Christian Solorzano [01:18]

Hello, you're listening to Underscore, a show by the Chicago Graphic Design Club. I am your host, Christian Solorzano, and welcome to our first episode of 2025. Today, I'm delighted to share my conversation with Chris Eichenseer, founder of the Chicago-based design studio and record label Someoddpilot and its gallery Public Works. Together, we explore his journey from thrash metal bands to building one of Chicago's most distinctive design studios.

Chris shares his perspective on creative fearlessness, building mythology through design, and how his rebellious spirit continues to shape his approach to working with clients that range from Lollapalooza and Pitchfork to Kimberly Clark. Chris speaks about his deep connection to Chicago's creative community, from his early days making album covers to his current role leading teams and business alongside his partners and collaborators. He opens up about the intersection of music, design, and entrepreneurship, and how these experiences inform his studio's unique creative culture.

This conversation is about staying true to your creative voice while building something larger than yourself, and I hope that you enjoy it. If you find value in these conversations, Please support the show by following us on your preferred podcast platform and leaving us a rating. It really helps us reach more people across Chicago and beyond. Thank you so much. Enjoy the conversation, and we'll talk to you soon. Welcome, Chris, to our final show of 2024. I've known about your work for a very long time.

With your gallery, Public Works, Someoddpilot Records, studios, design agency. And right before this conversation, I was listening to Oraya, your band. I was getting very amped up for this conversation, and I was reading the notes on the Bandcamp profile, and a few things stood out to me that I also resonate with, like growing up.

Being interested in music, being interested in design. But what I find very interesting about your work is that you bring this underground rebellious attitude into a lot of what you do with your agency, with your gallery, with a lot of the work that you do.

So I'm very curious about how you managed to bring in that teenage angst that I'm assuming is still deep within, and how you bring that into maybe some of the more corporate or more sterile environments that as designers we sometimes find ourselves in.

Chris Eichenseer [04:12]

Thank you, Christian. Yeah, thanks. Thanks for having me here. I'm really excited to talk. And thanks for drilling right into the center of the center of who I am and where I'm coming from. Because honestly, the band that you mentioned, Araya, was a thrash metal band that I started with a friend of mine in junior high and was my primary obsession in high school. And this is like the late '80s.

And so, you have to imagine there's endless hours in the basement, in my mom's basement, trying to write the next Master of Puppets Metallica style record.

And I don't— there was something very like, formative about sitting around with, 3 other guys and just being high school kids and trying to figure out how to make a thing that was unique and original and inspired by the things that, were lighting our brains on fire at the time. And I, when I, when I went to put together Some Odd Pilots we turned 25 this year and I wanted to do a an exhibit around that at the Public Works Gallery, which you mentioned earlier.

It kind of, it forced me to dig into the story and that record. I just put out Aria's first record on vinyl just recently, which— so it's coming 35 years some later. And that was a real treat for me to dig into those old songs and put that together.

And in doing all of that at the same time, it was definitely, this heroic image of my 16-year-old friend Ray playing the guitar and screaming into a microphone in my mom's basement with like the ceiling just above his head and having this great like black and white image of that and relating to what it was that fueled the band and fueled the spark. And I still think fuels Someoddpilot and Public Works.

Likewise, is this kind of like feeling of irreverence, I feel like, is what it all boils down to. It's like that frustrating feeling of growing up in the suburbs or growing up around where a lot of things are done a certain way, and there's just sort of like this kind of— I always linked or grabbed hold of Pink Floyd's idea of quiet desperation.

But that feeling of just like sort of sitting in this very mild, very mediocre suburb, and wanting to just flip the table and flip, like flip the fucking script and do something that felt like really real and immediate and was grabbing. And sure, it's gonna have influences to other, let's say, like underground things and other like fringe— Yeah.

Christian Solorzano [07:20]

Things.

Chris Eichenseer [07:20]

But there is like something really, I think, essential and really important about flipping the table and feeling that sense of like, it's almost like a restless anger that comes from just like wanting to not be like everyone else or not wanting everything to sort of sit in the same kind of stasis. And so like to push through that, I think requires a bit of rebellious, irreverent attitude. To sort of, break through those walls.

Christian Solorzano [07:50]

Yeah. And do you remember your first memory of listening to metal for the first time? And what was it? And what was that like?

Chris Eichenseer [07:57]

Yeah, I mean, I think I like to center that on, honestly, on Metallica's Master of Puppets in 1985 when I was in junior high. And I think that's— that band and that record get thrown around a lot in popular culture. Obviously, they're some of the biggest things. Back then, it was still, like there was no radio play for Metallica. There was no music videos for Metallica.

And that record came out and just by kids talking about it, word of mouth, it became the hugest thing on the planet for all of the misfits and the kids who didn't have a place to belong and the kids who were maybe back at the fence smoking cigarettes before school and the kids who struggled at home and didn't have a place, an easy place to fit in at school, like suddenly had their unifying almost cult-like membership, this club, because they could see themselves in the band members.

And the band members back then felt very relatable and approachable to all of these kids in their ripped jeans. And I think that was a really powerful thing about that got me where it just felt like, this is the shit. You know what I mean?

And the back patches, on the backs of the kids that knew in junior high, there was something really cool about that to me that just, everything on the radio back then was about love or falling in love or somebody breaking your heart and all this really kind of like regurgitated sentimental sort of nonstop glossy pop music.

And then there was Master of Puppets. So yeah, that really stands out to me as like a giant, almost like fuck you moment that was tied into like a real important need to belong that I think all these kids shared.

Christian Solorzano [09:55]

And at what point does graphic design or design or image making come into play? Because I've seen the photo that's on the COVID of the vinyl reissue of your band, Araya. And I noticed that there's a logo on a t-shirt. Was that a t-shirt that you designed or? Tell us the story behind that.

Chris Eichenseer [10:16]

Yeah. So what was really fun about that time was that I didn't know what graphic design was. I don't think I'd ever heard the phrase, and I didn't know if— like, I knew that there were logos for bands. So I think I hand drew something that I could then paint, literally paint on a t-shirt in order to get a band t-shirt. It was like, oh, I've got this blank gray t-shirt I can paint my band name, Araya, on the front there.

And then running over to the, to the Kinko's to work on a flyer for one of our first shows when we were 16 or 17 years old. And having to make that flyer using my mom's typewriter and typing out some type, scaling it up and down on the photocopier, 200%, this and that. And then stitching together and cutting that out and making a flyer out of that. That was my first exposure to what I would later learn was called graphic design.

And so the need for this stuff and the need for like a powerful visual language or like a thing, it came from observing all this stuff at the record store. But then having the immediate need to do it, I think, is what pulled me into being a graphic designer, into thinking about photography and caring about all that stuff very passionately. It came very organically. I'm not— I've never been somebody who identifies things, understands them, labels them, and then like makes a goal and moves towards them.

I just sort of like act out of like a very immediate interest and desire and need. So all of a sudden I found myself having to shoot the band and, shoot cool photographs to make an album cover out of. And it just all kind of came from that.

Christian Solorzano [12:15]

And during this time, were you drawing visual inspiration from a particular scene or other things that you were noticing that were happening in your environments? Can you paint a picture of what the world was like at that time?

Chris Eichenseer [12:29]

Yeah, it's fun to think about now because, I mean, how limited we were. For our visual references because without having an internet, you could pick up magazines and record covers at the store and flip through that and get this idea of what the larger world of image-making was? And that was a lot of it, maybe some MTV as well. And I remember I found my dad's 35mm manual camera. I asked him if I could borrow it for a while.

And then it was right around that same time that we took that photo for the album cover. And my friend and me and the lead singer, Ray, just wandered around Palatine, Illinois, out in the suburbs. And we were looking for like things that looked cool. Do you know what I mean? And in the suburbs, you're starved for that. So there was like an electrical tower, and a cemetery and some water towers and some like weird municipal, like dead zones that are like, in between subdivisions.

And so we shot all these photographs of that and that was like, and sunsets and stuff. And that was like my first, oh, okay, here's like how to construct an image that's not just a quick snapshot. And here's the mood and the lighting and how that all kind of changes the way the picture feels.

And that was all very, yeah, it was very, I felt like it honestly felt like I was walking on another planet because I, there wasn't, I had just had no context for doing any of that or thinking about that at that time.

Christian Solorzano [14:13]

And then you go, then you did go to school for design, right? You went to the University of Illinois for photography.

Chris Eichenseer [14:19]

I did.

Christian Solorzano [14:20]

Yeah, for photography. Why photography and why not graphic design?

Chris Eichenseer [14:24]

Yeah, I was fully invested in the idea of making images primarily towards the goal of making films. I wanted to be a filmmaker. I had fallen in love with Pink Floyd, the Wall, and Clockwork Orange and a bunch of, the alternative cinema of the day. And I was— my friend, the guy from the band Ray, and I had made films using videotape in high school. And our teachers had heaped praise on the short movies that we had made.

And so I went into college wanting to become a filmmaker and got exposed to photography right away and realized that would be an awesome way to construct similar moving image-making, like images, but doing it sort of one frame at a time.

Graphic design to me was something I watched the other kids in the building sitting at the computers working on their graphic design, and I honestly thought it was funny, and I thought I laughed at it in the sense that, it felt like such a safe art form and something that had a logical conclusion to it, like a career. And so then it wasn't idealistic and it wasn't— didn't have that sort of rebellious thing to it.

So I just, thought it was— I thought it was funny and something that I would never really want to do until, of course, I graduated with the photography degree. I hadn't used a computer hardly at all. I didn't understand even how the windows worked on the screen when you clicked in and out of them and stuff. It was all like, what the hell is going on?

And I taught myself after college how to design, and it was purely out of the need— well, it was to mimic a friend of mine who had started the studio in Chicago called Ohio Girl. And Ohio Girl was making album covers and music videos for all the bands in Champaign-Urbana that had been signed to major labels around the Smashing Pumpkins era when they were looking for these big guitar bands and all these bands were coming out of Illinois.

And my friend was Andy Mueller was the guy doing all of the graphic design for these bands and photography. He's also a photographer. And so seeing that as like, oh, that's a career option, is to take the photography and land it into a spot. If I can learn how to design at the same time, then I can kind of control where this stuff goes.

Christian Solorzano [17:05]

You strike me as a— you obviously have like an entrepreneurship spirit to a lot of what you do. And there's this like fearlessness. And just doing something without the necessity of feeling like you need to be an expert. And in a conversation that I was listening with you a while back, you were speaking about someone asked you about this feeling of feeling like an imposter and whether that is something that like never, it just never goes away.

And I always correlate this notion of being an imposter of just constantly being a beginner and being willing to not be an expert or not be defined by like an expert. Can you walk us through like maybe the story of everything leading up to creating Some Odd Pilot and then maybe telling us the meaning behind the name? I don't know what the name means. I haven't looked into it. Maybe I could find what it means online, but I wanted to hear from you.

Some Odd Pilot, what does it mean?

Chris Eichenseer [18:05]

Yeah, no, great question. I get asked that a lot. In high school, the adjacent band next to my thrash metal band was an industrial kind of punk rock band that I later joined. And there was a song that one of the guys had written called Some Odd Pilot. And that word stuck in my head as like, that's what I'm going to call my design studio when I graduate college and teach myself how to design. I'm going to start a studio called Some Odd Pilot.

And when I was 25, I did that. It was completely naive, a pursuit where it was like, I found a space. I was shooting photographs in that space. It was super cheap. I could split it 4 ways with my friends. I think it was $700 a month and 2,000 square feet. And it gave us like a place to operate. And so my friend, I don't know if you know Don Hancock, From— yeah, so she's an old friend of mine.

We were junior high friends, and she was the only person I knew who knew what graphic design was. And so her and her— and I admired the crap out of her work ethic and skill at that point. And we decided to team up and start Some Odd Pilot when we were the ripe old age of 25 years old.

And yeah, the song, it took me like 15, 20 years to dig up the lyrics to that song and figure out like what it was about that song that drew me to it. There's no recording of it, but there is like a lyric sheet for it.

And it's funny because it is like we had this friend back then that would change drastically from month to month or year to year depending on who he was around and like the— if he was dating this girl or that girl. And would adapt his personality to this. And it really frustrated us because we were really close to him.

And so this— so Some Odd Pilot, the song was written about like the danger of switching or not really being who you are and sort of flying through the universe. And ultimately, if your compass is unsteady, the drastic sort of, in a teenager's mind, like the drastic, faceplant that you do, or like the ultimate sort of failure of self is not really finding what it is you care about or who you are and applying that.

And I laughed to myself when I finally found that lyric sheet because I was like, oh yeah, this is very much like a song that reminds me of the things we talk about when we talk about branding and stuff like that. Where it's like, what is— who am I? Why am I here?

And Some Odd Pilot, I always think of it as like, it's shorthand for, there's this unique madness that each one of us has is that sort of compass that helps you like navigate the universe. And that's— Some Odd Pilot.

Christian Solorzano [21:23]

And you, and you've all, like one of your I don't know if I would call it values, but on the Some Odd Pilot website, there's a few adjectives or a few keywords that define Some Odd Pilot. And one of them is mythology. And I love mythology. And I'm curious about, from your perspective, what is, what does mythology mean in your work and how does it express itself? And maybe if it's ever talked about with your clients, what's their response?

Because I do believe that as designers, as image makers, as culture creators, there's a big mytholo— there's a big aspect of us creating myths, creating mythology. So maybe share with us a little bit about that.

Chris Eichenseer [22:10]

That's the word I locked onto with my partner, Annika, with my business partner. She's co-owns Some Odd Pilot with me. And, if I'm, if I am the dreamer, she's the one that, points the direction and gets us to land on the landing pad. And she brought that word into our lexicon a while ago as a way of getting at like what is meant by the phenomenon that both bands and brands can kind of like— and for me, it starts with bands.

It's like, well, where— like, see the Iron Maiden album cover, and just you see one of those album covers and you have to think to yourself, there's an entire universe behind this that as a teenage kid, I was dying to know what the hell that was. And then you see the next one and the next one, you start to thread together this larger universe.

And I think Mythology is a fascinating idea because when I, it woke me up to the idea of how many mythologies we all subscribe to on a daily basis. Part of like, if you're a Democrat, you're subscribed to that, to that camp and that, in that world of signs and images and thoughts. If you're, a big fan of a band like, Metallica or Pink Floyd or something. Okay, then there's that mythology that you're subscribing to. And there's just dozens.

I think we all have dozens of these going on where we identify with this larger group and this set of ideas. And more importantly, especially with our work, is like we want to be part of those ideas. And I think the thing that has I think really worked for Some Odd Pilot over the years is this kind of like guttural understanding of like, I want to be in this, the presence of this band or this big story, this big idea.

I'm a huge Star Wars fan and there's like nothing that's going to keep me out of the next Star Wars story because I want to be in that universe so badly. And when I look at the work that we do for our clients, is applying all of that and saying like, the first step of the whole thing is to like build out a universe that people want to be a part of very badly. And I think there are, there are brands like that are really obvious.

Like Nike has done an incredible job over the years of building out what it means to be in Nike's world. Patagonia is one of our, one of the biggest clients we've serviced over the years and a lot of that work, you think about what people do to be part of Patagonia's world.

It's, I often think about being in a band, and if you're offering free tickets to a show or a discounted price to a show, that doesn't bring people into— that doesn't bring people in front of a stage, but the mythology that the band builds around them is that motivating factor. And it's the difference between, people chasing after those fans or having them line up around the block just to get inside and get in front of that stage.

So to me, mythology is like sort of the ultimate rubric that which we're working under to establish like a long storytelling arc where the next things that we do for a brand fit into that and expand on that and deepen the meaning of what that is.

Christian Solorzano [25:48]

So for example, when it comes to working with clients like such as like Pitchfork, Lollapalooza, most recently I stumbled upon your work for Kimberly-Clark, and that took me by surprise because there's, Pitchfork, Lollapalooza, like these very DIY, like culture maker, like organizations. But then there's Kimberly-Clark, which is, what I see when I'm like drying my hands in the bathroom. So how do you— how does Someoddpilot's voice and attitude, do you— does it fluctuate depending on the industry that it's working in?

Do you have to tailor your voice differently to specific types of like client, like stakeholders? When people come to work with Some Odd Pilot, do they kind of know that they're getting this like bold attitude, like that they're getting this?

Chris Eichenseer [26:37]

Yeah, no, I— yeah. Now, it's funny because that comes— the answer is, the short answer is no. The short answer is I have found that irreverence that, in the thrash metal band is the same thing that brands and our clients need very desperately in order to stand out in the market, to find themselves and be who they are.

I think it does take like an act of rebellion to simply who you are and be willing to express that and have the fearlessness required to just be yourself. It's hard as hell to walk around, mouthing off and telling everyone your point of view, because every time you do it, you feel like, a, maybe you don't know what you're talking about, B, maybe, you're an imposter, or C, everyone's gonna turn their back on you because they disagree. So how it feels to be a human.

And they have a point of view, and there is like an act of irreverence, I think, built into that. So the way I see that is, this is the muscle that we've really strengthened over the years where we're not afraid to come up with all of the oddities and the strangeness and the uniqueness that flows around and is within that sort of the possibilities in the creative pool of ideas.

And then, and I remember 20 years ago, I used to have to convince clients not only that they needed a website or that they needed a really strong brand, or that, but that they needed to stand out in a mix of competitors. And I feel like that idea is firmly taking root, of course, at this point in our culture where we're flooded with images and we're flooded with campaigns and social media and stuff.

Where all of the clients that we work with understand inherently, oh my God, if I don't, if I don't have a very well, well-defined self and a sense of self, and I can't bring that out into the marketplace in a really memorable, impossible to forget kind of way, then I'm not doing that. I'm not doing anything.

And album covers and all of that sort of learning that the background that we can pull into the idea of like, album covers are these unforgettable, iconic images that speak to this larger mythology. And I think if all of our campaigns, all of our creative work starts with that idea of like, it's going to have to be this iconic— I cannot forget this thing. It's uniquely strange or uniquely itself. There's nothing like it in the world.

And so, whether it's Kimberly Clark, which is one of the, largest, most conservative companies in the world. I was also too— I too was shocked. And what's funny was when we start— when we talked to them about the— about rebranding their company, which is no small feat, we were the wild card in the process. And this tends to be the case, like Some Odd Pilots usually, it's like, oh, you guys are the Lollapalooza pitchfork people.

Wouldn't it be interesting to see what you would bring to this, to, this project? And so we're often that 3rd or 4th option that is like the wild card. And, we get it.

I think we get those projects not because somebody in the room is like, I need to bring this badass, rebellious spirit to Kimberly-Clark or even to Lollapalooza, but it's more like the environment that we've created that allows for like this really fun, collaborative, like fearless exploration of ideas and self and bringing that like, who am I? Why am I here?

To the table really strongly with like a group of people that work at Some Odd Pilot that just relate to each other really easily and have a lot of fun on the phone with the ideas. And I think our clients can see that. And so someone like Kimberly-Clark walks in going like, well, we might be the most boring client they've ever had.

I actually had one of the guys that worked there say that, and to me, it's like, me and Annika both responded to that with like a, oh God, no, that's that. That doesn't even— none of that even registers in the mind. It's like you've got something like Kimberly-Clark has something extraordinarily unique and exciting they're doing at the heart of what that company is. They're literally manufacturing all of the products necessary for human beings to be human beings.

They, they're, their products are everywhere and they're part of our lives. Like humans are like these leaky, messy creatures, and Kimberly-Clark makes all the, and that's fascinating to me. I find that extraordinarily interesting. And so if you can, there's always that gem, or there's always that piece of a company that launched it in the first place that's really exciting to be a part of and to get into and to get excited about. And so I think that's what we really bring.

It's like that irreverence is really more built into like the curiosity and the fearlessness around just being like, what is the thing and why is it so special? And how can I mine that for all it's worth? Because a lot of the brands that we work with are legacy, we call legacy brands, right?

Christian Solorzano [32:18]

Yeah.

Chris Eichenseer [32:18]

And it's not about revolution. It's always, it's almost always about like an evolution of who they are because we don't just flip and flop through our lives as to, the things we value and the things that we do. And these— and brands are no different.

And I feel like, yeah, it always shocks the hell out of me when a brand like Taco Bell or Johnson & Johnson switch and lose all these character pieces that were so, they had built so much value around and felt so much like it was them. And so it's always important to pull through those roots and to keep building upon that. Throwing it away.

Christian Solorzano [33:02]

And throughout your career, have there ever been any, the, any of these, I can't believe that this is true, or like in my dreaming moments, whether it's just, I'm curious about that, like maybe if you can share with us like your top 3 where you've just, you're like, I've, I'm at the top of the mountain.

Chris Eichenseer [33:21]

Curious. Yeah, it's crazy to me that I've— that I can answer that question. But it's been 25 years. So yeah. And I feel, I feel really fortunate and thankful that I can do that, or that there are moments like that. And, but then again, when I think about how I started this, it was just me and one other person for about 10 years.

And I really, it was like a very slow and painful process to grow Some Odd Pilot into the, 20, 20-plus person studio that it is now. And along the way, every little— like when we first did the Empty Bottle website in 1999, and we were able to do also, like we ended up rebranding them while doing that, which I kind of forgot about, but it was like one of those organic things.

And making t-shirts for them and flyers, it was like, I was like, pinch me, I'm dreaming. This is— Like, I had— I— that was heroic, a heroic moment for me. I think Pitchfork was the next one, but it was, it was also like, well, they're the guys up the street who are trying to do this indie review, music review site. And, their intern was like, oh yeah, why don't you ask Some Odd Pilot? They did the Empty Bottles website.

And we ended up, rebranding Pitchfork because we were designing their website. For the first time it ever had an actual design to it. And the idea of a brand to them was foreign too. And, but anyway, that was another moment where I was like, this is so ingrained in this indie world that I love so much that I can't believe this is something I get to be a part of.

Because, I mean, to be real, all of the bands I've been in, the record label Someoddpilot Records, which we launched when we started the studio. It's like they've been well below underground, you know what I mean? It's like they're— I've never enjoyed the kind of like, oh yeah, my band's playing at the Empty Bottle and it's packed. That only happens if we— when we're opening for, bands like Killing Joke or something that's— and so I've never— I don't take one iota of that for granted.

And for Someoddpilot to find its way into some of these spots, I think Lollapalooza was definitely another one where, I mean, that was crazy that when they were looking for a rebrand, they were looking for a Chicago studio to do it. We were one of the ones they were looking at. And I, that was a huge moment. I got to talk to Perry Farrell about how the design work that we were doing could be better.

And he it's like when they— when the guys at the parent company had us pass like round 1 or 2, then Perry weighed in and was like, I don't really like this. And that was awesome for me to hear and to be part of because it was very much the same classic struggle you can imagine happening where it was like the DIY punk thing versus like how easy is this for a corporation to disseminate and make more assets with this system that we were making.

And of course, Perry was on the side of how do we get more art out of this? How do we make this artful and a little bit dangerous? So like talking, like that was another like pinch me, I can't believe this is happening. Because I grew up when Perry Farrell was founding Lollapalooza and was in Jane's Addiction. And that was like everyone I knew, he was, a hero to so many.

So yeah, I mean, and honestly, the first time we got a proper job, like after the music clients that we had in the early 2000s, Caterpillar Footwear and Merrell, these outdoor hiking brands and boot making, shoe making, like these shoemakers, Saucony, those were the first real brands we ever worked with that had— that could write a check that and that was just a shock because I thought that the music stuff that we were doing, I was so embroiled in it and so in the middle of it that I never imagined that somebody from the outside of that would look at that and be like, oh, but of course there's a Pitchfork guy in every, somewhere in every corporation who's like, oh yeah, I fucking love Pitchfork.

And that's, that site's so cool. Who did that site? And we put our names at the bottom. Of the site. And that led us to working with these outdoor apparel brands that I was blown away that we could do anything remotely in the service of proper, global brands.

Christian Solorzano [38:09]

And when it comes, when it comes to creating a lot of this work, I'm curious about how you and others within Some Odd Pilot foster that playful, collaborative environment where projects like the ones that y'all are doing are being manifested? How do you create that environment? And is there a secret to fostering that right amount of ingredients to do what you guys are doing?

Chris Eichenseer [38:40]

Yeah, I think the pivotal sort of danger moment happened when the studio became 5 or 6 people in I think it was about 2010 or '11. And Annika, who is wise beyond her years— she's 12 years younger than I am, but she always has a habit of pointing me in the right direction. And she was like very observant and saying like— because up until that point, I was the person who supplied the visual answer to things.

It was like, if we were under the gun, if there was a big project, like I would probably do 3 or 4 different ideas, designs, whatever they were, a combination of photography and graphic design and branding and this, that, and the other. And that was usually my thing. At that point, it was going to start to switch. But of course, like a lot of people who run studios or who are entrepreneurs, it's like, well, I'm the guy. I have—

Christian Solorzano [39:40]

It's—

Chris Eichenseer [39:40]

This is— we need my brain on this or else. We're not going to get to the thing. And Annika was like, when people are bringing up really good ideas, your first response is no, or that's not— I don't see it, blah. But then about half an hour to 45 minutes later, you're starting to see it, and then you're getting excited about this other idea. So what if you just cut out the part where you were like, no, that's not my idea?

And it was, this is, this is like the pivotal thing I think that every business is going to live or die on is like whether or not the person at the top can get out of their own way and to say, and honestly, I heard her say that and I did some reading on, I found a book called what Got you Here Won't Get you there.

And it was, it's primarily about like, if you get really good at the thing you do, you get used to being the guy, the person with the answer to the thing. And at some point, that just bottlenecks and okay, you can come up with a good answer, but a lot of people need to be able to come up with a lot of answers in order for the company to grow and to become fun to work at.

And if I— so I think the secret ingredient for us has been like 100% cultivating an environment where I can get everyone thinking Fearlessly in the sense that like, they're not— their ideas aren't going to get shot down. They're not going to play an ego war with someone else. There isn't going to be like this triangulation of power moves where somebody's going to get left in the dust so that somebody else can look good. There's none of that.

And so Annika and I like focus very intently on creating a situation where the ideas that come out in— we have these kind of writers' rooms at work where the idea that somebody came up with, so to speak, gets batted around and added to so much that hopefully, and almost in every case, that idea becomes the group's idea and it becomes much larger than the one mind that thought of it. And it gets better for it. It grows and gets stronger.

And I think if you have an environment where everyone's on board for that, and you've— there isn't a sense that like, well, this art director— I hear this at other, at larger companies, that these art directors like have to kind of pit themselves against each other in order to advance or to win the favor of whoever. Then you have this like this environment where everyone's like excited to come up with the next thing and feels inherently involved in it. And, there's no bad ideas.

There's like everyone, everything, every single time I have an idea and before I say it, I'm like, this is the stupidest thing. Everyone's gonna laugh at you as soon as you say this. And it doesn't matter how old I get, it still feels like that. And now I just, I just need to say it. And the more I can get people trained to just say it, then we can move on.

Christian Solorzano [42:49]

And do you find yourself still in front of the computer designing, or are you more hands-off now? Or what's the ratio of actually moving pixels around? Or is that—

Chris Eichenseer [43:00]

You don't do that?

Christian Solorzano [43:02]

Yeah.

Chris Eichenseer [43:02]

I mean, what are, it's a great joy that I've found Anton is our creative director and Freddie is our brand director and Kara is our campaign art director and there's so many between there. That's just a few of the names. But the short story is like, once I found people that kind of could kind of grow up in our system of thinking, then all of a sudden they're doing it better than I could do it.

And I can sit back and help them there, but definitely be way more hands-off and allow the ideas, because I find now that if I interject less, it does better. And because they've got like a rhythm going on. And so I'm largely in front of the computer when it comes to my great joy, honestly, is like working on Some Odd Pilot as a studio and working through how we tell our story.

And then the record label and Public Works grab a lot of my attention because it's those things end up fostering future clients. You know what I mean?

Christian Solorzano [44:15]

Yeah. Can you talk to us a little bit more about your record label, where it stands today? I know that it's produced a handful of albums throughout the years, but I love music and I love that there's, with Some Odd Pilot, that there's this like very strong intersection between both. Do Some Odd Pilot designers, does the Some Odd Pilot team also have involvement within the record label? And yeah, just how's that constructed?

Chris Eichenseer [44:41]

The record label and Public Works kind of share the same oxygen of there's never enough time to do either one. And they exist on the fringes of everything else that we're doing.

And it becomes kind of like a little bit of— it's our most chaotic working process because of that. And it's a labor of love. So then it requires, a lot of like extracurricular hours and time. And so it— there's usually a concentrated number of people on either one of those things. And to date, the record label has largely been something that I do the work for when it comes to the visuals.

And I have a partner named Jeffrey Wilson who runs a record label called Consumers Research and Development. And we have now partnered the 2 labels together. I'm helping him put out Consumers Records and he's helping me put out the Someoddpilot records. And that's largely a function of him and I trying to figure out like what to do next and who to work with.

And then the visual work is largely mine, but I have, there's such great talent around me where like, Ellie, our video artist, is, helps me put together the music videos. We kind of trade off on editing them. I'll do some of it, she'll do some of it. I'll try to shoot something like that with, the most bare-bones crew humanly possible, because when we're doing real productions, it's a madhouse of, 20 to 30 people and these budgets.

And when it comes to these music videos, it's like, how easily can this get done? And be spectacular with apps, with just 2 people working on it. So it does fall into a small number of hands. And, it's regrettable because I would love to have more participation in it. But that's the goal, is for me to kind of set the tone, but then to follow the example of the past and like get everyone else to see the larger picture and then be able to operate yeah.

More without me in that space.

Christian Solorzano [46:56]

Do you have any design heroes or any people, organizations that you look up to as sort of like the blueprints or something that you kind of always aspire to be like or that are heavily inspired by? Who are those people or what are those things?

Chris Eichenseer [47:13]

Yeah, the first, the very first one was Storm Thurgoodson and this, the hypnosis studio that, did, hundreds and hundreds of the world's most iconic and classic album covers. And so finding out about Hypnosis was the beginning of me understanding that there was such a thing as a design studio and that there's this creative playpen that one could have where, you could mix the best, the best elements of commercial and artistic merit in the form of working with bands in the music industry.

And I still think about like the— some of the more obscure album covers that they created too, where you just, you get this like strange little window into an impossible world and you just want to know more. And I think that's a huge starting point for like that. Mythology journey ultimately is rooted in their work.

Beyond them too, like my— that friend I mentioned, Andy Mueller, who started— he went on to do— so he started this design studio called Ohio Girl that became something called the Quiet Life, which is a lifestyle brand that he started in the Midwest. And it became an LA and Midwest kind of combo thing. And it's like this kind of skate and photo and art and design kind of t-shirt and clothing company.

And he's always been a real icon of mine because he just grabbed it like the kid sitting next to the band, his band friends who need records and t-shirts and he just sort of grabbed it and was like, yeah, how do I make— he got Jay Ryan. Him and Jay Ryan were friends, and Jay got his start in silk screening because Andy needed a poster for one of, or a t-shirt or something for one of these bands from Champaign.

And so my entire world starts with like Champaign-Urbana and these bands that like got popular in the mid-'90s. And, but anyway, the point being like this, like kind of guttural, well, I don't know how to do this thing, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna try to figure it out and apply like my best knowledge of like the subculture into it.

And I think that's what really gets me fascinated and interested in all of this work is like, is I'm not a very cerebral person when it comes to planning or doing and setting goals. But I am very much like reacting to that group of people who are at the Empty Bottle or the movement or the thing or the crowd that is in front of me that is, toying with something that's really interesting.

It's like, I just want to— I want to— I think, having a large amount of empathy and getting into the heads of that subculture and being fascinated by what they're fascinated by. That's sort of one of the biggest motivators I have, as I'm not— I don't follow a lot of designers and I don't really have a catalog. I look up to, VSA in the old days. VSA taught me how to design in a neat and orderly fashion and to make information readable.

For things like the Pitchfork website. And Pentagram is something I'm always looking at, like what Pentagram is doing in terms of like creating these really effective master brands. But beyond a few of these names, like I don't have a stunning roster, but I do just sort of have this deeper admiration for subcultures and what gets them excited. Yeah.

Christian Solorzano [51:17]

So a lot of our listeners range from people that are still in college and people that are more into their careers, people that have decades of experience. But I want to ask you specifically about designers that are emerging, that are just fresh into the industry.

Based on your observations of the industry and your life, what would you say is your biggest piece of wisdom for someone that is getting into design and maybe is a little bit uncertain about the landscape of everything that's going on, whether it's struggling with finding a job or living in a polarized society? How would you tell them to just keep going and to not lose sight of that? That passion, that fire that got them into this in the first place?

Chris Eichenseer [52:13]

Yeah, that's a great question. And we have student groups that come through the gallery and the studio every once in a while, and I get to talk about the founding of it, which I think is like, is really relatable.

And I think that's the answer I have is Based around, I came from a middle-class background and I was— I had some privilege to my life of just well, I got to go to college and part of it was some scholarship stuff and my parents, could afford to send me to a state school a little bit, but I was working during the summers to pay for it. And it was, it was like a fairly, moderate step up in life.

And when I graduated, I had nothing to my name. And I made $16,000 a year after graduating for the first couple of years and lived, hand to mouth for a really long time until I had a couple freelance jobs where I was able to do some design work and just bank the money. And it was like, it was a total of $14,000.

And I, and when I quit my job to start Some Odd Pilot, I had a couple of jobs worth of— I had that money to protect myself, so to speak, with. And that was kind of it. And I think like the— what I'm trying— I'm getting at is like the sort of like instinctual, well, I just want to do this thing, but no one's going to ask me to do this thing that I want to do anyway.

I wanted to be like the rock poster and album cover person and but nobody was going to ask me to do that. And I had that sense already because my band had already failed spectacularly at like, oh, playing a show in Chicago and having nobody fucking show up. And, I had been through that and I knew that, so my only answer to that was like, well, I'll start my own record label so I can put out my band. And then I put out my friend's band.

And what that meant was this really modest investment in making some CDs. And some posters. But then, the thing that surprised me was that then people go, oh, well, you do that thing. And so now I can have you do that thing for me. And I feel like if I— that's what I tell students is like, if you, if you're just toiling away at the thing that you love anyway, you should never stop doing that because the benefits from that will find you someday.

I don't know. And there's no promise because nobody owes you anything and nobody needs to support the thing that you're doing. It's not like the movies where, the kids are like, oh, we're gonna have a band, and then they play their first show and it's like sold out and they're, they have stage fright or something. It's like, no, the opposite happens. Your girlfriends and your friends show up and there's 10 of them and you're like, wow, how did, how did, what do we do now?

This is like a band practice. And you have to get through that. And so the failure part and the fear part, it's always right there. And I— and it's— and that part never goes away. And as a student, if I'm graduating right now, I'm like, when I was, I was full of fear and assuming that nobody would give me a seat at the table and it would be impossible. And, that never really goes away.

And the only way through it though is just doing the thing, right? I'm putting out records now again with Some Odd Pilot Records, and I'm feeling the exact same thing, which is like I'm shouting in an abyss and I have a weird thing that no one's— nobody needs to listen to, and they're gonna have a hard time finding their way to it. But if I do it anyway, I have faith that there is that a, it's like fantastic for me to do.

And that's the, that's the whole thing is that at the end of the day, like you only really get satisfaction from like the 30, like the 10 or 15 or 30 people that, or that you know are involved in this thing that you want to do something for and have their, to have their smiling faces say like, oh, that's pretty cool. Thanks for, or that's neat to see, cool.

I enjoyed that show or whatever. That's really like all of this stuff ends up coming down to is connecting with about a few dozen people over a thing that you're doing, and that's the most reward you're gonna get anyway. So it's worth doing. And then sometimes, well, we did a show around the World Cup at the— at Public Works.

We did an art show around the 2022 World Cup, and I shot my soccer team for it and like did all this like, ridiculous like I made a magazine with the old guys I play soccer with and like these, this photography that I, I've never done sports photography properly. So I was doing it with my team and I still, I could put it into this show and build this magazine and do this whole thing. And then 2 years later, the Chicago Fire heard of us.

And we got to talk to the Chicago Fire and I was able to be like, you know what, we did this thing for the World Cup. And then they saw that and they were like, that's fucking cool. Like that looks real. That looks really real and hoodie. And you got the essence of soccer. And I did it because I love soccer. I love, I loved bringing that to life. And then lo and behold, now the Chicago Fire is a client of ours. And so that's insane.

I, and I still, I still can't believe that one either. That's like another holy grail moment. But yeah, that's what I would say. It's like, it's just, you just kind of have to do the thing. And art students and designers, the ultimate job is, I really believe, is you just have to sit with fear and uncertainty all the time. And the guys, the business people that are looking for answers from you, they would love it if there was a formula to the answer.

But, you, Christian, you know that the design process, you're not quite sure how you're going to get there or what it's going to be or if it's going to be any good. And it's going to be factors of things that like make it special, but you can't really predict how that's going to happen. But because you can sit and work through that with uncertainty and even have the uncertainty when you finally finish and show it to the world.

Because you can tolerate that, you're there to do the job, and they value you because you are there to do that. And the— I swear to God, at the end of the day, that is, that is the job, is like sitting with uncertainty and fear and doing it anyway. And it doesn't make you like Mr. Courageous. It doesn't make— I'm not like full of courage. I just will tolerate this horrible feeling of anxiety and fear around, every day of my life.

And it's— maybe that's a bad thing, but I think it brings me to things I love in the, in the long run. It really has. I have— the studio is my dream come true, and I can't believe I've been able to do this. And it's largely but I've never been settled once, and I've never felt like I had all the answers ever.

Christian Solorzano [59:39]

It's a perfect answer. We're almost at time, but I have a few quick questions for you. One of them is regarding Chicago. You've been in Chicago for such a long time now, and I want to know about what do you think makes Chicago unique and special? There's so many different things. I love Chicago, but what do you love about it and what's made you stick around for such a long time?

Chris Eichenseer [60:09]

Yeah, I'm a lifer and I grew up outside in the suburbs. I wanted nothing more than to be in Chicago because I, looking for something cool to photograph in Palatine was really hard and I could see a city like Chicago and be like, Oh my God, every alley, every dumpster, every fire escape, every building. And so all that character that Chicago has still fascinates me.

I particularly love and was— the thing that won me over right away moving to Chicago was the music scene and the way, which is reflective of like the way the town behaves, I feel like, which is like nothing's expected or handed to you. It's such a DIY spirit place where it doesn't have a lot of posturing. Like posturing doesn't really get you very far in Chicago.

You're gonna have to, if you're gonna do anything here, you're gonna have to work your ass off and build the thing and make the thing and scream from the rooftops because it's just not a given. And the music scene that has evolved here over the years, like when I— from '95 to 2005, there was this explosive, it was like the dawn of digital.

And that was like unleashing both like laptop electronic music and something called post-rock, which was a sort of like academic approach to making rock music with no lyrics and no frontman, but like all of these like really cool trappings of like electronic and jazz music and cinema sort of brought into the sphere of rock. And like Chicago was really the place to be for post-rock in the '90s and eventually electronic music. And the Empty Bottle fostered that and the Rainbow Club fostered that.

A lot of the clubs in Chicago were in that scene and it was so rich and so, everyone was trading CDRs and flyers and that's still Chicago to me. Like Danny's Tavern down on Damen is still like, which is sadly shuttered, but the spirit of that or like Wicker Park's like Flatiron Building and the art scene of just yeah, this isn't— there isn't like a given gallery situation here. There isn't a given, ticket to stardom in Chicago.

It is very much like, you can go to Reckless Records and see one of the founding members of Ministry works at Reckless. And there are these legends built into this town, but it's humble about it and it's approachable.

And that's why I hope that Public Works carries on some of that, where the whole point is Can I enter into an art and design show and feel like I have a relationship to what I'm seeing instead of having to like go read about it and read the theory around it? But it's like, it's right there and immediate. And I think Chicago just exemplifies that.

Christian Solorzano [63:28]

Next question. What are you listening to today? What's some music that, that's on repeat for you?

Chris Eichenseer [63:35]

Oh God. It's a good question. I'm listening to a lot of— I listen to a lot of post-rock and electronic music still. That's been my— and Mogwai is a huge influence for me.

They're a Scottish band. I listen to a lot, and the music that we put out is the music I end up like really connecting with. And I don't know about you, but I find like this, a lot of the smaller bands, so to speak, in scope, Especially when they're in Chicago and they're doing things with the people I know or the people that I know or the people that know the people that I know.

Like that stuff becomes really special to me and I get really moved by the music that they're making. So a lot of it is stuff that people haven't heard of. But our last release was by a band called Moii. M-O-I-I-I. And that their experimental approach to like playing with guitars and electronics together, making this kind of weird sludgy electronic industrial music, just completely kicked my ass.

We're putting out a record called Drift in January that is more traditional, like 4 on the floor kind of electronic dance music. Like a 5 or 6 song EP that's coming out. And that has me captivated right now.

Just in like, it's— and then there's a band called K-Rad that we put out 20 years ago that just played a show at the gallery. And K-Rad is a Chicago sort of legend in the sense that these guys always made electronic music in the moment. Live and then would capture that and make records out of that. So they would put out like a record a month.

And they have such an organic and intuitive, like way of making like head-bobbing electron— like kind of dirty, gritty electronic music that I love. So that, that's my long answer for that question.

Christian Solorzano [65:43]

Excellent. And today, what's making you happy and what's pissing you off?

Chris Eichenseer [65:48]

God. What's making me happy, honestly, is being is being 50 and still being here. I had, I had brain surgery a couple of years ago and got a second to take stock and just remember what's important to me. And my daughter just turned 9. So like the joy of being alive and being with people and having this lovely connection to as many people that I care about as possible.

I just, I cannot get enough of like the social groups that I'm a part of, whether it's the soccer team or the people at the gallery or my band friends or my graphic design friends in the graphic design community. I just really, I love that. And I love the back and forth of all of that and being part of the fabric of all that. Honestly, and, it's like having my family too. It's just, it's just like that. That's the juice.

It's just working with people. And everyone's— we're all flawed, and we all have this, our weird idiosyncrasies and our awkwardness, and we all feel weird getting together, whatever. But yeah, I think there's a forgiveness that comes with all of that if you can show up in the first place.

And yeah, you have to forgive yourself, and by that part accept everyone as they are and how they're coming into it. And I think that's a really lovely part of being here. That's my happy answer. My— and the things that piss me off, I mean, the thing that's pissing me off right now, honestly, like a lot of people, the election wasn't fun. It also exposes, I feel like a lot of, the— like, I'm really, I'm really sad. I've made all these angry posters about Donald Trump.

And that was cathartic for the election. Seeing the outcome is terrible. And but then also realizing that the Democrat— the Democrats are this hugely flawed thing as well, that like somehow became the party that represents the system.

And suddenly, a bunch of liberals are running around defending the system. And as we all know, the system is like yeah. And there's all these, there's all this insider trading and backroom things that are happening at the highest levels of power. And suddenly we're like defending all of like the tradition of that.

Which does keep the world stable somehow, but it does allow like, injustice that to continue in ways that no one's proud of. But then we're— but then we have to defend all of that because the opposite, the other side is dealing in something that is much worse in terms of tone and in terms of being anti-people. And I don't understand anything that's anti-people. I think that's really discouraging.

But you know what's awesome about the current moment though, I will say, is that it gives you something to fucking fight against. Who doesn't love that? You know what I mean? It's like, fuck these guys. And the bullshit that's going to happen in the next 4 years and so on is something to get motivated by and to build something better. Yeah. To be an opposite to.

Christian Solorzano [69:17]

I agree. I agree. And last question, do you have any guilty pleasures?

Chris Eichenseer [69:22]

Star Wars. Yeah.

Christian Solorzano [69:23]

I mean, Star Wars. Okay.

Chris Eichenseer [69:25]

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If there is anything that like, I get a lot of eye rolls at is like the number of times I'll bring Star Wars up in a conversation. When I, when I'm panicked, when the pandemic's going on, like I'm, or things are scary, I retreat into, reading Expanded Universe Star Wars books and rewatching movies and shows I've seen too many times already.

And, coming up with theories and thinking about like where the story arcs could go and where the mythology could go. Because honestly, that is— that mythology thing is like, it's really seductive. And I really enjoy when people build a fantasy world that I want to be part of and live inside of. So yeah, I would say it's Star Wars.

Christian Solorzano [70:16]

Excellent. Well, thank you so much for your time. It was nice to learn more about you. And I look forward to and I hope that we can keep the door open and that in the future, hopefully the Chicago Graphic Design Club can do something with Someoddpilot. That would be amazing.

Chris Eichenseer [70:30]

I would love that. Yeah, I would love that. It seems like our worlds should intersect nicely. Also in the, in the realm of public works as well. There's like, there's just something right there, wait— waiting to be discovered. So. Cool. Awesome.

Christian Solorzano [70:46]

All right. Well, thank you so much and happy new year. And for everyone that's listening, you're listening to this now in 2025. So happy new year to all of you as well.

Chris Eichenseer [70:56]

Yeah, it's— yeah, the new year is a, it must be, it must be thought of as an optimism, and thinking about there's always more we can do. And I really do believe you can, that the idea to work with is build the relationships and the things you want in this world. I think that just, it's such a homegrown kind of thing, and it's really tempting to look far outside of ourselves and get upset about things that are far outside of us.

But there's a lot within our personal realm of influence where you can, you can make the day, you can make better days for people that are right here in your orbit. And that's what I think about. Perfect.

Christian Solorzano [71:37]

That's a perfect Instagram quote.

Chris Eichenseer [71:39]

Thanks, Christian, for having me here.

Christian Solorzano [71:41]

Thanks again and happy new year. And we'll be in touch soon.

Chris Eichenseer [71:44]

Happy new year to you too, man.

Christian Solorzano [71:45]

All right. Peace out. Thank you so much for sticking around till the end. What a great conversation that was. Thank you so much, Chris, and thank you so much for listening. If you enjoy the show, consider rating it on your preferred podcast platform. And to learn more about us, visit www.chicagographicdesign.club. We hope to talk to you soon. If you're in Chicago, we hope to see you soon, and goodbye.