Graphic Support Group Podcast

A few months back Drew invited John Provencher to his Brooklyn home and we had a deep dish conversation on the many trappings of design work. John very candidly shared his many experiences working as a designer and how he found a “loop hole” from his former client-driven career.

Nowadays, Provencher’s work revolves around the generative art he creates using scripts and code-based tools. At a time when technologies like NFTs, Web3, blockchain and AI are quickly shifting the landscape of creative work, John has been able to find harmony with technology. He even has taken a reverse trajectory and mined older machines like an old iMac and other archaic screen-based devices.

Ironically, while producing this episode we had some heated battles with our own podcast technologies. We’ll spare you the details, but let’s just say that the current state of these AI tools—tools which many designers fear threaten their creative labor—simply aren’t all that smart yet. Graphic Support Group is about the human dimension of creative labor and, as we all know, humans aren’t perfect. So, please pardon some of the audio quality hiccups you may pick up throughout the episode.

Fortunately, with patience and some luck with backed up files, we are finally able to share this lively conversation. At times we run “off-script,” but we had a great time speaking with John, talking about the epic Pink Floyd album “The Wall,” sharing how bad I am at video games, and getting behing the tomfoolery of graphic design.

As always, thank you for the support and stay tuned for exciting updates in the next few months.

Please subscribe, rate and share if you’ve enjoyed our sessions.- James

Hey hey! Hope everybody is having a truly relaxing, mindful summer with enough sunscreen and design totes filled with image-heavy, text-light books to go around. We’re back with another episode of Graphic Support Group, believe it or not.

We have a very special episode for you, the first in a series we’d like to call “Behind the Screen” (thanks to Drew’s partner Deniz Önder for the great nomenclature). This series focuses on the behind-the-scene heroes of the design industry: the printers, technicians, administrators, and studio managers who keep the wheels of this chaos screwed on. Without them, we’d be pretty helpless, so we’d like to dig into what keeps these instrumental figures motivated and inspired, and the pitfalls they undoubtedly face from time to time.

Our inaugural Behind-the-Screen-er is Hasan Askari. Hasan has been a key figure at The Rhode Island School of Design since the late 90’s when he co-founded Concept-Link, a print and design shop that slowly but surely became a go-to resource for design, photo, and architecture students, helpless to find the proper printing capabilities on RISD’s Campus. Over the years Concept-Link offered their services to RISD’s students and faculty to the point of giving students access to the print shop after hours, answering emergency 3 am phone calls from feverish degree project candidates in the 11th hour of production, and even eventually moving into RISD’s official facilities to become the one-stop-shop for students to talk through print techniques and revise projects to make them actually printable, while Hasan dished out philosophy and literature references and pearls of wisdom to bloodshot-tearful eyes of the RISD woebegone.

Besides being a full time print hero and entrepreneur, he has also enjoyed a journalistic career and contributed in critical studies and creative nonfiction. He has also been working on an anthology of English translations of contemporary Urdu poetry.

James and Drew were delighted to talk with Hasan, after years away from Concept Link with memories rushing back in of our days as crying students. We hope you enjoy!

You have likely seen Jonathan Castro’s work, even if you don’t know his name. His influence on the contemporary design landscape is magnificent. The Amsterdam-based, Peruvian born former Metahaven and Studio Dumbar designer has a style all his own; one that has shapeshifted and continues to evolve daily. The through line is that his work constantly embraces the unknown spaces between art and design practice. Look no further than his latest massive endeavor, the design of Dekmantel’s 10th anniversary branding and promotional materials. If you haven’t seen his work, you’ve seen his sources of inspiration: rocks, cracks in pavement, dirt, garbage, the sky on a windy day, etc. He mines the tangential—the marginal—to create visual communication, and also to evoke and capture emotional resonance.

Castro is at the forefront of a plea for design to be a form of visceral creative expression and emotional healing. And he seems to have settled in as organically as the work he’s created. It feels natural, alive, incidental, and vital. Talking to him felt no different. To Castro there’s no line between assemblage, recycling, readymades, and originality: it’s all fair play.

We spoke with Castro about growing up in Peru, his various influences and ideologies, his ongoing conversations with himself surrounding how and why he continues to make work, the concept of “Ambient Design” (did we coin this?!), and what it means to take the time to explore the margins of life, the margins of creativity, and to embrace those things that others may have ignored or glazed over. His interest in the totality of the human experience—the darkness with the lightness—is explicitly laid out in our conversation.

We can’t thank Jonathan enough for his time. It was truly a phenomenal conversation and we hope you enjoy it.

Alec Stewart wrote us a profound email on addiction and design a couple years ago (we’ve shared it below). Both of us had known of Alec at RISD, where he studied as an undergrad during our time as graduate students. At the time he possessed a great energy and creativity that we found envious. We had little idea he was also struggling with addiction and great inner turmoil all the while. A now sober and radically open Stewart shares his path to recovery and how he maintains his sobriety despite the never ending threat of a relapse. The surprising thing about Alec’s story is how relevant his struggles are to the unhealthy trappings and myths of design practice and the cycle of self loathing and burnout from overworking.

Our obsession and addiction to long hours and “passion” are truly destructive to our health and well being. We’re dangerously committed to a belief that creativity comes from struggle and that greatness only comes by going over the edge. Alec shares his discovery of this falsehood, and also discusses how he inversely applies design thinking to create boundaries for himself and his life.

We’re super thankful for Alec for being so open and direct with us. He brings his humor and wit to a difficult story.

We can’t thank him enough.

Disclaimer: This episode contains accounts of addiction and substance abuse. If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction or substance abuse, please visit usa.gov/substance-abuse for resources and support. Help is out there.

—

ALEC STEWART -

On understanding addiction, radical sobriety & brutalist design

To begin - I will introduce myself in the manner of AA: Hello my name is Alec and I’m an Alcoholic. I suffer from addiction - it’s a fact and I am not afraid to admit that. It’s a part of who I am and the more I begin to understand my own addiction, the easier those words come. Where before I was ashamed to admit my own struggles, now I feel relief to tell people who I really am. A lot of that initial shame came from the incredible amount of negative connotations that surround Addiction. In western culture it is often looked down upon as a moral failing, a deficiency of character. I personally see it as a disease. Something that needs to be continuously treated, healed, and rehabilitated. There’s nothing wrong with having addiction, it merely is. I suffer from the disease of alcoholism, just as someone else may suffer from diabetes. 

When you take Alcoholism, and consider it in the lens of disease, you can analyze its symptoms like any other health condition. To define the symptoms of Alcoholism is tricky. Alcoholism is complicated and multifaceted, both highly personal and universal. I think there’s several overarching principles that every alcoholic shares when in active addiction: uncontrollable compulsion, self-isolation, attachment, ego, and an inability to love oneself. I am happy to expand on any of these symptoms and its relation if needed. 

I also believe, you don’t need to be addicted to Alcohol to be considered an Alcoholic. I think there are base symptoms of the disease in people who’ve never touched a drop of alcohol. Addiction can manifest in many ways. With designers for example, it can appear as an addiction to work. This is a super common reality for designers. Many of us throw ourselves into work at the expense of ourselves. Forgoing our basic needs in order to keep designing. Burning out our burnout. That compulsion to work and keep working is not any different than the compulsion to drink. They are both incredibly unhealthy, and they both need to be treated. I think when we overwork ourselves, we lean into the symptoms of compulsion, attachment, and ego. We work obsessively, we attach to our designs / ideas / inspirations / whatever, we sacrifice ourselves to be the best - craving the respect of our peers over the contentment of where we are. Yuck. You’d be hard pressed to find a designer that hasn’t dwelled in one of these symptoms. 

The only way to mitigate these symptoms is through sobriety. Sobriety is not just abstinence from a substance, it’s a way of being. It’s admitting oneself is powerless over the disease and figuring out a healthier way of living. There’s a guide to it in AA called the 12 steps. They are written in relation to Alcoholism, but they still are a pretty decent thing to work through - whether you struggle with alcohol addiction or not.

Outside of the 12 steps, my personal sobriety involves a lot of guard rails, a grid system applied to my life. These involve various ways for me to avoid triggers and mitigate compulsions. Some days I’m successful, some days I’m not. I just figure it out one day at a time. They are all involved in making sure I maintain a healthy mind, body, and soul. My significant other and I have a mantra: The best way to tell someone you love them is to love yourself. The best way to take care of someone is to take care of yourself. I apply the personal responsibility of taking care of myself everyday, so I have the ability to take care of those around me.

To give an example of one of my guardrails - I no longer allow myself to have social media. I deleted my instagram. I realized I was using my instagram to find validation for my work through others, validation I couldn’t give myself. I thought that if others liked my work they inversely liked me too. Super twisted, backwards way of thinking. I still struggle with making work for myself. It’s hard for me to detach from the approval of my peers and try to allow myself the grace to give myself that approval. That is all rooted in the inability to love myself.

My personal design practice is also rooted in my sobriety. Both in the design movement I work within, and how I use design in relation to my mental well being. My personal practice in graphic design is in Brutalism. I see brutalism as truthful. It presents itself as it is - no frills, no gimmicks, no bullshit. It’s starkness holds honesty. That rigorous honesty is necessary for me in every aspect of my life in order to maintain abstinence from alcohol, so it also makes sense that I would apply that same honesty to my design practice as well.

In relation to my mental well being, I use my designs to filter my compulsions. I take the thoughts I am obsessing over and apply them to my designs. You can directly see how my work visually changes depending on my mental health. The more manic and unhealthy I am, the more chaotic and out of control my designs become. My computer screen is a mirror for me to see how upside down and inside out I am at any given time. 

That said, I will addictively design if given the opportunity too. Anything healthy, I can make unhealthy on the flip of a dime. This whole year I have been actively practicing stepping away from the screen. After designing for a decade, I am still trying to figure out how to work in a healthy manner. My hope is that one day I can be happy enough with what I make, that I won’t have to make at all.

In the manner of AA, I think we should end with a prayer -

Grant me the serenity to accept Photoshop crashes, the courage to not name my files FINAL_FINAL_FINAL, and the will to not burn myself out - Amen

Related info I did not include in the above write up that I can talk about if you want me too:

I have been placed on adult time out twice. I have done both an intensive impatient program, and a detox. I have been an alcoholic since college. I have done IOP, AA, and all the Jazz. I am happy to explain them or my experiences with them. I can talk about how fucking luny rehab is, how much I drank to end up in rehab, or the absolute cartoon characters of human beings I’ve met in rehab. I can clarify any AA lingo or address its weird roots in christianity. I can talk about relapses, prolonged amounts of sobriety, or anything in-between. Basically anything related to me being an utter goofball of a human and a digital cowboy of a designer I’m happy to touch upon.

Thanks for reading - Cheers!

Hey Everybody! We are back for our first episode of 2024! In January we sat down with multi-hyphenate design chameleon Khyati Trehan. She opened up about all things living-while-designing, including how she doesn’t have hobbies, but is slowly realizing that they could help. She also explained how her passion for her work runs through all her activities, and how she juggles (or struggles to juggle) a strong personal output with esteemed positions at Google and IDEO.

Khyati’s wide-ranging career(s) have brought her around the world, from Ahmedabad to San Jose to New Delhi to Berlin to Munich to New York City, where for the past year she has resided. Khyati shares how her genuine love of work and her passion to learn new things keeps her attached at the hip to her laptop, exploring the ongoing question of what a healthy relationship to work is. She describes how she very uniquely blends her experiments in her personal work with professional projects that have more specific briefs. It all melds seamlessly together, informing the other and vice versa.

But she’s also realizing that spending all one’s time working isn’t always the best for the mind and body.

We were happy to have the space to unpack these thoughts with Khyati, to talk about burnout and self doubt, and also to give weight to the challenges she’s faced asserting herself as a woman designer.

We are really happy to share this conversation! Thanks so much for chatting with us, Khyati!

We have several more coming down the pipeline. Always appreciate the support! Stay tuned for new updates and new episodes soon.

With Love,

Drew and James

Last September (we know, we know) we had the immense privilege of speaking with Matthew Miller, an ecstatic new presence and rising design star whose work mixes humor, psychedelia, batshit typography, insane color combos, and incredible uplifting, biting, and transparent messaging about life and the never ending hustle. Matthew is a self proclaimed “self-taught” designer with a compellingly unique trajectory and journey, which he so kindly and openly shared with us during a long talk. Since discovering Matthew’s work, we have been captivated by his sprawling output, which spans work for the environmental consciousness brand Future Earth, diaristic personal anecdotes and uplifting morsels of wisdom and inspiration, music tributes, and pretty much everything in between. Since our recording, the work has only expanded and continues to reach new heights and audiences. We are so happy to finally share this convo. 

It was such a pleasure chatting with Matthew. We are so sorry our pace has slowed. We believe we have finally regrouped and will be releasing more steadily and recording some new episodes! More to come. Thanks for listening! If you’re still with us, thank you! If you’re new, thank you! We love you all. 

James and Drew 

https://www.instagram.com/bymatthewmiller/

https://www.itsnicethat.com/features/matthew-miller-spotlight-graphic-design-071122

After much delay we are here with a new episode of Graphic Support Group. Spring has sprung, and we are back in motion!

We apologize for the inconsistency in our output of late, as even support groups could use support groups, and we’ve both been overwhelmed with life changes, work changes, and all sorts of general anxiety-inducing contexts on our ends. But fear not! We are doing great and we are here! Times are exciting even when lots is going on, and we have wrangled our collected energy and pushed through to bring you a lovely conversation with Rotterdam based Design Duo, Team Thursday. And what better day to bring you this episode than its titular day of the week.

Team Thursday is the collaborative practice of Loes van Esch and Simone Trum. They create whimsical, exuberant formal experiments rooted in rigorous classic Graphic Design practices with many twists. Their particular style is at once familiar and completely their own.

We had a great time dissecting what led them to this method of working, how they find themselves in the particular rhythms that yield these positive outcomes, and how life changes, from motherhood to time away from client work to fellowships all over the world have afforded them lots of shifting perspectives which add to the depth and appreciation for their special practice.

Thank you so much for speaking with us, Loes and Simone! You rule.

As a side note, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us if you like the podcast. Your support makes all the difference to us, and the knowledge that our audience appreciates the work we do makes us very happy to continue bringing you more! We may not respond right away, but we listen and read every message and will incorporate any calls or messages you would like addressed into our next shows.

Thank you so much to each and every one of you! We love you.

<3James and Drew

We are more than delighted to share our lovely conversation with the one and only Richard Turley, a sentence that feels like a dream to type. Over the course of 90 minutes, we talk with the former Bloomberg Businessweek, MTV, and W+K Creative Director about a career spent poking holes in the mythos of Graphic Design, touching on themes of self-esteem and collaboration, privilege, and extreme self-seriousness within the industry. Turley’s insight and wisdom from a long, winding career making lots of amazing work with lots of incredible people, was a bright spark for us, and we hope you enjoy it as much as we did!

Don’t forget to call the hotline (202) 507-9158 for any needs or questions!

EMERGENCY AID - PLEASE READ:

We are devastated by the recent Earthquakes affecting our friends in Turkey and Syria. Please take a moment and donate to one of the following organizations to support these countries during this horrible catastrophe, as government disorganization and slow response has left thousands in dire conditions: https://syriaturkey.carrd.co/

Additionally, this week, all proceeds from shirt sales will go to Earthquake Relief Funds in Turkey and Syria.

We were so honored to chat with the Hey Sis World founder Kristel Brinshot about navigating burnout, owning your worth in a fraught industry, meditation, empowerment, and her hybrid creative coaching program, Big World NRG, designed for the BIPOC Artist & Creativepreneur.

From the BWNRG site:

Big World NRG™️ is the first program of its kind designed to heal your Burnout & Imposter Syndrome &⚡️jump-start your Big Visions.

Kristel’s generosity, positivity, and compelling personal journey give us a lot to look forward to, shining a light on some of the more hopeful and empathetic voices leading our industry towards a brighter horizon. Thank you Kristel! Don’t lose hope and let us know what you think in our insta comments! Also, take her program, already!

<3

psssst….we still have shirts.

!! FULL TRANSPARENCY MODE ACHIEVED !!

The indelible creative career consultant and life coach behind Poetic-State, Bryan Collins (not that Brian Collins), takes James and Drew through a Discovery Session to help unlock the their full POD-tential. We go deep into the insecurities, fears, and pitfalls of DIY Podcasting & remote creative partnership, as we try to unpack some of the sticking points that keep us up at night as we continue to grow the pod and continue to make strides towards a more supportive and inspiring Graphic Support Group!

From Bryan’s site, his coaching practice, “helps people gain clarity and purpose by transforming limiting beliefs into strategies and actions. He also provides an empathetic and creative space for you to reimagine what’s possible, and where we co-create actionable tasks; designed to help you reach your goals, fast.”

To book a Discovery call of your own and begin your own coaching program, visit Bryan’s Poetic-State site. We hope you enjoy this amazing conversation!

Thanks for sticking with us through the highs and lows of running a Support Group!

And as the holidays near, don’t forget we still have a few shirts left!