SPARK
SI002, from issue1, 2021.
At the end of the day, business is business.
We’re all replaceable, even if we don’t want to admit it.
Erica Bech is an Art Director based in Portland (now Brooklyn) who has worked with Apple, Nike Chobani, and MTV. As an ideas person, she is happiest when collaborating to develop rich stories and loves the process of catalyzing creative electricity.
I was doing my fair share of stalking yesterday and there was a post declaring that you are back on Instagram. What was behind the hiatus?
I deleted my Instagram a few years ago. I regret it. I had just moved to Portland from New York for Nike and was trying to live more in the present. It was actually surprising. After I deleted social media, many of my friends called me on the phone. That was new. Who even calls now? Looking back, I was missing out on a lot more than I realized. There’s good and bad with everything. Recently, I left my full-time job at Nike to go freelance. This is the sole reason I am back on social media. It’s funny because when I worked with Pablo (Rochat), he said, “Hey, I’m gonna post stuff on Instagram. Are you on Instagram?” At the time, I was not even searchable. It was nice coming back to it and being more intentional with how I want to use the space.
Why do you think that artists on Instagram do not display their personality?
When I think about people, I’m interested in who they are. There is so much more to life than work. Skateboarding has actually helped me a lot. I skated with my brother when I was younger, which was my escape. Slowly, I stopped because not many girls skated, so I didn’t feel like I could. When I moved to Portland, my brother mailed me a skateboard. I’m not great at it, but play has always been super important to me. When I get bogged down by work, it’s probably because play is missing. In that way, skating reminds me you don’t have to have it all figured out. You can just have fun and make a fool of yourself.
What other areas of life do you play?
There is this risograph studio here, and the owner’s friend is a poet. His writing is really eccentric. He said he was doing this workshop for poetry, but I’ve never written poetry. I didn’t even realize that I was getting myself into it. Intrigued. I like challenges that remind me that it’s worth getting uncomfortable and approaching life through a playful lens. It’s really influencing me to make personal work combining these notions of poetry and design. While it’s really easy to surround yourself with what you’re comfortable with. But I’m constantly trying to push on that. You need to allow yourself space and time to not know what you’re doing.
It feels like you can wear many hats. How was it to enter the world of MTV and navigate life afterwards?
MTV was one of the most amazing experiences I had. It was so collaborative. Then it fizzled out, a project that lasted like two years. I was 25 back then. I got scared because I thought I was setting myself up to be not employable. We were making some crazy shit; either love it or hate it. You’re not going to be able to please everyone. Learn your craft and do your thing. When I worked with Richard Turkey at MTV, he always said you need a great idea. That’s so true: if something looks cool but has no legs, it’s not gonna do anything.
A time that you had a really cool idea, that also had legs?
I was fascinated by a lot of the work I did at Nike. It was an exciting point in my career because I became less hands-on. My job there was essentially coming up with ideas (legs). I’ve learned something different from each job. But at Nike, I learned how to think strategically and apply marketing thinking to sell through an idea. I will always approach my work in that way.
How do you sell an idea?
Decks, set up, communication… I really pride myself on doing it: ① You give me a brief. ② I hear what you need. ③ This is what I understand it to be. ④ This is how I’m going to solve your problem. Communicating that clearly to a non-creative person gets that person excited about the result. Design, literally, is trying to solve a problem that’s outside of yourself. Another reason I left Nike was that I wanted to be closer to the problem. When you’re at a company, the brief travels down the pipeline, and the cause gets further and further away. You’re not even sure if what you’re doing is solving the problem!
What do you like to be doing when you are not working? When you’re 65?
How long am I gonna be a designer? Who knows my husband and I are really drawn to spaces, furniture, objects… Flipping that, wouldn’t it be fun to open a weed store? A weed store Airbnb? Fully design the experience around it. I feel like doing that sooner rather than later.
SI-002