Aaron Beebe — From Self-Taught Designer to Creating Plastikcomb Magazine
Graphic Design Is Fun.
Host Dan interviews Aaron Beebe, the self-taught designer and collage artist behind Plastikcomb Magazine. The episode explores the magazine'
Key takeaways
- Plastikcomb Magazine utilizes chaotic, unconventional layouts specifically designed to force reader engagement through physical interaction.
- The name 'Plastic Comb' is a metaphor for collage art, representing the transformation of found elements into something new.
Main topics
- Plastikcomb Magazine aesthetic
- 90s graphic design influences
Notable quotes
A beautiful mess.
Conclusion
The episode serves as an inspiring testament to how passion for experi
Transcript preview
Speaker 1 (0:00) Hey, what's going on folks? Welcome back to the Graphic Design is Fun podcast. My name is Dan. What do you get when you have two graphic designers who have no formal training and live 3,292 miles apart? The answer, Plastic Comb Magazine. Today, we are chatting with Aaron Beeb, a graphic designer and collage artist who created Plastic Comb Magazine along with Thomas Shostak in 2020. The magazine is an independent biannual publication melding art with graphic design, which Aaron describes as a beautiful mess. The magazine, the content of the magazine is basically interviews with artists and designers. So kind of like this podcast a little bit, but it's so much more than just the content. Plastic Home is all about wild, chaotic layouts. that are a bit of a throwback to some of these famous magazines from the 90s, like Ray Gunn, which was, of course, led by famous designer David Carson. So if things are crazy, it's not your typical magazine by any means. I'm a big fan. Basically how this episode came to be, Aaron is a fan of the podcast, just coincidentally, and he shared one of the episodes on his Instagram story. which I really appreciated. And also thanks to everybody who's shared the podcast, just by the way. But so I was checking out his page and saw that he had this crazy magazine going. And we got to chatting a little bit. He asked me if I wanted to put an ad in their upcoming issue. So there's going to be a little ad, well, full page ad for this podcast in Plastic Comb number six, I believe is their next one, which is coming out any day now. There'll be links in the description if you want to buy a copy, which you definitely should. And I asked him to chat for the podcast, which he was super down for. And just got to hear about how this magazine got started, a little bit about Aaron's background, which is not a super typical one. Anyway, you'll hear all about it in the episode. Without further ado, please enjoy today's episode with Aaron Beeb. Speaker 1 (2:29) It used to be when I started this that like I was so always so so nervous but now that I've done a few of these I sometimes forget that for the person on the other end it is kind of a weird experience to be like interviewed well I guess you've done a few interviews so it's not really maybe not so weird. Speaker 2 (2:47) Yeah you know and sometimes people kind of might get caught up in like oh what are they going to ask me and you know oh I have to try to think about you know how to answer that or I think you know it's best and you've already like you said you've already done these multiple times just kind of have a conversation right yeah Speaker 1 (3:04) yeah i like the conversation sometimes people will ask me for the questions ahead of time which i and i will do it but i don't like it as much because i find they're like getting ready to give an answer that they've thought about even if we haven't quite you know even if the conversation hasn't flowed there naturally because you know they had the questions ahead of time they were thinking it through But I also get it. I feel like if somebody asked me to be on their podcast, I would be like, give me the questions ahead of time. Like, I got to be prepared. So I don't know. Speaker 2 (3:34) But I see what you're saying because, like, you want to respect the other person, right? But then it becomes more structured and it's not kind of like fluid. Yeah. Speaker 1 (3:43) But that being said, you know, I do have lots of questions prepared. Lots of questions prepared for you, Aaron. So if you're ready, let's get into it. talk Speaker 2 (3:54) about this magazine. Speaker 1 (3:56) Yeah, Speaker 2 (3:56) let's do it. Speaker 1 (3:57) So I guess, you know, let's just start at the beginning or maybe if people are listening who aren't familiar, how would you describe what the magazine is? Speaker 2 (4:07) I mean, I would say I always tend to sum it up in two words, a beautiful mess. That's how I always kind of coined the magazine. And again, it's not for everybody, right? When we're talking about graphic design, there's Speaker 1 (4:23) such a spectrum Speaker 2 (4:24) of like Massimo, who is like grid-based to... Speaker 2 (4:31) Carson or Ashworth. And, you know, they're kind of more chaotic in a way. Unconventional, we'll say. So my magazine is, leans obviously more towards that. But what I like to do is, in our design, I like to have the audience or the person obviously reading the magazine, they're more engaged, right? So some things, we try to make everything legible, but... Sometimes it is a little harder to read to make the person go, what was this? Or turn the page or, right? So then they're like, oh, what's that? So it's more engaging. Speaker 1 (5:10) Yeah. And that's an interesting point, the engagement thing, because it totally works. And I was just going through, again, reading the Hamburg Speaker 2 (5:19) story, which Speaker 1 (5:20) I guess maybe we'll talk about later or talk about you and your, you know, co-creator Thomas. But the fact that you have to literally read it upside down, it forces you to, you know, you're in it. You're not just kind of casually flipping through. You actually kind of have to, you know, physically be rotating this thing. Yeah, you're going to be more engaged as a result of that. Speaker 2 (5:43) And some people might be annoyed by it, right? They're like, oh, I don't know. Why are you making me? But I think for the most part, people are open to it. At least, you know, the ones that are buying the magazine or reading. Speaker 1 (5:55) For sure, yeah, yeah. Because that's, you know, it's kind of part of the fun, part of the appeal. Speaker 2 (6:00) And Speaker 1 (6:01) can you talk about what the name Plastic Comb means? Speaker 2 (6:06) So I... I guess you could say I'm an artist in the fact that I use that term loosely, I guess. And my background is more collage. Back when I was in the military, and we can get into that later, but I really didn't have time to do artwork and collage. It allowed me to... Do creative things kind of quickly and not have big space. So I've been to use found You know, it found images paper so on and so forth, you know, you know trying to do these collages well plastic on the word itself is a metaphor for a collage and in the States and I don't know if they did it in Canada, but at least back when I was younger It was when it was picture day, you know when you would go get your picture taken and you'd be in Europe in the photo album for the year You would have to go your picture taken in and while you're staying in line. They would hand out these plastic cones Fix your hair And so your hair would kind of like maybe be a mess and you take this plastic comb and you would fix it and More than likely an adult would end up doing it for you and they would totally change your appearance So you totally wouldn't look like yourself, right? so the whole thing with the plastic comb is you're taking one thing and You're turning it into something else just like a collage. So you're taking an image. Let's say it used to be in It was an ad for something in the 50s, and then you take it, and then you change it into something else. So that's the metaphor for plastic comb in our country. Speaker 1 (7:57) I love that. I don't know about in Canada. I don't remember using a comb or being given a comb, and I feel like if I look at my old pictures, my hair was pretty wild. Yeah, Speaker 2 (8:09) you're a lot younger than I am. So I'm sure they probably stopped doing that maybe in the 80s. Maybe, yeah. Yeah. You Speaker 1 (8:17) know, you briefly mentioned your time in the military, but maybe before we get into kind of how the magazine came to be, you know, you yourself, what's your design background and kind of that trajectory and your career been like? Speaker 2 (8:38) So we'll go way, way back again talking about school, right? So high school. I graduated high school and Speaker 2 (8:48) My mother, she came from New Zealand when she was about 19 or so. She came to the States, and so I was a dual citizen. And my plans were from high school, I was going to go to art school in New Zealand. So I was going to fly from the States, and I was like packing my bags, I'm going. I'm going to New Zealand where I was considered a resident, so I didn't have to pay for school. So I went over and unfortunately things didn't work out and I had to come back to the States and I ended up working odd jobs and mostly in the art department and in screen printing these small mom and pop screen printing shops. So I worked in an art department there and that's where I kind of got a more feel for liking graphic design because before I was more kind of like into drawing illustration. But once I started messing with computers and actually doing graphic design for these signs and t-shirts and whatnot, I became more involved and excited about it. So I