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

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit graphicsupportgroup.substack.com