 |
Honest 
Honest was created in the Spring of 1997 while Cary Murnion and Jon Milott were at Parsons School of Design in NYC. They went separate ways, but continued to collaborate while working for other firms. They formed Honest to create a new identity for a New York gallery, and took off from there. Recent projects include branding, advertising, animation, catalogs, websites and other creative projects for both high profile brands and smaller clients. Their work has been shown at MOMA and SOHO Rep Theater, published in numerous magazines and books, and their own magazine's 2nd issue is due in Spring '04.
 Nike was born from a track coach's obsession with making his runners faster. They exist because of the determination of one of those runners to bring the benefits of that obsession to athletes everywhere.
Speed has been a part of Nike's DNA from the beginning. In their pursuit to help athletes attain ever greater speeds, they have studied, examined and dissected what makes one thing fast, and another not.
With the Art of Speed project, Nike sought an outside perspective, asking 15 digital artists to create their own visions of speed through a Nike lens. The artists themselves are as diverse as their results suggest, combining multi-media backgrounds in filmmaking, graphic design and architecture among others.
Honest was an obvious choice because of the strength and promise they've built with their past work. They've worked with Nike before on a few spots, self-produced hilarious short films, and came to them with five gold star concepts. The winner was "The Shortest Race." One of the rejected concepts was called "Hamburger Band-aid," which should say enough about the creative pool Honest is drinking from.
PIXELSURGEON: How did you two meet?
CARY: We met at Parsons School of Design here in NYC. We were in a class together where the teacher just didn't 'get' our design aesthetics. So we figured we might as well work together.
Did you know you were destined to be a creative team from the start?
CARY: I wouldn't say destined, but it was pretty clear early on that we had fun working together, so we just wanted to see where it would take us. So far so good.
Where did the name Honest come from? Does it represent your attitude to design?
CARY: Honest. It means a lot of different things to us, a lot of them conflicting, which we really like. We like to leave it ambiguous, it gives us more room to maneuver.
 You have quite an eclectic style, and do everything from print to motion graphics. What are the elements that define an Honest piece of work?
CARY: Thank you, we love to hear stuff like that - eclecticism IS our style really, meaning.. we don't really think of things in terms of style. We'd be so disappointed if we started getting calls from people asking us to 'do that thing we do'. Our tastes are constantly evolving, we're always gaining new interests, seeing new things, visiting new places, so we try to bring all of that to our work. And I'm not even going to say 'it's all about the idea', because that's not even always true. We just try to stay open minded, and I think that's reflected in the kind of work we're involved in.
 Who were your influences when you were at school and has this changed as you've grown as designers? Who's rocking your boat, right now?
CARY: In school a big influence on me was Tom Kluepfel and Stephen Doyle, the partners of the New York design firm Doyle Partners. I interned for them for almost 2 years and I learned so much about how to, and how not to, run a studio. I don't even pretend to think we're anywhere close to their level, but hopefully someday I will. I had lots of other people that inspired me - musicians, artists, illustrators - but they were the one that had the most influence on me. Right now? The directors Lynne Ramsey and Jim Sheridan made two of my favorite movies in the last couple of years. Some young artists I like are Patrick Rocha and Gary Fogelson who put together theholster.com.
JON: I started from a fine art foundation. Big influences early on were artists like Bruce Nauman, Charles Ray, Robert Gober..., comics and science fiction. Somewhere in there Cary and I had a lot of similar influences, which makes our growing contradictory tastes more curious. We still agree on a lot of things but I'll love something like Lord of the Rings and he won't. A lot of old friends are rocking my boat and keeping me motivated. My high school buddy Andrew Mudge recently won "the Million Dollar Film Festival" and one of my best men from my wedding just got signed to the production company @radical. It is really exciting seeing friends who have been busting their butts for the last decade take it to the next level.
Do you have a favourite medium?
CARY: Right now it's film, but that'll probably change when a fun Illustration job comes through the office.
Do you use Macs or PCs in your work?
CARY: Macs
 How did you get involved in Nike?
CARY: We got a fun email one night asking us if we'd like to shoot a short film for Nike, so it was kinda out of the blue. We had done some work for Nike before through Wieden & Kennedy, but the 'Art of Speed' was generated inhouse at Nike, so we're not quite sure how they came to pick us, but we were sure glad that they did.
What was the idea behind the Shortest Race?
CARY: The most exciting part of a race is the Start and the Finish. We wanted to see what would happen if we cut out the boring Middle part of a race. The race becomes almost all strategy - awkward flopping jerky strategy.
Do you think this is going to catch on and sweep the nation?
CARY: We've heard about some people who are doing it in either North Dakota or South Dakota (I always get the two mixed up), but we haven't actually seen anything yet. And some of the people who were in our race are saying that they've already begun training for next year's race.
One of the rejected ideas was a concept called "Hamburger Band-aid", what the hell was that about?
JON: Wouldn't you like to know?! We had a lot of fun coming up with ideas and came up with quite a few that we couldn't produce at this time. Hopefully we will get the chance to make them in the future, so you'll just have to wait or slide us some greenbacks.
 How's the next issue of Honest Magazine coming along?
JON: Lets just say it could be "The Longest Race". We've been so busy since the last issue, we just haven't had enough time to pull all the pieces together. We already have a lot great ideas and content.
Do you find being editor, publisher, designer and contributor liberating, or does it come with its own set of headaches?
CARY: Little bit of both, but definitely more towards the liberating side.
JON: Total control is the goal. We like being hands on, which is one of the reasons we've tried to stay small. Filming is much more a team effort compared to design, so we are getting used to not doing everything ourselves.
No need to mention names, but what has been the dumbest request or statement you've ever had from a client?
JON: Contradictions! The clients usually like to confuse projects by giving two opposing directions. Maybe it's fear of commitment.
|
