Q&A with Adam R Garcia

My name is Adam R Garcia. I run a creative studio called The Pressure, and consider myself an "artist," while running the business and acting as creative director, illustrator and designer. I also host a monthly spelling bee called The Amazing Stumptown Spelling Bee with my studiomate Anton Pearson, run the site Illustrated Etymology, and do improv acting out here in the Rose City.

What software / tools helps you illustrate/design?

We use whatever software we need to illustrate and design. If we're unable to use the tools, we find partners that can to make our ideas real.

What is your ideal work environment?

My ideal work environment isn't as much about space / place as it is about the human beings that are around me. A supportive, intelligent, talented and enthusiastic group is ideal for me. This enables confluence of energy, and through that synthesis helps to create great and unexpected work.

Where does your work inspiration come from? 

Ryan Bush and Anton Pearson (who both work at The Pressure) have been very inspiring for me personally, as they have very different sources of inspiration, and through this sharing, I feel we've all ballooned in excitement and inspiration through conversation and sharing of work. At Nike, I had the opportunity to art direct some motion pieces, and this made me very excited about thinking in a 4-dimensional narrative format, and Ryan is a director and videographer, which has influenced me as well. I find that now most projects that we do, no matter what the final format, I will approach with some sort of idea of how it would dynamically come to life, and then work back from there. Exploring video, direction and motion has been exciting of late.

Who are the illustrators you admire most?

So many. Not sure where to start. I used to be incredibly excited by the work of Durer and Bosch, and many of my illustrations were inspired by the compositions and lines of those two. Robert Crumb, Chris Ware, Gary Taxali, The Clayton Brothers, Rami Niemi, Jonathan Zawada, and the list goes on and on and on and on and on and on and...