GREATEST: Actual Source
The Utah-based design practice, publisher and book store’s co-founders in conversation with acclaimed design director Michael Cina.
I don’t remember how I ran into JP Haynie and Davis Ngarupe of Actual Source but their work hit me like a ton of bricks. I couldn’t help but notice they were running a brand/shop from a design studio, but also their focus was very much rooted in building on tradition and expanding that foundation while effortlessly making it theirs. They are rooted in typography but their lens is wide. They are outsiders with a deep knowledge of the visual arts, past and present. If that isn’t enough, their curatorial focus is razor sharp. They know no boundaries and take risks with the confidence of an accomplished veteran. It was my pleasure to sit down and have some words with the powerhouse that is Actual Source.
How did Actual Source start?
JP: Davis and I met in 2004 in Utah and then we stayed friends over the years. In 2007 we both started going to design school at the same time, but we were both a little older.
DN: We were friends a few years before we even went to design school. I moved from Utah back to California to go to Otis College of Art and Design in LA, while JP stayed in Salt Lake City at the University of Utah. We stayed in contact throughout the years.
JP: [We had] a lot of interest in books, which was a similar focus for us. Then in 2012, Davis moved back to Utah where he got a job at a tech company. I was still in school and they hired me as an intern. That was in 2013, and we've been working together ever since. We started our studio in 2015, which had a couple of iterations. It was first called Number 04 (2004 is when JP and I met) but we changed our name to match our store and publishing imprint in 2017 to Actual Source.
DN: Even though we had been doing the store for a couple of years prior.
How did you get introduced to a more classic or traditional graphic design vernacular? I think that's really interesting considering your location.
DN: Neither of us were designers when we met. I didn't even know what graphic design really was. JP was working at a printing press and I was working construction when we were roommates with a guy called Bardhi Haliti. He introduced us to graphic design and to this day, he is still one of our biggest influences and favorite designers.
JP: Bardhi is from Kosovo but he did his BFA at Brigham Young University and he introduced us to this type of graphic design. Not branding-focused or ‘pentagram’ style design, but more focused on typography (“Pentagram” refers largely to an eponymous ‘clean’ and ‘clever’ corporate brand identity, created by the world-renown design firm).
Neither of us were designers when we met. I didn't really even know what graphic design really was. JP was working at a printing press and I was working construction when we were roommates with a guy called Bardhi Haliti. He introduced us to graphic design and to this day, he is still one of our biggest influences and favorite designers.
Davis Ngarupe
JP, I know you were born and raised in Utah. What about you, Davis? Was it California?
DN: I was raised in the Cook Islands, but moved to California when I was 7.
I've been in Minneapolis since '96 and I'm assuming that you both have had a lot of opportunities to move away from Utah. Why do you remain there?
JP: This is the classic question—I got married pretty early. I had a kid before I even started design school.
Wow.
JP: And I just felt like I had already settled in here. Utah is a super easy place to live; the standard of living is pretty high versus the cost. We just ended up staying here and then luckily Davis moved back here after school because his wife is from here. We've talked about it so many times, like, is this even possible? What are we doing? Can we even do this here? We just decided for the sake of our wives we did not want to move. My wife for sure did not. We said, “All right, let's try this here and see if we can make it work.”
DN: We were probably more naive than anything, thinking that it could work. At the beginning when we started the studio, there were a lot of questions up in the air: “Is it possible?” Now we're comfortable with how easy it is out here. The mountains, which touch our city [Provo], are so beautiful and we spend a lot of time walking during the summer. I don't think we really have much desire to move anywhere else right now. Don't get me wrong, we love traveling to other places. We like getting out of Utah on a regular basis, but we enjoy living here.
And what other benefits would you say living in Utah has offered you? I'm also going to ask about challenges because I've seen a lot of these where I live, so I'm curious to hear about it through your lens.
JP: We have a nice studio that doesn't cost a lot of money.
DN: Because we live in a smaller town, we both live very close to our studio. We don't have a commute. When JP and I worked for a studio in Salt Lake City, we were commuting an hour and a half and it did us in. The commute ended every day with us being bitter and grumpy. I know our traffic experience is nothing like LA’s, but it became a toxic experience. It’s much more enjoyable getting home in a few minutes.
JP: Our kids are always stopping by during the day; they come to say hello. It feels like a really nice existence to blend the two—our home lives and our studio life.
One thing I was going to ask about is your work/family/life balance. I think a lot of people have a hard time managing that and I totally agree with what you said. I think living out in a remote area, and I wouldn’t even call Minneapolis remote necessarily, it affords me the opportunity to disappear. I really like that. How did the store come about?
JP: We started making books together around 2014. We decided like, "Hey, let's work on a project together. Let's publish a book." We approached this photographer named Natalie Neal who is based in LA and we said, "We'd like to design and publish a book of your work.” So we did that. We told our wives, "We're going to need to take some money out of savings." It was like $4,000, I think. We had a small run, digitally-printed book and put it out using a little link on our portfolio site. We did not sell very many. We quickly realized that there's a lot more that goes into selling books and making your money back. To actually make a profit you need to do certain things so that you're not sitting on books for years…
DN: Yeah, we're [still] sitting on a few books…
How do you think design applies to the common person and how can it manifest in their lives? Just talking about graphic design from a layperson's point of view.
DN: I think the best way for me to think about this is JP grew up riding BMX bikes and I grew up skateboarding, and at a young age we were really interested in design. We weren't designers but we were really interested in skate t-shirts, skate shoes, Jordans, skate decks, magazines, etc.
JP: Alphanumeric... The technical, sports-inspired streetwear brand felt very distinct compared to other skate brands at that time. It could have been their involvement in multiple sports or maybe their emphasis on cut-and-sew, not just graphic tees. They felt like the beginnings of what streetwear feels like now, but made in the late ‘90s/early 2000s.
DN: Yeah, Alphanumeric. We both loved their logo and brand as a kid. Shoes… I knew every single skate shoe that existed in the ‘90s, I would read Eastbay and CCS catalogs every night and beg my mom to drive me to shop in LA so I could get shoes and clothes that none of my friends in Camarillo could get. Me, my friends and brothers would trade shoes because we couldn’t afford new ones. Design was always a big part of my life and I realized it when I started obsessing over the look and feeling of the Sal Barbier 23s, DuFFS KCKs and DC Rudy Johnson 1s (These are ‘90s pro-model skate shoes from some of our favorite skaters).
JP: We really do look at design, especially how we set up our studio, as a really practical thing and as a service business. We liked the idea that there's some value created for people in what we’re doing that they can rely on—that people recognize. We're contributing to things that we see everyday. I think maybe it's more prevalent in architecture, but Utah has some terrible architecture. We always talk about it. It just seems kind of irresponsible that that's going to be there forever. I think maybe it's more important in architecture but in graphic design as well, there's a visual landscape that's created and I think it's nice to contribute to that in a way that is…
[Something] you can be proud of? I think what it comes down to is, in any profession, or any art form, there are things that are meant to last and there are things that are meant for quick consumption. It's picking what side of the tracks you want to be on.
JP: I was going to say I think we kind of provided two different answers in the way we participated in culture, and even the way we do it now is sort of through the contributions of these people who are actively publishing things, whether that be a book or a magazine on visual culture or through things like a skate shoe, or through this t-shirt that people wear. It's a canvas walking around. Those are things that influence us and we like to be around.
Yeah. I think what I heard you say was that design is important because it relates to people's lives. But I'm curious on how you educate or how do you get people to see design? Sometimes it's simply you ‘get it’ or not. I got it as soon as I saw modernist design but I think some people struggle to see it. Taste is one thing that I think about a lot—people either have taste or they don't and you can't really teach that because it’s both personal and vast. I know that through the books, you help educate. That's one way. I'm going to jump ahead to the future. Where do you see design heading or what the future of design will be?
DN: This is something we talk about often but our hopes are constantly changing; our directions are constantly changing.
JP: I’m curious about how your practice is now. You've been working a long time and because we talked about this a lot: does being a designer and having a studio feel sustainable in the long term?
We really do look at design, especially how we set up our studio, as a really practical thing and as a service business. We liked the idea that there's some value created for people in what we’re doing that they can rely on—that people recognize.
JP Haynie
It is sustainable, but you have to change and adapt all the time. You have to constantly be searching and growing because if you're not, you're going backwards. It's as sustainable as you make it. I see agencies out there renting two floors of a building and then not being able to pay those rates. It's how you run your business, too. I think that one of the reasons why I'm in Minneapolis is because I have the freedom to take chances and smaller creative jobs that I couldn't if I lived in New York or California. I'd be a slave to large companies. Now I choose my fate, and fate somewhat chooses you. My clients now are very different from who they were when I started.
I started in 2000 and the economy wasn’t booming. I started freelancing on my own in a very tough time and people thought, "Oh, you're crazy doing it." And when I started my first design bureau, they thought that was ludicrous as well, but I've always lived in a practical manner. You know what I mean? That's one of the ways that I've been able to stay afloat—because of that, and it's just a boring answer in a way, but it's not.
JP: Yeah. To live and work conservatively so that in case anything happens, your way of making money doesn't have to go away.
Exactly. Or you'd have to go work at an agency or if I'm not getting bigger projects, I’d have to do that also. Managing all that stuff is vital.
JP: That's something that we are really focused on, we're trying to have a better balance. We're also just burning ourselves out. How to price things and how much you can take and what projects we bring in the studio.
Yeah. Pricing is a big thing. I'm still learning how to price and I'm getting a lot better at it. I can tell you being able to talk about what you're going to offer a client, being able to break it down in understandable ways, to be able to itemize so they can see what they are getting. Clients can understand and say, "Oh yeah, that sounds right." If you throw out one large number with no context, it's harder to get things through. But if you can be more thoughtful about your communication and say, "This is what I'm going to give you, this is the value you're getting," I think that's better; value is a huge thing. It's also very important to be creative and be able to enjoy the work that you're doing. That's a common killer I see all the time with people just being stuck in a job where they're not being challenged and they're not using their creativity.
JP: Yeah, I think for us, there's so much that we love about it, but one thing we're not managing is time. The rapid pace of deadlines are constant and just beat up on you. That's something that we have to get a handle on.
DN: We’re working on saying “no,” which will help us manage our time better.
How's that going?
JP: It's going terribly! [laughs] No, it's great because we're so busy but the balance is something that actually does require more discipline, because by saying “no,” or potentially leaving money on the table for your sanity or your team's sanity, is really important. That's one thing for sure that we're trying to do. But as far as our future goes, we've always had this philosophy that if we're interested in it, we'll try and do it.
DN: At the beginning of last year our goal was to grow the store, but there is a lot more that is required that we’re not getting to because our time is being spent designing for the studio. We will continue to make and stock the store with books, but we have to be realistic with our time and where it is being dedicated.
JP: As a business, it feels like the studio has a lot more potential and doesn’t require as much capital. We're focused on sort of building our practice.
I totally understand. It's funny because our careers are mirrored in so many ways that it's ridiculous. It's really interesting to see how you guys just take on type design, websites, visual identities, apparel, book design, publishing, and a store—all those! It's very impressive seeing you do it with grace and confidence. I can’t wait to see what you do next.
Interview: Michael Cina
Photography: Lenard Smith