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Cheers & Tiers: From Complainer to Creative Rebel, The Brian Singer Chronicles

You know you've found a kindred spirit when someone’s claim to fame includes getting death threats for his art. That’s Brian Singer for you—the man who photographed drivers on their phones and put them on billboards, just to see what would happen.

Author

Rachel Elnar
May 04, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes

I first met Brian back in 2008 at an AIGA Leadership Retreat in Omaha. Jill Finley (AIGA LA) and I were enjoying a smoke outside the Omaha Embassy Suites when this guy just wandered up and started talking about his 1000 Journals project. No introduction, no small talk—just “hey, I send blank journals around the world.” Classic Brian. Little did I know this would be the beginning of a beautiful friendship spanning design leadership retreats across the country.

What most people don’t know is that Brian’s path to AIGA leadership started because he was, in his words, “the guy that would show up and complain about stuff all the time.” Eventually, someone got tired of his griping and said, “Why don't you try to fix it?” A lesson for all of us complainers out there! He served as Vice President of the San Francisco chapter for two years, then as President for another two. All because he couldn’t keep his opinions to himself—a quality I’ve always admired.

Human Pyramids and German Metal

Our interview with Brian took us back to those glorious AIGA days when we would do almost anything to escape hotel security. Remember Omaha? When we had to write room numbers on our arms just to communicate where the party was moving next? Brian does—though he admits that all the leadership retreats “sort of blend together” in his memory. (I blame the open bars.)

Erik and I reminisced about the human pyramid traditions—those ill-advised feats of drunken athleticism that somehow became a leadership retreat staple. Apparently, Brian was once at the bottom of one such pyramid, stoically enduring someone’s knee in his back because, as he put it, “I’m at the bottom. Better hold it up.” The commitment! Though he did confess to witnessing “a pyramid collapse where the person on top took a digger and it wasn’t pretty.” Design leadership comes with risks, folks.

Erik’s favorite Brian memory? When he joined the national board, he made an unforgettable 60-second introduction video set to German metal music, featuring death threats he’d received for his Twitspotting project. While other board members were listing their professional accomplishments, Brian was basically saying, “Hi, I’m Brian, and people want to kill me for my art.” As Erik pointed out, it worked perfectly—while he couldn’t remember anyone else who introduced themselves that day, he definitely remembered Brian!

The Art of Making People Angry

Brian’s Twitspotting project still fascinates me. Picture this: he’s stuck in soul-crushing Bay Area traffic on the 101, and instead of zoning out like the rest of us, he starts taking photos of people on their phones while driving. Then he puts them on billboards. Genius? Madness? Both?

What did we learn from Brian? That “if everyone loves what you’re doing, you’re not trying hard enough.’ According to him, “What you want is at least half the people angry at you.” Words to live by from the man who made drivers question their phone habits.

What struck me most about our conversation was Brian’s reflection on the shift from criticism to responsibility. “It is extremely easy to complain about things,” he admitted. “It’s the easiest possible thing you could do.” But actually getting in there and doing the work? That’s when you understand “the constraints and the challenges and the nuances of things.”

Here’s to you, Brian Singer—artist, designer, professional complainer-turned-fixer, and the guy who admits that the only reason he has a day job is so he can afford to do the projects he wants to do. May we all be so wonderfully rebellious.

Want to hear more stories like Brian’s? Subscribe to Cheers & Tiers on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. We’ll have more episodes featuring your friends and your favorite design leaders, sharing their journeys, challenges, and triumphs.

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