Get your brooms and dust pans out, because I’m about to unapologetically drop some names! Well, at least one. Matt Vogel will be bringing back his super fun podcast Below the Frame for a second season soon and I thought I’d take the opportunity to talk about the artwork I designed for him.
“Who is Matt Vogel?” I hear someone outside of my very niche and modest audience ask. Matt Vogel is a very prominent and super talented puppeteer who has worked on The Puzzle Place, Between the Lions, Oobi, The Muppets, and Sesame Street to name a few. Oh yeah and he also performs Big Bird and Kermit the Freaking Frog—again, to name just a few.
I have been (dreams–do–come–true level) fortunate to have been commissioned by more than a few Muppet industry people to do some illustrative work. Most of them I worked hard to impress directly, but Matt’s request came quite literally out of the blue. I was just settling down for the perfect beach day with my wife and daughter down the Jersey shore. Avon might not be the Maldives, but it’s absolutely my happy place. Suddenly my phone sang out that I had an email and like Pavlov’s dog I chose to ignore my family and my feel good ocean vibes and serve the digital overlord’s calling.
I did a double take at the sender’s name and Matt’s casual tone.
…I wanted to reach out to you about the possibility of creating an art card for a podcast I'm working on called Below the Frame. I loved the many Muppet pieces I've seen online -- as well as the ones I own that were created by you -- and I'd love to see if this might be something that interests you…
Yes. Yes that interests me very much.
So all fanatical freaking out aside of who I was doing work for, I was faced with a real nightmare: Matt’s concept design was actually really good.
Matt’s original design.
Whenever a designer is commissioned to do anything, it’s usually one of three scenarios.
The client has no idea what they want and needs your help. This can be creatively very freeing unless subconsciously they actually do know what they want and their level of communication (after seeing your initial concepts and then re-designs) can be very helpful or subterranean gibberish.
The client knows exactly what they want and gives you very clear directions. This can make your job easy unless their level of communication (after seeing your initial concepts and then re-designs) can be very helpful or subterranean gibberish.
The client has an idea of what they want, but are open to your expertise and professional opinion. This can make for a very fun and collaborative experience unless their level of communication copy & paste yada yada yada.
A very small selection of concepts I sent through.
Matt was definitely a number 3 here (with cognitive above average communication skills), but I immediately got hung up on his banger design. What could I do better? As a result, my first few rounds of concepts were rigidly confined to “inside the box” (or TV frame as the case may be). Eventually, I did what every creative person does when they’re up against the clock and just said, “£*€% it. I’ll shoot from the hip.”
Real quick; I want to give all up-and-coming designers & artists some really good advice. When creating multiple concepts, you will definitely have favorites. You may even want to try a few tricks to push the client towards picking your favorite concept. One of these tricks might be submitting one or two “black cats.“ A “black cat“ is a concept that is purposely bad. Let’s say you design 2 concepts you love and believe with all your heart that one of them has to be picked. So to steer things your way, you create a third, God awful design—confident they will comparatively see your vision—and avoid the black cat in favor of the other “better” selections. It is my repeated experience the client will always choose the black cat because most people have terrible taste. Bottom line: always only submit concepts and designs you are pleased with and just openly tell your client which are your personal favs and why.
Matt (and his family who helped him choose) really gravitated towards my out–of–bounds direction, and now he and I were really able to work together to make his final podcast art. Our design tastes were actually relatively similar, and I got to make something I’m not just proud of who it was for, but how it came out too.
Some more tweaks before getting the design just right.
Check out Below the Frame wherever you get your podcasts and tell ‘em Dave sent you.
The final design for “Below the Frame with Matt Vogel”
Very special thanks to Matt for letting me rehash all this stuff and being truly generous with his kind words, time, and being an overall amazing human being.