Did I Do That?: Making Graphic Design & Mistakes

We’re kicking off the new year at Did I Do That? with something old, something new (to some of you), and something borrowed, so don’t be blue: it’s our live show from Seattle Design Festival 2024! Seattle’s own Terry Marks joined Sean on the mainstage in Lake Union Park to talk through Hey Reb!’s proportions, the curse of eternal life (via stock photo modeling), and InDesign’s spellcheck dictionary.If you want to find more about Terry’s work, the best place to visit is tmarksdesign.com! While I am happy to direct any calls back to Terry, feel free to reach out to him if you’re interested in the reprint edition of Mr. Crumbley Dreams a Tiger.While this is an audio-only version of the outdoor recording, you can watch the video version of this episode on SDF’s YouTube channel. Too, while I’ve done my best to clean up the ambient noise present on the day, you may hear the odd bit of wind noise as well as more than a few seagulls. May these soothing sounds of summer help warm you through a chilly January.Big thanks to Terry Marks for being a part, as well as to the whole crew at Seattle Design Festival! It was such a treat to be a part of it! Thanks to Annalee Shum for coordinating and programming us, to our volunteer Maxine to helping with the production, and to Adrian Pacheco who both worked the boards for the event and was kind enough to share these files! Thanks, and goodnight, Seattle! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It’s the finale of Did I Do That? Season Five* and our third anniversary—this really must be the best of both worlds! Fellow Las Vegas ex-pat Ely Kim (Senior Creative at Wieden+Kennedy) joins Sean to talk about childhood limousine dreams, the weird science behind casino carpet, and memorable fast food mascots. Be sure to listen through to the very end—you won’t(?) regret it!You can find Ely and his email button on his website, welikehim.com! You can also give Ely a follow on Instagram @welikehim! If you’re wanting to see Ely’s grad school viral video BOOMBOX, where he spent 100 days dancing in public, you can find it on YouTube.This episode was recorded Sunday, November 17, 2024 in the Rat’s Nest.What comes next? Season 6 will start in late winter 2025, so stay tuned—as you might imagine, the show will be a little different on the other side of this one! To tide you over through our production break, we’ll be sharing a few bonus bits captured this summer. They’re a ton of fun and should hopefully keep you warm though those cold winter nights. Happy anniversary and thank you so much for listening!*Guys Burgers and Fries Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The penultimate episode of Season 5 is bringing the receipts! Multidisciplinary designer and artist Libby Landauer joins Sean to talk about Facebook Marketplace bargains, the pitches the Mad Men didn’t win, and the best place to get a polish in the Bay Area.Libby can be found all over the ‘net, including on Instagram @libland. You can also see some of their work, including Slutheby’s Live Auction, on their website, libbylandauer.com; keep an eye out there for future dates for the play! You can find more about the Community for Positive Aging on their website, communityfpa.org. As Libby says, it’s an intergenerational, space, and if you have some free time this holiday season and want to give back, it sounds like a great, fun place to volunteer some time!Music by Mykola Sosin from Pixabay.This episode was recorded Saturday, November 16, 2024 in the Rat’s Nest. Our next episode will be our last of the season, and the show’s three year anniversary. Don’t miss it! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Tell the rowdy boys to get ready, ‘cause we’re busting out the spray mount and the museum board to present a brand new episode of Did I Do That?! Melissa Delzio (freelance designer and founder of Portland Design History) to talk about the dangers of MTV Spring Break, robocalls, and the peacemaker.You can find Melissa all over the internet, starting at her website meldel.com! That’s where her annual reports live—they’re both lovely and a great way to see what it’s actually like to make a living as a freelancer. Melissa can be found on Instagram @meldelpdx.Melissa’s long-running project Portland Design History can be found at portlanddesignhistory.com. There are tons of great collections on the site, including some relating to what we talked about in the episode. Check it out, or give the project a follow on Instagram @portlandesignhistory.This episode was recorded (before the election) on Saturday, November 2, 2024 in the Rat's Nest. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Simpsons switches formats to horror anthology series this time of year, so shall Did I Do That?—we’ve got a collection of some of the scariest design disasters, missteps, failures, and goofs that have haunted designers this past summer at Future Fonts & Friends 2024!How can our anonymous designer ghosts find peace when haunted by a trifecta of specters in the form of opening up your letters’ chakras, gingerbread power moves, and the challenges of Lidz franchising. Listen… IF YOU DARE!WANT A DESIGN CONFESSIONAL AT YOUR EVENT?If you have a live event and want me to set up another design confessional for it, either in Portland or beyond, let’s talk! I’d love to do more events like this in the future.SPECIAL THANKSThe confessions used in this episode were collected as part of “Future Fonts and Friends,” a party held for TypeCon 2024 at Outlet in Portland, Oregon, on Thursday, July 25, 2024. All guests were cloaked in the shadow of anonymity—the scariest thing of all in our personal brand building world! Take that, social media! Thank you to all who came out and participated!Huge thanks again to Lizy Gershenzhon and Travis Kochel of Future Fonts for inviting me to be a part of the event, to the organizers of TypeCon for putting up with me, and (once again) to MVP Orion Cortez for building the confessional booths way back in 2023 based solely on two terrible sketches I made, then coming back out in 2024 to help me set them up again.Additional thanks to past guest Kate Bingaman-Burt of Outlet for her eternal support of / patience with me just in general, but especially the white-hot ball of stress that is me when faced with a live event.This episode features a parody of Billie Eilish’s new song “BIRDS OF A FEATHER” and a parody of the character the Crypt Keeper, brought to death by John Kassir. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hey—come out and play! Creative Director (and international Five Guys diner) David Chathas joins Sean to talk about what’s missing from Barstow, testing your apple expertise, and becoming The Caveman. Just don’t forget about us—we have ideas!David can be found all over the internet, including his incredibly named website, bestgraphicdesignerintheworld.com. He can also be found on the website formerly known as Twitter as @ModDadPomoSon and (much more quietly) on Instagram @yallseenfutumbo. Fruit Freaks Coffee, David’s coffee brand, is not yet out in the world, but ask him about it the next time you see him! You can also learn more about it @fiveguyseater69 on OnlyMargins (only $9.99 to subscribe)!This episode was recorded October 5, 2024 in the Rat’s Nest. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Is it profane? Is it irreverent? Why not both! Jen Wick (Creative Services Manager at the Port of Portland) joins Sean to talk about the gateway drug that is Sassy magazine, waxing your layouts, and the lessons life teaches us about futility and precarity. Get ready for a rude awakening!You can find Jen Wick’s work on her freelance studio website, fortwick.com. You can also see her team’s work across the Port of Portland’s properties, including the newly revamped Portland International Airport.ONE LAST REMINDER! Fontroversy, our sister podcast produced with the students of Sean’s DES 399 Public Design Communication class at PSUGD last year, is producing a live episode for this year’s fully-online AIGA Design Conference! The show will be happening on the conference’s mainstage on Thursday, October 10 at 2pm Pacific/5pm Eastern! The only way to see the show is to attend the conference, and you can do so online from anywhere in the world—head on over to the AIGA’s website, aiga.org, to register today!Apologies for the occasional audio glitch in this episode—rest assured that I’m doing my best to find a way to fix this in future, up to and including possibly buying a new computer. Unrelatedly, now is a great time to remind folks that I do have a “Buy Me A Coffee” link to offer small donations to support the show if you can. Even a dollar or two helps!This episode was recorded Saturday, September 28, 2024 in the Rat’s Nest. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Call your counselor back up to the bridge, because Season Five… Guys Burgers and Fries continues! Tomi Lähdesmäki (Director of Brand and Creative at Pair of Thieves) joins Sean to talk about labeling your save icons, post-vacation acclimation, and Jerri Springer’s wildest moments—live and uncensored.You can find Tomi’s work with Pair of Thieves, including the aforementioned picture of Jerri himself, on shelves at your local Target or on their website, pairofthieves.com. You can find Tomi’s personal work on his site, tomilahdesmaki.com, and give him a follow on Instagram to hear some of his latest music at @tomifromspace.BIG NEWS! Fontroversy, our sister podcast produced with the students of Sean’s DES 399 Public Design Communication class at PSUGD last year, is producing a live episode for this year’s fully-online AIGA Design Conference! The show will be happening on the conference’s mainstage on Thursday, October 10 at 2pm Pacific! The only way to see the show is to attend the conference, and you can do so online from anywhere in the world—head on over to the AIGA’s website, aiga.org, to register today!This episode was recorded September 9, 2024 in the Rat’s Nest. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Be like a pile of dust and get swept up in the excitement! Did I Do That? is back for Season Five*! Jez Burrows (iconography designer for Instagram at Meta and creator of the Threads logo) joins Sean to talk the most expensive way to ride a roller coaster in 2008, twee commutes, and Sliding Doors.*…Guys Burgers and FriesYou can find Jez’ work on his own site, jezburrows.com, which is also where you can purchase his latest limited-edition book And Introducing! You can also pick up his previous book, Dictionary Stories: Short Fictions and Other Findings, wherever you find books normally (other than your bookshelf, unless you had already purchased it, received it as a gift, or stole it). Jez’ work can also be seen in the form of Instagram and Threads’ iconography, so what better way to see it than to give him a follow on each respectively?This episode is our first of fifth season, and we’ve got eight incredible episodes in store for you running up to our third anniversary. Now’s a great time to get a friend into the show—why not share this one with them, or leave a review for a future friend on Apple Podcasts, a like on YouTube, or a comment and star on Spotify.This episode was recorded August 21, 2024 in the Rat’s Nest. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Wake your partner up at 2 in the morning, because it’s all been building to this—our season 4 finale! David DaCosta (designer, illustrator, and writer of both Jokey Jokes: A Collection of Illustrated Dad Jokes and the new Jokier Jokes: Another Illustrated Collection of Dad Jokes) joins Sean to talk rock and roll accounting, the circular file, and Too Much Good(?) Stuff.You can find and order Jokey Jokes, the new Jokier Jokes, and all of the Jokey Jokes Merchy Merch (including the gorgeous Dad Jokes hat) at jokeyjokes.com! The books are gorgeous and the merch is great! Pick up one for a kid or a dad joke lover in your life!You can find David’s other work on the web at therealdacosta.com or on the ‘gram at @dacostadraws!If you’re intrigued by David’s work on Snack Watch, his vending machine news and reviews blog from his magazine days, good news! He was kind enough to share the final issue here—drop in some quarters and remember the days when Lay’s was courageous enough to think anyone at all wanted cheesy garlic bread flavored chips.This episode’s cold open included clips from our episodes with Kristin Rogers Brown and Emily Tate; you can hear the full conversations, which are chock full of more mascot chat, in our back catalog. That segment also featured the song “Action Strike,” written and performed by Rafael Krux and distributed under a CC0 license.This episode was recorded Saturday, April 27, 2024 in the Rat’s Nest, which I am beginning to think is less an office and more a locus at which the earth’s EM radiation is focused to a fine and impossible-to-filter point. Thanks, 1920s architects and 1950s electricians, for your fine work on this monument to buzzing. I only hope not too much of it made it to air, but if you can hear it, I apologize—I did my best!This episode was once again guest edited by the great Orion Cortez; I couldn’t have done this season without him! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Feeling like your week is lacking a dash of Did I Do That? You could add something—it’s just a suggestion! Freelance brand and identity designer César Sierra joins Sean to talk about gamifying Jiffy Mix, getting lost with Matt, and Busytown careers. Will Sean get rabies before the season is over? There’s only one way to find out!You can find César’s work on their website, cesarsierra.net! If you’re looking to hire César, connect with them on Linked in at linkedin.com/in/cesarvsierra!This episode was recorded Sunday, April 14, 2024, in the Rat’s Nest. Though I (again) forgot to shout him out in the outro, this episode was edited by the great Orion Cortez! Thanks, Orion! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mel Larsen Gutierrez (Art Director at the Oregon State Parks & Recreation Department) joins Sean to talk Mr. Sketch, the Man in the Yellow Hat’s job, and The Rachel (or The Rachael?).You can find Mel on the internet over at melerrez.com, where you can see some most of the work we talked about in this episode. Mel can also be found on the ‘gram at @melerrez as well. Too, if you want to see Mel’s awesome illustrated timeline, that can be found on the episode’s page at dididothat.design!This episode was recorded Friday, April 12, 2024 in the Rat’s Nest. Though I forgot to shout him out in the outro, this episode was also edited by the great Orion Cortez! Thanks, Orion!If you are hearing this as it comes out and are in the Portland area, please come out to Be Honest on Saturday May 4, 2023! Be Honest is PSUGD’s annual student portfolio showcase, which I help organize with Kate Bingaman-Burt! It’s a really exciting time, and we get to take over three floors of Wieden+Kennedy for design work, hijinks, and good times. You can find out more about it at psu.gd/behonest or @psugd_behonest on the ‘gram! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We do it for the love! Calvin Ross Carl (Creative Director at Parliament) joins Sean to talk about Allen Ludden’s followers, watching the old ways of web design disappear, and drinking hot dog water—finally a platform we can get behind!You can find Calvin’s work all over the ‘net—despite his strong luddite leanings! You can see work from the full spectrum of his career on his website (calvinrosscarl.com), and you can give him a follow on Instagram (@calvinrosscarl) to see what he’s been working on lately.This episode was recorded on Sunday, April 7, 2024 in the Rat’s Nest. This episode was edited for the first time not by me, but instead by the great Orion Cortez! Thanks, Orion!—One more important thing (or two)!Are you an academic in art, design, or a closely related field? Do you currently hold a tenured rank (associate or full professor?) at a four year university? I NEED YOU! I am beginning the process of applying for tenure this month, which requires me to form a committee of outside evaluators of my materials and offer recommendations to the university about my promotion and tenure. If you already know about this show and understand my work, you’d likely be a good candidate! Please reach out before April 30 and we can talk: sean.schumacher@pdx.edu.If you’re a listener to this show and aren’t in the above boat, you can still help! I’d love to have quotes, letters, and more for my packet describing the impact this and my other research or teaching work has had on you. Those can be collected throughout the summer, but sooner would be better! Reach out if you want to help—I’d really appreciate it! sean.schumacher@pdx.edu Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Throw away your phones and pick up your oil paints! Rachel Frankel (Senior Brand Designer at Zendesk) joins Sean to talk portfolio lust, Apple allergies, and the weirdest social network’s weirdest pivot yet (and it’s only partially to video).You can find Rachel’s work all over the ‘net (and IRL):You can find Rachel’s portfolio, and more of her work, on her website: rachelevefrankel.com!Transmute and all of Phosphene’s other albums—as well as Rachel’s awesome album design for them—are available to enjoy at their Bandcamp page, phosphenepdx.bandcamp.com. Buying albums there gives the band way more money than streaming fees, but you can also find Phosphene on Spotify, Apple Music, and the like as well.You can find Rachel’s book, She Can Really Lay It Down: 50 Rebels, Rockers, and Music Revolutionaries (Who Happen To Be Women) (published by Chronicle Books in 2019) on Indiebound/Bookshop.org, Barnes & Noble, Powell’s, or wherever else you should happen to shop for books.This episode was recorded Sunday, March 31, 2024 in the Rat’s Nest. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

OMFGCO Creative Director and author/designer of Rural Kimberly Sutherland joins Sean to talk the horrifying truth about figs, the top ten signs you’re in romcom, and the crowning of Portland’s #1 (vegan) ice cream boi. Why not grab a Gatorade and join the fuuuuuuuuuuuuun!You can find Kimberly’s work all over the ‘net (and IRL):You can find more of Kim’s work—both design and art related—on her website, kimberly-sutherland.com!The OMFGCO Journal, which Kim co-writes with Fritz Mesenbrink, is the best place to go to learn the latest from the studio, and is where you can go first to hear about when the And Then What?! podcast drops. Along with their Journal articles, you can also find audio versions which might be considered soft pilots for the show all on their own! Keep your eyes (and ears) peeled for it and their upcoming merch!If you’re planning on attending Creative Works West 2024 in Seattle at the end of April, Kim will be hosting a workshop on Brand Concepts & Frameworks alongside OMFGCO’s Fritz on Saturday, April 27 at 9am! If you’re interested, hop on over to the Creative Works site to learn more or their Eventbrite to register! As of this writing, tickets are still available!Addendum: Since I’ve come to record this episode, I’ve learned that there are in fact some varieties of figs that do not require wasps to pollinate them. Still, the truth that most figs pretty much consume wasps in order to become figs is undeniably A PROBLEM that we must reckon with as a species if we are going to continue to live on this planet.This episode was recorded Friday, March 15, 2023 in the Rat’s Nest. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Get those offer codes ready! Creative Director Matt Graff joins Sean to talk Pee-Chee folder portfolios, unusual interview questions, and the six quadrants of action sports marketing.You can find Matt’s work on his website, mattgraff.com. He’s currently looking for his next Creative Direction role, so if your studio is looking for someone, reach out! Matt can also be found on LinkedIn at inkedin.com/in/mattgraff.This episode was recorded Saturday, March 2, 2024 in the Rat’s Nest. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lena Hall of Fontroversy is on Did I Do That?! Or Sean Schumacher is on Fontroversy!? We’re all mixed up because it’s a Did I Do That?-Fontroversy acoustic universe crossover spectacular to kick off one of those shows’ fourth season!The two hosts sit down to talk about the process behind getting Fontroversy off the ground, as well as Lena’s Fallout Boy audition outfit, the meltiest car, and the Wizarding World of Woody Harrelson.You can find more about Lena ’s work on their Instagram, @ps.its.lena. They are indeed graduating soon and you should absolutely hire them! You can view Lena's font horoscopes for the both of us here!This episode was recorded Saturday, February 3, 2024 in the Rat’s Nest.Special thanks to the entire team that made Fontroversy possible: Lea Thompson, Lena Hall, Malia Masterson, Whitney McPhie, Ashley Heeke, Sophia Stoker, Anna Stanton, Hannah Joseph, Sophia Mick, Mette Voldengen, Milos Dugas, Freya Kargard, Robert Ditty, Izzy Gavaza, Dana Ives, Kaitlyn Casey, Aline Chercover, and Orion Cortez.Closing Music/The Fontroversy Theme: “How Can Things Be” by Holizna‍ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As both Season 3 and 2023 draw to a close, the time to seek forgiveness is at hand! Earlier this year, Did I Do That? set up a confessional booth—with Sean playing the role as part priest, part Frasier Crane—to collect true stories of design disasters, missteps, failures, and more from anonymous guests who sought to clear their guilty consciences.How can you find peace when faced with cross crossworders, ghost(ed) cookbooks, and duck pornography? There’s only one way to find out!(To be clear: the way is listening; you must listen to find out.)WANT A DESIGN CONFESSIONAL AT YOUR EVENT?If you have a live event and want me to set up another design confessional for it, either in Portland or beyond, let’s talk! I’d love to do more events like this in the future.SPECIAL THANKSThe clips used in this episode were collected as part of “Future Fonts and Friends,” a party held for TypeCon 2023 at Outlet in Portland, Oregon, on Thursday, August 17, 2023. All guests were indeed anonymous, and so if you hear any familiar voices, I guess just ignore that? Come to think of it, what do real priests do about that problem?!Huge thanks to past guest Lizy Gershenzhon and Travis Kochel of Future Fonts for inviting me to be a part of the event, to the organizers of TypeCon for putting up with me, and to my 2023 MVP Orion Cortez for building the confessional booths based solely on two terrible sketches I made.Additional thanks to past guest Kate Bingaman-Burt of Outlet for her eternal support of / patience with me just in general, but especially the white-hot ball of stress that is me when faced with a live event. Thanks, too, to the kind folks at Jolby—who didn’t even have anything to do with the party and had no reason to help me!—for letting me steal power from them for a couple of hours just because I happened to set up next to their studio.YOU’VE MADE IT THIS FAR…I want to all of you listeners out there for keeping this show going and growing. This marks the end of both our third season and second year, and I don’t think I ever would have imagined there would be as many folks out there following it as there are around the world. If you’ve enjoyed the first two years of this show, please tell a friend! I want to keep this project growing, and the community around it growing as well.If you have some nice things to say about what this project means to you, please send me an email! If you have mean things to say about me, please relay them to your dentist while they have their hands in your mouth—they’ll understand and relay them directly back to me, I’m sure.I don’t ordinarily plug the tip jar, but if you have some change between your couch cushions you want to throw my way, I would really appreciate it. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Creative Director and Design TikToker Zachary Winterton joins Sean to talk about the people in your (Geocities) neighborhood, bad leadership advice from cheerleaders, and Charlie the Cactus: the supermarket mascot of our dreams?Zachary is probably best found these days on TikTok (tiktok.com/@zacharywinterton), Instagram (instagram.com/zacharywinterton), and YouTube (youtube.com/@ZacharyWinterton) where you can find his latest short form design-centric videos. You can sign up for The Creative Brief, Zachary’s weekly newsletter, on his website at zacharywinterton.com/newsletter. That same website, zacharywinterton.com, is where you can see some of his past work.This episode was recorded Sunday, November 12, 2023. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Emily Tate (Senior Digital Art Director for Studio A at Adidas) joins Sean to talk about America’s most frightening college mascot, disinterested dogs, and William Shatner's Pandora surprise.You can find Emily’s work on her portfolio work, emilytatedesign.com. You can see more of her design work and giver her a follow on Instagram at instagram.com/emilytatedesign.  In addition to Adidas.com, you can also still see Emily’s work on the Burgerville small dip packages—go get some with your next burger!This episode was recorded on Saturday, November 11, 2023. As I mention towards the end of this episode, this is our first recording in a new studio space, which does have some electrical interference, echo, and outside sound bleed issues long since solved in our other space. I’ve done my best to mitigate all of these in post-production, but apologies if you do pick up on any buzz, reverb, or street noise! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.