Interview Conducted by Anthony Randazzo

Photographs Courtesy of Jad Hussein

Jad Hussein on Skateboarding, Design, And Mixing The Two

People in the U.S. may not have heard of Jad, but he’s made an impression on Red Skate since the beginning. Living in France, working for publishers and museums, he’s a designer who actually skates. Initially keeping skating separate, a change of heart led him to design publications like Carhartt WIP’s A Skateboarding Annual, Seb Carayol’s 100 Subversive Skateboard Graphics, and DIY by Richard Gilligan. These were all produced in the 2010s when the European scene first gained U.S. attention. Only recently, American skaters have been consuming European culture as if it were their own—and vice versa. Before this, your connection to Europe was probably institutional, and of course, for him and me, that means Graphic Design. Meeting a skater who belongs to such a design tradition is rare, at least for me. So, as an opportunity to nerd out over the particulars, we talked about what it’s like mixing skateboarding and design.

Editors: It’s sick getting to talk to you, dude. I think the first time we spoke was on Instagram when I asked you for a color profile, not knowing there were different ones in Europe, which is not the smartest thing to do if you're printing a magazine in the US.

Jad: Haha yeah, I remember.

I guess it goes to show how far we've come with it. So how did you start skating?

I think from snowboarding because I used to live at the bottom of the Alps in the South of France. I started snowboarding around 1988—something like this—and went on skateboarding right after 1992. This is during high school when I would snowboard in the winter and skate in the summer. I quit snowboarding after my shoulder got completely destroyed and experienced too many head collisions. Skateboarding is more quiet in a way.

Were you shooting photography at the time?

Not so much. At the time I was smoking weed and going to school. I started photography much later, when in University after a friend showed me some black-and-white stuff. He was a graphic designer, but really into photography; he's a pretty successful snowboarding photographer now. After 4 years studying biology, I wanted to attend the École Nationale de Photographie (located in Arles). When I got the admission form, I realized there were too many theory books to read. It wasn't my style. So I told myself, ‘I’ll do graphic design; there is some photography in it, so maybe I can express myself this way’. I didn’t know what design was at the time.

It's kind of similar to me. I entered graphic design not fully understanding what it was or knowing that it had different traditions. When did you start blending skateboarding and graphic design?

That's a good question because, at the beginning, I was not keen on mixing the two. It felt a unadventurous to be a skateboarder-graphic designer, so I split them up. I wanted to focus my design on art and keep skateboarding outside of my daily design practice.
    It wasn't until years later that I felt like contributing to the skateboarding world. Following that feeling, a friend and I had set up a publishing company (2010-2016) and we were looking for projects related to skateboarding. Scott Bourne was living in Paris, so we asked him if there was anything to work on. He said he’d just done a trip in Eastern Europe with Pontus Alv and a lot of other skaters on the Carhartt WIP team. There were plenty of photos that they didn’t do anything with, so they let us make a book. Carhartt started adding different projects after that: exhibitions, books, newspapers, and so on.
    I think it happened at the right time because I was more mature and wanted to bring that perspective to skateboarding; relying less on the action and more on what the context is—like architecture, art, and stories or whatever. Our time living and breathing skating was over, so focusing on adjacent things became more interesting. With some people, like Bertrand Trichet, working for Carhartt WIP at this time, I felt like I was in a comfortable place. We had an eight-year journey together—him driving content and me designing. Together, we ended up doing A Skateboarding Annual with Olivier Talbot (another close friend). This was kinda the climax of my career in skateboarding.






   

It makes sense that you designed that mag at a more mature part of your life. I first saw it in college, when I hoped to be at that level. A friend of mine gifted me all three issues because he needed free shipping on the WIP site, which I should probably thank him for because I still go back to them for inspiration.

    What sparked the magazine? Like you said, you had a friend who worked for Carhartt, but whose idea was it?

It was Bertrand’s idea, I think. Despite getting a lot of coverage, the massive amount of work done by his team wasn't being fully represented. So he thought a yearly publication would be a nice place to bring together all the unseen shots, stories, and ideas they had. I teamed up with him and Olivier after that. It was an assignment, but it was pretty free. We were in charge of both the content and design.

I was kind of disappointed that it ended after three issues.

We were too. We were working on Issue 4 when it got cut, but three is a good number! I think Carhartt's in-house design team wanted to do something of their own, which is now the WIP magazine and it’s more oriented towards streetwear. They didn't want to have two magazines, so they just cut our annual one and threw a couple of skateboarding articles in the current. So that’s why it ended, but it was a cool project and we had a lot of fun.

Having done a handful of projects for skateboarding, how do you interpret each project? It can be hard to approach the same topic in different ways.

I think all the projects have their target in a way. It’s more of a question about feeling; who is directing the project and where the discussion leads to. I worked for one or two magazines. One called À propos was more French and European; it was free in skate shops and felt more casual. It had a bit less “design”—the photos were more the focal point—just to make it easier to open. Sometimes graphic design is less about doing some big move. For most people it's just design, it's okay and nothing more.
    For the Carhartt A Skateboarding Annual magazine, we wanted something more edgy, so we tried to push the design a bit further, with sharper references. I don't know if you’ve seen the current WIP magazine. In terms of graphic design, it's pretty intense (slightly too much in my opinion). There are a lot of elements (colors, effects, stretched fonts, etc.). It’s very expressive, while A Skateboarding Annual was quieter—more like a book.
    I think magazines are a nice place to try stuff and fail. It’s pretty light in a way. I'm not sure if it's linked to skateboarding or more the feeling of a magazine, but it’s a place where you can write down, erase, and write again.

Do you think design should play an assertive role or should it be more receded?

It's a good question. I think the older you get, you realize that graphic design isn’t as useful. The content leads everything. You need to have the content first. After 15 years, you don’t want to worry about what font or color you’re going to use. Just go straight into something that works and forget about adding design. Content is always better than form, but form is always there. Even if you’re not trying to engage with it you’ll end up designing into a certain form either way.
    But hey! I like form also. I like the form of a paragraph, a certain layout structure, a small margin, the way binding techniques work conceptually, and so on. It’s an old “battle” between content and form. Sometimes it’s pretty cool not having to choose either and let it go. A stimulating structure of content, honest and clever words, and a bit of energy in the form; that’s all that I need!

Form seems like something inherent to the content that the designer decides how much to amplify. Like in the Annual Magazine, the cover was very geometric and conceptually leaned more towards buildings than just skateboarding. Skateboarding has an inherent relationship with architecture, but whether or not to show that relationship is up to the designer.

I think, as a graphic designer, you are a filter. If you are living in New York, Paris, or some small city, it influences how you skate, what you read, and how you live. While designing, you can let this energy in or tone it down. In the end, you design what you are in a way.

Do you find an overlap between architecture and skateboarding?

It’s more me, the connection because I'm living in a city environment. I'm not an architecture geek, but I like how it informs the way people live. I think the link is here because skateboarding is like a living activity, allowing you to interact and reinvent the space.

Speaking of city activities, don’t you do graffiti as well?

I just started a new chapter around writing and it's kind of getting back to the roots in a way. I'm 44. A lot of people around 40, in Paris, remember doing graffiti at 15 and are trying to reactivate the feeling—being in the streets and looking for a spot. I think it's the same feeling as skateboarding. So, yeah, architecture, writing, I think the city is the link to everything for me. When I was young, I used to cruise around people walking and make noise with my tail, just to annoy them, just to say, “I'm here, I'm just doing whatever I want, the city is mine”, and writing is a bit the same. I like the way it feels because I always had an aggressive skateboarding style—I’m not like a tech skater. It’s more about the raw energy of being in the streets, like Cardiel or something.

When did you start working under the name Look Specific? Did you find that creating a Studio standardizes your work in a way that using your name wouldn't allow?

I think I started it in 2007. I’m alone though, it’s not like I have employees. My name doesn’t sound too French so I thought I’d kinda hide behind something. At first, I called it “Look Specific or Whatever”, but now it’s more like “‘Let’s try to be specific.”

Since you stay in the cultural sector of design, how do you typically find clients?

I'm not the type of guy to go out and give my business card to everyone, so I mostly meet people through friends. Sometimes I submit proposals, mainly for publishers or stuff that I can spend one or two days putting together quotes and a portfolio. Sometimes it works, so it's good.
    I’ve been meeting people on Instagram recently. Just organically. I think you have to exchange a bit more than just I-do-graphic-design-and-you-give-me-some-money. I think the best way of working is to talk first—about everything, about a lot of different things—and then decide to work together. I think you meet the people you deserve to meet. And you have a “client” you deserve to have!
    Also, because I'm alone, I don't need much income to survive. I keep it small and need what I need and that’s okay. It's a bit naive in a way, but I like it.

Do you have any advice for someone just starting in design?

Try to find out why you are working in design and just go for it. Do stuff because you like it and not because you want to be whatever you had imagined. Design is cool because you have so many different things to do and places to explore and it’s unique to every designer. Everyone can find their place, their client, and the way to write their own story; I’m pretty optimistic.

Just for the record, who are your favorite skaters?

Cardiel, Jerry Hsu, Dan Drehobl, Franky Villani, Cyrus Bennett, Max Palmer, Tanner Van Vark, Taylor Kirby, Jake Anderson.