Christian Solorzano [00:05]

Hello, you are listening to Underscore, a show by the Chicago Graphic Design Club. I am your host, Christian Solorzano. In today's conversation, I speak with Will Miller, Senior Director of Design at Firebelly, a Chicago-based studio which describes itself as a socially conscious creative studio Specializing in strategic design. If you are unfamiliar with Firebelly or the work of Will, I consider their solutions to design problems to be amongst one of the most thoughtful and impactful here in the city.

Will's attention to detail, craft, and value-driven decisions, I think, set the standard for excellence. In this conversation, Will shares his design process, the importance of drawing inspiration from personal interests, ways to build trust with clients and stakeholders, craft designing in Chicago for over 2 decades, and so much more. We also hear about the lessons that he learns through working with dogs and pets about empathy and compassion and the way that influences and shapes his graphic design work.

And as always, if you want to learn more about the Chicago Graphic Design Club, visit us at www.chicagographicdesign.club. Welcome, Will. Nice to be speaking with you. How are you doing this afternoon?

Will Miller [01:33]

I'm doing great. Thanks for having me, Christian.

Christian Solorzano [01:35]

So I— so as I was preparing for this, for this conversation with you, I was looking through a lot of the things that you've been doing for the last, almost 2 decades. And one of the really fascinating things about you is that you're really involved with animals and that dogs and pets play a big role in your life.

So I wanna start this conversation here by asking you, what are some lessons that you've perhaps learned from animals and maybe the compassion and empathy that animals ask from us sometimes? How does that come across in your design practice?

Will Miller [02:15]

I love that question. Certainly didn't expect that one to be the first one. And I will give the majority of the credit for working with animals and animals being such a big part of my life to my partner, my wife, Erin, who has made that her life. Obviously I love dogs, I love pets. I love design as well.

And somehow we found this really interesting balance of what she does and what I do, we have this ability to sort of do that together at times, which has been really great, I think, for both of us. She comes from a bit of a design background. Of course I do as well. And, I think when we first met, she was on the path toward design. And, that's how we linked up in one of the old graphic design meetups from back in 2005, 2006.

And, at the time, I think, she was a bit intimidated or just sort of overwhelmed at what it would take to sort of stay in that profession and sort of be successful in that world. But, she always had a passion for animals and working in that way, and a few experiences that we had, really set us down that path of being able to support her and what she wanted to do with animals and sort of bring a design edge to it.

So, for us, it's, I think opening that idea of finding creativity or just inspiration in different, in different ways. And what we've learned from that is, it's just design can go anywhere. The idea that design is really about helping in some way, aiding in some way, supporting in some way, and giving back in some way has really been, pretty key to a lot of my time in the profession and in the community as well.

And so, getting to work on those things with her directly and indirectly has just been really great. The way that we, work with outside companies as well. We have fostered and we also have 2 dogs who have, different mobility issues, some in the front and one in the back. And so, through those experiences, we've worked with outside agencies that help create prosthetics or 3D-printed prosthetics, just all kinds of ways and different avenues that design can really help out in that way.

I've learned a ton, and she's been able to do what she's wanted to do, just, through my skills and being able to sort of add my help to building a business and a nonprofit on her side. But, never really saw that coming.

And, what we've learned from them, it's, it's— It feels like a much more useful form of design in my mind, like being able to sort of see an issue and see a need, and being able to direct skills and talent and craft towards that and be able to help that. So that was the long-winded answer, was basically that finding a need and being able to sort of hone in on that and focus on that.

And sort of the selfish side of it is just we get to work together a lot. It's not always perfect, but, we do get to sort of build and grow this thing together, and that, in some of the tougher times, when design feels like a struggle, has always just sort of helped to carry me through and, find more passion and inspiring moments through what I do.

Christian Solorzano [05:37]

Yeah. And that makes so much sense given the work that you do at Firebelly and the work that is, very rooted in positive impact, social good.

Will Miller [05:50]

So another question that I have for you is, for you, Will, what's the criteria for yeah, I think, I mean, I think at the end of the day, leaving and feeling like there's an improvement being made, something being passed off, learning on both sides, collaboration, being able to talk, being able to strategize, and not losing ourselves to the, a bit of the visual side of what design can be, but just knowing that there's some sort of benefit, back into the world, back into the community, whatever that community might be, whatever the client might be doing, whatever the organization might be working toward.

I think, yeah, I mean, I think it's wanting to bring that positive energy into the work that we do, being able to go home, sleep well at night, and know that, for me personally, using my skills and doing what I do.

Just to really kind of help and bring something, to light in a way that maybe somebody else wouldn't be able to. I think for the studio, I think that's typically how we think of, what good design might be in how we work. It's just collaboration, education. We're all learning, we're all benefiting, and we're bringing something into that space and making things better.

Christian Solorzano [07:16]

Yeah, I love that answer. So let's go back in time a little bit and let's hear about your earliest memory of graphic design? Maybe how old were you and what was that first design, graphic design piece that sort of drew you in?

Will Miller [07:34]

I'm gonna go way back. Obviously when I was young, when I was little, the word design didn't really exist in the same way that I know it now. It was just this sort of itch, it's like a young kid maybe to draw, to illustrate, to just play with things in a way that were more exploratory. And, I grew up in a house where my mom was an English teacher, so language played a big role.

And my dad was a photographer, and he had a studio basically in our house in the basement. And so, he was coming from old-school photography, developing his own film. Everything was there. We had darkrooms. All kinds of machinery that, at the time when I was, 5, 6, 7, I had no idea what any of it was.

But that experience of sort of being around somebody working with language and teaching, as well as somebody, using a camera to capture imagery and develop that, just the constant back and forth, bouncing around and getting to be a part of that. I didn't understand what design was. It certainly wasn't on my radar. But I think those 2 things played a big role in what it all became for me.

And I don't think I was really able to connect the dots until, much later taking art classes in, middle school, high school. When you get— it's that classic story, you've got the right teacher at the right time, and you just sort of suddenly seize that thing in you, that one project that pulls it out. And I just remember being really interested in letterforms, through a good chunk of high school. I didn't know why.

I grew up in a small town, and so access to things that, might have happened here or in a bigger in a bigger city, that wasn't really available to me. So it was kind of relying on like a smaller network of folks who were creative, and there weren't that many that I knew. And I did have an art teacher, and we had a project where it was draw letterforms, bring in your own imagery.

And it was early on, and it was just this sort of aha moment where, she identified there was something there working with these 2 things, type and image. And she could just see the passion. And for me, that was probably the first real moment.

But I think it started far earlier in my childhood where it was just surrounded by photography, both on a commercial and an artistic space, and being in that photographic development environment where things are going from a lens and film into something that becomes real. And of course, my mom teaching English and bringing some of that language component into me.

But it was really art classes in high school, I think, were the thing that sort of brought me into the realization that this could be a profession, that there's a way to combine, these interests into something that's useful.

And, to sort of build on that, once my eyes were open, when I started to see what my dad was actually doing, when I was paying more attention to it, I realized like he's shooting photography for a lot of commercial catalogs, he's shooting photography for a lot of layout, and he's actually working with designers, not in his own studio, but elsewhere.

So that connection, that direct connection with the designers that he would be working with, it wasn't obvious to me until later when I started to see that he was doing this as one piece of a much bigger collaboration. And I think those were just the moments where it all started to click for me.

Christian Solorzano [11:06]

Yeah, it's always so interesting, and I always feel so thankful that there's like a community of people that love letterforms, because sometimes when I talk with non-designers and I tell them that, I like letters, it's like, letters?

Will Miller [11:24]

What? It's interesting too. I mean, it's because they're so— well, I mean, they're so everywhere at this point, right? And that idea that you can sort of fall in love with the letter Q, fall in love with the letter Z, or draw it, 250 times just to get it right or manipulate it when you're working on an identity or a logotype. There's just so much nuance in the contrast and all the little things that go into it.

I mean, when I realized I had this, real deep interest in that, once I was out of school and sort of working on my own, I just dove deep because that was the thing for me, I think, it was only scratching the surface when I was at school, and it was— we were doing a lot of concept, we were doing a lot of layout, we were obviously experimenting, with photography and materials, all different types of things. And this is, between 1998 and 2002.

And, I— we would have type classes, but they weren't really— they weren't really getting into like the nitty-gritty of how type makes somebody feel potentially. They weren't really getting to the root of like where the mood comes from, in working with type, and how that sort of brings some, friction and energy into a piece.

And, when I realized that was the big differentiator from the work that I was doing at school, and then immediately out of school, when I realized that type was the big differentiator, I just fell in love. I wanted to make my own. I wanted to draw my own. I wanted to find a way to just really incorporate that into the work and got really geeked out on, Jay Ryan of the Bird Machine.

When I started seeing his screen-printed posters back in the day for all kinds of bands that I remember listening to when I was in high school, I was just, this is amazing. You can just draw this. You don't even have to use a font. You can bring this into the work in this like very raw stage, and photocopy it, texture and all, and apply color.

And it just— that work, early on really inspired me to want to go get better at doing these things and drawing these things and starting to find ways to sort of bring that into more of the identity work that I was working on at the time.

Christian Solorzano [13:37]

I learned not too long ago that you actually created fonts through, by running and that you were going on these, you were running and you were using Google Maps to carve your own letterforms onto the street. And I want to, I want maybe you could explain a little bit better, but I just find it so fascinating to integrate your love for typography with, in this case, running. So I, that was my, I've never, I've never seen anyone do that.

Will Miller [14:10]

I'm glad that surprises you. I mean, I think there might be a few other folks that are doing similar things now. I'd like to say maybe I was the first, but I started that project back in Maybe it was 2011, 2012 when I got back into running, or maybe running for the first time, long-distance running. It was just sort of around that time where companies were sort of dropping some of those GPS run, tracking apps.

And I just remember thinking, if I'm gonna do these long distances and start, potentially running marathons, I need a good excuse to get out there and sort of fall in love with this. And why not do, 2 things at once? And I think it was just this idea. It was real rough. It was just like strap a phone to your arm, and then hopefully the GPS would pick it all up.

But I would, I would sit down and Google Maps and sort of map out, all right, based on the grid, the Chicago grid, and what we have, the few diagonals, like how many streets could I follow? And so I would write out the path and the turns, and I'm pretty bad with directions. So this was almost good practice for me in a way too.

But I would this little, almost like notebook with me, this little card, and I would just follow it and I would run the path and then I would finish. And yeah, I would, I would see it, be tracked and it was real rough early on, but I went through a majority of the letters and then I was like, when you'd get to the end, you'd sort of see them and like these are rough.

And then I do them again and this went on for, I mean, I'm still kind of doing it. Not as much anymore, but, 13 years later, I'm still refining them and fixing them. And I don't know if I'll ever do anything with it or put it anywhere, but somewhere out there it's all tracked and kept. And it was, at one point I was like, maybe I could do an italic here.

It's just something that's— it's a nice side mission to doing long-distance running, which is another really good reason to just get off the screen from time to time. So. Yeah.

Christian Solorzano [16:13]

I learned that you did a 20-mile V, which is really impressive.

Will Miller [16:17]

Yeah, I think one of the— that's one of the more memorable ones. The other was an 18-mile D, and at the very end of it, I mean, probably the last, 30 seconds, I'm standing at an intersection out of breath, completely tired, and I look over and somebody who you've had on the podcast, who I used to work with, Nick Adam, I turned my head and he's just sitting in his car staring at me laughing. I'm like, hey, I just finished 18 Mile D. And yeah.

Christian Solorzano [16:48]

That's great. So walk us through sort of your journey. So you've been with Firebelly for 16 years, and prior to that you were at Modern Luxury. Which in my opinion, Modern Luxury and Firebelly, 2 very different things, 2 very different demographics. Walk us through that transition point of being at Modern Luxury for, I believe, 2 years, a little bit over 2 years 2 years and 9 months. And then going straight into Firebelly. What was that? Yeah. What was that like?

Will Miller [17:30]

Sure, I might even start a little bit earlier than that. I had moved up here from Florida where I was going to school, and at Ringling College of Art and Design, and I had come up here with 2 friends. Didn't have a big network when I arrived, and for a touch tried, we did all the things that we, 22-year-olds typically do. We tried to start our own studio, realized we couldn't work together very well.

And then kind of fell into a job working in promotions where I was doing design and making posters for bands. They would have consistent musicians come and perform and then they would come back. And so, through that experience for about a year, I mean, that was pretty rough. I mean, it was basically working at a bar doing, designed posters. It was a lot of fun.

Still the favorite, work, because it was just a total spirit of experimentation, being able to sort of do a thing and get it wrong the first time. They would be back in a month. So the next time that the band would return, you could redesign it. You were pitching the work very quickly. So I got really good at working fast and sort of seeing the value and almost like reinventing the work, maybe the second time around, just sort of learning on my own.

And that went on for a while, and then I retained them as really just sort of a freelance client, and I started working, with some outside agencies in the suburbs back in the day doing a lot of identity work. And that's where I started, getting into more of the logotypes, the marks that we would do, layout work, sort of trying to find ways to get type into the work that I was doing.

And, starting to build up a network and a connection of folks by that point, maybe a year or 2 in, and this is all pre-Twitter, pre-Facebook, pre-Instagram. Of course, this is 2003 and '04. So it was just, it was hard breaking into the Chicago scene. At that time, my perception was it was a lot of ad agencies and a lot of maybe old guard. So, jumping in very quickly was tough.

And, through that experience of sort of falling in love with type, spending time at home working, but working remotely in a way, just drawing more type and realizing like type was at that point really what I was interested in doing. I got very into, layout and editorial design. And again, it just, it felt like a natural extension of what I had been doing in other places where there were a lot of creative work with type, very expressive and bold work with type.

And so it was just getting to this point where I wanted to be in-house somewhere. I wanted to be in a smaller studio, ultimately a studio of small to medium size. And this opportunity came up and I was like, this is great. This is how I can connect the identity work that I was doing with the editorial layout work that I was doing. It was really just connecting a lot of dots and moved into that space.

And when I started at Modern Luxury, it was really magazine layout. So they had regional magazines in different areas. So in Chicago, it's called CS, and elsewhere at the time, I think they had a magazine called Angeleno. But again, yes, the subject matter was very weird when I think back on it now and what I do on a day-to-day basis and just, more of where I think design, where I should be spending my time in design.

But it's early in my career, so, for me it was all about experience. And while I was there, that space, that publishing house, I mean, they really— they grew 300 to 400% and got to work with some really great people at the time, like unexpectedly great people, surprisingly weird situations where you would just find yourself with folks who later reconnected with. In interesting ways. But, that for me, I was able to kind of grow my first team there.

I was hired to basically kind of fall between advertising and editorial layout. And so I was working on things that didn't necessarily fall under the branding of the magazine, but they also didn't, move so incredibly far away that you wouldn't recognize them. So it was kind of the perfect sweet spot, and I was getting to do layout as well as more expressive work for that space. And ultimately, as they got bigger, I was sort of designing more templates. My team had sort of grown.

I was able to make some really good connections there, some friends, and we had assembled a really great group of folks to work on all kinds of design. But we were really designing our ways out of a creative job. And I think that was the moment after about a year in, I realized this is changing, and not in the way that I want to be headed. Stuck it out for a little bit, and then, took some time to really start to connect again.

Got more connected with the Chicago community through the meetups back in the day where, we would get together with other graphic designers. That was sort of the first connection like that outside of the AIGA, and ran that for a little bit, and then sort of stepped back. But, ultimately it was good, and I had just had a few friends, and one of them had freelanced with Firebelly and had said, you really need to check this place out. They're doing some great work.

It's, almost the exact opposite in terms of subject matter from where you're coming. And for me at the time, it was really important that I was using my skills not necessarily to hurt people or to make people who were already wealthy more wealthy, and that's what it felt like. And when I found Firebelly, it was sort of like I had just found my tribe of folks. We were here, we were dedicated to the work, we were all very creative.

We had a huge passion for growing our own craft, but also putting it to good use and putting it to just to the benefit of, society that like I hadn't really gotten much chance to do yet. And it was really exciting. And again, in this space in the early days, Had some really great opportunities to work with great folks who remain friends to this day, and connected with all kinds of great people along the way.

And, I— it's been so many years because I think it's hard to imagine another space that I would feel dedicated to. This place, it's sort of in my blood, it's in my veins, and I've helped it grow, both from the design side, but, to all the other things that we do.

The way that, we work collaboratively here as a design team. It would be, it would be tough to leave that and have found a lot of energy through working with the folks who have come here over the years, and love to see where they go off to and what they end up doing.

Christian Solorzano [24:27]

Because one of the things that I've always admired about Firebelly is that you're not just dedicated to like the work, but there's also like Camp Firebelly. There's Typeforce, and it seems like there's just always all of these extracurricular things that sort of inform your practices. So walk us through how does Firebelly approach that need to be doing things in addition to your expectations or what's expected of you?

And because, I mean, I think, I mean, even for designers that work independently, I think we're always looking for that ability to give back and to have some positive impact. So could you talk to us a little bit about that?

Will Miller [25:15]

Yeah, I mean, I think it's, I think a lot of it is that I think this is a design community that I've been part of for 20 years.

And, I want to, what I really enjoyed about teaching when I was doing that before COVID, it was just being able to sort of watch folks come up into that space, sort of have that moment where, the dots start to connect and the eyes are open and they get really excited about what they're working on and they realize that they can do it.

They can just do it, and they can make what it is that they're trying to make and maybe even better with other folks as well. And I think, the spirit of Typeforce and when we were doing the camp program. I think all of those things were sort of in that vein. There's just— I don't want to say it's untapped.

Untapped isn't the right way to say it, but there's just a lot of folks out there, I think, who are hungry to figure out how to do something more with what they can do and what they want to do. And so I think those things existed in that space that here we are and we can do this work. We think we think our clients and the folks that we do work with will also be excited about those things.

It's been far tougher, late— later, lately, I guess, when everybody has sort of moved more towards remote and getting folks together in that way is just not as easy. But, Typeforce, something now that I'm a co-chair of with Nermeen, who was also on your podcast a few weeks back, I think that spirit is that. Yeah.

Getting all of these designers and makers and just creative thinkers in a room together to just connect sometimes for the first time, whether they're younger or to just have a good excuse for some of us old people to get back in the room and have a party and just see what people come up with.

We're part of this, and I think we want to see ourselves and our passion kind of reflected in the community and just being able to give back in that way, whether you've Had a chance to do that before, or whether this might be the first chance now. I think it's finding those things like what that's why I think it's so exciting what you're up to because I think sometimes maybe the AIGA or you know another organization like that might not feel right.

It might have been around you know in a way that goes back you know and there's just something about it there that doesn't feel. New or fresh enough. And, I think what you're up to, it's— it feels kind of homegrown in a way. It's like self-organized. And I think that is really interesting, for a whole group of younger folks kind of coming into this design community now.

So I think just those things, the newer opportunities, things that don't have a huge track record and are sort of built from the folks who Newer and who are becoming a part of it now. That just feels really exciting. And I think all of those things that we had done at Firebelly at one point or another, that spirit was there.

Christian Solorzano [28:18]

I was talking with a friend about this weekend, and I think for, a lot of what I like, for example, like Typeforce or this club, I think what we do is that we, we're like problem detectors where we, where we try to find problems out in the world. And then we sort of use that as an opportunity to create something. And I think Typeforce was that, is that, because, it's always been about celebrating like typographic excellence and like celebrating the potential and the reach of typography.

I mean, Typeforce, like what I think what was unique about Typeforce is that there was nothing like that before, right? Like a gathering of a curated collection of typographic pieces. So I think there's always a need out there and the great thing about Chicago, I think, is that there's so many people that are willing to raise their hand and say, let's go do something. Let's do this together.

Will Miller [29:18]

Yeah, that's well put. I mean, I think I've heard you talk about it before. And, I think that spirit of Chicago, that energy of Chicago, the community here, like folks willing to sort of jump in, step in, see the need or recognize the need and get excited about filling it, has always just felt really good here. I can't say I've worked in a lot of other cities, but I will say I know that it is quite different in other places in terms of the design community.

And I think that energy of just, we all kind of collaborate, support one another, that, that's always what's kept me here, for as not being from Chicago.

I think I think often about why it's been 20 or 21 years, and I think there's just this great ability to do the work in a humble way, without the need to sort of self-promote all the time, but just really get to the work, because I think the work and who you're doing it with and who you're doing it for, that collaboration and that energy together, that has always felt, I think, like the most important thing.

And it feels very easy to do that here in Chicago. And spirit, I guess, of the community, it feels very much like, let's get— but it's actually gonna be done better together. And I just love that, it's whether that's an outside, an outside program, an outside endeavor, or, work itself.

One of my favorite things about working in a smaller studio like this is that I can just turn around and, go sit at a colleague's desk and we can just collaborate together in real time or over Slack or, whatever that is. And, the egos are low, they're left at the door. Well, we're here to do great work, great work that we're proud of and work that does something really good for the, for the organization, the partner, the client on the other side.

And, we don't really like to rest until we feel satisfied that, both of us on both sides are feeling good about that we've done that.

Christian Solorzano [31:28]

And while we're on this topic, what sort of— I mean, I always like to ask our guests about call to actions and perhaps like problems that maybe as individuals or as a community, but what do you think needs to be solved for right now? What are some of those? I guess the question is like, what keeps you up at night? And what are those things that you think, require designers to unite and work towards?

Will Miller [31:55]

Right, I'm like, all right, which big topic to choose today? I guess I don't know if this is something that designers have the ability to directly solve for, but it, yeah, I wouldn't say it also keeps me up at night, but it does make me think. It feels as if we're moving towards a time where a lot of technology changes are going to influence the way that we do work and the topics that we tackle.

And, it's sort of, I think those are the things, if I were just starting now, I think those are the types of places. Those are the types of issues, whether that's climate, accessibility, like big macro things and smaller things. I think we're getting to this point where technology is really going to change how we can tackle those things. And we'll have the ability to do a lot of interesting work with, maybe more immediate outcomes in a way. It's really hard to get specific, I guess.

But it feels like the time between starting a project or thinking about a project and moving to seeing that out in the world is just getting shorter and shorter and shorter. The time where we can imagine something as a solution to where it could actually become a solution, or a topic that is thought about, something that we should be addressing, to seeing that. Turn up in the world, what that can really turn heads and make people think.

I'm not really sure I'm answering the question, but I feel, yeah, it just, it feels like there's just so many things that I think our skills in how to think through those processes and how to get together with folks. Yeah, I think I'm stumbling on my words. It's a tough question. It's a really tough one.

Christian Solorzano [33:54]

Yeah, because I mean, that's something that I think for us as a community, we're always thinking about like, we just launched a new series that we're calling Confronting Design, and it's about confronting, topics and themes that are relevant and on people's minds. So that's just something that's been circulating in my head is like, what things should we be responding to? And I think the obvious ones are like, climate change and things like AI. But yeah, I'm always curious about like—

If there's anything else that's a little bit more specific or pinpointed or even unique to Chicago.

Will Miller [34:31]

Yeah, I mean, unique to Chicago is an interesting one. I mean, maybe I'll spin it from my own personal space, because we can talk about politics and all kinds of things. But, again, I'm going back to, just mobility. I think, even in our world, we're starting it off with animals. I've learned a ton. Through the work that my wife does.

And, just thinking about, rethinking about, how we could be designing for, all kinds of accessibility needs, whether that's in our day-to-day, like working in a digital space, or it's something like that where, just thinking about the differences of design and the way that things get produced or sort of show up in the world. It, in that space, it's using technology. It's 3D printing devices and scanning bodies, and then having those things be produced. It's just really interesting.

It's moving from something that's so—it feels like it should be very long and hard, and it's really just becoming so quick now. Where you can scan a thing and make a prosthetic. And, in my world, that's—it just feels so interesting more on the animal side. But, on the human. Side too, that technology allows us to scan a thing, send it off to print, and basically have it be sent back. And very quickly, a lot of that just happens in a very remote way. Yeah.

So those things are just massively interesting, watching how that will develop and take shape over the next few years. Not to just bring up all the negativity. But, there are just a lot of things, like the city is still incredibly segregated, and I'm not entirely sure how designers go about solving for that. But I do think being a part of that conversation, whatever that means and wherever that goes, feels really important.

I know there's important work happening in that space, but, there's just so much more to be done. And it's— and I think that's that energy, like bringing that into a career where you can be at the table, even if you're not, the most informed there. I think that is, just back to the technology comment a second ago. It's like, that's just what's so interesting, I think, about working now in 2023 is that there's always somebody in the room who knows 10 times more than you.

And the fact that we can just get together and acknowledge that and learn from that, when I started here in Chicago, it just sort of felt like there were these rock stars. Or, there was sort of this idea that like you would have all the answers and this would be your practice, you would know this. And I feel exactly the opposite.

The most, the most I have learned, the most that I am proud of has been done with other folks, like right alongside, like leading the charge. And, I've learned so much about just sort of taking a step back while I've been at Firebelly because there's always going to be somebody in there who's either directly influenced by, the topic at hand or the challenge that we're trying to work toward solving. And, I think that's just been such an important part of my career too.

It's like, no, you don't need to do it yourself. In fact, the team and assembling that team and being with folks that you can learn from is just so important in that world of design and how the work gets done, how we collaborate together. So every day, just always in awe of the people that I've gotten to work with along the way and, are currently working with for sure.

Christian Solorzano [38:03]

And for you, what does meaningful collaboration mean?

Will Miller [38:07]

Oh, it could be a number of things. I'm thinking of it from, maybe more of like on the client side. More recently we were doing work and it's still ongoing work, but we've been working with Art on the Mart. And so they do the big projection on the side of the Merchandise Mart downtown. Pretty massive, pretty awesome. Highly recommend checking it out in the evenings. If you're looking for a good date night, I highly recommend it.

But, what was so great about that collaboration was that they came to us with a whole bucket of trust, and they were really looking at us to say, hey, we want to be your— we want you to be our creative partner. We want you to do what feels exciting here. It was more of an identity uplift and sort of a growth of what had been started in another place.

But that's what made it almost in a way more freeing, is that, they knew they had a needle that they really needed to move forward and move far. And so they came in saying, here are some things that we cannot touch, but what would you do in all of these other ways? And, we just got out in front of the work. We presented a lot of ideas. We were just experimenting with things that we were interested in, and they just loved it.

The fact that we could just get into Miro, we could get into After Effects, we could share the passion that we had for the work that we were doing. That's what really made it a satisfying collaboration with that group of folks. They were just excited to see more and offer their feedback. And there's a lot of people involved in that engagement, but, the trust there felt really important. And I think I would take that internally at the studio as well.

When I'm working with my design team, I don't want to be, taking the mouse from them, putting my hand on their computer screens. But I will, I do, and I will, love sitting alongside of them and sort of listening, hearing out like where this could go, poking for more Making sure that they've got what they need to do that work.

If there's an energy there, I love to just sort of back off and let creative folks do what they want to do, that, they see a path, and what they need is a lot of help getting to that place. They may have 50 great ideas, but they can't connect those dots. And, for me, I think meaningful collaboration internally is helping to connect those dots, that might feel like dead ends.

There, but identifying those early enough that get us to something really exciting, again, maybe for the client, but definitely for ourselves internally as well.

Christian Solorzano [40:45]

And over the last, during your time at Firebelly, there's been Camp Firebelly and then there's also Grant for Good. And it's always, I'm always really fascinated whenever Firebelly just publishes, Something on Instagram or on the website about those programs, because it seems like you're always responding to, like we were talking about, a need and helping an organization or an individual bring a vision to life. So with relationships like that, how do you, how do you build that trust? And how does, just how do those relate?

How do those relationships get built to begin with?

Will Miller [41:26]

Right. I can't speak too much about the current Grant for Good work that we're doing, just for a couple of different reasons. But I, but I really think the education component for any of the clients and partners that we work with is a big deal around here. It's something that we all take very seriously because we all work together to just sort of build our own knowledge up. I think each of us sort of have our own set of clients we're very interested in.

Each of us have our own set of ways that we like to work and programs that we align to and gravitate toward. And so for the client coming in, they may be asking for something, but maybe they're asking for something that just sort of feels off. They may need something very different. And so, listening to that, hearing that, unpacking that. And then sort of helping them along the way understand what it is that we're going to do for them and with them.

We want them to leave in a successful way so that when the work goes out into the world, they can be proud, and it achieves whatever it is that they're looking for. But that client education piece of that we do have more consistent check-ins. We make sure they understand before we move on. We like to map out the process that we're going to go through before we start the work. It's like it's just building a table of contents to where we're headed.

And every step of the way, we just double-check, kind of cross-check ourselves. Are you clear? Are we clear? And do we see the path forward? Are we— do we need to slow down? But, they're leaving with information and skills and new tools. And, that again, that's just something that's really important for us to make sure that they understand what this will do for them.

And especially when a lot of these organizations might not have a deep design team, we ask a lot of questions for how we can set them up for success. What are we giving them? How can we best organize that work? How can we develop templates or concepts or ideas or mockups that are going to get them to exactly where they need to go so that there's not a lot of questions and they don't feel like they're doing that work improperly or incorrectly later.

We just, I think that process of making sure that they have what they need, those questions that we ask are really important. And when we're working through that trust, I mean, I think opening our screens, basically showing them how I hate the phrase how the sausage gets made, but showing them how the sausage gets made, is really important.

I mean, we'll dig into our Illustrator files and just sort of when it feels right, we'll show things that, were ideas along the way that led us to the place where, maybe the final 3 directions have landed. This was work that led up to that. And, we'll sort of do the flowchart of, this to this, and you said this and this and this. One thing that's very— that's been really helpful lately with a lot of the work that we've been doing is client synthesis.

So feedback synthesis. We'll do, extensive rounds of strategy and moving through that process coming out of research before we get into the visual inspiration and identity work. But at each step of that way, we sort of take a pause and we pull together what we've heard. And sort of spit that back to them to make sure that you're hearing this, you're saying this, we're hearing this is what we're going to take action on. And that's been really helpful too.

We've always done versions of that, but I would say lately more tools like Miro have made that quite a bit easier to be, to basically just gather in a very visual way, pulling these notes and these thoughts and design work together quickly to be able to sort of show that. As we go.

So yeah, I— the education component is pretty key, opening their eyes to new things that might be coming on the horizon for them, both, from a tool standpoint, an efficiency standpoint, even in their, even in their industry potentially, because obviously we're working in that space and we're doing software research in that world like we're discovering things along the way that they may not even know about at this point. So, we're conversational. It's just a bit of back and forth. So.

Christian Solorzano [46:03]

There's a handful of design studios in Chicago that just have exceptional craft. And Firebelly to me is one of those because there's always just a very high attention to detail in everything. I mean, even the website, that Firebelly website itself. Is a design piece, in my opinion. Like the menu, the cursor, the way that the color changes when you highlight it. Like there's just like all these little micro and macro things.

So I like selfishly, I just want to hear a little bit about just Firebelly or your approach to craft and sort of how the visual language comes together? What sort of inspiration do you draw from? What projects perhaps outside of Firebelly or maybe projects that you've seen elsewhere? Like just visually, what excites you about graphic design culture?

Will Miller [47:03]

Yeah, I mean, we need another hour to talk about this. I mean, lately, one thing I'm probably going to just get far off on a tangent here. I just, I feel like the presentation of projects has just gotten so incredibly good for other studios, Kodo being one. I just keep catching stuff on Brand New, and I'm always impressed by, I don't know, just how concise, but how damn good it is.

They just seem to capture everything that's important without getting overwhelmed in terms of how many mockups or how many this or that they're putting together. It just feels like they're able to capture that. And I, and I think sometimes we struggle with that, in our own case studies and our own work.

It's— we just get so caught up in how much we did and almost lose track of just how simple it really needs to be to convey what the project was really trying to do to a potential future client. So yeah, I mean, it's just been, it's been interesting. Watching how good that has gotten.

Christian Solorzano [48:13]

The other piece that I'm so curious about is, so for example, when you or Firebelly, when a client is being presented concepts or visual approaches, how are things framed? How is letter spacing framed? How do you guys go about talking about all those little things that sometimes are only visible to, other graphic designers?

Will Miller [48:40]

I think when, let's say, we're presenting an identity direction or multiple directions, I think each direction typically starts with a bit of inspiration, where it's coming from out in the world, what's inspiring, something maybe natural. Typically, it seems to be natural these days. I think a lot of us are more connected to off-screen inspiration these days.

But I think what we're trying to do is sort of build a bit of a story through the first few pages of what we present, because all of that thought is going into the work as we're doing it. Obviously we're all here like, yeah, counting points, counting sizes, counting this and looking at that under a microscope. But I think as we go through that work and we present it, multiple pages to sort of show, hypothetical execution.

What we're really looking at is, how does this show up? How does this feel? How does this create energy? And do those little details, do those little decisions add up to something that matters? And typically the answer is yes, and maybe we do that upfront for a client who is more receptive to, I wanna see the grid, the typical grid on your logo. I want to see the detail there.

Or maybe it happens at the end in a bit of an addendum, that you really experience this work in a great way, you feel energized by this, but at the end of the presentation, let's open the hood, let's look under the hood for how this has come together and what are those little details there that we're paying attention to. It's not every project, every client's a little bit different that we work with. Some are, again, far more receptive to it.

But we do sort of preface a lot of our presentations with, there is a lot of time and attention here. And we explain on each of those pages as we're showing something, we're writing a bit of a paragraph about that work as if we're critiquing our own work after we've done it. And we're walking through that.

And that gives them, the ability afterward to be able to share it with somebody who might not have been on a call or in a meeting, but they're seeing that paragraph of writing and we're talking through it in real time. And so we're forming our words, forming our thoughts.

And again, I think when we get into spaces like adding motion into an identity, the subtleties of that feel just as important to me these days as the tracking or the letter spacing of your type, because the way that the physics interacts in that space means, so much to the identity.

If we're talking about something that's sort of, energetic on one end of the spectrum, or sort of slow, sluggish, and a little bit more melodramatic on the other end, the way that moves and spacing of those things really play a big role. And we sort of teach the client that this is our language, and we're going to speak this, but it does mean something very important to the work at hand and the output that you'll get.

So it's not arbitrary, and it's and it, and it's not something that you're really going to notice necessarily unless you're really looking for it, but it will be there in the work that we deliver. And it's best when you don't notice it, which means it's not wrong. If it feels like an obviously glaring error in craft, then maybe there's something that we missed there.

Christian Solorzano [52:00]

Yeah. And I'm sure the clients like appreciate the transparency of, showing them what's under the hood because I often see like, one of the things I appreciate about, case studies and stories related to projects is that it's explaining the project in a way that makes it easy for everyone to understand, not just designers.

Will Miller [52:24]

I mean, in a way, we should probably start every deck that we present to a client with, for the love of letters, basically what it all comes down to. We're all here for the letters, guys.

Christian Solorzano [52:35]

Every now and then, someone will— I'll be mentoring someone or giving someone portfolio advice. And I always say that, sure, it's great to look at portfolios by designers and, be inspired that way. But I'm like, it's even more inspirational and more exciting to look at studio portfolios, studio websites, and sort of seeing how they talk about their work.

And Firebelly for me is always one of those websites that I send people to because I'm like, just go to any project and you'll see that every project has like a unique, like background color, unique type color that matches the look of that brand. So you're getting a different experience for every project, but there's still that consistency that lets you know that it's a Firebelly case study.

Will Miller [53:23]

Sometimes I look at that and I'm like, are we crazy? Are we just doing wild stuff? Stuff and taken so much time to do these things. And no, I mean, I think it matters. I definitely think that matters. And that's— I'm glad that you see that.

Christian Solorzano [53:38]

I always hear positive comments about Firebelly's website.

Will Miller [53:41]

We'll say like, we don't always get it right. I'll be the first to admit we have faults. We don't always nail every project doing the case study. But, it's— I mean, I think it's just something that's really important. And as we project new work out there to get folks excited, to build that experience as much as we can through a blank box of a website, it's really important to me. I mean, we're dreadfully behind on work right now up on the site, but that's difficult.

Christian Solorzano [54:12]

Yeah. So currently right now, where are you drawing hope from? What's keeping you excited? What enthusiasm are you coming into your work with? Just overall, how are you feeling about life in general?

Will Miller [54:27]

Yeah, I mean, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do, I'm gonna try to answer it from a different perspective, I guess. I could, I could name a bunch of books or a bunch of design studios or designers, but lately, maybe COVID did it to me. If there's one positive thing, yeah, I feel, I feel good about— I feel really good about life, actually.

And, sure, not everything is optimistic, but I feel like in the last year or 2, just personally, I have been able to sort of connect and reconnect with myself and my partner in different ways, in new ways that feel really great. We've gotten. To work together, like I was saying at the beginning of the podcast. But I've also just, I've found that social media became this toxic environment. It was no longer healthy. Let's just put it that way. It's no longer healthy for me.

And while I still will go there, I've found a lot more energy staying the heck away from it in a way, like not consuming everybody else's life through the lens of a story or a post. But, reaching out when it feels right. But it's being away from that space, maybe just posting flowers every now and then. It's been really good, for my own brain over the last year or 2. But it's really been running that has helped me disconnect.

And I'm forgetting where I was just listening to someone talk about this, but, I'm training for an ultramarathon right now, in the downtime, the downtime, quote unquote. And what I've really resonated so well for me, because what I've realized is that in this day-to-day, there's just so many places to be on Slack, on Zoom, on my screen, like doing this work, helping other people do this work.

I feel constantly stretched and pulled and, at minimum 5 different directions at Once, not talking about email or any of that. And when I'm running, whether that's like after work, before work, weekend, there's really only one place I can be. And I love that. And I think that's what I've, again, I've sort of even fallen more in love with that idea that I have to be in my own head. I can't be doing multiple things.

I don't run with music as much as I enjoy listening to music, but there is just this moment. Where it is me and it is the road, it is my feet and I'm moving and I'm not on a screen. But I've really fallen in love with Chicago, summer Chicago again, this year because I'm just out on the lakefront and there's so many other people around and I may not get to talk to them, but we're all sort of in this thing together.

I'm not at a screen and I can really only be in that one place in that one moment. So I have to be present, and I have to be present with myself or for myself. And, everybody talks about running and meditation, and— but it definitely has become that. It is the way that eases my mind. It slows things down. Time sort of bends in this really great way. And I, I've learned to appreciate myself in a different way through doing it.

And I think I bring a lot of that energy back into the work environment as well, seeing the long picture of, what a big stretch of training does, but also, the slower, quick, shorter bursts of energy that when we do, identity work, you have to sort of dig deep for. So somehow, it sounds very cliché, but it really has touched a lot of my life and I just keep doing it because it feels great. It feels great. It brings energy.

It makes me feel really great about Myself. And yeah, I don't know, there's not much else that matters, I think, in that space. So I feel good. I feel really good.

Christian Solorzano [58:24]

As we continue to get pulled in all sorts of directions because of, things like our computers, social media, all that stuff, being able to be with yourself becomes even more of a luxury and almost more of like this premium thing. That is so simple because it's, I mean, we all have ourselves and yeah. And there's always that place that we could go to, which is, so I'm glad that you're doing it through running.

I, so are there any upcoming projects or anything new that you want to share with us? Anything that we should be on the lookout for?

Will Miller [59:05]

So we did a bunch of work for the Newberry Library. Again, a bit of an identity uplift, like getting in with their team and working out and developing more of the system for the work. We did their website. We also kind of doubled down on the identity that they had that's really embedded throughout the institution. So, what they were lacking was just a really strong cohesive identity system.

And a lot of our clients seem to be in that world these days where, they may have something that feels hard to touch, a logo that they're satisfied with. It's been around for a long time, and it does have some visibility and connection out in the world. But what they really need is an identity system that starts to build on that successful work and may take them into new spaces where they can connect with new folks.

A lot of organizations that we've been working with are just, how do we engage in different in different and new ways with different and new audiences who might have turned us down or just not even thought about us before. And Newberry was one of those. We're— I don't want to say— hard for me to remember which ones we should be talking about and should not be talking about. We are working with Garfield Park right now. We're also— obviously, I mentioned Art on the Mart.

That's work in progress as well as like out in the real world right now. So, those 3 projects right now sort of feel like the big ones on my mind. And, many others sort of under the radar, but also equally exciting. But if I had to make a case study tomorrow, those probably Newberry and Art of the Mart would be the 2 that you might see first that we might be working on right now.

But, those projects are out and you can experience some of that as they start to kick off and become more real. Yeah, so just some, just some cool stuff in that way. Some real Chicago stuff right now.

Christian Solorzano [61:00]

I was at the Newberry Library's book sale 2 weeks ago. The identity is always so beautiful. And again, just the thing, the thing that Firebelly does with websites is always just so spectacular.

Will Miller [61:13]

You've got great folks who, where maybe you and I geek out about type, love to just geek out about how to build a site, how to design components. I love it and I respect the heck out of it. They've got skills, that are just so different from where we were maybe 5, 10 years ago in terms of the programs that we use, like Figma. Just watching them work and being there to sort of support that work it just feels great.

Just, they're just nailing it and can't say, can't speak highly enough of what they do.

Christian Solorzano [61:43]

So we're almost at time. But I just want to say just thank you so much for this conversation.

Will Miller [61:49]

No, it's been, it's been great. I'm glad we finally got to connect. Looking forward to, for sure, more as we go on here. So yeah, very much.

Christian Solorzano [61:59]

Our doors are always open and we're always, we're always open to collaborate and we'd love to, yeah, keep the conversation going. If anyone wants to get ahold of you or if anyone wants to just Follow up with questions? What's the best way for people to reach out?

Will Miller [62:17]

Probably email address. LinkedIn's always a good place. We can do some direct messaging there, but not opposed to an Instagram DM here and there. Yeah. Or just go to the Firebelly site, firebellydesign.com. And I think my email address might be there. If it's not, definitely the Instagram. So we'll connect somehow there though. Appreciate it, Christian. Thank you.

Christian Solorzano [62:44]

What a great conversation that was. As always, thank you so much for sticking around until the end. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you learned something. And as always, if you want to learn more about what we do, visit us on the web at www.chicagographicdesign.club, or follow us on Instagram. That's where we tend to share a lot of what we're up to. So once again, thank you, and we'll talk soon.