“I’ve always been an artist; I drew all the time.”
Gil Shuler is a graphic designer and business owner in Charleston, South Carolina. He holds a Bachelor’s in Fine Arts with a concentration in Graphic Design from Western Carolina University. He has owned his design studio and company, Gil Shuler Graphic Design Inc., for over forty years and is known for his artwork of the “Palmetto Doves.”
Interview
Transcript
Gil Shuler
My name is Gil Schuler, and I am, originally I was born in Sumter, South Carolina, but I’ve lived in Mount Pleasant, Charleston area since 1983.
Emma Plutnicki
Perfect. And can you tell us what you do for work?
Gil Shuler
I am a graphic designer. And that was my major in college, and I was BFA bachelor of fine arts with a concentration in graphic design. So I’ve had a design studio here in Charleston, Mount Pleasant since 1985.
Emma Plutnicki
Amazing. So do you, or is it your own art studio? Or do you work in an overarching umbrella company or anything?
Gil Shuler
No, it’s my own company. I’ve had Gil Schuler Graphic Design Inc. since ’85 and I’ve normally had like, five to six employees. Over the past 30 something years or so, right before the pandemic, I decided to scale down. It was me plus three in my studio, in my big studio, and about eight months before the pandemic, I decided to scale down, and it was time and so I let everybody go. And most of the folks that have worked for me, those three, one had worked for me for twenty-three years, one for eighteen and one for, like, eight. And they all landed on their feet. They’re all good to go. And so, now I sold my studio, I built a studio seventeen, eighteen years ago. And it was a big 2700 square foot really cool studio designed by Reggie Gibbs and so then when I was my plan to eventually sell it, so I sold it about a year ago, a little over a year ago and moved into my home studio, which is this giant, little room right here.
Amazing. So how did you end up doing this? How did you hear about it? How did you know that this was something that you could even do?
Gil Shuler
Oh, I’ve always been an artist. And growing up, I drew all the time, and I wanted to do something with that. And I used to take private art lessons and do oil paintings. And I did that up until about 10th or 11th grade and I got kind of burned out on it.
Gil Shuler
So my parents were all about education, and I had two older siblings that had already gone off to college. And so you know, it was definite going to college. And I looked at a bunch of colleges, and I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I really just wanted to get out of town, you know. So I went to Anderson Junior College, because that was the only place I could get in. And I was there for two years, and after the second year of just basically partying, I was like, “you know, I need to do something.” And so I took art classes because I was good at that. And so I talked to my professor and they said, “Hey, have you ever heard of graphic design?” And this was this ’80, 1980-’81 I was like, “No.”
Gil Shuler
I love music, I play music. I’ve always had lots of albums. So I loved album art, you know, specifically, and then skateboard stuff and skateboard T-shirts. Sso I was always into that, I just didn’t know what it was called. And so then she introduced me to it and said “there’s this great program at Western Carolina” at the time Western Carolina University. So I went up there and showed them my little measly portfolio and got accepted into their program and, and had two major intense years. It was a great program. Great professor. Wade Hobgood was the professor then and he’s awesome. And so I came out of there in ’83 with a BFA and concentration in graphic design with this really great portfolio from all the hard work we’ve done over two years. And it was a lot about teaching the basics of design and concept and conceptual design and logos and branding and stuff.
Gil Shuler
But also, you know, this was, you know, ’83 So we didn’t really get computers until ’92 or ’93-’94. So for my first 10 years of business, I did everything by hand. And that’s how we learned was ruling pins and mechanical boards. And so when you’re doing that stuff, it’s all print stuff, you know, everything ends up being printed back in the day. And so you had to know the printing processes. So that was a big part was learning about printing so you could spec jobs, so you could design jobs that could be produced and not you know, because you don’t know anything, so, we learned a lot about that, procedures of that stuff. So then, you know, I started doing it. That’s how I got into it and I loved it, now, I’ve always loved it and from from when I started doing it at Western I was like “oh this is so cool.” And, and even though I’m somewhat ADHD, I’ve never been a real organized person, I could do this, you know, it was all about thinking and ideas and coming up with ideas and then executing them really well. And I liked that part of it, working with my hands and doing all that stuff. And so, you know, I’m 63 now and I still love doing it. And I like it more even now that it’s just me, you know?
Emma Plutnicki
That’s great, yeah, that’s an amazing journey. So nowadays, what does a typical day look like?
Gil Shuler
Oh, man, well, a typical day for me is like, get up, lesiure in the morning, cup of coffee, come back into my little space. I have jobs, I have multiple jobs. This is like my list, here, that I produce, every Monday I write a new list. And so I go down the list and I work, and so depending on the weather, depending on the day, you know, I might come in here in the morning work for a couple hours. And then if the tides, you know, right for going out, throw in the fly, I got a little flat boat and I’ll take off and go fishing and come back and work. So it’s, it’s fairly unregulated. It’s not like, you know, going to work that nine o’clock in the morning knocking off at five, I may start work at 10 o’clock, and I might not look up till two o’clock, I might start at 10 stop at 11 go do some for a few hours come back. It’s real flexible.
Emma Plutnicki
Yeah, that makes sense. So has it been challenging in this career field, especially being an entrepreneur? Getting into the field? Having success in the field and kind of being your own director?
Gil Shuler
When I first started, you know, it was, like I said, ’83, and Charleston, I wanted to live down here in Charleston, because I’ve always loved Charleston, and I love the saltwater, like I said I do a lot of fishing. So I wanted to be near the saltwater. And there wasn’t a lot of folks down here then you know? And so I started working for a couple of little small ad agencies, I worked for a year and a half, and then I went out on my own and ’85 but they were basically print shops like design studios, and we would do for developments from down in Beaufort all the way up to, you know, Myrtle Beach there’d be these coastal developments and we do a lot of identity and branding and stuff for that stuff. And I was, I did not like account managers and account executives and so, and I’ve never been one to answer to many folks, you know, but I worked all through high school, but I really haven’t ever worked for anybody except for myself, you know? Because I just I like to do it the way I like to do it and so I don’t work good with other folks when it comes to that. Plus you, I told you, I like to get up when I get up, I was always late to work when I worked for people. And it was challenging in, it was challenging in that it was new and learning the business and learning how to do accounts payable and accounts receivable and all that stuff because I’ve never had any business acumen and I’m not a math guy, so, it was just winging it and learning from mistakes. And I’ve always been about high design and studying design so I came down here at a great time when there wasn’t, there was like maybe one other design studio, and one other guy that was really pretty good, but that was it. And, so I was like “wow, this is great.” So I immediately, I met my wife and my first studio was this old building that fell down during Hugo but it was an artist building like six stories and it was real raw, it was, it was like bricks falling out and you know, no central heat and AC or anything like that. It was just an artist’s loft four stories. It was West Fraser and Mariana Fraser up there and chopstick theaters on the bottom floor. And so I met my wife who was in the theater company, and they were a professional theater company doing shows and I said, “Well, let me do your posters. And I’ll get them printed, and I’ll do ’em big, and I’ll do them for free and I’ll get them printed for free.” And so then I would get them printed, then I’d go around town and stick them up and, and so that’s really how I started getting work. You know, I had work from the other agencies that people followed me and would hire me to do it, but then they’d start seeing who did that stuff, and then people would call me, and it was a real different time without computer and internet and email and all of that, you know, it was mostly word of mouth. And then they would have these big award ceremonies at the end of the year whether it was the Addy Awards or, or some art directors club there that was here for a while and so that’s where I put all my eggs in my basket, end of the year I’d enter all these things with stuff I had done, that I thought was good, and I won a lot of awards and then my name got around and I started staying busy all the time.
Gil Shuler
And now you know you swing a dead cat you’re gonna hit a graphic designer, it seems like in this town. Which is fine, because now with the, with the advent of the Internet and computers and everything you can work from anywhere, you know. So I work for people all over the place, I’m going on a van trip at about at April 1st for like three weeks and taking one of my computers and I got a Starlink Wi-Fi that I’ll put out on top of the van when we stop so I can work if I need to work and access the internet, because you know. So we work in programs, it’s Adobe Creative Suite, and they’re all in the cloud. If I want to work in Illustrator and work on a job, I gotta have Wi-Fi. And so I think it’s gonna work out pretty good, I’m kind of excited to try it, you know, I’ve never really gone on the road and worked.
When you mentioned just now about the awards, are there any other organizations or events in South Carolina that could be helpful for kind of networking, getting your way into a field like this?
Gil Shuler
You know, there’s not that many here anymore. If you’re a designer, and you want some exposure, clients or customers like that, there’s a lot of options. There’s a lot of like, there’s this program on this website called Dribbble, it’s got three B’s in it, and it’s a site for artists and graphic designers and illustrators. And you can put a portfolio on there, and you can pay certain amount a month and be a pro and get hired from that now. But there’s a lot of those like that. The way to promote yourself now as a graphic designer is on social media. And that’s whether it’s Instagram, or Facebook, of course, all the TikTok, Instagram, X, then there’s Threads. And so getting yourself out there on those things is really the way to go. And I was late to the game on that, you know, so, but that’s how you promote these days. I think that’s the way to go. If I just started when all that stuff started doing that promotion, I’d have tons more followers, I think. But whatever.
So throughout your entire career, have you had one project that stands out as like significantly impacting you, or just kind of being like a defining moment in your creative journey?
Gil Shuler
Normally I’d say no, because I really like every job I work on. But one that a lot of people would say that identifies me is when Dylann Roof went in the church, in Emanuel, in Mother Emanuel down here 10 years ago and shot those people, that was just, I know that church, I knew some of those people, you know, it’s literally from my studio to that church is like three miles. And it just moved me, I mean, it was just a tragedy and just shocking. And so that next day I came in and did this little Palmetto Doves, this art right here for the nine people that died. And people just love that and it’s still going on. And people, I send them the art, I don’t charge anything for that they get stickers and shirts, and everything printed up. And so that might be the one thing that is proud work, you know.
Yeah. Just as we wrap up, do you have any advice for people who are looking to get into a career similar to yours or any specific skills that are beneficial to have, if you were to try to get into this field?
Gil Shuler
You know, if somebody wants to try and get into, like, the graphic design field, which has a lot of, there’s a lot of specialties in it. There’s everything from illustration to, you know, brand identity, to print publication to poster design to all of that. So it involves all that. I do feel it’s important that if you can get an education specific to that field is good, and so that’ll get you a head start because you have portfolio and you can look at getting a job and or even working on your own depending on how much of a, how ambitious you are and how much of a go-getter you are.
Gil Shuler
But the best advice I can give somebody is to, you know, get your portfolio together. If you want to work for somebody go out and interview, send it out to a lot of people, start a social media page, post it on there, make yourself a website, whatever you can do. Once you get the job, whether you work for yourself and you, somebody hired you to do a job, a logo, or whether you’re working for another design studio as an art director, as a designer, you really need to listen, you need to listen really good. And always remember that don’t be a diva, your, the client is paying you and they’re the ones, they’re the one that has to live with the artwork. You don’t have to live with it. They have to live with it. So, I’m not saying that their, what they say goes. You put your best effort toward giving them what you think is the best solution. And if you give them that best solution and you sell I’d like to them, this is the solution, and they go, “ehh, not really crazy about it,” the last thing you want to do is go, “well, screw you, I’m not doing that,” you know? You really want to say, “okay, cool,” and be flexible and listen and hear what they want to say. And most of the time they’re right, you know, and you’re wrong. You’re just your ego and, and you might have a great piece of art, but you might can use that art five years from now in something else, you know? So really, the best advice is to be flexible. Listen, don’t talk, listen. I mean, I can’t say that enough. And then execute. When you when you do get the job and you are hired, or it’s assigned to you by your art director, you put your best foot forward and you come up with a great idea. And if you, you know, and however you, once you get that idea and you want to show it, you need to execute it and your craftsmanship needs to be at a real high level.
Gil Shuler
And so, so learn those programs and learn craftsmanship and do work for free if you can, if you can afford to, just to build your chops. You know, I still, every week, I do a barn jam poster for Awendaw Green, which is a music venue here. And I’ve done that poster, a poster almost every Tuesday night since 2010 or 2009. I’ve got close to 1000 of these posters, okay? And I think that all started around the time of the recession, and basically I was doing it just to have some work and to just get better. You know, you can always get better so I’m always trying to get better. And I think in this business that’s how I can do it.
