Caracterización y simulación de conflictos

Great Gatsby Business Card, Letterpress Print Detail

Dusty Summers | Cofounder, The Heads of State | Philadelphia, PA

“We get restless. And I think that’s where that entrepreneurial spirit comes from.”

Dusty Summers and Jason Kernevich are the duo behind The Heads of State, a graphic design and illustration studio based in Philadelphia.

Their brilliantly simplistic and conceptual image making has made the pair favorites of the editorial illustration scene. Their latest self-initiated venture, Pilot & Captain, a collection of city-specific T-shirts and posters, is an extension of their Travel Series prints.

Dusty and Jason developed the Travel Series into a successful print series and now into an expanding product company. They’ve simply built upon their passions — whether travel, T-shirts or tattoos — and they’ve created side projects that last around themes that they love.

How did you discover design, and how did your collaboration begin?

We both graduated from Tyler School of Art in 2001. Our collaboration really grew out of a desire to stay creative after work. We started designing posters for shows we’d go see, and that snowballed into a full-fledged design studio over the last eight years or so.

What do you each bring to the collaboration?

How do you handle overlaps in your skill sets?

Having worked together for so long, we’ve got a little bit of shorthand down. There were a number of years where we worked on separate coasts, and our collaboration happened over the phone or on instant message. That sort of long-distance collaboration forces you to be brief and to the point when pitching or explaining a concept. Now that we’re together in an office, that basis has only served to help in the collaboration. There’s an inherent trust that lets us be a little more outspoken toward each other than we normally would be. With eight years of history behind us, it makes it OK to say,

‘That’s a terrible idea,’ or, ‘Start over. That looks like total garbage.’

Do you consider yourselves entrepreneurs?

We get restless. And I think that’s where that entrepreneurial spirit comes from. We’ve gone from poster designers to illustrators to designers,

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and that need to continue to branch out always seems to creep up.

In addition to your editorial and poster illustration work, do you have a strategy for pushing self-initiated work?

You’ve got to make time. Whether that means saying no to client work or putting in extra hours in the evening. Over the last year, we’ve seen some success with these self-initiated pieces — such as the Travel Series posters and now Pilot & Caption — and we’ve realized that these types of projects can be a cornerstone to a business strategy. We’ve made it policy to each set aside one week for one partner to do whatever they want. Whether that’s laying the basis for a self-initiated project or learning a new technique or focusing on promotional

material. It’s important, and it’s hard to stick to because when a client is calling, you’ve got to make that mature decision. If you continue to be creative and allow yourself time, then the client work will continue to roll in. But if you get stagnant, that will dry up very quickly.

Can you tell us a bit about how the Travel Series posters came to be?

My wife and I have a small collection of 1950s and ’60s travel posters — pieces by Nathan Garamond, David Klein and others — and this is what I see every day when I get home. As much as there is a style associated with our work, Jason and I really believe that the root of our work is concept based, and often we don’t get a chance to explore something solely stylistically.

The travel posters gave us an opportunity to go

for something that we don’t get to do. It started as a project for Real Simple magazine as a series of 1-inch spot illustrations for, ‘The Most Livable Cities.’ We accepted the job with terms that we would just have fun doing these inspired travel pieces. We then went back and built them out for a full series of posters.

Do you have plans for more work outside of your client responsibilities?

We have too many plans — that seems to always be the problem. We’ve definitely got some extension of the Travel Series posters series landing soon, moving into more of an apparel approach for it. And we’ve got a number of illustration and type series ideas we’re constantly working on, just have to see which makes it to the finish line first.

Travel Series Posters, Various Cities

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You’ve taken some of your client-based illustrations out of their original context and sold them as art prints. Do you often think about different ways to monetize the work?

No, it’s not until after, when we can identify some pieces that have a life beyond what they’re intended for. I think that speaks to the simplicity of our illustrations. Often an image that was done for a client’s annual report looks just as good on a bedroom wall as it does next to some financial analysis. We’ve tried in the past to just produce work as art prints, and we quickly realized we weren’t artists; we need a goal, a problem to solve in order to be inspired by the piece. Just sitting down and making fun images isn’t, for the most part, that exciting for us.

What is your favorite project?

We’ve got a soft spot for an early poster we did for Wilco. It’s simple, just a vine wrapping around the Washington Monument. This was the first time we found the opportunity to bring a little social commentary to our work. It really marks the point where we fell out of love with gig posters and in love with illustration, specifically making images that send a message or solve a problem.

What is your favorite failure?

Like any designer or illustrator, there have been any number of missed opportunities.

We get upset, first at the client and then with ourselves. We’ve got to keep reminding ourselves that at the end of the day, we’re in a service industry; someone is hiring us to give him or her something. And if they’re not happy, we should figure out how to fix that. When the project goes south, there’s always a meeting over beers to say, ‘Let’s put egos aside. We could have done this and this to make it better.’

We did a solo gallery show, and while it was well attended, man, we just didn’t enjoy the process. Again, there was no goal, and yes, we could have set our own parameters, but for us,

the whole thing felt a little hollow, just making pieces to be hung on the walls. It was an amazing opportunity. Next time we’ll need to get ourselves into the right frame of mind.

Do you have any advice for designers with entrepreneurial ambitions?

As a designer, you always bitch and moan over let’s say an accountant who hires his brother to do a half-assed logo for him. Don’t make that same mistake. You’re good, great, at making imagery. Find someone who is great at balancing your books. Find someone who is great at programming. There are going to be things that you want to handle, things that you’ve got an interest in, but for everything else, the time and trouble isn’t worth the money you think you’re saving.

What interests outside of design have most influenced your practice?

The ability to just unplug in a movie theater or on the couch with a book is one of our biggest influences. Movies and books expose you to

someone else’s view of the world, some strange tweaked aspect or angle that you might never experience except through this outlet. Having kids has been a big influence as well. Kids allow you to get on the carpet and get your hands dirty with Legos or see a stick turn into a rocket launcher. There’s a lot to be learned.

Do your speaking engagements change the way you think about your work and what value you’re adding to the world?

Most definitely. Though we love speaking, the most gratification comes from lectures at colleges. We can give these kids an idea of what they can do, and that their ‘job’ doesn’t have to be an office job. We can tell them they can set their own terms, and with a little bit of tenacity, they can chart their own course. I think it’s also a great venue to tell folks what we’ve learned. We can try to convince them that common knowledge isn’t exactly correct, that you don’t need a mega account to keep a studio afloat and live a comfortable life, that design doesn’t have to start and end with clients.

Pilot & Captain, New York Airports

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