Mike Perry, Keetra Dean Dixon, Andrio Abero and Timothy Goodman were featured at the AIGA/NY Fresh Dialogue 27: Design Dualities event on Thursday, March 24, 2011 held at the Tishman Auditorium.

Mike Perry shared his sketches and discussed his past and upcoming projects, “most of the work that I get that pays the bills comes from the work that I do for myself. I find it refreshing,” he said.

He talked about his upcoming solo exhibition, Lost in the Discover of What Shapes the Mind, at the MACD Gallery in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and the release of his new book, Pulled, where he shares his love for printmaking, “designers think of printmaking as an important avenue of expressing themselves,” said Mike Perry.

The next designer of the group was Keetra Dean Nixon. Keetra is a graphic and experience designer, who described herself as an “experiential choreographer” working with tactile and 3-dimensional objects, platforms and methodologies which “create a connection between communication and miscommunication,” she described. She explained how the 2-d and 3-d worlds are blending together, and shared her methods of staying fresh by finding new ways to push the parameters of her work through digital tool breaking.

She showed an example of digital tool breaking where she used JavaScript in Illustrator to create 3-d letterforms and transform the word “mistake” into the word “amazing” for a spread in Good Magazine.

Next, Andrio Abero showed work from his former studio, 33rpm, which produced numerous posters for Seattle’s vibrant music scene. Early on in his career, Andrio aligned his work with the music industry, “I secretly wanted to be in a rockband, but I studied classical piano growing up. In some way I wanted to be a part of that subculture,” he said.

He discussed how his early days in silkscreen printing shaped his design process. “My early design work was about exploring style,” said Andrio, “I quickly learned the limitations of silkscreen printing. It forced me to limit my color palette, note how 2 layers overlay and make a 3rd color, and deal with negative space. The whole process really shaped my own aesthetic,” he added.

The last speaker, Tim Goodman, started his presentation showing early work of book jacket designs, and corporate branding work for CNN Grill, Mott’s rebranding, Microsoft’s retail store and other projects. “In branding, your voice is oftentimes filtered through the client, so for me it was really important to find my own voice,” he said.

He discussed how he infuses his personal work with his own voice and personality. One of his favorite personal projects is spot illustrations, “good spot illustrations is to graphic design what good freestyling is to hip-hop–and that’s street cred,” he said. He works to “not always have style”. He shared his favorite spot illustration projects, recent projects, and a wall mural for Ace Hotel in New York where he hand-drew 99 picture frames of NYC.

At the end of the presentation, the four speakers participated in a panel discussion.

An audience Q&A concluded the event.

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Mike Perry

Keetra Dean Dixon

Andrio Abero

Timothy Goodman

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AIGA/NY Fresh Dialogue 27: Design Dualities

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