KEN VULSION

BIOGRAPHY

First of all, I’m an unreliable narrator, so keep that in mind.

I got my first job in advertising by sending guns and ransom notes around NYC to people I wanted to work for. Gary Goldsmith was brave and crazy enough to hire me at Geers Gross to work on Nintendo and Wamsutta. I had been obsessed with the spare conceptual print he did at DDB and Chiat/Day. 

With Gary’s help and the help of my portfolio doctor - Dany Lennon by 1987 I was working at DDB. Helmut Krone was still behind his glass desk, as were many of the greats. I was learning as much as possible and grinding away on Seagrams, Volkswagen, GTE, and Hershey. 

These were the days when you could shoot a liquor ad or chocolate syrup commercial in London (I did) taking in as much as possible, riding the night bus to Hackney for a Guy Fawkes Day party, checking out the beginnings of Rave Culture at Heaven under the arches (put your hands in the air) sleeping in a jewel box of a hotel room in Blakes. It was lovely. 

I came home to 2nd Street in the East Village to a used condom stretched over the doorknob to my building. This and the crushing, brutal weather made me look westward. By then I’d read “On The Road” and taken two cross country trips, one a drive-away to Hollywood, and another to San Francisco with a comrade from ACT-UP.

Being young, one job wasn’t enough: I was designing posters for the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power. A campaign for the Target City Hall demonstration helped get me a job at Ketchum Advertising in San Francisco. In 1989 it was unusual for the top management of the agency to be all women, as was my partner and writer Suzanne Finnamore. Millie Olsen was the ECD, Lynda Pearson was our CD, Debora January head of Production and Diane Snedaker President. As a bonus there was a test kitchen tucked away in the basement where the great Maggie Waldron was developing recipes for our clients The Beef Council and the Potato Board. I was in love with the warmth and the relaxed, open work culture. 

I also fell in love with film, via commercials. 

It was always best to sit next to the script supervisor, which afforded proximity to the camera. The people behind the camera were often overqualified Oscar nominees – exceedingly well paid, and gracious to a young art director learning about light studies and frame rates. I directed a short documentary, The Lavender Tortoise, and developed a feature with Rob Epstein and two documentaries. Besides work for ACT UP and Queer Nation (and some other work that was less than legal) I was making posters for club nights URANUS at the End Up, Product at 1015 Folsom, and outlaw party Corduroy City. 

The second Summer of Love came to the Bay Area in 1992 as Rave Culture hit big in the US. While still holding down a day job in advertising (by now Suzanne and I had gone to Hal Riney & Partners and then FCB) I was out at night documenting warehouse parties and Full Moon raves with a video camera… eventually I put the camera down and just danced. By 1995 we had sold a big campaign to Levis for 501 jeans. The big, loose-fitting clothing ravers and skaters wore then was the opposite of the classic 501 cut, which were seen as ‘dad jeans’ by the teenagers Levis wanted. To appeal to these mysterious creatures we were given freedom and a decent budget to develop the campaign with Propaganda/Satellite Films and their roster of directors - Spike Jonze, Peter Care, Nick Egan, Simon West, and David Fincher. For the soundtracks we brought in the Hardkiss Brothers and Voice Farm and even Steve Jones from the Sex Pistols for a punk spot that never aired. I’d become friends with Gus Van Sant in the 90’s when we worked together on the Anti Violence Campaign. We had an ample enough budget for Gus to make his very first commercial. ‘Second Day’ was cast by Gus and me in the parking lot of a Grateful Dead show in Portland OR. The music for the spot was by Bill Frisell. Though recorded before the shoot, it perfectly matched Angus Walls’ edits - all five of them. Gus being a ‘first-time’ commercial director, the client was nervous. We proposed Harris Savides as cinematographer to allay their fears. Gus was very gracious with the ask. We hung out after the session with Bill Frisell to watch the premiere of a Michael Jackson clip that Harris had just shot. I felt like a proud matchmaker as they went on to make great movies together. 

Sadly, the great Mike Koelker had passed away by now and left the FCB creative department in unfortunate hands. The new ECD, when told Van Sant was interested in directing a commercial, didn’t know who he was. 

It seemed like a good idea to hire my own boss, and I did when Tom Bonuaro came onboard as Design Director for the Levis campaign. It was a joy to work as Tom’s apprentice and learn about Studio Practice. His cult status in the graphic arts was amplified by 45 million Levis dollars. Elements of the Top 501 Reasons campaign made their way into the Gnomon - part of a retrospective of Tom’s work at SFMOMA. When we left FCB in 1996, I left working as a staff Art Director behind. I have freelanced ever since. The book The Third Wave by Alvin Toffler was a huge influence, and I wanted to give ‘the Electronic Cottage’ a chance. The cottage in this case was a beach house in the secret town of Bolinas with a wobbly dial-up connection. (If you ever tried to call me in those days and got a busy signal I APOLOGIZE.) 

Tom Bonauro and I worked in loose collaboration with the aforementioned Finnamore and Gus, as well as Todd Oldham, Beth Koelker, Bill Heater, Tony Kaye Films, Megan Amberson, Ed Bianchi, Jim Goldberg, Richard Burbridge, Steve Stone and Toby Barlow to name a few. It was a nice circle of trust. I had also started DJing again having played in clubs when I was 18 and doing a radio show at FIT/NY when I was in school. Besides days-long Hardkiss Family Circus parties in the Bolinas house, I was also playing music at Burning Man for the notorious Jiffy-Lube camp. The poet Jean Cocteau was my pole-star: I wanted to play music in a cafe for food and drink and friends as he did in the 1920s. 

Soon I was living in SF again above the Castro playing records down the street at Cafe Flore. Not Paris, but close enough. I met Jacob Sperber at Flore while he was playing Adam and the Ants - an unusual choice for a 19-year-old DJ. We formed Honey Soundsystem in 2006, and I was back in NY, London, Chicago, Portland and LA - but this time with a record bag and a collective of DJs, dancers, drag queens and freaks. I was also the graphics lead for Honey, and some of the posters caught the eye of Creative Director Brian Bacino. We had met when both of us were on Taco Bell at FCB. Along with other FCB vets including President Jack Boland, we came together at Baker Street Advertising. Ironically, I had moved back into my original apartment on Baker Street. So what seemed like me starting an ad agency was really just a reference to Sherlock Holmes. 

By 2013 I had become a ‘perma-lancer’ and BSA’s Design Director. Besides car and hospitality accounts, which I had done before, we had the San Francisco Giants as a client. I knew nothing about baseball, but quickly learned how to pronounce Tim Lincecum. The Giants won two World Series -- not necessarily because of the work, but it helped. 

It was easier having an ‘Electronic Cottage’ by now - working remotely with New Moon on Porsche, BSA on Honda, and environmental design for nightclubs using video mapping technology. The artist Nicolas Schuring became a member of household in 2015 and we combined our studio practice under his brand Villain Standard. Besides the occasional blizzard of banner ads, or a two-week sprint on a Google Slides deck, we found time to open risu-en a successful restaurant offering Omakase- style dining for squirrels.    

-April 2023