Christian Solorzano [00:00]

Hello, you are listening to Underscore, a show by the Chicago Graphic Design Club. I am your host, Christian Solorzano, and today I am sharing my conversation with Rod Hunting, a Chicago-based designer and artist who creates intricate compositions built entirely from floppy disks. Rod recently presented his work at Columbia College with the Chicago Design Archive and the Society of Typographic Arts, walking through a process that requires extraordinary patience. Hours spent in Illustrator moving shapes, testing ideas, and asking what happens when you try one approach versus another.

Together, we explore the discipline of deep focus and where it comes from, how childhood skateboarding taught him delayed gratification, and the importance of accepting that not every experiment will lead somewhere. Rod opens up about learning to embrace the dead ends and discarded ideas that still lead yeah. We talk about the importance of freedom to creative practice, the liberation of making work that exists entirely on your own terms.

We talk about the balance between the artist and being your own critic, the search for visual motifs that can define a body of work, and what it means to sit with gratitude for the creative community that surrounds you. Rod also shares why he originally went to art school for animation and his deep appreciation for Chicago's community of artists supporting artists. Like these, I really appreciate your support, and that comes across when you leave us a rating wherever you listen and when you share with your friends.

So thank you so much and enjoy the conversation. What's up, Rod?

Rod Hunting [01:49]

Hey, Christian.

Christian Solorzano [01:51]

Nice to see you. Nice to have our first conversation with you. I really enjoyed your presentation that you gave at Columbia College. Not this past weekend, but the weekend before with the Chicago Design Archive and the STA. So when you give these— so a big part of your presentation was you talking about your process and you sharing with the audience some of your explorations around this artwork that you make built out of floppy disks.

And I'm curious about, as you were talking about your work and you were sharing your examples, I couldn't help but just think about all the hours that you must spend exploring and conceptualizing and playing. And I'd like to know if you view your process or your practice as a form of meditation.

Rod Hunting [02:51]

Yeah, that's interesting. I mean, it was, it was interesting giving that talk because up until that point I hadn't really like tried to write down the process or codify it in some way.

And so it was interesting to put that together and really give it some thought as like, oh, how do I approach this and how has that been influenced by certain things and what led to other ideas? A lot of it is like you just said, I mean, it's just literally hours and hours sitting in Illustrator moving shapes around, saying, what happens if I do this? Or what happens if I do that? Forming little hypotheses and acting on them and seeing what comes out of it.

I think a lot of, just in general, I mean, design has a lot of waste. Waste in ideas that just don't come to fruition or ideas that just aren't really valid ideas or don't work well for what you're doing. And, I think it's accepting that that's part of the process. I think that was a hard thing to get over because there is a frustration, right, of like, working and working and working and maybe not having something come out of it.

But yeah, you just accepting that it's, yeah, you know what, you might spend a few hours and have nothing to show for it, and that's okay.

And I, what's good about what I, what I do in terms of the artwork is, and I, again, I thought a lot about this after the presentation and during the presentation, was like, that's mine? I have total control over it, and it doesn't have to be anything. It doesn't have to leave, my studio if it did. So there, there's something really liberating about that. And I think in that sense, it makes that sort of meditative or that repetitive process like, okay.

Christian Solorzano [04:38]

Yeah. And does that, does that quality of attention mirror an attention that you perhaps experienced in your childhood? Have you always been to get into the— these like deep focus states, or is that something that you had to cultivate over time?

Rod Hunting [04:57]

That's a great question. I had— I think as a kid I had a tendency— well, maybe it goes back to like the skateboard thing where there's this like idea of what you want to do. And, when I was learning to skateboard, there was no internet, and, Thrasher magazine came out once a month.

So you, maybe they might have like a sequence of somebody doing a trick, and you'd sit there and you'd study the 12 frames and you'd try to figure out how to do it, and then go to your driveway and you'd spend literally weeks, hours a day, weeks at a time trying to— trying the same thing over and over and over again until you got it. And I think that there's something there.

There's just I don't know what that is, but I, it's like you see something that you want or see something that you like, you're like, I want to achieve that, I want to do that.

So I think what helps, with something like this in particular is like Getting to seeing results, I guess, like getting to a point you're like, okay, well, that was worth the time. Okay, now I have something that looks really good and I'm really happy with it. And that was worth the effort. And, I play music as well.

And so there's similarities there too, where like, if you've ever played, tried to just practice scales, it's aggravating and annoying and slow and it's not as creative as you want it to be. It can be very frustrating. But, when you start to see that, oh, I can play these chords more easily or faster, I can get into the hand positions faster, I've got more hand independence, like whatever that is, you start to see progress and you're like, okay, this is worth it.

And so I think, there's— that was sort of instilled early on with the skateboard stuff, the sort of delayed gratification, if you will. And, I guess to apply it here.

Yeah, I never really thought about that. There are some days where I just don't want to do it. Like there's just some days where it's just I, the last thing I want to do is count discs, or get lost in a number sequence that's going to make my head hurt or have to divide 72 by, 0.125 again. Like I don't, there's just sometimes I just don't want to do it.

Christian Solorzano [07:01]

Yeah. And for you, is success like a thing that you can rationalize, or is it more of like an intuitive thing? How do you usually know when something is done?

Rod Hunting [07:11]

There's a process of— and there's a— I'm gonna butcher the title of it, but William Kentridge has a book. I think it's called something like Drawing in 6 Lessons or something like that. And in it, he talks about the role of not just the artist, but then the reviewer, the critiquer. So you step back aside from your work and you look at it and what are those criteria that you would apply to any other work, not your own, right?

Is it, is it balanced? Is it, is there the goal of a particular feeling that you're trying to achieve with it? So I try to do that as I do the work, take a step back, really remove myself from it. And, is it working as a piece? Does it emote? Does it make me feel something?

And I think too, what's nice is like making work and sitting with it or closing the file or walking away and coming back to it a while later and does it still resonate? Does it still make you feel the same way that it did when you first made it? And, so I try to do those kinds of things as I'm working through stuff. I try not to show other people to get their input on it because I find that really sways, my opinion of it.

And if someone says something bad about it, I'm going to carry that.

So, and so with this work in particular, it is, it's all mine. And so I want to make the work that I feel really good about. And I find that that's usually the work that people respond really positively towards, and I wanna feel like I didn't compromise on it. And so I don't know where I'm going with this, but yeah, it's taking that step back looking at it trying to remove yourself from it, any sort of subjectivity you have to it.

I mean, I have, I have, there are some pieces that I have that I like, I just, they're really personal to me.

And they might be simple compositions, but there's just something kind of like I don't know. To me, again, the per— there's something bolder about them, or there's something simple about them that maybe isn't as interesting. But to me, there's maybe it took a lot for me to come to that conclusion. And so that portion of it that's not visible is still very much there for me and still very personal.

I don't know. I mean, there's, I, what I, what I kind of wanted to do with the work as well is like come up with, to some extent, some themes. What are some motifs that can be repeated something that defines other than just, well, they're made out of discs, but, is there a compositional style or aesthetic that starts to define a lot of the work that I make?

Instead of having one piece look like one thing one day and one thing looks like something else the next day, or trying to make it look like a car one day and this one's the thing. So that's part of what I'm aiming towards as well. And when I start to feel like I've found those motifs or things that can start to like grow and extend into other compositions, I think that's when I start to see like, okay, well, these are, these are working.

Christian Solorzano [10:12]

Yeah. And I think with so much of what we do as designers, there's a lot of taste that usually goes into our decision-making process. And I'd love to hear about maybe some of the things that were defining moments throughout your life that you feel like define your taste or like your visual palettes, whether it's something that goes back to your childhood or things you were into as a teenager. But what would you, what would you say are the things that really shape how you see?

Rod Hunting [10:42]

Yeah, that's a great question. This is funny. I mean, I grew up in the '80s. There's— and I grew up in a fairly suburban home, middle-class kind of home in the '80s. And it had like the quintessential like wallpaper patterns. My dad loved like— he had this like giant stereo system and it had like the bevel, the wood with the beveled edges and the lot of like Rust colors or mustard colors, a lot of browns.

And so also a lot of like cream colors and like modular couch kind of— I'm just describing the house I lived in. But those things I find keep coming back. And I particularly like the relationship between— like he had this Teac reel-to-reel tape player. And there's something about the way that the wood complements the metal components.

And that's sort of— that's been something that's really stuck with me as I make the pieces that I do, because oftentimes I'll frame them in a way that's really reminiscent of that 3/4-inch oak, and I'll bevel it maybe, or I'll space it out from the piece in such a way in which it, to me, kind of replicates those old, '70s and '80s stereo systems. I mean, growing up, again, skateboarding, like the punk scene, the counterculture, all that stuff.

To me, if you're familiar with Ed Templeton and Toy Machine Graphics, like I loved that stuff, just sort of anti-ad, anti— corporate, anti-design almost. And I was just telling a friend the other day, it's like, I almost have this feeling when someone, when someone expects a particular thing from you, I almost want to say like, no, it's fuck you, it's this. Yeah, if that's what you want, I'm gonna give you something totally opposite.

And I don't— I'm assuming that's, that comes from the punk and skateboard day.

But yeah, it's like a, young person, teenager, like I love like the aesthetic, like Nine Inch Nails and industrial stuff. I think one of my first concerts I went to was Ministry. There was just something about that grungy, like very— it felt like DIY to me. I mean, I didn't know anything about design in high school, honestly. So that was— it was all not even based in any appreciation of typography or composition. It was just do I like it? Yeah. Yeah. No? Okay.

So I think, I think those are the biggest things. I mean, in terms of other Design influences. I mean, it's hard to separate, I think. I mean, in terms of art, I've got several buckets. I mean, there's a lot of artists that inspired me early on. I mean, I talked about Francis Bacon in the presentation a little bit. It's not to say that that's the only one.

I mean, there's just, there's a lot of folks that over the years inspired me, and I'm going to space on all their names right now. But design-wise, yeah, I mean, like the Joseph Mueller Brockmans, I spent time at Ogilvy. I had a design director there who got me into a lot of stuff and was really inspiring in that sense. But I'm trying to think of like non-design or non-art stuff that kind of inspires me in particular ways. I don't know.

I mean, I would say in nature, but that doesn't show up necessarily in the work that I do. So it's hard to say that that's an influence. But I mean, to me, the biggest thing is growing up in the '80s and— Those things that were kind of just like the cassette tape holders with the wood frames like that. I just think of those things all the time when making this work. I don't know why.

Christian Solorzano [14:17]

Yeah, they're so cool. And being that you and I are both from— we both live in Oak Park. Have you been to Oak Park Records? Probably.

Rod Hunting [14:30]

I don't think so.

Christian Solorzano [14:30]

It's a record store in Oak Park and they have a lot of that like music equipment there that I think also reminds me of my childhood.

Rod Hunting [14:39]

Yeah. Yeah. There's a spot down in Pilsen. I'm gonna space on the name too. I apologize. But they had a lot of that stuff, vintage stuff, reel-to-reel and cassette players and stuff. And I was like, oh man. Yeah. There's just something about that era of design that I really kind of enjoy. Yeah.

Christian Solorzano [14:56]

Yeah. And while we're talking about like this aspect of design is something that could be counterculture. What do you find yourself pushing back against anything today through your work? Or what are some of the— yeah, some of the things that you just find yourself like agonizing over and trying to push back and push back against? Whether it's— I mean, it could literally be anything, but—

Rod Hunting [15:24]

You're talking about like— you're talking about at work? Like the—

Christian Solorzano [15:28]

No, through your personal practice. Like when you're, when you're, when you're exploring and when you're, when you're playing and you're giving yourself like these self-initiated projects? What is it that you're— that you feel like you're responding to?

Rod Hunting [15:41]

I think most of all, like the point of what I— hopefully this doesn't contradict what I just said. Part of what I've tried to do is evoke something, right?

Again, the music analogy, like I think if you— sorry, to make something and have no one look at it, what's— not to say that can't be done and that people can't make work that no one sees, but, if you make something and no one responds to it, no one can react to it doesn't elicit anything from anyone, well, what good is it in terms of visual communication? It's a quiet murmur.

So I think like making work that makes people contemplate, makes people think about things, gain new perspectives, I think that's sort of the goal in the work. But I mean, honestly, for me, it really is just a personal thing.

I mean, I, I've got the day job and that provides me with certain creative freedoms and certain creative rewards. But, the artwork stuff is really just— that's such a selfish endeavor for me. But, again, it really is like, I just want people to look at it and I— and to have that visceral reaction of like, I like that.

Sort of like what I was just talking about, not knowing anything about it, does it make something inside you kind of feel something, and does it elicit any emotion? And that's, I think, I don't know, that's kind of maybe an unspoken goal of what I do here. Yeah.

Christian Solorzano [17:10]

And talk to us about some of your what you do during the day. I saw that you recently have a new position as of December of 2025. So can you talk to us about that? Because I know you mentioned during your presentation that a lot of your work operates within the technology sector.

Rod Hunting [17:33]

Yeah, so I spent the last 10 years at early-stage startups, most of them specializing in some sort of big data application or platform. Trying to think of what's relevant here. I didn't intend to get into that. I was in advertising, Excuse me. I was in advertising and had an opportunity to come up to join a startup. And I was like, well, this sounds like fun. And going in-house, such a— you understand this— going in-house is such a different change than being at an agency.

And particularly like an organization, a company that, is still building itself. So a lot of those things that you would fall back on or have in terms of resources, HR, project managers, production artists, all that stuff kind of collapses. And it becomes your responsibility to figure out how to get those things done in an early-stage startup. So I liked that ownership. I liked building things.

I liked thinking of it as an opportunity to, if you were unhappy with the 100-year-old organization that you were at, here's the opportunity to make something that you really want to be at.

And so I felt really empowered and I felt like we all had our responsibility to make this company the best that we can make it. Make it. And, to do that a couple of times, I think the ethos of that persists and I still enjoy it. This new company is doing some great stuff with computer vision AI and, helping to make workplaces safer. So it's a pretty good thing to get behind.

And yeah, I mean, the irony though, I have a daughter and her name is Data and it's spelled D-A-T-A. And we had her before I started working in tech and before I started making stuff out of floppy disks. So there, it just this kind of ironic kind of like world that I found myself in. But to some extent, I consider myself a bit of a technophobe. I mean, to some extent, I don't shy away from it all too much, but I'm not an early adopter.

I'm not someone who places a lot of faith in I mean, I work in marketing. There's a bit of a skewed reality to some extent through a marketing lens. What is a bit of selling a dream to some extent, fake it till you make it in some places. But yeah, it's funny to me that I find myself in this world, I guess.

Christian Solorzano [20:08]

Yeah. So, with this new role, what do you find yourself what is it that you're defining or what's kind of like your new responsibility as a head of brand?

Rod Hunting [20:20]

Yeah. So the company is still pretty young and they're very, very— how do I put this? Not that mature in terms of their marketing capabilities, their design capabilities. I'm basically the only designer on the team right now outside of they've got some product designers and they don't really have a great way of communicating what the great stuff they're doing externally. And so that's where I come in to help shape that narrative, to help craft the brand story, to help make sure that it looks good.

And, if as we start to evolve the brand, as things pick up, that's on me, build the team, etc. So yeah I mean, I've only been there a short time. A lot of wonderful people that work there. It's really nice. They're based out of San Francisco, so I get to go out there and I've been out there every month now so far. So yeah. Yeah.

Christian Solorzano [21:16]

And throughout your, the time that you've been spending in design, what have been some of the how have you seen the role of a designer evolve and how do you feel about it today as opposed to, let's say, 10 years ago?

Do you, 'cause I think right now a lot of my peers and a lot of the conversations that I have, I feel like there's this big sense of fear and uncertainty around what the future holds for our profession, whether that means, for example, today I read that Pinterest just announced that they're laying off 15% of their workforce to artificial intelligence. And I teach, and a lot of my students, bring these concerns to me of, what is, what does the future of our job look like?

And I struggle with answering that question. So how do you, how do you like synthesize that and how do you, what do you make of it?

Rod Hunting [22:10]

Sorry, I always have these like dumb long pauses before I answer anything. So, I don't, and hopefully you edit this out. I don't want to say anything that's just so out of place and stupid here because I don't really know. I don't know what this is. Excuse me. I think the issue is like, I mean, if you can do, if your only ability is something that AI can do, like ChatGPT, I don't know, that's kind of sad.

I think— I'm sorry, and again, I might be totally off base here, but I think that there are 2 different categories here. I think one is the, things that AI does well. I think it can code really well. I think that there's some other developmental things that it does really well. But I, I— in terms of creating new materials, new ideas. I don't think that it's there yet.

And I think the way that we protect ourselves as creatives is to make sure that we provide something that we can't get from AI, and that's new ideas. I think if you're looking at, I mean, here's the thing too, if you're in competition with a company who wants to race to the bottom in terms of pricing for a logo, you don't want to work for them anyways, that's not really a loss, like.

Folks, you could say that, stock sites would put photographers out of business potentially, because now I can just go and download a cheap image and not have to go to a photographer. But photographers are still very much alive and making different and better and more unique work.

And I think that that's sort of our job now too, is like, okay, well, if the sort of run-of-the-mill logo executions, kind of lazy logo executions aren't really going to cut it anymore, well, okay, like figure out something bigger and better. There are better, more creative problems out there to solve. I think it just means that we need to widen our capabilities. We can no longer necessarily be just like pixel pushers, but we have to be people who bring ideas to the table about visual communication.

How do you communicate yourself? And I think now more than ever, brand is important. And I think companies know that, whether or not they're willing to back that up with particular budgets or not is another story. But I mean, and I think another thing that's changed For designers too, in terms of 10 years, is that particular focus. The, I'm a print designer and that's what I focus on. And, let's have the animator do the animation or let's have this other person.

And I feel like that crossover is, people are able to do more and more things. The ability to, yeah, take something and animate it very easily, I think, is there for a lot of folks. I could be totally wrong here, but I see that like on a day-to-day basis, I might make a video in the morning. I might do an animation for a social media post in the afternoon, and I might lay out a white paper, the next day.

Like I might make website edits later in the week, et cetera. So like it's all over the place and knowing kind of synthesize all those things and being familiar with all those things, I think is very helpful. Is it more difficult? Yeah, but at least for me, I've found that just making yourself a creative asset like that is, I don't know, it's kept me employed at least.

Christian Solorzano [25:30]

Yeah, I do get a sense that there's this big interest for more perhaps bespoke craft when it comes to design. And to me, that makes me optimistic about the future because yes, there is a lot of AI slop, but I think what juxtaposes that is craft and like beautiful imagery and things that are things that carry like a human soul.

And I've been noticing that in Chicago, there's been a lot of listening rooms popping up where people just crave listening to music around other people and like bringing vinyl and just like experiencing the joy of music, like analog music.

And it's been interesting to even see that with like Younger generations like Gen Z. I feel like I've been reading about how there's like this revival for like physical media, like CDs. And even I think some people are restoring their iPods and like going back to MP3 players because they just feel like the ownership of having something is beginning to matter more and more. So to me, that feels very— it feels quite counterculture. In my opinion. Yeah.

Rod Hunting [26:46]

Oh, totally. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think you see that in, I wouldn't say a lot of things, but, arts and crafts movement, same thing. The reaction to the industrial revolution and industrialization of products. Yeah. And I think people are always gonna make stuff. People are always gonna find their niche. I don't know. I mean, there, I honestly can't wait for the AI look to kind of go away?

Like there's just this telltale look that a lot of things have that are done with AI and it's just, it, yeah. I mean, I think, at its core, it goes against sort of the ethos of what art and design are, right? Make something new, right? And by just amalgamating existing things and kind of regurgitating something that are, you've already seen 100 times, but, you got it at the touch of your fingertips, I don't know if anybody really appreciates that kind of stuff.

I'm sure there's people out there that do, maybe. I don't know. Yeah. But I'm glad that people appreciate, real things. Yeah, I certainly do. Some of my favorite things that I have are printed materials or printed matter, like little zines that, I don't know if I would ever be able to find it again if I lost it. Those are some of my favorite things to have. I don't know where I was going with that.

Christian Solorzano [28:01]

Yeah. Can you talk to us about the Post family?

Rod Hunting [28:03]

Sure. Yeah, and it was kind of interesting at the event again. Because enough time has passed. It's been about 10 years since we were active. And looking at some of the young faces in the audience there, it used to be at a point where, if we talked, everyone kind of knew who we were. But now it's like, oh my gosh, these people were 5 years old when we were doing the thing. So they have no idea.

The Post Family was an artist collective that started with some friends who had some other friends who had some other friends that were all looking for studio space. Really, the original idea of it was to— well, at the time I was like screen printing in my apartment and I was looking for a studio space, but realizing that studio space on its own was, for one single renter, was gonna be way more than what I could afford.

I had— there was an intern at the job I had at the time and he seemed like an interesting person. He was going to Columbia and I was like, hey man, I'm doing, we just started talking about art and design and I let him know that I was looking for a studio and he was like, oh, I am too. And he's like, I also have a friend who's looking for a studio. And so, we got 6 of us together.

And the thing about it was that we were all designers, but we all didn't want to be the lead singer.

Some of us were totally cool being roadies versus lead guitarist. And so, we had a really good mix of folks who were like admin side or folks that would reach out and do PR for us or get the website set up. And not everyone wanted to be the designer. So, that mix of folks really helped us. So we ended up getting a studio space, and that studio space lent us— well, we started getting like letterpress equipment and screen printing equipment.

So we turned it into kind of a print studio for a while. And then we started showing other people's work, and we moved into a different space, and we started a gallery and started showing more and more people's work. And at the same time, Post Family would also get commissioned to do a gallery exhibition at a university or, some other gallery somewhere else.

And we would do art commissions and we did collaborations with like Levi's and I'm trying to think of some of the other places that we did stuff with. Basecamp was one that we did a commission for. And yeah, we did that for about 10 years and it was all— excuse me— it was all extracurricular and Unpaid, we didn't really— I don't think any of us really got any money from that. But it was just, I mean, it was so much fun.

Like we were saying, a great excuse to reach out to folks, met so many good people in the Chicago community and everywhere else. I mean, met people from all over the world. Trying to think, what else to go there. I mean, there's so many things that we did that, I look back on very fondly, but— A long time.

Christian Solorzano [31:05]

Yeah, one of the things that I, that I just really appreciate even about the event that you spoke at a few weeks ago is just how important community is and how even just being a fly on the wall, allows you to learn so much. And I'm always really inspired by, seeing collectives like not just in Chicago, but sometimes you hear about them in history books or you just read about them.

And just this idea of being like grassroots and just a little spark becoming something, I find really endearing. So like the fact that— and I'm good friends with David Sieren, and he's talked a handful of times about his time with the Post family. And I never got to experience it. I think when you guys were operating, I was still like very young and in college, but I remember hearing about it and like seeing some of like the printed materials like floating around Chicago.

So really cool stuff.

Rod Hunting [32:13]

Thanks. Yeah, it was fun. I mean, I think, and I was just talking to a friend who was also in the Post family with me, I think at the time I didn't really appreciate it for what it was. There was always this sense of like, this is preparation for something else. And I was like, wait, no, that was the thing.

And I didn't quite realize that until after it was over. That was the show. That wasn't a prep for— that was the show. And not to say that I didn't appreciate it or enjoy it, and that I only woke up and like realized I missed out, but I don't know, it was, it, it's different when you're in it and you'll probably, like you're doing it too. Like you're in it and you're just doing it and you're focused on like who's gonna be on next.

And editing the thing, and it's hard to kind of see the bigger picture and to step back and really enjoy it. And it took a long time to like really step back and enjoy it. And it was funny, the other night I was sitting on a stool, and it was a stool that we had designed and had made.

And we had a bunch of them produced. We had, I think, about 40 of them made for an art show, an installation that we did. And it was just kind of cool to like, oh yeah, no, actually made some furniture. Like we had, we did these things. And so it was just kind of a nice reminder of that time. So, I look back on it super fondly. I do credit that initial conversation with that intern and just being like, hey, what's up?

As like, there were 2 paths. Like one would have been me staying at that packaging place forever. And then the other was me joining Post Family and doing other things with my life, because those guys, I think, hugely influential on me. And that was just such a turning point in my life to be a part of that. And I learned so much from the guys in there. It's just, I'm just indebted to that whole experience, I think.

Christian Solorzano [34:07]

Yeah. And I know before we started recording, you had mentioned to me that you're not originally from Chicago, and I'd like to know, what's kept you here and perhaps get your— just what do you— just talk Chicago to us. Yeah. Why Chicago and what do you love about it?

Rod Hunting [34:29]

Why Chicago? I think, yeah, we were talking about this earlier, the community here. I, my experiences with post-family and, meeting folks in the community has been just so wonderful and so welcoming. And I can't imagine leaving and trying to start over somewhere else and build the same community and have the same folks. I mean, I love the music scene here too.

Any night of the week you can go see some great avant-garde jazz or live music and have it be warm and intimate and have people who are passionate about what they're doing. I love that aspect of it as well. I mean, again, the art scene here is really nice as well. There's so many good galleries to go to and people doing interesting stuff. But yeah, I mean, it's friends and family too.

The good group of friends that I have mostly with post-family, we're still good friends today, and we live fairly close to each other and, now our kids hang out. And I mean, that's a big thing too. I got a kid and, she's this is her whole life has been here. And so it'd be weird to, I think, get up and leave. But I mean, and I always say this too, I don't go to the MCA a lot, but I'm glad it's there.

And if I want to, I can, like thinking of living someplace where like that choice isn't even there. To go and be a part of these things. I, that weighs on me too, in terms of decision to leave. There was and this was really cool. So Post Family did sort of evolve after a while, and it kind of turned into— we would have like music jam nights there. And one of the guys that would host those, he— they did about 100 months worth of jams.

And that was just like an open call. Anybody who wanted to show up with an instrument could show up. If you could play, great. If you couldn't play, nobody cared. Like bang on something, play the drums poorly. Nobody really cared. And it was just all about like just coming together playing music, learning, playing with each other. And those really kept me here. I— that's how I learned to play music, was just going to the jam nights and playing with those guys.

And again, I was just man, I don't know where else this exists. I don't know how I would find it or where. And it just felt like such a gem and a rarity. And so I was— I don't know. Yeah, there's lots of stuff that make the city great.

Christian Solorzano [36:56]

Yeah. And as you look into the coming year, we're still like in the beginning. I feel like it's too late to say Happy New Year, but we're still fresh in the year. What are you looking forward to in 2026? What are some of the things that are on the horizon for you? And is there anything that we can look forward to seeing from you?

Rod Hunting [37:16]

Personally I'm looking forward to getting our basement redone because that's my studio and office and woodshop. And so right now everything is kind of in limbo. So I'm looking forward to getting that settled. In terms of— no, I mean, God, this is gonna sound sad. Things are still kind of early with work. I'm anticipating quite a bit towards the middle of the year with that. I know a lot of stuff's coming up with what we're doing there at Voxel. Art-wise, I don't know.

I'm just gonna keep making stuff. And I very rarely post on social media, so I'm terrible. I don't I'm a marketer, but I don't market myself at all. I rarely post. Crippling social anxiety to like put that stuff out there. So yeah, I don't know. I don't know. Hopefully make more art.

Christian Solorzano [38:07]

Yeah. And with your, with the quality of your attention when you're working on these, on these big pieces that require so much thought and consideration. What are usually the like, can you paint for us a picture of like, what is it like when you're working on these pieces? What are you listening to? Is it— do you work in the morning, at night? Is it little time increments, or do you spend hours?

But we'd love to— I'd love to hear about— And that's something that I was actually thinking about, and after your presentation, a few other people that I was with were also just wondering about just behind the scenes.

Rod Hunting [38:56]

Sure. Yeah. Ideal. Yeah, the ideal time is late, usually after the kid goes to bed. Usually a glass of wine. Music-wise, yeah, always listening to music. Lately, I can't get enough of Leah Cole. She just put out this recording that she did at— is it Union Station?

Union Station. So she did this like live performance in Union Station with other musicians, and it is— it's beautiful. So I listen to a lot of that kind of stuff, like jazz. I don't know, I listen to like all sorts of stuff. Yeah, I'll put on Nine Inch Nails, if I'm being honest here sometimes. A lot of jazz. The process is very like, by the time I get down to build, I know what I'm gonna build.

Like I've been do— I did, I did the work in Illustrator. I made it to scale. I know exactly how big it's gonna be. I know how many discs I'm gonna use. The good thing about what I do is that I can make a composition. I don't have to— I can take it apart and reuse them, like until I put them into a particular frame. But I don't do that until, if I sell a piece.

So I, part of what I have to do is like take apart the old bricks that I make and sort the discs. So there's a little bit of housekeeping before I can even get into the work. But once I'm ready to build, everything's kind of already decided.

It really then is just I'm a bricklayer, like that there's other than paying attention and making sure that, you don't lose track of, 9, 8, 6, 4, like whatever the pattern is, as long as you don't lose that, like you're okay. But it really is just kind of like heads down, put some music on, try not to get too bored and get through it. And I'll work as long as I can. I don't stay up super late anymore. I can't do that.

So I'll work a couple hours a day, if that. So yeah, I mean, it's, I don't have like a strict regimen. I don't, I'm not down there. I'm not, I say down there, it's in my basement. Yeah, I'm not. I think the joy of it, excuse me. The joy of it is that it's kind of just whenever, like there's no goal to it. There's, I don't know. Yeah.

It's just, it's a relief valve, in terms of, I don't know if I touched on this in the talk, but, you've probably experienced it. Most people have probably experienced this. Like sometimes projects at work can take forever, right?

Sometimes you maybe don't ever see them come to an end. Maybe the project gets scrapped or things change so much in the middle of it that it doesn't even resemble the thing in the first place. And so sometimes there's just that feeling of like, I just want to get something done and I just want to see it out. And so there's sometimes that what I do with the art kind of helps satisfy that.

I mean, also, we moved into this house not too long ago, and it's an older house and it needs a lot of work. And so I find I'm turning a lot of that attention into like, oh, I can build this window frame or I can build a deck or I can do, rehab this part of the house or something like that. So it's— sorry, I say all that to say like, yeah, I'm not in there as often as maybe I would like to be.

But yeah, it's— I'm trying to think if there's anything else with regarding the process there. I mean, what I typically tend to do is for like the larger pieces, I tape them together. So I basically make bricks and I tape them. And that way I can put them on the wall and not have them fall off. But more and more, for some, medium to smaller size pieces, I'll build a wooden frame for them first, so then I can house them in there.

Christian Solorzano [42:42]

Yeah. And I know that you're— you also— a big body of your work has also been illustration. And during your presentation, I feel like that wasn't much talked about. But I discovered recently that like one of your fonts through T26. Your camera lines. And I'd love to just maybe hear you talk a little bit about your relationship to illustration and perhaps if that's something that you're still working through or just what's the latest on that.

Rod Hunting [43:22]

Yeah. So early on, Full disclosure here, I love and I really loved Evan Hecox, his work, the guy who did a lot of the Chocolate skateboard graphics. And I think early on, I was really inspired by— it was interesting because like I felt that there were things that I was doing that when I found his work, I was like, oh, there's some overlap. No surprise, that I like what he does.

But With that stuff, it all— it, yeah, it felt like maybe it was, it was derivative to some extent. But I, it kind of goes back to the Ai Weiwei reference, the— and if you can do something once, like that's fine. You do something kind of like simple, you do it a million times, you do it 2 million times, it becomes something kind of spectacular. And so this notion of like line and repetition and doing drawing.

The same but different over and over and over again. It was, and the— with those camera drawings as well, what I liked about the cameras was the level of detail lent itself to, the grip on a lens, all the lines that you need to represent that. There's this texture that starts to happen in this, again, repetition. And I liked that aspect of it. And I, and I liked it too because people liked them, I'm I accidentally made that poster.

I didn't mean for them to be a poster. I wanted to put them on shirts. And I, sheer like economy, had all these drawings and I had a screen made and I just put them in a square and I was gonna tape off the ones that I wasn't gonna print. I was just gonna use one screen to make t-shirts. But when I got it back and I saw the squares, I was like, oh, this is kind of interesting. And so like I made a couple posters.

And those, I think I went to, it wasn't Renegade, it was something else. And I think I had like 20 posters. I dropped them off and they sold out. And I was like, well, this is cool. People like them. And so like I went, I made a few more. I took them, I think, do you remember Koodall? Koodall.com, Koodall partners. They had a thing called Swap Meet. I don't remember what year it was, maybe 2010. And they're like, send us your stuff.

And because they're like, we get sent stuff all the time. So, if you send us something, we'll send you something from someone else back. And I was like, well, this is kind of cool. So I sent them a poster and maybe 20 minutes later on their site— sorry, maybe like 20 minutes later on their site, they had a mock-up of my poster. And they were like, they'd asked me, can you make more of these?

And he was like, make 100 of them and we'll sell them on the site. And so it totally like broke the idea that they had of the swap meet and it turned it into, oh, let's sell cool stuff that people who follow us are making. And so he was like, yeah, make 100 posters. I made 100 posters, they sold out. In like a month. He was like, make another batch. And I made those, didn't do quite as well. And then I met Carlos Segura at Renegade.

I was selling the posters at Renegade and I met Carlos and he was like, oh, these are really cool. Do you wanna make a font or an EPS set out? And I was like, yeah, okay, cool. And then I ended up sending a poster to the guy from Quiet Life, Andy Mueller. I sent him a poster just randomly and he maybe like a year or 2 later got back to me and was like, hey, I really love the poster. Can I put it on a shirt?

So then Quiet Life released a t-shirt with that print on it. So it was an interesting thing and it just kind of had these legs of its own. And it, I made, it was something that I made that people really liked, but at some point I was just well, it felt very kind of crafty.

And I started to find that the people that liked it, they were like, oh, my grandpa had this camera, or, oh, that was my favorite camera. But it was less, it was more sentimental and it, and it was more about the representation of the object than it was about the drawing or about the print itself necessarily, it felt like. And so I don't know, I just kind of felt like through drawing the object, what was I really enhancing? What was I adding to it?

It just kind of felt like I was just kind of replicating the things that I saw. And then my illustrations typically tended to be that. It was just well, this is the thing. I wasn't great necessarily at like— I mean, I did some editorial stuff for like the Reader once in a while, and I felt like I always kind of struggled with the editorial. And so my confidence in being an illustrator was like, yeah, no.

However, and this is a long response and I'm sorry. However though, I love— I still love drawing and I love line. And so what happened was instead of doing the figurative work or trying to draw the object, it's more expressive now. It's more about— I do a lot of blind contours and it's about how the eye follows the shape, traces the object. It's not about capturing it perfectly. It's about.

The essence of it, if you will, and I try to draw things that are moving, not just still. So drawing a portrait as somebody's moving around and capturing different angles and almost cubist kind of perspectives, plants and stuff as well, blowing in the breeze, trying to capture them as they move. And the line, I think, is something— it's a consistent theme in the work too, the line, it shows up in the work that I do with the discs.

But I still very much enjoy drawing, but my relationship with it changed quite a bit.

Christian Solorzano [49:21]

And is there, is there another aspect of design that you're, that you're really intrigued by, like typography? Or I guess typography is what comes to mind. Yeah.

Rod Hunting [49:35]

More recently, I've been excited about computer vision stuff and the different ways— I'm trying to think of the best way to articulate this because I don't even know what it's called necessarily. Like generative art, I guess, more or less. Like in terms of representing objects and things and people in different ways, if that makes any sense.

I— it's dealing with data, at least for the day job, dealing with data, at least for me, is kind of trying to push me into a realm of like kind of new ways of representing something that already— And I don't know, I think what's— sorry, this is maybe not the same necessarily, but I think what's kind of interesting now that we see is that the tools are becoming way more accessible and easier to use.

I think it's kind of cool how, what might have taken, years of practice to get a certain level of fidelity with certain applications, like you're able to get those things kind of quickly now. I don't even know if this is answering what you just asked, things that I'm into. Yeah, I— in terms of typography, I mean, it's interesting because being in-house, being an in-house designer, you have your fonts, right?

Like and you get really familiar with them and almost to a point where you're like, don't— I don't want anything else. That's— I'm not gonna know how to handle that. Get it out of here? And so I've just spent a lot of time in-house over the last 10 years. And so I'm not exploring new typefaces like I used to. Yeah.

I mean, I still follow Typefoundries online and on social media and I'm aware of these things, but like in terms of like my application of it, I just don't get to use them as much as I would like. And I'm not producing freelance work on the side that would use that as much.

Christian Solorzano [51:22]

Yeah, I'm asking because I remember your, something that stood out to me about your presentation was the typography that you use for your slides. And it just— and it felt very intentional. It wasn't something that was flashy or in your face, but it felt very intentional. And I believe it was very condensed type, right? Or was it condensed or was it very wide? But there was something about its scale. That really intrigued me and I, and I thought it was really cool.

Rod Hunting [52:00]

I almost feel bad even saying this. It was Helvetica outlined and stretched. Okay, there you go.

Christian Solorzano [52:08]

I knew it.

Rod Hunting [52:08]

So, again, it kind of goes back to that original thing of the punk mentality. It was like, oh, this is for the SGA. I knew, I was like, I know that there are going to be people that just have beautiful typographic presentations, and I can't do— I'm, I am not there. I can't do it. And it felt like any attempt to try to do that would be disingenuous and I would feel like an imposter. And so I, at some point I was like, fuck it.

I just have to do like, this is what I want to do. This is how, what it feels, this is what my body feels like it wants to do. So just do it. And part of it too was like, I get lost in presentations. I can put notes as much as I want. I can go, I can run through it as many times as I want, but in the, in that moment, I don't wanna just read to you either.

And I don't think you wanna be read to, but I'm gonna get lost. And I don't wanna look, through my notes or something. So I was like, I'll just put 'em on the screen. And so part of it was just that, these are my notes, these aren't for you necessarily. And I did things that I don't normally do. I don't really do that with typography. I don't really stretch it and distort it and do those kinds of things.

But I, it just felt like the perfect thing to do at the time. And yeah, I don't like force justification stuff. I, I'm not really—

Christian Solorzano [53:22]

I noticed that too, your justification. Yeah.

Rod Hunting [53:25]

And I, and I went out of my way to make it wonky too. Like I really did like adding words and characters to like space it out. I don't, either way. I appreciate that you, that you didn't throw up while watching the presentation.

Christian Solorzano [53:40]

No, I thought it was, I thought it was really cool. I was really impressed cuz I think, yeah, it's just, it's a, it's a, it's a, an event centered or like with an emphasis on typography. And everyone's typography had their own like unique spin to it. So I just, I just think I like paying attention to those little things. So it was very cool. Thanks.

So as we wrap up, I do, I do have just a few rapid-fire questions and I want to start with, what are you, what are some of your office essentials? Like what are some things that you feel like you can't live without?

Rod Hunting [54:16]

Mechanical pencils.

Christian Solorzano [54:18]

Mechanical pencil.

Rod Hunting [54:19]

Yeah, like a 0.5.

Christian Solorzano [54:21]

In Chicago, what are some of your favorite, what's your, what are some of the places that people can find you at?

Rod Hunting [54:26]

These days it's like, it's my house, it's Pete's Fresh Market.

Like make that run between the store and the house. Yeah, picking my kid up from school. No honestly, I, some of my favorite places, I think I love Hungry Brain. Great music venue. If I'm gonna go see shows, Hungry Brain or Constellations is another great venue. I mean, honestly, I'm— if I go out, it is to see music. So I might go to Circle Lanes down the street, the bowling alley. We do that every once in a while. Yeah, man, I don't know.

I'm gonna feel pretty boring here.

Christian Solorzano [55:08]

Yeah. And then as far as stuff you're listening to, I know you had mentioned Leah Cole's album. She played in Chicago like last week.

Rod Hunting [55:19]

I heard she plays her. I mean, she's from here.

Christian Solorzano [55:22]

Yeah, she's from here. Yeah, I've seen her twice. She's pretty cool.

Rod Hunting [55:27]

She's phenomenal. I mean, not to gush about a musician or something, but like the way that she embodies that instrument and just owns it and is like there's a vulnerability that she exudes and it's just. It's admirable. And I just love watching her play because it's— and I think she's doing something very unique too in the space and the way that she treats different spaces differently too. It activates them. So good.

But, and again, it's one of those things too where like the creative community here, right? Like who's done some of their— her album artwork, right? Like Sonnenzimmer has done stuff for them. I'm trying to think of other folks that have collaborated with her. But it's like just this great community of artists supporting artists and doing cool stuff.

Christian Solorzano [56:13]

Yeah. And another question is, what are you watching? What do you watch?

Rod Hunting [56:18]

There's a couple of animation series. Joe Bennett does— what's the Side Effects? Oh my gosh, why am I spacing with it? I'm gonna— I just have to look it up real quick. Scavengers Reign was one. That's a great one. And yeah, something with side effects is the other one. Oh man, I'm gonna sound like such a space out here. But those have been really cool. Also, oh God, we watch so many— so much Bob's Burgers here in the house. Yeah, it's mostly animated stuff here.

I just started watching— was it Haha you Guys? Another animated one that— oh, Haha you Clowns. Sorry. I don't know. I love— I honestly, I actually went to art school initially for animation. I love animation. I love avant-garde animations. And here's another one, Brothers Quay. I don't know if you've ever seen any of the Brothers Quay stuff, stop-motion animation stuff from like the '80s and '90s and early 2000s. And it's— oh my gosh, it's— that is one of my favorite things to watch.

Yeah, I'm a terrible TV guy.

Christian Solorzano [57:29]

What makes you happy?

Rod Hunting [57:30]

Yeah, what makes me happy? My family, listening to my daughter practice violin. I had this moment the other day after the event. It was Sunday and I didn't have anything to do. And I'm sitting on my couch and I'm working on— somebody had asked about an art piece and so I'm working on some compositions. I'm just sitting there and I just, I was so full of gratitude. For, friends and community and family and where I'm at in life.

And it was just this like overwhelming, just positive contentment, just that space that I feel like most folks are kind of aiming towards. And so simple things, man, sitting in front of the fire. Yeah. So that, yeah, really like what makes me happy? Piña colada Jelly Bellies, being outside riding bikes. Yeah, I don't know, lots of stuff.

Christian Solorzano [58:23]

I just want to say thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me today. And given that we're both in Oak Park and only probably less than 10 minutes away from each other, we should find a time to meet up and do something together. And maybe there's opportunities to do some kind of collaboration.

Rod Hunting [58:46]

That'd be awesome. Yeah, I would love it. Save a copy of the publication. Oh yeah. Yeah, I'd love to check it out. I got one for you as well. Yeah.

Christian Solorzano [58:55]

Sounds good. And if people want to reach out to you, I will put the, your information in the description for this episode. Is there a way that you prefer to be contacted? Instagram, email?

Rod Hunting [59:08]

Instagram's great. Yeah.

Christian Solorzano [59:10]

And I see you still use your Post family email too.

Rod Hunting [59:15]

I do. I have, I have a Rod Hunting one, but the Post family is just I've just had it for so long. There's just so many things that are embedded with that I'm like, I don't— it's like changing my name. I don't really want to do it.

Christian Solorzano [59:25]

And you're— and I remember you said that you've never gone hunting, but you shot a squirrel once with a slingshot. And that the squirrel looked back at you and was like, what the hell are you doing? Or something like that.

Rod Hunting [59:41]

Yeah, true story. I had this like plastic slingshot and I had a penny. I was shooting pennies for some reason. I must have been— I was like 8 or 9 or something like that. And you know how like sometimes squirrels lay on a branch with like all their limbs out?

Christian Solorzano [59:53]

Yeah.

Rod Hunting [59:53]

It was a hot day, squirrel was laying on this branch, and I shot it from like 10 feet away and it hit the side of it with like a thud and it didn't move. It didn't run away. It just looked at me. It was just what are you doing, man? And it was like the perfect thing because I think if it ran away, I probably wouldn't have had the same impact.

But it was just, instead of your parent yelling at you, they're just I'm really disappointed, man. It was just kind of like that. It was like, I thought you were better than that. So it really, I think it was one of those moments where I was like, yeah, I didn't shoot another thing after that. I was like this.

Christian Solorzano [60:30]

Very cool. Well, thank you so much. And yeah, let's keep in touch.

Rod Hunting [60:36]

Cool. I'd like that.

Christian Solorzano [60:37]

As usual, thank you so much for sticking around till the end. If you enjoyed this conversation, leave us a review wherever you listen. And to learn more about us, visit www.chicagographicdesign.club. Thank you.