School, critique, and practical work ethic

A larger than life figure in the creative world, Aaron Draplin has been designing everything from logos to posters since 1995. Few designers are as prolific as Aaron. He’s the founder of Draplin Design Co. (DDC). Priding himself on craftsmanship and quality, the DDC has made stuff for Field Notes, Esquire, Nike, Red Wing, Burton Snowboards, Ford, and he’s even designed a US stamp.

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We caught up with Aaron in person at The James Brand studio in Portland, Oregon, where he walked us through an origin story that begins with a meteor in Navajo country and winds through the skate parks of Michigan in the 80s, the snowboard culture of the 90s, and eventually to one of the most recognizable voices in American graphic design.

But this isn’t just a conversation about making cool stuff—though there’s plenty of that. Aaron opens up about the work ethic he learned from his parents, and why being prolific isn’t about perfection—it’s about experimentation, and loving your work enough to show up every single day.

We talk about collecting, organizing thousands of ideas, and what it means to run a design practice where you can still work on your own terms. And throughout it all, Aaron brings the humor, the heart, and the hard-won wisdom of someone who’s never forgotten what it’s like to work a crappy job—and who reminds himself every day just how cool a life in graphic design really is.

Bio

Aaron Draplin was born in Detroit in 1973 and raised in the small village of Central Lake in Northern Michigan—population 800. After a brief stint at Northwestern Michigan Community College, he moved west to Bend, Oregon at 19 to chase the snowboarding life, and started designing graphics for Solid Snowboards. To fund his winters, he worked summers as everything from a traveling fair pizza wagon cook, to a dishwasher in Anchorage, Alaska.

He eventually returned to the Midwest to finish his design degree at Minneapolis College of Art and Design, before heading back west to become art director of Snowboarder Magazine in Southern California. In 2002, he moved to Portland to work as a senior designer at Cinco Design, where he worked on brands like Gravis, Helly Hansen, and Nixon.

In 2004, Aaron founded Draplin Design Co., working with clients ranging from Nike and Patagonia to Sub Pop Records and the Obama Administration. In 2009, he co-founded Field Notes with Jim Coudal and Coudal Partners—a collaboration that would become one of the most successful and beloved stationery brands in America. That same year, he gave his first public talk, which spiraled into a speaking career that’s now reached over 580 engagements worldwide.

His book Pretty Much Everything was published by Abrams in 2016 and is now in its 13th printing. At 51, Aaron continues to run his fiercely independent design practice from a backyard shop in Portland, Oregon.

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