Timeouts are lightning-quick interviews. Five questions to help you get to know the players holding court at Dribbble. Many thanks to Ross for being today’s interviewee.
Who are you? Let us know where you hail from and what you do.
Hi, my name is Ross Moody and I am the one man operation behind the online stationery brand 55 Hi’s. I hail from Harrisburg, PA, currently reside in Greenwich, CT and looking to make the jump to New York City in the very near future here. I’m a little all over the place in terms of what I do but I would say for the most part I’m a designer with an affinity for type and retro-ness.
What are you working on?
I have a bunch of exciting things in the works! I’m just getting started on a pretty gnarly 2013 Robot Calendar with the coolest dude around; Justin Mezzell. I’m also finishing up a bunch of new cards that I’m pumped to share. 2012 is a year of cards for 55 Hi’s. At this exact moment, I’m working on a card that just has two Yo-Yo’s saying “Yo” to eachother. They both have moustaches. I’m pretty excited about it. I’m also working on busting out a few more variations to The Shot Glass card. Next one up is “The Emergency Shot Glass Card”.
Choose a favorite shot of yours. Why is it a favorite?
I’m gonna have to go with “Detail Love" on this one. That shot in particular encompasses everything I like about print design. Letterpress, a really deep bite, specialty printing ink (glows in the dark), pitted paper. Big shout out to Mama’s Sauce for the amazing job they did on that. Those guys (and girl) rock.
Tell us about your setup. What tools did you use to create the shot(s)? (e.g. hardware, software, pens, paper, blowtorch, etc.)
My workspace is a war zone. Just cereal bowls and cards everywhere with an iMac in the middle of it. Thankfully I really only use a moleskine, my computer, and whatever pen I can find at the time so it works. What do they say, “A tidy desk is the sign of a sick mind.” That’s what I tell myself when it’s too cluttered to find my keyboard.
One tip that I can give that has really helped me and my workflow is a plug-in for illustrator called Phantasm CS. It allows you the ability to create halftone dots/diamonds/lines/etc… in a completely editable manner inside Illustrator. You can change the size, color, hue, density, or many more things at any time, too. It’s extremely versatile. I use it constantly.
I guess while we’re on the topic of tips, I’ll give a few more that I recently just love. I’m pretty sure that I’m behind on technology but regardless Droplr & Dropbox have totally changed my workflow situation. I got rid of my external hard drive thanks to Dropbox and Droplr is a great way to show progress shots or get quick feedback on designs you are working on. Plus, Droplr has an iPhone app so any time I want to show someone what I’m working on while on the road, I have a catalog of screenshots to pick from.
Choose a favorite shot from another Player. Why do you dig it?
What a tough question. I’m gonna have to go with a Friends of Type shot for this one. Those guys have been a pretty big inspiration for me the past year or so and I got my type-envy going pretty good on this shot. It’s the situation where you’re just like, “Seriously, again with awesomeness!?.. come on!” And then you give up designing for twenty minutes cause you’re disgusted with how good it is. Then again, that happens to me on a daily basis lately. There is so much insanely good work floating around Dribbble. It’s great.
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