Browsing through the portfolio of Mattson Creative, an award-winning design studio based in Southern California, can prove to be a daunting task.  It’s easy to be overwhelmed by the quantity and consistent quality of work. I’ve long admired their expressive illustrative style and am especially smitten with their self-initiated projects for popular TV shows including Dexter, Lost and more recently Breaking Bad. We’ve profiled the studio in the past, but in today’s interview we talk with Ty Mattson, the studio’s founder and creative director.

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Eight Hour day is the online home and moniker of Katie Kirk and Nathan Strandberg, a husband and wife design duo based out of Minneapolis. Their client list includes The New York Times, Chronicle Books, Williams Sonoma, Random House, among others. Driven by their belief that process and collaboration should be as exciting and fun as the end result, they create work that is honest, smart and succinct. In today’s interview, the 2nd part of our ongoing design in process series, Katie shares some of the challenges of working with a significant other, her workflow for a recent project and much more.

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Today we’re excited to announce a new series of process related interviews with our favorite artists and designers. In the first installment  we head to to Minneapolis, MN, the home of Michael Cina who is an award-winning creative director and skilled artist. Bridging the gap between music, photography, art and design, he creates work that is innovative and often unconventional in its approach. Here Mike discusses the role of intuition in design, his workflow for a recent Ghostly International project, his passions outside of the studio and much more. Enjoy!

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Today’s Grain Edit interview is brought to you by guest contributor Deva Mirel, and features the words and works of illustrator/fine artist Gary Taxali. We catch up with Gary after he returned in early May from his first solo show abroad at The Outsiders in London. Gary lives and works in Toronto but is originally from India. Here he discusses his most recent show, locating the desi in his work, why kids love him, and some straightforward tips on being in the business of making art.

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As a young design student at California College of the Arts I had the wonderful opportunity of interning for ReadyMade magazine — way back in its hip Berkeley headquarters heyday.

It was a fantastically unique experience and my first in a bustling design office. Under the guidance of art director George McCalman, the office’s art department was a lively, collaborative, ambitious and (extremely) entertaining place to work — and home to the best design office music jams I have had the pleasure to groove to (courtesy of Mr. McCalman himself).

George is a magazine veteran, having art-directed Mother Jones, ReadyMade and Afar to name a few. He is responsible for relevant, thoughtful editorial design as well as some very compelling branding, packaging and identity work. Recently, I was able to catch up with George and find out about his past, present and future. And of course, his opinions regarding his favorite magazines.

George, take it away:

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Our latest addition to the Grain Edit interview series takes us to London, home to the Mum and Dad of Anorak Magazine – Cathy Olmedillas and Rob Lowe (aka Supermundane). Anorak Magazine is “The Happy Mag for Kids” that features imaginative stories, engaging games, and activities illustrated by talented illustrators such as Adrian Johnson, Marcus Walters, Sasha Barr, Clayton Junior, even Grain Edit’s own Liam Devowski. In this interview, Cathy and Rob discuss the origins of Anorak magazine and take us behind the scenes of making the publication. They also drop some BIG news that you don’t want to miss!

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Our latest Grain Edit interview takes us to Kansas City, Missouri–the City of Fountains, headquarters to Hallmark Cards, and home to illustrator and designer Tad Carpenter. Tad’s has the clarity of a designer with the artfulness of an illustrator. His work is whimsical, fun, and smart as he uses a colorful lovable style to create a myriad of characters and illustrations. In this interview, Tad discusses some of his favorite aspects of his hometown, his influences and creative process, and provides a glimpse into his studio as well as something not many folks know about him.

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Today’s Grain Edit interview series takes us to Brooklyn, New York, home to illustrator Julia Rothman. I remember first being introduced to Julia’s work through her repeat pattern tutorial on Design*Sponge. The process blew me away, and caused me to fall in love with the multitudes of energetic inventive patterns and fresh illustrations she creates.

In this interview, Julia discusses being a native New Yorker, the influence of Sweet Pickles books (YES!), and the process behind the creation of her latest book, The Exquisite Book. She also reveals something that most people don’t know about her…find out more after the jump!

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This past weekend, I had the privilege of visiting Jordan Provost and Jason Wong, the dynamite duo behind Brooklyn based stationery and gift line enormouschampion. Their incredible collection of letterpressed cards, screenprinted cloth, and wooden goods features images of animals, love, and nature, as well as bold type. In this studio visit, Jordan and Jason show us some of their favorite things and offer a couple of handy hints on organizing and collecting.

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Today Grain Edit is proud to present Blanca Gómez of Cosas Minimas. Blanca is a Graphic Designer and Illustrator based in Madrid, Spain. You may remember her work as featured on Grain Edit’s on-going poster pick series. We like her clean and simple style and took some time to talk to Blanca about her work and creative process. We hope you’ll enjoy it.

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