Justin Kemerling is an independent designer, activist, and collaborator working primarily with community organizations, political campaigns, and changemaking entities. Justin shares his passion for making activism beautiful, moving people to action, and getting good things done.

[Note: this transcript was machine generated and may contain errors]

Stuart Chittenden

Hello, I'm Stuart Chittenden, and this is Lives, a show about conversation, community, and the people that bring community to life. My guest today is activist and designer Justin Kemerling. Justin Kemerling is an independent designer, activist, and collaborator living in Omaha, Nebraska, focused on making it beautiful, moving people to action, and getting good things done.

He works primarily with community organizations, political campaigns, and change-making entities in need of branding, graphic design, web design, and art direction. His self-initiated projects and collaborations explore ways to move forward important causes and ideas with design, art, and other forms of creative expression. Justin, welcome to the show.

Good to be here.

Stuart Chittenden

I'm always curious, I'm always envious, I think maybe is the real point, about people that have talents I admire that I don't have. And artistry and creativity is one of those. So when did you first notice that you had this ability and this skill with the craft of design and artistry?

Justin Kemerling

Yeah, I drew a lot when I was younger, like just random things I would see. My dad is a truck driver, I would draw lots of trucks, you know, and they're very boxy and has like shapes and stacks and wheels. So assembling these shapes together to make a big picture.

So I like the idea of art as a word, as a thing you could be. There are artists like, I remember liking that when I was like really young, but I wasn't like very good at being like an artist per se. Took some art classes in high school, I could draw and I could look at something and draw it.

I'm like a duck or you know, whatever. Like we had a duck exercise and find some pictures, draw it, whatever, do some weird stuff. But I could never make anything like super great that I thought was like, oh, I am destined to be an artist.

And I think I told my art teacher, yeah, I like drawing but I just don't have that thing. I can just tell. She's like, well, what are you going to do in college? And I said, I don't, everybody goes to business school, I think.

So I'll do that until I figure it out. I was really like concerned that I didn't know what I was going to do. Like when growing up, like what am I going to be? Like that question seemed to be ever present.

And so I was like, well, I'll go to business school and figure it out. And my art teacher said, maybe you should try advertising and figure it out. And I was like, okay, advertising, that's sort of a combination of like drawing and business.

So that seems to make sense. So I did that, I went to the university in Lincoln. And I don't think, like I wasn't very serious about it at the time.

I was more interested in being in a punk band, making music and being a musician in a punk band. So that was my thing. Like I'm going to go to college, I'll enjoy being in college and do, I'll get a degree.

And then with that degree, I'll figure it out later, do this music thing. And so along the way, like, I mean, I did remember in high school, like I could assemble shapes. I was in, I did like yearbook stuff.

And so I could do layout, could write headlines. I did like to write. So part of me too is like, do I want to be a writer? Or this kind of visual thing that's called advertising.

And in advertising, you kind of learn about, oh, there's a sit side called art direction, graphic design. And university has had a graphic design program. It wasn't very good at the time I was going through, but it was like enough to kind of cobble together basic understanding.

And then in our band, we would, the other guy was in Jason Hardy. We were in it together and he did a lot of that sort of thing. So he was more artistic than I was and could paint and make cool collages.

But we did all like a lot of our posters and packaging. Like he did a lot of it for a while. And then like, we would kind of collaborate on it, which is a word also that I didn't really know.

Like, so this collaboration idea of like, you kind of do that in a band. And then like, we kind of did it with our art and our design stuff where we were packaging up our music. And I think it was when I realized the music career was a no-go was when we sent out our promo package to some label of some kind.

And they responded and they were like, your packaging is awesome. We're really into it. It's too bad that the level that we liked your packaging, we did not like your music at.

So your music, not so good. I think that moment we're like, maybe we should just kind of like try this out. And at the university, I took a class with a guy who owns a firm in downtown Lincoln called Archrival.

His name's Clint Runge. He's super awesome, creative mind. And so I took his class, learned how to think.

And that was like, you know, once you take that one class where this is the class where you learn how to think, that's all you really need. Like four years, one class, it's fine. Then after that, you can sort of write your own ticket.

I think after that, then it was like, this could kind of make this work. Cobbled together a portfolio and got a job.

Stuart Chittenden

Did you leave college and immediately set up your own shop? Or did you go into an agency or do some other kind of design to keep developing your skills?

Justin Kemerling

Yes.

And other, I didn't have the skills to just start myself. And I knew that. I think I knew I had some building blocks.

I worked at the college newspaper, the Daily Nebraskan doing layout, putting boxes together, boxes and photos and type all assembled neatly and organized on a page, very Tetris like. So I could do that. And then I took the creative thinking class where I kind of learned how to think.

And then I was like, the band that we were in was very collaborative in how he wrote music. So I liked that process of like, someone comes in with an idea. We all get together, go through the creative process of creating something new with the excitement and the tension and the challenges.

And then you have something that comes out of that. That's cool and interesting and new. I like that a lot.

And then having an experience living in a college town, like there's a large activist community that we were all friends with. They were all part of the music scene. They were environmentalists, anti-war activists, were big into like local food and growing local food.

And we got to be really good friends with a lot of those kids who went to Lincoln High. We all went to like small town schools where we just didn't really know anything about stuff. And so we had this community of people who were really engaged and active.

And we really liked that. And we became friends with a lot of those people. And so it was trying to blend all of that stuff together.

Like the really tactile assembling of boxes into something that you can communicate, the creative process, the activist focus and what you were doing, and then the creative thinking to solve them all in an interesting way. I was trying to put all those together, but I knew I couldn't do it because I just didn't know enough about the profession of design and what that all took. So I ended up getting a job at an advertising agency after school, about three months after I graduated.

It was right after 9-11, like the following year. So there weren't many jobs, but I was able to get one in downtown Lincoln. And that's where I learned how to do all the mechanics of how to do modern graphic design in a business setting for clients where you actually get things produced, like printed and made into websites.

You work on a team with account people and real budgets and real timelines and all those things that I know how to do now that are just sort of become second nature. But being in a sort of well-oiled machine of a modern day business that is worried about profits and maximizing all their bottom lines, being in that is super beneficial so that you know how much time to put into a project, how to manage a project, how to work with clients, work with people who are not, they just bring different skill sets to the table. It's not like we're all working on, it's not like guitar, bass player, drummer working on a song.

It's like some guy who's head of like a trolling motor company that's trying to connect with fishermen. I don't know anything about that. But you do your research and you understand the mechanics of a business in a way and just processes in a way.

And being in that setting, you learn a lot on the job.

Stuart Chittenden

So your work now has a very strong focus towards what I would call the public good. Where did your sense of right and wrong, social good and social bad, equality and justice, when you look back maybe into your childhood or your formative years, where did that start to emerge from?

Justin Kemerling

I think I have an affinity towards working class careers, jobs.

My dad being a truck driver, that's a working class gig. It's kind of hard and grueling. But he also made it a point to be always at home with the family on the weekends.

Or if he was gone Monday through Thursday, hauling freight to Wisconsin or Kansas or someplace. And so that idea of even independence too, because he was an owner operator. Working class independent guy who runs his profession the way he wants to do it.

And the idea of he's the little guy. And it's tough for the little guy in terms of resources and competing with big corporations and fuel prices and taxes and when things go wrong, if your truck gets stolen. Working class in America can be tough.

We weren't, I don't remember ever being like poor or feeling like we didn't have enough money for stuff. We had kind of a comfortable, maybe middle class at the time, lifestyle. But my dad worked really hard for that and my mom did too in town.

And so, I don't know, it just kind of seemed like there was an atmosphere of an economy that was challenging, I suppose, to sort of function within. We lived in a very sort of quaint small town. I went to Catholic school.

And I think the Catholic school thing is also a part of that where the idea of justice and equality and the least of us in the meek shall inherit the earth and all of these things about it's harder for a rich man to get into heaven than a camel to pass through the eye of a needle. All those parables and stuff, I think those really stick with a kid if you're listening. They were both very profound.

So, I think being raised Catholic did have a certain thing that stuck. And then going to college and being exposed to other issues and other viewpoints to maybe apply that to where my grandpa was in World War II and that was always very big in our family. He wasn't on, didn't go through D-Day, the actual day, but came through Omaha Beach after, was in some pretty gnarly situations.

It was always a point of pride and a point of like, oh, we fought for freedom. He's a decorated soldier and made it home. That's crazy.

So, I think fighting for what you believe in was that idea I think was always very prominent in our family. One Christmas, he got a plaque with all his medals and a photo of him. It was very emotional for him.

And I think that those things kind of stand out and also kind of add up to a certain view that these things are worth fighting for. And with the college experience of like being against the war when it happened and just learning about how America works, that's always fun.

Stuart Chittenden

Well, if you could tell us, if you could explain how America works, that'd be awesome. Thank you.

Justin Kemerling

Yeah. Well, you see, all those like working class people really get the shaft and all of the rich corporations really get the fruits of those labors.

Stuart Chittenden

So, is this a good time then to talk about what was the catalyst for you feeling as if you developed enough?

Justin Kemerling

Well, I don't know. You tell me.

Stuart Chittenden

What was this catalyst for you saying, yeah, now I need to do my own work here and run my own business?

Justin Kemerling

Yeah. I was at my job for five years, or no, for seven years. Five was probably enough. I probably learned everything in five.

But then again, you have this great thing that happens in the country where the recession happened and it was super terrifying. The place I was at admirably did all they could to not have massive layoffs. The industry I was in at that time was just bleeding jobs.

We were looking to move to Chicago and get my wife and I headhunted into a big agency, like go experience this. And then the recession happened and the headhunter called. She's like, yeah, all those jobs I had are gone.

Everybody's getting laid off. So, just stay where you're at. Like, okay, noted.

So, I think I just hung on. I was grumpy a lot, but I hung on at that job. We moved to Omaha in that time because we were still in Lincoln.

The early years of my career, we tried to apply that punk rock collaborative atmosphere to art projects where we would do, we made a short film, we did the soundtrack for it, did it all on like real gritty super eight film. It's called The Sprinter. It's like 15 minutes.

That's too long. And it has some things now you would do differently, but like the process of it was like that. It was like that transition of like trying to take everything that I was really into and combine it into a project.

And like we did that, we did t-shirts, we made anti-war posters. So, we were doing all this stuff. And then I got into, I would just contact some of the non-profits in the community and just be like, hey, you need a website.

I'll just do it. You can, that'll be my volunteer thing. Like I did a bunch of stuff for free or like a couple hundred bucks or just whatever.

Because I have in my mind is like I have my salary. I can start paying off my loans and I'll just do this stuff as my, I'm learning and I'm engaging people I want to work with and offering my skills to them that they don't have. Do some like protest banners or protest signs.

We went out to White Clay and made a bunch of posters for that. We were just like, we were young, had a lot of energy. We would work my friend Jason and I, we actually worked at the same place for a while and then he moved on.

But I mean, we would work like eight hours during a regular day and then we would come and work like eight hours just on our own stuff. Like at night, we either work at the agency or work in our basement or screen print or yeah, it was just like this random stuff that we were into and we were trying to just learn I think how to get really good at doing graphic design and making projects happen. So those like early years became like, well this is what I want to do full-time.

I don't really know how that's going to go. So around seven years is when the split happened and I left. I actually left to go to grad school but I should have realized that I really didn't like school all that much when I was in it and I was like, that's not really what I wanted to do.

I wanted to like go do work with the type of clients I wanted to partner with and the projects I wanted to do. I think I had been doing that type of stuff on the side long enough that by the time I left to go do this college thing or this grad school thing, I don't know, it was weird like stars just sort of aligned. Like timing really is everything.

And all of a sudden you had a business. All of a sudden there was. And so that's just kind of been rolling for almost 10 years, nine years this summer.

Stuart Chittenden

You mentioned Shepard Fairey, and I think this is a great place to ask you to share maybe a little of the background of graphic design and its integration with activism. I want to quote Chas Maviyane-Davies, who is a graphic designer that used posters to protest Robert Mugabe's voter intimidation and election malpractices in Zimbabwe maybe 10, 20 years ago, and I think has now left Zimbabwe because of the potential danger now he teaches in design in this country. But he said, if design can be used to sell jeans and perfumes, then I will use it to fight for democracy and against injustice.

So I read that quote and I read it and I thought of the work that you do, and so I wonder if maybe you might talk a little bit about how graphic design works with the causes of activism, and then maybe we can explore some examples of the work that you've done.

Justin Kemerling

Yeah, I love that quote. I have not heard that.

I was really into Emery Douglas in school, and then after he was the designer for the Black Panther Party, and his posters are amazing, especially when he was in the movement, and he was the movement's graphic designer. I mean, they did a lot of forward-thinking stuff with free breakfast programs and health clinics, and as they organized, they recognized the power of the visual medium and the communication that would need to happen in order to tell their story from their perspective, because no one else was going to do it. They'd have these pamphlets and these flyers and these posters, and I love that stuff.

There's lots of really great Cuban revolutionary posters. There's a book this guy cataloged all of the stuff during the revolution, just like really amazing screen-printed posters. So aesthetically, it was something I was really into, and then the message and the movement behind it, it always seemed to make a lot of sense.

I think now graphic design, as a trade, as a skill, as a business, it's used to sell aspects of a consumer economy every day. The stat we were always told in college was that you see 3,700 messages a day as an American consumer. It's probably like 5,000 now, I don't know, with the internet.

It's just constant. You're always being an avalanche of messages, designed, targeted towards you. You can do that, but you can also try to sell an economy that's sustainable, just, fair, equitable.

It's all kind of like how you use the thing. It's just a tool. I wanted to use that tool for that stuff.

I like graphic design a lot. The actual practice of making a poster, making a website, making a brand package with the logo, with the type and the colors and how it's all organized, both are really mathematical, making sure the size and proportions and the hierarchy is all right and the strategy, but then the actual beauty of it and the way that the design is created. Maybe that's where the artistic side can kind of come in and show itself.

I really like making beautiful posters, but I want to do that for causes that I'm interested in and believe in. Having that as a way to hone that skill set, I feel super fortunate to be able to do that. I think the timing of other people see that as necessary, like people who run big nonprofits or political campaigns.

Stuart Chittenden

I think you only have to say Shepard Fairey's hope poster image of Barack Obama for people to immediately visualize the power of that twinning of design and political messaging.

Justin Kemerling

Yes. Yeah. I think Jane Klebb, who's my friend and client now for a long time from Bold Nebraska and the Bold Alliance, she is like, we need to make activism fun and beautiful. And Yosi, who was involved with a bunch of Obama stuff and does a lot of organizing around marriage equality or racial justice, school reform. We need to make it inspiring and bring the arts community into this stuff so that we're engaging with these issues in a very authentic, real, hopeful, positive, beautiful way.

And I think there are a lot of people now, like when I was in school or first starting out, there weren't many design firms that focused on this. There was always a very slim section of design annuals that had the best work of that year that firms did, like Pentagram in New York or places in San Francisco. There's always like a section of that magazine that had like public service that was like some posters or whatever.

And it was always very small. But I was like, that's the kind of work I want to do right there. Apparently it doesn't pay very well.

Stuart Chittenden

So the kind of work you want to do, the kind of work you are doing and whether or not it pays well, this is your business and maybe give us one or two illustrations about this kind of work you're talking about. You've mentioned, for example, Jane Klebb. I don't know if that's a good illustration, but how would you sort of share an example?

Justin Kemerling

Yeah, I think like those types of organizations, like even when I was starting out and like everything just sort of happened, there were lots of little things where I did projects with moveon.org or 350.org, the ACLU in their New York office later.

But like those types of organizations recognize the value in like communicating and being able to invest in professional services like design. I can't do a rousing speech or organize an event or rally. Like I'm very bad at that, like the logistics of that.

But like helping you craft your visual communication strategy with all the assets that you would need and the website that you would need or the package that you would need for a campaign specifically. Even before I was on my own, Tim Renna from Nebraskans for Peace, who I did a lot of just free stuff for, he's like, this is super valuable. I mean, I know you can't give a speech, but I need this stuff.

Like this is like just kind of part of the game, I suppose. Like I mean, a lot of the stuff is fleeting and like you kind of do these projects and then they're over and done. But like all of that, all those hours that you put in, like creative industry charges like based on hourly rates.

So trying to make that work when I started out, Jane Klebb in Bold Nebraska was the first big client. And, you know, there are industry standards for how much websites are and branding packages are in this space. Like that's all kind of reduced down.

But like it still exists in recognizing that, yeah, you can get some of that stuff donated, but like then what? You don't really have like an ongoing partner or an ongoing person who is just sort of honed in on all of these kinds of issues that we do like every day in terms of the environmental aspects of what Bold Nebraska was trying to do around the pipeline, bringing design and visual creative messages and solutions to like what she was trying to communicate. Like we were a perfect team. Like she had her organizing skills and community organizing that she did.

Writing and doing all of the organizing from the political standpoint. And then we would just collaborate on all the stuff that, you know, T-shirts and share graphics and websites and so much stuff over the years. And it was over a lot of different issues with the pipeline.

The anti hashtag no KXL was the biggest, most high profile thing because it it was the I mean, Obama vetoed it eventually. And it was in the national news. It was a big deal.

And there was lots of cool stuff that happened around it just from a community building standpoint where Neil Young and Willie Nelson played a concert in a cornfield in Nebraska on the Tanderup farm. It was great. You got to do that stuff like engage people.

Stuart Chittenden

So you've talked about activism in terms of community organizing and in terms of the speeches. But there's this element that you bring, which is the use of a graphically designed visual medium to communicate something powerful. What's coming to my mind is that adage that a picture is worth a thousand words and how we as humans respond to something, a visual cue is extremely powerful.

And we've talked about advertising, of course. I'm sure many people can just think about their favorite brand right now and conjure the logo, but then think about everything that it represents. I'm wondering if you're able to talk about what is that value of the design element that you bring that, for example, made Bold Nebraska visually so recognizable that with or without a speech, with or without some other kind of event or something like that, as soon as people saw the design structure of this piece of it, they knew this is what this stands for.

Justin Kemerling

Yeah, I think from the very beginning, the idea of making something that was that resonated was also somewhat unique. Like their logo is a block. It's like not, you know, there's lots of stars and shapes of Nebraska or whatever that are like in political things.

And so this was about this bold block, like building something, like building a new sort of foundation for progressive politics. And so from there, it was like and Jane was always open to like anything. From there, it was just like trying to capture in that unique way.

It's like you don't want to go too far where like I have no idea. I have no reference for this. It can't be like a pink flower or whatever in this case.

So, you know, a very traditional blue block, you're kind of like you have a reference point. And so from there, like all of the stuff that we would make, like we made a poster after a report came out where the pipeline was set to only over the life of it. It would have like 12 leaks or something from that's what the company said.

But like an independent assessment said, no, it's more like ninety one leaks over the life of a pipeline. That's a big difference. And so we just made like one poster that just had all the leaks on it.

And you couldn't bring signs to this event. All of the supporters for Bold Nebraska wore their big shirts that said Pipeline Fighters, like the state and Pipeline Fighter, really big. And they had red sleeves.

They're all very recognizable. And when one of the people they were supporting was speaking, we had these bandanas, armbands that also had the same sort of visual on it that said Pipeline Fighter in the state of Nebraska. It was white on black.

Whenever someone was speaking, they would hold them up with their arms outstretched just over their head. And it was like a powerful visual, like New York Times had some of these photos in them. It was like, that is that is cool.

Like that is a cool visual, like wasn't a sign. So you're like you check out, but it was a visual that everybody could kind of rally behind. And so we took that visual and made like a screen printed poster of those arms holding like it was just like a vector illustration of that armband.

This poster was a very popular poster. And there was one meeting I was at where it was like, you know, every movement issue has those just like long, boring meetings that are just like we got to this is what it is like going over the contract that TransCanada is pushing. It's all super terrible and it's going to screw everybody over.

This is what they're trying to get away with. And just like a long meeting to kind of break all this stuff down. And in the presentation, Jane had put that image of the screen printed poster of the arms with the bandana holding the Pipeline Fighter sign.

And there's one lady who was in the movement, always shows up like just to go get her tireless, like always goes to the stuff. She saw that and like immediately she like raises her arms and goes, yeah, I was like, wow, that is awesome. I saw her do it.

I was like, that is the most amazing thing I've ever seen in terms of someone responding to a piece of graphic design that I did. Like that is cool. Like that is the kind of like because she knew she's like that speaks to that moment us to like be unified.

It was like a powerful way that she responded visually to that.

Stuart Chittenden

These pieces that we're talking about, are they findable on your website?

Justin Kemerling

Yes. justinkemerling.com.

Stuart Chittenden

Something else that's on your website is Power to the Poster.

Yes. So there's a section of your website called Power to the Poster. So it's on justinkemerling.com, Power to the Poster.

And the phrase there that you have to describe it is, we are citizens who see poster design as an important tool to advocate for a better America. So I completely buy into that. I want to ask, though, is there some danger that people like me, for example, we gravitate more towards visual aspects that seem cool and attractive and hip, and we start to lose sight of that?

Justin Kemerling

For us, that's becoming passive.

And really, we're losing sight of the fact that we actually need to embody protest. We maybe need to be in the street. We maybe need to be doing the toiling work of advocating with policymakers.

Yeah, I think that I mean, I think that's a big concern in the way that we tend to take the easy way out of a lot of stuff in terms of Twitter activism, like your tweets are not enough or your Facebook rants are not enough. I don't I don't think the congressmen even really care if you call them a lot anymore. So it's like trying to find what is that thing super tough.

So there's always discussions about this in the design community about like design is not going to save the world. Go get a job in a soup kitchen. Do something that's real is a refrain that some people do, even in the design profession, say that like it's just design.

It is limited in what it can do. And I think that's true. I think like you have to it has to be part of that other like being a tool in the toolbox for an organization.

And then personally, it's like recognizing that whatever it is that you do may bring value, like being honest with yourself about how that how much that value is that you're being that you're bringing. And there's donating or volunteering or knocking on doors. I think, too, like politics can be kind of daunting or just like, especially if you've never done it before, if you've never knocked doors, like it's kind of scary if you've never called at a phone bank before, like it's kind of scary.

And there's a way that like music and now design has in a way it's like an entry point, I suppose, where I do enjoy making these things. And I think like I mean, there are campaigns now that I'm like, hey, I really like this campaign. I would donate a poster.

Are you cool with that? Like that's like sort of a specific talent that I can bring. But then like, you know, when it's time, you got to go do the phone bank, you got to go knock. I don't like knocking on doors, but I mean, we all did it in Lincoln with the Sierra Club when they came to organize for a public service commission race.

Like my Facebook feed was awesome on the day of and then after is like, where are all my vote ratio is way off. Like my filter bubble like cut me off too much from what was actually happening. And now it's like, OK, well, I better do the phone bank thing and I better donate to those causes more.

It's for neighbors. You know, she can use the space for free, organize some people, bring some people in. We'll do like a phone banking and thank you note writing party or whatever.

And that stuff can be fun. And but it's also like gets you out of your comfort zone, too, which I know you you think this like where you like the business of building community is uncomfortable, like in having honest conversations, which I think we're terrible at is uncomfortable, but it needs to happen. And so for clarity, that was Megan Hunt's campaign when she was running for the state Senate in Nebraska and she successfully won that.

Stuart Chittenden

Yes, she was. She was victorious. No doubt through her own talents and the public preference for her policy stances, but also because of your hard design work.

Justin Kemerling

Yeah, my mind is probably 70, 30 design work. I mean, she works so hard. It was insane.

I was super. I mean, she's impressive and she she really got it. I mean, it's great like in like locally in Omaha, like it's a big, big enough city where there's lots of action and like seeing her put in all the work.

Stuart Chittenden

Thinking about your contribution and the design work that you do, would you describe a, has it been ascribed to you a certain philosophy around your approach to design and maybe whether or not you think you have a style as it were?

Justin Kemerling

Yeah, I had a, I had coffee with a lady in a project that we didn't get and I was just like, I should kind of figure out like what, why we didn't get it. Like maybe we'll just meet up.

And I was like, I know I have a style, so I know that like sometimes that's not what people are looking for. And she said she didn't think I had a style. And I was like, oh, OK, well, that's good.

I kind of don't want to like visual style. I make this joke that like this line that I want to design, like Tom Waits sings wild or like the Clash plays rebellious. Clash always had a point to like what they did, like their music was awesome.

But like it wasn't just the music. It was like what they were trying to do with the music. And Tom Waits, he doesn't have like a genre boxing him into anything.

That guy is just crazy. So like being able to solve problems visually and design coming from an aspect of I want to try to find the best solution. And that may be now like we work with so many people like we have a really good network of developers and other designers and illustrators that like there's a certain style we can kind of I can kind of direct and get to where I don't want to be limited just by my like sort of aesthetic skill set in like the problem solution opportunity that needs to happen with the project.

And so I do think like I have good taste in design. And so I think I know what's good. And that may not always be something that I can do or I've done.

I mean, we do like projects where several of us will come up with options and kind of present like this array to a client and then like we pick the best one and move forward. And I like that. I like it with everything going on.

It's like trying to move all this stuff forward in the best way because like, you know, there are limited resources like we don't use small stuff like we don't need to redesign your logo or we don't need to change this or we can focus on this aspect. That's the problem. And put your resources there to be mindful of like bringing the solutions that make sense with the organization or the budgets or making design accessible to like clients and causes and organizations we believe in is like a core grounding principle.

So being able to do that and then the design aesthetic or style. I know I definitely have one. Like if you were going to like look in like a certain realm of design, it might feel very similar to that.

But then there's also lots of terrible design or design I think is not good out there. And so it's definitely like professional and executed in a way. I mean, I've been doing it for 17 years now, 16 years.

Like that's a long time to be able to hone your craft and get good at. And in this space, like that's where I like to live. I have my friend Clint, his agency is focused on youth branding and marketing.

Like they're amazing in that and like they work over here and like, so it is kind of cool to see there's enough of a creative profession that has grown up in design and problem solving and visuals, web design that has these different pockets of professionals that exist in the kind of work that they do. They can make a living how they want to make a living.

Stuart Chittenden

You've been doing this for a long time and I get the sense that you have been interested in art and design and also pro-social issues for a very long time, most of your life.

What have you learned from all of these experiences that seem to form themselves into a key guiding mantra for your life? What have you taken away from all these experiences that maybe seem to occupy a more you know, moral high ground of how you sort of guide yourself?

Justin Kemerling

There's like the idea of being able to creatively express like myself and like other people for it to do the same, like has been super important. And like the idea that you are in control of your own destiny, like is an appealing aspect of this type of career that like I've been able to figure out how to do. And a lot of other people have figured out how to do and it's very inspiring.

And the idea that working on stuff you believe in every day is key to having that, making the hours that you put in like matter. Because I think too, like the idea of, you know, I don't want to work 60, 80 hours a week anymore. Those days are over.

I would like to, but the hours that I do work during the day is all out, you know, like just gangbusters, whatever, making those like super productive and making sure that what's being worked on are helping other people realize their vision. Like because in a way, like without those, the people that I get to work with, like I don't have a career. Otherwise, then I'm just making art and I'm not good at making art.

Like I need to have that partnership, that collaboration, those visionary people like Brigitte from the Union for Contemporary Art, like her vision, like that is so inspiring. Jane Klebb is so inspiring. Like it's just, it's an amazing journey to be able to go on like those paths with them in a way.

Like I'm just another, I'm another piece of a puzzle that they're trying to put together. But like being able to see then what they make out of all of this is super rad. We've done art shows and me and Yosi worked on an art show in Los Angeles called Manifest Justice and all of the stuff that came together with that.

Like it was kind of a pain. It was really hard. Lots of cooks in the kitchen, lots of opinions.

But like the work that was put together in this big gallery show, all the art that happened, the design that was able to kind of help tell that story, really wonderful to see. So there's like this two pronged element of like being able to move forward, those causes that I value and love and like that being like I work with progressive changemakers and do-gooders, like that's what I do. And I'm able to do that by bringing design and creativity.

And then I like my coffee black, my music loud and my beer hoppy, like just all in.

Stuart Chittenden

I've been in conversation today with activist and designer, Justin Kemerling. Justin, thank you for being on the show.

Justin Kemerling

Thank you, Stuart. This was fun.

Stuart Chittenden

That's the end of this week's show.

The magnificent Marian Fey helped produce the show. Lives is an executive production of Squishtalks. I'm your host, Stuart Chittenden.

Join me next week for more community, conversation and the people that bring community to life. I'm your host, Stuart Chittenden.