This week, Dan is joined by Bethany Heck. Bethany is the Creative Lead for the Microsoft Power BI team, and also runs Eephus League, where she creates products for sports fans with a focus on beautiful typography.

In this episode, Dan and Bethany discuss the importance of firm criticism, learning to accept that you won’t always win (and why that’s ok), how Eephus League got started, why “stick to two typefaces” is a rule that you can break, and more.

Bethany Heck

Creative Lead for the Microsoft Power BI team.

Dan also asks Bethany about a few of her Dribbble shots. She shares the stories behind Product Page—featuring the Halfliner scorebook from Eephus Leauge Site, Tigre Poster 1, and The value of multi typeface design, pictured above.

Subscribe on iTunes or Download the episode via Simplecast

Links Mentioned in Overtime

Bethany Heck

Bethany on Dribbble

Bethany on Twitter

Eephus League

Microsoft Business Intelligence

Microsoft Power BI on Dribbble

Baseball Nicknames Book

What is an Eephus Pitch?

Paul Lukas of Union Watch

The Value of Multi-Typeface Design (Medium Article)

Transcript

Dan Cederholm: hello, and welcome to Overtime, Dribbble’s audio companion. I’m Dan Cederholm your host. This is Episode 4. And today we’re talking with Bethany Heck, a graphic designer currently hailing in Seattle, Washington, working for Microsoft. She’s originally from Auburn, Alabama, where she graduated from Auburn University. And her work, which is amazing, has been featured in New York Magazine, the New Yorker, Wired, Smashing Magazine, Uppercase Magazine, and more. She is creator of the Eephus League, which is a collection of baseball minutiae, she says: scorebooks, posters, and sort of bringing the design of vintage baseball together with physical products. It’s really an amazing brand, and we were excited to talk to her today about that, about her background, and her journey to where she is today. And talk about a few of her Dribbble shots, and it was a really good time. Here we go.

So yes, welcome Bethany Heck to Overtime. Thanks so much for joining us today.

Bethany Heck: Thank you for having me. I’m excited.

Dan: Yeah! We’re always excited to talk to awesome people and you are one of those awesome people, because we’ve been following your work for a long time, and been big fans of it. There’s a ton to talk about here, so I just want to jump right in. There’s a lot to get to and there’s so much I want to hopefully get to. We always start with who are you, where are you from, basically is the opening question.

Bethany: I’m originally from Auburn, Alabama, and I have worked in a lot of different places across the country, but I’m currently at Microsoft working as the creative lead for Power BI in Seattle, Washington.

Dan: What’s BI? I’ve seen this name and seen the team on Dribbble but what is BI?

Bethany: Business Intelligence.

Dan: Cool. Did you grow up in Auburn?

Bethany: Yeah, my dad is actually a graphic design professor at Auburn University.

Dan: So it runs in the family. And Auburn has a giant football team. The team itself isn’t giant  and I think if I’m correct I have friends that are from Alabama, and we also have an employee in Alabama. Auburn’s big rivalry is probably University of Alabama?

Bethany: Yes.

Dan: That’s a big deal.

Bethany: Yeah. They call it the “Iron Bowl.”

Dan: That’s awesome. So what part of Alabama is Auburn?

Bethany: Auburn’s kind of in the little point on the right side of Alabama. There’s a point that comes out, and it sits right there, close to the Georgia border.

Dan: I was mentioning football rivalries. I think we’re probably going to get into some baseball talk today, but I wanted to clear that up for those that don’t know. So you grew up in Auburn and now you’re in Seattle. How do you like Seattle?

Bethany: I like it a lot. I have lived in a bunch of different places. I’ve lived in Baltimore; Boston; South Carolina; Austin, Texas. Seattle is probably my favorite. It’s so pretty here. I actually don’t mind when it’s overcast. I find it relaxing. There’s days like today where it’s absolutely beautiful and it’s like 65 degrees outside and perfect.

Dan: I totally agree. That’s my kind of weather.

Bethany: It’s like you’re never more than 30 minutes away from hiking up the side of a mountain, and the food is great. There’s the water and everything else here, so I’ve really liked it here.

Dan: That’s great. In terms of design, how did you get into that? Did you go to school for it? Were you interested when you were younger? What’s your path there to design?

Bethany: Even though my dad was a graphic design professor, I wasn’t super aware of graphic design as a practice, or what it was. I knew that my dad always put me in art camps when I was a kid, and that art history side of things was important to him. But I would not have considered myself an artistic or creative child. I did not do well in the art classes that I took.

I remember I had a teacher at one of those tell me you’re really bad at this, for being the daughter of a graphic designer. I didn’t have any natural talent when it came to traditional fine art type things. I would watch my dad work sometimes and I knew that he used special programs, and that we had Macs and that was unusual.

But I didn’t start getting into anything that was resembling graphic design until I got into junior high and started watching anime and getting into the artwork, and wanting to take pictures, and make collages out of them, and throw awful Photoshop filters over them. I kind of got into that side of things. I don’t know what you would call that now, some sort of weird digital art whatever.

I did that. Figured out what dafont.com was and downloading awful free typefaces. Just from there learned some of the Adobe suite, and started learning about web design because I wanted to have a way to catalog all these awful things I was making. Web design was really the kind of avenue of design that I felt like I wanted to pursue.

I was teaching myself HTML and CSS and I found that really interesting. Kind of learning the visual design things at the same time. So my dad was very against me going into graphic design. He wanted me to do something he’s like it’s super competitive and you’ll never make any money. I was a good student, so he kind of through that was a waste, and that I needed to do anything other than go into graphic design. I eventually talked him into letting me go to Auburn and it’s worked out so far.

Dan: It absolutely has. Did you have your father as a professor?

Bethany: I couldn’t have him for any of the early classes. I don’t think I had him until my senior year. So anything involving getting into the program and all that he could not have me as a student. I had him for one class my senior year. He was super hands off, like he didn’t give me a lot of input or suggestions on things. He just threw up his hands, and said do what you want to do, and stepped back.

Dan: That’s good. So he didn’t compensate then, for you being his daughter, like I’m going to be really hard on you this semester.

Bethany: Thankfully no. There were other things like definitely starting off, before we all got to know each other, I think a lot of the other students treated me like I was a narc. I had to win their friendship with I’ll look at these typefaces that I have, or this thing I’ve learned how to do in Photoshop, and I just had to bash my way into their friendship.

Dan: You’re like the inside line to the professor. I can see that. Other than your dad, were there any mentors along the way for you? Even post-college or just getting started, people that inspired you to go where you are today?

Bethany: Other than my dad, the biggest influence that I’ve had as a designer has been a professor that I had at Auburn. Her name is Sam. She’s just gotten remarried and I’m blanking on her new last name. They call her the “Velvet Hammer,” delivering very harsh feedback in the nicest way possible. Having very high standards, and I was super intimidated by her when I first had her because she and my dad were very close. So I knew she was not going to cut me any slack.

She was the first one who encouraged me to look into teaching as a profession, and she’s always been somebody who has motivated me in a way that has actually stuck and work, and not caused me to push back in a bad way. I value her input more than just about anybody else’s. She’s super important to me.

Dan: That’s great. Do you think her velvet hammer approach became helpful later on when you were dealing with projects, clients, or teams, where criticism could be hard to take?

Bethany: Yeah. I think her and other professors that I had at Auburn were very a lot of the very early professors were also the most critical when it came to input. I think that’s good to have early on in your design education, because you learn to disassociate yourself from the work.

I still have to remind myself that a lot of people didn’t have that experience, so you run into people where you make very minor suggestions, like have you considered this fact about this color, not even where you’re coming at them. Just like have you thought about how this is coming off? And they will totally get full defenses, like guns firing, total panic mode. It’s like it’s okay. I’m not coming at you. This is not a personal thing. This is just an observation. Take a breath.

Dan: It’s hard sometimes to separate how personal the work can be. I think that’s a really good point. I didn’t go to design school so I didn’t get that criticism training, for lack of a better term, that you’re talking about. That seems like it would be really valuable. That’s something if you don’t have experience with it, you kind of learn quickly yeah, not everything I do is going to be great and well received, and other peoples’ opinions matter. You can get good feedback from people. That’s really good advice. I’m trying to think, so