Rick Penn-Kraus

Member Spotlight feature is an opportunity to showcase the diversity of our chapter's members. This will be a regularly updated column highlighting individual members - and giving them the opportunity to share their experience, interests, and opinions.

What is your job?
Design Director at Hill & Knowlton, a 75-year-old public relations company in Los Angeles. I supervise the graphics department, and am hands-on with designs, illustrations, photography, art direction, vendor research and scheduling, press checks, etc.

What are your inspirations?
Every library I can get to. Museums. Art galleries. Outstanding public speakers. People who want to learn.

What are you currently working on?
I am designing and illustrating a placemat (media mailer) for a major cell phone manufacturer. The backside is a complex illustration of an open, two-story house showing people running around using their instant message devices. Using Painter to illustrate it has been fantastic, as many changes have been requested, and are much easier to make on the digital, layered file than as a hard piece of art.

What do you like most about what you do? What do you dislike most?
Most: The variety of projects. I get to work on logos, brochures, posters, collateral material, branding pieces, flip books, calendars, illustration, photography, and even a bit of interior design.

Least: Dealing with people who choose not to value your experience. How often have we all warned someone of a danger -- they choose to proceed anyway, then your warning comes true? At those times, it feels like all your years of experience are for naught. Best to let it slip off your shoulders.

What do you do in your spare time?
I play guitar and sing, both for fun and professionally, and often have friends over to join in. Playing an instrument is wonderful therapy, and I urge everyone to pick an instrument and give it a try. Be patient with yourself.

Reading is an essential.

I'm a mild mannered autograph hound. If I spot a celebrity/author/artist/famous/infamous/whatever who has any meaning to me, I'll do a drawing of them at that moment, then approach them to write their thoughts about my sketch and autograph it as well. I have a collection of roughly 200, drawn in sketch books and on the backs of business cards - whatever I have on hand. Sometimes the comments are complimentary, sometimes critical. Either way, it's a great way to remember the moment. They include Jerry Seinfeld, Jack Lemmon, Dan Quayle, Salman Rushdie, River Phoenix. Only one ever rejected my request: Ringo Starr.

I love taking walks with my wife (I've known her since 4th grade) around the neighborhood after dinner, and the worse the weather, the better - nothing keeps us down.

I enjoy writing, and recently wrote a 50,000 word novel in one month. It's not as impossible as you might think, and if you've always wanted to write a novel but never thought you had time or the talent for it, and you're looking for an encouraging word, go to www.nanowrimo.com (National Novel Writing Month) to see what it's all about. Make sure you sign up by October (it's free).

What is your worst client experience?
After designing a book cover, getting the approval of the president of the publishing company, having him sign off on the proofs, and getting the cover printed, he held up the book jacket in a large staff meeting and exclaimed: "This is crap." I guess he wasn't happy with the design, but where was he at every approval stage?

What are you currently listening to?
Bob Dylan's "Love and Theft." Neil Young's "Silver and Gold." Bruce Cockburn's "Breakfast in New Orleans, Dinner in Timbuktu." A CD of myself performing at McCabe's recently in Los Angeles.

What are you currently reading?
This morning I finished the third Robert Caro book in his trilogy about Lyndon Johnson. His latest in the series, Master of the Senate, just won the Pulitzer prize, and is a fascinating account of how LBJ changed the way the US Senate was run. It's written as though a friend was sitting in the room telling you fascinating stories. I couldn't put it down.

What are your favorite websites?
Google.

I spend very little time surfing the web. It eats up a huge amount of time, and I have better things to do.

Do have your own website?
I do, but I haven't worked on it for a few years, and I don't push it.

Do you bring anything extra to your job that adds value for you as well as your company?
I create a cartoon every Friday called "The Friday Cartoon" that is emailed to all the H&K offices in the US, and sometimes in Europe as well. It pokes fun at our company, policies, work conditions, and often the world as well. It might seem strange, but with the wonderful responses I get from all over the country every Friday from people being touched (sometimes comically, sometimes tenderly), doing this cartoon is the most consistently rewarding part of my job. And it's not even in my job description.

What is your biggest pet peeve at work?
People that mistakenly think they know how to proofread just because they know how to read. A close second: People who think they know good/effective design just because they have two eyes. (If you own a scalpel, do you think you're a surgeon?)

Do you have anything else to add?
One piece of advice for up-and-coming designers: Learn how to sketch. Too few art directors have this valuable skill, and you'll impress your clients and manager when a computer is not at hand.

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