Christian Solorzano [00:40]

Hello, you are listening to Underscore, a podcast by the Chicago Graphic Design Club. I am your host, Christian Solorzano. Today's guest needs little to no introduction. I have the honor and privilege of speaking with Chicago designer Rick Valicenti, who between 1988 and 2019 ran the Chicago design practice Thirst. In today's conversation, Rick reflects on his career and his collaborations, friendships, and encounters with designers such as Tibor Kalman, Saul Bass, Art Paul Rand, and many more.

Rick is full of great stories, great insight and wisdom regarding the creative process, design, and overall just how to stay inspired to continue to create, to continue to be challenged, to continue to make work that you can be proud of and that could leave a legacy. Rick is also one of our upcoming featured designers in our upcoming publication, faculty, and he shares the process behind using artificial intelligence to create designs that reflect the many personas and roles which he has played throughout the years.

Rick also shares his love and admiration for Taylor Swift, and he made a special request that this episode be unedited, so we are calling this episode Rick's version. Enjoy. Thank you so much for your support, and we'll talk soon. Welcome, Rick. Nice to be speaking with you today. How's it going?

Rick Valicenti [02:23]

Good morning. It's going good. It's good. It's— I'm here on the day that the Kansas City Chiefs are gonna go up against the Baltimore Ravens, and I think that's a pretty— yeah, it's a pretty good sort of it's a really fine moment I'm very excited about. I don't know why I'm excited about it, but I just love the playoff season.

Christian Solorzano [02:47]

So is that baseball or is that basket— that's basketball, right?

Rick Valicenti [02:50]

Oh, you are so cute, man. That's football. Football.

Christian Solorzano [02:54]

Yeah, see, that's—

Rick Valicenti [02:56]

It's a football. Yes. There's a typographic connection to that football game. It's the last one of this series. It's these conference and divisional playoffs and the wildcard game, they are all distinguished by a typeface that was designed originally in the Thirst Studio, and it was called Orbit.

And then when it was taken to New York with Chester Jenkins, who had taken the Thirst type into the world of Village Type back then— he has New Foundry now— he modified it, cleaned it up, and gave it to the NFL where they use it for those 3 words. They used to use it for the Super Bowl. They use it for just those 3 words and the numbers on the back of the referees' shirts.

Yeah. And occasionally it comes zooming up at you on the screen with a 3D graphic and it has a swish attached to it. The audio.

Christian Solorzano [03:56]

I love that. Yeah, I always I always talk to my students about how athletes have some of the best branding when it comes to their jerseys and their uniforms, because you're seeing branding on it, on the courts or on the field.

Rick Valicenti [04:13]

Oh yeah, it's full-on costume design at the highest theater level. I mean, this franchise of the NFL is really on a mission to sort of dominate the world of football, right? They're going to Europe, they're going to South America. But you're right, there is that the theater on the field where the jerseys change and they— everybody's a superstar. Even this morning I saw a video on Instagram, a guilty pleasure of mine. In fact, I'm highlighting 2 guilty pleasures. Playoff season in any sport. And Instagram.

Christian Solorzano [04:54]

Okay, I was hoping that you would say Taylor Swift, but that's my third one.

Rick Valicenti [04:58]

That one, of course, goes with every post midlife man who likes a good round of pop music. But I'm really fascinated by that output that Taylor has delivered over a lifetime, and the level on which she performs—not the live performance, but just performs holistically as an artist. It's fantastic. And the enlisting of some of the world's finest musical pop talent. Oh yeah, just fantastic. It's a really good moment.

It's, in 1964, my sister and I sitting down in front of the television on a Sunday night watched the Beatles the Ed Sullivan Show. And that was a mind-blowing experience where a couple of young kids, I think we were in middle school or just early, I was a freshman in high school, had our heads turned around by that exhilarating tingle that took over.

And it's like, okay, well, we're gonna go through this great stretch of time where we get to the moon and we get a computer on your lap and you get a cell phone and it's like, well, where's that tingle of the Beatles and the Stones, that sort of pop moment? Oh yeah, you can go through your, they were all there, right? The Michael Jacksons, the Elton Johns, the whoever, Adeles. But along comes Taylor Swift, and I don't know how it is for other people.

I can only assume it's rather similar for me. It was a return to that sort of like, oh my God, this feels so fresh, and it feels so alive with creativity. And then of course, I plugged into my wife had been back to Chicago during the fall semester. She was. Teaching at Northwestern. And so my black poodle and I, her name is Winnie. She's not quite 2. She's a Moyenne poodle from Michigan City, Indiana. But nonetheless, we would be watching TV in the evening.

And I plugged into the Making of Folklore on Apple TV with Taylor Swift and her 2 producers. And it was the fallout of creativity during COVID where everyone was isolated and how they had found themselves, not unlike what you and I are doing here this morning, talking virtually. If we were exchanging audio files, we would accompany this video with, our workshopping of that work or those melodies, and then they get together after COVID. And Apple TV has documented the performance of those songs.

They're in the same house. And it is just fantastic to see that creative process blossom. And it reminded me of having seen the Peter Jackson Get Back restoration of— I think that's what it's called, Get Back, or whatever the video was of the Beatles making the Let it Be album.

And that was pretty damn special as well. So I ramble, but I'd look for those experiences in making for myself. You're like, what does it feel like? How do you know when you are onto something? Or how do you know when you should stop? And that's a question that every creative person is asked at some point, how do you know where to start? How do you know when to stop? How do you know whether you're on the right track?

I think after a period of time, it maybe comes down to, do you understand how it feels when it feels right? And if you can work to that feeling or a variation on that theme, then perhaps you're on the right path and you're going to have that really good buzz at the end.

Christian Solorzano [09:07]

When I think about Taylor Swift, I see her— I'm also a really big fan of hers. And I think about, for example, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and how they, with the two of them, there was a contrast there. The Rolling Stones were dirtier, like they were more raw, whereas the Beatles were a little bit more polished. And I often— today I think about how so much of rock and roll or pop culture is missing a villain.

I feel like Taylor Swift, for instance, like she— Like, who is the villain when it comes to Taylor Swift and who's that opposing force that is in pop culture right now? And I think that's something I'm longing for.

Rick Valicenti [09:53]

Well, I think it's there to some degree, and it's not unlike what we're seeing in the discourse around politics. The Biden campaign has begun to refer to this moment as a moment of contrast. And so while it was easy to paint Trump as a villain, right, or the bad guy. I think they've taken a little higher path and called it a contrast.

And what we see in the pop music moment, and this has been illuminated to me by my daughter, is the contrast between the Taylor Swift presence in the fan base, her fan base, and Beyoncé's presence within her fan base and a greater pop culture. And what Lyndon pointed out was Taylor's very open and, open source in terms of her life, or to whatever degree she wants to package those portions of her life.

That's open source and everyone can sing along and try to figure out where the Easter eggs are. But Beyoncé, on the other hand, is incredibly private. There's really no knowledge. We about her personal life except the occasional interview in a Vogue magazine or Bazaar, wherever she chooses to, or Vanity Fair, wherever it may be. But it comes through her work in a similar manner that it comes through every artist's work.

But I think that's the contrast in how the presence of the artist is migrating from their studio, their work around whatever it is they want to say and those who are listening and consuming it as a product. Yeah, but it's more than a product at that level. It's really a kind of bond, loyalty, a handshake, a hug. It's all those things. It's like the Chicago Graphic Design Club. I mean that with all the respect in the world too.

Christian Solorzano [11:50]

So I want to jump to— so you are— I'm very excited because you are featured in Our inaugural issue of our publication Faculty, which we're releasing in February. And your submission includes an insert that opens up, and there's a total of 6 panels. And each of those graphics that you include includes a different persona or a different archetype or a different character, whatever you want to call it. And you include a clown, and you include clowning and a gorilla motif.

And I want to ask you, are you one of those? Are you— do you feel like you're represented in one of those graphics that the readers will be able to see very soon?

Rick Valicenti [12:34]

That's an easy question to answer. And the answer I would deliver is yes to both. But allow me to elaborate. It's clear that I— there's actually a third persona, which I'll— I identify in a second. But I do identify quite clearly, and in this centerfold, the second image one might see is a portrait of myself done with only text-based prompting in Midjourney. And it wasn't Midjourney 6, it was the 4 or 5, whatever the iterations were before.

And it was only text-based to find this machine intelligence rendering me as photographically real as possible. And the prompt read something like this, photographically render a post-midlife man with a stubble of a beard, a mustache, a larger than normal nose, wide-set eyes, a large forehead, thinning hair on top, but kind of approaching mullet. Along the ears and back, and oh, if necessary, if we can't get it right, we're going to put a clown nose on him.

Well, the first renderings of this persona came out like I was some hunk from a casting call in Hollywood. It was really that's a I love this program. I can talk about it later. But it's those moments like, you're the craziest collaborator I've ever worked with. I have no idea what you're gonna deliver. I give you some direction, you come back with something that's completely whack. So, go back to your corner and let's do it again.

Click variations, and pretty soon, modify the prompt a little bit and you get something that's a little bit closer. And finally, it's time. And you go, okay, that's the best rendering that machine intelligence in this exchange I'm having can deliver of me. I'll take it. Well, it turned out that the clown nose turned into 3 dots, 3 red dots that migrated sort of like on the side of my nose, on my eyebrow, on my forehead. It's like, well, that's the weirdest clown nose ever.

That's like smeared lipstick on a Marilyn Monroe portrait by Bert Stern. It's like, that's very weird. But I took it, and then it was time to make other personas. And the second persona that I made was the Rodin Thinker as a sculpture made in sandstone, but the human is replaced by a primate. That was the essence of that prompt. And the first rendering that came out in Midjourney style was a 3-armed version of that.

And the unique thing about the Rodin sculpture is that the— I think it's the right elbow is on the left knee or thigh. There's a kind of torque to the torso. And while I didn't describe that, it didn't render it. So when it went searching for the world of replications of that sculpture, it returned something that was just like right elbow on the right knee and, oh, 3 arms are better than 2 and no toes are better than 4.

And I just thought, oh my God, this is— this thinking primate might actually be a rendition, a mirror reflection of me thinking I'm like deeply philosophical, but I'm really just like your average, evolving primate. So I called it the Thinker, but I had the prompt. The audience, if your audience, I should say, to ask the thinker something. Right? Just ask the thinker. And the person who prompts that question is also a third persona in here. It's the art director.

And the art director now has been rendered in a mid-century pen and ink style. Of again that same physical description of myself. And that's what came out, those little guys. But I scaled them in a way that reminded me of like those Mort Drucker illustrations you'd see in the margin of a Mad Magazine in the early days. So that was those personas. So I was all of those things.

And I think the court jester or the clown is the most important one because a court jester has permission and has for centuries to be the one who can tell the truth, right? They are more than just a commentator in the skybox at a sporting event. They are the person who can say and question what others choose to remain silent about, right? And we all forgive them. We call them George Carlin or Lenny Bruce or David LaChapelle. No, that's the photographer. I'm sorry. It's David Chappelle.

I said David LaChapelle, quite different than David Chappelle, quite different. In any case, that's what I, that's what I was trying to do. And of course, then I use a 200% vertically stretched rendition of the new Bronzo by Patric King, who took that 1988-89 typeface that myself and a collaborator at the Art Institute, his name is Molly Maurer, did for Gilbert Paper way back when.

But Patrick's version is tight and it's clean and it's disciplined, and it just seemed just the right touch to use as the question itself that was being asked to the thinker, and also the reflection, the sort of value and principle that designers, or at least that I tried to subscribe to, As a designer, like someone said, what are the objectives for this project? Well, let's make something that's meaningful and relevant and real.

So those were the sort of passing on, as arrogant and presumptuous as that may sound, of a philosophical foundation that I built a livelihood around. And a career trying to do the best relative to those words in a design process and was never, reluctant to say them. They were also the principles and values that I knew were being collaborated with both inside the studio and on the other side of the interface.

Christian Solorzano [19:29]

And while we're on this topic, you— there's a series of questions that are featured in this insert, and I want to ask you, what are some of the questions that you ask yourself of maybe late at night? Or is there still— do you, do you— what are some of the things that keep you up at night when it comes to questions?

What questions or answers do you feel like you're— you've been longing for an answer for most of your life, or maybe for just the past 24 hours? But what kind of questions do you like to ask of yourself?

Rick Valicenti [20:05]

Yeah, that's a really that, that's a really good question. And well, I don't let it keep me up at night. I'm one who can fall asleep rather easily. It does get me up early in the morning. Yeah, and for the longest time I've had the raccoon eyes because there's always something that's reverberating about. But I can assure you that at 72 years of age, those questions of everything from, am I doing the right thing, to, is that all there is?

All the forms of those questions keep bouncing in and around. And I think that's a great personal prompt to keep looking for answers to them and responses to them.

And those responses come in, indeed, they come in making, they come in exchanges and relationships, and after a bit, it starts to define who you are. But it's interesting for me to have a perspective now that I never thought about. And that perspective was one who had sort of like come to a point on the circuit, if you will, or the track. Yeah.

Where there was enough space, clearly maybe more space between where I'm standing now and where I began than there is between where I'm standing now and where I will end. So I can look back and say, whoa, how did you do here? Or did you do enough? Did you do the right thing? Are you happy with what you did? Did you say the right things? I don't know.

It's like all those questions, and I've indulged myself in the past few years to be looking both back and forward. So I've given myself a little personal brief, which is for every project that I revisit or remix, I'm going to make a new one. Right. And I did that specifically through some photographic work that I've been dealing with. And the— it started off by wanting to restore and enlarge my graduate school portfolio of photographs that I did in 1975-76 at the University of Iowa.

And with every print that was made, there would be multiples of new work that was being printed at the same printer. It's the print lab on Homan Street in Chicago, a guy named Xander who's just like fucking amazing. That's what I've been doing, that and then of course going through designed objects. I've been thrilled with some of the reaction that I've had within myself. You set out to make a practice and the practice has so many dimensions to it.

I'm sure you're experiencing these as well, and anyone who's listening has touched on some of them, but the experiences are certainly ones that start like, okay, will I get a job? Oh, will I do a good job? Will I do the right thing? Will it be special? Will the person who provided me this commission, will they be thrilled? Will they be a collaborator? Right? All of those things start to build. Oh, will I need help?

Will the help that I hire feel rewarded and loyal to this opportunity? Will they learn? Will they grow? And pretty soon that starts to multiply and blossom, and the dimensions of the practice take on forms that go in directions sometimes way beyond the making or the ideation. Or the strategic or the conceptual or the practical or the resourceful points of view that you're kind of dealing with. And then it becomes again a studio environment. At least it did for me.

It sort of just multiplied into that. And pre-COVID days where working together was both privilege and— yeah, it was a privilege. Yeah, just a privilege to spend so much valuable creative time with people who were eager to sort of make interesting things in the medium of design, and learn along the way. So I'm really grateful for that.

And I look back at the portfolio and I see so much evidence of something that I would talk about but never really thought it was Manifesting, and what I would talk about and try to be seriously proud about was the amount of energy devoted to the self-initiated projects within the studio, the ones that the only client was my paycheck. I know overdramatic way of saying that, but you get the idea. It's just like self-funded, and it's.

It provided a buzz, at least for me, and hopefully for others, to try something that the only client was kind of all of us when we could go high five and go, man, knock that one out. And those sorts of projects, I can look at the portfolio today and see them, be reminded of the collaborations, and make a direct link to the next project that came into the studio. Or projects that benefited from that kind of energy.

And so what had happened was that which was really a sort of byproduct of the self-initiation that grad school demanded, right? There were no assignments in grad school, at least the grad school I went to. It was like, what are you thinking about? What's your métier? I want you to read these things, these critical reviews, check out this book, look at this person's work. Oh, participate in critiques.

All of that stuff didn't come with an assignment like, okay, now next Tuesday I want you to do a letterhead. It wasn't like that at all. So how do you continue that into your practice? Well, you just do, and the rewards are evident.

Christian Solorzano [26:42]

So on that note, you mentioned collaborations, and in this insert that you, that you that's gonna be featured in our publication, you pay homage to your friend Art Paul. And you've had very prolific friends. You've been friends with people that I look up to that, some of them are no longer living today, such as Tibor Kalman, who is, in my opinion, is one of my personal heroes because there's so much about him that I relate to when I hear him speak or read about him.

So can you talk to us a little bit about some of your relationships that you've had over your career? And maybe if I was a fly on the wall, and you guys were all having a conversation, what's something that I would hear? What were some topics that you were exploring or thinking about with some of these people?

Rick Valicenti [27:39]

I run the risk of sounding like a Good old name dropper. Go ahead, do it. Right now, I just want that to be the sort of disclaimer at the beginning of this segment. Because you're right, I feel like the lucky guy. I often called myself Zelig, the guy who just happened to be there, or Tom Hanks, who's standing— what was it, Forrest Gump? And so to me, it was lucky, but I know exactly where it came from.

And it came from and I say this with some degree of clarity because I have encountered a box the size of a trunk at the end of a bed in a bed and breakfast, one of those big-ass trunks full of correspondence that I saved and, quote, fan letters and whatever. And just yesterday, in this drawer right behind me, let's just look right here. Here we are. This was unprompted, I want you to know.

I pull out a 9 by 12 black archival bag, and here on the top of that bag is correspondence from Tibor Kalman. Yeah, there it is right here. And here it says, you can see this, XXX Tibor. And what was happening then was the beginning of this typographic reaction to international modernism. And there were a number of designs, and this particular document here that was produced in 19— let me get the date right. I think I have it here.

It was ungodly early, but it was a call for entries from the STA, right?

It's just a wacky thing that was what normally would just been this much text, right? Please submit your entries too. And I forget what year it was, but it was pretty early. And it had been sent to designers all over, please enter the competition. I got to pick the judges. It was Mildred Friedman, Gert Dunbar, and Tibor Kalman, and Katherine McCoy that year. It's like, well, that's a pretty hefty group of judges. Oh, I think I had Michael McCoy from San Francisco. Not Michael McCoy.

No, sorry. Oh, what's his name? I just came across his photos the other day. It's like that. There were 5 of those designers all named Michael, 5 or 6 of them from San Francisco at the time. And Mabry, Michael Mabry. Oh, he was fabulous. Such a sweet soul. In any case, we were all just looking to find our voice, and there was a way in which we could jumpstart that exchange that's quite different in the way it's done today.

Today it's quite easy to rifle off an email, go to Instagram, find them, hashtag, boom, send them a note. Back then it was like, get their mailing label or their mailing address, send them your recent work with a little note, or just send them a letter. On your letterhead with your pen that just said, hey, I love what you did for— I love that Colors magazine, Tibor, what do you think? Or I love that M and Company work for the Talking Heads.

So that's how it would work. And oh, I'm going to be in New York, can I drop by the studio? And that would happen with a young Sagmeister who I remember meeting at a design conference in it was in Louisville, Kentucky. And there we were, and we're talking. Some people there were—they had us in some like classic old barn. And I know what year it was. It must have been like nineteen—I want to say ninety-something.

Whenever Herman Miller and Crick and Sexton redid the Herman Miller, or was— yeah, Herman Miller redid their showroom in the Merchandise Mart in that year, and I and our team were commissioned to do the graphics around it with a woman out of Michigan named Joyce Mast, and she was our Michigan connection, also a great designer.

But in any case, we would send one another things, and it would go to Rudy at Emigre, or it would go to, Lorraine at CalArts, and then they'd invite us to sort of like, come to my college, I'm teaching a class. Today it would be like, hey, can you show up for a Zoom call? I had a nice Zoom call the other day with Paul Saar. I had some classes at Pratt with Scott Santoro and a conversation with Elaine Lopez, all of these by Zoom.

But it is a little bit different than the in-person, but that's how it worked back then. And there's so much correspondence that I was on the receiving end because I must have been on the sending end. And we would make projects that we could send to one another, at least the research projects that I would invest in both creatively and in real dollars and encourage my printing friends to invest in at virtually no money.

Curtis over at Graphic Arts Studio was an incredible gift giver, as were my friends Ray and Jeff at Classic. They would just like give it up, give their real hard-earned plate money and press time to make something that for them was also a stretch. Everybody was stretching, and then we'd share that stretch. And of course, then discourse starts to change. Rudy does his magazine. Everybody's writing their letters to the editor, if you will.

And it becomes the next issue, or interviews are being held and inserts are being produced and invitations to do the COVID and the back cover. Back then it was like, I remember exactly when that was happening on that issue. It ends up in the Art Institute as a press sheet on display in the same room you guys were in yesterday to see that John Massey poster. And that was when they opened up the design collection in the modern wing.

It's like that was a fantastic and unexpected reward for time well spent.

Christian Solorzano [34:14]

Yeah, I love that. And it seems like that's probably a big reason why you've had such a fulfilling career is because of those relationships that you've had. So, and I think so.

Rick Valicenti [34:26]

Yeah, with smart people.

But I will say that as a member of the Zelig Club, the Forrest Gump Club, I was not and remain not one of the smart ones. I'm more of the reckless one. In fact, I find in Midjourney the same sort of personality that I think I behaved with, which is like, hey, what do you think about this? And so, but in any case, I remember I had some very close relationships with the editor of i-D magazine at the time. Her name was Chi Pearlman.

I think she took over after Ralph Kaplan left. And I remember a year had gone by and Chi and I were in frequent exchange back and forth, sharing work, whatnot. And I said, Chi, in all this time, you've never provided a critique of my work. Now, this is at the time where Katherine McCoy is calling a movement of typography auditory typography.

She makes that reference, and this is where the scale and size of the type might reflect the whatever it is, the oscillation of one's voice as they speak. Everything from the pitch to the volume. And so I was too practicing that. And you have to sort of like read every word and see where the syllables fall and how you can, as they would say, deconstruct it and amplify something.

And so it would get to the point where it was so navel-gazing and self-indulgent, but it made me feel really good and happy. I would see that it was printed usually for an unsuspecting professional audience like the SDA, that Chi Pearlman said in her critique, and it was very succinct, she said, you make smart people feel stupid. It's like, oh my God, Chi, you're breaking my heart. What is that?

She said, you have a hard time providing entry into that which you want us to be focused on. You've sort of obscured the entry with all of these hurdles that we have to pass through. What does that word really say? Or what is that sentence? Why is it there? Why is it at that scale?

So I think of those sorts of things that I was exploring in earnest with clients like Gilbert Paper or Holly Hunt, and they were getting their audiences exposed to these things, and that work was also getting published in the magazines, which was then getting or earning invitations to speak at the university circuit, and then ultimately the professional design organization in different cities or countries. All of that I don't know, it was like some form of pollinization of ideas was out there.

And I think today we see that in a much different manner. We see that happening to such immediacy in social media. You put something up and everybody's there. With it comes its own— I think it's— something's missing in that. I don't know that it's like packaged intentionally with it, but there's an anonymity. My relationship with the makers isn't quite as intimate.

Unless they've produced, as you've introduced so many people to, these sorts of podcasts, or they've gone on and created videos of their work like Elliot does, Elliot Earls of Cranbrook. When that happens, then they break down all of the distance between the folks. It can be across the globe, and you say, oh, I know that person in Japan or in China.

Christian Solorzano [38:24]

Yeah, but with a little bit of what you were talking about your work being about making smart people feel stupid, or your work forcing the viewer to really think very deliberately about what they're looking at, to understand and to enter the piece. I— that's something that I try to do in my work. I don't, I don't always like to make things so straightforward. I want there to be a little bit of a conversation with the viewer.

Where they have to decipher and engage with what they're viewing. And I think about that as respecting the viewer because you're trusting them that they're capable of depicting the message. And I think that's, for me, that's one of the exciting things about graphic design is where there's, when there's a level of difficulty in deciphering the message. And some of the work, like your work obviously comes to mind.

I also think about the studio Tomato and a lot of the work that they would produce was always just— you have to hold it close to your face to understand it, and you have to get really intimate with it. And the listener won't be able to see this, but even yesterday I bought this CD that Tomato put together, I believe, in 2003. And the typography is so interesting because it's like, very tight leading, letter spacing.

So if I want to read it, I have to really stop what I'm doing and pay attention. So is that something that you were deliberate, that you were, that was intentional through your work? Were you trying to get the viewer to sort of pause, reflect, and engage, or was that just a byproduct of what you were doing?

Rick Valicenti [40:10]

A great assessment, and I can answer that. So without hesitation, absolutely, I wanted to slow down the person who was in contact with me through whatever it was in front of them, be it a piece of paper or something bound or something on the screen. And while you spoke in past tense, I don't see it in past tense. I see it very much a current— Yeah.

Thing, because one can't begin a conversation about auditory typography without imagining a real conversation going on where the inflection that one makes with their voice or the proximity they make as they lean into another person that they're in conversation with, that can't be happening in the design experience. And when that does, you offer the 2 words that you mentioned, which were respect and trust.

You have to respect your person you're in conversation with to give you time to understand what you're saying, to sort of listen clearly. You respect them and whatever you say, you respect their ability to understand it. And together there's a mutual trust.

But with that also comes the word that you could add to that is the word reward. So for that exchange, there has to be the takeaway. The takeaway could be that ephemeral moment that comes and goes, oh my God, that was so funny, or oh, that was so good, or the sort of long-term lingering effect like, wow, my mind is forever changed on that topic.

Like you were mentioning the center spread that I put in your publication and my friendship with Art Paul. Art Paul was the— I like to refer to him as the co-founder of Playboy because he was the freelance designer in Chicago that Hugh Hefner sought out. Art was working by himself, freelance guy. And they ended up being a dynamic duo for sure.

But the center spread in a Chicago publication like Faculty needed to have an homage to Art Paul, even if it was just the way it folded out.

Right. There's no naughty bit in that 6 panels that I produced. I think maybe the Playboy center spread was just a single gate, but this is a barrel fold double gate. And it starts off, you granted me space at the beginning and end of this so I could bookend the center spread. But on the left side, I traced the, in my mind, the iconic interview layout that was produced here in Chicago. And this one happened to be the Governor Jimmy Carter interview in Playboy from 1978.

And I decided I would get a screenshot of that, put it under a layer in InDesign, right?

And then just with rule lines, see if I could capture the x-height of what Art was doing and the indents. And sure enough, mathematically, from the captions at the bottom to the text to the subtext, he had this mathematical logic to it. It was like, dude, that's so good. That's so nice to see. So that was really good. And of course, I chose the Governor Jimmy Carter interview where he spoke with such honesty and humility that we could see him not losing throughout his whole life.

I thought, okay, that's a good thing to do. And then at the end, there's a typographic expression that they did with Dana Arnett in a hotel room not too long ago in New York. We went to see the Ed Ruscha— well, Dana had seen it. I went to see the Ed Ruscha show like every designer on a pilgrimage. But that night, Dana had a friend who was looking for some rendering of the word high wire. I said, oh, let's put that in the Midjourney.

We'll make that happen. So just simply by typing the word high wire, saying render the word high wire on a black background, this piece of type comes out that looked like it could be some belt buckle for the Marshall Tucker Band, and it doesn't look at all like High Wire. Yeah, in fact, it's completely illegible. But I thought, oh my God, I said, Dana, we can make some variations on this. Just push this V2 button or whatever it is, V1, and strong recommend— or strong variations.

So it was really like 2 guys in a hotel room just having a hoot. And I thought, well, that deserves to be put in this book because that captured this moment of time where that Midjourney freelancer who we brought into the serious office of typographic studies was over in the corner and 30 seconds later says, what do you think of this?

Christian Solorzano [45:32]

Yeah, I was reflecting on it because I have a printed proof now at my house and I've just been flipping through the pages and it's, in my opinion, it's a genius piece because there's a contrast between the simplicity of something that was done in the '70s and how mathematical and how uniform and how appropriate it is, in contrast to something that feels so chaotic and sloppy and at the same time beautiful.

And I think for me, it's a reflection of how like, just the difference between human— like, humanity and technology is the fact that with us, I feel like there's more precision. And with AI, it's a little bit more, I don't know, just more like Wild West, just unexpected craziness.

Rick Valicenti [46:24]

Yeah. Well, let's just take a look at the faculty logo for a minute. Okay. You had the, you had the insight to bring something from the rock and roll '90s to the COVID of this century's Chicago Design Journal, right? That piece was done in Chicago. It was done for Carlos and T26. It rocked then. You show the video online; it rocks today, right? So when we looked at that, if the masters and practitioners.

Of American modernism, the sort of our version of the international modernism from Western Europe. If the Massys and the Vignellis looked at that piece of type, then they would have gone, right, what is going on? Scratching their head and going, this is nonsense or bullshit or whatever. And so I think this moment of AI typographic calligraphy looked so weird to us now.

I can only imagine since we're at the, little crest of a tsunami that AI is going to bring to us, if this thing gets looked at 20 years from now. And people go, oh my God, is that what it looked like then?

Christian Solorzano [47:49]

Yeah.

Rick Valicenti [47:50]

It's like, is that what typography looked like in the faculty logo then?

Christian Solorzano [47:55]

Yeah.

Rick Valicenti [47:55]

Yeah. And the answer is yeah, it, it's good to preserve those things. We live in a post-original time. There's no question. Right? And we're seeing it magnified both in terms of design that gets posted online, brilliant new design where we can go, they used those colors before, or that looks like All right, the moment you put the ellipsis after those kinds of phrases is the moment you're saying something not about that work, but perhaps about yourself.

But this post-original time that we live in is evidenced in how at least Midjourney seems to be working. It seems to be going out into the internet. Maybe I'm describing the obvious as some lay guy who hasn't read enough to know really what the truth is. But it seems like it's going out and it's canvassing and aggregating from every image that's already been published out there and delivering it. And it's collaging it in a seamless way. And you're going, look, this is what you look like.

But there's some filters in which it's gathering it from, and those filters often look kind of weird, but the things that it can't quite make sense of, I think, belong to the soul of design and design of designers. I don't know to what degree the advanced machine will learn what it means to have a soul or to make discerning decisions that come from a place that's not rational and it's not predetermined. I don't know how long that's going to be.

And in the event that it does, well, we better have a pretty good handshake with that machine, right? Otherwise it'll dismiss us and we'll be like sandstone primates trying to figure out how many arms we're supposed to have. But yeah, I love this period of time, this post-original time, because occasionally there are those moments where you can just feel the fracture and some really bright light pours in and go, okay, the future really is holding some amazing potential for us. Yeah. And it makes me tingle.

Christian Solorzano [50:17]

So you mentioned the Massimos and the Vignellis looking at, some of the wacky typography. And I'm curious about how— what were so when you were, let's say in the '90s or '80s, when you were, when you were with Thirst, what were the responses from some of the more corporate designers that were perhaps, only using Helvetica or something that was a little bit more conservative? Just what were some of the reactions to some of your work?

Rick Valicenti [50:54]

I have to return to the STA box for a moment. Remind me to tell you a story about Paul Rand. And Saul Bass. I'll tell you those 2 stories. That'll be my name-dropping moment. But this one here is May 25th, 1989. It's from Bunnell Design in New York City. And Bill Bunnell was the second in ranking to John Massey at Container Corporation at the time. And this is a note to Tibor Kalman, M and Company, 50 West 17th Street, New York, New York.

Dear Tibor Kalman, I was pleased to discover that the STA has moved from what I suppose was the leading edge to the front edge of design. Is front closer to the edge than leading? I hope that you're going to help them determine that. He said, I found the STA mailer, the one I just showed you, because this is Bill being aware that Tibor's going to be a judge at this 100 show. He says, I found the S.T.

Mailer to be the most premeditatively obfuscated piece of pseudo-philosophical claptrap I may have ever seen. I shudder to think that this may be a harbinger of the dangerous ideas you've written about recently. I begin to sympathize with Wotan, Waiting with resignation at the pyre. All this aside, time for lunch? Cheers, Bill. Bill Bunnell. Claptrap is the word I take away. So that answered your question on what did others think.

Right? And I think there's a couple of references that Massimo— publisher Emigre had published that Massimo had said. Yeah, there was an obvious feeling that the ground was moving.

And the modernists, rightly so, were seeing and experiencing something that perhaps they too had brought to the world of communication, right? Their work was much different, much more disciplined and subtractive, and oftentimes bold in a new way that the work of the early graphic artists. Yeah. Many of them working in the back of print shops, right, since 1919, doing the flourish and the illustrative and the beautiful. And all of a sudden, the world became Crate and Barrel graphics.

I use that as a sort of byproduct of it. But there, it was a moment that sort of put a tremor through both business and culture and made people awaken to what might be termed the essential.

And with that, the sort of iconic image at poster level that was diametrically opposed to another typographic iconic poster, and I'm pointing on one hand to the Milton Glaser Dylan poster that has Elvis in the hair, embedded in the hair, and psychedelic typography that he did, sort of a nod and a wink to perhaps what was going on at Haight-Ashbury, to the I Be Me— or I'm sorry, the IBM Rebus poster that Paul Rand had done for IBM, where it was the eyeball, the B, and IBM with a striked M.

And so in my reckless manner, I thought, oh, in fact, I came across that sketch just yesterday. I might want to make a poster for myself using these new 3D programs called Eye Be Me.

Yeah. I called Stephen Heller, who I knew was a friend of Paul Rand's. I said, hey, can you give me Paul Rand's phone number? I want to call him, get his permission. I get the number and I call him. And I don't really know too much about Paul Rand other than the sort of folklore that had migrated to Chicago that he was a kind of troll under the bridge. Right? And I've never been in a critique with him. I never knew anybody who had.

I was really, again, way on the outside. So I— he picks up the phone. Hello. And I go, Mr. Rand?

Christian Solorzano [55:22]

Yes. Yes.

Rick Valicenti [55:24]

This is Rick Valicenti. I know who you are. I go, oh I have a question to ask you. And I want to ask him a question asking permission if I could take the essence of his Rebus and translate it in essentially the same composition to I Be Me, but the me would be out of bronzotype, right? It's like, damn, that's going to be good. And I may even have that one here in the drawer too. I just saw that published.

But he goes something like, you want to do what? And I explained it again. He goes, call the IBM lawyer, and hung up. So I thought, wow, I've sort of stepped on that mousetrap.

Christian Solorzano [56:14]

And how did that make you feel?

Rick Valicenti [56:15]

It made me feel like I didn't, for once after that call, like pound my chest or anything. I really felt like, man, am I out of my league. I really must look like the little kid in the Dennis the Menace cartoon or something, or Eddie Haskell in Leave it to Beaver, the kind of annoying character. But I thought it was just the nice thing to do was to call him and see if I could have that riff.

Clearly he didn't give me permission, but I did it anyhow. Yeah, I was quite happy with that. And he knew who you were when you called, so I think that was— yeah, he probably did know who I was, but it was like with a sour taste in his mouth. He said, I know who you are, oh, get that name out of my mind right now. Yeah, there was the really special moment. I was describing it the other day.

We— I did a film for Gilbert Paper, a 9.5-minute video, and this was the first of sort of 2 sort of commercial films that this generation of paper companies were doing to help promote their product. This one was designed for their introduction in Australia and New Zealand, and shortly thereafter, Dana did like the amazing film for Sappy Paper called Ben Day. That one was like, fucking a, he really pulled out all the stops.

Well, on my shoestring budget, I do this 9.5-minute video about some loving situation that involved paper. I send it to Saul Bass on a VHS tape. Now, first of all, who would send that?

Christian Solorzano [58:11]

Right.

Rick Valicenti [58:11]

With a letter like, Dear Mr. Bass, if you have 9 and a half minutes— I had no idea how precious one's time might be if you're playing at the level he must have been playing at, right? And I can't even relate to that. Will you please take a look at my video? So I forget about it. Months go by and there's a call in the office and my sister picks up the phone and She shouts, there's a Saul Bass on the phone! And everybody went, what?

Saul Bass? Saul Bass? So I pick up the phone and Rick, this is Saul Bass. Hi, Mr. Bass, how are you? Fine, thank you. I see you sent me a VHS tape a while back. Would you like a critique? Oh no, it was more like, I suspect you would like a critique. I said, well, I would like a critique. And here is a direct quote. This one has seared indelibly into my consciousness since that moment. And he says, I see you loved every frame you shot.

There was no editing at all in his mind. Man, a little subtractive behavior, a little judicious Editing would have been in order. I see you loved every frame you shot. That's so good. So I saw him years later. He was premiering a film at the Music Box Theater that he and his wife had done. This is later in his career. He's walking with a cane, and I go up to him after the film as he's in the lobby. I go, "Mr.

Bass, hi, I'm Rick Valicenti." He goes, "Oh." Oh my, Rick Valicenti. Hi, how are you? I said, fine. I said, I'm really sorry about that nine and a half minutes. He goes, no, it's okay. I said, fabulous film, all that gratuity. And I said, may I ask you to sign my sign something for me? And I look around and I'm going, I don't have any paper. Oh shit! The only paper I have is my paycheck envelope that I just got.

And I pull out a pencil and he writes on my paycheck envelope. I have it. Framed outside the wall. Here it goes, with admiration, Saul Bass, and he draws one of those Saul Bass, fish logo things. That was his signature. It's like, fuck, that was great. So that was my Saul Bass, Paul Rand, Massimo story. But, we had in Chicago, we had the gentlemen and gentlepersons of American modernism. I'll just name a few.

Susan Jackson Cague, was such a presence, and I think she is arguably credited by being, or for being, the first woman to practice graphic design in Chicago. She was in those early classes, if not the first classes, with Moholy-Nagy, and her classmates were Milton Milley, Goldscholl. Art Paul was in those classes then. And so she was a real gentle person, and of course Art Paul and More Goldschul. I have more Goldschul stories. Would you like to hear this one? Yeah, please.

Okay, I'm really like whipping out the stuff from the archive. Here we go. There was a young designer who had come from RISD into Chicago. His name was Michael Glass, and he was the designer who was bringing the book or the cultural communication look and feel from Providence, Rhode Island, where he studied and worked alongside Malcolm Greer, who was doing the museum work on the East Coast. And Michael comes to Chicago and immediately he's working for the MCA.

And why he looked me up, I have no idea. But one of his first assistants was, it was Cary Grady, and then went on to be Jason Pickleman. And so that connection to Michael West was great. So Michael befriended me, and he was a very flamboyant guy. He said, we got to meet some of these guys who were like the leaders of the Chicago history. Now, he didn't talk at all like that. That was me inflecting what I heard from Michael.

He was much more dandy-like, I really think. But in any case, we identified Mort Goldschul as the guy. Now I'm working at the design partnership in Evanston for a designer named Bruce Beck, who was an early president of the SDA, and his partner was Haywood Blake, and his other partner was Jack Weiss, and they had a couple of partners, Hank Roberts and— I forget the signage guy's name— who were working on Michigan Avenue in the city.

And Bruce had all kinds of friends come through the studio. Like he'd have R. Hunter Middleton walk through on lunch break. It's like, who's that little short guy? Looks like another Yoda. Bruce looked like a Yoda to begin with. But that was me being like, I'm the employee, I'm the darkroom guy here at Bruce's studio. Mort Goldschul was in that collection of people. Michael and I decided we're going to go see Mort Goldschul. He had a building up on the Edens Expressway in Northbrook.

We drive up in Michael's red Triumph after work one day, and it must have been in the winter or early spring because it got dark very early. It may have been after Halloween. And we show up on a rainy night and we're standing on the doorstep and neither of us have talked about what it is we're going to say to Mort Golcho when we do get to meet him. We didn't schedule an appointment. We just show up and we knock on his door.

And the door opens. And what I now know is Millie shows up at the door. And we go, is Mort Goldschul here? He's busy. Do you have an appointment? No. He can't see you now. He's busy. Could you please tell him that there's 2 young designers here who just want to say hi? I don't know anything like that, really. Finally, the door closes and the next thing we know is we're standing in the rain.

The door opens and there's his big silhouette, much bigger frame than Millie. We start to babble and we look at each other, neither of us has the question. Finally, I can feel that Michael's tossed the ball back to me and I go, Mr. Goldschulm, if there's anything you could tell 2 young designers who are about to embark on their career, what would you tell us? I have 3 words for you, he says. What are those 3 words, right? Believe in God, right? Trust in yourself.

We don't know what those words are. And all of a sudden, he, in his voice, he goes, take a risk. Fuck, that was a mantra. That mantra has been a guiding principle. Take a risk. No one's going to give it to you. You have to take it. No one's going to say, hey, I'm here, I want you to have this risk I'm giving you. It doesn't come packaged. It doesn't come in a casserole dish. There's some risk.

And so I think when you talk about what was the community like—

The community was of like-minded people who also understood that. They may not have been able to define it or describe it that way, but they were willing to invest in themselves. They were willing to invest in ideas that were of the moment or ideas that they may have shared with one another at a dinner, or I don't think there were coffee shops per se, or at the diner, or at the lunch break, or, after the tour, or after the critique.

And it was like, let's try this. Can you imagine, in Tibor's office there's Emily Oberman and somebody says, let's just project the words on the forehead of the Talking Heads while they're singing the song.

What do you think? David, here's what we're thinking. We want to just project your lyrics on your face. It's brilliant. Yeah. And it takes that reckless zeal and an aptitude for risk to make it happen. Because then once that idea is put into place, the pragmatics of making it come to life become a reality. What's the set like? How do we do it? What's the film rate? And that is the creative process that to me has always felt the best.

And I don't want to let go of that. It doesn't matter what it is. And then along the way, it's like, can you do some good for people? Right? Can you do some good? I look back and I have been encountering the work for Moving Design. That I did, those handful of initiatives that culminated at Loyola University and for 2 years in Beijing.

And that kind of work with designers making communications that expressed real issues was a territory that for the most part had been relegated to activist artists that may have used the medium of design in their output.

Whether you're the Guerrilla Girls or, even publishers like Benetton on the Colors magazine, that kind of stuff, to bring it to the young designer who can put it out into the public in almost real time and have the public confront these messages and have these messages reverberate in a way that was proactive and at the same time not an insult, not a— not anything that was offensive, but it was actually an embrace that change could happen.

Because those sorts of initiatives that are rooted in facts and data and policy, should they not be communicated creatively by those who understand the medium and are not afraid to invest their time to do so? They just end up as PowerPoints. And white papers. But what if they ended up as interventions?

So that was, that was an exciting body of work. And there's talk among myself and a couple of young guys I met at the local camera store downtown that's still doing 1-hour processing. These 2 young guys are from 2 different design programs and photo programs here in Toronto, and their portfolios are already demonstrating this kind of work.

So the assignment that I begin to form in my head is for the local— not aldermen, they call them councilmen, councilpersons, whatever the Canadians would refer to them as— to see if we can redress some of these fatigued neighborhoods with design. These aren't residential neighborhoods. These are the commercial strips that are adjacent to the residential neighborhoods. So that's what I'm thinking about. Yeah, among other things.

Christian Solorzano [69:53]

And with everything that you've done, what are some of your— do you have any regrets? Or is there anything that you wish you could have done differently? Or just when you hear the word regrets, what comes to mind?

Rick Valicenti [70:07]

Immediately what comes to mind is an experience I had in 2014. Okay. I was asked by Danny Schulman and I forget the other guys, Nathan Mason and a guy named Greg who were the curators at the Cultural Center. They invited me to curate a show that had never been done before. Out Chicago design. And at that time, I had received correspondence and a resume from a young woman. This is 2014.

Her name is Anna Mort, who had graduated from the Art Institute with an interest, if not emphasis, on curation. And she was looking for a position. So I invited her to join, and the job that we would do for that year would be to put together the Chicago Design Show. And so as it opens, it opens in the, I think, 3rd floor of the Cultural Center on the East Side Gallery. Just below it was where the 1968 Democratic ruckus took place, right?

The Chicago 7 come to life. 1978, Mayor Daley, the first one, really I don't know, whatever took it to the street. The Chicago 7 had this iconic image by Richard Avedon, 7 of them just standing there against the white background. My not so big idea was to have the venerable Sandro recreate that portrait with a 4×5 camera in sequence and document everybody in the show who would show up for that portrait.

And then we stitched them all together and it was the full length of the gallery, and not one designer of color was in that lineup. And I was called to task on that, and that was the best thing that happened. That was a wake-up call to not only myself but also the community at large. And that wake-up call was led by Norman Teague. And Norman Put me aside at a diner in the West Loop.

Maybe it's closer to Humboldt Park one morning, and it was like a, how dare you ignore all the creative talent of color in the city? And I had to say, that community of designers of color was not even on my radar.

And the wake-up call at the end of that sentence was, I must be in this white guy bubble. And quickly, he assembled a public panel discussion in the Cultural Center. And on stage, he didn't pull a punch. 2 things happened after that, besides me never forgetting that moment. That being like an important moment, was to understand that the role of being a designer at that time and in my career was a role of privilege.

I had all the resources that I could either buy for myself or that were made available to me as a principal or even just a collaborative young designer. I had all the resources. I had all the education. And what was missing in that equation was an understanding that maybe there were some designers who didn't have quite so much access. And oh, there was already a community practicing to an audience that was not the same audience I was practicing to.

So from that day forth, every intern in the studio was an intern of color. And they were there because they came to me because I went to Norman and said, Help me, help me find these people. And he turned me on to Vernon, who runs Osmosis. It was like, okay, let's go. And there was like Summer Coleman came forth. And on that day of the panel discussion at the Cultural Center, a young designer named Alan Davis came forth.

He went on to be the art director of the Black Ensemble Theater. And Summer Coleman is now working with Theaster Gates, part of the Prada team. Damn, these folks, they came to me at the right time. They came to me at a time where I needed them maybe as much as they might have needed the experience I could share with them. And I was as generous as I could be.

Yeah. 2 others were there, but it doesn't matter who they were. They're doing fabulous work. And I enjoyed that, but it also afforded the opportunities with folks like Eric Williams and the relationships with Amanda Williams and Theaster Gates to like be part of a larger community, right? The community isn't just those who are serving the business world.

It's like we put our work out there and our work reverberates and it speaks and you're allowed to speak with different dialects. You're even allowed to speak with different languages. Those are the lessons that designers become, the avatars for. We're the— yeah, we're that. And then with it comes, regret turns to gratitude is really what happened to me. And that gratitude gave way to relationships.

A relationship not only with communities I would not have been exposed to just for any number of reasons, but also because I had a different relationship with myself. Anyone who's listening to this, I mean, you have the most enlightened audience in Chicago out there and they're gonna say, what the fuck is he talking about? It's like, I'm just trying to be reflective and as honest as I can be. Because it's still not all perfectly clear to me.

But I know where I am in this personal timeline. And asking at least myself to do the best I can, just show up and do the best you can.

Christian Solorzano [76:31]

And you've been— so you've been away from Chicago for some time now. You're in Toronto now. Have there been any Other reflections, or now that you're not in the city, like looking at Chicago from a different perspective, what are, what are your thoughts on Chicago as someone that is on the outside now, but still has a, has a firm grasp on, Chicago here?

Rick Valicenti [76:59]

I have a grasp on Chicago only as it may have related from my perspective while I was there. But since I've been in Toronto, which is now approaching 2 years, I have discovered how much I miss the relationships I had in Chicago, how much I miss the spontaneous, oh, there you are, you're at the— in this gallery show, or, oh, you're at this restaurant, or, hi, how are you? I'm gonna just meet you after work.

I don't have that network now. And that is a I don't know. That is some kind of treasure that I wish I could replicate, but it's taking time. And so I am reaching out. Like I said, I met 2 guys at the camera store, and Nick has turned me on to a couple of designers in town here. One teaches at OCAD, and he's invited me to come lecture, and another person's over at York. That's the other university.

And so I like, I'm totally lucky, but I know I'm starting over. I'm also starting over in terms of geography. I knew Chicago without a GPS. It was just so secondhand. It was a stress. It wasn't a form of stress to get somewhere, but it's a stress now because like everything is kind of still GPS and the grid isn't quite as logical here. There's no numbering system that I can rely on. So for that, I am both challenged and exhilarated.

Christian Solorzano [78:34]

And what are you currently— what are some projects, or what are you— what are some of the things that you're up to today? You mentioned doing some lectures, or, being on our conversation today. What other things are moving you lately and keeping you inspired?

Rick Valicenti [78:52]

Okay, I will tell you then 2 things that left my little hands this week. One, I had the privilege of doing a Valentine's Day card for my friend Jessica Lagrange for, I don't know, 15 years every year. It's a nothing project, right? It's just put some high-wry creativity around a beautifully produced artifact. So the folks at Artistry Engraving and I think Graphic Arts Studio are working this year on some things that were generated in ChatGPT and Midjourney.

And Jessica's like so excited about them. Fabulous. I love this too. So that just went out, a book cover for my wife's new publish-on-demand book that's coming out on Amazon. And so I got to do the front and back cover. But what's so good is it's stylistically something I would never, ever have approached in a past life. But I set up the Midjourney for Diane and I said, here's the prompt that you're describing to me and this is all I'm getting.

Why don't you rewrite this prompt? You're the writer of this book. I told her, use a comma here and use quote marks there. And I set up the aspect ratio. She did the front and back cover, they are fantastic. Fantastic. It's like, okay, well, this is easy to lay some type down on this baby.

That has happened. I'm on retainer with a big-ass company that has equity partners who own Aston Martin and whatever. I don't want to define my time by their client list but my job is to direct their 2 young designers, and one's been there 7 years, another been there about 4 years. One's in Cleveland, one's in LA, and we have biweekly Zoom calls where we're actually doing design work.

And I told them, I said, I'm not opening InDesign for you, but I'm here with my annotation tool in Zoom. And they're learning how to use the keys and the numbers and the stuff and the style sheets. As much as I can teach them, or whatever I can't. Because this is in YouTube videos out there, dudes. Go get that stuff. Yeah.

So that's been happening for a couple of years, and I have a book project with Ashley, who you know very well, and you're going to go to her thing on in Oaxaca. Yeah. Does that says Ashley at Murmur? And so Anna Morten and I did her identity. Okay. I love that squiggle little line.

Christian Solorzano [81:33]

Yes, I love it too.

Rick Valicenti [81:34]

Yeah, it's so cute and smart at the same time. It's just like the oscillation of our process.

Christian Solorzano [81:41]

It's murmuring too. It's a murmuring.

Rick Valicenti [81:45]

Yeah, that's right. And then came the word ring at the end, which she isolated. But she's doing a book project. And a film project with Gary, I think his name's Hustwig.

Who did the Objectified thing. And it's on Patrick Whitney, who she had worked for I think 17 years at the Institute of Design. And he's the longest running dean there. He created the first PhD program in America. And he's one of those enigmatic characters who has completely transformed the world of corporate and product design and design methodology without any fanfare. So the book is about him and the film is about him and some of his recent work.

He's now moved from IIT, or the Institute of Design I should say, to Harvard, and then now he's at Brown University. So they set up these institutes for him. So we're working on that book project, and that's been going on for a while. We're still Looking for the right approach to it. And it's like prototype. It's like, oh, that's the ID style, huh? So that's very exhilarating. Yeah, and that and my own art making.

Christian Solorzano [83:06]

And where are you publishing your work? Where can we see? Because I know you're on Instagram. But what's another channel where we could just be up to date with all of the Latest Valicenti projects?

Rick Valicenti [83:19]

Well, yes, I haven't put anything up on Instagram that is creative since January 1st to April 1st of 2020. Okay, that's when I was leaving Thirst after almost 4 decades and moving over to the unknown with Anna. And April 1st, 2020 was 2 weeks after the COVID shutdown in March. And so the studio that Anna and I had refurbished over at West Supply, we closed and we went to Zoom world or Zoom land.

And Let's see where this question was leading me here. Oh, what am I— what was that question here?

Christian Solorzano [84:14]

My question was, where are you publishing, or where do you plan on publishing?

Rick Valicenti [84:18]

Yes. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Okay, so Anna has put together a portfolio site we haven't updated in a couple years called MVP Mort Valicenti Project. And then the thirst3st.com website like, check it out while you can because it's going to not have that URL much longer as the site is going to be part of the Ryerson Library collection. So they will be able to keep that site in perpetuity.

The entire Thirst archive exists at the Newberry Library. The focus on Gilbert Paper is in residence at the Ryerson Library. At the Art Institute, so they have all the Gilbert papers. And the full collection, full archive is also at Cooper Union, Letterform Archive. Two universities: ISU, BGSU, where I did undergraduate work in painting and photography and some design. Yeah, so those are the places. But the Ryerson will be able to host that website. Check it out now while you can.

It's it has a glimpse of 4 generations, and I'm gonna, I think, do a good job should resources and energy still reside to look backwards to capture some things that aren't on any of those platforms in the near future.

Christian Solorzano [85:45]

Excellent.

Rick Valicenti [85:46]

But I'm having such a good time doing what I didn't afford myself the entire luxury of doing, which was to just not be so beholden to my calendar or my monthly billings. Yeah, those things applied such an undue amount of uncomfortable angst and pressure. Yeah, it's taken a while to sort of get rid of that cold turkey.

Christian Solorzano [86:15]

Yeah. So as we wrap up here, last question is, I'm walking up to your door and I'm knocking on your door and I'm asking you the question of what advice would you give to a designer? What would you— what would your advice be to anyone that's listening, myself included? What are your 3 words?

Rick Valicenti [86:37]

You're brutal. You know that? You're brutal. You're brutal in the fact that I have no idea how Mort Goldschul would have just rifled off those 3 words with such ease. If he didn't truly believe in them and practice them himself.

Right. So I would say, at the risk of sounding redundant, I would easily say take a risk. But to me, I think it's much different than that. The first thing I said to you in jest is probably the one that I hold most close to, which is— oh, it's 4 words. Be true to yourself.

Christian Solorzano [87:18]

Be true to yourself.

Rick Valicenti [87:19]

Yeah, because we are all given this special gift that, first of all, the gift of life, then the gift of creativity. Those 2 things together are something that come in abundance. There's no, your limit on creativity is at 50%. We can't give you more. It's like, no, you've given us more than we can use. So what do we do with that? I think we do only one thing, just share it.

And that act of generosity is in fact at the core of creativity, at least in my mind. Just be true to yourself. Yeah. Hope I did some of that today here, huh?

Christian Solorzano [88:03]

Yeah, you certainly did. I feel so like magnet— like I just feel, I feel it. I feel it. So thank you.

Rick Valicenti [88:09]

Thank you. So which parts are you gonna edit? You don't have to answer that.

Christian Solorzano [88:13]

I don't know. I would have— I'm gonna have to listen to it multiple times.

Rick Valicenti [88:17]

But so here's what I would suggest, okay? Don't give it a time constraint. Why don't you post the whole thing and just call it the unedited version? Okay. It's equivalent to Taylor Swift calling it the Taylor's Version. Yeah. Just the unedited version. And you can even end on this note.

Christian Solorzano [88:35]

All right, excellent. Well, thank you so much.

Rick Valicenti [88:38]

You're welcome. My pleasure.

Christian Solorzano [88:40]

And we'll keep in touch.

Rick Valicenti [88:42]

Thanks, Christian.

Christian Solorzano [88:43]

Thank you for sticking around until the end. That was definitely our longest episode to date, so really appreciate it. And if you want to learn more about the Chicago Graphic Design Club, just look us up on Google. We are always doing events both in person and virtually, so there's various ways to connect with our community. And as always, thank you so much.

And by the way, don't forget to preorder our upcoming publication, Faculty, and you can do so by just visiting us on the web or following us on social media. Thank you, and we'll talk soon. Goodbye.