Travis Simon (born 1983) is an artist and graphic designer living in Brooklyn, NY. Since receiving his BFA from the School of Visual Arts in 2006, Travis has remained active in painting, screen printing and custom furniture fabrication. He’s worked for a broad range of clients including Toyota Scion, Virgin Airways and Frank151….and very soon graniph will be releasing a new design from him.

Simon’s focus on hand lettering and calligraphy affords him numerous opportunities to create outside of the digital world. His work is often derived from traditional sign painters, 1960s New York advertising and an overall respect for the old school methods. Currently he’s looking forward to building a larger client base and keeping up his steady creativity process of making something new every day.

(1) Please tell us a little about something you are currently working on/obsessed with: I’m currently working on trying to build up everything I’ve started. I have a hundred different projects going on right now from custom furniture and paintings for clients, to a classic hand-done sign shop and book binding company I’m trying to establish. One of my major obsessions is calligraphy which I’ve been practicing for three years now. I love the organic flow of script and calligraphy and how well it mixes with so many other aesthetics. I’m also a perfectionist so I spend a lot of my time practicing writing different words and phrases over and over to better my hands. Lately I’ve been doing a lot of custom furniture too. Wood working is one of my favorite past times, a majority of my free time goes to building custom furniture, benches, and full cabinetry at my shop for friends and family and clients I have all around the city.

(2) What are the main obstacles you face to working creatively? My main obstacles right now are “Time” and “Myself”! ha ha no not really me, just Time I guess. I have a problem saying No to people about work and freelance jobs. I try to make sure there’s always money coming in, but sometimes things overlap and get very overwhelming. That just beyond clutters my schedule making it hard to give the individual attention to certain projects that deserve it. Almost as though I have an alternate personality; he’s a pushy boss and he wants to slave drive me all the time. I love the work though, I love being busy and I always enjoy having multiple projects to juggle around, keeps my mind going full time. No matter what the time given, I put my full heart into everything I work on. I enjoy the struggle in scraping through life, living on cash payments to random freelance checks. Out there looking in every creative corner to expand on. Like many other artists, i think a lot of my pure creativity comes from my struggle of every day life, money and living in an expensive location. Making the best of every situation, regardless of what you’re missing or can’t ever have. It brings out a survival instinct in me that mixes with a need to create and illustrate my thoughts. The lack of certain royalties in life forces me to be creative and find every way to enjoy everything i do. At the same time I want to leave the biggest impression on this earth while I’m here.

(3) What do you do to come up with new ideas or when you are having trouble being creative? I have very few creative slumps, maybe once in a while. I try to delegate a few hours a week to just relaxing and not doing creative projects so i don’t burn out my creative drive. Sometimes I can redirect my work to another project if I feel drained on one specific thing. Otherwise I have a few coffee shops and parks that I go to a couple times a week to just sit and collect my thoughts.

One thing I’ve been doing lately that helps me, is my 1 Drawing A Day project. I started this a few months ago and basically I force my self to draw or create at least ONE drawing, painting, or object every day. I usually post them on my website at the end of each week. – http://www.traviswsimon.com/#347312/1-Drawing-a-Day – This way no matter what the paid project for the day is, i know i have at least one creative thing to bring home with me that i enjoyed making and i know i had full creative freedom making.

I enjoy staying away from Television and Computers as much as possible too. I love thinking of things in my own crazy mind. I have endless possibilities of inspiration in my head and all around me in this beautiful New York City. There’s no excuse to be bored in this crazy city. The Internet and television has so much information and images, its hard to not be influenced by a lot of it, so… i just choose to avoid it. I read the paper or an old design book, listen to National Public Radio, and I love listening to music to inspire myself and get me outta some shitty work moods.

(4) What are some books/websites/bands/etc that you recommend? I am obsessed with old type specimen books (I’ll study em front to back for hours), old design magazines, oh and old yearbooks – for some reason i get a kick out of old yearbooks. Looking at the people from way back when, seeing what they talked like in the 40′s and 50′s.

Music is a really large part of all my inspiration. I started collecting vinyl a few years back and since then i have aquirred over 1,500 and become obsessed with a lot of old jazz and a TON of late 70′s early 80′s smooth rock: Hall & Oats, Michael MacDonald, Steely Dan, E.L.O., Roy Ayers, The Spinners, The Isley Brothers just to name a few of my favorites.

I don’t really spend that much time on the Internet so I’m not familiar with too many great websites to recommend.

(5) What is the future of the T-shirt? (Does it have one?) Why? I never gave much thought to the design I did as a T-shirt. After mocking one up to see myself i really enjoyed it so i went with it. I would like to make it into a full printed shirt with the appliances covering the entire fabric of the shirt. Maybe make some kitchen towels or place mats. I originally printed it as a poster in a few size variations. If i were to continue with it in a flat printed format, I would love to expand on the overall number of house appliances and create an almost non-repeating pattern for kitchen wall paper or custom ceramic tiles featuring each appliance. I would like to do an entire line of plates and dishes as well.

I intend on expanding the entire concept of ” mass collection illustrations” as well. I’m working on a large number of illustrations dealing with skateboarding objects and its culture, as well as a series of old nostalgic logos and signage.