W+K Studio Blog

Brad Simon had an opportunity to go to New York and participate Sahre Victore Wilker.  Here’s his account…

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to attend Sahre Victore Wilker 09 in NYC at the Art Directors Club. For any of you who don’t know about the graphic design work of James Victore, Paul Sahre or Jan Wilker, I suggest you start Googling. The 6-day graphic design workshop, now in its second year, was an incredible experience that taught less about graphic design and more about new ways to think and approach life and the work we do every day. The group of 42 attendees came from all over the world. From Brazil to the UK to Denmark to Lebanon to Georgia and beyond with all levels of experience.

“A designer’s work comes down to a continuous search for symbols, visual paradoxes and the construction of deliberately wrong, illogical ideas. This game demands a high degree of awareness, a sharp eye, and an infallible perception — and sometimes you miss.”

The workshop was divided into three parts, with each part being led by James, Paul, or Jan. We went back to the fundamental reason we all do what we do — to create things, without the formal restrictions of day-to-day client work. We explored new or forgotten ways to approach problems. We tried to let go of what we thought we were supposed to be doing as designers and instead approach everything with a new perspective.

“Fear and embarrassment will stop you from doing anything”

In between these workshops, we were exposed to micro-exhibits curated by James, Paul and Jan including posters and books from their private collections as well as all of Jan’s 24 Wrangler t-shirts. Guest speakers like Aleksander Macasev, Nicholas Blechman and Brian Rea came by and shared their work. Nicolas and Brian even created an incredible wall installation using only black tape. Illustrator Jon Burgerman stopped by and shared with us a custom painted Munny doll. FDR entertained us with some freestyle MCing and James treated some of us to finger licking BBQ while we played picture wars, a game that consists of drawing the people at your table in silly, embarrassing or uncompromising situations.

“Don’t rush to an idea”

Throughout the week we worked on various projects that included everything from 1-hour assignments illustrating love to a group project creating a cover for Good Magazine to designing a t-shirt in the most unconventional way possible. During the whole time we were reminded about the importance of taking risks and stepping out of the easy cliché approaches to solving problems. We were encouraged to surprise people and make them think. Sometimes you fail and sometimes you don’t. But who cares. Once you don’t worry what other people are going to say about your work, it opens you up to explore and have fun with whatever you are doing.

“The goal is to get people to look at your work and think “huh?, ahhh!” instead of “ahhh!, huh?”

On the last morning, we all showed up at the Art Director’s Club for a giant Chinese take-out feast and parting gifts. Our last project was an exhibit of art on plates we each made using markers and good old-fashioned dinner plates. I brought in an extra plate and had James draw me up some goodness to take home. You should definitely check out the amazing plates that James draws on with paint markers.

It is hard to put in words all the amazing things that went on during those six days. It was truly was an amazing experience and I highly recommend anyone looking for a creative reboot to look into next year’s workshop. Every 10-hour day was packed with new, unexpected, and inspiring projects, exhibits, and lectures. And lots of beer.

More photos can be seen on my flickr site.