Christian Solorzano [00:06]

Hello, you are listening to Underscore, a podcast by the Chicago Graphic Design Club. I am your host, Christian Solorzano. In this episode, I speak with Design Director Nermin and Strategic Director Kristin of the Creative Studio field of practice. And together they share why and how they started their studio and their value-centered approach to design that views the creative process not as a destination but as an ongoing practice.

In this conversation, we hear about the ways in which they are challenging notions of business as usual, their need to stray away from the false sense of urgency, the meaning of a creative obituary as opposed to a creative brief, and we dive deep into what it means to leave behind a legacy through the work that we do as creatives. This is a thought-provoking conversation that I hope inspires you as much as it inspired me.

And as always, if you wish to learn more about the Chicago Graphic Design Club, please visit our website at www.chicagographicdesign.club. Good morning, Nermin and Kristin. How are the two of you doing? And we're in two different time zones. So you could say that Nermin and I are in the future.

Nermin Moufti [01:22]

Yeah, Nermin's always a step ahead of me.

Kristin Lueke [01:25]

False. Funny you should say that, though. One of our earlier names for our company was Hello from the Future. So this feels perfectly poetic.

Christian Solorzano [01:39]

I want to start our conversation today by— I like origin stories. How did the two of you meet?

Nermin Moufti [01:46]

How did the two of us meet? Nermin was in Typeforce— what was it?

Kristin Lueke [01:51]

8.

Nermin Moufti [01:52]

8. And I was working at Firebelly Design at the time. And when we were preparing for the show, a few of us really just got pulled into Nermin's entry and seeing her vision, knowing that she had displayed that work before. That was at the Royal Museum of Ontario, what was it, Nermin?

Kristin Lueke [02:14]

Yeah, Royal Ontario Museum, yes.

Nermin Moufti [02:16]

Royal Ontario Museum, gorgeous giant piece. Nermin, I'll let you talk a bit about it, but just, we were so moved and impressed by it and just looked forward to meeting the woman, the brains behind this. So the night of the Typeforce opening, there were a couple of us that just like tracked her down in the crowd and it was just love at first sight. And then she came on to work with us and gosh, what was that? Was that 2016 that we met, Nermin?

Kristin Lueke [02:47]

Yeah, I think it was early 2017. Yeah, right after the mess of the elections. Yeah, right. We trauma bonded from there.

Nermin Moufti [02:57]

Nermin, talk about the piece though. It was so magnificent.

Kristin Lueke [03:02]

Oh, thank you, Anne. Well, I'll first just say a little bit about Typeforce for the uninitiated. It's a— it was a show that was held by Firebelly annually for typographic arts and, anyone who did any work with letters and type, celebrating, new budding designers or type lovers and established ones. And I had been following Firebelly's work for a while, even when I was living in Toronto, and I knew about the event when I submitted the work.

It was part of my thesis work for my master's, and it just tackled misinformation in the time of the Sieren Revolution and just kind of flipping the discipline of graphic design on its head and its role of contributing to information redaction or no contribution at all.

So it was a little bit of an existential kind of cathartic work for me, observing, obviously being Sieren, observing what was happening in my home country, and then questioning the role of my discipline in a time where any— yeah, any way you could you're only consuming what you're being given by media.

And so I kind of took the opportunity to center my thesis around the, yeah, the role that a designer plays in distilling complex issues, distilling obviously polemic, critical political issues, and also how they might be unintentionally or intentionally doing harm and contributing to what I call visual journalism unconsciously. So the work was heavy, to say the least. And it was highly typographic, and I used a lot of sort of news— newspaper clippings and things like that were sent to me from Syria. That were government-owned newspapers.

So needless to say, a lot of misinformation there. And I was just using them as a canvas to kind of like critique the discipline and also critique the government at the same time.

Nermin Moufti [05:18]

So you can imagine why I was so excited to meet her. She's obviously dope and has a brilliant mind. And I mean, she's just so smart, so thoughtful, so willing to go into deep inquiry and emerge with these beautifully creative ideas. Nermin is just my hero.

Kristin Lueke [05:43]

Ditto. There'll be a lot of this today, Kristin. You're ready. Buckle up for a lot of feelings.

Christian Solorzano [05:49]

And Kristin, your background is in writing, so it makes sense that you'd be interested in like the relationship between images and dialogue, conversation words. So I want to speak a little bit about some of your backgrounds specifically. I know your background, Nermin, is in visual communication and design. So I guess we could start with you. Have you always been drawn to creativity, or what was your upbringing like?

Kristin Lueke [06:15]

I always have. I was always the kid who drew a lot and did little fashion sketches. When I was younger, I thought I'd be a fashion designer, no doubt. I still manifest it, but I didn't become it.

But yeah, I was— my father is a civil engineer by training, but he worked in architecture interior design, and I would often sit next to him as he would like adjust and edit a lot of his blueprints, and I would show him my drawings, and he would give me really tender and constructive criticism. So yeah, I was always drawn to the arts. I didn't know what graphic design was until I got into college and was presented with, visual communications.

I actually applied for interior design, and then when I found out about this other thing, that show up, shows up in basically everywhere. I was like, yeah, no, that's what I want to do.

Christian Solorzano [07:09]

What was the first thing that you like deliberately designed, or what was that introduction to you consciously graphic designing something?

Kristin Lueke [07:17]

Oh, I love that question. Well, I always paid attention to signage when I grew up in Saudi Arabia, and they always would really with audacious big neon signs, because it's not a walking city. The weather is too hot. So, when you're in the car, there's a lot of color and a lot of, stimulating signage. And I always paid attention to those things, and I would often pick the ones that I liked and the ones that I didn't.

And I remember at some point— I can't remember exactly at what age— but going home and sort of designing my store sign. I can't even remember what it was called, but I remember significantly drawing it and calling this like, essentially it's wayfinding. It's graphic design. At the time, I didn't know that was what it was called, but that's my first memory of like a graphic design piece.

Christian Solorzano [08:16]

And then what about you, Kristin? What was your relationship to creativity growing up?

Nermin Moufti [08:22]

Oh boy. I think I have probably been writing and telling stories since I was a very small, probably kind of annoying child. I started writing poetry when I was 9 years old. We're not gonna say it was good. But I remember in elementary school we had the Reflections— I think it was called the Reflections Creative Arts Contest. And in 4th grade, I submitted my first 2 entries.

One was a poem about what I thought heaven might be, and the other was a piece of music I composed on a little keyboard. And I got some honors in 4th grade for those.

Kristin Lueke [09:10]

Of course you did.

Nermin Moufti [09:10]

I was floored. But we had our honoring ceremony at a local senior center, and I got to play the piano for the residents and Certainly not well, but they asked the students, the children, to read their work aloud, and it was just so gratifying and affirming and lovely and beautiful. And I was kind of an awkward kid and didn't have a lot of friends, so it was really lovely to realize so young that there were ways to feel good and to feel interesting and whole.

And I just moved toward that, and I just kept writing and started figuring out that you could pursue it in more serious ways. I wouldn't say that pursuing writing in more serious ways, or any art in more serious ways, is always the path. But for me, being able to study creative writing in undergrad and then again in graduate school, and to pursue other writers and be in community with other writers, it has been an endlessly gratifying experience.

And in many ways, I think what I'm hearing me say is that the community that creativity has granted me, the people that the pursuit of art has brought into my life. That's kind of where the juice has always been for me. I love writing. I really do. I love reading poetry. I love reading novels and nonfiction, and I really love the people who also love writing and reading those things.

Christian Solorzano [10:42]

Yeah. And as a kid, was there any specific writing or writer that stood out to you, or, had a big impact on you?

Nermin Moufti [10:49]

Oh, good question. I was a pretty prodigious reader. I pursued the classics of the Western canon pretty early, and I think I did that just because it felt like the thing to do. This is what school was saying, do this. So I was like reading Great Expectations maybe a little young and finding it super boring, but was told that this is important literature. No offense, Charles Dickens. Something for everyone. But I also read more age-appropriate stuff. Roald Dahl.

Read every single one of my mother's Mary Higgins Clark books. Would always start with the last page just to make sure that everyone was gonna end up okay. For anyone who's not familiar, those were like mysteries where often a young woman was in peril. She was always okay at the end.

Sorry about the spoilers. So yeah, it's, I kind of jumped around a lot and read whatever I could get my hands on. I don't really know that I had any favorite authors until I reached high school, at which point I was introduced to the works of Toni Morrison and Gabriel García Márquez. And just more broadly, the genre of magical realism kind of unlocked something in my heart. I actually have this sticker. On my water bottle that reads Magical Nonlinear Thinking for President.

So yeah, I think Milan Kundera and these writers who are writing from a space of, as Nermin was mentioning earlier, living under oppressive regimes, has done for art something pretty extraordinary in the last few centuries. And not to turn a corner too quickly, but living in times that feel incredibly scary and uncertain, I think art and creative works have tremendous potential not just to soothe us but also to offer a path forward.

So I think I gravitated towards those writers once I realized I could have my own point of view on what good art looks like, or at least the art that I wanted to be in contact with.

Christian Solorzano [13:11]

Yeah, thank you so much for sharing. And I, and I'm very interested in hearing how the two of you bring that perspective into the world of business, into creating brands. I was, I was listening to your lecture, Nermin, that you gave where you talked about the false sense of urgency that, our culture tends to operate under. So I'm very interested in that. How do you, how do you bring in these kind of conversations to clients and stakeholders? And how do people respond?

Kristin Lueke [13:43]

That's a great question. Kristin, do you want to chime in, or should I charge forward?

Nermin Moufti [13:51]

Charge forward. I'll jump in with color as needed.

Christian Solorzano [13:54]

Love it.

Kristin Lueke [13:57]

So our first introduction to this idea of unlearning false urgency really surfaced, I want to say, Kristin, late 2020. We had both attended a webinar on white supremacist culture in the creative industry, and that was put together by Creative Reaction Lab, and it was truly eye-opening. There are a lot of tenets of white supremacist culture that are deeply Seated in our industry, unfortunately, and we were just part of it. That was our water. Some of the things were the sense of false urgency.

Other things were things like, more is better, that the work is only worth something when it's gotten the accolades. A sense of, there was paternalism. There is a whole can of worms. I won't delve too deep into it, but this idea stuck with us very well. I mean, obviously, at a time where the world was shifting, there was so much uncertainty. We were— 2 of us were parenting in a pandemic.

We were starting to kind of build this business around a set of beliefs that drive how we want to work and how we want to make work. Unlearning false urgency was so important. And so when we're onboarding now a new project and your clients, we have our ears to hear, is there something there that is a real true timeline driver? Or is it just being driven by the sense of false urgency? Because that's the water that everyone's been swimming in.

And it's not— it's hard to kind of shake off. We actually have almost like a— we work in frameworks a lot. We geek out on frameworks. And so one of the things that we've developed with Lauren is kind of a set of criteria, almost like different color flags when we're onboarding a project. It's like a red, orange, and green flag.

And one of the green flags that we look for in someone we want to collaborate with is that they understand that the work is more about the process than the final outcome. And the process cannot be rushed. It needs to be thoughtful and intentional. And even when you have a tight timeline, you can hopefully design it in a way that it gives— yeah, it gives the process precedent over, well, let's just get to the final deliverable.

And when we feel like there's misalignment between us and our collaborators on the importance of honoring that process, we might just say, well, we may not be the right fit. For this. That doesn't mean every project's gonna drag on for 6 months.

But, depending on what is the ask and how we, want to make sure that we intentionally cover everything before we get to the final outcome, we try as much as possible to ensure that criteria of no false urgency is like checked off right from the get-go. Kristin, you want to add anything to that?

Nermin Moufti [17:13]

Yeah, I think taking a step sort of to the side, what resisting a sense of false urgency falls under more broadly is like we're really interested as a business in change. We are really interested in challenging our own assumptions and particularly where process and approach is concerned. I think in creative work, it's— you could really lull yourself into a sense of the way I do it is best. Our process is perfect. And as Nermin mentioned, the process is everything.

So I think we've worked on creative teams before where we feel like this is the process, this is how it works. Clients kind of have to meet us in here rather than us meeting them where they are and figuring out how to take the next step forward together. I think it's really easy for design teams to leave clients behind.

And so the change that we're trying to make when we say we want you to adopt a new mindset about who and what your company is and who you serve and the value you provide. We can say that we want to help introduce an organization that purports to make a massive change in people's lives every day depending on their lived experience. But if we as a design team are not bringing our partners along, that change might not take hold.

It might not live in their minds and in their hearts the way it does in ours. So even down to how we approach the work, we have to be willing to consider what can we try differently this time? I think we're always looking for opportunities to experiment. And yes, we love our frameworks. We have a general sense of how the process, capital P, works writ large.

We do our discovery, we explore ideas, we work from abundance, we start to, converge in a strategy that makes sense, and then execute. Yes, okay, that's the process. But where are we plugging in questions around equity? Where are we plugging in questions around the how are you, the client and our partner in this, going to take this work and circulate it on your team in such a way that it earns purchase and it gets buy-in and people start swimming in the same direction?

And I think we've both worked on a lot of projects where we've done great work. The processes felt great. Maybe the client came along with us, maybe they didn't. But at the end of it just sort of stagnates, and we don't really see it take hold.

So I think we've tried to ingrain it into our DNA as a company that we want to work with people who want to make the change and are willing to put in the work to make the change, whatever it looks like. But when Nermin was talking about our red flags, green flags, in the green flag column, one of the first bullet points is, are they interested in change?

Christian Solorzano [20:03]

Yeah. Yeah.

Nermin Moufti [20:04]

And we go from there.

Christian Solorzano [20:04]

Yeah, I love that because I do— there's certainly a lot of myths when it comes to the design process and creativity and business. And it's nice. I've been seeing that there's more studios and agencies who are willing to sort of dismantle a lot of those myths and to do things differently. So I always think it's like, it's so brave and bold to actually, create an entire studio, an entire practice that's rooted in this like ethos of change with like capital C.

Nermin Moufti [20:39]

So yeah, and it is a practice, right? Which is like exactly the whole idea behind our name is a sort of Hopefully an embrace of the humility to understand, we're not doing this perfectly, and it is all just practice, and we will continue to improve and iterate and see what works next.

Christian Solorzano [20:58]

Yeah. And there's also just so much confidence in the word practice itself, because I think sometimes designers might position themselves as an authority or as this, savior that's, it's gonna come in and we know what's best for you, and that's what we do because we're the experts.

To admit like, hey, we're just— this is practice, I think is a nice— like, I don't know, I equate it with like just playfulness and co-creating. So let's go into— let's talk a little bit about everything leading up to the inception of Field of Practice. What were some of those conversations like when yeah, when that was, when that was in the works?

Nermin Moufti [21:48]

Well, the first thing you should know is we were holding hands. We were sitting on a bench on opposite sides with masks on and just sort of reached out toward each other like, we're going to do this, aren't we?

Kristin Lueke [22:01]

Slicing all the way. I think that it was a very— I'll speak for myself. It was, it was almost very like, duh, why wouldn't we do this? Kind of like a very seamless, effortless connection.

Yes. When we were both working together at Firebelly, I, it was, it was a place where I started to really wholeheartedly believe that design is always better when strategy and design work hand in hand. There's a lot of studios that will do amazing, incredible design work, and it's a process, and it's their process, and I honor that and respect that.

But it was the first studio that I worked at that really kind of, with Kristin's kind of leadership of that strategy kind of arm, married the two together really beautifully. And in my mind, it created like a mental shift on how I would approach like a visual identity. It's like, how could I not start from there? She had built together like a strategic framework, I think, with our colleague at the time, Alabaster McDonald.

Christian Solorzano [23:15]

Brilliant.

Kristin Lueke [23:16]

As well. They both built together sort of a framework that sets up the design process to be deeply strategic and not just, coming from a place of subjective or aesthetic preferences. And so I just fall in love with that process, obviously fall in love with the people I work with, fall in love with working with Kristin, and then when our paths ended at Firebelly and we were on the other side the timelines were kind of in parallel, sort of. It was around summer-fall time.

I can't remember exact dates, but I remember we were taking that stroll and just, it's a great time of uncertainty. There's no steady paychecks that are coming because we had like quit our jobs. There was a pandemic, schools were off. There was a lot of just like things that were ambiguous and unsure, but in a way it was a beautiful, a great place to be, to kind of lean into that discomfort a little bit and see like, how do we want to feel?

I remember we sat on Kristin's deck and we started with some like grounding, like almost like a vision board exercise of just like how do we want to feel when we do this work? And just beautiful prompts and provocations that we journaled together. And it started from a place of like, well, obviously we love working with each other. Why would we stop now? But let's talk about what are some of the things that we want to drive this forward.

And it just so happens that I had a long-term freelance client that I had done work for. That's— I think that was the laugh earlier. Yeah, it was a little insane. It was a little insane.

I had a lot of my own unlearning to do. There was a lot of freelance habits where false urgency was there for sure. Oh, if I don't do it, who's going to do it? It'll get done. It's fine. So this project, really exciting project came about. It's for this dental industry that was really rethinking experience of— sorry, dental practice that was rethinking the experience of going to the dentist. They are viral TikTok influencers now. Super fun crowd.

But I had this relationship with this client and they wanted us to reimagine the entire patient experience of walking to the dentist from every single touchpoint. So there was a lot of strategy thinking there in terms of empathy and journey mapping the patient's experience as well as like, what are the artifacts and design things that you need to really transform what it's like to go to the dentist because everybody hates it. It sucks. So immediately I was like, the eye sparks.

It was, I think, the end of, I want to say, 2020.

Nermin Moufti [26:17]

It was.

Kristin Lueke [26:17]

It was like right before the holidays. And there was a sense of like, well, we need to open by X date. I can't remember when. I was like, all right, let me, let me, let me, let me have some conversations. Let me talk. I remember bringing it to Kristin. It was an insane timeline. I don't think we had a name. We barely had a bank account. Lauren, at that point, came about to just help us structure some things.

Maybe Kristin, I'll toss it on to you because my memory's—

Nermin Moufti [26:50]

So Nermin had the client that was raring to go. I was desperate to take just like a month off of work for the first time in my adult life. Adult life. I wanted to just like not work for a few weeks. And I had a plan to just kind of do a mini sabbatical out here in the foothills of the Santa Fe Mountains in New Mexico and just like chill out for a bit.

And it felt wonderful and exciting to know that on the other side of the sabbatical, there was already work waiting, right? But it also did kind of reshape what that sabbatical looked like because it meant going into the hole with Nermin and Lauren and figuring out on satellite Wi-Fi how to, get on a call when I'm out there, totally off the grid so that we could start having planning discussions around, shoot, what does it take to start a business?

And this is where we pulled Lauren in. Lauren was my roommate and best friend in college. We were teammates on Princeton softball team. And the day that we met, we just hit it off and never left each other's side, though she now lives in Boston, and I am recently moved from Chicago to Santa Fe. We have stayed in each other's lives all these years, and it was in fact about a year before Nermin and I had that fateful conversation. Lauren reached out to me.

We hadn't spoken in a few months, not for any reason, but that's— it's just one of those friendships. You have 2 phone calls a year, and it feels like you never miss a beat, and maybe go visit each other. But she reached out to me, just a simple text message saying, hey, lady, you gonna start your own practice yet, or what? Let me know when you're ready. And I was like, what is this girl hearing when I'm giving her my biannual updates?

What is she hearing me say that I'm not hearing me say? So I remembered that, and I reached out to her when Nermin and I started dreaming and scheming and said, yo, I think it's gonna happen. Help because she had all of this experience in business and operational strategy and helped launch startups. So she kind of coached Nermin and I through the initial steps, and it eventually became super clear that we just needed her in this mess with us.

And it also occurred to us, there are a lot of other small businesses out there and big ones that need a brain like Lauren's on their side, even for just a few months at a time. So we talked her into it. She came on board. I was on sabbatical on a really crappy Wi-Fi connection, and we were trying to figure it out together. Lauren brought the frameworks. We had the prompts.

We brought a lot of woo-woo and magic into it as well, lighting candles, carving words into the side, sort of chanting and making sigils together. And this was how we would start our business conversations. Who's our core audience? How are we going to reach them? What are our expenses? But it was a really nice way from the jump to bring in a bit of all of us into the business.

We really wanted it to feel like ours, not just a blueprint or a template you could download off the internet, but something that would work for us and for our lives.

Christian Solorzano [29:59]

And I'm looking right now at your— on your website, you mentioned how we do it and you have change and sort of These dimensions of change include imagination, ingenuity, trust, and co-creation. And I'm really interested in the co-creation aspect of this because I think I, again, I've been noticing a big shift in design where the conversations are no longer so much about designing for, but it's more designing with.

And that is co-creation. So hearing the two of you speak about the way that Field of Practice was created, how do you, how do the two of you facilitate those same conversations with businesses that are perhaps trying to accomplish, very similar goals?

Nermin Moufti [30:54]

Ooh, boy, howdy. How do we do it, Nermin? More slowly, for sure. It takes— co-creation takes time. Moving at the speed of trust. Trust is another key ingredient in there. And establishing that trust, it's not something to take for granted. And yes, we could come in with all of our experience and expertise, and that doesn't necessarily mean that someone on the client side is going to trust our vision for their baby, right?

So it's really important that we take the time to get to know who we're working with. Nermin, do you actually want to talk a bit about just sort of our Standard series of conversations to try to get to know people before we decide if we want to work with them?

Kristin Lueke [31:34]

Absolutely. I think the key thing about co-creation is that we try to tease out from early on, even before scoping anything, if there's a real appetite for co-creation, because we can talk about it and we can have the capacity and the interest for it. But if that capacity and the interest is not met on the client's side, it's co-creation like internally, but it's not happening. And the magic, the transformation actually happens when it's going both ways.

And I love that you asked that question, Kristin, because we are now working on a project that has been very much an excellent example of co-creation, even from the, from the scoping. And so we have a very kind of thoughtful flow of onboarding new projects. I'll run it like really sort of quickly. It starts with the basic sort of screener call to figure out what do they want? Are we the right fit? Is this the right project?

Is this a natural hand glove, high quality standard fit situation? And then we move from there and it's usually 1 or 2 of us. This is like super quick, like what is the what, how, why? And then we move into like a full introduction. This is where the 3 of us are there. A lot of times, Kristin and I tend to like focus on the creative pieces.

Lauren comes in with the things that I don't know that I didn't know, and we'll ask all the things, the risk mitigation things, all the things about like, okay, this is what you want to do, but do you have actually the capacity to execute on it and have it think long term? She's wonderful with that. From there, depending on the size of the project, we might offer something we call Opportunity Framing Workshop.

Sometimes we get clients that think that they want a website or think that they want a specific solution. But they'll like— they know the problem but don't know the solution, or they know the solution but actually are not really clear on what the problem is. And so that workshop helps identify the areas where it hurts. And the opportunities where we can come in and help. And this happens before we've even like written a proposal. Again, it doesn't happen for every single project.

Some projects might be smaller or bigger, but for the bigger ones, it's always healthier to start from a place of let's gather as much data as we can so that mid-project we're not like, being surprised by like, oh, this is a real need that we had, and no one knew about it. Now we're talking about it. So that opportunity framing workshop is already like the first moment of co-creation because we are doing those exercises and they are feeding us with their ideas. And it's very generative.

It's usually, a lot of like stimulating exercises. It's typically super fun for them too. Sometimes it's therapeutic. Then we go back and play back everything that we heard. And there's a— there's often a real moment of like a light bulb turning. It's like, oh, we gave you all this. So they start to lean into the co-creation piece, and it really sets the tone for the entire process throughout when we're starting from that place.

We've even done it in a way where like we've drafted a proposal into a Google Doc, shared it with the client and said, hey, did we hear everything that you needed? Do you want to add anything here? Like this is like a co-created even Google Doc to create the proposal.

Nermin Moufti [35:10]

And then we go and make the scope of work and what that does is it allows us an opportunity to show our clients, here's how we plan on you being a part of this process. So before we sign anything, you're agreeing to be a part of this process with us, and you've been with us every step of the way to determine what are the priorities, how are we going to do this, how long is it going to take.

So it's not like we're going behind the curtain and coming back and saying, this is how we're magically going to make it happen. Ideally, by that point, the client understands, here's my commitment, here's my stake in this process, and we enter into it together. And really quickly, I just want to shout out George and Sarah a.

At Greater Good Studio, from whom we learned the opportunity framing approach, and Mary Foyter of MF Design, who's been a longtime collaborator of ours— a longtime collaborator, it's been a year and a half, but that's half of our business's life at this point. But she really transformed our scoping practice and made it was Y'all, it was scary the first time. She's like, so this is shared with the prospect. And I was like, what? This is a messy Google document. It's got comments all over it.

But we saw the value. She opened our eyes to it. And I don't know if there's any going back.

Kristin Lueke [36:27]

Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Beautifully said.

Christian Solorzano [36:31]

I love that. And I was hoping, Nermin, that you would mention the creative obituary, how often we're given creative briefs. And that's, the way that the work is done. But creative obituary, could you talk a little bit about that?

Kristin Lueke [36:48]

One thing that I've been really loving about building our own business on our own terms is that you set your own rules and you set your own values. And like Kristin alluded to earlier, we're always experimenting with new ways of thinking and making and doing and collaborating.

And so when Coming from that place, it's almost impossible, just like with everything, to remove your personal life and experiences and what's like deeply impacting you at the moment from the way that you work and show up to work and produce work. And at the time, as I mentioned at the brand new talk, there was a lot of grief.

And it's one of those things that when you lose someone or a pet or a relative, it's, it fundamentally changes who you are, especially if you're a creator. Creative soul, especially if you're someone who generates things into the world, makes things into the world. So it was very much like our water, and in a way I'm super grateful that it helped set some certain beliefs that were already kind of there. They were dormant, but they were almost like enhanced by these like life-changing experiences.

When we started by saying, well, how do we want to feel? When we enter a project or a process. The creative obituary is absolutely no different in sort of saying, well, if we imagine years from now, how do we want to feel about this project that came about? Let's say if it folded. And that's essentially what an obituary does. You're recapping and resourcing someone's legacy.

And if this project or this client doesn't have the potential, or we cannot see from the get-go that there is a beautiful legacy that leaving— that they might be leaving in their communities, in their world, in a cause that we will wholeheartedly, write our name on forever and ever, then what is it worth? Worth doing all this work now. So let's think about the end to shape the beginning. So that's where that kind of the idea of the creative obituary came.

It was, directly correlated to a life experience that I was, really in the thick of. But it was a nice mental shift to kind of think far ahead, think about the to shape the beginning.

Christian Solorzano [39:28]

Yeah, no, I love that. It reminds me of, and I've spoken about this on previous episodes with previous guests, about there's this theory called the 7th generation theory that is about taking into consideration the wisdom 7 generations into the past and also considering the legacy of what you're creating 7 generations into the future. So when I hear the both of you speak about the ethos of field of practice, I just think about that. That's what naturally comes to mind. So I love that.

And is there anything in particular right now that is exciting to both of you within the collective design industry as a whole? And what are— I guess the better question is, what are the both of you hopeful Wow.

Kristin Lueke [40:24]

Yes, such great questions.

Nermin Moufti [40:25]

We recently, Nermin and I, just before I moved out of Chicago, had dinner with a former colleague of ours, Nick Adam, who's now at Span. And sitting around that table with he and his wife, who also started her own practice, Daylight Design, in Chicago, there was something incredibly inspiring and energizing about Recognizing that we are all trying to build different kinds of businesses. We all love design work.

We all love the work that we've been doing, and we're all super hungry to figure out ways to challenge our assumptions and build businesses in new, exciting manners. And it's just that spirit, I think, of experimentation, that curiosity that seems to be taking hold among our peers who are moving into leadership positions who are running their own practices, that we all to an extent recognize that something needs to change in our industry.

We could put our fingers on the pain points, we can point out where it has hurt. And we don't necessarily know the answers, but we're committed to trying different things. And here's what I think is really exciting. Conversations like this, conversations like the one with Nick and Lyndon, the conversations we're having with Mary all the time, the conversations I've had with George Sarah, at Greater Good, we are all sharing what we are learning, not from a place of— sometimes it's just straight up wisdom, right?

Sometimes we have lessons and insights to impart to one another, but more often it's questions. And it's the questions that we're asking each other and our willingness to stumble through our wondering together. That to me is where the money is, right?

Kristin Lueke [42:15]

Yeah.

Nermin Moufti [42:16]

That's what I'm in it for. That's what I think is energizing. We are all trying to figure out something big that we can't even quite name yet, but we know that it feels like it might just determine the rest of our careers. So yeah, it's scary and it's uncertain, but we're doing it together. And that to me, it rules. It's beautiful.

Kristin Lueke [42:38]

I love this work. I love that you referenced that, Kristin, so much. I think the word that just keeps coming up to me when I hear this, and yes, I share the same hope and excitement, is just the support, like the water that we're in, this feels supportive. There isn't like this, oh, this is, this is how we do things, and we gotta hold on to it and keep our cards close to our chests because this is our way and our process.

There's a radical generosity that's happening in our creative field that I don't think I was very— I mean, it shouldn't be radical, right? But it wasn't there. It was a little bit like, well, this is our way and this is our, and keep it, keep it secret, keep it thing. But it's like, no, the sharing economy is working, is in motion, and the wheels of reciprocity are turning, and it is exciting and hopeful and yeah, really life-giving.

Christian Solorzano [43:38]

Yeah, it reminds me of just how much agency we have and how much agency we have to tap into when we're in those, in those conditions with the people that sort of bring that out of us. So I definitely relate to that. Are there any big questions that keep the both of you up at night?

Nermin Moufti [43:56]

I mean, for me, and it doesn't sound like a question because it's just a word, but trust me when I say there's a question mark on the end of this: patience. How do I continue to cultivate that muscle? How do I build that muscle to build more space between— and this is Nermin and I've been saying this back and forth for a year— how do we build more space between stimulus and response?

Because again, this culture of manufactured urgency has programmed into us that high achievement means having the answer, the solution immediately. But here's the thing I'm realizing: the solution and the answer that comes to only comes to me because of the way my brain and my lived experience works. That does not take into account the brains and lived experiences of the people I am working with and for. And so what seems right to me is not going to seem right or intuitive to everybody else.

And I have at times become so frustrated with that. And how much frustration, how much stress, how much anxiety have I manufactured For myself by wondering, why doesn't anyone just want to believe me or agree with me when I haven't done the work to have the hard conversation and to create the space for everyone else's experiences and ideas? So, I— we've been talking about this ethos and the practice we want to build. It's all aspirational. We're practicing it.

We're moving toward it, but it's not necessarily in Intuitive skill for me to be engaged in a truly co-creative process. It is hard work, and how can I do better at it tomorrow is the question that keeps me up.

It's less like sometimes it's, oh, I acted too quickly in that conversation, or I tried to propose a solution too quickly, and now we're on the hook to deliver something on Friday that we could have said, give us a moment to regroup and we'll get back to you on that, right? How many times have I done that to us? Nermin. So how can I do it differently tomorrow? How can I be more patient? How can I be more collaborative?

It sounds silly, but that truly does keep me up. What can I do differently? You have to claim your agency and be willing to change your own behaviors, right? Nermin, what keeps you up at night?

Kristin Lueke [46:22]

Well, first of all, cosign, retweet, underline, and all the above. And it's not silly. It's self-aware and thoughtful and important. Related somewhat to this, what keeps me up at night too is also an idea we've been tossing around a lot, is this idea of, yes, we're unlearning, and yes, we're learning, but there's an intellectual learning that happens here, and then there's in the mind, because this is audio.

And then there's the practice of what we have learned, like actually embodying. So if we're intellectualizing the importance of patience and putting space between stimulus and response, how are we actually practicing it and like training that muscle to just take it from the mind into an actual daily practice? To Kristin's point, so like when one of us is holding the mirror to another and saying, I need this, is it registering in me as self-criticism, or is it just completely detached from who I am?

And it's just a need that being said, and I My job is to listen and hear it and support that need versus it completely or immediately like registering as oh this was a criticism there was something wrong that I did and then there's like a tendency like to come and defend that's something that sort of keeps me up night it's like no learn that the difference between like stating a need and it having like direct relation to who you are and how you work, and like find the balance between understanding what you're learning and actually practicing it.

Again, I don't know if it's a question or like, but it's the question, I guess, is like, am I doing that, or am I at least getting closer to doing that? Because progress makes— practice makes progress, right? That's right.

Nermin Moufti [48:19]

I mean, I think the question that we're both asking in a way is just how?

Kristin Lueke [48:24]

How?

Nermin Moufti [48:24]

Asked everyone all at once.

Christian Solorzano [48:26]

I don't know.

Nermin Moufti [48:26]

Let's try again tomorrow.

Kristin Lueke [48:28]

Right. Are we getting closer? And if the answer is yes, then we sleep.

Christian Solorzano [48:35]

I love that. And is there— so one of the things that I always like to ask our guests is, I like having a— I like asking the guests to provide some kind of call to action for other leaders in the creative industry or other leaders in design. So is there anything in particular that comes to mind that you feel like as a creative community we could do better at?

How do we, how do we drive forward with that agency that we've been talking about? Any thoughts there?

Nermin Moufti [49:17]

I think it's the same question I have for everyone in every space I move through. What do you have to offer today? What do you want to learn? Approaching in a spirit of cooperation and collectivity, we all have something to offer. It might not be the same day to day. There are times the world that we live in and the water we're swimming in is taking a bit more out of us than we wish it would.

We might be low on spoons, and maybe all you have to offer is a question or a willingness to listen and bear witness to how someone else is doing things and navigating things. But I think when we approach each other willing to give what we can on any particular day and willing to learn what is available in the room? What is the conversation that can only happen in this room? That comes from Adrienne Maree Brown's Emergent Strategy. There's a conversation that can only happen here.

Your job is to find it. I think we might all be really well served by adopting that mindset. That's what creates those beautiful evenings sitting around the dinner table with your peers and discussing the future of your industry. You don't come out with clear answers, but you come out with a lot of really good ideas.

Christian Solorzano [50:33]

I love that. I love, I love just the idea of finding conversations.

Kristin Lueke [50:38]

Yes, like those. Mine is not as profound. Let's just put it out there. But this is what's like coming ripe and raw to me right now. I think in the industry we hear a lot about like Especially for young designers, have courage to share your work and be brave, as if it's easy, like you switch it on. One of the things that both Kristin and I did that maybe cultivated courage is we both did a course in stand-up comedy. Oh my God.

It wasn't, it wasn't to switch our careers. We also hear a lot about like imposter syndrome, which we now know is not a real thing. It's indicative of a bigger problematic system that's not truly supportive to growing designers. But without delving into that can of worms, I mean, one of the reasons why I, I'd watched Kristin take this comedy class, I was absolutely floored by the talent.

And I just want to sneak it in, everything that I've learned about agonizing Over words and being thoughtful about the words that I use that are like events, to quote Maya Angelou really casually, was from Kristin. Was from Kristin. I have become like— I have grown so much. And even just like asking the questions about how am I conveying this idea, how might I just frame it in a positive way rather than leading from the negative. So I'm gonna sneak it in any way I can.

So much gratitude for everything that you teach me every day about how I speak and communicate. But anyway, going back to stand-up comedy, so I'd watched her do the course. It's a 6-week course. She then went on stage with an original set of, I don't know, 6, 7 minutes of original, comedy material, closed that evening. Without thinking too much, I'm like, obviously I'm signing up. I signed Every single drive to that class twice a week or once a week, I can't remember.

It was like giving birth. And I can, I can say that I gave birth and it, it's, it was really hard. I ended up closing as well that night of the opening, but there was something so profoundly courageous about standing on a stage with absolutely untapped original material, and your job is to tell a story, and it has to be funny to a crowd that you don't know.

And I think trying something that's that scary unlocks something in the creative space where, yeah, I can show you a rough work, and imposter syndrome, whatever, we'll shit. Sorry. But yeah, just look at my work, make it better. Because that's what comedians do every day. For them to, actually like come up with material, their practice, their iteration where we're in like Figma and Illustrator and like hidden and no one sees it, theirs is on stage. And they're gonna bomb.

And the only way to do well is to bomb because that's how you test your material. Go to open mics, Put yourself out there. And mad respect for anyone who chooses that as their life purpose and career. But I recommend it to any creative, any person. If you're mildly interested in stand-up comedy or improv, do it. If you have zero interest, still do it. I have never regretted that decision. Will I do it ever again?

Nermin Moufti [54:23]

Absolutely not. Glad we did it.

Kristin Lueke [54:27]

Glad we did it. That's my call to action.

Christian Solorzano [54:30]

I love that. I don't think I'm quite there yet to do something like that.

Nermin Moufti [54:34]

Well, if you wait until you're ready, you're never gonna do it. There you go.

Kristin Lueke [54:39]

There you go.

Christian Solorzano [54:40]

And is there anything coming up or anything that the both of you are excited or want to announce? I saw the recent launch of Dentology, the new project. I saw that on, I think it was like on LinkedIn maybe or somewhere else.

Nermin Moufti [54:56]

Yeah, they're scaling, they're growing like crazy. And the work that we got to do for them, they've been able to take it and operationalize it and scale that blueprint into the rest of their spaces. So go Dentology, keep growing, keep showing people there's a different way to go to the dentist that doesn't suck quite as bad. Dentology is a cool one. We've got a big project that will hopefully be launching Later this year, early next year. We'll talk about that though. Follow us on social media.

We're gonna start actually sharing our work. We're trying to launch a portfolio site later this summer. That, as it turns out, is a whole project. And we're trying to do that in time for the brand new conference in Chicago, September 23rd.

Christian Solorzano [55:48]

And you're speaking at it, I saw. Yeah.

Nermin Moufti [55:53]

Well, Nermin took the stage last year and they invited me this year. Big shout out to Armin and the crew. They're very kind, very generous with their platform. So that'll be really exciting. I'll be back in Chicago for that, crashing at Nermin's place. Please find us and hug us. And I don't know, let's go get a hot dog or something.

Christian Solorzano [56:16]

So with that said, we're almost at time, but I just want to say thank you so much to the both of you for taking the time. If anyone wants to get a hold of the both of you to continue this conversation, is there a best way for people to get in touch?

Nermin Moufti [56:31]

Hell yeah, there is. Nermin, tell them the best way.

Kristin Lueke [56:34]

Absolutely. Whatever makes sense, whether social or email, nermin@fieldofpractice.com or kristin@fieldofpractice.com. Or if you wanted the 3 of Hello@fieldofpractice.com just comes into our inbox. So we'd love to hear from you.

Nermin Moufti [56:53]

Say hello.

Kristin Lueke [56:54]

Yeah.

Christian Solorzano [56:55]

All right. With that said, any parting words? Any last words of wisdom for the listener?

Nermin Moufti [57:02]

I would just say, Kristin, thank you. These have been marvelous, thoughtful, probing questions. And yeah, man, you found the conversation in the room. Everybody go do that. Go ask someone you love a question.