Christian Solorzano [00:04]

You're listening to Underscore, a show by the Chicago Graphic Design Club. I am your host, Christian Solorzano. Today's conversation is with Bud Rodecker, partner and Design Director at one of my favorite Chicago design studios, Span. He shares with us his approach to finding inspiration and in unexpected places and dives deep into his approach to the creative process and the importance that he places on research through the method of keeping ongoing archives of experiments and references.

And we also learn how a pirated copy of Photoshop given to him by his older brother was the catalyst that kicked off his graphic design passion. Bud shares his definition of what excellence in graphic design looks like, going into detail and breaking down typography, color, and effective visual communication.

We speak about what makes Chicago unique in contrast to other major cities, and he shares his perspective on Span's commitment to being environmentally conscious and the ways in which through their work they are engaged with organizations and clients that are agents of change, not just locally but globally. This is truly a great conversation full of various facets of design, examining the intersection of craft, Chicago, research, and community. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did, and we'll talk soon. Welcome, Bud. Good morning.

Nice to be speaking with you.

Bud Rodecker [01:47]

Thanks, Christian. Happy to be here.

Christian Solorzano [01:48]

Yeah. So I, so you're the, you're, so we've had Nick and we had John from Span and now we have you, Bud. So we've got the holy trinity of Span.

Bud Rodecker [02:04]

I wouldn't call it holy, but thank you. Glad to be bringing up the back end of this train.

Christian Solorzano [02:13]

So I want to start our conversation by asking you a little bit about a conversation that you and I had a few weeks ago regarding work and graphic design. And I, and I mentioned to you your blog that you, that you had once upon a time. Richard Daley. And one of the things that I really admired about that publication is that you were constantly documenting and archiving things that were drawing your eye, or things that you were working on, or just work in progress.

So tell us a little bit about what— how does Bud see the world, and what does— what kind of things do you reference?

Bud Rodecker [03:06]

Well, you mentioned the blog. So Richard Daley, Richard Daley had origins back from when I was in college and I made an assignment for myself. I think I was getting ready for my senior show and I don't know, I felt like I needed more. So I assigned, to myself to make something every day and ended up making 3 things every day. I made like little triptychs.

And that became a wall in the exhibition. And then when I was at Thirst, I did basically that same assignment again, where I decided I was gonna make one thing every day for a year, and I called it Richard Daley. The secret is my name is Richard, and I go by Bud, and I also like puns. So Richard Daley and our mayor at the time. It was good. It all worked out.

So then I did that for a year and I made all this weird stuff, and then it just continued on into this blog of what became sort of screenshots of mistakes or process or interface elements, like in Photoshop. If you're like in Photoshop and you look at the color selector and you turn on the web-safe colors, there's that grid of Colors that's just beautiful, things like that just catch my attention. And it just became like a scrapbook of those things.

And then, I would pull from that sometimes when going to do something new. So it's like, I need to come up with a new idea. Well, what's the best idea? It's something I've already, I've already figured it out. I already had an idea out there and it became just sort of this like ongoing resource book. You talked to Nick earlier and he has something similar. He has just like an Illustrator file and I forget what he calls it.

It's like the mistakes or odds and ends or something where it's just if there's something that's cool, he just puts it in that Illustrator file and saves it for use. And that's a smart way to do it.

Yeah, I think, for a while there it was like, okay, well, you have to sit down at the desk and you have to start a project and you have to start somewhere. And, if you're always making something or experimenting, then you always have something to draw from, at least as a starting point. And then when you're looking at a project, it's a new client or it's a new project with an existing client, you can look to that thing for visual inspiration too. What is that thing?

What is the history of that thing you're working on? What is the visual landscape of the industry they're in? And then you can pull from that as well. And there was— I encouraged previously, I had encouraged Zach to get back, Zach in our studio, Zach Minnick, and to do that as well. And then we would work on projects together and be like, oh, I need— we need maybe some 3D rendering, Zach. Oh, look at this thing you did here. Let's try that here.

And it's just a really nice way to practice.

Christian Solorzano [06:25]

And has there— have there ever been any unconventional methods of— because I know research, it plays a huge role in a lot of the work that you do, and you're talking a little bit about it right now, but are there any really unconventional like research methods that you've done or anyone in the studio has done?

Bud Rodecker [06:46]

I don't know how unconventional it is. I work with a client, his name is Michelangelo Sabatino. He's the head of the PhD architecture program at IIT, and he's a real researcher. And so when I meet with him, he has archives and physical samples he found. And I tried to convince him to say, hey, show the designers in my office how to do real research.

But he kind of evaded that question. That's fair. I don't know. I think some of the most interesting things come from unexpected connections. And so, looking at research and looking at Google or looking at design blogs is great to see what the industry is doing. But if you're looking to find an unexpected solution, I think you look outside of that and you look for inspiration elsewhere.

You look for inspiration in nature, or you're looking for inspiration in mathematics textbooks where there's incredible, renderings or charts and graphs of mathematical equations. And, maybe there's something there that you can make reference from.

Christian Solorzano [08:20]

Yeah. And when I was preparing for this, for this conversation with you, I was looking through several things on the web and I noticed that there was a, there was a class that I believe you taught at DePaul that was about Exploring the creative impulse and teaching students how to, yeah, just how to explore that side of creativity. So can you speak a little bit about what that means? What is a creative impulse?

I have an idea, but I want to hear what you have to say about that.

Bud Rodecker [08:51]

I'm trying to remember what that class was. I know in my classes I would borrow— I borrowed assignments and workshops like from Nancy Skolos and Tom Waddell. They have this workshop where you take— like, they have a collection of offcut pieces of paper, and they're different colors, and they're just all miscellaneous pieces. And then you collage them together to make new images. And then from that, you create a composition. You lay type in, and you work with that composition.

And what I was noticing in my classes would be a lot of students that would be like, okay, hey students, we're gonna do a concert poster, or we're gonna do an album cover. And then there would be a Google image search that'd say like album cover design, and what does that look like? And then go right into Illustrator and start making what an album cover should look like versus, hey, using this collage workshop as an example, okay, let's just start by creating form.

And you don't— you're not thinking about the subject, but you're just starting by making an image. And then once you make that image, what can you then do with it? You can collage type into that collage. You can make another collage, and you can collage the collages together. And getting out of that process of going straight to the computer and typing the headline, and then pulling an image of the artist and putting it in there.

I think allows you to start thinking more creatively about what you're doing.

Christian Solorzano [10:39]

And working in Span and even at some of your work at Thirst, both, I would say, smaller size studios. Do you feel like there's an advantage of working in a smaller size studio as opposed to a bigger agency that has 20+ people, 30+ people?

Bud Rodecker [10:59]

I love it. I think the best designers work in studios like that. Okay, I shouldn't say that. There are excellent designers that work in all agencies of all different sizes. But what I love about being in a small studio is, as a designer in a small studio, you are exposed to every part of the process. You're exposed to the whole thing start to finish. You're often asked to do things that may be outside of your comfort zone and learn new techniques.

And when you are able to work across a wide range of media or disciplines or needs, it just only makes you a better designer.

Christian Solorzano [11:45]

And I, and I've noticed that a lot of the work that you do is never about selling a desire or selling a product. It's always work that is much more about communicating an ideology or some sort of message or communication, as opposed to, creating packaging for some sort of consumer product. So is that a deliberate— is that a deliberate choice on your end, on Span's end, to focus only on particular sectors? Or what drives that?

Bud Rodecker [12:23]

It's probably a little bit of both choice and the clients that we have. We have a lot of clients in the architecture and design industry. And, there was a saying that Rick used to, have all the time, which is you get what you do. So, if you do good work, you're gonna get good opportunities. If you do bad work, you're gonna get bad opportunities. You do work for an architect, you're gonna get more architect architecture work, right?

And so we have a lot of sort of B2B type projects where we're working with a firm and we're communicating with that firm to another firm. It's also a bit of a preference. It's a choice. I've made a push in the past few years to do more of this exhibit work we're doing. To more of this book work we're doing. I have a— I take pride and value in this type of work. It's interesting to me.

It's a different design challenge to deal with complex subjects and try to distill them down into a form that the public can understand. I'm thinking of the Chicago Architecture Center exhibit about mass timber, which we just did last year, end of last year, or the beginning of this year. That is a big subject, and it was a challenging project.

It was a challenging project to take the amount of information, to make it comprehensible, Visually to illustrate the ideas behind it, and then translate it into a physical space that you can navigate through. And so working with UrbanLab, the architect on the project, with Eve and the Chicago Architecture Center, the writers and curators, it was a really rewarding project to tell that story.

Christian Solorzano [14:36]

I'm interested to hear a little bit about the evolution of you specifically, Bud. How— walk us a little bit through sort of your— the origin story of graphic design for you and sort of how you've made your way to doing what you're doing now.

Bud Rodecker [14:55]

I think this is maybe a story, a common story for a lot of people around my age, maybe. I was, I think I was 14 or 15. My brother gave me an illegal copy of Photoshop. And I think he saw me playing games on the computer all the time. He's much older than me. He's 16 years older than me. And so he maybe knew, that there was this thing called graphic design out there. I didn't know it at the time, but he says, hey, learn Photoshop.

So I started making Photoshop and then I started making websites for myself. My first website was budworld.com. Yeah.

Christian Solorzano [15:35]

What was on Bud World?

Bud Rodecker [15:36]

It was like nothing like GIFs that I found that were cool. It was just nothing. It was just— but it, but it had this interface that I designed in Photoshop and then sliced up, and it looked like a sci-fi, like blaster grip kind of thing. It was weird. So I, that was the— so that was the start. And then in high school, there was a class called commercial design. And I took that. And that's where I learned that there was something called graphic design.

And I was like, okay, cool. That's it. That's what I'm doing. And I went to school at the University of Minnesota Duluth, major in graphic design, minor in photography. Through college, my preference for what good graphic design was evolved from like punk skater graphics and art chantree into modernism. And I was like, oh, modernism is the thing. And then I met Rick. I met Rick. He came to our school.

He was a collaborator with Rob Wittig, who was one of the professors at UMD and his wife Joellen, who I took some classes with Joellen. And they said, hey, there's this guy coming to school. His name's Rick Valicenti. You should know who he is. I think you'd like his work. And I looked up his website and I looked up Thirst and I was like, okay, this is cool. So I want an internship there.

So I made a poster for the exhibition and when he was at the school before the lecture, I asked him to look in my portfolio and review my work. And he gave me some feedback. And, oh, the poster. The poster for the exhibition was kind of cool. I redrew the COVID of the Emotion as Promotion book. I traced it, redrew it. And then I printed it out, and when I printed it out, my printer just broke halfway through.

And it— oh no, hold on, I'm remembering, I'm remembering. I was experimenting with glitching images at the time, so I would open up an image in TextEdit, like a JPEG file in TextEdit, and I would just move code around.

And then I, and then I would open that image up in Photoshop and the image would be glitched and distorted. So I redrew the COVID of the book. I saved it as a JPEG. I opened it in TextEdit. I glitched it. I opened it back in Photoshop and it was all fucked up. And then I printed it. And then my printer decided it wanted to be part of the process and my printer broke and like ran out of ink.

And so then the thing was all even more messed up, and I taped it up on the wall of my room I was renting at the time, which had like dark wood paneling, and photographed it, and then laid in type over it for the show. So it was like taking the Span work and remixing it.

Which, that process of experimentation, it's kind of what we were talking about. Earlier, which I don't do as much as I used to, but I'd love to. Anyways, so Rick gave his lecture, and after his lecture, I went up to him and I said, hey, I love your work. I'm gonna graduate in May, and I'm gonna ask you for an internship. And he said, okay. And I was like, okay, that's it? And then that was it. And then, but then like, I didn't hear anything else.

And then like April came and I emailed and I was like, hey, by the way, do I still have that internship? And it was like, yeah, yeah. Okay, come down, come down, we'll do an interview. So I came to Chicago and had an interview and then that was it. And then I started as an intern at Thirst. That's the origin, that's the origin story.

But, it should be said, it should be said that Joellen and Rob, Had told Rick. I think that he told me this later. They had told him about me. So it wasn't just like cold, random.

Christian Solorzano [20:08]

Yeah, that's great. I love, I love origin stories. So now you're at Span, and I, and I would say throughout the last, I think since you've been in Chicago for majority of the time, like you've always played a pretty instrumental role in within the Chicago design community. And one of the questions that I always like to ask our guests specifically about Chicago is what do you, what do you think, one, what has kept you in Chicago for such a long time?

And overall, what are your thoughts on the profession as it, as it currently exists specifically in the city?

Bud Rodecker [20:44]

Why did I stay in Chicago? I mean, you move someplace and you start growing roots and this is home now. I met, I met my wife. Emily, during my internship at Thirst. She was our client. She worked at Lyric Opera in the marketing department. And so we started dating and I built a career here and a life here in Chicago. Chicago is beautiful. I love Chicago. Chicago's the greatest city for design. The design community in Chicago has always been so open and welcoming.

When I was younger, when I was a designer at Thirst, I was involved in the Society for Typographic Arts, the STA, and it seemed like there were so many things going on at that time. I think we've talked about this. The Post family was really active in hosting events, there was this another group, they're called Quite Strong, of excellent women designers, and they were doing events. They had their own conference they put on called MoxieCon. And it just felt really collegial as a community.

And I think that's what you're continuing to do, Christian, with the Chicago Design Graphic Design Club, is to keep that. Sense of community going where other designers in all these other firms, they're not competitors with each other. They're colleagues and they're, you're in this industry together, you're working in Chicago, and together you can make the design community better, stronger, and more vibrant. I think that's a critical aspect of what it's like. I can't speak to what it's like in New York or LA or Minneapolis.

But I know that Chicago has been very welcoming to me.

Christian Solorzano [22:49]

Yeah, one of the, one of the things that I, that I think I've noticed throughout recording these interviews is that I often get very like similar responses about the community just being, just being really great. And I, and it's always funny because I feel like the, there's a big, there's a, with every answer that I receive, there's always like a huge sense of humility in the responses that I receive.

I certainly think we sometimes maybe don't do a good enough of a job at just amplifying our voices and making ourselves known as much as I think other cities, because I do feel like Chicago sometimes gets a little bit overshadowed. To me, the community just feels very small in a good way, very intimate, and everyone knows each other and so forth.

Bud Rodecker [23:41]

I will say that same perception was in the subject of conversation when I was on the board of the STA. It's that same idea. I think my— where I settled on that is, there's nothing to be ashamed about. I don't know if that's the right word, but— or Chicago's fantastic. And I'm personally— doesn't bother me anymore, that idea that, oh, we're getting overshadowed by other cities. I think, the work that's coming out of the city is fantastic.

And keep your head down and keep doing work and keep promoting it, and we're good. I think if we have the STA 100 design competition is an important element of Chicago design in the industry. And I think bringing other designers to that design competition to compete in a design competition that's hosted in Chicago, by a Chicago organization, is a fantastic thing for the Chicago community. There was a period of time where it was only Chicago regional designers.

And I actually think that's counterproductive because then the rest of the world doesn't care about it, right? So bring in those other voices and let them come to Chicago and see what's great about Chicago. But you gotta compete also if you're in Chicago, you gotta jump in.

Christian Solorzano [25:21]

And I think I'm glad that you brought up the STA 100 and just, I would say just STA in general, because I think over the past few years, At least from my experience, the ST100, it's about celebrating excellence in typography and recognizing it. And I want to get your thoughts about what does excellence mean? What does excellence in design mean to you, Bud? How do you— what would be your criteria for, let's say you're to be a judge, how do you define that?

Bud Rodecker [25:53]

At a baseline, there's a high level of craft with typography and design. Right? That's just the point of entry. And then what is good design to me? I think good design to me is something that connects with me on a kind of a powerful emotional level, something that speaks and communicates in that level, something above just communicating the information.

I think is an important aspect of what we do. I think that's a really hard thing on what we do, and I also think that from a formal standpoint, from a conceptual standpoint, I think it's something that connects to the subject that they're designing for. I think if it's a style applied to something that doesn't really connect conceptually, it loses it for me. So I think it's conceptual, it's crafted, and it communicates at a higher level than just information.

Christian Solorzano [27:05]

But I do see at the core of your— at the core of a lot of your work, I always notice like very expressive typography and also really intentional use of color. And I guess that's what I would associate the work that I've seen by you and even some of the work by Spann is that everything always feels very, maybe, I don't know if the proper word is forward-thinking, but everything always appears to be a little bit 10 steps ahead.

It never feels like it'll go out of style or like it's, I don't know, I don't know how to put it to words, but that's just always something that really stands out to me about a lot of the work that you all do is that there's not like an obvious timestamp of like, this is now dated because it was, you can't tell that it was done 5 years ago. It always feels of the time. Would you say that I'm correct?

Bud Rodecker [28:01]

You can't— you couldn't hear my eyebrows raise when you said 10 steps ahead, but that's very kind of you to say. Thank you. First, on expressive typography, I'll just respond to that. I think typography is a graphic designer's special tool. There are, the thing with graphic design is we bring in all of these other elements from other disciplines. We bring in photography, we bring in writing, and we bring in color, we bring in illustration, and we put those things together into a composition.

And what is the one thing in there that is unique to us as graphic designers? It's typography. And I think that that's where I feel the most comfortable playing. I mentioned I was a photo minor. I'm an okay photographer. I'm just fine, but I feel like I have a good sense of composition. And so maybe that's where my skill set really is in typography and composition. I'm not— I can't really draw. I am not a very good writer.

I didn't become a graphic designer because I was good at writing. So that's where I feel like I can play. And then color can, has the potential to be so subjective. I don't like purple. Okay, so you don't like purple because some association you have with purple. But so in being purposeful with color, is a way to again connect it to some bigger idea. To the idea of being timeless or 10 steps ahead, I don't know.

I'm very much not concerned with what the trends are in graphic design. And I think that's part of what makes something feel old. Very fast. And when you talk about forward-looking, it's so funny because I'm always looking back. I'm always looking at design history. We're working with IIT Architecture School right now, and the first presentation we did was looking at the visual representation of IIT in the past. Even before it was IIT, what did the Armour Institute of Technology look like when it was graphic?

And I think that's because what I want to make for them going forward, I want it to feel like it's part of that continuum, part of that timeline. And if it's something that's new, it's something that's ascribed on top of what was there, it's going to get old. It's going to feel out of place. And so I think that is what makes graphic design stand the test of time.

And I don't know, I mean, I went back a moment ago, I described all these things that make good design good design. I don't know if I ever hit those. And if I do hit them, all those points all at the same time, always. But we try.

Christian Solorzano [31:24]

Walk us through what is your process when it comes to solving a problem? You mentioned research, you mentioned like, maybe exploring concepts, but is there anything unique about your process or anything that you feel like works maybe just for you? But walk us through sort of your thinking when you're presented with a problem that you have to solve for.

Bud Rodecker [31:51]

I usually, we start our process with that visual research I talked about. I talked about with IIT, and it's pulling inspiration, pulling images to reference. And then it may be backwards, but most of the time I start by making something, and I'm just making and exploring visually.

And, I think a lot of designers have this thing where it's an artboard that just goes on in a million different directions, and each little path is an idea, where you try something and you duplicate it, and you try something and you duplicate it, and you try something and you duplicate it. And along the way, you discover concepts, or I discover concepts, I discover ideas. And either that's in Illustrator or it's in InDesign. Every page is a new page in the notebook as a sketchbook.

And then, and then you, and then from, and then backwards into it, it's like, oh, hey, this is an idea. Look at this grid relates to that grid over there, or these things, these letter forms relate to those. And then you start to develop concepts around those. And that's how, that's how I like to work. I've had some instances where I've been asked to work the other way, start with a concept and then create a visual form from it. And I struggle.

I just struggle with that. And I, and I don't know, I think it's because a lot of times the best things that come out are just accidents along the way. And you have to— hey, wait a second, don't delete that. Because if you're looking for a target and you're shooting for that target, you're gonna miss all the other stuff along the way. And so that's generally how I work. And then it's very collaborative with the client.

It becomes a process with the client where we let them into that process a little bit. We don't show them the messy artboard, but we'll show them the process and then and then it becomes a back and forth collaboration.

Christian Solorzano [34:04]

And when it comes to things like you mentioned a little bit about design trends, and I certainly agree that the work that I see Span do never feels trendy, but it always feels contemporary. But I imagine that you probably still have, or I'm assuming that you probably still have some sort of preference when it comes to specific moments in design.

In design history, or is there anything about any trend or any design movement or style that you particularly feel drawn to that maybe subconsciously influences a lot of the work that you do?

Bud Rodecker [34:46]

I'm sure there is. It's a mishmash of everything. It's like, but it— and what's interesting though, I think, is you can look at the work of Span and you can it all, in my mind, when you look at that portfolio, it looks like one studio. It looks like they all kind of have a similar ethos. But then within that, you can say, oh yeah, that's a John project, or that's a Nick project, or that's a Bud project.

And so, and I should say that I'm using the partners because they— the names because they lead the project, but it would be, that's a John and Zach and Valeria project, and that's a Nick and Cheryl project, and that's a Bud and Alyssa and Marissa project, because everybody in that studio contributes to those ideas. I'm working with Alyssa right now on a book, and months ago, months ago, I made a template. I just made a couple spreads, said, okay, here you go, client.

This is what it's gonna look like. I picked some fonts. I picked, and the colors were already picked, and I made some layouts, and I said, this is how it's gonna work. And they said, great. And then we started getting the content recently, and now I'm working with Alyssa, and Alyssa's designing this entire book, and she is a machine. She's design— she's designing this whole book in a series of a couple weeks. And through the collaboration with her, she's evolved it.

And she's added her voice to it, and she's changed the way the grid is used, and she's changed the way the images are used. And it has become her project. She's the designer now, and I'm just directing and guiding. And so it's everybody in the studio.

Christian Solorzano [36:34]

I like that. Yeah, because I have some of the work pulled up here, and I would say that there's— that I don't know if this is like, I've noticed that your name tends to be associated with a lot of like exhibition design, or of just work that exists in a space. And I wonder if for you, working through different mediums, whether it's prints or exhibition or digital, if you have different principles or different approaches to working in different spaces, different mediums.

And maybe could you walk us a little bit through that?

Bud Rodecker [37:14]

Yeah, I think the principles are the same. The processes are slightly different. I think the undercurrent of all the work that I do tends to be that I'm designing systems. So I do a lot of identity system work. We do books, we do exhibitions, and in all cases, we're designing a system of parts that then get reused and remixed, whether it's across a series of pieces or, marketing collateral for an identity.

Or whether it's across a series of pages, or whether it's through a space on walls. But it's this toolkit of essential components. So underlying all of that are these principles of what is good typography, what is a simple— how do you communicate clearly, and what makes the work accessible for people, everybody to be able to read it. And then the process of designing each one of those is slightly different, but it usually starts with some visual research.

And then if we're doing a logo, it evolves a lot. If we're— it requires a lot of exploration of additional identity system logo, what those pieces look like. If we're doing a book, we're exploring what are the combinations of type, grid, page format. Image use. And then if we're doing an exhibition, the exhibition work starts with almost like a mini identity for the exhibition. So what is the exhibition's identity? What is the type? What is the headline? What does a wall look like?

Christian Solorzano [39:11]

Yeah.

Bud Rodecker [39:12]

And then you go on and you design the rest of the walls.

Christian Solorzano [39:15]

And when it comes to operating a design studio, I've always noticed that Span seems to be really engaged in altruism or in the sense of like, it's about the work, but it's also about serving the community and sort of standing for something much bigger than what we're doing in ourselves and the work. So why do you think— and I've noticed more and more design studios sort of taking a stand towards the greater good.

But what's the importance behind taking that stance and being perhaps a little bit more mindful of the planet around us?

Bud Rodecker [40:00]

We do this work every day during the week, and we are deeply engaged with the projects that are in our studio. And it needs to be meaningful to us, right? I'm not running a graphic design studio with John and Nick and, the whole team there to just make a lot of money. We're here because we care about the work that we're doing. We're here because we like doing design and we like doing design with the clients and the people that we work with.

And so it's important to us that has some meaning. And so that connects us to the people we work with. People we work with have similar values and they're good people to work with, right? And then it also connects us to the wider community of how can the business that we're running make the world a better place.

And we can make the world a better place by being responsible with the work that we do, that putting out graphic design that has value, that doesn't just create pollution and trash, right? Visual pollution and literal pollution. And we can also use the platform of our business to give to 1% for the Planet and feel like we're making a difference there if we can. That's a critical issue. I mean, it's terrifying every day. The headlines are so doom and gloom.

But on the other end of that, we're working with— we're working with Farr Associates right now to finish up the work for the Climate Action Museum. And you go through this exhibit that they have set up now, and it's really about optimism. It's really about what can we do? And it's not about doom and gloom. It's about making people feel empowered to make changes in their everyday life that have a real impact. Yeah. And I think that's important. That's important messaging.

Christian Solorzano [42:22]

So how do you, how do you stay optimistic? That's a, I think that's a struggle for many of us, especially just given what you were talking about, just turning on the news, it's very easy to be like, well, what's the point? But for you, what keeps you, what keeps you engaged on a personal level? How do you, how do you manage to get through maybe some of the darker times of just being a human being in the year 2023?

Bud Rodecker [42:51]

That's such a dark question. What do you get through being a human being in 2023?

Christian Solorzano [43:00]

Well, yeah, because I think I'm always really interested in just what learning about people's, habits and sort of rituals and the things that they do to have some sort of, to draw some joy out of life?

Bud Rodecker [43:16]

No, sorry. I'll let you answer your question. No, I think my thing is I like, I like just doing graphic design. I like just coming to the office. I like being there. I like being around the people. I like the process. Of working. And so just going to work every day is just my thing. I do that. And then I've gotten very good over the years of I leave work and then I go home and now I'm at home and I'm at home with my family.

And so I just am in the zone of that. That's kind of how I deal with it. And then how do I stay positive? I take a lot of heart from— I'm gonna give Doug Farr a lot of credit at the Climate Action Museum for this incredible positive response to climate action. And then I listen to, I'm just thinking about, there's a, there's an episode of, I think it's how I Built this that I listened to recently.

With a— I don't know the name of the guy, I don't know the name of the company, but they're developing technology to provide geothermal energy to anybody in the world. And they have some sort of laser beam drill that can drill down, a small narrow hole down to the deep, like miles down into the ground to access geothermal Heat.

And they're prototyping this and they're, they are confident that they're gonna, within a number of years be able to roll out geothermal energy across the world and we'll have an infinite sustainable source of energy. And, I don't know if that's real. I don't know if that's gonna happen, but there's a lot of people that are smarter than me out there working on this issue. And that gets me excited.

Christian Solorzano [45:15]

And if graphic design, so you mentioned your love for graphic design, but if graphic design was something that you, was there ever another career option or what would you be doing if it, if graphic design was not what you did?

Bud Rodecker [45:31]

So my dad, my dad was a pilot. And as a kid for the longest time, I was like, oh, I'm going to be like my dad. I'm going to be a pilot. And then, and then I got into wakeboarding a lot, and I was like, all right, that's my career. I'll be a wakeboarder. Obviously, that wasn't gonna happen. I don't know. I don't know.

In high school, I, in high school, I took every arts class that was available to me, all the photography classes, all the ceramics classes. All the printmaking classes. And I think it was probably would have ended up somewhere in the world of art. And ultimately, I don't think I don't think I would have been a pilot. And that wasn't for me. That was just me being a kid.

Christian Solorzano [46:22]

So in regards to the world of outside of graphic design, what are, what are you, what other things are you into? What are, where do you draw inspiration from outside of just design. What do you listen to? What do you read? What's that world like?

Bud Rodecker [46:41]

What do I read? I want to read more, but I listen, I listen to a lot of podcasts. I've listened to podcasts for years. I have, and I like, I like those that are more produced and edited. So I've listened to, 99% Invisible. In this American Life. And I've been listening, it seems like in my feed there's been a lot of how I Built this lately. That one's an interview one with people who started a company.

So I listen to all these, all these different subjects all the time. And I think that that's really interesting and engaging. I don't read as much as I used to. I used to love reading and I used to read a lot of like sci-fi nerdy stuff. And I've been thinking I need to get back into that. So I'm gonna bring those back in my life. But now I've been watching like, all the million Star Wars shows that come out and Foundation and sci-fi TV shows.

Where do I find inspiration? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know where I find it. It's just like when I sit down to work, Figure something out.

Christian Solorzano [47:57]

So I noticed that your Richard Daley blog has been inactive for some time. Would you ever bring back any another version of an online library of things?

Bud Rodecker [48:08]

Because of our conversation, it's been on my mind. And last time when we met, and I want to do that. I took some screenshots the other day, but then I got distracted and I didn't post them. So I need to. I know there was a period of time where I was doing Some series on my Instagram, like just random things, and they made it over to Richard Daley. Like I think I broke.

I think I broke the ad algorithm on Instagram for a while, and I was getting Amazon ads for just nonsensical products. I don't know what they were. They were just like parts. Just it would be like a part, some un. You can't— you don't know what this part is, but it's just a shape on a white field. And so I was screenshotting those and those became a feed.

And then I used to take a lot of walks with our dog and through the alley, and I'd discover lots of alley junk. And that was a little series on my Instagram. So yeah, I need to— I've been feeling lately like I've lost that part of my practice. This practice that we started out this conversation with of exploration and just experimentation. And I just have lost that in my life lately, and I just, I would like to bring that back.

Christian Solorzano [49:29]

So I've been trying to spend less and less time on Instagram because I've just noticed that it's a big time suck. And I've gone back to publishing things on my personal website, just notes and thoughts throughout the day. And it's, and it's interesting because I feel like there's a lot of power in self-publishing and just having, feeling like you have control over what you're putting out, but feeling like you have ownership over it because it's existing under this umbrella that is you.

For me, social media feels like it strips a little, a little bit of that away. Because all of a sudden anything that you post is now coexisting with like all of these other things, and you're not really in control of how people are seeing you, because they might see a post that you do right after like a political one, or right after, there's very little control over that.

So I've— every time I see someone posting things on a website, I get really excited because I'm like, all right, there's still there's still, 'cause there's a deliberate act of typing in a URL and being like, I'm going to visit this site. And I feel like we, we've lost some of that because of just because of social media?

Bud Rodecker [50:46]

Man, I want to bring back the days of internet 1.0 with GeoCities. Did you ever experience GeoCities?

Christian Solorzano [50:56]

That was my introduction into graphic design was building websites for bands that I liked, like fan club bands. And every so often and other fans would get in contact with me and we would bond over whatever, and we'd exchange CDs and things via the mail. And it was so cool because you could design how you— I mean, you were very limited in what you could do because of the technology, but you could get away with some pretty impressive things.

Curse— special cursor effects, a lot of animation.

Bud Rodecker [51:29]

Marquee text.

Christian Solorzano [51:30]

Exactly. And I see some of that come back. So that's exciting.

Bud Rodecker [51:39]

But I don't know, more so than the visual look of it, it's like these were single-purpose websites.

Here's a page that I've put out on the internet because I love this one thing. And I'm gonna put that there. And, this is my area of the internet. And it was like completely unique. Everybody had their own, real estate to work in. And, I had a Bud World and then there was— and then I had like a Diablo 2 website because it was like, I like playing Diablo, and it was like all the ears that I collected.

Like the nerdy stuff. But that was just— it was just creativity. It was just people making something and putting it out there and then Social media. I heard this distinction. I don't know where it came from, but it was like when social networking became social media is when the downfall started happening. And suddenly we have social media and everybody— and now we're in this world where you have to brand yourself and it's like, oh, I have to. And, you—

I talked to my niece and they'll have a highly curated, very specific Instagram page. With only a handful of pictures, and if it doesn't fit the visual aesthetic of the page, it doesn't go on there. And that's so limiting to who you are as a person. Like you can post pictures of trash if you want to. Who cares? Because, you know what I mean? Just, I don't know.

And like you, because of that, I've just found myself just, I don't, I haven't posted in a very long time. Yeah. Yeah.

Christian Solorzano [53:28]

Yeah. Cause I feel like the formats that a lot of these platforms give us is very limiting. Like it's either a square or like this, rectangle and you could only exist within this space.

And then in addition to that, then it's like, limited screen sizes, and I just feel like there's so much constraints that I— and one of the reasons why the Chicago Graphic Design Club started deciding to launch a publication is because we want to hopefully bring back some of that magic that I think, I mean, as, like printed media has in contrast to For sure. Temporary things that, might not exist in the future.

Bud Rodecker [54:16]

I mean, I think the other thing with social media is that the incentives are— it's not just the format, but the incentives are to get more likes, to get more followers, to get more. And, we've all collectively figured out that in order to do that, you have to follow these specific things. And so we just need to change those incentives.

And I don't know how you do that, but if you change the incentives to loosen it up, to be more creative, to be more playful, to be more expressive of who you are as a person and all the different ways you are as a person, that would be more interesting than to me than this highly curated branded person that has a million followers and is Instagram famous. I don't care.

Christian Solorzano [54:59]

So we're almost at time, but before we end this conversation here, I wanna ask you what I ask everyone at the end of these conversations and it's, well, what's your call to action for designers in Chicago? What do you, what do you, what do we need more of? What do we need less of?

Bud Rodecker [55:21]

I think going back to what we talked about earlier, I think graphic design has the potential to make the world a little bit better. I think it also has the potential to make the world a little bit worse. I'm not sure graphic design on its own can change the world, but I think that we can all do our part by making small choices that make everything just a little bit better for us all. And as a graphic designer, you have agency, you have control.

Sometimes you have more, sometimes you have less. Everybody's gonna be in a different position in their career and in their life to be able to make some of these decisions. But if you have the ability to say no, to something that you don't think is gonna help you or the world, I think you should feel empowered to do that. These aren't big things, and everybody's gonna be on a different level. And these are really— and it's also hard. It's really hard to do.

But I think it's all about making lots of little decisions that are heading in the right direction. I think that's what you can ask anybody to do. Yeah, I think that's it. I don't know, that doesn't seem very big and empowering, but I think it's realistic, like everything that you say yes to means you're saying no to something else. And if you say yes to all the wrong things, you might be missing those other opportunities that come out.

And so I think you just want to be purposeful and considered with what you spend your life doing. That's gonna come in all shapes and sizes. But I think that kind of call to action is big enough in terms of being open enough that anybody at any point in their career, at any job can do that.

Christian Solorzano [57:43]

Great. That's gonna be, that's gonna, that's gonna be a big quote on a big poster. No, that was great. Thank you so much. If anyone wants to get ahold of you or connect with you, where could people find you? And also, are there any upcoming projects or any things that you want to tease us with or that we should be out on the lookout for?

Bud Rodecker [58:11]

Yeah, I mean, you can find our work at span.studio. S-P-A-N, not M. And you can email me, just my email is just bud@span.studio. My email is overflowing. So if I— if you do email me and I don't get back to you right away, please forgive me. Also on Instagram @budrodecker. But like I just said, I don't really post there. So you'll see old pictures. Upcoming projects. We are Wrapping up this work for the Academy for Global Citizenship and Cultivate Chicago. This is an incredible project.

So Cultivate Chicago is this building on the South Side, on the location of where Leclerc Courts used to stand, and it is going to be one of the few buildings in the world that meet the Living Building Challenge. For a building. The building is— will be net positive energy. It'll generate more power in the course of a day than it uses. It will be net positive water, and it houses a school. It houses a community health center on the site.

There will be an urban farm growing food. There will be bees. What are the honeybees? There will be a low— there will be a market, community market, which will sell the food grown on this farm. And all in all, it's this just incredible model for the world of what an organization like this can do. Not only architecturally as a building, but also as an organization for the community.

And so we have been working with them for a long time now, for many months, trying to tell the story of this building in the space. So this is another exhibit project, but as you walk through the building, there will be what they're calling Wonder Points, so you can learn about the building and learn about the building, the people in the building, also the community around the building that was there before and is there now and will be there in the future.

It's really an incredible project, so I can't wait to see when this is all done and final. We'll be hopefully taking lots and lots of pictures and putting them up on the website.

Christian Solorzano [61:01]

Is there a date that this is intended to be live? Next year?

Bud Rodecker [61:06]

Well, the— so the ribbon cutting is next week. The graphics are, have been lagging behind in generating the content because we're also writing the content for these exhibits. So that one is coming After that. So my hope is that everything's installed and done well before year's end.

Christian Solorzano [61:30]

Okay. All right. Yeah, we'll be looking forward to that. Well, this was great. It was nice speaking with you. And thank you so much for, yeah, thank you so much for the conversation. Thank you to you and Span for being, for setting a standard of great graphic design in Chicago.

Bud Rodecker [61:50]

Thank you, Christian. This was really fun. I appreciate it, and thank you for all the nice questions.

Christian Solorzano [61:54]

Thank you so much for sticking around till the end. If you like the show and you want to show your support, visit us at www.chicagographicdesign.club. We now have an online store where we have a few things that are for sale, so Every purchase goes directly to supporting this program. So thank you in advance. And as always, if you want to learn more about what we do and upcoming events that we'll be hosting, you can learn more on our website or simply find us on social media.

We'll talk soon. Till then, goodbye.