Welcome, everybody.
Thank you for joining us at today's program,
featuring Firebelly Design, presented
as part of the Wignall Museum's Home Edition,
in collaboration with the Chaffey College AIGA Club.
Home Edition is a series of curated artist talks,
workshops, and discussions, featuring
artists and cultural workers.
My name is Rebecca Trawick.
I'm the director and curator of the Wignall Museum.
The Wignall Museum is a teaching museum
and interdisciplinary art space that introduces Chaffey College
students, faculty, and staff to innovative contemporary art
objects and ideas.
By fostering critical thinking, visual literacy, discourse,
and empathy, the museum seeks to enhance
the intellectual and cultural life of our community.
We want to take a moment to recognize that we are situated
on the Ranch Cucamonga Campus of Chaffey College, which
resides on the traditional and unseated lands of the Tongva
people.
We offer our recognition and respect to the elders
both past, present, and future.
Hello.
My name is Roman Stollenwerk.
I'm an assistant curator at the Wignall
Museum of Contemporary Art.
I'd like to remind you to go ahead and visit us
at www.chaffey.edu/wignall to access our full schedule
of programs and available recordings.
Please note, we're recording all sessions
of Home Edition when possible recordings will be
made available on our website.
An announcement will post to our email subscribers
and social media when these videos are available.
All recordings on our site include captions and audio
descriptions as options.
Thank you.
And hi, everyone.
My name is Andy Hadle.
I am the preparator at the museum.
Along with Rebecca and Roman, I'll
be assisting with today's Zoom session.
In a moment, Firebelly Design will present for about a half
an hour or so, with the remaining
time being available for Q&A.
Right, before we introduce our esteemed guest,
I want to recognize the AIGA Design
Club, the Chaffey College student chapter of AIGA.
Thank you to the chapter for choosing today's guest artist.
The AIGA Design Club is a group of dedicated designers
who provide a space to create, connect, and inspire.
AIGA offers aspiring professionals
the opportunity to get involved, create community, and build
leadership skills, seeking designers, photographers,
and illustrators.
So on to our guests.
Today we're pleased to introduce Firebelly designers Will
Miller, Tom Tian, and Dean Sweetnich.
Firebelly is a socially conscious creative studio
specializing in strategic design.
Since its founding in 1999, Firebelly
has partnered with mission-driven organizations
of every size who value good design
as an integral part of their business communications.
Headquartered in Chicago, Illinois,
Firebelly is an intentionally small, consciously diverse,
and uber talented design studio.
Through a collaborative process, they
run across client management, research, strategy, design,
and development.
Their portfolio spans industries and reflects the diversity
of the communities their clients serve .
Please see an expanded biography on our website.
And we'll put that in the chat as well.
So we're so pleased to have Will, Tom, and Dean joining us
from Chicago and elsewhere today.
So please join me in giving them a warm virtual welcome.
Hello, everybody.
Obviously, wonderful introductions.
We're Firebelly Design, or one small portion
of Firebelly Design.
Speaking with you today, of course, myself, Will, and Tom
as well as Dean.
And I just wanted to say, again, thanks for having us here.
It's great to get to do this.
It's great to talk about the work that we do
and how we do that.
Like I said, the three of us really
are just one small portion of Firebelly Design.
And ripped straight from our website--
and you already heard a description,
but here's another one.
The studio is really a tight-knit team
of optimists who believe in each other and our clients' causes.
And we really work to bring authenticity in ourselves--
and maybe ourselves being the more important part of this--
into the studio work and into what we do.
And our hope is that that is how we stand out
in the work that we do and how we do that.
So the work that we've done together
is a gratifying reminder of what it
takes to make great work, important work feel creative
and collaborate in these ultra weird and isolating
times that we all find ourselves in.
Great work and important work, just a little bit about that.
As practicing designers, we find ourselves often thinking
that making great work means establishing lots of rules.
But really, as humans of planet Earth,
making important work to us means breaking a lot of those.
In other words, we're really here
to do something, not just make something.
And I keep saying "we," but really, who is that we?
Just a quick look at the team.
Some cool people.
Some really nice people.
Of course, smart people.
Lots of people.
Just wanted to show some of the faces behind the scenes.
Some of them are with us today on the call.
But the everyday crew of Firebelly--
we're designers, we're developers.
Some of us are researchers and strategists,
writers, project managers.
Lots of hobbies, lots of interests.
Many, many passions that fall far outside the realm of just
design.
And today with you, we call ourselves DesignPod.
And that's me, that's Tom, that's Dean.
That's also Ruth.
She's on the call, too.
She's our newest member of the team--
not with us today on the talk, but she came in a little late
after we had already signed up for doing this.
So she's with us in spirit.
She's there as a photo.
It's great.
We love her.
She's a wonderful member of our team.
The word DesignPod or just the idea of the word "pod"
really comes from when we had a much more centrally
located office and desks that were together.
We still have that office.
It was an actual post office, a functioning post office.
And most of us are post office now, too.
This is the front of that space.
The truck did not come with it, but it's wonderful
that on Google Street View you get a nice close
up of that incredible food truck just parked out front.
Captured a few images the other day of some
of the inside of this space.
Again, like filing cabinets, plant life,
chairs, a little bit of workout equipment here and there.
It's a real great space for being collaborative.
It's open like this.
We can move around each other and we can talk
when we're able to do that.
On the walls, we have different signage reminding us
what's important.
To be brave, be kind as we all work together
and collaborate together.
And as you move through the space,
you'll just encounter different things on the shelves,
on the tables, on the desks.
And just different points of inspiration to pick up--
look through, feel inspired as we do this design work,
as we do work together.
And this idea of working together,
it would be tough to not mention that collaboration has become
quite a bit harder for us.
So we focus a lot now on communicating much more
than we have in the past.
There's thousands of miles between all of us
at the studio.
Just a quick look at Google Earth across the globe here.
Some of us are in Mexico right now,
in Texas, New York, North Carolina.
Of course, Chicago, California, Portland.
We're very spread out.
But near and far, what we typically like to do
is follow a project flow.
We have a process for how that works.
And that project flow is really just our form
of a collaborative process.
And that starts with on the far left, research,
where, in research phase, we pretty much dive deep
to understand who we're talking to and how we can help them.
In the exploration phase, this is
where we start to imagine or think
about how we might entice an audience to engage and learn
more with them.
And when we get to strategy, this
is where we start to bring the vision and the tactics of what
we're going to do together.
A key deliverable here in this phase
might be something like a brand strategy
deck or visual inspiration that we would present.
Creation in part of this process is
where we start to visually explore
what strategy may look like through our design process.
When we get to application, this is when it hits the real world.
So digital, maybe physical.
This is where that work is seen.
Think of it like a launch strategy in a way.
And evaluation.
We always want to look back and think about, what did we miss?
What's left to do?
This is a good time to really reflect on the work
so that we can move ahead.
And then of course, our last step,
which is much more of an internal step,
is really about documentation.
And this is where that work--
we put our efforts together to really make
that a case study for our site that we can share out.
And of course, in DesignPod, we're
involved from the start in what we do.
But our real big moment to shine starts in that creation phase.
Now creation phase is really about being
and staying in the zone and finding our inspiration there.
But always remembering as we work through those things
to come up for air and say hi to the rest of the team.
Because we really feel like working alone
is not collaborating.
When we find ourselves at a pause, that
can be a signal to either problem
solve or kickstart a conversation,
to just ask for help from the rest of the team.
Checking in on one another and ourselves.
Knowing team interests for exciting outcomes
and future potential project opportunities.
And always watching out for--
I'm sure it's on everybody's mind, just what feels
like a COVID drag in our work.
All of this keeps us from going to battle
with the left and right sides of our brains alone every day.
Remote work shouldn't be a lonely work.
And a few tactics that we've come up
with over the past few months, really the last year to help
fight that feeling of the lonelies--
shared work spaces, open Zoom rooms, Gather.town,
lunch and brunch and learns, learning Fridays,
daily standups in the morning, leadership meetings,
dope web tech channel on Slack, and especially rumbles,
which is really important to DesignPod.
And the idea of rumbles come from Brene Brown's book Dare
to Lead.
I'll just read a quote about what that is.
"A rumble is a discussion, a conversation,
or meeting defined by commitment to lean into vulnerability.
To stay curious and generous, to stick
with the messy middle of problem identification
and solving, to take a break and circle back when necessary,
to be fearless in owning our parts."
And really, it just means honesty.
And maybe that's not about work, maybe
that's just about each other and what's going on in our lives.
All of these tactics, from rumbles to daily learning,
really provides us moments to get curious about and learn
from one another.
It helps us grow, and that helps us make that work
feel much more important.
So thinking about that idea of important work,
I'm going to show a few examples of that in the upcoming
moments.
But we can think about the different types of work
that the studio does as three broad categories.
The first broad category really being
around the idea of traditional branding and identity,
which feels a lot like paying client work.
Number two-- it isn't separate from number one,
but experimental topography and community building
tends to be more about the events and fun times
that we have.
Number three-- nonprofit, grantee-focused brand work
is best captured by talking about the Grant for Good.
So the first example, talking about the idea of identity
work, is a project we recently finished--
one of our favorites of recent memory.
Designing a Better Chicago.
And that really lives as an identity
as a creative platform.
So right away, you can see the logo animating
on the right-hand side.
But Designing a Better Chicago was an annual celebration
really for the residents and visitors of Chicago.
It was highlighting the impact of design
on civic life in the city.
And the program supports local individuals, artists,
organizations that were using the power of design
to advance the social good through design impact grants.
And when we began this project, of course
we started with inspiration.
And we found that inspiration in the overlooked,
which was Chicago's municipal symbol, municipal device.
And that iconic symbol really hides in plain sight
across the entire city.
And it references the 19th century engineering marvel
of really reversing the river or the flow of the Chicago River.
And that linear form that we worked with
was really meant to reflect what's great about Chicago
back to Chicago.
It provides a meaningful foundation
for that whole visual system that we're
going to look at for the next few slides.
So with that mark in place, we really
set out to create a highly flexible system of photography,
colored walking, strong photography, which
are all things that really show up in a lot of our work--
the least amount of elements with the highest
amount of impact.
And we can start to see a few of these posters come
to life, where flexibility and ease for whoever
is going to be using the system is top of mind.
High priority.
Easy to put in a different photo.
Easy to put in artwork from a different artist.
Always leaning back on the strength
of the logo, the dates, the elements that are there.
It's hard to mess that up.
When you get into internal and external communications
in regards to the collateral, we had suggested that we really
start with a clear and focused layout since awareness was low.
And over time, stronger overlapping elements
would start to appear as public awareness began to elevate.
So we can see the collateral here.
And we start to think about that moving out
into the larger world.
We wanted to build in this idea of the logo
being able to shift and flex and adapt and fit
a variety of spaces and formats.
That was definitely our primary goal in this identity.
Guidance on how to stretch and scale that
was introduced in the brand guides
that we also delivered alongside the work
as we moved to complete that.
You can see how that elongation and stretching and scaling
really comes to life in the vinyl banners or applications
out in the public life or the hypothetical billboards
and public installation that would announce
what this event is all about.
And then of course, the website.
That's where the full expression of the visual identity
really came to pass.
It provides an interactive platform here
to really learn more about Designing a Better Chicago
and work to highlight the Design Impact grant
program on the site.
And of course, what we were looking at through all
of this identity, these dramatic floods of color,
and strong type shift as the users
really scroll through the content on all the devices
that we're constantly thinking about when we're
working on a website design, which is desktop,
tablet, and mobile.
So that's the first example.
I'm going to pass it over to Dean for example number two--
an example of the studio, personal work.
Typeforce-- Community and Creation.
Yes.
Hello, everyone.
So Typeforce really was a big piece
of why I wanted to work at Firebelly in the first place.
And it's a project that the three of us
have worked together on the last couple of years.
But it started way back in 2010 and is now
grown into its own organization outside of Firebelly,
actually run by Will here and also
Nermin Moufti, who used to work for the studio as well.
And it's really this bringing together
of that community and creation.
And it began in 2010, as I said, as a curated gallery.
So really intent on showcasing the best of the best
typography in Chicago.
And in previous years, Firebelly has organized, planned,
and curated the event, located in Co-Prosperity Sphere
in Chicago's Bridgeport neighborhood,
if anyone's familiar with Chicago.
In addition to all of that-- the events, the gallery,
the organization-- the Firebelly team
has created the front window display every single year.
And the gif you see here is really
just a brief, painfully small sample of the years of work
and late nights that have gone into the front window
over the years since 2010.
So that quick five seconds really
represents countless hours of window display work.
And I say painfully small, because every year, it really
is a whirlwind and invigoration.
Not only within ourselves, but really
within the design community in Chicago.
Especially being hosted in the middle of the long Chicago
winter, people come out to celebrate.
And they really do celebrate and party a little bit that night.
And what you'll see here is a sample of the latest displays
from the last two years.
So Typeforce X in 2019 on the left and Typeforce 11
this last year in 2021.
These displays were built by Tom, Will, and I.
And all of them involved a little bit
of play, some new tools, a lot of trial and error.
And the methods of building were very different for each
and led and informed one another.
So Typeforce X ended up being a lot of iteration
as the 10th and last Firebelly sanctioned
installment of Typeforce.
It became a celebration of construction
and really figuring out how can we piece together all
the lessons that we've learned.
We figured out a sort of assembly line
to construct 20 of those Xs that you see on the left there.
And they're lit up with some little rudimentary wiring.
And then with Typeforce 11, we evolved that wiring,
where the display was then a form of LED screen,
lighting up strips of LED lights that
would turn on and off with some Arduino board--
lots and lots of play.
But before we actually reached those masterpieces,
which we are very proud of, it took a lot of work.
Last winter's sawdust, lots of soldering, and so much wire.
Cannot tell you how much wire.
Yes, so much wire.
Maybe 700 yards, I think.
So both years differed yet informed one another.
And over the course of Typeforce, 11 years of creating
this display, we learned a lot.
And Will learned how to optimize these large scale
builds by price and material and illumination.
Tom really harnessed the mastery of woodworking and material
skills and has become graduating to metalworking.
And I have taken a lot more affinity
towards circuitry and lighting, which I never really
would have imagined.
And we all take on different roles
each year, gathering these lessons
and sharing with one another as we collaborate together on it.
So Tom's construction skills and techniques
really helped us construct these finger joints and lap joints
that you see on the left.
That really was essential to making those X constructions
there.
And that lesson in construction was then used one year later
to inform Typeforce 11.
So the structure became a lot faster and easier to produce
and allowed for a lot more time that you
play on the lighting and circuitry and the Arduino
board and the wiring.
So playing with tools in this way,
playing with these creation and physicality
has allowed us to experiment and recontextualize typography.
So still, these forms through this physical construction.
And the process is really informing
how we handle client work and inspiring
how we do physical and environmental branding.
What might be possible in that physical space
when we bring those brands to life.
What does emotion look like, and how can we
create it in that way?
And what does custom type work look like, and how
can we switch it up?
And just recently, a client has actually
asked us to use our CNC machine just for some prototyping.
So it really is starting to come in handy.
And it's really important to just highlight
that the community is really drawn
in by the physicality of the concepts
and also the physicality of the work within the gallery.
So although the work for Typeforce at the beginning
was just local back in 2010, it has grown each year
to showcase global submissions and participants.
And so work that used to be just individual local artists
is really full college classes, international typographers,
sometimes type designers.
And the opening night typically gathers an audience
of around 1,000 of all ages.
So you could see the kids interacting with type families
and really everyone.
And over the last 11 years of the show,
curated work itself has evolved and become larger and more
interactive and inventive.
So where things would typically end up
being posters in the beginning, it's
really become a lot more mural-like, a lot more
sculptural.
And it's really pressing the boundaries
of conceivable typographic play.
And Typeforce is far from over.
So like I said in the beginning, it's
now really grown into its own entity of designers in 2018.
Like I said, one of which our very own Will.
And we still will collaborate with them time to time.
They'll be making their own brands.
I believe their website is coming soon.
So feel free to follow along with all of their updates.
The next Typeforce I think will be in 2022.
And I think there's actually a book, a 10-year retrospective
book that you can probably buy soon that will be announced.
So please feel free to follow them.
No, yeah, heading off now to Tom to talk
about the Grant for Good.
Thank you so much, Dean.
So as Will mentioned previously, the Grant for Good
is one of the three broad types of work
we do here at Firebelly.
Simply put, the grant is our annual pro bono project
where we donate a full year's worth of design and strategy
services to a nonprofit.
And that's a pretty big commitment for us
as a small studio.
Not to get too much into the dollars and the cents,
but it's--
I mean, it's basically like a six figure grant of services.
And we do it because we really value
helping folks who are fighting that good fight
and need that extra bit of momentum
to hone their messaging and expand their reach.
And it's also why we approach our grantees
as we would any ordinary client, which is
to say as equals, not saviors.
And on a really personal level, it's
one of the reasons why we were drawn to working for Firebelly
in the first place.
I mean, I certainly know it was for me when I applied.
And we've been doing this since 2004.
And obviously, I haven't been here for that long,
but I really want to talk about just three of the grantees
I've had the privilege of working on
since I started at Firebelly.
So first up, we have Plant Chicago.
A really passionate team committed
to developing sustainable models of urban development
in the Back of the Yards, a neighborhood in Chicago's
predominantly Black and Latinx southwest side.
And their bread and butter is creating closed-loop economy.
So basically where the so-called, quote,
"waste" of one process is the input for a next process,
and so on and so forth until it loops back in on itself.
And it's that process which informs
the look of that logo, where we have these coiling
loops within the circular form.
Because I ultimately cannot design a logo without it being
a dad joke.
And we began working with them right
as they were growing into their own as an organization.
Because they were originally part of this green startup
incubator called Plant Chicago.
So this was also the very first branding project by the way
that I worked on at Firebelly.
And one of the things that we always
want to bring to our work is to have
it hit that really sweet spot between [INAUDIBLE]
and reproducibility.
And that will vary depending on particular client
staffing and resources.
Our first step here, as well I've
mentioned earlier in that process diagram,
was to listen, to do our research, to ask questions.
And here was during workshops or on tours of the facilities.
And that gave us really good firsthand impression
and appreciation of their personality and what they do.
And that's how we landed at the system
where we have a suite of illustrations enclosed
within the simple work with square holding shapes that
capture that range of services that they do and or will
be easily arranged into patterns and textures
to create different configurations of the layouts.
In addition, we also provide strategy docs and guidelines,
print templates, site design, which you can see here.
And we also offer CMS training.
Shifting our focus from there to a smaller organization.
Sometimes our grantees really only
have two or three full-time employees.
And that was the case with the Chicago Freedom School.
Inspired by the Mississippi Freedom Schools of the '60s,
CFS is all about training young folks and adult
allies to think critically and dismantle
systems of oppression.
So a very, sadly, still always timely and noble task.
So with such a small team, [INAUDIBLE]
had a really full-plated program on their hands,
we knew that we had to keep things simpler.
As with all of our other clients,
we laid that groundwork by listening and asking questions.
And in this instance, with the very young folks
who were so central to CFS.
The result was this identity where
the mark, this floral icon that encapsulates their egalitarian
pedagogical model, whose parts become this framing device--
you can see those arrows or Ls breaking apart,
framing different elements, images, and photos--
really plays out greater, more central role.
Supplemented by bold colors and type
instead of more complex components,
like illustrations, which would be cumbersome to reproduce
later on.
We also stayed away from premium design programs
as much as we could.
So creating these assets originally
in, say, Illustrator or Sketch.
But then ultimately opting for free apps like Canva
so as to not disrupt their existing workflow.
Again we'd never want our work to get
in the way of their work.
And as an aside, I've seen that work actually
around town of various protests and actions,
and it's just been really been a pleasure
to see folks take that and use that in their day-to-day work.
I don't like to pick favorite clients,
but Girls Garage was just a real blast to work with.
They are an after-school program in Berkeley with classes in--
this is taken from their About Us-- carpentry
and welding, architecture, engineering, and activist art.
And their goal is to equip girls with tools
to build the world they want to see.
And for them, we really just pulled
out all the proverbial stops.
Because to do otherwise would have
been to not do justice to all their energy
and boldness and ambition.
Here what that meant was that we created a custom display font.
We commissioned custom portraits of the Fearless Builder
Girls themselves.
Working with a fantastic photographer,
Gizelle Hernandez, who has since gone to do just really,
really also super amazing work.
I really recommend that you follow her.
And we also rounded out this system
by really extending that brand from these bigger moments
in wayfinding or signage--
which aren't pictured here, but it is on our site--
to really small things, like custom enamel
pins commemorating participants' achievements.
And here this had already incorporated
both hand-drawn mechanical elements, again,
to capture both our commitment to something that's
really precise in a drafting, engineering,
architectural world.
And also to that construction really hands-on elements.
And it's just been super rewarding to see
them grow their community and presence
and just how excited all the Builder Girls are.
I think what we try to do at Firebelly
is to get at the triune of art, design, and community.
And to do so, to reiterate what was said earlier,
by bringing ourselves to bear working collaboratively.
And I think part of what has made all these projects so
successful is in bringing ourselves,
we mean not only our passions and our skills, but also
our perspectives.
There's so much collaboration that
goes on behind the scenes in each of those projects
that, at the end of the day, it just
feels so wrong to say that, oh, well this
is my project or the thing that I worked on.
Because if not for discussions with Will and Dean, there
Have been so many things that we individually
would not have really been able to seen
or [INAUDIBLE] otherwise.
But like Will said, there have been
those times we just need to take a pause, reassess, and regroup.
And that's when we do our best work.
And thank you so much for having us,
and we'll open the floor to questions.
And if you heard a cat meowing, that
is because this is a two-cat household,
and they do not care for Zoom etiquette.
I don't blame them.
Tom, remind us the name of the designer
that you mentioned who worked on Girls Garage you
said we should follow.
Oh, the photographer's name is Gizelle Hernandez.
Thank you so much.
So we've got one here from Devon we can start with.
So it says, as a designer, did it
take a while to start doing work that you found
made a large social impact?
Was there a stage--
excuse me, sorry, things are coming in here.
Was there a stage where you worked
to keep afloat financially at the beginning of your career,
or did you start pursuing socially active work
immediately?
I can take the first stab at that.
Financially, yeah.
I mean, I think financially for many of those first years,
I was totally broke.
When you're doing it alone, you're
coming out of school, that's super tough.
I also moved from a very-- well, from a different state.
I was coming up from Florida and moving to Chicago.
For me, I had completely lost my network when I did that.
So it took two or three years to feel, I think,
somewhat comfortable.
And even then still, I don't think at that point
I had a solid idea of what type of work
I was going to be good at actually doing.
I had interest in lots of different kinds of work.
But I'll be honest, I think most people find themselves
in a situation where you don't really
get to do work like this like we're talking about,
especially Grant for Good work until maybe we
arrived at the studio in a way.
And I think that's just an important point.
The majority of opportunities there aren't like this
and don't do this kind of work, and that's special.
And for me, I--
so I graduated undergrad into--
not quite the middle of the Great
Recession, but definitely still very much during it.
And for the first year or so, it was eating humble pie,
living my parents' house down in the basement,
but at my parents' place.
And also basically being broke.
So I think there's this narrative of doing--
selling out and then redeeming yourself
through nonprofit or nonprofit work.
And I personally had some of that--
I'm not proud to say that my first design
internship was for basically a payday loan company.
And that was during college.
And a part of me has always felt pretty crappy
about having done that.
And after college, I did some production design internships
that were not glamorous work.
But it's not like we were, say, like selling cigarettes
to kids or anything.
And I worked in-house for my alma mater
for a number of years before joining Firebelly.
So the wait is there, but I will say
that it's generally a tough needle to thread, if you will.
Yeah.
And I would say my experience and travel
to this place was different from Will's and Tom's in that I
graduated in 2018.
2018, I think.
Time is kind of crazy right now.
And then I quickly found myself three months later
at Firebelly.
And before that, I took a lot of internships really prioritizing
work and trying to do a lot more of this design for good working
in this sector.
That was really what I knew I wanted to do.
So my path was direct because I decided
in the middle of my college path that I wanted to do this.
And so I was able to navigate and figure out and ask
a lot of people, asking so many people what cities I could
go to and what companies I could go to
and creating so many lists of people to talk to.
Lists were essential to navigate that realm after post-grad.
But it also took a lot of internships navigating
similarly typical design agency waters
before I got there, for sure.
That's really interesting.
I love hearing all the different pathways
that you all took, from your education and your career path,
right, which led you to Firebelly.
I think, Tom, you're--
perhaps having those other jobs really clarified
for you what you--
the focus that you wanted.
And then interesting too, Dean, that you were really
thinking about that as a student to think about your future.
So those are both really interesting considerations
for those of you who are studying right now.
Yeah, great.
Thank you, guys.
So I've got a question from Sabrina.
What does the process look like for Firebelly
to choose a nonprofit to work with?
Do the nonprofits have to apply?
So I assume you're talking about the Grant for Good program.
Yeah, great.
Yeah, I can speak to that.
So we do have some criteria set up
for things like organization budget,
and not necessarily things like staff size, but--
one of the things that we do want to achieve with the Grant
for Good is that we want to--
it's less of a boundary setting so much as making sure
that we get that we are entering into a process of being
able to emerge from the other and having done
concrete, good, helpful work.
And in order to get there, I think some of that is we do
need to be realistic that--
like we ask that folks be able to have enough time
to be able to meet with us, to be able to talk.
And that can be tough.
Organizations, some of these organizations
are really small and overextended.
And realistically, you don't want
to commit yourself to helping someone
but only to find yourself being unable to really actually do
good in the end.
But as for the other general criteria,
it evolves through discussions internally
with members of the team.
Some of the response to changes in circumstance.
I think the year in which Chicago Freedom School was
selected as the grantee, we also had other applicants
who were doing, say, working on creating like animal show
shelters in Chicago.
And I think when it was the year 2017, 2018,
it just felt like we have to do work for CFS because that spoke
so much to the present moment.
Yeah.
And I think building off of that,
it gets really hard every year.
And we actually just recently finished our interviews
with some of our grant clients for this year.
But every year, it's difficult, because we
receive so many applications from wonderful organizations,
and every single one of them has an amazing mission.
And so it really does come down to which one of them
can we ensure a really productive and powerful
partnership with.
Because we could just step into their organization
and then give them things that probably
won't suit their needs.
And then it's like we don't know what's best for them.
And truly we need to listen to them
and make sure that we have a solid partnership that
is strong communication together and that we can--
and so it's not just about them trusting us.
We really need to work with them and hear their story
and collaborate in that way.
And that's how we've found the most successful partnerships
with the grants, for sure.
That's a really good point.
And I think we forgot to even mention
last year's grant, of course, being
top of mind Lubeznik, which was a gallery space.
Oh, man, I'm blanking on the city now.
Around the river, around the lake.
Michigan City, yeah.
Michigan City, there it is.
It's like the opposite wrong name for where it is.
But like Dean was saying there, not
giving them things that would get in the way
and making sure that we're responding
to what it is that they need.
And it was like a series of evaluations and reevaluations
as we worked on that project throughout the entire year.
And when we got to the point of midsummer,
I think we took a step back and said, wow,
this was really successful.
They're really showing up and doing a lot of work here.
But are we about to turn the corner into the next phase
and give them a whole bunch of things
that they don't actually need?
It was a reset on the project in a way of maybe,
you don't need all this signage.
People are not actually going into the space right now.
What if we focused on some of these other things
and really focused heavily more on the tools
that you could use for future places
like Canva to make announcements of physical pieces
or social media elements?
Stuff that their entire team could actually really
benefit from.
They just happened to be really lucky
and have a great designer on their staff
who worked really closely with us.
But it was definitely one of the best partnerships
I think in the grants that we've had
in terms of how much work we were able to do
and how much we understood was really going to benefit them.
It was just a very side-by-side partnership
in how we approached that one.
If I could follow up, I think--
I'm sorry, I'm forgetting who, but one of you
said it wasn't about coming in and being a savior.
And so I think that's really what you're describing, right.
That listening relationship and giving folks what they need,
right.
It's something that we often talk about in the work,
whether it's the grant or if it's client work.
It's just, are we going to give them
something they can use that they won't feel afraid of?
That they're going to always feel
guilty about working with that, there's
high risk of messing it, I guess.
And we don't want to do that, of course.
And I think Tom made that point great
as he was talking through the Grant for Good.
It's giving them the right tools, the tools
that are easy to work with.
Making sure that that's comfortable for whoever,
because that's definitely one of the most important audiences.
Who is going to use that work?
Who's going to see that work?
We just really want to understand
that so we're giving them exactly what they need
and working with them to make that the best that it can be--
templates, whatever that might end up being.
Might fire off another question from the chat here.
Maybe it might expand on what you were just
talking about from Trevon.
They ask, on your website it mentions
that you like to give back to the community-- obviously.
Do you do that in more ways than just offering
a year of free services?
We use the studio to also make annual donations.
And as for the other programs, it's been in flux,
I think, because the studio does--
it has also undergone a lot of different changes,
like moving from our old office to the post office presented
a pretty big change.
Because the nonprofit [INAUDIBLE] that we ran,
which provided a lot of, I guess would
be called like life skills kind of education and training
and community to get to folks in the neighborhood.
That became much more difficult, because the local angle
changed because of our geographic change.
And I think sustaining that became a somewhat more
difficult proposition.
But having said that, that was one of the things
that we were definitely doing.
And I think in the past too, we--
I know that this is before my time, albeit barely,
but we used to do Camp Firebelly, which
I think Will can speak more to.
But that was a crazy, epic design sprint, almost.
Would you say, Will?
Is that an accurate encapsulation?
Yeah.
And 10 years ago, the spirit of design sprints
were like, don't sleep, work hard, and torture yourself.
And of course, that's not sustainable,
especially as a lot of us are hitting our 40s right now.
And so, it was a quick--
that was one way that we could get 10 young folks
into the studio to work with us to understand our process, what
it's like to work on clients like the Grant for Good
in a process of design that we typically follow.
It's just, the compression of that--
10 days, 10 students--
just amped-up the anxiety and the pace a lot,
making it really, really hard to feel comfortable
in that environment.
So while it was great and the outcome was always incredible
and you left feeling exhausted and things got done and printed
and websites were made, it was definitely a sprint,
and it was definitely a challenge.
But memories forever, for sure.
Of the years that I was involved with it--
I forget how many, five or six--
since the beginning, and every single one of those people
who went through it, we stay in touch, we've talked--
continue to talk.
It's interesting following along in their trajectories,
because it was super inspiring.
As well as the organizations, too.
What they went on to do and how some of those connections
have come back as well.
Believe a subtle connection in one
of the years of Camp Firebelly led to the Girls Garage
project itself.
So there's just all kinds of ways
that we've done that in the past.
It's just, I think there's a new appetite
and a new way of doing that.
We haven't completely figured out as some of us
get older and have other life commitments going on.
When Camp Firebelly started, we were all late 20s, just
hanging out.
Endless amounts of time, doing design and staying up late.
But that's a lot tougher now.
I mean, the studio definitely--
no one's stopping us as individuals
from also doing work within our respective networks
and communities.
Whether or not that's something as direct as, say,
like volunteerism or other educational programs
or seminars or discounted or free client
work for basically our own little grants for good,
if you will.
So that also does happen.
That's great.
So a question from [INAUDIBLE],, when
you're looking to add a new member to your team, what
do you think the newest generation of applicants
are missing and lacking in their experience and portfolios?
Maybe if you could mention five central factors,
that would be helpful.
That's an interesting one.
I can hop in.
I mean, I always struggle just personally even approaching
things from a point of lacking.
It's hard to pinpoint an entire group of people
and what they don't have.
But I definitely would say things to always build on
is have a strong perspective and know who you are.
Know what drives you and as an individual,
and how do you express yourself visually?
And I think creating--
yeah, I always find it difficult to say, don't do that,
don't do that, don't do that.
Because then that is really limiting.
It's really limiting on an individual.
And I think the best work is created from a confidence
standpoint.
And I think the best expression of yourself
is created from a confidence standpoint.
So how do you really learn to get
in touch with that individual spirit of communication?
And, yeah, that's one that I would really latch on to.
And I would add to that, too.
I mean, I think it's an incredible point.
I think the confidence in knowing your role in a project,
too.
My experience in school was very much, you are alone,
you will make this work, you will be done,
and that will be your project.
And that's not how it happened.
For us, that's not how it happens.
We are one of many people in that process of how
work gets made.
And we need each other to make the work much stronger and much
better.
And I think understanding even on those interviews
when you talk about your role in even schoolwork,
just understanding where you fit in, who you've talked to
and how they've inspired your own work, it's huge to hear.
Because I think that shows you're a team player,
and that is really what's important.
As much as understanding your own process.
I think Dan described the answer.
Just being able to understand how you get to that place,
that zone, the way of making.
Because when it comes down to it,
we're hiring somebody more often than not for their brain,
for their ideas and their thought process.
And the way that they understand that about themselves
and how they get to that place is really, really important.
Because we want that to be something that's repeatable.
Not just a one-off.
In an individual style, that's very narrow in that way.
You'd be working alongside of us coming up
with fresh, new things at every moment
that a project would start.
To tackle what Will said, we've done some portfolio reviews.
And I think the number one thing that comes up--
so sorry about the--
to leave the other four items blank,
but it really is like presentation
and being able to explicate and discuss
your work in this way that is straightforward.
That when you're doing it and writing on your portfolio site
avoids obtuse academic language.
And being able to just very clearly present the problem
and illustrate how what you did ties
into the parameters of the project or the problem
that you're trying to solve.
Sabrina asked, what is something you
wish you knew or did that you didn't learn or do in school?
Hard question for me, since I studied political science,
so I'll hand it to Will and Dean for that one.
I learned nothing.
I mean, that's so hard to answer.
And I could probably have a different answer
for that every day of the week.
But I think to loop it back around to--
I forget how this came up.
So I graduated in 2002.
The idea that places like this or doing work like this existed
didn't exist in that moment.
I'm sure it did.
But it just seemed so much harder
to focus on what we do as designers
or visual communicators.
It was just so different.
It felt really different.
The same way that when I was leaving school, I had no idea I
was ever going to be designing web pages,
because we didn't do that.
That wasn't in our scope.
That wasn't in our realm.
No one was really doing that yet.
So the rules hadn't been written.
So I wish that I had known that doing this type of work
and feeling good about what you do
and not going to bed feeling guilty existed at that point.
I would have done what Dean did and was
able to chase that as a goal.
Like, I want to work for places like that.
Because that is important.
I think I would focus a lot more on trying to break more rules,
I think, in school.
And I think someone said that in the chat just now.
But I had that goal, I think, to get to this point
throughout college.
But I think when working on school projects,
I was like, OK, what's the right thing to do
and the wrong thing to do?
What's the right thing to do and the wrong thing to do?
And it's like how do you break out of that cycle
and just focus on the play.
And then how do you take that play
and then formalize it and understand, well,
how did I get from point A to point B?
And what was my process in that play?
That was something I wish I did more in school.
Instead of just solving the brief.
It's like solving the brief in the way that
is most comfortable to me and confident to me.
Doing great work for sure and working really hard for sure.
But doing it in a more playful and curious way
rather than just, yeah, solving it.
I would say probably something broader, like general--
sorry, general mental health and self-esteem,
which I don't think most programs anywhere really teach.
But I think it is really important in any line
of creative work.
And certainly when you're doing client work, personally
not being able to put a name to something like imposter
syndrome and being able to have the mental tools to be
able to deal with that and to realize that--
to get-- think through or think past those obstacles.
That was definitely a huge part of something
that I wish I had known going in.
And also just that it can take a surprisingly long time.
I think there's an Ira Glass quote to the effect of, when
you start out, the stuff you make is just going to be awful,
and it'll feel like you're spinning your wheels.
And then you just get better and better,
and there comes a sort of inflection point
where you suddenly find yourself on the other side.
And it feels corny to say that, but in some ways, it's true.
Keeping at it and just getting a little bit better every day.
I want to add on to that, too.
That kickstarted my memory too a little bit, Tom, because it's--
I think learning a little more every day
and also trusting in your decisions and your gut.
And I didn't initially actually begin in design.
I actually started back doing computer science
three years before I even considered design school.
Because I wasn't really trusting that instinct.
It was focused on getting to that.
Yeah, doing the right thing was the wrong thing again.
But I think trusting that instinct would
be another important thing.
That involved a lot of, yeah, inner confidence as well.
Thank you, guys.
Great answers.
I love that you're talking about imposter syndrome
and confidence.
And I think those are things that young designers
and students--
and not just young, but I think we can all
suffer joining a new career path or trying
to consider what we're going to do with our futures.
So that's a really critical point.
And if you all don't know impostor syndrome,
definitely look it up.
It may bring a lot of bells for you.
So it's really interesting.
Yeah, unfortunately we're out of time.
So I want to be kind to all of you who've
made a commitment to be here.
I have many more questions, but we'll
have to save it for next time, I'm afraid.
So I want to thank all of you for being here.
Will, Tom, Dean, thanks so much for your incredible generosity
and time today.
It's great for students to learn about potential career
paths and design.
So you're really generous.
Thank you for all of you who attended today
and for your thoughtful questions.
Roman will, again, put the link to a very quick survey.
Please take two minutes to do that.
You'll help us to create future programming,
so we appreciate that.
But thank you, all of you.
Please stay safe and be well out there,
and we'll see you next time.
It's been a pleasure.
Thanks, everybody.
Thanks, everyone.
Take care, folks.