Danny Glix | Featured Artist

Music taste
Avant garde freejazz stride piano, trance, tropicalismo, ambient.

Favorite drink
Amaretto.

Favorite quote
"Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally."
– Abraham Lincoln

Recommended Books
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig.

Specialty?
Front-end aesthetics of all kinds (corporate); drawing obsessive textures (personal).

Dream Project
Architectural art.

Danny Glix:
brand strategist and digital surgeon/sketchaholic

Location: Manhattan, New York City

www.dannyglix.com
www.dannyglix.com/artwork

Interview

How did you become a designer/artist?

I went to a very boring school, and I was a nerd so naturally I drew. And drew, and drew. Filling up sketchbooks with ideas is totally the most enjoyable thing in the world. So when it came time to find a job, I got mine in computers, Photoshopping and Quarking along 'til I found my calling (over a span of 10 years) which is GUI design tailored for technological integration and brand strategy. But that's just the boring stuff I do for work; my heart is really in my sketchbook (I've got a huge stack of over a hundred moleskins filled to the brim with micron ink). I just have such a strong affinity for expression using my hands (piano, clay, art) I think that's how I come to be a designer/artist.

Where are you from originally?

I am originally from Planet Saturn, somehow I mistakenly ended up in Miami, Florida, then Jerusalem, Israel, and now I'm in NYC. I hope to return to Saturn, or Amsterdam/Ibiza at the very least.

Who were your main influences growing up?

Dalí, Dubuffet, Bosch, Beardsley, Giger, Sorayama, DE ES, Alex Grey, de Amusco, Vesalius, William Hunter, Richard Dadd, Boris Vallejo, and the comic art circuit.

Did you go to art school/college for design or are you self-taught?

No college or even high school for me; I was stuck in a position to earn my own living really young. I started coding HTML part-time at age 13, and gravitated toward front-end on/offline design. I guess I was good at it, and my program knowledge expanded out of necessity to get actual work done. The pressure forced me at one point (age 17) to pick up a huge computer language (coding) book each weekend, so I could at least function in the corporate environment. At that time I was working as a JR graphic designer at a publicly traded telecom. I just learned what I needed to know on my own, and that's been fine for me. As I got older and moved up to creative director (age 18), I was able to designate help from others with core competencies of their own, and develop skill in the areas that interested me. So in a few words: totally self-taught.

Any advice or tips to novice designers?

Go to the online design community and geek out. You'll learn more there than anywhere else, plus once you embed yourself in those forums, you'll get in tune with the less popular hidden and moderated boards and that's probably the strongest resource today for my emergencies and inspiration/critiques. It's also a cool way to meet up with the similar talent in your area and, if you're truly a creative pro, you're gonna want to be in touch with the cats doing things in that specific similar vein to yourself.

What has been the most rewarding and challenging project you have worked on?

That's difficult. I've put up hundred-page Web sites in a few days, and made Flash presentations that were used to replace .ppt files for megacorp annual reports so the CEO can look cool while delivering earnings, but the single coolest project I ever did was taking about a month-and-a-half, with six graphic designers working for me at the time, and developing a kickass Flash site with all the functionality of my dreams – and it was actually my site. The site isn't even live anymore, but it was just such a good feeling to be able to be creative like that and fully motivated – I want to get there again someday in some way, hopefully drawn art.

What is your favorite design piece? Why?

It's not even something I can reference. An old man wrapped in a shawl crying – it was an Audrey Beardsley 'type' illustration and the bottom faded into bricks and a broken city. It evoked emotion and was drawn, and the fact that it was tangibly iconic, yet manmade, turned me on.

What American artist inspires you most?

David Aronson, some guy you probably never heard of – he's an art teacher in Willow Grove Pennsylvania. He grew up in the circus and draws subversive trippy artwork. This guy had every reason not to push the bounds and give in to corporate ideology, but he does his thing and is so autonomous to it, that the raw, daintily drawn nature spills from his pencil and into my arms.

What unlocks your creativity?

Tears of joy or sadness, psychotropic dopamine, the opportunity for solid focus.

All images have been used with permission. All images are copyrighted and strictly for educational and viewing purposes.