Chuck Anderson
http://www.npandco.com Biography
I am an artist and designer working on personal and commercial projects of all different kinds. I'm happily married (as of August 2007), have amazing friends and family, check my email too much, love watching Curb Your Enthusiasm, and love traveling. As for how I got into this field, it was about 4 years ago when I decided I wasn't going to go to college. I had very little money and was living with my parents... I had some personal work on nopattern.com at the time and decided I'd start trying to get some people to hire me. I started emailing just about everybody whose email address I could get my hands on from magazines, agencies, companies, record labels, whoever... Started getting some responses and pretty much built everything around self promoting like that.
Where do you work? What do you do there?
I work from my home here in Bloomington, IL. Although this is a temporary location for us, as we're here pretty much so my wife can finish up her last year of school. I do just about everything from here including my work, handling my online store (packing orders, customer service, shipping)...everything.
How long have you been in this field?
About 3 1/2 years.
What role did (are) you play(ing) in the project?
I basically am NoPattern, everything that gets done from the business side to the art side...so I guess every role or title that you could think of, I am. Ha. If that makes any sense.
What was (is) your inspiration for this project?
I am heavily inspired by the parts of the world around me that have gone unspoiled, in other words, nature, relationships, people, just life in general... I don't like to look for inspiration in politics, news, and culture too much, as I feel those are all things that are not what I know best and things that will be irrelevant over time.
What is in your equipment/gear setup?
I'm on a 2x2.66GHz Xeon Power Mac with 8GB of RAM, 500GB internal hard drive and a 500GB external for backup, extra space, etc...Two 21" Sony monitors which hopefully I will soon be replacing if and when Apple announces new displays... Photoshop and Illustrator CS3, Wacom Intuos 3 tablet, and my favorite hardware of all, my Epson Pro 3800 printer with plenty of Hahnemuhle paper to boot.
What are some websites you visit daily?
http://www.thebrilliance.com,
http://www.supertouchblog.com,
http://www.designspongeonline.com,
http://www.ffffound.com,
http://www.drudgereport.com
Who's work do you most enjoy?
Mark Romanek, Deanne Cheuk, Tiffany Bozic, Stanley Donwood, Josh Keyes, John Dyer Baizley, Phil Hale
What advice can you share to people just getting into this field?
Don't ever freelance if you're not ok being by yourself for countless hours and hours on end, even going some days without leaving your office. It takes a toll on you but it's incredibly rewarding. Also, don't copy or steal other peoples work. Being inspired is one thing, completely emulating what someone else has done is another. Look around you, go outside...there is an endless supply of inspiration in the world and you don't need to sit on the internet to find it.
Any other comments?
Aw yeah, it's business time.
