Sean Adams was the AIGA President, twice. He received the AIGA Medal in 2014 with Noreen Morioka for over 20 years of work with AdamsMorioka.
Now? We catch up with Sean to discuss a bit of the past – as well as his current work in creating the Graphic Design Graduate Program at ArtCenter, his Lynda.com video courses, and his personal site – Burning Settlers Cabin.
Enjoy.
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Ben Lueders and I were trying to motivate ourselves to come up with a topic for the next podcast, when we started thinking about what would motivate us to find such a topic. That was all the motivation we needed – we decided to talk about “finding design motivation.”
We had already lined up Steve Gordon and Brandon Herbel to be guests, so all we had left to do was get some sort of structure together, or so we thought.
Once we decided to have five categories to come up with answers for, we went ahead and had some future and past guests of the show give us the “correct answers” for designers looking for motivation. Our categories for finding motivation ended up being: website; quote; advice; activity; and food and/or drink. And a huge thanks goes out to our expert panel who emailed in their motivations: Armin Vit, Von Glitchka, Nate Voss, Sean Adams, and Kevin McConkey.
A lot of these things get done by us last minute, and it’s amazing anyone on our panel got back to me in time, but this one came in just a couple hours after we recorded, but I love it, so wanted to share it. The advice from Debbie Millman, and all the motivation I need for the rest of the day, “DON’T GIVE UP. EVER.”
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In 2008, Donovan Beery and I sat down with AIGA President Sean Adams in Omaha, Nebraska, where Sean was attending the AIGA Leadership Retreat. During our visit with Sean, he was incredibly gracious and cordial, and often disarming with his humor. We met Sean in a large but decidedly un-decadent hotel room and discussed the formation of Adams Morioka, what makes designers take the plunge into self-employment, and the perks of sharing an office building with Larry Flint. (The full interview can be heard on The Reflex Blue Show, available for download here.)
This week we welcome special guest Sean Adams of Adams Morioka! Current President of the AIGA and master of all things super-great, Sean was our guest while visiting the great city of Omaha for the AIGA Leadership Retreat last month. Aside from being a great designer and, according to him, a fantastic boss, Sean is really one of the most generous and kind people we’ve had the privilege to share the microphone with.
Sorry for the spotty sound on this show (and a few upcoming); the 36 Point Mobile Recording Studio turned out to be on its last legs during this conversation and died shortly thereafter. We don’t know if that’s what actually makes us sound terrible on this show or not, but Sean sounds great, and that’s who you’re really tuning in for, now isn’t it?
–nv–
Download The Reflex Blue Show with Nate Voss and Donovan Beery, Episode 12 (21-ish meg) or click here to subscribe directly from the iTunes Music Store.
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