Christian Solorzano [01:06]

Hello, you're listening to Underscore, a show by the Chicago Graphic Design Club. I am your host, Christian Solorzano, and on today's episode, I'm delighted to share my conversation with designer Chris Leather, who currently works at the University of Chicago's Physical Sciences Division as a director of graphic arts. And today he shares with us the story of starting off studying architecture only to move into graphic design after being passionate about typography, layouts, and composition.

We also learn about his move from Knoxville, Tennessee to Chicago to start working in publication design for the Chicago-based magazine you Are Chicago, which eventually led to him founding his own publication, Slap Magazine. We also speak about the power of human intelligence and why today it's even more important to create work that comes from the human mind, the human hand. We also learn about his perspective on teaching, being an educator for over 2 decades.

He tells us why sometimes the best way to learn about design history is by learning it in a nonlinear fashion. It's a great conversation, and I hope that you find it as inspiring as I did. Thank you for tuning in. We'll talk soon.

Chris Leather [02:31]

And enjoy.

Christian Solorzano [02:32]

Good afternoon, Chris. How are you doing? Thank you so much for being on our episode today. How's it going?

Chris Leather [02:37]

I'm doing great, and I— yeah, I appreciate being a part of what you're doing.

Christian Solorzano [02:42]

So I learned about you because there's been several people that have name-dropped you in the past, and they're people that I really look up to and respect. And surprisingly, both of those people are— they're a little bit mysterious. There's quite a— there's not a lot that you can learn about them on the internet. And when I was looking you up again, there was not much about you on the internet. You tend to keep a low profile, which only made me become more intrigued.

And more curious about you, who you are and what you do.

Chris Leather [03:15]

We're a secret cult of mysterious designers.

Christian Solorzano [03:19]

Because I feel like the people that are like under the radar are under the radar because they're too busy doing work, like doing cool, awesome work. And I respect that.

Chris Leather [03:31]

I'd like to believe that that's the reason. I'll go with that if that's where we want to go. I think that sounds fine.

Christian Solorzano [03:40]

I wanna— I'm curious about what was your first introduction to graphic design? You went to the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, right? 1991, studying painting and graphic design. And what led you to want to study or pursue graphic design, painting, the arts?

Chris Leather [03:58]

Well, the funny thing about that is I wasn't at the University of Tennessee originally to study graphic design.

In fact, I probably couldn't legitimately tell you what graphic design was when I went to the university. My initial plan was to study architecture, which I did for about a year and a half, and I liked it, but it moved too slow for me, which is ironic because I work incredibly slow. But I think that was part of the problem, was like, you combine something that is in its nature a slow-moving process, and then you take a slow-moving person to go with it.

And I just found that I couldn't, I couldn't even, appreciate what I was doing in the moment. And I felt after about a year and a half of studying architecture that I needed to change what I was doing. And, because I had already logged time in artistic areas of, Tennessee's core, I first thought about graphic design.

I actually had some graphic design teachers who were, because of my attention to detail and the time I would put into my title blocks, the title blocks are like the little areas on an architecture drawing that, they're just supposed to be almost an afterthought. But I would labor over those really intensely. And I think, one of my professors was like, yeah, you might want to consider being a graphic designer.

I think it was a very kind way of saying, you're spending way too much time on the title block and not enough time in the project.

Christian Solorzano [05:53]

And do you have a recollection of maybe growing up seeing some kind of like visual media or some form of graphic design that really drew you in, whether music or film or—

Chris Leather [06:04]

Yeah, that's, it's funny because long before I knew it was graphic design, I have a couple of really distinct visuals that, and maybe somewhat a product of the time, like I grew up like an hour north of New York City. And, in growing up, I remember seeing when we would go down to the city, which wasn't very often, but occasionally going down and seeing the graffiti was really it spoke to me in an interesting way.

I— it was supposed to be degenerate, but yet it was like the most beautiful thing that was going on at the time. But even before that, I have a very distinct memory in my head of going into a record store and seeing the album cover for the Rolling Stones' Tattoo you, which I don't know if you're familiar with that. It's very bright. I don't know if it's like a neon ink or what it— what's going on with that.

And a tattooed face on the co— on the COVID of it. And, this is the— in the days of 12-inch records, so they were a lot more visual. And just being young and not really knowing what that was, that just stuck in my head. That and the other thing was My other, passionate interest was baseball and the uniforms that the Houston Astros were wearing at the time.

They, they're sort of— these days people refer to them as the Tequila Sunrise uniforms, which had like these bright orange and yellow and red, like rainbow across the stomach area of the uniform, which was totally unusual for the time. And that just really, it popped out to me. It just, and I had no idea that any of that was graphic design.

Christian Solorzano [08:11]

And you're wearing something today the listener can't see, but you're wearing a bright orange and red.

Chris Leather [08:16]

Yeah. Yeah. I've sort of had a color rebirth of late. So I'm rediscovering color.

Christian Solorzano [08:22]

So once you start pursuing graphic design, what are some of the first projects that you start working on? I noticed that you did a lot of show posters. I'm curious to hear a little bit more about those early projects that you were doing.

Chris Leather [08:36]

I'll say that my initial experience studying design, it was confusing to me. I didn't really know what the heck I was doing. I didn't feel like the program wasn't speaking to me in a way that the painting program was speaking to me. So I ended up doing a dual major, doing one major in painting and one major in graphic design.

And the only reason I added the painting major was because I quickly fell in love with it, and I fell in love with the process of making paintings, and I just wasn't feeling that with any of the design work. But I also knew I had to get a job when I when I was done with school, because the loans were going to be very high by the time I was done. So I stuck with the design program.

And what was interesting about it was one day I was sitting in a— what was otherwise a very boring design history class. And I think in those days I would regularly sleep through my history classes, just because, the lights would go out and seats were comfortable, and you hadn't slept enough. And so, I'd be drowsy. And but then there was one day when this album cover by Vaughan Oliver popped up. It was a cover he did for Ultra Vivid Scene.

It was— it's kind of a famous one that has like a blown-out photo of a toothbrush where you can see the process printing dot patterns, and there's like this very textural duct tape over it just sort of randomly. And when that hit the screen, it just changed everything for me because suddenly I connected like, oh, that's what I want to do. That's why I'm doing this major.

So much of the major, I think, early on was focused in advertising design, and that was something I couldn't relate to. But at the same time that was going on, I was playing in bands and becoming a part of the music scene in Knoxville. As soon as it occurred to me that I could apply what I was learning to, actual needed design, like posters for bands and posters for my own band and album covers, it— like, everything changed.

Christian Solorzano [11:27]

And was the majority of the work that you were creating, was it on the computer? I know you spoke about the computer as a primary tool. And then there's the, there's that, but then also painting, which I assume was with paint as opposed to digital painting, correct?

Chris Leather [11:42]

Yeah. No. Yeah, the painting was very— I mean, I would— I think there was probably like a 4 or 5 year period where I was just permanently stained in paint because that's— I just lived in my studio and I loved it. But with the design, it was it was a combination of things.

We were really— we were the first generation of students, at least at Tennessee, that were being put in computer labs, and we were being directed by a faculty that was all— had, backgrounds that they didn't know the first thing about what a computer was and what it did. And so we very heavily depended on, finding the right person to sit next to in the computer lab to banter from the older kids, the older classmates that had already been in the lab for a year or whatever.

And so, and the computer tools were so barbaric at that time, like Photoshop didn't have layers yet. So like things like that, you were, you were, you had these really drastic limitations. And at the same time, a lot of, a lot of the things I ended up designing for early on, especially in the music scene, we didn't have time to waste on the computer. So we were, one of the things we started doing with— I was in a band called State Champs.

And we discovered that in Kinko's, there were, there was a hidden thing within the copy machines where you could, you could get either magenta or actually it was really more of a red or a blue toner. Like it was black and white printers, but there was this, these hidden things. And so if you ran it through twice, you could get a 2-color print. And that's really how I learned about 2-color printing and 3-color printing.

And then all of a sudden we were like doing layers of things and we were, taking and typing things on an actual typewriter and then cutting those up and doing the typography that way because we just didn't have time to fuss over it on a computer. The only thing I really fussed over was I created a logo and this is this tells you a little bit about that time. Digital type was incredibly hard to get still.

There was only so much of it out there, and, generally it was pirated. So, I would find things that I liked in old catalogs for like the rub-on letters and whatnot, and then I would scan those letters like one by one individually. But then, I'd forget that like scale was an issue, right?

So I'd end up putting these things together in these sort of almost random sizes, and it kind of became a typographic style early on, accidentally, because we didn't know what we were doing, or I didn't know what I was doing, which I found out, as I think, now I realize that so much of the best things that I, that I did were because I didn't know what I was doing. I was just forced to make— do the best I could.

Christian Solorzano [15:22]

Yeah, I like that. I always like hearing stories about like that analog part of graphic design because I think there's a lot, a lot of discovery that happens in the process. And I feel like sometimes that discovery is a little bit lost today. I think with— oh yeah, things just being really automated or even like autocorrect, right? Really bugs me because there's no opportunity to figure out how to— like, even when I write emails, sometimes I can— I might say, I will see you soon.

And it'll suggest that I say, I'm looking forward to seeing you soon. Or like, it'll give me like a different way of saying what I'm trying to say.

Chris Leather [16:07]

Trying to speak for you.

Christian Solorzano [16:08]

Yeah. And I find it so eerie that it's that it's just becoming so easy to just get these auto suggestions and like just click. And then—

Chris Leather [16:17]

Yeah. And that's, the funny thing about that. I mean, I'm terrible. I— people generally don't text me because I don't text back because I just, I hate the whole medium. But I'm somebody like I've mentioned already that I tend to work slow and function slow because I am a perfectionist. And so even when I type a text message, if I think I don't know proper spelling of the word, I'll go look it up, which is not how people text, right? I mean, realistic.

And so, yeah, I find the whole, the whole way that it's done, it sort of takes your own individual voice away from you.

Christian Solorzano [17:03]

Yeah. I also feel like it kind of like atrophies like your Creative faculties. Because if you're just constantly like having these tools like autocorrect you or spellcheck you, or—

Chris Leather [17:18]

It's suggesting that there's a right way to do things. What I've realized is everything good that I've done is because I didn't know what I was doing and I didn't know the right way to do things. And then I find that the real reason for that is that there is no right way to do things. There's multiple different ways to do things, and we get caught up in the right way to do things.

But the worst part about computer technology, and I know I definitely saw this. It may have been Tobias Frere-Jones on a documentary I was watching where he was talking about the worst thing on the presets for most software. Is that it already is suggesting that there's a right way to do it. And that stuck with me because, you referred to the band posters that I did. Some of those were done with an offset press that I didn't know what I was doing with.

Some of those were done screen printing, which was definitely like a thing that I, stumbled my way through. All of those things added to a language that in the end ended up a lot richer for the lack of knowledge.

Christian Solorzano [18:37]

Then you come to Chicago, 1998, to be the creative director of UR Magazine, UR Chicago Magazine. Could you talk to us about, what made you come to Chicago? Was it, was it the job? Was it something else? Or, and what were your first impressions like?

Chris Leather [18:55]

Arriving in the city. Yeah, that was a tricky one for me because I had planned to go to New York. I even had friends that I planned to move to New York with, and then everything just sort of changed over the summer before where we, some friends were having second thoughts. People were talking about going to Chicago, which is a common landing ground for people from Knoxville. There's a lot of Knoxvillians here.

And I, by the time I kind of came to my senses, I was like, I can't move to New York. I don't— I can't afford to move to New York? And I kind of wanted to stick with my friends for a while. I had a really good community of artists and architects and musicians that I was lucky enough to be a part of. So that definitely influenced my decision to the extent that when I moved here, I didn't have a job lined up.

In fact, I had been offered a pretty sweet job at the Metropulse where I had been working previously, Alternative News Weekly. And, I, and that was really where I learned that I really liked publishing. So when I came to Chicago, I immediately set out looking for first that professional design job, right? Like the real design job. And that didn't go particularly well. It just didn't seem like it was a good time for hiring.

And the thing I really wanted to do more than anything was design albums. And we had such a great music scene in Chicago. I thought, well, surely there's gonna be opportunities there. What I didn't realize is that like every independent record label, most of the bands have an artist in the band or a friend who's an artist or whatever. And nobody's looking for a paid graphic designer at a record label.

So with all of that, I went to the, what I knew best at that point, which was publishing. And I tried, I tried to be respectful and go to all my job interviews like I'm supposed to go to, and be what they're looking for, and all of that. And nothing was working. And finally I just got really frustrated, and I called the publisher of this you Are Chicago magazine out of the blue, because I had seen it in a— I don't know, wherever.

And it was, it was terrible. I mean, it was, it was a bad-looking magazine, and I didn't even bother to look at the masthead or anything like that. I just called up the magazine, and I was like, it looks like you need an art director, which is, probably not the right way to go about it. And yet I'm probably not here right now if I hadn't done it that way.

I realized that you sometimes you have to force your way into things, and that sort of everything took off from there. It was— I was there for about 3 years. We grew really fast during that time. I got to, firsthand witness the power that graphic design could have.

There was kind of a really special to me moment that After I took the job, and it was— I was actually hired on like a— I think it was supposed to be like a month-to-month basis to kind of show what I could do. And the publisher took me into his office and he said, I want you to listen to this. This is back when we had answering machines.

And he played the answering machine and it was just one advertiser after the other saying, I don't know what changed. But I want to buy an ad now. And it was just the difference between something that looked professional and didn't look professional.

Christian Solorzano [23:07]

Did you have publication design experience previous to that role?

Chris Leather [23:13]

Only 2 things. Well, I'd spent 2 and a half years at Metropulse magazine in Knoxville, which was, it was a really in the world of Knoxville, it's a legendary alternative news weekly.

Christian Solorzano [23:29]

It's—

Chris Leather [23:29]

It was the reader in Knoxville. And that was a huge experience because I learned everything I know now about building a culture, a staff, having the kind of work environment you want from the people I worked for there. They were just beautiful, amazing people. I learned about how magazines ran, how they worked, the sort of the speed at which they worked, which was really important.

And I took what I had already learned about materiality, which, like knowing how to work, creating a design on a photocopier versus doing the silk screening, designing for newsprint's a whole different beast. It is like you're dealing with the way ink spreads when you print. So I had to, having that background was really important. Plus I had done my, senior thesis at Tennessee on designing a magazine. And so that also spoke to the publisher when he saw my work.

And beyond that, I didn't really know what the hell I was doing. I really didn't. I was 24 years old. And I was basically by the end of that year running an entire magazine besides the advertising. I was involved in helping hire the writers at the time. Eventually that part took off on its own, but it was a real shoestring sort of thing when I started, and it became a pretty well-run publication by the end.

Christian Solorzano [25:15]

And then you started your own publication, Slap Magazine, for a little bit under 2 years. Fully self-initiated independent arts journal documenting music and art in Chicago. Why did you do that? And tell us the story behind that.

Chris Leather [25:32]

Because I was crazy. I tried after U of R Chicago, I tried to go in, once again, I tried to go and do the professional design route, like the, doing some work for advertising, doing— I was mostly doing motion graphics in that kind of studio environment. And I just, it wasn't for me. And I knew it wasn't for me. I didn't, it's, I had my moment where I just realized like, I can't do commercial work or not that type of commercial work.

I don't really like to be a tool for commerce, I guess is probably the easiest way to put it.

Christian Solorzano [26:23]

That's a very polite way of— very polite answer.

Chris Leather [26:28]

It's my, it's— I had my, my— what was his name? Lloyd Dobler from say anything. And I had that moment where it was just I can't, I can't lend my voice to something I don't believe in. I remember having one of those moments when I was designing work for British Petroleum. I was just yeah, this is like shortly after one of the oil spills. And I was just I can't do this. This is, this is just filthy.

It's— so I can't, I can't be part of this. So 9/11 happened right at the time that we were— I was, I was at a design studio called the Flux Group, which was part of a production house called Superior Street. And they were doing really well before 9/11. And we had just— we had like a big art show where we had all kinds of cool multimedia design art stuff that we had created, spared no expense to sort of promote us.

And then basically about 2 days later, 9/11 happened, and it just killed it. Anybody who's part of the design community at that time understands, just everything got quiet for a long time, at least 6 months after that. There was just no— nobody was doing any work. And I kind of at that moment just decided, I don't want to do this. Why don't I look around? And we— I found an ad in eBay for a print shop.

Basically, some guy up in Minnesota was selling his entire print shop, offset press, letterpress, the whole 9 yards. And so, and, Nate Madison from DePaul, you've had him on the show before. He and I just decided we're gonna do this and we drove up to Minnesota, like loaded up an entire print shop, brought it back to Chicago.

And we started what was called 80 Proof Press. And one of the first things I decided to sink into was to start this magazine, to start Slab Magazine. And it— part of this, it's sort of an extension of everything I've done in the sense that I'm always looking to build community. I mean, that's actually something I really appreciate about what you're doing. I think I just needed to surround myself with the right kind of creative people. Where I grew up, there just weren't those creative people.

And I— so I really gravitated to that once I came to places like Knoxville and Chicago. And, I got together a group of people who were willing to, work for free and start a magazine of our own. And some really talented writers, photographers, illustrators, and we put this thing together. We printed it ourselves. It was really independently produced, which I'm very proud of, but it's probably the reason there was not a second issue.

Christian Solorzano [30:03]

Why is that?

Chris Leather [30:05]

It was incredibly difficult. It was— there was, there was no money in doing it. And as a result, I had already been teaching for a few years at that point, and I kind of needed to like get some income going again. And so I started teaching more and more, and it just kind of became one of those things where you just don't have enough time. And energy put into doing that. So I'm really proud of the one issue that we did.

We had a cover interview with Nico Case. We had an exclusive interview with Wilco and OK Go. And, we did— we covered art gallery things. I mean, really, I wanted it to be like an exploration of Chicago culture. And on all fronts. But, it was a little— I feel like it was half-baked. It was good execution, but half-baked.

Christian Solorzano [31:12]

Do you think there was too many people involved? Like too many?

Chris Leather [31:15]

I don't know if there were too many people involved. I think there was— there were too little resources involved. I mean, I couldn't— I really could not afford to continue going with that. It just wasn't feasible.

Christian Solorzano [31:33]

Would you ever bring it back?

Chris Leather [31:34]

Probably not along the same lines. A few years later, after I met my wife, she convinced me to do another publication, which was a website publication, infinitely cheaper. But it was fun. I mean, we had a really good time. It was the same kind of thing where we gathered people we knew who were passionate about the same subjects, and we just poured a lot of energy into it. And this was before we had a kid, so we had, the time to do that.

And it was like something we worked on together, and it was great. It was— we basically we wanted to explore life in Northwest Indiana because I had recently moved to Munster, Indiana. I had— was feeling a little weird not being in the city anymore, a little cut off.

So in some ways, it was— the publication was there to convince myself, there's really cool things happening out here, like the people who go surfing in the middle of the winter on chunks of ice in wetsuits on Lake Michigan. From the beaches of Northwest Indiana. It's fascinating. But the problem with doing that type of thing is it is really a labor of love, and you have to have the time and energy to put into it.

So maybe, I don't know, I'd have to find the subject that I'm willing to put that kind of time into. But I feel like at this point I've kind of worn out publishing, or maybe at least just worn out my interest in publishing. So I'm much more interested in just, yeah, different forms of design.

Christian Solorzano [33:34]

And what are some of those forms of design that you're interested in today?

Chris Leather [33:37]

Right now I'm really obsessed with designing type. That's sort of a combination of interests that I've had for many years. I mean, once I got into design I really fell in love with typography. I didn't know much about it. I learned the hard way. Actually, you had a, an episode of your podcast with Patrick King yeah.

He also went to University of Tennessee a few years before I did, and he came down to give a presentation to our class at one point, and he reviewed our portfolios and he really liked my work, but he said, your typography sucks. And maybe not in exactly those terms, but it was pretty close to those terms. And it was, it was probably one of the best things that anybody ever did for me. Honestly, it really was like—

Christian Solorzano [34:40]

And in that moment, were you like, did you get defensive or were you like, it doesn't suck? Or—

Chris Leather [34:45]

I honestly couldn't tell you. I don't remember. I know I took it to heart. I know I learned a lot from it. And I know that I could— I became completely obsessed with being, the best I could be, better than anybody around me with type. It just became like an obsession. I'm gonna learn this, and be better than anybody I can find around me.

And so, that's been something I've always loved working with type, and I think most of my design work now really centers around it. But I've never really tried to design a typeface until the last year. I had like various— shouldn't say that. I designed typefaces, but I've never tried to actually execute them. Make them actual, published typefaces. And I've started working on that now.

Christian Solorzano [35:42]

Have you ever talked with Patric King since that feedback?

Chris Leather [35:47]

And yeah, no, he was very gracious after I moved to Chicago. He was one of the people who, helped me out by looking at my work. And I knew I must have done something right because his response when I showed him my portfolio was like, wow, this is like a completely different thing. I really figured something out in that process. So yeah, that was really encouraging for me because I think I needed that at that point, new city.

Christian Solorzano [36:26]

Yeah. And at that point, like when you came to Chicago, what was your impression of the Chicago design scene? What were some of the— what was some of the work that was happening that you were inspired by? Or just curious about your perspective.

Chris Leather [36:40]

That was something I had a hard time with. I didn't— there were certain designers I was really inspired by before I even came to Chicago. Carlos Segura, Rick Valicenti, kind of the big ones. They were the ones that people knew, and I would say that, my early work certainly fit in some of the mode that people like Carlos were doing. I didn't— I don't think I immersed myself in the design community very well. I don't like— I do. I have a pretty large social anxiety.

I can camouflage myself well by putting myself in the right situation. So like being a drummer in a band is a great way to do that because you're part of the scene, but you're not, you're not really a musician. You're a drummer, right?

Christian Solorzano [37:46]

They always say.

Chris Leather [37:49]

So, you can hide in the back. And so I didn't experience Chicago's design scene probably with the best mindset. And I also, I think when I first came to Chicago, I had a chip on my shoulder about New York. And I think this is— I'm back in Chicago now, and I have been for like 6 years. I have a totally different attitude about it.

I've embraced this city in a completely different way that even though I lived like a really good, fun, immersed life my first 10 years in Chicago— I mean, I was in Wicker Park in the middle of everything that was going on there, the music scene. I had a really good time with it. And I knew a lot of people in that world, but it— I just, I always had this sort of like, I'm not where I'm supposed to be sort of attitude, which was stupid.

That was a fault for sure. Now I think I'm seeing so much more about it.

Christian Solorzano [39:00]

Yeah, because I'm curious to hear like your thoughts around how maybe from your vantage point, how you've seen the Chicago design community evolve just in general. How do you feel about it today compared to, let's say, even 10 years ago? 'Cause I think for us, being the Chicago Graphic Design Club, we base a lot of our programming based on, conversations like this or just things that we feel like are gaps that need to be filled.

So what do you see as, Stuff that maybe could be done better, done differently? What's something that we're doing right? Just not we the club, but just we as a community, just we as an industry in Chicago.

Chris Leather [39:44]

Well, I think that I'm learning more about it now than I have before. And I think that I still— I'd be lying to you if I said I knew the scene well. Or Chicago. Well, I've actually learned a lot listening to your podcast just recently. I— there are a lot of people whose names I've known over the years and have never come across, or— and it's been really interesting, hearing different perspectives. And I really appreciate that aspect of it.

I know one of the things that's come up sort of over and over again with some people is, you, what we can do, sort of as a design community to service that which is not capitalism, which is something that's very near and dear to my heart. How can we use design to better our community? I don't, I don't believe that design can save the world at all.

But I do think it's nice when people are at least having those thoughts, what they can do in whatever little way that might be.

Christian Solorzano [41:05]

This is a very big question, but what do you think is the role of a designer in society?

Chris Leather [41:09]

The role of a designer in society?

Christian Solorzano [41:12]

Because you've had a lot of experience teaching, and obviously, Speaking with like the next generation of designers, I think, I think it's always interesting because there's some design students that come in with this mentality that they're going to change the world with like a poster or that they're just, or that like everything, every, or that everything that they do is just going to be like the most beautiful thing and like win awards and all this kind of stuff.

And obviously sometimes it might happen, but it's rare.

Chris Leather [41:42]

Yeah, no, I think that's exactly right. I mean, a poster is not gonna change the world. It might get remembered, and that's cool for you if you're the designer that gets remembered for it, right? And so there's the personal ambition end of it, but I think the role of the designer is to pick that which you believe in and put your work in the service of those things.

I mean, that's a big part of why I've been at the University of Chicago as long as I have, because I'm, obviously I need to earn a living, right? That's first and foremost. But I also, I feel good for the most part about the people I work with and for. And while I don't for a second think that the typeface that I designed for the Laboratory for Existential Risk is going to, in any way mitigate the existential risks in our world.

I do feel like at least it was something that was built in the service of people that are actually trying to reach those goals. And I think that matters. I think that we— there is an overinflated ego for design as like this really important thing. It is important because everything we look at, everything around us is designed. So it would be a worse place if we didn't have it. But it's also not nearly heroic, as heroic as we sometimes think it's going to be. It's hard.

Everything has changed so much in the time that I— like, I started teaching in like '99, and the environment has changed so much in that time. The technologies have changed so much in that time. No, I just think that, our role is obviously, well, graphic designers, traditionally graphic designers, our role is part of the communications process. But, I think it often becomes like a, artistic endeavor, which I don't, I don't mind. I like seeing people's, design turned into art, it can be fun.

Christian Solorzano [44:25]

Do you tend to be a hopeful person when it comes to the future of our industry, or are you on the side of like everything is just going to hell?

Chris Leather [44:39]

Well, you mean the industry or the world?

Christian Solorzano [44:43]

Well, I would say both.

Chris Leather [44:45]

Because I have different things.

Christian Solorzano [44:47]

Graphic design is such like intertwined with like every— everything. And I know that there's like, for me, I'm always trying to remain optimistic and to, look on the brighter side and not fall into like a hole of pessimism. So—

Chris Leather [45:08]

Yeah, no, it's really hard and it takes a lot of effort not to, I don't even think it's not pessimism. It's really—

Christian Solorzano [45:19]

Yeah, realism.

Chris Leather [45:21]

I get accused of being a pessimist at times, but I really think it's realism. It's just a question of how you deal with the realism and what you can do to sort of, there was a great quote that I heard in relationship to— I mentioned the existential risk group that I was working with, and there was a quote from a guy named Hank Green. No one changes the world alone, and no one doesn't change it at all.

Which I thought that was kind of an extraordinary way of thinking about it. We're not gonna do it ourselves. Nothing we do individually is going to stem the tide of whatever is happening. But, we also do affect everything around us. So whether it's, younger people and how we can influence them. And there's good things happening. I mean, you've seen it.

With teaching, there's no doubt in my mind that the younger generation is far more interested in how they can make good choices about making the world around them better. Because for a long time it was just about like, well, how do I, make money? How do I get out of school and make money? And now, people are actually like, Feeling some level of social responsibility, and that's a big step. But I think I'm I have to be optimistic to some degree.

Have to try to keep looking at the sunny side of things. In part because I have a son. I have a you know I have an eleven-year-old kid, and I want. I want good things for him in the future. And so, yeah, I think it's not too late, but it's getting too late, right?

Christian Solorzano [47:40]

One of the reasons why I wanted to start, the Graphic Design Club was because I felt like there was a lack of conversation around things like this, like just the social responsibility and more so like graphic design's impact across culture, the environment, and all these like really big ideas. You mentioned working with like BP, and at some point I found myself that I was working on a project for McDonald's, and I'm a vegan, and it was like just this strong conflict of interest.

And yeah, like I'm sure you felt like that existential like dread of like, what am I doing with my work? And am I actually just putting garbage into—

Chris Leather [48:24]

Into well, that's the thing I like to bring to, especially when I teach design history, is I definitely like it to be an opportunity to say, hey, are we actually thinking about what we're doing? Are we just doing, are we more concerned with, our design work or how our design work is going to affect the world? Around us. I always— there's 2 stories I always tell. One is about Will Burton. Do you know Will Burton?

He's famous for designing a lot of stuff for like Upjohn and IBM. But he was, he was in Germany. He was, he was from Germany, and he was personally chosen by Hitler and Goebbels to be the Ministry of design director, and he didn't want to be. His wife was Jewish. And so they made that what really looks like a pretty obvious decision from our vantage point. But they got out and came to the United States. But it's not as easy as it sounds.

It's like, First of all, there's just the risk, right, of being in that situation. He was a very successful designer at the time in Germany, and he had to leave everything behind and escape in the middle of the night. And I, the contrast to that is Friedel Dicker, who was a student at the Bauhaus, who, the Bauhaus students learned a lot. I mean, they learned like all different mediums, and she was particularly good at carpentry.

So when they— when the Nazis sent her to Auschwitz, they put her in the carpentry workshops. And I think this is a good example of how you can use design no matter how grim the circumstances might be. She used that opportunity that she had to be working in the carpentry workshops at a concentration camp where she knows what her future is, to basically make classrooms and build classrooms for the kids that are in those camps, to basically shield them from the reality that they're under.

And that's— I mean, that's a pretty extraordinary example of, there's not a good ending there. It's not gonna end well. But, you still can play a role and do the best that you can do in those circumstances. Well, that was bleak. I'm sorry.

Christian Solorzano [51:24]

I think these kind of stories are like worth discussing and talking about, especially there's sometimes when I'm in my house and I'm agonizing over some letter spacing or something so minuscule, and then outside of the window I see an ambulance going by, and I think that maybe there's someone in there that's dying or there's an accident or something very tragic happening. And it just puts things into perspective of sometimes what we do is such a, in the grand scheme of things, it's such a, insignificant—

Chris Leather [52:00]

You're not wrong in that regard. But I mean, I would, I'd be the biggest hypocrite in the world if I, if I blamed you for that. I mean, I, I'm the slowest worker because I'm the biggest perfectionist and I spend too much time on, just a piece of kerning? And at that same time that I'm sitting there slaving over a piece of kerning, My wife has built a garden, made ceramic plates for us to eat off of, and harvest the garden, made a meal from scratch.

And I've basically kerned a piece of type, and so, who's the real designer in the family? Who's the, who's really giving something worthwhile to the world?

Christian Solorzano [52:49]

Yeah.

Chris Leather [52:50]

So I mean, it's— but, we have to, we have to care about what we do too. Yeah, right. I agree.

Christian Solorzano [52:57]

I agree.

Chris Leather [52:57]

That matters. Yeah, matters. And I think that's what— that's one of the good things that you're, talking about. And that's what's part of why it mattered to me to actually send you some of my work to see, because I said there wasn't, there wasn't much out there to look at. And I, because I think it's ultimately about craft. It's really about, caring about what you do and how you do it and how you put it together.

Christian Solorzano [53:21]

And is there any work that is happening today, whether work that you're producing or just work that you're seeing out in the wild, like what's really like exciting you lately?

Chris Leather [53:33]

Well, I mean, I went to, I went to the Nick Cave, Nick Cave the artist, not the singer, exhibit at the MCA a few years ago. It's probably already several years ago, but that really kind of blew my mind when I went to see that. I thought that was pretty fantastic.

I get as much from the art world and maybe even more from the music world that inspires me, but I also realize it's all about the same sort of the things that I respond to the most are about the process. So I realized after years and years of working on my own stuff that, ultimately all the stupidity that went into it and then not knowing what I was doing led to this very, this process that created these things that I could have never planned.

And I see that when I see that in other people's work, that always fascinates me. I, I'm stumbling to think of like the things that really engage me right now, mostly because I don't go out much. I don't go out enough.

Christian Solorzano [55:02]

When you do go out, what do you, what do you like to do?

Chris Leather [55:04]

Oh, actually, this— well, you just, you made me think of something that I did see recently. So one thing my family and I always do every year is we go to the Chicago Puppet Festival. I don't know if you've heard of it. It's like an international puppet festival. And there was a— there's some amazing stuff. If you've ever if you've never heard of Manual Cinema, look them up. They're incredible.

They're actually doing a run of their Frankenstein, which is one of the coolest things I've ever seen. And the other one was a group that did a collection of puppet theater under the title Animal Riot. I think the name of the group is the Waka Theater Company. I think they're from Sweden. And the stuff that they were doing, I mean, I've never been interested in puppetry up until I saw this, and it was such a unique perspective.

And I think part of what I realized I was drawn to is that both of these theater companies I'm talking about have a certain element of DIY aesthetic to them, and I think almost the reverse of what it's— what's supposed to happen. As I get older, I'm becoming more and more kind of ground to the DIY. I was doing it for years, but I always wanted to be doing something more professional is, I guess, the term I always used.

I always felt like it's the imposter syndrome thing, right? You feel like you're just showing up and doing this thing and you're not doing— I was doing like a lot of things myself. When I was at UChicago, I was taking photos myself. I was I was writing a lot of columns there, and it was— it really was a DIY sort of way of doing things.

And every time I see that, I realize that it's sort of the rougher elements of those things which bring back the humanity. I think things have just gotten so overproduced. Oh, I don't— I have a really hard time with high production value anymore. It's gotten so tedious and old. And I don't, I don't watch a tremendous amount of TV or movies or things like that. And I think partially just because it— I can't relate to it.

But I watched those puppet shows and it— I completely related to it.

Christian Solorzano [58:02]

It was beautiful. A while ago, I was working on a little short film, and the first attempt was overproduced. There was multiple cameras, a lot of tripods, lights, like just all the works. And the video did not come out well. And then, and then the second time that we, that we, the second attempt, just 2 cameras and like very simple microphones, no lights, like no special effects. Simple. It came out amazing. And same with photography.

I always talk about like, if you could get a photograph to look good straight out of the camera, like you've done a good job. But if you need to like go in and like manipulate and change all these things, then I get suspicious. Yeah.

Chris Leather [58:52]

And I think, I think what you don't know about filmmaking currently is going to make for a better film. Honestly believe that. I think that we need more of that. I saw an interview with Nick Cave, the singer.

He was talking about AI, and how he, feels that, we're losing part of our humanity. That, and I could feel where he was coming from. Because it's just that next step to getting closer and closer to everything being perfect. Not that there's actually perfection. There is no perfect. We're pursuing perfect all the time.

Christian Solorzano [59:42]

But I think that perfection is like a form of like precision and the precision, that's kind of what I'm not a big fan of. I like when things are slightly imperfect. And I'm curious if— yeah, and I'm also like not a big fan of AI. I actually had a pretty cool idea the other day to do a campaign about human intelligence. So rather than artificial intelligence, just something like a campaign that celebrates like the intelligence that comes from like our brain.

Chris Leather [60:16]

I love it. It sounds great. I think we need more of that.

Christian Solorzano [60:21]

I don't know if you saw the Apple, like the Apple event earlier this week where they were announcing like their new artificial intelligence to go with their products, but they were like, they were, they were demoing some stuff where you could type a text and have it transform to make it sound casual, professional, like have it take on different tones.

And I love to write and part of the writing process for me is always like the dread and just like the difficulty of like constructing sentences and then like arriving at the perfect sentence with like the perfect sequence of words that maybe isn't grammatically correct. But you know that to you it makes sense and that the person reading it, it's going to— they're going to understand your tone.

Chris Leather [61:07]

And I think— Yeah, I think the reason that like, I also, I really I'm not a writer. I'm not trained in any way to write, but I enjoy writing on occasion. And I think the reason we like those things is that that's not what we're trained to do, right? When you're trained to be a designer, you have a certain expectation of yourself to be perfect in that, and you can be a little more casual. Your expectations don't have to be as high when you're writing.

So, the other day I was writing and I had to write an invitation for something. And, it's a stupid thing. It doesn't matter at all. But, I spent way too much time on it. And my wife was like, why don't you just use AI to, write something? And I was like, I can't. I just can't. I'd rather write something yeah, me too. And then have something else take my place in that regard. Yeah.

Christian Solorzano [62:17]

Because it's— I feel like it's disingenuous to receive an invitation that doesn't come from, you. If it comes from this machine, then it's like, who's inviting me? Is it—

Chris Leather [62:32]

Is it right?

Christian Solorzano [62:33]

And it's—

Chris Leather [62:34]

I mean, it's so satisfying Even if you don't do it every time, it's so much more satisfying when it comes out of you and you, responsible for that.

Christian Solorzano [62:43]

And especially if people know your tone and they like are familiar with how you speak, then it just feels even more, even more personal, I think.

Chris Leather [62:51]

Yeah. I think that can be said for like a lot of the pursuits that we take that are not like our career. Like doing music over the years, I intentionally— like, I played in a 2-person band for a long time, just drum, guitar. And part of the beauty was that, it could never be what people expect the sound of a rock band to be, right? There's— it was lacking bass, it was lacking, and by what it was lacking, it became its own thing.

And, maybe a lot of it sucked, but there were definitely these moments that were like great. And, that pursuit in building that kind of thing together was, it was very satisfying when those moments happen. And I think that that's kind of a thing I've tried to always look for within design. Is, years ago when I was a student, I had the opportunity to interview Vaughan Oliver. And this was like when I was— yeah, it was my absolute favorite designer.

I was, just a student, undergrad student at the time. He spent well over an hour on the phone with me. And, he talked a lot about the importance of, the happy accident. And it was great because it, hearing that from somebody like him made me realize that I didn't have to achieve what I set out to achieve. I just had to achieve something that I knew was good, right? You could, you could start in one direction and go in, 5 different ones.

And at some point, if you've achieved something that's worthwhile, then that's more important than actually doing what you set out to achieve from a— at least whatever you visualize. That's— I've never been, I've never been a very good, I don't sketch much. I don't— I think because of when I learned, the computer became an extension of my mind.

It's actually one of those things where I actually, I can work much faster, even in my slow work style that I have, and I can iterate so many different things and make a mess. And I think making a mess was really important for me, and I— something that I learned and applied from doing art, because for, when I was a teenager and when I was younger and growing up, all I wanted to do is please everybody around me all the time.

And I always wanted to do the right thing. And in the end, nobody cared about that stuff. And it was when I had a moment when I was in my painting program where I just, I sort of lost my mind and started like doing all this work on unstretched canvases that was like all around my studio on the floor, and just tracing outlines of myself and drawing tube socks and, basically writing a personal diary, like really exposing myself, making it just gigantic mess.

And that mess was so well received. And I started to realize, this is the same thing I need to be doing. I just need to make a mess and pick up the pieces from there. And see what works and what's good. And that's what the process is. You have to have a process that— it doesn't have to be the same for everybody.

But for me, that was really important because I needed to come out of my shell and I needed to expose myself and I needed to develop my process by humiliating myself. In a way, but in a way that like made me not afraid to do things after.

Christian Solorzano [67:29]

Yeah. And I think what moments like that, when someone is vulnerable and opens up like that, I think it makes it easier for other people to be able to relate and identify with like the mess, because we all have a mess. We're all, we all have a big mess and we try so hard to cover it up.

So like seeing someone else it sort of like invites us to do it ourselves or to be okay with our own mess and to realize that like good things or like beauty can come out of that chaos, that disorder.

Chris Leather [68:02]

Yeah, we are all, God bless you if you're not, but I think most of us are a mess in some way or another. And I, I've heard it over and over again. From some of the people you've had on the podcast, especially the people who teach. Students are afraid to— they're afraid to mess up. They're afraid to do the wrong thing. And they get that drilled into them through, years of school. And the reality is they need to Be free.

And so many of the people that have been on have mentioned that, and I, it's really true. And it's probably one of our greatest jobs as educators, right? To get them to take chances. I guess that's their term for it, right? Take chances. You've got to take chances, or there's not going to be anything worthwhile that comes out of this.

Christian Solorzano [69:04]

I always tell students to not care about getting an a.

Chris Leather [69:08]

Right. I'm like, yeah, I've actually been, I've been surprised listening to all the DePaul folk on the podcast, how many people don't care about the grades. And that was exactly the way I felt about it. But, being an adjunct, you're like, well, I gotta do what I'm supposed to do here. But, really when I, when I taught history, I like, at that point, I didn't need to teach anymore. I'm fine. I don't have to do that as an extra source of income.

So I really had like an I don't care attitude, and I did the bare minimum. I had to at least have a paper written by my students because that's the rule of Paul. But I mean, I really was just making sure that they wrote it. Did you write it or did you not write it? That, that's a big chunk of what your grade is gonna depend on. Did you show up to class? Other than that, I didn't grade them on anything.

The reason I did that was that I wanted them to show up and actually be interested in, hopefully entertained by history, like not be Are, not be going into it thinking like, oh God, I'm gonna have to write a paper, or I'm gonna, I'm gonna have to answer test questions on this. It's like, no, just sit there and listen and participate, and let's talk about this like fascinating history of design. And if, yeah, if it's not interesting to you might be in the wrong place, honestly.

But don't worry about grades because it doesn't matter.

Christian Solorzano [70:56]

It's funny that you teach history when you were like, you mentioned that you were falling asleep in your history class.

Chris Leather [71:04]

Oh no, it had a huge impact on my plans for how I wanted to teach that class. I was very adamant that I did not want to go through history in a linear fashion. That sort of dictates you have to start off with all like that early, Mesopotamia stuff. But it's not like— there's no teenage 20-year-old kid who wants to hear about that. It's important, but you can get to it in different ways.

And the way I chose to do it was to sort of like jump around in time travel. Like start off each class with something contemporary or fairly contemporary, and then like, sort of pick one subject. The first week we just talked about posters through history. And so, and I, when I taught that class, I confronted the students with 3 posters I printed. Since I have a print shop, I was able to print full-size posters of, these 3 very famous posters. One was Armand Hoffman's Giselle.

One was Toulouse-Lautrec's— one of the Moulin Rouge posters, dancing girl type thing. And the 3rd one was Bring in the Funk, Bring in the Noise by Paula Scher from the Public Theater. So these all represented different time periods. They were all posters that featured dancers. But I just gave— I gave— when the students came on the first day of class, there's these 3 big posters, no context, no information. Just write a paragraph. Reflect on these posters. What do you think?

What do you think are the circumstances under which each of these were created? And the whole reason for doing that was to just get them not like out of that mode of let's look at a thing on a slide and, I'm going to tell you about this thing on the slide and you're going to have to listen to me drone on about it.

Christian Solorzano [73:23]

I try to do something similar where it's like a majority of just showing examples because I think I'm a visual learner and I think the it just sucks to try to teach a concept or a theory without having it, having it in practice. If anyone wants to learn more about you or see more of your work, where can they find you and what's the best way to get a hold of you? You're pretty, you're pretty responsive. So.

Chris Leather [73:49]

So the most humiliating thing about this entire thing, me coming on this podcast, is finding out that my personal website is no longer online. Which I had no idea. That's how, I'm very much at a point in time where I don't, I don't— I'm not actively pursuing other work.

Christian Solorzano [74:11]

Are you on Instagram? I didn't see, an Instagram.

Chris Leather [74:14]

I have a really meager presence on Instagram. I can't— I had intentions of doing it, and then, I'm so disappointed every time I open it up. With what comes up that I just, I quit real fast. I really don't, I just can't get into it. No, I mean, really, my only active presence right now is the graphicarts.uchicago.edu website. And that's a good example of what I'm doing these days.

But more importantly, because, collaborative process and having the community is important to me, I like that being my representation because it's not just my work, it's my work and the people who work with me. And my team is great, and we're a very small team of designers, and we definitely feed off of each other. And I think you get a real sense of that within the work that we do. And that's basically my only real online presence right now. That may change. Okay.

Christian Solorzano [75:42]

I respect that. You're not missing much.

Chris Leather [75:44]

No. I really just burned out on the entire concept of social well, thank you so much for being on our show.

Christian Solorzano [75:54]

I had, I had a blast learning about you and our conversation. So I will put some links to like your online presence on the notes for this episode.

Chris Leather [76:05]

Well, thanks a lot. I appreciate it.

Christian Solorzano [76:07]

Thanks again for tuning in. To learn more about this show or the Chicago Graphic Design Club, visit us at www.chicagographicdesign.club. Thank you, and we'll talk soon. Goodbye.