Leave it to our digital media teacher to make sure his classes are well documented! Aaron Smulktis knows you're busy...easily distracted...or maybe just need something to reinforce his info-packed classes. That's why he video records all his classes, so you can review the tutorials later. When he's not being an extra-considerate teacher, he's also rethinking what it means to be a valuable digital resource, a musician, and a hedge fund watchdog.
3rd Ward: What classes do you teach here?
Aaron Smulktis: Currently I teach a Photoshop Intensive and an Illustrator Intensive class. We also started a slightly different program where they're taught as part of a design immersion block [Graphic Design Immersion].
3W: What's your background with these programs?
A: Well, I’ve been in the field working with clients for about six years and Photoshop was actually the first thing I did on a computer, ever. I studied graphic design and advertising at SVA.
3W: What do you do in the field?
AS: A multitude of things. Most of the time I’m building websites. I’ve done a lot of portfolio-based sites, like photographers – this guy, David Black, shoots for MTV and has had a couple really big fashion prints up in Times Square and things like that.
3W: But those aren’t necessarily just Photoshop and Illustrator. Are you doing the design of the website, are you doing the coding part, or are you doing the whole thing?
AS: One of the things that I think really makes my approach different is that a lot of times when you hire a web designer, you're hiring one or the other. They are either just technical programmers and their experience is in code or they are just artists and they’re maybe hiring somebody else to do the backend and they’re just doing the art. But I do both.
3W: Did you study web design in college?
AS: No. But my freshman year I was dorming with this kid who is a pretty experienced programmer. We both started getting into Flash at the same time and had this volley effect on each other.
3W: You’re doing an Intensive so there’s obviously a lot of tutorial stuff, but are there projects you have that come out of this that are more on the creative end?
AS: I would actually like to slant towards that even more. I've learned to keep an environment that is really about learning the tools; a guided walk through the entire application yet also fostering an approach that could result in a piece of art at the end of it.
3W: What are you doing right now, outside of here, that you’re passionate about?
AS: I’m throwing a series of concerts in my backyard.
3W: Really?!
AS: Yea. TheGardenStage.com. I am in the process of adding a lot of work to my website that I haven’t had the time to update in the past two years, TalkToTheLand.com. And with one of the guys who works here [at 3rd Ward], I rent a recording studio in the Lower East Side. I’m always making music and we’re producing and writing songs, so I’m doing a lot of that as well.
3W: What kind of music?
AS: I guess you could call it like fucked-up pop music.
3W: Haha! What do you play, or sing or do?
AS: Well I mostly play the guitar and sing, but lately I’m really trying to focus on producing beats and electronic music on the computer. So I play a little keys. The three words that have been rolling around in my head for awhile now are color, composition, and sound.
3W: So you’re using that with music and computers. What did you study in school if you didn’t study computers?
AS: I started as an Illustration major. I’ve been a painter almost my entire life. But then after a year of illustration, I just realized I really wanted to study graphic design and advertising.
3W: You work at Apple, right?
AS: Yea, I went part-time and started working on HTML and marketing emails, and internal emails for the corporate offices right next door in the same building.
3W: The SoHo one right? That’s a big building.
AS: There’s actually a hedge fund on the top floor and they have a secret door on the righthand side. You would never know about it. It looks like a metal wall.
3W: Thanks for telling the secrets of the Apple store.
AS: Yea. Sure! You should go in there and make an investment.
Heed Aaron's investment advice at your own discretion. But definitely catch him teaching Photoshop Intensive (start dates: July 11 and August 10) or Illustrator Intensive (July 25 and August 23). Two sessions per class.
Jul 2, 2010
by Tim KentAdam Collison & Tim Kent at Factory Fresh 
