Despite having 2 events…in the same space (different floors)…on the same night, and some hurdles to um…hurdle, both Playtime and Soul Overdose came off rather well.

The attendance was crazy, tons of toys were collected for both The Homeless Children’s Playtime Project and The No. VA. Family Services Head Start Center, and N’Digo Rose, and Phonte (earning a well deserved Grammy nod) both killed Soul Overdose.

Thanks to Kat (Lil Soso), AM Radio (PJ killed the live mural), Karim (Smirnoff),  Sandra (SCION), and Dave (Frank 151) for supporting.

Check the link below for more pics…..

I’m a fan of design and an even bigger fan of concepts and the guys at Burton Snowboards nailed it in applying a healthy dose of the two with The Good Book 2010 catalog! Based on a Bible you’d find in most hotels, The Good Book, has every detail that most of those Bibles have: embossed gold lettering, crackled burgundy/black front and back cover, gold tipped edges, even the nylon bookmarker!

Thanks to Billy from Burton for shooting me this and their new DVD.

The last in the five-event Be You series closes with “Soul Overdose“. This year soul resident N’digo Rose and DJ Jahsonic hosted Yahzarah and Lady Alma in some of DC’s coolest spots. For the final hit, we are taking it back to where it all began, with our very special guest Phonte of Little Brother and Foreign Exchange acclaim.

Wed. Dec. 16

@LIV 2001 11th St. NW

9pm-12am

DJ Jah-sonic – hip hop and rare grooves

Visit www.lilsoso.com for tickets.

and on that same night….

PLAYTIME – Custom Toy & Art Party

Wed. Dec. 16

@ LIV 2001 11th St. NW

Custom Toys and Toy Art provided by AM Radio

FREE Entry w/Toy
9pm – 12am
Drink Specials
DJ Jahsonic – hip hop and rare grooves

*Special Guest Performer

Toys to benefit The Homeless Children’s Playtime Project and Northern VA Family Services Early Head Start Center.

*Please bring toys that inspire creativity and learning: building blocks, activity kits (oragami, necklace making), art supplies and children’s books that represent African American and Latino children.

Visit www.mbilashaka. com/amradio for more info.

Its going to be nuts!!!

The saying goes “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” which I know is cliche, but in this case its very true.  Meet Spencer Nikosey, son of Tom Nikosey (subject of my marquee interview for The Classics Series 2: SOUL), and his ultra cool line of bags KILLSPENCER.

Made from a variety of new and vintage combat materials (ex. combat military truck tarp) and sleek details (ex. black metal + acetal mil spec hardware) KILLSPENCER presents a line of backpacks, messenger bags,  brief cases, and more all of which are handmade ensuring the wearer receives an original.  Check them out…

Thanks to everyone that came through for the opening of The Classics – Series 2: SOUL last night.  It was great to see all of those that trooped through the rain to what many consider to be a very memorable experience.

Much like RAP, SOUL was another warm experience – same house party vibe and with the event pretty much being packed the whole night.

Big shout to all those that made this possible: Jeremy + Maiy (Lounge of 3), Karim + Vicky + Nicole (Smirnoff), Amy + Dana (The Source), YZO, Nick Tha 1da, 2-Tone, and Samiya + Hayat (Smirnoff ladies).

Thanks again, happy holidays, and be on the lookout for the more installments (Reggae, Rock, and Jazz) of The Classics in 2010.

Can’t wait for tonight – the final In The Artist’s Studio of ‘09 featuring Res.

By the way, its SOLD OUT!  So unless you’re a blood relative of Kat’s or last name is Obama see you in 2010 for the next INAS.

Visit www.lilsoso.com for more info.

Here’s Part 2 of the Tom Nikosey Interview:

Soul 1: How would you describe that approach? Incorporating what you feel from the client as well as your “Americana” influence…

Tom Nikosey: In “Americana” I don’t mean necessarily Revolutionary style, or Civil War style, or WWII style…

Soul 1: Then pretty much all of those, like sign painting?

Tom Nikosey Yeah, I think that’s a good way to describe it.  They were called sign writers.  Sign painters, poster artists…I’m very influenced by all that stuff, I love that stuff.  I’ve done a lot of posters and a lot of full on illustrations…

Soul 1: Because a lot of that stuff was hand painted.

Tom Nikosey: Oh definitely.  I’ve done a lot of pieces where I’ll paint the whole piece on wood. Then again I’ll illustrate on the computer – whatever it takes to create a feel.  This is commercial art.  These pieces were generated by somebody calling me and saying,” I want you to create a piece for my project.”  So it’s very commercially generated, but I still try to do it so you’d be proud to wear it on a t- shirt.

Soul 1: How much creative freedom are you usually given within the parameters of your projects?

Tom Nikosey: In the beginning not as much as later on.  Art Directors naturally hire a young person who doesn’t have a lot of pieces in their portfolio.  They wanna direct you.  They might see something that you’ve done on another piece and they’d say, “I kinda like that but I wanna push you in this direction,” and you work with them.  And in my case, it’s not strictly illustration; it’s a combination of design and illustration.  I’ve done a lot of lettering pieces that were just done in black and white and printed in solid colors where the design was the whole thing and not necessarily the color.  As I started to build up respect and people were trusting me (more), they would call me for my advice.

Soul 1: What motivated you to go into business for yourself (Tom Nikosey Design)?

Tom Nikosey: I worked for a couple of studios earlier on, and when I realized that I was working so hard for somebody else, and I knew what the price was that they were charging for my work and what I was getting paid from the studio.  I thought to myself, ‘I’ll work harder knowing that I can make more money at what I do.’  I said, “There’s something wrong with this picture.  Nobody’s ever gonna pull the rug out from underneath my feet again.”  So that combined with knowing that I had something to offer and I wanted to be able to be in control of my destiny, I took the chance of working for myself.  In the beginning it’s tough.  Nobody’s paying your insurance, nobody’s paying your medical, nobody’s giving you benefits, no guaranteed amount of work, you have to go out and get it, so…

Soul 1: So how difficult was that back then?  You said there weren’t that many people that even did what you do…

Tom Nikosey: That’s where I think I was lucky.  Because there weren’t that many people that did hand lettering and logos, and they were able to illustrate them too, I found work was coming in at a pretty regular pace after a short while.  So I took on as many jobs as I could and didn’t look back.  Nowadays, especially with the economy, work has been way down.  But in those days, it seemed to be a little bit easier.

Soul 1: What are some of your favorite thematic or typographical elements that you like to incorporate in your work?

Tom Nikosey: I’ve been influenced by different illustrators and designers in movements in design over history: The Art Deco period, The Art Nouveaux period prior – that was very influential on the way I draw and like to design.  I love the 50’s and 60’s; a lot of great graphics and fun things came out in the 50’s… real off – beat stuff.  The 1940’s had a great style to it too: those were war years, and the Life magazine years, and the great glamour stuff that came out of Madison Avenue, and all the fashion stuff.  There were some great psychedelic posters that came out of San Francisco in the late 60’s that were very influential.  Another big influence is Germany in the 1930’s.

Soul 1: Really?

Tom Nikosey: Oh yeah.  The German graphic artists; there were three or four that were just knock- out, and their work still holds up today: Lucien Bernhardt, Ludwig Hohlwine, and then the whole Bauhaus movement, you know.  So, going to art school, you’re exposed to art history and when you get into it you start to see things that had been done before…the originals.  You go to museums and you get knocked out because you think, “oh my god, how did these people come up with this stuff a hundred years ago and I thought it hadn’t been (done) before!”

Soul 1: Speaking of posters, what do you enjoy designing most: logos, albums covers, posters?

Tom Nikosey: I love it all, but I absolutely love posters because it incorporates graphics, illustration, lettering, typography and strong messages.  I mean, a poster is like a billboard.  If you see it and it grabs your eyes for a few seconds and then it holds your attention, it’s a good one.  I always say a postage stamp is like a billboard.  When you’re driving down the street and you see a billboard in the distance, in reality that billboard is about the size of a postage stamp until you get close.  If it grabs your attention, when it’s at a postage stamp size, as you’re driving towards it, if it keeps your attention, that’s a good billboard.  I love what a poster was designed for; the reason for it.  I’ve designed many and I just absolutely love that whole process.  I wish printed material was held in higher esteem these days, but everything’s digital.  Now a days when you create you have to think about ‘how’s it gonna look on my iphone?’

Soul 1: What was the transition like from hand – drawing to using the computer, i.e. photoshop and illustrator, and was it easy for you to make the adjustment?

Tom Nikosey: It was really hard.  In 1995, work started to go down and Art Directors were starting to want a digital file and I was unable to produce one.  I didn’t know how to do it, so I went out and I bought a Mac, and I started to call friends and asked them over the phone how to do certain things.  But it was very hard; the learning curve was really tough.  You know, working traditionally all those years, never realizing that I’d be able to digitally do what I did by hand…it’s a different sensibility.  But my goal was to make a seamless transition from analog to digital and I pretty much accomplished that after a period of time.

Soul 1: Do you miss doing all the intricate hand details or is it kind of nostalgic at this point?

Tom Nikosey: It’s a matter of what the piece is.  Not too long ago I did a couple of tour logos for a country band called Brooks & Dunn.  I painted the tour logo and the poster on wood.  I was well into computers by then, but I wanted to go back and do something by hand as if it were done back on an old wooden fence or something.  It turned out to be really cool. Painting is one thing; I don’t miss cutting what we call ‘friskets,’ masks for certain areas, when we would do air – brush illustrations.  It’s very tedious and sometimes to do an involved logo it would take 8 hours, only to spray-paint it in about ten minuets and peel it up.  I don’t miss that, but the interesting thing that’s left over when you paint something by hand is that you have a final painting.  When you’re doing it on the computer, there is no final tangible piece of art but the drawing, so I kind of miss that part in a way.

Soul 1: Yeah, being able to physically have something and kind of reflect on it.

Tom Nikosey: Right.

Soul 1: Have you ever suffered from “creative block?”

Tom Nikosey: You know that’s a really great question, and that usually happens in the beginning of your career.  Early in my career, I think it was more nerves or anticipation more than it was the ideas but it seemed like ‘writer’s block.’  As I got more prolific at just drawing and going for it, it seemed to me that I had too many ideas, too many variations.  It kind of came around the late 70’s, right around the time the record industry had just started to go down.  There was a lot of pirating going on, people were copying tapes, the industry was going through troubles with management, and so the record business was pulling back on budgets, and I thought, ‘well, I better re- invent myself.’ So I started going out trying to get movie work – movie logos.  What I realized was, they were nuts!  Requiring an artist to do just dozens and dozens of variations on a movie logo before they would even pick one and if they did, it was a 5% chance that it would go to a finish.  They paid you pretty nicely for the sketches, paid big dollars for the finished piece, but the wait factor was tremendous.  So when I was required to produce a lot of variations on a design, it was such a short period of time I had to work rather fast.  All of a sudden, I started producing a ton of variations, ‘cause you wanted to get the job, you wanted to get the final.  Because of that requirement, it forced you to ratchet up your production level.

Soul 1: So how was that total experience?

Tom Nikosey: It was like being a graphic athlete.  You know, you go into training and you go into a flow.  To give you a perfect example, in the late 70’s there were four or five of us in town that were getting most of the logo work, and we all know each other.  They would call all of us, to work on the same picture.  There would be three or four agency’s calling you because the agency’s pitching the studio’s to get the account.  And so they would call you and they would allot you X amount of dollars to come up with five or ten designs within three days.  So when they did that, you were just nuts for like three or four days. I used to buy rolls of tissue paper rather than pads; seriously­ ­– at 12” wide by 50 yards long, I’d buy a dozen rolls at a time.

Soul 1: What was the experience like designing your first Super Bowl logo, and how did that come about?

Tom Nikosey: The first Super Bowl logo that I designed was Super Bowl XVII, which was held at the Rose Bowl.  That was the game where the Washington Redskins beat the Miami Dolphins.  It was 1983.  I was called by the Art Director of NFL properties, Glen Iwasaki.  He had seen my work and he said, “I would love it if you would work on the Super Bowl logo… would you like to do that?”  I was just, “Are you kidding?!” Then he said, “Well, I can’t guarantee that it would go to a finish, but we would love to see your ideas.”  After meeting with the NFL committee of four or five people who would make a decision, he chose one of my designs.  Actually, it was the first logo for the Super Bowl that was self – contained that sort of created a trademark.  I was limited to three colors: red, white, and blue.  That lasted up until Super Bowl XXV where you were required to do a logo that had to work in black and white for newspapers, and red, white, and blue for the game and that was it, no other colors.  I was lucky enough to get Super Bowl XVII as my first logo, and then I did Super Bowl XX, XXII, and XXV.

Soul 1: How did the “Holiday Deer” and “Bison” stamps come about?

Tom Nikosey: You have to be invited to do a stamp you can’t solicit the Postal Service.  I was called by one of the Art Directors, Carl Hermann, who work’s for the Postal Service to come up with an idea for a Christmas stamp.  There’s five or six Art Directors who work for the Postal Service around the country, and the Stamp Advisory Committee meets several times a year and they tell the Art Directors, “We need a stamp for this cause, we need a stamp for that cause,” and every year, the Christmas stamp comes up.  It’s always the hardest one to design because people buy stamps based on the look.  So the Art Director called me and said we’d like you to work on some ideas for a Christmas stamp.  I came up with several ideas and that was one of them and that’s one of my favorite pieces.  They used it two Christmases in a row.  That really hadn’t been done before– 1999 and 2000.

Soul 1: How does that feel to know that your work is such a part of American history?

Tom Nikosey: That was so wonderful.  My parents were living in Florida at the time and the local newspaper got word of it, and they called and interviewed me.  The most gratifying thing to me was the article came out in the local paper where my parents were living. They were so proud!

Soul 1: What are some of your upcoming projects?

Tom Nikosey: I am working on the release of the Tommy Boland tapes.  Tommy Bolin was a guitar player who was destined to be the runner- up to Jimi Hendrix and he died of an overdose in 1976.  He was a friend of mind and we jammed together.  I was in a band and the lead player in my band recorded him several times in private jams and the tapes were lost for years and we just re-discovered them.  We’re gonna put out a whole series of CD packages of Tommy Boland jams.  He’s a guitar aficionado and he’s just revered throughout the world, and unfortunately he died at such a young age.  Oh yeah, and the Fireman’s Brew – I’m working on that whole brand.  Go to www.firemansbrew.com to see all of that stuff and that’s really it for now.

Soul 1: Is there anything that you’d like to add that I may not have asked?

Tom Nikosey: In terms of my career, I think you asked some really great questions, I don’t get those kinds of questions and I think those are very important, especially if there’re aspiring designers out there who are looking forward to having a solid career, or peers who want to feel that they’ve read something that they also have gone through.  I feel even though I’m only 58, and my career is right in the middle somewhere hopefully, there’s a whole body of work still to come out yet.  But I feel very, very luck and blessed for people to trust me with their projects.  I still do.  You know you gotta stay hungry as they say.  Stay excited and stay appreciative.

Soul 1: I think it’s a blessing that you’re still in the industry as well.  You know, one of the stalwarts that we can count on for quality, upstanding design.  It’s like the old saying goes “they don’t make ‘em like they used to.”  One of the reasons that this article/exhibition was put together was because there’s an underground following of record art and logos and a lot of those skills that you used to basically get the industry to where it is now is a lost art.  There’s a lot of people who appreciate the time and energy that went into the creative process and the final product, and this is our way of gathering people together to pay homage to people like yourself.

Tom Nikosey: You know… all I can do is say Thank you.  You know, when you’re working in a studio you’re usually in this box all by yourself.  It’s not like a musician where you’re playing to an audience…your audience has a delayed reaction so to speak.  You don’t get the reaction until the work is out there, if it even makes it out there.  So you’re not really sure if people are appreciating your effort.  When you do get recognition and appreciation for your hard work, that’s what makes you do it, plus it feels good to create you know, it’s very therapeutic.  Then, for people to look at it years later and say, “my God! That’s such a cool piece!” it makes you realize that your work is timeless… and who doesn’t wanna feel that (their) efforts are timeless?

One of the new developments for this edition of The Classics is the food menu.  Simple, yet complete – good lookin’ out Maiy Lay!

For The Interview component of SOUL I had Soul 1 (The Frank White Space – BKNY) interview a designer that, in my opinion, has truly earned the title of Icon – Tom Nikosey.

Since the 70’s Tom Nikosey has created some of the most identifiable logos, posters, album covers (and other goods) for some of the most recognizable brands in the world (The Commodores original logo, San Diego Padres, The Grammy’s to name a few)….and he’s not done yet.

As with RAP – the interview (or really conversation) Soul 1 conducted/had provided more than enough content so I’ll again be splitting the interview in two parts.

Thanks again Tom for your interest and participating and thank you Soul 1 for again coming through!

Part 1 – enjoy:

Soul 1: For those who don’t know, what’s your name, where were you born and where did you grow up?

Tom Nikosey: My name is Tom Nikosey, I was born in Brooklyn New York, and I went to grammar school, high school, and art school in Brooklyn. I went to Pratt Institute which was an international art school right there in Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn. I graduated with a degree in communication design and graphic design and illustration and two weeks later, ‘cause I was involved in a rock band all through my youth, I was on a plane with the guys and we were on our way to L.A. to try and make it in the record industry; and here I had a degree in art, go figure. So, when things didn’t work out financially with music, I turned to my portfolio and started working in the graphic industry. I eventually started doing album covers, pretty early on luckily, and then started getting known.

Soul 1: Do you know around what years you started?

Tom Nikosey: I know exactly: I graduated Pratt in 1972 and I came out here (L.A.) two weeks later in June of ‘72, and my first album cover that I worked on was in 1975 and the title of it was “Papa John Creech and the Mid – Night Sun.” It was the very first piece of lettering – I specialize in lettering and logos, and I didn’t realize it then when I started that that was going to be my forte´. I had a strong feeling for letterforms, and people really weren’t creating these dynamic logos at the time and I had this vision that that’s what I kinda wanted to do; make a statement with lettering.

Soul 1: Right.

Tom Nikosey: So, Papa John Creach was the first project I was lucky enough to work on. I was just 24 years – old, trying to ‘make it’, and David Larkham, an English fellow who was designing all of Elton John’s albums at the time, gave me a chance by designing the lettering for Papa John’s album. Yeah, David Larkham and Friends was the name of his design studio. I went around with my portfolio, and he saw that I had a flair for lettering – hand lettering, and again this was before digital and we did everything by hand, he gave me a chance to do lettering for that album and it went to finish and it was my first piece and I got a credit on the record …

Soul 1: Nice

Tom Nikosey: …and I was feeling like a million bucks.  I went on to do some more covers after that. He introduced me to Ed Caraeff – an independent photographer/Art Director, (who) was my age, and he was already shooting pictures of rock bands at rock concerts. He would shoot these great photographs then approach the band, sell the band pictures, and they would say, “We wanna use this on our album cover!”  So then he started designing album covers.  I met him at David Larkham’s studio and Ed needed a designer to work with him independently and so David connected me with Ed and that was the beginning of my career to be honest with you.  Ed hired me on “Sergio Mendes and Brasil 77”, Eric Clapton’s “No Reason to Cry,”  Cheech and Chong’s “Sleeping Beauty,” “Three Dog Night,” “American Pastime,” the Bee Gee’s “Children of the World” and “Saturday Night Fever,” and what happened was, Ed would give me the photographs, we’d talk about the idea – Ed usually had the idea for the cover, and I would put it all together graphically.

I always had this flair for lettering as well and I had this vision of designing logos that were the main piece rather than a subordinate piece that went along with the photograph. I wanted to embellish a name and make it the central piece.  Lo and behold I get a call from an Art Director at Motown, and this is early 1976, and he had seen something that I had done and he wanted to know if I would design a logo for this album by a band called the Commodores.  He said they already had one or two albums at the time and he wanted to make sure that the logo stood the test of time.

He was an African – American Art Director named Carl Overr; a great Art Director and a great guy.  He said, “I want you to create a logo for the Commodores under one condition – you make it black chrome.”  “Black chrome?”  I said, “I don’t even know what ‘black chrome’ is!”  He said, “Make it somewhat reflective but I don’t want it real bright and shiny, I want it more subdued.”  That’s what he told me.  I said, “What’s the title of the album?”  He said, “The working title is ‘Zoom.’”  So he said, “Come back to me in three days with some sketches.”  I was just so excited.  I went back and did three designs, came back in three days, and he chose one that turned out to be the main logo of what you saw on the cover of “Zoom,” and it’s been used ever since.  I did two other album covers for them from that logo: One was called “Heros,” and the other “Midnight Magic.”  That logo launched my career to be honest with you.

Then the band…that was really great.  I met the band when they were rehearsing over here in Hollywood.  I walked in and Lionel (Ritchie) comes up to me and he said, “Who are you!?”  And I said, “Tom Nikosey.” He says, “Well, what can I do for you?”  I says, “Well, I was instructed to come over to meet with to you guys and talk about your new album cover.”  And he said, “Well we want the guy who designed the other one.”  And I said, “I am the guy.”  And he said, “Well, we thought you were a Brother!”  Those are his exact words!!  I said, “Thank You!!”  Then we started to laugh, and all the other guys in the band came over and he introduced me to them and from that point on it was sorta magic ‘cause they called me in to design “Midnight Magic” from the logo, ‘cause the original logo was called “Zoom” and it was floating in the sky and “Midnight Magic” it was the logo being projected over the Hollywood Hills as if it were a klieg light in the sky.  So we were discussing the concepts for that album when they called me in.

Soul 1: Now all of that was done by hand at that point?

Tom Nikosey: Oh yeah.  All three of the covers I did for them were all by hand.  I think the Commodores did at least ten albums with that logo.  I think they still use it.

Soul 1: Well yeah, that one and the Kenny Rodgers Greatest Hits, and the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and just the way that you use text to create images.  Like the ‘brass-work’ with the trumpet and the ‘scroll- work’ with the Kenny Rodgers to make everything symmetrical; that is just super impressive.  What are some of your design approaches?  When you are approached with a project, is there a different approach for a musical endeavor vs. a corporate endeavor or how do you go about that?

Tom Nikosey: That’s a really good question.  That’s a hard one to answer because it’s a feeling that you get.  Music has a different impression than a corporation does or than a book cover or a postage stamp.  When I approach something, I don’t have a very conscience decision that I say, “OK, I’m going to do it to make it look like this.”  I think it does, because there’s a different purpose: One represents sound, the other might represent other things.  A lot of times it just comes from the sketch.  But I always try to make it relate to the product if possible.  You know, if I’m doing a baseball thing, I did the San Diego Padres (logo) and I wanted the logo to be a classic image that they really hadn’t had before on their uniforms.  And Kenny Rodgers – this was his twenty- five greatest hits up to that point.  I wanted to do something that was etched in metal and stone, and when I thought about that I said, “Bingo!”  Let’s make it metal.

Soul 1: Yeah because it looks like embossed foil.

Tom Nikosey Yeah, embossed, carved and engraved.  I hired a sculptor to sculpt Kenny’s portrait and we put it right in the center; but again, it was based on the lettering, “Kenny Rodgers’ Greatest Hits.”

Soul 1: There was another logo that you did, it was a country logo but it looked like a belt buckle. Did you hire someone to make a (physical) rendering of one of your sketches as well?

Tom Nikosey: Oh, you’re talking about “Pure Country.”

Soul 1: Yeah.  Bringing everything full circle.  So you’ve been in L.A. basically since ’75?

Tom Nikosey: ’72.

Soul 1: Wow.  How has L.A. vs. New York influenced your outlook on art?

Tom Nikosey: Oh, a lot.  I think growing up in New York, in Brooklyn, I was very influenced by my surroundings.  There’s a lot of age, a lot great architecture, and signage and just everything in New York as you know.  The East Coast is just layered with history and all kind of graphic ephemera.  California is virtually newer in terms of city, but there’s that outdoor (feeling), great sunsets, great beaches and palm trees, and the whole surf culture and the mountains.  That also is very influential.  Both coasts I think come through my work from time to time.

Soul 1: What were the entertainment and the art scenes like in the 70’s – specifically for designers?

Tom Nikosey: Well number one, there was a lot more work in the 70’s for people who did what I do because it was done by hand.  In the old days, I’d still do the same drawings, to get the character of the piece out first – it’s like the structure of the house, you know it’s like the foundation, but back in the 70’s it took many, many hours to do the kind of thing that I do. You had to sit down and draw everything out, and do several drawings until you arrived at the final one, show what it would look like in color, then go to a stage called a color comprehensive, and you had to show that to the client and they would either approve it or reject it or ask you to go back and make changes.  If they approved it, you went back to your studio and created a final piece of art; a final repro quality (piece) for them to photograph and then print.  It would always amaze people when they see the process.

Soul 1: So I imagine you worked with “Letraset” and all that stuff too…

Tom Nikosey: Yeah, you knew that huh!? (laughs) Yeah, I remember when it first came out.  I was working in an art supply store right across the street from Pratt.

Soul 1: If the Commodores album-cover was the one that launched your career, then was that one the most important to you?

Tom Nikosey: That was the one that gave me notice in logo design, in logo illustration and that’s what I wanted to go towards as a focus once I realized that I had that specialty.  I built a whole career on that.  Prior to that, I was doing some lettering, graphic design, and I was doing “mechanical art” meaning, taking the photograph and sizing it and sometimes re- touching it, and putting it together with typography and layout. But I wanted to eliminate all that: hiring a photographer, using type houses, and using re-touchers, hiring models if you needed it, and doing photo-sessions, because it’s a lot of work and a lot of responsibility.  I wanted to just focus on logos and illustration… put all of my creative effort into that.  I figured if I did that, and I did it well, then I would stay busy.  ‘Cause every designer, every illustrator wants to keep a career going.  That’s why I bring up the Commodores, ‘cause that was really the first lettering piece that created notice.

Soul 1: What is your (own) favorite logo or typographical piece to date?

Tom Nikosey: That I did?  Oh boy.  That’s a hard one, ya’ know I’ve done hundreds.

Soul 1: Or maybe a top 3…

Tom Nikosey: You know, I’ve done four Super Bowl logos, and I’ve done three Grammy logos, I’ve designed postage stamps for the Postal service…the San Diego Padres, and I did a logo for the Seattle Supersonics basketball team; I mean it just goes on an’ on.  Luckily you know, I’ve been very blessed and fortunate to have been given those projects.  But I would say because of the emotional connection and what they meant to me and my career, and the people I did it for, I would say The Commodores is definitely one, Crosby, Stills and Nash, I did the one for them…I really love that piece, I have it hanging here in the studio too.  I just created a design for a corporation that I’m a part of and it’s called Fireman’s Brew.  It’s a microbrew-beer and coffee. We’re building that brand and hopefully it’ll be on the East Coast in a short period of time.  It’s all over the West Coast now.  That’s mainly a logo that stands for the whole company and all the brands.

Soul 1: Fireman’s Brew?

Tom Nikosey: Yeah.  The Sgt. Pepper piece was very important in my career also.  Even though it wasn’t for the Beatles unfortunately, it was for a movie.  I did it in ’76.  By the time the movie was done and all that, it was 1978.  Although I think graphically and aesthetically I’ve done pieces that were drawn better and painted better, ‘cause I got older and more experienced, but those two pieces are favorites.

Soul 1: How important is it for you to establish a relationship with the client?

Tom Nikosey: You know what, that’s a great question.  Not everybody asks that.  I think it’s very important – especially with what I’m doing.  You know I’m doing logos… it’s like naming your child.  It’s so important.  I have two children and my wife and I when trying to come up with names for our children, it was a whole scene trying to figure it out because you gotta realize, you’re gonna be calling that child’s name out for the rest of your life!  You gotta love that name, it’s gotta mean something!  When you design a logo for somebody’s name or somebody’s product or somebody’s album, you’re taking on a huge responsibility.  You’re designing something that people look at and when they see it – will remember and think about the music or the album or the band or the book cover or the movie, right?

Soul 1: Right.

Tom Nikosey: I take tremendous responsibility in making sure that I do justice to that, you know, just like an architect.  I feel like an architect has a tremendous responsibility because they’re designing structures that people have to look at.  They have to drive around them; they block the sun and we have to look at that.  We have to go in them and live in them. What a responsibility that is to design something aesthetically pleasing.  I feel that same responsibility, maybe not on as grand a scale as an architect but I owe it to my public. Therefore the relationship with the client should be established on that premise.  I like to think because of a special connection from a point in time when a logo was designed by me for them that every client I’ve worked for is free to call me and vice versa.

Soul 1: Would you say you have a certain style and if so how would you define it?

Tom Nikosey: I don’t know if I have a style that necessarily can be described in terms of a time period, but I’m influenced by the past… by Americana.  I mean, I did a piece for Ahmad Jamal and it was very much in the vein of his sorta religion or his style.  I’ll use a style to influence me when I design a logo if it’s appropriate for the project or the person or the heritage or the music.  I don’t know if I can define the style, but I think I have an approach.

DJ Roddy Rod (www.humblemonarch.com) has come through again producing the video for SOUL – an organic mix of album covers, video interviews and music, blended as only a seasoned DJ can.