The Quickie - Conversations with Designers

Today's guest is Joanna Papaleo, a Senior Designer at Instrument in Portland OR. Joanna tells us about her very arts focused childhood. She grew up involved with music, figure skating, musicals, and performing. She always wanted to be a commercial artist. Joanna really fell in love with design and typography through art classes in school. She tells us a story about how she got to meet Jessica Wals...

Today's guest is Josh Ashton, a Digital Creative Director from Atlanta GA. Mr. Ashton, Josh's dad was an artist so he grew up around art and painting. During this interview, we talk about leading teams and creative processes. Not just your own, but as a creative leader, managing and cultivating the processes of designers you are working with. He also shares with us a story that we can all relate t...

Part 2: Today's guests are Todd Berger & Lucian Föhr from Berger & Föhr in Boulder CO. If you haven't listened to Part 1 of this interview, you don't want to miss that. Head back to that one first and hear all the stories leading up to this. During this episode, we talk about the start-up they were a part of called Ello. They share the struggles they experienced with that and the strain th...

Part 1: Today's guests are Todd and Lucian from Berger & Föhr in Boulder CO. They are 50/50 partners and their studio is 50/50 art and design. They are fresh off of launching a new art exhibit of their work in CO so I'm stoked they could spare some time to be on the show. During this episode, they each tell us how they got into design and some of the initial struggles with starting their studi...

Today's guest is Todd Demulling, Illustrator and Design Director at Ultra Creative in Minneapolis MN. Todd has been the guy behind Trix Rabbit, Lucky Charms, and some of your favorite cereal box characters for the last 20+ years. We talk about his love for comic books that he actually kept a secret when he was younger, and how comic books are still an inspiration to him today. Todd also tells us a...

Today's guest is Lauren Griffin, a freelance graphic designer with a passion for illustration, typography, and tacos, under the name Typogriff. She originally was going to get into studying surgery and the medical field but ended up following her heart to design. Lauren tells us about how vintage books, and specifically, books on type are a huge inspiration to her. She tells us about having struct...

Today's guest is Jordan Sondler, an Illustrator, dog owner, and gummy candy lover in Brooklyn NY. In this episode, we talk about her new book called "Feel it Out" and the challenges that came along with creating it. Jordan shares a with us the moment she was able to meet her design idol and what that was like. She also talks about a series that she started doing through her Instagram stories for m...

Today's guest is Chris Sauvé, a Creative Director in Los Angeles CA. Chris was actually born in Vancouver and attended Emily Carr University. He also lived in New York for a number of years and shares stories with us about freelancing through the recession in NY, and some incredible non-traditional fashion shows he and his friends put on. Chris has a love for books and goes back to them often for...

Today's guest is Connor Fowler, logo and brand designer from London EN. Connor tells us around the age of 9 or 10 he was the only kid in art class getting briefs from his teachers before projects. We also talk about the dance metal band Connor was in and how his entrance to design was through creating merch for that band. He tells us about the influence that Aaron Draplin has had on his design car...

Today's guest is Daphna Sebbane, a Graphic Designer from Austin TX. Daphna is a big part of the AIGA community in Austin, she tells us all about the design scene there. We talk about how Daphna was brought up around astrology and tarot and how they influence her designs today. She also tells us about the first time she really started noticing design was on CD album cover art. We talk about the pro...

Today's guest is Craig Valentino, a freelance designer from TGIM, Thank God Its Monday in New York. Craig has a huge passion for design and his energy really comes through in this episode. We talk about the lessons he learned with his first few design jobs as well as a bit about his process. He tells us about how he always wanted to do design for a brewery, so he created designs for his own "homeb...

Today's guest is Venus Martinez, a motion graphics and visual effects designer in Vancouver BC. Venus was born in Mexico where his uncles are both in advertising and his grandfather was a filmmaker who made over 200 movies during the WWII era. It's easy to see how he landed on motion graphics and visual effects. He tells us about some of the challenges of finding work as an immigrant despite havin...

Today's guest is Ana Mengote Baluca, a freelance designer, industrial designer, and lover of all things creative. Ana also owns a jewelry business called Stuff by Ana. She is currently living in New York but was born in the Philippines. Ana shares with us the moment she was first turned onto design in high school, hint, it was through Architecture. She studied design in London and that was were sh...

Today's guest is Scott Fuller, a designer, illustrator, and owner of Studio Temporary in Atlanta GA. His dad owned a machine shop so Scott's original path was to be an industrial engineer. He instead found design and upon graduating he hustled for 2 years to find his first design job. He eventually was let go from there but found another design job. After being let go from there, and told he was h...

Today's guest is Claire Taschereau, full stack designer and owner of Wolf and Pine Creative. Claire fell in love with design in school and more specifically the world of UI/UX. Not totally surprising knowing her father owned a software company. She now looks at everything through a UI/UX lens. We talk about how she first started noticing design in the world with luxury packaging. She tells us abou...

Today's guest is Johnathon Strebly. He is the Director of Creative Services at HCMA as well as a President-elect for the International Council of Design. Johnathon lives and breathes design and has for the last few decades. His advocacy for design has been recognized on both hyper-local and international stages. Previously Johnathon ran his own agency, the Notice Group, and was also the President...

Today's guest is Matt Dawson, Graphic Designer and Founder of Crop creative conference and Pop up Crop. Matt tells us about how he would draw comic books with his friends when he was younger. He also split the line between loving sports but also loving Xmen and other "nerdy" things. We talk about Matt's first design job after graduation at a woman's socialite magazine for women over 40. Interestin...

Today's guest is Jason Sturgill. He is a very talented Illustrator, Designer, and Artist from Portland OR. We talk about how his entrance to the creative field was through skateboarding and music. Jason actually started a record label when he was in University and put out an early Modest Mouse record! Jason tells us about the 'Art is Forever' project he worked on in partnership with other illustra...

Today's guest is Nathan Yoder, Illustrator and Designer at Yondr Studio in Edmonds WA. Nathan tells us all about his childhood growing up living in rural environments and how creativity was encouraged for him. We talk about one of the projects he is most proud to have been a part of, a Miller High Life label that he did illustration work on. He also shares with us how Sprint car racing team unifor...

Today's guest is Matt Warburton, Design Manager at UBC and Designer at Emdoubleyu Communications and Design in Vancouver BC. Matt is a huge motorcycle enthusiast and a lover of stamp design and collecting. In 2013 he was able to merge these two worlds and design Canadian Motorcycle stamps for Canada Post! He shares the struggles he and his partner experienced during the 2008 financial crisis that...

Today's guest is Jade, Web and Branding designer at The. Brain. Child in NWS Australia. Jade is a tonne of fun and you can tell right from "hello jade", we had a great time. She was born and raised a farm and country girl but always loved painting and drawing. Jade also collected and hoarded business cards as a teenager. I can relate! I loved Jade's stories especially where she shares the challeng...

Today's guest is Poom, Design Director at Ultra Creative in Minneapolis MN. Poom was originally born in Thailand and did design work and art direction at an agency there before coming to America to challenge herself and learn more. We talk about the differences between design in Thailand compared to the US, if there are any... Ultra Creative has done some amazing food packaging projects that Poom...

Today's guest is Jack Hollands. He is a professional Sign Writer from London England. Jack and I talk about how sign writing seems to be a merger of the art and painting world with the graphic design and typography world. Jack always longed for a creative career but didn't know what direction to go. We talk about the influential moment that pointed him to sign painting and confirmed that career di...

Today's guest is Gillian Damborg, Creative Services Manager at Capilano University, and Creative Director at Gillian Damborg Creative in Vancouver BC. This interview is fun! Gillian shares the details in her transition from Graphic Designer at Lululemon to Creative Director managing a team over at Luvo Inc. She talks about how as a kid she always loved typography and letterforms and would copy one...

Today's guest is Leland Maschmeyer, Chief Creative Officer at Chobani in New York NY. Also previously Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer at Collins in New York. Leland tells us about the early days starting Collins, the big break moment when they landed a large client and project, and how they approached the pitch. He also shares the challenges they encountered while rebranding Chobani in only...