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-sional type study" or "I’m going to do a motion study" or "I’m going to do a piece that talks about this idea" you have to set up the limitations. Especially here. Whether it’s a technical experiment, a visual experiment, or a narrative experiment.

Gelman: Especially on the web, when at some point it goes live, it has to be functional.

Matt: When you are in graduate school you have the luxury to do or not do. You have the luxury to wait around for an idea to pop in your head. But here, I think, if I don’t do the idea it’s not going to ever happen. I have to put the wheels in motion to make the idea real. It’s just like momentum, once it becomes real, then it’s going to happen. Once you get over that crest of it becoming some sort of half-notion into it becoming a real thing, once it gets over that crest, it’s going to be completed. Whether it’s a poster, stickers, tee-shirt, it doesn’t matter. If it’s experimental that stops being an issue. It’s no longer experimental. It’s a real thing that just so happens not to have a client behind it. You are the client. I think it’s the same with writing and authorship. It’s all authorship, it doesn’t matter what it is. Todd St. John is a perfect example. He doesn’t have to make T-shirt graphics for a living. He chooses to. And he chooses what’s on those shirts. And he deductively decides what products sell and what don’t. Same thing here. You can experiment but some experiments are cool ideas that have no real application and some of them are like, "We should trick out our juke boxes more, because the more tricked out our juke boxes, the more we have a really bad-ass jukebox to offer another client. I think we definitely choose our battles."

Gelman: So there are different reasons why you tackle different...

Matt: Totally. And I think the word experimental is a misnomer, in the sense that it’s not experimental like "Oh, I’m going to shit in a bag, light it on fire and call it performance art." Fuck that. What’s that? That doesn’t matter. That has nothing to do with anything. It’s experimenting in the sense that it’s like a laboratory. I’m going to figure out; it’s like nuclear fission. I feel like it’s more of a scientific thing.

Gelman: What’s the right word for it?

Matt: I don’t know, perhaps experimentation in the scientific sense of the term. Experimenting in the scientific sense of the term is experimentation in hopes that you will get a result.

Warren: I guess there’s an end-result in mind. Because often when one says experimental the end-result is not known. It’s a process in which you ask, "Well, if I put these two things together what will happen?" Whereas in our experimental work, you have an end-result of what you would like to achieve, a goal. Even if it’s just an audience’s perception of what that goal would be. And then you have to figure out how to take it there. And part of it is what technologies are going to be used. Whether it’s video, wood, or whatever materials you are going put into it, to apply to get those end results.

Gelman: Can you talk a little bit about specific projects. You talked about that Sony project. Can you give me an example of an experimental project?

Matt: Well, we did a project last year for Valentine’s Day. We shot two people that looked like rocker dudes: a rocker girl and rocker boy. We shot them on a green screen, keyed them out, rendered 3-D camera angles. It was a tough girl, tough guy love story but we did it for a Valentine’s Day promo, so the idea was to create something humorous around burned out high school kids. Burned out high school kids equals true love equals something fun to do and humorous. You play it and it’s funny. It’s funny, but what it does show is not only that I’m going to do something funny for Valentines Day, but I’m going to shoot real people on green screen with 3-D, with compositing, with animation, with music, which is a band-Excelsior, from Philadelphia.

Gelman: It’s a time commitment.

Matt: Yeah, It was but it wasn’t. It was like a couple of weekends of staying here all weekend. But what would you rather be doing? Watching TV? Eating chips? It was fun to do and it’s a great little piece on our reel. It looks really good. And it shows a competency that was not necessarily there otherwise. It shows, "You know what, we’re doing this stuff because we fucking want to do it and it’s fucking cool and it’s fun and conceptually it makes sense." It’s a witty humorous piece. It’s the same things as directors making short films. When you make a short film do you wait around for funding to make a short film? No. You have an idea and you want to make that idea a reality. And through that idea it shows that you have a competency. And through that idea you might get a feature length film, or a rock video, or whatever. The same principle is here. We figure out all these things, but they aren’t necessarily applicable to the project at hand, so we dream up something to allow us to pursue those ideas further. Boom, you do that, you have something to show, the clients see it, boom, you can go and do something else with it. So it’s a stair-stepping tactic, y’know? But it’s not like, "Yo, I’m doodling, I’m just making this experimental shit for no reason." I think that’s bullshit.

Gelman: Does it ever happen that a client sees some experimental piece and says, "That’s cool, can I have it?"

Warren: Mmm hmm, always.

Gelman: And you sell it?

Warren: I think it’s more of a vibe thing because if they see something, they ask, "Can you just do that, but just put it in our color palette?" You just talk to them about being able to achieve the feelings or emotions or the draw of that. But because you (the client) are not this thing, you are your own thing, it’s going to be different. Because you can’t take something that was on a record label cover and apply it to a gas company. If the gas company comes to you and says we want that, it’s not going to directly line up. Maybe some of the ideas within it could line up, but it’s not a direct application. But once you walk them through that, and understand where they’re coming from it gets a life of its own.

Matt: It’s rare. It’s happened though.

Warren: It does happen.

Matt: There are some things that we have done on the experimental side where we’ve then done things for clients that almost exactly reflect those efforts. You’ve seen the experimental stuff, you’ve seen the real stuff and you see they’re related, obviously. But we would never do this cool experimental widget and say, "I’m going to stick your logo on it, now give me a bunch of money." That doesn’t happen. That’s dumb business. No smart business whatsoever, because you’re basically giving away your good shit. Nah, make them something. If a client comes to you they deserve something custom to them.

Warren: Right.

Matt: If they’re a client that wants to just take something off a shelf and just stick their logo on it, that’s not a client you want anyway. They’re naïve.

Warren: No spray on.

Matt: Yeah, no spray on. That’s not the kind of person I’d want to be. That’s not creative. That’s not creative. That blows the whole experimental idea and makes it moot, makes it lame.

Warren: Well, it turns it into client.

Matt: If you’re a designer and you do that then you’re not going to be a successful designer very long. "Oh, I just gave away all my ideas and sold them to someone and now I feel like I got nothing." I had this really great thing and that was mine.

Gelman: Well, they’re still yours.

Matt: They’re still yours but if you sell them it’s different. For me it’s like K2 can fucking make shirts out of what’s his name... the dead dude that was friends with Andy Warhol?

Gelman: Keith Haring?

Matt: No, the other guy.

Warren: Basquiat?

Matt: Basquiat. K2 has licensed drawings from Basquiat for shirts. Did Basquiat become an artist so that K2 could sell shirts? What you’re saying is "My job to be a crazy, zany designer so K2 can sell shirts?" I don’t think that’s what I’m about. I would design shirts for them if they wanted shirts, but I’m not doing my creative bullshit so that I can just sell it to them and have them stick it on shirts and make money. And I think a lot of designers think that way. I think a lot of kids, the 22 year-old kids that have no context and have never worked, I think that’s what they think. "I should do some DR-meets-Brand New School hybrid, half-ass, piece of shit [Adobe] Illustrator thing and do a lot of it and then sell it like it’s design. Get a cool shirt so I can tell my friends that I’m cool." Dude, that’s nothing. That’s not what it’s about. I don’t think that’s what it’s about and if you think that’s what it’s about and that’s what you are doing, then you are going to be doing it for a little while and you are going to get bored and do something else. It’s not going to be a lifelong thing. It’s a different way of working. It’s the difference between thinking something is cool and doing it because you are going to get some end result and wanting to do it because it’s part of who you are. It’s the difference between playing music because you want to be a huge rock band and playing music because you love it. I know tons and tons of people in bands, and the ones that are always the best are the ones that are not the one hit wonders. They’re the ones that stand the test of time. That’s what you want, dude. You don’t want to be a one hit wonder. And I think a lot of the time designers think about experimental work and it’s all just one-hit wonder bullshit. It’s like jalopying the moment of the day, squishing it together, getting a couple of cool shirts and then, guess what, your style is beat, you’re totally tired and you’re out of there. There’s going to be another 22 year-old person to fill your void. That’s the way it works. We live in popular culture, that’s the way it works. So when it comes to experimental work you have to think of it in different terms. You have to think of it in different terms for it to be a value time and again. Does that make sense?

Gelman: That’s great. Perfect ending. Is there anything else you want to add to it?

Warren: Well, it’s from the soul. What Matt’s saying, you have to feel it. It has to be part of you. Because if you are doing it for someone else or you’re doing it because it’s a certain cool thing or you are doing it to be perceived a certain way, it’s not real, it’s not legit, it’s not going to work and it’s not going to stand. And you are ultimately not going to be able to stand behind it 110%. And the only way to do it is to be able to stand behind what you are doing 110%. It has to be from here.

Matt: Yeah, it has to be you. It can’t just be a jalopy of what you think is cool at the moment.

Gelman: What’s a jalopy?

Matt: Jalopy, you know what a jalopy is...

Warren: Jalopy is a car that’s been pieced together by all different parts. It’s a fifties term. Like you get a beat-up Chevy, so you get a part from an old Ford and get a door from something else and it becomes a jalopy. Sometimes it can be used in a good way and a bad way, that’s what’s kind of interesting about it.

Matt: Like taking pieces and parts from different things and making a whole.

Gelman: Ok, so do you want to talk about anything else?

Matt: No. Well, I have this enchilada dinner over there sitting in that paper bag. Do you like enchiladas? Do you like Mexican food?