Information
Title: Morning Breath
Writer: Matthew Newton
Article type: Feature
Publication: Juxtapoz, issue 77 (June 2007)
Photo credits (left): Portrait by Boogie, all other images copyright Morning Breath.
Jason Noto and Doug Cunningham are the real deal. After talking to these guys for five minutes I felt like I was catching up with old friends. Being comfortable, and somewhat loosened up, always makes for a good interview. Throw in the fact that Noto and Cunningham are producing incredibly original work, and are humble about it too? Let's just say it would be hard not to have respect for these two.
Writer: Matthew Newton
Article type: Feature
Publication: Juxtapoz, issue 77 (June 2007)
Photo credits (left): Portrait by Boogie, all other images copyright Morning Breath.
Jason Noto and Doug Cunningham are the real deal. After talking to these guys for five minutes I felt like I was catching up with old friends. Being comfortable, and somewhat loosened up, always makes for a good interview. Throw in the fact that Noto and Cunningham are producing incredibly original work, and are humble about it too? Let's just say it would be hard not to have respect for these two.
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Is Sampling Dead?
The Inquisition: Girl Talk
RZA: Beyond Shaolin
Sam Weber
Robert Standish
Dave Kinsey
2007
Art Company, Inc.
American Twilight
Ben Tour
Morning Breath
The Redemption of David Choe
2006
Unquiet Ruins
Fables & Folktales
Programmed Perfection
Pedal-Powered Revolution
2005
Cody Hudson: Living the Dream
Eve of Destruction
Musical Graffiti II
Writers' Bloc
Fatlip: Clownin'
James Lavelle
Reboot the System
Flo Zavala: Strange Brew
Team Sleep: Not your little brother's Deftones
BoxBots
Aesop Rock: Labor Days
David Gensler: Trust the KDU
Musical Graffiti I
2004
Vis-Ed: ehquestionmark
DJ Krush: International Affairs
Surface To Air
Swoon: Off the Wall
Múm: Summer Made Good
Funkstörung: Disconnected Pop
Rhyme Wave: Eyedea & Abilities
The Barnstormers: Southern Comfort
Urban Art Renewal
Princess and the Pirate
Re:Session: Beam
In the Studio: Blockhead
HVW8: Politically Minded
2003
Kinsey: LA's Magic Marker
Vis-Ed: HVW8 Art Installation
Faile Safe
Morning Breath for Juxtapoz Magazine
Published Work
It’s late morning in DUMBO, Brooklyn and sunlight is pouring through the tall windows that open into Jason Noto and Doug Cunningham’s 10th floor Jay Street studio. The view of the city from this perspective is majestic, framing the Empire State Building and Lower East Side in a snapshot you could pass off as a postcard. While most of New York’s working stiffs are already breaking for lunch, Noto and Cunningham are just punching in—getting started on a workday that normally wraps about the same time “Wheel of Fortune” signs off and primetime TV begins. But that’s one of the perks of running your own shop. No boss, no bullshit.
Morning Breath—a moniker that Noto and Cunningham adopted back in mid-2002 for their independent art and design studio—has been a way for the pair to leave a footprint in the commercial art world while at the same time pursuing their grimy, lo-fi personal work. Since its inception, Morning Breath’s reputation for producing high quality work has provided a steady stream of client-based projects—primarily album packaging and design for high-profile clients like Queens of the Stone Age, De La Soul, and Jay-Z. In turn, this avenue has allowed Noto and Cunningham the freedom to push the boundaries of their personal work.
The pair’s studio space is bristling with supplies and original artwork, quickly eating up the 1,500 square feet of real estate they inhabit. A collection of skate decks and one-off screen prints consume a piece of the right hand wall, while a stack of shelves populated with vinyl toys looms on the left. The smell of turpentine and oil-based paint clings to the air, and dust particles swirl in the broken shafts of daylight illuminating the weathered wooden floor. The screeching wheels of the Q Train crisscrossing the nearby Manhattan Bridge throughout the day has become like background music in the studio. And the occasional police helicopter swirling overhead is just a random accessory of post-9/11 New York life.
On a table nearest the windows, spray paint cans, rolls of masking tape, and several bottles of mysterious-looking screen print solvents (some of which, Noto informs me, are now illegal in California due to their toxic odor) are littered across the surface. This is where Noto preps and cuts screens for printing on everything from posters and t-shirts, to skate decks and plywood. On the far wall, Cunningham’s drafting table—where he sketches his signature character illustrations (see: creepy old men with crooked teeth, babies brandishing switchblades, and so on)—is stationed beneath a large print of the Michelin Man wearing a Zorro-style mask. The overall vibe of the studio is warm, welcoming, somewhere you’d enjoy getting drunk just to stare at all the artwork on the walls. That is, if the owners let you.
When talking with Noto and Cunningham you discover that their tastes and influences are eerily similar. The late 70s and early 80s are an era of particular interest. Perhaps it’s because they were both born in 1971 and grew up sniffing glue and racking paint, going to punk rock shows and listening to hip hop. Or perhaps they just share a bizarre obsession with BMX bikes, comic books, and vintage typography that only they understand. Whatever the case, Morning Breath’s cut and paste, DIY aesthetic is as much about 1970s nostalgia and pop culture tribute, as it is bar stool humor and social observation. Cunningham often refers to the vision of their work as “a child’s world seen through adult eyes.” And because the artwork is devoid of hipster lingo and cooler-than-you references, there is a certain level of honesty and quality that’s absent from the work of many of their contemporaries.
“Make sure you don’t get glue on the windshield,” Noto says, repeating a phrase that he and Cunningham use when they need to warn each other that the quality of their work may be slipping. “It goes back to being a kid and making model cars. There were always those kids who rushed making their cars in one night and fucked them up instead of taking their time and letting things dry right.”
Cutting teeth
“Our main goal was not to work for anybody,” Noto says, explaining what prompted him and Cunningham to found Morning Breath. “We wanted to create our own lifestyle, create our own way that we do things. And even though we do have to work with larger companies who are obviously in a corporate setting, we’re still doing it under our rules.”
Creative autonomy is a critical factor in Noto and Cunningham’s vision. With experience working as part of larger organizations (both solo and collaboratively), and with less control than they desired, the idea behind Morning Breath was to empower themselves as creators.
“No one can fire us,” Cunningham says. “They can kick us off a job, but no matter what we’re controlling our own destiny and treating it in a very independent way. It’s our gig.”
Noto and Cunningham first met in San Francisco in the mid-1990s while working at Think Skateboards designing deck graphics. While the other artists at Think primarily worked solo, the two established a collaborative process that was seamless in its execution (Noto handling design; Cunningham adding illustrations), and for the most part, remains unchanged.
“I went out to San Francisco somewhat sight unseen and not quite sure of what I was going to do,” Noto says. “Through a friend I got hooked up with Think. During that time I worked with a group of really great artists (Note: Cycle, Mike Giant, Jeremy Fish, and Rob Abeyta), and Doug was one of them. We just hit it off on like everything we were into, from color palettes to humor to childhood memories—we’re very nostalgic dudes. Everything in our artwork is somewhat based on that.”
Nostalgia and personal experience are obviously the key ingredients that inform Morning Breath’s work. Growing up in New Jersey, Noto’s exposure to the punk and hardcore scene played a major role in shaping his visual sensibility. As a teenager he poured over the artwork on flyers, zines, and album covers, identifying with the raw, unvarnished appeal of a fiercely independent movement. After several odd jobs and a brief spell studying design at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, Noto decided to head out West.
Cunningham developed somewhat differently as an artist. He cut his teeth as a teenager in the San Francisco graffiti scene of the mid-1980s, gaining fame as Dug-One, a writer known for innovative letter styles and the use of characters in his work. The iconic “Free South Africa” piece featured in the opening pages of Spraycan Art was a collaborative effort between Cunningham and local SF writer Slimm.
“I’ve pretty much drawn my whole life,” he says. “By the time I got into high school I was meeting other writers and we started the TMF crew. Once I was deep into [the scene] I was introduced to the New York aesthetic of graffiti and that was the moment when I really thought about what I was doing. Before that, I just did it because I could.”
After leaving Think Skateboards, Noto and Cunningham stayed in contact while pursuing separate ventures. Noto returned to New York and worked at the Drawing Board, Def Jam’s in-house graphic design firm helmed by famed East Village underground art veteran Cey Adams.
“I don’t think we ever really lost touch,” Cunningham says, “because by the time Jason was working solid at Def Jam, he’d hit me up with things that they had going on that I could jump into—spot illustrations and simple logo designs. So we kind of continuously worked back and forth.”
Cunningham remained in the San Francisco area, doing spot illustrations for album packages and working primarily with DJ Q-Bert. He was centrally involved in the art direction for Q-Bert’s animated film "Wave Twisters"—which garnered a cult following on the film festival circuit before landing a midnight screening at Sundance.
“We were always discussing that we should [start our own company],” Noto says. “Even the whole time with being on different coasts, the nights of long phone calls saying ‘Fuck, we should do this, we should do this.’ Finally it transcended to [become Morning Breath].”
Back to the future
“Jason is the straight man and Doug is the loose cannon,” says KR, laughing as he uses an Abbott and Costello analogy to describe the relationship of his longtime friends. “Jason is the balance. He’s patient, he listens. But with Doug, anything can happen.”
A native of Queens, New York, KR met Doug Cunningham through the graffiti scene while living in San Francisco in the early 1990s. He later met Jason Noto during Cunningham’s stint at Think and the three have remained friends for years. KR has paid close attention to the evolution of Noto and Cunningham’s work over time, and specifically during the Morning Breath era.
“Punk rock is a good way to describe the feel of their art,” he says. “The commercial work is more bling-bling, diamonds, and rims, which I know weighs on them. But I think that professionalism carries over into their personal work.”
“They’re very focused,” KR adds. “With them it’s work and family. More and more [this business] is about hipsters and trends, but for Doug and Jason it’s not that at all.”
Noto and Cunningham’s aversion to trends may be one of the most important choices informing their collective style. It’s a trait that’s noticeable in both their commercial and personal work. The pair’s originality and strict attention to detail helped garner a 2004 Grammy nomination for “Best Limited Edition Package Design” for their boundary pushing work on AFI’s Sing the Sorrow album—which featured a cloth book, foil-stamped cover, and embossed pockets.
“Their work is a product of their influences and lifestyles,” says friend and collaborator Mike Giant. “It's pretty obvious to me, partly because we share a love for the history of commercial art. I can also really appreciate the partnership they have as illustrators and designers. It's rare to find such a strong partnership as professionals and friends. Sometimes they act like brothers. That usually happens when Doug is drunk, and Jason is trying to reel him in before everybody gets in trouble.”
When asked if he might have any shared experiences he’d care to recount, especially after delivering such earnest sentiments about his friends, Giant hesitates just long enough to scour his memory for the perfect anecdote.
“The night we got caught by undercover Vandal Squad cops certainly stands out,” says Giant. “We had just left a party in Manhattan with [Jason and Doug’s] wives. On the way out, Doug and I caught some tags with a marker I had. A few blocks away, we stopped to piss and the fuzz rolled on us. We tried to play dumb, but the cops saw everything. In the end, they scolded us for being really immature, which was true, and let us go. No big deal, but the cops had us shitting for awhile. We laughed all the way home.”
The odd couple
“Do we get sick of each other? Of course we do,” Noto says. “Me and Doug spend more time together than our wives. Both of our wives [actually] joke about it. We spend a lot of time in this studio. We’re trying to curb that in the future [since] we both have kids.”
“Actually, for all the time we spend together,” Cunningham adds, “we don’t argue that much. Usually the arguments are like ‘Fuck you you’re acting like a bitch’, ‘Fuck you you’re acting like a bitch,’ ‘Fuck you,’ ‘What’s your fucking problem?’ And then it’s over.”
The pair’s excessive togetherness, however, continues to pay off. Morning Breath has recently entered a new level of success. With the recent release of The Early Bird, Noto and Cunningham’s debut book, and the accompanying gallery exhibition at Fifty24 Gallery in Portland, the pair’s artistic vision is now coming into clearer focus. The long hours spent dividing time between commercial and personal work may soon swing more in favor of the latter. The response to The Early Bird has attracted attention from curators, but has also attracted interest from commercial clients who want Noto and Cunningham to apply Morning Breath’s gallery aesthetic to some commercial projects. Which means the pair may be given the freedom to explore grimier, more explicit visuals while still paying the bills.
“I think that we will always maintain some [form of commercial work],” Noto says. “But we’d like to steer that ship a little better, instead of taking jobs because we have to. We’d like to get to a point where we can [be more selective about] what we want to do.”
Morning Breath—a moniker that Noto and Cunningham adopted back in mid-2002 for their independent art and design studio—has been a way for the pair to leave a footprint in the commercial art world while at the same time pursuing their grimy, lo-fi personal work. Since its inception, Morning Breath’s reputation for producing high quality work has provided a steady stream of client-based projects—primarily album packaging and design for high-profile clients like Queens of the Stone Age, De La Soul, and Jay-Z. In turn, this avenue has allowed Noto and Cunningham the freedom to push the boundaries of their personal work.
The pair’s studio space is bristling with supplies and original artwork, quickly eating up the 1,500 square feet of real estate they inhabit. A collection of skate decks and one-off screen prints consume a piece of the right hand wall, while a stack of shelves populated with vinyl toys looms on the left. The smell of turpentine and oil-based paint clings to the air, and dust particles swirl in the broken shafts of daylight illuminating the weathered wooden floor. The screeching wheels of the Q Train crisscrossing the nearby Manhattan Bridge throughout the day has become like background music in the studio. And the occasional police helicopter swirling overhead is just a random accessory of post-9/11 New York life.
On a table nearest the windows, spray paint cans, rolls of masking tape, and several bottles of mysterious-looking screen print solvents (some of which, Noto informs me, are now illegal in California due to their toxic odor) are littered across the surface. This is where Noto preps and cuts screens for printing on everything from posters and t-shirts, to skate decks and plywood. On the far wall, Cunningham’s drafting table—where he sketches his signature character illustrations (see: creepy old men with crooked teeth, babies brandishing switchblades, and so on)—is stationed beneath a large print of the Michelin Man wearing a Zorro-style mask. The overall vibe of the studio is warm, welcoming, somewhere you’d enjoy getting drunk just to stare at all the artwork on the walls. That is, if the owners let you.
When talking with Noto and Cunningham you discover that their tastes and influences are eerily similar. The late 70s and early 80s are an era of particular interest. Perhaps it’s because they were both born in 1971 and grew up sniffing glue and racking paint, going to punk rock shows and listening to hip hop. Or perhaps they just share a bizarre obsession with BMX bikes, comic books, and vintage typography that only they understand. Whatever the case, Morning Breath’s cut and paste, DIY aesthetic is as much about 1970s nostalgia and pop culture tribute, as it is bar stool humor and social observation. Cunningham often refers to the vision of their work as “a child’s world seen through adult eyes.” And because the artwork is devoid of hipster lingo and cooler-than-you references, there is a certain level of honesty and quality that’s absent from the work of many of their contemporaries.
“Make sure you don’t get glue on the windshield,” Noto says, repeating a phrase that he and Cunningham use when they need to warn each other that the quality of their work may be slipping. “It goes back to being a kid and making model cars. There were always those kids who rushed making their cars in one night and fucked them up instead of taking their time and letting things dry right.”
Cutting teeth
“Our main goal was not to work for anybody,” Noto says, explaining what prompted him and Cunningham to found Morning Breath. “We wanted to create our own lifestyle, create our own way that we do things. And even though we do have to work with larger companies who are obviously in a corporate setting, we’re still doing it under our rules.”
Creative autonomy is a critical factor in Noto and Cunningham’s vision. With experience working as part of larger organizations (both solo and collaboratively), and with less control than they desired, the idea behind Morning Breath was to empower themselves as creators.
“No one can fire us,” Cunningham says. “They can kick us off a job, but no matter what we’re controlling our own destiny and treating it in a very independent way. It’s our gig.”
Noto and Cunningham first met in San Francisco in the mid-1990s while working at Think Skateboards designing deck graphics. While the other artists at Think primarily worked solo, the two established a collaborative process that was seamless in its execution (Noto handling design; Cunningham adding illustrations), and for the most part, remains unchanged.
“I went out to San Francisco somewhat sight unseen and not quite sure of what I was going to do,” Noto says. “Through a friend I got hooked up with Think. During that time I worked with a group of really great artists (Note: Cycle, Mike Giant, Jeremy Fish, and Rob Abeyta), and Doug was one of them. We just hit it off on like everything we were into, from color palettes to humor to childhood memories—we’re very nostalgic dudes. Everything in our artwork is somewhat based on that.”
Nostalgia and personal experience are obviously the key ingredients that inform Morning Breath’s work. Growing up in New Jersey, Noto’s exposure to the punk and hardcore scene played a major role in shaping his visual sensibility. As a teenager he poured over the artwork on flyers, zines, and album covers, identifying with the raw, unvarnished appeal of a fiercely independent movement. After several odd jobs and a brief spell studying design at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, Noto decided to head out West.
Cunningham developed somewhat differently as an artist. He cut his teeth as a teenager in the San Francisco graffiti scene of the mid-1980s, gaining fame as Dug-One, a writer known for innovative letter styles and the use of characters in his work. The iconic “Free South Africa” piece featured in the opening pages of Spraycan Art was a collaborative effort between Cunningham and local SF writer Slimm.
“I’ve pretty much drawn my whole life,” he says. “By the time I got into high school I was meeting other writers and we started the TMF crew. Once I was deep into [the scene] I was introduced to the New York aesthetic of graffiti and that was the moment when I really thought about what I was doing. Before that, I just did it because I could.”
After leaving Think Skateboards, Noto and Cunningham stayed in contact while pursuing separate ventures. Noto returned to New York and worked at the Drawing Board, Def Jam’s in-house graphic design firm helmed by famed East Village underground art veteran Cey Adams.
“I don’t think we ever really lost touch,” Cunningham says, “because by the time Jason was working solid at Def Jam, he’d hit me up with things that they had going on that I could jump into—spot illustrations and simple logo designs. So we kind of continuously worked back and forth.”
Cunningham remained in the San Francisco area, doing spot illustrations for album packages and working primarily with DJ Q-Bert. He was centrally involved in the art direction for Q-Bert’s animated film "Wave Twisters"—which garnered a cult following on the film festival circuit before landing a midnight screening at Sundance.
“We were always discussing that we should [start our own company],” Noto says. “Even the whole time with being on different coasts, the nights of long phone calls saying ‘Fuck, we should do this, we should do this.’ Finally it transcended to [become Morning Breath].”
Back to the future
“Jason is the straight man and Doug is the loose cannon,” says KR, laughing as he uses an Abbott and Costello analogy to describe the relationship of his longtime friends. “Jason is the balance. He’s patient, he listens. But with Doug, anything can happen.”
A native of Queens, New York, KR met Doug Cunningham through the graffiti scene while living in San Francisco in the early 1990s. He later met Jason Noto during Cunningham’s stint at Think and the three have remained friends for years. KR has paid close attention to the evolution of Noto and Cunningham’s work over time, and specifically during the Morning Breath era.
“Punk rock is a good way to describe the feel of their art,” he says. “The commercial work is more bling-bling, diamonds, and rims, which I know weighs on them. But I think that professionalism carries over into their personal work.”
“They’re very focused,” KR adds. “With them it’s work and family. More and more [this business] is about hipsters and trends, but for Doug and Jason it’s not that at all.”
Noto and Cunningham’s aversion to trends may be one of the most important choices informing their collective style. It’s a trait that’s noticeable in both their commercial and personal work. The pair’s originality and strict attention to detail helped garner a 2004 Grammy nomination for “Best Limited Edition Package Design” for their boundary pushing work on AFI’s Sing the Sorrow album—which featured a cloth book, foil-stamped cover, and embossed pockets.
“Their work is a product of their influences and lifestyles,” says friend and collaborator Mike Giant. “It's pretty obvious to me, partly because we share a love for the history of commercial art. I can also really appreciate the partnership they have as illustrators and designers. It's rare to find such a strong partnership as professionals and friends. Sometimes they act like brothers. That usually happens when Doug is drunk, and Jason is trying to reel him in before everybody gets in trouble.”
When asked if he might have any shared experiences he’d care to recount, especially after delivering such earnest sentiments about his friends, Giant hesitates just long enough to scour his memory for the perfect anecdote.
“The night we got caught by undercover Vandal Squad cops certainly stands out,” says Giant. “We had just left a party in Manhattan with [Jason and Doug’s] wives. On the way out, Doug and I caught some tags with a marker I had. A few blocks away, we stopped to piss and the fuzz rolled on us. We tried to play dumb, but the cops saw everything. In the end, they scolded us for being really immature, which was true, and let us go. No big deal, but the cops had us shitting for awhile. We laughed all the way home.”
The odd couple
“Do we get sick of each other? Of course we do,” Noto says. “Me and Doug spend more time together than our wives. Both of our wives [actually] joke about it. We spend a lot of time in this studio. We’re trying to curb that in the future [since] we both have kids.”
“Actually, for all the time we spend together,” Cunningham adds, “we don’t argue that much. Usually the arguments are like ‘Fuck you you’re acting like a bitch’, ‘Fuck you you’re acting like a bitch,’ ‘Fuck you,’ ‘What’s your fucking problem?’ And then it’s over.”
The pair’s excessive togetherness, however, continues to pay off. Morning Breath has recently entered a new level of success. With the recent release of The Early Bird, Noto and Cunningham’s debut book, and the accompanying gallery exhibition at Fifty24 Gallery in Portland, the pair’s artistic vision is now coming into clearer focus. The long hours spent dividing time between commercial and personal work may soon swing more in favor of the latter. The response to The Early Bird has attracted attention from curators, but has also attracted interest from commercial clients who want Noto and Cunningham to apply Morning Breath’s gallery aesthetic to some commercial projects. Which means the pair may be given the freedom to explore grimier, more explicit visuals while still paying the bills.
“I think that we will always maintain some [form of commercial work],” Noto says. “But we’d like to steer that ship a little better, instead of taking jobs because we have to. We’d like to get to a point where we can [be more selective about] what we want to do.”
Published June 1st, 2007
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