Computerlove™

June 26th, 2008

Let's Talk, Tyler Stout

If you're even casually interested in illustration or rock poster design, you've no doubt seen Tyler Stout's work. The Washington state native has a distinct illustrative style that lightly treads the line between realistic portraiture and sublime comic book fantasy. Tyler's innovative use of color is one key ingredient that helps define his work. As a result, his illustrations sometimes appear to be pieced together like a puzzle. Other times his work looks more delicately rendered, color used only to accent his powerful line work. The 31-year-old artist has also produced posters for a laundry list of musical acts, work he began doing during college for fun. However, poster design now occupies much of his time, as evidenced in his prolific output for a range of acts from Flight of the Conchords and Delorean to Aesop Rock and Boom Bip. I had a chance to catch up with Tyler recently. Here's how our conversation played out.

When did you first discover you could draw, and what eventually prompted you to pursue illustration as a career?

Probably when I was a kid, I used to draw alot then. Which all kids do. And as I grew older I didn't have a lot of friends and wasn't very athletic or outdoorsy, so I just stayed inside and drew, in my dark basement room by myself. Real healthy for a kid I'm sure. But in this case it worked out. It was either illustration or serial murdering. Illustration has better hours.

As for when I decided to pursue it full time, probably when I started getting enough illustration work that it was keeping me from my full time job, doing non-illustration work. I was a designer for my brother's design company, and did stuff like real estate brochures, business cards, and so on. And on the side I was doing stuff for Xbox and Burton Snowboards. And finally I figured I'd just focus on that. Might have been a mistake, we'll see. People will always need business cards.

As an introverted kid then, was there a fantasy element that appealed to you about drawing? I guess what I mean is, did the notion of creating characters and worlds on paper provide escapism or entertainment?

Sure. Just like reading or watching television, drawing is an easy way to relax and do something fun. Your imagination can kinda run wild. When I'm just sketching in my sketchbook, lots of time I'm not even thinking, I'm just drawing to draw. [It] takes you out of the daily grind, gives you something to do. I wasn't one of those kids who thought [he] actually escaped into his drawings or anything, I just did it because it [was] fun, like people who work in the garden or raise pigeons or whatever.

You've become well-known for the rock posters you do. How did you get started doing that type of work and what keeps you interested?

Well I started doing posters for bands while I was in college. I had friends in bands and they'd always need flyers to promote their bands, and I knew how to use the layout programs like Photoshop and Illustrator, so I did ‘em really quickly. And they got a good response, so I did more. Pretty soon I was doing 20 shows a month. Not that many good ones, but the sheer volume of posters really helps a person hone their craft. Not that I'm a poster expert, I'm not. I did it for zero pay at first, then like $200 a month, and it went from there. Now I just go from job to job. I pretty much only take ones that I think sound interesting, lots of times for friends. Plus I have to have space in my schedule, take time off illustrating, so I have to consider that. Since like most people I have bills each month, it’s kind of a perfect storm of things that make me do a poster: great job, great deadline, time to do the poster, potentially getting paid to do it.

In addition to your poster work, you seem to keep pretty busy with a host of illustration work. Who are some clients you work with? And what do you like and dislike about client-based work?

Well I've been blessed with a pretty diverse group of people I work with. I've been fortunate enough to get in good with Burton Snowboards, so I've done a lot of work for them over the years. I've done promotional stuff for Xbox, shirts for Adidas, Nike. Lots of music groups. Flight of the Conchords, Menomena. Forum Snowboards. Miramax Studio. I dunno, I haven't really kept track of the work I do, I just do it as it comes, get it done, and move on. But if I stepped back and looked at it all maybe I'd be more impressed.

The nice thing about illustration work is that it motivates you to produce work. You might think you'd be creative on your own without anyone putting deadlines in front of you, but lots of time it’s easy to just do nothing. If you're getting paid to do it, and it’s due in two weeks, that's a big motivator. I also like getting paid, since it means I can pay my bills and continue doing this for a living as opposed to getting another job outside the house. It lets me have my own schedule, I get to sleep in, which is huge. I get to stay up late, I can take days off when I want. I'm my own boss.

The negatives? Well, you're kinda selling out when you take something you really enjoy, like drawing, and start letting other people tell you what to draw. You can no longer do what you think looks good necessarily, you have to do what other people think looks good. You repeat yourself a lot stylistically, since lots of clients want to play it safe and have you do something exactly like a previous thing you did. You are on rough deadlines, and you lose a lot of sleep meeting those deadlines. Sometimes you can be so busy with work you don't leave the house for a week, and barely see your family. It can get kinda depressing and lonely. The important thing is to keep it all in perspective. When it stops being fun, when you can't take it anymore, you know you can always go get a job doing something else. Clients are important, but they're not more important than family.

Your point about using deadlines to motivate you is interesting. Because I think a lot of people are like that. Without a deadline, do you tend to procrastinate? And would you say deadlines make your work suffer at all?

Definitely. I think deadlines are a huge motivator, at least for me. I'm sure for some people in this line of work every minute creating something they're super stoked, just loving every minute of it, the long hours hunched over the machine, not seeing their families as much, eating poorly, sleeping poorly, dealing with clients who should be beheaded. That's fun for some people, they thrive on it. For me, work is work, and it feels like work. Sure I love it, but a lot of the time I would rather be chillaxing with the family, outside with the dogs, playing Xbox, reading comics, doing something else. So deadlines make you sit in your chair and get things done instead of wasting your time 'enjoying life to the fullest.'

But, like you mentioned, it’s a catch 22. My work does indeed suffer from deadlines. There’s not a project I do that couldn't benefit from another week of tweaking, getting the colors just right, the composition just right, re-drawing some dude’s face, [and so on]. Deadlines force you to produce, but at the same time it’s like landing a helicopter really fast—sure you're on the ground but sometimes you're all screwed up. It’s finding a balance, and knowing how you work. Giving yourself that extra time to get things right. Plus, if you've worked with your clients for long enough—like some of mine—they know that deadlines motivate you, so they set them a few weeks, or sometimes months, before it’s actually due. So then I'll stay up all night for a week getting it done and they'll be like 'Thanks, now let’s try it with everyone underwater,' or something. It’s a pain, but clients can be right sometimes and they can push your work to be better than you would otherwise have left it.

Do you think it's important for an illustrator to have a good sense of current events and the world at large? I ask because so much nonverbal communication is embedded in an image, more and more it seems illustrators are expected to express a great deal in their work.

That’s an interesting question. I guess it helps to keep in touch with current events, you can certainly communicate better with the client, deliver what they're looking for. Other than that, I don't know what's important for an illustrator. It’s important they know how to draw, and know what their peers are up to, if they want to be out there competing for jobs. If i was relying on a style like graffiti paint drips, and didn't look around and realize everyone else was doing that, soon I would be lost in the midst of all these other people, so its important to at least realize what is kinda going on in the world of commercial illustration, or snowboard illustration, or clothing illustration. As for seeing Iron Man or voting in the current election, I don't associate those things with something I have to do because of what I do. But, if on my next job the client says "I want this sticker graphic to be the Iron Man of the sticker world", well then I should go out and see Iron Man I guess. But I've already seen it. And I still wouldn't know what he meant.

Since you seem to keep a fairly busy schedule, do you have any time for more personal art-minded projects?

I try to, I keep saying I'm going to take time off to work on illustrating a childrens book or art print or something, but that is pretty hard to set that time aside. Lots of cool new experiences come up that you can't really turn down. It can be kinda tricky. One way is to take on really low-paying, low-stress freelance gigs—like doing an album cover for someone who says ‘Do whatever you want.’ Then you can have fun with that and be pretty experimental.

Have you ever considered a solo exhibition of work created solely for a gallery?

Not really. Just doesn't seem to come up much. Plus galleries can be tough, tough getting your work there safely, getting it back safely, getting paid.

I noticed that you're also making toys now. Can you tell me a little bit about the concept behind your toys?

My wife actually makes the toys. I thought my website would be a cool venue for her to sell them. She’s been fairly successful so far, so that's encouraging for her.

If you had the chance to start from scratch in your life, would you still be an illustrator?

Ha. No, definitely not. I would probably become a doctor. If the apocalypse happened tomorrow and we all started living Mad-Max style, I would be the guy who gets firewood for the rest of the tribe. Maybe I would be bait when we're all out hunting dinosaurs. But a doctor, now that is a person who is useful in any setting.

I suppose if I could do it all over again, I might try to focus a little more on learning the financial ways of life, getting a degree in business, actually taking more than 8th grade math. It probably sounds like I'm all about money but that's just because I'm at the point in my life where I have to pay lots of bills, and so money comes up. I constantly have to think about my next job, how much it pays, if I can take on two jobs at the same time. Since I technically run my own business now it would help to have what some people refer to as 'business smarts.'

But since I am currently in the profession of being an illustrator-for-hire, I don't mind it too much and all in all lead a pretty blessed life (Cue swarm of killer bees). And… SCENE.

Related links: www.tstout.com