Interview with Michael Schmidt

We are glad to meet you. Could you tell how you started your carrer in design? Whats behind it? Some history, please.
My dad bought one of the first macintoshes back in 1984 - he used it to design his own books, for business purposes, etc.It took me a while, but I finally convinced him to let me play around with it (bear in mind, that he'd paid about $10.000 for the beast, so he was worried I'd mess it up). Very soon I was helping him with his books, playing around with the very limited graphics programs that existed at that time.Fast forward some time: when I was at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, I was quite bored with my studies and decided it could be a lot more fun to do graphic design work.
So I whipped together a small (and rather crude) portfolio, and managed to land a job as an AD-assistant at a large advertising agency.
That was in 1993.I worked for a couple of years as an AD-assistant, print work only, while I was still studying. In early 95, I dropped out of college and decided to work full time as a graphic designer. Ssome friends of friends were starting an Internet Magazine (the very first one in Denmark), and asked me whether I would like to join them. I did.
The magazine lasted about a year - there were only about 15.000 internet users in the whole of Denmark at that time, so there was absolutely no market to support it. When the magazine folded in late 95, some friends of the owners were starting an Internet company, and hired me as their creative director. A year later I met Toke Nygaard, who was working for a competing Internet company, and we started discussing doing some work together. K10k was born in 97. I spent a couple more years with the company, moved to London to head up their UK office, and then in 2001 I finally had enough of large corporate companies, quit my job, moved to San Francisco and started Cuban Council with Toke Nygaard, Mike Buzzard, and Per Jørgensen. That's it, basically.

Where are you located now and whats your current business situation?
Slightly-sunny & rather foggy San Francisco, California.Co-owner of Cuban Council, a small digital development company. Doing work for clients like Bell, Adobe, Target, E! Entertainment, Apple, Epitaph Records, and various small bands & record labels. Tryin to find time to wrap up the next version of K10k, build Moodstats 2.0 and create a merchandise label called Beetle Farm. And sleep.

How many hours a day are you working? What's your machine configuration, by the way?
I'm usually in front of a computer about 12 hours a day - including weekends. Toke & I are both diehard macintosh-users. Right now I have a 17" powerbook which is my primary work machine - hooked up to a couple of 20" cinema displays, and more peripherals than you can shake a stick at.

What do you do to relax? Do you play any sports?
I work in the garage on my 1967 mustang - very relaxing. Try not to kill myself with power tools. Play squash & tennis when the weather permits. Watch a shit-tonne of bad movies and geeky TV-shows on DVD.

What do you think about other design magazines online? Don't you think they are the same; redundant?
Nah, not really - most of them seem have to their own flavor, their own quirks and ideas that make them unique. Not to say that there aren't a lot of design magazines / design portals that are very similar - just that there's also a good selection of ones that aren't.

Ever thought about taking k10k to print?
Nope. I've worked on several magazines in the past, and it's a pain in the ass - besides ... the work that we feature on K10k is not really suited for print, anyway. It's usually very web-centric. I also find most printed design magazines incredibly dull.

Have you ever seen a UFO? Do you believe in them?
Hah. No, never seen one - but I do hope that they exist, seeing that it would be rather boring if we were the only creatures in the universe.

How about "end of the days"? Wwhat would you do if "the end of the days" was tomorrow?
I'd try to get my x-girlfriend to have sex with me one more time. And also go out and rack up some massive credit card debt.

Ok, back to design. What advice would you give to a newbie who is starting a career?
Play around, learn the tools of the trade, spend insane amounts of time watching what other people are doing. Do an online portfolio which has a good, but not overwhelming, selection of your best work (whether it be freelance, personal or corporate), presented in a slick no-bullshit kind of way. Don't copy what other people are doing ... try to infuse your work with something that makes it unique & interesting.
Don't over-use flash - it's not the best tool for everything, You know.

What's your favorite music and movies?
Music: Quirky electronica (plaid, mum, aphex twin, plone, autechre, four tet, broadcast, her space holiday), revival of the 90s shoegazer (slowdive, my bloody valentine, ride, m83, curve, stone roses), female singer/songwriters (tori amos, ani difranco, bjork, beth orton), standard black-clad indie fare (interpol, pixies, modest mouse, franz ferdinand, dcfc, postal service), old-school industrial (front line assembly, front 242, skinny puppy, leather strip), depeche mode, cranes, cure, boards of canada, coldplay, deus, dead can dance, cocteau twins, belle & sebastian, etc. Quite a lot of bands whose name begins with the letter "c" and "d"; not to mention all the ones that don't.

Movies: Mallrats, Donnie Darko, LotR, Royal Tenenbaums, Blade Runner, Evil Dead, Chasing Amy, Snatch, Princess Mononoke, Moulin Rouge, Indiana Jones, Office Space, Harry Potter, Spirited Away, The Mummy, Rules of Attraction, Napoleon Dynamite, Garden State, American Movie, My Neighbor Totoro, any 80s movie starring John Cusack.

Well, I think that's enough. Last comments, please.
Ehmm ... good luck with the launch of the site.