Graphic designer and letterer, Bob Ewing works and plays in Indianapolis. He recently launched a new side project, INCH X INCH with friend and fellow designer, Drew Hill. We chatted with Bob last month about side projects, how he got his start, and what it means to belong to a community. Read more after the jump!

CB: A few months ago you completed your Daily Lettering project after almost a year and a half of lettering exercises. Why did you decide to move on? What’s your next creative side project?

BE: I wouldn’t say completed as much as I just stopped. For the past couple months I had been feeling like it was time to move on and that I wasn’t getting as much out of it as I was previously. I have quite a few things going on right now and It was starting to become a barrier for those things I needed to work on. I actually haven’t missed it like I thought I would, which is a relief. I still letter almost every single day. I am just focusing on larger projects and showing more of my process instead of the daily letterings, which I think is actually more valuable to the people that follow me. Often times as designers we just show the final pretty piece and no-one sees the mess of work it took to get to that place.

As far as what’s next for me, I am plan to start creating things for my own brand. The daily #hashtaglettering was great and I learned a lot, but I also created a lot of content that will never be used for anything other than practice. I am looking forward to continuing to learn and grow my hand lettering skills, as I still have a lot to learn, but doing that on larger projects.

The biggest thing I have been working on lately is Inch x Inch, which is a monthly button club whose proceeds support youth art education. My good friend Drew Hill and I just launched it the beginning of March, the response has been quite overwhelming and we are excited about the future of this side project.

CB: When a side project becomes more “work” than “fun” sometimes it is best to just close up shop on it, so to speak. Inch x Inch sounds great! How did you guys decide that Art With A Heart and 826CHI would be your charity partners?

BE: Agreed. It also had an affect on my personal life. I grew professionally over those 534 days, but I also made some personal sacrifices. While I try to never let work interfere with time with my kids, it affected my relationship with my wife. I often did my daily letterings after the kids were in bed, which is in-turn time I usually spent with my wife. She has been more than supportive of my career, but honestly that was the biggest reason for shifting gears even more so than the reason mentioned above.

We are super excited about Inch x Inch and how it can help benefit youth art education. Art education played a huge role in both Drew and my development, just as we assumed it did with our target audience. When researching charities, we quickly realized that we could affect change on a local level more than on a national level. With the amount of money we will be donating at this early stage, it would be best served to keep it close to home. We have plans to grow this venture as big as we can and in-turn donate on a national scale. Art for a Heart was an easy choice for us. We really appreciate their hand-ons approach and their belief that youth art education benefits kids in school and in life. Our button sponsor, Busy Beaver Button Co helped choose 826CHI as a way to diversify our donations and for many of the same reasons we chose Art with a Heart.

CB: How did you get started in the graphic design world?

BE: I always loved drawing when I was a kid. I even talked my parents into putting white wallpaper in my room so I could draw on the walls. Early on in high school, I started to take an interest in drafting and quickly decided that I wanted to be an architect. All while maxing out on all my art classes as well. I spent my summers working in my Uncles architectural firm and got accepted into Ball State’s renowned architecture program after graduation. Everything was working out perfect, or so I thought. Over the course of my 3.5 yrs at Ball State, I started to lose interest in architecture and dropped out of college.

I moved back home with my parents, got a job as a commercial electrician and did that a couple years before moving to Florida to escape the cold Indiana winters. While in Florida, I did door and window installation, and trim carpentry on large custom homes. Things were going really well. I started dating my wife 6 months after moving, but the kicker was she still lived in Indiana. We dated long-distance for 6 months before I ultimately decided to move back to Indiana. I was excited about moving home and the start of a new life. She is the best thing that ever happened to me. I got a job for a window and door company back in Indiana and quickly realized I needed to do something more with my life. I decided on graphic design. It took me all that time to discover what I loved about architecture was the design, but I wasn’t crazy about everything that came with it. I enrolled in night classes at Ivy Tech Community College in Indianapolis. It was important to me to be able to work and go to school at the same time. I finished up in two years and graduated with my Associates Degree in Visual Communications.

So I guess I got started like most other people, with art as a kid. And even though my path is a little windy, those art classes as a kid started to shape who I am today. I am a firm believer in “everything happens for a reason” and I don’t have any regrets with how I’ve gotten here.

CB: It’s always interesting the paths people take to get from point A to point B in their careers. While yours definitely has some turns in the road, it looks like you’ve finally hit your stride. What do you find most compelling about being a graphic designer?

BE: I think the thing I love most about design is the design community. If you think about it, we are all competitors but hardly ever treat each other like it. The sense of community is truly amazing.

CB: Speaking of community, how do you participate in the community? Are you a member of any professional organizations or grassroots organizations?

BE: I am a member of Indianapolis’ AIGA and AAF chapters. We also just got Creative Mornings last November and people seem to be taking to it quite well. The agency I work for, Element Three, also started a workshop series called FUSE Sessions. We have the first one under our belt and are looking forward to having 3 more this year. There are a lot of talented creatives in this city, so any opportunity to get them together is a good one.

CB: We know you recently returned from Creative South. What would you say was your biggest takeaway from that conference?

BE: Oh wow, that is a good question. Creative South is community. Wait, no. It’s family. In a world concentrated on social media, likes and followers; there is something so human and refreshing about what happens over those 3 days once a year in Columbus, GA. I think Jen Mussari said it best when she said, “We are humans first and creatives second.”

If you have experienced it, then you get it. If you haven’t, you are probably wondering what is in the water down there. I wish it was that easy to explain. It’s Mike Jones, it’s the volunteers, it’s this amazing small/big city, it’s the speakers and the attendees, it’s community. All I can say is you have to experience it for yourself to truly understand how special this conference is.

Thanks so much for the interview, I love what you guys are doing!

CB: Thank you, Bob!

To keep up with all that Bob has going on, follow him on twitter, instagram, and dribbble. To pre-order his new shirt, Cancer Is Stupid, go here. Bob will be donating all of his designer proceeds from the sale of this shirt to Relay For Life.

Katie Campbell lives and works in beautiful Savannah, Georgia. As a Senior Designer at SCAD who does freelance t-shirt design and illustration on the side, she wears a lot of hats in her professional life. Read on to see how she balances both gigs.

CB: In your day job you’re a Senior Designer for SCAD, but you also do a lot of freelance apparel design. How’d you get into the freelance stuff?

KC: I slowly picked up freelance jobs shortly after graduating in 2004. I had enough clients in 2007 that I decided to try freelancing full-time. I was doing really well, but when the opportunity for a full-time gig at my alma mater presented itself, I couldn’t resist. I really craved the group creative environment and missed those beautiful benefits. After I started, I found I was doing less personal work so I began submitting to Threadless. Once I started getting prints sold through Threadless and other big name brands, the work requests starting rolling in. I discovered my love for merch design for the music industry and tried to focus my freelance jobs in that field. It’s such a rush and dream come true to see my work approved and sold by musicians that have inspired and entertained me all of my life.

CB: Is there a musician or band you have been dying to design for but haven’t gotten the chance to design for yet?

KC: I would love to do work for Madonna, Beyonce, and Ani DiFranco.

CB: You’ve had designs up on Threadless, Cotton Bureau, Society6, Design By Humans - how are you so prolific? Where do you come up with the inspiration for all these different designs and how do you find the time to complete them all while working a full-time job?!

KC: I get that question all the time. I surprise myself with how much I get done in one day. Even though my day job is creative and demanding, I wouldn’t feel satisfied if I didn’t make the time to create what I want at night and on weekends. My inspiration comes from everything and anything. I love being involved with Threadless because they have themed competitions that help drive my concept and surround me with other talented artists from around the world. I have piles of scrap paper, notes in my phone and cryptic emails I’ve sent to myself with ideas for my next design. I’d go crazy if I didn’t attempt to bring those ideas to life. And it just so happens to make me a little extra cash.

CB: Are you a part of any professional or design communities? If so, what do you get out of those experiences?

KC: I am not currently a part of a professional design community. If I lived in a bigger city with a local AIGA chapter, I would pay to join again. I love all of the local events they host. I am a member of dribbble.com, which is like a show and tell for designers. I constantly get inspiration and discover new talents from all over the globe. It’s also a great source for showcasing your work for feedback or simply sharing with other amazing artists and studios. I highly recommend it.

CB: If you could give one piece of advice to aspiring designers, what would it be?

KC: Never stop making and sharing your work. Make yourself visible on the web. Get involved in design communities where other experienced designers can provide feedback and where reputable companies actively seek artists. Stay positive and don’t let internet trollers get you down.

CB: Thanks Katie!

To see more of Katie’s work you can check out her website, or follow her on twitter, dribbble, and instagram.

Neven Mrgan has created such memorable games as Blackbar, The Incident, and Space Age. Based in Portland, Oregon he works as a designer at Panic Inc and enjoys cooking creative dishes for his family come dinner time. Read on to see how he balances work, family, and designing games we all love to play.

CB: Your day job is as a Designer at Panic Inc. How do you find time to design iOS games on the side?

NM: My usual answer to this is, “by being a terrible father and husband.” (NOTE: THIS IS A JOKE.) I suppose the truth is that I don’t have many other hobbies, except cooking: I come home from work, hang out with the family while making dinner, help put the kids to bed, then cook some more while I check on the computer in between pot-stirrings. I also try to focus on projects that are small enough in scope that I can tackle them in my spare time.

CB: Ha! An iOS game or app does not seem like a project that is small in scope. Designing a logo for a friends new brand, sure, creating an entire game with multiple levels seems like quite the undertaking! Space Age was announced on the Big Bucket Software blog in 2012, and launched in November of 2014. What was it like working on a project like that for over two years?

NM: *gulp* It was closer to three and a half years.

After our first game, The Incident, Matt and I had decided to do something bigger and more ambitious—that much was guaranteed. We figured Space Age might take twelve to eighteen months to put together. What we didn’t count on was the odd kind of progress you make with a story-driven game: you have to keep switching between the micro mode of solving THIS technical challenge or writing THIS puzzle, and the grand view of story flow and, for lack of a less pretentious word, meaning. It felt like solving a Rubik’s cube in that moving one piece also moved a bunch of others, and then we had to go back and shift them all. Of course, with a real Rubik’s cube, you develop certain tactics that help you get around that issue (so I’ve read on Wikipedia, anyway). We hadn’t worked on large games before, so we had to do our learning along the way.

In the end, the finished game took much longer than we expected, but it was also better than we expected. We joke that, had you told us in 2011 what kind of game we were signing up for, we would’ve politely declined to make it. I’m glad we didn’t.

CB: Wow! That’s a lot of time and effort to put towards a side project. Do you feel like it was worth it? How has the reception been for Space Age from the general populus?

NM: It was definitely worth doing. I hope it doesn’t sound like it was some torturous, nightmare project. We had fun the whole time (including the “gaaah if I can only figure out this one thing…!” kind of “fun”, of course.) What pushed it over the edge of “part-time project” and into that zone where it seems like something bigger and better than me was the soundtrack, composed by Cabel Sasser. Hearing his wonderful take on our little game scenes, after years of slowly progressing from “hey that’s a cute idea for a game” to a “uhh this is now a complex piece of software" made it all magical again.

I’m always glad to hear that people know about our games, happy to see that they’ve actually played them, tickled pink when they finish them, and straight-up flabbergasted when they do things like make fan art or post videos of their kids hacking at them. A story-driven game that’s a bit different than the usual stuff on iOS is a tall order, I understand that; when people take the time to try it, and then feel that their gamble has paid off, it just crushes me, in that “glad to be alive” sense.

CB: Space Age recently launched for Mac as well. Will you continue to iterate there, or are you moving on to something else? What’s your next big undertaking?

NM: Matt and I use iOS and Mac OS every day, and we like bringing our projects to both platforms, especially since Apple’s development tools make it easy. Space Age for Mac is interesting to me because it’s a little closer to many of the games that inspired it: Cannon Fodder, Command & Conquer, mouse-controlled graphic adventures.

We hope to keep making new games for as long as we can. Our next project might be something smaller, something faster, something stranger, but it will be definitely be different. That’s something I care about: making each project a new challenge for me, and a new surprise for the audience.

I’m also excited to work on more story-driven, text-heavy games with my other game-making partner, James Moore. Right now, I’m enjoying the idea of “writing” as well as “designing” and “drawing”.

CB: Where do you draw inspiration from when you’re designing games, other than the games you previously mentioned?

NM: I try to read as much and as broadly as I can, and I certainly hope that my interest in popular science, sci-fi, and existentialism informs my games. Growing up, I read every comic I ever saw, which included many indie titles and stuff that’s a little less superhero-based. My goal is to create approachable, friendly stories and mechanics, but it’s best if they have a little edge to them, a little aberration you’d never find at Disneyland.

My art style is inspired by graphic design and fine art more than by illustration or game art per se. I’m more concerned with composition, balance, and visual metaphor than with realism or cuteness.

CB: You mentioned earlier that you enjoy cooking, what’s your favorite meal to make for your family? Why?

NM: A recent favorite of The Mrgans is chicken tikka masala pizza. It satisfies my craving for making dough, my wife’s fondness for Indian food, and our daughter’s obvious addiction to pizza in any form. And while we live in a particularly restaurant-rich area of food-crazy Portland, this isn’t something we can find easily if we go out to eat.

I once had to explain what kind of love it is that I have for things like Mystery Science Theater 3000, the Finnish band Circle, and the film The Navigator. These are some of my favorite things in the world, but they’re not “perfect”; they’re decidedly flawed. It occurred to me that loving something like this doesn’t mean thinking it ideal, but being attached to it on some emotional/intellectual level enough to defend it nevertheless. So when my pizza-purist friends roll their eyes at the idea of Indian pizza, I will defend it, because while it’s a wackadoodle dish, I love it.

Various places you can find Neven on the world wide web: twitter, instagram, and tumblr. Wanna see his Space Age or Blackbar tee come back? Sign up on their respective pages.

Senior Designer Matt Braun lives and works just down the street from us here in Pittsburgh. As part of the team at Bearded he designs award winning websites for clients near and far. Here we’ve interviewed him about his love of Type and his work in relation to that.

CB: Here at CB we’ve been supporters of Wood Type Revival since the very beginning. Tell us, how did you come to fall in love with Type?

MB: Aw, thanks guys. I don’t think I was fully able to appreciate the intricacies of type until I got hooked on letterpress. Most of my early career was web work, and at that time the type choices were fairly limited. I started letterpress so I could work with type and design on something that wasn’t a computer. As I started collecting type and interacting with it in the physical form, I came to admire all the fine details that make a face unique. For example: French Octagon, one of my favorite faces from the project. It’s such a unique take on the traditional Mansard style. The thickness of the horizontal strokes gives it that commanding presence, and helped the face stand out in those 19th century newspapers. I haven’t seen anything like it before or since. And we unearthed it right here in the South Side of Pittsburgh!

CB: Where do you usually find new fonts for your letterpress? Is that the sort of thing you can snag on Craigslist/eBay? Come across one in an unusual place

MB: Are you asking me to reveal my secrets? Well ok, it’s on the internet so I guess it can be easily deleted if I regret it, right? I’ve found most of my type on Craigslist. I search regularly and try to go check out any leads that might have letterpress related items. I’ve bought a lot of type and equipment from the old shops around town that were closing down like Magnetic press, Admore press, Olah press and the late hobby printer Dan Tarr.

I’ve also just walked into print shops and asked them if they have anything to sell. Matt Griffin and I walked into a shop in Buffalo, NY once and asked if they had any letterpress items to which they responded by laughing at us. I first thought they were just going to tell us to go away but turns out they had one of the largest collections of metal type I’ve ever seen. We’re talking rooms of wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling, cabinets of type. Twenty or thirty years ago that would of been common, but not now.

Occasionally, I will find something rare on eBay that I can’t pass up but that usually comes at a high price tag. I wouldn’t say I’ve found any in an unusual place but the quality of stuff I’ve found in common places has been pretty amazing.

CB: Do you have a favorite typeface? Do you look for different things in a typeface you’d use for web design versus one you’d use for a letterpress project?

MB: I wouldn’t say I have a favorite typeface although I’m definitely partial to mansards, shaded faces, and extended gothics. We also have two wood type scripts in the Bearded collection that I always find myself trying to include in projects.

The process of choosing a typeface has a lot to do with tone, rhythm, and contrast (among other concerns). In letterpress, you often have to resort to using what’s in your cabinets and making it work. Because I’m mostly designing posters, decisions are largely aesthetically based, and depending on the project might not have to be legible. Many times I will try to achieve a certain rhythm for the layout and subject matter. For the web, there are a lot of practical concerns for the medium. Readability, how it renders at smaller sizes or different browsers or devices, number of weights, and performance often play into the decision after tone has been established.

CB: Do you have any new personal projects coming up that you’re excited about?

MB: No, nothing specific at the moment. We have a lot of exciting things happening at Bearded right now and with a baby, I have my hands full. I did recently start selling prints under the name of Outdated Press with my friend Dan Maldonado. So I’ve been trying to get into the shop a bit more to print. There might be a series of prints based on the wood type collection coming up but nothing definite yet.

CB: Speaking of kids, do you hope to pass on your love of type to your son? Do you think you’ll have him in the workshop with you in a few years?

MB: Currently, he is the heir to a small fortune in type and over a ton in cast iron presses, I hope he loves it! If not, thats ok, I hope he sells and uses the money for something that he enjoys.

It will be a little while before I get him into the shop, letterpress is not the safest of hobbies to have. But when he’s ready, I will make him sit through hour long monotone lectures about the craft. Kids love that, right?

CB: They definitely do! Thanks for chatting with us Matt.

To see what Matt is up to, you can find him on twitter, instagram, dribbble, or his personal site. You can also check out projects he is involved with: Wood Type Revival, Outdated Press, What Comes Next Is The Future.