To wrap up the year, friends of the Chicago Graphic Design Club were invited to share the moments that shaped their year.
Personal & pop culture moments
Andrew Dembitz
RESOURCEENGINEGROUP.COM
Andrew’s life for the past 30 years has been the “world of paper!” He worked 25 years for Unisource/Veritiv Paper Company as Director of Specification Sales servicing the Chicago Design and Print markets. In 2018 he launched his own unique paper consulting business -Resource Engine Group- continuing to service the creative community of Chicago.
Getting my wife Marla well
Birth of my grandson Logan
Anniversary Trip to Montreal
December Trip to Mexico City
The Pitt
HBO
Department Q
Netflix
One Shot with Ed Sheeran
Netflix
Frankenstein
Netflix
Songs on repeat
Betsy Schuster
QUEERTYPE.CO
Betsy is a type designer and might be an artist. They enjoy drawing type that is swirly and curly. They also like spending money they don’t have on records, doing myriad crafts, and contemplating what makes a letter a letter.
Bunky Pop
Sleigh Bells
One time I listened to this song 8 times in a row
Gnarly
Katseye
Those who get it, get it
Berghain
Rosalía, Björk, & Yves Tumor
My mother, upon seeing Björk was on this song: “Oh, Björk is on this song? I thought she was dead”
X
Lexie Liu
Pop perfection from an underrated artist!! Stream her music!!
Polo
Kim Petras
So glad she got out of that nasty contract she was in
indignan a un zorzál
Juana Molina
Probably my favorite Argentinian Folktronica Ambient Pop Neo-Psychedelia artist that released an album in 2025
Drums of Death
FKA Twigs
Brrrrdzzzz o o o o a a a a i
Do It
Underscores
First heard this song on Twitter and I was like yeah thats a banger
Sea of Men
Baths
Have never been a massive Baths fan tbh but I loved his new album!
Mild at Heart
múm
Their new album is suuuuper lowkey but there’s some gems on there
Websites worth the click
Blaze Smith
SHOVEL.STUDIO
Blaze has professionally been in design for 4+ years on UX/UI projects with a formal education in Frontend Development and IT infrastructure.
Things I didn’t say no to
Cheryl Bever
TANDEMCREATIVEWORKS.COM
Cheryl Bever, Creative Catalyst at Tandem Creative Works, brings 20+ years of design expertise to her Chicago studio. As a leader & community builder at the CGDC, she believes creativity isn’t just work, it’s how she approaches everything from client collaborations to everyday life.
Utz Cheese balls
The best!
Jimmy’s Pizza
NY style and oh so good
Fritos
Can pretty much go on anything
Red velvet cupcakes
But honestly any cake will do
Stickers
Send them my way
Antique/thrift/resale stores
Always looking for treasure
Midnight Burger (audio drama podcast)
You can thank me later
Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me tapings
Current events have never been so funny. They do their podcast tapings at the Studebaker Theater every Thursday.
Son’s baseball games
Is it baseball season yet?
Nature Walks
There are so many great places in the city to get away.
Growing lessons
Christian Solorzano
christiansolorzano.com
Christian Solorzano is the founder of the Chicago Graphic Design Club, a Black Belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, occasional writer, host of Underscore, educator at DePaul University, and a ton of other stuff. His practice explores the intersection of contemplative awareness and creativity.
1. Embrace the concept of not-knowing
2. Details always matter
3. Sometimes do the opposite of what you normally would do
4. An open heart is the ultimate strength
5. Silence is worth listening to
6. Say what you mean skillfully
7. Cause & effect is real
8. The right company matters
9. Shut up and practice
10. Exercise your power and voice
Fonts in practice
Cristobal David Mora
MORA.WORK
Designer, café founder, former musician, candid photographer, and new father. Drawn to experimentation before explanation following instinct first, then rationalizing later. Interested in identity and the quiet addiction of self-improvement. Believes design lives everywhere, whether as a graphic or in the way you move through space. Trusts that growth comes from trying, noticing, and refining, and that sometimes you are the through line.
Interesting large CDs
David Sieren
DAVIDSIEREN.COM
David is a designer, educator, husband, and father. You can find him most often at One Design, and on the occasional evening at DePaul University. For reasons he still can’t quite explain, David was embarrassed to listen to music until his sophomore year of high school. He’s been making up for lost time ever since by obsessively collecting sounds he finds interesting—sounds his wife often refers to “pennies rattling in a can.”
Forest swords
Bolted (Deconstructed)
Violeta Garcia
IN / OUT
Sara Udon
II = II
Tobe Hooper and Wayne Bell
Texas Chain Saw Massacre (OST)
Olga Anna Markowska
ISKRA
Carrier
Tender Spirits
Lisa O’Neill
The Wind Doesn’t Blow This Far Right
Moin
You Never End
Ehua
Panta Rei
Lady Gaga
Mayhem
Imagined roles for design
Heather Snyder Quinn
HEATHERSNYDERQUINN.COM
She is an associate professor of design and design futurist at DePaul University, where her work explores design fiction, technology, and civic engagement. She serves on the board of directors for DePaul’s Institute for Business Ethics and is particularly interested in exploring design improv.
Designer as Civic Specialist
Designing the structures of public life including policy, participation, and shared governance.
Designer as Worldbuilder
Giving form to possible worlds so we can see, question, and choose among them.
Designer as Digital Sovereignty Advocate
Protecting human agency and freedom in digital systems shaped by power, and platforms.
Designer as Futurist
Practicing foresight to help societies sense what is emerging and what might be avoided.
Designer as Ethicist
Providing insights on care, responsibility, and attention into design decisions.
Designer as Provocateur
Creating scenarios that unsettle certainty and invite difficult, necessary conversations.
Designer as Mediator
Holding space between disciplines, cultures, and communities to create shared understanding.
Designer as Inventor
Turning ideas into reality through experimentation, prototyping, and enterprise.
Designer as Performer
Using play, improvisation, and storytelling to teach adaptability and collaboration.
Designer as Re-wilder
Designing less, removing excess, slowing systems, and making space for non-human life and simpler ways of being.
Tools for thinking
Johnny Mei
MANYFRIDAYS.COM
Reading and scrapbooking have become a healthy break from screen time. What Johnny enjoys most about reading is taking notes along the way. This allows him to handwrite again, which has surprisingly become more challenging after years of constant typing.
Leuchtturm1917 Drehgriffel Nr. 2 Ballpoint Pen
Letter Notepads
Chicago record shops worth the trip
Michal Janicki
STUDIOBEMA.COM
Michal is a designer at IDEO, lecturer at School of the Art Institute of Chicago, founder of Studiobema collaborative, and a company member at Trap Door Theatre. He is known to on-occasion hide vinyl record purchases from his husband and pretend that “no, yeah, we always had an extensive collection of Skinny Puppy albums, and you’ll love them I’m sure.”
SHADY REST
Pilsen, amazing curation, limited editions, fantastic community DJ events
SIGNAL RECORDS
Logan Square, absolute alt gems, Japanese imports and more
RECKLESS RECORDS
Wicker Park, Lakeview and Loop, the OGs, best bag design ever
SHUGA RECORDS
Wicker Park / Logan Square, great murals and vibe
WAX TRAX!
Online, but based in Chicago, perfect for that 1990s Industrial fix
606 RECORDS
Pilsen, electronica wonderland
GRAVEFACE
Bucktown, a museum, video rental, records, all things underground
DUSTY GROOVE
Wicker Park, rare stuff, Jazz classics, chill vibes
GRAMOPHONE RECORDS
Lakeview, electronica wonderland
TORN LIGHT RECORDS
Bucktown, anything from Jazz to Metal at great prices
Client defining moments
Nick Adam
NICKADAM.CO
Nick Adam is Design Director and Associate Partner at Span. His work treats identity as civic infrastructure—building systems for cities, culture, and communities that earn trust and create belonging.
HELP STOP HATE
With Help Stop Hate, we helped state policy choose people first.
ILLINOIS DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN RIGHTS
With the Illinois Department of Human Rights, our work is helping truth outrun polish and lead nationally.
SLOW & LOW
With Slow & Low, our design became memory infrastructure, not decoration.
ASPIRE
At Aspire, we helped a closed West Side school reopen as possibility and history find a voice.
INSTITUTE FOR HEALTHCARE DELIVERY DESIGN
With the Institute for Healthcare Delivery Design, I saw a team step out of “healthcare” and into authorship.
SOUTH SIDE HOME MOVIE PROJECT
From the South Side Home Movie Project, Jacqueline Stewart helped us see archives aren’t nostalgia—they’re authorship.
ILLINOIS HUMANITIES
With Illinois Humanities, we’re helping public culture survive a funding cut—and refuse to shrink.
POETRY FOUNDATION
With the Poetry Foundation, we were asked not to explain the work, but help it move. KOHL CHILDREN’S MUSEUM Working with Kohl Children’s Museum, we’re learning design for kids isn’t about play—it’s about empowerment.
FIRST LADY CRUISE REBRAND
With First Lady cruise rebrand, the world meet Chicago again as it was voted 3rd greatest experience in the U.S.
Albums on rotation
Nick Rissmeyer
NICKRISSMEYER.COM
Nick Rissmeyer (b. 1994) is a graphic designer based in Chicago (formerly Richmond VA) with a focus on identity design and motion. Currently at One Design Company. Big fan of riffs.
RASPBERRY MOON
Hotline TNT
The best guitar music out right now. From Nineteen in Love to Cartwheel to Raspberry Moon it seems like it’s impossible for these guys to write a bad song. Every single track could be a single. It’s so catchy and so fun to listen to.
NO SCOPE
Crushed
Indie pop alternative that will make you hit play again right as it ends. Bre Morell’s (Temple of Angels) vocals are unbelievable. Really cool aesthetic that extends from the music to the merch and packaging doing the Y2k and 90’s thing in an actually cool way. Standout tracks: cwtch, oneshot, weaponx
LAST LEG OF THE HUMAN TABLE
Cloakroom
Indie rock staples. 5 ish records in and they’ve made a masterpiece. Feels like the most mature and focused version of their sound. Awesome stuff.
THE BERRIES
The Berries
Folk Rock king. I’ve been a huge Matt Berry head since hearing the Big Bite 2016 tour tape and truly the guy can do no wrong. The guitars sound incredible here, the lyrics are so good, shit is speaking to my soul I’m telling you. Standout track: Run You Down
IF NOT WINTER
Wisp
Super hooky shimmery shoegaze dream pop. Production sounds insane. Every song is great here but Save me now and Serpentine had a grip on me for a few months in March.
SEEN ENOUGH
Spy
SPY is my favorite current hardcore band and this 6 song 10 minute EP is the best distillation of their sound so far. Makes you want to stomp and kick in various directions.
LOTTO
They Are Gutting a Body of Water
Awesome loud alt rock weird guitar music. Rocks.
SUPERHEAVEN
Superheaven
Revived by TikTok (very strange but congrats) and 10 years later still writing some of the best rock songs of this generation. Sounds of Goodbyes, Long Gone, Stare at the Void, Next Time, track after track bangers. Love to see this band get the recognition they deserved in 2013.
DANCE FINITE
Dance of Days
This just came out December 1st but is SO up my alley and reminds me of Lust for Youth and Night Sins and all the synth, dancey kind of post punk/new wave stuff I love. Script of the Bridge inspired album cover too.
BLEED
Bleed
Late 90’s early 2000’s Nu metal alt rock revival at its absolute best. Cool logo. Standout track: Marathon.
Honorable mentions that didn’t fit:
Baptized in the Gutter — Mongrel
God in Drag — You Wish
new Momma record
— and that Fugitive single.
Chicago moments that mattered
Nicolette Stosur-Bassett
NICOLETTE-WORKS.COM
Nicolette brings strategic clarity to brands in transition. After 14 years building marketing systems, she still gets excited about the perfect pen, a tasty cocktail, and museums that shift perspective. Chicago-based. Founder of Do It Better Design.
Concert
Thee Sacred Souls
Millennium Park
One for the memory books—a breezy June evening, wind blowing through Millennium Park, Chicago at its finest.
Film
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
Apichatpong Weerasethakul
As seen at the Siskel: a meditative contemplation on life, memory, and the liminal space in between.
Album
Horizon
Resavoir
Resavoir’s latest collaboration puts you right at the lake. Chicago jazz to soundtrack golden hour perfectly.
Book
Honeymoons in Temporary Locations
Ashley Shelby
Discovered at Aspen Ideas Chicago, the world-building in this book is nothing short of transportive.
Fashion
FELT
Bucktown
A destination for the best fashions in the city— including Fashion Brand Company (fave brand of the year).
Coffee
Bueno Days
Little Village
Their ‘Made Possible by Immigrants’ merch makes the statement we need right now. A memorable menu you won’t find anywhere else.
Restaurant
Pilsen Yards
Pilsen
Comfortable, consistent, and the best service in town. Their Oscar Valentin cocktail always hits the spot.
Office supplies
Topdrawer
Wicker Park
I would be lost without their Grand Voyageur refill pages keeping my thoughts in order.
Exhibition
SHIFT: Architecture in Times of Radical Change
Chicago Architecture Biennial
Jacqueline Kiyomi Gork’s Variations in Mass, Nos. 5, 6, 7 stopped me in my tracks. Spatial poetry—on view through Feb 2026.
Conference
Shapeshift Summit: Responsible AI
Institute of Design at IIT
Where AI practitioners wrestled with actual responsibility, not just capability. Thought-provoking, experiential, timely.
Comedians worth your time
Patrick Smith
C2CREATIVESTUDIO.COM
Patrick has been in the branding, digital, advertising, design, marketing or whatever people are calling this business these days for over 20 years. That length of time in this profession would have broken most people’s spirits, and maybe even their will to live, but somehow Patrick carries on. Call it the luck of the Irish, or just a glutton for punishment, Patrick actually enjoys this business, the creative process, and the people. Well, most of the people anyway. He’s thankful for the creative industrial complex because his options are limited; too short for the NBA, never quite mastered the Phrygian Dominant Scale on his guitar, and any opportunity to become Pope has already passed him by.
1. Tim Dillon
2. Rick Glassman
3. Adam Friedland
4. Joe List
5. Adrienne Lapalucci
6. Caitlin Peluffo
7. Fahim Anwar
8. Tre’ Stewart
9. Nick Mullen
10. Hans Kim
Top 10 Gifts in 2025
Rick Valicenti
www.rickvalicenti.com
Formerly the design director of Thirst/ Chicago. He currently lives in Toronto, Ontario. Today, Valicenti is sharing a handful of projects with friends and is the recipient of the Smithsonian Cooper Hewitt National Design.
1. In 2025 I re-discovered time in my little studio filled with the sounds of Cameron Winter’s Heavy Metal while Winnie and Coco, our two poodles, sleep by my side.
2. Dyan
3. Lyndon
4. Sonny
5. Nick
6. Charlotte
7. Christian
8. Anna
9. Suzie
10. Rusiko
Design books and magazines I enjoyed
Sean Fermoyle
SEANFERMOYLE.COM
Sean Fermoyle is a graphic designer/art director who helps people and organizations realize, refresh, or reinvent their brand.
Disorder: Swiss Grit Vol. II
Chris Ashworth
The Graphic Language of Neville Brody/3
Neville Brody
Emigre Fonts: Type Specimens, 1986-2024
Rudy VanderLans and Zuzana Licko
PlastikComb Issue 9
Aaron L. Beebe & Thomas Schostok
Faculty 2
Chicago Graphic Design Club
Vitra: The Anatomy of a Design Company
Deyan Sudjic
Finn Juhl: Life, Work, World
Strandberg Publishing
REMIX
DixonBaxi
Classic Is Your Friend
Defected Records
Alphabetical Playground
Nigel Cottier
Spaces that sparked something
Suzie Shin
SUZIESHIN.COM
Suzie Shin is a Korean-American designer, educator, and artist based in Chicago. Her practice is based in an analog-to-digital process, where handmade sketches become the foundation for larger-scale projects. The heart of her work is a love for color, play, and rhythm.
RYERSON & BURNHAM LIBRARIES (ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO)
An incredible public resource with the most passionate people. Schedule a visit to dive into the art & design archive.
NEWBERRY LIBRARY ARCHIVES
A beautiful and historical building. When you schedule a visit to the archives, ask to see a sampling of the postcard collection.
GARFIELD PARK CONSERVATORY
Particularly lovely to visit in the dead of winter. I suggest bringing a sketchbook or that film camera you never use.
MYOPIC BOOKS
An excellent place to get lost and kill time. I usually look for the most dusty and unloved photography books. (They are perfect for collage!)
UNCLE MIKE’S PLACE
Enjoy a hearty Filipino breakfast – I usually order a full skirt steak, medium rare. Make sure to appreciate the tiles on the wall. I need to find them or recreate them!
PALMISANO (HENRY) PARK
Walk to the top of the hill and lay out on a picnic mat. See the skyline and think about how much you love Chicago.
POETRY FOUNDATION
Find some peace and quiet in the library/reading room. Certainly a space for focus, ideation, and writing.
INGA BOOKSHOP
Small, cozy space that features self-published and independently distributed artists’ books.
TEXTILE DISCOUNT OUTLET
A magical building with a million rooms and floors. Head to the scrap bins and try not to fall in.
LAKEFRONT TRAIL NEXT TO SHEDD AQUARIUM
Something about this part of the Lakefront Trail makes me feel like I’m in a movie.
Shows that shifted perspective
Tanner Woodford
TANNERWOODFORD.COM
Tanner Woodford is a Chicago-based designer, museum founder, and optimist. His work blends community, typography, and storytelling. He believes design can make everyday life a little better.
General Strike
Joy Machine
two hundred and fifty-one days
Bryana Bibbs at the Chicago Cultural Center
Elizabeth Catlett: A Black Revolutionary Artist and All That It Implies
Art Institute of Chicago
Catalyst: Im/migration and Self-Taught Art in Chicago
Intuit Art Museum
Día de Muertos: A Celebration of Remembrance
National Museum of Mexican Art
Native Pop!
Newberry Library
Theaster Gates: Unto Thee
Smart Museum of Art
Master Class, Inside the Last American Museum School with SAIC Painting Alumni
Secrist Beach
SHAPE OF LAND
Sung Jang at Volume Gallery
A2Z: Learning Through LEGO® and Letterforms
Design Museum of Chicago