Mike Schnaidt stops by The Reflex Blue Show to talk about his new book – Creative Endurance: 56 Rules for Overcoming Obstacles and Achieving Your Goals. A practical sort of self-help guide for graphic designers.
We also talk about his role in being the Creative Director of the Fast Company empire, and working in the magazine world for over two decades.
Enjoy.
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Katie Risch McAdams, the Chief Marketing Officer at Basis Technologies, was the lunchtime keynote speaker at this year’s OnBrand Conference in Omaha, Nebraska. Recorded from the event on July 13, just after the taco bar had been put away and all of the churros had been consumed.
Her talk, ‘Advertising Through Uncertainty’, is one that is especially timely, as we discuss the last three years (checks calendar, it still says three, although it feels like ten) of changes in the world, and how it affects how companies feel about advertising, and what they should really be thinking about it. We also talk about Basis Technologies, and using technology to reach the intended audience. As Katie’s major was in English, I ask about how this helped in getting into this advertising world, and her path to Basis technologies.
Thanks again to the AAF Nebraska, AMA Lincoln, AMA Omaha, and PRSA Nebraska on a wonderful conference.
And huge thanks to all of the listeners – this is the end of our planned Season 16 of The Reflex Blue Show. I’ll be back sometime in 2024 with Season 17.
Enjoy.
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Ross Asdourian was the closing keynote speaker at this year’s OnBrand Conference in Omaha, Nebraska. Recorded from the event on July 13, right next to where the taco bar was now being taken down, Ross and I discuss the importance of craft services, and what amazing churros they had at the event.
We talk a bit about his Udemy courses, figuring out what your story is (why do you do what you do?), understanding your values and how this can help determine your path, and more.
We also discuss, as Ross is a Senior Global Producer for the Ford Motor Company, well, what is a Producer? I thought the term Designer was broad, I had no idea.
And of course, we chat about Ross’ talk at the event on The Business of Who, which is also the title of his upcoming book.
Thanks again to the AAF Nebraska, AMA Lincoln, AMA Omaha, and PRSA Nebraska on a wonderful conference.
Enjoy.
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Justin Dauer, who is no stranger to The Reflex Blue Show, and author of Cultivating a Creative Culture and it’s second edition, , joins me to discuss his new book, in fulfillment: the designer’s journey. We talk about what it means to be fulfilled at work, and what you can do to reach this goal as a designer. And how to maintain fulfillment once you achieve part of it.
We then discuss a bit about his previous two books and how the ideas in them about creating an office culture turned out to hold up even in the realm of working remote.
We also talk about Justin’s new venture, anomali by design, and making the move to starting his own company after all of these years as a design leader.
Of course, as this episode was recorded a couple of months ago, we end up speaking of Michael Keat0n’s return as Batman in The Flash. Turns out we both had memories of seeing the 1989 Batman in our local mall – still weird to me how important malls felt a few decades ago, and how much that industry has changed / disappered. Strangely enough, I have seen more movies in the past two years (still only ten total so far) at the theater than I have in decades (even without a Star Wars in that timeframe). Not sure why, most of them were unplanned. But I will say, that way to watch a movie has yet to be replicated at a home for myself anyway.
Enjoy.
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Emily Mills was at the HOW Design Live conference in Nashville to talk about transition as a creative professional. And as the founder of Sketch Academy, she was also spending quite a bit of time sketch noting the event itself from the exhibit hall – for those who want more about the live sketch note mural she did with Gary Kopervas, I spoke with Emily about it while she was working on it from the exhibit hall on both our Day 1 Recap (where Gary also joins in), as well as our Day 2 Recap where the mural was well under way.
For this show, I met up with Emily after the mural work was complete, and spend most of the episode talking about transitioning from a designer to an illustrator, sketch noting, her Sketch Academy, and more.
As this was recorded after most of the conference was over, we also talk about this year’s closing party, which involved a LOT of neon (the theme was ‘Nashville Neon Lights’ after all). A lot of the memories of an event like this come from the location, and as The Gaylord Opryland® Resort & Convention Center was just enough distance from downtown Nashville to make leaving an actual decision, well, I really only left the area once (not counting the to and from the airport). Of course, the upside was I did not seem to be alone in this thinking, and because of the convenience of staying at the event site (which contained plenty to do as I found out), that closing party seemed to have been attended by a larger group than I have seen in a while, and by a lot of the people that usually skip it, and it was a great one.
Enjoy.
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