ADC Young Guns is the industry’s only international, cross-disciplinary, portfolio-based awards competition that identifies today’s vanguard of young creatives, and is open to both ADC members and nonmembers. The program is open internationally to creatives age 30 and under who have been working for at least two years, full-time or freelance. Eligible entrants can submit a combination of professional and personal work in graphic design, photography, illustration, advertising, art direction, environmental design, film, animation, motion graphics, interactive design, typography, architecture, copywriting, product design, package design, fashion design, furniture design, interior design, sound design and industrial design.

Entries will be accepted here starting on May 1, 2012. Entries submitted on or before June 2, 2013 will qualify for early bird pricing of $99. Entries submitted after that date and before the June 16 deadline will cost $135. 

This year’s call-for-entries campaign was created by Grand Army who were recognized during Young Guns 9. Partners LARRY PIPITONE, JOEY ELLIS and ERIC COLLINS sum up the Call for Entries with ‘Level Up’ - an aspirational concept which speaks to the ability to advance one’s career by being named ADC Young Gun. 

ADC Young Guns 11 was kicked off in style last Thursday, April 25. Current Young Guns and future Young Guns gathered at the Art Director’s Club 29th Street Gallery for ‘Level Up’ a party which mirrored the conceptual and design aesthetic of the Call for Entries campaign. Young creatives were treated to a larger than life custom built game of PONG. The classic video game was projected 60 feet wide and two stories high. 

ADC Young Guns would not be possible without the support of it’s generous sponsors: iStock and Adobe. 

Every year, a committee of past Young Guns is assembled to oversee the development and execution of the competition: 

Rich Tu (YG9) - Art Director, AKA NYC and ADC Young Guns 11 Chair

Bill Oberlander - Managing Director, Robin Hood and Co-Founder of ADC Young Guns 

Ian Wharton (YG8) - Partner, Zolmo

Michael Fremiuth (YG8) - Partner, Franklyn 

Nicole Jacek (YG8) - Founder, Creative Director, NJ(L.A.) 

Elle Kim (YG8) - Senior Art Director, The Museum of Modern Art

Stewart Smith (YG7) - Founder, STEWDIO

Timothy Goodman (YG7) - Designer, Illustrator, Independent  

Dan Blackman (YG9)  - Designer, Independent  

Jon Contino (YG9) - Founder, Jon Contino Studio  

Julie Glassberg (YG9) - Photographer, Independent 

All ADC Young Guns 11 winners receive the following:

A unique version of the iconic ADC Young Guns Cube, designed exclusively for YG11

Their work featured in an exhibition at the ADC Gallery in New York;

Their work included in the ADC Young Guns 11 Annual;

Their work added to their permanent profile page on www.adcyoungguns.org;

Complimentary one-year ADC membership;

Permanent membership in ADC Young Guns network;

The chance to be featured in ADC Young Guns events, including presentations of their work at Apple stores around the world;

“Show/s exhibits the work/s of one/eighteen student/s in the 2013 Yale Graphic Design MFA program. The show/s, reconfigured not as one/many but many/one temporary exhibition/s, span/s the course of one/eleven day/s and stretch/es through one/multiple space/s in one/four gallery/galleries. Each/all show/s present/s a/many singular/collective perspective/s on the one/many connection/s between/among the work/s as it/they multiply/multiplies across platform/s and accumulate/s throughout the duration/s of the exhibition/s.​”

Join Eric and his classmates for a closing party on Saturday, May 18 at 8 pm at the Yale School of Art Green Gallery (1156 Chapel Street, New Haven, CT).

YG11 is now open for submissions. Eligible entrants can submit a combination of professional and personal work. Click here to enter. 

Ross Mantle: Your work seems to have progressed a lot in just few years. From pretty straight to pretty conceptual. I was really struck by that. 

Masood Kamandy: I guess I came to photography as an observational medium. I had been doing projects in Afghanistan and just exploring what photography could be. After a while I got really interested in more conceptual art and conceptual photography. I had a few teachers that really influenced me in that direction. 

Ross: So when you started it was more straight documentary stuff? Because I found some of your older work online and it looks drastically different from the work you are doing now. 

Masood: Yeah. 

Ross: There is a consistency to it that really struck me because I feel like you see some artists that do a 180 and their work does not appear anything like it used to. You seem to have managed it in such a way that it all fits, which I thought was pretty interesting. 

Masood: That’s great to hear. The one thing with me is I did a lot of documentary, straight photography in undergraduate. I got out of school and I started working as a photo editor and I was just exposed to so many different types of images, image making and the history of photography in a way that was more hands on and contemporary than studying it in school. It just seemed to me that I wanted to do it as an artist, but explore what was possible with photography and that’s what started to happen. 

Ross: So was it one project leading to the next or how did that progression happen? 

“My work now reflects the diversity of my interests rather than being a part of a photo program, which is how it started out.”

Masood: The first step in that direction was a series of portraits called the Secret Diptychs. I took two pictures of people. One picture I would say, “Hey, can I take a picture?” and the second I would say, “Think of something you never would ever tell me”. It sort of goes from being a straight photograph to kind of having a conceptual backbone. I like to engage with the people on the internet. I think my work now reflects the diversity of my interests rather than being a part of a photo program, which is how it started out. There’s such an amazing community of people out there. Maybe they are not a part of the art world or the photography world or any other sort of world we exist in, but you can reach so many of them using the internet and to me that’s a great resource. It’s a great way to feel connected with the world. I’m sort of anti-hermeticism, I want to be able to connect with people and collaborate and the internet is the best place to do that, although doing it in real life is amazing too. 

Ross:Are you surprised by some of the people who have found your work via the internet? Have you found it has opened up more doors for conversations which you probably wouldn’t have before? 

Masood: Yeah it does. Now Facebook is a part that too. I’m connecting with people who I would have never have talked to like a performance artist that wants to do a collaboration or different things like that which open up possibilities for making new artwork and meeting new people. Also there’s places around the world that I wouldn’t think to show my work in or I wouldn’t have the opportunity show my work. 

Ross: There is something you are doing with Kabul University? How did that all come about? 

Masood: I studied at the School of Visual Arts and September 11th happened the first year I started. My family is from Afghanistan and before that I had never been really engaged in my family’s culture, but once that happened I felt this great need to go and do something productive. I had a big tax refund that year, so I took that money and went to Afghanistan to see if I could do something to help. I went to Kabul University and met all these teachers. Then I came back to SVA and asked the Chair of the photography department, Stephen Frailer, if SVA wanted to do anything to help, and he took the project on and organized an auction and raised all this money. I ended up teaching there and building a darkroom and a classroom. 

Ross: What does it feel like teaching and starting a program on the other side of the world? 

“I wanted to build a good dark room, teach black and white photography really well and have a really clean classroom that served as a refuge from the chaos.”

Masood: It was difficult working in Kabul. There are a lot of struggles coordinating and transporting things. Things that are easy here take a lot of more effort there. It was tough, I had my computer stolen. I got through it and it was ultimately great, but I just focused on teaching very basic things. I wanted to build a good dark room, teach black and white photography really well and have a really clean classroom that served as a refuge from the chaos. 

Ross: It seems like you have your hands in a lot of different things. Do you find that they are all influencing each other? 

Masood: First and foremost I am an image-maker. There are all these other things I do to facilitate that like teaching or computer programming. I think it all sort of comes together in a way that helps me feel like a whole artist or a whole human being. I used to take things apart. As a kid I had an Atari and I would take it apart. I had a Nintendo and I would take it apart. The moment I realized I could combine that with my art happened kind of recently and it was like a total revelation. It’s all good because as I get older I have accepted me for who I am and maybe it’s a little frenetic, but that’s okay. 

Ross: So you edited for New York Times Magazine and Art + Commerce. Do you see that experience having influence in the way that you dissect your images now? 

Masood: When you are an editor you have to change your frame of mind pretty drastically because you are editing a lot of different types of pictures. Each of them uses different strategies and different subject matter, so that shifting in the frame of mind is really influential, but then after a while I think you develop a lexicon of image making and that kind of lexicon idea is something that I bring into my art practice. I have the freedom of making any image I really want to as long as that image serves my ideas. That to me is really liberating, that I don’t have to have any form of style. An aesthetic style is not something that appeals to me. I’d rather have a conceptual framework. 

Pete (the “R”) is joined by co-founder Alfio Mazzei (the “M”) and creative directors Sam Laverick and Josephine Dunn (the “Co”). RM&CO has studios in Glasgow, London and Balerna, Switzerland.

YG11 is open for submissions - click here to enter.

Emily Macrae: Was there a particular piece of design that inspired you to become a designer? 

Tony Brook: I didn’t realize that I wanted to be a designer necessarily. I started collecting very early on and it was all graphic design based. So the first thing I collected was stamps, as people often do. I found I had a very opinionated view of what I should collect and not collect. I wasn’t collecting for monetary value, I was collecting them based on what they looked like, so things that visually appealed to me. That was my first design epiphany. When I started to take an interest in art I was very lucky. My teacher during junior school used to send me out on the playground to do drawing during math because he really thought I had some talent. He was really wonderful and he taught me an awful lot. So there came a point when I was leaving school and I had done well in art all the way through school. I was trying to think about what to do and college seemed like a really good option, but my mum sat me down and said, “Have you ever thought of being a commercial artist?” which is what they were called then. 

Then I started thinking about all the records sleeves I’d got and you know again there was an epiphany. So that really excited me. So I thought that I won’t be designing ads, but record sleeves. I thought that was incredibly exciting. So I went to college for that. But even that was a bit of a ziggity-zaggity kind of route. It wasn’t straight forward. Because I was good at illustration they took me in and I thought that’s what I wanted to do for a long time. So it’s really odd that I went to college for illustration, but the entire time I was gravitating towards type. I just realized that’s what I want to do, I wanted to do design. The college actually threatened to kick me out because at that point I was doing illustration and photography, both reasonably well, and they said that I had to do one of those two, not graphic design. But I had made up my mind at that point. I’d seen some wonderful work from Studio Dunbar and knew that I wanted to be a designer. I called the school and told them that they were going to have to kick me out because I wanted to be a designer, so they relented and took me on. 

Emily: That is really interesting. I wasn’t really aware that design existed during my childhood. The moment for me was when I noticed David Carson’s record sleeve for Nine Inch Nail’s The Fragile. It came out when I was a young teenager. That’s when I thought if I can’t be a rock star I would be a graphic designer. 

Tony: I was nearly a rock star as well. 

Emily: Really? 

Tony: Not really. In the same way that you were. I was in a punk band called The Generators. I’ve never admitted this before. We used to have our practice in this run down house next to a mortuary. So it was like waking the dead. So did you ever get to play in front of an audience? 

Emily: Yeah. We were an all girl band and were well called Permafrost, which is a lot worse than The Generators. There’s student competition in New Zealand called The Rock Quest and we won the Wellington heat. 

Tony: You’re way ahead of me. All we did was practice for months and months and months. We got a whole set together. Then eventually we just stopped doing it and split. Then next day we got a gig, but we had sold all of our equipment. 

Emily: You could have been a rock star. You were so close. 

Tony: I could have been. I think I got the better deal being a designer. 

Emily: So when you set up Spin where there any unexpected challenges? 

Tony: Oh, just about everything. That is a really difficult question to answer because there were literally so many things that I had absolutely no clue about. I was really fortunate in that my partner Trish had done a course in Fashion Management and that’s an easily transferable skill. Having her with me meant that it was so much easier than it would have otherwise been. But we still made horrendous mistakes. Like with every design studio, life can be precarious. You can have fantastic times and think this is brilliant and its going to be like this forever and then it suddenly goes down and you’re wondering if you’re going to survive. 

Emily: I heard that the studio got so big that you didn’t know what to do with it. 

Tony: There was one point that it really did get me down that it was so big. And it was not something I was familiar with. I had never worked in big companies and I just didn’t understand it anymore. I felt like the Queen walking around saying, “And what do you do?”. That’s what it was like. Literally I didn’t know what people were doing from one minute to the next. Be careful what you wish for. 

There was a point that I wrote down all these clients that we wanted to work for, all these gigantic clients. And then we ended up working for a lot of them and it really wasn’t what you would imagine it would be. It wasn’t great. I am much much happier where I am now. It just feels like a really nice place to be. 

Montreal Meets is an annual two-day festival focused on inspiring and connecting the creative world. Dana will be speaking at 3:30 PM on Tuesday, May 28 2013.

Pizza Compass is tweeting here.

Brian Collins: Let’s jump in. You were my student in a masters program.

Matt Luckhurst: Yes. I was at the School of Visual Arts, MFAD program run by Steve Heller and Lita Talarico.

Brian: I’m interested to know the decision making process that got you from Alberta to a graduate program in New York City.

Matt: It’s awfully cold there so I had to get out. Graphic design was my way out. New York City seemed like the biggest, baddest sort of challenge out there. It’s where most of the design I admired happened in North America. I wanted to get here and get my hands dirty. SVA was silly enough to accept me, so off I went.

Brian: So what was so interesting about the SVA program?

Matt: One, was New York. Two, were the teachers. Three, was the “designer as author” approach. The idea of authorship, that you as a designer are a maker, and - not being too high-minded about design - that’s what has always interested me.

”Design is a big word but, ultimately, kind of dangerously meaningless.”

Brian: Paula Antonelli at MOMA told me she wants to move design out of the East Wing and into the West Wing. I think that’s the good, right ambition. Design is a big word but, ultimately, kind of dangerously meaningless. It covers everything from a reinvention of global governance to trying to figure out what color the drapes should be.

Matt: Design thinking. It’s really stopping ourselves from looking at design so simplistically – only as someone on a computer with a stylus. Design affects everything.

Brian: Do you think our daily work with craft - with making stuff - has been minimized within the broader context of design thinking? One concern of mine is that people who actually love to make things - people who draw and paint and build - are somehow diminished in the “thinking” conversation.

Matt: I agree completely of course. I think we get caught up in it at times though. There is still beauty in making something beautiful, that’s not a bad thing. Yet, design needs to be able to be, elevated. I think where it can become diminished depends on the audience its directed towards. It feels like we’re marketing ourselves to ourselves in a way. I don’t know if that’s always necessary.

Brian: I knew that you were a graphic designer, but I didn’t know until I saw the illustrations in your thesis that you were also a good painter and illustrator. Why is that important to you? 

Matt: I think every designer needs to look beyond what they’re comfortable with. It’s all about making things. I started in sketch books and then graffiti and went to jail, and then…

Brian: Wait. You went to jail? For graffiti?

Matt: Arrested, I should say. I spent two separate nights in jail. Yeah.

Brian: Jesus. Did you have to wear safety orange?

Matt: No. They let me wear my normal garb. Some good jokes, though. Cops have great senses of humor.

My undergrad was at the Alberta College of Art & Design. They drove home the importance of drawing. It’s important to develop the ability to get an idea out quickly. It doesn’t always need to be beautiful. It doesn’t need to be anything other than a way to visualize what’s going on in your head.

You need to try as many things as you can. This is something I’ve learned a lot the last couple years - just keep pushing it. Even when you think you’re done, what else can you do? Imagination is great, but you can’t actually say whether this thing works or it doesn’t until you really look at it. See it. As much as you can theorize what might work, ultimately, there is a level of straight, blue collar effort that has to go into this stuff to find appropriate solutions.

“When you go into a project you first pursue only one direction. Done. Then you’ll suddenly ricochet and do the exact opposite thing.”

Brian: That’s interesting. You’re super productive. I mean, you quickly generate a really wide range of ideas and get them up on the wall, fast. It seems to me, that when you go into a project you first pursue only one direction. Done. Then you’ll suddenly ricochet and do the exact opposite thing. There are few designers I’ve worked with who like to produce such a broad exploration - and who enjoy producing it all so quickly. Usually, designers have a sort of specific sensibility they prefer.

Matt: That’s why I like painting. It’s is my own self-expression. Design is something else. You need to find what’s appropriate for that need or challenge or whatever problem confronts you. The best solution may not always be an aesthetic direction you love. It might not be your favorite thing personally, but if it really solves the problem then it’s up to you to push it to a place where you do like it.

Brian: I think in designing anything you can never be really, truly objective. You also want to put smart things, things you love, into the world, right? 

Matt: Of course. But sometimes the dumbest idea has the best result. The amount of dumb things I’ve made that have turned out lovable is fascinating. You can’t really discount anything at the beginning.

Brian: So at the beginning of an engagement that’s why you’re okay firing off an explosion of different ideas? Some, say, more personal ones and others that you’re not sure about but are still somewhat interesting to you? Then you’re willing to let that idea land anywhere. Fine. But then how do bring it back and make it your own again?

Matt: You inevitably will, I think, make it your own. If you actually give it time and work it and nurture the thing enough, eventually you will see it become your own.

Brian: Is there anything in your Young Guns work, that is more personal that you’re proud of? And another piece that is more objective, that you’re also proud of?

Matt: Obviously, the children’s book I made is very personal - Paul Bunyan and Babe the Big Blue Ox: The Big Pancake Adventure. It’s a story I wrote and illustrated. I was in so far in over my head on that, I learned a lot. There was no turning around and pointing at a client brief on that one. Then there are logos in my work that have a geometric, reserved touch to them, I think. But that’s the difference between identity design and a children’s book. One will always be more emotional, intentionally.

Brian: So what do you look forward to over the course of the next few years?

Matt: I’ve reached a place where I’m getting to do all these things that I always wanted to do. One, working here. That’s been an opportunity to work on big projects and be challenged.

Brian: That sounds like sucking up.

Matt: That’s okay. I’ve had the opportunity at Collins: to do all of these bigger things and at the same time the ability to work on other, personal projects on the side, like the kids’ books. I’m not looking at this as “how do I change the world of design.” It’s more of a personal journey. I’m still new to this. I’m still trying to gain perspective on how to do it and continue learning. There is always some new challenge ahead and that’s wonderful. 

Working Not Working helps companies discover talented freelancers through a variety of search metrics, including, as the name suggests, their availability. The site won both a Webby and a People’s Voice Award in the Professional Services category.

Entries are now being accepted for YG11. If you’re wondering whether you’re elegible, you probably are - accepted specialties include graphic design, photography, illustration, advertising, art direction, environmental design, film, animation, motion graphics, interactive design, typography, architecture, copywriting, product design, package design, fashion design, furniture design, interior design, sound design and industrial design.

Romain Laurent: We both come from extreme sports type photography. And I think there are a lot people who dismiss that. But I can tell from your pictures that you have a lot of energy and whenever you need to get something done, you get it done. With skiers, you would go out in -10 degrees and get the shot no matter what.

Ryan Schude: Everything for your personal work, you need to treat it the same way because otherwise it’s not going to get done right?

Romain: When you don’t have any money, or anything, you’ll still try to get the shot. So then we you get into other things where there is money, you think, oh I can do that easily.

Ryan: Yeah. Anything is easy to do with time and money unfortunately those two things, we never have. I’m looking at your site now and I’ve been seeing this stuff all over the place. Have you done most of this stuff in Paris?

Romain: It’s a lot of New York stuff. The only problem in France is it’s hard to get people involved with big ideas and stuff. And whenever you’re in the States, people always want to get involved. Whenever I see your pictures, I don’t know how many people you have in them, but it’s crazy.

Ryan: Because everyone is trying to be an actor in LA, it’s so easy to get people to jump on board for a project. The biggest part of the problem is location, props and wardrobe, you know things you have to pay for. But talent is readily available. There is a great website called LA Casting and you just make the post and hundreds of people submit to it every time.

Romain: That’s what I did for one or two of my projects and I was shocked. I got 400 replies. And people get excited about your idea and no one looks at you weird. Especially in LA where it’s even crazier.

Ryan: So you’re saying in Paris it was even more difficult to get people on board for that type of thing?

Romain: Yeah. We’re not used to people having weird ideas. Crazy pictures and crazy projects. So did you do any school, or did you just jump in?

Ryan: Well, I went to business school first. I was still skating after high school and all through college and business school. I was trying to shoot photos of skating and that’s really what started it. When I got out of school I didn’t want to go work in an office so I went to art school for photography because I hadn’t taken any formal classes. I didn’t really know what I was going to do. So I ended up at Daily Bread because I had been shooting so much skating.

I decided I had to move to LA and start all over. So I got a job in a rental house and started assisting and created a whole new portfolio which is where all the big scenes with all of the people started happening because I was at the rental house and had all the equipment I could ask for. It just seemed like an opportunity I should take advantage of. So I was doing that for about a year until I started getting enough work where I could quit assisting and quit the rental house.

And now I’m trying to figure out how that work can build for the future. What’s next? How do I make this commercially viable because it’s half fine art and half commercial? It’s editorial, but just a little bit. It’s going to be an interesting process to see how it all develops from here. No one knows. There’s no set way to do it. But at least it’s exciting to figure it out.

Romain: That’s funny, because I’m also trying to figure out between my personal work and my advertising jobs that are less creative in a way. I’m trying to separate them. For example on my website you won’t find any commission work because I want people to familiarize themselves with the work I do now since I have had calls for things that I don’t want to do anymore. I’m also trying to figure out if I should try to get into fine art, but it’s another world. The people are different, galleries are different. I guess in the US you may be open to crazy things like this, but in France it’s a closed system.

Ryan: I feel the same way. It’s very daunting. I don’t really pursue it at all. It comes around enough that I just let it happen and let it do what it’s going to do. I’ve had the most success in Paris so far with the fine art. It seems people in Paris are more willing to at least buy prints than in America where kids show up to the galleries to more hang out and party.

Romain: It really depends on where you go actually. There’s always the hipster scene in Paris where you can get an exhibition really easily if you want to, but you won’t touch the people you need to touch. It’s interesting because I feel like people like my work more in the States, so I get respected more in there than in France. Maybe it’s because it’s exotic I guess? You’re American so people like you here?

Ryan: Yeah, it’s the novelty right?

Romain: The photos you do, it would be such hard work to get it together in France.