Whether you’re a new visitor to MacThemes or a long-time reader, you might be familiar with the name Jonas Rask. As a designer, Rask has been responsible for some of the best icon creations over the last few years, with an immense portfolio of both freeware and professional work. Most notably, the Danish resident artist worked with Microsoft’s MacBU last year on the icons for Office 2008, along with Philipp Antoni of Enhanced Labs. Luis Sosa had a chance to discuss Jonas’ life as an icon artist, work with Microsoft, and his plans for the future.

MacThemes: The basic “interviewing an icon designer” question seems to be “Where does your inspiration come from?” But it’s such an open-ended question that the answer tends to be some variation of the same thing, anything and everything.

Instead, I’d love to know specifically where your inspiration for the Slurpee icon came from– why not a big gulp or some other equally iconic drink? What made you look at a Slurpee in a 7-Eleven and think, “Wow, now there’s an icon!”? Do you, in fact, drink Slurpees as a matter of course?

Jonas Rask: Well, the Slurpee was kind of funny. I live right next to a 7 Eleven (who doesn’t, I guess) and I’d seen the containers, but never cared particularly about what it was. Then one day, my girlfriend brought one home for me, and I was just so impressed with the taste of it that I got completely hooked! On top of that, the container is just plain fun, so I sat down and drew a version.

MacThemes: Do you have any tricks to deal with “designer’s block”? What do you do when you find your creativity is at a stand still?

Jonas: I don’t have any “tricks” for that, per se. I think I tend to focus on something completely separate from designing for a while. When dealing with clients, though, a creativity block needs to be overcome quickly, since you’re on a tight schedule most of the time. That’s when I mainly brainstorm with my fellow designers at Enhanced Labs.

MacThemes: I can’t write without a cup of black tea and I can’t work from my home office (which I suppose makes it less of a home office). What are some of your requirements to create?

Jonas: My designs are best made when I’m not under too much stress. That way I have the time to “think outside the box”, and my design concepts end up a lot better. On another note, I simply cannot design on a multitude of different screens; I have very weird requirements for color calibrations. So when I get a new Mac, I always spend about a week or so to get it just right.

MacThemes: I often find that other artists’ creativity can help me come to my own, even if it’s of a different art form. Can you give examples of some art, even from other mediums, that might inspire you?

Jonas:

Musican/Band: Steve Vai (what a magician!), Tool (creative music at its best) and Tina Dickow (a Danish singer/songwriter. She just writes pure poetry.)

Visual Artist/Painter/Illustrator: Dave Brasgalla, David Lanham, and the Danish painter Michael Kvium.

Authors: I don’t read many books besides medical literature, really.

MacThemes: Do you have any other creative outlets besides icon design? Is there a struggling rock star in there waiting to get out?

Jonas: I’ve been playing the guitar since age 14, and I play in an acoustic band whenever I have time.

MacThemes: Okay, let’s geek out a bit. What gear do you covet - if money was no object, what would be your dream setup?

Jonas: Well, I kind of think I have my dream setup. My 24” aluminum iMac is a pretty damn nice machine. I have just never been into the whole Mac Pro + Cinema Display setup, I love the iMac’s aesthetics and simplicity.

MacThemes: You’ve done quite a few full system replacement icon sets. Do you spend as much time on each individual folder and it’s badge as you do on a standalone icon, like Slurpee or GlowBe?

Jonas: For folders, I certainly spend more time on the smaller sizes than I do for the object-oriented icons. The folders are mainly viewed at these small sizes which makes the “crispness” more important than the details. So my random objects tend to have much more detail than the system icons, which basically just need to portray a function in a simple, non-complex manner.

MacThemes: Necessity, they say, is the mother of invention. What was the very first icon you needed to create, and what do you think of the effort looking back on it?

Jonas: Haha, well that I can’t really remember. I started modding other peoples’ work, copy and pasting, cutting etc. But there came a point where I just needed things that I couldn’t mod. The problem was, I couldn’t create- what was important was that I loved it!

Going into Photoshop, no matter how ugly the results were, just felt amazing. And with fun came the urge to improve. That’s what does it for me, I guess. If it’s no fun, I simply can’t create.

MacThemes: Do you ever feel the urge to go back and tweak an old effort as your own ability has continued to improve?

Jonas: Sometimes I take a look and go “Oh no, I did NOT draw that!” but I never feel like changing it. I was fairly mad when George Lucas decided to alter his original Star Wars movies just because it was technically possible. I think the work that you have done in the past is justified on it’s own, because it’s an indication of how you’ve progressed. So instead of changing it, I always consider doing a new set with some of the old styling, and call it “revisited”, or something to that effect.

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