The Ties that Bind: Interview with Kiel Mead
When I was in school, I often found the most interesting things said in class by professors were just off-the-cuff statements about the design industry. I always had an idea to start a blog where I could aggregate different professors' answers to my questions and then compare and contrast their opinions and experience. I’ve recently graduated from Kean, but the idea wouldn’t rest. So today I’m finally introducing Design Dialogs.
My first interview participant is Kiel Mead.
When I walk into the meeting room for my interview with Kiel he’s just finishing up with a client. He’s discussing ideas about to grow this other person’s business. From having Kiel as a professor I already know he’s passionate about helping others and quick with those marketing ideas. He’s good at seeing the strength in others.
The following interview was edited for length and clarity.
1) How do you introduce yourself at conventions or events?
I think it’s funny because that question pertains to, I am a teacher, I am a designer, and I am a small business owner. But if I’m at an event I think it’s more important that I say I am a designer. I think that it’s the umbrella over everything. It’s the umbrella over me being a teacher and being a small business owner because I design those things. So, I would say I’m a designer.
2) What was the path that led you to your current job or role?
For that I should talk about the path it took me to create the American Design Club and that is when I was in school. I was interning at a couple places, and I was involved in a community and an environment of designers outside of school and I became like— this how it is, this how the world works out there, this how design should be, and then when I graduated that community wasn’t there. I made a decision to myself—well if it’s not here then I’m going to create it. I’m going to help put the pieces into place that were there and that’s when I started doing design shows. That’s the path that led me to everywhere that I am today. Doing curated events for more than one designer for like thirty of fifty designers. It was surrounding myself with people.
Yeah, I did a nostalgia jewelry line where it was like anything in a junk drawer when you open it up but for me that was means to an end to find out what I wanted to do for my career. I don’t see products as these things in my life I keep selling they’re moments in time for me. Sure, I should live off passive income from all those designs I created back in the day. But I’m more interested in what we’ve done in the American Design Club which is helping designers find safe success. You just heard me with this guy who makes postcards about NYC, and I want to help him. He has no bandwidth right now for doing trade shows, but I can help him because we see the potential there.
3) What do you do, specifically, that makes you call yourself a designer and not a different title, like maker, creative, marketer?
Like my answer before I see designers, the designer word for me is more an umbrella over the top of all the things you just mentioned. We’re talking semantics though, how much do we need to split hairs on what a maker is versus what a designer is. But I see myself as a connector of people and even as a designer I need other people to make my design, and so I don’t know maybe, I don’t think the same way as a maker, a maker is more of an isolated idea.
I chimed in here to say, “They are I think makers value their independence.”
But so do designers, but designers absolutely need other people. And I feel like I need other people to just breathe all the time. Designer feels like there can be more exploration where a maker you’re a crafts person, but I shouldn’t knock these things because I like to find—let me tell you this story. The Atlanta Market is a trade show we attend. They tried to police the things that I put in my booth. They try to tell me ‘Oh this is not high design enough’ but then I put something in that they don’t want, and I get it in the Museum of Art and Design. Prove to me now why that’s not belonging in your space if I just got a major museum that has design in their name to buy it. We’ve proved them wrong in that way. I love my makers, and I like to expose my makers to the environment that I’ve fostered over the years and if I’m dipping down into what people would think is low fidelity. That whole idea of craft versus design is interesting to me. The definition of industrial design is designing for production and for scale but then crafts people are also doing their own version of that but on a smaller level.
4) What was something you were naive to in the design world or business world about as a student?
I wish that someone could convey that the world is also — Yeah, you’re going to be a designer, you’re going to create products, but in order to navigate in all of that you have to be a people person or you have to convince people. It made me think as a teacher compared to how I thought as a student now what I think is more important as a teacher is that I should teach to my students it’s the presentation or the pitch that you give to someone and how you can make that fun, appealing, and cater to the needs of the client or even the assignment. All we have is our ideas and if we can’t tell someone about our ideas and I think that was the thing that wasn’t conveyed to me in the best way. I teach portfolio design but my portfolio when I graduated was crap, it was total crap because my teachers weren’t —They were kind of just expecting us to do something and I don’t think we saw enough good examples of what that looked like. As a teacher I 100% try to bring in a boatload of portfolios for people to flip through so they understand where their competition is and how to do better. That’s the thing that I think every single school needs to do, finding your career is the most difficult thing to do, having a student sit there and go “where can I work?”
I just had lunch with someone, they said if you want to get a job after school you should be making the average amount of money that exists within your state. But the reality of that is you have so much to learn as a designer before I even think you should be making that unless you were the top of your class. Do you know what I mean? But I really think that designers need to work in the field while they’re in school to really do something. When I was in school, I was getting internships as a sophomore and if I didn’t do that I would be nowhere, absolutely nowhere, and no school told me to do that. That’s the real path. I left [the bubble of] school when I was a sophomore, I walked out and was like hey I need to go get a job, I like wood working. I didn’t need to get a job, I personally didn’t need to get a job. I felt the burn for, like, I’m not going to get everything I need out of school, that’s what was important.
5) What’s the weirdest but coolest thing or incident you saw at a design convention?
What I’m trying to think of is was there a show I went to where I was like whoa. I like when there are other entities like my company. I like when I see groups put people’s stuff together and one of them is a company called Junaid Dudd. Which is a riff off a company called Donald Judd it’s like the backwards reverse of it. You know my company American Design Club we do shows all the time, but they do shows as well, and I appreciate the level of quality and the type of designers that they get. It’s almost like the atmosphere of those events; you shouldn’t miss those events. The MOMA will put on an event or there will be a trade show that comes to town, but I think when someone bootstraps it and puts together a group show of designers, that’s a movement, that’s how things start. That’s to me, I seek those out. I don’t seek out institutional things I seek out more grass roots, guerrilla. Those are the more fun events I go to, and I guess my example is Jonald Dudd as a cool one.
Also, one of the best pieces that ever came out of our American Design Club shows was when we did a show called Threat: Protection Against an Intruder. The New York Times article had the doormat the neighbors have better stuff. I had done a couple shows prior to that, but when we did that show, and got that press, and that piece came out of it, and it was literally a doormat with spray paint on it that someone had created a stencil for. The way that it started selling after the press, I think we sold sixty right after that press came out because this was the New York Times, and everybody reads it. But it made me realize we could do these shows and find products to sell. Before when I started to do trade shows, three years before that show, it was because of my product, like we did trade shows because my product was selling, and we could keep going back to those trade show. But when I learned oh, we could do events and we could have a new idea, and no one would know about that idea yet, and then we could launch it. That made me think our company could be a launch pad for brands. And it is to a degree, but not like I was thinking back in the day, I was literally thinking we could get exclusivity from people, and it would only be an American Design Club product. But I don’t want to stand in the way of people trying to make their own money and I think that’s been important. I always used to say if I’m not paying your rent I shouldn’t be exclusive with you if I’m making all the money for you then fine but you’re a person too you should do your own outreach and I should do my own outreach. I think creating those shows and having the hits come through there it’s why I keep doing it. We’re doing a key chain show right now and hopefully we get another cool thing from there.
6) What is a standard piece of advice given to students or young designers that you don't agree with?
I don’t agree with putting your picture on your resume. Something I really think is that as a student, given everyone’s financial situation, who knows what the expectation is there, when you’re younger and you are just starting out and you should want to learn as much as you can but you should weigh the benefit of working for someone and maybe not getting paid and working for someone and getting paid. I think there’s, you could learn a lot and be more ingrained in something, where it’s almost like pro bono work, or stipend, but not full-time work. I just think those temporary moments you can go intern with someone are so valuable. People say “oh you should get paid” and I don’t disagree with that because of course I want my students to make money. But I also think it’s all about leveling up and if you do a free internship maybe you actually get them to write a recommendation that gets you a higher paying job in a shorter amount of time than it would have taken you on your own. I think those are things you constantly have to weigh. What we’re talking about is spec work, about doing stuff for free. You have to learn where your thresh hold for that and who is worth it and then I think you might see some cool things happen.
7) Is there a specific practice, like a design practice or business practice, that if adopted you think would create meaningful change?
I like the idea that when we buy things like a t-shirt and they cost $50 that we as a generation should expect - I think I made this argument that the younger generations will buy higher priced items but they expect the brands that they pay that money to do something with a portion of their money. I think that is interesting and an interesting trend to have happen.
Or we all just went through a pandemic and now remote work became a thing and I think evolving the idea of work and when people work. I think it’s happening already. But I also think that like - think about it - if you worked for me remote and I had a certain amount of expectations for you and you were completing them do I care that you don’t work for me all five days.
It also opens up the door to that people have passive income. As designers we should create as many passive income things. I used to say to students that the dream is to be on a beach collecting 15% or whatever 3% even of fifty different designs but in fact maybe the dream is now you own those businesses, and someone works for you doing it and you’re making a way higher margin than 3%.
8) Did you want to be a designer or something similar growing up or did you change courses at some point in your life?
I changed courses. I thought of myself as an illustrator. I loved drawing and still do, that’s why I teach it. I thought I was going to go to Pratt and be an illustration major and what happened I got into my 3D class at Pratt, and they let us cut stuff with band saws and I was like I love this. I have a focus in furniture and building structures. But it’s funny though that I did all that and then I started designing jewelry and that became my professional career. Jewelry is my professional career, but the truth is I learned how to do jewelry at a furniture woodworking internship. The guys there were casting stuff as well. I was like oh I can do so much with this that’s where it took off. But again, I wanted to do furniture, but it ended up leading to other things. That’s why I think internships and talking to people is beyond important.
9) Was the path to becoming a designer a long and twisted one?
Yes definitely. That’s interesting because the way I think as a designer and even the way I think as the guy who curates these shows my ability to make something comes from a need to learn more. I want to learn about or research or reinterpret a lot of different things. So, I made cast object jewelry for a long time and then I switched modes, and I still liked the idea of found objects. That’s my thing. I did the driftwood hooks but the driftwood hooks, like the jewelry that I did was fine, but the driftwood hooks were more me.
It was from my home town, I got to use a bunch of different woodworking skills, I thoroughly—I would take my mold from my jewelry and go to the caster, and they would make it—but I would work on every element of my driftwood hooks. I love that part of the project. It’s trying to determine what the perceived value of what something could be or trying to convince someone to buy something that they would normally think is disgusting or walk right past. Like a high low experience. When I first made my driftwood hooks there was a version, I did that I gold leafed in between all the little crevices and so those dark scary parts where you would never stick your finger were now gold and it kind of had a double effect I felt like for people.
10) Did you feel like a designer, by that I mean capable, when you graduated, or did it take time?
Oh yeah, I felt like a designer. I think confidence with whatever you are trying to do as a designer is huge. But the thing is when I was graduating from Pratt, I was already in 15 magazines. There were teachers asking me how to get into the MoMA. I was on this weird trajectory after school that is why I teach. I was one of those people who had a career that was decent enough that I didn’t have to go get my masters to teach because I could come and talk to a class for 15 weeks, it almost doesn’t matter what class I’m teaching some of the stuff, like the anecdotal stuff that happens outside of the classroom, I’m full of that. They’re horror stories but learning experiences.
11) Luck, hard work, or both?
I’ll answer that by saying proximity to opportunity. That’s more important than all those things you just said. I don’t think the Internet created a better line for that I think that you physically need to be close to opportunity. And maybe that’s because I don’t know enough about how to wield the Internet right now. But I truly think that if you want—the reason I live in New York City and haven’t left is a proximity to opportunity kind of thing. It takes a lot of hard work to stay within those boundaries of where that opportunity is.
You know there are some people I interact with who don’t live there but then they travel all the time. I know people who get that same concept of I got to go press the flesh, I got to go talk to people. I think you see them at all the shows and stuff like that and a couple of years later they’re doing some cool stuff because they talked to the right people. If you never go talk to the people, you’re never going to get those things.
12) What do you think about AI?
It’s inevitable once it’s set in motion and that it is also like the wild wild west. Like how the Internet came along and no one had a website—we all had telephone numbers—and all of a sudden, we have email addresses, and websites we can get, and all these apps we can sign up for and that’s how I feel about AI. That it’s uncharted territory. And soon we will be able to create things, and I’ll have my version of a website that’s AI because everybody will have those things there will be a need for it. But I think that AI is, that’s scary, because of all the crap that happened when the Internet was born. I remember being in a classroom in 1996 or something and someone googled rainbows or didn’t even google went on WebCrawler and searched rainbows and what came up was Madonna naked. So, if that’s going to happen, we have an issue. AI is kind of like that. We’re being exposed to things we shouldn’t see because there is no framework around how it is organized, or policed, or regulated, or anything like that. It’s a very unregulated concept right now. And with that people are going to get hurt or see things they shouldn’t see.
13) If the design field is shrinking due to things like AI, how do you stand out?
I think that—like when you read that original article about me that said we’re not seen as well as European designers—I was responding to something that said ‘what’s wrong with American design?’ There was an article written that was like: what’s going on with the Americans, they’re not pulling their weight. And I think that the way that Europe was out dueling us was putting the designer ahead of the corporation. Or at least naming the designer and saying hey the person who designed this has a name and is a person and we’re going to talk about them. As opposed to in America we don’t know who designed that thing, most objects don’t have a name around them, and that’s what I want to help more of. And in relations to AI how can you stand out against AI is you brand yourself, you become a personality to some degree or you do enough and so often that people can rely on you and know what you are all about and that brand identity thing is better than an AI.
Although now I’m questioning myself because AI will eventually be able to create brand identities for us, I know it can now, but like full hog it’ll be a thing. That’s going to be a tricky thing to separate ourselves from AI and maybe that’s not the thing. Maybe the answer truly is we need to merge with it, we need to figure out a way to coexist. I mean that’s what’s going to happen inevitably.
Whoever is in those industries where they have to churn out a lot of copy something that might be hard for people to do is create that personality. For instance, I’ve repped a lot of brands over the years and I’ve written a lot of emails to stores. One of the best brands who communicated to their stores and to us was that they tried to create a brand identity around themselves and then translated that into how they speak in their emails even saying something like hooray your product has shipped and then you know a joke. I thought that’s cool. And for people who aren’t that fun and aren’t that creative of writers they might be able to ask AI to give them that - like you can’t always be on to write those happy, glowy emails, but AI can.
I don’t like it though. I think it evens out the competition a little too much. I think AI vanillas everything and makes it harder for originality. And also, easier to replicate, like oh cool this person made this awesome website that’s getting all this attention lets send AI out to replicate it. That’s terrifying. In certain fields, just like you said there are certain design industries that are evaporating, like graphic design, and maybe even industrial design, but that’s a little bit harder to figure out, or it’s not harder, it takes an industrial designer to play with AI to make it happen.
14) If you could give a TED talk what would the topic be?
It would be about creative communities. I did a keynote speech at my high school a while ago and it was about turkeys because my logo is a turkey. It was a Benjamin Franklin thing. I gave this speech, and I said to the students you should all want to be a turkey. And it was kind of funny, everybody laughed, and then there was this kid getting a hunting award for turkeys and it was really weird for him that I was talking about turkeys. But it was how the eagle steals from other birds and is more of a scavenger and will kill other birds, but the turkey is a noble bird, that travels in a pack and has its way of alerting others of danger. Benjamin Franklin created the Junto, they were these community organization programs in Philadelphia. That yeah ‘they were a bunch of rich white dudes getting together, smoking whatever they were smoking, drinking whatever they were drinking, and saying “hey we need some more cobblestone and a street light on that street,” and then they would hedge fund, and make it happen. That’s where hedge funds come from. But the early ones that he put together were pooling money to improve the city for their own benefit in a way.
But I saw that and was like what if it wasn’t about big people with money, it was just designers acting like we need each other to gain any ground. That’s my American Design Club philosophy we all need each other to help show, share, and sell our work. And I think that would be my idea of how to start something. To me—at my core—I feel like when I was a student, I had some success with some products that no one really showed me at school and I kind of felt through it myself. And I was like okay I’ve done that, I’m going to help do that for other people, but I’m not going individualize myself I’m going to create an entity that helps other people. And yeah it’s a for profit industry because that’s the industry we are existing in to do but I’ll always if I see an opportunity for someone to cut their teeth and all they need is a pay wall to be lowered for them that’s easy, that should be easy.
