Christian Solorzano [00:23]

Hello, you're listening to Underscore, a show by the Chicago Graphic Design Club. I am your host, Christian Solorzano, and today I'm once again joined by my co-host for this episode, Carson Koppin. Hey, Carson.

Carson Koppin [00:35]

Hey, Christian. Happy to be on here again, man. Today we're speaking with Larry Chuninu and James Langford of the Chicago-based design agency Points of Sail, which describes itself as an outsider approach to problem solving. Points of Sail uses the world of nautical design as its muse because. Both its founders aim to view design problems with fresh eyes.

Christian Solorzano [00:57]

James explores localized craft and global manufacturing processes in an effort to define what makes something handmade. In his words, Langford subverts materials honestly by allowing his materials to shine while rethinking their intended purposes. Larry is a polymath, multidisciplinary creative product designer an architecture student from Benin. His work is an ode to optimism, and his goal is to constantly show that it is never too late for new ideas. And that ode to optimism is certainly really present in this conversation between Carson, Larry, James, and myself.

We're going to be diving into their approach to designing everything from concrete boats to storefronts, and they discuss an exciting upcoming project about designing a go-kart. And I learn about something that is a little bit, I think, controversial when it comes to graphic design, and that's the idea of using typefaces from DaFont. Larry and James both talk about how DaFont was a great source of inspiration for Points of Sail.

Carson Koppin [02:12]

We'll also hear about Larry's theory on the 3 practices of self, community, and consulting, and also how graphic design doesn't have to obey the laws of gravity. Incredibly inspiring stuff. And finally, we'll also hear about the Pocket Operator 2 and how music and play are a means of taking a break, but also inspiring and invigorating the rest of us.

Christian Solorzano [02:38]

So as always, thank you so much for listening, and I hope that you find this episode as inspiring as we did. So as always, thank you so much for your support. We'll talk to you soon and enjoy the conversation. Welcome, Larry and James. Thank you so much for being on our show today. How are you guys doing?

James Langford [02:58]

Great.

Larry Tchogninou [02:59]

Good. Life is good. Everything's good. Healthy, creative, making.

Christian Solorzano [03:05]

And so I wanted to start our conversation here by learning about Everything that led up to the two of you meeting, what is that origin story for the both of you?

James Langford [03:15]

Oh, so yeah, Larry and I met in summer 2019 when we both got selected for the Nike Recreation Center Virgil Abloh Summer Incubator Program. And we both did like this 5-week design intensive incubator. Face— the face of it was Virgil. He was a part of it. Norman Kelly, an architecture office in Chicago, Future Firm, Paul Octavius, Alex Harch, and No Pattern, Chuck Anderson, all legends that we got like really close intimate time with.

And it all culminated with this final project that we got to make and then pitch to Virgil and present to him. And for that, like unbeknownst to each other, me and Larry both did little furniture pieces. Like I did a chair, Larry did a chair, totally different. Like design language-wise, totally different ideas, but it was both a piece of furniture and that was kind of the hook for us. And we were like, hey, this program's done, but let's keep a convo going.

So we started making some furniture. We released it the next year, right? It wasn't the same year.

Larry Tchogninou [04:21]

No, it was the next one. Yeah, it was, it was, yeah, it was the next year. I think like James said it, like we met through that program and it was just like we should do something. I think, I think even during the program, we're like, start like geeking about the same thing. I talked to James about Bart Prince and he started clicking about Bart Prince, which is this architect that lives in New Mexico.

And, oh, let's do this, let's do that, we should do a chair together. And he did the chair for his final project, I did the chair for mine. And after the program, we're like, okay, let's do one together? And it becomes one of those conversations where like you do one conversation and you feel like there's more subject to go and you do another one and another one and another one. And then we say, okay, cool.

Let's just name this thing and then make it like an actual agency and make stuff out of it and making something consistent. And that's how, that's how it came up. It was kind of, it was supernatural. I can say that it's nothing was forced. It was Super natural. So we did our first collection that we named Points of Sail in the summer of 2020, just like after the first lockdown, right?

James Langford [05:38]

Yeah, we presented it in September.

Larry Tchogninou [05:40]

Yeah, they opened it back, like so we did our first collection like that we show at Congruent Space in Chicago, and we're like, okay, one collection Maybe let's do another one. And we did another one. And then one client job got in and we're like, okay, let's name this whole thing Points of Sail and make stuff from it. But what the— a little bit of background story where the name Points of Sail came from was like, we were talking about making a chair together.

We're like, let's do something that has the feeling of floating, almost like sailboats. And we found that name Points of Sail that indicates how boats and winds work together to be pushed. All about sailboats and stuff. And it stays like that. It stays just the name of the practice.

James Langford [06:31]

Yeah, it's kind of funny, the naming. It's like we started both with a similar aesthetic leaning, like just picking that one, tiny prompt out of thin air of like, let's make something that has a floating effect. And then we found this whole story to go along with it and this whole body of subject matter to research from. And yeah, that's where all the furniture has kept coming from.

Christian Solorzano [06:52]

And everything leading up to the both of you meeting, what were some of the other creative projects that the both of you were exploring outside of each other? Just as kids growing up, what kind of objects were the both of you fascinated with as people growing up? What spoke to you?

Larry Tchogninou [07:12]

So for me, a little bit of background story about me. I originally from Benin in West Africa, born and raised. I was born and raised in Benin in West Africa. I left Benin in 2014 at the age of 16 years old. I moved to France where I spent like 4 years, so 3 years of high school, 1 year of architecture. I always wanted to be architect since I was like 6 years old.

It's kind of come from the fact that when I was super kid, My mom was building a house in the suburb of the city that I was living in, Benin, Cotonou. And every weekend we would go see the house. So I kind of fell in love really young with the fact that people were mixing mortar, sand, and gravel and making those concrete blocks and build the buildings. I kind of fell in love with that poetry, right?

And always asking my mom, who's the person that orchestrated all of that?

Carson Koppin [08:07]

Yeah.

Larry Tchogninou [08:07]

Dad and he told me he was the architect. So I always wanted to be that. So moving to France, one year for architecture. I didn't know nothing about design at all. I didn't even know it was a thing, product design and stuff like that. I didn't know it was a thing. And then I moved to Chicago to continue my architecture studies in 2018. And that's where I met product design through someone that you had on the podcast named Benjamin Edgar.

Kind of fell in love with his marble hangers and that's where I started design. So 2018, summer 2018, meeting Ben, working on project Julian Gaines on the Nike Chicago team, book a flight to go into Nike to Nike headquarters to learn more about product design. And summer '19, the Virgil program came in. So I just knew about product design for a year.

Until I run into that program where James was part of it. So this, that summer I really wanted to make a chair because like it's the first after building, after a building or a room that you live in is the next object that has a direct relationship to your body because you sit on it, you rest on it. So I really wanted to do a chair. I was obsessed with that summer. I wanted to get out that summer with a chair.

And I started it and then that program came in and we had to show something by the end of the program. So. To me, it was the perfect moment to make a chair, and it leads to point of sale. But that's it. It could be background about me.

Christian Solorzano [09:39]

Then what about you, James?

James Langford [09:40]

And if you want to go all the way back, I liked Hot Wheels and collecting stuff as a kid.

Larry Tchogninou [09:46]

That was always like—

James Langford [09:48]

I liked, I liked little objects that you could collect and organize, like Pokémon cards and stuff like that. And I don't know, maybe that does lead to some aesthetic sensibilities or Maybe it's like the research side of it. I like the compartmentalizing and the planning and the organizational side of it. That's what makes me and Larry such a good combo. Our strengths seem to really complement one another's. But yeah, I was always an art kid in high school. Went to Northside Prep on the Northwest Side.

We had a really great art program there. We had 3 different teachers. It was a kind of a ceramics and sculpture teacher, a photography and digital imaging teacher. And a painting and art history and drawing teacher. And I would take classes with all of them and try and explore all the different disciplines. So yeah, we both, I think Larry and I both come from this self-taught-ish background, but also a desire to be a generalist rather than a specialist.

And so getting to be a part of a Virgil Abloh-led program really just fed into that, like He was the king of that. And yeah, it's being— meeting under those circumstances kind of informed what Points of Sail would become and validated a lot of those parts of our practices.

Carson Koppin [11:04]

And I love all the work that you've done under the Points of Sail stuff, whether, it's the in Good Spirits, the non-alcoholic store, right? Or I could list a myriad of other things, but, there's so much cool stuff that you guys have done. And one thing that I think really sticks out to me that you say on your website is, a design agency that takes an outsider approach to solving problems. And so I'm just curious to know, how do both of you define an outsider approach?

Because— and what does that look like for either of you?

James Langford [11:35]

I think it started with us, like I said, that self-taught mentality. When we met, Larry, were you— were you at Harold Washington when we met, or were you just about to?

Larry Tchogninou [11:47]

I was still in Harold. I was in Harold finishing my associate to transfer to IIT because I am in IIT now, but in summer '18, I was still in Harold. Yeah.

James Langford [11:59]

And then for me, it's like I studied creative writing for my undergrad. So it was like rhetoric and meaning making, but not so much like the hard industrial design skills that you'd associate with a design office or architecture agency. But yeah, it was like just both of us coming from these sort of disparate backgrounds and letting those inform one another and bounce off one another. Yeah, outside of the institutional space.

Christian Solorzano [12:31]

Yeah.

Larry Tchogninou [12:32]

For me to jump on that, Carson, I would say that it's all about solving problems. At the end of the day, it's all about solving problems. In Good Spirit came to us with a problem. JTIP's project on the website, they came with a problem. It's all about— I feel like in a sense they like those clients treat you like a math professor.

They have a problem, they have a problem, and you are the one with the equation for his— for in a way or another, you have the magic equation and they come with it and you say, okay, you take the problem, you add contest. So that's 1 plus 1, and then you create your magic equation and 1 plus 1 becomes 40 in a sense. I think that's what I say all the time.

Design 1 plus 1 equal 100 because one problem and one contest and like 100 solutions because like and Each solution is different for one person. So that's how we do it in a sense. And the context part is really important. It's important to sit down with them and know who they are, what is the background because the solution that I proposed to Carson is not the one I would propose to Christian.

It's totally different because you have 2 different people and you won't like the same colors, you won't like the same orientations. Of course, there's some general stuff that should fit both of you guys, but there's some Specific parameters are not the same. So it's always start with that, and then we go from that to create whatever we want to create to fit those specific points. So that's how we work.

Carson Koppin [14:22]

And so I know you had spoken a little bit too about like, right, like specific colors or tailoring things, to each project. But I'm curious to know, where does, graphic design play in through that whole process? Because I think both of you, a lot of the final product project ends in 3D, but I'm curious to know how does graphic design or how does that 2D element come in through your processes to get to that final 3D object?

James Langford [14:51]

Well, yeah, 2D, I mean, especially if it's like spatial architectural, I mean, or even for a piece of furniture, it's like it always has to start as a 2D. You have to draw a plan and you have to draw a front, an elevation, and a section before you can go to axonometrics. Because it's like the human brain, we can't fully just start drawing in 3D. It's like we have to set the roadmap for ourselves. So it's always like that first element.

And then for our graphic identity, like at least for points of sale merch and like our zines and stuff, we always just look back to the process. We look back to those drawings and then reorient them into graphics. So.

Like all of our t-shirts. Actually, I have some right here. It's always the just 3D drawings, just like reorienting them with maybe like a sailing motif or layering them on top of one another. This one's like axonometric for in Good Spirits with the numbers for each piece of furniture, each one of the units. So it's just, yeah, it's just playing around with our parts of the process. That leads to the final as well.

Larry Tchogninou [16:03]

Yeah. The relationship with graphic, it's always about like communicating an idea. And it's like it's just about communicating idea. Like this is what we're gonna do. And also when we post on points of sale, we always have a lot. We always have a last slide that is just purely graphic that shows what the product is about, how we break it down or how it came to life. So it's like, communicating like how the thing comes to life in several steps.

I also would always tell James that I love graphic design because there's no gravity in graphic.

Just see that you do whatever you want. You wanna pull the arrow this way, you just pull it, you do it? But there's no gravity. There's no, just, there's no gravity. But when you move to 3D, then you start thinking about gravity because gravity is real in materiality. Like you wanna do something, you gotta CNC this thing. It costs money. It also like needs a certain savoir-faire to do that. So, but graphic, you're just there on a flat sheet. You do whatever you want.

And it's a good way of communication. And through the, through the years, we just like share those graphics through merch. And we share them so people can purchase them or find Good Spirit t-shirts. For example, you can see on the t-shirt. At the moment, the furniture, the bottom of it, it's hinged. It's a small trick that I learned at school, and they call it hinge axonometry. And I was telling James, oh, we should do that here.

And I remember the day of the opening, my professor who taught me that trick was there, and I showed him, look, you see what you taught me? We did it here. He was so happy.

Carson Koppin [18:00]

It has—

James Langford [18:01]

It also, it's been more of a part of our practice lately too, as we expand beyond just architectural work. It's like we had a client recently who we did a whole branding package and logo design for, and that was all graphic.

It was like just storytelling through 2-dimensional, and, it had its little 3-dimensional elements like how the work will exist on merch and whatnot, but it was really the Basis of it was like, how do you tell a story and express a set of values to somebody if they're only gonna have like half a second to take it in? That was like the funniest prompt of doing a logo or like a, billboard or whatever.

It's like someone's attention span for that kind of visual element is so short and it's like, how do you convey a feeling in that tiny amount of time? Making it as simple as possible and yeah. Not overcomplicating, but still creating enough expression in the line work and colors to get that across.

Larry Tchogninou [19:03]

Something that we want to expand more into now, of course, designing spaces and 3D stuff, but as you want to be an agency or a practice that does it all, right? You got to do stuff like branding, for example. And branding is really interesting in the fact that as much as I love graphic design. Branding can get super tricky because you gotta tell a lot in a tiny space like this. And it's annoying.

It's super annoying, but it's fun because after you work on it 1 hour, you don't get anything. And the third— second hour, you don't get anything. By the third one, an idea comes. Okay, this is it. This is it. And you go all the way through and it happens. So yeah. So this is another space that we're trying to get in more, and that's purely graphic, of course. Yeah.

Christian Solorzano [19:53]

Yeah. And my question, my follow-up question to that was going to be, when it comes to brands or products that the both of you are consumers of, what surrounds you? What do you, what objects do you find yourself inspiring that the both of you didn't create? But I guess what are, what brands are you both loyal to?

James Langford [20:15]

This is a— this kind of feeds into the last question, but I got this book recently. It's Project Japan. It's by Rem Koolhaas's agency, like OMA AMO. It's not exactly a product. It's like kind of a research study about Japanese metabolist architecture and, post-war creating this system of architecture that can evolve and grow with the times. The idea was like, it's like nodes that you could Drag out and replace.

Not too far into it, but I just, I bring that up because they have such great publications, but also they just, they laid the roadmap for what we're trying to do, like what Rem does, because he can go so seamlessly from designing the Seattle Public Library to designing a fashion show for Prada, to writing a book and releasing a collection of graphic design, like it's so fluid. And he's— that's why Rem was one of Virgil's favorites too. Just the multidisciplinarity of it.

And so yeah, anything Rem does is a big one for me. I got another one right here. That's funny. I didn't prepare this. These are just on my desk. I got the new, the new Teenage Engineering sampler.

Larry Tchogninou [21:33]

Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was about to say that. I was about to say that.

James Langford [21:37]

Teenage Engineering does good stuff. I mean, it's like, I'm no— I'm a musician by no means, but this is like, I think of it like a toy. It looks like a toy, it feels like a toy, but you can make really compelling sounds with it and just get lost in it. And it's my way of stopping overthinking. Yeah, putting this on, putting my headphones on. If I'm overthinking something, this just helps me completely zone out because it's so fun and intuitive.

And, at the end of it, it's like, when you stop playing a video game, you don't have anything to show for it. But this, it's like, it's like feels like a video game. It's like a Game Boy, but then you have a—

Larry Tchogninou [22:14]

To bounce on an object that inspired me a lot right now, it's I would say Teenage Engineering is one of them. I love the core that they designed. It's— I don't know if you saw that one, but it's a core of like several wooden objects, and each of them that make a specific sound. And my favorite one is the one that they call Gisela. It's a, it's a square, it's a cube, and at the bottom you have a triangle, a pyramid.

So a cube under a pyramid. And Gisela is so beautiful because it's just an amazing object by itself. It's a pure form by itself and the noise that it does, obviously. And another thing that inspired me a lot, now I have this on my desk. I was not even ready for this question, but is this perfume brand named Clo Parfum. They're Chicago-made. The branding is amazing.

It's actually made by one perfumer, her name is Laura, and the one graphic designer, his name is Caleb, and they've been friends forever, like since kids, and they started this company together, and the brand is just amazing. I mean, those people know what they're doing, and the fact that it's Chicago-based it smells so good. And the type of like product that I see, I'm like, wow, this is amazing because you hold the thing and you see the amount of thought that went into it.

So it's a product that inspired me a lot lately.

Christian Solorzano [23:49]

So does points of sale, do you, do you, both of you, both of you see yourselves at some point doing music or doing fragrances? Is that? Is that— is it— what are, what are some of the future project ideas or a space that the both of you haven't explored yet?

James Langford [24:05]

We want to do it all.

Larry Tchogninou [24:07]

We want to do it all.

James Langford [24:08]

I'll say just for now, like there's a differentiation between like points of sale personal projects and client projects. Client projects, we could get whatever. If a perfume company comes to us and says we need branding, yeah, hell yeah, we'll hop on that tomorrow. Yeah, maybe the perfume project points of sale is a little further out, the inline brand. But I don't know, should I say the next big one, Larry? The— this year we want to make a go-kart. Yeah, that's like, that's the personal project.

Yeah, we want to do a go-kart.

Larry Tchogninou [24:45]

Yeah. Okay, we're working on a go-kart, but we had this thing of like this passion about like it's so funny, James. James' conversation when we're alone, right? We're talking about cars and stuff. We did a concrete boat before. Of course we did a boat, but we're like, what if we do a kart? A go-kart? So now we work on a go-kart. Still super preliminary. We don't, we don't know what we're gonna come up with yet, but we thinking about this thing that we wanna make.

Of course, for client job, we wanna do more like Stores, more retail spaces residential projects. We would love to design houses because both of us has like that point of view with architecture. And we would love to do a residential project, right? Residential projects, spaces, stores experimental experiences and a bunch of stuff like that. Why not do a concert? Designing a set for it.

So it's that idea that the possibilities are endless and we think we can do it all client-wise, ourselves, just like keep doing furniture because furniture so far been our business card, right? And we've been showing that people to show them that we can do more. We've been doing furniture and showing good spirit, or we can do furniture. They're like, okay, cool, then you can design a space. So keep doing that, it opens us more doors. So it's all about doing it at a bigger scale.

The way we see ourselves, if you can— if I can give a perfect example, we'd be like something like PlayLab Inc. Literally, that's how we see ourselves in 10 years. So we're working toward that, and any project that comes, we do it. There's no, we figure out, we learn it, and we do it?

James Langford [26:40]

Yeah. And if we're talking about cars and mobility, we gotta shout out Joey Ryder, who's a furniture designer but started his own practice that mostly, he mostly does like mobility.

Guy based outta Grand Rapids, super great guy. He was the original inspiration for the concrete boat, for our construction methodology. He did a boat called the E10, and it was a folded aluminum, basically like extruded triangular prism with the top cut off. And we saw that and we're like, oh, we could do that, but precast concrete. And we saw that boat online and we were like, damn, this is so clean. It's so cool. It must be— this guy must be in like Denmark or something.

And then we find out, oh shit, he's in Michigan. He's 3 hours away.

Larry Tchogninou [27:22]

That's great.

James Langford [27:22]

So we did the concrete boat. We sent him the zine. He was already in the zine before we even found that. And he's like, oh, why don't you guys come up and visit? So we went up and visited him, hung out with him, saw his other projects. He had this dune buggy he made called the Reboot Buggy. Super inspiring guy that, he was at Steelcase and he was corporate and he kind of left it all behind to pursue his own projects and his own passion.

So yeah, guys like him are a big inspiration too. Just showing us you don't, you don't need the corporate backing and yeah, you don't need, anyone's validation. You just need to do what makes you happy.

Larry Tchogninou [27:58]

I love that. He does, he does it himself in his garage. That's crazy.

James Langford [28:02]

He's there with his TIG welder and he has like one assistant.

Larry Tchogninou [28:06]

Yeah, it's crazy. It's crazy. Yeah. Yeah. People like that, super inspiring. Yeah.

Christian Solorzano [28:11]

Yeah. So when it comes to all of these ideas, how, because there, there's never a, I feel like there's always an abundance of ideas, but how do the both of you go about prioritizing or choosing which to focus on? Do you, do the both of you ever just get overwhelmed by All right. We want to do all of these things. Where do we start? How does that, how does that process go for the both of you?

Larry Tchogninou [28:35]

I was yeah, I always think like any creative, and I think all of you guys here are creative, right? Christian and Carson, everybody's a creative. I think that any creative that lives in our time should have 3 practices. The first one that I call the solo practice, the duo practice, or the one in group, and the third one was what I call consulting. To me, practice one is Rupture Vision, the product design, just me. And Carson came to my show to see my body of work.

That's just me. Practice, that's the personal practice, the solo practice. James is James's studio where he does like his artwork. So like baseball jacket, glove, and bunch of other stuff, the chair, the spike chair, and all of that. And the duo practice is points of sale for both of us. That's the thing we do in duo.

Both of us together. And the third one is what I call the consulting. It's like a friend of you, a friend of you call you, hey, we need your help on this project. You go, you do that thing, you get your money and you out. It's just like a, it's a small contract thing. You don't work on that more than one month, but that money that you get from it actually helps you to finance other stuff.

So those are the 3 practices and the to me, I have, I have a cadency or what I would call like a duty around for each of those practices. For Rupture Vision, it's one drop every month, which is 12 products a year, or we're releasing some products. That's one. Points of sale is like a certain number of client work a year with personal projects a year. And the actual consulting is like when it comes, it comes, and I go do that.

So all of that, to stay focused, you have a cadency. I have a cadency and a certain amount of work that I gotta put out for each of those practices yearly. And I map out my year like that. But January, this thing comes out in terms of Rupture Vision. February, this point of sale project comes out. And I map out my year like that. It's hard. Plus I have school. That's how school and life is really hard.

I mean, James also will tell you that it's really hard too, but it's just like when you set up stuff like that and then you figure out that there's a duty and you are there to make the work because you choose that lifestyle and you want to do that and be known for those things, you just do it. There's no excuses.

James Langford [31:14]

Yeah, it sounds cliché, but yeah, it's just showing up every day and staying consistent. I know everybody says that, but that's really all it boils down to.

And I think Larry's more, you're more compartmentalized about like rupture one product every month. Like you have that as a rule for yourself. I like, for my personal practice, I kind of, I experiment. We both experiment, but I'm not as attached to a deadline for like when I have to release something by. If something takes a little longer, like it can be frustrating sometimes.

Larry Tchogninou [31:46]

But yeah, it is.

James Langford [31:47]

You want everything to be easy and you want it to flow, but it just doesn't always happen that way. So I don't know. I mean, I would love to stay on this calendar of being in a couple group shows every year.

Last year I showed a few times. 2 years ago I had a first solo show in LA. Planning some stuff for this year. So it's more about that. I mean, and then, and those kind of external deadlines help me bust stuff out. But as far as like, concepting a new body of work and an idea and seeing something through in that way, it's just, you can't predict how long that'll take.

Larry Tchogninou [32:23]

But I'm saying also like that idea of like one drop a month, like sometimes it gets a really Hard to keep up because you're ready for this. A design process, a design process. Been working on this pizza cutter now. I'm working on it. And to me, it's like, you're gonna be— I'm gonna drop in March. That was my plan. But there's no way it's coming out in March, because the gravity is real. That's what we're saying. Gravity is real. Materiality is real.

Friction is a real thing. If the wheel is not spinning, it's not spinning. So you're going to take more time, but it's just like there is this schedule that forces you to stay there and do the work, if not just stay there, like with all of those practices together, it would be really hard to manage them and stay consistent. And consistency is a big word for me. It's just like whatever you do, right, you got to stay consistent.

Christian Solorzano [33:25]

And I think the accountability also makes a big difference, especially in a group setting, like having conversations with other people and sharing what you're working on. I think that, yeah, if you say something that you're going to do something and other people hear it, then there's an expectation that you're setting there.

Larry Tchogninou [33:42]

Yeah. And also for point of sale, like on the, on the client work side, like you talk with a client and he say, okay, so when do I expect the first round? In 2 weeks, you gotta show up in 2 weeks with the first one.

Christian Solorzano [33:56]

That's true.

Larry Tchogninou [33:56]

You saw it, that's, that's— and you gotta make time for it, whatever, if anything that is going on. Okay, you're stopping everything. You're like, okay, this is the priority now. 2 weeks, this gotta be out first.

James Langford [34:08]

So it's true, client work does always get a little bit of the time priority because it pays the bills.

Larry Tchogninou [34:13]

Exactly. Yeah. So that one, when you say it's in 2 weeks, you gotta— you get in 2 weeks the call, you got to be on a call with them in 2 weeks and show it. So sometimes you gotta going to be around and make time for that one and let others like jump over more. So yeah, it's how it works, but it's that thing. And that's the word you say, Christian, accountability. It's really that. And that's what keeps focus and consistent and keep us going.

That's how we manage the time a little bit.

Christian Solorzano [34:42]

Yeah. And through the collaboration that the both of you have, I've spoken with many collaborators in the past. And one of the questions that I always like to ask is, when the both of you— because you, you're both so close and working so closely with each other, I'm assuming conflict arises sometimes, or like disagreements or different perspectives. How do you guys go about resolving conflict? And maybe if you want to share a story, but just curious about that.

Larry Tchogninou [35:11]

Do we have some big ones? I don't think so. You think about anything?

James Langford [35:19]

Get the fists up.

Larry Tchogninou [35:21]

To me, okay, this is, this is, this is the way I work sometimes at least I think about the work in collaboration, right? It's like the best idea is the one that we follow. If like, if like we're in a day where like James sent the idea and that's the one there's no ego. I think this is the best one. Let's go. If, I mean, if I have a better one, sometimes we push him. That's where sometimes it can get tricky.

We'd be like we got an idea. We'll be like I don't know about this one. Let's dig it more. And I know, I know sometimes he doesn't like it. We're like let's iterate more. Let's push more. Let's push more. That's sometimes it gets a little bit tricky there, but if sometimes like, okay, man. I have no clue what we'll be doing. Do you have an idea? Oh, I have this one. Okay, let's run it. Let's go. But sometimes I feel we can push more.

We can push more. We can go. I think we did have this project the other day where we had the thing and we pushed so far that we got lost and we had to come back to the first one. I'm talking about Rhonda's project, the library agents. But so it happens like that, but there's no— I don't see huge conflict. I won't say that.

James Langford [36:43]

Yeah, I don't— it doesn't get like combative between one another ever. I think the only, the only thing we still get caught up over, like Larry said, it's like this sunk cost time fallacy where it's like, the, the— we get past the concepting stage, we start following a path, and then we like, spend a bunch of hours on something and it doesn't shape up the way we envisioned at the beginning. And it's like, it's always hard to let go. That's where the conflict happens.

But it's not like, it's not like, oh, we need to throw this all away because I have something better right now. It's like, oh, we got here. This isn't quite it. We need to start over or we need to go back to, stage 3 instead of stage 10 where we're at now.

Larry Tchogninou [37:29]

And that's it. I think also we work like, we work so more years together that we understand how things work a little bit with one another. When James gets frustrated, I understand right away. And okay, cool, he's a little frustrated now. Or when he feels I'm irritated, he knows it. And those are just human relationships and just like how we humans are. But you gotta know As you work with a partner in person, in group, right?

And that dual practice is just like understanding where the moment where emotion starts take over the act of creating and know, okay, when is it should stop pushing, or we should talk more. Just, okay, let's stop, let's talk, yeah, let's go back. Yeah. So some— it's just sometimes about noticing those moments and that goes through passing time together. You know how the other person reacts in certain moments, certain parameters, and under pressure too. We're totally different under pressure.

It's like, if you got a delivery, we need something by tomorrow, the way we react usually is not the same at all. It's totally different. So you gotta know, you gotta know the partner enough to know how that person yeah, and each person is different. I can tell you that. What we pass with James, you do something else with somebody else, he will get mad. You know what I mean? So the person will get mad. So you gotta know the partner who you're working with. Yeah.

I would never say crazy conflict. No.

Christian Solorzano [39:09]

Yeah, because there's a, there's a big aspect of just being emotionally intelligent when it comes to working with people.

Larry Tchogninou [39:17]

So yeah, totally. Yeah. Facts. I think sometimes there's the project where like we both carry a lot. That can be really hard. I think I can say in Good Spirits, for example, because we dreamed about that thing, it came. And I think the beginning was a little bit complicated to find the perfect flow and how to set up those things. But once we found the flow, it's just like smooth all the way to the end? So yeah.

Carson Koppin [39:52]

Right, like you just, you get that level of trust and you can feel that with the client or the collaboration or the collaborator, whoever it is, and you start to feel things move seamlessly as everybody's excited to get to whatever the solution is or the next thing, right? And there's, you get past some of those blockers.

Larry Tchogninou [40:09]

Yeah, that word comes a lot sometimes with James and I. We'd be like, at some moment we'd be designing like, I trust you. Do it. Run it. I trust you. And that word is really important. It's emphasized on the trust that we had to each other. And yeah.

Carson Koppin [40:28]

I know that was kind of something Virgil had spoken a little bit about too, is making sure that those— Virgil and Archie Lee of PlayLab as well, just talking about doing projects that are rooted and trust or, excitement or people that wanna see different things.

Cuz once you start talking from a place of fear or insecurity, all the crazy human things start to come up and it starts to be difficult to get to the kind of the next, the next step even for that sense of trust.

But one thing I wanted to ask too, to both of you about with inter— especially when you bring up in Good Spirits again, like how are you using design to curate the atmospheric space? Because I think, Larry, you touched on it a little bit earlier, right? You make the room, and then what's the first thing that's going to go in there? And then how do we— it's an extra level when now we're speaking of a place of commerce, right? Or an experience.

How do you even go about creating that atmosphere from top to bottom? Because I feel like that's such a large experience to grab from just this specific object or, a room.

James Langford [41:35]

Yeah, it's, I mean, it's always different, right? There's always a different brief. It's always a different goal. And that's why we do what we do. If there's a blanket solution, we'd be out of work, right? But I mean, for in Good Spirits, for example, it's like, they're a new brand. They're young in what they're doing. It's a really young industry as well.

They're coming from a space of doing pop-ups and settling down for their first retail and bringing that same kind of communal energy because their whole business was always gatherings, right? So they're taking that and planting it in one place. So we'd think about how do they keep that same energy, like keep people excited to come back every time. And a big part of that is social media and Creating a space that can live there and have that wow factor.

So that was a big motivator and a design tenet. And then the backbone of it is like you said, place of commerce. It's like, how do they sell product? So shelving and, creating space for bottles was a big part of it as well. But yeah, in that one it was just how do you make something how do we make somewhere that's exciting every time and that has the flexibility to change and grow with them as their business changes and grows?

Larry Tchogninou [43:03]

Yeah, I think, yeah, that's the whole thing because it was a total new business. It's a, it's a total new model, like non-alcoholic beverages store like it's totally new. So the first, the first, the first way to approach this thing was that you gotta be we gotta flip the bottle. It should not be the normal store thing that we bring there. If not, it won't gonna be as impactful, as impressive. So for people to come back, you gotta be an experience that is totally different.

And the way you say we approach like those furniture pieces, instead of like just focusing on one single object. The best trick was to create a family of objects.

So each of them are in conversation with the other one, and you see that all of them are generated from the same pattern, and they go all— each of them are in one specific spot of the, of the, of the store. So it's one object there, one object there, one object there, but they belong to the same family, and that's how they work together. And when you get in, you see that, oh, everything is working together. It's almost like a the core of Teenage Engineering. Exactly.

Each different object, you can buy each of them, but together they create a symphony together. And that's how we approach it. And the best element, of course, of the store is that lamp that we call the chandelier because it links the bottom of the store to the top of the store. And it was a really hard location to work with because it's it was a location with a deep story.

You see the tile on the floor, you see the plaster on the, on the, on the ceiling. You had to work with those things to make this thing work visually and aesthetically. And that was complicated to integrate the background, the story background of that space that I was like, that the owner was in love with from the beginning. That's what she wanted.

James Langford [45:06]

Yeah, the methodology for the, for that one, it was like Create one primitive and then reshape the primitive to every one of our needs. And it was just like that, curved blue circular extrusion. And it was like, how do we just reshape this one thing 9 different times or however many it was?

Larry Tchogninou [45:28]

Yeah. And the blue, the blue was pretty simple. We just asked them like, do you like blue? They say yes. They say yes. And they show, they show us a mood board of like a monochromatic space that they loved before. And I was like, okay, boom, this is it. You want blue, you get blue.

Christian Solorzano [45:47]

Real.

Larry Tchogninou [45:51]

It was pretty much that for the blue. It was pretty straightforward. I mean, we had an idea to propose blue, but we didn't, we didn't know how much of it. And once they show us the mood board, okay, bro. Say less. This is gonna be all the way through. It's gonna be all the way through. Yeah.

Carson Koppin [46:13]

I love the selection of materials that you use for the space as well, whether that's like the— is it like PVC or of the, like the curtain that's like kind of see-through transparent?

James Langford [46:26]

Yeah, that's—

Carson Koppin [46:26]

You're looking at the space. So sick.

James Langford [46:28]

The welding curtain.

Larry Tchogninou [46:31]

Yeah. What?

James Langford [46:31]

Like you'd use in a welding shop. Yeah, we, it's prefab. We bought that, or, well, technically it was like cut to our dimensions, but yeah, it was like a service online that does welding curtains fit to spaces and we saw that color and it's like, oh, easy. Yeah, that it was 'cause it was like we wanted to do as little actual custom build work as possible, avoiding permits and whatnot.

But yeah, we, they had that opening back there that divided the bathroom and some of their backroom storage area. So it's like, okay, how do we make a wall without having to build a wall? So hung the curtains.

Larry Tchogninou [47:08]

Yeah. And that was part of the brief. Like they want people to come in the store, but nobody to go to the back of the room. So it's needed physical divider. And the best way to do it was just like that. Wedding curtain, and it works so well because when you are the other side, you don't even see because the blue is so dense.

But on the other side, when you look at the street, because when you go to the other side of the curtain and you look at the street, the blue is so light you see the whole store. So it just plays perfectly there. Yeah, and I wish we definitely want to do more stores in the city or around to something like it was a really. It was a big passion to work on that project and the amount of conversation that it generates.

So we look forward to doing more and more stories. It's fun?

James Langford [48:02]

Yeah.

Carson Koppin [48:02]

For— I'm curious to know, for both of you, what does the utopia look like and what role does design play in that? However you feel responding to utopia, whether that's in an internal thought process or a product or how we're doing things, whatever comes to mind when you say utopia. Or Christian, I'd love if you have any specifics here to guide this.

Christian Solorzano [48:27]

I guess when I think of design, I think a big part of being a designer and a creative is being very critical of the world around us and finding ways to respond and to solve problems. So I guess another way to frame this question is, are there any problems, societal problems or cultural problems, or even just problems that you're both noticing in your communities or in person in your practices that you both feel really compelled to find a solution for?

And it could be a creative problem. It doesn't have to be anything very philosophical or big, but just what's something that the both of you are just passionate about responding? And what does that look like?

James Langford [49:11]

That's a good question. I mean, speaking about Chicago right now, it's this— we've got this migrant crisis going on like crazy. And the US at large, like this Texas news is insane. Like Greg Abbott threatening civil war so he can put barbed wire in the rivers. It's insane. But yeah, I mean, I'm sure we've all gone past police stations and seen all the tents and stuff outside. So that's been pretty affecting lately.

For me, that's just been starting very low level, like beyond design, helping people move into their houses. Like I got a pickup truck, I'll help people, a donated couch get to someone's house. So it could be that level. It could be, donating your time or money to a soup pantry or whatever. But I think, yeah, there's a role for design there as well, just making a any city more hospitable. And, but design has to work in terms or in tandem with policy.

We need legislation to be accepting as well, and we need to fund design, and we need to fund our city actually being a sanctuary? Sorry, very abstract.

Christian Solorzano [50:30]

No, I love that answer. I love that answer. Thank you.

Larry Tchogninou [50:35]

It's a nice one. I'm still thinking. I think, I think maybe to me would be like to bring more people to bring more people to design. I feel like it still feels like something like hard to access in a sense.

Also bring people, more people like me in this and also like show kids that come from where I come from, that came from where I come from, that design is actually a thing. I mean, you can actually do that and live from it. You don't have to be like doctor or lawyer just to be in life. Design is actually a thing that you can actually practice that you can do. Yeah. And yeah, I think if I— that's what I'm thinking about right now.

Christian Solorzano [51:34]

But yeah.

Larry Tchogninou [51:35]

Yeah. In a sense.

Christian Solorzano [51:36]

Yeah. Well, one of the things that we try to do with this organization that we put together is to make conversations like this accessible so that people could, learn from the both of you and from all the other guests.

On, what this practice looks like. Because it's always really interesting to see how a lot of the great work that happens just comes from this passion to just create and to show up. And I think that it's so important for people to know that because if you do know that, then you live a different kind of life? And I think that's just really crucial in my opinion.

Larry Tchogninou [52:20]

All right.

Christian Solorzano [52:21]

So I guess Carson, we could, we could jump over to our quickfire questions. These are just some lighthearted fun questions. So you want to kick that off, Carson?

Carson Koppin [52:30]

Yeah, no problem. So I got the first one is what music is playing while you're working right now?

James Langford [52:36]

Larry, I know, I know yours. We just went, we just went to the Travis Scott show the other day, last week in Milwaukee. So I've been deeply refreshed on Days Before Rodeo, Birds in the Trap, Sing McKnight. That's been— and Future, always Future.

Larry Tchogninou [52:54]

Yeah, I think a bit of Travis is playing on my playlist right now. Also listen to the same thing again and again, guys. That's actually crazy. Has much on curious in design. Like in music, I'm not much curious. James is the one that puts me on music. Did you listen to this yet? I'm like, oh, what is this? You know I've been listening to a little bit of French rap lately. This artist named Shy just dropped, and just listen to that a little bit.

She's an amazing rapper.

Carson Koppin [53:27]

Are you more of like an album or like a single person?

Larry Tchogninou [53:31]

When I work, I'm more an album person. I listen to a whole album a whole experience, and how it affects me emotionally and also trying to put those emotions in whatever I'm working on. So I'm more an album person. I love, I love like albums that goes deeply with like the audio experience more than once a single when I'm working at least.

Carson Koppin [53:55]

And I'd follow up that and say, what are your guilty pleasures right now?

James Langford [54:00]

Guilty pleasures? I don't know, french fries.

Larry Tchogninou [54:02]

Okay, cool. So I've been cutting sugar for a couple months now, because when I take too much sugar, it can it's not really good for me. So guilty pleasure for a couple days now, it's like, I mean, drinking a lot of honey, eating a lot of honey. So as long as I can, I can like put a little honey on my, on my drinks and stuff like that. But because I'm like, honey is a good sugar, but hard on it. So.

Carson Koppin [54:31]

What is— I mean, I feel like we've been having a good time this podcast, but besides here, what's the last thing that made you guys laugh a lot?

Christian Solorzano [54:39]

Like your face was in pain and all that stuff.

James Langford [54:42]

I just, I just went down to Florida for the weekend, had to get outta the cold, and I went with just some really old friends, like friends from that I've known for over 10 years at this point. And, like going to the beach is nice and all that, but the best part is just like Sitting down together and laughing over the same old stuff. So yeah, there's a comfort, friends, yeah, making each other laugh. Yeah.

Larry Tchogninou [55:10]

To me, it's probably one of my friends, his name is Nicholas. He's a classmate. And our DM on Instagram are just like sending each other memes. Literally, it's just that. I mean, I mean, James and I conversation is just like sending us like super technical stuff, like furniture and stuff like that. But Nick and I just memes that we send each other on Instagram. So I probably love really hard that meme that he sent me a couple of days ago.

Probably something really dumb, but yeah, he just showed me that.

Carson Koppin [55:45]

Yeah. Hey, we need, we need the, that humor in our lives. We need the simplicity sometimes.

Larry Tchogninou [55:52]

Yeah, sending reels to each other all day long.

Carson Koppin [55:55]

Man, all sorts of wacky stuff on there. You never know what you find.

Larry Tchogninou [56:03]

Facts.

Carson Koppin [56:04]

I'm curious to know because I feel like between like the different zines and things you guys have done, it seems like there's a particular typeface that y'all have for the logo in the books, and I'm curious to know like, is— first off, is that the same— is it the same typeface for the logo and the books? And where does the affinity for that come from?

Larry Tchogninou [56:25]

Okay, this is super unprofessional, but we found it on Dafont. Yeah, we were literally—

James Langford [56:32]

We were just kicking info around and Larry found that one. We're like, oh, this is sick.

Larry Tchogninou [56:37]

What did I type that night? It was like— it was a late night of 2019. I typed like futuristic fonts. And that thing came out and it's just— first, I didn't even download it.

James Langford [56:56]

I just—

Larry Tchogninou [56:56]

I didn't— I didn't even— because I didn't know how to download fonts from the phone. I didn't know. Stupid. I didn't know. Now I know, but I just screenshot it. And as we were going, James was like, hey, we really need this font. So I went, I went back to like my history on Google for that specific day and see what I type on the phone and I found it and then I downloaded it. Now we have it.

So yeah, it was just, it's just that, but it gives a futuristic look. And the second font that we use is Courier. We love Courier. It's really simple. It gives like a typing machine type of vibe.

James Langford [57:37]

Yeah, it's a contemporary but not sans serif.

Larry Tchogninou [57:40]

Yeah, exactly. So Photonica and Courier, that's what we swear by here.

Carson Koppin [57:45]

From DaFont to concrete boats, the points of sale story.

James Langford [57:52]

That's a bar.

Larry Tchogninou [57:54]

That's a bar.

Carson Koppin [57:55]

So this one me and Christian were laughing about this question before we even asked it. But I'm curious to know if there's something that either of you have always wanted to say to the other that you feel like you haven't had the space to say. And we just wanted to open up that space for you in case there was anything, that could be— that could be positive, negative, anything. We just wanted to make sure, you guys had the space to let it out.

James Langford [58:24]

Larry, you're a great— you're a great driver. Sincerely.

Larry Tchogninou [58:28]

That means a lot. You love— you like my driving style?

James Langford [58:31]

You've come a long way. Oh man, Larry used to think— when Larry first started driving, he would take these left turns and he would slow down to like 3 miles an hour, like turning a boat, and go— there'd be oncoming traffic. I'm like, go faster, go! Got it now though, man.

Larry Tchogninou [58:47]

That driving got me sick. Okay, so we went to Milwaukee for Utopia. We came back, man, I was broke. I was like feeling broken, so I wasn't I was, I was on bed the whole weekend. It was bad. It was bad. You were having a good time in California, but I was, I was bad. But I mean, Florida, but it's feeling really bad. But thank you for that. Oh, one thing I would say, do I say enough? I love you, brother.

James Langford [59:16]

Love you, man.

Larry Tchogninou [59:17]

Yeah, I love you too, brother. Yeah, I love you. Thanks for pushing and thanks for Thanks for being part of this journey, dream about. So let's keep going. Let's keep building.

James Langford [59:30]

Wise man.

Larry Tchogninou [59:30]

Yeah. Love.

James Langford [59:31]

Thank you guys for making this space.

Carson Koppin [59:33]

Of course. Absolutely. It's been an amazing conversation. Exactly. Any, literally any time.

Larry Tchogninou [59:41]

And now he puts, he puts a lot of pressure on me to keep being a good driver. Thank you, guys.

Carson Koppin [59:54]

I've got 2 more questions, but this one, and I think it's become extremely evident through this conversation how well you 2 work together and the different things that you do. And I'm curious to know, what is some advice you would have for people wanting to collaborate and work together?

Larry Tchogninou [60:13]

That's a good one. I would say— Drop the ego.

James Langford [60:20]

Don't no need to defend something just because you made it. There really, there really is merit to letting that go and seeing another side and being able to take yourself out of that, personal headspace of like defending your own ideas for the sake of it is really valuable. That's one of the most valuable things I've learned working with Larry and, just growing this collaborative practice, because I wasn't so good at that at first.

But being able to see, yeah, beyond a personal affinity and just looking for what the best solution is, that's the most important part.

Larry Tchogninou [61:02]

Yeah, we, not me. That's something— this is something I learned at Nike. This is it's one of the stuff I learned at Nike where like one of the team, like it was that manager, he always gets mad when someone presents something and say me, like it's not you. It's we, not me. So that's really important. Like when you come to the point that you are working in a group for a group of people, it's not yours. It's just for everybody. You just switch up everything.

And the second thing is like Take time to know whoever you're working with. That's really important. Like I was saying, you can push more with some people than other people. So you gotta know when you stop pushing. And that's really important. So knowing your partners. And third thing is just go out there and do it. Do the dream work is, the teamwork is real. So just do it? Yeah. Trust the teammates. The trust is important, really important. Trust.

Carson Koppin [62:05]

Thank you very much for the answers there. Last question I've got here, and we can go ahead and wrap, is how do you inspire collaboration in others?

Larry Tchogninou [62:14]

Aspire?

Carson Koppin [62:18]

Like inspire collaboration in others, working with different clients or different groups of people, right? Like you were just saying there, it's not me and James, it's we, it's us all coming together. So how do you bring that? How do you find yourself bringing that same collaborative energy to those other groups of people? So everybody's excited to be on the same board. Everybody's excited to do the same collaboration.

James Langford [62:42]

Good question. Larry, you wanna take that one?

Larry Tchogninou [62:49]

That one's hard.

James Langford [62:50]

I mean, you gotta want it, right? You can't, you can't force anyone to do something they don't want. So there, you have to start with like that willingness and trust gets built over time, but you have to want to trust somebody. You can't like go into something unwilling, I would say.

Larry Tchogninou [63:13]

I think also like the big, like the big type of collaboration, for example, we give the example of the concrete boat. How many were we on that thing? Like you and I. The whole team of like Steven and all of those guys. So probably like 5, 6 people working on this project. But he, I think when you wanna work in that big group of people, you gotta come from here, that needs to work as a group.

And participate to something like that is bigger just than you. It's for us?

And when you work with a group such that big, it's just it's a big work by itself. Trust that many people to be participate that much. Like yeah. So I would bounce off what James say, like wanting to do it and trust people and making step by step? Yeah, that's what I would say too. But wanting to do it first and trust others. And the teamwork is always dream work, to be honest. Always.

Carson Koppin [64:22]

Thank you so much, both of you. This has been an incredibly illuminating conversation, and I'm so happy we got to capture not only how y'all came together, but also all the amazing stuff you're doing. And I'm— I can't wait to see the concrete go-kart. I mean, I'm sure it's right, something beyond that. But thanks again to both of you. This has just been an amazing conversation.

Larry Tchogninou [64:44]

Carson just dropped an idea. James, we go concrete. Yeah, thank you guys for putting us on this podcast. We truly appreciate it. Thank you a lot. It means a lot to be a part of this. So thanks for thinking about us and keep doing this. We're excited to listen to the whole thing and see who are the next guests on this thing. Yeah.

Christian Solorzano [65:10]

Yeah, thank you so much. And I hope that sometime in the future we could do some kind of collaboration together because we love what the both of you are doing. And I think all Chicago-based, so why not, why not do something together? So we'll keep our door open.

Larry Tchogninou [65:26]

Thank you so much. Appreciate you. Take care. Bye.

James Langford [65:29]

Have a good one.