Dr. Perry Sweeper

Avid listeners of the podcast know that whenever I have a Black design educator on the show, eventually I’m going to bring up my alma mater, Morehouse College. And while I’ve had a few Morehouse alums on the show in the past, I’m really excited to have an actual Morehouse faculty member — Dr. Perry Sweeper — as a guest this week. Has Morehouse leveled up since I was a student there *cough cough* years ago?

After a quick summer check-in, we talked about Morehouse’s software engineering major, and about how it feels teaching at a school with such a historic reputation. From there, Dr. Sweeper told the story about growing up in Baltimore, attending Morgan State University, and how his post-grad career led him into education. With great minds like Dr. Sweeper teaching the next generation, I think we’re going to be in good hands for the future!

Transcript

Full Transcript

Maurice Cherry:
All right. So tell us who you are and what you do.

Dr. Perry Sweeper:
Hi. My name is Dr. Perry Sweeper. I’m a Professor of Practice at Morehouse College. I’m a designer, an educator, and a researcher.

Maurice Cherry:
What is a Professor of Practice? What does that mean?

Dr. Perry Sweeper:
So there are different levels at universities. There are Adjunct Professors, who maybe teach one or two classes. There are also people who are on the tenure track, who might be in the Assistant Professor ranks. A Professor of Practice, by my definition, is someone who comes in from industry to teach a particular class or classes for a university.
And one of the benefits of having someone in a Professor of Practice role, is they’re someone who’s both working in industry and academia at the same time, so they can give you a right now experience, from the perspective of a person working in the field, for the students.

Maurice Cherry:
Okay. That makes sense. So it’s not like someone that’s a career academic essentially?

Dr. Perry Sweeper:
Correct.

Maurice Cherry:
Okay. All right. I got you. I was thinking, I know that there’s some trade schools I know that do that. I think the art institutes do that as well. They’ll have people who are actually working professionals, but then they also will teach courses and stuff.

Dr. Perry Sweeper:
Yeah.

Maurice Cherry:
So how’s the summer going for you so far?

Dr. Perry Sweeper:
It is busy. It’s really busy. It’s good. I’m going to try to take some time to rest before classes start in a couple of weeks, but it’s going well.

Maurice Cherry:
Are you ready for the upcoming school year?

Dr. Perry Sweeper:
Yes. I am. I’m ready to talk to students again, interact with students again. I have some things that I want to do as far as the syllabus is concerned or the curriculum, some tweaks I want to make, but other than that, I’m fully prepared and ready to go.

Maurice Cherry:
Okay. Speaking of school, you teach at Morehouse College, and listeners of this show know I am an alumnus of Morehouse College. You started in the 2021 school year. I’m just curious, how has it been teaching during the pandemic?

Dr. Perry Sweeper:
It has been extremely interesting because you have to be agile and flexible, and in your work role, in the way that you assign, you also have to be transparent as well and you have to be empathetic to what’s going on with the students. So during that time, I tried to make sure that I was thinking about what was going on and also trying to get a cadence of where the students were physically, mentally, and emotionally because some of them were stuck at home and not able to come to campus, or they came to campus and they had to leave. There were so many different things going on personally with the students, so it was a really, really interesting time. I think it is actually a time where it felt like we were really, really far apart, but I think it brought the campus community closer together in a way.

Maurice Cherry:
And now you haven’t been to the campus yet though, have you?

Dr. Perry Sweeper:
No, I haven’t.

Maurice Cherry:
Oh, you got to come down to Atlanta and come to the campus. I don’t live that far from Morehouse actually.

Dr. Perry Sweeper:
Oh, awesome. Yeah, I actually visited the Morehouse campus years ago, probably 10 or 15 years ago, but I haven’t been there since.

Maurice Cherry:
Okay.

Dr. Perry Sweeper:
Morehouse is a college that has a distinct history, so I’ve heard a lot about it, read a lot about it. It’s actually an honor to be able to teach at the school.

Maurice Cherry:
Yeah. It’s changed a lot since I graduated certainly, which is, my God, knocking on 20 years ago. Oh, my God, I just thought about that. I just did the math. I mean, the campus has changed a lot in terms of they’ve expanded in some ways. There’s a performing arts center now. They’ve got campus apartments and things like that. I think even the building where… You’re in the Computer Science Department I think pretty much, right?

Dr. Perry Sweeper:
Correct, yes.

Maurice Cherry:
So even the building where that is used to be… When I was there, the computer lab and all that stuff used to be in Wheeler, but you haven’t to campus, so you don’t know this. There used to be a Wheeler Hall, which is right near the entrance of Morehouse, and then they built the Technology Tower, which is where they moved it, which is kind of near Sale Hall and near Graves Hall, which is kind of near the big lawn on Morehouse’s campus, the great lawn on Morehouse’s campus. It’s nice if you get a chance to check it out. Actually, I don’t know if this is true, but you’ll have to tell me, does Mrs. Banks still work there?

Dr. Perry Sweeper:
Mrs. Banks?

Maurice Cherry:
Yeah.

Dr. Perry Sweeper:
What’s the first name?

Maurice Cherry:
Martha. She’s the Administrative Assistant for the Computer Science Department.

Dr. Perry Sweeper:
I almost remember her retiring.

Maurice Cherry:
Oh, man.

Dr. Perry Sweeper:
Don’t know if it’s the right person, but I’m not a good person to ask when it comes to… I know interacting with the department, I haven’t had a chance to interact with her.

Maurice Cherry:
Oh, okay.

Dr. Perry Sweeper:
So yeah.

Maurice Cherry:
She was like my mom on campus. I was a math major, so most of my stuff was in Dansby I believe. I’m trying to remember the names of the dorm now that I’m thinking about it, or the names of the buildings. I think most of my stuff was in Dansby, but I was doing work study stuff, so I would always be in the computer lab. I would always be in Mrs. Bank’s office at the desk and everything. I don’t know if she still works there. I mean, I would imagine 20 years from now, probably not, because I think she had been there probably since the ’80s when I started, so I don’t know.
If she is still there, shout out to Mrs. Banks, who has been helping a generation of Black male technologists pass through that school. She is an unsung hero of Morehouse College.

Dr. Perry Sweeper:
Wow. While we’re shouting out Ms. Banks, who I’m going to look up by the way, we have to shout out all of the Administrative Assistants who were like moms and aunts at HBCUs.

Maurice Cherry:
Oh, yeah.

Dr. Perry Sweeper:
There’s always one. When you’re talking about Ms. Banks, I’m thinking of Ms. Brown. I’m thinking of countless others, and Ms. Ash in my experiences at HBCUs, so that’s really interesting to hear you talk about her.

Maurice Cherry:
Let’s talk about some of the courses that you’re teaching. What are you teaching at Morehouse?

Dr. Perry Sweeper:
Right now I’m teaching Human-Computer Interaction. Last summer, I also wrote a Data Visualization course as well, and so I’m looking to teach that very soon.

Maurice Cherry:
So you were telling me before we started recording that what you’re doing is kind of… Or at least the program in which you’re teaching is not really a department. It’s like an interdisciplinary studies program. Is that right?

Dr. Perry Sweeper:
Yes. It’s experiential learning and interdisciplinary studies, and so there are various subjects in the department. I think that it’s a really innovative way to look at education. Morehouse is doing something very interesting as well because they’ve had some shifts in the way that they have designed their program, and even as I’m talking, very recently they’ve changed the structure, the departments, so departments, divisions, chairs, it’s really going to be more of a STEM-oriented environment, more so.
This will be the first semester that we’re under that structure, so I’m looking forward to that as well.

Maurice Cherry:
Can you major in Design at Morehouse? I would imagine with this experiential learning and interdisciplinary studies, you can kind of mix and match kind of different fields of study. When I went there, and I’ve told this story countless times in presentations and stuff, I started at Morehouse in 1999, right around the early days of the web, and I remember telling my Computer Science professor there, Dr. Jones.
I started in a dual degree program doing Computer Science/Computer Engineering, and I remember going to him one day and telling him that I wanted to do Web design. I was interested in Web design. I had been doing view source on websites and stuff, and I told him about it. I remember him telling me that the Internet was a fad, and that if I wanted to study that, I would need to change my major because that’s not what we study here. He’s like, “We do hardcore computer science. We’re learning assembly. We’re teaching you how to be a programmer.”
I wanted to be a programmer, but just not, I guess, a computer programmer. I wanted to do Web design, and so I did end up changing my major, but I’m wondering now, since Morehouse went through all these shifts in curriculum and programs as you mentioned, is it possible now to major in design there?

Dr. Perry Sweeper:
No, it’s not. There is an Art Program, and then there’s a Computer Science Program. So a lot of the students that I actually teach in Human-Computer Interaction are Software Engineering majors.

Maurice Cherry:
Interesting.

Dr. Perry Sweeper:
And so you won’t get the design part, but my background is design, so I teach Human-Computer Interaction from a design standpoint or a UX-design standpoint because the fields are so closely knit. When you look at industry, typically when you look at the waterfall method of software design, you get an idea, you make it, and you give it to the users, and that’s it. Then you have agile and other methodologies where you’re constantly iterating on the design and speaking to users as you go along, so that what you actually produce is something that the users will actually want and need for what they’re doing.
So it’s really interesting to interact with computer science students and engineers because I take pride in bringing this perspective to them and teaching them about psychology and teaching them about doing interviews with your users and finding out about them and learning about the environment that those users are working in, whether they’re going to be looking at a computer screen for a very long time and they might need dark mode, or just a lot of different things. So it’s almost like looking at anthropology or ethnography and really getting to know the users.

Maurice Cherry:
That’s really interesting that Morehouse has kind of branched out in that way. I mean, I knew that they had the art major, and I don’t know if they have any more art professors because the one professor they had I remember, Dr. Anderson, I believe he passed away. I’m pretty sure they might have another art professor now if they still have the major, but I often get asked from people when I tell them I went to Morehouse and because I’ve been a working designer for so long, they’re like, “Oh, did you major in design?” I was like, “No, I majored in math,” and they’re like, “What? How’re you a designer and you didn’t go to design school?”
That’s interesting. I would like to see Morehouse still have some kind of a design discipline of some sort because I feel like it’s something that the school is really greatly missing. I mean, they’ve got music. They’ve got so many other things. I just feel like one day, and I’m saying this probably partially out of vanity because I would like to come back and speak at Morehouse one day, but I can’t really speak to the Math Department because I don’t do math and I can’t speak to the Computer Science Department because I don’t do computer science, so yeah.

Dr. Perry Sweeper:
We can make that happen now. We can make it happen.

Maurice Cherry:
Okay. Let’s talk about that offline then. We’ll confer about that.

Dr. Perry Sweeper:
Yeah. It’s actually a desire of mine to one day see a design program at Morehouse as well, and so we’ll see how far we get that in the next five years.

Maurice Cherry:
How has it been teaching at such a well known institution? Do you feel any kind of pressure or anything?

Dr. Perry Sweeper:
Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, Morehouse is looked at… As far as males and Black colleges and excellence and all of the alumni and graduates who are doing great things out there, it’s a lot of pressure as a professor because I’m not a Morehouse Man, but I take pride in having a hand in the education of a Morehouse Man. So being able to understand the history and the distinction behind it is, I think, integral in being a part of the campus in a way, and when I say the campus, I mean just the academic cadre of folks that are there.
I haven’t gotten to interact with certain professors there, like Dr. Muhsinah Morris, who’s doing Morehouse in the Metaverse, or the Metaversity. I’m teaching on Zoom, but in the next year or two, I want to transition to VR headsets and looking at a hybrid way to kind of teach on that campus, and she has been just integral in making sure that that happened during the pandemic. It’s just amazing to see that grow at the university as well.
We had the COVID and all of that. It’s terrible some of the things that happened during that time, but it’s just a great opportunity for innovation in academia.

Maurice Cherry:
Yeah. I know last year’s commencement took place in the metaverse. I got an email about that. I was like, “Oh, isn’t that something?”

Dr. Perry Sweeper:
Yeah. It is. Actually it’s a direction we want to go in. We are partnering with different EdTech companies and trying to make sure that we are looking at education in a different way and making it available to more students.

Maurice Cherry:
Well, if you’re looking for some Black folks that are doing stuff in the metaverse, I can certainly introduce you to a few we’ve had on the show before.

Dr. Perry Sweeper:
Absolutely. Yeah, definitely. I would love to get those recommendations, and I will comb through it myself and look at it because your podcast is basically a place to go for research at this point. So I’ll definitely do that homework, and I’ll look at those recommendations.

Maurice Cherry:
What’s the rest of the department like? Have you had a chance to work with any other professors? Or talk with any other professors?

Dr. Perry Sweeper:
Yes. So the Division Chair, Dr. Kinnis Gosha, he’s been just integral in my development. He’s the one who posted the job, and so getting an opportunity to speak to him. He’s at the university. He’s an Endowed Professor, so he is been at the university for a while, and he runs the Culturally Relevant Computing Lab there, and so they’re doing some really interesting projects around Black male initiatives and technology. So being able to speak to him and Dr. Morris as well has been great.

Maurice Cherry:
Well man, you got to come down to the campus. I think you’ve got to come and spend at least a week on campus. Go to Crown Forum, see the King statue, definitely got to eat at Chivers. Got to eat at Chivers.

Dr. Perry Sweeper:
Okay.

Maurice Cherry:
You got to go through the Technology Tower. You got to go see the view of the grass. Don’t walk on the grass, that’s the one thing. There’s a big great lawn in front of Graves Hall, which is the main… When you see the Morehouse logo, that building, that’s Graves Hall. It’s a dormitory. Don’t walk on the lawn, it’s supposed to be bad luck. Especially if you didn’t go to Morehouse, it’s supposed to be bad luck. People play soccer on that lawn sometimes, but that was 20 years ago. I don’t know what it is like now. But you got to go and experience really not just Morehouse, but experience the AUC.
You said that you’ve been to Morehouse before though, right? Didn’t you say came here several years ago?

Dr. Perry Sweeper:
Yes. So I came to Atlanta. I saw the campus. I saw some of the campus. I saw a lot of Dr. King monuments and different artifacts. So I’ve been down there, but it’s been a while. During the pandemic, I planned it once, and then, “Oh, COVID is high,” and it’s all these different things. So it’s been up and down, but I feel it. How can I teach at the university and not actually step on campus? I just feel I have to make it happen. I have to do that. Even if you do it virtually and you walk around campus with some Oculus VR headsets on, I got to go and look at some of these things that you’re referring to.

Maurice Cherry:
Yeah, man. I’m telling you the AUC in the spring is lit. I mean, the Strip, which is this promenade. It’s mostly Clark Atlanta, but it connects Clark Atlanta, Morehouse, and Spelman. It kind of connects us together. I mean, in the springtime, I might be looking at this through filtered 20-year-old rose-colored glasses, but man, I’m telling you, springtime on the Strip is like none other. It’s paradise, just a cavalcade of positive Blackness as far as the eye can see.
People talk about a different world, and Hillman, which of course is based off of Morehouse and Spelman, it’s very much like that. Especially when Spelman opens up, and they have Market Fridays and you get to see Lower Manley and the steps and everything. Oh, it’s such an experience. I have pictures from that time because I was a photographer. Back then, I called myself a photographer, I had a digital camera. I just look back at that time like, “Oh, man. We were so young, just so crazy.”
It was such a wild time, and it’s funny because some of us now have went on to do great things in the world. The current Mayor of Birmingham, Randall Woodfin, we were in the same graduating class, in the same class.

Dr. Perry Sweeper:
[inaudible 00:21:47].

Maurice Cherry:
Yeah. So it’s really interesting. I don’t know. It’s funny because like I said, I don’t live that far from Morehouse. I don’t really go there because I don’t have a need to as an adult 20 years out of college, but it is right there in the neighborhood. It’s just good to know that it’s there and it’s still kind of doing great things in the community. So what do you learn from your students? What do they teach you?

Dr. Perry Sweeper:
Well, I had this project during COVID, and it was my attempt… So let’s go to Black Panther for a second. I’m super excited. November is coming, so we’re going to get… But there is this scene in Black Panther where they’re there and they go back, and they want to give this new technology to the United States, I perceive it as, that they’ve never seen before. You have the little kids, and they’re like looking at what looks like to them a spaceship or crazy looking car and this new technology, and their idea was to bring this innovative technology into this urban environment and see how it could improve.
So I thought about that in one of the projects that I gave. So the way that the course works, you learn the principles of the human-computer interaction during the first half of the semester, and as you learn those principles, you get small projects, but the students gain an understanding of what human-computer interaction is.
Then during the second part of the semester, they start putting those things into practice. So the project was to come up with a piece of technology that would be needed in a community like that, and I framed it based on that part of Black Panther. Just some of the projects that came out of that, so what did I learn from them? I learned where their minds are, where their focused at. I was just so, not surprised because I know they’re all bright students there, they teach me that all semester, but to see just a small example of the contribution that some of these students can make and will make in society, it’s amazing.
Some of the projects they came up with, for instance, was this one-line encyclopedia or anthology. So in 2020 and 2021, there are all kinds of things going on in the news and so forth and so on, so if you had to have a conversation or talk to someone about what was going on, a lot of people didn’t want to talk about it. Others wanted to talk about it, but they didn’t know how.
And so one of the students came up with this version of an online encyclopedia or resource, where it had all of these resources on things that were going on racially in the community, how to talk about it, different resources, and so he put his time into it. It’s a human-computer interaction class, so you don’t have to code it, but he went the extra mile and actually coded the site and put it up and running. Their projects, they always just blow me away, some of the things that they come up with.
So in the AUC, as you know, there’s Morehouse, Clark Atlanta, and Spelman, so I’ve had an opportunity to interact with Clark Atlanta students and Spelman students as well. I had a very large group of Spelman students in my class last semester, and it was just excellence. All of the projects, they were always on point. No matter what was going on, they were active in class, asking questions, so forth and so on.
They really, really teach me the greatness of this generation. In society we can go and look and say, “Oh, these kids don’t know anything about music and they’re doing this or doing that,” like generations before, but to see just excellence from the students is extremely encouraging.

Maurice Cherry:
Nice. I have a feeling that Spelman students are probably pretty good. I mean, probably better than Morehouse students, and I say that not out of rank comparison, but I keep bringing this back to my time there because that’s such a easy reference for me to pull from. But I mean, I went through a summer program before I started my freshman year, and I mean, the women at Spelman were just leaps and bounds above the guys at Morehouse. We were in a similar program. It was a NASA-funded program. I mean, just leaps and bounds. It was amazing, so I can only imagine.

Dr. Perry Sweeper:
Yeah. They’re exceptional.

Maurice Cherry:
So let’s kind of switch gears here and learn more about you. Let’s learn more about your origin story. Tell me where you grew up.

Dr. Perry Sweeper:
So I grew up in Baltimore City, and I grew up not too far from Morgan State University where I later went to school. So as a kid growing up in Baltimore City, all the schools I went to were less than five miles apart. We call it Smalltimore here because it seems like you know someone who knows someone else, and you end up being related to folks that you didn’t know you were related to, or people know your parents and different things like that. So I grew up in Baltimore, Smalltimore. I didn’t know about design growing up, but I loved art, and so I grew up getting Disney Adventures magazines.
When I got older, I used to take my allowance and buy Vibes and XXL and Black Enterprise and all of those magazines, and I would really spend a lot of time in the house, dissecting those magazines, finding out who those people were. It got to a point where I was dissecting them. I was looking at them so in depth that I found out who was designing it and what their job titles were. So going from being an artist per se and drawing all the time, I learned about graphic design. I learned about design.
Fast forward to high school, I went to Baltimore City College High School in Baltimore. There was an opportunity at the school to do independent study when you’re in 12th grade, and so I took two semesters of independent study, drawing, doing artwork, producing a portfolio at that point. That’s how my career started from that point, learning about graphic design.
As I’m matriculating at Morgan State University, I got more into my program and started to get more interested in graphic design, I volunteered to work on the yearbook at the university. They were somehow behind in years, so it might have been the year 2003, and they were behind. They hadn’t given the graduating seniors from the 2001 or 2002 graduating year their yearbooks, so what they did was they contracted us students who had graphic design skills to actually design the yearbook, do all the layout, and make it look like it wasn’t a yearbook, make it look more like a magazine.
That was our objective, to make this interesting. They’ve been waiting a really, really long time, let’s make this good. So for about two or three years, I worked in that office. It was right across the hall from the newspaper office as well, and so before the offices became integrated and it became Student Publications, I worked separately, giving some extra effort to help out with the newspaper and also help out with the yearbook. So while I was learning, I was looking at other opportunities to gain experience while I was on that campus.
It’s like all of these things just kind of snowballed together because I gained an understanding of publication design and that particular office, the Office of Student Publications, was run by Ms. Denise Brown, who was one of those people that felt like your mother. And if she didn’t feel like your mother, she at least felt like your aunt, and she ran those offices and we produced those publications. We caught up, and she gave us other opportunities as well. One of the professionals who was helping out with that newspaper actually worked at the Washington Post, so we talked, and he said, “Keep in touch,” and I kept in touch with him.
So I graduated and after graduation, I got an email from him saying, “Hey, we got an opportunity for a person to come and be a Production Assistant at the Washington Post.” The Washington Post had a Washington Post magazine, and so at the Washington Post, I got to work on that Washington Post magazine, helping to layout those stories that go in it.
I worked in Student Publications, but everybody knows the Washington Post in the States, so it was huge for me to get that opportunity to work there and sit in that room and see news as it happens. Even though I was working on the magazine, I still was in the newsroom or near the newsroom, so I got to see all of that going on. So that is how my story kind of evolved to publication design and graphic design, and I call that my origin story.

Maurice Cherry:
Let’s back up because you just took me through 20 years, so let’s back it up. I get the sense that definitely design was something that you were always into. Clearly you went into that with going into school. I want to hear about what the program was like at Morgan State because you were studying design. I guess this was right around maybe 2001, 2002-ish, something like that when you started?

Dr. Perry Sweeper:
I started in 2001, yes.

Maurice Cherry:
What was the design program like? Because I didn’t even know that… Again, I’m basing this off my experience with Morehouse, I didn’t know that any HBCUs even had design programs back then, so tell me what that program was like.

Dr. Perry Sweeper:
Yeah. Entering into that program, my first couple of years at Morgan I was taking general education classes, so I didn’t even get to the department until the end of my sophomore year or junior year. I didn’t really know what was going on, but when I got there, it was in bad shape. They had just let the building actually, and it was leaking and everyone was frustrated and the program didn’t have much money. It didn’t have a whole lot of support, and there weren’t enough professors teaching in it, so I walked into a department that was in chaos.
I think in 2003, they were moved to a brand new building. It’s called the Murphy Fine Arts Building. So, this was a state-of-the-art building, and it had a performance hall. Morgan is known for its choir. The choir is huge. They tour all over the world. People have successful careers as singers and musicians coming from the Morgan program, and so a lot of that building was built for that department. There were other two other departments there, the Theater Department and it was us, the Art Department.
And so our program was really focused. When you first enter in, they taught you the foundation. Even if you’re a graphic design major, you’re taking painting. You’re taking printmaking. You’re taking drawing. You’re taking a couple years of basic design. They want to really make sure that you get an understanding of how this was done before computers really took off, so that was the foundation there. So all of this stuff going on, they didn’t have money, and then they transitioned to this new building and it felt like a hallway in this huge building.
So although they weren’t in the position that they were in before, they were in a better position, they still weren’t where they needed to be. What the department did is they said, “We need to get a professor in here who knows about graphic design, who can come in here and build this department,” and so they hired a person named Joseph Ford. He worked on the campus previously in the Public Relations Department, so he had a hand in making sure that all of the publications that needed to go out, graduation, commencement, the Morgan Magazine, he was working on a lot of that. Any branding or logos that needed to be done, he was working on that.
But before he worked at Morgan, he had a successful career in advertising, and he also worked for TV stations doing graphic design for them, so he had an understanding of the campus, and he also had an understanding of the industry. He came to the department and really built the program, so those last couple years he was there, he was teaching basically almost all of the graphic design courses.

Maurice Cherry:
Wow.

Dr. Perry Sweeper:
Yeah. One professor, and he is really just amazing, what he did with that program. You come to him with a problem, and everybody’s there and they’re like, “Oh, we only got this hallway. We got this, that, and the other,” and he is hearing it, but he’s focused on making sure that this program and the students get what they need. So what he did was he had some friends in the industry, and he somehow connected them all, and he made a way where famous Black artists got together and they produced a poster for the department. The proceeds from selling this piece of original artwork, and they had print made of it, went to scholarships for students there. Then it went to bringing these particular artists to the university to speak to the students.
And so he was bringing these particular Black artists to the department, raising money. Really, he took the money out of his own pocket, but it’s the crazy things that professors do to make sure that students have what they need. He supplied everyone that was there with a scholarship to an AIGA membership, and so he gave that to them. He promoted all of the events that they were having at AIGA in Baltimore and the AIGA Nationals, and he really introduced us to the AIGA.
We had no idea what it was as students, and we would go to the particular programs. We got to know the president of the AIGA, he would come to the campus and support what we were doing there. He also had made a connection where the AIGA brought a conference to Morgan State University. I think it was like a portfolio review, and so we got our portfolios reviewed by people in industry. I remember Ellen Lupton was there, a bunch of other professional designers, and so he came up with all these innovative ways. He bootstrapped basically the Graphic Design Program while I was there and graduated.
When we look back on it, a lot of the students there have had successful careers in graphic design. I mean, some of the students have graduated. They work for the NBA. They work for Major League Baseball, doing design. They work for IBM, the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun. [Ogilby 00:38:38] was included in that, but having their own businesses and doing a lot of things, so we really were a program that started from the bottom, but made something of it. Really didn’t have much, but made something out of the program/.
And I think I have to give my hat off to him and all the work that he did. I still speak to him a whole lot now, but I have to give him credit for it. The other professors there absolutely, but as far as graphic design is concerned, he was definitely instrumental in making sure that happened.

Maurice Cherry:
Okay. So after you graduated, you talked a little bit about the Washington Post. You also talked a little bit about going back and working at Morgan State. Now also after school, you kind of ended up going back to school. You went to MICA for a while, and then you went to the University of Baltimore, which is eventually where you got your doctorate at. Kind of tell me about that time. What sparked that decision for you to decide to go back to school?

Dr. Perry Sweeper:
There were two points that I want to make. One was when I was early on in my career at Morgan, I remember one of the professors telling me that you could get a Doctorate in Design. I had no idea. So I think that sparked something in me as well because I was like, “Well, how far can you go in this career as far as education is concerned?”
The other piece is that the graphic design world, the design world, changed so much. Even throughout college and starting out, it was all about publications. I had a love for publications. And then publications started to fold, and the industry started to go digital. It was convergence, where news reporters were now writing the story, taking the photographs, and almost designing the stories at the same time. Multimedia journalists were coming about, and so I really said to myself, “I have to learn more.”
I never really grasped coding a website, and I wanted to learn more about that, so I had a Bachelor of Arts in graphic design and illustration, double major in both of them, and I wanted to learn more about the integration of design. So that’s why I looked at the University of Baltimore and their program.

Maurice Cherry:
And so as you were going through that program, I’m curious, was it much different from what you were learning at Morgan State? It’s kind of interesting you kind of started out at an HBCU and then went to a traditional art school with MICA, and then now to University of Baltimore. Was that a big shift, just education-wise?

Dr. Perry Sweeper:
It definitely was. So when I went to MICA, I was taking continuing studies courses. I just always had a love for learning. So after I graduated from Morgan, I automatically wanted to learn more, get better at my craft, and the best way I knew how to do that was to go back to school. I was taking digital illustration courses at MICA. Then I saw the program at the University of Baltimore, and they were one of the only programs at the time where you could get a Doctorate in Design. During that time, I think early on, it used to be a Doctorate of Communication Design.
That just brought so much together, what I was interested in with publication design, this integration of various forms of media and producing it, and seeing that program really attracted me to the University of Baltimore and the level of skills. So one of the first classes that you have to take at the University of Baltimore is a class about writing, so you have to write. You have to design the stories at the same time, so that’s challenging because they want your writing to be just as good as your design.
That’s what you talk about in the class, and that’s what you work on. The class was on a Saturday, early in the morning until in the afternoon, so it was a really long class, challenging subject. When I first got there, I really struggled with those first couple of classes because it was a different level. Not to say that the level of education that I got at Morgan wasn’t high, it was just different at the University of Baltimore. It was pulling different muscles, working different muscles in a different way.

Maurice Cherry:
And now you’re kind of in a rare echelon of Black design professionals with PhDs. Are there any other peers of yours that you work with or you do research with or anything like that?

Dr. Perry Sweeper:
Most of the time in the environments that I’m in or freelancing, people find out I have a Doctorate in Information Design, and they almost ask the question, “Why?” You may get an MFA, and that’s a terminal degree, but most people, they don’t think there’s a need for it, so it’s hard to understand the value of it. I think looking at the way that the different forms of media come together, and then adding a research perspective and understanding design research and understanding more about the user and pulling in these different disciplines, like psychology and anthropology and computer science, I feel like it puts you in a different class with all of those. You have more in your toolbox to add to the environments that you’re in, and so the peers that I have, sometimes I come into an environment and they’re like, “What are you doing here?” It’s like intimidation, depending on who I’m around.
In other environments, it’s like, “Let’s go. Let’s do this. Bring everything that you have. I’ll bring my skillset, and we can work together.” So the cohort of graduates, there are a couple of people that I still talk to that graduated from the program. There are people in the program now that I speak to. There are people in the industry, some people that you’ve had on this show, that could relate to just that level of education or that thirst for that education, so it’s a small cohort that’s growing.

Maurice Cherry:
When you look back at your career now, look back at the span of everything that you’ve done, what advice would you give to your 16-year-old self?

Dr. Perry Sweeper:
I would really say, “Be fearless. Just be fearless, and do it. Don’t be afraid of your own greatness.” I say that because I think about my career and how I walked into some situations timidly that I could have taken more advantage of, that I could have went all in and probably benefited more from it. So I think I would say that, “Be fearless.”

Maurice Cherry:
Speaking of that, if you knew that you couldn’t fail in your professional life, what would you try to do?

Dr. Perry Sweeper:
Wow. I would bring a whole bunch of different things together. I think I would just take all the energy that I have and put it into making sure that as many people who are interested in design in my city, in my sphere of influence, knew about it. They had opportunities. They had internships. They had mentors. They had apprenticeships. They had jobs. I think that’s what I would do. If I could just do anything, I would probably do what I’m doing, just at a higher level.

Maurice Cherry:
What does success look like for you now?

Dr. Perry Sweeper:
I think success, to me, looks like not just writing down the idea, but following through and putting action to it. If there’s success in it, great. If it’s successful, great. If it fails, I learn from it. So I think success is either it goes really, really well or I learn from it, and both of those are success for me.

Maurice Cherry:
What are some projects and things that you’re working on now?

Dr. Perry Sweeper:
So I’m really excited about a book. I talk a lot about the program that I grew out of at Morgan, and so I’m writing a book about that now, the Morgan story basically, and it’s called Design at a HBCU. It really tells my perspective of what went on there, and so I’m really, really excited about that. I just started my own studio, and so I’m at the beginning stages of building that. That’s called [LADS 00:48:00], and so I’m really excited about that, a studio practice.
Also, after I graduated from the University of Baltimore with my doctorate, one of the decisions I made was to start an endowment for Visual Arts students, and so far since graduation, we’ve raised about $10,000, and so I’m really excited about where we are now and I’m excited about growing that. So I think in the next five years, I’d love to see it reach $100,000. That would be awesome to me.

Maurice Cherry:
Overall, what’s the next step for you? What do you want the next chapter of your legacy to be?

Dr. Perry Sweeper:
I want it to be a growing a design studio and possibly entering academia full-time instead of part-time. I’m really thinking about that. So having a studio practice, interacting with academia on a regular basis, growing that scholarship fund, raising a family. I have two boys and a wife, so that’s important to me, making sure they get what they need and they grow, and just looking forward to the future.

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 online?

Dr. Perry Sweeper:
So I’m available on LinkedIn under Dr. Perry Sweeper. You can find me there. You can find a website at www.psweeper.com. Send me an email. I’d love to talk to you.

Maurice Cherry:
All right. Sounds good. Well, Dr. Perry Sweeper, I want to thank you so much for coming on this show, and I want to just thank you for sharing your story about how you really got into design. I could tell it’s something that you’re super passionate about, and the fact that you’re able to also help to teach the next generation of designers and technologists.
You’re teaching in that department at Morehouse, but you’re able to kind of teach the next generation and take your love for design and pass it on to them so they can know that they can make their own mark on the world, just like you’ve made your mark on the world. So thank you so much for coming on the show. I appreciate it.

Dr. Perry Sweeper:
Yeah. Thanks for having me.

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André Smith

Networking is a valuable skill for designers and creatives to have, which interestingly enough is how I met this week’s guest: André Smith! His career has touched several fields — advertising, music, education — and now he runs his own firm called Appendix where he offers strategy and branding services for companies from all over the world.

We talked about his recent shift back into agency life, and he shared a bit about his day-to-day work and gave a peek into his creative process. André also spoke about his time at Morehouse, his early post-grad career, attending NYU, and his forays into art curation and being a university lecturer. André’s advice to Black creatives is simple: learn to think wider and deeper, and you’ll find many opportunities to succeed. How will you expand your horizons?

Happy Holidays from all of us here at Revision Path!

Transcript

Full Transcript

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

André Smith:
Hey, my name is André Smith. People call me Dre. I am a strategist, an educator, and a recovering curator.

Maurice Cherry:
A recovering curator?

André Smith:
A lot of my work has to do with… I guess you could say the confluence of the fine arts, academia and advertising. And I’ve been in and out of curatorial since about 2015, but I had a bit of a pivot in about 2018 when my gallery became the classroom and my canvas became a syllabus.

Maurice Cherry:
Okay. We’ll get into that a little bit later. I was just curious you threw it out there like that. How has 2021 been going for you so far?

André Smith:
Better than 2020. 2020 was dope though, it was like a victory lap for me. If you listen to Nipsey, you know what I mean. Yeah, I went from the classroom to brand side for an e-learning platform and then agency side for agency of the year 2020, and what was considerably the hardest year for any business, particularly marketing, media and comms. That was pretty cool. And 2021’s been better still.

Maurice Cherry:
Has it been hard kind of adjusting to working from home?

André Smith:
Not per se. When I was teaching at UYC, that’s when the pandemic had hit and I began working from home doing hour and hour and 15-minute long sessions with 40-50 students. So, I got used to seeing [inaudible 00:04:28] pretty effectively. And then working from after class, which was based in San Francisco at the time when I was based in Chicago, had to perform servicing those hours. And then when I was with Martin, I was in San Francisco servicing hours on the East Coast. Like I said, better still.

Maurice Cherry:
Man, you were burning the candle at both ends, it sounds like.

André Smith:
Yeah. I have a seven-month old, Chloe. So, that plays a role too, and day by day, week by week, month by month, she’s crawling and starting to stand on her own now. Working from home… you’re adjusting on multiple clocks. Hybrid work model, the work from home model as well as the growing baby model.

Maurice Cherry:
Yeah. Talk to me about your agency, Appendix. What’s an average day like for you?

André Smith:
Okay, yeah. I opened up Appendix… Think of it like a boat shop for go fast boats, right? For planning services and future proof strategies. I started Appendix, I want to say February. So, basically right after Martin. And a day at Appendix is waking up around 7:00 AM, watching some Bloomberg, watching some CNBC, spending about an hour on my phone, and then seeing what the algorithm feeds me depending on what platform I start with first. Start the rabbit hole of what I’m researching.

André Smith:
And then my research might lead to me thinking about someone in my network and that might lead to a text. And then that reply will lead to, “Dude. I was just thinking about you.” Or what I say to them., and they said, “That’s crazy. I just had a conversation about that in my Slack.” That’ll lead to leads, right? And getting those leads warm, especially through the network, on a Monday might lead to a conversation about a brief by a Wednesday, and that might lead to paperwork, et cetera, by a Friday. The Tuesday and Thursday are spent holding it down at home, tracking those things and getting other things in the queue.

Maurice Cherry:
Now, your work involves brand strategy, it involves culture research. And it also sounds like it involves some creative development as well. When you have a new project that comes in, what does that process look like? How do you approach it?

André Smith:
My practice area is really… at pure brand wise is really a lot to do with brand purpose, brand casting, just really a lot around inclusion and diversity, branded entertainment and social impact. And as far as brand strategy in particular, it’s really a lot to do with organic social, paid social, social commerce, and experiential.

André Smith:
Where that sits, to answer your question, is it’s a lot more to do with what is the opportunity or the brief asking of my skillset, how do I do design or strategize a vector of what’s relevant and what’s relative for that opportunity?

Maurice Cherry:
What are the best types of clients for you to work with? Because I mean, it sounds like your work really can span a number of different fields.

André Smith:
Oh, certainly. Yeah. Just most recently, I did some brand identity work for Gallery 88. That’s that’s spearheaded by Alex Delotch Davis. She’s an inaugural member of Hennessy’s Never Stop, Never Settle cohort. I do a lot of brand identity work for Kei Henderson. She used to manage 21 Savage. Now she manages Asiahn, who’s the voice of Karma on Karma’s World, on Netflix. And I’ve also most recently consulted for CSOs and CMOs at different agencies. So, working on Cricket Wireless, and Quilted Northern, for AT&T and Georgia Pacific respectively for the CSO of their AOR, likewise at Martin in that way, for Haynes UPS and Unilever’s acts.

Maurice Cherry:
Now, before you were at Appendix, you just now mentioned the Martin Agency, you mentioned Masterclass a little bit earlier. What did you kind of gain from those experiences that you still use today?

André Smith:
The CEO at Martin, Kristen Cavallo, she has a phrase, “It takes tension to get attention.” Of all the amazing gems, I picked up working across $3.5 million worth of marque accounts, that’s the phrase that always sticks out. That’s the phrase I think I draw from, my best memory from working at Martin, and learning that in numerous context, whether that was on the accounts that I was staffed on as the planning director for the social studio, or if it was more project things like AmeriSave or Happy Egg or [inaudible 00:09:14].

André Smith:
Prior to that, the most recent experience Masterclass phrase or takeaway or big thing from that. I think I heard on a Zoom, someone said, “There are different dials to diversity and knowing at least that that’s part of the energy or attitude or thinking,” at a tech company, essentially, was great for me. I think I reflected a lot of what I was most happy about with Masterclass and that [inaudible 00:09:43] feature I did back in February.

André Smith:
And prior to Masterclass, where I was consulting for their CMO, I was in the classroom at UIC. And I think a big favorite quote of mine experience that can be put into a quote or alchemized into a quote is, “Google, and then go outside.” My friend, Andy Deza, said that when he came to guest lecture for me amongst a host of other awesome guest lecturers, like Joe Fresh Goods, Ferris Bueller, Sam Kirk, Midori McSwain, who’s now the AD of a brand strategy at Spotify. But that was, I think, my most favor quote, because that was something that the students would say back to me over the semester and the students who would then take me for other classes.

André Smith:
When I was at UIC, I taught consumer behavior, global marketing and advertising and sales. But the students who started with me in taking me for consumer behavior, who took me for global marketing and ad sales, that’s a phrase that they would impart back to me. So, it was nice to see the ripples in the pond, I guess.

Maurice Cherry:
Yeah. It’s interesting; sometimes with those past experiences you have to be out of them to really learn or know what you’ve learned from them. Because when you’re in it, it’s a bit of a different

André Smith:
Couldn’t agree more.

Maurice Cherry:
Let’s switch gears here a little bit. We’ve learned a bit about kind of the work you’re doing now, but let’s hear more about your origin story. Tell me where you grew up.

André Smith:
I think of myself as a global citizen, but at the end of the day, I’m still just a kid from the North Bronx. I grew up just shy of Gun Hill Road on Burke Avenue in, I guess what used to be very Italian and Jewish [inaudible 00:11:32], ’86 is my year. By the time I was on the scene, right, I came to life, it was predominantly Caribbean. And to this day it still is very much Jamaican, Trinidadian, Guyanese families that historically have occupied these homes. Generationally have occupied these homes.

André Smith:
And my origins, I guess, besides being kid who grew up in the Bronx and still frequently go back, even just to sit in a car in front of the house I grew up in, just to keep that connection, I guess. My origins that I grew up in the Bronx is… Well, a lot of people don’t know maybe about me because they see me in art galleries or they see me in advertising or they see me in the classroom is I started in music.

André Smith:
My mom’s younger brother is a successful music director and bassist. He went to [inaudible 00:12:23] purchase with Amanda Seals, Amanda Diva, Tiffany from Insecure. And short story about him, he had the opportunity to tour with Lauryn Hill and the Fugees’ global thing. It was going to be his first day; it was going to be in Japan, but it was between going on tour with the Fugees and going to college. And my mom was like, “If you get your teaching license and you get your degree, you can tour with anyone and you can also have the backup plan of having other options.”

André Smith:
He was torn about it, but decided to go to school and pass on the opportunity. At the same time, my dad’s older brother had a recording studio in his basement and he would have local acts who end appearing on the halftime show on NYU or City Hall Radio. He worked with [inaudible 00:13:11] or artists like that. And I guess between seeing my mom’s younger brother’s conflicts between the bright lights and the steady road, and my dad’s older brother’s approach of having a steady road, but also having an entrepreneurial spirit because he split the basement with my aunt who had a hair salon. So, the basement of that house was basically all business, right? It was like cash and carry operation.

André Smith:
That had a very big impression on me, I think. Understanding how to keep a main line, but also keep your eyes open for other bigger opportunities. And then talking about looking for bigger opportunities., I was always a ferocious free, even if I didn’t like class and I loved reading XXL, and The Source and Bonsu Thompson, Jason Rodriguez, whether or not… I’m calling them as friends.

André Smith:
But reading their words in those magazines about the artist that I was starstruck by, that played a very big role in my understanding of the music business. So, when I had the opportunity to meet Joaquin Waah Dean, one of the co-founders of Rough Riders, of all places at a Cheesecake Factory. I can’t say I needed the right thing to say, but I think my passion and my sense of understanding was evident to him.

André Smith:
So, short story, I ended up interning on Jadakiss’ sophomore album, Kiss of Death. And that had me working out of Worldwide Plaza. And if you know music, that’s the headquarters for Def Jam and the labels that they distribute for [inaudible 00:14:50]. And I spent my senior year of high school interning on Kiss of Death, and I spent the summer before college going to Morehouse and turning on [inaudible 00:14:57] Purple Haze. I didn’t have a favorite in the verses bible between The Lox and the Dip Set until Jadakiss said, “Cam lives in Miami.”

Maurice Cherry:
It sounds like early on you kind of were more geared towards music because of the exposures from your uncles to recording artists, to recording studio, but you got to Morehouse, you didn’t study music. What’d you study at Morehouse?

André Smith:
At Morehouse, I went into study political science and Keith Hollandsworth told me, “That’s not for you.” And then I heard about Phillip Johnson and then I realized, “Maybe not.” And I thought it was going to be business marketing, but me and business policy weren’t going to get along.

André Smith:
But then after interning at Bloomberg in my sophomore year, I came to realize that my real skillset and my strong suit was really more in comms. And I realized that the sharp edge of the Sabre for me would be English through degree, right? And focusing comms as my way into marketing.

André Smith:
But the road doing music… And the other thing that I really loved about my time as an A&R intern for Alimah Shamsid-Dean, who ironically up would later go on to work at Translation with Steve Stoute. What I loved about the work I was doing, or the work I was learning, coming to understand was where all the dots connected, right? Fast forward, leader strategy. But also, my eye, my ear for product placement, it was always mentioned in bars and raps, but then you also go on to see it in music videos.

André Smith:
And I was wondering, “How’d that get there?” Being a Jamaica kid from the Bronx, when my mom [inaudible 00:16:36] spent time with my granddad, I would always end up in the box with all the James Bond movies, 007. And it was always just like the best product placement. Whether it was the Aston Martin or it was the Omega, or it was the Bright Lane, or it was the BMW, or it was even Avis, talking about cars. But I was always groomed or cured to see where things connect and where brands fit.

Maurice Cherry:
Interesting.

André Smith:
And going into college in Atlanta at that time, 2004, Vote or Die was the brand on campus. Morehouse’s the brand and Spellman is the brand. Not just because they’re the brand and [inaudible 00:17:15], but nostalgically, they’re the brand because you see them in Boys in the Hood. You see them on the Fresh Prince. You see them referenced on a different world. You might see it pop up in Living Single.

André Smith:
For me, I distinctly remember in my senior year, I was deciding which school to go to, and I graduate high school with honors, so I had options, but I chose Morehouse for… I think influenced by two big scenes. I’ll never forget there was a couple scenes or episodes of Making the Band where Puffy, who’s ironically from my hometown… I moved from the Bronx, I moved to Mount Vernon, and Mount Vernon’s the hometown of a couple of legacy individuals, most notably DMX Rest in Peace, but also Sean Holmes and Denzel Washington, whose son, John David, went to Morehouse and Denzel’s house [inaudible 00:18:03] from Morehouse.

André Smith:
But seeing Puff in that Morehouse Letterman just always like put something in my head. And I know he went to Howard, I know he didn’t finish Howard, but seeing him wear that, it just puts something in my head. And then there was this one scene in the real world, San Francisco, ironically, as I live here, on the West Coast and the Bay primarily, there was this one scene with [Jaquis 00:18:25] where he was confronted with an instance of racism, and the way he handled it. And then he went to Morehouse and seeing him in the Morehouse shirt, that just left a real big impression on me also.

André Smith:
For those reasons, and as well as the school’s legacy and Benny Mays and Dr. King and Spike and all these amazing people, those are really big reasons why I think I chose Morehouse and going to Morehouse. And doing the internships I did at Bloomberg from sophomore year to senior year, I came to just realized that comms was really my gift, strategy and connecting the dots authentically and organically for brands is another gift that I have. And I’m not going to probably have the best shot doing and delivering against that if I go the traditional road of getting a business management degree or a political science degree.

Maurice Cherry:
Yeah. Because those degrees are pretty common at Morehouse. I just remember, even from the years that I was there, right outside of Wheeler Hall, everyone’s out there in their suits, political science folks, the business folks, I was a math major. We just walked right past them.

Maurice Cherry:
I know what you mean though. I mean, Morehouse itself, outside of all the names and stuff that you mentioned just sort of has this draw for a lot of people, but it’s so interesting because in a way it sort of depends what you end up going into kind of either during school or after school. Because I started going into design right after school, and even working at places in Atlanta where I was not the only Black person. I was surprised how many people had never heard of Morehouse. Didn’t know what it was, didn’t know where it was.

Maurice Cherry:
I’m like, “It’s here in Atlanta.” I remember my first day at AT&T when I had told some of people on my team I was at Morehouse and they were like, “Oh, where’s that?” And I was like, “Well, if you look out the window, you see that green roof way off in the distance? That’s Morehouse.” And they’re like, “Oh, I didn’t know Atlanta went down that far.” I’m like, “Give me a break. Come on.”

Maurice Cherry:
I mean, you had these opportunities for doing these internships. What was your kind of early career after you graduated? What I’m hearing is that you probably had something lined up once you graduated for Morehouse.

André Smith:
Yeah. I could have stayed at Bloomberg and did the A desk, analytics desk thing, but going from A&R to comms, and then looking at analytics just didn’t feel like the best fit. And to my parents, it looked foolish at the time, but I had a vision for the bigger idea.

André Smith:
I ended up, honestly, working for free in Tribeca for Damon Dash and Coodie & Chike. Chike Ozah and Clarence Coodie Simmons, creative control TV and DD172. And I think for free, because it was an apprenticeship in every sense, in the sense that you really have to get in there for yourself. But also the things, you were learning from real masters of their craft. Kanye on [inaudible 00:21:32] was just talking about the degree of reverence and respect he has for Damon, despite whatever issues or bad blood, Jay Z would’ve been remiss if he did not acknowledge Damon in his Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction speech.

André Smith:
So, having the opportunity to be a strategy apprentice to Coodie & Chike, and work on product placement for brands like Pepsi, Adidas, Heineken, Porsche was really, really a great opportunity for me. And it brought future forward that early eye and appetite I had for connecting dots authentically and organically with brands, from when I was a kid watching these 007 movies. And then, from working on Purple Hayes, my summer before college, and then getting a chance to kind of learn from the master, so to speak.

André Smith:
After college was really great to me. In my time at Bloomberg, I worked across ad sales for print, one of their print titles called Markets Magazine. I worked across key accounts at the time when the subprime mortgage crisis hit, I was actually staffed on Bear Stearns. So, talk about learning trial by fire. And then in my last summer I worked event planning for key territories, North America.

André Smith:
And that Bloomberg is stacked in a way of its radio TV and print and, and terminal. And similarly, as I learned in my time working in Tribeca there, they had the gallery, they had the mezzanine for creative control TV, but they also had executive suites and offices and filming space. And they had an event performance space downstairs, as well as the recording studio that was manned by Ski Beatz, the producer who did the bulk of Jay-Z’s Reasonable Doubt. And I looked at them as two sides of a coin, almost. As parallel learning opportunities.

André Smith:
One was a big global enterprise by a billionaire, even though he was the mayor at the time. And the other was a factory led by the idea engine that birthed two billionaires, speaking about Jay Z and Kanye West. Granted they weren’t billionaires at the time, but it was evident with the way that, from what I learned of Damon’s process, it was a great compliment to what I had learned at Morehouse. Ironically, working on Heineken at DD172 Creative Control led to me working on Heineken at Team Epiphany, an agency owned by a Morehouse alumni, Coltrane Curtis.

Maurice Cherry:
So, during that time, when you’re kind of working as a strategy apprentice, and as you say you were doing it for free, how were you feeling during that time? What was going through your mind during that time?

André Smith:
At the time, I initially loved peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. And by the time I was done with that, I hated the idea of paste anything. Justin’s peanut butter otherwise, I was over it. But at that time, DIY, do it yourself, was a new phrase and new concept. Social was still very fresh. And when I wasn’t in Tribeca, I was spending the rest of my time in the Lower East Side at the Alife Rivington Club Courtyard or at Reed Space, found by Jeff Stable, or at Prohibit, which was helmed by Chace Infinite, who later went on to become the manager for ASAP Mob and Griselda.

André Smith:
At the time, I was just always in the mode to learn. I knew there were things I learned on campus and in school. One thing I didn’t mention in my time in Atlanta is for a while, I was an apprentice to Clay Evans, who is the road manager for a lot of successful southern hip hop artists, but notably TI and Travis Scott.

André Smith:
One of the things I really appreciated while running with Clay was there’s a lot of things that you don’t learn in the classroom. There’s a lot of on-the-job learning and understanding and expertise that you have to observe in the moment to get good at the job. It’s like being a page at NBC or something.

André Smith:
I spent a lot of my time, when I wasn’t on campus, I was up in Castlebury Hill at Slice or over at City of Inc with Tuki and Maya. Tuki Carter and Maya Bailey. And at the time, like I said, I was just always in the mood to learn. And what I was thinking and feeling at that is there’s a lot of opportunity for influencers. And later on, obviously that became really true.

André Smith:
But at the time it was just seeing things in motion. Your online presence didn’t matter. People really had to know you outside. If you weren’t getting inside, you weren’t going to make it, unless you knew the right thing to say or you came with the right people. I saw a change coming, but I also just really appreciated the time and the moment when people really had to know each other.

Maurice Cherry:
Yeah. I know those kind of times where, especially once you first start to get out there and you’re not going right into a particular job, there’s so much networking that you have to do. Let’s see. You say you went to Morehouse in ’04, so this was around ’08, ’09 when you were doing a lot of this?

André Smith:
Correct.

Maurice Cherry:
Yeah. I remember being in the city during that time. It was a really sort of buzzy time, particularly if you were doing things around design or tech or something like that. It was just a lot of energy and activity going on in the city. You could go down to Octane and end up meeting up with folks or you’d go to some… meet up in some other event or something like that. Of course, now with the pandemic, a lot of that-

André Smith:
That was a phrase. A meetup. The meetup. Event Bright. Event Bright was it. Early QR codes.

Maurice Cherry:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

André Smith:
Yeah.

Maurice Cherry:
Yeah. there was a lot of that during that time. And I mean, of course now with the pandemic, it’s not the same, but you certainly had… Oh God, I remember that so vividly, because that was right around the time I was at AT&T and I quit my job and then started my studio. And so I just had free days all the time because I had some clients, but you go, you talk to other creatives, you see what other work you can get into, see what other projects you can fall into. Something like that. Atlanta sort of facilitated that type of creative spark, in a way, to go out to these places and meet people and do things. I mean, in hindsight, it was so easy.

André Smith:
Well, it looked easy. Dave Chappelle talks about expensive experience. I do it in five minutes because you’re paying me for the five, seven years it took me to learn how to do it in five minutes. You’re paying me for the time I did it. You’re paying me for the time I prepped to get it done, at the level as projected and as expected.

André Smith:
But to the tune of Atlanta and training, Jedi-level training, home coming in itself, but then also Market Friday, Wednesday on the Yard, the City, Rocky Road over there by Piedmont Park, Little Five Points. I was just talking to a client the other day and working on some brand identity work and she was referencing her time in the early shaping of Wish, and how it’s now basically a cultural institution [crosstalk 00:28:49].

André Smith:
The whole thing about it is even Little Five Points, you have to move carefully. You don’t know what [inaudible 00:28:56] or what guy would FaceTime… You don’t know who’s who. So, act accordingly. And this is Atlanta in ’04, ’09, 2011, 2013. I can talk about Atlanta today.

Maurice Cherry:
It’s a totally different… I mean, you’ve been to Atlanta recently. It’s a totally different vibe over there now because largely because of gentrification.

André Smith:
Gentrification and decriminalization, I think, and the dual pandemics have certainly played a role in how leadership and community have to respond and adjust for sure.

Maurice Cherry:
Yeah. That’s true.

André Smith:
It’s also a gold rush at the same time right now. If you’re up, you’re up.

Maurice Cherry:
That’s true. Yeah. You’ve worked at quite a few agencies. You mentioned Team Epiphany, you’ve also been at IPG, you’ve been at Momentum. When you look back at those agency experiences, what do you think was the most impactful based on where and what you do now?

André Smith:
I guess just going off of networking and best… [inaudible 00:30:00] muscle memory, trade craft, right? Where that’s learned, how that’s shaped steel on steel, and how it’s optimized and where that’s applied or deployed. You mentioned Momentum. I’ve done three tours with IPG. Momentum media brands, I consulted for a while with Octagon and Adidas. I just got a text from a Morehouse bro who is now at Adidas covering Atlanta, NY, and ATL and wanted to talk about some ideas. So, look at God, right?

André Smith:
I guess I’ll talk about Momentum first, since I spoke about Martin. I can talk about Momentum second to that. Media brands, I think that the biggest memory or experience I had with Media Brands was hosting the Super Bowl USA Today Ad Meter Watch Party in New Orleans. That was heavy just because it was post Team Epiphany, post doing some post grad studies at Rutgers Center for Management and Development, the CMD, and being in a room with the CMO of Subway, Susan Creedle, to name a few people. Serious stakes.

André Smith:
And I really credit the Five Wells from Morehouse and so on and so forth with kind of giving me that training and that base practice to know how to move in that room. Talking about moving in rooms, talking about global, my favorite memory, I guess, or learned experience from Momentum is shortly after I had left momentum. I took my first leadership director role as strategy chief at 1stAveMachine, which is actually a production company, not even the ad agency.

André Smith:
But part of my deal with 1stAve is I went with two other partners to come for the Creative Lions. And I bumped into the CEO of Momentum, Chris Weil, on La Croisette. And watching his head spin. I said, “Hi, Chris.” Because he’s used to see me in New Orleans. “What you’re doing here?” And I gave him my answer, but walking down the rest of La Croisette on the way back to Palais des Festival, I was thinking like, “Yeah, what am I doing here?”

André Smith:
You’re hanging with [inaudible 00:32:04], having rose on a pier. And you’re all of, what, 25, 27? It’s dope to even be able to have memories like that. So, when I stay in touch with people, like Bonnie today, whether it’s about anything, I have that memory and that connection or… I don’t know what you call it, what do they call it? A sign of early promise or whatever? As a reference.

André Smith:
So, that’s Momentum, that’s Media Brands, Martin. Yeah, just being there with them for agency of the year at the part where it’s really gridlock in the mud, like any given Sunday, rainy day stuff, answering briefs, when the world’s upside down, it isn’t an easy job. I’ll just leave it there on that. And learning from their leadership, Elizabeth Paul, and the leaders who I report to it’s just a really great experience.

André Smith:
To switch, I think I spoke a bit about the classroom, “Google and then go outside,” knowing that they remembered at through three classes and that some success stories. I have a couple students who… Some of my Padawans who learn some of my Jedi ways, I guess, but they’ve gone on to do well for themselves. And one of them is associate project manager at Fluent 360, AAPR at Nissan. Another student is an account executive for Whirlpool, for corporate orders.

André Smith:
Two of them decided to start their own shop, hopefully gets absorbed by a bigger shop one day because I know they have chops to do it. And I guess before that, in my curatorial space, working as a curator and commissioning private commissions and sales, I would say biggest memory from that… I’d say like the opening day of my first show was… I’m literally doing everything. I’m getting food delivered, buying a case of wine and getting champagne.

André Smith:
And that same day, a review came out written by Antwaun Sargent, who’s now the director of Gagosian Worldwide. And at the time he wrote the review, he wrote it for Vice. And that came out in the afternoon, and before the show closed, I sold my first piece and it was a four-figure photo essay. That was hard to top. But then I topped it by doing a three-month… That No Window Shopping residency ran for five months in Williamsburg. And that was followed by a three-month residency in The Mission in San Francisco later that year.

André Smith:
And the only reason why I didn’t do Brexit… The only reason why I didn’t do No Window Shopping UK was because of Brexit had just hit at the time. But yeah, those I think are my big memories and takeaways, outside of my time in music. And I guess knowing that I worked on Jadakiss’s Sophomore album that hit Billboard when it debuted, and I worked on Curren$y’s Pilot Talk, and I was at DD172. And that made a big debut when it hit Billboard. Those are my memories from those times. And I guess all the rest of them are a blur, lots of late nights.

Maurice Cherry:
You’ve been achieving all the success. After you graduated, you really kind of like made your own way, starting out doing this kind of free apprenticeship thing, and then working with agencies. You produced this No Window Shopping event. And then during this time, you ended up going to grad school. What spurred that decision?

André Smith:
Yeah. I graduated Magna Cumme Laude NYU Tisch with my Master’s in art and public policy, and connecting all of the dots from going to Morehouse and… I’d be remiss if I didn’t credit this.

André Smith:
A big impression on me from my time at Bloomberg was Bloomberg Philanthropies. And I think it kind of groomed my eye to the power and duty of big global interests and those types of firms when it comes to corporate social responsibility, which I guess we now call social impact, for all intents and purposes.

André Smith:
And with my work with social clubs, like Noya House or Soho House, or even co-working spaces like The Yard, [inaudible 00:36:02]. I was always very intent on being accountable for the diversity in the room and the diversity I brought to the room. And in time, being around the four A’s, and ADCOLOR and those types of organizations and initiatives, I just come to see inclusion, diversity and equity and social impact really more married than they’re recognized for.

André Smith:
And a big part of what drew my attention to the art and public policy program is I saw it as a way to bring forward my passion for the arts through music and my experience, and my, I guess, you could say success as a curator. And the way I see the relationship of art, community and artists, whether you call them influencers or otherwise, how that relates to brand. When you look at it, even if you go to the Whitman or the Underground Museum or the Studio Museum in Harlem or the High Museum in Atlanta or [inaudible 00:37:07], whichever institution you want to patron, you’re going to see it’s sponsored by these big brands.

André Smith:
So, I was really interested in that initially, but the real reason why I ended up going to do the program is I found, as I was getting more press in Vice or Hyperallergic or so forth, some of the questions I was being approached with by the writers, and maybe sometimes even the questions I was being approached with by collectors or representatives of institutions I’d meet, who came to my openings, who came to the events that I put together as part of the culture programming to stem my shows or my exhibitions and my group exhibitions from opening to closing, I will be honest.

André Smith:
I don’t like the phrase, “I don’t know.” Coming out of Morehouse, it’s not a phrase you hear very frequently on the yard. And if you do hear, it’s met with raised eyebrows, “What do you mean you don’t know?” Either you’re not invested or you’re not trying. But being approached with questions that I didn’t have ready-aimed fire answers for wasn’t something I was used to, happy about or comfortable with.

André Smith:
When you don’t know, that means you need more knowledge. It just worked out that my academic advisor was the artist Karen Elizabeth Finley in my time at Tisch, and I had the privilege and opportunity to do electives at NYU Stern, NYU Steinhardt. And in that time, I was a teaching assistant to Rosalie Goldberg, the founder of the Performa Biennial and Director Emeritus of The Kitchen, which is like a legacy institution in Chelsea for anyone who knows about the arts from the ’60s and the ’70s and the ’80s.

Maurice Cherry:
Now, you’ve mentioned earlier about… excuse me, about being a lecturer at the University of Illinois Chicago. How did that opportunity come about?

André Smith:
Yeah, that is serendipity. And luck is really just preparation, patience and timing. And you could just boil it down to that because at the time I just finished my Master’s and I had envisioned or fancied myself going to a firm like LaPlaca Cohen because that would be a beautiful marriage of the things that I had done and the interest I’d cultivated and cured to that point with my Master’s program.

André Smith:
In the time I was at Tisch doing my Master’s, I did my graduate field work with Twitter and Creative Time. It didn’t take. And then 45 crushed the endowments for the arts and the humanities with one pen stroke. So, the funding for the things I wanted to do, the pool got a lot smaller. It was going to be limited to fellowships and things like that.

André Smith:
And my wife, Nicole, decided that she wanted to pursue her Master’s degree. So, she got into the 2Y program at Northwestern Kellogg and spent a lot of time in Chicago looking to maybe explore and expand my curatorial practice in that city. It was slow motion on that, and it just happened one day I was at a restaurant and some individual, the lovely lady that sat next to me, this was all pre-pandemic, no face mask required. We started up a conversation and she was sharing about her daughter and her daughter going to Notre Dame and looking to do business and looking for internship opportunities, and I, empathetically, generously offered to say, “Well, if she has any interest in Bloomberg, if she’s trying to start her way in through media, I’d be more than happy to make an introduction. I actually know one or two more house alums who were still there. It wouldn’t be a problem.”

André Smith:
And she gave me her card and we got in touch and I was looking for opportunities maybe with the school. And when she looked up my LinkedIn and she kept me back, she just said, “We should talk.” I was like, “Yeah. I looked at some opportunities on the site. I’d like to talk about.” She’s like, “No, you should teach.” And I was like, “Okay.” I joined the faculty as an adjunct lecturer. Within a semester, I was promoted to visiting a lecturer of culture and innovation in the managerial studies program, the college of business administration at UIC.

Maurice Cherry:
When you look back at that time, what did your students teach you?

André Smith:
Oh, wow. A lot of my students were first gen college attendees. A fair number of them were new immigrants, ESL. They taught me a lot about patience and empathy, but they also taught me, I would say… My pedagogy at UIC was really cured around critical thinking, immersive play, team dynamics and group work. And what they taught me is that this generation needs a lot more help training, coaching, and practice in group work. A lot of, “I, I” focus: iPhone, iWatch, Instagram.

André Smith:
And a lot of the appetite for instant gratification, I think, makes it hard to develop the patience and empathy to be a good team player. That’s why in my two-year tenure at UIC, I passed on midterms and finals, and I ran my classes like agencies. 14-week sprints. And ironically, that was really good practice and training for me, doing sprints for Masterclass and then Martin.

André Smith:
But in the way I ran the classes, or the agency as class, it was to do with your four… Teams are broke up in fours, right? Account, media, creative and art direction. And giving them those, I guess, buckets to play in, seeing how they use that to acquiesce to… Using immersive play to acquiesce to better group work by making it immersive was very insightful for me. And I was not shy about using and applying that to the juniors I managed as a planning director at Martin.

Maurice Cherry:
Now, let’s say someone out here is listening to this and they’re picking up all the names you mentioned and all the different opportunities and things that you’ve done. If somebody out there wants to sort of follow in your footsteps, what advice would you give them?

André Smith:
Besides Google and go outside? I would say, know your power. Leonard [inaudible 00:43:27], he has a show on Comedy Central. He has a book out about knowing how to apply and leverage… The word he uses is privilege. But I feel like that’s a bit cagey. We want to be careful with the teeth on this.

André Smith:
But knowing how to learn and leverage your superpowers is really important. I wear glasses, right? I’m a New York kid. I talk fast. There are times I’m in the room where I’m overdressed, there are times I’m in the room coming from another series of a couple of events or meetings where I’m client facing to that audience and I might find myself underdressed, which isn’t really true because I’m always confident about it. I wore a Yankee cap into City Hall, which I’ve actually done before. So, there’s that.

André Smith:
But I’ll use my Yankee cap as a springboard because it’s me being true to myself. I’m from the Bronx, I’m proud to say it. I’m from the same place as Ralph Lipchitz and Calvin Klein, [inaudible 00:44:18]. So, I’ve always been keen to know and not be shy about what my superpowers are. At the same time, I would caution and advise, be mindful of other people’s superpowers and their sensitivities.

André Smith:
But make one of your superpowers curving sensitivities and amping room for empathy and collaboration. One of the big takeaways I also remember from my time at Momentum was the idea of… Really, the philosophy and the practice of co-creation. Answer the brief with the client. Don’t just answer the brief for the client. And likewise in relationships, whether they’re emerging or continuing, be the friend that’s like the therapist, not the friend that’s the friend that people need to see a therapist about.

Maurice Cherry:
Where do you think your life would’ve gone if you weren’t doing what you do now?

André Smith:
That’s a really good question. When I was a little boy, I thought I wanted to be a judge. And as I got older, volume two on cassette, I saw myself working in management because I really have a passion for the artists. Evident to any artist who I ever paid a studio visit to, who I ever featured in the show, or even if they weren’t in the show, I featured them in some culture programming I was doing for a social club or a client.

André Smith:
It’s not so much more about like the power trip with judges and lawyers, but about having the power to defend and to represent, for people who might not be best equipped to represent themself or their value. But I think working as a creative, whether that’s a creative strategist or curator or a creative producer, in a lot of ways, you have almost more responsibility and power than a judge because while a judge can set precedent as a creative, you can inform or almost even at sometimes, dictate culture.

André Smith:
And ultimately, culture is the law of the land and it rules the day. It almost rides higher than the law in a lot of cases, which is one of the things that leads to us redrafting and reshaping culture. So, what I just said is basically what I learned in my Master’s program, art and public policy because there’s culture lowercase C and there’s culture capital C. And then their culture is lowercase C. But culture informs public policy and public policy ultimately informs legislative and written policy.

Maurice Cherry:
What do you want your legacy to be? When you look back at your career, you look back at what you’ve accomplished to where you are now, what do you want to do in the next few years or so, something like that?

André Smith:
In the next few years, my big bet is automated retail. And I have a smart answer for that. More coming soon. But I guess when it’s all said and done, a lot of people will laugh and libate to my memory and say, “He sometimes had a long voiceover. And sometimes it was a lot to follow, but it all came with a lot of passion. And if you’re listening, you understand. And even if you don’t understand, he always cared enough to break it down. He was the type of guy who would sit with you for an hour, helping you with a problem. When you asked him for $5 and he was like, ‘You don’t need my $5. I just gave you $5 million worth of insight and energy.'”

André Smith:
And it wouldn’t be bad, I guess, if people say, “He loved hard and he played hard.” Because I think for me ultimately that’s what it comes down to. Frustration is just fun with a lot of filling letters in the middle. And I’ve always, probably why, I guess, I chose English and leadership studies at Morehouse instead of business, marketing or political science is because in those more constrictive spaces, it’s hard to start the tape with, “Let’s cut down frustration. Let’s just get to the fun.”

André Smith:
What does that mean? How does that work? What are you talking about? I’m talking about the answer to the brief, I’m talking about the way to start today’s lecture. I’m talking about a way to get over worrying about the glass breaking on the shadow box and the show starts in a few minutes. Let’s go Banksy with it. Let’s put it through a paper shredder. Let’s see what happens.

Maurice Cherry:
Well, just to wrap things up here, where can our audience find out more about you and about your work and everything online?

André Smith:
Dre Powers. D-R-E P-O-W-E-R-S. Dre Powers. Everything’s basically Dre Powers. You can find me on that, and you can see some of my legacy work and some of my latest work on AppendixWorks.com, A-P-P-E-N-D-I-X W-O-R-K-S.com.

Maurice Cherry:
Sounds good. Well, André Smith, I want to thank you first so much for coming on the show. One, just for sharing your expansive career and the work that you’ve done. But I think also it’s good, certainly for people in our audience to hear, like you mentioned, sort of the passion behind the work that you do. Clearly you have a love for this. You have a knack for it. You have an affinity for it. And I’m glad that you were able to really share that with our audience through this interview today. So, thank you so much for coming on the show. I appreciate it.

André Smith:
Thank you for the space and the time.

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Brevity & Wit is a strategy and design firm committed to designing a more inclusive and equitable world.

We accomplish this through graphic design, presentations and workshops around I-D-E-A: inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility.

If you’re curious to learn how to combine a passion for I-D-E-A with design, check us out at brevityandwit.com.

Brevity & Wit — creative excellence without the grind.

As a working artist, it can be a constant battle between unchallenged freedom of expression and doing what you need to do to survive and put food on the table. Artist and designer Kendrick Daye has successfully found a way to bridge this divide, and I’m glad to have a chance to talk with him about how he manages that balance in the city that never sleeps.

We talked about Kendrick’s vibrant mixed media collage style and he shared where his inspiration comes from for his work. We also talked about what his time was like as a student at Morehouse, and how those experiences shaped him into the artist he is today. Kendrick wants his work to inspire others to do their own thing, and at this rate, I think he’s well on his way to make that happen!


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“If there’s one thing I want people to know, it’s that computer science is accessible by everyone.” When Dr. James H. Hill told me that, I had a feeling this was going to be a pretty interesting interview. Dr. Hill is currently an associate professor of computer science at Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) where he teaches undergraduate and graduate courses and serves as co-director of their Software Engineering and Distributed Systems research group.

We started off with Dr. Hill’s backstory and how he got into computer science, and from there he walks us through his work at IUPUI and some of the current projects he’s overseeing and researching. Dr. Hill and I also spoke about the current government administration’s focus on computer science curriculum and what that means for educators and students. It’s a great interview, and I’m always glad to get the chance to talk with a fellow Morehouse alum. Enjoy!


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This week’s conversation is with one of my closest and dearest friends, Dr. Christopher Charles Stewart. Christopher is an assistant professor of computer science at The Ohio State University. He also leads the ReRout Lab, a program that uses computer systems to broaden participation in computer science and build real systems that people use. He’s also a recipient of the prestigious NSF Career Award! Way to go, Chris!

We talked about his research over at OSU with cloud computing systems, “greening as a service”, and how to increase diversity in the field of computer science.

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