02.07Hillman Curtis:
Success Secrets from Hillman Curtis:
- There’s a lot to gain by approaching this field as craft that can be developed.
- Do things you love to do. The Artist Series started out as a purely personal project and became a serious part of our business.
- When you have the attitude of looking at the client as a collaborator and not as a hurdle, you’ll often find that every client is a good client.
Early beginnings:
Both my parents were high school teachers, my mother an art teacher and my step dad, history. My step dad also collected books and as a kid I was drawn to these huge poster books in his collection…mostly dealing with world war two propaganda. I would spend hours looking through the images. Big bold posters with strong imagery and often little or no text. I didn’t know it at the time but I was looking at graphic design. Later in my twenties, I was a Rock and Roll musician in San Francisco. I was on a couple of different labels, MCA was the last one, and my story is not uncommon; built up by A and R people, managers and agents and then unceremoniously dropped. I was 30 years old when MCA pulled the plug… I’d just gotten married, and after chasing the music thing for 10 years, working the odd jobs that go along with that - waiter, bartender, house painter, all that stuff - I decided that I was done. It was time to get a career of some sort.
The problem was I didn’t have a clue as to what that career would be. But during the time that I was in bands I was also the guy who made the posters and the flyers. I started with rub-on letters and so on and some of them were actually pretty good. I definitely drew on the bold and simple imagery of the propaganda posters I’d seen ten years earlier in my step-dads books. Other bands started asking me to design their posters and fliers and so when I got dropped I took what little money I had made in music and enrolled in a Photoshop class at a night school.
Because I was older than everyone there, even the teachers, I was desperate. When I started, I couldn’t move a mouse, but I picked it up really quickly. I got some internships and worked my way up. And after a year or two got hired as a contractor at Macromedia and eventually became the Art Director at there.
Hillman’s thoughts on going into business:
When I was at Macromedia, I learned a lot. It was really my first real job. And it was exciting. After six or seven months, I met Neville Brody, who came in to redesign the brand and identity of the company. Neville had this confidence and a sense of purpose. You immediately sensed that design was serious and that your work, the choices you made, had to be justified. He showed me that design was not to be taken lightly, and that if your were going to do you needed to do it without compromise.
What I experienced working briefly with Neville made me think about next steps. I’d been at Macromedia three years at this point…and I felt that I’d done what I could do there.
At the same time, my wife and I decided we wanted to live in a world city. San Francisco is a beautiful city, but small, slow with a provincial mind set. So we moved from san Francisco to New York city. I stayed at Macromedia, working long distance for a few months, but that clearly wasn’t going to work so I decided I’d give my own business a go. I sold what little stock I had in Macromedia and used it to fund the start of my company.
First clients:
In 1998, every one was interested in flash, and my business grew by word of mouth. Having come from Macromedia, and having been there when they acquired Flash, I knew a lot about the then new software. I had also designed and implemented the first Flash website for Macromedia, and I had a few other, high-profile Macromedia jobs under my belt that were Flash-based. It was a small portfolio, but it made it easier to get projects .
When I got to New York, I rented a desk at a design company called RazorFish. This turned out to be extremely beneficial to me both as a designer and as a person new to new york. The people at Razorfish welcomed me into their community and I remain grateful for that to this day.
It became very clear, very quickly that New York City was a big and intense place, but it had this incredibly tightknit and very supportive design community. As soon as I entered the community, I started to make contacts and get referrals and advice.
The first job I got was making small web ads for Intel through an ad agency called DSW out of Salt Lake City. I did those ads for a couple hundred bucks a pop.
This was around 1999-2000 and the dot com boom was just getting fired up. Pretty soon the projects got better and the rates got higher.
I’d worked hard to put myself in a good position and was able to take advantage of some of the opportunities. The dot com boom allowed me an opportunity to move from small flash ads to larger site design. And that’s where it continues today. I rarely do Flash anymore, just for prototyping and for components on larger website designs.
Business development today:
I’m in a fortunate position in that I’ve done some large jobs and they’ve turned out well. That has led to new design opportunities. My film work is growing quite well too. It’s followed a similar course starting small - with short personal films - and growing into commercials, and directing.
Influential figures in design:
I’ve been influenced by everyone who’s profiled in The Artist Series, a series of short films I did on designers. They were chosen specifically because of that.
I fund the series myself, and it’s a very personal work. One of the rules I made was that I would only interview people who had a direct influence on me as a designer, or somehow made it easier for me to become a designer.
I haven’t had time to interview a lot of the people whom I’d like to include in the series, though. One would be Neville Brody. Another would be Kyle Cooper. Another would be, if he were alive, Tibor Kalman.
Marketing to diverse audiences:
Quite often, people look to us or to me specifically for web design, or they come to the site simply for the films, and they have no idea we do both. But we just launched a redesign of our site…Hopefully it will be easier for people to understand that we do design and film (and occasionally write a book). http://www.hillmancurtis.com
On my site, in the section on film, you can watch all of The Artist Series videos as well as short films and commercials. AIGA is also a good place to go to see The Artist Series, but it’s not the most current.
Turning personal work into serious business:
The Artist Series started with design, and now it’s expanded. I’ve produced shots on a film maker — Mark Romanek — and the one on the conceptual artist Lawrence Weiner. I am always looking to expand.
The Artist Series has led to commercial work as well. We probably did 10 or 12 web commercials for Adobe’s CS2 about a year and a half ago, plus one for BMW, a series for SVA, and four for Blackberry. This thing that started out as a purely personal project has become a serious part of our business.
Most outstanding accomplishments:
The Artist Series on Milton Glaser certainly is one of my favorites. It turned out particularly well. The new one on Sagmeister is very good. I particularly like the Mark Romanek piece. And the latest - Lawrence Weiner - is quite good. I am also excited by the dramatic films we’re doing.
So far we’ve done about 6 or 7 short films. We won “best dramatic film” from the last year’s Webby Awards. And this year we have three competing against each other.
I’m trying to focus on writing scripts and working with actors at this point. I’m still doing The Artist Series and the commercials, but my goal is to make a feature length film.
Hillman’s thoughts on the keys to success:
I’ve found something that I’m good at. I think that was part of it. Design and Film both utilize a lot of the skills and talents that I was fortunate enough to be born with. That’s not to say it always comes easy. It doesn’t. I’ve worked very hard over the last ten or twelve years. I often tell students or my interns that one reason I’ve been able to do what I’ve done in this industry is simply because I worked harder than other people. That’s changing as I get older, but for the first five or six years of my running my business was often 6am to 8pm, 5 or 6 nights a week.
I like doing commercial work, but I often struggle with it. I think all commercial artist do. There’s always a time in any given project where you question your values…or your choices.
Commercial work encourages me, or maybe even forces me, to explore other purely personal and artistic endeavors, such as the documentary film work and now the dramatic film work, which then in turn… feeds the commercial work.
It’s been an effort to move in directions that are pro-active and not reactive. In this business it’s easy to be reactive and go where the work is. For example, we designed the Yahoo! Home page and we worked with Yahoo! for three years designing or helping them conceptualize many different things.
That brought in a lot of phone calls from other companies that wanted the same thing. They wanted that same sort of portal design. And it would have been really easy to aggressively pursue that business, and probably quite profitable, and possibly very beneficial to the company. But it didn’t seem like the right path for me.
I fear complacency. It’s important to question your work, stay involved and engaged in the work.
On working with consultants:
Sometimes I question my need to keep my company very, very small. I’ve certainly had opportunities to grow bigger. And I suppose, I probably could have managed the business better and not had as much worry or stress. But I like the way a small company works and I still love the hands on designing, directing and editing. I’ve never been a natural manager.
Hillman’s thoughts on building and sustaining a career:
All I know is how I built my career. I may have benefited by coming in as an outsider, someone who hadn’t had schooling. I was always, and still am open-minded about the craft. I’ve never gotten cynical, and I know I’ll always have a lot to learn…which is good. For example I still have trouble identifying a lot of fonts. (Laughter.)
I always try to remind myself that whatever situation you find yourself in, there’s something there for you. There’s some building brick there for you personally, or for your career… something to learn. And that’s how, that’s really how I’ve always approached it.
It’s really about maintaining humility. It’s coming in and being quiet and very careful and thoughtful with the work and your responsibility to whatever brand or person you decide to work for.
On getting good clients:
That’s harder. I would say that almost every client is a good client. Some people might argue with me about that, but it’s how you relate to the client. I’ve always advocated including the client in the early stage, the middle stage, and the late stage of the design process. That seemed to work for me. I know that it doesn’t work for everyone, but it’s an attitude of looking at the client as a collaborator and not as a hurdle. That has made most of my clients really good clients.
If you’re looking for marquee clients who have big brands behind them, and are going to look really nice in your portfolio, that’s something that I don’t know that I can answer. I am attracted to that as well, but usually I am influenced more by how open or just plain nice someone is. I want to know I can work with someone…that’s the most important thing.
I think that no matter who the client is, we need to include them as creative partners in the process. I believe that everyone is creative and sometimes their creativity is manifested in different ways than my own. And, I shouldn’t take them for granted, and I should approach them with respect and be open to their ideas…to a point. Part of my job is listening and considering ideas and feedback and part of it involves saying no from time to time.
Outside activities:
Family is most important.. So my life now is maybe 9 to 6:00 at work, and then it’s all family.
I don’t play golf, and I don’t hunt or ski or anything like that. The main thing I do as a hobby is make my short movies. Working with the actors and writing scripts has become my main outlet.
I still do accept some speaking engagements. They help keep me on track too, because I have to think about what I’m going to talk about, and thinking about my speech reminds me of what’s important to the design or film that I’m doing at the moment.
Meeting new people is also refreshing.
Additional thoughts:
It’s a wonderful craft. There’s a lot to gain by approaching this field as craft that can be developed. It’s something you can grow with. And I think it’s a wonderful thing to be able to do as your life’s work. You just need to find ways to fight the cynicism that can come from doing commercial work. It’s easy to get cynical.
You have to believe that even in the driest and most bland corporate work, you can reach someone. And that’s sometimes hard to imagine or remember, but it’s there. What we do is concerned with communication…reaching people…and if you’re lucky, moving them.
About Hillman Curtis:
Hillman Curtis is the Principal and Chief Creative Officer of hillmancurtis.com, inc., a digital design firm in New York City. His expert and innovative design solutions have garnered him and his company the multiple Communication Arts Awards of Excellence, the One Show Gold, Silver and Bronze, the South by Southwest Conference “Best Use of Design” and “Best of Show”, the New Media Invision Bronze, a Web Award, How magazine’s Top 10, and multiple Webby Awards.
Hillman was named as one of the top ten designers by the IPPA, included in the “ten most wanted” by IDN magazine, and as one of the “Worlds best Flash designers” by Create Online.
He has appeared as the keynote and featured speaker at design conferences worldwide and his work has been featured in a variety of major design publications. Hillman’s first book, Flash Web Design (New Riders, USA) has sold over to 100 thousand copies and has been translated into 14 languages. His second book, MTIV, Process, Inspiration and Practice for the New Media Designer, has become required reading at design schools worldwide. It’s currently in its third printing, and has been translated into 5 languages.
Hillman’s recent work includes major projects for AOL, Yahoo!, the American Institute of Graphic Designers as well as a documentary series on designers and artists and a series of short narrative films. Additionally, his music videos have been added to MTV2 USA, MTV Nordic, MTV European, MTV France, MTV Italy, and Much Music Canada.
His latest book, Hillman Curtis on Creating Short Films for the Web was released in September. Hillman is currently busy leading multiple design initiatives for Yahoo!, including the recent homepage redesign and My Yahoo concept designs. He is also producing online commercial documentaries (documercials) for Adobe, BMW and others and continues to write, direct and produce personal films.






















































































