So what’s your title end up being for doing that?  That seems like more than a graphic artist-level gig.

Well for the journal itself I end up being the Artistic Director/Designer.  They add the ‘slash Designer’ part because I actually do the interior layouts and environments for the nominee categories, etc.  I also do the promotional materials associated with the show from fliers to ad layouts that would appear in say, Variety Magazine.  Also the key art is incorporated into the Image Awards website.  So the web designers have the art to use as a central theme for what they create.  I have no part in physically creating the site but the art is central to the site layout.  The art is just appropriated across platforms for the general theme of that year’s awards show.

 

With landing gigs like that why would you think you need to bone up on the other stuff you mentioned earlier?

Because it’s not enough.  And the Image Awards is only once a year so I have to stay diversified.  There is always something new to keep up with be it technology or new designers on the horizon.

 

What areas do you look to expand your knowledge in?

Motion graphics for sure.   It’s my opinion that motion and visual art is not going anywhere.  They are becoming the staple of graphics creation.  I feel that print is all but dead completely.  Or it will be in the next 10 years. Unless a trend happens where there’s a resurgence in the print side.   So, I’d like to see myself more into special effects and video.

 

You mean like title sequences for film and stuff like that?

Yes, that and creating video and graphics pieces for online advertising.  I’ve been taking a whole lot of courses in that direction.  One of my clients right now creates a lot of the titles and video effects for Hollywood as well as high end graphics for the internet that are really cutting edge.  That’s the stuff I want to incorporate into my arsenal.  I’ve seen video effects and graphics stuff that’s coming up for the new Terminator movie, the new Game of Thrones promos and the new Avengers movie that’s like WOW!!  Stuff you wouldn’t believe.  And this technology becomes instrumental in how the promotional campaigns for these projects will be drafted.  They have to factor in “what’s the best way to reach our audience or to promote to them over the web?”  What’s going to grab your attention and not make you click out of the ad as quickly as you can?  If a web presentation idea is dope enough it may get picked up by the film studio for use as or in the movie trailers or get attached to the entire national ad campaign.  The printing side, the internet side, the broadcast… all of that.  The main focus starts out with the internet side for promos you see when you go to imdb.com, for example, and a promo clip takes over the whole screen with a trailer.

 

OK, let’s go back in time a bit.  Tell me about your start and your path in the graphics industry.

Before that I had actually started down the path toward studying art at Santa Monica College but dropped out to become a musician.  I was playing in bands and we performed all up and down the Sunset Strip at the Viper Room, The Whiskey, The Troubador , The Roxy, The Rainbow Room… all of those iconic clubs.  We met with some hostility from the rock bands during those days playing traditionally rock venues as a funk band.  It wasn’t really a cool environment for me so I ended up at BRE.  My first break into doing graphics was with BRE (Black Radio Exclusive) magazine. I’ve been working in this industry for over 20 years now.

 

Wait, we must be missing something man.  You don’t go from zero to working at Black Radio Exclusive magazine.

What happened was I had drive and ambition.  When I was a musician and trying to be a recording artist, I got with BRE as a driver.  I was the person delivering weekly issues to record companies and record executives every week.  So I got to meet the heads of the Warner Bros. R&B Dept., which at that time was Benny Medina and Ernie Singleton.  I got to walk the magazine into Benny Medina’s office and shoot the shit with him every week.  So, at the time, I looked at the job as an opportunity to somehow become that recording artist.  That driver job fed into my REAL dream.  Unfortunately, I found out that some of these execs weren’t interested in talking with the delivery driver about anything (Laughs).

 

I participated with BRE in their industry conferences and I was in and out of the art department.  I saw that the art department was losing a lot of art directors left and right.  One night, one of the art directors didn’t show up and I told my boss “I can finish this book.  I know what I’m doing.”  It seems like I went from zero to one hundred but during the time that I was the driver I was slowly learning how to use the stat camera.  I was slowly learning how to cut the pages on the drafting tables and wax machines, the Prototype 2020 typesetting machines.  Creating layouts and magazine pages and advertising was a manual job then.  This was before desktop publishing apps were as prevalent as they are now. 

 

In 1990 or ’91 BRE made the move to using desktop publishing.  My boss came to me and was like “Lance, we really like you and we really like what you’re doing but if you don’t know desktop publishing apps by next week we’re going to have to go with someone else.  You’re going to have to go back to driving.  So I stayed up at BRE for a week straight.  I didn’t even come home.  I was up there on the computer night and day, trial and error, trying to figure it out.  I had to figure out why stuff wasn’t working.  I had no one at the time to teach me how to do it.  Finally, they got somebody in.  Her name was Tricia Geislinger.   She came in and showed me a few little tricks and I just took over and ran with it.  That very next year, by the end of 1991 I was the art director of BRE.  So from 1987, I went from being the driver and Padawan learner, to Production Artist to becoming the Associate Art Director to becoming the Art Director in ‘91.  A short time considering I didn’t have a degree.

 

My next role was as The Album Network designer in 1995.  I was the first Black designer hired for the Rock publication. By ’98 I was Vice President of Creative Services for The Network Group magazine group which included Album Network, Urban Network, Network 40 and bunch of other publications.  I left to pursue more web based graphics work.

 

My next stop was Digital Entertainment Network.  DEN was the first online network creating webisode-formatted content. I worked on the "Tales from the East Side" show which is one of 10 different series the network would run.  TFTES had 20 episodes set to go.  The company collapsed under the weight of a scandal involving the company founder.  Everything folded.

With that, I went back to Album Network for two years and then relocated to Georgia.  In Georgia I worked at the Atlanta Journal and Cox Media.

 

I've been back in Los Angeles for a bit now and Linda and I decided to launch a design firm and go independent.  So Lance Whitfield Designs was born.

 

You have some other family involved in the arts right?

My father, Vantile Whitfield, was a writer, director and actor so the creative thing runs in the family.  My sister is the actress Bellina Logan.  She's been in everything including E.R., Interview With A Vampire, Sons Of Anarchy and Twin Peaks.  Also, my stepmother was Lynn Whitfield.