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 80 Slang for our theme music.

Patric King [00:44]

Thank you.

Christian Solorzano [00:58]

Hello, I am today's host, Christian Solorzano, and today I'm going to be speaking with Patric King, a graphic designer who's been practicing design in Chicago for nearly 30 years. In 1993, Patric graduated from the University of Tennessee with a bachelor's degree in graphic communications. In 1994, he came to Chicago to join the studio Thirst, where he developed work for Herman Miller and Gary Fisher. In 2002, he founded Haus of Pretty, the studio that today he runs alongside his husband, Sue.

Between 2003 and 2011, he was a visual creative director for the blog network Gawker Media, where he led the branding, editorial styling, and visual voice for a wide range of brands. If you've been in Chicago, you've certainly seen Patric's most notable work, the official typeface for the city of Chicago, Big Shoulders. Which the city launched in 2020. In addition, he runs Exotype, his type foundry, through which you can access his collection of typefaces.

In April of 2020, he spoke with the Chicago Graphic Design Club about the creation of Big Shoulders, and if you visit our website, you'll notice that we have an open call to designers where we ask people to express what Chicago means to them through an 11 by 17 poster that uses Big Shoulders. If you're interested, you can submit your poster to get a chance to be featured in our online gallery. So thank you so much, Patric, for being with us today.

I'm certainly very excited and I'm very pleased to be speaking with you. So I have a question just right off the bat. I wanna know what was your introduction to graphic design?

Patric King [02:38]

So it's sort of always been part of my life. In that my grandfather was head of bindery at the Kingsport Press down in Kingsport, Tennessee, where I grew up. And so since he was head of bindery, we always had sort of printing ephemera and design ephemera around the house. And there was an architect who lived next door to us as well, and so I learned about lettering from him.

But my grandfather had— we had cases of type, like wood type and lead type, around the house in the basement. We had some registers, like metal registers over the vents in our house, and they were made of— I didn't know this until much later, but they were actually made of old printing plates. And so the registers had backwards typography all over them and imagery and all kinds of things from encyclopedias and Bibles and things like that.

And I never knew where it came from, where the imagery was from and why it was on our heating vent registers until somebody explained that to me when I was maybe 10 or 11. So it's always been there.

I think the first thing that I designed that made me like go, yeah, I really wanna be a designer was, it was like a competition for a poster for the Kingsport Symphony Orchestra or something when I was like 12 and I hand-lettered the entire thing and I was completely sold on it.

Christian Solorzano [04:04]

Nice. And do you still have that copy? Is that something that we could see? No.

Patric King [04:09]

No, I have no idea where it is. No, that's a long time ago.

Christian Solorzano [04:12]

So what made you what was, what was the spark that made you want to go ahead and study graphic communications?

Patric King [04:19]

I don't know, it's just, it's what I've always wanted to do. I mean, it's— I started looking at graphic design, became very aware of graphic design as like a really emotional communications medium when I was really young. I was Somehow when I was young, I kind of fell headfirst into like Birmingham New Wave from Birmingham from the UK, and that's like, bands like Visage and Buzzcocks. I think Buzzcocks are maybe from London, I can't remember. Duran definitely.

Culture Club, like sort of the iconic and a second wave of UK new wave stuff, and a lot of that stuff was designed by Malcolm Garrett at Assorted Images, and his work hit me so hard. I mean, the work was just phenomenal. The first thing that I absolutely fell in love with was his work for Duran Duran's third album, Seven and the Ragged Tiger, which came out when I was 13.

And for that, he had developed a lot of custom typography and a lot of custom typefaces. A lot of it was hand-lettered, and he Had included a lot of coded messages and sort of icons representing all the different songs on the album. I mean, the record wasn't great, but, for a 13-year-old, it was amazing to have like a visual and audio sort of representation of something that you were deeply into. So that's kind of what got me into it.

Christian Solorzano [05:54]

I love it. Yeah, I remember for me my introduction to graphic design was very similar to yours. I might— my family, they had a copy of the Aerosmith album Get a Grip. And in it there's cows' udders and they're pierced and Aerosmith logo is like branded on the cow. And I remember it looks real. So when I saw this, I thought that this was a real image and I just couldn't fathom why anyone would pierce a cow's udders.

And yeah, ever since then, like I've just been very curious about like just the possibilities of visual communication and like the way that it evokes confusion or just like complete like speechlessness. So I like that. So where are you? So you came to Chicago in 1994, is that correct?

Patric King [06:42]

Yeah.

Christian Solorzano [06:43]

And what drew you to Chicago? What was that inspiration like?

Patric King [06:46]

Specifically thirst.

Christian Solorzano [06:48]

Thirst. Okay.

Patric King [06:49]

So the early '90s Chicago was kind of a hub of postmodern design. There was who all was here? Segura was starting up. Rick Valicenti was starting Thirst, or actually had grown Thirst out of his original studio, which I think was called R. Valicenti and Associates. I can't remember. I'll have to ask Rick about that. What else? Jilly Simons and Concrete were doing really beautiful work.

My friend Anthony Ma and some of his were doing a group called Tanagram at that point, and just really innovative, beautiful work coming out of Chicago. But Thirst was the thing that drew me to Chicago. I basically badgered Rick into giving me a job. I just, I knew that I wanted to work at Thirst. I knew that I wanted to learn from Rick.

And the reason for that was that he had, he and Thirst, the previous generation of Thirst, Had done a promotional book to launch a paper line called Essa, E-S-S-A, by Gilbert Paper, which I don't think exists anymore. But the book was gorgeous. It was 11 by 17, I believe, double spiral bound, so 2 short spiral bindings, one on top of the other, and then a hollow space in the middle.

And just like really sumptuous paper and layered messages and absolutely bizarre imagery and an amazing emotional use of color. Most importantly, a real sensitivity to the power of the printed message. Not so much the illustrative message. I mean, that was there, but that wasn't the thing that really I gravitated towards. It was more about like the power of the typography and the power of a really powerful message done with amazing typography.

And on top of that, I was sort of enamored with the idea of being a type designer. And with that book, Rick kind of also used it as a springboard to launch his first typeface, which we later turned into Thirst Type. I'm getting ahead of myself.

But his typeface, his first typeface, which he had done with Mouli Marur, was called Bronzo, and when I got to Chicago, Bronzo was on the market, and I think there were three other typefaces in Rick's collection that he was kind of selling and kind of sort of forming the idea of a type foundry or a type collective.

And so one of my, one of my primary responsibilities at Thirst was to design the websites and do the marketing, come up with the messaging for Thirst Type to sell all those typefaces. And I was also kind of in charge of like a bunch of the different designers, like communications with them. And Chester was with us too. Chester now runs Village, and he actually bought a lot of the assets for Thirst Type to fold into Village.

So you'll see a lot of the old Thirst Type typefaces in Village. And I have— I'm actually getting ready to start on a project to re-release Bronzo. I'm actually redesigning and re-releasing Bronzo later on this year with Rick. And we're just expanding it. It was at the time, it was 3 weights and 3, 4 different accent typefaces. And so we're going to expand the weight range to be 9, I believe that I've worked it out to be.

And I haven't decided yet what we're gonna do with the with the accent typefaces, but it's gonna look funky, whatever it is. Nice. I just wanted to do like homage to Rick. Yeah, just sort of, honor what he had taught me when I was much younger by re-releasing this work.

Christian Solorzano [10:59]

Nice. Excellent. Yeah, I remember when I was in so I grad— graduated from college in 2016.

And even then Thirst was like all the hype. So it's nice to hear stories about how even then Thirst was like very well respected. And yeah, I agree. I absolutely love the work that they did. So you spend some time at Thirst, and then eventually in 2002 you end up found— you found your own— you founded your own studio, how's it Pretty. What was the motivation for that and what sort of sparked that?

Patric King [11:31]

Economics.

Christian Solorzano [11:32]

Economics. Okay.

Patric King [11:33]

Strictly economics. So what had happened between— so I left Thirst in 2000, I believe. Yeah, maybe late '99. And I went to a larger— that was when this, the first sort of like dot-com thing was happening.

And there were a lot of agencies in Chicago. So I went to a lot of dot-com agencies that were responsible for sort of like building out the first generation of websites for other brands. And so I went to a company called LeapNet, and LeapNet kind of was just, it was a nice place, but I don't know how well it was organized.

It seemed like it was always in sort of a state of implosion the whole time that I was there, and I was really only there for 2 years. And I would say by late 2001— well, first off, so when 9/11 happened, that kind of had a ricochet effect with the dot-com economy, and a lot of digital agencies started sort of merging. Folding, going under, that kind of thing. And LeapNet had merged with a— with a— oh God, what was that thing called?

That bug where everybody was certain that like the computers were gonna go offline in 2001.

Christian Solorzano [12:57]

Oh, Y2K.

Patric King [12:57]

Yeah, Y2K. They had merged with a Y2K firm that was just doing sort of like engineering solutions to make sure that everybody's clocks were doing whatever they were supposed to do.

And there was always sort of like a constant clash between the two management arms of that organization, between the creative and the engineering. And I mean, we never really got resolved, and LeapNet ended up just sort of like having massive layoffs by late 2001, early 2002. And it just wasn't— I didn't feel like I was a good person to go work inside of an agency. After that.

Because I just didn't feel like an advertising kind of guy, and that's what a lot of designers were going to do. So I just said, here I go, let's go do my thing.

Christian Solorzano [13:46]

And House of Pretty, I love the name. Why that name?

Patric King [13:51]

It's I don't know how I feel about the name now. When I initially came up with the name, I wanted it to be homage to the drag houses of New York.

Now knowing, and that was, that was in 2001 and having less of— I feel like my thinking on that has evolved. Like if I was naming the company now, I would not name it after, I would not name it after a drag house. I feel like the name of the company is a little too— nowadays, I feel like the name of the company is a little too connected to my sexuality.

And I think that I may have gotten myself out of a little bit of work by doing that. But back then when I first started it, I was sort of really concentrating on being like Thirst 2.0. Making really cheeky work and really sort of like all of my work was then governed by my sense of humor. Snark. And it's not so much anymore. So yeah, that's kind of why the name happened. Kind of, bitchy gum poppin' drag queen.

Christian Solorzano [15:16]

Well, I like the name today. So what ex— so what exactly do you do today? 'Cause you do, you do, you do typography. But you're also working with clients and you also are doing— what sort of work are you doing today?

Patric King [15:31]

We're doing so a lot of the client work I actually— so like a lot of my creative work my truly creative work, I'm actually trying to funnel my creativity into Exotype Co. And I actually have a new typeface that I'm getting ready to release soon, and I'm sort of like at the end stages of sort of tweaking the design of exotype.co. To reflect that. But so I feel like my typographic work is actually the stuff where my more creative work is able to happen.

My more technical— like, I'm just, I'm more useful as a technical designer to clients. So we're doing, for instance, we're doing a wine distribution company here in Chicago. We've actually been working with— it's a company called Cream. We've been working with Cream for about a decade now. But we are finally helping them to make a bridge between their inventory, their inventory tool for their warehouse-based inventory directly to— we're bridging that directly to a WordPress-based site, which is something they've always wanted.

But it's just been a fairly difficult thing to do until about 2 years ago. So we're doing that for Cream. We're sort of in, still in the beginning stages where we're just sort of like looking at a, at a raw dump of like what the inventory actually looks like when it gets to the website. So we'll get an idea of like how wrong it actually is.

Christian Solorzano [17:06]

And right now it's just you and your husband that are both working under House of Pretty, right?

Patric King [17:11]

Okay.

Yeah. House of Pretty was never meant to be anything else than anything other than just me and Sue having a good time together. Cuz I mean, when Sue got up here, when we, when we first started dating we met through Connections on the gay blog circuit in the early 2000s, and like neither one of us was really interested in working with anybody else. So that's it just sort of it's always been like a home-based kind of studio, and it's always and it's always been Chicago, right?

Christian Solorzano [17:43]

You've always stuck around.

Patric King [17:44]

Yeah, it's been Chicago. Actually, it's almost always been this apartment. It actually it has always been this apartment.

Christian Solorzano [17:49]

Really?

Patric King [17:49]

So okay. I've been here, I've been in this apartment since '97.

What else am I doing right now? I am working, oh, I'm working with Undermain.art down in Lexington, Kentucky. And that is a really interesting group of people that I got involved with during 2020. They were, so they were in the midst of a site redesign and a brand redesign. That's an arts publication that basically just sort of promotes like what is happening in the arts in Louisville and Lexington and sort of like the upper South.

But due to everything going crazy in 2020, they lost their designer and they came to me because of someone that I had worked with during the Gawker days. And so we did a brand redesign. We completely rebuilt their site and redesigned it. And now I'm actually— I'm kind of part of the editorial board now, so there's like 3 of us. There's me and the 3 founders, and I basically kind of take a backseat and let them— they just, they do what they need to do.

They know how to publish their work. But I just sort of advise them on like how to communicate better with their public and give ideas and just help with technical stuff. So basically, I'm taking sort of like a supporting communications role with them.

Christian Solorzano [19:13]

Okay, interesting. And then, and then as someone that's been in Chicago and For some time you mentioned Chicago being sort of a hub of design in the '90s. Yeah. What's your interpretation of the design community in Chicago today? I'd love to hear a little bit about just from your perspective, how has Chicago evolved throughout the years from a design perspective?

Patric King [19:38]

So the design community in Chicago it felt like around 2001 when the dot-com implosion happened, it kind of felt like a lot of designers were just sort of like cast off to their own quarters. A lot of us went solo, and it felt like a lot of the communication between different designers went away. So ever since then, it's felt like, it's felt like a bunch of individual designers sort of doing their own thing and not really necessarily communicating with each other, like not such a community.

But kind of like a bunch of little bedroom communities operating independently.

Christian Solorzano [20:16]

And why do you, why do you think that is?

Patric King [20:19]

Well, in the early years, I think it was just due to economics. Later on, a lot of us got involved in working in various aspects of the internet. So there's been always, there's always been a lot of internet work coming on here. So that's sort of like, that keeps you kind of head down and like, blinder to your own projects. I know that was certainly the case with us.

I mean, when we were working with Gawker Media, we had 13 different websites that we had to maintain and help the publishers, picking imagery, helping the, just like things that we take for granted writers don't really understand. How do you brand an image that goes into your editorial? How much is too much? How do you how do you choose imagery that goes into editorial? How do you extend the brand into the language of the website?

So like a lot of that was just sort of like constant emailing back and forth and being on the phone with these folks all the time and like 13 websites worth of that.

Christian Solorzano [21:25]

Yeah. But I mean, even for the past 10 years or so, I've seen, I've noticed that the definition of what a designer is has been shifting. I remember when I was in college, a graphic designer was someone that primarily worked in just a 2-dimensional medium, whether it was web or prints. And today, I mean, it's no surprise, like we're hearing things about things like the metaverse and just more VR, AR, that type of stuff.

What have been— how have— again, from your perspective, how has the Have you seen the definition of design shift throughout the years? And if so, what's that been like?

Patric King [22:08]

I see friction between different portions of the design— different portions of design communities when they try to decide what a designer is. The sort of like older guard guys, the Stephen Hellers of the world, they still sort of understand a graphic designer as a person who works with like graphics and typography, and that's it. Like I don't see, I still don't see much of an acknowledgment among the older generation of the value of being able to style typography really well on a web page.

Like a lot of guys, I just don't see them talking about that, and that's extremely important to me. So I kind of feel like— I personally feel like my role has shifted from being a person who styles and like gives voice to a brand. I'm the person who is very concerned with bringing my technical skills to the table as like, I write really good CSS, I understand how to work with JavaScript libraries really well, I understand how to make typography look great on the web.

That is my power. But if you would present my skillset to somebody else, it would be just eh, you're a production person. Well, no, I'm not. You can't do what I'm doing.

Christian Solorzano [23:34]

Yeah. You get it.

Patric King [23:36]

You make a drop cloth. And also like, there's also then there's people who are in advertising where a graphic designer is someone who basically brings like campaigns to life. And that's completely different from what I do as well. Like I can sort of like take the messages that are done in campaigns and like put them into social pretty well. But, and, make them translate to social really well. But as far as like originating a campaign, that's a, that's a completely different skillset from mine.

So I think there's actually like a bunch of different ways to be a different designer.

So when I first started designing in like '94, '95 I went straight to Thirst and I was working with Rick and Chester at Thirst. And we were primarily working like hand in hand with the actual marketing managers at the products that we worked with, like people like Gilbert Paper and Holly Hunt and Herman Miller and Fisher Mountain Bikes, which is owned by Trek, and I think is actually just a brand within Trek now. I'm not sure if it's a separate entity anymore.

But anyway, so like when we were, when we were working— oh, and Revelation Snowboards, that was a great client to work with. We, when we were working with these people, we were either working with like the company founders or the people who were directly in charge of the marketing. And we were tasked with making objects that have, a lot more of a lifespan than they— than designed objects tend to now, or designed objects that I— in the realms that I'm interested in working do now.

So the typesetting was— the typesetting that we would do was really intricate. We would write everything ourselves and everything was hand typeset. To be used in catalogs and inspirational pieces and sales pieces that would generally live on a desk for a couple of months maybe.

And so it was expected to be the kind of thing where it would just sort of sit on the corner of your desk and you'd pick it up and read it a couple of times and find a few funny new things in it every time that you read it. So the material was supposed to have a lot of layers and a lot of a lot of room for sort of rethinking it.

But as I started working on the internet— I was always interested in working on the internet— at first I tried to sort of mimic that approach while working on the internet, and it didn't really work because there's just so— there's so much material on the web and the purpose and the sort of feeling of reading and looking at work on the web is very different.

I don't see many cases where someone actually goes to the web to sort of use that as their inspirational moment to sort of fall in love with something they want to buy or something they want to do or anything like that. It's more like a reading space where they need to, they need to— they need help with something. They need immediate communication with the company. It's more like utility reading.

So my focus kind of changed throughout the years in becoming more interested in making sure that my work was very clear, making sure that my work helped do what, helps the company actually do what it was supposed to do. Did so in a really nicely visually organized way so that I wasn't necessarily like, narrating the experience of working with a company online. I was sort of creating a really pleasant environment in which to do it.

And so like the only time that we really— in the sort of mid-2000s, by the time that I was working, my husband and I were building all of Gawker Media, like the only time that we would be building sort of like real-world brand experience objects. We were doing things that were sort of for like brand launches, or we were doing logos that had to be printed out, banner size for conventions and stuff like that.

So like the Gizmodo logo started out as that's Gotham Rounded, that I used for the, for the logotype. And we wanted something that was very sort of like mid-century modern, but also had a little bit of a futuristic aspect to it. So we wanted something sort of clean, but at the same time a little bit of humor to it. And I rendered it in like a really pretty light blue glass with a lot of reflectivity to it. I do a lot of CGI.

And so that was used for banners. And then we did something when we were launching Jezebel for Gawker Media. It was launching during Fashion Week, so we thought, oh, it'd be kind of funny to do something that's like in direct opposition to Fashion Week. So we made like Jezebel-branded barf bags for Fashion Week. And then they trooped out a bunch of readers to go and, I think, use them or pantomime using them at Fashion Week. That's awesome.

And then, oh, another— an interesting thing where— an interesting thing that we did with Gawker that kind of intersected with the technology, like the, like the web and print kind of intersecting, we made these really beautiful business cards for Wonkat. It was either Gawker or Wonkat. It may have actually been Gawker.com. But it was when— so Gawker didn't have— Gawker.com didn't have comments on its platform for a long time.

And that was kind of a— that was a big argument in web publishing for years, like whether or not you should have comments. But if, does it detract from the actual writing, or is the community something that's actually interesting? So for a long time, Gawker was on the side of no, let's not have comments and just focus on the work.

And then later on, Nick was like, you know what, maybe we can do something where we actually, rather than just letting any idiot comment on the websites, maybe we do something where we curate the community and we give out, we give out access to specific people in the New York literary community and publishing community that we know will give good commentary in the community.

And that was actually the first time I had seen someone do that with a comment section before, but I think it's pretty common now. And so what we did is we did— let's see, somehow or other, and I can't remember how we did this, we had a system that generated, I think, like 10,000 user IDs, like numerical user IDs. And then I merged those with an InDesign file and just used like a script to like dump in from the CSV.

Like a business card, just like a standard business card. And we had them letterpressed. So it was like the site's logo on one side and then a little pithy message on the other side, and then the user IDs. And like did it on really beautiful cotton print, like thick cotton paper.

So it was something that you were supposed to like this was sort of a point of honor that you were one of the first people to be invited to comment on Gawker, the first 10,000 people to comment on Gawker. So that was kind of an interesting intersection.

Christian Solorzano [31:47]

That's interesting. And how do you— and then just a quick question, but it seems like the way to archive printed work is obviously very simple. You just, you hold it and you take care of it and you store it. And something that I always think about, especially working in a digital space, is the way that we document digital work today and obviously we could do it through screenshots, or I know there's a web design archive.

But how have you seen the art, the documentation of work shift over time?

Patric King [32:19]

I think archiving and showing and talking about like digital design work is really frustrating for me because like it's such a relative experience, like it's like, okay, are you looking on your phone? Do you like browsing on your laptop? Are you going to have a crappy time looking at it if I send you to— send it to you so that you can see it on your phone versus your laptop or whatever? Do you have the right browser? Is it displaying correctly? Things like that.

It's just so frustrating. And like digital work degrades a lot over time quickly. Like I was actually— I was looking through some old typeface files that we did back at Thirst. In let's say these files are probably from ninety-seven, so that's like almost thirty years ago.

And they were made in Fontographer, which meant that I had to find some way to actually I had to find a copy of Fontographer to actually open it and then convert it into a typeface file that I could open in glyphs and use it that way. So it's just sort of like you know the tools go away much. More quickly than they do in printed media. Like in printed media, you have like the thing and that's all you need.

But with digital media, you need all these sort of like translational layers that I find really frustrating. The best thing that I've been able to do so far for like my own personal work, for my own clientele work is I do a lot of my development in WordPress right now. Which I hate, but I mean, it runs like 40% of the sites on the web. So okay, fine, I'll use it.

But what I generally do is I develop the site using a copy of MAMP, M-A-M-P, on my local desktop and basically build the entire site in a local server setting. And then when I put it up online, I clone the entire thing including the database and all the graphics and the server setup and all that kind of jazz. So I, I've ended up with like a sort of a frozen local copy that I can use for archiving later.

But, what happens when like MAMP falls out of production or what happens if server technologies change or what happens when like WordPress goes in a completely different direction and won't open like old databases anymore? There's just like a lot of that stuff.

With the working online, working digitally, a lot of those questions seem to be popping up much more quickly than we ever had to deal with in printed media, which I find frustrating. It kind of, to me, it kind of degrades the experience of being a designer. Who cares? Why even do it when you can't really archive anything?

If your work is like— does design just like— does design stop being something you're really interested in doing if it's a degradable experience that's meant to be thrown away, or I don't know. I mean, I guess maybe there's some people who are more into that, like they feel like they can work in a more immediate way, but I find it kind of frustrating.

Christian Solorzano [35:40]

Yeah. And then, and then what's your criteria for selecting a client today? What sort of things do they have to meet for you to take them on?

Patric King [35:48]

I'm really fussy about my clients, like it's got to be something that I'm personally interested in doing, and it also has to be kind of an interesting informational problem. And I have to have a lot of leeway to write. That's kind of my focus now. I like writing the language since working online is more of a reading space. I like being able to work with strategy and work with the actual writing of the piece.

So for example, we did— there's a bar on Logan Square called Billy Sunday. We did that back in 2011. And the interesting problem at that point was the bar was being created to expand to multiple locations. And I think they have a second one now. They were— I think they were— they had planned on having more. By now, but that was—that's just how things worked out. And so the idea was like, okay, let's—and they're not using our work right now.

I think they're using the basis of our work for the website. So what we did is we created a sitelet where the bartenders and the marketing manager within the bar could go into the WordPress backend and pretty easily like do something that creates a really beautifully designed page that looks like a broadsheet. And we also wanted to do it in a way so that that's also mimicked in the menu, the printed menu. And we also got to do the coasters. What else?

Business cards, and then a couple of other things. And then for a while there, I was writing all of their social media stuff. And so I got to sort of like use my ideas of like a bar being called Billy Sunday. Do you know who Billy Sunday is?

Christian Solorzano [37:58]

No, but you could tell us.

Patric King [37:59]

Okay Billy Sunday was a real person. He was sort of an evangelist in the early No, late 19th century, and he was a huge proponent of Prohibition. He had started out as a pro baseball player and then sort of turned into an evangelist after that and was very vocal about Prohibition, but at the same time kind of lost his career because he was caught in a sort of a string of adulterous affairs. So.

Just like a real colorful individual. And he's kind of still considered historically to be Chicago social life's like enemy number one because he was just so vocal about Prohibition, and he was constantly using Chicago as an example of like how cities are evil and how drinking is evil. So when we were, when we were helping start the bar, the owner was just wouldn't it be really fucking funny if we just like called the bar Billy Sunday?

So that kind of fueled all of the design and all of the writing that I did. I designed the entire thing from the viewpoint of what if the design looked like a 19th-century broadsheet? And what if there were sort of little bits and pieces of information that were that were kind of embedded in Midwestern culture. That's sort of like gee shucks, sort of like the gee shucks nature of Midwestern culture. And also a little bit of a religious overtone.

So there were some things that looked like an old Methodist hymnal and a lot of things that just looked like old boxing posters from the 19th century. Give you screenshots and stuff to put up for the podcast so that people can see what we're talking about. And then I did the same thing for the menus, and then the coasters themselves were made to be stolen.

So we did these really beautiful things with gold crowns in the middle of them and then light rays, so it looked very sort of primitivist, Protestant hymnal kind of stuff. So I need to be able to that was the longest answer in the world. I'm really sorry.

Christian Solorzano [40:29]

No, it's a good story. It's a good story.

Patric King [40:31]

So I— yeah, I need to be able to when I'm choosing, when I'm work— deciding on to work with somebody, it needs to be somebody where I feel like I can have fun working with the material and I can have like some control over the narrative aspect of it. I mean, it— that doesn't mean that I won't let anybody else like have say in what's to be done. I'm not that guy.

But I just, I like being the one who kind of sort of orchestrates all of the language and stuff.

Christian Solorzano [40:58]

So tell me about Bubbleland. You mentioned that you have a story about Bubbleland.

Patric King [41:03]

Yeah, I, yeah, the, so like every time I tell somebody that I designed Bubbleland they are absolutely delighted by that, which I think is really weird. Like Bubbleland, I, so I did Bubbleland.

Christian Solorzano [41:16]

So what is Bubbleland for anyone that doesn't know?

Patric King [41:19]

Bubble Land is— if you're in Chicago, Bubble Land is a chain. I think there's like about 10 laundromats, and I think they're mostly in the North Side, and they are incredibly brightly colored, and the graphics inside are like acid green and hot pink and electric blue and bright yellow and things like that. And there's a lot of like Rendered chrome bubbles and like stupid signage with going, "Mmm," and yummy, and you know things like that over the vending centers.

So that was Bubble Land was like my first sort of solo gig within Thirst, and Rick was like going, "You know you have this sort of like you're really interested in making things that look really toy-like, so wouldn't this be a great place to do that?" So there was a typeface that I did that was inspired by Bubble Yum, Bubble Yum. And that's, you'll see that across the outside of all of the laundromats.

And then on the inside of the laundromats, there is this big crown, big round smiling chrome bubble, like a big chrome bubble with just like a huge grin on its face. Yeah. Meant to be a soap bubble. And that's actually, that's inspired by some of the production sketches, or the character design sketches rather, for a sidekick in the original Tron whose character's name was Bit.

And Bit was this little sort of spiky bubble that would just sort of float around the protagonist's head and could only respond in yes or no. But there were some original sketches where Bit was just like a sphere with a great big smile on his face for yes and then a huge frown on his face for no. And that stuck with me like ever since I was a kid, whenever Tron came out, like '84, '85, a long time ago.

But yeah, like Bubble Land like gets really good Yelp reviews just because people think it's cute. I don't know how— what the experience of actually like doing your laundry—

Christian Solorzano [43:27]

You've never done it?

Patric King [43:28]

I've never been there. I have lots of photographs of the place, but yeah, I've never actually Gone into it, but people always love it. It's a fun story.

Christian Solorzano [43:39]

I did not know that. I've driven past Bubbleland, but I never— yeah, I've never gone in there.

Patric King [43:46]

But it's a ludicrous logo and the environment's ludicrous as well because it's just so bright. And for a long time, I designed it in '97, maybe '98, and there was a period where I wanted my work to be more serious and have more gravity to it. Beginning in around like 2005 or 2006 and then going on to about 2011. So there was a period there where I just hated it, absolutely hated it. And every time I would drive by it, I would just go like, grrr.

But since I've made— I've made peace with it was just sort of like my silly maximalist fantasy from the '90s. It just looks like a rave garden.

Christian Solorzano [44:29]

And are there any projects looking back that you still haven't— that you looking back now just make you Cringe or have you come to peace with? Because I know sometimes, even for myself, like looking at, projects from, 3, 5 years ago, there's things that I look at and I'm like, I would like that. That's just a big mess. I would've done— Like, I wouldn't do that ever again. Yeah.

Patric King [44:53]

There's a little bit of the stuff that I did really early on with my years at Thirst that I kind of don't like now. Just because, just because the work was so much about like me personally, and I mean that's what they would come to us for. But that's just like not the way I work right now, and I kind of I don't like being that autobiographical anymore.

It just feels really egotistical to me, and so like I don't like there was a lot of sort of like you know trotting me out on the stage and like literally using my face in. In a project or using Rick's face or using Chester's face. And it was sort of like it was all about the Rick show and the Chester show and the PK show. And that was fun at the time, like when I was 24 to 30, but I would never do that now.

Christian Solorzano [45:45]

That's funny.

Patric King [45:47]

That was a lot of the reason— that was actually the reason that I kind of didn't like the Bubbleman stuff, because it was just, PK tap dancing on stage as hard as he can. But I mean, I've managed to remove myself from the experience since then, and I guess I'm just glad that people really like it, like genuinely enjoy being in it and around it.

Christian Solorzano [46:06]

And looking at the new generation of designers, is there any sort of like, what kind of wisdom or like life experiences do you think you would share, for the listeners that are listening and are, maybe graduating college right now or still in college?

Patric King [46:23]

Don't be so serious about it.

Christian Solorzano [46:25]

Okay. Don't be so serious about it. Nice. I like that.

Patric King [46:27]

Yeah. And don't be a dick to your audience.

Christian Solorzano [46:33]

I mean, I think sometimes if you're coming from like an art background or if that's, if art was your motivation for getting into design, I think often—

Patric King [46:41]

I think that's a, that's a bad idea. Yeah. That is just a bad idea actually. So funny thing happened just a few weeks ago. So I was, I was out with my husband and he's friends with this guy who's a bartender at like Bar Victor, I think, and also Love Street. And you should go to both of those bars, they're very good.

Anyway, so he is also a painter, and he asked what I was— what I was working on, and I was talking about some of those projects, and he was like— he was like, man, it must be so hard to actually express yourself as a graphic designer, as an artist, after all that graphic design. And I just didn't wanna fucking deal with his, this artist's idea of like how important or unimportant graphic design is. And so I just sort of went, yeah, it kind of is hard.

I just shut the conversation down entirely. I don't care. I never thought of myself as an artist. I always wanted to be a graphic designer. And I think it's a horrible idea if you're an artist to even try and be a graphic designer.

Christian Solorzano [47:44]

Yeah, 'cause I mean, I feel like once you mix Business, like the business side of design, it could be just very debilitating for some people. I know for myself, I got into graphic design as a form of self-expression as a teenager. And then once you graduate college and you start talking about, business goals and value and all that kind of stuff, you're just, it's—

Patric King [48:06]

This is—

Christian Solorzano [48:07]

Yeah, exactly. And it becomes— I mean, it becomes something that you sort of had to reprogram your mind to be able to do. Yeah. And yeah, and it's not easy. And I've, and I've seen many people get burnt out over it and they're super talented people. It just—

Patric King [48:22]

Yeah, I've seen that too. Yeah, I have seen that too. Yeah. I see a lot of design, I see a lot of design careers being cut really short because a designer will go into it sort of going, I'm gonna be a superstar. I'm gonna change the world of design. Yeah. And, do that whole thing. And they do like a bunch of really trendy design with like 5 of their friends. Yeah.

For like maybe about 5 years, and then reality kind of starts to set in and they kind of stop working.

I— if you, if you go into it with that kind of energy, yeah, graphic design's kind of a young man's game because like you're just gonna burn yourself out trying to do something that you'll never be able to do. But if you go into it just sort of like respecting the fact that other people have things that they need to communicate and you're the one who has the technical skills to do that, I think it's a great place.

Like typesetting and typography and type design, for me, like that's my sweet spot. Like I can, I can get all of my self-expression in that I need right there and make sure that I sort of, take care of somebody else's communication who needs to do it.

Christian Solorzano [49:32]

Interesting. And what kind of work today that you look at are there any trends or anything happening in design right now that really excites you?

Patric King [49:43]

So there's this, there's like 5 or 6 design accounts on Instagram that I really like. They're doing, I don't know what it's called. I'm calling it sort of I'm calling it Neo-GTP. And it's basically like these kids who weren't around for the desktop publishing era when like, every bit of design looked crappy.

They weren't around for that, and but they see the they see the relics of it. Like they see like you know rave flyers and like band posters and stuff that was just like on telephone poles and like you know garage sale signs and things like that. And like they're really into it, and so they're sort of like making an interesting spin on that with like really acid colors, and they're using typefaces that I would have been completely embarrassed to use back in the early nineties.

Like there's there seems to be this thing of like using— oh God, there's a particular narrow Garamond that Apple used in their early advertising. Younger designers, just like this particular group of young designers, love that stuff. They think it is just like so super elegant and it just looks childish to me. But through the—

Christian Solorzano [51:06]

With like being done in their hand, I think it's actually really interesting yeah, because I've also seen a lot of textures, especially on Instagram posters and things that are meant to look like they were printed and like stepped on and like just scanned over and over again. And there's actually— there's like presets that you could do now that will just make your design look like something that's been sitting in a drawer for 20 years.

Patric King [51:31]

That's cool.

Christian Solorzano [51:33]

Which I think it's cool and I think it looks pretty, but I don't know, I—

Patric King [51:38]

But how do you, how do you, how do you distribute that to people? Do you actually print? Yeah. And it has— there, there's I've also seen some younger designers sort of like beginning to, they're finding out about the early color laser copiers that you would see in like Kinko's and stuff, or FedEx Office for our very young listeners.

But there was this certain quality of light and transparency that those early laser copiers would bring out just because they were so bad at it. Literally, they were just photographing through a transparency. And you could slide it around and make all these really beautiful smeary color fields that had this sort of electricity and light to but I'm seeing a lot of people kind of sort of rediscover that kind of thing on Instagram as well. And that's a lot of fun to work with.

And there's a lot of people working, like making really bad Art Nouveau ripoff typefaces. And I really like it. There's just sort of like weird kind of spiky neo-goth, like Art Nouveau typography. And it's cool to see Art Nouveau come back for like a 4th or 5th time now.

Since its original design. And I also like seeing the sort of like these layers of like cultural experience being laid on top of it. Like these kids are doing things that are kind of like their access point to Art Nouveau is probably like, the Led Zeppelin logo or like some black metal band from Norway or something like that. Okay, well, this needs to look like kind of goth or it needs to look kind of rock and roll or kind of badass.

And I really like that access point.

Christian Solorzano [53:28]

But do you think they're that things like Instagram are having any negative effect on design as it currently stands? Because I know there's a lot of criticism just around the fact that with trends, a lot of stuff just continues to look the same. And I'm always very curious about what are people's motivations behind the choices that they're making when they're designing.

And I think if you're someone that's starting out and you see cool things, it's very easy to do something exactly like that you know is going to get likes.

Patric King [53:57]

So the thing that I don't like about Instagram is that you're constrained to a particular size. So that means that your typeset— you can't do very delicate typesetting. So you can't really show off like a really beautifully typeset piece of stationery that has an interesting, an interesting physical composition. Because like, if it doesn't fit into a square format and if it's not kind of big, then people aren't gonna see it in their Explore tab and they're not gonna care.

And on top of that, like the, like the, it's hard for me to sort of deal with type on Instagram because like the algorithm for compressing is just so bad. Yeah. And so people try to do things with more delicate typefaces and more delicate typesetting. It just looks awful. Absolutely awful.

Christian Solorzano [54:44]

Yeah, I know for photography, for photography, for me, I've gone the route of using Flickr. If I really wanna share photographs with someone in like high quality, I feel like Flickr is a platform that still like retains the original like dimensions of your image. So, but yeah, Instagram does tend to like dilute a lot of the quality.

Patric King [55:06]

Yeah, it really does. It really does. Yeah. I kind of think of Instagram as just sort of like a, like a point of access. Yeah. If you're kind of interested in finding other people, great. If you actually wanna like look at their work, then everybody who's got half a brain cell in their head has like signed up for like, Link in Bio or whatever and can like hook up all their actual posts to their bio statement.

So, Twitter actually is a really good place to host imagery. Like their compression is really good. So you can do, and they post original size images, so you can post huge stuff on Twitter. But, unfortunately, the community is just toxic as hell.

Christian Solorzano [55:49]

So, and you're not on Twitter anymore, correct?

Patric King [55:53]

You just for just for my corporate accounts, Exotype Co. I ditched my personal accounts, and I feel so much.

Christian Solorzano [56:01]

I remember your tweets always made me laugh. Like you have a sense of humor.

Patric King [56:06]

Well, yeah, but also, I didn't realize this at the time, but I started to sort of realize it after I dumped my accounts that I was sort of thinking of my life like okay, what's quippy? What's fun? What's like, what can I fit in 280 characters that can be a funny thing? Yeah. And so, and I was talking to one of my friends about it and she was like, oh yeah, I have a bunch of like psychotherapist friends and they call that Twitter brain. Ugh.

Or poster, poster's brain. Thinking about like constantly thinking about how you can engage with an audience. Yeah. So, yeah.

Christian Solorzano [56:41]

So what else? What else? What else have you been up to, or what other things do you— are inspiring you right now?

Patric King [56:49]

So earlier this week, I so I'm working with I think I might have mentioned this earlier, I can't remember, but I'm working with Rick Valicenti, kind of. No, Rick Valicenti has actually given me the rights and the ownership to his Bronzo typeface which is a huge honor for me. That was the typeface that literally got me out of Tennessee and moved me up here to Chicago to work and kind of started my career.

And it was a typeface that he created with Molly Marur specifically for Gilbert Paper for their Essa line. And so I asked Rick it's like, okay, so I want to, I want to redesign this typeface and make it a little more— because it needs to be like, it only has 256 characters in it doesn't you can't use it for very many languages at all, and it's completely off the market. So I want to sort of revitalize it.

I want to give it more weights, and I want to sort of improve a few of the drawing points here and there. Like there's some curves that could be a little bit better. So I was like, "Hey, do you want? Do you have any of the original Bronzo stuff that you were that you?" that you were working with, like the sketches and stuff like that? And he was like, well, I did. I'm like, what do you mean by that?

And so it turns out that he had actually given his archives, because he's leaving Chicago actually in about a week. And so before he did that, he wanted to make sure that his archives were actually in place as part of Chicago design history, as well it should be. So he gave his entire collection to the School of the Art Institute. And also the Newberry Library. So I had gone to the School of the Art Institute and I emailed them.

I was like, hey, I worked at Thirst for a really long time. I wanted to come down and dig through the Rick Valicenti papers if you guys don't mind. And they were sort of like, what? Who are you? What's going on? And I got down there and I was expecting to see like a couple of boxes of pieces. And was it Jessica? I think it was Jessica who was helping me wheeled out like 4 carts worth of crap that Rick had willed to them.

And so I was— I have like— I now have about 600 or 700 photographs of like really early process sketches. And that was really inspiring to sort of go back and remember like see things that I had forgotten about and just like remember what had inspired me to get up here and start designing in Chicago in the first place. And there was like and Rick had put in like a shocking amount of my work in his archives.

And that was really— that was weird to like go to the school of the Art Institute and go, holy shit, my work's in a museum.

Christian Solorzano [59:53]

That's pretty awesome. And yeah, I can't wait to be able to look at some of that work. I love— yeah, I love going through archives, and I can't even imagine what it must have been like for you to— yeah, to see some work that you haven't seen in such a long time. Yeah, so keep us updated. I'd love to yeah, know when a lot of that work is available for people to see.

And I have another question, and it's something that I'm always thinking about, and it's just around the— what are some of the gaps, or what are some of the things that the Chicago design community could use more of, or ways to just amplify the way that we are connecting with one another? And I think when the club was started, a lot of the ways that we operate are just based off my experiences doing volunteer work for STA and for AIGA.

And I think those 2 organizations specifically, they just, they taught me so well, and I, and I got a chance to just do so many wonderful things through them and connect with people that I'm still friends with, almost 10 years after meeting them. So from your perspective, what do you think are some ways or some opportunities that perhaps the design community could benefit from?

And perhaps you might have some recommendations or suggestions on things that we as a club could do to just better support one another and really create that community of belonging, which is yeah, just part of our values.

Patric King [61:43]

Well, I mean, I think just like the Slack that you guys started for Chicago Design Club is endlessly helpful, just knowing that there's people there. And that was always a big problem for me because before Slack channels really became a thing, it was just hard to get connected with other designers and other practitioners. I would love to see a greater emphasis on communication within some of the institutions in Chicago. I don't see SAIC, and I don't really see— well, actually, no.

SAIC, I don't really see connect— talking online to anybody. They seem to keep that in sort of like their own channels. I think that, I mean, the archives at the SAIC are really valuable, and I think that a lot of designers just don't know that exists because they don't talk in public very much. On the other hand, the Newberry Library does talk in public, but it's kind of hard to catch them if you want to, and they speak really well in public.

Like Jill Gage has been amazing to have. Of in my Twitter feed and my Instagram feed. But with them, I've been trying to sort of like get them to start a Newberry Slack channel because what a resource that would be to be able to ask some of the historians of Chicago design where to find something and to be like, it's on, the 3rd floor, shelf 12. But like right now, I don't think they are quite into that level of communication.

So, but I mean, if you talk to them in their Instagram channels or in their Twitter channels, they will definitely talk back to you. I actually I think during the pandemic— no, actually just before the pandemic I like asked their Instagram channel a question about where to find this one particular weird piece of work from Oz Cooper that I'd never seen anybody else talk about. Club. And they were like, it's right here, come and get it. So there was that.

I would love to see more community participation in from the agencies. I don't see that at all from them. They are completely separate from the rest of the design community, which sucks because there's so many talents within those agencies.

Christian Solorzano [64:25]

Yeah, that's one of the, one of the things that we're currently trying to do is we had a, we had our first studio tour in January and we're doing another one next month in July. And I, and I think those are probably, I mean, one, they're in person. So just by that alone, like they're pretty awesome cuz you're in a room with other people.

But yeah, I agree with you. I definitely, I remember when I was a freshman in college, I remember specifically the programming that Chicago used to put out was a little bit more focused on the actual craft of design. So I remember being in rooms, as a freshman and witnessing people talk about typography and talking about color and talking about shapes and like just the fundamentals of design.

And then I've seen over the years that the conversation has been slowly shifting to now it's more about professional development. And for me, it's like, how many, how many events?

Patric King [65:18]

What does professional development mean though? Like your growth as a professional? Yeah.

Christian Solorzano [65:22]

Like things like how to do your resume, how to interview, how to network, like those sort of things. Yeah. Which I think are great and they should always be there. But one of the main reasons why the— well, so the Design Club started in 2020 because there just wasn't a place to talk about design books in Chicago.

And I just felt like I needed to discuss like a book that I'm reading with someone else, not my friends, not my coworkers, complete strangers. And I noticed that people showed up and there's so much interest. And yeah, the last time that I remember that being present was probably, I don't know, like 2014. I remember like STA used to put on a lot of great events and they used to do it at Harrington College. I don't know if you remember that school.

It was in the city. But I remember they had a really beautiful gallery space and there was always events going on there. So I miss that. And I think as the world starts to feel more post-COVID, I'm hoping that we can start doing more of those things because I think relationships are essential and I think we learn a lot from, having conversations like the ones that we're having right now.

Patric King [66:43]

I feel like so the type community actually worldwide actually benefited a lot from the, from the pandemic because we were, one, we're all really good with digital communication tools. It just, I guess it just comes with the territory. And two, we were all just sort of like so widely flung that we kind of felt like we all needed to talk to each other all the time.

And so, there have been all these huge, discussions that have sprung up in Slack channels, and Type Twitter has gotten so much more productive. Type Instagram has gotten much more productive. There's been a lot more of an idea sharing between different designers worldwide, and that's been great to see. I would love to see that through other graphic designers, but like other People who identified as anything besides a type designer.

Christian Solorzano [67:40]

Yeah. And today, where do you— because I know, I noticed you're pretty active on social media. Where do you go for inspiration? What sort of things are inspiring you today?

Patric King [67:50]

There's a bunch of different Instagram channels that I'm looking at. So there's a lot of, there's a lot of like fairly famous graphic designers that I've loved since I was a kid, like Chris Bigg. Of 23 envelope. He has a fantastic Instagram, and I don't even what is his what is his Instagram? And then Malcolm Garrett has a really nice personal Instagram. Hang on, let me find these. These are really good. And then like you know just artists that I've met.

There's like this one artist down in Indianapolis, I think named Jaws that I that I follow.

Christian Solorzano [68:35]

And I think that's one of the— I mean, I think over the past, yeah, the past 2 years for me, it's been so amazing to just see how many people are actually willing to talk if you just reach out to them. So I think, I mean, I think today, there's just— yeah, it's just, I think digitally, like through social media, it's just become so easy to get in touch with people. So yeah.

Patric King [69:00]

There were there was a period in 2020 where we're like Type@Cooper, like the Type@Cooper program, a lot of the professors seemed like they didn't really know how to deal with going online only. They just, it wasn't something they were experienced with. So some of the classes kind of felt rickety, like they were kind of falling apart a little bit.

And so there was a period where I was kind of like co-parenting this student, a girl named Jamie Shapey. Who's a phenomenally talented designer. She's in Los Angeles now, but she—I can't remember how we even started talking.

I'm pretty sure it was on Twitter, but we just like started like messaging back and forth on iMessage, and I actually ended up helping her like finish her thesis project for Typehead Cooper because she literally had like she was like she was immunocompromised, so she was stuck somewhere in New Jersey. And so that was her— those were her primary channels of communication.

She could get on Slack and she could get on Instagram and she could talk on her phone and, just send PDF proofs back and forth. So that was interesting to see, how her, how her program kind of mirrored what was going on in type Twitter.

Christian Solorzano [70:23]

Yeah. I know I've made a ton of friends over the past few years, and they're, and they're friends that I've never met in person. And it's just funny because I feel like I know them like in person, but I've never seen them.

Patric King [70:37]

I have a bunch of those. Yeah, I'm— I've gotten to be I would consider fairly close to a composer here in Chicago who I literally only talked to, have only ever talked to on Instagram. But I mean, he feels like a very good friend. And we communicate really well. And then there's also a designer in— where is Keith? I think Keith is in Ireland. I'm not sure, either Ireland or Scotland. Keith Dots, who's a phenomenal designer.

And yeah, like we've never met in real life, but we talk all the time.

Christian Solorzano [71:10]

Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, I try explaining that to people that are not in design and they find it so weird. They're like, you're just talking with these— you're becoming friends with these strangers. But I think because design is such a visual medium, it makes sense to communicate with them on an application that's primarily for visuals, like Instagram and stuff.

Patric King [71:32]

Yeah, you'll be able to show stuff back and forth.

Christian Solorzano [71:34]

I know one of my friends, she works in healthcare, and she's been having some difficulty transitioning into another job. And I keep telling her, you need to just go on Instagram and like find like a mentor. And I, and I always have to remind myself that there, it's, there's not, there's not that for other industries. So I think Chicago, I think design is unique in that sense that people tend to be a little bit more open to talking.

Patric King [71:59]

Very interesting. Huh? Yeah. I need to go look at design TikTok. I haven't really been spending that much time on TikTok because it's just like TikTok is just kind of messy to me. But I kind of wanna go, I wanna see if like there's any sort of type TikTok that's happening.

Christian Solorzano [72:14]

There's a lot of funny design TikToks. I don't know if you saw, but there is a woman and she redesigned a bunch of logos really badly, like very poorly.

Patric King [72:25]

Like on purpose?

Christian Solorzano [72:26]

On purpose, yes. And I think like she did McDonald's and like it was just awful and McDonald's caught it and actually made it their logo for a day, which I think was hilarious. And I'll send you the link when I could find it. But yeah, just TikTok tends to be more humorous design stuff from what I've seen.

Okay, so before we wrap up, if people want to get in touch with you, if people want to just reach out to you, they could get to you through Instagram, correct? Email? Anything else?

Patric King [73:02]

What are the best channels? Okay, so I actually just recently deleted my personal Twitter. Because I was tired of hearing about Elon Musk. Let's see. So on Twitter, if you're there, my handle is Exotype Co. On Instagram, if you want to talk to me there, my personal handle is just a private account, is PK underscore sucks. And then the type foundry itself is Exotype Co. And then what else? PK@exotype.co works. PK@exotype.co is a good email for me if anybody wants.

Christian Solorzano [73:52]

Great. Yeah, and I'll put those links in the description for this episode. And then I have a non-design-related question for you, and this is something that I ask all our guests. And that question is what's your, what's your favorite thing about Chicago, and where do you usually find yourself spending the most time?

Patric King [74:11]

So I'm having kind of a weird Chicago experience right now in that my time is— so we moved my mom in because her retirement facility basically imploded in 2020. So my time right now is kind of split between being a designer and a caregiver. So I'm actually at home a lot. However, down the street from me is my favorite little bar in Chicago called Small Bar, and it's amazing little community hub for the neighborhood.

It's a little just a it's just a little corner bar, but they have an amazing selection of beers. I think my favorite thing about Chicago is its dive bars. There are so many good dive bars. Yes, there's a great place on Broadway called Frank's on Broadway. And it's hideous, absolutely hideous. But it— everybody there is so sweet and so personable. It's just it's very Chicago to me where just you look at it and you're like, ugh, I wouldn't care. But then everybody's really cool.

Christian Solorzano [75:13]

Yes. I love that. Yeah. We'll include a link to them in the description too, just to get them some attention. Yeah. Awesome. Well, thank you so much. This was great and I look forward to just, you said that you're working on it, you're starting to work on a new typeface. This year, right?

Patric King [75:30]

Oh yeah. I should talk about that. The— my newest typeface is called Okoye. O-K-Y-E.

And I've actually finished the typeface. I'm finishing up some tweaks to the website to actually get that going. I just needed to change it up a little bit, but Okoye is a really pretty typeface that I'm doing. It's gonna be the first typeface that I had the energy to do once I got finished with all the Big Shoulders typefaces in 2020, 'cause that was a 2-year project. But Okoy was sort of me forcing myself to get back into it and find my voice again.

And I got a real lot of really valuable coaching. If anybody out there needs type design coaching, you should look up Troy Lenster, Australian guy, used to work with Heffler. And his handle on Instagram is 7roy. So it looks like Troy spelled with an ASCII, sort of an ASCII way. He is, he has been a really valuable sounding board in the design of the typeface. So yeah.

Christian Solorzano [76:40]

And I've noticed that you typically post, you share your process on your Instagram. I've seen you post this typeface. So if anyone's listening, definitely check out Patric's Instagram stories cuz they're always informational and sometimes they're really entertaining.

Patric King [76:56]

Yeah, I try to be funny. I mean, the Instagram is— the internet is— the internet is for making people laugh as far as I'm concerned. And one thing I should mention is that my Instagram is a private one, so I won't get followed by, random spam accounts. So request to follow, I don't bite. It's totally fine.

Christian Solorzano [77:17]

Okay, awesome. Cool. Well, thank you so much, Patric. We'll stay in touch.

Patric King [77:22]

Yep, absolutely. Thank you, Christian.