Michaelbox

It really should come as no sur­prise that I’d have an inter­view with Rachael at some point. If you’ve read over pre­vi­ous entries in the blog, *cough* My Time, So Far, as a Min­ion post *cough*, you know I have a long stand­ing his­tory of work­ing with her on var­i­ous projects. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at caf­feinat­edelf (Twit­ter) or find her at The Caf­feinated Elf It’s with that won­der­ful rela­tion­ship that I am very happy to present her responses to the fif­teen ques­tions I posed to her. Lets get to them.

Your iden­tity and brand­ing are based off of cof­fee and caf­feine. How much do you drink on a pro­duc­tive day?

Rachael E.C. Ack­lin: I drink about two cups, if I’m pay­ing atten­tion enough to fin­ish them before I for­get they’re even there. I make a small pot of cof­fee in the morn­ing, and it only holds about 2.5 mugs’ worth of cof­fee in it, so I end up wash­ing about a half a cup down the drain when I rinse out the pot. I used to make a big 12-cup pot, but I never even drank half of it so it was a huge waste. I don’t believe my own hype enough to drink way more cof­fee than I actu­ally can han­dle.

Why should some­one take a drink of your “cof­fee” and hire you for all their design needs? What sets you apart from other brews?

Rachael: A very spe­cific thing that sets my design style and work style apart from many other design­ers is that I really care about my clients’ suc­cess as it relates to the project I’m work­ing on for them. I spend a lot of time talk­ing with them, ask­ing them ques­tions to help their own cre­ativ­ity and idea gen­er­a­tion processes. I also incor­po­rate every piece of feed­back that I get from them, whether I can actu­ally deliver what they want, or can explain why some­thing won’t work and give them a dif­fer­ent sug­ges­tion. I’m not one of those design­ers that is so con­vinced they know their craft that the client is always wrong, and I don’t get so per­son­ally attached to each design that I get upset when the client needs me to change it. I am really proud of the way I’m able to build a trust-filled work­ing rela­tion­ship with my clients because of the way I do things.

You’re plan­ning a party at your favorite local cof­fee shop. Who would be some of your twit­ter cohosts for this gathering?

Rachael: OH MAN. There are so many fan­tas­tic peo­ple that I’d love to cohost a cof­fee party with: Crys­tal (big­bright­bulb (Twit­ter)), Adam (adamk­ingstu­dio (Twit­ter)), Sarah (leiana­jade (Twit­ter)), Kyle (kpdu­rand (Twit­ter)), and Andy (andrewghayes (Twit­ter)) are the first peo­ple who come to mind. And every­one else I talk to every week. THIS IS A TRICK QUESTION, HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO CHOOSE?!

What are some of the most over­caf­feinated and ener­getic fonts in your col­lec­tion and can you describe any projects that you got to use one of them in?

Rachael: You know, I don’t really use very many over­caf­feinated fonts. I like fonts that imply intel­li­gence, strength, char­ac­ter, and occa­sional quirk­i­ness. Recently, one of my favorite thing to do is pair a script font with a sans serif font. How­ever, Scriptina and Geor­gia have become my brand fonts in the last sev­eral months, and I love how they com­pli­ment each other.

What is your favorite cof­fee roast and from what country?

Rachael: Dark roasts taste the best to me, although hilar­i­ously, they con­tain less caf­feine. HA HA HA. I’ve loved and enjoyed cof­fee from Africa and South Amer­ica, but none are my favorites. They all taste mar­velously per­fect and dis­tinctly different.

You know 8-bit graph­ics are a bit trendy right now. Have you ever been tempted to fire up MS Paint or some other basic bitmap pixel edi­tor and do some mockup work there? What type of project do you think this would actu­ally be good for?

Rachael: Nope. For real. Maybe I’m not very good at fol­low­ing trends. How­ever, I think that 8-bit graph­ics might look really sweet on a geek-style web­comic design, along with some hand-drawn illustrations.

If money was not a ques­tion, what would you pur­chase or upgrade in order to achieve “the per­fect setup” with your office space?

Rachael: I would scour the earth in search of the per­fect ergonomic chair and desk com­bi­na­tion that works for EXCESSIVELY SHORT PEOPLE who have EXCESSIVE SHOULDER PAIN from all that awe­some design work. It’s so dif­fi­cult to find chairs that work for you if you’re just over five feet tall!

A ninja has just swiped your source of awe­some and cof­fee. Do you call him a trai­tor to your ninja brethren or do you gather up your pirate crew on deck in order to pursue?

Rachael: First I am upset and I have a good cry. Then I gather up my crew and explain what’s going on, and tell them how I need their help. We find the ninja, find out what hap­pened, and find a solu­tion that works for every­one. Even hor­ri­ble prob­lems have solu­tions if you’re will­ing to work at find­ing them.

What lessons do you want to pass on to new design­ers? Are there any that you wish you learned earlier?

Rachael: First les­son: don’t take jobs just because you need money; take jobs because they fit what you love to do. Sec­ond les­son: if you have a client that you can­not make happy no mat­ter what you do, and you’ve actu­ally tried every­thing and been hon­est, don’t be afraid to fire that client. Third les­son: you can’t please every­one, so stop try­ing; find your right peo­ple and stick with them. (All of these, I wish I’d known ear­lier than I learned them.)

Have you ever found direct design influ­ence in any­thing that one of your kids has cre­ated or drawn? If so, tell us about it.

Rachael: I haven’t been directly influ­enced yet, because I haven’t needed to put explo­sions, air­planes, dinosaurs, and aliens in a design yet. YET. How­ever, their cre­ativ­ity never ceases to amaze me. It’s really fas­ci­nat­ing what they will cre­ate with only a few sheets of plain white paper and a box of crayons.

Did you ever hear back from William Shat­ner at all? I recall you try­ing to drum up sup­port for you to redesign his website.

Rachael: No, the Shat never got back with me. KHAN!!!!!! But it was fun, try­ing to get him to respond. Also, I am actu­ally more fond of him now than I was before, despite the fact that I had no con­tact with him what­so­ever. The inter­nets are so awe­some like that.

What are a few things from cubi­cle life that some­one couldn’t pay you to miss?

Rachael: 1) Uncom­fort­able seat­ing arrange­ments; 2) guilt over tak­ing a needed break; 3) flu­o­res­cent lights; 4) lunch at my desk; 5) never know­ing if I was doing a good enough job; 6) dri­ving to work and back every sin­gle day.

What­ever hap­pened to the Caf­feinated Pod­cast? Is that a project that never got to take off? or is it just dor­mant at the moment?

Rachael: It’s just dor­mant right now. One of my awe­some friends, who is also a ninja for me some­times, is going to team up with me and we’re going to bring it back, BABY.

What are some stereo­types that you wish design­ers had?

Rachael: I wish that design­ers were known for good com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills. I also wish that design­ers were known for car­ing about the client, not just the spe­cific project being worked on.

If you could, what cof­fee com­pany would you pur­chase some stock in and why?

Rachael: I would find a cof­fee farmer in the third world who needs money to make his busi­ness big­ger, and invest in that. I wouldn’t even want him to pay me back, like Kiva.org, even though the work they do is phe­nom­e­nal. I would rather put money into some­thing that can become a great and sus­tain­able thing, than to buy stock and sell it later, honestly.