Willo Perron

Willo Perron

“Let’s add more pyro,” Willo Perron deadpans, as he remembers working on Drake’s Aubrey and the Three Migos tour. He could barely suppress his amusement as he recalls wrangling flying

Ferraris and stadium-size scorpions in line for Drake, then immediately shifting gears to direct an incandescent High as Hope tour for Florence and The Machine .

It’s somewhat reassuring to know that even the brains behind such youth-defining iconography as 808s & Heartbreak, 4:44 and the shabby-minimal Yeezy aesthetic has trouble pivoting like the rest of us. But he likes it that way. “The thing that I really loved was that I left the Drake tour to start Florence’s tour. If there was a polar opposite of two shows…” He trails off as if in thought. “With Drake [the mantra] was, ‘More! MORE!!’ Then I wind up in Florence-world where I had to keep asking myself, ‘Is it too quiet? Is it too subtle?’” We barely hear him next as he breaks out laughing. “Then I had to ask everybody—‘Do you think this is too quiet?!’”

Perron’s attraction to design steered him toward the creative industries, hosting underground parties, starting a record label with VICE cofounder Suroosh Alvi, A-Trak and Dave 1 from synth-pop band Chromeo, later opening several retail stores in his hometown of Montreal which eventually led to designing hundreds of American Apparel stores around the world and a short stint at Apple. When Perron met Late Registration-era Kanye on tour, he inadvertently began a mode of working which most musicians employ now, uniting what were formerly disparate voices for West’s website, album packaging, photography and stage design under the same direction.

A little over a decade later, the ambiguous-yet-crucial role that Perron played in the evolution of Kanye West into seminal fashion entity has culminated in a new world – rife with multi-hyphenate occupations and Yeezy knockoffs—and Perron had no small part in shaping it. Now he helms his own multidisciplinary studio, where projects range from creative directing the 2018 PornHub Awards with Kanye West and Charli XCX’s music video for 1999 to designing the Yeezy office interiors and set design for Migos and Jay-Z’s SNL appearances.

The words “aesthetics” and “language” are used almost interchangeably as Perron speaks, and when we delve deeper into his inspirations, it’s easy to see why. The term “design language” seems to be neither coincidence nor metaphor as he effortlessly discusses politics as it relates to music, as it relates to design and as it relates to history, as if he himself is privy to a bigger picture that many have yet to realize.

Perron’s ideas may sound complex, yet he likes to make it simple when put into practice. He describes the studio as a “plug and play” effort for both his team and clients—with the former, creating a space where young talent can work with the support of company infrastructure (“It’s a generation of like, ‘Hey come in here and just be a great ideas person.’”), and the latter, developing a one-stop agency for whoever walks through his doors. “The goal,” Perron says, “is to make it easy on everybody.”

packaging, which feels like the photography. I think it’s also during the blog era, which was starting to let people own their media. Famous people and musicians were starting to own their media, and now you see it’s common with Twitter and whatnot. But back then people were still big on relying on PR, and a website was a big avenue. We launched a blog right around that time, which was basically a big inspiration blog.

What was the blog called? I can’t really remember, actually—I think it was Kanye University? I don’t think [Kanye] owned the URL for kanyewest.com yet, so I think it was called Kanye University. It became this huge blog—we’d look at the stats and it’d be in the top percentile, and it became this big thing. We were communicating [inspirational content], instead of trying to sell people merch and show tickets.

Q & A

There are claims that you invented the role of creative director. Can you tell us why people say that about you? I come from a pretty traditional design background. Before working with Kanye, I was working at Apple, and before that I’ve done the retail stuff with American Apparel. You know, I designed clothes, and all the [other] stuff I’ve done previously. And the first big project that I did with a musician was with Kanye, and I was looking at all the avenues for the visuals: the record label would do the website, some other graphic designer would do the album packaging and the tour would be done by someone else—there was no overarching voice in any of it. Without really trying to create a role, it was more trying to get it so the website feels like the tour, which feels like the album

Can you tell me a bit about how different mediums connect together for you to create the big picture for your projects? I think all of them kinda use a bit of the other mediums, you know? In doing stuff with Stüssy, there’s a line weight— which is very much a graphic term—for certain things. Taking graphic language and bringing it into interior space, retail space. I think you feel the same thing whether you’re doing a stage, clothes, interiors, graphics. What’s the end result, how does something make you feel? There are subtle things sometimes—how you lay out typography, how you light a show, they’re really all emotions. At the end of the day, it’s how you perceive something. Sort of like having a filter, but having it be mine. And all these things are out of personal interest. The fact that I built this multidisciplinary studio doesn’t come from a place of like, “Ha! I can do one more [thing] than everybody else can!” I genuinely love graphic design, interior design, furniture and a well-done show—and whatever else, like videos and things like that—it’s just all mediums I love. I still think there’s some things I’m better at, and some things where I’m pretty green a bit? I’m always happy to try a new medium. Keep fucking around, and learn.

“I THINK YOU FEEL THE SAME THING WHETHER YOU’RE DOING A STAGE ,

CLOTHES, INTERIORS , GRAPHICS. WHAT’S

THE END RESULT, HOW DOES SOMETHING

MAKE YOU FEEL? THERE

ARE SUBTLE THINGS SOMETIMES – HOW YOU LAY OUT TYPOGRAPHY,

HOW YOU LIGHT A SHOW, THEY’RE REALLY ALL EMOTIONS. AT THE END OF THE DAY, IT’S HOW YOU PERCEIVE

SOMETHING. ”

People didn’t care about Art Basel like they do now, and if anything, with him, the success was sort of this sense of duty on us both to really bring this language to the forefront. You know, there was a lot of resistance with basketball-jersey rap at that time—they would be like, “What is this art-fashion rap??”

Definitely. Can you walk us through your thought process for your work on Drake’s tour? Working with Drake, if you look at the guy—he’s a very sporty guy, always front row at the basketball games, he’s a pretty well-rounded athlete, whereas Kanye cares about the arts, fashion and things like that. We went to a basketball game because we all decided to do something, and I was like, it would be great to do a show off a basketball theme. With the stage on the floor and have that energy. That was the first step, making this megastage into a floor. I felt like it was really representative of him, you know—he’s like a new kind of ostentatious, it’s big and it’s better and it doesn’t traffic as much in subtleties—so that was the jump-off point. There’s not really a lot in terms of scenic design; it’s basically a big box. And then it was just gags—how do we incorporate new technology and existing things on a grander scale?

That’s a perfect example, when all that stuff came out back then and everyone was like, “What’s going on?!” I think a lot of what we see now comes from those early days of you purging Kanye’s closet. It’s a completely different aesthetic. Yeah, you go to fashion shows now and everyone’s there, all the fuckin’ A$APs. When we used to go to PFW you’d get turned down at shows. Now it’s a totally different link between fashion and art, but when we were calling artists to do project collabs, they would be like, “What? But you’re a rapper.” It wasn’t like the art world was standing there with open arms.

What is something that you keep revisiting for inspiration? I know it seems grand and kinda vague, but I think you can just rely on the fact that the world gives you information. You see that kind of nihilistic rap that’s going on—that’s what the kids are feeling. It's a world filled with political unrest. It feels like the world’s ending, and the drugs have gotten so hectic, the political climate is insane – that nihilism you’re seeing is the state of the world. People are anxious as fuck. And with me being old enough to live through the other version of this— Reaganomics, AIDS, acid rain, crack epidemics and so forth—the music back then was [angry] and now it’s extreme nihilism, but it feels the same.

You’ve spoken about wanting your work to be polarizing for people—can you name a few points in your career where you really feel like your work has pushed the limit in that respect? I’m not sure if polarizing is the right word but I do think you wanna poke a little bit and make people react. I’m sure there’s a ton of shit with Kanye. It’s more about taking a real stance. And you might hate it. Kanye—he started down this more intellectual, art-driven path.

It’s just observing how and why people are reacting to things. To every culture there’s counterculture. To blingy jersey rap, there was Kanye. And on the tail end, there’s XXXTentacion and all of these kids where you’re gonna have something that’s spiritual and compassionate. Aesthetically, there is language in anger and there is language in compassion and love—if you look at histories from Buddhists and religion there’s a very clear vernacular about that stuff.

“IN ORDER TO DO THIS WORK

FOR A LONG

TIME, IT'S BETTER TO SUSTAIN AN ENVIRONMENT

WHERE THE

FOCUS IS 100 PERCENT ON THE DESIGNS INSTEAD

OF TRYING TO GET FAMOUS OR

SOMETHING.”