Slide Show
CreditSasha Arutyunova for The New York Times A Tour of Rodrigo Corral’s Manhattan Workspace
Age 46
Occupation Graphic designer
Location Lower Manhattan
His Favorite Room Mr. Corral created an office inside a converted apartment in a high rise near the New York Stock Exchange. The space is filled with projects — future, current and past — like his celebrated book covers for “A Million Little Pieces” and “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.” There are also homey conveniences like an entrance foyer, a fridge and a daybed.
Walk me through the first 20 minutes of your workday. I come in, turn on the lights and turn on music. You know how boxers have a hype man before the fight starts, talking constantly in their ear? I need hype music. To make me feel like I can seize the day.
What’s a good hype track? Right now, Frank Ocean’s “Nights.”
Ever take a nap on that bed during the workday? Sometimes. Rarely. That’s when I’m burnt. I have friends who have a little twin bed in their studio, and it’s amazing. It’s set in a way that doesn’t suggest that you’re not being productive. It’s part of their tool kit in a way. Like, I rest and then I recharge.
So what’s your key for getting a lot of work done? Wall space is so critical. Natural light. Counter/table space is so critical. So you can really throw things on the wall and not feel, like, “O.K., if I only have five feet of wall space, I only have five feet of idea space.”
What’s on your walls now? There are some things that are exercises in futility, some things I’ve gotten obsessed with and can’t let them go. Like a series where we took rock and rollers from the ′60s and ′70s that have started to look like grandmothers. We started to draw them, and it just expanded. We have, like, 20 grandmas of rock ’n’ roll. We’re trying to get it published.
This space is very white. And for a visual guy, the furniture is — how to put this tactfully? — Ikea-generic. I don’t want to make a statement with an interesting table or chairs. I want it to feel generic so the work within it is the focus. The statement is the work.
