Christian Solorzano [00:00]

Hello, you are listening to Underscore, a show by the Chicago Graphic Design Club. I am your host, Christian Solorzano, and today I am very happy to share my conversation with Daniel Swartz, founder of Hoosier Type Company. Daniel is a letterpress designer and printer based out of rural Indiana, where he works out of the back of his garage using antique type, paper and ink to make everything by hand.

In this conversation, Daniel takes us through his winding path from illustrator to graphic design educator to letterpress printmaker, and how losing his job in 2020 became the unlikely starting point for the work that he does today. He talks about the relationship between digital and analog, the beauty of working within constraints, and how faith and humility Quietly shape everything that he does. He also shares with us what it was like to rebuild creative confidence from scratch, one print at a time.

As always, if you enjoy conversations like these, I really appreciate your support when you leave us a rating wherever you listen. It helps us expand our reach in Chicago and beyond. So thank you so much for tuning in. And enjoy the conversation. Welcome, Daniel. It is June 19th. It is Friday, and it's nice to be speaking with you today.

Daniel Swartz [01:41]

Yeah, it's great to be on here. Thanks for the invite. I'm looking forward to this.

Christian Solorzano [01:45]

I want to know about your how do you spend your mornings usually?

Daniel Swartz [01:51]

It's usually kind of a mix. Always the first priority is Shipping out any kind of orders that need to go out because I'm in a real rural space. So our post office closes at 9:30 in the morning, which actually is really nice for me. So it gives me like a nice hard deadline to get everything out the door. So I may prep stuff the evening before and then that morning get everything finally packaged up. And then, if it's a nice day out, I'll bike down.

If the kids are home, then we well, bike or walk down to the post office. It's not too far and it makes a nice way to start the day. Drop 'em off and that's how we begin. And after that it's usually some social media stuff. There's things that either I wanna share or just connect with different people or get back to messages. There's a couple I don't know if you're on Substack, right?

Christian Solorzano [02:43]

Yeah.

Daniel Swartz [02:43]

So I usually try to do like an AM post in Substack Notes. That's usually a good way for me to start the day. And then it's getting into the work, it's figuring out what's on the calendar, what needs to come up next. Are we working on a new print or am I working on a Substack article? Or is there assets that need made or am I working on an event? That kind of thing.

And it's all fairly regimented, but that's governed by my social media schedule, if that makes sense. That's kind of like my anchors throughout the week. And I know that's kind of what guides me. And then the time in between all of that stuff is when the real work happens. So it's not that social media takes a lot of time, but I can just make sure that it occurs, right?

That I'm regular on showing people what I do and helping other people understand what's happening and talking about fonts a lot. So, yeah.

Christian Solorzano [03:32]

And how'd you get into design? Because I know before you started your type business, you were in the industry for 14 years.

Daniel Swartz [03:43]

It's like a lot of creative paths. It's very convoluted. It's back and forth. So when I was in college, I wanted to be an illustrator really badly and had some great illustration, like a faculty member that was very inspiring, great craftsman. And I wanted to do that, but I was not great at paint and natural media. I could draw, but I wasn't great at like managing the materials.

So I kind of stumbled into digital media and then I had another professor reach out and he was like, hey, you're kind of quick at these computers. Have you thought about doing a graphic design degree? And I had not. And we went out to coffee and he kind of talked to me more about it. And I thought, I don't want to be a starving artist. And this sounds like a good backup plan.

And I decided to do it just because he reached out and was kind enough to see that opportunity for me. And although I did very poorly in the graphic design classes, like I was not a good graphic designer, I learned the tools and I learned kind of the gist and I learned kind of like workflow and clients and all that kind of stuff. And then when I got outta college, I tried to do the illustrator thing and it just didn't go well.

I just didn't have the right portfolio and I was bopping around a lot and trying different things. And eventually I started getting some traction, but I needed, I needed more. Right. And so I went into teaching and I was doing that for 14 years while I was still trying to make it as an illustrator. I was doing some freelance graphic design, but it was through that I started to love graphic design.

I started to see the structure and I started to see like how it all tied to itself. And I started falling in love with like the history of like the craft and other designers. And I was still struggling as an illustrator. Trying to make it happen. And it just kind of, it kind of reaches tipping point where like, I just conceded that maybe illustration was not going to work out for me and design was the thing.

And so I focused on teaching design for a while and then I wasn't.

Christian Solorzano [05:40]

And what classes were you teaching?

Daniel Swartz [05:41]

It was a mix, there was some foundation stuff that was going on, but also typography and some, senior seminar kind of things. And I loved it. And I don't know if it's because it's orderly and organized that I really like it or that it was easier to explain, but it worked out well for me.

Sometimes I felt like if I was teaching drawing or painting, it was just more about— it's kind of like training an athlete, it was about doing more laps, doing more paintings, doing more color studies and all that kind of stuff. And then when we got into design, I don't know, it seemed more structured to me and easier to pass on the principles and the ideas and For students to get their hooks into it. And that's where I discovered letterpress, talking about the history of design.

Christian Solorzano [06:26]

And speaking about illustration, you were drawn to illustration. What were some of the— what was the subject matter that you were illustrating?

Daniel Swartz [06:33]

I was doing a lot of kids and family stuff. I did some curriculum things. I did a few board games. I did like a big puzzle project that I think went out through like Barnes Noble and stuff. I wasn't doing big client stuff, but I was keeping okay busy. It just wasn't enough to like hang my hat on. Did one children's book in natural media, which was kind of like my pinnacle for a small publisher. And I loved that work.

And a piece got into the Society of Illustrators of LA, and that was fantastic. But that doesn't— it's a great gold badge and it makes you feel like you've accomplished something and like your peers are saying you're doing good work. But it doesn't necessarily unlock more work for you. Does that make sense? It's not like the floodgates don't open and you're all of a sudden so busy you can't keep up. It's just one step on the journey of building your career.

So yeah, I love doing that kind of stuff and telling little stories. And it kind of had this mid-century Nickelodeon-ish type of vibe. And a lot of it was done in vector because it was very flexible and good for clients and all that kind of jazz.

Christian Solorzano [07:41]

And when did the love for typography begin? Well, what are some of your early memories of letterforms?

Daniel Swartz [07:47]

Oh man, actually very early on. I remember as a kid trying to draw letters and trying to make them feel regular on the page. And I didn't know how to describe it, but having a similar weight and consistency and good spacing. But you know how it is, you're drawing on the page and you always run out of space and you just get thinner and thinner and thinner as you go. And that's— I kind of just kind of kept fiddling with that.

And even as an illustrator for a while, I introduced lettering and I was doing that in my portfolio and trying to add that into projects and get lettering-specific projects. So that was teaching me about letter forms and consistency and design and all that kind of stuff. But I kind of fiddled back and forth with it. And I remember, when I was like in high school fiddling with Microsoft Publisher, I think, and layouts and just playing with text boxes and different fonts.

And even I had, man, what was it, PaintShop Pro or something back in the '90s, fiddling with this, making little layouts and playing with the different type effects and that kind of stuff. I had a good time doing that. Most of my art on the computer younger was oriented around type. It wasn't based Making pictures, it was making layouts of some kind. But I love storytelling and I thought that, I thought illustration would be a good path.

Plus I'm in Indiana and Garfield is a real big thing around here. The artist Jim Davis grew up from not too far away from here and still has a studio here. And so we actually have Garfield statues in the area and you can go on like a Garfield tour. And I just remember seeing that in the newspaper and maybe thinking that there was this cool connection that an artist from Indiana was doing something and kind of finding inspiration in that.

And I wanted to do comics as a kid because I think that's all that I knew? And then I saw comic books and I was like, oh, I should do that. Because that was kind of what I knew. And then college introduced me to this huge spectrum of what illustration could be. It was, it was far beyond newspaper pages and children's books and yeah. Drawn Superman, that kind of thing.

Christian Solorzano [09:53]

Wow. That's so cool. I remember growing up with Garfield comics as well. My mom was really into them. And just like the simplicity, like there was something so that felt so familiar and domestic about the comic strips that just really resonated with me. Yeah. So then in 20— so you grew up in rural Indiana, right?

Daniel Swartz [10:19]

Yeah. Yep.

Christian Solorzano [10:20]

And what was your upbringing like? Talk to us about the things that were drawing your eye and whatnot.

Daniel Swartz [10:28]

Well, I don't think it's an uncommon experience because there's a whole lot of rural America, but I was in a small school. We had one art teacher in the elementary and one art teacher for the high school. So it wasn't like we had a lot of different voices and that's okay. That's okay. I remember both my art teachers very well, and they taught me a ton of great things and things I still think about today. But there just wasn't a lot of exposure to like arts.

We had kind of a local ballet and dance program. They may have taught some basic art classes, that kind of thing. But it was largely through popular media that I was introduced to art. Garfield, Disney movies. Comic books, all that kind of stuff. That was kind of like my window into the arts world, and I think you know that was okay.

I mean, I fiddled with some other things when I was younger, but largely I just focused on drawing because that's what kind of like related the most to what I could see. I could see other people doing drawings on cereal boxes or comics or you know bubble gum wrappers or whatever, and so I just really kind of.

Was obsessive about developing the skills of drawing, which was good because it put me on a really solid foundation when I started college, because I was way behind when I got to college. When I got there, all these other students, they— man, they had taken like private lessons and they had multiple art teachers in their schools. And I had fiddled with watercolor a little bit. I don't even know if I touched acrylic paints. Before I got to college.

And they knew all these other words like contrast and texture and all these things that seem very elementary, but it just wasn't like kind of what we were doing. It was just about slowly developing skills. And I just felt like way in over my head. It was very intimidating watching some of these other students. They just seemed so much more prepared, but I could draw. And so that's kind of what I— that's kind of what I use as my foundation.

And that worked out okay. I had a professor one time say that, even a bad— a good drawing can save a bad painting or something like that. And that's been kind of like a foundational, guiding principle. If you've got a good structure, it'll hold true no matter how the finishing is.

Christian Solorzano [12:48]

And much of your work today is analog. And one of the things that I've been thinking about recently is how Everything that is being pushed our way tends to be digital. And with everything that's digital, there's such an essence of disposableness to it. Like you make something on the computer, your file can get corrupted, your computer crashes, and that thing is gone forever. But the stuff that you're creating, there is a tactile nature to it.

I have for one of my— there's a gift that Cheryl gave me a while ago from a close friend of mine, and it's a piece that you did, and it sits behind my bookshelf at home. And every time I go up and down the stairs, it kind of like just looks at me in the face. And there's something really precious about decorating a space with things that come from the human hand. So, is that always a—

Well, one, I think it's awesome that you're, that you're, that there's a craft that's still being practiced and being sustained. There's also a huge appreciation for it. I notice online at least. But what's your relationship to making things with your hands as opposed to making things with a computer? Because you speak about Your work being perfectly imperfect, which I love.

Daniel Swartz [14:18]

Yes. So let's back up a little bit. The only real traction I got early as an illustrator was through digital and through vector. In fact, the first actual real contract I got, I didn't even know it had to be in vector. I showed up with a portfolio that was all Photoshop drawings, and they hired me based off of that, and then they told me everything had to be in vector. I didn't really even know Adobe Illustrator that well.

I had just fiddled in this program, so I very quickly learned Illustrator. But it was great, and it got me started, and I kept doing work for that company, and that was fantastic. So I love digital because of the flexibility and because it takes so much risk out of the making process, right? We can— it can become too precious when we're thinking about wasting paper or ink, canvas or whatever, because these are like materials that you have to keep buying and replenishing.

So I love digital for that reason. But, as I kept moving through the career, I was just realizing that there was kind of this balance. Once you get the skills down, the digital skills, you can focus more on the concept and the content and what you're trying to do. And once I got the skills under control, I started realizing that what I really loved was mid-century work, which you can kind of see a little bit in what I do now.

And so much of that was done analog. Even typography was done in photomechanical ways, things that were imperfect with paste-up and whatever. So I loved that accidental nature. And for a long time, I was faking it by scanning textures and doing the live trace and using them in my vector illustration, all that kind of stuff. And it just kind of hit this point where I said, why am I faking this? Why don't I just do this for real?

And so I started transitioning to try and do everything with natural media, and I loved it. I didn't have the control of digital, but I loved that there was these accidents, these happy accidents like Bob Ross says. And I think that was really great. It made it unique and it made it more precious in a way. So I was already making this transition into like this analog world and perfectly imperfect.

And then that started— that was already in my mind, all these ideas about making things with hands. And when you create something as a maker, as an artist, you're creating an artifact. You're creating something that lasts beyond just a file, which you never see when you send it out. And I was really getting into that. And so when 2020 happened and I had to make some new choices about what my future creative self was going to be, I really like this idea of hand printing things.

I was watching other letterpress printers. I was watching like Ben Blount and Hamilton Woodtide and Stephanie Carter and some of these other people. And I just loved the textures and how every time it was different and there was a fine art element to it, but it was also typography and it was dealing with fonts and all those visual relationships. So this all, it just kind of came to head and it was perfect.

Letterpress kind of fit this need for me of fonts and design and organization and process, but also something that was handmade and imperfect and human. I love digital and I still use digital in my process because it's flexible and it's quick and it's very forgiving. And I think that's great for the creative process. But I love the idea that at some point I have to start committing to making these things and have a little bit more skin in the game.

And that raises my creative bar, I think, somehow. So yeah, it's been a journey trying to figure this out because when I first started, I had no idea what I was doing. None. I was watching YouTube videos, Facebook groups, and what I was making was okay, but it was not where I wanted it to be. And I think a lot of that was my kind of digital perfectionism shining through. I wasn't okay yet with this handmade craft.

And it took me a little while to see that there was beauty in accidents. There was beauty in variations in between each little print. And there was beauty in like the slight adjustments in me applying ink to different things. So I've really gotten into that now because now I look at them as I— when I first started, it was kind of like, I don't know, production, like making units. Now I'm much more looking at it like handmade Artisan objects, right? Individually made things for other people.

And that's brought kind of a new beauty and a new piece with the work. Not that I've lowered my standards, I've expanded my standards. Does that make sense?

Christian Solorzano [18:57]

Yeah, that makes sense. And what have been the— when I think about, an artist always being in conversation with their audience, or with their customers, et cetera. And I'm— and I'd love to learn about what you've learned from the people that engage with your work and if their reaction influences what you output, because I noticed that there's this common thread or there's this through line in your work that deals with messages of hope and purpose.

And I wonder if that's in direct— if that's a reaction to what you're seeing or what you're hearing or sort of what informs the stuff that you put out.

Daniel Swartz [19:48]

Yeah, I mean, it's tricky. Obviously, I'm very present on social media showing what I do. And I think anyone, any artist that's putting their stuff out there is going to be subject to the idea that, well, the things that get the most likes and the things that get the most engagement that's what I should be making, even if that's not the truest to like my vision, right? Or who I am as a maker, as a visual creator.

So I'm always kind of a little hesitant to like follow social media's lead too much because those stats are useful but inaccurate at the same time, right? You never know why. I was just telling my wife. Last week, I took a post from like a year ago or something because it was still good content, and I rewrote it, reframed it, and it was essentially the same images.

But I thought, well, it's a good time to try this again, and it outperformed it by huge amounts than last year, and I have no idea why. And so I try to keep that in mind all the time, that when something looks really popular, it's the whims of the algorithm sometimes. Right? It could be the gas prices dropped yesterday, and that's why people are in a good mood. I don't know.

And so I try, I try not to let social media lead me, but obviously it's an influence. But as far as messages of hope, I've always been drawn to—I don't want to sound full of myself—but trying to trying to inspire people or trying to show them. The possibilities that are out there, the joy, the beauty that is out there.

I think it's really easy to get weighted down with all the troubles of the world and finances and time commitments, all this stuff that can seem like really heavy. But there is such a beautiful world out there and a beautiful life to live, and I try to show people that. And honestly, half of the time when I'm making these things, it's things that I need to hear. Right?

If I'm going through a season and I— there's a message that I need to hear, something I've been repeating to myself, a lot of times that makes it into a print because I'm like, if this is helpful to me, it's probably helpful to other people as well. And I hope it doesn't come off as overly sugary. It's not all rainbows and butterflies, but, I think, I think that the right perspective goes a long ways.

In our careers, especially the makers, maybe when we're a little more emotionally connected to our work, taking care of ourselves emotionally can be like a really helpful thing for our lives and for art.

Christian Solorzano [22:24]

Yeah. And how do you tend to measure your areas of growth? Or as you're working through, let's say, just these last 6 years, what have been some milestones or some markers throughout the last couple of years that you feel like have pushed you in new directions? How do you navigate that?

Daniel Swartz [22:48]

I mean, there's a few things that I can look at that are big turning points, or like, that's when they kind of— the gates open for me. One is as silly as it seems, finding the right paper, like the right paper that does what I want it to do. The first two or so years, I really did a lot of experimenting with different inks and papers because I was very new to this.

And what was beautiful was people still liked the work and were still purchasing it. And I still had people that were like repeat collectors who would bring their works into the spaces. That was really encouraging and kept me going. But I was always trying to figure out like the next better way to make it happen. And I finally found the perfect paper, like the right weight, the right texture, the right composition that like did the thing that I wanted it to.

And like once that happened, it dramatically changed my process. Like I didn't feel like I was fighting the materials as much. And that was a huge thing for me. And now I love paper all the more because I tried all these different things. I mean, I was, I was just playing with everything I could, picking up Pastel paper at Hobby Lobby or Bristol board for drawing and Trying to print all these different surfaces, see what I could do with it.

But this was great, and it's kind of become my go-to. Now I'm down to like four paper stocks, and this is like all that I use. It's all very managed. I know how it's going to work every time. That's been really good. Another one was obviously you're always looking at the numbers, right? And trying to think about how much you want to contribute to your family. And how you want to work towards the future and all that kind of stuff.

So that's all on my, on my mind as well. But even that is flaky sometimes because the economy is always changing or our needs are always changing or like families are growing and evolving and whatever. So that's good. But maybe not on the design side, but I don't know, maybe 3 years ago I was in a Facebook group with some college professors and someone asked for a guest speaker.

And I was still reeling, honestly, from 2020, and I was not feeling very confident about what I was doing. I was making things and I was growing, but it's for a class of seniors, and I thought, well, this is a different kind of design, and maybe she would be interested in me doing a video talk. And so I threw my hat in the ring and she said, sure. And I, that was great.

So I got to speak to this group of college students, and it wasn't a huge class. And I put together, a presentation, and I know it wasn't the best, but I had a chance to like talk about the creative journey and changes in your path and talk about this craft specifically. And then they had some questions, about because they're seniors, they're thinking about what's next. So we chatted about that a little bit, and I was unbelievably nervous and very sweaty the whole time.

But you can't tell on Zoom if someone's sweaty. And so we did this and it was really great. I think the students got something out of it and I felt, I felt like I climbed a mountain by the time I was done. I was just like kind of exhilarated with this experience and that started to unlock something. And then that gave me the courage to talk to some other people.

And then I had another college class or a graphic design club at a college invite me to speak remotely. And then I got to do another or whatever. And then the next one was I got to speak at the University and College Design Association at their conference in Indianapolis. I was generously invited to speak at that. Was that 2 years ago? And that was like, that was the second like turning point. That was the second time. And I, it was in person.

I got to be with all these other great people that are designers and we got to talk about creativity and specifically professional perfectionism and what that means for our craft and as makers and as people. And again, it was like climbing another mountain, and that was, that was another big turning point for me. So finding the right paper, the first virtual talk, and then the first in-person talk— those have been like big moments for me. Yeah.

And it's helped, it's helped broaden like what I thought that this could be, because I thought I was just going to be making stuff on paper, and it's turned into something bigger. And I love that. Never what I intended, but it's been good.

Christian Solorzano [27:04]

That's what I love so much about design is that it binds so many people together. And it's just so amazing to see the humanity in the— that the work fosters.

And what's your— and you were talking a little bit about paper, and I want to hear more about what your relationship is with your tools. Well, letterpress is such a it's a very— to me, it feels like such an industrial, messy practice. And I, and I know a few people that also do letterpress, and they get so excited about having new fonts to work with and new inks. And it's just, it's such a, it's such a world that feels still somewhat foreign to me.

So can you talk to us about what you have and sort of what you're— I think about your, all like your equipment. These are, these are your collaborators. Like these are the tools that make things possible. So talk to us about that.

Daniel Swartz [28:13]

All right. So I have maybe 15 fonts that I work with. All of them are incomplete, which means I'm missing characters or there's not enough repetitions of character. But that's part of the collaboration, is working with the available tools. When I first started, my first print, which I made in 2020, I was very frustrated with everything. So I hand-carved a bunch of these large 5-inch letters to make a giant print. It was like this big, because I didn't know what I was doing.

And I put it on Instagram, and a couple sold, and that was unbelievable to me. And I Made me understand that Instagram was possible of doing, capable of doing something. Well, a friend, an old friend, an old art teacher saw what I was doing and he said, I've got an old manual press and a couple trays of type in my barn. If you'll use them, they're yours.

And I was just exhilarated because I wanted to do this letterpress thing, but I had no idea how to do that and I didn't really have the money to take it on. So I drove to this guy's place in my van, and I remember loading up all the stuff, the type trays and this press he helped move and a couple other, things to work with.

And I was like physically embarrassed to be doing this thing because I was so gutted by like the loss of what everything in 2020. And I wanted to do this thing and I was dreaming in my head, but I didn't even have the vocabulary. Yet to talk with him about this. He knew about this stuff more than I did. I just roughly knew what I was getting into.

And so that's what I started with, just this manual proof press, which I still use today, and like maybe 3 trays of type and very incomplete. And all those first prints were made just based on those fonts that I had available, what letters I had available. And like you said, it was a very collaborative process. 'Cause I could not dream big. I had to only look at what I had and find a solution, which I think is good.

And then those sold and we kept buying more fonts and buying more equipment. But it's pretty limited. I have one type cabinet. I'm getting ready to get a second one 'cause I've outgrown it. I have 2 presses. I have a foot-pedaled powered one, which is good, but I'm not using as much anymore. Most of it's now all hand inked and hand pressed. And I cut my paper by hand. I've got a nice, guillotine that I use. Everything's hand-signed, everything's hand-inked, colors are hand-mixed.

I'm not buying anything that's pre-mixed. I use these fine art inks from Caligo, which are fantastic. But it's a very heavy process, and I don't have a huge space. It's just the back of my garage, but it's good enough for what I— it's more than enough space for what I'm making happen.

Christian Solorzano [31:01]

Yeah. And when you're working, paint a picture of us, for us, of what it— I know you're into jazz. I read that you're a jazz listener. So I assume jazz may be playing, but what's the what's the atmosphere if someone were to walk in on Daniel in the midst of his creative peak? What would they be seeing?

Daniel Swartz [31:28]

Oh man, when everything, when everything clicks, it's usually locking up the type and the elements on the press at the time when I'm transitioning from like— I always do digital mockups to like really understand what I'm going to make happen first. And so it's that time, usually in the morning, when I'm moving from the digital mockup and then recreating it on the analog space on the press.

And like mixing the inks and the paper's already trimmed and all I'm doing is like all the translation work and I get to make that first print. And yeah, I've usually got jazz playing, a lot of mid-century kind of classic names. Sometimes though, I will admit that I slide into my '90s alternative rock playlist and that's good to work to as well.

But yeah, it's ink and paper and peace and it's sunny out and there's a cup of coffee. And I've got a good 3 hours just to make this thing happen. And a lot of that's the troubleshooting. You make that first print and, well, I gotta adjust this. The spacing is not right. The kerning needs help, or this color isn't quite doing it. There's an alignment issue, or pressure needs help, or whatever. But on the right day, that's all, that's all part of the process, right?

It's all part of the fun of making this thing happen. And then there's that relief when it finally does. Yeah.

Christian Solorzano [32:47]

And when it comes with the constraints of letterpress, for example, maybe you don't have all the letters for one of the fonts, or maybe you're low on ink or whatever. Yeah. Do you find any of the constraints to be frustrating at times?

Daniel Swartz [33:02]

Oh, absolutely. Okay. Absolutely. I, so there's a whole process called make ready. And so when you get your type, what happens is there may be a letter that's a little bit shorter than another and they don't print as well. And so you have to add paper underneath to level it up so everything's the same height.

And this process, for me, it can take a couple hours sometimes to get it exactly right, because you may get one area where you want it and that reveals that another area was lower. And so I always say, if I go into a day when I'm doing make ready and I expect it to be a 15-minute process, that's when I get the most frustrated.

If I go in and realize this is my morning, I am most likely going to sink the next two hours into this thing. Then it's a lot better. But yeah, I get I get frustrated. Or I did that make something great print. I don't know if you saw that one. It's vertical type, and when I first printed it, I didn't realize one of the E's that was in the cabinet was the wrong E. It was a two-inch sans serif.

Same width, but it was a slightly lighter weight. And I ran, I don't know, 50 or 75 of these by hand. And I was so happy with them. And I come out the next morning, there's something about the next day that always opens up and shows you the problems. I look at this thing and I realized the E is the wrong weight. It's like a completely different font. And I am just gutted and I'm angry. And I don't know what I did.

I probably went for a run because that's usually my best stress relief. But the only thing to do is just toss all of that paper and all of that time. And I had to do 2 lockups then. I had to do like the top half to print one pass, had to do another lockup to reuse an E from the top because I didn't have enough. I had to reprint great at the bottom. And it was very frustrating. It was very frustrating.

But yeah, we made it through. And I, and I learned things. I had never done a substitution process before, so that was good to do. And a lot of people have seen that print. It's been encouraging people. So it's a win-win.

Christian Solorzano [35:05]

Nice. And then earlier this year in, I believe it was in March, you gave a talk called a Faith in Makers.

And yeah, and I tried finding a little bit about it online, but I only read everything up until it says, and later that evening, there's a presentation called Faith and Makers. And I know that faith, it plays a really big role in your work. And I remember, yeah. I remember a long time ago you posted something on Instagram regarding, maybe it was Easter or there, it was a, it was something regarding Christianity.

And I remember I responded back, but it was on the Chicago Graphic Design Club Instagram. And I was like, oh, I meant to—

Daniel Swartz [35:57]

That's funny.

Christian Solorzano [35:58]

I'm like, I meant to respond to that like on my personal Instagram. So anyways, that always stayed ingrained in my, in my mind. But I think, I think faith is I've had several conversations with— there was one other conversation on the podcast where I had with a woman and she, and she spoke about how her faith is the foundation that breathes life into her work.

And I find that any sort of faith or belief in some sort of higher power or whatever you want to call it tends to provide some ground and foundation for the work. And I, and I, and I personally think of faith as synonymous with creativity.

Because there's something about faith, creation, and design creativity. That's all to me, it's just it's essentially very similar. So can you, can you talk with us a little bit about how faith or how that shows up in your work and how it inspires and moves you?

Daniel Swartz [37:02]

And yeah, so I think I know the post you're talking about. Rudolph Koch did a series of icon illustrations for this for this kind of like life of Jesus series, and they're very monoline, they're very graphic and startlingly modern for being designed in like, I don't know, probably 1932 or something like that. Anyway, I love those pieces, and I wish I had more space to show more of the work and the lettering that accompanies it.

But anyway, yeah, so I do some faith-based prints a few times a year because my faith is important to me and it's important to my family. And so if that's part, I want people to be able to see that. And I know I have a lot of followers that also share a similar faith, and that can be an encouragement to them.

But maybe the bigger influence than making inspirational prints is just this idea of stewardship is really big in my faith, and that we've been given gifts and we've been given time and we've been given kind of a community. To invest in and to make the most of, not for ourselves, but for the betterment of the world around us.

And, if you, if you read much of what I said or any of my talks, I'm really kind of tuned in to warning myself and others about the artist ego, because I think that it can be like really debilitating when we start thinking that we are the best we're God's gift to earth. We're the best things since sliced bread. That gets in the way of like good creativity.

And what I want us to be able to do is be humble enough to push that aside and to see other artists as being valuable, see those around us as being valuable and just as valuable as we are. I think it's when we close ourselves off with pride and ego, we stop taking in good stuff and we stop putting out world-changing good stuff at the same time. So I think that's probably the biggest way that my faith influences me.

I think everyone when they're young is probably a little more likely to be full of themselves. And I think that's one of the best things about maturing is you start seeing the world more clearly. But also once you start having any sense of success, it can easily start like tainting your world, your worldview, and making you think that you're better than you are. So my faith, I just, I try to use as a tool to keep myself humble and keep myself focused on other people.

And that can even play out in simple little ways as just responding with care to people on social media, right? Or being thoughtful. Or somebody yesterday asked on a Substack post, they said, well, what book is that? Because I showed an interior spread.

And it'd be really easy to just say what the book is, but you could also take 30 seconds and take a picture of the COVID so that they can actually see what it is and as a resource, and you can invest in them in a small little way that just goes a little bit above and beyond because they're valuable. And I know that when people respond to me with that little bit extra, it makes me feel cared for as well.

Just trying to find ways to do that, right? Instead of making it about me. Try to find ways to serve others through the art and our messaging.

Christian Solorzano [40:21]

Yeah. And I like to believe that spirit or that care and love for your work is ingrained into what you produce, that when people receive it, they can feel it even without having any engagement with you. I do, I do. I'm a big believer that, everything that we touch carries an echo of the energy or whatever state of mind that we're in. So I really like that about— I really like that about you.

And I, and I, and I wish there's— over the last 6 years or so, I've been, I've been having an opportunity to meet and to talk with so many people that I look up to and that are doing amazing work.

And many of them are not religious, but they give off this very clear sense of, to your point, stewardship, care, good-heartedness. And it's evident in everything that they do. And I just I think it'd be nice if more people talked about sort of the backbone of their creative practice because yeah. I think you, when I was writing my notes, I think you mentioned something about notifications are not the same things as progress. Is that? Yeah. Right. Yeah. And I think that's so true.

Daniel Swartz [41:51]

Yeah, there was so there's an Instagram account that I follow called Philosophy Minis, I think. And this guy just does these quick little minute summaries of different philosophical thoughts from across time. I love it because it's different from the other stuff that I view, and it helps me think about the world. And he posted— I wish I could remember the philosopher's name— but he was talking about how we've moved into kind of an animalistic age where all we're doing is responding to these stimuli.

So the phone dings, and we know we respond to the phone, or the email notification, then we respond to that. Instead of having like a self-directed singular path, all we're doing is constantly have in a Pavlovian way responding to all this stuff. And that was kind of like an eye-opener for me. And that's what led to some of those thoughts is thinking about how much we rely upon this beautifully connected world to make us think that it's something that it's not.

Christian Solorzano [42:51]

Yeah. And how do you tend to care for yourself? Because, running an independent business and riding your bike to the post office in the morning and, responding to messages and all this kind of stuff, how do you tend to find the balance to sustain that rigor of just continuing to make things?

Daniel Swartz [43:16]

Yeah, it's hard for sure. And I think a lot of us are still Trying to figure out, and every maker needs to figure it out for themselves. But as silly as it sounds, turning off notifications is a really powerful thing.

And if you can learn to get over that mental hump of trying to check the device, there's like a whole new freedom and focus that's there, that's available to us anytime. We just gotta take that first step to turn off notifications. Turn off your watch and just like live your life, even if that's so you can make better work. But even more so when you're like having dinner with the family or going out with friends or whatever. That's important stuff. But I run.

I'm not very good at it, but I run. And so that helps keep me balanced because it gets me away from screens and work. And I find it to be a meditative experience as well. At some point, you get into the groove and all you're doing is just keeping your muscles going. And it really gives you good time to— gives me good time to think and consider work and life and family and relationships and goals and all that kind of stuff.

But, I do admit that I am probably on social media too much, but I really do— Obviously there's doom scrolling times, but I really do love finding other people's work. And I love being inspired, and I love seeing connections. Or like somebody posted this morning a podcast, and I was like, "Oh, I'd love to hear what they have to say." So I saved it on Spotify, and I never would have seen that if I wasn't on social media this morning. Yeah.

And so there are really useful aspects to it. I just like everybody. I need to work to limit it and find ways to keep it useful. Cleaning, pruning your feed so it's just the stuff that. Is relevant to, who I want to be in 5 years.

Christian Solorzano [45:09]

Yeah. And who do you want to be in 5 years?

Daniel Swartz [45:13]

Who do I want to be? Man, what a leading question. I mean, so when it first started, it was just the printing, and now I've moved into printing and speaking at colleges and conferences, and Substack has become this great new writing element for me, which has been like cathartic for myself, but also I think useful for other people based on responses and a good way to like have a small design writing practice. So I'd like to grow that more.

I'd like to keep investing in that and finding the time to do that. I try to publish a newsletter every other week. That's been really good. Sometimes it's about process, sometimes it's resources, sometimes it's like, a little more philosophical. Because I think that's good for us to think about ourselves in the world. So I think kind of amping up those 3 things. And then I don't know if you've been seeing, I started my first font design project, which is—

I have bitten off way more than I can chew possibly, but I'm really enjoying it. And I love the process of recreating this old wood type with all of its inconsistencies and trying to make it a new version. So maybe in 5 years I have a stable of those fonts, the writing is better, and I get to keep speaking and I get to keep printing. And it's kind of this big mix of a creative practice that talks about typography and other makers.

Christian Solorzano [46:40]

Yeah. And, when I was asking you about turning points throughout your life or throughout these last few years you didn't mention your feature on PBS.

Daniel Swartz [46:54]

Sorry, I was negligent at best. Man, that was such a cool thing. I was literally printing in the studio a few years ago and my phone dings with a notification and it says it's PBS Fort Wayne. And I was like, what? And they're like, hey, we wonder if we can come down to your studio and profile you for our arts program. And I was like, no way, this is a scam.

So I'm like checking out the account and trying to figure out stuff because I'm a good drive away from Fort Wayne. It's not super close. And it was really it. I couldn't believe it. And so they came down for half a day and crammed in my very small studio, and I made a custom PBS print with the Irv Lublin original PBS graphic that he made.

So we did a custom piece for them as a demo, and then All the people that came on the crew got to take them home with them. I guess there's in some of their offices still. And it was a great time. It was really fantastic. And I was beyond humbled just for them to think of me. It was pretty, very unexpected, but I was very grateful for it.

Christian Solorzano [47:57]

Yeah. That's so cool. That's a big yeah, that's that when I, when I saw that, I was very happy to see that. Yeah. You need to you need to come out to Chicago sometime.

Daniel Swartz [48:12]

Sounds great to me. I'd love to. I wonder, I really want to go to the Design Museum. I follow them closely and I just love all the exhibits that they put on.

Christian Solorzano [48:20]

Yeah. Yeah, there, there's a lot of, there, there's some people, there's a handful of people in that, in Chicago that do letterpress. And then your name also comes up because you're so, you're, I consider you, you're in the Midwest, like you're not too far from here. You drive away.

So yeah, it'd be nice to at some point in the future maybe have you do a field trip and we can treat you to, oh man, a hand— like we can do like a little, a little crawl through like Design Museum and a few other neat landmarks.

Daniel Swartz [48:54]

Yeah. So I think that'd be fantastic. I'd love to come up there and then we can do a sketching day in the park or something together and be great.

Christian Solorzano [49:01]

Oh yeah, that would be awesome.

Daniel Swartz [49:02]

I'm gonna write that down.

Christian Solorzano [49:04]

So what are you currently working on at the moment?

Daniel Swartz [49:07]

Right now it's this font project, which has been fantastic. I'm trying to finish it by the end of June. I have read about font and typeface design for probably almost a decade. I just really love reading about pieces and how they're developed. There was just another article published on how Gotham was designed, and I just— I just eat that kind of stuff up. I love looking at the influence and thinking about how they were like combining all this and making a new thing.

So that's what I'm doing. I'm taking this old wood type, which I have most of, but I don't have any of the special characters for, and I don't have all the numerals. So I'm using all the information from the letterforms to recreate a reasonable guess at what this should look like, but also tweaking it and making it like I said, it's best possible self. So that's been super fun. I'm having a great time doing it.

It is 10 times more work than I thought it would be, and my perfectionism is going crazy with all of this, all the different things to manage in the font. Working on it right now. I'm in the very early stages of doing a series of installation prints for a church in Pennsylvania, which is really exciting.

They're going to be very low edition very low edition custom letterpress at 12 by 18 that's going to hang in a hallway that express some of their values, which I'm pretty excited about. And then I've got stuff that I'm planning on for the rest of the year. A new minimalist calendar is coming up. I've got some special stuff that I'm dreaming about for Christmas, and I've got a wish list of other projects that I hope to make happen in between. So.

Christian Solorzano [50:47]

Yeah. And when you, when you come up with a, let's say your calendars that you've been doing, is the layout of the calendar informed, the layout and the design informed about by your, by what you have in your studio, or do you tend to seek new fonts or new materials to produce something? How does that work?

Daniel Swartz [51:10]

I've kind of turned this project into kind of like my dream big project. So I kind of go at it with a blank canvas and I just think, if I can make this anything I want within reason, what would that look like? And so that way I'm not constrained to just what I have in my studio.

And so I actually usually kind of start on this early fall, if not the end of summer, at least starting to do sketches and that kind of thing so that it gives me time to really resolve the design and then make anything that I need. The first, the first year was an absolute failure when I made it. I only sold one, but I had a lot of things to figure out. The second year went better.

The third year I was kind of getting under my belt, and then it started transforming into this, well, let's turn it into a kind of a dream big project for the year. And so I thought I had one here, don't I? Yeah, like this one from last year or this year, like making this little handmade piece right here. I took some of the same paper stock.

It was going to be printed on, and then I tore this custom piece so that the paper would rip in a way that felt consistent with what it was going to be printed on. And then this is a type revival from like a 1930s script font that I really loved, and this is the Basuto type that I rescued last year. So I was like, what are all— and this is Lego printing at the bottom, that's why I did all this.

So I was just like fiddling with all these different techniques and ideas, trying to make it into like the coolest thing I could. So I don't know what this year's looks like, but I'm excited to dive in and think about that.

Christian Solorzano [52:40]

Yeah. Amazing. So as we come to the conclusion of our conversation, I do have some just some fun, lighthearted questions. And what's a tool in your studio that has nothing to do with printing that you can't live without?

Daniel Swartz [52:56]

A tool that has nothing to do with printing. Oh, goodness sakes. Man, if it was printing, I would say my printer's rule, because that thing is unbelievably useful. But you know what? My chisel set is very useful. It's not necessarily for printing, it's, for woodworking. But there's a lot of times when I have to alter type, especially to get letters to fit together well with good kerning. And so I've got to go in and chop things.

And so my chisels and a good hammer have been pretty useful.

Christian Solorzano [53:26]

And what does your studio usually smell like?

Daniel Swartz [53:30]

Oh man, it smells like old wood and ink, and it's kind of romantic when you walk in the morning, especially if something's been printed recently or I've been, cleaning type or whatever. You walk in and there's just, I don't know, the smell of things being made and the smell of history a little bit.

Christian Solorzano [53:47]

That's pretty.

Daniel Swartz [53:47]

Yeah, I even had one person comment when she got her print that she could smell my studio like on the print. She could smell the old wood and stuff, and I thought that was pretty cool.

Christian Solorzano [53:58]

That is cool. You got to make like a fragrance that just, people—

Daniel Swartz [54:03]

Oh yes. Just spray it on. Oh, that's funny.

Christian Solorzano [54:07]

That would be cool. And then what's the last thing that you printed just for yourself?

Daniel Swartz [54:11]

Boy, that's— there is not a whole lot of printing that's just for me. I obviously, I make my own designs, but that's a great question. Estimates for that font that I'm working and it was just fun to print all of the letters together and see them together. And my son helped a little bit, helped me lock up the type on the press and get it ready to go. And so that was kind of nice, just him and me getting ready to make something.

Christian Solorzano [54:36]

And what are you most grateful for right now?

Daniel Swartz [54:41]

Oh, what am I most grateful for right now? I think time is what I'm most grateful for. The time to mature and the time to make like whatever this creative practice is into what it's growing into. Because what it was in 2020 is dramatically different from what it is now. And it takes time to figure things out. It takes time to resolve and it takes time to explore and grow.

And if I had thought that it was all of these things in 2020, I probably wouldn't have started this. It would've seemed overwhelming. It would've seemed like too much. But having the time to gradually grow into it, that is a privilege. That is absolutely a privilege.

Christian Solorzano [55:23]

Cool. And then my last question, which is a question that I've only asked— it's a question that I think I'm going to start asking people on the show. I've only asked it to the last guest, but it's if Daniel from the future is listening to this episode, what do you have— what do you have to say to him? Daniel from Let's say 20, 40.

Daniel Swartz [55:46]

Oh my goodness. I would say your kids are growing up very quickly and your parents are also growing up very quickly and there will always be more work to do. So try to temper how much you work and make sure you spend good, focused quality time with family. Put the phone away, make time for the things that are limited.

Christian Solorzano [56:11]

Beautiful. Well, thank you so much. That was such a gift to have you visit us at some point.

Daniel Swartz [56:17]

Yeah, let's chat. I think it sounds great.

Christian Solorzano [56:20]

Yes. Cool. Well, thank you so much. What are you up to this weekend? Father's Day is coming up. It's on Sunday. Anything?

Daniel Swartz [56:28]

Yeah, it's Father's Day tonight. We're gonna go see Toy Story. So everybody's pretty excited about that. And then I'm doing a Father's Day breakfast where I make a German pancakes or Dutch babies. So we're going to do that to celebrate. Yeah. And then just hanging out because it's going to be a beautiful weekend.

Christian Solorzano [56:45]

Excellent. Thank you so much. And I look forward to keeping in touch.

Daniel Swartz [56:52]

Thank you. This has been great.

Christian Solorzano [56:55]

Thank you so much for sticking around till the end. To learn more about us, visit www. Chicagographicdesign.club. And like I mentioned in the beginning, if you enjoyed this conversation and all the others, I appreciate your support when you leave us a rating wherever you listen. Thank you, and we'll talk to you soon. Goodbye.