POSTER TITLED “RETHINK—NEW ORLEANS—REBUILD,” FOR THE TULANE SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, 2005

SA: So your perfect client. Who would that be? What kind of work would you do if I told you could do any project in the world? Just so you know, I don’t really have this power.

MV: I’ve really liked the kind of work I’ve been doing and the people I’ve been doing it for. But now and then I would love an opportunity to prove how my way of working could translate into larger campaigns with larger audiences. This may surprise some people, but I’ve never been opposed to commercial work. However, I have been dismayed by the narrow scope in which most of the commercial world operates.

SA: Now to the People magazine section of this Q&A. What’s your personal life like? Do you work continuously? Raise chickens? Watch endless amounts of reality television? I’m trying to get to what defines you as a person, not just a designer.

MV: Well, my working life does consume a lot of my time, but for me work and play are so completely entwined that it’s hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. Because I teach a lot I try to keep an eye towards what is happening in popular culture; not that I feel the need to embrace it, but it is valuable to consider the messages that my students receive through the media. I guess that means that even when I attend movies or theater or concerts, I’m still working. It’s that curiosity of trying to understand why things are the way they are—why people dress the way they do, where peoples’ convictions and beliefs come from, why they buy what they buy. The world is such a fascinating, complicated place with so many forces pushing against each other, and almost all of it is designed in one way or another.

SA: Carol Hanisch’s essay in Feminist Revolution [1969] discusses the idea that personal problems are political problems: “There are no personal solutions at this time.” Your work does combine the political with the personal. How do your politics influence your solutions or the choices you make as a designer?

MV: In my opinion anything that divides people into groups or separates one group from another is political. Design is extremely political in that it uses all sorts of techniques to stratify a population. Designing a label that suggests a product is “gourmet” or “old fashioned” is as political as a get-out-the-vote poster. Designing a restaurant that dissuades certain economic classes from participating is as political as creating a country’s flag. In many ways the more insidious the design strategy, the more powerfully it works as a political agent. People have a hard time defending themselves against something they can’t see.

SA: So you’ve been at Cranbrook, lived in Providence and now Los Angeles. Has location had any bearing on your process and work in general?

MV: I don’t think so. I’m an inside person quite literally. I like the cold and the rain because I don’t feel guilty about staying indoors. The lovelier the weather the more I feel that my compulsion to be inside is at odds with the world.
POSTER TITLED “WIDE LENS FILM SERIES,” FOR THE SAN FRANCISCO MUSEUM OF MODERN ART, 2007; JEN SONDERBY, ART DIRECTOR

SA: I was talking to Louise Sandhaus and Lorraine Wild recently, and we discussed the idea of doing a series of small events for AIGA Los Angeles that would focus on “the disenfranchised.” There seems to be a perception that there is a big design establishment —The Man—and another set of designers who are ignored because their work is too radical. Personally, I think this profession thrives on diversity, and there is room for all kinds of design, sort of like “dissent is the core of democracy.” You, on the other hand, engage in “radical” work, but stay involved with teaching at CalArts, working with AIGA, being part of the community at large. Why?

MV: I agree with you that the profession is broad and diverse. Things get complicated when design is seen strictly within the business framework. Granted, for most of us it is a business, but considering the fact that most design programs are associated with art schools rather than business schools, shouldn’t the artist model be at least modestly pertinent? I think that opinion is important to be voiced within professional organizations.

For many years, before I attended graduate school, I was doing painfully uninteresting work; work that I never show anyone today. It was in my bosses’ interest to keep me at the boards cranking this stuff out, so they were the ones telling me how fantastic my work was and paying me reasonable amounts for the effort. Looking back I regret the years I wasted wallowing in mediocrity. I feel obliged to teach with honesty and integrity … developing in [students] the tools of self-criticism, experimentation and invention so they don’t fall into the same trap. That’s my way of sharing, and it is very important to me.

SA: If a young designer came to see you to show his portfolio, what would you be looking for?

MV: I usually only hire former students, because I’ve had the chance to observe how they work, experiment and handle criticism. That being said, I hope that young designers can develop a portfolio that doesn’t try to be all things to all people. I’d rather see a body of work that explores a set of typographic ideas or questions in depth than a portfolio that has a bit of humor, a dab of roughness, a touch of corporateness.

SA: What are you working on now?

MV: I’m in the middle of designing two books—one on the history of the Burning Man festival and one on a collection of early travel albums and journals. I’m also finishing a poster for the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and a museum catalog for Mills College in Oakland.

SA: And finally, what’s with the bear?

MV: The bear first appeared in an early issue of Speak magazine. I had wanted to keep him as a mascot for the publication. Dan Rolleri, the publisher and editor, declined the offer, claiming how much he disliked animal characters as mascots. OK, I thought, I’ll just save him for myself. So when it came time to run my own design studio, I had the bear before I had a name for the business.

To me, he looked a little hungry, so “Appetite” seemed right. I added “Engineers” to keep me from being confused with a restaurant, and also because, as designers, we are always called upon to engineer appetites for our clients’ wares.