we envelop our lives in is so fascinating. Now, we are here in Seattle, we are in the Fremont area and I am looking outside of these windows and there is so much activity that is going on. And, so I listened to our recordings and I hear all the background noises, I hear all the little idiosyncratics. I hear the breathing, and the um’s, and the who has wet lips, or you know, who has a mouth full or something, like they have gum that they are chewing but they are trying not to chew it. I hear every little bit. But now, I am much more conscious of all the other noises that are happening around me and that has…

Chad:

In your daily life?

Jp:

In my daily life, yeah. And, that has made me to be more conscious of all of the other little details that are going on in my daily life. I would actually love to do another podcast or some, maybe it is some sort of project, maybe it does not need to be a podcast…

Chad:

It could just be a special experimental episode.

Jp:

Yes! …about these experiences. What is the nonlinear narrative of the audio going on?

Or, may you know what I am going to do, I am going to throw it out to the audience. Those of you that are listening, would you like to hear that? Email me at, no I am just kidding.

Chad:

So what Jp is saying, as he goes on sabbatical next year…

Jp:

Yeah! Oh, I will except that challenge. What should I be doing? I mean I got a project and I know what I am doing. But, what would you like to see those one-offs of that would be kind of an experiment?

I would be interested in doing that. Maybe I should. Maybe this sabbatical is similar to what This is Design School is about. Let’s do it.

Chad:

We will learn along the way.

Jp:

We will learn along the way. And, have we learned? Oh, yes.

Chad:

Oof. Yes.

Jp:

There was some bumpy roads there. And, here we are. Look at all the equipment around us now. Like it was a cell phone or an iPad I think it was.

Chad:

Snowball mics.

Jp:

Snowball mikes and iPads, you know.

Chad:

It sounds a lot better.

Jp:

Oh yes. Yeah, definitely.

Chad:

Well, Jp it has been great talking with you one on one.

Jp:

Yeah. Thank you for chatting with me and thank you for being my cohost.

Chad:

Well, we weren’t cohosts today. Sorry, I’m taking the light today.

Jp:

Not today, but in every other episode. (laughs)

Chad:

Alright. Thanks.

 

*Special thank you to Pacific Lutheran University’s School of Arts & Communication Professional Development Grant for funding the transcription of this podcast.