I believe everything we do is important.
Drop me an email if you’d like to talk about a project.
View current projects at plazm.com and theportlandstampcompany.com
A few interviews, presentations, and my CV are on the scroll below.
Illustration by Patrick Long.
Did I Do That?
When Sean Schumacher invited me to join his excellent podcast at Did I Do That? he asked me to bring in three mistakes to talk about. There have been so many, I have to say it was difficult to choose just three! We talk about a lot of early Plazm days predating the publication of the first issue of the magazine in 1991. Listen
PechaKucha: Survival
If you are unfamiliar with the format, it's 20 slides x 20 seconds per slide. In my 7 minutes I talk about surviving my near-death bicycle accident and the nearly 25 year survival of Plazm magazine.
Buspass
A few years ago I was interviewed for a travel program called “Buspass.” The program has ceased to exist, but the video has become a nice little time capsule: Plazm when our office was in the City Signs building, Reading Frenzy and Jackpot Records when they were still downtown, Burnside Skatepark was as it remains … also, there is a nice random moment with a City of Portland worker talking about Portland's legendary Malcom X Blvd. Thanks again to The Wipers and Dead Moon for lending some songs to the soundtrack.
Doing better: How I Broke My Brain and Changed my Mind
When I set out on my bike for my normal ride to work toward the Steel Bridge on May 18, 2012, my to-do list was packed with stuff—call designers for Plazm, the magazine I art direct; manage global retail campaign for the launch of Windows 8; prepare my work for an art installation; take my family to my cousin’s birthday party. A couple weeks later, my task list said, "Wake up more," written on a whiteboard in my hospital room. I had no memory of the accident itself. Apparently I flew over the handlebars and smashed the left side of my head into the pavement, resulting in a severe Traumatic Brain Injury, or TBI.
My bike accident put a process into motion: coma, returning to consciousness, inhabiting a pre-verbal state, and being unable to walk or control my body. My view of the earth, human life, and our role as individuals has changed. I am still recovering and exploring new territory. As I have added things back into my life, I have taken the approach of evaluation. How much time do these activities take? How engaging are they to me? Do they fit my values? There are many things clamoring for our attention in today's world. These can cloud our judgment and distract us from what truly matters. How do we filter out the noise and find what is meaningful to us? This is an opportunity to do better.
Brand Loyalty: One minute presentation at the AIGA national conference
The conference was postponed following the terrorist attacks of 9/11/01 and rescheduled for Washington D.C. in spring of 2002. The climate of xenophobia was high. Then President George W. Bush was saying things like "if you're not with us, you're against us." It is against this backdrop which this presentation occurred. Sarah Dougher helped with the words. Pete McCracken made the "save me" flags. He and then-intern Donny Kersey are the flag-bearers.
Steven Heller interview
Steve is one of the most accomplished design writers of all time. I think I have sent him copies of Plazm since the first one came off the press. We email occasionally. I enjoyed a memorable lunch in the NY Times cafeteria many years ago with Mr. Heller and he wrote a super introduction to a show I curated at the Museum of Sex in NYC. The interview below is from June 2007 for the book The Design Entrepreneur. Visit www.hellerbooks.com to learn more about his work.
Why did you launch Plazm?
Plazm was formed by a group of artists dissatisfied with avenues of expression available to them. Actually when we first started meeting, we didn't know were going to form a magazine. There were writers, photographers, illustrators, and designers all coming to these open-ended weekly gatherings. We were talking about things like media control and how we'd like to see artists representing artists. These discussions led to the launch of Plazm magazine.
Plazm is a type foundry, magazine and book publisher, and other entrepreneurial ventures. Is it part of your design collective or separate?
Plazm has grown organically, garden-like. Some shoots sprout up and take hold for a long time; others only last a few seasons. The type foundry grew out of the experimental design that our magazine came to be known for in the early 1990s. The books came from the same idea as the magazine—to produce content that interests us and is perhaps marginalized by mainstream media. The design firm arose naturally from the mass of creative energy at the magazine; and our need to support our magazine habit. Client work is really what ends up paying the bills.
Sometimes you have to trim things back, as when we temporarily stopped producing the magazine in order to focus on writing and designing books. Occasionally, an entire vine gets transplanted; Plazm Design still does custom fonts, but we spun off the font foundry into a separate business owned by one of our original founders, Pete McCracken.
What are the most important concerns for Plazm - art or commerce?
This question really is at the crux of most of the issues we struggle with, Steven. The short answer is that we create what we want and if it has a commercial value, great. If not, so be it. That said, we all need to put food on the table. So for fifteen years we have tried to figure out how to make a living doing this. Plazm magazine has never made any money. In the beginning, we all had other jobs and worked on the magazine on the side. Starting in 1993, we tried to subsidize it with Plazm Fonts, which helped, but never really brought in enough to put us in the black. in 1995 we decided to take the form/content/ideas we had been exploring in Plazm magazine and apply them to commercial design work. This is what has sustained us. The irony now is that the magazine is still something we do on the side and Plazm Design has become the day job.
In the consumer culture which we operate this sometimes requires us to serve corporations, solicit advertisers, and otherwise prostitute ourselves for money in order to do the things we want to do. Sometimes dichotomies arise: for instance, there will never be an instance of censorship in Plazm magazine, or on our web site. However, this uncompromising position has cost us more than a few advertisers over the years. As a commercial design studio, is helping multinational corporations market their products worthwhile if their payments enable us to distribute political and cultural materials via our magazine, books, anti-war posters? I often wonder. Of course much good work can also be done by designers in partnership with corporations—from simple things like specifying recycled materials or reducing packaging to discussions about social responsibility and connecting corporations with community non-profits, and so on. Our baseline is to maintain a 50/50 balance between clients and causes.
Has the type business subsidized the other activities, or have you managed to be self-sufficient?
Neither Plazm magazine nor Plazm Fonts could have been self-sufficient without Plazm Design to support them. However, all of the things cross-pollinate in positive ways. The typographic expertise developed through Plazm Fonts has allowed us to do custom alphabets for corporate clients. For instance, we have designed typefaces for MTV, Nike, Starbucks, and others. This knowledge has also directly informed the creation of custom letterforms for brand identity work. The magazine has provided an orientation towards editorial content in general—in many cases informing the types of material we create for other clients—a magazine for a non-profit college, being hired to write and/or design books, and developing editorial content for websites.
The magazine has shown people what we can do, given us a forum for collaborating with well known designers alongside newcomers. Fifteen years is a long time in independent magazine years. By now we're a magnet for all kinds of people involved in art, design, politics, and culture. All of that helps our design business, directly and indirectly, which in turn funds the magazine. It's great when we find an artist or they find us through the magazine and it turns into a long-term relationship doing commercial projects. This also happens in reverse—hiring an illustrator for a commercial job leads to contributions to the magazine.
A non-commercial, highly creative experience like the magazine has taught us, in a different way than a commercial job, how to help designers, illustrators, writers, photographers, and artists find and channel their passion. The result is often great and interesting work. We take this experience in collaboration and apply it to the paying work; our clients, whether they know it or nor, benefit hugely from what we've all learned publishing Plazm magazine.
How do you manage the work at Plazm - does everybody design or do you break it down according to business sub-sections?
The business structure has evolved and changed over the years. We connect the right designer, the most appropriate art director, the best writer, the perfect web developer, to each job we do. This happens across all categories of work. One of the keys is an openness to comments and criticism from anyone involved in the office during a project—from interns to principals—all opinions are valued, all ideas are important.
Magazines are not easy to sustain, how has Plazm done so?
The hard costs of magazine production are funded by advertising, trades, and paper company sponsorships. Design and editing costs are subsidized by Plazm's commercial client work. Newsstand and online sales account for some revenue as well. None of it would be possible without the unwavering support we get from contributors. Even after all these years, I'm excited and a little surprised when someone like Milton Glaser or Randy Gragg agrees to design a cover or write an intensive interview, without pay. It's like we're tending this massive bonfire. Creative people want to come warm themselves, but they also want to throw logs on the coals. Fires aren't always easy to sustain, but would you want life without them? Sustaining the magazine works the same way. Time and sacrifice are just part of the deal.
Do you have a particularly loyal demographic, or is your audience always changing?
At least a third of our audience is design-based. But really it is almost all creative people of one kind or another—artists, art directors, image makers, writers, designers. Cultural content like music draws in other folks depending on what's in any given issue.
What would you say your most successful products are, and why?
The book XXX: The Power of Sex in Contemporary Design was definitely successful for us—it was translated into a couple other languages and a bunch of articles and dialog on the subject. It won some awards, and led to the exhibit which became part of the permanent collection at the Museum of Sex in NY—and allowed for our collaboration in which you contributed an essay to introduce the exhibit. It has since been mounted at Western Oregon University and has led to writing and designing a few other books.
Some of the early fonts were successful in that they either sold well or have truly permeated the hierarchy of popular culture—for instance the typeface "Able" by Marcus Burlile ended up being used for the Harry Potter books early on and has stuck—it's on everything Harry. Ah, the success of a type designer: near total anonymity.
But I really don't think of things in terms of success / failure. If another issue of the magazine comes off the press—that in itself is a success to me. The act of making the thing you set out to make. It's a success to be able to survive doing work you believe in.
What have been your abysmal failures?
I probably blocked most of them out, but here's one: We needed to move out of the building we were in for our first few years and we had found this great industrial warehouse in North Portland. It was pretty amazing, with 15' tall metal doors and a 2-ton winch hanging from the ceiling. Right next to the rail yard. The trains would go past all the time, like 30 a day. If you heard the railroad crossing bell and you had to be somewhere you would scramble for the door because the trains would often stop for 45 minutes blocking the road out. Either that or park on the other side and hop the train. Our editor got a federal ticket for that once. It was the perfect place for us. However, it needed a bunch of work and we invested a large amount of money in fixing it up. We had just settled in when we were notified by the city that they were going to kick us out in order to make way for the new light rail line. They needed to put a bridge across the tracks and to do so they would need to demolish one building—ours. We stayed in the building as long as possible trying to negotiate a settlement. We were the last tenants there. One day we came in and found the electricity wires to our space cut. It was getting dicey. We were able to come to terms with the city eventually and they helped us to move, but it was very difficult and nearly caused us to go out of business.
Where do you see Plazm in five or ten years?
I think you asked me this about five years ago and I said I wanted to retire in ten years. I guess I'll have to give it another ten. I still truly enjoy the editorial projects—be these in Plazm magazine, on web sites, in books, on film, either through commissioned work or self-generated. We are very interested in exploring the nexus of commercial and non-commercial work. How can our ideas about social responsibility in design cross-pollinate with commerce?
Are you amazed you've come this far?
It's sort of surreal really. Half of the battle is persistence. The longer you do something, the more people believe it will continue.
How important is design to your entire endeavor?
Design is absolutely critical to our entire endeavor. It is through design that messages reach people most effectively. Designers are trained in methods of mass communication and propaganda—we have a vast potential as agents for social change. I believe design can change the world.
Biographical Statement:
Joshua Berger is a founder and principal of Plazm, an award-winning design studio and publisher of Plazm magazine. He is the winner of Gold Medals from the Portland Design Festival and the Leipzig Book Fair (with John C. Jay), and has been recognized by design publications and award shows including the AIGA Annual Show, the Art Directors Club, as well as 2004 and 2008 honorary exhibitions at ZGRAF in Zagreb, Croatia.
Berger’s prints, installations, and street interventions often confront sociopolitical and environmental issues.
Plazm has been listed by ID magazine as one of the 40 most influential design studios in the world and received the Creative Resistance Award from Adbusters. The complete catalog of Plazm magazine resides in the permanent collections of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Denver Art Museum, and the Princeton Architecture Library.
Employment:
President, Creative Director, Graphic Designer, Janitor
Plazm
1991–present (Plazm has been my full time gig a lot of the time, though not always!)
Vice Perforator
The Portland Stamp Company (a Plazm project I do with my biz partner Niko Courtelis)
1996-present
Brand Content Director, Senior Creative Director
Liquid Agency
December 2011–November 2014
Executive Creative Director
ID Branding
July 2009–December 2011
Graphic Designer
Wieden+Kennedy
1993–1995
Sustainability Director
McMenamins
1990–1993
Selected Exhibitions:
Baum-Geschicten, group show, Museum of Design Zurich, 2020
Protest! group show, Museum of Design Zurich, 2018
Liquid Space, Portland, Oregon, 2013
Princeton Architectural Library, permanent collection, Plazm Magazine complete catalog
"20 years of Plazm" Clark College, Archer Gallery, Vancouver, Washington, 2012
"20 years of Plazm" Disjecta, Portland, Oregon, 2012
"Collateral Damage" PICA (Portland Institute for Contemporary Art) Time Based Art festival, Portland Oregon, 2011
"Collateral Damage" Place, Pioneer Courthouse Square, Portland, Oregon, 2010
Plakatsammlung Museum fur Gestaltung Zürich, permanent collection, 90+ Plazm posters, 2009
In Other’s Words, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, 2008
ZGRAF10, honorary exhibition, Zagreb, Croatia, 2008
Gallery Homeland, Portland, Oregon, 2008
"Stimulating Sales: Sex in Design" Museum of Sex, New York City, 2008
Denver Art Museum, permanent collection, Plazm Magazine complete catalog
“The Design of Dissent” Payne Gallery, Moravian College, Pennsylvania, 2007
“XXX: The Power of Sex in Contemporary Design” Western Oregon University, Monmouth, 2007
ORLO Bear Essential, “The Green Menace” commissioned work, 2007
“Now I Know My ABC’s” Group Show, Wurst Gallery, Portland, Oregon, 2006
Prints for PICA, Portland, Oregon, 2006
“Urban Forest” Times Square, New York City, 2006
“Sedition” Group Show, Mark Woolley Gallery, Portland, Oregon, 2006
“Change Me” Getty Images Group Show/Traveling Exhibition, London, UK 2005
Prints for PICA, Portland, Oregon, 2005
AIGA Group Show, “Creative Growth” Art Institute of Portland, Oregon 2005
Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (PICA) “Landmark” Portland, Oregon 2005
The Design of Dissent, School of Visual Arts, New York City, 2005
“Sex Sells” Museum of Sex, New York City, 2005
ZGRAF9, honorary exhibition, Zagreb, Croatia, 2004
The Organ “Broadside” poster, commissioned work, September 2004
Prints for PICA, Portland, Oregon, 2004
K magazine (Malaysia), commissioned work, 2004
Optic Nerve Gallery, Portland, Oregon, 2003
Language of Print, Enteractive Language Festival, Portland, Oregon, 2003
Prints for PICA, Portland, Oregon, 2003
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMoMA), permanent collection, Plazm Magazine complete catalog
SFMoMA, permanent collection, Campaign for PICA identity materials
American Institute of Graphic Artists (AIGA) Traveling Exhibition, Oregon, 2002
“Counter Canvas” exhibition, Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (PICA), Portland, Oregon, 2001
Sphere magazine, “Wish You Were Here” commissioned work, 2001
Idea magazine (Japan), commissioned work, 2000
Metropolis magazine, commissioned work, 2000
Designer as Author: Voices and Visions, nationally curated exhibition, Raleigh, NC, 1996
AIGA Biennial Exhibition Portland, Oregon, 1998, 1996
AIGA Traveling Exhibition, Oregon, 1999, 1998, 1997, 1996, 1995
Awards:
Cooper Hewitt National Design Award nominee (with PLAZM), 2019
Silicon Valley ADDYs, 2013
People's Choice Award, Roseys, Portland Ad Federation, 2012
Portland Art Museum, northwest contemporary arts awards, finalist, 2008
Gold Medal, Portland Design Festival, 2003
Adbusters, Creative Resistance Award , 2001
Graphis, Poster Annual 2001
AIGA National Show, 50 Books, 50 Covers 1999
Copenhagen Museum, one of “the 14 most beautiful books” 1998
Art Directors Club, 1998
Gold Medal, Leipzig Bookfair, 1998
100 Show, 1998
I.D. magazine, I.D. 40 (with Plazm; listing of the world’s 40 most influential designers)
Symposia:
Ethics for Creatives: Living Your Values, Bend Design Conference, 2019
Come Fail With Us: Joshua Berger & Niko Courtelis, Bend Design Conference, 2016
Design, Drinks, and Discussion: Joshua Berger, Namita Gupta Wiggers, and Kate Bingaman-Burt in conversation, Liquid Space, Portland, Oregon, 2014
Making Meaning, presentation and workshop, School of Art Institute Chicago, Illinois, 2013
"20 years of Plazm" Clark College, Archer Gallery, Vancouver, Washington, 2012
Western Oregon University, 2007
Design Madison lecture series, 2005
AIGA Portland, Oregon, 2005
Ad Federation of Central Oregon lecture series, 2005
AIGA National Conference, featured presenter, Vancouver, B.C., 2003
AIGA National Conference, featured presenter, Washington D.C., 2002
AIGA Lecture Series Charleton, South Carolina, 2002
AIGA Lecture Series Cincinnati, Ohio, 2001
ATYPI, featured presenter, Boston, MA, 1999
AIGA Lecture Series Seattle, Washington 1999
AIGA Lecture Series Portland, Oregon 1995
Bibliography:
Plazm Magazine, issues 1-30, 1991 to the present (Art Director, Designer)
F30: Thirty Essential Typefaces Pao&Paws 2006 (Editor, Curator)
ESPN: Ultimate Highlight Reel ESPN Books 2006 (Art Director, Designer)
Marion Jones: Life in the Fast Lane Warner Books 2004 (Art Director, Designer)
100 Habits of Successful Graphic Designers Rockport 2003 (Art Director, Designer, Curator)
XXX: The Power of Sex in Graphic Design Rockport 2002 (Art Director, Designer, Curator)
John Huet: Soul of the Game Melcher Media/Workman, 1997 (Designer)
Media Coverage:
Communication Arts, Exhibit, 2014
Blight, feature interview, 2014
The Oregonian, twenty years of Plazm, 2012
From Cover to Layout, Liaoning Publishing House, 2011
The Big Brand Theory, Sandu Publishing, 2010
1000 More Greetings, Quayside Publishing, 2010
Fingerprint 2, Rockport, 2010
International Visual Communication Design, Liaoning Publishing House, 2010
Grids, Rotovision, 2010
Designing for the Greater Good, Crescent Hill Books, 2009
The Graphic Eye: Photographs by Graphic Designers from Around the Globe, Chronicle Books, 2009
Flashback, Victionary, 2009
Art Directing Projects for Print, Rotovision, 2009
MEISHI / Little Graphic Art Gallery Of The World, ICO Japan, 2009
ITCH magazine, 2009
Writing for Visual Thinkers, Peach Pit Press / AIGA Design Press, 2008
Stereographics, Victionary, 2008
1000 Music Graphics Rockport, 2008
International Design Yearbook, Guangzhou, MDX 2008
Design for Special Events, Rockport, 2008
Communication Arts, September 2008
Education of Design Entrepreneur, Rockport, 2008
SustainAble, Rockport, 2008
Communication Arts, July 2008
1000 Retail Graphics, Rockport, 2007
The Little Book of Promotions, Rockport, 2007
Fashion Unfolding: Uncover the Power of Graphics in Fashion Victionary, 2007
Creativity magazine, January 2007
Handmade, Ginko Press, December 2006
IdN, October 2006
Influences: A Lexicon Of Contemporary Graphic Design, Die Gestalten Verlag, 2006
Handmade, Ginko Press, 2006
Portland Monthly, April 2005
Idea magazine (Japan), January 2005
Shift! magazine (Switzerland), 2004
2GQ, feature and commissioned work, October 2004
Novuum (Germany), August, 2004
Creativity magazine, June 2004
Fast Company, March 2004
Page (Germany), January 2004
Grafik (UK), feature August 2003
Page (Germany), August 2003
Communication Arts, July 2003
Creativity magazine, June 2003
Print magazine, June 2003
Creative Review (UK), May 2003
Eye (UK), May 2003
Gobshite Quarterly, May 2003
Pen (Japan), April 2003
Index-A, Charles Wilkin forward 2003
Step magazine, feature article 2003
Creativepro.com, feature, Winter 2002
E-Design (Taiwan), feature article, 2002
Education of a Design Entrepreneur, Abrams, 2002
Oregon Business magazine, 50 to watch, 2002
The Portland Tribune, business page cover story, 2002
Communication Arts, Exhibit, 2001
How Magazine, feature September 2001
Adbusters, January/February 2001
Provocative Graphics, Rockport Publishers, 2001
Then is Now: Sampling from the Past, Rockport Publishers, 2001
Communication Arts, Exhibit, 2000
Eye (UK), 2000
Limited Resources, Limitless Creativity, PIE Books, 2000
Next: The New Generation in Graphic Design, North Light Books, 2000
Oregon Business Journal, 2000
Oregon Humanities, 2000
Step magazine, feature article 2000
Visible Music, PIE Books, 2000
DesignNet (Korea), feature article, 1999
Cool Type 2, North Light Books, 1999
Extreme Fonts: Digital Faces of the Future, Madison Square Press, 1999
Idea magazine (Japan), 1999
IDN (Hong Kong), 1999
One and Two Color Graphics, PIE Books, 1999
Oregon Business magazine, 1999
Radical Type, North Light Books, 1999
Communication Arts, Design Annual 1998
Communication Arts, Photography Annual 1998
Graphis, Design Annual 1998
Idea magazine (Japan), 1998
Magazine Editorial Graphics, PIE Books, 1998
Print Magazine Computer Design Annual, 1998, 1999
Print Magazine Regional Design Annual, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998
Radical Graphics, Chronicle Books, 1998
Cool Type, North Light Books, 1997
Creative Review (UK), November 1997
I.D. magazine, I.D. 40, 1997
Adbusters, January/February 1997
Typefetish: Obsessive Design in the Digital Age PBC International, 1997
Typography Now 2, Booth Clibborn Editions, 1997
Street Smart Design, North Light Books, 1996
Creative Review (UK), May, June 1995
Adobe magazine, feature article, 1995
A Blip in the Continuum of Graphic Design, Peach Pit Press, 1995
The Best in Cutting Edge Typography, Quarto Publishing, 1995
Wired, feature article, 1995
Upper and lower case 1994, 1995, 1996
The Oregonian, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2002, 2003
“Your art is your life, but your life is more powerfully enriched if you mobilize your art for the betterment of all.”
— Dr. Wade Davis