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.