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Spraygraphic Interview with Raymond Hooper
By Spraygraphic | January 23, 2008
Spraygraphic Interview with Raymond Hooper
SG: Please tell us about yourself?
RH: The third grade was a time in my life of deep existential wandering. I was short, skinny, and felt invisible. Setting up house in Beverly Barta’s father’s garage had lost the poetry that had so beautifully colored those first moments of puppy love. I had tired of Kool-Aid in tea sets and the children . . . Dolls, I had found early, were not my thing. Television was primitive compared to today, but there were still things I enjoyed about it. John Gnagy had a half hour program on Saturday afternoons on which he would teach how to draw. I thought he was cool. He wore a goatee just like the jazz musicians and beatniks I’d already come to admire. He looked like what I wanted to grow up and be. I’d imagine myself one day walking down the street in Greenwich Village with my goatee, saxophone, beret, and drawings and we’d go sit in some hip joint with the other hipsters and groove on beat poetry and be-bop. But like I said I was in the third grade and it wasn’t to be. In another direction was a television western, “Gunsmoke.” it had a saloon that was run by a redhead named “Kitty.” She was everything Beverly was not . . . a woman!
Every Spring in Metuchen, New Jersey they had a May Fair and the May Fair had an art show. TV was still black and white then but I’d seen a color photograph of Kitty on the cover of a Sunday news magazine section. With my Crayola set in hand I lovingly drew her picture and won the blue ribbon at the Fair, beating out the fourth, fifth and sixth graders, I knew that my life in the Village and being cool was really going to happen. From that moment on I pursued this goal, sneaking off to New York whenever I could to look at the street art shows and listen to street musicians, meanwhile living a very square life back in Metuchen. I’d kept this dream a secret. My father had more than suggested that art was for fairies. He told me John Gnagy was “light in the saddle,” meaning he was gay.
So I go through high school considered the best artist in my class and finally without my father’s consent move to Brooklyn to study at Pratt Institute and inch closer to my dream. But by now beatniks have been replaced by hippies and people are listening to heavy metal and acid rock. Eighth Street in the Village is lined with pizza parlors, head shops and a million runaways begging for spare change while playing the only four chords they knew on a guitar. The place I had waxed romantic about was overrun by flower children in designer jeans. Every sentence was started with, punctuated by and ended with “like” and “far out, man.” I wanted to vomit. Heavy reading for this crowd was “Siddhartha.”
So much for that part of the dream. My regrets are few. I don’t draw anymore and never got a handle on the sax. I do have a large jazz collection and designed books for the country’s best known art book publisher and every once in awhile, I write a poem. I even wrote one once about Beverly. Among the other pleasures I enjoy is my part-time teaching job at Parsons (Typography and Design Concepts). I see myself in many of my students and the time I spend with them is a valued part of of my adult life. They too have often struggled with parents who see no worth in going into art. The landscape is rampant with the unconscious, blind to the overwhelming truth that everything they see and touch that is not a part of nature, was designed by someone.
So I’m not a beatnik and I don’t live in The Village. But the poetry, the music, and the heroes of my youth are alive within me . . .
See
it was like this when
we waltz into this place
a couple of papish cats
is doin’ an Aztec two-step
And I says,
Dad let’s cut
but then this dame
comes up behind me
and says
You and me could really exist
Wow I says
Only the next day
she has bad teeth
and really hates
poetry
I started my career as a Junior in college doing graphics for the CBS Six O’clock News. From there I became a design assistant at a small religious magazine. I spent several years in magazines working in the art departments of Essence magazine and Harper’s Bazaar. After Bazaar I was hired as a consultant by Rolling Stone and helped design their first non quarter fold color issues. Back in New York I was a senior designer for a company owned by the late Sam Antupit called Antupit & Others. We designed magazines, books, annual reports, album covers ands did branding and corporate ID as well. Having to work in so many directions at once was better than four years of college. I learned a tremendous amount during my years there. After Antupit & Others I became the Art Director of Crawdaddy Magazine and later was hired back at Essence this time as the Art Director. After Essence I had the first incarnation of Ray Hooper Design where I learned how much of a business man I wasn’t. After five and a half years one of my clients Harry N. Abrams Inc. hired me as a senior book designer and Special Projects Art Director responsible for all collateral materials. After eighteen years at Abrams it was bought by as French publisher and many of us were given the boot. I spent several years freelancing and not finding a full time job. “We were looking for someone more entry level.” Still rings in my ears.
SG: Where do you currently live and work?
RH: I live on Manhattan’s upper west side and have Ray Hooper Design, LLC in the Chelsea section.
SG: What mediums do you work with?
RH: I now design Greeting Cards and other stationary products All of my work is done on a Mac.
SG: Describe your working process when creating a new work.
RH: The process runs the gamut. Sometimes I’m fortunate enough to have an inspiration but most times it’s a grind. The important thing for me is to stay in motion. I don’t believe in designers block. I find it better to to bad work and correct it or throw it away than to just stare at my monitor. I’m also fortunate to have maintained relationships with a number of illustrators and photographers I’ve worked with through the years who are contributing to my new enterprise.
SG: What kind of things do you do when you get blocked or find it hard to create something?
RH: Usually if I’m stuck I start by new design for something else b
SG: Where are you currently finding your inspiration?
RH: Any and everywhere.
SG: How did you get become the art director/book designer for companies such as, Pantheon, Random House, Summit, etc…
RH: Harry Abrams was the only book Publisher with whom I was on staff all of the others were freelance assignments.
SG: What kind of deadlines do you work with when producing this kind of work?
RH: For most of the books I had three to four months from beginning to end depending on the materials and the size of the book.
SG: Do the companies come back to you and say “change this” or “change that?”
RH: Without fail.
SG: How much are you willing to change? Is there some kind of negotiation process you go through?
RH: I’ll make any reasonable changes. The worse situations usually involve projects that are poorly organized or authors/editors who feel that the relationship with a designer is supposed to be confrontational. When freelancing there’s a “Letter of Agreement” limiting the number of corrections/changes that can be made before renegotiating the fee.
SG: Can you tell us a little about your business, Raymond Hooper Design, LLC.
RH: We design Greeting Cards, Appointment Books, Journals, etc. My company is a year old this month and after a year of building a staff and inventory we had our first sales last month. We are trying to appeal to people who are both sophisticated about art and design and don’t necessarily need someone else to write their sentiments. As a result many of our cards have very terse messages on the inside or none at all. A number of our cards are blank note cards with photographs, illustrations or just some kind of graphic on the front.
SG: Where has your work been seen?
RH: The books in book stores and museums across the country. The cards, so far, only at trade shows and in trade publications.
SG: Where will it be seen next?
RH: Trade shows in Atlanta, San Francisco and Seattle. Card stores in North Carolina, Texas, Washington state and upstate New York.
SG: What is your dream art assignment?
RH: No such thing. It’s a joy making my living designing.
SG: What is your favorite color?
RH: I like them all.
SG: Who is your favorite artist? And Why?
RH: I’ve no single favorite artist. I like different ones for different reasons and from different periods.
SG: What book/magazine are you reading this week?
RH: I’ve loved and read The New Yorker since my teens.
SG: Ever do a self portrait? Where is it now?
RH: Not since college and where it is, I don’t know. It might have been lost in a fire thirty years ago.
SG: Where is your favorite place to hang out?
RH: The beach.
SG: Any final words of advice?
RH: Love what you do.
ART:
IT’S A BOY and SAX are images by illustrator Warren Linn and both have blank interiors.
LAST DANCE and SHOE are images by photographer Christine Alicino. The interior of DANCE “Valentine” reads “Save the last dance for me.” The interior of SHOE “IF YOU REALLY LOVE ME”reads “TAKE ME SHOPPING.”
DINNER INVITE “We’d love to have you for dinner” is a blank dinner invitation and “Waddayalookinat?” reads “Betta be me” are images by illustrator Diana Bryan.
“Fifty is only a number” is my own typographic design and the interior reads “HAPPY BIRTHDAY.”
“MOOD” is my own design and is a blank note card.
“PEACE” is also my own design and the interior reads “GOOD WILL TOWARD ALL.”
Topics: Artist Interviews, Graphic Design |
January 23rd, 2008 at 5:18 pm
The “light in the saddle” comment is wonderfully nostalgically funny for we artists growing up in working class neighborhoods in the 50’s occassionally ducking under school desks practicing momentary survival strategies. There were more than a few threats to our Way of Life….I suppose we always need something. Someone once said “all (real) jazz is political”. We’re lucky to be here doing what we love. Thanks for the memories Ray, and here’s to a Sweet and Political future. We may yet be in the streets……Warren
January 25th, 2008 at 2:11 pm
I am a Florida academic librarian who has been fortunate enough to hang out in hip places with hipsters prosaic, artistic, dramatic and lyric! I have been fortunate enough to meet and interact with Mr. Hooper in this 21st century. His work is near-perfect, the true perfection. He makes art a science, and science an art… Dawn
January 31st, 2008 at 5:48 pm
[...] sure you read the rest of Ray’s interview here and check out his designs [...]