SENSEI masterful health communications

Jay Van Buren
Consulting Art Director

How long have you been working with with SENSEI?
I worked freelance with SENSEI starting in 2004, creating the SENSEI Web site, then worked full time as SENSEI's art director for 2 years. Since then, I've worked on a project by project basis.

How long have you been doing web design?
Since 1999. I came to New York to be a painter. I got a Master’s degree in Painting at Parsons School of Design. I was trying to find a way to pay the bills, so I took a lot of Web design classes and found that the 20 years I’d spent with paintbrushes and charcoal and pencils was not useless in the new technology. Once you get past the fact that they are new tools, all the same stuff matters; shape, line, color.

I became the senior Web designer for Multex.com, a big financial services Web site company. We built these super, bullet-proof secure systems for keeping track of a bazillion documents. I was in charge of three consumer sites. I was there a little over two years, then I worked for a year at a little Web shop and then went freelance for two years.

You wanted to be a painter when you grew up?
Yes, still do. I still paint, and my work has been shown in a few places including Rotterdam, Washington DC and Kansas City. I also have a "mixed reality" project called Brooklyn is Watching that is in a gallery in brooklyn, and in the online world called "second life".

What has influenced your work?
A couple of years after I finished college, I worked in a grade school for two and a half years, teaching kids with autism. That made me a different person, more compassionate. Autism is a really tough hand to be dealt. The data-based thinking at that job also influenced me as a graphic designer. It showed me a scientific approach. It was a behavior modification-based program. You try something, take data, see if it works.

Do you have a role model?
Paul Cézanne is one of my role models because his life proves that you should never give up. He started painting when he was 30 or something and everybody said, “Paul, you suck, please stop.” He kept at it and became an amazing painter. The other role model would be Piet Mondrian; there’s so much love in his paintings and he kept doing it whether or not anyone cared.

What’s your favorite thing about yourself?
I think I have good instincts. There have been a few times in my life where I’ve been in a real crisis or great emotional upheaval and I’ve surprised myself by doing the right thing by instinct.

Do you have a personal motto?
What matters? I ask that a lot. What really matters here?

What three things could you not live without?
Paint, interesting people to talk to (I love talking), and the Internet.