ZAK KAPLAN of ROGUE STATE DESIGN
by Christer Davidsson, September 2007Artwork by: Rogue State Design
Hey Zak, how are you?
- Good. Busy but good.
I guess most people might know you as a guy who's in or have been in a lot of great bands. However, this interview is about you as a designer. For how long have you been calling yourself a designer?
- It was probably around 2000/2001 that I first started calling myself a designer but I certainly hadn’t earned it at that point. I was more or less just a jackass with a computer and a scanner. Things haven’t changed much since then but now I make a living off it.
So, you are making a living out of this stuff nowadays?
- Yes, I am. This is all that I do, this and the record label. This calendar year has been especially good for me, overwhelming and sometimes under paid, but very busy and has kept me from having to go out a get some crappy side job.
What kinds of designs are you doing?
- I design for both print and web, though I prefer print. I’m always working on a million projects at once…posters, websites, record covers, whatever people need or want. I do layouts, I do logos, tee shirt designs, basically whatever.
You have your own "company" called Rogue State Design. When did you start that up?
- I came up with the name in early 2004. Worthless United had broken up and I was ready to step it up and start pursuing art and design as a full time thing. So came up with a name, bought a domain, and built a website where I could showcase the work I had done over the past couple of years. I revamped the site exactly a year ago and that’s when things really started to take off for me.
How did you come up with the name Rogue State Design? - I liked the way it looked and sounded and thought it had some bite and hostility. One of the definitions I found for “rogue” defined it as “an entity set apart from the normal order, which acts in an independent manner.” Of course other definitions also defines a “rogue” as a “person who is deceitful and unreliable”, so maybe it wasn’t the best choice of words when trying to build a business, but whatever. A rogue state certainly has its political connotations but I thought of it more as a state of mind, like an independent state of mind.
Name some of the people you've been working with so far?
- There are really too many to name and I wouldn’t know where to start. My client list ranges from really small obscure d.i.y. Punk bands to law firms that win multi-million dollar cases. But I think I most recognized for working with Chunksaah Records and a number of releases on the label. Also my bands like Worthless United and The Ratchets. I’ve done a lot with Catch 22, Bigwig, and River City Rebels. I do a lot of poster design for a club in Asbury Park. I just did a postes for show with The Casualties, one for The Tossers, and one The Heart Attacks and the Soda Pop Kids, who are a cool band on a cool label from Chicago called Full Breach Kicks. I’ve been doing some tee shirt designs for Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes who are total Jersey Shore legends. Bruce Springsteen is known around the world but if you’re from the Jersey Shore then you definitely know about and respect the Asbury Jukes too. They all came up from the same scene in the 70’s. Those designs are fun for me cause it’s a way older demographic and I just picture there older people with fanny packs and cell phone hip holders going out to the rock show and buying their concert tee souvenirs.
You really have a style of your own and it's really easy to see if a design is a Zak Kaplan. How would you describe it?
- Playing in bands, people are always asking you to describe your band and I always stumble and then just repeat how other people have described it. So I guess this is the same thing. I don’t know how to describe it but people tend to comment of the boldness and the simplicity of my designs. So from that I would have so describe it as falling somewhere between Constructivism and Pop Art and Propaganda.
What other artists or designers have made an impact on your work?
- In 1998 or 1999 I was taking a course in Russian Art and had mistakenly equated Russian for being synonymous with Soviet. By the time I realized my mistake I’m studying the architecture of 990 Kiev and fifteenth-century icon-painting of Novgorod and I was pretty bummed out about the situation. Luckily there was an exhibition right next door at the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum called something like “Russian and Soviet Propaganda Posters” and the class went in there one day and I was just blown away. There were these gigantic, original posters like Dmitrii Moor’s “Death to World Capitalism” and “May 1 – Russian Voluntary Workday”. There were prints by Malevich, Lebedev, and Deni. Seeing this stuff in person really made a huge impact on me and I spent the rest of the semester studying that period of Soviet Art and got into artists like Rodchenko and Lissitsky. But there are a lot of contemporary artists like have made a huge impact on me too. Designers like Shepard Fairey and John Yates are probably the most obvious. Punk album art in general, everything from early-mid Dischord stuff, the political straight-edge Ebullition/HeartattaCk style, East Bay / Lookout Records with Chris Applegren, Jessie Michaels, Cometbus, that whole scene really influenced my design. And the other artists in the Chunksaah family, Bryan Keinlen, Ernie Parada, Johnny X, Pete Pedersen…working with these people and their designs have a lot to do with my own style of design.
You sound like a fan of Russia? Ever been there?
- I’m a fan of a certain style that happened during a certain period of time in Russia but I don’t know if that makes me a fan of Russia as a mass of land. I’m very interested in the history of the former Soviet Union and because of that I would love to visit. But I think I would rather try to visit a country that is still Communist, like North Korea or Cuba. I would love to make it to Cuba while Castro is still alive. There was actually some talk of Catch 22 heading over to Moscow later this month and I was going to try to tag along but I can’t get a passport in time and I haven’t heard if they’ve confirmed the date or not. A good friend is moving to Russia for a year and it would be great if I could take advantage of that and plan a trip.
Are you completely self-taught or do you have a degree in this field? - I consider myself completely self-taught. I did take one class that was called Introduction to Computer Art but it was completely useless. Almost the whole experience of college was completely useless and I walked out with a completely useless degree. The only upside to college was being a part of the mid 90’s the New Brunswick, NJ punk scene and since I was the Art Major and studied Photography it meant that I was also the art and photo guy in the scene. That may have also been completely useless in some people’s eyes but important to others.
If I had to name a few of my favorite designs by you I'd probably say the poster you did for a show with The Saints and The Ratchets or the latest poster you did for The Draft. Do you have any favorites?
- I like those two a lot. The Draft poster is part of a series of posters for this Chunksaah summer show series. I think I did 6 or 7 designs in all. People have really been responding to all of them, which is great, but now I’m getting all these people who want to hire me but want their stuff to look like that. I’ve applied that style to some non-punky outlets like a comedy tour, a family restaurant, and a tattoo shop, but I’m kind of over it now and ready to move forward. The Saints poster was cool but I’m bummed because we got a bunch signed by The Saints and somehow lost them. I’m not really one for autographs but those guys are total punk pioneers and I had an amazing time with them and it would have been nice to frame something like that. There’s a Sticks & Stones poster I really like a lot but partly because I used a photo I made of my fiancé surrounded by cool records and books and cigarettes and wine. So it’s like everything I love on one poster.
Yeah, I know which one you're talking about. I like that one. So, is there a design you really really regret doing?
- I wouldn’t say I regret any designs. There are some that I am less proud or wish that I had done differently. Actually, the last poster I did I sorta regret a little. I did a poster for The Bouncing Souls for the Chunksaah summer show series and I wanted it to be the best one and had really big ideas about it and I just ran out of time and put something together that I wasn’t totally behind. I think I had just reached a point where I was tapped out of ideas and it’s unfortunate. But it’s just ink on paper and there is no use getting too bummed out. I’m sure there will be more chances to make Bouncing Souls posters.
Do you remember your first design? - I designed crap in high school. Shitty illustrations and logos and stuff like that. I designed some cut and paste flyers, zines, and 7 inch covers in college but the first real design that I taught myself how to use a computer for was the first Worthless CD. It took me 3 tries because the first time I designed it at the wrong resolution, the second time the zip disk got corrupted, and the third time it still sucked! I did a layout for a split with Fanshen and Stormshadow and it’s embarrassingly awful. There’s a lot of older stuff that I really cringe at when I see it but that was part of the process for me because I didn’t go to school for this stuff. It took me a long time to get to the point that I’m at now and I was just lucky that along the way people paid me so that I could keep at it.
What methods do you use when you're designing?
- I usually spend some time looking around online or going through books for inspiration. Maybe I’ll sketch something out but I don’t have much of a method. I just sit down at the computer with a cup of coffee, smoke some weed, and get to it. It usually takes a little while to get going but once I actually get started I’m like a possessed person and I’ll spend 13 hours in front of the computer and not blink an eye.
You say you get inspired by books? What books do you look through for inspiration?
- Anything. Less words more pictures please. I look though art books, old skate mags, I have set of old encyclopedias that I sometimes use to reference, whatever I can look through that might spark me to go in a certain style or direction. Lately I’ve been spending a lot of time looking at weird stuff like paper money and old stamps and stuff like that.
Apart from doing posters and other print designs I know you've been doing some photography. A bunch of your photos were used in the book "New Brunswick, New Jersey, Goodbye" by Ronen Kauffman. How do you feel about that? - It was a great opportunity to use a lot of photos that I had made of all these bands and people that Ronen covered in his book. As written about in the book, Ronen and I have a relationship that goes back a long time. Ronen always has a million ideas he’s working on and a million plans and projects so when he told me about this idea for a book I took it with a grain of salt. But I’m really excited for him. It was a great opportunity for him and I was more than happy to help in any way possible. It was a great opportunity for me too I was honored that he asked me to design the book jacket and I was glad that he was able to get some use out of the photos. I think there should have been a whole chapter about me and what a totally cool dude I am but…just kidding.
The cover of Ronen's book really looks great. It must be really fun to be involved in something like that. What did you think of the book?
- It’s impossible for me to step outside of my experiences and read it with an open mind. I’m too close to the subject matter and, in many cases, was part of the subject matter. I know Ronen has gotten a lot of great feedback from the book and I also know that it pissed a lot of people off for one reason or another. I don’t want to say too much about ‘cause I’ll just start talking shit about people and I want to save all that material for the book I’m going to write someday.
Are you doing a lot of photography nowadays?
- I actually don’t do photography at all. I really burned out on it. I was involved in this long documentary photography project and it was really draining at time and I was battling with some ethical questions of whether or not I was helping anyone or if I was just exploiting people for my own gains. It’s hard to explain but it got pretty heavy at times. So after that I tried to focus on band photography but then the digital thing went into full swing and I couldn’t afford to make that switch. I couldn’t keep up with the technology and I didn’t have access to a darkroom to process and print so I just dropped it. It’s such an expensive hobby to have. The last photo project I took was a road piece published in Alternative Press on The Bouncing Souls / Hot Water Music Canadian Tour. That was back in 2003 but maybe one of these days I’ll get back into it.
You're in bands and you're working at Chunksaah Records as well. Do you have any spare time at all?
- About a year ago I was debating if I should keep at all this designing stuff. I was getting work, but not enough, and had moved to a new area that didn’t have as much opportunity as where I had previously been. Out of nowhere, about 8 months ago, I just got slammed with work. Luckily, there wasn’t much happening at the time with Chunksaah or The Ratchets so it was fine and I was able to handle it. Then this summer Chunksaah Records got really busy and we decided to put out all these releases and do these shows and it’s been really overwhelming trying to keep up with everything. I performed with three bands this summer. Worthless United and Rock,Star both did reunions. The Ratchets, which has been my permanent band for four years, had been playing too but we’re now on hiatus. Things are finally slowing down, getting back to normal, and I’m starting to get a little pickier about taking on new clients. I got a parakeet a week or two ago. His name is Paul Westerbird. He hangs out with me while I work. He’s really into Operation Ivy and Stiff Little Fingers right now, which is cool, but he likes to listen to music a lot louder than I usually do. But spare time, not so much.
What are you working on right now? - I just recently wrapped up a whole bunch of projects. I finished a 7 inch cover for Off With Their Heads. I just did the new River City Rebels CD. Finished up show posters for The Bouncing Souls, Sticks & Stones, Thrushes, Tossers, and probably some others. Chunksaah just released a new record by the Low Budgets that I did a lot of design work on. I just totally redesigned the Chunksaah site which I had been trying to get to for about 3 years now. I don’t even know what I have coming up. I get a lot of work from companies that are completely outside the realm of the punk/underground work and I usually keep that stuff separate from the stuff that I put on my portfolio site. They hire me cause they love the designs on my site and think I’m “cutting edge” or “edgy” and all that. They tell me how great I am and then they ask me to tone it down. And that’s fine. I’m more than happy to take their money, but it would be a lot more fun if I could just make Punk record covers and show posters all day.
What advice would you give to someone who's trying to start something like this on their own? I'm doing some designs myself and I could sure use some guidance..
- Man, I wish you had some advice or guidance for me ‘cause it looks like you’ve been doing pretty well for yourself lately. I never really know what I’m doing but I guess that’s what keeps it fun and exciting. I would say that the most important thing is do develop relationships with people and gain a reputation for being reliable.
It was really fun to talk to you again Zak. I love your work and I wish you all the best! Anything else you'd like to share?
- Thank you for taking the time to talk with me. I always appreciate hearing from fellow designers and I encourage others to get in touch. Maybe one of these days I’ll get an e-zine going and can return the favor.