Seymour Chwast is nothing less than a living legend. As Steven Heller wrote in his 1986 article for AIGA, “It would be difficult to imagine contemporary American and European graphic design and illustration without the presence of Seymour Chwast…A beguiling sense of humor underpins his illustration, and a keen understanding of traditional design governs his method. Chwast and his Push Pin colleagues (Milton Glaser and Ed Sorel) helped reintroduce the long divorced principles of illustration and design.” (Read the rest of Heller’s great article here)

Seymour came to visit Art Center last week, and I had the pleasure of chatting with him about t-squares, that unruly Ed Sorel, and a career with no regrets.

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What do you wish you had done earlier in your career?

I thought I had the right combination of working full time jobs for a few years and then going on my own. I haven’t had a full time job working for somebody for over 50 years.

The again, there are responsibilities when you’re on your own. You have to make sure you get something like a pension. People who work expect something after they retire. You have to take care of your retirement.

Did you ever have motivation issues? Did you take breaks from your work?

Outside of some vacations—I never took a sabbatical.

No trips to Bali for you?

No. I don’t know how [Stefan Sagmeister] did it. I would feel totally—Oh! I did, yes. I went to Europe. Must have been three weeks.

Quite a vacation!

Yeah, otherwise I feel too guilty about not working.

What is your favorite project you’ve worked on?

Well, I like doing books. I mean, it doesn’t have to be a book on my work, it could be anything at all. I used to think that I should do a full-length animated film before I die, but I don’t care about that anymore.

I used to do a lot of commercial stuff—spots mostly, but I haven’t been asked. I did a copy of The Nose in animation. I think you can get a link to it on my site.

How did you deliver it to people? Just send them the link?

Yeah. I told people. My Facebook friends (laughs). Especially people who I thought might give me some work.

Have any of your projects been a complete failure?

I had a few shows that didn’t go anywhere. When I was doing all the metal pieces. Maybe some bad business decisions, I’ve had a couple of bad partners. But all in all I feel lucky. Things have worked out pretty well. No major regrets.

Do you have any advice for young designers?

Well I guess things haven’t changed that much. When I started out it was such a long time ago—I just wonder whether whatever I say is relevant.

I’m sure it will be…other than the part about only needing a table and the t-square.

To start your own studio you really have to boot up to get the equipment and stuff like that…we didn’t have to do that. We had a payphone, which Ed Sorel broke because he was pissed off at the Photostat house…Photostats! You don’t do Photostats anymore, so there’s no Photostat house to get pissed off at.

What about balancing outside work while in school? Did you focus on your schoolwork, or should we being trying to get freelance projects?

School is really precious because you’re never going to do that again. Cooper Union was only a three-year school in those days, and the last year I really wanted to get out. I wanted to get a job. I didn’t think I was learning enough there. But you should take advantage of the time, because it’s an experience that will never happen again.

However, if some freelance work comes along, it helps you get started because you start learning the business; what’s expected of you, how to understand what clients want, how to deal with them, how to charge—things of that sort. You get a little head start, but the school experience is valuable.

Were there any really important lessons that you learned from Cooper Union that stuck with you?

No. I haven’t been obsessed by anything I should have done differently. First we were freelancing, then we said, “Ok, we’re a studio” and then we started looking for work. We were interested in design—we wanted to do trademarks just like everybody else, and those are the things that made money. You do much better as a designer than you can as an illustrator. And that didn’t happen, because Push Pin was known for its illustration—that was the thing that people saw.

So that’s good, right? You got carried into a direction that you liked more?

Oh yeah, illustration was very important to what we did. The idea was always illustration-based, but design became part of it.

Are there any contemporary illustrators or designers that you really admire?

I like [Stefan] Sagmeister’s work, Marian Bantjes—I like what she does. I don’t look that much, I’m ashamed to say. What amazes me is seeing so many good illustrators and to see one thing that they’ve done, and then never see any of their work again. Like in The New York Times there are a lot of illustrators—some people repeat, like Heads of State, Shout—I don’t know who they are, I think they’re studios, but do they get other work? Do they have day jobs? I don’t know.

When you and Milton Glaser worked on projects together, how did you go about collaborating?

We both worked on it and come up with our own ideas, and usually the best won. Sometimes we got stuck and we’d go away and then come back to it, and the best idea came to the top. Sometimes he would do part of it and I would do part of it, and we would come out with something good.

(Photos by Michael Dooley)

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