Maurice Cherry:

All right, so tell us who you are and what you do.

Vasheena Brisbane:

My name is Vasheena Brisbane. I am currently the associate director of visual design and communications at Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church. That means I do all things visual and design for the church. People usually ask me, “well, how much could there be for a church?” And typically, a typical church, there’s not as much, I think, as there is for this specific church. Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church is like the cathedral church of Presbyterianism. So like, St. Patrick’s is for Catholicism. So it’s a big historical church in midtown Manhattan, and we do church like everyone else — Sunday services. But we also have a large outreach ministry and we do a lot of work within the community.

Maurice Cherry:

Nice.

Vasheena Brisbane:

And so, yeah, the church basically runs in seasons, right? So this is our off season. Summer is the off season and fall is homecoming. That’s when our senior pastor returns and we start a sermon series and there’s a magazine and there’s the season of Advent, which is from just after Thanksgiving until just after Christmas. And then there’s sort of a quiet season and then there’s Lent up until Easter, and then there’s a season of Pentecost. So we run in like a season, so it’s like a loop every year.

Maurice Cherry:

Oh, nice. I think for people that are, you know, for folks that are listening that even have some experience with Christianity — or just, I would say, Judeo-Christian religions, there is that kind of cyclical nature to the year that sort of revolves around that, right?

Vasheena Brisbane:

Those specific events, sure. And we advertise for every single one of them. And so we advertise…I mean, advertise feels crass for religion, I think, but we do get the word out there, right? And so we do for the fall season, it’s a sermon series and it’s just like the topic that the preacher is preaching on for the season. And he’ll pick a subject and we’ll provide visuals for it. And so we do banners. We do a spread in the magazine that comes up for the fall, which has the fall events. Any happenings. We have a robust music program that has five or six concerts throughout the year — some free, some paid — so that needs advertising and visuals. We do banners on the facade of the church on Fifth Avenue. We do posters to talk about any programming that we have going on throughout the year. And to advertise the season, we also do brochures. And then there’s just all the regular stuff. Like every Sunday, we print a bulletin. That’s some of the more day to day stuff.

Maurice Cherry:

So there’s a lot, I mean, there’s a lot that goes into, I think especially of a church of that size. It’s not just regular Sunday service. There’s a lot of media, there’s prints. I mean, there’s a lot.

Vasheena Brisbane:

There’s a lot. And we have an arts in our faith group. They do gallery exhibits — big ones — probably twice a year, maybe three times a year. We sometimes partner with artists and sometimes it’s something that the committee comes up with. The committee is made up of congregation members and they come up with it. And sometimes, it’s a collaboration. Sometimes I’m brought in to sort of make the vision that they’re thinking of come to life. And sometimes we collaborate on a vision. So it really just depends on the season and what people are thinking and what ideas they have. And sometimes they don’t have any ideas! And so we know we have a little small gallery that we do our exhibits in. Sometimes they have to do with the sermon; like this past season, we did…our senior pastor did a series called Tattoo, and so it was about the words of Christianity that are tattooed on your heart. And so we did an exhibit based on that where I made some temporary tattoos, tattooed them on the staff on various body parts, and photographed them, and we made that into an exhibit. And so it really just depends. So when people say, what is there to do? And I’m like…you have no idea. There’s a lot of things you can do in a church, especially a church of this size, I think.

Maurice Cherry:

I mean, I think it’s fascinating that…it sounds like there’s probably, even with the regular cyclical nature, like you said, of different holidays and different things in the church, there’s just so much to do. And I would imagine you’re kind of, in a way, working, I guess, against stereotype, I think, because you want the messaging, of course, to appeal to the congregation. But you also want it to appeal to other members or even nonmembers. But there’s probably a way that you have to do it so it doesn’t seem so…I don’t know what’s a good way to sort of describe this. I want to say cheesy, for lack of a better word. I feel like sometimes Christian marketing can be really wholesome, like, very white bread and 1% milk, kind of. Like, you know what I mean?

Vasheena Brisbane:

Right. You do struggle with that a lot as a designer. I struggle with that because you want to be seen as, like, a legitimate designer, right? I went to school for this. I didn’t stumble into it, right? I might have stumbled into this specific job, but I didn’t stumble into the career of design. So I’ve attended conferences, like I’m sure you have. We could be having an amazing design conversation. And then when they’re like, “oh, so where do you work?” And then I’m like, “oh, I work at Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church.” And then the conversation sort of just dies. Like, “ohhh…okay.” It’s not seen as valid to maybe designers that are working in a design firm or maybe in-house, a big in- house shop. So that’s something that I’ve struggled with, I think. And I think what I’ve learned is that I can’t focus on what you think about what I’m doing. I have to focus on why I do what I do and then just let my work speak for itself. That’s all I can do. And so when those things happen, I don’t take it personal so much. I just move on to the next.

Maurice Cherry:

Yeah, I can see that. I mean, we talked about this a little bit before I started recording, but when I first started out as a designer, and I think probably as others have as well, you’re trying to find clients. And sometimes some of those first clients that you end up finding are churches because they don’t necessarily have design talent in-house or something. But someone’s got to design the regular Sunday service programs or they need to design funeral announcements or things like that. And often what I’ve heard, and even have experienced to some degree, is that they’ve largely kind of been negative experiences because the church doesn’t want to pay. And then when the church doesn’t want to pay, they try to make it seem like you should just be doing it out of the good of your heart for God. And it’s like, “well, I can’t pay my bills with that.” There’s this sort of negative stigma around it.

Vasheena Brisbane:

It’s like a stigma. Yeah. So I have not had that experience at this church, but I have heard that from other designers. And so for smaller churches, there is no budget for design, which I get. Everyone doesn’t have a budget for design. And so if you’re going to do those jobs, I think what you’re doing it for is the love of the work and the practice of it, right? Because these are not easy pieces to design. Like a Sunday bulletin is like a master class in hierarchy. So if you’re going to do this, you have to come to it, especially if you’re going to do it and be underpaid or not paid at all, you have to come to it thinking that you’re going to get something else in pay, right? So your pay is your practice. Your pay is the refinement of your type skills. Because if you want to learn type skills, do a Sunday bulletin every week and make it readable and make it pleasant and make it great, right? And so one of the things that was my first project, really to do with the church, I was hired freelance, and I was just looking for a bridge job, sort of between…I had finished up an internship at a design firm, and then I was like, “well, what am I going to do?” And I was like, “okay, well, I’ll go on this interview as a church,” and I was just like everyone else. Like, it’s a church. It’ll just be something until I get a real job. And so I found this church and they came in. It was a good positive vibe. And they were like, “okay, you’re going to do Sunday bulletins.” I was like, “all right, fine, I’ll do that.” And so that’s how my work with them started. It started on a freelance basis. I was only doing bulletins. Then the person that hired me ended up leaving, and they hired a new director of communications, and he asked me to do something else. He was like, “oh, can you do this brochure?” And I said, “sure.” And then that worked out. And so it sort of just grew into something. It was not something that I had intended on. I didn’t intend on staying, to be honest.

Maurice Cherry:

And now you’ve been there now for almost a little over 13 years now.

Vasheena Brisbane:

I feel like…yeah, I think I started in 2012, to be honest. I have to check the dates, but it’s been a long time and it’s been a progression, right? So I started off freelance, project-based, 1099. Then I worked really well with the director of communications. Actually, he just retired. And so we worked really well together. And as each project came up, we just worked well together and the projects kept getting better and they were more interesting. And so I was like, “okay, well, I’ll do this project.” And then it was like, “we do this newsletter.” It was a newsletter — like an eight page, eight and a half by eleven [inches] newsletter. That wasn’t my favorite thing to do. But then we decided, “okay, let’s own it. We’re going to change it.” We turned it into a magazine. We turned it into a small eight and a half by five and a half [inches] pocket sort of magazine. Sort of like JET size. I mean, I think JET might be a little bit bigger, like that’s JET’s size, I think. Yeah. If any of your listeners know JET Magazine….

Maurice Cherry:

Oh, they know. They know what JET is.

Vasheena Brisbane:

JET is dating me a little bit! Yeah. And so we sort of just evolved the communications of the church to the point where people call and ask us, like, “where do you get your Sunday bulletin done?” And I’m like, “well, it’s in-house. We do it all in-house.” So I think all the way back to the beginning of the question, which is, have I had that experience? The answer is yes. But if you come to the table from a place of, “I’m going to get this experience and I’m going to better my craft through it,” then you don’t lose. Yes. You have to find other things to pay the bills. But if you can perfect something while also getting some experience, even if the experience doesn’t come with pay, I think you still win.

Maurice Cherry:

Right, I get that.

Vasheena Brisbane:

Yeah. I don’t think you have to stay there forever. But if you prove yourself and you’ve perfected it and they still don’t want to pay you, then you can politely decline.

Maurice Cherry:

Makes sense. Yeah. And look, being somewhere for as long as you have, like I said, a little over 13 years, that is impressive for any designer to be somewhere, especially in this modern age of design. If you’re somewhere for, like, five years, that’s great. But 13 years, that is amazing. Which to me is no surprise because you were named one of GDUSA’s 2023 People to Watch.

Vasheena Brisbane:

Thank you. That was surprising to me, so I’m still shocked that it happened. So to be honest, I’ve kind of just been, like, putting my head down, feet to the pavement, moving from project to project, trying to do my best work. In, I think, 2016, 2017, we got this magazine, and my boss, my old boss, he said he was pointing out all these different winners in the GDUSA magazine. And he was like…he said “you should enter this.” He said “you could win these.” And I was like, “yeah.” I was like, “okay.” And so he was like, “let’s just do it.” And so we entered some pieces, and I ended up, the first year I think it was 2017, I ended up winning three awards. And so I was like, oh, I think that after about five years of you sort of just head down doing good work, in my opinion, not getting it judged anywhere, but I’m proud of what I’ve done here. And so it’s just like, it’s been like, five years of that. And then to see someone say, “hey, this is exceptional,” that was really heartening. And I feel like that’s when I said, “okay, this is like a career.” I don’t think in the beginning of people’s career, at least not for me, you don’t feel like, “oh, this is it. This is my career.” Some people are polished right out of college. That was not me. And so I didn’t feel as if I had a career. I feel like until that happened, I knew I was working. I knew that I could get a job somewhere. I knew I could design, but I didn’t feel like I had a career, I don’t think, until that happened. And I don’t think it was the acknowledgment. I just think not that was the wrong thing to say. I don’t think it was the fact that I won something, but it was the fact that people agreed that I was doing good work.

Maurice Cherry:

Yeah, I mean, that kind of validation is incredibly important. I mean, honestly, it’s one of the core tenets behind why I do Revision Path is to validate the fact that there are Black designers out there doing great work and that people actually want to talk with them about it and about their career. And it’s not in the context of a job interview. It’s like, no, we see you. We see the work that you’re doing, and we think that other people should see it too. Just getting that kind of validation is — and this is going to sound corny — but I learned that from Oprah.

Vasheena Brisbane:

I don’t think anything Oprah says is corny!

Maurice Cherry:

But like, as I asked you before the interview — and people who have been on the show know this too — like, I always ask something that I call my “Oprah question,” and I got that from her, because she has said before, the thing that has made people want to sort of come to her show and come to the mic and everything is the fact that she validates wherever they’re at right now. Oprah doesn’t really do…well maybe now, since she doesn’t have the show…but Oprah’s not really doing shock journalism, you know what mean? Like, she’s not bringing people on to necessarily expose them. She’s like, just giving you the mic and giving you a platform to it. That’s it, you know?

Vasheena Brisbane:

And just be you. Yeah.

Maurice Cherry:

But that kind of validation in your professional career is super important, especially when, you know, you’ve put in the work to know that other people see that too, and they see you, and they see the fact that you’re putting out this kind of great work? I think that’s what we all want, especially as creative people.

Vasheena Brisbane:

Yeah. And I don’t think I even knew how important it was until it happened. Yeah, and sometimes you don’t, because sometimes you’ve just got your head down. You’re just working, right? You’re just getting up every day, going to work, working, going home. It becomes a real practice. And sometimes in that practice, you can get real, just…yeah, you do. Because once you do something, it’s so repetitive. I mean, the work changes, but the process is still the same, right? You get up, you do it, you do your best, you go to bed, and so you can become numb. And so when you step outside that and then for me, especially to be like…it’s hard for me to say, “hey, I think this is great work to people.” You know what I mean? It’s hard for me to pat myself on my back. For some people, it comes easy. Like for my daughter, it comes easy for her. She thinks she’s great at everything, and I love that about her. We just don’t come from the same…we’re not cut from the same cloth. To even do that felt weird. And so I would encourage people to one, enter a contest just so that you can get a little bit of validation, because you don’t have to win to get validation. But I just think the simple process of editing your work and figuring out what you love and telling people, I did this and I love it, is a great practice for people.

Maurice Cherry:

Well, what’s been the reception for you since the list came out and people have seen you on that?

Vasheena Brisbane:

The reception has been good. Like, the congregation? They congratulate me. They’re some of my biggest supporters, which I really appreciate. I’ve gotten, you know, friends and family. I thanked GDUSA online and on their social via social media. And so I’ve gotten a lot of follows, mainly, I think, on LinkedIn for that, and that’s about it. I don’t think anything major has come about because of it, but you never know. Your email came from it! I never would have thought that here I am listening to great designers on Revision Path, and Maurice Cherry is emailing me. Like, I never would have thought that that would happen. That was…it was so wild when it happened. I couldn’t even believe it. I was just like, “what? This has got to be a joke.” I could not believe it. It was shocking. I even sent it to my boss. I was like, “is this real?” He was like, “I think it is.” I said, “are you sure?” I was like, “are you sure?” I could not believe it. So the biggest thing to happen to me since then is you. You’re at the top of the list.

Maurice Cherry:

Oh! Well, I’m pretty sure that there are going to be bigger and better things after that. I think, one, winning awards, but then two, also being on lists like this, it just puts you in the view of other people to see the work that you’ve done.

Vasheena Brisbane:

Right. And, you know, it’s important to be in the view. But how do you get there? I feel like we go to school to learn our craft and to do our thing, but we don’t learn how to navigate a career. And that’s different. That’s different than just doing good work. You have to really know, like you said, who to get in front of and how do you get there. And I think that a lot of, like you were saying, what Revision Path does is put you in front of the people that need to see, I think. And I think that’s what’s amazing about this platform is that you can get some visibility and whereas you might not be able to be on the other design podcasts. Yeah, because usually it’s like real rock stars. Not that people on here are not rock stars. Please don’t think that. But there is a specific lane that is hard to get in as a Black designer.

Maurice Cherry:

Look, I can tell you from ten years of doing this show…. One, I’ve had a lot of people on who they’ve said, “yeah, this is the first time anyone has ever talked to me about my work outside of maybe like a job interview.” Their family doesn’t even ask them about what they do and how they get inspired. So I’m glad to be able to have the platform for that. And this is not to put down any other show in particular, but even when I was starting out doing the show and trying to network in the sort of, I guess you could say, “design podcast community” — I don’t know if it really existed like ten years ago — but there were other design podcasts out there. And even with me networking with them to let them know about the show and maybe give some ideas for guests, I was met either with complete silence or absolute hatred.

There was only one platform, one podcast that really was like, at that time that was like, “oh, we like what you’re doing. We’d love to have you on our show.” And that was this show called On The Grid. That was with this podcast network called 5by5. And there were three guys that did the show — it was Dan Auer, Matt McInerney, and Andy Mangold. And I was on their show twice. It was like a panel kind of interview thing. And that ended up sort of getting me into the view of other people because they were like, “oh, we didn’t know that Black people did design, let alone talked about it.” Like we haven’t already been in this industry for decades doing this work. But even just that one sort of opportunity to do that put me in the vein where I could be seen by all these other people. But even now, honestly, ten years out, and there’s of course other podcasts out there, and there’s even other Black design podcasts out there, it’s still kind of rare even from some of the larger shows to really hear or see from Black creative voices. And I’m saying this for design media, but Black media does that too. Black media is not really big on showcasing design outside of fashion. I would say, like, you may hear about a fine artist every now and then, but it often has to be in conjunction with something larger. Like, for example, Luna Iris Viktor. I think I’m getting her name right. I think it’s either Luna Iris Viktor or Luna Viktor Iris. But she did a lot of great work in conjunction with Marvel for the first Black Panther movie. But she had been an artist of her own acclaim well before then. It didn’t really start to get out into the community, the Black community, at least until that movie happened. So it’s something where, even now, Black media doesn’t necessarily look at us and the work that we do and sort of give any sort of celebration in that respect. So I think Revision Path kind of occupies an interesting sort of Venn diagram intersection between design media and Black media in that way to at least showcase, like, hey, this is work that we’re doing. Here are our stories in our own words. Here you go. This is what we have to go through. This is what we deal with. And I try to get a good cross section from like across the world.

Vasheena Brisbane:

You’ve done a great job doing that.

Maurice Cherry:

Thank you.

Vasheena Brisbane:

It’s amazing the amount of artists I feel like, like you said, are people looking? You have to look, and you have to talk to people. And it’s like when your head’s down and your pounding on the ground and you’re getting your work done, it’s like you look up and you’re like, “where are all my people?” It’s like, well, I don’t even know where to start.

Maurice Cherry:

Yeah.

Vasheena Brisbane:

And you’ve given us an amazing, valid place to start. So if you’re looking, look no further. Or look no further and then look further. Right? Because then at least you can tap into it.

Maurice Cherry:

Oh, I like that.

Vasheena Brisbane:

Yeah. You can tap into it. Because even attending…because I’m constantly trying and failing to expand my network, because, one, I’m not a good networker. I don’t have the gift of gab. My husband has that, though. He definitely has the gift of gab, can make friends anywhere. And I am more reserved in that I’m not a wallflower because I can engage in any event, right? But also, I’m a little bit of an extroverted introvert, I think is what they call me. Okay. It’s like I am extroverted when called upon, but I do need that introverted time to recharge and become an extrovert. And so it’s been challenging to expand my network, especially going to conferences. And in the conferences, it’s often a sea of white — which is fine — but I also want to connect with other people, and it’s often hard to find. Or when you find them — I don’t know how to say this diplomatically; I’m going to try to say this as diplomatically as possible — but usually people are concerned with their status in that circle, and that status is often tokenism.

Maurice Cherry:

Yeah.

Vasheena Brisbane:

Which is not…I get it. Don’t get me wrong. I get it. I just am resolved not to subscribe. And so, you know, a lot of times, people feel like we can’t talk because you might become the one, but they don’t know that. I don’t even want to be the one.

Maurice Cherry:

Right?

Vasheena Brisbane:

I just want to talk to you and learn. Yeah. That’s where I come from. I am a lover of knowledge and a sharer of knowledge. Ask me anything you want. I will tell you exactly what my experience is. That’s all I can give. This is my experience, and this is where I come from.

Maurice Cherry:

Look, in the early days of doing this show, when I tell you it was like pulling teeth to get guests, because when we first started, it was just an online magazine. I would interview people. I wasn’t recording anything. And I started recording in June of 2013 when Raquel Rodriguez, who was episode one, when she was visiting from Chicago and was like, “yeah, I want to be on the show.” And I was like, “what show? It’s just a magazine.” She’s like, “oh, no, we could record it.” And I didn’t have any recording equipment. All I had was my phone, which is what we recorded it on. And it wasn’t until, like, almost a full year later in March of 2014, when I then sort of took the few recorded interviews I had done and said, “oh, let me just make this a podcast,” because it was just easier to sort of get out week by week. But there were a lot of people in those early days that were like “absolutely not. I don’t want to be on this. Why do you want to talk to me? This is like BET,” which kind of felt a bit like a slap in the face. Like, I understood what they were saying, but it was in such a derogatory way where it’s like, well, I’m not denigrating anyone by having you come on and talk. Why do you think it’s a bad thing that me as a Black media outlet wants to talk to you as a Black person? I think part of that might also just be behind some other Black media outlets that don’t make us look great. I’m not naming any names in particular.

Vasheena Brisbane:

But some of them kind of peddle in…

Maurice Cherry:

They pedal in some, you know…mess, and that unfortunately, gets unfairly sort of branded for the rest of us that aren’t doing that kind of stuff. And yeah, in those early days, it was like a lot of people have said no, which have then come back later and been like, “oh, can I come on the show?” And I’m like, “absolutely not. No.”

Vasheena Brisbane:

No, really? Did you not let them wanna…

Maurice Cherry:

No, I reserve the right to not have you on the show. If you felt like for some reason this was negative against you, then, yeah, we’re not going to do it. There’s one…I’m not going to name this person. But there was one designer in particular. Let’s just say that when I reached out to them, this was a mixed race designer. When I reached out to them, they very much were like, “I don’t want to do this. I don’t really consider myself, like, culturally Black. I don’t want to do it.” And I was like, “okay, fine.”

Vasheena Brisbane:

Yeah.

Maurice Cherry:

Fast forward to, I want to say, like, the summer of 2020.

Vasheena Brisbane:

Oh, wow.

Maurice Cherry:

When, you know…murder of George Floyd, protests around this stuff…this same designer was very much like pro-Black Lives Matter. And I’m like…look, I’m not saying that events can’t happen in people’s lives that change them. I get that. I just thought it was really weird that this particular designer was very much like, “yeah, I’m not really Black.” And I’m like, you have a very Black name, and you present phenotypically as a Black person. But now that this sort of thing has happened, that sort of, I guess, shifted you into your own sense of Blackness.

Vasheena Brisbane:

Right. It was very odd.

Maurice Cherry:

And then they asked to come on the show, and I said no. I was like, “no, I don’t think that’s going to be a good look for me at this point. It’s not you, I don’t think, for the show, this is going to work.”

Vasheena Brisbane:

Our props to them.

Maurice Cherry:

But it was very weird.

Vasheena Brisbane:

I would think it would feel less than genuine.

Maurice Cherry:

Oh, yeah, it absolutely did.

Vasheena Brisbane:

Yeah, I get it. I agree. And I get that stigma. Right? It’s like, okay, is this a Black thing? Am I only going to be able to do Black things? The people that say that are not realizing that, okay, that may happen. I doubt it. It may happen. But also, are you not pigeonholing yourself into something else that is not genuine?

Maurice Cherry:

Yeah.

Vasheena Brisbane:

And if you are going to be stereotyped, shouldn’t it be as Black? I just feel like it’s a hard road we walk sometimes with trying to balance being legit with being culturally legit.

Maurice Cherry:

It’s complicated. I will 100%.

Vasheena Brisbane:

It’s complicated. And so sometimes when people feel complicated, they just go to what’s easiest. Let me just go with the flow. Right?

Maurice Cherry:

Yeah.

Vasheena Brisbane:

We are not afforded sometimes a lot of times, the opportunity to just go with the flow.

Maurice Cherry:

No, that’s true. That’s very true. I want to bring it back to your work at the church because there’s just some things that I’m really interested in. So you mentioned that a lot of the work is pretty much all the work done that you do with the church in house, or do you work with an agency or with freelance? Because you said you started out freelance.

Vasheena Brisbane:

Yeah, no, it’s all in-house. It’s all in-house. It’s just me and my direct report, which is the director of communications. He does the writing and editing and sort of like this tells the story and I’m involved with the visuals.

Maurice Cherry:

Wow.

Vasheena Brisbane:

So I’m producing everything, I’m sending everything to print. I’m sort of crafting the visual of everything. And so that’s sort of how we work. We are the communications department and we’re a two person team, and I handle all design and production and he handles all story editing, press and stuff like that. And we come together when it’s time to like, okay, we have this story we need to tell and we need visuals for it, we need materials for it, we need digital stuff for it, digital assets. And so we do work with web developers that we contract with, but that’s really the extent of our outside work and print houses. But there’s no I am the designer, it’s just me. It’s a one woman show and we try to make it work.

Maurice Cherry:

Well, I mean, you’re definitely making it work again, you’ve been there for as long as you have, and just the breadth of work that you described earlier I think definitely speaks to your prowess as a designer to be able to navigate between the different types of design that you have to kind of work on.

Vasheena Brisbane:

Yeah, and so a lot of our work is for the senior pastor and he’s shaping the vision of the church. And so a lot of the stuff we do is specifically from him. And sometimes he comes with like, okay, I saw this. One of my favorite projects is he saw this illuminated manuscript letter and was like, “yeah, I’m thinking of the sermon series and I saw this.” It’s like an O. It was like a golden O with like a lot of flowery elements around it. And he was like, “what can you do with it?” That turned into a brochure and banners and posters and we actually won an award for that. And so sometimes he comes with something little, sometimes it’s nothing. Like, this is the theme. We come back, workshop it, and then come back to him and present him with a draft. And it’s a yay or nay. Usually it’s a nay. I mean, usually it’s a yay! Once in a blue, it’s a nay. That’s sort of how we work. We are the team. It’s just us too.

Some of the projects are self-driven. We’ve done history exhibits because we have a pretty robust archive from the church. And so we’ve done a history exhibit where we’ve done a timeline of the church from 1808 up until the present. And so that was more something that I drove because I was interested in it. We have an archivist, and so it seemed ashamed that this stuff wasn’t accessible or visible to the church. I was like, we should do a history exhibit. So we did one, and currently we’re working on doing transforming a larger space in the church into sort of a permanent historical exhibit. So we’re visiting other churches that have archives as well and seeing what they’re doing to exhibit their historical stuff and if they’re doing anything. So I’m not sure if that answered your question.

Maurice Cherry:

No, you did. And we’ll link to your website in the show notes because I really want people to see the breadth of the work that you’ve done and the references, even, that you’re bringing into it. Like, I’m looking at this one campaign not a campaign, but it’s for a sermon series called This Is War, and you’re like, you’re pulling details from, like, Picasso to put all this together so it’s not just put a cross here, put a dove there, and it’s done. It’s real design work going into it.

Vasheena Brisbane:

Yeah. And so our pastor, he loves fine art, and so a lot of times he comes to us with pieces and he’s like,”oh, I just love this piece.” And he just gives him me a JPEG and he’s like, “okay, well, I love this piece.” And I’m like, “okay, well, how can we make this interesting? How can we make this a thing?” All he really wanted was a postcard. And I was like, “no, we need to do”…it’s such a beautiful piece, and it’s very long. And I was like, “I can’t pick one section of this to do one little postcard.” I was like, “we have to do three postcards with different parts of the image on each,” and so that’s what we did. And each postcard had a different part of the image with a different color, with the words This is War. I guess you’re looking at it right now. And on the back, I think the messages were slightly different.

I feel like working in a church is — and working specifically in this environment — is like there are a lot of restrictions, right? You have budgetary restrictions. We don’t have a lot of money to spend on this because this is not a firm, right? We’re not spending all the money on design, right? So we have to make whatever we do impactful. But it also has to be cheap because we’re spending our money outreaching to the community. That’s what we’re doing. We’re spending our money furthering the word of the church and of Presbyterianism and of God. So, yes, the design has to be good, right? But it also has to make sense to the congregation. You can’t come in with this shiny new thing that costs so much money, so many dollars, because people are donating this money. This is money that people have said we’re going to give to you to further the Kingdom of God, right? Not to make shiny things.

Maurice Cherry:

Right.

Vasheena Brisbane:

And so doing it in that way when we did this sermon, because this sermon series, I think it was only three weeks, if I’m not mistaken. And so it’s like he wanted something to be impactful, but also, how do we do it on a budget? And also we have our Lent season coming up right after this, where we do spend a little bit more money. And so those usually are the more fun project, the smaller projects. Like, how can we make this small thing impactful and exciting and interesting and make people that are walking on the streets because it’s a tourist church, too. Like, people are in the city visiting. Across the street is The Peninsula and The St. Regis. You know, major hotels. And so if people are here on a Sunday, you want to make it impactful for them to maybe want to come to service, maybe they want to stop in. So those are the things I think that they’re most exciting to do. Yeah, the small little one off things in addition to the regularly scheduled seasonal stuff.

Maurice Cherry:

I mean, I would imagine, even with what you just mentioned around financial considerations, because people are donating to the church to keep it as a community institution, right? But I’m sure there’s other considerations that you have to keep in mind, like, of course, theological and cultural sensitivity, inclusivity, tone and voice. There are a lot of things that you have to put into the design that a designer, say, maybe for a software company or an advertising agency, don’t have to consider.

Vasheena Brisbane:

That’s true. And I’m always thinking, like, “how can I make this a Pepsi thing but keep it church?” Right? I’m always trying to figure out, like, okay, yes, this is church, but how can we make it exciting? So that, one, it’s interesting for me to do. Like, I want to make my work exciting. And two, it gives people pause. Like, oh, I might walk in there because I see this that’s a cool this, or that’s a cool that. My goal is always to generate interest in church by making church things not so churchy, so that it appeals to the audience that we have, but also people that might be walking by that are not necessarily religious or not looking to attend on Sunday, but because maybe because they saw this poster or these banners, maybe they will. Maybe because they saw this magazine, they will.

Maurice Cherry:

Yeah, it draws you in. And I think with designers being problem solvers, this is such a really unique problem to try to solve. Like, with every design that you have to do, it has to appeal to the congregation. But then also, how do you make it, quote unquote, design, right?

Vasheena Brisbane:

Yes. Because you can’t just appeal to the congregation. Also it won’t grow right. You have to appeal to people outside to bring them inside. Sometimes that’s a hard sort of walk, a hard tightrope to walk because you don’t want to go too far where you get to where it’s not respectful of the institution. But also you want to make it so bland that no one is interested. So you have to sort of walk that tightrope. But I like to err on the side of go wild and then let them rein me back in.

Maurice Cherry:

Right.

Vasheena Brisbane:

And so we can sort of pick and choose elements that are exciting and figure out how to strike the right balance.

Maurice Cherry:

Yeah. Now, we’ve spent a lot of time talking about your work, and I want to kind of pivot this conversation to learn more about you as a person. You’re originally from New York. You grew up in New York City. Tell me about, like, were you exposed to a lot of art and design growing up?

Vasheena Brisbane:

Not particularly. I’m from Staten Island, New York. I grew up in the neighborhood of Mariners Harbor on Staten Island. And my mom, she worked for the department. — she works, still works, for the Department of Transportation — and she was a single mom. And we went to school. We came home. I didn’t have any emphasis on the arts. I just was always interested in it. I was always interested in architecture and fashion as well. And when I had planned to be an architect, to be honest.

So I started my time at the City University of New York, CUNY I started my time in the architecture program. And that year was transformative for me because I figured out that when I had to take a photography class as part of you have to take electives. And so I said, all right, I’m doing all this technical work. Let me do something that’s less technical. And so I’ll take a photography class as one of my electives. And I took it, and I just fell in love with it. I was just like, I need to be doing design. And so I switched my major. My mom was not happy I did it. And honestly, I was failing physics anyway. I was not a good physics student. And so I switched to design, and I never looked back. That’s it. I was born in San Diego. My mom was in the Navy, and so was my dad. And so they were in San Diego when I was born. And then eventually they split, and then my mom came back to New York because she’s from originally Staten Island as well. So, yeah, I’ve been here my whole life.

Maurice Cherry:

Now, while you were at City College in New York, you had started something there called the Electronic Design and Media Club.

Vasheena Brisbane:

Electronic Design and Multimedia Club.

Maurice Cherry:

Multimedia Club. Did that come about, sort of after you switched over from architecture?

Vasheena Brisbane:

Yeah, so after I switched from architecture, I believe it was Ina Saltz or Annette Winetraub, which I’m not sure if you know those names or not, but they’re pretty big in design. They asked me to start the club, and I did. And we ran it while I was there. And it was just, you know, we’d meet, we talk about, you know, critique our work. And it was just a way for us to network. Because when you go to a…because CUNY is like a commuter school, no one lives there. So it’s hard to generate community because you’re not sort of forced in a space together all the time. You sort of come, you do your classes, and then you go home. And so it was a way for us to foster community there, and I enjoyed it.

Maurice Cherry:

So it sounds like even with just that little — I mean, not that little — but even starting that club, that kind of was your budding interest in sort of design and how that could possibly be something more than just like a hobby.

Vasheena Brisbane:

Yeah, for sure. When I started doing it, I was just like the first year, I loved the idea of design, but I had no idea I wasn’t one of these kids who went to school for I didn’t apply to be a designer, right? Or I didn’t submit a portfolio or anything like that. And so I sort of transferred over into it. So I had to learn the basics in college, whereas some of these kids knew they wanted to do it from the beginning.

Maurice Cherry:

Yeah.

Vasheena Brisbane:

And so that was hard for me because I’d never been like, an average student. I’d always been an above average student. So for me, it was struggling with not having a formula to be good. So I just had to really learn the ropes and just be like, okay, I’m just going to have to be comfortable with being uncomfortable.

Maurice Cherry:

Got you.

Vasheena Brisbane:

And it was…it was uncomfortable for a while. And then I began to…I don’t want to say I got good because I don’t think I was good when I was in college, but I did some internships. I interned with InStyle Magazine, which was huge for me. I interned at Smart Money magazine when that was a thing. It was years ago. That was a big deal. And it also helped me decide how I wanted to work in design, because once I worked at InStyle Magazine, I was like, “I don’t want to do magazines.” Because the experience was just so micro. Everyone has their small little part to play in the magazine. It felt like in order to have any creative sort of agency, you would have to rise so far and be so far in your career. I just couldn’t understand how you could be happy until you got to be the design director and you could do the main spreads of the layout. Interesting, because that’s the only person that was doing those.

Maurice Cherry:

Yeah.

Vasheena Brisbane:

That helped me understand, like, okay, magazine is probably not going to be your way. Then. I worked at Smart Money magazine, and it was a lot smaller, and they let me dig into their files, redo some of their layouts. It was just a different experience. So those two opposite experiences helped me decide to go small. I never wanted to go big after that because I was like, big is too restricting.

Maurice Cherry:

Yeah.

Vasheena Brisbane:

And you don’t get a lot of freedom once things are established. And I think that’s what’s exciting about doing nonprofit work in general and church work, is that you’re sort of writing the rules as you go. Like, yes, there are some guidelines. Obviously, you have to work within some things, but whatever it turns out to be is up to you. And so I didn’t know that then. Looking back now, I can say that, but I knew I didn’t want to go big when I was younger. I didn’t know exactly what I wanted, but I knew it couldn’t be big or else I wouldn’t be satisfied.

Maurice Cherry:

Now, one of your early career experiences, after you graduated, you worked for the Anthology of Recorded Music. Tell me about that.

Vasheena Brisbane:

New World Records. It’s a non-profit record company. Oh, my gosh, so many years ago. Yeah. And so I got that job, I think, right out of college. And what I did was, if I’m remembering correctly, I scanned album covers, helped make little press releases for their work, and there was newer records where they would showcase sort of electronic and I’m having a hard time describing the music because it’s not your typical recordings. But they also had a nonprofit branch that they distributed this music to music schools, music programs across the country, like at colleges.

Maurice Cherry:

Okay.

Vasheena Brisbane:

And that was called DRAM. And…please don’t ask me what DRAM stands for now, because I can’t remember, but I sort of made the look and feel for that website and for their website and just, like, getting all their content up and online. And so that was like, my first job outside of college. It was very production heavy. There was not a ton of design there’s. A little bit, a little bit of design, but mostly production. And so that’s what I did there.

And so that…I think I don’t remember when I left that, but after I left there, I freelanced for a while, and then I did an internship with a design firm. I don’t remember the name of the firm. Now that I think about it, that was my early career. It was my first job, and I learned how to work in an office in that job, which they don’t teach you that in school, you know how to design. But how do you design in an office when you have all this other stuff to do all day and so that was my first experience of designing for work and learning that you’re not going to be doing design all day long. You have many other things that you have to do in addition to your design, especially when you’re the only one. And I feel like in every single job that I’ve had, it’s been just me, right? The lone sort of designer or production artist or I think my title was officially production artist at that job. And so it was eye opening and it was nonprofit and it was small. And I enjoyed parts of it, the parts that had to do with design and sort of production and figuring out the back end of websites, because websites were not new, but they weren’t as advanced as they are now. Right. But there was still a lot to learn, especially right out of school. So I enjoyed that. I enjoyed that process.

Maurice Cherry:

So you were working for this nonprofit, then later you ended up working for the church. I’m curious prior to that, and I think we might have touched on this a little bit earlier, but did you have any skepticism about doing work for a church?

Vasheena Brisbane:

Yes. So this specific job came up on, believe it or not, monster.com. I had a resume on monster.com, which I don’t even know if that still exists — have no idea. But yeah, they just called me off…the current director of communications called me and was like, “hey, we’d like you to come in for an interview.” I went in with the idea like, “oh, this is great. I’ll have something to do. I’ll be able to make some money until I get a real job.” That was my exact words. And so I went in, the interview was fine. They said, “okay, well, we’re going to contract you on a freelance basis.” And I said, “great.” I was doing bulletins. My work was do the weekly bulletin, and that was it at first.

So I would go on site one day a week, I think maybe we’d sort the bulletin out, get it done, I’d send it in, and that’d be it. And then probably two or three months after I started, the director of communications left. So they had an interim and they needed help doing the magazine. So I said, well, magazine, they needed help doing the newsletter. It was an eight and a half by eleven, eight pager, I think, so two sheets. We started doing that. It looked awful, but I was just there to maintain until the new director of communications.

So they hired the new director of communications, Tim Palmer. He just recently retired. My favorite boss ever, I’ll say. And he asked me, “oh, the senior pastor wants to do this brochure. He said, ‘do a brochure for his fall sermon series.'” I said, “sure, I’ll try i”t. So we did that. He loved it. And then it was like, “okay, well, do you want to work on the newsletter?” I said, “all right, let’s do the newsletter.”

And so it sort of just snowballed from there. Went from just doing the bulletins to bulletins and brochures, then the newsletter. Then the newsletter turned into a magazine. The first one we did was a 32-pager written by him, designed by me. And then we moved from there and projects just sort of kept coming up. And so I was skeptical, like, “okay, I’m only going to be here for a little while.” But things just kept happening and the project was like, “oh, I’ll take that project. Oh, that sounds interesting.” And I just kept taking projects. And eventually, like three years later, I’m still here and I freelanced with them for three years and I was freelancing with other people.

Like during that time, I freelanced with a private equity firm called PrivCat, and they were doing sort of private equity reports. And so a designer had already designed the magazine and so I was tasked with producing that. But then they would do these sort of digital, I don’t know, two, four or five page reports. And so I designed those. And so during the church work, I was also doing private equity work, which was a little bit dry, but the designs were a little bit more exciting because they had to make the design exciting so that the content didn’t feel so dry. Yeah, I never intended for this to be a long term job. It was supposed to tie me over to my wonderful design firm job that was going to come along, I’d be working at an amazing design firm. But it just kept growing and the opportunities just kept coming.

And then eventually they asked me to come on full time. And I was like, “well, I don’t know.” I was still skeptical. Like, I don’t know if I want to work for a church full time. Maybe I’ll just come three quarter time so I’ll give you all a set, couple of days, we’ll do that. And so I did that for a year and then eventually the job just became so big we started doing banners and we’re doing exhibits. It just became so big they sort of made a position. There was no position in place for a designer. And so the position that they made was called a communications associate. And so that’s what I was when I finally came on full time. But technically I was a designer.

And so eventually we started doing more work and more exciting work, different things, starting to get a little bit more creative freedom. Because once you build sort of trust with people, I was able to do more. I was able to able to be more creative and suggest more. And when you get that trust, people trust you to take them further than maybe their mind can take them creatively. So that’s how it grew. And so, yeah, the answer to that is yes, I was very skeptical and no, I did not want to work for a church. I will just say that outright because it’s not something that has cachet when you say it in a space. Right. I work at a church, so that was hard for a while. For me, I don’t want to believe that it’s ego, but it probably was ego.

Maurice Cherry:

Well, it’s something that we’ve talked about on this show before as well. I’ve talked to designers maybe that don’t live in a big city, or that do work for an insurance company or something like that. The work that they do is not the flashy stuff that you’ll see in design media or that might win big awards or stuff like that. But when you think about the fact that everything that we interact with as humans has been through some lens of design, that means that you’re still designing for experiences that everyone needs. Everyone can’t work at a software company. Everyone can’t work at Apple or wherever and do kind of mind-blowing design work. Some people have to work at an insurance place or a healthcare brand or something like that. That may not be, quote unquote, sexy work, but the thing is that’s stuff that people still use all the time, and those need to be thoughtfully designed experiences as well.

Vasheena Brisbane:

Right? You have to design for the people. You have to design for someone other than yourself. And I think that makes you a better designer, because your focus can’t be just making it sexy, which is fun. Right. But it has to be like people have to be able to engage with whatever you make and be comfortable doing it. I wouldn’t want to say I guess it’s more of, like, legibility and readability, right? So they have to be able to read the content because it’s content. They need to consume something sexy. You can just enjoy it for the sexiness. Even if you don’t get it at all, you can just enjoy it. And those are fun projects to do, don’t get me wrong. But when you have to design with that sort of thoughtfulness, it brings a certain level of compassion to your work that I think you can miss when it’s just all about the sexy.

Maurice Cherry:

Now, you’ve been, like I said, working at the church now for almost 14 years. When you look back over the span of your career from when you started to now, how would you say that you’ve evolved as a creative?

Vasheena Brisbane:

I feel like my evolution has been yes, technical. Because I think when you do anything for a long period of time, you should get better, right? I don’t want to say you obviously get better, because some people don’t, but you should get better. And I feel like I’ve gotten better, I’ve gotten faster, and I’ve become a much more, I feel like, compassionate designer, and not in the sort of sappy way, but just, like, understanding that people are coming here for a reason. And that reason is not always the reason you set out to design. Sometimes it’s just like they just need this content for whatever they need it for for their lives, right? Like, yes, you want to do your best work, but your best work can’t be the best work unless you have that person in mind from beginning to end. And I don’t think in the beginning, I didn’t know anything about that. I didn’t approach my work thinking about how a person would feel when they opened it. Like, on a more high level, like, yes, will they like it? Will they think it’s pretty fine, but is it thoughtfully done so that they don’t have to work harder to get what they need? I think that evolution for me has been the biggest and it has been the most rewarding thing to do. Like, how do I think about these projects through the lens of who’s going to consume it at the end and how they’re going to consume it?

That’s one thing about working with one community for such a long time is that you can really get to know the people and know what it is they’re looking for when they’re picking up a material, or when they’re picking up a magazine when they’re picking up. Because we also do the pledge campaign brochure, which is every year, the church has a pledge drive to fund the church. And so it’s an ask. It’s basically an ask for money to help us to continue to move forward the vision of the church. And so presenting those materials in a way that is sort of respectfully and thoughtfully done so that people feel connected to the institution, but also are able to get from the piece the value that they bring by giving their money, I think is hard to do. It’s a tricky ask. And when you’re designing materials for that, you really have to be careful about how you’re asking, why you’re asking. And that has a lot to do with the content and the words, but also what images we’re going to show. How are we going to connect the feeling of church to this ask for money? That’s a hard thing to do.

And so I think my favorite piece that we did was it was a few years back now, maybe 2018, 2019. I did some hand sketches of all the favorite things that people always mention about the church. And then some not so, some not so not favorite, but some sort of mundane things that people it’s like your money doesn’t just pay for, like this beautiful I did a sketch of the organ and of the rose window, which is part of the architecture of the church. It’s like, yes, we pay to maintain this, but also we pay for hymnals. We pay for palms on Sunday so that you can wave them for Palm Sunday. And so just connecting those sort of cherished things with the more nuts and bolts of the church is hard to do. And I think if you approach it through a lens of compassion, you can get it done. But I don’t think you can make those connections if you don’t know a community and approach that community and your work with them through compassion and really understand what it is that they love and how you can present it in a way that makes sense to them.

Maurice Cherry:

What are some pieces of advice that you’ve gotten throughout your career, throughout your life that you find yourself coming back to?

Vasheena Brisbane:

I don’t know that I’ve gotten advice on my career, but I feel like I’ve gotten advice on life, and it works for your career. And that is just like, go where they love you. And I don’t want that to come off, like, go where you don’t get any pushback or any flak or anything like that, but just, like, go where you are valued and they see your value and they believe in your value, and then you can, in turn, produce things that are valuable for that community. I think it’s a give and take. You can’t just go somewhere because of the money or because it looks good or for the cachet or because it looks good on your resume. I think that the most valuable advice I’ve been given is, like, go where you’re treated well and you can do work that’s meaningful and to you and hopefully to others.

Maurice Cherry:

What’s something that you kind of are still working on unlearning?

Vasheena Brisbane:

I feel like I’m working on unlearning this idea of a charted path. I feel like everyone wants the charted path. Like everyone wants that “I go to school, I get the beginner job, then I get this rock star job, and then I make a lot of money, and then I retire.” Right? I feel like that’s the path. Whatever. Your thing is fine. But what I’m still trying to unlearn I’m still trying to unlearn that. Right? I’m still trying to be okay with my career path, which is not a sexy career path, but has been really rewarding. And so I’m trying to unlearn thinking of my career in terms of what other people think is valid and trying to think of it more along the lines of what do I think is valid and what can I do to grow myself, regardless of where that may be, because I think you can grow anywhere. It’s just up to you. I don’t think the space determines if you grow or not. I think you and what you bring to it determine what you grow or not, and I’m still learning that.

Maurice Cherry:

Where do you see yourself in the next five years to that point? Where do you see yourself growing into?

Vasheena Brisbane:

I feel like nonprofit is just my calling, even though I didn’t ask for it. When I say nonprofit, it doesn’t have to be like a small nonprofit. I feel like maybe museum work or work where I’m helping to broaden the minds of people. I don’t see myself going in a commercial direction. And maybe that’s how I can speak about this better, is that I know where I don’t see myself. I don’t see myself, like, going to work for Pepsi at Coca-Cola or a big commercial brand. I don’t see that for myself. But I do see more of a sort of philanthropical or sort of path for me because I just feel like it’s been rewarding up until this point. And so at this point in the game, I’m looking for rewarding work. And I feel like that has been very rewarding for me and it’s also been very freeing. I don’t feel like you can get me, I can be wrong. I don’t feel like you can get as much freedom working for those big organizations as you can with small nonprofits or even a little bit larger of a nonprofit. I just feel like they’re more willing to take a chance on your creativity than global established brands are.

Maurice Cherry:

That is very much true. That’s very much true because oftentimes, especially with these larger companies, they don’t value. What I would consider what you’re doing is like you’re kind of a generalist. Like, yes, you work as a designer, but you’re not just doing one specific type of design. Like your work is spanning print and media and visual, et cetera. Whereas if you’re in a larger company, you’re kind of just slotted into doing one thing and you have to do that one thing. You can’t really branch out if you want to. Even if you have those skills. You’re not allowed to kind of do that within that one position.

Vasheena Brisbane:

Right there’s a designer who does this. They do this thing and that’s all they do. I would die slowly if I had to do that every day. And the exciting thing about working for a church is that I can go in one day, I’ll be working on banners the next day. Like right now we are working on that exhibit project that I mentioned earlier and we’re visiting other congregations and figuring out how they do stuff. And so we’re doing field trips and so every day is sort of different. And I didn’t know that I wanted that until I did it. And I was like, this is amazing. Every day is something different. Like, today we work on this, tomorrow we’ll be working on that. The summer is pretty busy for us. We’ll be working on a bunch of fall projects and it’s all different. And some people work in these amazing design firms and they’re doing one thing every day it’s the same. And I can’t. My soul won’t my soul won’t allow it. I would be restless and miserable, I think.

Maurice Cherry:

Well, just to kind of wrap things up here, where can our audience find out more information about you and about your work? Where can they find that information online?

Vasheena Brisbane:

My website vasheena.com. I’m on LinkedIn. I am on social media at @sheenzfix on Instagram. I’m on Facebook for Vasheena Brisbane. But Instagram and Facebook, I’m not a big social media, so if you’re looking for me there, you’re not going to see much. But my website has some work that I’ve done.

Maurice Cherry:

Yeah, we had this big conversation for people that are listening. We had this big conversation earlier about kind of social media and being on which that’s a whole other thing, but I completely understand that. But Vasheena Brisbane, thank you so much for coming on the show. One just thank you for the breadth of work that you’re doing through the church. I think it is amazing and powerful and impactful to see someone doing this work, particularly a black woman, doing this work. It really means a lot. I mean, to me, it means a lot, but I think it means a lot, of course, to the community that you’re doing this type of work. And to be a creative problem solver and to do this kind of thing in a space that perhaps design is not necessarily looked at or considered or valued in a really impactful way, I think it really means a lot. And I’m super excited to see where you go from here. You’ve been doing great work. You’ve been recognized, you’ve been awarded. So clearly other people see that too. And my hope is that through this show, many others can kind of see the work that you’ve done thus far.

Vasheena Brisbane:

Thank you so much.

Maurice Cherry:

Yeah, thank you so much for coming on the show. I appreciate it.

Vasheena Brisbane:

Thank you for having me. And thank you for doing what you’re doing here for the community and for our community specifically. It’s needed. And when I found the podcast, I was so excited that it even existed because I had been asking myself, like, where are all the black designers? And now I can connect with people and you can meet them and you can hear from them and hear their stories and to make for a more well rounded experience. And it’s invaluable. So please keep doing it.