NAME: Christopher Papasadero | Fwis
FOUNDING PARTNERS: Chris Papasadero, Ben Pieratt, Eric Jacobsen
LATIN NAME: omnigenus incendia
AGES: 24, 23, 31

“I think we were just looking for a four-letter word that you could get away with saying in front of your mother,” says Chris Papasadero of picking a name for his studio. “It certainly isn’t because ‘Fwis’ is easy to kern.” In 2002, after working in the computer science field for two and a half years straight out of high school, Papasadero began working with Ben Pieratt, who was at Pacific Northwest College of Art. Eric Jacobsen joined the duo in the summer of 2005.

Typical of the kind of self-initiated projects that Papasadero and his partners create is Readymech, a series of downloadable flat-pack toy robots that are heartwarmingly low-tech. Each is designed to be printed on an 8.5 x 11-in. sheet of paper and easily assembled with basic office supplies. Readymech began as a reaction to the vinyl toy trend in which consumers buy and collect highly-detailed plastic figurines for up to hundreds of dollars apiece—prices that the Fwis partners saw as too expensive for things that are supposed to be simple and fun. “We decided to make some that we could give away. You can just go to the site and print a toy yourself and construct it right there on your desk,” explains Papasadero.

A love of book cover design was the impetus for starting Covers, the firm’s blog specifically about the design of book covers, a subject that the designers felt had not yet been treated to any specialized critical discussion online. Since its inception, the Covers blog has become a hub for book cover designers. John Gall, a favorite cover designer of the three Fwis partners, found out about the site and invited them to visit him at Random House in New York, an experience which Papasadero describes as “like getting to visit the Pantheon.”

The newest Fwis project is Squarewolf, a line of T-shirts that can be purchased from their online store. As with ReadyMech, the partners have begun featuring shirts by fellow designers like Los Angeles-based Stefan Bucher of 344 Design, who describes Papasadero as “24 and on fire.”

“The fact that we self-generate shows that we are motivated and free from constraints. It’s very attractive to the kinds of clients we like—those who are more interested in collaboration than dictation,” says Papasadero. The Fwis partners are now seeing clients like Interscope Records and several independent bands, including The Pink Spiders, Roundai and Fogatron, coming to them to work in this fashion.

Papasadero has recently accepted a position at Sandstrom Design, but still maintains his role in Fwis full time, with a concentration on self-initiated projects. Despite his intense devotion to design, he still wonders, “I hope it’s not too uncool to have two jobs.” Isaac Gertman

(TOP): Logos for SQUAREWOLF, READYMECKS (the site has garnered favorable notice in COMPUTER ARTS and ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY and on blogs like COOLHUNTING, BOINBOINB and METAFILTER). The FWIS firm and ADC AT THE NEW SCHOOL. The latter project arose from a talk given with Steven Heller to Parsons students.