Through the creative space for a lot of graphic designers, you could ask any one of them about the people who helped their journey into design and they will all mention Jack McArdle of Studio AAA. Whether it’s downloading his assets for their commissions or checking out his tips on becoming a better freelance designer, the impact of Studio AAA in the design space is solid.
With an impressive resume of working with major labels and a massive reach of his assets being used in various big corporations, McArdle continues to heavily make an imprint in this space. Today, any designer will mention they’ve downloaded a Studio AAA design or texture asset pack!
Electric Hawk got the opportunity to sit down with the established voice to chat about the impact made with his brand, his inspirations, and advice for those who want to get into design in our conversation below!
In Conversation With Jack McArdle of Studio AAA
seradopa: I’ve been following you for years. Can you give our readers a brief introduction to who you are and how you came to become the designer you are right now?
Jack McArdle: Who I am? To be honest that’s hard to answer.
Funnily enough, I was talking to Bucha. Just yesterday, you interviewed Brielle, a good friend of mine through the Internet. But yesterday, in this group chat we talked about, impostor syndrome and negative comments. And I was saying that when I’m burned out, I don’t really know who that guy was, who did the popular stuff that I might have done a couple months ago or a year ago.
So as cringy as it might sound, I’m just a regular idiot, like anyone else, to be honest. And I occasionally have these good ideas and enough time to execute them. That’s the only difference really, between me and anyone else.
seradopa: I am curious from designer to designer, what inspires you to create anything these days?
Jack McArdle: Things that inspired me recently?
I don’t know if I can say this is recent, but I’ve been creating more digital art than design work when it’s personal work. I save the design stuff for the website.
Since I was a kid, I’ve always collected Pokemon cards. This is why I can’t say recently because, years ago, but I mean even I’ve got some here. I’ve started buying physical things now since I have disposable income.
I’ve started doing shiny me stuff. And I’ve got one here!
I love collectible stuff and I don’t really like the whole NFT stuff. I’m trying to get more into that somehow. That’s only very recent, though. The physical stuff that I collect as well as what you said before, hearing about people who have quit their shitty job, or left their crappy parts of their life behind through doing a creative thing that they like, always inspires me.
I have a friend you might know, have you heard of Archfiend on Instagram?
seradopa: I have!
Jack McArdle: He’s trans and lives in a part of the world where that’s not seen as okay. I’ve known him for a few years. He is one of the smartest people I know. He’s got a job as a game developer. Over the last few years, he ended up where he needs to be you know what I mean? And seeing him get there is really nice.
The things that really inspire me, to be honest, are how design can help and change your financial situation. Like people who have been able to build something for themselves!
I’m a bit overexposed to those people. I do hear from people who download something for free from my site, and then they check with me or message me saying they used my free thing on this project and got paid this much money. I love hearing that stuff.
seradopa: You honestly have been at the forefront of a lot of designers’ introductions to graphic design. How has that felt being a staple head in the design realm where people constantly credit you as an introduction to their journey?
Jack McArdle: I don’t really know if I am to be honest.
It’s very nice of you if you want to credit me for using something that I put out for free or whether you bought it. Ultimately, if I put it out it means that you can use it and take the credit for it and that’s fine by me. I just appreciate that people do buy stuff or credit me. From your perspective, that person may have gotten into design via me, but I still need to pay my bills at the end of the month and I’m able to do that because of them.
seradopa: It’s funny that you say that because when I started taking freelance more seriously, it was between you and BLKMARKET who helped me a lot in my introduction!
seradopa: What is something you find challenging when working as a designer in the music industry?
Jack McArdle: I have to be careful [laughs].
Honestly, working with people who don’t want to take risks and working with people who only want to play it safe.
In the last two years, I’ve been very lucky to get paid more money than I was before that. With people who are amazing photographers, makeup artists, people who build not just album covers, music videos, sets and visuals, and creative direction. All of the work that I’ve done with them, whoever they may be, gets filtered down into this safe, normal piece of artwork.
These are the amazing people I’ve worked with who are talented too. Yet the most challenging part is that it’s an industry now. No one wants to do anything interesting or risky. That’s it.
seradopa: I have certain clients like that myself. Then I had other clients I tried to push the boundary by like, “Hey, your ideas: simple. Does the job, but if you look at everyone else, I can make your idea, and elevate it to be different and unique.”
It just never goes that way. Or I send an idea and then it gets multiple revisions.
Jack McArdle: When you get someone willing to take a risk on your visuals and ideas, who follows through with what they asked you for and accepts that is when you’ve made it.
The feeling when that comes out and you see it; I’ve done work through Sony and have been sent a picture of it in Rolling Stone on London Bridge. The feeling is so good when you get through that I think will just quit [phase]. I just keep telling myself I’ll get back there, I’ll get someone willing to go through it.
seradopa: Now, what are your thoughts on the evolution of AI nowadays?
Jack McArdle: In my head, being an optimist. Do you mind me asking? How old are you? I’m 27.
seradopa: 29!
Jack McArdle: 29. Okay, so probably, you grew up with, Limewire, and pirating music that you wanted. If they took your favorite show off of Netflix, you or I could probably go and find it somewhere if you really needed to. My nieces and nephews who are 14 to 16, have no idea about any of that stuff. And they don’t know how to do anything that is not in an app, because they’ve grown up with that. Do you know what I mean?
So optimistically, I feel that the result of AI is due to the nature of eating stuff, and it learns that thing. It can’t learn something that it can’t eat. Maybe ten years from now, doing something like adding a Gradient Map and Gaussian Blur to an image, the average 21-year-old won’t know how to do that, but they’ll know how to type it into a prompt. The result is that your skill in design becomes more valuable because you know how to create it. Then have it be a malleable and editable project file that is not just an image.
With AI, there’s good and bad. But as of lately, the buzzword is that it’s mainly bad. Yes, we all see that because we’re designers. We know what’s bad about it. There’s a lot more bad than good currently.
seradopa: Last question, do you have any advice for anyone who wants to learn design?
Jack McArdle: You need a why. Why do you want to learn it?
Because I want to learn JavaScript, but I don’t have a why right now. I’ve learned some of it, but I don’t I don’t have a thing to do it. So, I just carry on and I forget all. I don’t know, I think you need like a thing that you love.
I started by redesigning album covers. When I was 15 or 14, I used to do YouTube themes because I loved YouTube when I was that age. Yeah, I think you need a motivation and a why.
And to be honest with you, I think that a lot of the time, people who ask “Oh, how can I do this or whatever?”
No offense, but people who do that, want you to give them some trick or shortcut, when there isn’t one.
Don’t wait, just start if you want to do something. Just start doing it.
There’s one thing that I have to keep reminding myself about in the last year and a half because I’ve been struggling with this. What I’ve said about the labels and not having my work get out there, even though it sounds cringe, is the idea that you’ve got and want to create, it wants to be made. You have to learn to satisfy that urge of wanting to make something and then follow through. Eventually, you’ll be on a roll.
You need to find the motivation. It doesn’t matter if you message the best person in the world about painting or graphic design, they’re not going to be able to give you the why. If you’re going to message someone good at whatever it is you want to learn – start first. That way you can get something useful out of this person.
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