Our guest is Nicolette Stosur-Bassett, a business strategist and communications professional working primarily in the social impact space. In 2018, she founded Do It Better Design, a Chicago-based branding and communication studio. She graduated with a BA in Social Enterprise and an MA in Social Innovation and Sustainability from Goddard College. In 2022, she spoke with the Chicago Graphic Design Club about her project, Designing For, an examination of the ways in which the global pandemic shaped the personal practices of designers and their approach to community engagement. In this episode, Nicolette speaks with host Christian Solorzano about her approach to learning, the meaning of socially conscious work, graphic design's relationship with communication, and more. Music by the band Eighties Slang.
Our guests are Dan McManus and Sofya Karash, partners in both life and business. Together, they run the design studio, the Narrative. Both as educators and designers, they are committed to contributing to and advancing culture through graphic design. Their expertise lies in storytelling and multidisciplinary visual communication languages — relying heavily on research and collaborations, they visualize their clients' narratives. In this episode, Dan and Sofya speak with host Christian Solorzano about their Chicago roots, creative inspiration, the meaning of community, and more. Music by the band Eighties Slang.
Our guest is Tanner Woodford, Executive Director and Founder of the Design Museum of Chicago. Woodford has been a key figure in Chicago’s design community for over a decade, creating spaces for critical dialogue, connection, and inspiration. He’s an optimist by nature and a believer that design has the capacity to improve the human condition. In addition, he’s an educator, artist, muralist, and coin collector. In this episode, Woodford speaks with host Christian Solorzano and shares stories about his early introduction to graphic design, the beginning of the Design Museum of Chicago, his influences, and ways to strengthen design's role throughout the city. Music by the band Eighties Slang.
A conversation with Christian Solorzano, Founder of the Chicago Graphic Design Club. In this episode, the host, Patrick Smith asks Christian about the inception of CGDC and the ways in which he's fostering and building a design community in Chicago. Theme music by the band, Eighties Slang.
Our guest is Alisa Wolfson, EVP and Head of Design at Leo Chicago, where she built the agency's design department.Alisa grew up in the suburbs of Chicago and found design sideways. Her dad was in the wine import-export business, and she kept asking if she could design the labels — she didn't yet know that what she wanted to do had a name. She taught herself design history and layout, made projects in her garage, shot her portfolio on slide film, and applied to a program a friend had gone through. She still has the Kodak Carousel that portfolio came back in. She got to VSA by calling until somebody finally picked up.In this episode, Alisa speaks with host Christian Solorzano about being a generalist among specialists, and about what it took to figure out how she actually wanted to work. She describes the stretch she spent working for herself and finding it lonely, and walking into Leo expecting a short freelance project.The conversation turns on a question about polish. Alisa argues that almost nothing made for a brand reaches us unedited — that the images built to look like someone's bathroom have been edited too — and that designers have been standing right next to that since the beginning of advertising. She doesn't think that's cause for despair.She also talks about what makes collaboration work, why she thinks happy is a weird word, the Chicago designers she came up around, and a project she once made about her own hair, with a line in the corner she remembers as "I take myself wherever I go."