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.

Nick Adam [00:44]

Thank you.

Christian Solorzano [00:56]

Hello. Today I'm your host, Christian Solorzano, founder of the Chicago Graphic Design Club, and I'm joined by Underscore team member Jaime Cisneros.

Jaime Cisneros [01:06]

Hey y'all I'm Jaime Cisneros. I am a board member of the Chicago Graphic Design Club. I help run our podcast as well as our book club discussion.

Christian Solorzano [01:15]

And we're super excited to be speaking with our guest today, Nick Adam. Nick Adam is a designer based in Chicago. In 2018, he graduated with an MFA in graphic design from RISD. He's currently a Design Principal at the design studio Span, and prior to that, he was an Associate Principal at Thirst, and before that, a Strategic Director at Firebelly. He describes himself as strategic and values-driven, his work focusing on detail and the power of identity.

He uses design as a means to optimistically experiment and create work that leads to rich and diverse life experiences. He views graphic design as a way to connect us all and views the role of the designer as a mirror that reflects our truth. His work has been exhibited at the Design Museum of Chicago, Letterform Archive, Newberry Library, the Milton Glaser Design Center and Archives, amongst other places. Nick Adam's work, for me, sets the bar.

I admire his attention to detail, craft, and devotion to the field of graphic design. So thank you so much for being here, Nick. Very pleased to have you here.

Nick Adam [02:23]

Christian, Jaime, I greatly appreciate your time today and the desire to talk to me. Thanks for the time and space. Of course.

Christian Solorzano [02:35]

So let's get into the first question that I'm very curious about. Tell us how you got into graphic design.

Nick Adam [02:43]

Yeah, well, thanks, Christian. I feel like there's a couple different origin stories that I can think of. One is quite silly, and I'm not sure if it's true. I maybe made it up sometime in my imagination, but there was a moment I think we all experience, within like kind of Western education where you're in maybe kindergarten and you take a crayon and you, create a silhouette of your hand, and then you begin adding details to it, and all of a sudden you drew a turkey.

And I think that actually was the first moment I was kind of interested in kind of thing— making creative things or kind of distorting perception. But I, that's kind of a much younger thing. The first kind of pathway into graphic design and really letterform making was through graffiti. So bubble letters with spray-painted in Rust-Oleum Fat Black with fat caps. I grew up within a lot of underground microcultures, maybe one might call that. So the early to mid-'90s punk rock, rave, and graffiti scenes in Chicago.

Christian Solorzano [04:11]

So what was some of the— what was some of that design content that you were consuming back then? Was it publications? I'm imagining it was music, so things probably like album artwork and such. Anything specific that comes to mind as something that just drew your attention and sort of, yeah, just got cemented into your mind and allowed you to want to pursue this as a career?

Nick Adam [04:39]

Yeah, interesting. I think definitely as a younger person, back then in my teenage years, the word design didn't exist. I didn't know what design was. I wasn't conscious if I was consuming some sort of designed medium. But back then, I was extremely interested in what now I would call identity-making. And essentially what a graffiti writer does is makes identity through the selection of placements, the modes of writing, the style of letterforms, and the selection of a name.

And so if I think back, my interest early on was always in this idea of identity-making, identity creation. But back then it was just kind of being inspired by letterforms. But if I were to say the design mediums that kind of were around that I was excited by actually were flyers of kind of two polar ends, punk rock flyers to go to places like McGregor's in Chicago or the Fireside Bowl. And so those things tended to be pretty crude, one-color Xerox cut or drawn.

And then on that other end of the spectrum, Chicago had a massive rave scene in the '90s. If you can imagine 5,000 young folks going to a place like the Route 66 Roller Rink on Martin Luther King to see Daft Punk perform for $10 and a can of soup. Wow.

Those types of parties, the flyers were the polar opposite. Multiple, 6-color, 8-color jobs with foil, with die cuts. They were fantastical. And so I really like those kind of extremes back then of like, oh, going kind of hardcore or going kind of fantastical. When I think about myself as a young person, this trajectory of being involved in punk rock culture or rave culture, it was kind of escaping the things that were around me.

The idea of thriving for something crude and rash like punk rock was this desire for feeling. And then this other polar end the fantastical, the things that existed within rave culture. It was this ability to move out of reality a little bit. But interestingly enough, the kind of design aesthetics of those things that existed really within flyers that you would see at record shops kind of had those types of aesthetics. Always custom letters. Kind of really interesting to think back, kind of—

Christian Solorzano [07:46]

Well, it seems like there's a revival happening right now because I see on Instagram that there's almost like this new— well, I wouldn't call it new, but it seems like it's like that look, that aesthetic of a flyer that's, at a record store or that's, in the middle of the street. It seems like a lot of the— maybe perhaps it's a new generation of designers that are finding, that are discovering this historical movement in design.

I've seen it become— I'm seeing it more and more on Instagram, for instance. I was actually talking with a friend today, and we were— I mean, he was critiquing this idea of today, like things like on Photoshop or on any design software, there's some plugins that will take your design and apply an effect to it to make it look like it's, we paste it on a wall or, it's torn and it's gone through some sort of aging process.

So it's interesting because I do agree, I remember growing up and also experiencing some of that same design before I even knew that design was, a profession or a thing.

And yeah, I just, I remember the smell of the paper and like the way that, yeah, just the way that every, like each print, like no 2 prints were alike. Some of them had some sort of like imperfection to them. So I missed that. And I want to know, what are you, what are your thoughts on this new, I guess if you want to call it like revival in design, that's, it seems like it's paying tribute to that. What are your thoughts on that?

Nick Adam [09:33]

Well, when you were talking about this, kind of revival, I was focusing less on this idea of, there's a filter in Photoshop that makes it look torn, or, these mockups that make it look like it's been, through life, and focusing a bit more on that aesthetic of, is it something aligned or related to, mid-'90s punk or rave culture? And I certainly see that as a movement that's currently happening.

And I think something that's really interesting, again, as a younger person looking at these things, you didn't really know that people made them or who they were or what type of people they were. There was a series of punk rock flyers that— or I'm sorry, there was a series of rave flyers that I'd come across and I'd collect them. They were, again, out of this world. The type was wild, the colors, the type of fluorescence that hit them or the die cuts shapes.

Were always like something like you never experienced before. And that's what these parties were. They were attending something that was unlike any other kind of situation you'd been in.

And what I came to learn later on, looking back at this collection of flyers that I had as, kind of a 14-year-old, I was going to these parties as a, pretty young person. As I became, 19, 20, I was looking at the details on the flyers and there's always a little kind of credit. And it was credit it always credited Struggle Incorporated.

And as a, as I started becoming like, 20-ish, I got my bachelor's as well in graphic design and started doing some re— research like, who is Struggle? What's the struggle? Struggle Incorporated is Cody Hudson. Cody Hudson, a, back then Kenosha, Milwaukee-based designer. Today, a rather important Chicago designer and artist that's celebrated around the world. And so when we start asking ourselves about, oh golly, there's this aesthetic that was, it seems to be connected to the '90s, where is it coming from?

But then we see someone like, Cody kind of operating at extremely high levels of the art culture and design spheres, it's like, oh, I think people are doing their research and they're becoming aware of like, oh, that, this thing that we see that's Cody Hudson today, it's connected to this history of rave flyer making. I also think that the aesthetics of rave flyers or the aesthetics in general carry codes and messages that are kind of attached to truth or attached to a lived history, right?

You see an aesthetic of this rave culture and you feel, you have a memory or an understanding of what a party might have looked like. And back then, these were just like communities of peace, of diversity, of expression, kind of coming together to celebrate each other. And so in these moments where we see a revival of that aesthetic, I feel as though, oh, we have some people that are similarly minded as we were, in the '90s.

We were kind of building up this idea of, independent expression against ideas of, let's say, out-of-control capitalism, war for oil. That's what I think of when I think about subcultures. These subcultures are always a response to something or a reaction to something. And aesthetically, when I see this aesthetic recurring, I think, okay, this is, this is something that's back in the zeitgeist, right? Yeah, we can be gathering together to kind of, fight monoculture.

Christian Solorzano [13:38]

Yeah, I agree. And I also think that there's like hearing you speak about this particular time in design, I feel like context played a big role, and the context of the time and like the music that was happening and like the parties that were happening, like all that kind of stuff. Like it was all its own little, like it's, it was its own universe, if you will. And yeah, that's something I always think about.

Like when I see, when we look at design work in the wild versus when we look at stuff on a screen. I mean, if you're looking at a flyer amongst a bunch of other flyers that are pasted on the wall, to me, that flyer plays a different role when you look at it on a small screen or when you're looking at it on a website or whatnot.

So yeah, that's just something that I always find myself thinking about and like just always questioning is like, what's the context through which people are, adopting this aesthetic? Yeah, that's just that. I don't know, for me, that's just very fascinating, and I'm curious if you have any thoughts on that.

Nick Adam [14:47]

Yeah, Christian, I love that you bring that up. So I've been practicing design for about 20 years now. I really love the process where many people are gathering both on like the creative and the client's end to come together to share ideas. And there's something really unique and magical about the process in which it's many heads kind of yielding these new ideas and new reality, and that's incredible.

And I also extremely love making small details that hold the message or hold the idea that instantly communicate it. However, going back to what you're saying, my favorite thing about graphic design is seeing it used, seeing it in the world, seeing it, as an artifact in a human's hand or on the street past its life. It's evidence that it worked or that it's, it did its job or it did its thing.

So the most exciting parts for me are always when that design is in, is in use. Recently at span, I got to lead the team and a series of clients on like, a federal government, state government level on renaming a fish. And this sounds crazy.

And, it was a multiple-year process, maybe like 30, 40 people involved altogether. When we think about, multiple states and what have you, all the, all the like organizations that had to come together. This engineering firm Tetra Tech was kind of like this overarching crisis solution organization that we had to work with. And again, the collaboration was incredible, working off of like 15 years of research about forming a market for this fish that kind of doesn't— never had a name in the United States.

And so that was incredible. But a couple weeks ago, I was in Springfield, Illinois at the state fair, and they were giving out samples of this fish. They were doing it in taco format. And, I wanted to grab some pictures for memories. And I grabbed a couple pictures of people eating tacos and, holding, artifacts that relate to the graphic design.

And I was like, oh yeah, isn't that cool? And I walked by this garbage can, chock-a-block filled with these food-safe sustainable wax papers that were used to hold the taco. And I was like, you know what, this is the best portfolio picture. It's used. It was, completely filled with these wrappers. There wasn't a lot of evidence of the food. And so that, qualifies as like, what our parents' generation might call the clean plate club.

But here it is in real life. There's always this moment, whether you're making design and showing it in presentations or mocking it up and showing it in presentations, which has to be done, it happens all the time, and it's always speculative at that moment, right?

Jaime Cisneros [18:13]

Yeah.

Nick Adam [18:13]

Here's what it could look like. Doesn't it look real? But then that moment of introducing it to a public, making like again, an artifact of humanity.

There's something new and special there where all of a sudden it being introduced as an artifact into the public sphere means now that millions of ideas can grow from it. And I think that's what I think is most exciting about this idea of like, design on the physical form or it in the world that you're walking past. It has the potential of changing someone's, way of thinking.

Christian Solorzano [18:53]

Yeah, and I think it also just validates its success or lack of success when you're able to, yeah, just see. And I think seeing your work, like in this case, like things in a trash can confirms that it was used and it confirms its success. And I think I don't know, to me, there's just a lot of beauty in that idea of looking at your work as it's like, it did its— it accomplished its function and it's now being put to rest.

And, I don't know, I love that. I recently saw on the internet, I saw that there's a— so as designers, we always use mockups to, place our work in like these beautiful scenarios. And I look and I stumbled upon this website called Focups. And they're the mockups that they present are, they pretty much give people the opportunity to display their designs in bad conditions.

So things like, a business card that's like on the floor or someone that's like on the toilet looking at their phone or like a flag that's like Obscuring like its message. And I don't know, I just found some irony in that people are like, people are recognizing that design is— that design goes beyond just its perfect form, but that it also exists in these other imperfect moments as well.

Nick Adam [20:26]

I love Fock Ops. I saw it about 2 weeks ago and I was just this is great because it's so easy to make a beautiful— and so let me just qualify that term beautiful. It's really easy to make like on-trend, passable, great, quote unquote, great clean graphic design, whatever you wanna call it.

It's a couple tutorials away from everyone. And it's also really easy to mock it up in its perfect conditions. Golly, look at this. Billboard that's never been created, it's a couple clicks in the mouse. But until Fock-Ups, it had to be actually made and like kicked around for it to have that like dusted, used, like earthy and real look. So anyways, yeah, Fock-Ups is actually— I was like, I It's one of those things where I was like, oh, I wish I came up with that idea.

Christian Solorzano [21:34]

Yeah. So I have a question. I have another question. What was the first thing? So as a teenager, you're consuming all this design, visual media. Do you have a memory of like, what was the first thing that you consciously intended to design as a design artifact?

Nick Adam [21:58]

I'm just trying to have my mind race for a second and consider high school. I don't actually think, in high school I definitely like drew flyers, for friends' bands, but I think that was— that feels a little bit more of like— it didn't feel like design to me. In junior high and high school were like the years that I like wrote graffiti. Again, that, it's a form of identity creation but not necessarily design.

I think the like first thing was probably like that I'd consider to be a design project of mine was while I was in undergrad, so probably 2001, probably 2001. I did some rave flyers and that to me was a super big deal and super cool. I really, in high school you would, get out, go to the record shop, and you'd just look at the stacks for flyers. These parties were super illegal.

And you'd look for those, and they were kind of, again, this like, Willy Wonka golden ticket of transcending to another world.

And they were, fantastical, like a golden ticket. And so I always, as a young person, I didn't have designers around me. I didn't know quite what a designer was. I kind of luckily stumbled into this by way of graffiti writing. And my expectations were, golly, I'll probably work at a corporate place making some stuff for something. And the dream was I would make something that people could feel. And as a young person, I defined that as flyers related to music, flyers related to raves.

So my very first one, was for some rave. I can't remember what it's called. It's not in my portfolio today but it sure did mean a lot. I remember I had some cool letterforms and I really, talked to the— talked to the client about them as a, as a, young buck. I was probably like 20 or something.

Jaime Cisneros [24:36]

That's awesome.

Nick Adam [24:36]

But kind of cool, like the a lot of folks in the studio or folks that I mentor, when I hear about their stories, they talk about how high school is filled with design programs. Design wasn't even a word that was introduced in high school, at least to myself. Luckily I had an art teacher that knew my interest in letterforms by sharing an interest in graffiti writing.

And this art teacher brought in a guest artist, but they were a designer and they were actually a type designer that worked for Acender Corporation. And so as a 17-year-old, I had never heard the word design before. I never understood that possibly adults were into the things that I was into. Letterforms. And there's this dude that comes in, a professional that looks like he's, making some form of life out of drawing letters.

And it really blew my mind and really opened me up to going, oh, I actually have a path.

I wanna just take a moment to hear— to say, Christian, I've listened to your podcast before and you shared a little while ago that you, came from an area in which a lot of your friends didn't take the same path as you. And maybe, I forget the terms that you used, but I'll use my own. A lot of my friends that I grew up with, we were involved in these underground cultures. A lot of them didn't make it.

It's— it was incredible that this person came into our classroom and talked about type design, and all of a sudden that was the road into graphic design. And, maybe like 3 years later I made a flyer and was very proud. Yeah.

Christian Solorzano [26:47]

For me it was so my grandmother, she purchased my first computer. It was a Sony Vaio. And I had— it didn't have internet. So for like the first, I would say like year and a half of me with a computer with no internet, all I would do is— I did have some design software. It wasn't Photoshop, it was something else.

But it was just, it was such an exciting time to have a computer with no internet where you could just sort of— where you're sort of forced to create things without really Without any sort of reference point that exists on the computer. For me, my reference points were very similar to you. It was music. And it was like album covers and just the visceral nature of holding like the booklet and smelling it.

And I remember at the time Eminem's album, the Marshall Mathers LP, had just came out. And it was the first album that I purchased where the booklet, like the printed material of the CD was matte. And there was some texture to it. And I remember opening it up and like just feeling it. I'm like, this doesn't feel like your normal like CD.

And I remember the disc itself did not include the artist's name Eminem, like it just had a photograph of him, like very small and everything else was just negative space. And I thought, I just, I'm talking about it right now. I'm getting so excited because I don't know, I'm sure you, I'm sure you've had moments like this as well where like there was just like this, these catalysts that just sort of like just supercharged you to want to pursue, a career in design.

And for me, it was, I think, just growing up and being somewhat of a— being into alternative music and being more into what at the time people would call like the goth subculture. I tended to be the kind of person that, I guess the appropriate word would be like I was more of a loner. So I spent a lot of time like by myself just studying things without really knowing that that's what I was doing.

And it wasn't until, yeah, until high school that I had a photography teacher that introduced us to like the proper way to use Photoshop. So she would like, give us assignments where we had to use different effects and whatnot. And I'm still in touch with that teacher.

But yeah, I feel like this, the, I feel like today, yeah, because my brother is, he just graduated high school and he's, and he tells me that he's yeah, he's been exposed to graphic design in high school because it's more of a thing now. It's always been a thing, but more people are talking about it now. And I think smartphones definitely make it possible for anyone to, identify as a designer of something, whether it's photography or Instagram story or whatnot.

Nick Adam [30:01]

Yeah, it's funny. The, proliferation of smartphones and digital surfaces in general kind of brought us into this reality in which every person interacting with them is interacting with a designed environment, and therefore design is at the tip of everyone's tongue because we're familiar with it. We can reconcile it. Same thing with the tools. The tools have been completely Democratized. For kind of relatively low sums of money, you can have a subscription to these softwares, you can watch a couple tutorials, and you're a designer.

The breadth of design is so darn wide, and I think that that's really exciting. It's not— it's, this idea of like, oh, this, that, that's a good piece of design, or this is good design, or this is real design. It's like, that's completely out the window. There's such a massive range and such great kind of like areas for each one of these ways of practicing to be relevant.

Yeah, I feel like more than ever before, we were— we've always interacted with designed surfaces, right? The road, the sidewalk. All these things are a designed surface that allow you to navigate your life. But now, because of the screen, in the moment we're like literally touching it, all of a sudden we're more familiar, golly, someone made this. And I think that gives us great agency. Prior to the screen, I think there was a lot of barriers to understanding that, like.

Oh, one can inform one's community, one can build the things around them. And the screen has kind of opened everything up to let you know that, none of this around us is permanent. So much of it was wrongly done, poorly conceived, not the right people in the room. And what I'm talking about there is, the, generation where design was very exclusive. And now it's all completely able to be flipped on its head.

It can all be redone because having the seat of the designer all of a sudden puts you in the position where you decide what gets made and what doesn't get made, who's at the table, who's not at the table, what are you gonna bring up when you hear something that's inappropriate or not right, or you're just not sure of. It feels a little off. Yeah, I think more than ever we're empowered as folks that are designers coming into design to make sure you're reconciling these things.

I think it's a very kind of, it's— there's a massive opportunity for the designer to decide what does and doesn't happen.

They're the one in control doing these, moving the mouse around, sending the files. And it's just a matter of speaking up and saying these things. Certainly it's uncomfortable at times, but I think, there's like 3 stages of the things in the world. There's like innovation, there's tradition, and then there's institution, and they all are on the same timeline. Innovation is a brand new idea. Tradition is that same idea done a couple times. Institution is no one questions that idea from 20 years ago.

Christian Solorzano [33:46]

Yeah, that's interesting. And hearing you say, so you said looking at something and thinking to yourself, someone designed this. When you said that, it triggered me because I've, I don't know if you, I don't know if you, how aware you've been of this, but a lot of people are using AI, artificial intelligence nowadays to produce, visual images.

And I feel like that just opens up a whole can of worms because AI is now designing things and obviously it's requiring that there's some sort of human inputs. But I, yeah, it'll just be very interesting to just see how our practice evolves as, these tools continue to get smarter and smarter. And I know with my friends, a conversation that we always have is whether, yeah, what role is AI going to play in our professions?

And is there any part of us that should feel in some way threatened By this idea of all of a sudden, the computer being able to generate an idea like so much better than you could possibly imagine within just a few seconds. So I don't know if you have any thoughts on that.

Nick Adam [35:13]

So sometimes people ask like, what is your favorite project? And, I'm not speaking for myself, I'm speaking for answers I've heard from other people. A lot of times people like to say, oh, my most exciting project is the one I'm on right now. And I think that's true for life, right?

Christian Solorzano [35:32]

Yeah.

Nick Adam [35:33]

And that's to say, yes, there's a lot of pain going on in the world right now. Yes, there's massive crises. There's also weird little exciting things, exciting things that could go terribly wrong. Or exciting things that can lead to new realities. And AI is one of those. AI, as I understand it, it's built off of patterns of responses, patterns of behaviors.

And that will inherently always lead AI to certainly create things quickly, create things that are possibly problematic, but yield things that one couldn't yield in the matter of seconds. However, the AI will never be able to yield what you yielded by having a discussion with a diverse group of stakeholders and folks bringing their life experience to it.

AI is not bringing your life experience to it. It's bringing a massive amount of patterns that often round out that which is rare or unique. It's again going towards patterns. So great sums of answers going, okay, we go towards this. So I think AI as an image creator, hey, there's going to be all sorts of wild things that come from it. I think it's exciting.

I think it could never replace a designer because a designer is really good at narrowing and going, okay, it's me and these 10 people, me and these 40 people, me and this one unique community within this cross-section. Let's say, let's say these 2 roads in Chicago.

All of a sudden, the uniqueness of that makes AI inability to ever create something appropriate. So that's a key word there: making something appropriate that. Responds to the exact thing. Will it make something? Absolutely. Will it be interesting? Totally. Will it make something that I can't make? Absolutely. Will it be able to make the thing that you make? No chance.

Christian Solorzano [37:47]

Yeah, no, I like your response a lot.

Nick Adam [37:50]

I also think like there's a chance that it may remove some labor, right? It may. There might be parts that, you know the idea that I wanted to share was there's a chance that parts of the AI, again, as image creator, as composition maker, perhaps tools come out where all of a sudden I don't really, there's already a couple tools right now that we use where it allows us to more easily build responsive digital projects that are informed by AI.

AI already kind of goes, okay, we suggest that you stack the blocks this way. And, maybe that saves me 10 minutes.

And maybe it's not perfect, but then I'm a couple clicks away from perfect by bringing my kind of particular eye to it. There's something a moment ago where I said particular eye, or when I talk about this idea of like creating something unique because of your life experience or because of the group of people's life experience that's on the project. A couple episodes ago, you were talking to Jonathan Sangster, and Jonathan brought up a similar thing.

If you don't have a point of view in the work that you're making, you're just making stuff that looks like everyone else. And so I kind of think that, again, in a world where we all kind of have access to a, the same set of knowledge via the internet. What differentiates one designer to another is that life experience that they apply, that particular lens that they apply.

Christian Solorzano [39:34]

Yeah, I agree. And that's certainly something that, a machine can't duplicate. So it's interesting. And so you've been in the— so you've been operating in the Chicago design community for a long time. And something that I always enjoy asking our guests is a question of how have you seen Chicago's design community evolve over the years? And where do you think it currently stands?

Because, I mean, I remember, I mean, I remember when you and I first met, which I think was almost, if not 10 years ago, and it was through the STA archive. I think it was like in 2012 or 2013. But I remember at that moment in time, Chicago had a lot of I just felt like the Chicago design community always had a thriving community that always had events and that like something was always happening. And I think the pandemic certainly put a dent in that.

And I, yeah, I just want to hear from you. What are your, just what evolution have you seen happen in Chicago over the 20 years or so that you've been working here?

Nick Adam [41:06]

Yeah, I think you bring up some good points. You and I met. I was doing the design work for the STA with Matthew Wasinski, and I believe you were photographing the exhibition?

Christian Solorzano [41:21]

Yes, I was photographing the exhibition. And it's funny because no one told me that I would be— I remember I was assigned to photograph the pieces, like the submissions, the entries. But I wasn't aware that they were going to be going into the catalog. So I remember—

Nick Adam [41:38]

Funny.

Christian Solorzano [41:39]

I remember Matt reaching out and saying like, hey, when are you going to get me those photos? And I'm like, what photos? You're like, the ones you took. I'm like, oh, you're going to use those photos? He's like, yeah, they're going in the catalog. And I remember just like running home to like, send him like all these images. And he's like, are you going to edit them? I'm like, edit them? No one told me I had to edit these photos.

Nick Adam [42:01]

Yeah, it was a fun—

Christian Solorzano [42:03]

It was a fun— I mean, looking back, I think that was such a great opportunity. And I'm so thankful that I was put in charge of that or that I contributed to that catalog that you guys did. Because I think that year that you guys did the identity and it was something around like the I remember it was like, what are you willing to sacrifice? Or like the— what was the title of like, what was the theme of that, of those designs?

I remember something to do with sacrifice. Do you remember the—

Nick Adam [42:33]

Yeah, the theme was ritual.

Christian Solorzano [42:36]

Ritual. There you go.

Nick Adam [42:37]

So we were kind of, golly, calling attention to so the theme for that was we were kind of looking at, what the STA competition was. So the STA competition, something that's existed for many years in quite a few different forms, I think about 70 years. And we were looking at this and going, what is it that a designer does? A designer kind of creates the surfaces of the world in which we all interact with, and that takes a good amount of work.

It, doing a good job at it takes a lot of discussion, takes, it's a full-time job. It's a lot of effort.

And then, Matthew and I were looking at this design competition. We're like, golly, and now we need to like, mock up all of our work, create an entry form, sell it to the judges, pray that the judges like it, hope that they accept us. We were kind of looking at the stresses around, the pressures around that a competition does to designers. It's like, oh my goodness, will you give up your time to submit your work, to mock it up, to write these entries.

And then, so there are essentially 3 stages of the campaign that we did for the STA. It was all around ritual. The first stage was sacrifice. What will you give up? Will you give up your time to do these submissions? The next one, so if it was sacrifice, the next one was judgment. Right?

Jaime Cisneros [44:35]

Yeah.

Nick Adam [44:35]

Oh my goodness, these judges are coming in, I better prepare. I hope to meet them at a party. Golly, I hope they pick my work. I hope they don't say anything bad. There's a lot of like social pressures around a competition. The 3rd stage was worship. Will my work get into the party? Will it be number one? So we were kind of looking at the competition as, every community, every community is kind of based upon ideas of ritual, ideas of gathering.

What do you give up for the community? How does the community judge that? And what's selected to be, correct or right or best?

Christian Solorzano [45:22]

Yeah.

Nick Adam [45:22]

So in a way, it kind of, it's, it, there's, there was a lot of irony in there. There was a lot of like, kind of, it wasn't like poking fun, but it was a lot of like, what do we do? We did, we got these jobs where it's sometimes 40 hours, sometimes 50 hours, sometimes 60 hours. We want to, make sure our work does the duty that we've signed up for. And then we got to put in extra hours to submit work.

So it was kind of like a funny thing. So I'm glad you brought up the STA and the way that you and I got to meet. The design community, especially in Chicago, I have found to be something that has all sorts of opportunities for meeting others and for making work and for making connections. You bring up the Society of Typographic Arts. And how you and I met, and we met through Archive.

And certainly, today, because of the pandemic, designers meet in different ways, and also the types of meetings are extremely different than before. Chicago used to have a community where we'd have these massive events, typically a lot of people drinking beer. Sometimes there's work on the wall and we would point to it say, oh golly, this is what I did recently. Other times they were action-oriented. The STA had a couple opportunities that you and I filled, right? You did photography for the catalog and for the event.

Matt Wisinski and I did some design work for this competition. But there's other design communities in Chicago that really have given me a lot of opportunity in the last, across my, across my career. One of them is what used to be called Moving Design. Moving Design was a set of 12 designers that would assemble under, Rick Valicenti's mentorship and leadership, and we would respond to issues facing Chicago that no one was talking about.

One of those was water-related, how we treat our water. Chicago treats it pretty terribly. Another one was bike-related. We did this whole interaction about the ways we move in the streets and kind of the at-risk behaviors of cars and bicycles. This was all before Chicago got its bike lanes.

And that moving design kind of led me to another group. Led me to working at Firebelly for quite a few years. And at Firebelly, we did this thing called Camp Firebelly where we would invite 10 kind of youngish designers from around the world. They were essentially somewhere between the ages of 22 and 32, and they'd spend 10, I think 10 days with us, and we'd respond to kind of a client's needs that couldn't typically afford a design studio.

And so those are the things that I remember from the past where I'm like, man, those are what like made my career and made me who I am. I'm a designer focused on justice-related issues that are supposed to focus on aligning well with community. And it's a lot of those types of places. And so today I'm actually calling you from something quite similar. So the pandemic changed how we gather.

And what I mean by that is rather than creating this impromptu design studio that gathers and talks about the ills of Chicago's water, right now I'm with a group of architects and urban planners. Like this very moment, I'm calling you from an abandoned school that the Rahm Emanuel administration had shut down. It was the center of the community. It was the heart of the community. It's been abandoned since then. And this group of architects, once a month we hold a community day here. It's in Bronzeville.

It's right at the corner of Indiana and 49th. The address is 221 East 49th. It's Overton Elementary. And we're doing all of the things that we used to do. We are gathering to design interactions and give back to the people of the community. Essentially what's happening is they're looking at the space of these, all these abandoned schools that the city walked away from and going, how do they become reactivated to become centers that aren't forgotten but have space for others?

So I think the Chicago design community has shifted a lot. Some of it's around gathering and social spaces. Other parts of it are much more about, golly, do I want to gather and point at beautiful things on the wall, or do I want to be with community and offer something back to the world?

I think Chicago is extremely unique in having that. I left Chicago for 2 years to get my master's in Rhode Island. The East Coast design scenes, are not the same. We have a massively connected, warm design community here that, like yourself, is invested in each other. It's extremely unique. I kind of assumed that was everywhere. I showed up in Rhode Island, hung out in New York, and I was like, you know what? Damn, I gotta get back to Chicago. Folks make eye contact in Chicago.

They say, hello, how are you?

Christian Solorzano [51:21]

Yeah, I've been to other parts of the country as well, and I always— that's a realization that I've also had is about Chicago. And that's definitely something that when the pandemic started, like everyone, I remember just being— yeah, it was a scary time. And the Chicago Graphic Design Club really came as a response to just the lack of, just the feeling of isolation in 2020.

And really, and it was, and I guess it was very easy because everyone was virtual and people were not meeting each other in person. It just seemed very natural to finally, create this community where people could connect. Without needing to really see each other in person. But we, we've been over the past yeah, over the past few months, like we've been doing more and more and more stuff in person.

We actually, you weren't there, unfortunately, but we gave a, we did a wonderful tour of SPAN in January and that was awesome. That was so cool. You guys, the work that you guys do is amazing.

Nick Adam [52:33]

So thanks so kindly. Yeah, I know. I remember you visited with Bud and we kind of timed it so like not a lot of people are around, we're around. We're super careful of making sure that, everyone's comfortable, in regards to, social distance and everything.

But yeah, I was extremely excited to hear you were coming through, and thanks for the kind words on the work. I feel like it's super important to, always, acknowledge, give credit. To the folks doing work. And so Span currently is Bud Rodecker and John Popajewski. They're the partners that created this studio. And then there's Avery and Valeria, Cheryl and Marissa, Zach, Alyssa, and we just had— oh, actually, I was going to say, and we have this intern, Elle, right now.

And what's really cool is in many ways we all have extremely different backgrounds and different interest areas in design. And when we come together and like do this act of collaboration, it's not necessarily like a one-author moment. It ends up creating extremely— what I've what I think is extremely gratifying work that's interesting.

Christian Solorzano [54:04]

And I guess for the listeners that would, at some point, or, for the listeners that love the work that you guys do, what kind of, what do you guys look for when you guys are bringing on talents? What are some of the criteria that you guys seek in and yeah, prospective candidates.

Nick Adam [54:30]

We're always looking for someone that has an interest in the types of clients and the types of work that we're doing day to day. We're looking for someone that's bringing their self in a really unique way while having that interest.

What I mean by that is we're a studio that does a great amount of identity design that could take the form of motion, it could take the form of augmented reality, it could take the form of logos or videos or, websites or, really anything visual and communicative. And so we're really looking for folks that are interested in that breadth and folks that have participated in it.

We really like when someone has interest outside of design or interest in particular communities or backgrounds that are different than ours. We want to assemble a group of people that, no two are the same. Something kind of interesting about the studio is it kind of functions as 3 studios. So a lot of studios have like, one principal or one founder. This studio, we have kind of 3 different studios functioning.

There's Pawlowski's studio, Rodecker's studio, my studio, and we all kind of share each other and share resources and jump in when we need it. But we also have like our own sets of clients. And so this kind of like shared space allows us not to have like one style or one mode, which really is part of this idea of span, this idea of breadth, this idea of like going across sectors or across mediums or across kind of backgrounds.

And so we're always looking for folks that are extremely interested in these types of clients, but also that brings something special? Is that photography? Is that 3D rendering? Is that participatory engagement? What is something about themselves that they're, proud of, that they're invested in? But it does go back to, are you interested day to day in this practice of, identity creation, identity design?

Christian Solorzano [57:07]

Yeah. Yeah, I like that answer. I'm sure people listening will just appreciate knowing that because I do think, I mean, for me, when I remember when I was in college, I would, there are certain studios that I looked up to. And yeah, like it was just always the question that I always had in the back of my mind is like, what is it? What does it take for someone to work at a place like that?

And I never really, unless I personally asked or like someone told me, it wasn't, it didn't seem like it was some, something that people were really, I mean, at least in college, people didn't really discuss the specifics. So yeah, thank you for your answer. Yeah.

And so we're almost at time and I have one more question and then Jaime will be asking you a few more, but you've had some pretty— like, you've worked on some pretty amazing projects, and I want to know if there's— if you've ever had a moment in your career that sort of, made you question, oh man, is this real? Am I— like, what are some of those moments or like some of those highlights or one highlight specifically?

Where you've sort of had to pinch yourself to know that you're actually experiencing this in real life?

Nick Adam [58:34]

Yeah. Is it okay if I share 2?

Christian Solorzano [58:37]

Yeah, go ahead.

Nick Adam [58:38]

Okay. Thanks for that question. I feel like as you walked through your description of it, I just started going back to those moments and back to those instances that really helped me kind of go back to those memories. Perhaps the first one, or one that's on the top of my head right now, is while I was at Firebelly working with Will Miller and Don Hancock, we got the opportunity to partner with IDEO. IDEO selected us and brought us in to work for the City of Chicago.

And to create the City of Chicago's bike share program. And when this project began, that was the name of it: the City of Chicago Bike Share. And it began with a deadline, and it was like in two months this project's over with. There's a full identity that's going to. Into production, and it's going to become something that every single person in Chicago interacts with every single day. And so we had to create the name and identity for Divvy and everything visual about it.

What does the logo look like? What are the colors? How does it show up on a van? What are the— essentially all the different deliverables. We designed a 65-page identity guidelines document, but it began with going day one to the client. Hey, it's important that we have a new name. It's important that we create an entity for this. It's, people don't need to know it's the Chicago Department of Transportation's bike share. They just need to know that it's safe and it's available.

And so we did a massive amount of public research within the matter of 2 or 3 days.

We turned around names, got approval on them, drew custom letterforms. I can give a 3-hour talk on these letterforms that Will Miller and I drew. And I think that pressure of 2 months, if you think about everything that needs to be done, golly, Rahm Emanuel needs to be convinced there's a name. All these departments, all of these kind of governmental officials need to sign off on this thing, and in 2 months the files are out of our hands and going into production.

We worked really hard on it, and it was extremely fun. We put a lot of pressure upon ourselves to say that, hey, we have this opportunity, what can we do for the people seeing this? And what we felt is we can make them safer.

We can select a color that vibrates from the background so much so it makes the biker more conspicuous, and therefore there's less car-on-bicycle accidents. And actually what ended up happening is cars on roads that bicycles often go down, cars actually dropped 5 to 10 miles an hour, which means less car-on-car accident, less car-on-pedestrian accident, less car-on-bicycle accident. And so in this project, we had this idea of providing some sort of public service through our graphic design.

We could use symbols from the road that say, yes, bicycles belong on the road. That's that stacking arrows.

And so we had all these kind of theories, and we brought it out. Into practice through our craft. And it was in the matter of 2 months. At the end of it, I distinctly recall Will and I talking and going, golly, did we do good? Is this, is this okay? And we kind of looked at each other and we're like, man, that was really fast. It's hard to know.

And we're— and I was just, I think this is at the scale, if we effed it up, we're gonna have to move. And so if you can imagine, when you're doing a program this large, all of that stuff needs to be manufactured. The bicycles need to be manufactured, the vans need to be purchased, the stations need to be installed. We're talking about 6 months. Of production.

So all of a sudden, 6 months later, after we wrapped up files, have not seen a single thing, never saw proof, it shows up in the world. And that was a moment where we were like, we had no real understanding of the scale.

Of what it meant to introduce a blue that vibrant. We didn't really know, Golly, you are going to see this everywhere and it's going to be successful in terms of making bicyclists more conspicuous, more seen, and causing less accidents. That was one where it was like, oh my goodness, I had no idea we were— there would be an opportunity like this.

I think the next one was a most recent one. Recently, actually when Span was formed, so as a principal, part of my responsibilities beyond like leading work or mentoring folks on the team and designing work is also bringing in clients. So finding new business, hitting kind of numbers that are out there for me to bring in. And one of the first projects I brought in was through an engineering firm called Tetra Tech and the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, a state governmental agency.

And they were asking for something similar that the City of Chicago was asking for, right? City of Chicago said, give us the Department of Transportation's Chicago Bikeshare. And this group was asking for a logo for what is so-called Asian carp. And I read this thing and was like, what is a logo for a fish? Where is this logo gonna go? And also, where does this name come from? And what we found was that this name is make-believe. It's entirely false.

No other country in the world uses it. Typically only non-Asian folks in the United States use this word. And we're like, my goodness, what if we respond to the RFP? It's a governmental agency, so an RFP is made, it's sent out to all, it's put public. Any designer in the world could respond. And so we wrote a proposal where I suggested perhaps what's needed is not a logo, but a new name, and for the fish's story to be told.

This fish, again, it's actually 4 species of fish, are the second— they make up the second most eaten fish in the world, even though that North America, up until just recently, hasn't really eaten it. And it also makes up the 2nd healthiest fish in the world next to wild-caught salmon.

And so we're like, golly, how is it that this kind of completely fake generic term has made the U.S. Not understand that this is one of the best proteins around. And so we put this out as a proposal. They said they apparently enjoyed it and hired us. And we started this journey right before COVID and then throughout all of COVID working to understand the public's perceptions around fish, around nutrients.

Around decisions they make at grocery stores and renamed this fish alongside ecologists, marine biologists, and then like governmental officials on both sides of the aisle, folks in Kentucky, folks in Illinois, folks in Iowa. And we were able to unite around a story backed by science ecologists and marine biologists, kind of create a story around this fish that was never really known. And we made a bunch of materials. The materials essentially are, they go into the food distribution hub to instill trust.

For 15 years, the Illinois Department of Natural Resources has tried to land a fish distributor to sell this fish. It's an easy thing to do in every nation aside from the US, and they were unsuccessful. Using the kind of design tools that we built and using the language that we created, we were able to land 7 national distributors before launch and at launch have this in restaurants and markets and have it continuously sell out.

So we were able to, through kind of just, righting this wrong of like misplaced racialized language, create a story for this fish that the entire world loves. And now the US actually has a chance of improving its waters because it's a massive ecological problem that this fish is in our freshwaters.

And so just this idea of like, okay, we were able to build a coalition of tons of people that were able to get on board with, yeah, that is not a real name. Let's go ahead and get that out of here. And golly, this fish tastes great. How can we get it out into the world?

So I think these moments of just seeing at the state fair, looking at this garbage can filled with all of these kopi-related design materials— kopi is the fish's name, relates to copious because it's gigantic and it reproduces at a rate that's, unbelievable. While looking in this trash can, or while watching folks eat this, I heard folks walking by going, oh, my brother's a Kopi fisherman in Kentucky.

So this idea of like the process of design, the folks that are brought in, we're literally kind of creating artifacts that, build value and shift culture. This person said they're a Kopi fisherman. People were asking, how do I purchase Kopi? There's a store in Chicago on Clybourn called Dirk's that it has quadrupled its overall store sales just because they carry Kopi.

Jaime Cisneros [70:56]

Wow.

Christian Solorzano [70:59]

Yeah.

Nick Adam [70:59]

So these are a couple things where it's like they're beyond they were both beyond my ability to dream about, right? I could have never dreamt of like naming and designing a transportation system with my peers at Firebelly. I could have never imagined naming and designing an identity system for a fish with my peers at Span. Yeah, it's out of this world.

Christian Solorzano [71:28]

And we'll make sure to include links to both these projects and the notes for this episode. Because yeah, I've seen the Kopi branding that you guys did on your website and yeah, the design overall is just, it's excellent. So, all right, so before we wrap up, I'm gonna hand it over to Jaime. He has some rapid-fire questions for you.

Nick Adam [71:56]

I'm so ready for you, Jaime.

Jaime Cisneros [71:59]

All right, so fascinating stuff, Nick. Oh my God, I'm just sitting over here like in awe. But are you ready?

Nick Adam [72:08]

I am ready.

Jaime Cisneros [72:10]

Okay, so do you prefer Chicago summers or Chicago winters?

Nick Adam [72:15]

Summers.

Jaime Cisneros [72:16]

Awesome. And sticking on Chicago do you prefer the brand identity of the Cubs or the Sox? And why?

Nick Adam [72:26]

I grew up loving Frank Thomas. My family's from Back of the Yards. I currently live in Kenwood. I've never liked another baseball team aside from the Sox. Why would I change because of the identity?

Jaime Cisneros [72:41]

Awesome. Well, you have a friend in me. I'm also a Sox fan. So what is your favorite Chicago business? If you have one.

Nick Adam [72:51]

Pass.

Jaime Cisneros [72:53]

Pass. Okay. So the next question was going to be, what is your dream project or client? But since you kind of talked about that, we can go on to the next one. What is your pet peeve with a client, if you do have one? Pass?

Nick Adam [73:10]

No, I'll do it. Pet peeve with a client, if I have one. Damn, it's a hard question.

Jaime Cisneros [73:20]

How about we go to the next one and I'll give you some time to think about that?

Nick Adam [73:24]

Okay, thank you, Jaime.

Jaime Cisneros [73:25]

All right, yeah, no problem. If you did have a typeface to use for the rest of the life— of your life what would it be?

Nick Adam [73:32]

I don't know.

Jaime Cisneros [73:36]

These are really hard-hitting questions. Sorry about that.

Nick Adam [73:44]

Yeah. If I had one typeface for the rest of my life, I would probably choose to do anything else besides use it. I probably would stop using type. What the hell's the point of that thing, right?

Jaime Cisneros [74:04]

Okay, so do you prefer dogs or cats?

Nick Adam [74:09]

Cats. Cats, for sure.

Jaime Cisneros [74:13]

And what is your current preferred design software that you are enjoying?

Nick Adam [74:18]

I mean, I love Glyphs.

Jaime Cisneros [74:20]

Glyphs. Okay. And for my last question, if you do have one, what is your favorite beverage?

Nick Adam [74:27]

I love water so much. It used to be, it used to be Dr Pepper for sure. But lately it's like water just makes you feel incredible. You wake up in kind of an off mood, have a glass of water, sparkling or still, doesn't matter. You instantly start feeling rejuvenated. At least myself. I love to stay hydrated.

Jaime Cisneros [74:56]

Yeah, I heard I don't know if it's a rumor or if it's just the thing that I, that I heard, but I heard that if you drink room temperature water, it hydrates you faster than cold water.

Nick Adam [75:08]

I don't know if that's true or not. Yeah, dude, I'm gonna, I'm gonna try it. I usually really love chilly beverages. I use a lot of ice cubes. I'll try the warm.

Jaime Cisneros [75:20]

And with Dr Pepper, I started drinking Dr Pepper recently because I heard the secret ingredient is barbecue sauce.

Nick Adam [75:29]

I don't know how true that is, but you know what, I could see it. I could see it. There is a kind of like parallel track across those flavors. All right.

Jaime Cisneros [75:44]

And I don't know if you wanted to talk about the pet peeve one, but if not, then we could stop there.

Nick Adam [75:52]

Yeah, no, let's do it.

Jaime Cisneros [75:54]

Jaime, what's your pet peeve of a Pet peeve of a client for me is them not them settling on a spec— on an— a choice, and then have— having them go back on that choice and keep changing their minds over and over and over after talking about it.

Nick Adam [76:18]

I'm struggling with the question. Because every client's so darn different, I think. But pet peeve of a client probably is— golly, I had something, it went away. Pet peeve of a client is, it's not every client, but sometimes the timeframes that you share with them when you're being really honest about what type of time something takes, whether that means graphic design making or, hey, ordering some paper, which is very difficult to do in the world today.

Sometimes that timeframe slips on their end, no matter how much kind of reminding you're doing, and then they're like, okay, well, you know our delivery date hasn't changed, and it's a little like, but this paper doesn't exist in the world, so the delivery date has changed. Sometimes, there's this, there's a few clients that don't always understand the like very. Truthiness of the timeframes that you're sharing. And that gets a little like, golly, why is that happening?

Jaime Cisneros [77:52]

Yeah, I agree 100%. As a person that works in a corporate world environment, I feel that a lot.

Nick Adam [78:01]

Yeah. I don't know. I love clients just because they come up with prompts and situations and critiques that I could never have myself. And so it instantly pushes me, further rather than just going, oh, this is what I'm thinking. I really enjoy like the, like kind of, I don't know, is it pinball or volley? The thing that happens when it goes back and forth and then all of a sudden you like yield something that no one could have done on their own.

It only happens through multiple heads, multiple conversations. But, the time thing.

Christian Solorzano [78:41]

Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Nick, for being on our podcast. This was by far an awesome episode. So thank you so much. And if anyone wants to reach out to you, or if anyone wants to learn more about you, where could they find you?

Nick Adam [79:04]

Sure. I'm always happy to answer emails or talk to folks. My website is nickadam.co and my email address is on there. You can see our work at Span at span.studio and my email address is on there as well. There's a lot of people in my life that I reached out to, and they always reached back out to me. And so mentors like Don Hancock and Rick Valicenti, Bethany Johns, and Doug Scott, and I want to be mirror reflections of them.

And so that's just to say that if anyone ever wants to talk, I always respond. I try to mentor and talk to about 20 young designers a year. And it's something that I had great pleasure in. So please, let's talk.

Christian Solorzano [80:02]

Awesome. And by the way, just one more thing. I noticed that— I don't know how recent this was, but I noticed that you redid your portfolio website. And I just want to say it's so beautiful. I texted it to a friend yesterday and I was like, hey, check this out. So yeah, just for anyone that's listening, definitely check out Nick's website. It's great.

And I think— and I remember when I was graduating from college, this was in 2016, I remember using your portfolio as sort of like a reference point for mine. Just the way that you laid out your projects and like the way that you talked about them, it's just, you do such a great job. So yeah, I just want to mention that.

Nick Adam [80:50]

Well, I'll give you a sneak peek behind the curtain. The website is inspired by a very specific garbage can in Chicago. It's a dumpster. And it's this big yellow dumpster with this green type on it. I think it's green and red. And so the colors and concept of the site, 100% inspired by my favorite dumpster in Chicago. I'll share the image on your website for this podcast.

Christian Solorzano [81:21]

Yes, send it to me and I'll make sure to post it on our website. Awesome.

Jaime Cisneros [81:26]

That's incredible.

Nick Adam [81:28]

Yeah, it's such a good dumpster. I wish I designed that. So, Jaime, a while ago you said dream project. Things like that, things that are just in the public zeitgeist that it's like, man, incredible dumpster. The thing that we interact with all the time. Let's go. Yeah, awesome.

Christian Solorzano [81:55]

Well, thank you so much, Nick. It's been great having you. And yes, let's keep in touch. And yeah, and thank you, Jaime, for co-hosting with me.

Jaime Cisneros [82:05]

Yeah, Jaime, thank you. Thank you, Nick.

Nick Adam [82:08]

Sorry to talk there. Jaime, thanks so much. The rapid fire was fabulous. Christian, thanks for letting us dive deep. I greatly Appreciate it, and I'm glad that we've remained friends for so long. So thank you ever so kindly.

Jaime Cisneros [82:23]

Yes.

Christian Solorzano [82:24]

All right, we'll talk soon.

Nick Adam [82:26]

Later on.

Jaime Cisneros [82:27]

Bye.