Christian Solorzano [00:01]

Hello, you are listening to Underscore, a show by the Chicago Graphic Design Club. I am the host, Christian Solorzano, and on today's episode, I speak with Dave, an educator, activist, community organizer, and somebody whose work is at the intersection of all of those things.

Currently, he is an educator at the University of Notre Dame, and he's someone that has had a— that has played a significant impact here in Chicago's design community, specifically when it comes to social justice and diversity, equity, and inclusion, which is an acronym, DEI, that we've been hearing a lot about. Particularly in the last few years, and certainly something that is really under threat at this moment in time.

So we're going to talk about that, and he's going to share his thoughts on why he believes that creating equitable spaces lead to richer outcomes, more diverse dialogue, and overall more positive spaces. And he's also going to tell us his origin stories, how he got into design, how the street culture of the '90s, everything from the grunge era to his involvement with designing the yearbook as a student, led him to want to pursue a path in design.

And Dave is certainly someone that's been teaching for most of his life. So we'll be hearing about his design philosophy and how he goes about creating, again, these spaces that are meant to foster and bring the best out of people. So it's a great conversation, definitely one worth listening to. And as usual, if you appreciate and enjoy conversations like this, I would really appreciate you leaving us a rating wherever you listen. I say this all the time, but it really means a lot.

It helps us expand our reach and helps us grow our audience, which is what we're trying to do here. Conversations like these are important, and I view my job as a host as it's just a way of archiving this moment in time. So your support really goes a long way. So thank you. And enjoy the conversation. Good afternoon, Dave.

Dave Pabellon [02:49]

Hey, Christian, how are you?

Christian Solorzano [02:51]

I'm doing well. So you and I have crossed paths multiple times over the last— for a while, and the last time I saw you was at our event earlier this year. It was in August, I believe, the Cold Style. And you and I were Formally connected via a mutual friend that the both of us have, Guy. And now we're having this conversation. So thank you for agreeing to be on this episode, to be on the show.

And as I was researching you for today's episode, I was very moved by all that you've done for the community for years now. So I love the fact that you are a community organizer, that education is important to you, and that conversations like this are things that you're willing to take a part of. So I just want to appreciate you for being here.

Dave Pabellon [03:51]

Oh, absolutely. Thank you for the invitation. It's an honor.

Christian Solorzano [03:54]

And I also discovered when we spoke on the phone last week that you and I both live in the same neighborhood in Oak Park. Yeah. Which is cool. And I, and I mentioned to you that I've I don't know many designers that live in the neighborhood, but I know that they exist cuz sometimes I hear people refer to Oak Park having designers and finally I get a chance to meet one and to talk with one.

Dave Pabellon [04:22]

So. Yeah, we're real, Christian. We're in the, we're on the streets. Yep.

Christian Solorzano [04:29]

So I wanna start our conversation with a question that I always like to ask. All of our guests. And that question is, can you talk to us about your introduction to design? And we can go back all the way to your childhood if we, if we have to. But I'm curious to know, what were some of the earliest visual point of references that kind of pulled you in that made, take a path forward into this crazy world of design?

Dave Pabellon [04:57]

Yeah. I'm glad that you kind of framed my current endeavors in education because I think it really was formative to learn about design through school. And it really kind of starts with not loving to read.

And so it's a very odd way to start, but the idea of writing huge book reports and doing those science presentations on Filmcore, I ended up spending a lot more time on like the design of the COVID page for a written report, or I would spend more time like looking at the text. I didn't even know it was typography, but I would be looking at the lettering.

And my mom had a couple of like books on calligraphy that I don't even think we named them calligraphy, but she just had these style sheets that she would pull up and I would try to like mimic them when I was like ever doing like a poster for a science class. And so those are really like my starting points, like falling in love with letterform and then using like learning through visuals rather than written was like my first points of engagement.

And so yeah, I kind of look back at that fondly as the kind of point of designing or like my first attempts at design. And then that kind of carried over into like high school. I went to a pretty big high school actually in town at OPRF, and it's kind of like a college campus. There's thousands of students. It wasn't a small institution at all, and everybody's just trying to find their thing.

I had friends that were into music or dance or sports, and I remember like a couple friends that I just like played pickup games, the sports on the block, were like, I'm gonna do yearbook. And I thought that was really neat. And I really enjoyed the instructor of that class. He was one of my English teachers. And when he was leading that, we didn't really have computers. There was 2 computers for the entire yearbook.

So we'd have to rotate who got to use, Quark at the time, or it might have been PageMaker. But there weren't a lot of computers. We had to do a lot of paste-ups, and then I would look at magazines, and then that drew me into like reading more, learning about design. And it's funny that you mentioned like the background feeling Carson-esque. It was like my first exposure to like Ray Gun and deconstructive.

I didn't even know what modernism was when I was in high school, but I knew what like street culture looked like. And it was a mixture. It was a very interesting kind of intersection of design reference points. So at the time, I had a lot of friends that were in hip-hop groups and breaking crews, and I had friends that DJ'd. So I was heavily influenced by like being in Oak Park, but taking the train into the city.

So I'm like right off the Blue Line, and we'd always look at pieces that would get hit up between the Austin and Oak Park divide. So exposure to graffiti. I was also playing a lot of— I was like obsessed with volleyball as a teenager, and I still am today. But I was looking at a lot of volleyball mags. And so that was like this really weird design renaissance of like California culture meeting with like tangentially being informed by postmodernism.

And I thought the like volleyball aesthetic, like the fashion. Felt counterculture. It felt a little weird. It also felt like West Coast. But yeah, I think all those things, the grunge era in the '90s, all those things kind of mixed into like influences. And it wasn't until much later, until I ended up in design, that I was able to kind of pinpoint those reference points. But at the time, it was just like the zeitgeist. It was just what was happening.

Christian Solorzano [08:58]

So then, so you go to school for design. And you get a master's in design as well from the University of Chicago, correct?

Dave Pabellon [09:09]

University of Illinois at Chicago.

Christian Solorzano [09:10]

Yeah. So can you walk us through, maybe— so going from having an interest in graphic design as a teenager and, just being immersed in, this visual culture to now formally getting an education in design, was there, like, even going back to your aversion to reading Did you find some kind of— did you feel some pushback towards like the education? Because now you're a teacher.

So it's interesting sometimes when I hear stories about people that maybe didn't like to read or had some kind of— like my instance was like, I also did not like to read in school and I just hated school. But now I also teach. So seeing that like that paradox come into play is always really interesting. So I'm curious to hear. Your experience of going to school for design and what that was like?

Dave Pabellon [10:02]

Well, yeah, that wasn't a clear path either. So, I don't really, I don't really talk about this that much unless I get to know people pretty well, but I was very undecided. I didn't know if college was right. Like my parents, I was, my parents had me right at the cusp of like when a kindergartner should be going to school. So I was actually 4 when I went to kindergarten. For like the first month and a half. I'm a Libra. So I was very small.

I felt like maturity-wise, I was very kind of far behind a lot of my peers. And so I kind of carried that with me. And I was like always operating from this deficit. Oh, I'm not, I'm, I was always kind of short too. So I was like, oh, I'm kind of short. And I, I'm not as old as like, or as kind of like experienced as some of my peers.

And so that kind of like always made me kind of hesitant to kind of jump into anything or felt like feeling like I was good enough to do something. And when I got into college, I was also a young freshman. I went straight out of high school into university. And at that time, I didn't— I wasn't sure what I wanted to do. I thought I wanted to be like one of my uncles who is an accountant. So I tried math for a little bit.

I was getting pressure from my family because Most of the Filipinos that migrated here in the '70s and '80s had this open immigration policy with like agreement between the US and the Philippines called the HARD Act. And the HARD Act specifically recruited people in the medical field and education to come from the Philippines to the United States because English was a major language in our country. All of my family members, my like elders, were either in medicine or education.

So they were wondering why I wasn't going into medicine or nursing. And I had this one uncle that was really into math. So I was like, oh, I kind of like math until the math didn't math anymore. And I kind of hit a ceiling. But when that happened, I was just I'm not sure what I want to do. I moved out to California, transferred to school out there. I was considering going into like geology.

I was thinking about going to outdoor recreation, which I was like, I don't think there's a career there for me. I just like being outside. But that was a revelation too, that understood like nature and being outside and kind of being in touch with the earth was important to me and kind of informs a lot of the things that I do.

So yeah, it was like at that point where I was like, pretty much at the end of my sophomore year, I was like, I gotta do something. I gotta put all these kind of gen ed classes together for a degree. And I realized back that, what I really liked about design, designing that yearbook back in '95, was that you get assigned different clubs and you had to lay out a spread and you had to learn about Amnesty International. You had to learn about the math club.

You had to learn about, the structure of the theater department. And so it was really interesting to me to think that, as an undecided undergraduate that design actually allowed you to learn a lot of little things about everything. It made you like a better kind of all-around person because you could understand other people's kind of professions, their interests, their hobbies. And that was really applicable when it came to design.

It's like, oh, I could always keep learning if I'm always designing because the clients are always going to change unless I do like in-house, right?

Christian Solorzano [13:29]

Yeah.

Dave Pabellon [13:29]

So that was like a, that was a kind of aha moment for me when I was like, oh wow, this is a practice where I get to be creative. I can make things, I get to amplify things, and then I also get to learn about things and maybe not the most book smart or academic way through experience and through meeting people and sharing stories.

Christian Solorzano [13:48]

Yeah. So when you, so when you went to school, you came out of school and for years you were actually, you were, you were practicing what someone might consider commercial design. Like you were not an educator right off the bat. Up until the last, how long have you been teaching now? You've been teaching since 2007, is that correct?

Dave Pabellon [14:10]

Oh no, I was always a teacher. I think like that was the weird part. It's like, it just was never formally called design education. So yeah, I think like if I had to trace it all the way back, I was looking at my CV and you probably pulled it too. I actually went to graduate school because I was interested in like activism and education, because I felt like classes are defined by the access to knowledge.

And so when certain populations have disadvantages or advantages in getting education, I felt like that was like the starting point that kind of creates this equity that I was seeking through my work. And so after undergraduate, I worked, I did work commercially, but then I was always curious about like what else I could do besides my 9 to 5 to like sell things. And so I was like there was a program called Take Five.

I think it was Take Five out of AIG San Francisco, and I loved it because it was analog. Like at the time, this is probably like 2003 and 4. Like there weren't like a lot of computer labs in a lot of public schools. A group of us designers would go into classrooms and then do cut and paste and do type like.

Very much like paste-ups, but and then using like the offices or the superintendent's like Xerox machines, we do enlargements and then re-mock it up into a physical poster. So we were doing a lot of like composition work, but without a machine. And those kind of early experiments and after-school programs after I was working my 9 to 5 were the kind of basis of like writing curriculum and projects for the classroom.

So that led me to go to a very short stinted master's program where I met one of my mentors who told me I should probably not be in this master's program because it wasn't a terminal degree for design education. And that's when I transferred over to UIC.

Christian Solorzano [16:10]

Okay. And now, so you, so given that you've been teaching for most of your professional career, what have been some of the because I've been teaching for the last 3 years and I've noticed that because the industry has been, has changed so dramatically over the last few years that it's even different from obviously like when I was a student. So what are some of the differences that you notice now teaching like the youth of today?

Is there, is it, have you had to drastically changed your teaching philosophy? Or I'm curious about how personally your process has evolved or shifted over the last, specifically, let's say, last 5 years.

Dave Pabellon [16:57]

Yeah, that's a great question. And I think a big part of that is there were never reference points before. Like when you were undergraduate, like there was never Canvas and you didn't know, like no I don't think any professor told me, oh, this is an Armin Hoffman exercise, or this is an exercise taken from this particular text, or from Ellen Lupton's Thinking with Type. And now I think that's all open source.

So like students could kind of peek ahead, and they could kind of like mimic what they see online. And that's like the biggest kind of difficulty is to kind of have students trust Failure. I think, students want to see, results, and it's so much on this binary of knowing or not knowing, or yes or no, or true or false, that the kind of unexpectedness, the kind of non-formulaic response that design should have, has become way more pointed and Pinterest and reference to something that already exists.

And I think, instilling that curiosity or that willingness to create something that might be new. And I always argue that there's nothing new. It's just things that are remixed and cross-referenced, right?

Christian Solorzano [18:18]

Yeah.

Dave Pabellon [18:18]

So it might be something that we've seen before, but it's been cross-referenced with this, or it's at this time period. So we're being informed by a lot of different things. But instead of just strict mimicry or AI sourcing an answer, instilling that curiosity, kind of valuing time and experimentation and failure has been the most difficult thing to kind of overcome.

Christian Solorzano [18:40]

Yeah, I noticed that as well. And even alongside some of my peers that I work with is that everything seems to be very much outcome-driven. And that's kind of the top priorities, like what's the outcome going to be? And I think that mentality sometimes causes us to sacrifice the process of asking questions, of failing, of ambiguity, and so forth.

And even in myself, I've been noticing that I'm also defaulting to more like outcome-driven, approaches, which is so counterintuitive to like how children think or how just we— how it's so counterintuitive to how we say we want to think. So I think it's either like, it's either, I mean, it's definitely like the culture and I think technology is like just pushing this sense of urgency that everything needs to be all about what the outcome is as opposed to everything that the precursor of it.

Dave Pabellon [19:41]

Yeah. I mean, I think efficiency gets prioritized over discovery and I think that is, that's a shame, but, like seeing as though you and I both educate, we also understand that there's realities to education, like not everybody, I mean, I feel like just comparing when I was an undergraduate to graduate school to first teaching to like being my second decade of teaching now being here in my third, like access to education is always going to be difficult.

And I think now more than ever with rate like the rise of tuition costs, there's less and less students that can just go to school and be free and think.

Christian Solorzano [20:22]

Can make. Yeah.

Dave Pabellon [20:23]

They have to, very much squeeze the lemon and get the most out of their 24 hours in each day. So that moment where they're like, okay, do I really have 6 hours to kind of move 2 letterforms together in a type composition? Maybe not. They might push it around for like 25 minutes, and then that's what their timer tells them.

So that automation of things, I think, is a— is really kind of the most difficult demon to fight, like face in education today is like, how do you get the most out of the time that you have?

Christian Solorzano [20:56]

Yeah. And I just feel like time goes by so fast. It's like, it's like you open your eyes and it's Monday and then you open them again and it's Friday.

Dave Pabellon [21:07]

And it's, yeah.

Christian Solorzano [21:09]

So one of the, one of the things that I want to discuss with you is your, the huge emphasis that you place on community. And I have a quote here from you where you say, I tell my students, when you get out of school, it's not just going to be you and the internet just trying to find work. It should be you and the person sitting next to you and me and the Career Center.

And all the other professors you've encountered, every person that you've entered based with— every other person that you've encountered here on the campus or in a freelance job or even in the Student Center is in the idea of community is what really helps you get your foot in the door. That's me paraphrasing a little bit, but I know community has been something that's played a big role through your career. And you've been a part of AIGA Chicago.

It's like you were the vice presidents for a while of their— was it of AIGA Chicago or their diversity, equity, and inclusion?

Dave Pabellon [22:05]

There was a brief moment where Nick Adam and I were both co-presidents with Alexandra Harca. And we tried that during the pandemic. It was an experiment. And so, yeah, it was a very difficult moment, but I felt like during that time in 2020, everything was a social experiment at first. For a time being. But yeah, I was the VP of DEI and we were trying to add the B for diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. And that was through an invitation from Antonio Garcia.

Christian Solorzano [22:40]

Yeah, I remember when there was that AIGA call where they announced like the new border, like the new— like I remember you and Nick were both on that call and it was such an exciting time.

And I know that there was a lot of stuff that was going on behind the scenes that I think led to things happening that maybe we don't want to talk about, or at least I'm not sure what happened, but I just remember that I saw that and then there was really not much afterwards.

Dave Pabellon [23:12]

Well, yeah, I think the models of like community exclusionary and like the most difficult conversation to have is capital. It's a wicked relationship, like you want to involve the most people, but to keep the lights on, you need to fundraise something.

And so we're constantly kind of trying to figure out ways to create resource pipelines for the institution. But at the same time, the institution wasn't being as clear on how it was kind of feeding back to the chapters. So I think hopefully all the good people at AIGA are kind of figuring it out to create a more equitable kind of pipeline for memberships.

But memberships are really hard because in the title of memberships, especially payment paid memberships, there is a built-in exclusionary like factor, which kind of was counterintuitive. And so coming from the VP of DEIB into the kind of co-presidency role, it was something that I constantly kind of struggled with.

So I mean, when people were offering or kind of putting out programming that was like low entry or no entry, I was all about it. But I, at the end of the day, we also had to counterbalance that somehow, and that wasn't necessarily my, wheelhouse per se. And I think having everybody— and, we're in the middle of a pandemic at this moment— trying to encourage people to go outside and be in, spaces was a very difficult thing.

So I mean, in a lot of ways, I kind of commend what the Graphic Design Club was able to create safe space without jeopardizing health, yeah. And so those, being a father, that also kind of like weighed on me heavy too. It's just I want to be in community, but how do you create it when it's not safe to be in a space to do so?

Christian Solorzano [25:10]

Yeah. Yeah. With the club, we've gone back and forth on whether to introduce a membership model. And we've like done all the homework and found the platform to do point, like membership, point of sales and payments and all that kind of stuff. Like we've gone pretty deep into getting that done. But every time we were ready to like launch, we're like, it doesn't feel right. Like by having membership, we're now creating non-members as well. Like we're creating this duality.

And then the question for myself is like, well, if we're a club, a club implies that you become a club member. But if you become a club member, then you can also be a non-club member. And then in my mind, I was just thinking of events where someone can go up to someone and say, are you a member? And then the awkwardness of like, no, I'm not.

Well, I'm a member and you're like we, so we just, we, we've we haven't found a solution for that, but I think that word membership, just something about it. I feel like we've even tested it with some of our community members, unofficial members, and we asked them like, what would you think if we introduced like a membership model? And their responses were all like, you guys are the non-member club.

So it's been, it's been challenging, but I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what the answer is.

Dave Pabellon [26:43]

Well, you're in Oak Park and do you ever go to Sugar Beet? Yeah, I love going to Sugar Beet. Me too. And so I always feel guilty. I mean, even from the flip side, like if I was a member of the collective, that's for those that are tuning in, Sugar Beet Collective is a co-op, like a food co-op. In Oak Park. And, I don't think their kind of member fees are a lot. If anything, you're just a part of the co-op, which is a good thing.

And I think about their model of membership, and it's not this thing where I feel excluded. If anything, not being part of the co-op, you feel guilty that I'm not being a part of something great.

And so, for them to kind of create that kind of guilt From the flip side, not from the membership side that I feel like I'm being some kind of exclusionaire, but rather, oh, I want to be a part of this? And it's not a part of this to like, for stature, but it's actually to kind of promote and like establish a greater network of food in the area. I think that's like, that's the part.

If we— if you tell me if like Graphic Design Club ever figures it out, but like tapping into that. Where it doesn't feel like exclusion, like you're being exclusionary. That's— that would be a wonderful thing.

Christian Solorzano [27:59]

Yeah. And they call their membership owner, right?

Dave Pabellon [28:03]

Yeah.

Christian Solorzano [28:04]

Which is like even more empowering. It's like, yeah, be an owner. If I'm not an owner, that's still cool.

Dave Pabellon [28:10]

But yeah. Yeah, like you're invested in it. Like your being and your relationship is an investment in them?

Christian Solorzano [28:18]

Yeah.

Dave Pabellon [28:19]

Not necessarily about like, and anybody could be an owner, right? Like if you, if you want to join. So yeah, I think like language is interesting like that and demystifying old models is tough, but yeah, I wish you luck on whatever iteration you land on.

Christian Solorzano [28:35]

Yeah. We'll see if anyone's listening and has a solution, let us know. Yeah. So with, I feel like, it's obvious that Diversity, equity, and inclusion are things that are being threatened right now in our country. And for many years at my— at the job that I work at, I played a big role in their DEI program. So I would facilitate like a handful of conversations around sensitive topics, whether that was racism or being a parent.

I'm not a parent, but I would get people to have these kind of conversations and like create that safe space for people to engage in dialogue. And I know that organizations are losing funding and like there's terrible things happening in the, in the, in the spaces that try to be inclusive. And I was talking with a friend about this a few months ago, actually, and she made a comment that stuck with me. And it goes in line with this concept of just words.

And she said, well, if they're attacking DEI, Why not just call— like, why can't we just call it something else? We can still practice, the principles of being inclusive and being diverse and being equitable under new words. And I find that kind of a little bit— it gives me hope, or it gives me some kind of comfort in knowing that language can change and evolve. And we don't always have to call things by what we always call them.

And I feel like the acronym, like DEI, has gotten such a— it feels so icky to me now because it's been so overused. And I've seen it in some instances used in an exclusionary way as well. So I would love to talk a little bit about what DEI means to you and how you've sort of, through this collective that you have, Design As Protest, DAP, how DEI and like this collective kind of come into practice?

Dave Pabellon [30:44]

It's a heavy question. I think like— It's a really big question. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of ways you can kind of, even start the conversation. So let me backtrack a little bit. So I think being at an institution like Notre Dame, where legibility is really important. Being like, I'm not in a school where it's all designers and artists. I'm at a university with lawyers and physicists and aeronautical engineers.

And so for them to understand, a book project or an exhibition takes a lot of contextualizing and framing. Yeah. And so once you are kind of stripped of language or not allowed to say certain things, of course language is malleable and you could always use synonyms or you could use analogy to talk about things. But I think it's a shame that you can't openly speak about things that are human.

I think like that is— yes, we could work around it and, designers are great at kind of figuring out other ways to get things done. That's what's so great about design. It's not binary. It's not a single answer, but we can find different ways to kind of subvert the rules, change the rules, kind of work within the boundaries, but then push the margin. And so, yeah, it's a shame that we're at this moment of censorship.

And I mean, if you think about it, Christian, what's wild and what I constantly am circling back to is that like Maybe you go back 7 years and not that many people even understand what those 3 letters mean, right? And so if you actually like do like a visualization of like, I mean, I'm very curious if anybody's done this, like a publishing like kind of tracker of like how many times DEI is used and like scrub the internet from 2000.

We think about, let's base this on like Trayvon Martin. Like if we're thinking about the early teens and then we kind of track it probably hits like a ceiling around '21. And then all of a sudden now it's on like this turn of having to be used less because it endangers people's careers.

And that's like terrifying to think about, that it took society like a very short period of time to understand it and maybe like Improperly use it too, to kind of get back to your point or exploit it for financial gain, for kind of like just signaling, but no action-based work. But it's so wild to me to think like in the 2010s, like that wasn't on anybody's radar. And now it went from hyper like popularity to now like being erased due to administration.

This is all to say that like one of my mentors told me years ago, be afraid of being labeled, be afraid of being labeled a diversity hire, be afraid of— and I like, I didn't understand it at first because I could only refer to it as a positive thing, right? Oh yeah, like it allowed me this opportunity that maybe wasn't available before.

But now it's this thing that if you have that in your CV or in your kind of lineage of employment, now all of a sudden you don't even know if you're going to have a job if you said something that might be like looked at sideways. And so that's like a terrifying moment to be in where people that had very strong and proud voices are having to be forced to like silence or kind of pivot what they work on or how they describe it.

Christian Solorzano [34:30]

And what do you, how, for, in your case, like when you're teaching, do you find yourself having conversations like these with students or? I'm curious about how you go about creating a space in the classroom in which principles of inclusion are put into practice.

Dave Pabellon [34:53]

Yes. So that's a great question. And I think this is like the privilege I have as an academic, and it's a privilege of academic freedom that I really, value, and I fear might be in question moving forward.

When I was adjuncting, I used to work at a studio called Faust, and occasionally Marshall Lawson would hit me up and be like, do you want to teach a class after your 9 to 5? I'd always agree. And for me, it was like, I just loved teaching at the time, like I was working a full-time job, I was engaged at the moment, or My wife was about to have our first kid, and I was like, they have a curriculum. I'll plug and play with it.

I know the content. I know the instructor that wrote the curriculum, and I'll just follow their lead. As somebody that was given the keys to like write their own curriculum, it was like this very empowering moment where I could say like, I can make this all about like social justice. And, in some cases I lean more towards that than others, or I could just say, Let's just show rather than tell.

Let's just show examples of great design that might be created by people that might not look like them, that might— that actually might look like them. That I think like that idea of just like surrounding and giving a canon that like is more— is broader is all I had to do. I never really outwardly had to say it. I mean, obviously, if people look up my body of work and the projects I work on, they can get who I am.

But I never had to go on a soapbox and kind of give a speech about it. I would just like be very strategic and methodical about like, okay, maybe we kind of like make a little bit more room for something contemporary, or we make a little room for a design history that we might not know about.

And so whenever I get a kind of a course given to me, I try to look at places where Historically, we might have blind spots where we might look at it through only a couple lenses, but not more than one or two. And I try to insert more voices and more names and more reference points so students can just understand that it's not just, one perspective, but it's many.

Christian Solorzano [37:06]

I also want to touch a little bit on your experience working at Foss. That was with Bob Foss, right?

Dave Pabellon [37:13]

Yeah.

Christian Solorzano [37:15]

And did you, was that when, because I used to live in Riverside for a little bit.

Dave Pabellon [37:19]

Oh, really?

Christian Solorzano [37:20]

And I remember hearing about the studio when I was living there and I would look it up on Google Maps and it was a house. And I was like, this can't be it. I, I'm walking past this house, but this does not look like a design studio. And then I remember one of their newsletters had a photograph of some type that was written like on the sidewalk by the bridge, like the bridge that's in Riverside.

And I was like, I know that bridge, like I cross it all the time. Like there's this design studio in my neighborhood. So can you talk to us a little bit about that time? Were you working there while it was in Riverside? And just, I'd love to hear about that experience.

Dave Pabellon [38:04]

Yeah, I think it's interesting. I mean, it's been a while since I've had to like speak about Faust, but it was this great opportunity that I totally— and this is like, maybe this is a little embarrassing, but it's like where I didn't read too close? I remember seeing a job posting after grad school and I read it as River North. And so I sent my portfolio, I wrote emails, I was I was kind of conversing with the principals.

They're like, we'd love to have you come in. And at the time, I didn't have a car. So when they told me like, okay, we'll see you at 10 o'clock and here's the address. And then, this is— I'm gonna date myself a little bit, but it's 2007. The smartphone just came out. So I had to go on to like, what was it?

Christian Solorzano [38:58]

MapQuest?

Dave Pabellon [39:00]

MapQuest. Yes. I had to go to MapQuest. I plugged it in. I was like, Oh, this is in the burbs. And I was very savvy with the CTA and I was like, oh, there is not a CTA. I'd have to take the Metra. I had to go back into the Loop because I was living in Humboldt Park at the time. Had to take, had to take the CTA into downtown and then had to take the Metra out to take the BNSF out to Riverside.

And then from there I had to figure out how to get from the train station to their house. And if you know Riverside is not on a grid.

Yeah, it's designed by Olmsted. So it's the only, it's one of the few kind of suburbs in Chicago that doesn't follow the grid at all. And so I was really discombobulated, but it was one of the best experiences of my life because it very much tracked with like the kind of culture and ethos that I kind of subscribe to, like one where design was extremely curious.

It was one where it was nourishing, and they also valued nourishing the people that worked for them. So they were very generous. They let me swim in their pool. I could, whenever I wanted to kind of use their weight room, lift weights, I could do that. Whenever I wanted to take one of their cruisers and just bike to downtown Riverside to get a coffee or a pastry, I could do that.

And they understood that, work wasn't the best work wasn't a grind, but one where you enjoyed the work. And so they made the most nurturing environment. And I don't know if I flourish as much as I do if I'm in a cubicle, or if I'm at a place where I have to feel buttoned up all the time. Now, that definitely, that led to, me being there for a great period of time. And I think, in a lot of ways, I see them as family still.

But yeah, it was a very special moment. And whenever I kind of tell that to students, I was like, there's not going to be a lot of places like that that's going to be as kind of comforting or as like familial as my experience.

But I do tell them like culture fits are important, like if you see yourself, more as— if you see yourself more as a commercial designer that's buttoned up and you want to, you always want to have pleated pants, make sure you find the studio that matches that. If you feel like you want to have a casual Friday, you need to find the right culture for that too, because that's just going to make the work better. You're going to be on the same kind of wavelength.

And so I just felt like very lucky that Faust was that kind of good fit for quite some time. Yeah.

Christian Solorzano [41:37]

So you were commuting there for 7 years, almost 8.

Dave Pabellon [41:40]

Yeah. Yeah. I was there for a while and I was, I did some goofy things too, where I was like, I'm going to get, I had a car for a moment and then I got rid of it. And then I wanted to bike everywhere. So I was biking like 15 miles round trip. And then I moved to the north side of Chicago and I was biking even further on the days that I would bike. I don't know.

I think like the daily routine or the kind of everything is monotonous, like creating those little obstacles or kind of like change of sceneries or different experiences really is helpful for me at least to kind of like feel alive and feel invigorated or engaged in new ways.

Christian Solorzano [42:19]

Yeah, I'm writing that down. I love creating those little obstacles. I feel like I need that sometime. I need some obstacles. So and talk to us about it's just Dave.

Dave Pabellon [42:34]

Yeah it's a really kind of funny name because Legally, my name is just Dave. And so I constantly get— I constantly have to correct people to tell them, they're like, oh, David, this is David Pabellon. And then I'd get to a podium and be like, it's just Dave. And then I thought it was really funny because when I was like building out a simple site, I was like, oh, itisjustdave.com is available. And then serendipitously enough, itisjustdave_, in between each word, is also a handle that's available.

And I think it, for me, it is, it's because I see myself as being humble because my dad always had this saying to my brother and my sister and I, and we didn't really understand it until he passed. But like the saying was like, be good, but not very good.

And we had a very kind of complicated relationship with our dad. So we always Whether we did it or not, whether we believed it or not, we kind of we tried to like push ourselves to do more. So my brother is a retired captain from the Coast Guard, and now he's a commercial pilot. My sister manages one of the floors at Northwestern, and she's a professor at DePaul in nursing.

I'm in I'm on a tenure track role here at an R1 institution, and so it's those things that was really funny. Like whenever we were growing up, we would we kind of like. We could never really boast because our dad was just you're not great, you're just good. Just be good, like don't be great at anything. And it's just ironic that the 3 of us are kind of trying to do the most we can in the professions that we're in.

So yeah, it is just— Dave is like just a humble way of saying it's just me. It's— I'm not like, I'm not like excellent at anything. I'm just doing all these other things. Yeah. And I also like that it's a word of like the play on words where it is like justice is justice. Like to be just.

Christian Solorzano [44:39]

Yeah. Injustice. So how do you, so with, so learning a little bit more about your siblings and like your father's mantra, just be good.

Dave Pabellon [44:50]

Not very good. Just be good.

Christian Solorzano [44:53]

How do you, what would you say is like the thing that like drives you? I'm always really interested in just knowing with people that, on paper look like they're high-performing individuals that are going above and beyond. What's something that, why bother?

Dave Pabellon [45:13]

Yeah. I mean, I constantly ask this myself, like I ask my, I ask myself this all the time. Why am I doing this? And My wife always tells me that I'm constantly seeking engagement, and whenever anything lacks engagement or feels mundane, I disengage and I'm like not happy.

And I think like that is just like a sensory need that I have to like feel engaged with something. But I really think about this in regards to challenge, like I think about struggle, and I think about what it took for my parents to get here and to succeed. And they went very—they went a very unorthodox route of success in quotes, but they were able to raise three kids that are excelling in what they do, in a roundabout way.

And so, when I think about why I do what I do is because I'm given a like I'm given this like opportunity in this world. To do something that I just love to do. I love to design and I love to teach. And so it could be very selfish and I could just be like, okay, I'm really happy just teaching and designing and I'm gonna do it for myself and then I'm gonna call it a day.

But I think there's a responsibility that you have as an educator is to kind of like transfer over these opportunities, these privileges, these joys of making. And then to the people that are like paying your wage, that are paying for your salary, that are keeping the lights on your institution, that are kind of creating structures for you to kind of dwell, like to succeed in what you're, what you're doing in your life.

And so I don't— I see this responsibility of reciprocation when it comes to teaching that, and I love to like reference John Cage and Sister Corita Kent when they kind of redid that, those 10 rules of a studio. And I do really believe, I have the responsibility to extract the most out of you as makers, and you have the responsibility to get the most out of me.

And I think, that is, whenever I feel like there's an imbalance there, then I'm not in it for the right thing.

And so that exchange or that kind of responsibility, I think, is what weighs on a lot of the decisions that I make. It's like, I want to create, I want to create a better world with better designers. And I think designers hold a lot of power, even though they might not think they do. They have the ability to amplify and create like clarity in very kind of, in very kind of opaque times and opaque like environments, like commercial or societal.

So I think that's where I kind of find my vocation.

Christian Solorzano [48:09]

Yeah. And how do you incorporate self-care or how do you, 'cause, 'cause with, all of these things that you're doing, you can only do it for so long before you burn out. And I'm sure maybe you've experienced that feeling of burnt out. I know for myself, like there's been moments where I just feel like I'm doing too much. And it's like the check engine light to change some things around or to do something different.

So for you, how do you, how does self-care play a role in just keeping you sustained to keep doing what you're doing for the long run?

Dave Pabellon [48:49]

Yeah, I think like you surround yourself with practices that are good for you, I think like, and then you find you do things that make you uncomfortable? And so for me, it's a little bit on like the physical side where you're like, I want to, I want to push myself this way or that way. And I think if I could overcome that, that's a good thing. Or to kind of feel, to feel like I'm challenging myself.

I could use that analogy and apply it to my work. I could apply it to like my relationships and I could apply it to everything that I do. So I think there's this like, balance of having enough things in my life that I'm comfortable with, that I feel confident in, and then also inserting moments that are challenging or new, like learning new languages, learning a new activity, learning a new skill set.

And I think kind of balancing those 2 things keeps you humble, but also keeps you— it keeps you centered that you know how to do things well when asked to do so.

Christian Solorzano [49:51]

Yeah, I like that. I feel like I remember a few years ago when AIGA Chicago was doing the mentor program. They did their first— they offered their first mentor program that was about self-care. It was back when there was like a personal project, there was like explore the city, there's like different groups. And I remember self-care to me feeling like something that people weren't really talking about.

It's almost like this taboo topic where it's— we talk about the work, we talk about like, we show off the work, but there's very little sometimes emphasis on like the person and like just how they, how they sustain themselves to like make all that stuff possible. So. So I hope that more self-care conversations can become like more normalized.

Dave Pabellon [50:51]

Yeah, I think like that's also the way that you practice, like in the same way that you kind of work with clients. I think the attitude or the interrelationship of client-designer or like designer-employee has changed a lot, or at least Has to change because people are changing. I think the idea of mental health and like understanding that mental health is a necessity, not like a premium, is something that I think employers are having to manage.

And I think companies have to manage, and I've seen it change over time. And so now it's more about like demystifying like design being associated with grind culture. Like the idea that like you can work really hard and that's fine, but give yourself a boundary because, this— I've seen too many times in the aughts and the teens that so many good designers leave because they don't see themselves being kind of fulfilled or being appreciated in the kind of sacrifice they give.

So they find different avenues that become way more fulfilling to them, where they feel like they're being valued or respected or seen?

Christian Solorzano [52:08]

Yeah.

Dave Pabellon [52:09]

And I just— that's what I try to tell students too, is like, obviously I want you to work hard, but to what detriment? Yeah, create a safe boundary for yourself. And if it could get kicked off to the next day, or if you just need like an hour of a catnap, then do what you need to do. But don't push yourself into kind of exhaustion or the place where you can't be like present with someone because you've worked, you've overworked yourself too hard.

One thing that I want to reference back to Faust that I think has been very important into that I like inherited about a decade ago was that like I remember being very kind of like stressed out about a project and you know people closest to me say I don't have the best poker face and it was very visible and like Bob pulled me aside was like. Dave, I know that you're frustrated.

I know you think that you were wronged or misunderstood in the kind of work that you did. Next meeting, I just want you to actively listen and don't speak. And that was like a really important thing. And it just might, it might sound like a strategy for work, but it was a strategy for life for me, was this moment to be like, instead of reacting, just pause. Yeah. And listen, and really listen, and repeat.

Like play that back in your head, really decipher it before you react. Because I think, maybe this is a response to the TikTok, these TikTok moments of these reels in the world where everything is fast and it's quick moving and the next one moves on. But like that idea of pausing and like listening and not responding has been one of the best things that I've like kind of picked up and practiced and I'm trying to learn to do still. I'm not perfect at it. Yeah. Try.

Christian Solorzano [53:59]

And I think most importantly, like when you, when you adopt those that way of living that's guided by some sense of like wellness, especially as an educator, I think it just sets a good example for your students. So I, that's an aspect of it. It's like I'm doing it for myself, but I'm also like doing it for the people that are around me. Because I want them to also maybe be inspired to pause or to whatever the case may be.

Dave Pabellon [54:27]

Yeah. And I think back of all the great bosses I've had or mentors I've had in my life. And even though they might not have been in the classroom, they were great educators. I learned so many life lessons by people that model, when I could see myself through them and their frustrations and how they respond to that. And I think this is where, learning isn't just in the classroom.

It's about everything that you model and you kind of, follow and see and kind of are exposed to. So, yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's very true. If you kind of— if you bring pain, right, if you kind of give pain, then that person's probably going to inflict pain the next time around. But if you give, love and pause, then that person's probably going to give love and pause to. So that repeatability is very much like design.

It's like a design system within the way that you interact with people.

Christian Solorzano [55:24]

Yeah, I love that. So we're almost at time, but I have some quickfire questions for you, some rapid questions. So the first question is, what's a detail that you obsess over in design? What's something that you always notice that maybe other people don't notice when it comes to Actual, medium?

Dave Pabellon [55:45]

Wow. That's a great question. I think one thing that I noticed, and maybe it's because I'm teaching type right now, is that, I love when asymmetry is hidden. Okay. When I could kind of see the skeleton of something, I love pinpointing whether it's serendipitous or intentional. I think, whenever I can see the skeleton of asymmetry, it makes me really happy.

Christian Solorzano [56:09]

Cool. I like it. If you can take any fonts out to dinner, well, which one would it be?

Dave Pabellon [56:17]

Ooh, that's a good one. Out to dinner. Maybe I'll just use this because it's kind of comical. Back in the late '90s, there was no such thing as Adobe Fonts. There was no Google Fonts. Everybody had that one master CD that had 1,000 typefaces on it. And we would pass them around. Once one person got a job at a studio, then they'd pass it down to their friend that was freelancing. And then that's how we would kind of like pirate illegal typefaces.

And I remember I couldn't— we couldn't find— and this is when I was living in Oakland— we had a hard time finding a good cut of Meta. Okay. So Meta was like one of those things that was super elusive because we love Speakerman and we're just like I really need a copy of that. So I think, in a lot of ways it's kind of like, being a fanboy of something and being like finally getting to meet the person that you're obsessed over.

So yeah, I think it would be meta.

Christian Solorzano [57:19]

Okay. If you could only choose one Adobe program, what would it be?

Dave Pabellon [57:24]

Oh, I'm really, I'm a fancy to like Acrobat because I think like Acrobat is like the workhorse. It could like, and you don't need, and it's like to kind of talk about inclusive, you could attach anything to it and they'll still function. It's not going to break or it's not going to say you can't implement it. Like it'll attach, you can literally place anything into an Acrobat file and it can do so many things. It's light, it's sturdy.

You could be exclusionary, you can extract from it, you could add to it, you could edit it if you're in a bind. So that's kind of like, it's a very dorky tool, but it's probably the one that I, when I'm in the most of a pinch or I need to like put together a quick slide deck, I could do that anywhere.

Christian Solorzano [58:11]

Okay. I don't think I've used Acrobat's full potential because I really only use it for PDFs and sometimes like filling out like a form, but I know it does much more than that. Yeah. What are you currently listening to? What plays in your ears?

Dave Pabellon [58:28]

Oh, let me see. I have it. What I've been listening to a lot of. Gosh, why am I? Why is this difficult? Sorry. Why is this difficult for me to follow up with? I like this artist named Mike. His name's just Mike. Billy Woods, the Alchemist, Olivia Dean. I'm gonna go see Angela Davis perform on my birthday with. This Black ensemble for the Humanities Festival. So those are the things that make— I'm really excited about Destroyers playing tomorrow.

There's like a lot of good things that are happening that I don't know, I feel like, yeah, music is a very good grounding, a grounding event that I like to partake in. But it's really kind of in— I mean, it's a good thing I'm in the Midwest because seasonal change definitely like informs what I listen to. So.

I think at the moment, I'm still trying to hold on to this Indian summer, so some brightness. But those winter months, I definitely get to be very lo-fi and super almost monotone to kind of match the gray that's in the sky.

Christian Solorzano [59:34]

Yeah. What are you watching?

Dave Pabellon [59:37]

Oh, I'm watching the zoo. I mean, I honestly don't have time for TV. But I've been watching a couple of Jim Jarmusch films. So I just watched Down by Law in a theater, which felt really good because it wasn't a streaming device. And then I've been falling asleep to one of his more recent pieces, Patterson, but I've been meaning to like finish it or stay awake for it, but I usually just collapse to it.

Christian Solorzano [60:03]

Yeah. And then if not for design, what would you be doing? I know you mentioned several things in the beginning, but today, what's something that you would, you would be doing?

Dave Pabellon [60:15]

It's interesting. There was a moment, when we were in isolation, where I think I was really kind of experimenting with or figuring out ways to tie in a design practice to that self-care thing. So, and it was really this urge that I had when I was— when I first, or when I went to grad school a second time, where I was really on the fence about whether I wanted to go into urban planning, get my design MFA, or social work.

And I think the social work thing would be like total polar opposite of what I do, but I see how social workers are like magical people because they are able to kind of navigate and create like comfort in like the most distressed moments.

Christian Solorzano [60:59]

Okay. I like that. And then final question is, what would be your piece of advice for young people that are listening? That are just now exploring a career in design?

Dave Pabellon [61:16]

Be good, but not very good.

Christian Solorzano [61:20]

Okay. I love it. Cool. Thank you so much for being a guest on our show. I really appreciate it. And I, and I just want to again reiterate the fact that I'm just super, I'm always really inspired when I see people like yourself that are out there making a difference. And I hope that this conversation instills some sense of like positivity and drive and goodwill to whoever is listening. So I just want to thank you for that and mention that as well.

And then also, I hope that we could get together sometime in Oak Park and like grab a drink or like grab a bite to eat somewhere. Yeah, I would love to do that.

Dave Pabellon [62:04]

Absolutely. Let's make it happen. I appreciate that. And I appreciate you, Christian. Thank you much.

Christian Solorzano [62:09]

All right, that was a great conversation. Thank you so much for listening till the end. To learn more about Underscore and the Chicago Graphic Design Club, you can find us at www.chicagographicdesign.club. Thank you and goodbye.