CA: What do you think of the status quo in design right now?
TJ: I don’t give a fuck about what’s going on in graphic design. I find it boring. I find it incredibly boring. If you were to ask me what inspires me at the moment, I wouldn’t name any graphic designers whatsoever. There has always been very few people who are willing to break the mould and do something that’s different – people always want to be sheep, and when there’s sudden movement then everyone wants to follow the same movement.
The way it is with software and computers, it’s very easy to make something that looks good, but I’m not interested in things that just look good. They’ve got to have far more depth than that, and they’ve got to have a purpose, whether that’s an intellectual purpose or an emotional purpose.
“I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element. It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather. I possess tremendous power to make life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration, I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis is escalated or de-escalated, and a person is humanized or de-humanized. If we treat people as they are, we make them worse. If we treat people as they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming.”
Why had I not discovered this brilliant comedy from , would-you-believe-it, America, before recently? The Larry Sanders Show is hands down hilarious, and will go nicely alongside alan partridge and the office DVDS.
[Doug comes into the Sidewinder without a shirt on] Doug: What’s up, Josh? Give me two packs of cigarettes today. Working overtime: Sixteen hours. [Puts malt liquir bottle on the counter] Doug: And nature’s nectar, wake-up juice. And give me six of these beef jerkys. I’m hungry enough to chew the crotch out of a rag doll. [Sidewinder Boss spots him] Sidewinder Boss: Hey. Hey. How many times do I have to tell you? No shirt, no service. Get the hell out of my store. What do you think this is, Club Med? Doug: It’s called America, dude. Learn the rules. Sidewinder Boss: “Learn the rules?” No, YOU learn the rules. We Greeks invented democracy. Doug: You also invented homos. Sidewinder Boss: Fuck you. Doug: You wish. You gotta buy me dinner first. Doug: Rock n’ roll, baby: Freedom of speech.
