By Sarah Burch
I had heard a lot about Scott Thigpen before I ever met him. You see, my fiancé had taken classes with him here at UAB, and because both Scott and he are bikers they remained in touch outside of class. I knew that Scott had completed the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route, worked on Dreamwork’s Shrek, and recently published a book. He had even told me how down to earth Scott was and how much I’d enjoy interviewing him. When I met him I found a man positioned in front of his recently acquired standing desk in a red t-shirt and jeans. Definitely down to earth.
Scott has worked for anyone from Coke-Cola, to Teen Magazine, to the Wall Street Journal. He started out as an illustrator, but in 2007, when the bottom fell out on the economy, he knew he had to shift his work from just illustrating to graphic design. He worked mostly free-lance.
However, in June of 2013, he took a 22-day break from working in order to ride a bike from Canada to Mexico in a race known as The Great Divide. A daunting task to the least. However, this ride lead to his book: Trail Magic and the Art of Soft Pedaling. Scott says that biking or simply being outside and exercising contributes to much of his inspiration. He found that the route also helped to build his confidence and forced him to a place of positivity.
For those of us wanting to become graphic designers, professional writers, or really anything in the creative realm, it is important to find a place where we can have both inspiration and peace. For Scott, that came from this race. He equates exercise to the “shower epiphany” effect. Basically, if you aren’t consciously thinking about it, you come up with some of your best stuff. However, you can’t draw all of your inspiration from exercising. Sometimes, he says, when he needs inspiration he’ll look at a series of websites. Usually, he starts with dribbble.com (Links to an external site.). Looking at other people’s work, helps Scott to find his own creativity. Maybe Scott wouldn’t approve of this statement, but I’ll make it anyway: To be a great artist, you have to steal from the good ones.
Scott’s most recent design at the time of this interview was for the CAS homepage: an animation of the brain. The left side is blue with mathematical symbols and scientific instruments. Little pulsations that run down pipes carrying knowledge from one place to another. On the right, is a green plain representing art, music, and literature. Tiny cars race down the highways of the brain’s creative right. When you go to the homepage, you can’t miss it. Scott told me that one part he doesn’t like about his job is the way people brag on his work. So, he probably wouldn’t like this part, but it is perfect. It is simple in design, but the contrast between the two sides is so distinct it represents CAS with total accuracy.
When I asked what his favorite piece was, he unsurprisingly told me that his book was the pinnacle of what he would create. “The book is the most epic,” he said. The task of writing it turned out to be daunting in many ways other than just completing route. He said that having to cut out characters, real people he had known, was difficult. At first, he had written too much trying to explain everything that went on in his mind for that 2,745 mile journey. As a result, the book was too long. However, he had a hand in every part of that book. He even designed the cover. Of course, he wanted it to be a good cover because “we do judge books by their cover.” You would pick up his book if you saw it on the shelf.
Scott doesn’t just write creatively. In fact, Scott says he uses professional writing almost everyday. “I wish I used professional grammar,” he told me. He did tell me that although his grammar is not perfect it does seem that as long as he gets “there, their, and they’re” correct there doesn’t seems to be a whole lot of fuss. Most commonly, he uses professional writing to email people. Whether it is to get them to look at some of his work or a simple email to his boss, this is the most common forum for a graphic designer to use professional writing.
We also talked about what every professional writer should know about graphic design. His answer: the basics. He claimed that you could make anything look good, even in Microsoft Word. The key was knowing the basics of graphic design. If you want to really get into the professional writing world he suggested that it was a must to take a course in both graphic design and marketing. The same goes for graphic designers: you should take a course in professional writing and marketing.
A final tip for graphic designers from Scott: observe the world. The one thing that will not go away or be replaced by computers is design.
