Seed Media Group: Blog

Tuesday, February 09, 2010 • by Eva Wisten • #

Laurie Rosenwald makes mistakes

Laurie Rosenwald, an illustrator whose client list spans from the New Yorker to Target, gave a talk during our Beer Friday. The talk included glimpses from Laurie’s workshop: “Making mistakes on purpose”.

Laurie showed how she defeats two sources of anxiety in her work: the blank paper and conformity.
The blank paper and the sense of I’m-worthless-and-will-never-fill-this-with-anything that a piece of empty space can easily bring on, she fights by always starting with something: A piece of scrap paper, a scanned cutting board, or an old typeface, only to be found in vintage gossip magazines.
“Anything can become anything,” she says.

Conformity, the tendency for a lot of illustration to look very similar, she battles by creating as much as she can outside her computer.
“Computers don’t make mistakes,” she says. “The most unexpected thing they can do is crash. And that’s not very fun.”

One of Seed’s designers asked Laurie if she ever compromised her work for a client.
“I’m the queen of the kill fees,” she says. “But I’ve never released anything I’m not happy about.”

And this is what happens when Laurie Rosenwald animates a diary entry by David Sedaris: