Design For You: Josh Cochran’s Eames Rocker
All the prizes have been unlocked in our Design for You competition. Which means those Eames rockers will be won by a lucky five. You just have to enter your email to be eligible for the draw. Today we’re talking to artist and illustrator Josh Cochran about his finely detailed designs and what it was like flying out to Los Angeles to paint a chair.
How long have you worked in your current studio? And where is it? I have worked at my studio for almost 3 years. It’s an old pencil factory buildling in Brooklyn that has been divided up into smaller studios. I work as an illustrator for a pretty wide range of clients in advertising, editorial and television.
Describe your style? How would you define your aesthetic? My work is linnear, graphic and obsessive. My drawings are influenced by comics, vintage children’s books, woodblock prints and contemporary graphic design. I work primarily with a pencil on paper, sometimes I paint, sometimes I silkscreen but overall, I try to keep my process pretty simple.
As an artist how do you keep your space organized? I’m thinking here of the physical space but also your computer. Are there any particular programs you find really useful? My space is not huge so I have to be good about how I organize things. I’ve had a couple of desks built with custom shelving around it which has helped with storage. It also helps me have different work stations for when I work on digital things versus analog messy work. At times the computer can be a real distraction so having it on a different surface from my drawings helps a lot. I have a dry rack for prints and flat files to store larger work. On the computer I love using programs like iCal and Excell for managing clients and deadlines and Dropbox for file organization.
What would you change about your workspace if you could? I would probably add another table and more shelving. Right now I have these book shelves built into my drawing desk and it would be nice to have more room for my growing piles of books.
What do you most love about your space? I love the large custom tables I helped build. They were originally meant to be used for silkscreen but I just spread everything out on it.
Tell me about the experience of painting the Eames chair? How much prep did you have to do? What inspired the final design? Painting the Eames chair was an incredible experience! I didn’t have a whole lot of time to paint something super intricate so I decided to limit my colors to black and a bright magenta. I prepped a bit for the chair here in my studio by working out sketches of each of the little vignettes. The final design was really inspired by the shape of the chair, I wanted it to be organic to mirror the form. We were also by the theme we were given “Making the world a better place” which inspired me to come up with something fun.
What inspires you? Living here in Brooklyn, surrounded by a ton of talented and ambitious people really inspires me on a daily basis.