I have been working under the guise of Disdain & Despair for nearly 10 years. I went with the 2 most vulnerable words to describe the worst parts of me during my darkest hours. I feel that art exposes the most vulnerable part of a person. The artistic expression comes from deep within. I do feel very exposed when I upload or show someone a drawing. It’s like I’m letting you pick through my brain and allowing you to find my faults and flaws. That’s just the depression and anxiety speaking. I’ve always been vocal about my depression and anxiety as part of my coping. I definitely do not want them, but I’ve accepted them as part of me.
Fast forward 10 years later, I feel I’m in a different place in my life and I’ve grown as an artist and as a person. Now that I’m taking a new direction in my life, I feel I need to refresh things as an artist. I wanted to start with a new name. Something short and something that is still recognizable as me. I thought I should do a version of my original name somehow. I thought of Dis&Des, D&D, and so on. Then I thought about combining the 2 words. Dispair still sounded a lot like despair but spelled wrong. Desdain sounded much better and almost sounded like an old word that was used back in the middle ages or something.
I have always loved made up words as a name because I thought it was clever. I never thought I’d be creative enough to come up with one myself. When I was a teenager, I grew up in Stockton, CA. Stockton is a terrible place to grow up in. It’s always up there in ranking at least top 5 as most violent cities in America. Not just in California, in America. My brother and his friends would get into trouble as boys do. Vandalism was a default. One of his friends tagged under the name Kano, or did he spell it K-No? I always thought that was a cool tag name that he made up.
So that is a little background on how Desdain became a part of me. Now for a new logo. I needed something sharp, edgy, but sensual. I’ve drafted about 8 different designs until I created “the one.” When I used to do polymer clay sculptures, I would take photos of the process. They always came out really creepy so I kept one of the doll faces as my little character. I’ve named her Desi. She will stay as my little mascot character. New name. New logo. New mascot. New brand. New direction.