The Work That Made Me: Rick Bowman
Rick Bowman has design and creative strategy experience that spans the communication matrix: complete brand identity, websites, UX, catalogues, email, direct mail, and product/app design. A brilliant designer who approaches the work from the lens of the business challenge and return on investment.
The ad/music video from my childhood that stays with me…
Rick> Creating a great concept doesn’t have to be complex. That’s why Radiohead: No Surprises was so striking to me. Sometimes the simplest idea has the most lasting impact.
The ad/music video/game/web platform that made me want to get into the industry…
Rick> I realised I would never make money as a painter. I’m not sure I could have been a fine artist for eight hours a day, anyway. Design just seemed like a natural transition. I’ll never be the best, and I’m OK with that. Just do each job a little better than the last one and refuse to cut corners.
The creative work (film/album/game/ad/album/book/poem etc) that I keep revisiting…
Rick> Almost weekly I’ll return to Sean Lennon: Friendly Fire. It’s ambitious, beautiful, timeless. He approaches everything with taste.
My first professional project…
Rick> I was lucky to sell a few paintings in my teens. Isn’t that what professional means? In advertising the first jobs I remember being excited about were the seasonal catalogue designs where we could come up with concept after concept. That was an exciting time and I learned a lot about how to pivot into the more exciting ideas.
The piece of work (ad/music video/ platform…) that made me so angry that I vowed to never make anything like *that*…
Rick> I try to find the good parts of any piece. Talking shit isn’t going to get me anywhere. I look forward to the next job and try to do everything better than the last one.
The piece of work (ad/music video/ platform…) that still makes me jealous…
Rick> Countless albums that continue to inspire me, but most recently the band-as-a-franchise model that The Hives and Kiss just adopted is something that makes me jealous. It’s an idea my newest band Pride & Shame started two years ago. I’m mostly jealous we didn’t get recognised first.
The creative project that changed my career…
Rick> Probably the tours I did with my band The Put-Outs pre-9/11. It wasn’t even in the advertising field, but I got to see so much of the country and play with bands that I looked up to for my entire youth. I met friends in every corner of the country and learned how to tour (it ain’t easy). It also pushed me toward design…because there’s so much bad design out there and made me realise that you might be good, but you could always make things better. When they fired me, I had the confidence to do my own thing and set standards for the people I want to work with that makes everyone try just a little bit harder than they wanted to.
The work that I’m proudest of…
Rick> In life…designed and built my house. That’s where I really learned how to prioritise and pick my battles. In music…Pride & Shame: Mission To Mars (comes out in 2024). The first record I got to work on where I wasn’t also producing, engineering, etc. I can just concentrate on writing and playing my parts. I also got to collaborate with some talented people who made some records that I love. At work…many years of work for sports clients. They let us have the creative freedom to do what we wanted and supported our decisions. They knew their lane, you know? They just get out of the way and let you do what you do best. Most recently, the Schmidt Old Tyme packaging redesign. We were able to save that from the brink and for some weird reason, people see it in stores and remember that my team worked on it. They become brand ambassadors and they don’t even know it.
I was involved in this and it makes me cringe…
Rick> Holiday cards. Hate ‘em.
The recent project I was involved in that excited me the most…
Rick> Being part of a team that created an app that solves a host of hiring problems. The project never got the green light, but I still think it would have been a paradigm shift for the W2 workforce. I’d love to jump right back into it if we could find the Dev support to bring it to life. I love coming into projects where I have less experience than the people who know it well. In a weird way, it’s an opportunity to think about the challenges from a totally different angle and find ways to solve them that are unique, sometimes weird. That all started with the band dynamic…you find new ways to get your ideas across while using the best of what each member can add to it.
