Christian Solorzano [00:05]

Hello, you're listening to Underscore, a podcast by the Chicago Graphic Design Club dedicated to bringing you conversations with Chicago's creative leaders. On this podcast, we'll explore the craft, theory, and practice of graphic design, plus discuss bold ideas that push the boundaries of what's possible and ways in which we can create a more thoughtful and inclusive community. To learn more about us, visit our website at www.chicagographicdesign.club or find us on social media. Special thanks to the Chicago band Eighties Slang for our theme music.

Hello, today I'm your host, Christian Solorzano, I'm Christian Solorzano, and I'll be speaking with the Chicago designer and illustrator Mick Champayne. She's currently a senior visual designer at Google, and in her spare time, she makes illustrations that are embedded with humor and simplicity. So let's get started. Hi, Mick, welcome.

Mick Champayne [01:14]

Hello, how are you?

Christian Solorzano [01:16]

Good. Very happy that we're finally getting a chance to talk here. How are you doing?

Mick Champayne [01:22]

I'm pretty good. It's a Saturday afternoon. It's a beautiful afternoon and fall is here and I'm here for it.

Christian Solorzano [01:30]

Yeah. So you and I, we met a few years ago and I remember that I think we were following each other on Instagram and then we— I don't know if you remember this, but we ran into each other at the Primer conference in New York. And that was I think that was maybe 2018 or 2019.

Mick Champayne [01:52]

I don't know.

Christian Solorzano [01:53]

2019.

Mick Champayne [01:54]

Yeah, it would've been like June of 2019, I think.

Christian Solorzano [01:59]

Yeah, I think so. Yeah. And then we both learned that, and then like our mutual connection was Jeremy and Andy who I was working with at the time. So I feel like it's one of those like small world stories.

Mick Champayne [02:13]

Well, and also Chicago's very small. I've been here too long maybe, but it's a small place. Yeah.

Christian Solorzano [02:22]

And one of the questions that I always like to start guests off with is just asking you to go back in time a little bit and tell us how you got into graphic design, illustration, creativity. What's that origin story?

Mick Champayne [02:38]

Oh my God, that's a great question. A couple different ways to go about that. Always been into cartoons, so that was always like the inroad for illustration, but none of that like Disney, like sweet innocent stuff. I like the dark stuff, like the Nickelodeon with like boogers and butts and stuff, like really grotesque. I remember thinking like as I got older and had more awareness about like what I was watching, like thinking about like, why didn't my parents let me watch like Ren and Stimpy?

Like I was like— Maybe, I don't know, I don't know. As a parent now, it's been interesting to think about like what can I let him watch and stuff like that? And I'm like I would probably still let him watch Ren and Stimpy from the illustration point of view. So yeah, I just feel like I was always gravitating towards that. Like Looney Tunes was always my favorite too.

And then, wanted to be, one of my favorite questions to ask people, and I think gives a little insight into like who they are, is what did you want to be when you grew up?

And if I were to answer that myself, I always wanted to be a cartoonist. I mean, which is kind of a natural segue if you like look at my work now. But I never really felt like I had the ability. I didn't— I wasn't a natural drawer, with pen and pencil. It— I would get frustrated. So I think I kind of abandoned that.

And but I mean, if you fast forward a little bit to— I think it was like middle school when like people started getting computers. I think. I can't remember when I got my first one, but going on the World Wide Web and getting those free AOL discs.

Just like my AOL profile. I remember like loving designing that, and there was like weird ways to like hack it so you could add colors and like ASCII art and stuff like that. And I was like, okay, I'm here for this. And then I feel like that just kind of evolved into like MySpace and AIM messages and decorating like all of that like weird Have you watched that show Pen15?

Christian Solorzano [04:43]

No, but I've heard about it. No, I've never watched it.

Mick Champayne [04:48]

It's about these grown women who play characters inside of their own middle school experience. And so it honestly was, what's the word? I don't know, it was just very reminiscent of my experience with the internet. And it was so novel and new and exciting. I just remember like making GeoCities pages and stuff like that, like getting really into it. And I think it was like a way to be creative without having to go to pencil and paper.

And so I think I want to say that is where my origin story was, like of the whole— like it was a way to be creative and show my art in a way without being like a traditional like illustrator, artist, or painter or anything like that.

Christian Solorzano [05:37]

Yeah, I remember because I was also like, I grew up around the same time where like those AOL discs were like everywhere, like all over the floor. Like they were just— and I remember I found a way to, like my friends and I, we would find a way to like just always get that free trial. So like we just had internet all the time because we just kept creating like different accounts.

Mick Champayne [06:00]

Or whatever. Yeah.

Christian Solorzano [06:04]

But it's funny to think about that because I think there is so much— like designing a GeoCities website or creating like a MySpace profile. In my eyes, a lot of that stuff was about like UI and UX. So those skills like translate so easy to like the work that I imagine you're doing today.

I know it translates to the work that I'm doing right now because I'll sometimes I'll be working through something and I like have a flashback of like a moment in my life where I worked on something very similar, like as a kid.

Mick Champayne [06:38]

Oh yeah, totally. And I even from like, weirdly, like a front-end development perspective too, like I was like, this is really simple CSS and HTML at the time, like, and I remember like going in, I don't know if it was still called inspect, but going into like source code and like trying to like copy paste so I can put it onto my little GeoCities yeah, stuff like that.

Christian Solorzano [07:03]

Yeah, like I remember MySpace had like MySpace themes and you would like copy it and like you would paste it into like the head of your MySpace profile or something. And then yeah, those are fun times. I miss it.

Mick Champayne [07:21]

Oh my God, like the banners that had like the streaming like text and stuff like that. Oh my God, I like— I don't know. And you could have custom cursors and things like that. I was like, yes! Yeah.

Christian Solorzano [07:34]

And I remember like once people started making the transition to Facebook, I felt like a lot of that creativity was lost because all Facebook profiles like look the same. But then, but then it seems like when they introduced like the COVID photo, that was like a way to instill some sort of like creativity to your profile. But it still wasn't the same. I think it's— I don't know.

Mick Champayne [07:58]

Yeah, no, I agree. I mean, I think just in general, a lot of those platforms that we use have all kind of have more of a homogeneous feeling now.

And yeah, I thought about that from a couple different reasons. Just it does help with being able for like a user to understand those patterns, and when you start seeing it everywhere, then it's easy for them to adopt and like get into that ecosystem or that platform. So like there's benefit to it, but at the same time, can be a bit boring. Yeah.

Christian Solorzano [08:32]

And I wonder if it's also like a thing about accessibility, because if you think about it, with like MySpace, you could essentially make your profile be like the most inaccessible thing ever. Like you can make your text be black on a black background and yeah, so that— yeah, that's interesting to think about. So at what age did you did you make like the conscious choice to go to school for graphic design, for design? And what was that, what was that like?

Mick Champayne [09:05]

I think it was so sometime in high school I finally took like an art elective and I decided I like drawing and painting and then they— my high school, I grew up in a, in a town in Michigan, and it had this like kind of— I can't remember exactly what it's called, something to do with like career development or whatever.

And it was it was education for the arts, and they had like an off-campus class that you could go to for like half of your day for one semester. And maybe it was a whole year, I don't remember. But either way it was called Digital Media Technology, I think, or something like that.

And it was at the Art Institute downtown. And I was like, all right, cool, this sounds fun. And I just remember like how much I really liked like, making MySpaces and GeoCities and stuff like that and digital photography. Like I had a Flickr page and stuff at this time.

And so I took the class and that was like my senior year of high school. And I just remember like loving it and like really excelling in it because it was— we were— oh my gosh, we were designing in Flash and like making like little animations and things like that, and that which was super fun. And it was kind of like this à la carte of like digital media, so like photography and illustration and learning Photoshop and stuff.

And then, it was my senior year, so of course starting to look at like colleges and thinking about where I wanted to go. And I also really wanted to get out of Michigan, and I was— I wasn't daring enough to try to go to New York. But Chicago seemed like the next, big city that was accessible. So I remember— I don't remember how I found out about it, but I ended up going to school here at Columbia College in Chicago.

And I just remember going to an open house and seeing, that was back when you'd get the big giant books of the courses and the undergraduate programs.

And, seeing there was one literally called Digital Media Technology, and I was like, well, I want to do that because I was in that other digital media class. Yeah, it was, for me, was kind of a quick and easy decision. So yeah, I just applied and I got in. I applied to a couple other like state schools, but like where I was aiming for was like I want to get out of Michigan and I wanted to go to a big city.

So that, yeah, it just kind of hit all of the targets. So that's why I chose that.

Christian Solorzano [11:34]

And what was that, what was that like first year leaving Michigan and being in a new city? What were some of the things that like creatively you were exploring?

Mick Champayne [11:43]

Oh yeah gosh, it was, it really honestly like opened up a whole new world for me to like be in a city setting. Just, I grew up in like what is like a big college town or whatever, but again, very to use the same word, but homogeneous, just like the same, like it's all a bunch of white people, right? And I remember coming here and having like just a lot more diversity, which was awesome and amazing.

And I was in a very like small program, like my program, my department was pretty small at Columbia. And it was just a way to like meet other like-minded folks. And then just like being in the city, like— The dorms were like downtown on campus, so it was not like your traditional, dorms or college experience, honestly. It was very much city feeling, I guess.

Christian Solorzano [12:45]

Yeah, I remember like growing up, I just always hated school. And then going to college was such a culture shock because all of a sudden I realized that school could be fun. And that you could learn things that you want to learn at a school and it doesn't always have to be like really like just awful. So.

Mick Champayne [13:05]

Yeah, no. Yeah, I definitely enjoyed college, but to be honest, it was a bit isolating and for me, like I loved like on the whole my experience or whatever, but I think moving— I was— I moved by myself and like didn't really know too many people and then because the nature of my department being so small in it I just, I don't know, I had a hard time making friends at first.

And I don't know, I was also one of very few women in my department, so it was a lot. And our department also housed the, game design major, and so there was a lot of gamer dudes and bros in my department. So it was like, yeah, it was a little bit hard for me to, make friends for a while, but yeah.

Christian Solorzano [13:59]

And then, and then, and I know that you're really— a lot of the work that you create. So right now you're at Google and you seem to like, you have your day jobs, but then you also have this like thing that you do on the side where you create like really beautiful illustrations that tend to be inspired by like pop culture. And just like the internet in general.

And I always notice that there's just like a big element of humor in, I think, most of the work that I've seen you do, let's say on Instagram. But, and it makes sense now, like hearing you talk about your early inspirations being cartoons and like boogers and butts because you—

There's definitely, I feel like that theme continues to like carry on through your work. So could you talk a little bit about just what's that like? Yeah, what's your process like? How do you, how do you go about, coming up with these ideas that you, yeah, that you produce and that you tend to just somehow like just always be generating?

Mick Champayne [15:07]

That's a great, that's a great question. I wish I had like a solid process that I think it's honestly like because it's not like a day job or anything, I haven't tried to like figure it completely out, but sometimes it's just like weird moments of inspiration where like a funny phrase comes into my head and then I'll think about it and oh, like then I'll draw off of that.

Other times it's like, there's one like, I guess, series that I do that it's really— I love just I used to love Tumblr because you would just come across the most random things and it was really a fun experience because you could just like repin it and reshare that photo easily. And I think it was there that I just like— there's sometimes where I just— I'll just scroll and I would just like laugh the entire time.

It's just it's just the weird photos that just catch you off guard. You're like, I don't know why this is funny, but it's funny. And I just have always been like bookmarking or like saving them to my camera roll, or I don't know, screenshotting them or something. And I think that is like one of the like easy go-tos for me to like, okay, if I find a funny picture, I love to like recreate it.

And I think I call my series Be the Meme you Wish to See in the World. And it's just a way to like— I, when it comes to illustration, I work best with like a prompt of some sort of like box to kind of like guide me a little bit or something to springboard me off of.

I wish I were one of those people that could just be like, just sit down and just be like, I'm just gonna draw this. But no, I really need some sort of prompt or provocation to like get doing it, or like a timeline or a deadline or something like that. And so especially when it comes to that series, it's just easier for me to like find a picture.

And then I always like try to think about like what's making this so funny to me and like— And just like the nature of my style, like I'm not like, I'm not a very realistic drawer or illustrator. And I draw like, you'd almost argue it's pretty like simple line drawings and shapes.

And I think what is fun for me is trying to unlock like, how can I convey this image in and distill it into like what I think is like the need to like how can I share this story in like simple line drawings or images that still keeps the sense of humor without it trying to get too detailed, if that makes sense?

Christian Solorzano [17:51]

Yeah, that makes sense because I do agree. I think there's a big— your illustrations do feel very like— I think what's successful about them is that they're so simple, yet they communicate what it is that they're trying to communicate.

So I've noticed that you tend to create— you have your illustration in a carousel and then if you like go to the next photo, it's like the original, and it almost seems like you're taking like— it's like its spirit, like the spirit of the original, and like reducing it to like its bare essence, which I— and I think you do like very successful, because I've seen some of like the reference photos that you, that you take, or that you post, and like sometimes they're like pretty complex, yet you're able to sort of— Yeah, just in a very successful way, just simplify them.

Mick Champayne [18:38]

I like the way you said the essence. Yeah, it's just I'm like trying to like still make sure it's funny and like easy to read because like as you're scrolling through like, a giant endless feed of Instagram photos or whatever, yeah, still want it to be like captivating enough to be like, oh well. And then I like to share the reference photo just so that you like, you can laugh with me too.

Christian Solorzano [19:04]

And you mentioned that you don't really have like a process, but I wanna, I wanna ask you a little bit about that because I mean, I think everyone to an extent like has a process, but I wanna hear if there's like a— I don't know, do you— I remember hearing about like you did an interview with Dribbble, I believe, like not too long ago.

And I know you're a morning person because I follow you on Instagram and you're like up and running at like 5:00 AM. So walk us through like what's a day in the life of Mick?

Mick Champayne [19:48]

Yeah, it has changed over the past year because, spoiler alert, I had a baby. I still wake up at an ungodly hour no matter what time I go to bed. If it's 9 o'clock or 11 or 1, I still seem to— like, my body just punishes me and wakes me up at 5. But I love it. I don't mind that so much.

And I think before baby it was great because then I'd have like a whole day ahead of my day job, like when I started at like 9 to like—

Do whatever I want. Or and before, in the before times, it was like commuting, and then I would just like usually have much more inspiration on like the ride in or something like that. And just oh, that's funny, like want to draw that or whatever. Since having the baby, now I get up early, try to go for a run before he wakes up around like 7 usually. And then we hang out until he goes to his nanny at 8:30.

And then between that and like the— now with my day job like they come— they're West Coast time, so they start like 11 Chicago time.

So I have like a good solid like 2 hours of focus time in the morning to like usually like look at my day and, chug along on any sort of project I'm working on and just really have some quiet focus time. Time, which is really nice. And before they get online, and then, as it goes, everyone starts messaging you and emails start coming in. And yeah, so it's really nice. Yeah.

Christian Solorzano [21:29]

And as a, as a new mother, has that— has being a mother, changed the kind of work that you do? Or, has that influenced your creative— like, your outlook on creativity?

Mick Champayne [21:42]

No, I don't think so. That's a great question. If anything, I feel like I have more inspiration now because of like the all the extra like shitty diapers he's got, weird body things that he's doing, and like yeah, so it's funny, there's like that part of it. I think if anything, it's just, you have a finite amount of time in a day and now he eats up a little bit more of that chunk.

So I don't have— like, I actually feel kind of bad because I miss drawing. I used to draw like way more, but now I don't feel like I have quite as much time to do it between like day job and like side illustration projects and stuff like that, like actually paying now, which is kind of nice. But yeah, it's just like trying to like balance things now.

Christian Solorzano [22:35]

Yeah, you bet. And what do you— so right now you're currently a designer at Google. Could you tell us a little bit some of the work that you do there?

Mick Champayne [22:44]

Yeah, I am on the Play team, which is basically the App Store for Android. And I am— gosh, I think I'm coming up on like 10 months on it now. So I'm still what they can call— you could get a free pass where you're like considered a noogler, a new Googler for like the first year. And it is, it has been a ride. It has been definitely like, it's my first tech company that I've ever worked for. I've only ever worked for agencies in my career.

And so there's that transition to being like a new mom and like trying to like figure out work and how all of that works together. And in the first like 8 months of the job, I was, I was a manager. And so like also like, directing and kind of shaping the work there. And I was working on, at first, like what the Play Store looked like on like large screen experiences, so like tablets and foldables for a long time.

Had an amazing designer under me who was like just chef's kiss, like he's just amazing. And then I underwent my first reorg, which was like a completely new term to me from agency life. It's basically like the people at the top decided to kind of shuffle things around and put people on new teams, and I got put onto a new vision and strategy team. So I am now helping design what the vision looks like for the Play Store in the next couple years.

So that's been really fun and exciting to think about, like how the Play Store will change and evolve. And, just like any other product, what will its life look like in a couple years? Because nothing stays the same. It's like the same with like Instagram going to like video format and everybody freaks out or whatever. So change is inevitable, I guess. But yeah, so it's really great to be part of that experience and that vision.

Christian Solorzano [24:54]

Yeah. And in the past, so I'm looking, I have like some of your information pulled up here from LinkedIn. So you were, so you mentioned that you've been, you've mostly worked in agencies in the past. Could you walk us through like, just sort of like once you finish, once you finish college and like once you started to, enter the workforce, what were, what were some of those early experiences like for, 'cause a lot of our listeners are younger students or people that are still in school.

And then it's always just inspiring to hear, stories of—

Mick Champayne [25:28]

Yeah. Oh man, I feel like too, 'cause I do a lot of mentorship on the side too, to like people just graduating and stuff. And I feel like there's a lot of parallels from like my experience graduating to like people graduating now. Yeah. And in the past couple years. So I graduated in 2008, right straight right into the recession and was like, just, looking for a job just like everyone else. That's when all the everything was crashing.

Nobody was hiring, and I was just cool, great. I, and I also had like over $100,000 in student loan debt, so I was just like freaking out. So I was fortunate enough to have had an internship right before I graduated, and I was lucky. They weren't able to offer me a full-time job, but I was kind of permalanced, I guess, where that was a contract for like a good like year and a half or whatever. And I was starting out I'm trying to like go back.

Oh, so I graduated and I was living abroad in London for like a good couple years. And finally I had a quarter-life crisis at like 24. I was dating a guy, it wasn't working out. I freaked out and like decided to move back to Chicago. And so when I came back, I stayed with the agency I was with abroad, and that was called Digitas. And I remember very distinctly, when the recruiter was asking me, okay, do you want to be a designer or an art director?

And they were offering me a gig, and I was like, oh, I was like, what's the difference? And at the time, a designer meant that you were a Flash designer and you were going to be working on like banner ads and—

And stuff like that. And I was like, whoa, I like designing, but I'm like, I didn't want to be an animator. Not— that's not my skill set. And so I was like, I guess I'll take art director because like I wasn't in a position to be like turn down the only job offer I had. So yeah.

I'd say yeah, I started out as an art director and honestly like that was an interesting experience because I didn't go to portfolio school and it really felt like that was. My first job as an art director, I was like learning how to concept and how art and copy work together. And I was doing banner ads and marketing landing pages and even print ads. And I got to work on some TV production stuff, or like online video, I guess you would call it.

And so yeah, I learned a lot more about like advertising than I ever thought I would ever get into. I just thought like Oh, I went to school and I really liked and enjoyed working and making websites and stuff, but didn't really know how to, kind of take that and make a career of it. So this just kind of luckily landed in my lap. And yeah, it was stressful. And I, in, I think in all honesty, advertising wasn't for me.

I always, there was always something about it that just never really, I never connected to it. There's some people that just, straight up love advertising. They love, the awards of it and, like, they want to go to Cannes and stuff like that. And I was just like that just wasn't for me. I liked more of the design aspect of it. But so I remember like having kind of that epiphany kind of early on in my career.

And so I started trying to make my way back to more of like the digital design. I had been on like a project where I had redesigned an entire website for Whirlpool or KitchenAid.com. And I was like, I really like this type of work. I want to keep doing this type of work where it felt like there was still some usefulness to it, even if it was a means to get somebody to buy a refrigerator or whatever.

But it was still like, okay, there's a purpose to it instead of what I felt like with campaign work was sometimes making just a bunch of noise. And I don't know. So anyway, it wasn't resonating with me, I guess, to use a word. And so I ended up making my way back over to more experience design, product design, I guess, if you could call it that too. I bopped over to Critical Mass for a couple years, and then I was at Huge.

I think that's when I met you, was when I was at Huge.

Christian Solorzano [30:05]

I think so.

Mick Champayne [30:06]

No, maybe I think I might have been at Digital Asset then. But yeah, Huge was like great because it was the McDonald's account and we were the agency of record for all of their digital products. And that's where I really learned like how to be embedded alongside like a product team and what it meant to work on like features and like a straight-up product. Like we worked on the app and also like the kiosk, which was interesting.

And then I was helping make the design system For it, for McDonald's. So I just, I remember like feeling like, yeah, this is like the type of work I really enjoy doing and like doing. It's, it, my brain still is a little bit like the organization has like the left side. I am a creative person, but I also like really love organization. My files were always immaculate in my like folder structure.

Christian Solorzano [31:00]

That's important.

Mick Champayne [31:03]

Yeah, no, it totally is. But yeah, like there's some creatives where I remember like getting into their PSDs or whatever and being like, what is going on here? But yeah, I've always, I've always loved organization. I don't know, I think just like yeah, just product design has always been like about like problem solving. So yeah, I naturally was always like moved towards that.

Christian Solorzano [31:27]

Yeah. And then, and then I also noticed that for I believe 2 years, you were also a contributing writer to Papaya Rocks or Papaya Films. Is it— what's— I know the website's papaya.rocks.

Mick Champayne [31:40]

Yeah, it was. That was an interesting little thing that happened. It was— I had gone to South by Southwest with my partner Casey Huditz, and that's— I think you might have met him when we were at the Primer conference, but we had given a talk on the show Black Mirror and how it was a great example of speculative design. And it was a super fun talk to give.

And like afterwards, I was approached by this guy who had— I think he must have been in attendance or something. And he offered me up a like a spot on his Papaya Raw Films was like the, like the overarching company. And then they were kind of starting up their own like little like online publication. And they wanted me to write articles about like future trends and stuff like that.

So I took that on for, gosh, I don't know, I wrote a bunch and it was actually really fun to like look at like signals that were happening out there and just try to like write something about them. So that was, as I'm such an art person, but yeah, like when it comes to art and copy, but it was really fun to like kind of dive into that and like start and like Work on those skill sets because I would not consider myself a writer typically.

Christian Solorzano [33:02]

Yeah. And I know that you mentioned a little bit about— well, on your LinkedIn profile, you mentioned that you're an aspiring futurist, and you mentioned a little bit about this talk that you gave on speculative design. So, yeah, could you just talk a little bit about your interest in the future and just Speculating design in general? What's that? Yeah, what's your relationship with that?

Mick Champayne [33:29]

I think like especially having like pseudo-existential crises throughout my career of just what am I doing? Especially like when you're doing something you don't super love, like when I was in advertising and stuff, like I don't know, you just kind of are searching for meaning a little bit more. And I think I remember my partner Casey had given— like, he extended an opportunity to speak at like a— gosh, what was it?

Some UX group around here in Chicago that I'm blanking on the name of, but or IXDA, that's what it was. And asked me to like put together a presentation, and I don't remember what it was, but it was just something about like that was what kind of kick-started all of it was I think just starting to think about what a designer's role in the world is.

And like we especially when we went to South by Southwest and stuff like that, and like just being in this forum where all these people are thinking about like and shaping the world and the ideas, and they're bringing all these ideas forward and just like making you think about like the things that you design and putting out in the world, having a reaction and, an impact on things. And yeah.

I think that's where I started to, really think about things and how— what my work was making. Again, to the earlier point where I was a little bit, I don't know, saddened to think that I was just making ads that people were gonna go block. I was like, what is the point?

So, like yeah, I think that is kind of the reason I started like getting into more like future trends and then thinking about, you know it— and it's also, I really loved that show Black Mirror. I don't know, you've probably watched it.

I don't know how many people— I don't know if people still use it as like a reference point anymore, but it was really good at like showing you a vision of the world and getting you away like how it could be, because there's like infinite possibilities of the way the world could end up. And it was such a, I think, inspiring piece of work because it would get us all talking about it.

Oh my God, like the one where like you can like erase memories or whatever, go back and rewind and look into your memories and stuff like that. If that technology was available, like what— like how does that impact the world? And I think that even that show was, kind of inspiring to think about.

Oh my gosh, obviously I'm not making that type of work, but like to think about that kind of like as a, I don't know, like the impact that your work could have on things in the world is interesting.

Christian Solorzano [36:24]

Yeah, I remember my first job out of college was I was also working in advertising and I just felt so like morally like guilty because a lot of the stuff that I was producing was prints, and it was just like there were pamphlets for resident, like for apartments. And it has like a very— there's like a very specific demographic for that. And that demographic is not me. So I just found it very hard to identify with the stuff that I was designing.

And yeah, like I had multiple like just creative breakdowns where I just, yeah, I was just, I was like, what did I get myself into?

Mick Champayne [37:07]

I mean, it's really tough because like at the end of the day, you still need a job. We still live in a capitalistic society and like we have to kind of play by those rules, right? Like I remember before I took the huge job, like I knew that going to the agency huge that it was going to be working on McDonald's. And at the time, I was a vegetarian who hadn't eaten fast food in any real way in like 10 years.

So it was like, for me, it was like, are you really gonna go and work on this? And I think that is where you kind of have to exercise a little bit of like walking in somebody else's shoes a little bit more, where you're like, you can't— I, as a designer, you can't be super judgy about like the stuff like I don't know. I'm working through this as I'm going through.

But I definitely remember thinking like, just because I'm not the target audience, like I don't eat McDonald's personally, like doesn't mean that like that McDonald's isn't a means to end for somebody else. I just come off of a, of an account where I worked on a discount grocery store. I won't say its name, but I worked on their social media.

And I remember like thinking, making posts, like Facebook posts, and like I put my heart and soul into it, like this cool concept, like it's gonna be a fun little game or whatever. And instead when we'd post it to Facebook or wherever, the comments would just be like littered with like, the chicken's not on sale, blah, or whatever. And like people just like bitching and moaning or whatever, nothing to do with the piece of like work that I just made, like whatever.

And it was like, that was soul destroying and but I remember thinking about, with that discount grocery store, I also learned about the concepts of, food deserts and how a lot of people were turning to, these stores. And when their options were like the nearest Walmart was 45 miles away or 45 minutes away, and the other option was McDonald's, but it was a 10-minute drive down the road. And you've got to feed your family and you've got a screaming kid in the back kind of thing.

What are you gonna choose? You're gonna choose McDonald's. And so for me, the way that I was able to rationalize working on that account was more about thinking about that use case scenario and those people that like, okay, obviously this probably isn't their— that mom's like first choice of like what she wants to feed and nourish her children with, but it's what's available. So how can I make that experience for her like, the most seamless, frictionless problem.

She's already probably got like a mountain of stuff going on in her head of like what things she needs to do. She's got a kid screaming in the back or whatever. How can I just make it super easy for her to go and get like a Happy Meal for that kid to shut them up? And yeah, so I— it's hard. It's a balance.

You want to go out and save the world and design, but at the same time, sometimes you've got to like think a little bit more small, I guess.

Christian Solorzano [40:04]

And to that, to that point, is there is there a dream client that you have or any particular industry that you'd love to work in?

Mick Champayne [40:13]

Yeah, that's a good question. I don't know. It's changed as I've gone along. Honestly, well, when I was earlier in my career, Google was the dream job. I made it. I'm here. And it's so fun. And the Play team's really great. And working on it, I mean, it is an app store, so it's still like trying to think about that kind of stuff. If there was a dream job, I don't know if I have a dream job.

Christian Solorzano [40:53]

Or like a dream client, or just like any, yeah, just anything, any space where you'd like to work in.

Mick Champayne [41:02]

I don't, I don't know. I've thought about that a lot, only in relation to like illustration, because people, have asked me like, would I ever go full-time for that? And I hesitate to do that full-time because then I think it wouldn't be fun for me anymore.

What I love about illustration is like, especially right now, I don't know, maybe one day my style will go out of style, and who knows, maybe I'll just dry up and shrivel up. But I mean, probably, let's be honest. But what I think I love about it is it's an outlet for me. It's like personal. And so when I am approached about doing projects for clients and things like that, it's nice because I don't need to do it.

And so it doesn't turn into a job for me. So I guess when it comes to dream clients, maybe yeah, I don't know. I don't honestly like that, but that's been a struggle my whole career. I've never really known what I wanted. I've never really had this like guiding star of like— I feel like my life has been like a series of happy accidents, and I'm like the type that just like goes with the flow.

I think not to totally like not give myself any credit, like I think it's definitely bolstered by a good work ethic and yeah. I don't know, openness. But at the same time, there's nothing that's been like pulling me along and like I've been shooting for. It's been more like, let's just see what happens and like be open-minded. Yeah.

Christian Solorzano [42:31]

Yeah. I'm very similar. For me, it's just— it's like my like mantra or philosophy is to just show up and like do what's in front of you and when possible, like raise your hand and like just show up and do things. And you never know what those things are going to lead to. And, it's like how you and I met. It just happened.

And I feel like over the past 2 years, through like the club that I, that I worked on and like the, this podcast, everything, there's never been really like a process. It's just like one thing after another and somehow like it's working. So I try to not like overthink it or— Like intellectualize it or rationalize it. Just what it is.

Mick Champayne [43:22]

Yeah, no, I 100% agree. I think that's just kind of how I roll too. And I think part of that is because of like going back to like my— where— what I graduated into. It's just like I just had to take what I had and it was just like making lemonade out of lemons kind of thing. I don't know. I do definitely think a lot of it is like your attitude to things.

I'm just inherently a very positive person and I'm gonna try to look for the silver lining in things. And I think, I think when you also— personally, when I have like lower expectations, so if anything goes above it, then it exceeds it, and I'm already like, all right, this is already better than I thought it was gonna be. So like— I think that's just how I approach life, to be honest.

Christian Solorzano [44:09]

Yeah. And how do you, how do you balance— because I know you're like pretty active on social media and you tend to— yeah, like I mentioned earlier, like you share your work and like you're always, communicating and like you're very responsive. And I just feel like you have such a, such like a presence and how do you balance that with like just life? How does the social media and like that— what's the, what's the relationship with that? And then like Mick in real life?

Mick Champayne [44:45]

Yeah. Oh man. Because I do want to— a whole nother podcast.

Christian Solorzano [44:49]

Because I do want to mention like all your Instagram stories, like you're very strategic or like everything is just always so well curated, even like in the mornings when you're out on your runs and you take like your photographs, like the album covers, like the song that you choose. I don't know if this is intentionally, but like the album artwork like matches the photo and like everything is just so like proper and like just so well executed.

And I don't know, I like, for me, I personally like struggle with like being active on social media. Like it just it takes, it just takes a, yeah, it takes, it like occupies too much headspace. But how do you manage to do that? How do you—

Mick Champayne [45:40]

Gosh, yeah, no, I wish I had a good answer for that, but I have a love-hate relationship with social media. I think being a designer and just being a person in this world, I think we all know the effects of social media, but I have found a little corner of it that I feel like I just, I don't know, it's got a really good sense of community and I don't know, maybe it's the artists, kind of section of the internet or whatever.

Like everybody's just like super nice or whatever. But I guess when it comes to that kind of stuff, like the stories, I especially feel like they started like really like popping off during like the pandemic. Just like as a way to keep myself sane and like just a way to connect with people because I'm very much like before, we all went to lockdown or whatever. I think that's how I met you. It was like just doing coffees.

I would always say yes to people, like no matter what. If they want to meet me early, that would even be even better.

But I always like, I just love having conversations with people and like just hearing where they're coming from, where they're thinking about. And so when we all kind of had to retreat into our houses, it felt like social media, I like leaned into it probably pretty hard, like just because it was a way to still talk to people and have those, make those meaningful connections and things like that. So, and I think the stories are honestly just it's a tool for conversation.

And where I guess it's really flattering that you think that it's well curated, but I think honestly it's just been a skill that I've exercised now probably, what, 2 and a half years? And now it comes a lot quicker.

But I think it kind of— if there's a Venn diagram of like all the things that I love, it goes back to my like art and copy roots. Like it's a nice way to like figure out like what is this quick message that I want to share or like this like mood that I'm in or whatever. And like it's a great way to practice like design too.

I'm like given these finite amount of tools. You can write, you can put text over things, an album, like a 15-second song snippet, you can put GIFs or whatever. And so for me, it's just been like a good way to just practice design daily that's not like a UI challenge or something like that. And then just like my weird sense of humor. I'm just I'm gonna bring in like weird GIFs and like weird pop culture references and stuff like that.

Sometimes people get them, sometimes they don't. And when they do, they respond and I'm like, yay, you get an Easter egg or whatever. But what I really loved about especially Instagram is like, I've made a ton of friends through it. And it's been really nice.

I've, as the world's been starting to open up again, I've taken a handful of trips now and what I think is really great is that like if I post like I'm in this, in this place right now, inevitably there seems to be like somebody that's like from there or does have tips or recommendations. And like kind of to like what you were saying earlier about just like going with the flow.

I'm like, if they offer up like a suggestion, I'll like go and do it. Like I'm like a yes man or whatever. I'm like, okay, cool. Yeah, that sounds great. Yeah, it's— I don't know. So I think it's just, when it all comes together, it like, it weirdly like feeds back into my day job too though, because like, right, like I'm a visual designer and like it's just making my storytelling skills like even stronger and it's just like kind of a cycle.

So that's how I frame it in my head at least. I'm sure some people think I'm maybe too much online or whatever, but hey, aren't we all hurtling towards the metaverse anyway? Aren't we all just, I don't know, avatars inevitably. I don't know. We'll see.

Christian Solorzano [49:45]

So. No. Yeah, I want to, I want to bring up what you said because I do think that you do like such a great job at storytelling because there's like a, there's like a very intentional sequence in like how you post. So everything is— I just feel like it's a narrative, like your entire day is like become like it's always like a nice little narrative.

Right now, so I just started teaching and one of the, one of the projects that I'm giving my students is for them to— like, we all have a group, like a class Instagram page, and the assignment is for every week for like them to contribute to the Instagram page, but they have to think about composition. And the compositions that they're creating are based off like some visual design elements and themes.

So it's been fun because I do agree, I think it's a great tool for, yeah, like creating compositions and like creating stories and narratives. And you're given like a set number of constraints and you have to somehow find a way to work with them.

And I, and I remember when there, there's like, this was a few years ago, but you showed me how to do a you could do like rainbow text on Instagram, but it's like, I don't know if it's like a hack or something, but it's like a very specific way to do it where you have to like swipe your finger across the colors and stuff. So yeah, discovering those kind of things are always neat.

Mick Champayne [51:18]

Or the Papyrus trick. Like if you type in Papyrus in the text field and then you hit enter, it turns it into the Papyrus font.

Christian Solorzano [51:28]

I didn't know that.

Mick Champayne [51:29]

That one's good too. Yeah, those are— and then that kind of goes back to the whole like sharing and the community aspect. Like my old buddy Alan used to work at Instagram and he's always the one that shares like that kind of stuff. I have to say like the one medium that I'm like a little bit scared by is like, I don't know if I'll be able to ever do like full-on video content.

I just don't think I'm that— I'm very much like not— I wouldn't say I'm static, but I don't think I can— I couldn't be like one of those content creators that's making like all sorts of videos. I don't think I'll ever get on TikTok. I technically have one, but it's one of those like creeper accounts where I just lurk and I just like watch things. I don't, I don't actually like participate or anything.

Christian Solorzano [52:13]

But yeah. Yeah, it's funny. And so we're almost at time, but I do have another question for you. And outside of like design and art and, your baby and just a lot of the things that you, that you do. What other, what other things are inspiring you right now? Or like, what other— what's like something that you're really into that perhaps people don't know?

Mick Champayne [52:38]

Gosh, I share a lot online, so I'm not sure if there's anything that y'all don't know about me except for my bathroom. Something that I'm into that— geez, I don't know. I honestly, I feel really behind when it comes to like TV shows lately. I just don't have enough time. Yeah, I don't, I don't think that there's— I'm honestly a pretty open book. If you ever have a question, just shoot it over. I'll probably like probably answer it, to be honest.

I think too, I think that comes from being, when I first started out my career, I was so afraid to ask questions and like look like I didn't know anything. And I don't know, it was a really lonely experience, like especially like my first couple years out. And I think that's also maybe why I do mentorship too, is just like I don't want anybody to feel like that.

I don't want anyone to feel like they don't have a place to like ask the dumb questions or so yeah, I think, I think that's kind of why I'm so like open about things and I don't know, I hesitate to say normalizing things, but at least just like showing you other ways. I guess, sorry, I'm kind of meandering, but like people have commented too, like they're surprised to hear that I have a baby because I mean, I don't post him too much online. Online.

He's a big part of my life, obviously, but I definitely want to maintain my identity as a designer or an illustrator. I think there's— I'm multifaceted, and I don't want to be pigeonholed as just she's just a mom now, or whatever kind of thing. So I think I'm very aware, very conscious of how I present that to my world. And I also want to maintain my own sense of identity.

And so, yeah, I think it's been really nice because some of the connections I have made through Instagram of like even other young women who are like just about to like have babies and stuff like that, like showing you that there's another way to be like a mom even.

It's kind of nice. I don't want your first like thing to think like, oh, when you think of Mick, oh, she's a mom. I don't know. I don't want to be that like kind of person. I don't know. That's all to say. Yeah, I guess maybe that's the thing I think about a lot often is just like that type of stuff. Awesome. I totally rambled, but that's okay.

Christian Solorzano [55:17]

That's a good answer. I like that. All right, and before we wrap up, is there anything that you're working on currently? Like just any new projects or Anything that you want to share or like shout out or—

Mick Champayne [55:34]

There is, but it's under NDA. So I want to say like, it's a spoiler, like not a spoiler teaser. Stay tuned because it is, it is a pretty big, exciting piece of work that I'm excited about. I've been working on it for months and it seems like it's like, because I'm like used to advertising, I'm totally used to like things getting cut at the last minute. So I want to hold my breath and I But I'm pretty sure it's gonna go and actually be produced.

But stay tuned because it's gonna be—

Christian Solorzano [56:05]

Okay. And people could just follow you on Instagram to know?

Mick Champayne [56:10]

Yeah, that's where you can always find me. Slide through those DMs anytime.

Christian Solorzano [56:16]

Okay, awesome. Great. Well, thank you so much. This was great and I enjoyed our conversation. And yeah, if anyone is listening and they want to get in touch with you, you're always very accessible. So please reach out to Mick.

Mick Champayne [56:31]

Yeah. Instagram, email, LinkedIn, carrier pigeon. Just like run into me in the street. I'm out walking always, so, or running. So you'll find me.

Christian Solorzano [56:44]

Like 5 AM.

Mick Champayne [56:46]

Yeah, cool. Thanks for having me, Christian.

Christian Solorzano [56:51]

Yeah, for sure. This is great. And I hope I can see you soon.

Mick Champayne [56:54]

Yeah, I know. We should get coffee sometime. Yes.