Hey, Im Brittany.

So Im going to be sharing with you guys my experience with La Cucaracha, Josh Wilkinson, and The Made
Shop.
So, La Cucaracha is a small silkscreen, letterpress, and design company located downtown here in KC.
Jordan Carr
Silkscreen // Letterpress // Design
The company is owned by Jordan Carr and his friend Nick Naughton. When asked about what he loves and hates most about where he works,
Jordan replied that he hates the hours, but loves the community aspect of it. La Cucaracha is denitely not commercial, but he believes that one
day it should be. He wants to be able to pick and choose the design work that he does, but he just cant a!ord it yet. He took a big step in
creating this place with Nick, and knows that it will eventually pay o! 100%
So, this is their garage on Campbell street, and on the right is a print that they made that is currently hanging up in the
bathroom inside of Mills Record Company.
So here are some examples of their work.
They make some pretty cool stu!.
So Jordan gave me a lot of really good design advice. He was a very nice, laid back guy, and what Ill probably remember the
most is when he said that
Not every design has to be the best design youve ever made.
Jordan Carr // La Cucaracha Press
not every design has to be the best design youve ever made. I think thats really important to keep in mind because I feel like Im constantly
sweating the small stu!. Sometimes you just need to get your stu! done and move on to the next thing.
Keep doing it.
Jordan repeated himself in saying that his best design advice is to just keep doing it. Dont be afraid to take steps backwards, and make
projects for yourself. And know that what you do IS valuable. You might design a yer that took half an hour to make, but it really took half an
hour, plus 10 years of professional practice. Overall, my experience with Jordan was great. He was super friendly and really easy to talk to. I had
planned on going in there just to meet for 15 minutes but he ended up talking with me for an hour and was more than happy to show me their
stu!.
Art // Illustration // Design
So, this is Josh Wilkinson. Ive kind of connected with him through Judy Mills. He does a lot of print work for her, working at Digital Design, a
Large Format printing company. I didnt get to know too much about him and his work because we only emailed, but his answers to my
questions were very thorough and helpful. So hes the only creative in the shop and he gets paid to do the pre-press work, setting up les for
print, but he said that on occasion he gets to work on promo posters for a lot of the bars around town. But what he loves is what he does in his
free time:
Posters, album art, and apparel designs for local and national bands. Its fun for him because it helps the band out, and it gets his name out
there. When I asked him when he realized he wanted to be a designer he said that he always had fun making album art and packaging and his
little brother told him that Graphic Design was the eld of study if he wanted to do that for a living. During his studies is when he fell in love
with the Rock Poster world. To me that was really cool because I also just loved making collages and my dad is the one who told me about
Design. ...Josh also had a lot of good design advice...
Figure out what it is you want to do, and visit people in the related elds.
Josh Wilkinson // Digital Design
He suggested that you should gure out what it is you want to do, or are interested in, and visit people in the related elds. For
instance when he decided he wanted to make posters, he visited and got a hold of poster designers and printers just to get any
advice or insight that he could.
Youd be surprised how many people are willing to help.
He said he still hits up designers on Facebook all the time just for inspiration, and that youd be surprised at how many people
are willing to help.
Architecture // Objects // Graphic Design
So, The Made Shop. I really wanted to talk about this place because it was one of my favorite places that we all went to in
Colorado. Its literally just a little garage in the backyard of this couples house in Denver. When we pulled up and got out of the
car, I had NO idea that it was going to be this cool.
So this is what it looks like inside. They just totally gutted the place and made it their own.
It was really inspiring to see such a small group in this small, home made environment and see how successful they really are.
Marke Johnson
Principal Designer
Kimberly Johnson
Shop Manager
Adam Blake
Project Designer
So its just this guy Marke and his wife Kimberly and their friend Adam. Two of Markes brothers help with some work
sometimes, but they werent there that day speaking to us.
So here are some examples of their work...
It turns out that Marke used to play in a band with the guys who are now the members of The Fray. So they had that connection
right away and have designed all of their albums.
So I saw this Son Lux album sitting on their shelf and I recognized it immediately. I had listened to this artist before and always
drooled over this cover, like seriously every time I saw it. So for them to pull this out and then show us this video on how they
made it in 28 hours because he wrote the whole thing in 28 days, that was just so surreal to me.
So they took a ton of smoke bombs and 28 cans to create this grid representing each day of the recording process.
The photos are beautiful and I think its awesome that they recorded the entire process because that can be the most important
part sometimes in showing people your work.
Dont wait until youre 30.
Marke Johnson // Made Shop
A big part of Markes design advice is that you shouldnt wait... He started calling his place The Made Shop when he was at his
desk in college in his apartment.
Fake it til you make it.
He says that you should just fake it til you make it. As long as youre condent in yourself and your work, it will be great... This
was a really good experience for me. Everyone was SO friendly and really interested in our thoughts, too. I thought this place was
really important to talk about, for me, because what they do and their environment is something that I would really love to be a
part of.
// Thank You //