Meet Roman Jaster of Yay Brigade

Today we’d like to introduce you to Roman Jaster.

Hi Roman, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
My story starts in East Germany where I spent the first 11 years of my life behind the Iron Curtain. Life was great, at least for a child—I was too young to notice the political restrictions. I suspect I would have gotten into some sort of trouble before long.

I first came to California in the mid-90s as a foreign exchange student. I attended Rancho Cucamonga High School and lived with a host family for one year. In English class I met a girl. Years later we would get married—and still are. (She’s Natalia Jaster, a romantasy author.)

After community college and working as a web designer during the wild west days of the web, I attended CalArts and studied graphic design. When I graduated in 2007, I tried to get a real job for a hot second. It didn’t work out, and so I started my own thing. That grew into an independent design practice, and culminated in starting the design studio Yay Brigade in 2014.

I’ve also been teaching graphic design classes at universities and art schools around L.A. for almost twenty years. It’s wonderful to work with young people and to see their ideas. It keeps me on my toes.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Overall I’ve gotten quite lucky. Although I twice graduated into recessions (in 2001 and 2007), I always had enough work to grow my practice and save money. Sometimes the struggle was deciding which opportunities to accept. At one point I was teaching five classes at four different schools in one semester. That was insane, and I soon focused my teaching mainly on CalArts.

Starting my design studio Yay Brigade was the most invigorating experience, and it really lifted the quality and scope of the work. When my business partner moved on a few years later, it was difficult to adjust to just being on my own again. I pushed through that, and now I enjoy collaborating with different people who join the studio on a per-project basis.

Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Yay Brigade provides graphic design services, often for non-profits, educational and cultural organizations. We work with a lot of artists and architects, too. What’s always set my work apart is that I’m a trained graphic designer and a coder at heart. Creating websites (from conception to launch) is therefore a big part of what we do. But we also design for print (books, magazines, brochures) and do branding.

A really fun project of late was creating a printed map for the giant metal sculptures in Borrego Springs for the Under the Sun Foundation.

I’m also super interested in working on side projects, mostly small web experiments. We recently launched a poetic website that visualizes today’s sky as a gradient. (My summer intern Ashleigh Kawakoa worked on this with me.)

Can you talk to us a bit about the role of luck?
I suspect that most of what happens in life is based on luck. I’m a good communicator, a person people generally seem to like, and I’m hardworking—all traits I didn’t decide to have but somehow ended up with. I’m thankful for that. Meeting my mentor, Mitchell Syrop, at Chaffey College was pivotal for almost everything that happened in my career. He told me to go to CalArts and hired me for my first teaching gig afterwards. I also got lucky that my teacher Craig Cooke hired me at Rhythm Interactive for my very first job. And when I started to work for myself, I got lucky to land important projects at pivotal points. Creating the websites for the MAK Center and Pasadena Conservatory in the early 2010s were huge as they led to many other projects.

Of course there were also disappointments along the way. My heart was broken countless times when an amazing project just didn’t happen. Overall the balance is positive. Maybe it’s because I’m an optimistic person, another thing that I’m lucky to be.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://yaybrigade.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yaybrigade/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rjaster/