Graphic Support Group Podcast

Hi everyone, Wow, we’ve got a big one, a true one, a real one on this episode. Bryan and I are so happy to have Meg Forsyth, current partner and Creative Director at Sylvain , on the show. There’s so much in this hour of conversation: from her early days making zines and selling them on James’ old blog GraphicHug, to the Netherlands, to gardening and parenting, to just being present and authentic...

It’s James here. A few months back a friend sent me a text to an article with the headline “ I lost my job, got divorced, and had to move within weeks. I found purpose in building a layoff support tool.” The situation sounded simultaneously shocking and familiar. With news of layoffs at companies like Microsoft and Meta along with daily debates about the impact of AI on labor across the globe, Ama...

“Timing is everything” is as much of a cliché as “you only live once”, but behind those tired phrases is truth. When Bryan and I spoke with Abby Chen , the timing was right. She was celebrating two months since leaving a job at Apple and beginning her independent practice as Studio Present Tense . Throughout the conversation, Abby walked us through the tremendous amount of courage, deliberation an...

Continuing on the mission to introduce more voices to the podcast, we’ve invited Berlin’s #1 fan Muj Abdulzade to co-host with James. When we first asked Muj about hoping on the podcast Naïma Ben Ayed was at the top of her list of people to talk to. We spent a lovely afternoon chatting with the London-based type designer on her family, the laziness of certain tech companies and the general challen...

Practice, practice, practice. Whether or now practice makes perfect it's about putting in the hours, the work, the sweat, the tears and the reflections. Bryan Collins of Poetic State joined me, James, in a calm and collected conversation with designer and illustrator Alex Kirsch . We connected on how drawing and soccer have been pillars in his life since childhood, yet the two worlds haven't alway...

We’re back for another season of Graphic Support Group. Kicking off for Season 6 is another episode of our beloved “Behind the Screen” series. If you haven’t heard it our first installment was with Hasan Askari. This time we got to speak with LA print legend David Mayes. He's long been a part of the LA design community, going beyond his role as a printer to be a steward of design in the city. He s...

Before we begin we have a special message from Bryan and Poetic State. Hey, listeners. I'm Bryan Collins , founder of Poetic State , and I'm a career coach who helps multidisciplinary creatives break through whatever is holding them back. If you're stuck, unclear about your next steps or just ready to get outta your own way, I'd love to hear your story. We're offering free 30 minute discovery call...

Our guest, Aurélia de Azambuja has been speaking at conferences more recently with her talk, “How to make the logo bigger when the world is burning?” – a provocation that confronts what it means to practice design in today’s world, and more broadly, how to find meaning in design at all. It’s a particularly dark time for humanity, and, once we caught wind of the talk as it went semi viral on Instag...

We’re back with another episode of Graphic Support Group and we’re filled with joy to share this one. Our guest Nontsikelelo Mutiti “is a Zimbabwean born designer, visual artist, and educator whose conceptual approach to design spans the mediums of print, moving-image, web design, fine art, and community engagement.” That introduction doesn’t even begin to capture the breadth of wisdom that Nontsi...

The work of branding and strategy agency PORTO ROCHA needs little introduction. Founded by Leo Porto and Felipe Rocha after meeting and collaborating together in New York City, the studio has quickly grown and set a high standard for quality work. Drew and I have long wanted to have them on the podcast, but for many reasons we were hesitant to reach out. Even after being linked in the agency’s fan...

Warning: this episode speaks about autism and mental health. We remind listeners that the Graphic Support Group hosts are not medical professionals. Please listen with care and understanding. I met Able during my junior year as a passionate and painfully green design student. What I remember was that he was a tall, older guy who was simultaneously disarming for his height and earnestness. For a ch...

Note: The first part of this episode has some clicks because of a connection issue. We tried to clean the sound up as best as we could. Bare with it because we really think it’s worth listening to! This one’s a long one, but one of our most amazing conversations. Drew and I spoke with Julie Cho and Erin Segal about their collaborative publishing project Thick Press . The two friends who met when t...

Warning: this episode contains some foul language. If you are sensitive to this or are listening around young children please use your own discretion before you tune in. James here :) I was able to sit down with Gabrielle Widjaja , who works under the name Gentle Oriental , and asked her about how she navigates the highs and lows of her creative practice. Gabby began her career as a graphic design...

In case you might've forgotten, we R here 4 U and we got what you've been waiting for. In the heat of last summer, we got to spend some time with Berlin-based “retired” graphic designer Charlotte Rohde. As we connected from three different continents, she shared her love of the Olympics, the typeface New Edge, EULAs and what ‘brat’ summer really meant. With this hot episode we kick of Season 5 of...

Hi everyone, I'm James. And I'm Drew. Welcome to Graphic Support Group. It's kind of crazy to think that this podcast has been going on for over three years. When Drew brought his idea of Graphic Support Group as a creative collective, we both thought a podcast would be a fun first project to work on. But neither of us had any idea we'd create something that would resonate with so many other peopl...

A few months back Drew invited John Provencher to his Brooklyn home and we had a deep dish conversation on the many trappings of design work. John very candidly shared his many experiences working as a designer and how he found a “loop hole” from his former client-driven career. Nowadays, Provencher’s work revolves around the generative art he creates using scripts and code-based tools. At a time...

Hey hey! Hope everybody is having a truly relaxing, mindful summer with enough sunscreen and design totes filled with image-heavy, text-light books to go around. We’re back with another episode of Graphic Support Group, believe it or not. We have a very special episode for you, the first in a series we’d like to call “Behind the Screen” (thanks to Drew’s partner Deniz Önder for the great nomenclat...

You have likely seen Jonathan Castro’s work, even if you don’t know his name. His influence on the contemporary design landscape is magnificent. The Amsterdam-based, Peruvian born former Metahaven and Studio Dumbar designer has a style all his own; one that has shapeshifted and continues to evolve daily. The through line is that his work constantly embraces the unknown spaces between art and desig...

Alec Stewart wrote us a profound email on addiction and design a couple years ago (we’ve shared it below). Both of us had known of Alec at RISD, where he studied as an undergrad during our time as graduate students. At the time he possessed a great energy and creativity that we found envious. We had little idea he was also struggling with addiction and great inner turmoil all the while. A now sobe...

Hey Everybody! We are back for our first episode of 2024! In January we sat down with multi-hyphenate design chameleon Khyati Trehan . She opened up about all things living-while-designing, including how she doesn’t have hobbies, but is slowly realizing that they could help. She also explained how her passion for her work runs through all her activities, and how she juggles (or struggles to juggle...

Last September (we know, we know) we had the immense privilege of speaking with Matthew Miller , an ecstatic new presence and rising design star whose work mixes humor, psychedelia, batshit typography, insane color combos, and incredible uplifting, biting, and transparent messaging about life and the never ending hustle. Matthew is a self proclaimed “self-taught” designer with a compellingly uniqu...

After much delay we are here with a new episode of Graphic Support Group. Spring has sprung, and we are back in motion! We apologize for the inconsistency in our output of late, as even support groups could use support groups, and we’ve both been overwhelmed with life changes, work changes, and all sorts of general anxiety-inducing contexts on our ends. But fear not! We are doing great and we are...

We are more than delighted to share our lovely conversation with the one and only Richard Turley, a sentence that feels like a dream to type. Over the course of 90 minutes, we talk with the former Bloomberg Businessweek, MTV, and W+K Creative Director about a career spent poking holes in the mythos of Graphic Design, touching on themes of self-esteem and collaboration, privilege, and extreme self-...

We were so honored to chat with the Hey Sis World founder Kristel Brinshot about navigating burnout, owning your worth in a fraught industry, meditation, empowerment, and her hybrid creative coaching program, Big World NRG, designed for the BIPOC Artist & Creativepreneur. From the BWNRG site: Big World NRG™️ is the first program of its kind designed to heal your Burnout & Imposter Syndrome &⚡️jum...

!! FULL TRANSPARENCY MODE ACHIEVED !! The indelible creative career consultant and life coach behind Poetic-State, Bryan Collins (not that Brian Collins), takes James and Drew through a Discovery Session to help unlock the their full POD-tential. We go deep into the insecurities, fears, and pitfalls of DIY Podcasting & remote creative partnership, as we try to unpack some of the sticking points th...