INTERVIEW: Philly-based Printmaker and Graphic Designer Jesse Veasey

PDF1 PDF2

Jesse Veasey is a Philly-based printmaker and graphic designer. He has only been out of school for a year or so, but is nonetheless making a significant impact in the world of graphic design. This conversation covers a range of topics from Veasey’s interest in screen printing to his aspirations of working with Tame Impala to his experiences reaching out to fellow artists.

The voice recorder was turned on as Veasey was speaking highly of fellow graphic designer Daryl Norsen, who was featured in the previous issue of Running Man Press.

_______________________________

VEASEY: ...he’s the cream of the crop, you know, poster design and stuff, so he has a lot more stuff going on, but I got a chance to do the Little Feat documentary poster that he did the logo on, so, we’ve crossed paths. But no, I’d love to have a chat with him sometime soon.

RMP: Yeah, and he’s a really laid-back guy–I’ve interviewed a couple of graphic designers now, you guys seem that way. Are you still in school?

VEASEY: I actually graduated. I think I haven’t updated my website since I graduated, I graduated last year. It wasn’t a regular four years–I started school in 2019, so we had COVID, then I actually switched my major from printmaking to graphic design which pushed me back a couple years. And then the last thing is my school in Philadelphia closed right at my senior year–it was a short-notice shutdown. And then I had to go to Drexel. So it was a perfect storm of, extending my college.

But we made it through, and I graduated with a bachelor of science, which, I didn’t take a single science class, [laughs] didn’t do any math the whole time, but they gave it to me anyway, so it worked out in the end.

RMP: Congratulations and also, thanks for taking the time to do this.

VEASEY: I love the paper, you know, what I’ve seen online and stuff. I’m sure you can see I have a bit of a physical media thing going on in the background, so... I love reading stuff in person, you know, going back to me being a printmaker, seeing actual printed material is the most amazing thing to me still. So, I’m so psyched to have something in print.

RMP: Yeah, I’ve seen that some of your stuff’s been screen printed–your posters and that? And do you do that?

VEASEY: I actually didn’t get to print them but just recently, this last year, I’ve done a couple screen print collabs with people who have printed for me. I’m actually in the process of starting a screen printing studio in my basement.

RMP: Oh, really?

VEASEY: Yeah, it’s a lot of work to get it up and going.

RMP: We have a screen printing shop as well here in Montreal. We have a decent space for it now, but it started in a spare bedroom. How’s it going so far?

VEASEY: Yeah, I’m trying to get this going, and actually make some money off of it so I can afford a new space to do it. It’s working out right now, so hopefully, in the next year or something, it takes off.

I just did a LeBron t-shirt, because he just came to Philly, and that was a two-colour one and I only have a single-colour press. So I had to go out and get that manufactured locally in Philadelphia. Hopefully I get a chance to get a new space with a washout sink and whatnot. It’s definitely one of my first loves, screen printing.

RMP: It seems like you’re quite busy with the graphic design side of things right now as well.

VEASEY: Yeah, I started doing commissions for local acts and bands when I was in school. I probably started in 2022, so I’ve been doing this for four years, but since I’ve graduated, this has been my only job. And now it’s really getting to a frequency where I’m feeling good about the space I’m in and the projects I’m taking on.

It was overwhelming at first, but now I feel like I’ve sort of hit a good flow with everything. And, yeah, the projects keep rolling in and I’m lucky to keep doing them.There’s some cool stuff coming out soon. Some stuff I can talk about, some stuff I can’t. [laughs]

RMP: What can you talk about?

VEASEY: I’m working a lot with some bigger local Philly stuff. There’s the Winderman Colman & Kimock Trio, which is Eli Winderman from Dopapod. Johnny Kimock, who’s Steve Kimock’s son, one of my heroes from, you know, the whole Dead scene. And Jonathan Colman, he’s in Muscle Tough, but that record was the first vinyl that I ever got to make. So, we’re working on a new record for them and some singles as well. I think there will also be a physical copy of that.

And, yeah, working on different Grateful Dead adjacent acts. The Grateful Shred is one of the bands that I’ve worked with a lot and they have some shows coming out in October that I’ve done some posters for. They were always one of my favourites, and you know, a dream come true to work for them.

RMP: What does a regular day look like for you right now?

VEASEY: A regular day for me is, I’ll wake up and I’ll work on my own stuff first, my own designs and whatnot, getting the creative juices out early in the morning. And then for the rest of the day I’m just kind of popping back and forth between projects. Answering emails. And, you know, a lot of that time is spent looking at all the stuff I have.

I use a lot of the physical media that I have acquired to, you know, shy away from the inspiration stuff, like Pinterest. And so, I’ve collected all this stuff to sort of be my little inspiration library. I spend a lot of time just reading through magazines and books. Just coming across stuff that I haven’t seen before.

Most of the day I’m also putting on records and CDs. I’m very analog because I’m on the computer all day. The last thing I want to do is turn on an album on my computer. My girlfriend’s not happy that I’m collecting so much, but...

RMP: It’s cool stuff though. It’s not random hoarder stuff.

VEASEY: It’s all organized, too. I tell her that I can’t be a hoarder if I organize it.

RMP: I was going to ask about the book collection. What are some of your favourites and your reccomendations?

VEASEY: So, I think this online ceramics book [Tricker’s Cabin] is a recent book, but in some ways it has changed my life. Because I had been around the Dead & Co. scene since I was about fifteen. And I had seen Elijah and Alix around, before I really got into doing it myself. I had always loved their style of work and then they released this as a capstone, Tricker’s Cabin.

It just shows, all the shirts they’ve ever made, their process. Yeah, I think this book came out in 2025, so last year or 2024. But the sort of ethos of their brand is, I think even in the beginning they didn’t really take themselves too seriously and they just put out work that they wanted to. I think for a while there I was in my own head with what I was creating and putting out into the world. And once I read this book, it was kind of like, if you have an idea, just throw it out there. And whoever’s gonna come by is gonna come by. And if they don’t, they don’t. So that book, even though it’s a recent book, sort of changed my ideology on creating.

A lot of cool books that I have, too, like this Ram Dass book, Be Here Now. A lot of “heads” love this book and the visual art in it is really beautiful. And, you know, this graphic, black and white thing is the basis of how I create things. I always think about things in black and white first, before I add colour. Growing up drawing comics and stuff you’d always do the black ink first.

And then, you know, I have a lot of zines and stuff. These guys, Pass the Peas. Are you familiar with them?

RMP: I haven’t heard of them, no.

VEASEY: I think they’re based in Indonesia. They do really amazing work, as well and it’s all about music. It’s all about jazz and a lot of it is bossa nova inspired. I read also, in your interview with Daryl [Norsen], that he sang the praises of fonts in use [fontsinuse.com].

RMP: Yeah, you use that, too?

VEASEY: Oh, yes, yes, yeah. That was one of the first things that I learned in school. Some kid in my class had the question,“How do you know which fonts work well with other fonts?” And he [the professor] pointed us to fonts in use where you could see, you know, old applications of fonts. Secondary fonts with display fonts. And I’m probably on that every day, just surfing, looking for new stuff. Even the stuff that hasn’t been digitized yet. The old books that used to come with just typefaces that haven’t been scanned. That stuff is my favourite. Because sometimes you can cut them out and sort of collage them. But, yeah, those are three of my favourites that I go back to all the time. And, yeah, the rest is, comic books, magazines. And then a lot of records in here, as well.

RMP: You were talking about drawing comics as a kid. I imagine you started off at a pretty young age, right?

VEASEY: Yeah. So, my mom is an artist, as well, she’s a ceramic artist. She had always collected things growing up. A lot of old magazines and stuff. And she paints here and there, I was always sort of fed awesome art at a young age. And my dad is more of a businessman. So, they’re in business together.

RMP: Yeah, good combo.

VEASEY: Yeah. So, I get information from both sides, absolutely. But my dad was also the one who introduced me to the music that I’m into. He went to see The Dead from ‘87 to ‘95. So, it was kind of like my mom introduced me to the art, my dad introduced me to the music, and now I’m doing those two things together.

But, I definitely started, drawing comic books. Mad Magazine was huge for me as a kid. I’d draw my own Mad Magazine little comic strips and characters. I think I was a little too young for Robert Crumb at that point, but, growing up, getting into the whole underground comic stuff is, really, really important to me.

I think I found a stack of old ‘70s comics at my grandma’s house. I got rid of those at some point, unfortunately but I’ve always been sort of chasing that feeling of finding those comics, and that’s why I have a collection of those as well.

RMP: And of course you’re a big music fan. Is there any band that you would really like to do an album cover for?

VEASEY: One of the things that inspired me to do music stuff was the Tame Impala album cover, the Currents cover.

RMP: Oh yeah, yeah.

VEASEY: Seeing that, and then looking up who did that–Robert Beatty–and then sort of going down that rabbit hole of Robert making stuff for other artists. But that album cover... got me really, really into–oh, I can make covers for other musicians as well. But I think Tame Impala would definitely be my number one if I could.

Especially because I think his last album had a real graphic style to it. Not as drippy and psychedelic as Currents, but I feel like maybe someday I could fit in there, hopefully.

RMP: Too bad there’s that big delay between his albums.

VEASEY: Yeah, oh, yeah. I mean, next five years, let’s see what happens. I think Slow Rush came out... oh, 2020, and the new one came out last year. So, yeah, hopefully by then I get in touch with Kevin or something. Even doing merch for him would be, like, a dream come true.

I’m already sort of dipping my toes into doing stuff with artists that I’ve been a really big fan of, like Eggy.

RMP: Oh, I saw that poster, yeah.

VEASEY: The Little Feat documentary, that was really big because my dad introduced me to Little Feat. That was an honour to work on. Jesse Lauter from Relix–I met him through the Relix internship and he called me and he said, “Do you want to do the Little Feet documentary poster?” And I called my dad and I told him.

You know, so I’m on my path to getting to do work for artists that I’ve been a really big fan of. And yeah, hopefully one day I can do a Tame Impala cover.

RMP: Well, yeah, you’ve only been full-time for so long so it’s a good start.

VEASEY: Yeah, for about a year. And going back and forth between wanting to get a studio job and doing this, I feel like I’ve made my decision that I love doing this and I think it’s really important to keep doing this as well as, you know, working for other artists, especially in the age of AI and stuff where we kind of have to cling together and integrity is really big. I think a lot of musicians don’t really want to go down that path. So there’ll always be work for us and always work for them, which I think is a really nice relationship right now.

RMP: Graphic design is one of the more vulnerable jobs. Not that AI does as good a job, but that’s where people are going, to save money. For any other aspect, does AI take away from it?

VEASEY: I’ve had my fair share of panic moments, I would say. But at the end of it... right now, people will hire a graphic designer, I think–with all this AI stuff going on–for their taste. And I think at the end of the day, the one thing that AI can’t replace is taste.

When a lot of this AI flyer stuff started happening a couple years ago, that’s when I sort of fell back in love with more of the analog style of design. Because I wanted the exact opposite of what I was seeing. I wanted gritty lines, I wanted, you know, ink splatters on the page. Even drawing stuff, scanning it. Just doing things that have a bit of magic to them, because they’re not easily replicated twice over, you know. I could scan something, mess it up and it’s going to do a different scan almost every time. So, yeah, it definitely drew me to making my work more about: does this look like it’s made digitally, or does it look like I scanned a poster? And that’s kind of where I always want to go with it. A, I want it to be real, but B, I want it to look tangible, and have some feeling towards it.

Artists or designers like Madalyn Stefanak–I think Daryl talked about her as well. She is always one of my favourites and her work has a great printmaking quality to it.

She did an amazing cover for Jerry Garcia, Merl Saunders. The Heads or Tails album cover, I saw that and I was like, “I have to figure out, you know, I have to know who did that.” And that’s how I found her work.

Right now it’s kind of crazy because I’ve been a big fan of hers and then she reached out to me to do the Eggy poster, and that was like two dreams, you know, like getting to talk with her and then doing one for the band. It’s really, really amazing.

Even though the content of my work is not exactly punky or rebellious, I think in some ways my style of making things not look like a computer made it is kind of punk.

RMP: Yeah, well, that’s part of what drew me in. Daryl has a similar thing, too. How do you go about getting that look or feeling?

VEASEY: Well, a lot of times because I don’t have a printmaking studio, I kind of recreate how I would do colour there. So, I’ll start with the line work most of the time, the black or the most prominent colour. And then, I sometimes half tone the colour and use a lot of ink bleed stuff, effects. And then, my sister got me a really cool scanner so I can scan textures. Either paper textures or out in the open. So, I have my own little collection of textures that nobody else has. So, that’s another cool thing that you can do and, you know, that definitely gives it a unique quality to it. But, yeah, I think just sort of creating what I would do if I was going to screen print it on a digital file is always my go to.

Separating colours, I split them up by CMYK sometimes and misregister them, you know, little nuances like that are kind of how I get away with the look of it [laughs].

RMP: One of my questions was how would you describe your art, but you kind of just did. It’s more, I don’t know, raw, would you say?

VEASEY: Yeah, I’d say it’s very controlled chaos, I think.

You know, looking back on old logos and stuff, even just seeing the old ink bleed from logos that were very carefully designed–I think about designers 50 years ago who would spend months working on a logo and then seeing it printed somewhere else, and the lines are bleeding and stuff, even though it was a carefully crafted thing. But seeing it in this sort of distorted form is something that I really, really love. So a lot of my typography and stuff, I still try to make it very clean, kerning it really well and make sure everything is tight, but then I want it to look rough. I want it to look worn out.

Sometimes that’s not always the case, sometimes I’ll just do a regular clean logo, but I think for the most part, I want whatever I make to look like it exists outside of your screen.

RMP: Yeah, I saw some of the earlier designs were cleaner looking.

VEASEY: Yeah, I definitely learned more about textures and stuff along the way, and I think definitely when I was in school, I wanted it to look cleaner, but I noticed that everybody else’s looked really clean, and I wanted to do something a little bit different.

Honestly, the greatest thing is that I started in printmaking, and then I went to graphic design. I don’t think I would have the same approach or look to my work if I didn’t start that way, and even though I was behind some of the kids in my class in terms of my design knowledge and stuff, I think it gave me somewhat of an edge because I had a different approach to everything rather than just learning the basics right out of the gate. So I’m really happy that that’s kind of how my journey went, and I don’t think I’ll ever one day decide to start making super clean, you know, websites and whatnot because that’s just not where my head’s at or where my passion is. So yeah, I think I definitely just controlled chaos.

RMP: Would you say the graphic design portion of your school brought you a lot? I imagine definitely in terms of technical skills it would be extremely helpful.

VEASEY: Yeah, absolutely. I think you could definitely get away with being a graphic designer and not go to school. I think a lot of artists and designers may agree with me on that. But it was definitely helpful; A, for the resources I had, and then meeting people as well.

I had a great professor, his name is Ben Denzer, and he’s actually an amazing designer as well. He was one of my favourite professors, and his approach to a lot of art was, he did a lot of editorial work, and he’d create little scenes instead of sort of collaging stuff, he’d actually create scenes and photograph them.

So he was one of my favourites, but he had an artist talk scheduled for us with Bráulio Amado, which–honestly, I knew him, but I didn’t know the scope of his work, like doing the Frank Ocean Lens cover he did. Almost everything I see, I’m like, who did that? And it’s him.

RMP: Really?

VEASEY: I really knew him from his Frank Ocean work. He did a lot of stuff with Andre 3000 on New Blue Sun.

So he spoke to the class or over Zoo and but that was my first time sort of hearing somebody talk about working with a lot of musicians and doing album covers because a lot of my schooling was just about commercial work and editorial design, which I still love. But that was the first time that I heard someone really give a whole, you know, this is my life kind of thing. And then I actually reached out to him after the class for another talk, and we talked for about an hour, and I think at that time I was really taking on a bunch of work in school, and one of his pieces of advice for me was to slow down and enjoy school.

And, you know, this is the last time in your life where you’ll have a lot of these resources that are pretty crazy to come by elsewhere. And so that really was an important chat that happened through school but not necessarily in school. And so I think all in all my education was really important to me, and I met some really awesome people along the way. I think it also gave me the courage to reach out to other artists as well. I had a great phone call with Taylor Rushing early on. I don’t know if Darryl [Norsen] talked about him as well.

RMP: Yeah, I recognize the name.

VEASEY: He’s a very amazing Western artist, folk artist. And so I was just sort of reaching out to all these artists and designers that I had been fans of after that.

I talked with Bráulio because I thought, if I can be that easy, you know, it doesn’t hurt to just message somebody and say, “Hey, can I chat?” And he took my call and we chatted for a good while as well. And, you know, one of his lessons was always keep drawing, which was–this was before the AI stuff too. This was probably 2022.

RMP: Does that mean physically drawing?

VEASEY: Yeah, you know, keep your hand work involved. When I chatted with him, he talked about a lot of people using the Rick Griffin font for Grateful Dead stuff. And he told me, “Draw that font.” Draw that the way it looks, make everything from your hand. And, yeah, that predates like a lot of AI stuff that was sort of on the horizon. He told me, pretty soon things are going to be drawn for you, but it’s important that you keep drawing. And so I’ve never stopped. A lot of my work still is a lot of photocopy stuff. If I have the option to draw something or hand letter something, I’m going to take it because there’s no replicating that. So he was an awesome person to chat with.

I got to chat with Dewey Saunders who did a lot of the Anderson .Paak covers. So that was kind of like two different artists. Dewey is very collage and photo typography and whatnot. So I got a lot of different perspectives from different artists. I listened to what they had to say and I incorporated some things. And so that was the example of stuff I’ve learned outside of school. But I definitely wouldn’t have had the courage to go out and do that if I hadn’t crossed paths with Bráulio.

It was one of the best decisions I ever made to reach out and talk to these guys because now they’re, you know, I’m on their radar, even as a very small designer.

RMP: I think people appreciate that if you’re genuinely interested in what they’re doing and just need some advice.

VEASEY: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think it’s always nice to take a break from dealing with art directors and whatnot and just talk to another artist and give out your own sort of advice as good little breath of fresh air, you know.

RMP: I know it might be different each time, but when you start a new design, what would the process be? Would you sketch something out first?

VEASEY: I would say it depends on the project. I think for the most part these days people are–especially my work with Ars Nova, which is like a lot of the jazz flyers–they’ll give me a photo to work with. And so if it’s a photo-based flyer, I usually start with that and sort of plan around it. But, stuff like the Eggy poster, I definitely sketch that out.

I looked at a few references. Sometimes I need to binge a lot of inspo. Or sometimes I see one single thing. Madeline had sent me a picture of a Rhodes piano and I immediately went to that Rhodes piano. I was like, I have to have that in the front of the poster. And so I drew that Rhodes piano first and then sketched everything out after that. So sometimes it’s immediate. Sometimes it’s a lot of moving stuff around. But for the most part, I sketch like crazy.

I also learned ealry on, if you said, I need a flyer by the end of the week and I’d draw it fully. And then they’d say, no, that might mess up the timeline. That was a learning process for sure. But I thought, hey, I could save myself a lot of time if I just sketched it out and sent it to them first. So a lot of times the sketching is like, are we on the same page? But, you know, a lot of times I think I just sort of have the idea in my head and I just go for it.

I think it also starts with a lot of collaging references. If I use a reference, I’ll sort of collage it first and then draw from that. So it definitely depends each time, but I definitely do sketch it out for the most part.

RMP: What are your long term goals in design? I guess working with Tame Impala, that’s one. But any other things that you would like to get to at some point? Even if it’s for yourself.

VEASEY: I think actually the biggest thing that I wanted to do was work for a company. But, you know, it’s all up in the air right now. But I think my overall long term goal is to keep doing this. I couldn’t imagine a more rewarding, artistic endeavour than making something, and seeing it printed and enjoyed by other people, especially on album covers. I’m a bit of a musician, but I have not made anything. I do play guitar and I do play bass, but I don’t do it seriously. So I always wanted to be in a band and I think this sort of career path that I’m on makes me feel like I’m in the band sometimes. Like Stanley Mouse when he was working with The Dead.

I find a lot of these artists who work very frequently with musicians could almost be in the band, and are very important and synonymous with them. And I think that’s kind of where I want to be as well. Also stuff like going to shows–doing the poster for a show and then going to the show is so rewarding. Yeah, I just love it. I love having physical vinyls that I’ve made. So I think my long term goal is to be able to keep doing this.

And, you know, launching some stuff on the side for myself. Again, screen printing stuff. I think more than anything, making an album cover for an album that is a Grammy winning album, you know, your artwork will always be synonymous with a Grammy. I think I’m going to try as long as I can to not really feed into the whole like corporate design stuff as much because I thought about that for a while. “Should I go out and get a studio job?” But I feel really, really comfortable right now and I’m enjoying what I’m doing.

It definitely feels like you’re part of something bigger, my art feels much bigger than what it is whenever I do a poster for a show or a band.

Eggy poster by Jesse Veasey

Blaque Dynamite poster by Jesse Veasey

RUNNING MAN PRESS

CoNTACT

info@runningmanpress.ca

© 2024. All rights reserved.

ads@runningmanpress.ca

About

Drop-off Locations