Christopher Simmons is a Canadian-born, designer, writer, educator and design advocate.
Simmons is the principal/creative director of the noted San Francisco design office, MINE™ where he designs and directs projects for a variety of clients, including Facebook, Microsoft, Wells Fargo, The Nature Conservancy of California, Chronicle Books, Simon & Schuster, Obama for America, and a diversity of nonprofit and entrepreneurial clients. His work has been exhibited at The Museum of Contemporary Art in Hiroshima, Japan, The Pasadena Museum of California Art, The Museum of Craft & Design, The Smithsonian Institution, and is part of the permanent design archives of the Denver Art Museum.
The author of four books, Simmons also lectures on design issues for colleges, universities and professional associations throughout the United States, and frequently participates as a judge for major design competitions. He is a former adjunct professor of design at The California College of the Arts (CCA) and a past president of the San Francisco AIGA, the professional association for design. Among his enduring accomplishments in that role were the creation of San Francisco Design Week, and the introduction of the first public design-oriented lectures at the Apple Store. On completion of Simmons’ tenure on the board, mayor Gavin Newsom issued an official proclamation declaring San Francisco to be a city where “design makes a difference.”
I discovered that in 1997, you were a student at the California College of the Arts studying design when one of your professors Doug Akagi recommended that you join AIGA, the professional association for design. Soon after, you joined the San Francisco board as a student liaison, then served as president from 2004–06. You recently concluded three years of service on the National Board, closing a 20-year chapter of professional leadership. Can you tell me about your journey with the AIGA and how it has affected your life?
I’ve had a bit of a love/hate relationship with AIGA over the years. From the outside, it’s easy to see its flaws. From the inside, you see all the good, hard, honest work being done both on a national level and — on a volunteer basis — in chapters all across the country. The pattern between AIGA and me has gone something like this As a 20-something designer I write an email to the executive director complaining about something or other. He calls me at work and challenges me to convert my words to action. I reengage with my chapter and a year later I’m running it. When my term is up I spend a year not even being a member, just to see what that’s like. Several years later I write a critical op-ed about the reformatting of AIGA’s national design competition. The next year I’m judging it. The year after, I’m chairing it. A couple of years later I publish a list of the top 10 things I think AIGA needs to do to regain/maintain its relevance. The next year I’m on the national board. It’s a dance between caring, contemplation, and commitment.
I’ve been very fortunate that AIGA is such an embracing organization, and that it has allowed me to serve a role as a kind of “Chief Dissenting Officer.” When I was a chapter president I had directors on my board who played that role for me. As a chapter, San Francisco was the iconoclast of the organization. I think that’s tremendously important for growth, innovation, and accountability.
My time — so far — with AIGA has definitely helped me develop into a more effective leader. It’s enmeshed me in a network of designers, artists, and creative thinkers that I probably never would have had access to otherwise. It’s allowed me to help frame some of the important discussion about design and its role in the world, and given me the opportunity to meet and learn from designers and teachers and students from all over the country. It’s helped amplify my voice and given me the platform to in turn amplify the voices of others. In short, AIGA has been the single greatest positive influence on my professional career.
You have taught at both California College of the Arts and Academy of Art University. What do you find is the most rewarding part of teaching Design students? What is the most demanding part?
The most rewarding thing about teaching is helping a student bridge the gap between her or his ability and their ambition. For the truly talented, the most rewarding thing is to help them set their ambitions higher. As for the most demanding part, everything is demanding. That’s part of what makes it worth doing.
For the past 13 years, you have served as the Principal/Creative Director at MINE, where you design identities, books, consumer products, packaging and print as well as interactive material for food activists, best-selling authors, museums, restaurants, drug dealers, startups, pornographers, Hollywood producers, and fortune 500/100/50 — from Alice Waters to Facebook to cannabis dispensaries to President Obama. What is the process of starting your own agency like? What are some of the misconceptions?
I’m the worst person to be answering this. Anyone reading should disregard whatever comes next. Except the part about not stealing clients. Remember that.
I started my studio in October of 2004, a little less than a year after my fiancé and I bought a house in San Francisco, about 4 months after I took on the role of AIGA SF Chapter president, and about a month before we got married. I think I was teaching at two different schools as well. It was kind of insane. I didn’t have a business plan, or any clients for that matter. I was half way through writing my first book. Then I was asked by a different publisher to write/design a second book. That became MINE’s first project. When it came time to do the production on the book I realized that I’d lose my shirt if I spent all my time doing that instead of looking for more work. I hired a young freelancer named Tim Belonax to do the production work. He’d applied to work at my old job and again with me when I started my studio. I admired his respectful persistence, and the fact that he’d worked at Chronicle books. He was polite and did thoughtful, thorough work. In some down time he helped me design our identity system. A printer who I’d worked with at my former job printed all my business cards and stationery for free. They also referred me to the San Francisco Symphony who became one of my first clients. Marty Neumeier, whom I knew through AIGA and my friend Josh, who worked for him, set up a meeting between me and a man named Tony Schwartz. He’s the guy who ghost wrote The Art of the Deal. Tony was my first big client. I had a retainer with him for four or five years. Once he gave me an extra $10,000 because he felt the marketing brochure we’d created for him was worth more than I’d charged. I bought more comfortable chairs.
There was enough work coming in that I was able to hire Tim full time. A couple of clients from my former job followed me when I left (unsolicited by me, and with the express blessing of my former boss). They referred clients who also referred clients. I hired an intern. My books came out and people started finding us online. We did some side projects that brought us some attention. Faster than I thought, we started doing less futon shop signage and real estate brochures, and more high-level branding, environments, strategy, and naming.
Basically, one thing led to another. Or, more accurately, one person led to another. That’s the constant. I try to be nice to everyone. When someone calls with a budget we can’t work with, I’ll refer them to a former student who just struck out on her own. I get to know the receptionist while I’m waiting to meet the CEO. That’s how I got our first music project and our first film project. I once did a logo as a favor to someone my wife knew through an online discussion group. She turned out to be an executive at Microsoft and years later hired us to rebrand their Silicon Valley operations.
The other constant is excellence. There are a lot of things I’m not good at, including running a business. But I’m a very good — at times even a great — designer. One of the advantages of that is that it allows me to recognize greatness in others. I hire excellent designers, writers, photographers, illustrators and printers. I work with excellent clients. I do my best to treat them well.
It’s a far cry from a business plan, but “work hard and be nice to people” has helped me muddle through the first 20 years of my career.
What makes for a great portfolio?
Seventy-five percent of the portfolios I see are horrible. There, I said it. Of those, maybe half can get better with effort. The other half should probably be rethinking their career choice. I know that sounds harsh, but there’s no benefit to anyone in pretending otherwise. There are other ways to participate in the design process without being an actual hands-on designer (and there are skills designers learn that can be applied to things other than design). Maybe twenty percent of the portfolios I see are somewhere between competent to good. Five percent are great. The distance between good and great is a fine but somewhat hard to define line. To me, a great portfolio is one that exhibits a rigorous commitment to craft, an informed approach to making, and the unique intellect of the designer.
Attention to craft tells me how committed and how meticulous you are. Informed making tells me who your influencers are (or that you are open to influence at all). The intellectual part demonstrates the unique way in which you perceive the world. Anyone can learn good typesetting; I care less about how you move words and more about how — and why — words move you.
When reviewing portfolios, what are some of the things you are hoping to see and what are some things that might disqualify/prove the candidate is not fit for the job?
Nuance. Courage. Literacy. Design that attempts to have some agency in the world. Curiosity. Research. Tenacity. Dissatisfaction. Maybe some weirdness. Acknowledgment. That’s the stuff I’m hoping to see. I guess what I’m not hoping to see is everything else.
What’s the most useful piece of feedback you’ve ever received?
My dad once impressed upon me that, for better or for worse, the world is governed and defined by institutions — education, politics, religion, marriage, the economy, etc. Even a maverick, he said, discontent with the system or frustrated by its inflexibility, has to acknowledge the debt we owe to the institutions that structure our existence. All debts must be repiad. Only then can you be free.
What are you currently reading/watching/listening to that inspires your work?
Obviously I listen to 99% Invisible and Debbie Millman’s Design Matters. I love the NPR program Says You because it deals a lot with the intricacies and vagaries of language. Music wise I’ve recently been listening to Public Enemy’s Fear of a Black Planet, Beyoncé’s Lemonade, and other strongly narrative songs and albums. I recently re-read 1984, a bunch of Ray Bradbury, and finally got around to Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (which I’m also watching). I read Jonah Lehrer’s blog, struggle through some modernist poetry, and dip into a lot of trade publications for the industries I’m working in. I enjoy single-subject books like Salt and Zero that look at world history through an esoteric lens. I wish I read more philosophy, science, and psychology. I’m not sure that any of these inspire my work directly, but I’m inspired by the craft and rigor of the writing and the originality of the ideas. I strive to create work at that level.
What advice could you give to someone who just graduated college and is new to the design world, but does not know where to begin?
Always begin at the beginning.
I feel that a lot of my peers are focused on inspiration and not execution. Why are so many young designers focused on becoming inspired, yet are not focused on the work itself?
We’ve become a very extrinsically motivated world. Everything is validated — by data, by likes, by followers, by fame, and fortune, and envy. It’s very difficult to be focused on the process when the outcome is all that is recognized. It’s very easy to forget that all those outcomes are byproducts of actually doing the work. This is why I stopped entering awards competitions years ago; I don’t want to be distracted from what I’m supposed to be doing, which is making and expressing ideas.
What has been the most challenging?
I had to let a really talented, really good person go once. I broke the news to him over lunch. I saw the surprise and a little bit of hurt in his face, though he did his best to mask it. It was utterly heartbreaking.
Do you have anything you’d say to your younger self when you were starting out?
OK, I understand the purpose of this question. It’s meant to leverage the perspective (and hopefully the wisdom) of hindsight. If the older, wiser me could only look back and prevent the younger, more naive me from making the mistakes that now seem obvious, the road to success would be both smoother and shorter. But I wouldn’t want to cheat myself that way. You can’t short circuit the path to success. Mistakes are essential. Character is forged in failure. Everyone should make their own mistakes.
Let’s talk about mentors. Who influenced you the most along the way?
When I talk about mentors I often cite Doug Akagi. He was my first design professor and he gave me my first job. When I started my own company, he gave me one of my first projects. He taught me something every single day I saw him (and still does). In every sense of the word, he is my greatest mentor. But I also have a ton of part-time, incidental mentors, some of whom probably don’t even know it. For example, Maria Giudice and I are friends in the modern sense — we see each other at functions and interact through social media — but we’re not let’s-hang-out-on-the-weekend buddies. But when I needed some really critical career perspective, I messaged her on Facebook and she called me back and sorted me out in under an hour. Agustin Garza recently told me told me that I “blew it” about the way I handled a particular political situation. He was right, and I already knew it, but I needed the unambiguous confrontation to turn it from passing regret to enduring lesson. When I visit New York I often stay with Debbie Millman and we sometimes talk with startling candor about some very difficult things in a way that she has mastered and that I’m trying to learn. Cinthia Wen, Michael Bierut, and Allan Chochinov are names of people you might recognize whom I would also consider mentors — along with my wife, my parents, her parents, some of my fellow Little League coaches and scout leaders.
What makes a great mentor?
A good mentor listens a lot and says little. A great mentor says even less.
With so much experience behind you, what do you do to push yourself?
In the studio I’m working a lot in emerging industries. In the 2000s that was in emerging sciences — radical life extension, programs like Singularity University and the X-prize, etc. Today I’m doing a lot of work in the cannabis industry. It’s so young and dynamic and so much of the visual language there has yet to be established. That’s a fun challenge. On a personal level, I’m doing more writing in more formats — professional copywriting, design essays, even some fiction. As an extension of that I’ve also been exploring text-based art. It’s all relatively unfamiliar which makes it challenging, which is the point.
Finally, what are you currently focusing on?
My family.
