Christian Solorzano [01:01]

Hello, you are listening to Underscore, a show by the Chicago Graphic Design Club. I am your host, Christian Solorzano, and today I am speaking with Barry Deck, creator of the era-defining typeface Template Gothic and the final art director of Ray Gun Magazine. We explore Barry's unexpected journey from theater student to designer, starting with his discovery of graphic design in the dorms of Northern Illinois University.

We dive into his transformative years at CalArts under Ed Fella's mentorship, his role shaping Ray Gun's visual identity and the creation of Template Gothic, a typeface that emerged from vernacular inspiration and continues to influence design today. Barry opens up about the experimental typography movement of the 1990s, how meditation has profoundly shaped his creative practice, and his thoughts on AI as a design tool. He shares candid insights about confidence, imposter syndrome, and his belief that designers need to venture beyond comfortable environments to develop their visual vocabulary.

If you enjoy conversations like this about craft, community, and design, please follow us on your preferred podcast platform and leave us a rating. It helps us reach a wider audience and lets us know that you enjoy the show. So as usual, thank you so much for tuning in. Enjoy the conversation. Good morning, Barry. How are you?

Barry Deck [02:48]

I'm great. It's wonderful to be here.

Christian Solorzano [02:51]

I feel like it's such a privilege to be speaking with you because as I've been preparing for this conversation, I've been doing my research and the amount of stuff that I find about you is so inspiring. And I just feel very lucky to be having this conversation with you. So thank you for your time. Oh, wow.

Barry Deck [03:17]

Is there some secret cache of information that I don't know, I'm gonna hear about?

Christian Solorzano [03:24]

I believe 2 really well-written articles about you on the internet. So I want to start off by talking about your introduction to graphic design, your origin story, and how you ended up doing everything that you've done. You've collaborated and you've been, you've worked alongside people that I look up to. So you've been in this really fascinating world for many years. So I just want to—

Barry Deck [03:56]

Indeed.

Christian Solorzano [03:56]

Hear a little bit about everything that led up to that. How'd you get into graphic design? You grew up in Iowa, right?

Barry Deck [04:03]

No, I was born in Iowa.

Christian Solorzano [04:05]

Born in Iowa. Born in Iowa.

Barry Deck [04:08]

My parents whisked me away before I could experience that much. I was there for a year and a half. I do have memories from there.

Christian Solorzano [04:18]

Okay. Like what?

Barry Deck [04:19]

I remember there was, there was a kid about my age named Rae Lynn who was, who was like the daughter of friends of my parents. And I remember going to her house and I remember dreaming at 1 year old, I guess, that I was at her house and it was kind of like a department store and there were escalators between their family room and living room. Which is not— was not even the case. But I remember that dream.

I remember the front yard. It was a little house we lived in. I remember my dad cursing the door because it closed his coattails in it or something. And I remember repeating, damn door, damn door, over and over again. So just stupid stuff. Yeah.

Christian Solorzano [05:16]

Yeah. It's funny how we remember those little things of our childhood. I remember long grocery store aisles from— I was born in Dallas, but I've only lived there for maybe 2 years. But I remember the—

Barry Deck [05:29]

Oh, in Dallas? Yeah, you could probably drive a truck down the aisles.

Christian Solorzano [05:34]

Yeah. Yeah. So you— so you're born in Iowa, and then where do you go and what happens after that?

Barry Deck [05:43]

Okay, we moved to Park Forest. Which is well, you guys can look. It's probably Chicagoans know where that is. Yeah. I went to kindergarten and I think through 4th grade and then and then we were smelling the Gary, Indiana steel mills every morning and my brother started to get asthma and we moved to Crystal Lake.

Christian Solorzano [06:09]

Okay. And then what's the story with design? How'd you get—

Barry Deck [06:13]

Oh yeah, the story with design.

Well, I was going to be an actor. I wanted to be an actor. I was in the theater program at Chicago Circle. Before that, I went to Columbia College for a little while. And then, and then for some reason, oh, I wanted to be near my brother. So I transferred to Northern. And all of a sudden I was in this dorm with a ton of graphic designers on my floor. And I saw what they were doing, and I'd always liked graphic design.

And I found myself wandering up and down the halls at night if I didn't have to go to a rehearsal, which was sometimes. And I would just like walk into the graphic designers' rooms and see what they were doing. And just really surprised that looking at their work, I always knew what I would want to do with it. And I went around making suggestions or what. I don't know what I was thinking.

But like this familiarity, like I think I must have done graphic design in a past life or something. I think the second semester I was there, I changed my major.

Christian Solorzano [07:33]

Yeah. And what was some of the work that you were doing that's that year that you transitioned to graphic design. What was the most interesting thing about it? Because I know that typography has been a, has, been a big part of your career. Was it typography that appealed to you about what those students were doing?

Barry Deck [07:56]

Yeah, definitely. But also graphic design in general. I just, layouts typefaces, Colors, styles. I was really interested in all of that. And I had always been interested, I would, if I was in a play in high school, I would always make sure I was the one to design the program. And all the way down to the typesetting. That was my first typesetting experience at, this place in Crystal Lake that set type. And, of course, I was really bad at speccing type.

Jilly Simons will attest to that.

I think by the time I was at Kim Abrams, I was a little better. But I— so I would, I would do the programs and design the sets, and I designed the programs at my parents' church that I was, that I was taken to as a, as a kid. And then I was really into technical drawings as well. My first job, my first job, even though I really wish I could have wished I could have worked at Burger King, was because my friends were there.

My first jobs were all at industrial companies designing parts like truck parts. I designed atomizers for truck engines to squirt the right amount of fuel into the cylinders. And then later, I designed house plans for houses in my neighborhood.

My parents had told them I could draw plans and I actually could. So yeah, I was helping them space plan and, match the Architectural suburban look to their existing house. And yeah, so I was just always designing things and, I arrived at, in my design classes at Northern with, I don't know, enough experience to be dangerous. But not to do anything amazing.

Christian Solorzano [10:15]

Because your business card From your time in Chicago, you wrote that you were graphic design, corporate typography, or hyper-individualism. So that's like an interesting contrast because you say that you were doing, these house plans, but then at the same time, were you also experimenting with—

Barry Deck [10:38]

Yeah, that was, yeah, that was like 5 years later after Chicago. And I had been steeped in the CalArts MFA visual communication program, which was really— actually, I like the way Ed Fella puts it. He says, and this is as a, as another person who teaches, I'm sure you understand this, undergrad is about— Rules. And grad school is about possibilities.

And so I had been through 2 years of grad school by then, by the time I did that card. And I was really, I was immersed in the, in the dichotomy between what you do for money and what you do for art and culture. And as a matter of fact, around the time I did that, I was doing, I was doing packaging and advertising for a band that a couple of my friends were in.

I was doing, I was doing stuff for Idful Music, which was in the, in the late '80s that started up near Damen and Division.

It was a recording studio, which is not there anymore, but my brother and my friend, Brad Wood started it with another guy who had more money than they did. And I was doing their stuff. And I was also working with this guy named Jim Prendergast at Hill and Knowlton and also Kathy Keane as well, doing much more sort of corporate work for big corporate clients. And I shifted back and forth all day.

Was it was really just, and then I had this friend, John Calvelli, whose contribution was to call me a hyper-individualist. Because we'd gone— we'd been to CalArts together.

Christian Solorzano [12:43]

Would you consider it to be code-switching? Like you were going from this corporate work to then having this other part of you that was doing, what would be considered today or back then as grunge? Or did— like, how did those 2 worlds come into play?

Barry Deck [12:59]

I don't think I had to well, yeah, I mean, I guess it's a form of code switching. My familiarity with the concept of code switching, though, is that it's more of a racial thing. So, but do we— I suppose we do something a lot like code switching in, no matter what we are. So yes and no. When I went to my corporate meetings, I would just wear the same ripped jeans I was wearing to do the Okay. Crazy work.

A couple of those posters that I'm, the old posters I'm showing on my website were done during that time. The Flirting with the Edge poster and the Caustic Biomorph poster for Fuse.

Christian Solorzano [13:51]

Which you just—

Barry Deck [13:53]

The experimental font release, which I just redid a couple of weeks ago.

Christian Solorzano [13:58]

How, what was that process like to take your old work and redo it?

Barry Deck [14:02]

Oh, I loved it. I'm going to do more of it. It's, because that practice of, very experimental typography has largely fallen away from my work over the decades. There got to be not so much time for it. But then I lost a part of myself from that. And I shouldn't have let that happen. But now I'm— now I'm back in it.

Christian Solorzano [14:35]

And as you were redoing it or like rethinking it, were you critiquing your former self?

Barry Deck [14:43]

I wasn't really critiquing my former self, although my friend David Harlan certainly was. When he said, that Caustic Biomorph poster isn't really as Barry Deck as the other ones on that page. What's up with that?

Christian Solorzano [15:03]

Yeah.

Barry Deck [15:04]

And I said, oh, wow.

Christian Solorzano [15:06]

I don't know.

Barry Deck [15:07]

I don't know. Maybe I was stressed out. I don't really know. I don't know what deadlines I had that week.

I don't really know, except I could see what he meant. It was a little bit more centered. It didn't, I could show you other things from that period too. It's like, my stuff was a little bit more disjointed, more irregular compositions, maybe even more layering. And then I chose to— I was in love with this photo that I shot in Italy, which was garbage floating in the Mediterranean. And it was super colorful.

And then it was a 2-color job with black and whatever PMS color I chose. So I ended up printing that colorful photo in black and it gave the whole poster a sort of muddy look, which I didn't mind at the moment because I was used to accepting compromises. And it was almost a, it was almost a client job. But not really. Yeah. Because they were determining certain— they determined the format and they determined the this— they determined the number of colors and stuff like that.

And so, yeah, I wasn't really critiquing myself though, because I don't, I don't think I need to apologize for my, I remember I certainly didn't apologize to Stefan Sagmeister when he called my Template Gothic typeface unforgivable. I wonder if he remembers that. It was in print though. I can't remember what publication.

Christian Solorzano [17:01]

Can we talk about—

Barry Deck [17:02]

Doesn't matter. He's a good guy.

Christian Solorzano [17:03]

Yeah. Can we talk about Template Gothic? Because it's such a— I iconic, prolific, memorable typeface. And I love— I've loved reading about the background behind it and inspiration that drew you to create it. So can you paint for us a picture of what was happening at the moment that you were inspired to create it and just what that process was like?

Barry Deck [17:32]

Oh, well, okay. So the whole idea of making typography that comes out of the vernacular, for one, which was, that's something Ed Fella, my teacher, had explored a bunch of. And I got introduced to his work when I got to CalArts, and he was my mentor. His desk was on the other side of a glass wall from mine. And I was fascinated by what he was doing. He was, already at that point, he was always there, mitering together this amazing work on paste-up boards.

And so that was an enormous influence and, gradually, again, I can refer you to the posters in that on the post, on the poster page on my website. I can identify the first poster where I sort of tried to do an Ed-like look. It was called Collision of Variance. And I was really, I was super conscious of everything my mentor was doing. And so that ended up just being in me.

So vernacular forms. And, he had another project that I think he influenced all of us with, and he was an influence on all of us, including the other faculty at CalArts.

Yeah. And that was he had this project of driving across the country every summer and taking pictures of the lettering on signs and how it had decayed. And so this idea of the way things change and the way it goes beyond patina sometimes, and the letters start to peel off. And then he'd always take the pictures, often take the pictures from a sort of, oblique angle, so the letters got distorted.

And then he would go back to Cranbrook and make constructions and with type on them that was rolling and bending, and he'd affix them to the copy board of the stat camera, because obviously there were no computers.

That's how, that's how he would photograph his or that's how he would create that distorted type, which would be like swimming around and weaving together in a lot of his pieces. So I was, I was full of that idea. And again, this idea has the dichotomy between what we do for corporate work. And what we do for art.

So Template Gothic was really, all of a sudden I could make digital typefaces. And I wanted to make typefaces that were like the things I was learning about at CalArts. And a girl in my class that I was into at the time. Her name was Robin, and she was working on something with an uppercase a in it. And it was sort of a decayed template letter. I loved it. And I started making a typeface with it.

So the a was very much influenced by the thing she had on her poster too. And I started to build out the typeface and, then I'd stay up all night for 1 or 2 days so that I, I'd have a full character set and I could use it.

Christian Solorzano [21:41]

And did you have formal training in type design, or were you just kind of—

Barry Deck [21:47]

No, I was— I didn't know anything. My first typefaces had no overshoots and the spacing was done all wrong. And, luckily I was in the middle of a culture where that was all fine. But, and then later on I shared office space in 1993. I started sharing office space with Jonathan Heffler.

And someone I knew wrote an article about us in Wired magazine called the Year Sid Vicious and Mozart Shared a Studio Space in New York. Because I was known for doing all the, making all these, making type of the not very well-crafted variety.

Christian Solorzano [22:33]

There's this photograph. It's an image of you, and it reads, Barry Deck contemplating imperfection with dead flowers and laundry sign. And you talk about— your quote is, I'm really interested in type that isn't perfect, type that reflects more truly the imperfect language of imperfect world inhabited by imperfect beings, which is a very poetic way of speaking about the work that you were doing, which I really appreciate.

Barry Deck [23:02]

I found that laundry sign in a laundromat in LA around the corner from where I lived at the time. And I told the I don't know, I don't know what nationality they were, but I told the sweet Asian people who worked there and owned the place how much I loved that sign, and they gave it to me.

They gave it to me. And I took it home and hung it up behind my dining room table where you see it in that photo. Yeah. And it reminded me of the typeface I'd already made and I love the fact that they had drawn serifs on some of the letters.

And there were like, all the, all the things that I— the drawn serifs were their idea. And then, and then I did a whole serif experiment with that later, a few years later. But, you could see the bad tracings and the it's because Did you, did you have a Spirograph when you were a kid?

Christian Solorzano [24:18]

I did not.

Barry Deck [24:19]

Okay. Well, it was the same thing. That's funny. Some of my students have Spirographs. So you just, you missed it.

Christian Solorzano [24:28]

Yeah, I did.

Barry Deck [24:29]

But it's a good example of how hard it is to stay in the template when you're a kid because your hand just wants to go fast.

Christian Solorzano [24:38]

And I've been familiar with them since, but as a kid, I think Maybe I did, but I remember them. I remember seeing them, but I don't remember owning one. But then Template Gothic, it was featured in Emigre and also Ray Gun Magazine. And I want to talk about— I want to talk about Ray Gun Magazine because you were art director for Ray Gun. Is that correct?

Barry Deck [25:03]

I was. I was the last art director for Ray Gun.

Christian Solorzano [25:07]

So talk to us about that. What was that? What led up to that? And then I've seen photographs of you in the Ray Gun office and you're like, sitting in the corner, like with your, with your big computer. So what just—

Barry Deck [25:24]

Yeah. With the huge blocky monitor. Which there's a photo of on your website. Yeah.

Christian Solorzano [25:30]

I'd love to hear the stories about Ray Gun.

Barry Deck [25:33]

Oh, well I got a phone call in, let's see, 1997, I guess, from Marvin Jarrett. And he offered me the job. He said, we've had, I think Chris Ashworth was art director at the moment, but he wanted to leave.

Christian Solorzano [26:03]

So.

Barry Deck [26:04]

So Marvin called me and said, if you will come I'll let you I'll let you reinvent the way the design of Ray Gun is done.

And it doesn't have to be super grungy anymore. And I thought, well, that would be an interesting challenge, and I love Ray Gun, so I, a couple months later, I showed up at Ray Gun's office in LA, moved there. And my friend, Warren Corbett, who, sadly he's not around anymore. Don't ride a motorcycle. He was there to help me with the first 3 issues. He was there over the summer. He was on break from Cranbrook. And we did it together.

And I designed a typeface called Euniverse for that for the magazine. And it's not spelled like the universe, it's spelled E-U-N-U-V-E-R-S-E, like a conflation of eunuch and universe. It had big ink traps with radius cuts out of them. And I used to go around saying it looks like a— I called it that because it looks like a big bite has been taken out of every crotch. In the typeface.

Christian Solorzano [27:38]

It has such an interesting W. I've I, I've used it in some instances and anytime there's a W, people are quick to comment on the W.

Barry Deck [27:50]

During the time I was there, Marvin sold the company to this guy named Seth who had been there as a business manager. And he came in the first day that he was owner instead of business manager and said, okay, now that I own the company, I have the right to order you to change the W. I changed it back before Thirst Type released the typeface.

But I couldn't believe it. That was part of the site's personality. The fact that, yeah, the W was just 2 Vs. But yeah, as, a U was the same letter as a V in the original Latin alphabet. And in German, the word for W translates as double V. So it was always a double V and I just made it 2 Vs. Touching, just touching a little bit. And everybody could read it.

We didn't have letters to the editor saying, something's wrong with Ray Gun. We can't read the W's. What are you guys doing to the language? Nothing like, nothing like that.

Christian Solorzano [29:04]

Yeah. And then, and then how, what was your involvement with Thirst Type? Because I have a few Thirst Type collectibles in my house and they, and they feature, they feature your work and I'm a big fan of obviously your work and I'm a big fan of Rick Valicenti's work as well. So I'd love to hear about how those collaborations happened and just what that process was like.

Barry Deck [29:33]

It was super fun. I remember I, my phone rang one day when I was living in Chicago, when I was in that place on Marshfield with the apartment upstairs and the studio space in the storefront, which used to be a bar downstairs.

That was our studio. And the phone rang and this voice said, hi, my name's Rick Valicenti. And I'd never talked to him before. I was really surprised he was calling me. And we met, and then pretty soon after he started releasing my font. And I can't even talk anymore. He started releasing my fonts. And yeah, and then I would, I would do some of the promotions and he would do others. His work is so beautiful and yeah, it was really fun to be involved in.

Christian Solorzano [30:32]

Yeah. And then you're no longer in Chicago, but I know Chicago like has a special place in your hearts.

Barry Deck [30:45]

So I'm going to be there in about a month.

Christian Solorzano [30:47]

Yeah. So what's been like, what would you say the Chicago influence has had on your career? Like you're just the way that you think that you see or that you approach your projects? Just talk to us about Chicago and sort of what it's done for you or the role it's played.

Barry Deck [31:05]

Yeah, I mean, Chicago has kind of a can-do attitude. It's, I remember always being thought of as a Midwestern pizza snob, and, but Chicagoans are a little more down to earth than people from the coast. We tend to really listen to the meaning of what people say and not necessarily the words. And we want to do right. We can be moralistic drivers. But yeah, I think I've always had a bunch of that.

Christian Solorzano [31:56]

When it comes to— so in the, in the '90s, there was this big grunge movement. And I, and I, and I mean, to this day, I notice that, there's this like continuous revival of people revisiting or like reappreciating or almost like I have, I have I teach design and my students who, were born in the 2000s, I see them trying to kind of reverse engineer some of that grunge that they see on the internet.

So what's your take on just grunge, the, that aesthetic that like digital explosion in the '90s. How do you— what's your relationship to it? And do you feel like it's still a part of you or have you moved on?

Barry Deck [32:52]

No, I haven't moved on. I think that was a grunge poster pretty much a couple of weeks ago. And so how did that happen? I think it's really that a bunch of us had gotten out of CalArts and Cranbrook and other places I'm maybe not as familiar with, but a bunch of us were there at the beginning of the grunge rock movement.

And I think it was just a fit. It was a match. It was a vibrational match for bands like Nirvana and Soundgarden and, Red Meat, which my brother was in. Their first couple of albums were recorded at Idful. And I think it was just, it made a lot of sense. Because we found each other really fast. And I, actually I grew up with one of them.

So, that's how it can happen. Your brother does grunge and you notice that you're doing typography that looks like grunge. And then you just put them together because it's like, what else are we going to put together? Yeah. It's like second nature.

And we were, I think we were all at that moment starting to think more and more about how the systems around us were failing. There were some indicators that America was starting to get into a decline even back then which certainly, I never, I never imagined it would get the way it is now, but—

Christian Solorzano [34:55]

How do you see graphic design today? And because I mean, I personally, having grown up with the internet, I've just been like, my, I still have memories of going to like record stores as a kid and the record store being the only place where I can see what an album cover looked like because sometimes the internet wouldn't have the images or whatever. So what are your current thoughts on just the state of design today?

And do you still find it to have that same flavor of experimentation? Or do you think that because the tools have been so democratized that it's just more difficult to maybe stand out or to differentiate yourself or to— Have a unique voice, visuals, aesthetic, look and feel and so forth?

Barry Deck [35:49]

Well, yes and no. It's like first of all, we see a lot of, a lot of amazing stuff from all over the world. And if you're into design and you look at Instagram every day, if you're addicted to it like I am, it's part of your dopamine routine, then you see a lot of it, but it's all low-res. And you can zoom in by spreading your fingers on the screen, but it doesn't get any bigger than it is.

And so, and then, so there is this dearth on the other side that comes from the low-res. It comes from the fact that there are no record stores and comes from the fact that most of the United States is suburban. For instance, where I teach is Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton. So these kids are in Boca and South Florida in general. It's like, it's a lot like LA sprawl. There's a freeway running down, a couple of freeways going up and down the middle of it.

And so in their daily lives, they don't see the rich sort of texture of like the signage and the evidence of human activity that you see in the city of Chicago or New York, or San Francisco a little bit, or even LA, or any city around the world, Hong Kong or Tokyo, where you see this rich. Tapestry somewhere. They don't really see visual culture that— where there's a lot of pileup of different eras. In American suburbia, it's all sort of art directed and manicured.

And, they tend to switch things out a lot. So there's a lot they haven't seen. And I, what I find is that I can't show them nearly enough. Can't show them enough to make up for that dearth. They have to take my word for it if they're willing to, that there's a lot to go see in the world. And if you're a designer and you just stay in suburbia all the time, that's going to have an interesting effect on your work in the long run.

And I also hound them about, and most of them don't listen to me, but I hound them about going to the library. If, because the design books in the library are much higher res than Instagram. And, but there's a need, there's a need as a designer or an artist to get around and see stuff.

Christian Solorzano [38:50]

Because one of the, one of the biggest, things— so my friends and I, we often get into debates about artificial intelligence. And some of my peers, they're totally against it and they think it's just like the, like the decline of creativity and civilization and they're just super against it.

But then I have other peers that are super for it. And there are people that have been, they've been practicing for decades and they're experienced and they clearly understand visual language enough to like be able to work with AI as a collaborator.

And I keep thinking to myself that in the same vein, and that, people like yourself and like the David Carlsons of the world that were like playing with the tools of the time and created this like visual language that to this day we continue to like emulate it or to aspire to. I often find myself thinking that, there could be another movement that happens with AI as like the primary tool of creation.

And I, and I, and I've seen, there's a few Instagram pages that I follow where people will use AI to create these like very Horror, like just very horror. It's like a fiction, like just these very fantastical horror videos of like, a dog with a human face or surreal images.

Barry Deck [40:29]

Yeah, that thing with did you see that thing on Instagram about a year ago with, it was all based on like human faces evolving into Egg yolks and— Eggetured stuff and maybe dog faces too. But just like really viscerally yucky. Yeah.

Christian Solorzano [40:55]

But it's so, in my opinion, it's so cool and it feels so of the time, of the moment that we were to look back, 20, 30 years from now, to me that would feel contemporary of today. So I'm curious about what, yeah, what you think about that whole thing.

Barry Deck [41:14]

And that wasn't, I don't think that was AI just giving it, giving us its view of the world. I think that was somebody wrote a prompt. Somebody wrote a prompt that just described what we saw in a way. And AI did the rest. And I think it's about how you— and I think we have to separate, we have to separate the tool we have now, which is a tool from the thing that some people are predicting for the future.

I don't know if you've seen the videos where people like Mo Gawdat are talking about what's going to happen. With AI in the next 5 years, all the jobs will be gone and all the human jobs because we'll be replaced with robots to do all the physical labor too. So nothing to do. And he, I think he said that, they'll just, they'll kind of treat us like pets.

I hope you're having a comfortable life there. I hope you're getting enough sex and eating well. And I'm paraphrasing, but, and that's a whole different thing. I don't know how we would negotiate that if we ever even have to, but right now it's a tool. Right now it's a tool and we should explore the tool. And, a lot of my friends are exploring that and I'm using it here and there as well. And I will continue to.

Christian Solorzano [42:53]

I've been Encouraging my students to use AI. When I first started teaching, I would tell them to not use it, but they're gonna use it anyways. So now what I tell them is I give them demos and I try to give them examples of how they can use it to like augment their ideas and to not have the AI do the work for them.

But rather to have them think faster. And to have them be like more critical and just to be able to develop a way to have like this assistance. 'cause I kind of think of AI as like an assistant that we have that can kind of do anything that we want it to do.

Barry Deck [43:36]

Definitely. And I think there's something really cool that it does that I don't know if I'm even right, but what I feel like is it sniffs out what you, what you want partially based on the vocabulary you use in your prompts and what questions you ask it. And, whether, do you have deep conversations with it?

Christian Solorzano [44:14]

Yeah.

Barry Deck [44:15]

Are you, are you asking it about philosophy or spirituality? Are you asking it about, like how it judges your sophistication and what it gives you back? If it judges that your sophistication level is high, it's really extraordinary. But then what it, what it gives you back. If you sound kind of normal, is it'll serve up a nice, a lovely plate of mediocrity for you if it thinks that's what's going to make you happy. And I think that's happening. I really think that's happening.

Christian Solorzano [44:57]

Yeah, I have multiple AIs that I use and I tend to kind of talk to them as if I'm texting them. Like very short, hey, what do you think about this? Hey, and it's and yeah, it feels like I have an assistant that is doing stuff for me.

Barry Deck [45:15]

Yeah. And getting to know you. Yeah.

Christian Solorzano [45:17]

And getting to know me and yeah, getting to know me too. Which is nice. So the other, so you and I, we, we've talked on the phone several times and you've mentioned meditation and meditation. I like to think of it as a big part of the creative process.

And I would love to hear about your, the cocktail of things that make up Barry and that enable you to be your, to be Barry, if that makes sense. What are some of the practices throughout your life that have sustained you to continue to be curious, to be present, to be here, like having this conversation today.

Barry Deck [46:11]

Yeah. Well, in the early 2000s I started getting pretty serious about yoga. This was a few years ago. Excuse me, a few, definitely a few years ago. This was a few, a few years before I, before I was at Ogilvy, just to put it in the timeline. And what I found was it started to make everything in my life better. Everything. If you just start going to yoga classes almost every day, everything in your life gets better. And your mind starts to get better.

It helps you to have the right thoughts. And that's definitely part of the cocktail right now. I had kind of a dark night of the soul. I quit yoga for 8 years, which I don't recommend. I plead insanity. I plead insanity. Don't do it. Don't do it. But about 3 years ago, more than 3 years ago now, I went back to yoga. And again, like every start, everything started getting better.

And, I started to realize, or I started my productivity and creativity started to improve within a couple months, actually. And then I started to develop a meditation practice, which I couldn't really do back then. I was a little too— my human brain was a little bit too busy.

So, I would read about what the universe is, but I couldn't really see it. I just, I thought it was really cool that, 2% is what we can experience and 98% is empty space that we don't know anything about unless we Unless we believe things that most humans believe are unproven. But then eventually, if you meditate a lot, you can hear into the emptiness and you can, and you can get information from beyond this dimension. And I've been starting to feel that, and that informs my—

My creativity and makes me want to, become as much as I could be. And I work on that. And—

Christian Solorzano [48:59]

One of the, one of the takeaways of meditation for me has been that I've noticed that it makes me more hypersensitive to things that normally I would miss. So the sounds I remember the first time that I, that like the first few weeks that I started practicing at night, all of a sudden I could hear like the insects outside, like the crickets.

And they were so loud and I'm like, are they always this loud? And then, yeah, they, they're just, they're always there. But I feel like when you kind of start to unveil your senses, you start to become a little bit more fine-tuned to Everything around you, which definitely, which is such a, in my opinion, such a superpower for like anyone that wishes to be a creative is that you experience things on a, on a, on a more deeper level, profound level.

Barry Deck [50:01]

Also, another really cool thing about it is that it's optional. You can shut it off or you can turn it up. And time, like you can experience time differently if you, if you just establish a different intention and order up a different concoction or say, I want to, I'm going to do this long list today in the next 4 hours and time is not going to pass until I want it to. And that stuff works too, which it's wonderful to be able to do stuff.

Christian Solorzano [50:37]

So have, and have you had a conversation about meditation with your students? Have you ever encouraged them to sit still?

Barry Deck [50:46]

Oh my God, I can't help it. And I actually found myself channeling in a class last semester. I do. One of my students had mentioned that she just hadn't it's what we talked about before. She hadn't seen the things that I've seen.

Because she hadn't been outside of this geographical area so much and she hadn't been to a lot of cities. And, just kind of saying to me, well, I don't know, this is where I come from and this is what I know. So I— and it was a little bit resigned what she was saying. And all of a sudden I found myself saying something I've never said before in my life. Which is nobody is born with the experience that they need.

Nobody is born where they need to be. Not if you think just, I need this and give me that now. It doesn't work that way. We all tend to look back on our past and think, if only my parents had been able to give me exactly— Exactly what I love.

And I was just telling her, nobody is, nobody is born there because you can't have the hero's journey if you're born there. You won't make the journey. You won't have the striving. You won't— you need to be given a chance to live out your intentions. And so and so you can't be born where the food is because you have to figure out what the food is and make sure you get your body there so that your senses can absorb it.

Christian Solorzano [52:33]

And what was her response?

Barry Deck [52:34]

Okay. And it was a desk crit. So then I said, hey everyone, I'm not going to tell just her, but yeah, I mean, it's hard to keep all that stuff out. I don't, I don't bother.

Christian Solorzano [52:54]

I think it's such a, whether you call it meditation or sitting still or doing nothing or just being bored, it's, I feel like it's such a strong antidote to everything that is happening, like all the noise, the rush of, and it's, and it's kind of become somewhat of a, of a luxury to be able to spend 10 minutes of your day just sitting there doing nothing. And, but there's so much, there's like just such a strong benefit in doing that.

And I try to, and I'm bringing this up because I know that you, we've talked about meditation and I was just curious about how it's informed your creative practice.

Barry Deck [53:38]

Well, I totally agree. I remember my dad told me a long time that sometimes you just have to sit around and let stuff just occur to you. And then there's always— people have always— I don't remember where I heard for the first time that if you, if you just take a walk and forget about what you're doing for a while, things will bubble up anyway. And that's your higher self getting to talk a little bit and the universe getting to put in its 2 cents.

I saw this really good video with a title like Creative Hacks. Last week. And one of the first things, interesting things he said was you have to get bored. Yeah, you have to get bored. You can't be worrying about anything. You need to, a little bit of boredom, a little bit of adversity to get you to innovate. But it starts with getting bored.

Christian Solorzano [54:51]

Do you find that you're generally an optimistic person or Are you? Because you strike me as a very optimistic, enthusiastic, positive person.

Barry Deck [55:07]

By nature, as a soul, that's what I am. But I was raised by humans, and I've had plenty of pessimistic years, and I still have my moments.

Christian Solorzano [55:17]

Okay. So have your moments. That's great. I know you've mentioned in the past about the possibility of Returning to Chicago someday. Is that something we can talk about?

Barry Deck [55:30]

Well, just that I'm thinking about it.

Christian Solorzano [55:36]

Okay, you're thinking about it.

Barry Deck [55:38]

Well, I'm— I had decided to do it, but then I decided to wait, and I can be indecisive sometimes. But yeah. But I, I've been in Delray Beach for 6 years.

I came down here at first because I thought it would be, I was burned out with the work. And I thought it would be nice to live near my parents for a while. But because I hadn't done that for a while. And so I did. I lived near them for quite a while and they have now moved away. They were like, oh, he's— he might stay. Maybe we have to leave. I'm just kidding.

But I would like to definitely add more experiences to my existence beyond Florida, especially in the summer. I'll be there in a couple of weeks and— or maybe 3. Maybe we can talk about that over a beer. I'm definitely— I'm intending to be in Chicago a lot more than I have been in the past couple of years.

Christian Solorzano [56:44]

So today, what's keeping you inspired? What are you listening to? What are you reading? What's kind of the, yeah, where are you drawing inspiration from today?

Barry Deck [56:53]

Well, I get a lot of stuff on Instagram. I get inspiration from, meditation sessions I go to and things that, things that I read. Wow. I might have to give you a reading list later.

Christian Solorzano [57:14]

Okay. Can you share, can you share one thing with us? One thing that you're reading at the moment?

Barry Deck [57:20]

I have to look at Audible because I'm drawing a total blank. Although I've listened to hundreds of audiobooks in the past couple of years. Oh okay. So last night I was listening to in the Realm of Hungry Ghosts by Gabor Maté. And let me look at the library, what's near the top right now, because I do, I do read all this. I reread Conversations of God or Conversations with God recently. I've been reading Joe Dispenza. There, I gave you too many already.

Christian Solorzano [58:01]

Excellent.

Barry Deck [58:03]

And what about listening and music? Oh my God. I'm like, a friend of mine took me to a local Natives concert 5 years ago because her sister couldn't go. And it turns out I love them. So I love them, all their albums. I sing to it in the car. And the dogs that I dog sit, enjoy it a lot. I'm sure humans wouldn't. So that's good that they do. Yeah. I discovered, or I really took some time to listen to Frank Ocean recently and loved that.

But it's always changing. I get, I get stuff. I get music from Instagram and suggestions from Apple Music. And plus my brother is still a music producer. So he goes to a lot of concerts and listens to a lot of music. He turned me on to Nilla Furujania recently, and I enjoy her stuff.

Christian Solorzano [59:15]

You just recently redid your website, which I texted you when I saw it. Yeah. I forget exactly the words that I used, but I thought it was really cool. And to me, your portfolio feels very unconventional when it comes to just graphic design portfolios, just in the sense that there's a lot happening, but it's like organized chaos. I love your, like the kind of things that I always love about like a really well-executed website is like their navigation.

And in your case, like you have like this animated, Barry Deck logo that's, rotating and you have a little heart that's circling.

Barry Deck [59:59]

Like it's doing, yeah, it's doing either cartwheels or somersaults depending on.

Christian Solorzano [60:05]

Yeah. And you mentioned that this is the most like a Barry Deck, Barry Deck website that you've produced, right?

Barry Deck [60:13]

You, yeah, it is. It's more like me than well, it's the result of all that meditation and all that yoga. And I'm just saying, can I swear here?

Christian Solorzano [60:27]

Yeah, go ahead.

Barry Deck [60:28]

It's like, fuck it. I'm through protecting, certain constituencies from the parts about me, the things about me that they might not love. I'd rather present the whole thing, because it's actually, in the end, it's a much more compelling package.

Christian Solorzano [60:49]

As you were, as you were getting into design and practicing, did you— did it take you a while to find your voice, or did you experience like the insecurities or the doubts or the imposter syndrome that often young designers experience when they're, when they find themselves in positions where they're Empowered to create something that maybe they feel like they're just not up for it?

Barry Deck [61:15]

Well I actually didn't feel that because, like I said, I really think I had design skills from a past life. And I didn't realize that until very recently when I can, could hear, start to hear things beyond this realm. And then it started to make, oh, obviously. Yeah, it wasn't just Barry Deck. Yeah, there's a lot more in there. I think I forgot part of the question.

Christian Solorzano [61:44]

How'd you come about finding your voice? Yeah.

Barry Deck [61:47]

About imposter syndrome. Yeah, I didn't get it back then. I felt like I had an innate— what Ed Fella in my— in his written review of me when I graduated referred to as an easy knowingness.

Christian Solorzano [62:06]

Easy knowingness. What does that mean?

Barry Deck [62:08]

I hadn't I think I just started out in design easily understanding the things that I saw. And so it gave me confidence early on. And especially like, I didn't, I didn't feel it. Okay, let's put it this way. When I had my first job, At Lippmann and Simons, I had, I had been, like the top of my class at Northern. And I had aspirations way beyond Lippmann and Simons.

And I kind of walked in there thinking, well, they do, their work is rather tame and I'm not. So. I'm different already. I'm different. And then by the time I got to Chicago again, it was post-grad school and I had become, a rare bird. At that point.

And then and then a few months later, I was kind of famous and people were flying me to London to speak and Rio and São Paulo and all over Scandinavia. And, the list goes on. But I just— when they're treating you like maybe like you're actually better than you are, which was— Case with me.

At that time, it's easy for imposter syndrome to go away. But, I did have a crisis of confidence in the last 10 years where I started to have the imposter syndrome that I hadn't gotten to experience earlier in life. And it has its purpose and it has worked on me.

I decided 10 years ago that I wanted to code because I couldn't find designers or, excuse me, developers who were just willing to collaborate with me all the time for free. So learned Ruby on Rails and JavaScript and I, and I felt tons of, when I've been, I built some apps and one of them I still maintain for a client. And I don't think I ever got to the point where I don't have imposter syndrome as a developer.

And during COVID I got the— I, so I painted a little bit in college and I hadn't painted for, I hadn't painted for decades. But during COVID I got the paints and the brushes out of the closet.

And started to paint, and I was really bad at it, and I didn't want to show anyone. And I— when I did want to show people, I didn't want to show the people I was worried would think I was a dumbass. And so I made this— I made this other Instagram account.

And didn't connect the two until Early this year, I connected them and, nobody has told me to my face that I'm a dumbass and they're following me. So I guess, I guess it's okay. But, and in hindsight, I realized I picked up the paint again for the first time in 40 years or whatever. And I tried to paint and I didn't know what I wanted to make. Still kind of don't. I didn't, I didn't know how to use the materials.

And actually the biggest factor is that after 40-plus years of working on the computer with infinite undos and non-destructive editing, I had gotten really dependent on my ability to rearrange things and try it until I loved it. And you just can't do that with— or at least I didn't know how to do that with paint. To go slower, you have to wipe it off immediately if you don't like it. You have to realize you can paint over it. I'm getting better.

I do notice a discrepancy between the quality of what I can create on canvas or panel versus any sort of collage, especially digital collage. And I'm trying to catch my painting technique up to my taste, which is really hard when your taste is like world-class and your hand is not. But I'm working on it. I'm not going to stop doing it. I want to keep making art. And imposter syndrome is, it's waning. Yeah, it's waning, but I still feel it.

Christian Solorzano [67:27]

Well, I don't want to, I know you, I don't want to keep you all day, but I feel like I can keep talking with you all day.

Barry Deck [67:34]

Yeah, I'm sure we could.

Christian Solorzano [67:37]

But I just want to, I just want to say thank you so much for taking the time to chat. And I look forward to you being in Chicago and hopefully we can get together. And continue the conversation. If anyone wants to get ahold of you what's the best way for people to contact you?

Barry Deck [67:56]

Okay, well, you can you can find me at barrydeck.com and my Instagram is also Barry Deck and my email is b@barrydeck.com. And thank you. This has been really fun.

Christian Solorzano [68:16]

Again, there will be part 2. We could do this every weekend. We could just have our own side podcast.

Barry Deck [68:23]

And we can, we could just we could interview a 3rd person together.

Christian Solorzano [68:30]

Yeah, that would be fun. That'd be fun. Cool. Well, thank you again. And yeah, let's keep in touch. I want to pick your brain on so many things that I would love your eye on.

Barry Deck [68:44]

So, okay, cool. Cool. We'll talk soon.

Christian Solorzano [68:47]

All right.

Barry Deck [68:48]

Yeah. Let's figure out when we can go out for a beer in Chicago.

Christian Solorzano [68:52]

Okay. Sounds good. As usual, thank you so much for tuning in. If you enjoy this conversation, we would appreciate that you leave us a rating wherever you listen. To learn more about us, visit www.chicagographicdesign.club. Talk to you later. Goodbye.