What is your job? Where do you work?
I’m the founder and only full-time employee of Tokyo Farm, a small creative services boutique. My background is primarily as a print and packaging designer, but now I have to wear a number of hats (obviously). Some of them fit better than others.

What are your inspirations?
I suppose I should have a ready answer for this since it’s the kind of thing that comes up all the time, but to be totally honest I’m not sure. If I have to name some names off the top of my head, the original work that Shepard Fairey creates specifically for Obey continues to impress me. There’s also an art collaborative from New York called Goldmine Shithouse that does amazing work that gets me excited. But really it’s just seeing great and smart work that fires me up to go create something original and that can compete. If we’re talking about pinching styles (because we all know that in this profession there’s a fine line between inspiration and source material), I made a vow to myself not too long ago to get all my “copying my idols� stuff out of my system and then start creating work that’s new and original. I think the reappropriation thing has been done to death; it’s time for people to start pushing some boundaries again. I do take a lot of cues from the plain ol’ everyday stuff that surrounds me in the unique neighborhood in which I live, and also from the pop culture that I grew up with in the 70’s and 80’s, but I really try to ride myself to do something new with it.

Not that I’m opposed to homage. One of my favorite clients (and former employers) is House of Blues, for whom I’m obviously mining a very rich history and trying, in many respects, to recreate things that have already been done. But in that case, it’s obviously very appropriate for the client.

What are you currently working on?
Finishing up a bunch of advertising for a big Visa-branded event series for House of Blues and wondering what the hell I’m going to do next.

What do you like most about what you do? What do you dislike most?
Love getting paid to be creative. Love the opportunity to work with type. Love that I can write off all this media and computer equipment because I’m an information and gadget freak. Strongly, strongly dislike dealing with the phone. I’m not really a people person, though I think I fake it pretty well. It must be because I’m a Leo.

How do you balance your life between work and non-work? Or, what do you do in your spare time?
I love what I do for a living, so a lot of my non-work life is semi work-related anyway. I don’t make a lot of intentional effort to balance the two, but I’m pretty fastidious about not responding to emails and voice mail after hours or on the weekend unless it’s an emergency. When I have the time, I paint pictures of robots and play video games. I go to a lot of art related events and I snowboard (or body board and surf, depending on the season) almost every weekend, which is a great excuse to get away from the city for a tiny bit and clear your head. I also write for a couple of fairly large blogs and am part of an art collective that meets once a week. I have a hard time not doing anything.

What is your worst client experience?
This is probably an overly broad answer, but my first job in L.A. was with an event branding company that specialized in very high-profile corporate events and celebrity social stuff (weddings, birth announcements, etc). Dealing with a celebrity assistants or handlers was always a total pain. We had one client, a major high-level producer for whom we did a lot of work that was always terrible to work with. He screamed and yelled about everything, and would regularly respond to you, at the top of his voice, by yelling “I’ve produced 23 major motion pictures!� even if you were just telling him something should be green instead of blue. Anything having to do with dealing with him is easily the worst client experience ever.

What is the most valuable thing you learned in school (or your career)?
You can always pull a crazily creative idea back and make it work, but you can’t make a boring idea more creative. That’s the most valuable thing I learned that relates directly to my profession, but learning how to navigate a bureaucracy is, I think, the most important part of everybody’s college experience and very few of us realizes it.

What are you currently listening to?
Air America’s Real Audio stream.

What are you currently reading?
Lots of magazines. Snowboarder, Print, The Believer. I’m in between books, but I usually try to keep one fiction and one non-fiction title going at a time. Lately, the non-fiction titles have all been business related and let me tell you, those people really need to hire some better ghost writers.

What’s the strangest project you’ve ever done?
Probably a one-of-a-kind fake save-the-date for a BBQ at an uber-wealthy former boss’s under-contruction Malibu estate, intended to pressure his contractor into finishing the construction more quickly. Good times, good times.

What do you feel is your most eccentric behavior or habit?
I’m not sure, but I know my girlfriend would tell you that there are quite a few of them to pick from. As soon as I wipe off this makeup and clean up all these chicken feathers I’ll go ask her to pick one.

What product or gadget strikes your fancy?
Careful, I could go on for days about technology. I’m loving my new Bluespoon AX2 wireless Bluetooth headset for my mobile phone. It’s like something out of Star Trek, only more hi-tech. Bluetooth as a whole is really cool and useful. I am heavily anticipating being in love with the Treo 650 that I’m getting ready to order.

Also, I don’t know if this counts, but I finally tried out Google Earth today (since the Mac version was just released) and it’s just jaw-droppingly cool. Anyone that hasn’t used it yet should stop reading this and go download it right now.

If you could collaborate with another designer, another field of design or another industry, what would it be and why?
I’m totally hooked on Bravo’s Project Runway and it’s really makes me feel like I’d really like to do something fashion-related. Clothing design is something I know absolutely nothing about, but the more I learn about it the more intensely creative it seems. A good marriage between fashion and graphic design can be quite formiadable.

How long have you been a member of the AIGA, why did you join and what do you get out of your membership?
I’ve only been a member since August, though I’ve been floating around the periphery for a good eight years. I joined specifically to get guaranteed enrollment in one of the BusinessMatters events when I first launched Tokyo Farm. I haven’t really been a member long enough to feel comfortable making any broad statements about what I get out of it. I will say it’s an issue that I think about quite a bit.

What are your favorite websites?
If you’re going to make me narrow it down, here are a few:
BoingBoing
SpeakUp
woot!

But I’m an internet junkie and I have a couple hundred feeds in my RSS reader, all of which are my favorite at one point or another.

Do have your own website?
tokyofarm.com
fivethousand.net

I also contribute to
blogging.la
and
art.blogging.la

Are you currently looking for work or projects and why should a potential employer or client that is reading this contact you?
I’m always looking to add new and interesting clients to work with. Isn’t every designer? My clients love me because I’m hard working, responsive and smart. I think I’m easy to work with and I do good work. The people with whom I’ve worked will attest to that. Is that a good enough reason for a potential client to contact me? I don’t know. But if they’ve gone through this whole profile and seen the work on my website and they still don’t know if they’d want to hire me then we’re probably not a good match anyway.

Do you have anything to add or information to share with other designers?
LA-based designers might be interested in checking out the peer support project that I’ve been putting together called Kernspiracy. It’s a mailing list and corresponding monthly get together where designers can ask other designers for feedback and advice and support. Info at tokyofarm.com/kernspiracy.html

If you would like to add a question to this list, what would it be and what is your answer?
Q: Why does God let bad things happen to good people?
A: Potato

Member Spotlight is an opportunity to showcase the diversity of our chapter's members. Promote yourself or a new project while sharing your experiences, interests and opinions with your local design community. Wanna be profiled next? Let us know.