Randy Ludacer

LEGENDARY INTERVIEW

Design Legends ("DL") had the distinct honour to interview legendary designer Randy Ludacer ("RL") for their original perspective and innovative approach to design as well as their creative lifestyle, we are very pleased to share our interview with our distinguished readers.

DL: Could you please tell us a bit about your design background and education?

RL : I attended Rhode Island School of Design, graduating in 1977. RISD, of course would have been a great place to study graphic design. I had friends who majored in that subject. I was painting major and never took a single class in that department. Although I did paint the some of the walls in the building as part of my work study job. So maybe something rubbed off on me.

DL: Did you choose to become a designer, or you were forced to become one?

RL : Good question. I think we all form our earliest aspirations, based on our understanding of the world and our place in it at the time. And being young, we might even take some parental advice. I remember, as a kid, that I desired an art career of some sort. I was persuaded, for a while, that architecture might be a practical, yet creative career. And with that in mind I sought out mechanical drawing classes in high school and did pretty well. But then we moved and my new school didn’t offer mechanical drawing. Which (to me, at the time) meant that I would not become an architect, after all. So I spent the rest of my high school years making paintings. I continued this in college, although my paintings evolved into conceptual art. (And I also wanted began playing in a band and started to write songs.) After graduation, I looked in the NY Time classifieds for jobs listed under “ARTIST” and found employment as a paste-up artist for a textbook publisher. This led to a few years of freelance work. Nothing you’d call “creative,” although my wife (partner at BEACH) and I created “mechanicals” for printing — as directed by “art directors.” Eventually we bought a computer and started calling ourselves designers. Learning on the job, as it were. So was being a designer my choice? I certainly can’t sit here and say that being a designer was my FIRST choice. But was I forced into it? It’s not someone held a gun to my head and said: DESIGN! But life does have a way of forcing people to change their plans. (Repeatedly, I find!)

DL: What do you design, what type of designs do you wish to design more of?

RL : Lately, I’m mostly called upon to design the graphics for printed packaging—insert cards, folding cartons, labels and the like. Sometimes (but less often), I’m asked for structural packaging design. I’d like to do more of that part. I think there’s a lot of polyhedral options, that would be fascinating to use in packaging. Some polyhedra are, of course, are too complex. The challenge is to find a structure that can be made in simple enough way, that it can be done within a reasonable budget. I’d also like to design more food packaging.

DL: What should young designers do to become a design legend like you?

RL : First, take some risks. And then survive. Be curious. But get old. (Because “young legend” is oxymoronic!)

DL: What distinguishes between a good designer and a great designer?

RL : While I appreciate the idea that we should all strive to be the best we can be, I find something about this question a little mean-spirited. Being a good designer, after all, is something anyone ought to be proud of. Why parse greatness at the expense of goodness? I say: good-great, potato-potahto. (Let’s call the whole thing off!)

DL: What makes a good design a really good design, how do you evaluate good design?

RL : I agree with those who say a good design is a good solution to a design problem. 9 times out of 10, this “solution" will be the simplest, and most direct. Or should, at least, appear that way, even if there are underlying complexities in the process leading to up to it.

DL: What is the dream project you haven’t yet had time to realize?

RL : I once planned to build a model of Erik Demaine’s “Hinged Dissection” font—a square cut up into 128 hinged pieces that could rearranged into each of the 26 letters of the alphabet. I went so far as to buy the balsa wood, but that’s as far as I got.Now that I think of it, this would have been a needlessly "old school" approach. Really it should be an animation—a square transforming itself from an “A” to a “B” and so on...

DL: What are your favorite designs by other designers, why do you like them?

RL : I was obsessed, for a time, by Robert Sidney Dickens, Chicago based designer of the original TaB logo. I love the variegated, plastic Fissan bottles by Giulio Cittato. I’ve long admired Walter Landor’s 1955 “tilt bottle” for Arrowhead & Puritas water. And the no-nonsense simplicity of Meg Crane’s home pregnancy kit design. Some of my favorite designs were apparently created by anonymous designers. (Or else I just can’t figure who designed them.) The 1955 S.O.S box, for example. Or the transparent overlapping Valvoline logo from the 1960s.

DL: What is your greatest design, which aspects of that design makes you think it is great?

RL : I may be too self-deprecating, but just cannot start a sentence with “my greatest design is…” Just can’t do it. I will instead say that I’ve designed one or two things where the quality has been, perhaps, under-estimated. The Gumball Puzzle Cube Pack, for one. The Totally Living “Shirt Card” for another.

DL: How do you feel about all the awards and recognition you had, is it hard to be famous?

RL : Funny that you should ask. By "all the awards,” I must assume that you mean BOTH of the awards: all 2 of them! (The one that I won in elementary school for designing the school's crest in 1965. And the more recent A’ Design Silver Award in Packaging.) I cannot pretend to be widely (or even narrowly) recognized. And I am certainly not famous or even infamous. Why such flattering questions? But, OK, I’ll bite: "Yes it is hard to be famous. Maybe too hard, as I have not yet actually managed to do it!