Students of Design

Blake is a designer and art director in Minneapolis with over 10 years of experience working at the intersection of brand strategy and identity. He's the most heavily tattooed person I've interviewed, and he literally traveled across the world to Australia to get tattooed by one of his tattoo heroes—RESPECT. After growing up with computer games, doing kickflips, and helping his grandfather tap trees for maple syrup, he studied graphic design at the University of Wisconsin-Stout. After college, he found himself working in corporate packaging design, and a year later, he took a calculated risk by leaving his full-time job for a design internship at Sussner, a branding firm in Minneapolis. Like us, Blake's been through burnout, low-paying gigs, and he's sacrificed more of himself along the way than he realized. Thankfully, he has a portfolio of strategic design work that helps offset those sacrifices. Blake's stepfather is a tattoo artist, so tattoos have always been a part of his life, and they are quite literally THE reason he pursued graphic design—more on that in the interview. Tune in for a talk about Crop Conference, the benefits of using Framer vs. Squarespace to build your portfolio, takeaways from designing brand identities for private clubs and golf courses, and the story behind a logo he designed for a former mobster. Follow Blake on Instagram @blakespiegel and check out his Framer website spiegeldesign.co. "Deep down, we're all just a bunch of bones. What really makes us different is what we do with them."

Martina Flor is an award-winning lettering artist, author, and educator living in Berlin. She also hosts the Open Studio podcast with over 200 episodes, and she's spoken at over 70 conferences across the globe, including TEDx, Adobe MAX, TypeCon, and many others. She's a lettering POWERHOUSE and has helped thousands of creative entrepreneurs become lettering artists and take their creative businesses to the next level. However, she wasn't always the super-confident person she is today, and it's taken her over a decade to fine-tune her creative business. Way before specializing in lettering, she was a creative director, but eventually hit a breaking point and needed a change in her life. So, she moved to the Netherlands to study type design at the Royal Academy of Art, and moved to Berlin after graduating. There, she started calling herself a lettering artist, joined a group of typographic aficionados, opened her lettering studio, and hasn't looked back since. Martina's an avid reader; in fact, she's written many of her own books, like The Golden Secrets of Lettering, The Big Leap, and Make It! Her favorite letter to draw is "M," and she can tell you all about the 3 main groups of letters: rectangular, rounded, and triangular. Like so many of us, she thrives within constraints and believes that no brief is the worst brief. Tune in for a talk about why an email list is the most powerful asset for a creative business, how trying to become Ken Barber helped her discover herself, and why printing a set of new business cards changed her life. Follow Martina on Instagram @martinaflor, download free lettering resources on her website: martinaflor.com, and sign up for her FREE annual workshop series, The Lettering Design Roadmap, at martinaflor.com/masterclass. "If not now, then when?"

Tad is an illustrator, designer, author, and self-proclaimed BBQ snob from Kansas City. He co-runs a design and branding studio with his wife Jessica called Carpenter Collective. Their team has worked with companies like Macy's, Publix, Adobe, Hallmark, Coca-Cola, and MTV, among others. You've likely seen some of the illustrations from his SUNday Suns series, and if you've heard his Midwest vernacular, you might know the meaning of "Ope," "Alrighty, well," and "All good, no worries." His father, a Creative Director at Hallmark International for 41.5 years, is his biggest inspiration, and his mother is also an artist who works with fiber, so it's safe to say Tad would probably have been thrown out of the family if he hadn't pursued a creative career, lol. On a lighter note, he loves photos and videos of dogs driving cars; he believes the sausage biscuit is one of the most fantastic fast-food items ever created, and he won a drawing contest for season tickets to the Kansas City Chiefs when he was in the 3rd grade. Tune in for a talk about Joe's Kansas City Bar-B-Que, why he thinks you should work for someone before working for yourself, his studio's ping-pong approach to design, and the gigantic hole left behind after completing his SUNday Suns series. Follow Tad on Instagram @tadcarpenter and @carpentercollective, and buy his book, SUNday Suns, art prints, and gig posters on his website carpentercollective.com. "Happiness is not a function of what you achieve. It's a function of how you spend your time."

Jen is a Nashville-based independent type designer and resource creator for creative business owners. You might be familiar with some of her best-selling typefaces, like Perfectly Nineties, Editor's Note, and Founder's Hand. However, long before her formal education in type design from Type@Cooper, Jen got her start on Creative Market. She created and uploaded font after font, even though she didn't know the rules and guidelines of type design. The best part is IT WORKED, because people bought and used her fonts, and that was enough to inspire her to keep doing it. Surprisingly, Jen only wanted to make enough money to pay her water bill and eat at Chipotle once a week. But now, brands like Sprouts, Victoria's Secret, Kohl's, Bed Bath & Beyond, and Sweetgreen are using her typefaces. She's come a long way from wanting to be an orthopedic surgeon in Colorado; her love for type design has gone from hobby to career, and she's LITERALLY sold a digital product every single day of this year. Tune in for a talk about getting started on Creative Market, her struggles with tying her self-worth to her income, and finding the balance between making type that's accessible for everyone and becoming a world-class type foundry. Follow Jen on Instagram @jenwagnertype, and explore her typefaces on her website jenwagner.co. If you sign up for her email list, you'll get 20% off your first order!

Maya is an author and multi-hyphenate creative leader based in the San Fransico Bay Area, specializing in art direction, brand design, and illustration. Today, she's a Brand Design Lead at Yahoo, but she also worked at Lyft, Asana, and Square. WAY before working at any of those places, she spent the weekends at her grandmother's playing Sonic the Hedgehog and drawing Powerpuff Girls and Sailor Moon. She's also obsessed with 80s, 90s, and early 2000s pop culture, and has an affinity for hard edges, shapes, color blocks, and vibrancy. Recently, and in response to the murder of George Floyd, Maya spent three years writing and illustrating her book called The Anti-Racist Vocab Guide: An Illustrated Introduction to Dismantling Anti-Blackness. An excellent resource to learn more about terms like assimilation, blackface, privilege, tokenism, and white supremacy. Tune in for a talk about her career as an in-house designer in the tech industry, showcasing culture in your work, how writing grounds and influences her visual directions, and the salad bowl theory. Follow Maya on Instagram @mayaealey, find brand design on her website mayaealey.com, and buy her book, The Anti-Racist Vocab Guide: An Illustrated Introduction to Dismantling Anti-Blackness, online.

Kory is the Creative Director and Founder of Park St Studio, a design studio based in Phoenix, Arizona. His wife, Kasey, is also his business partner, and she played a significant role in establishing the processes and practices that streamline the studio's operations. They have a great story of how they met, and together, they've worked with apparel brands, breweries, coffee shops, and the Phoenix Suns, among others. Their focus is on branding, packaging, merchandise, and custom illustrations, and Kory's come a long way since his childhood days of spray painting on particle board in his backyard. He's a fan of DKNG, David Walker, Benny Gold, I Am Sloth, and Wacom products, and he would love to have dinner with Ellen DeGeneres because he thinks she's hilarious. Here's his favorite quote: "Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful." Tune in for a talk about taking your design business to the next level with a CRM, learn precisely when he talks to his clients about how much money they should pay him, and he breaks down how he handles discouraging feedback without losing his confidence. Follow Kory on Instagram @korymiller and his studio @parkststudio. You'll find more of his work on his website: parkststudio.com. Party on!

Adam is the Principal and Creative Director of Vicarel Studios, an artful branding and graphic design studio in Denver, Colorado. He loves avocados, even though he was willing to cut them (and feta) out of his diet early on in his career to be more frugal. RESPECT. Adam has worked with notable clients like NBC, lululemon, New Belgium Brewing, SYFY, and Native Roots Cannabis Co., and he believes "If you're thinking about doing a thing, you probably should have already done it." We hung out in Austin earlier this year, had some drinks, I told him about the biological father I can't find, and then he snuck off to the restroom to take a sip of whiskey from his flask—frugal. I'm kidding, the flask part didn't happen, but it's 100% believable. One of my favorite questions I asked him in this interview was about how our work expands to fill the available time we allot it. Tune in for a talk about four near-death experiences in four years, why he rebranded and repositioned his studio in 2020, and the most significant amount of money he billed for a single project. Follow Adam on Instagram @adamvicarel, connect with him on LinkedIn, and subscribe to his almost weekly newsletter at vicarelstudios.com/newsletter. Yeah, dawgie!

Andrew is an Independent Designer in Colorado Springs who runs a studio called Impossibly Awesome Design Co. He specializes in logo and brand identity design, packaging, and illustration. Many of you know him from attending Crop Conference, and if you've been to The Springs within the past few years and had a beer at Bristol Brewing, you probably came across his work. I met Drew on October 15, 2022. Trust me, I found the calendar invite for our very first coffee hangout shortly after I moved to Colorado, and he's a big reason I was able to get involved in the local design community so quickly. Drew was also on my original shortlist of potential guests for this podcast, so interviewing him has been a long time coming. If you hang out with him long enough, you'll start to learn things about competitive volleyball, bourbon, the Rubik's Cube, and The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. One of the most fascinating things about Drew's creative journey is that he's completely self-taught. He didn't attend school for design, but he does hold degrees in marketing and finance. Finance? Yeah, finance. Tune in for a talk about the pros and cons of being a self-taught graphic designer, curating his (own) design curriculum, cherry-picking the best ideas from the people he admires, and tips for getting started on a project when starting doesn't feel impossibly awesome. Follow Drew on Instagram @impossiblyawesomedesign, and check out his portfolio website: impossiblyawesome.design.

Nicholas—Nick—is a Graphic Designer and founder of Miner Design Co., located near Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He specializes in identity design, illustration, and packaging design, and works with restaurants, food and beverage companies, hospitality, and retail clients. Embracing discomfort has been a recurring theme throughout Nick's life, and much of his work ethic stems from his experiences living with his grandfather. He's a firm believer in "People Over Projects," and building relationships with his clients is more important than the dollar amount tied to each project. But, don't get it twisted, Nick's just like us. When he was younger, he wanted to build things with K'NEX for a living. He has a bookshelf full of design books that he doesn't reference often enough, he sent a job to print with a watermarked Shutterstock image in the layout, and he worries about where his next client will come from. Tune in for a talk about running his business, screwing up his taxes, and good old fashioned printed self-promotion pieces. Follow Nick on Instagram @minderdesignco, connect with him on LinkedIn, and see award-winning work on his website: minerdesignco.com.

Fiorella—or Fio—is a designer, illustrator, and content creator from Lima, Peru, living in Toronto, Ontario. She's a lifelong basketball player, so it's no surprise she's worked with organizations and sports brands like the WNBA, NBA, NFL, PWHL, and Asics. Not only was Fio named MVP of her high school basketball team TWICE, but she also played guard for the University of Toronto, and her mother played for Peru's Women's National Team. So, yeah, basketball (literally) flows through her veins. Fiorella has always been passionate about blending the intersections of design and sports, and she's on a mission to find meaningful work that allows her to share that passion with women around the world. Tune in for a talk about designing Canada's first outdoor WNBA court, why she left the world of architecture, and putting yourself out there on social media. Follow Fio on Instagram @fiorelladoodles, connect with her on LinkedIn, and see more of her work on her website, fiorellagranda.myportfolio.com.

Rebecca (she/her) is a queer woman of color born in Trinidad and Tobago. She's the Creative Director of Planthouse Studio, a queer-owned design studio built on the foundations of collaboration, inclusivity, and growth, dedicated to growing good things with good people. Bex is also the co-founder of Queer Design Club, the hub for LGBTQ+ creativity, and until recently, the Design Director at Ghost Note Agency. Some of my favorite works in her portfolio are for Hip Hop Caucus and the Center for Journalism & Democracy at Howard University, and she's also worked with the Obama Foundation Democracy Forum, Smithsonian's Anacostia Community Museum, Grammarly, and many more. Bex loves dim sum, Coca-Cola, Scrabble (like, on a competitive level), lives by the phrase "Be Good," and Maurice Cherry, Antionette Carroll, Debbie Millman, and Vanessa Newman inspire her. Tune in for a talk about building a community for creative people who identify as LGBTQ+, growing up in Trinidad and Tobago, and how we can all be better allies. Follow Bex on Instagram @beccabrooker, find more of her work on her website rebeccabrooker.com, and learn more about Queer Design Club and the Queer Design Count at queerdesign.club. Be Good.

Erikas is a designer and illustrator who specializes in making playful geometric illustrations. He's also a boneheaded bird brain, and he knows it. Driven by his love for birds, he demands respect for pigeons, grackles, and sparrows, and he especially loves the Red-bellied woodpecker and the Scissor-tailed flycatcher. Originally from New York, Erikas has called Austin his home for the last decade and has created artwork for Austin FC, Half-Price Books, Oregon State Parks, Star Wars, HP, and many more. He's also been on the big stage and given presentations at Adobe Max and Creative Jam, and he will be a workshop leader at Design Ranch 2025. Erikas even has a course on Domestika—check it out here! Tune in for a talk about Dribbble shooting themselves in the foot, his fascination with birds, and why creating posters for Austin FC was so significant to him. Follow Erikas on Instagram @erik_as_erik, and check out fantastic artwork in his online shop.

Kirk is an illustrator, animator, and art director, and he runs a small independent studio called BoneHaus with his skeletal sidekick, Skully. Unlike most of us, he didn't go to art/design school, but that's a good thing because he probably wouldn't be doing what he does today if he had. Why? Kirk isn't good at drawing—a weakness he's turned into a superpower. He's an expert with shapes and great at breaking things down to their most basic forms to build them back up again through relatable details. His illustration style has attracted clients like Apple, Google, Adobe, Facebook, Amazon, Rocket League, Disney, and MANY more. But his portfolio is also filled with kickass characters like Sub Zero, Doug Funnie, Gerald Johanssen, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Reptar. On top of great work, Kirk also has live streams on YouTube and is among the top 1% of teachers on Skillshare. Tune in for a talk about being an independent illustrator for over 10 years, collaborating with friends, and being six months away from (almost) hitting rock bottom. You can see more of Kirk's artwork on his website, bone.haus, Instagram @bonehaus, Dribbble, YouTube, and Behance. You can also level up by taking his courses on Skillshare.