The Quickie - Conversations with Designers

Today's guest is Candy Brophy, a Freelance Graphic Designer from Melbourne AUS. She has had a bunch of her designs featured on World Brand Design and she is so much fun to talk to! We chat about great marketing and packaging of the 80's and also the moment in her childhood when she lost faith in Santa Clause....it involved He-Man. Candy is also very passionate about sharing the amazing things that...

Today's guest is Anthony Garzzona, a Senior Designer out of Seattle WA. Anthony originally received a degree in product and industrial design before moving over to Graphic Design + Branding. His current role as a designer of beer tap handles and other brewery-related design work is a great merger of the product and graphic design worlds. He shares a funny story with us about a time in his career w...

Today's guest is Julia Jouravel, Visual Designer at Fuzzy Math in Chicago IL. I met Julia at a Design Thinkers Vancouver afterparty, and we were both eating of course. Free Food. Julia shares stories with us about her childhood and being born in Siberia. She shares how art and design were considered to be something you did for enjoyment, not a career. Julia tells us about a moment when she first l...

Today's guest is Kevin Tudball, a freelance Illustrator and Graphic Designer living life on the road. Kevin tells us all about living on the road for the last year and how he started in Connecticut, then to San Diego, Portland, and currently in Ann Arbour MI. Kevin shares a great story about what happened when he applied to both an engineering school and a design school, where his heart really was...

Today's guest is Sean Klassen who is a Design Director at Instrument in Portland OR. Sean and I kick off this episode with a dad joke and it's always a great time when it starts with that. One of the incredible stories that Sean tells us is about the most difficult time in his design career, and life so far. It involves a traumatic injury while product testing with a former design client. Sean als...

Today's guest is Jessica Bellamy, Motion Information Designer, Founder of GRIDS, and International Speaker from Louisville KY. GRIDS is an agency that specializes in creating infographics for non-profits and community groups to help explain complex issues, services, and policies. They offer courses as well. Jessica shares what it was like in 2017 when she was selected as one of six creatives broug...

Today's guest is Skylar Aieta, Designer at Shore in Seattle WA. Skylar is a designer that appreciates and is fascinated by type so naturally, we talk about what you can learn from or see in a typeface. Skylar also shares two unique influential designs or design systems with us. He tells us about the first time he realized graphic design actually exists outside of the classroom. I like his answer t...

Today's guest is Sheldon Popiel, Creative Director at District Ventures Accelerator in Calgary AB. District Ventures is a sister company to Venture Communications. Sheldon has an incredible career of being designer, creative director, and co-founder at a number of stock photo and stock video sites. He shares with us that the move to District Ventures which focuses primarily on consumer packaged go...

Today's guest is Ben Osheyack, a freelance designer focusing on brand experience from New York. Ben shares with us how he used to draw dinosaurs as a child and how he originally wanted to be a paleontologist. Ben talks about his amazing experience being the Brand Design Director at Sock Club where he was able to be a part of the design process from the sock manufacturer, to the delivery experience...

Today's guest is Andrew Zo, an independent packaging designer in Vancouver BC. Andrew was born in Tawaiin and moved to Canada when he was about 12 years old. He graduated with an industrial design degree from Emily Carr University. Early in his packaging design career, Andrew created the Clifton Ring Box. This piece was picked up by The Dieline, Fast Company, Packaging of the World, Gizmondo and o...

Today's guest is Chelsea McKenzie. She is an in-house designer currently working in real estate development design. Chelsea has an incredible personality, her love of design, her passion for non-profits and charitable causes, and her excitement for life all shine through in this episode. She shares how she was taught to appreciate the beauty out in the world. From the lines of a nice car to nature...

Today's guest is Yuri Shvets, Principal and Creative Director at Yurika Creative in Seattle WA. Prior to starting his own business, Yuri was at Hornall Anderson for over 10 years. He was born in the former Soviet Union and shares with us what it was like growing up in a rough neighborhood. He also tells us a wild story about how he used to paint heavy metal band logo's on the back of gangsters lea...

Today's guest is Marga Lopez, a communications designer in Vancouver BC. Marga was born in Mexico but has been in Vancouver for the last 15 years. She is currently the Project Manager for the Exhibit Design department at the world renown Vancouver Aquarium. Marga is very involved with the design community as a former president of the GDC BC chapter and now a Partnership Coordinator for Creative Mo...

Today's guest is Zoey Gay, Art Director and Designer at Gyro in Denver CO. This interview was a riot! Right from the start, you can tell we were laughing. We talk about Cannabis packaging since she was a designer in CO when legalization happened. Zoey loves to express herself creatively through fashion as well as her design work. Also, listen for when she describes her free and fun childhood, and...

Today's guest is Nancy Wu, Owner and Designer at Nancy Wu Design in Vancouver BC. Nancy shares with us how she originally wanted to be newspaper comic strip artist but was told they didn't make any money so pick a regular career. After her first job pitting plums at White Spot, she started taking fine art classes but it didn't feel right. She toured a school that had a more Graphic Design focus, g...

Today's guest is my friend Nova Hopkins, Principal and Designer at Nova Hopkins Studio in Abbotsford, BC. She is also an Assistant Professor for Branding and Communication Design at UFV in the Fraser Valley in BC. Nova shares with us how she was born into a family of designers and artists and always had creative in her. She gets personal and tells us about the very difficult decision she had to ma...

Today's guest is Jay Master, Principal and Designer at Jay Master Design. He shares with us how he started going to school to become a stockbroker when he realized he wasn't really a numbers guy, but a creative guy. Jay then shifted gears and got into Graphic Design and hasn't looked back. He also shares about his time in the video game design industry while doing audio recording for games. Jay ha...

Today's guest is Ben Waardenburg. He is a freelance designer, photographer, animator and maker of things. Ben is also the lead designer of an internet culture magazine called Meme Insider. He is very talented and super easy to talk to. This was a great interview where we get to hear about some of the really cool projects Ben has been a part of and his fun easy going personality really shines throu...

Today's guest is Gabe Ferreira who is a freelance designer in San Francisco currently working with the Google Brand Studio. He shares with us how he was born in San Paolo Brazil and that the city is a very friendly place for street art. In fact, the cities tunnels and bridges are used as canvases for graffiti art and they rotate through different artists every 3 or 6 months. If you google San Paol...

Today's guest is Sean Carter, the Principal and Design Director at Carter Hales Design Lab in Vancouver BC. I really enjoyed hearing from Sean as he shares stories from the agency owner side as well as the designer and creative side. He got into design "late" because he wanted to avoid hand painting beef sale signs for grocery stores. Sean also shares how he and his brother would dumpster dive loo...

Today's guest is Davar Azarbeygui who is the Creative Director at InHouse Designs in Cincinnati OH. Davar is a well-travelled guy being born in London, then to Rome, France, Washington DC, New York, Dubai, then to Cincinnati. He is also a Design Instructor at The Modern College of Design. Davar shares stories about how living and traveling through many European cities with tonnes of history inspir...

Today's guest is Cari who is a freelance designer and owner of Cari Schindler Design in Tacoma WA. What a fun interview! Cari shares some great stories with us about being visibly pregnant and doing packaging research in cannabis retail stores. She also tells us childhood stories about making scary movies with her brothers and the neighborhood kids and even went as far as adding sound effects. She...

Today's guest is David Cullington from Auckland New Zealand. He is the Principal and Designer at Xador Labs. David shares the story about how he stumbled upon Design while trying to be unemployed on the internet. True. He shares that he spent some time in Spain learning Flamenco Guitar and how as a child he would make and sew clothes for his action figures. David is a funny guy and I really enjoye...

Today's guest is Mustaali Raj. He is an Independent Art Director, designer, and an executive board member of the GDC BC. Mustaali has a really interesting story to share that includes a funny one about being included on a promotional poster for the Calgary Stampede. He shares with us that he was raised in a family of doctors, and engineers and was on that same path before following his heart and g...

Today's guest is Matt Webb. Matt is a partner at Webb Creative in New Westminster BC, the other partner being his partner for life, his wife Katherine. Matt shares with us one of the first times he noticed design out in the world, the ESSO rebrand. Matt also shares stories about one of his design mentors early on in his career, and also a funny story about a mock City of Toronto logo for a newspap...