Christian Solorzano [00:07]

Hello, you are listening to Underscore, a show by the Chicago Graphic Design Club. I am your host, Christian Solorzano. Today's conversation is with designer Sean Fermoyle, based out of Chicago, and we speak about logo redesigns, and some of the controversy that we've been seeing on the internet around companies like Johnson & Johnson abandoning their iconic image for much more simpler logos. Sean walks us through his mantra of more ideas than time and the ways that he manages to find balance across his professional and personal projects.

We also hear about the story of Sean's high school experience and his teachers helping him connect the dots between a lot of his interests in West Coast skate culture, music album covers, and video games, and how that led him to be exposed and to learn about what a career in graphic design looks like. It's a great conversation.

I personally am always really inspired by designers that don't wait for permission, that don't wait to be told what to do, but that simply have an idea, and they just put their head down, and they get to work. And Sean is definitely one of those people. So as always, thank you so much for your support, and thank you so much for listening, and I hope that you enjoy this episode. So we'll talk soon. Good afternoon, Sean. How's it going?

Sean Fermoyle [01:53]

Very well, Christian. How are you?

Christian Solorzano [01:55]

Doing good. Thank you so much for being on our show on this brisk autumn morning.

Sean Fermoyle [02:00]

Oh, thank you. Thank you. It's an honor, and I'm humbled to be a part of such a great series.

Christian Solorzano [02:07]

I always knew about you through social media, but it wasn't until you submitted a poster series to the Chicago Graphic Design Club's Call to Designers where you answered the question, what does Chicago mean to you? And it's really nice because the piece got admitted into the Chicago Design Archive. So for me, it's nice to see the Chicago Graphic Design Club represented in a beautiful way through your work.

Sean Fermoyle [02:30]

Thank you for the opportunity. I love calls for submissions, especially free ones and especially community-based, and it was an honor to do that. And I used it as an excuse to submit those to the Chicago Design Archive and Humbly and excitedly, they accepted it. So yeah, it's good for me. I don't do those kinds of things that often, so thank you.

Christian Solorzano [02:50]

So if you could sit with any designer from the past, who would it be and what would you like to talk about?

Sean Fermoyle [02:57]

Oh man, what an awesome question. This is the type of stuff I would think— I've thought about my whole life, but the answer always changes depending on where you are in your career. And so I will go back to my probably first or second answer that hasn't changed in the whole time that I've been working as an artist and a graphic designer. Probably Michel, Jean-Michel Basquiat, because his— him and/or Warhol.

I mean, he was a protégé of Warhol, but not just because of their aesthetic styles, but because both of them had one would admit it more probably Warhol than Basquiat, but business acumen to what they did. They weren't opposed to— Keith Haring comes to mind as well. And all of those artists were '80s pop stars. And, some were obviously came from before that. Warhol was older than those guys.

But they didn't seem to mind the business side of it, like album covers or magazine covers or put licensing their imagery on products to be sold. So I would say, although, of those 3, Jean-Michel Basquiat, probably just because he seemed the most intriguing.

Christian Solorzano [04:14]

He—

Sean Fermoyle [04:14]

His end of his life was sad, but he just tapped into something that brought business, nightlife, culture, New York, an attitude, street savviness, hip-hop, everything that was going on around them at the time. God, he would be a fascinating person to pick his brain and get some insight on like modern-day business and graphics and art. And so yeah, Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Christian Solorzano [04:42]

I believe Andy Warhol said being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art. And I think if you understand that, it is truly a superpower.

Sean Fermoyle [04:51]

That quote always surprised me to have come from him, but then to learn later how business savvy he was. Overall, yeah, I'm a fan of that quote. I'm a fan of quotes in general in regards to art and philosophy, but that one, the best art is good business or something to that effect, made me realize that yes, it's as important as just being talented or being able to market yourself.

It's how do you— not that it's the goal, but get known for it or make a living at it or be, get it out there should you want to do that. So yeah, that's I love that quote as well.

Christian Solorzano [05:26]

So the listener will be the first to know, but you are being featured in our upcoming publication, and you submitted a wonderful piece. And I want to reference the piece because in it you talk about your background growing up in the 1980s and your fascination with West Coast skate culture, album covers, video games, and then through a high school graphic design class your teachers helped you connect the dots between a lot of your interests and the possibilities of a career in graphic design.

So can you talk to us about life before you knew what graphic design was? And did anything change for you when you discovered the term?

Sean Fermoyle [06:07]

Oh man, another wonderful question. I've never thought about it in those terms— life before graphic design. So I'll go back to, first of all, thank you for the opportunity to submit an article to the forthcoming Chicago Graphic Design Club publication. It was an honor to be able to submit, and I was lucky enough and humbled enough to get accepted. So that was a treat for me.

I'm trying to exercise my writing muscle and my mentoring muscle more as I get older, so it just aligned perfectly with where I am currently in this my headspace. Secondly interest-wise, you brought up— yes, West Coast skateboard culture, album covers, music in particular. But when I was even younger, G.I. Joe, Star Wars, the thing looking back, and I was thinking about this in regards to what to speak to about formative years for this podcast, what I'm realizing all those things had a graphic sensibility. G.I.

Joe, big logos, big type. Star Wars, very you know branded world they lived in and the stories they told. Music, of course, every album cover. Before I knew what design was, I just stare at them intently and wonder why this one seemed to make sense for this type of sound versus if that same aesthetic was applied to something else. It wouldn't make sense. Skateboarding, I liked the freedom of it, the expression of it.

I grew up trying pretty— I pride myself on, and parents, and very proud that my parents let me try everything. So baseball, and eventually I found skateboarding. So to get to the point of answering the question, life before graphic design was just to me interests, hobbies, specific things that, what do they say? A good life is a curated life.

So these things that I surround myself with, or these hobbies I was into, these toys or these activities just were extensions of me way before the term personal branding that at least I knew of. That is how I kind of coined the phrase. After it, I've thought about this as well.

Once graphic design is known and how those dots are connected, someone's actually making these visuals that accompany these products that are the facade or the face or the entry point for the public to, understand what these items are. I call that the blessing and the curse.

Once graphic— like you, Christian, I'm sure the running joke you've heard is like a graphic designer can never go to dinner and enjoy it because he's always critiquing the menu, whether or not the point size is big enough, legible enough, too many pictures, too many pages, critiquing everything. So after I realized graphic design was that, since those days, I can't turn it off. I'm always cognizant of the art of it, the strategy of it, whatever you're talking about. Everything is designed in this world.

So afterwards, yeah. And then it's understanding how that connects to business and how good design elevates and improves business. So yeah, that's a long-winded way to say maybe understanding there's something behind the curtain, there's something behind the thing you're holding. And how does that affect culture and my relationship with those items? So that's probably the most I can say about that. It's a difficult relationship. Sometimes you just are connected to these items.

But most importantly for me was connecting the dots in the sense of graphic design can be a living. It's a way to make art and hopefully get paid. So that's what the high school class did for me, both my fine arts classes and I don't know if it's commonplace nowadays, but our high school back in the '80s had a graphic design course, which is pretty odd to me. I didn't think that was normal or commonplace. Also a darkroom for photography.

So I've learned those things pretty early. From sophomore year on, I had access to a darkroom, and somebody was talking to us about design. So once I learned that was called graphic design or commercial art or whatever back in the day, I was intrigued. I'm like, I can take this hobby and apply it to possibly a career. So that was the post-graphic design mentality, I think, and still to this day, kind of that way.

Christian Solorzano [10:32]

It's funny that you mentioned going out to dinner and not being able to enjoy yourself because you're just so vigilant about the world around you. And I was talking with someone this past week about something related to this, about how it was actually Carlos Segura, and we were talking about— he was mentioning how his brain wakes up before his body does and how he just— 5 AM, his mind is already running with ideas.

And your piece, your submission, More Ideas Than Time, I think really resonates with me, and it resonates with a lot of people, I believe, because sometimes it just— it gets stressful. I like to surround myself with books, and sometimes I will open up a book and I just get overwhelmed because Right away, just ideas are coming to me of like, oh, I want to do this, I want to do that. And I'm just all right, I got to put this away.

I got enough to think about right now. So how do you— what's your process for prioritizing things when it comes to making? How do you choose which idea to run with? I think it's something I struggle with. I'm sure a lot of listeners probably feel this way as well. Yeah, walk us through just Your mind? How do you, how do you operate and how do you, how do you create?

Sean Fermoyle [11:48]

Yeah, I, I've heard that quote by Carlos as well. I forget if it was in your podcast or another interview, but yeah, I'm a big fan of his work and have been since I've known of him. So that I definitely love that reference. For a while, my— I don't know why I felt it important, but I had a mantra that was one thing at a time until everything aligns.

And that's a way that I could sleep at night and I wouldn't feel overwhelmed knowing that I was working towards generally an end goal, even though I didn't define that end goal by chipping away and doing something little over here or something little over there. And I don't necessarily have to finish it, but I'm moving it forward. My new mantra, and I guess mantra is a big kind of loaded word, but I don't know what else to call it, is more ideas than time.

I've realized, we have finite time on this earth. And, to me, and this might sound cocky, but the idea part is the easy part. Everyone's got an idea. If you ask them, they'd come up with one, whether it's good or not. It's the execution and the figuring out how to make it a reality. So I think that dovetails into your question, how do I choose what to work on? How do I prioritize and decide what to do?

I mean, I don't have a magic sauce, but I think it comes down to if it's a personal project, time is important, resources. Does it— will it require me to invest in something? Is that possible at this time? I'm a father, I have a kid, sometimes projects get a little out of budget because of the holidays coming and the kid needs gifts and this and that, which obviously is a good problem to have. But how do I choose?

I guess it's just what's— it's what's of interest to me. And this again, probably a very open-ended answer, but I'll clarify. It's kind of what's of interest to me at the moment. So I'm a fan of a balance of opposites. And what I mean by that is a lot of my early inspiration are by people that do typographic or maybe DIY kind of messy or dirty explorations with type, your Emma Gray magazines, your Ray Gunns, your David Carsons.

But on the other side, I'm a big fan of systems, order, cleanliness, minimalism, the Swiss school. VSAs, Taliesin Design, Pentagram, they do expressive work as well, but it seems a little more, for lack of a better term, clean, controlled, based in that Swiss idea, right? So if I'm working at my day job and we're doing— actually, my day job is at a place called Monogram Group, and we specialize in branding for private equity clients and beyond. But that's kind of where we focus.

A lot of that is corporate work. It's business, it's gridded, it's meant to communicate what the client does, the special areas in which they invest, and how that's different, and bring that personality forward. So that's standard strategy and identity and branding practices.

Now, to bring it back to your question, if I'm doing that all day, then I might pick making a new typeface that looks like, it exploded, or some— a firecracker was shoved in the middle of the letter a, or something that is complete and utter opposite and more freeing. If we're doing things more expressive at work during the day, then I look for something that's maybe a little more controlled.

So I'm always looking to balance and not even justify or bring together, but I've always had those 2 sides, the clean, the gridded, and the experimental, and like know the rules to break the rules, but still somehow have a balance within the visual. That's super important. I couldn't Tell you how to define when balance is achieved, but you know it if you do it long enough. So that's how I choose. It's what's lacking or not there in my life, and I'm doing more of the other.

So I want to supplement it with that. So it's very simple. It's just balancing it.

Christian Solorzano [15:45]

That's really helpful to hear because I do, I do think that when you, when you understand the 2 extremes, it almost makes you have a little bit more empathy for them. From my experience, sometimes it's very easy to just become so resentful towards the cleanliness that perhaps you're being asked to do. But it's not until you experience the polar opposite that you're like, all right, I have a renewed sense of appreciation for this other side that I was maybe feeling very different about.

So I like that duality there. And you strike me through from looking through a lot of your work as an interdisciplinary designer, because you don't strictly just focus on one form of graphic design. You've experimented with type design, music, even photography. I've noticed that you have quite a handful of photography books online. I'm just curious, how do you find that balance to sort of integrate a lot of these things into one another, especially something like music.

Sean Fermoyle [16:57]

Yeah, I never stopped to think about the— I mean, I'm very aware of the term interdisciplinary, but I never stopped to think or define myself as that. But you're absolutely correct. I'm a fan of niching down or focusing on one skill. But that's really hard because as graphic designers, you, and we all know that we like taking pictures, we like writing, we like Some of us like type, some of us like programming, etc.

We like more than just the layout of the page or the strategy behind that layout. So it's just— I couldn't tell you there was a master plan, but I started going to school for photography and when the Macintosh came out, I thought to myself, why just focus on the image when I can do the whole layout? And then when the DIY type foundries of the early '90s came on the scene, I was like, why? Why just do the layout? I could do the type as well.

So I like to try my hand at all the little pieces, components like a chef would. Make up their secret sauce and kind of throw it in the mix. So interdisciplinary is a term that I love and I don't love as much because I'm not— I know I'm not great at all those things and I'm not trying to be, but they are part of my palette, my repertoire. So I do— that's why they come into the mix.

Some days I get so tired of typesetting and doing more corporate work, or maybe just identities, logo after logo, that a photo book is a nice— again, it gets back to that balance. It's an opposite. It's all visual. I'll look back in my arsenal or I'll work on culminating all the pictures I've been taking of, I don't know, pick something, flowers, cars, trains, whatever, and go, you know what? That might make an interesting book.

Then it gives me a context to make a project out of and that would just be busywork, if you will. But then I feel good knowing that I've compartmentalized and made a portfolio for that vision or that collection of things, which ultimately is a design project because I have to make it into a book. I have to crop the imagery. I have to— I tend to sneak in a poem into my photo books that kind of resonates with, in my opinion, the context of the visual.

So music is another interesting thing. Music I came into early in high school in the sense of a hobby. I liked all kinds of music. As I mentioned earlier, liking those album covers or discovering, DJ culture, Chicago dance music, nightclubs. House parties and raves, and you discover the local record shop, which would have all the flyers for all those events. You go to those events and then you learn about the local DJs.

Then you go back to the record store, you want to get those records, etc. Then I tried my hand at being a DJ, which I liked the design part more than I liked the DJ part. So then when I found myself out at these night events, I would try to befriend producers or DJs, and they would and let them know that I could help them with their flyers or their album covers, their releases, if they had a record label, the brand identity.

I'm gonna overuse this term during the course of this chat, but again, balance of opposites. When you— I find when I go to work with artists like musicians or visual creatives, the task that I'm being asked to do isn't literally the COVID of this or that. I feel I have to impart, and it's my job to let the fine artists know that there should be a structure to their brand. Right?

They need a core foundation, maybe an identity that, granted, it could be modular, but it's used over and over again. Color palette, imagery, the type of imagery they use, etc. So they become known and can own that space, right? The opposite is true with more of a corporate client, and this is both freelance and full-time.

They know the constructs of the business and the visual communications, and it's my job to bring them to the edge of what's possible and maybe dip a toe over and challenge their notions. Not to radically disrupt. I don't wanna disrupt an industry. I want them— I want to move things forward. I would want the client to know, especially in a corporate setting, you can evolve.

I was re-listening to the interview you did with Francis, and I love the section he was talking— you guys were talking about like healthcare logos, and he said you were bringing up this scenario, and he said, I bet we can all visualize in our head what that might look like. And that's a good and a bad thing. That's good because that industry is defined. It's bad that, to his point, it's so cliché and hack. Couldn't it just be a little different that we couldn't visualize it?

And that's my challenge, just moving the needle one degree this way or one degree that way with a more corporate client. So that's—

Christian Solorzano [21:37]

I don't know.

Sean Fermoyle [21:37]

I hope I answered your question. I think I feel I went off on a little bit of a tangent there.

Christian Solorzano [21:41]

That brings up a good point and something that might be not controversial, but I think I, I've seen a lot of discourse on LinkedIn about this, and it's— and most recently, Eric Speakerman wrote a very strong opinionated piece on his criticism of the redesign of Johnson & Johnson logo. I don't know if you had a chance to look through that.

Sean Fermoyle [22:03]

I did skim that one, but more the one I dwelled deeper into is the Pepsi redesign. So to me, they fall into similar categories. Arguably, obviously, there's— you could get into the weeds on both of them. Which one was more successful? Which one was not? And opinions, because social media asks opinions, you're gonna get opinions.

So to answer your question, I felt it was— it's hard for me to say, was it a good move or a right move without knowing the brief and what the creatives were challenged to do. But at the same time, in defense of redesigns, you always hear the creative be defensive and say, well, if you read the brief, you know it. Well, you know who doesn't get to read the brief? The public who that new design is unveiled to.

And it's kind of judged by fire by jury, right? It's public opinion, and the public's gonna tell you if it worked or didn't work by does it get— does the item sell more? Does the conversation move forward? Is it good or bad? So I can't— I really would prefer not to comment on that because that's his opinion of it. But I'll just leave you with, I wasn't a fan, and I was even less of a fan of the Pepsi redesign. Okay.

So I get why they do them. I get it.

Christian Solorzano [23:21]

I've been in situations where sometimes the most creative decisions are made by a non-creative. And when I say non-creative, I mean, by some sort of business stakeholder, someone that is paying for the work, someone whose opinion matters the most.

For me, I always find it challenging, and I always also see a lot of designers complaining about this or having strong opinions about the fact that designers, as much as we have a seat at the table, I think design has become more and more of an important point of conversation. I think the pandemic certainly made and an increase of awareness in how important, for instance, a digital experience is when people need to accomplish really important tasks and they can't go into a public building.

Personally, how do you bring in your voice and your point of view? How do you, how do you convince, how do you explain the value of your design perspective and what you believe to be pushing the needle or not being a disruptor, but pushing things forward?

Sean Fermoyle [24:31]

Well, first of all, I want to go back to before. I always like to go back because I think context is important because I tend to— I notice about myself, I'll go down a road without maybe setting it up, setting the table so the person understands where I'm— because I assume because you asked the question, you'll know immediately when I jump there. But 9 times out of 10, you don't. So back to the, the— I feel like design has become homogenized.

It is more commonly understood within our landscape, the power of design, branding, marketing ad nauseam. So you'll have people like stakeholders, not just clients, but very important people or people on social. I say important, whatever that means to you. People with a lot of followers, or not that that's the most important, or even a CEO, but whoever has an opinion on design, right?

They have an opinion on the value of it and the a perspective through their experience, how it will benefit or doesn't benefit their business and everything in between. So how I, when I see things like to go back to rebrands, I try my best not to be negative. I think critique is one thing, negative is another. So the way I work around it, it's a very lawyerly way to repost something. I won't put an opinion, I'll just put seen and noted. I love that.

That's my way to say I've seen it. What do you think? Is this good? Is this bad? I'm not here to argue with you. But it is topical, it's cultural, and it's usually within LinkedIn is where I care. I also am doing it selfishly to show my network that I'm aware of what's going on. I try to pride myself in what's going on in the industry, knowing what's going on in the industry, at least little bits here and there.

So that brings us to how do you convince or how do you speak to a stakeholder who might not necessarily be and I'm kind of paraphrasing what you said, maybe design-minded or design-savvy, or let's just leave it at that. Well, they're hiring you for that. That's our job anyways. That's not their job. So, to convince them is to show them several, through several ways. A, maybe you've done this long enough that you could reference case studies, and we've done a, B, and C for this company.

They're in the same industry as you, and the statistics and the sales numbers show that worked. Or just maybe from, there's the analytics of, let's say, a rebrand or some sort of social strategy that after it's implemented, you could say that, readership went up, likes went up, shares went up. If it's a marketing campaign to drive traffic and potential clients or customers to your site, maybe conversions went up.

All those buzzwords that it got someone to your site, they liked what you did, and now you've got the potential to speak with them. So there isn't a one, one-size-fits-all answer. So to get them to hire you right there, you would— I would think they already trust you in your whatever, your experience, your style, your skills, and they want to listen to you.

I always find it odd that when a client— again, this is freelance, this is a big company, this is a small company, midsize, and all industries— I always find it odd when a company hires you, but then they tell you how to design. Or that I want you to use this font specifically, or this color specifically, and they might have good rationale, but it ultimately needs to be collaborative. The client will always know their business better than you do.

You can advise, you can learn, and you can advise them as to why you think you should move them in a direction or not. But at the end of the day, if they don't believe you, then maybe that's not the client for you, and they didn't respect your position or your experience to begin with. But that's pretty rare.

Usually when someone hires you to do graphic design or communication work, that should have been vetted or somehow known about from our side, from the creative side, that this is either gonna be smooth or not smooth. And I always think that, we as communicators work in the communication business, the visual communication business. It is so important for us to communicate and try to get ahead of problems where a client might not understand the value of a design, for example.

Christian Solorzano [28:46]

Yeah. And are there any industries in particular that you feel like exhibit really well-crafted design? I think healthcare, I mean, I see it as just like very safe. And I mean, within reason, I feel like there's certainly some industries that should just be kind of neutral and, but that's just my opinion. What do you think? What do you think? Or what kind of, what industries excite you and what industries do you look to for like excellence?

Sean Fermoyle [29:16]

Yeah, there's the personal ones that I just like because I'm a believer in the product and I use the things and I eat the things or I wear the things. And then there's the business answer. So I'll give you the personal one first. I think, fashion and culture has the most, I guess I'll use your exciting branding, like shoe companies do some amazing campaigns. Beverage companies can do some campaign. Liquid Death is such an odd outlier brand that I think it's noteworthy.

But at the same time, I'm not a skulls and crossbones kind of guy. Even coming up from skateboarding, I never was into that aesthetic. But their whole campaign is so sing— their brand is so singular, like you cannot not notice them.

I'm a fan of like legacy companies, because if you're doing something right for 50, 60, 100 years, you must be doing something right if you're still around, right? So your Levi's or your HBO or some company that's been around for so long, it doesn't necessarily mean that I love each and every product, but there's something there that keeps them going. So from a brand and a visual aesthetics, I know that's kind of across the board.

From a professional standpoint, I, I've always thought, design goes where it's needed. So for me to say, here's the industry areas that I think are the best design, like technology has some interesting, the technology industry, Alphabet's website, is that arguably a good or bad website or company or brand? I wanna go where the product and the industry doesn't look good now, cuz that's where they need us. Right? So it's easy for me to say Apple looks amazing. We all know that Nike's well branded.

We all know that. So I wanna go where the ugly needs some polish? But again, from a smart perspective, we have a saying at Monogram Group, we get smart before we get creative. We need to understand what you've done, what has worked, audit your creative assets, strategize a new plan, get your buy-in, craft the language, and then just go down, the visual aspects of all of that.

Those deliverables and then further steward it as it, once it's gone live, check back in what's working, what's not, fine-tune. So I mean, I like, I could just go on and on. I'm just basically listing brands I like personally. So Vans Shoes, Onitsuka Tiger. I think the MCA's website in Chicago is beautiful as a brand. I mean, most architectural websites and institutions have gorgeous websites. I like Volkswagen as a brand. But again, are they exciting? I don't know. To me, that doesn't matter.

To me, are they reliable? Are they solid? Are they continuing? Another important thing is what makes brands like that not only important to me or exciting, they do evolve. I always think good branding has to evolve. You don't have to change who you are, but depending on the decade you're in, depending on the audience, Nike pivoted from a track shoe to a basketball shoe to a skateboard shoe, and I'm forgetting probably 20 different shoes within there.

Now they're known as a lifestyle company or an athletic company. It's a health company, right? It's pick a shoe within there and live your best life by being active. So I kind of— to kind of finish up sports analogies, the side hobbies to me, the side— the self-initiated projects to me are like cross-training. So there's the stuff you do in the day. It's very brand-driven, specific, and there's a system.

But everything else that maybe doesn't fall into that category— photo books, music— it's exercising that other muscle. So when I need it, it's ready. So cross-training, it's a bad analogy, but yeah.

Christian Solorzano [33:06]

I think with a lot of these legacy brands that you're bringing up, I think it's also interesting to see how they how they scale to different mediums. I always talk about in one of the classes that I teach how when Spotify was first introduced, it was, it was like desktop. It was like a desktop product, and how over time now you could have Spotify on your smartwatch and on your refrigerator and in your car.

I think if a brand is able to retain its essence or its integrity across a wide variety of applications. To me, that makes it successful. And I think sometimes some of these brands, maybe like Johnson & Johnson, take a more safe approach with their branding because it might be easier for those brands to scale across a variety of different applications.

Sean Fermoyle [34:01]

So, and also in those instances that— sorry to interrupt— they seem like, in my opinion, they kind of jump on trends. Sanceras, became very popular. They've always been popular, but from a functionality standpoint, when everything went digital on screen, mobile, it's just more legible, arguably more legible. But then, you know what stands out in a world of sans-serifs? Serifs, and made for screens.

So it's juxtaposition, it's knowing audience, it's knowing, again, I can't tell you whether or not Johnson & Johnson made the right move, but aesthetically, I thought there was more ownable Brand work in their original mark with more of a script and a flow versus simplified sans-serif-esque logo. It just, it's less special.

Christian Solorzano [34:47]

In 1996, you started a freelance design studio called Simple Type, and I wanna, I wanna hear a little bit about that. Just walk us through what was going on in 1996.

Sean Fermoyle [35:02]

Stuff I can't share here. No. Christian, your research blows me away. I didn't know there was anything like on that out there. Still in the world. So however you have your sources, that's pretty impressive. Yeah, and I graduated college in '96 so do the math. I'm not gonna tell you how old I am now, but I'm getting up there. But I still have a fire in my belly.

In '96, I'm just getting out of college and I was introduced to, G26, Emigre, Fuse Fonts and I'm forgetting a billion others, but the DIY font make grunge font, ray gun, Make your own typeface, and not even if— even if it wasn't a finished typeface, make your own typography, right? Hand done. That was the impetus to learn how were all these things made. How do you make a font? I never stopped to think about that up until that point.

And I noticed, hey, if so-and-so can do it, I can try. So I did my research. I learned that Fontographer at the time was the go-to program for making your own font. I spoke to different designers who were already ahead of me dabbling with type creation, and they gave me tricks or gave me some insights and taught me the tricks on how to bring characters in because they're all different sizes, and learned about baselines and extenders and descenders and fine-tune kerning and ligatures and international characters.

And this will date me as well. The euro symbol was new, and that was a must put in, to your font character set. So I would just build fonts, make fonts, and built a very remedial, very— by today's standard, embarrassing, but I'm still proud of it— a website and called myself a type foundry and picked the name Simple Type because at the end of the day, I was just simply trying to make type. It's— there's not a big story there.

I'm not trying to overcomplicate it or seem, come across as smarter than I was. I just like type, and I'd stay up till 2, 3, 4 in the morning just finishing these fonts. Printing them, testing them. And, like any venture, it didn't go so quick. There was not immediate success because that field was pretty— oh, I have to mention Thirst Type, Rick Valicenti's endeavor at the time was very influential and Chicago-based. So it was close. So you saw a lot of that activity.

And so since I wasn't doing— and I didn't have e-commerce on my website, I was literally like, call me or email me. Send me a check for $30. I'll send you the— or stop by, and I'll mail you the font or give you it on a floppy disk. I was kind of following Carlos's business model because I used to stop by.

It just amazes me how many times I would stop by there, or any designer would need to physically, back in the day, go to T26 to pick up a font like on a disk.

Christian Solorzano [37:47]

It was—

Sean Fermoyle [37:47]

It's kind of funny to think now. So, I was nowhere near as big or successful or as good, honestly, as these larger, well-established designers and type foundries. So I would then talk to my friends who worked at like New City Magazine or other publications and say, hey, I've made these fonts or these dingbats, would you— I'll send it to you for free, could you try it out and test it in the— and, test it in your publications? Same thing with flyers.

I'd go to like a nightclub or a bar and say, hey, I could design your flyer for free as long as you don't mind, I'm going to use this font within it, which is a backwards way to do it, I know, but selfishly at the time I was just trying to see if these things had legs. And that's how I got them out into the world and, had some success and fun with that. It was definitely self-generated, self-funded.

I think in the total history of running Simple Type as a foundry, I think I made $7. So I— it wasn't anything to brag about, but the good thing that came from doing all that, eventually Simple Type turned into a freelance design alias for myself, and I expanded my service offerings to— because type, working with type gave me insight, or at least more encouragement, as how to customize identity. So identity work as it extends into business collateral and all the other stuff that goes with that.

I was able to— and then web design, I was able to expand the offerings, and fonts fell by the wayside as a product offering. But it was the impetus and the catalyst and the spark for what Simple Type became. The last note on Simple Type was I folded it, and I forget how many years ago, a few years ago, because I was in between jobs and always looking for a home, a full-time place to reside. Always freelancing, but I just didn't have that entrepreneurial spirit anymore.

Again, with a family and a kid, you need a little more security, and you miss a team, and you wanna be challenged, and I wanted to do that. So I was looking for full-time work again. So I shut Simple Type down because I realized when you're an independent— and this is my opinion, it's not factual— when you're an independent studio or designer, I think you want to look bigger than you are.

So people have a sense, oh, this guy is more than a guy or a gal. They do more. That's we. They can have all these offerings. Whereas when you're looking for a job, the agencies or the studios looking want to make sure and know it's an individual. Are you trying to get hired as a studio or per— so I figured that was confusing. So I finally folded the shop.

I still retain the URL, and one day I might dust it off and call it something else, use it for something else. But then I turned my online presence into seanfermoyle.com, which is my website, and all the work, both personal and professional, now can fall under that. And there's no confusion whether I work somewhere or I did it myself. It's all from me. So to me, that made sense. Yeah.

Christian Solorzano [40:42]

I love that you mentioned that you made $7. So a previous guest on our show, Francis, who you brought up, he always runs these annual reports where it's like, hey, this year I made $0.

Sean Fermoyle [40:56]

I love that he leans into that. He used the word dark a lot. I didn't read it as dark. It's like the brute reality. This quarter I made zero and here's the report of that. It's hilarious and it's an impetus for a project and I love that. I gotta tell you, he's one of my favorite interviewees that you've had. He just— he's so raw and real.

Like anything, he probably doesn't love all the work I do, and I'm not a fan of all of his work, but from a mental mentality standpoint, that's rare to hear, and it was very refreshing. So I like him a lot.

Christian Solorzano [41:31]

And I want to switch topics a little bit and talk about grunge and the grunge style. I mean, when I think of grunge, I think of the '90s. I see the grunge spirit and the aesthetic continue to be very relevant today. And I want to ask you, why do you think it— why do you think it continues to be relevant? It never feels outdated. It never feels out of time. It doesn't feel out of place.

Is it— is it more so its attitude than what it looks like? Or just talk to us a little bit about just your aesthetic. Taste. And in the beginning, when we were speaking about the— when we were starting this conversation, you mentioned how you like these, you like these extremes. And I think of grunge as being on the extreme of like Swiss grit. It's the opposite of Swiss. It's gritty, sturdy.

And one of my favorite designers is Chris Ashworth, because I think he encapsulates a lot of that. A lot of that in his work. So talk to us a little bit about that.

Sean Fermoyle [42:35]

I've never stopped to think that or describe my own work as grunge, but I do know exactly what you mean. I, again, maybe this is pompous, tend to think of the things I do that probably are considered grunge or are grunge. It's more to me type exploration, experimentation, blurring the edges of, like you mentioned, grids and columns. My poor man's version of, hey, what's this David Carson thing about? Like seeing what just for my own expression.

Christian Solorzano [43:05]

There's—

Sean Fermoyle [43:06]

So it's more, again, back to understanding the rules to break the rules. Not to say that you have to follow the rules to begin with, but I can't stress enough that I, in a million years, I'm not a grunge designer. There's so many other people like that Chris Ashworth gentleman you mentioned. I follow him on Instagram that do it so much better than I.

I'm as much a fan as the Designers Republic and their computer driven digital techno— and I'm greatly simplifying— world that they conveyed in the '90s and early 2000s. They've— Ian Anderson, in my opinion, freed up some of his style and has gotten a little more fine artsy as he's getting older, and I love it. But, that was— that's a very different look than grunge. To me, they're the same experimentation, they're just different flavors of ice cream. Some like chocolate, some like vanilla, some like strawberry.

So I would never call them grunge. I just— they're just different feelings. I just love the fact that we have all the tools at our disposal. I can dip my toe into David Carson world again, to overuse that name. I can dip again, attempt that, and my versions of dip my toe in clean pentagram wannabe, or aspire to be, logo design. Or, I love Jennifer Sterling, how she does a lot of her motion work and typography, and where she cut her teeth was Steve Taliesin design.

And he has a lot of beautiful photography. So how do I make my decision? It depends on what the subject is and what the strategy is that I've decided for my personal work or for a client. Their industry will inform it. But again, I'll challenge that notion. So it's just having a modular palette that I can dive in. Bitmap fonts versus hand-done fonts, like what is appropriate?

Or do I want to challenge the notion of what's appropriate and make a case for this is this other thing. This Plan D, E, or F is as appropriate, but you've never heard it positioned this way, client. And I'm gonna tell you that it's possible, and it will work because of, this logic, this rationale. How do I choose it? I mean, just feel, instinction, experience, fail, trial and error.

On that topic, I still, I hope before I die, I wanna try and see if I can sell a client on using a logo based on the font Chicago, just because it's such an ugly font. It, but it's called Chicago. I mean, arguably ugly. There's beauty in its personality, right? But you, when you see stuff like that, or fonts of that nature, that just instantly you don't take it seriously. But I would challenge myself, how could you make it Maybe do it.

How can you make it be taken seriously? How can— I would love to see Chicago 2025, like someone just took a relook at that font, right? So I think there's beauty and worth and aesthetic choices to be cultivated in everything good, bad, and indifferent. And back to the world doesn't need more good design. The world, in my opinion, needs the bad design to be brought up to the minimum place where all good design is living right now.

Because if everything was great design, we'd all be out of a job. So go where the need is. That's— I, I— it's very practical, but I do that, and that's more of a professional, trying to drum up business and freelance attitude. But personal projects, I can make anything, and I couldn't tell you the rhyme or reason as to why, but it's fine art to me. But it just happened to be done through graphic design.

Christian Solorzano [46:40]

And speak to us a little bit about your relationship to Chicago. We haven't talked about that yet, but where are you from? Talk to us about your relationship with Chicago.

Sean Fermoyle [46:49]

My family on both sides, parent, mom's and dad's side, are Chicago families. Ironically though I was born in Omaha, Nebraska, which just is out of nowhere. It just happened to be my dad was in the Air Force at the time stationed there. So that's why I was born there. But then we moved to— just, we lived in Chicago till I was, ready for school, and then our family moved to Des Plaines. And then from Des Plaines, we moved to the northwest suburb of Crystal Lake.

So always around Chicago area. And then went to college after high school, couldn't wait to go to college in Chicago. And then shortly thereafter graduation from college, moved back to Chicago, been there ever since until the last maybe, I don't know, 10 or so years. We've slowly been moving further away, like Humboldt Park, Evanston, and now we're in Morton Grove, which is just west of Evanston.

So I consider myself Chicago-oriented and Chicago-based as a general term, because explaining what I just explained to you over and over again gets— my relationship is it's home, it's family. I love everything about it. I love the architecture. Every time I was a kid, we'd go into the city to visit grandparents or uncles or cousins. I just knew in my mind, family's here, and I want to get here one day. Why are we so far out in the boonies or wherever?

And years later I learned it's because the parents want a safer environment for kids, better educational system, and all that, access to nature, all that goes with that. Maybe cheaper taxes. But yeah, as soon as I was done with college, I mean, the goal was to get back down into Chicago.

Some of my best memories were living in the West Loop before the West Loop is what we know it to be today, when it was a little bit desolate and a ghost town and a little scary. But it was— you could see downtown from it when you were on the roof. And I felt like you can't get closer to the heartbeat without being in a high-rise. And I couldn't afford a high-rise, and I wanted to have that kind of bohemian artist's experience, the loft.

It was cold. It was more expensive than I probably should have spent at the time. But Gosh, did you have that space and you could do anything? And it's— that's where everything was born for me. So I have a special place in my heart for Chicago, specifically the West Loop.

Christian Solorzano [49:04]

And when it comes to Chicago graphic design, what do you think makes Chicago unique or special in contrast to other places? Or just what about Chicago design do you think speaks to you? Or it makes it unique.

Sean Fermoyle [49:22]

I thought about this a lot. I still haven't come up with a good answer. It's that kind of head down, just get the work done, blue-collar mentality. Not to say that we're not cerebral and smart as designers within Chicago, but it's not just the physical labor. I think it's— we have— again, I'm greatly simplifying. I don't mean to disrespect San Francisco, New York, or any other places. We just have less attitude.

I mean, there's still attitude, there's still cliques within any larger groups, but Overall, I've always liked the approachability of Chicago graphic design, and that includes everything— the printers, the paper companies, the programmers, the illustrators. Then you branch out— the writers, studio owners, and even the clients. I think everyone's got a very approachable way to speak to graphic design in Chicago. At least I found that to be true.

It's not I think everyone's made, at least in my experience, have made themselves approachable and allowed the opportunity for networking. I am blown away and very much encouraged by what you're doing, Christian. The Graphic Design Book Club turned into the Graphic Design Club, things like that. I used— there was a lot more, and I don't want to bore you with all the names, but when little self-initiated events would pop up, I would do my best just to support them, and if minimally in spirit, I would.

But that's encouraging. It doesn't— it feels like every designer in Chicago is a phone call or an email away? I really— and maybe it's age— I just, I feel like if I had a question for Greg Samada, he doesn't know me, but I could find him.

Christian Solorzano [51:00]

No, that's another thing that I, that I really love. And it's funny because sometimes People from other cities will ask me how Chicago is. And I, and I, and I just, I tell them like, yeah, people are giving, people are nice. And sometimes they're a little bit surprised by that because I think, I think it's not to be expected in other places, unfortunately. So I, so I think that's what makes, what makes what we have, what the city has, really unique and special.

Sean Fermoyle [51:29]

Yeah, I would agree. And again, I can't stress enough that I'm sure other cities and communities have that as well, but I can only speak to Chicago. And a little bit that I've experienced other cities, I, I'm an outsider, so I wouldn't probably know those things. But Chicago for me has been here 20+ years. Yeah, it's, I think it's very welcoming and encouraging and inspiring.

Christian Solorzano [51:50]

So we're almost at time, but I want to, I want to just ask a little bit about what are you working on right now? What's inspiring you? What's new in your work? Anything that we could look out for project-wise? What's going on?

Sean Fermoyle [52:03]

Sure. No, I love that question. By the way, I love all questions. It's very humbling and it's an honor to be asked about your creative philosophies and ethos. So thank you, Christian. I'm working on presently— it's funny, that old adage, when you have a kid, whether you want a kid or not, but we did, it changes your perspective and value system and priorities. So I'm working on a retrospective book of all my work over the course of my life from, mid-20s till now.

And so that's something I've been picking at for a year or two now. And, I have the general impetus and the organization of it down, but I'm debating back and forth whether or not to include the stories for each of the projects, because then that turns into more of a— more than a visual eye candy archive of my work. And that will take a lot longer because I'm not a writer. But I'm definitely encouraged by ChatGPT.

That sounds crazy to say, because it helps me flesh out ideas, right? Helps me refine my writing. I know we didn't touch base on AI, and I kind of appreciate you didn't bring it up, but at the same time, to me it's just tools. So I'm trying to be a better writer, trying to be more succinct with what I'm trying to impart. My verbal processing aside, I can be a little verbose and go on, but that's just me. So the book is one thing.

On the writing tip, I've been picking at a screenplay for 10+ years. And again, ChatGPT is interesting. I had to figure out how to format a screenplay, and ChatGPT is helping me. And this is probably a controversial term, but work on sentence structure and alternative titles or alternative descriptions.

And then I'll take that, it only gives me what I prompted, so it's my idea, and I don't feel bad using it as a tool or as an editor or as a soundboard, if you will, to bounce ideas off. Those are the 2 main things that come to mind as far as what I'm working on. What's inspiring me? I'm gonna borrow a term from most of your interviews— life.

An answer for most of your interviews, a lot— anything that goes with life is inspiring, and anything off the computer is inspiring. Anything off the phone, anything off a screen. Is what you need to do. It's more— it's as important to step away from all that we do with our tools digitally to power the brain to come back with those ideas to put into those tools and those communications and those designs.

So just simply taking— one of my favorite things to do is take a ride on Sheridan Road with a cup of coffee and listen to your podcast or any podcast. It's just— it's in my brain. I'm looking at the road. It's not even that I'm a car guy, but I could turn off that designer part and open up the inspiration part.

Christian Solorzano [54:51]

Thank you for saying that.

Sean Fermoyle [54:52]

Of course. And rightfully owned, Christian. Rightfully owned.

Christian Solorzano [54:56]

I think you should bring Simple Type back because it would be great to see a lot of that work. I'm always very curious in seeing the work that doesn't get published or the work that's not, on the internet somewhere. So I'm very curious about that, and I like that you bring up writing because I love to write. Sadly, I don't write as much as I used to.

I used to maintain— I mean, I still have this newsletter, but I used to publish something sometimes every other week, and it's just gotten so busy, or I sadly, I'm ashamed to say this, I just haven't had the time. But I will say that having a writing practice really helps articulate your ideas and the things that sometimes are just like this clutter and this mess in your, in your brain. So I love seeing, I love seeing designers write sometimes much more than seeing their work.

The work is nice. Let me hear you talk about it.

Sean Fermoyle [55:53]

Exactly. And that's something I'm still, I think we never get great at it. We just get better at it. Right. So that's, I'm working on that. Absolutely.

Christian Solorzano [56:02]

One of the early talks that we had with the Design Club was with Ellen Lupton, and she very graciously agreed to speak with us. And she— and the conversation is on YouTube, but she spoke to us about the power of writing as a designer and why it's such an important practice. So I like that you're doing it. I think it's— Yeah.

Sean Fermoyle [56:23]

And I understand time, again, more ideas than time. It's like you can only do what you can do during the day and don't beat yourself up if you didn't get to the 10 things on the to-do list. Make, there's tomorrow. Hopefully there's tomorrow. So, all right.

Christian Solorzano [56:36]

Well, any parting words? Anything else you want to mention? Thank you so much for speaking with us.

Sean Fermoyle [56:43]

Likewise, Christian. Again, this was amazing. I hope I didn't come across too nervous. I don't do this type of stuff too often, so thank you. No, nothing to bring up. I think we've covered quite a bit, and hopefully it's somewhat linear. But yeah, I'm very excited for your publication, what you're doing, and, the future for graphic design, as well as, continuing the evolution of what's preceded the legacy stuff. It's all in the mix, so I love it.

So nothing, yeah, just to quote the late, great Lynn Bremer from WXRT, it's just great to be alive. I just have this attitude like every day is a gift, and let's go, let's go. What's next?

Christian Solorzano [57:25]

Yeah.

Sean Fermoyle [57:26]

So it's an honor, Christian. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Christian Solorzano [57:31]

Wow, as always, what a great conversation. Thank you so much for sticking around until the end. It really means a lot, and I am very thrilled about some of our upcoming guests, so be on the lookout for those. And as always, to learn more about Underscore, to learn more about the Chicago Graphic Design Club, just visit our website, www.chicagographicdesign.club, or follow us on social media. As always, we will talk soon, and once again, thank you so much. Be well.