Underscore

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."

Our next guest is Anne H. Berry — designer, writer, educator, and Director of the School of Design at the University of Illinois Chicago. In this episode, Anne speaks with host Christian Solorzano about her path into design — how a middle school visit to a publishing house sparked something in her, and how that spark took years to find its footing. She's candid about the periods of doubt, a toxic early work environment, and the graduate school experience that finally brought everything together. Anne discusses her two books — The Black Experience in Design and her upcoming Guiding Principles for Inclusive Design Values — and why both feel more urgent now than when she started them. She speaks directly about what design owes to democracy, the chilling effect of anti-DEI legislation on creative work, and why she believes designers cannot afford to sit on the sidelines. The conversation also explores what brought Anne to Chicago, what sustains her on the hard days, and what it means to build a career rooted in service — to students, to the community, and to the people coming up behind her. Anne will also be featured in the upcoming issue of Faculty , a publication by the Chicago Graphic Design Club. Music by the band Eighties Slang.

Our guest is Coby Regehr, son of Carl Regehr (1919–1983)— a graphic designer, educator, and community builder who helped shape Chicago's visual identity. In this episode, Coby speaks with host Christian Solorzano about his father's life, work, and philosophy — from a Mennonite upbringing in Kansas to building a design practice in Chicago rooted in ethics, relationships, and an unrelenting drive to create. Coby shares what it was like to grow up inside that world — weekends spent in his father's studio, Summers at the Indiana Dunes alongside the designers who defined an era, and a father who was up at four every morning with Coltrane on the stereo. The conversation explores Carl's role in reframing Chicago's image through the 1963 Chicago magazine — his uncompromising ethics in business, his teaching philosophy at the University of Illinois, and his participation in the 1971 Aspen Design Conference. Coby also reflects on the boxes of journals, collages, and unfinished work he continues to discover — and what it means to be the keeper of a legacy still unfolding. Music by the band Eighties Slang.

Our guest is Dana Arnett, Co-Founder and Chairman of VSA Partners — one of Chicago's most celebrated and enduring design firms. In this episode, Dana speaks with host Christian Solorzano about a career that began in the cornfields of Morton, Illinois and grew into four decades of work with some of the world's most iconic brands. He reflects on the sophomore portfolio rejection that redirected everything, and the three serendipitous mentors — Robert Vogele, Rick Valicenti, and April Greiman — who each shaped his creative courage in a different way. Dana traces the building of VSA from a storefront on South Dearborn to a firm of 375 people, and the landmark client relationships — including the Chicago Board of Trade and Harley-Davidson — that defined an era of Chicago design. He speaks candidly about what it means to lead without getting in the way, the fragmentation happening across the design industry today, and the questions he still asks every time he picks up a pencil. The conversation closes with a genuine reckoning with AI — not as a technology conversation, but as a craft and labor conversation — and VSA's three-word design philosophy that has guided the firm from the beginning: empathy, optimism, and intent. Music by the band Eighties Slang.

Our guest is Jarrett Fuller , a designer, writer, educator, and host of the long-running podcast Scratching the Surface, based in Raleigh, North Carolina. In this episode, Jarrett speaks with host Christian Solorzano about how conversation became the organizing principle of his creative life — from growing up surrounded by a large, talkative extended family, to a journalist grandfather who taught him the difference between a closed question and an open one. He reflects on ten years and nearly 300 episodes of Scratching the Surface, what he's learned about listening, and why the questions keep multiplying rather than resolving. Jarrett shares his evolving relationship to graphic design — how he still claims the title even as the work has shifted toward writing, teaching, and podcasting — and why he believes the field has always been more expansive than the industry gives it credit for. He talks about the tension between design as a commercial discipline and design as a cultural practice, the homogenization of aesthetics in the age of AI, and what it means to make work that actually moves someone. The conversation also explores Jarrett's photography — his interest in the friction between the natural world and the built environment, returning to the same places over time, and the design sensibility that shapes how he frames an image. And he gives a preview of his forthcoming book, Graphic Designers After Graphic Design, a celebration of designers around the world redefining what the field can be — due out September 29th. Music by the band Eighties Slang.

Our guest is Jo-Nell Sieren , a photographer, designer, and educator who spent fifteen years at Columbia College Chicago before moving into her current role at Northwestern, where she focuses on industry strategy and connecting design and engineering students to employers. In this episode, Jo-Nell speaks with host Christian Solorzano about her path from studying photography at the School of Visual Arts in New York to building one of Columbia's most ambitious student programs — Agency Columbia, a studio that placed students in real client engagements with real deadlines. She shares how that experience of learning through doing, not just observing, shaped her entire philosophy as an educator. Jo-Nell talks candidly about what it actually takes to build confidence in students who don't yet believe in their own work, why she considers networking a design skill in its own right, and what a cohort of exhausted, overcommitted, fully present students taught her about resilience. She also reflects on the anxiety she feels watching AI reshape both the creative landscape and the job search — and what she hopes the next generation of designers holds onto. Music by the band Eighties Slang.

Our guest is ⁠ Daniel Swartz⁠ — a letterpress designer, printer, and writer based in rural northern Indiana, where he runs Hoosier Type Company out of the back of his garage using antique wood type, vintage presses, and hand-mixed inks. This episode, Daniel sits down with host ⁠ Christian Solorzano⁠ for a conversation that moves between his winding path from aspiring illustrator to graphic design educator to letterpress printmaker, the serendipitous gift of a printing press that started it all, and what it took to rebuild a creative practice from scratch after 2020. They talk about the relationship between digital and analog, the beauty of working within constraints, faith and humility as creative foundations, and what it means to make something that lasts beyond a file in the cloud. Music by Eighties Slang.

Our guest is Cass Pokora — a photographer, artist, and designer who has been a familiar face in our community for years. Cass recently exhibited at Typeforce in Bridgeport, currently has work showing at New Wave Coffee in Logan Square, is featured in our upcoming issue of Faculty 3, and recently co-designed a poster for the Chicago Paper Show at the Chicago Cultural Center. This episode is a little different. Cass sat down with host Christian Solorzano on a Saturday afternoon for a conversation recorded in the car, between the Chicago Pottery Market in Wicker Park and David Byrne's Theater of the Mind at the Goodman. The conversation moves between Cass's design practice, her process and return to working with her hands, her childhood obsession with sharks, the imaginary city she's built in her head, and her dream of someday designing a corn maze. Music by Eighties Slang.

Our guest is Matthew Hoffman , the artist and custodian behind You Are Beautiful — the Chicago-born project that has placed over 10 million stickers and more than 100 public installations around the world since 2002. In this episode, Matthew speaks with host Christian Solorzano about the long, unplanned path that led him here. He traces his story from taking apart radios in the basement as a kid and falling in love with making things by hand in middle school wood shop, to a final-year high school graphic arts class that opened the door to photography and design, to moving to Chicago in 2002 with no network of family or friends — and turning the feeling of being lost in the city into a message that now lives in over 100 languages. Matthew shares his philosophy of being a "slow builder," why he prefers the word custodian to founder, and how the community has carried this project far beyond anything he could have on his own. He talks about mental health as an undercurrent in the work and the wall of letters in his space that people have been sending in since 2003. The conversation also explores how he finds his voice by simply putting things out into the world, why he believes that "over perfection is procrastination," and his guiding mission statement for designers entering the field: make things that matter.

Our guest is Derek Desormeaux , president of AIGA Chicago, who moved to Chicago from a small town in Northern Michigan after studying graphic design at Kendall College of Art and Design. In this episode, Derek speaks with host Christian Solorzano about his path into design — from wanting to be a concept artist and comic book artist to discovering graphic design through a typography class. He shares how he started volunteering at AIGA Chicago events almost as soon as he arrived in the city, eventually launching Coffee and Crits, a free monthly group critique event he's now run for three years. Derek discusses the moment the previous president offered him the role, his first instinct to turn it down, and the reasoning that led him to say yes anyway. He opens up about what leadership looks like in practice — checking tickets and bringing in food at events run by his board members — and his belief that one person can't meet everybody's needs in a community. The conversation explores Derek's conviction that design deserves the same respect as any other form of labor, his thoughts on what keeps him up at night about the sustainability of a creative career, and what gives him hope in a moment that feels uncertain. He also talks about the AIGA Chicago Paper Show, his love of print and his nearly 500-book collection, and why he stopped posting his illustration work on Instagram. Music by the band Eighties Slang.

Our guest is Sarah Adler , a multidisciplinary designer and artist originally from Sanibel Island, Florida, who moved to Chicago in 2016 to attend the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She currently works as Brand Designer at Thatch and is the creative director of Gab Magazine, an independent Chicago publication now on its third issue. In this episode, Sarah speaks with host Christian Solorzano about her origin story — from building websites in fourth grade and leaving Florida at seventeen, to finding her footing as a designer in Chicago. She shares how working across mediums — logo design, web design, print, object design, and painting — has shaped her creative identity and why she's always resisted staying in one lane. Sarah discusses her hand-crafted, tactile approach to design and how analog processes find their way into her work even in a digital context. She speaks candidly about the creative process behind Gab Magazine , what draws her to print, and the role intuition plays in how she makes decisions as a designer and artist. The conversation also explores Sarah's personal history — including the discovery of her grandmother's legacy as a graphic designer in the 1930s. Sarah reflects on how that lineage quietly shaped her own path, and how her time at SAIC deepened a hands-on approach to making that runs through everything she does — from scanned textures and cut paper to the physical object of a printed magazine. Music by the band Eighties Slang.

Our guest is Liam Guiritan , a Chicago-based designer and creative coder who grew up being told there were only two career paths worth taking, and chose neither. In this episode, Liam speaks with host Christian Solorzano about how curiosity became his education — from taking apart his sister's Hello Kitty radio as a kid to teaching himself creative coding tools like p5.js and Processing after graduating from DePaul. He shares how stepping away from institutional structure gave him the freedom to experiment on his own terms, and why he believes real exploration only becomes meaningful when you give it boundaries. The conversation gets into what craft means when your medium is syntax, how Liam thinks about measuring growth through what he learned rather than what he produced, and why he draws more inspiration from design coming out of South Korea, Japan, and Switzerland than from what's happening closer to home. Liam also talks about performing live coding at an algorave in Chicago — an event where the code itself is the instrument — and why in an era of infinite digital surfaces, print is the thing giving him the most hope. Music by the band Eighties Slang.

Our guest is Hannah Cormier , a visual and digital experience designer at One Design in Chicago. In this episode, Hannah speaks with host Christian Solorzano about a design origin story rooted in curiosity, sensory processing disorder, and early web culture. Adopted from China and raised by musician parents in rural Illinois, Hannah shares how the way her brain processes physical and digital environments became the foundation of her approach to systems-focused design. Hannah traces her path from a middle school design tech class to building and selling virtual goods on IMVU, freelancing in high school, and eventually finding her home at a Chicago design agency. She talks about what drew her to web and product design, what it means to design experiences that compassionately address the end user, and the value of getting comfortable with endless iteration and troubleshooting. The conversation also explores the future of interfaces — where invisible design works, where it breaks down, and why the threshold between invisibility and control is one of the most interesting problems in design today. Music by the band Eighties Slang.

Our guest is ⁠Eric Hotchkiss⁠ , an interdisciplinary designer, engineer, and educator based in Chicago, and the founder of ⁠Made in Englewood⁠ — a design-build practice grounded in the belief that communities should shape their own spaces and tell their own stories. In this episode, Eric speaks with host ⁠Christian Solorzano⁠ about growing up in Englewood, where he and his friends made go-karts from garbage can axles, built clubhouses from construction site scraps, and figured out how to make nearly everything they needed. He reflects on how that upbringing — and a father who taught him to make things with his hands — quietly became the foundation for his entire practice. Eric talks about the origins of Made in Englewood, why he almost didn’t name it that, and what it really means to design with a community rather than for one. He shares how artifacts — murals, installations, basketball backboards nailed into alley walls — carry the stories of neighborhoods that history might otherwise overlook, and why that idea drives everything he makes. The conversation covers his work designing a youth-led miniature golf course in North Lawndale, his ongoing community work on Chicago’s South Side, and what’s coming next — an Afro-diasporic outdoor kitchen and gathering space he’s building in Englewood. Eric also opens up about what makes him angry, what inspires him, and why he thinks this moment — as uncertain as it is — might be exactly the right time to be making things. Music by the band Eighties Slang.

Our guest is Nika Simovich Fisher, a writer, designer, and educator based in New York City. A tenure-track Assistant Professor of Communication Design at Parsons School of Design, Nika directs the AAS program and researches how design shapes what people believe — politically, spiritually, culturally, and about themselves. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, MIT Technology Review, WIRED, Fast Company, and AIGA Eye on Design, and she is the founder of Labud, a design studio working across fashion, publishing, and technology. In this episode, Nika speaks with host Christian Solorzano about her journey from publishing fiction on Neopets as a child to studying journalism at Columbia and building a practice that lives at the intersection of writing, design, and education. She shares how her research brings overlooked histories of the internet into contemporary conversations about technology, and why she believes the way things look is never just aesthetic — it's always political, always cultural, always telling you something about power. The conversation explores the early web as a space of genuine self-expression, what gets lost when platforms replace personal homepages, and how vernacular design — from MySpace customization to Trump's political merchandise — reveals more about culture than polished professional work ever could. Nika also speaks candidly about her daily writing practice, her Serbian immigrant identity, and the studio name that connects everything. Music by the band Eighties Slang.

Our guest is Christian Solorzano , founder of the Chicago Graphic Design Club and host of Underscore podcast. In this milestone 100th episode, the roles reverse as Rick Valicenti interviews Christian about his journey from discovering design through a Sony computer at age 11 to building Chicago's design community infrastructure. Christian shares the origin story of the Chicago Graphic Design Club—born from frustration when established organizations went silent during the pandemic—and how it evolved into Underscore podcast, Faculty, and recently, his studio Opal. The conversation explores Christian's philosophy of building without permission, prioritizing relationships over metrics, and trusting the process even when he doesn't know where it's going. He discusses his approach to deep research with a light touch, the creative collaborations and why he measures success by text messages from listeners rather than download numbers. Christian reflects on what the podcast has taught him—how facilitating 99 conversations has enabled him to see himself in others and given him permission to be more himself. He shares his view of creativity as humanity's breath, an act of resistance against forces that push us away from making meaning, and why Chicago's flat hierarchy and generous design community continues to inspire his work.

Our guest is Rod Hunting , a Chicago-based designer and artist who creates intricate compositions built entirely from floppy discs. In this episode, Rod speaks with host Christian Solorzano about his creative process—the hours spent in Illustrator moving shapes, testing ideas, and exploring what happens when you try different approaches. He shares insights about cultivating deep focus, learning to accept that not every experiment leads somewhere, and the liberation that comes from making work on your own terms. Rod discusses his evolution as an artist, from studying skateboarding tricks as a kid to developing patience through repetitive practice. He talks about the discipline required to sit with a piece of work, step back as both artist and critic, and determine when something is truly finished. The conversation explores the balance between personal creative practice and client work, the role of taste in shaping what we make, and the importance of finding contentment in simple moments. Rod shares his journey through art school for animation, his appreciation for Chicago's creative community where artists support artists, and a moment of overwhelming gratitude that reminded him why he does this work.

Our guests are Kelsey McClellan and Andrew McClellan, the husband-and-wife team behind Heart & Bone Signs , a Chicago-based studio specializing in gold leaf and hand-painted signage. In this episode, Kelsey and Andrew speak with host Christian Solorzano about their journey from casting aluminum mushrooms together in an undergraduate sculpture class to becoming two of Chicago's most respected sign painters. They share how discovering gold leaf window signs on Michigan Avenue led them to cold-call the man whose signature they found—Robert Frese, who would become their mentor and closest friend in the city. The conversation explores Chicago's sign painting legacy, from the Beverly Sign Co. and the design innovation known as "The Chicago Look" to the ghost signs that still haunt the city's brick walls. Kelsey and Andrew recount their effort to save two 1920s signs from a Ravenswood building slated for demolition—a project that led to their book The Golden Era of Sign Design , a collaboration with Field Notes, and a permanent installation at the American Sign Museum. They discuss the realities of running a business as a married couple, the discipline of practicing simple brushstrokes, and why they believe the energy poured into handmade work is something viewers can sense—even if they can't explain it. The conversation closes with their advice for aspiring sign painters and a reflection on what Chicago stands to lose if its neon and ghost signs disappear. Music by the band Eighties Slang.

Our guest is Oscar Solis , a designer, researcher, and educator who was born and raised in Pilsen and has called Chicago home for most of his life. In this episode, Oscar speaks with host Christian Solorzano about his journey from clinical research science at UChicago to pursuing graduate work in design. He shares how receiving a camera from his mother at eleven sparked his love of visual storytelling, and how co-founding Film Front—a micro-cinema in an old Pilsen barbershop—became his first real design education. Oscar discusses his philosophy of co-design, tracing it back to 1970s Scandinavian political activism and explaining why top-down approaches to community work never sat right with him, even as a kid. He talks about non-hierarchical pedagogy, what it means to create "queer diagrammatic forms," and why he identifies as a capital-D Designer whose Mexican and queer identities inform but don't define his practice. The conversation explores Oscar's current work at Chicago Art Department, his exhibition "Diagrams and Systems," and why Chicago's sense of community keeps him rooted here. Oscar shares his thoughts on fear and passivity among young designers, the importance of being weird, and why joy might be a political act. Music by the band Eighties Slang.

Our guest is Mary Foyder , a designer working on trauma-responsive and healing-centered projects, including Braver Collective , an online healing community for survivors of sexual trauma. In this episode, Mary speaks with host Christian Solorzano about her journey from Western Michigan University's professional pilot program to discovering graphic design, and how she developed her collaborative, human-centered approach to design. She shares insights about co-designing platforms with the communities they serve—particularly young people navigating sexual health, reproductive justice, and bodily autonomy. Mary discusses her evolution as a designer, from her early curiosity about why design decisions get made to developing trauma-informed practices that center survivor voices. She talks about what it means to design healing-centered platforms, including her five-year collaboration building Braver Collective alongside survivors who co-designed every aspect of the organization. The conversation explores the complexities of doing social impact work in politically volatile times—navigating the financial precarity of values-driven practice and the challenges of running an independent design practice. Mary opens up about projects like Bedsider for Power to Decide and the CHAT Program for the Chicago Department of Public Health, and discusses finding ways to sustain meaningful work while raising a family in Chicago. She shares candid perspectives on co-design as genuine partnership rather than extraction, and why designers working with vulnerable communities must understand how trauma shapes human experience and behavior. Music by the band Eighties Slang.