Graphic Support Group Podcast

Note: The first part of this episode has some clicks because of a connection issue. We tried to clean the sound up as best as we could. Bare with it because we really think it’s worth listening to! This one’s a long one, but one of our most amazing conversations.

Drew and I spoke with Julie Cho and Erin Segal about their collaborative publishing project Thick Press. The two friends who met when they were 15 have been working together as graphic designer and social worker, asking hard questions about the value of work, juggling life and professions and sticking with relationships.

We recorded this episode on November 8, 2024, two days after the US Presidential election. Despite the disappointment of the time, Julie and Erin showed up for our conversation in a way that can only be described as generous and present. Drew and I always joke that the podcast is “our therapy” and this episode couldn’t be more validating of our motivations. We got to share about how we’ve struggled to keep Graphic Support Group going, the evolution of our friendship and admit to each other that we’re still here and making the project happen. Julie and Erin took such care to hear us and opened up their stories for us to learn and reflect together. We are so appreciative of their time and words.

Thick Press officially published “An Encyclopedia of Radical Healing” shortly after we recorded. They share the details about the massive project in the episode, so please check out their Instagram for more information and support their work with an order.

They’ve also been super busy since we spoke! Here is a listing of some of their upcoming activities and recent publications:

* Thick Press will be at the LA Printed Matter Art Book Fair at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena on May 15-18.

* They have published Change the World: A Research Book for Children and Adults by Sibylle Peters, is based on 20 years of performance-based research at the Fundus Theatre in Hamburg.

* The second, may we dream and design felt futures: where our creative being and practice can feel the sensations of care, intimacy, and liberation, by Denise Shanté Brown, is both a memoir and a guide to creative social practices.

* The third, It’s Too Late. Do It Anyway! A Book about Being a Cultural Worker in the Apocalypse + a Hologram Starter Kit edited by Cassie Thornton and Magdalena Jadwiga Härtelova, is about a mutual aid protocol called The Hologram.

Growth and collaboration!

Warning: this episode contains some foul language. If you are sensitive to this or are listening around young children please use your own discretion before you tune in.

James here :) I was able to sit down with Gabrielle Widjaja, who works under the name Gentle Oriental, and asked her about how she navigates the highs and lows of her creative practice. Gabby began her career as a graphic designer and over the years went through many hurdles to be able to tattoo full-time today. She shared her journey with me, and the two of us compared our different, but connected Asian American lineages.

Gabby would like to shout out a Gentle Pokes, Studio Bumi and Ricky Wang! Check ‘em out!

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We’re really excited to be sharing this episode with the GSG family. Thank you always for the support. If you appreciate this platform for creativity and care, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. We’re planning many things for the GSG community, so stay tuned. We R Here 4 U.

In case you might've forgotten, we R here 4 U and we got what you've been waiting for. In the heat of last summer, we got to spend some time with Berlin-based “retired” graphic designer Charlotte Rohde. As we connected from three different continents, she shared her love of the Olympics, the typeface New Edge, EULAs and what ‘brat’ summer really meant.

With this hot episode we kick of Season 5 of Graphic Support Group! We have a lot of amazing guests coming up. Thank you as always for the support and love. Community will keep us together, together we keep community. Don't forget - new hotline number - +1-929-277-1941We R Here 4 U.

Hi everyone, I'm James.

And I'm Drew.

Welcome to Graphic Support Group.

It's kind of crazy to think that this podcast has been going on for over three years. When Drew brought his idea of Graphic Support Group as a creative collective, we both thought a podcast would be a fun first project to work on. But neither of us had any idea we'd create something that would resonate with so many other people and have such staying power.

We really appreciate all the support and interest in the podcast over the years. And as we say in our Instagram profile, we are here for you. That means we'd love to hear from you for anything at all. Responses, questions, recommendations, suggestions, anything. Reminder, the hotline is always open.

We have a new number since Google Voice decided to expire our old one. The new number is +1-929-277-1941.

And you can always reach out to us via email, which is [email protected]. Don't hesitate to reach out for any reason.

You can also DM us on Instagram.

And last but not least, you can also send us a message through Substack where you can subscribe and get all our updates. We're at graphicsupportgroup.substack.com.

We really look forward to hearing from you, and we really mean that, so please don't hesitate to reach out.

We have a lot of new ideas in store for year four. And we plan to engage more with our audience and community to get a better idea of what this podcast means to everyone and help us determine what else Graphic Support Group could become.

Thanks again to all our guests over the years and a big thanks to all of our listeners. We really appreciate the support from you all, the calls, likes, messages, and the generosity overall. It really means a lot for us to get some support in that way as well.

A seriously big thank you. And so with that, we have a special mini episode where we're finally replying to one of our favorite calls we ever received on the podcast. We know that this response is now years delayed, but we still felt like we owed it to Berlin's number one graphic support group fan to respond and follow up on our word.

Again, we are very sorry about the delay getting back to you. I think by now you received the t-shirt that you talk about in the call after a series of shipping fiascos where the shirt was returned from Germany back to the U.S. And then I had to send it again. I think that took several months, so I hope you got it. And please know that we value your time, your support, and your enthusiasm. And thank you again for the kind words.

With that, please enjoy Berlin's number one graphic support group fan.

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.

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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