LEFT: DVD package design for Criterion Collection's release of The Testament of Dr. Mabuse, a film by Fritz Lang about an insane hospitalized doctor whose manifestos begin to predict murders. RIGHT: Logo for Fischer Edit, a television and film editing studio in Minneapolis. DESIGN: Micheal Byzewski, Dan Ibarra, Aesthetic Apparatus.

DI: Ours was supposed to be under the umbrella of this zine that Mike was messing around with and we were going to be “Aesthetic Industries” and there was going to be this “Aesthetic Apparatus” which was the printmaking part of it and Ready, Set, Aesthetic, the magazine. We didn’t mean to pick two of the most misspelled words in the English language. But the words are about the same length, so it worked out, which was nice.

RB: While difficult to spell, it’s certainly memorable and it definitely creates a personality for you guys. It suits you.

DI: We like the clumsiness of it, and our clients are used to it. We’ve gotten mail for Aestige Apartus.

ST: What is it like running a firm in this economic climate?

DI: It doesn’t really matter, because our clients don’t have money in the first place. But we’ve done this for a while, and times are getting a little better. We’re getting bigger jobs. We’ve pretty much subsisted on nickel-and-dime jobs thus far.

MB: I don’t think it’s that huge of a setback for us. When you’ve got two people you can cut corners a lot easier. You just don’t have to worry about it.

ST: That’s what I would say has benefited us, is that we just kept the overheard so low, and even our first year we kept our salaries so low that we’re like “hopefully we’ll be able to pay ourselves a little bonus at the end of the year.”

MB: That’s what we’re hoping for, year two. We gave ourselves a little bit of a raise, I think. But, given that it’s a two-person firm, no one wants to do the non-design stuff.

DI: So, what is the bread and butter for Wink?

ST: Target and Marshall Field’s keep us busy. Then we have some others—each year it seems like we get a couple of new clients.

DI: Given that you guys have never really done any self-promotion, how did the small companies find you?

RB: Word of mouth, I guess. We’ve been very fortunate. Our website was just a splash page until recently. And since we’ve moved into this space we haven’t even done business cards yet.

ST: I think award annuals help, too. Once you start doing some good work, word gets out, so we’ve been fortunate in that we haven’t had to pound on any doors yet.

DI: So do you think that’s our problem? Our work in the annuals is like a poster of a cat riding a horse or something, and people are like, “Those guys do weird stuff."

RB: You guys have met with success at sending posters off to people though, like you did the Criterion stuff for a while.

MB: That’s one of our mainstays. Our posters are basically self-promotions that people pay us for. They are big business cards, really. A couple of years ago we did a poster for the band Clinic and then they called and said they liked our posters and asked if we did anything beyond that. So it went from there.