Illustrator Greg Paprocki joins The Reflex Blue Show to discuss how he got into illustration, working on Curious George, his ABC books (starting with V is for Vittles), and so many more books. We also talk about a an article Greg wrote for HOW Magazine about adapting your style.
We end with Greg’s advice for students looking to get into illustration as a career.
Thanks again to Paul Meyer for co-hosting. Enjoy.
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Mary Allen returns to The Reflex Blue Show to talk about mental health awareness, and her greeting cards for those who want a way to explain their mental health issue. We also speak about living walls, environmental design, and more.
Big thanks to Mary Allen for being the guest on show #200 – crazy to think we’re still going strong. I have to give big props to Nate Voss and Tom Nemitz for starting up the Be A Design Cast (BADCast) podcast with me back in November of 2005. I also want to thank all of our great guests over the years (and there have been a lot of them), and our listeners (those who’ve been with us for a while, as well as those who may just be joining now. Feel free to give us a good review by the way if you’re still listening ;)
This may be show #200, but with our conference (and other) specials, it’s more like #268. For those counting the 53 BADCast shows, and the 9 specials we did there, I guess it may be closer to #329…
When we started interviewing guests just a few months in on the BADCast, we thought it’d be fun to ask like 5 stupid / crazy / weird questions to the guest, and Tom Nemitz named it “The Reflex Blue Round”. I liked it because it was a quick question / answer thing, as well as Reflex Blue being the color of my alma mater (I am not sure if it still is, they have re-branded a few times since). Anyway, The Reflex Blue Show got it’s name from there for anyone who wondered… here’s to another 200 (329?)!
Enjoy.
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Andrea Trew stops by The Reflex Blue Show to talk about her new company, Trew Creative. Andrea spent the past three years as the sole designer at Flywheel (36 Point has been hosted at Flywheel since 2017), and before that worked at a few ad agencies in Omaha.
Paul Meyer co-hosts, as we talk about Andrea’s speaking tour on “Building a Startup into a Brand” and “Behind the Scenes”, as well as her motion-capture workshops with Kimberly Bailey.
We also cover pugs, and meeting partly through volunteering with Pug Partners of Nebraska.
Enjoy.
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Emily Cohen returns to the show to discuss her book Brutally Honest (she was last on the show a year ago, before the book shipped, and after an amazing Kickstarter promotion). The book has really taken off, and is now heading into a second-printing – I highly recommend it after reading my copy last month. It really is Emily in book format like she mentions in this episode.
Emily is also on a “Moving Beyond Referrals” speaking tour, and it was great to catch her talk (hosted by the great AIGA Nebraska chapter) at Blatt Beer & Table in Omaha, Nebraska.
We speak about the dirty word that is “specialization”, how and why to specialize, why to limit referrals, and how KISS is playing just across the street from where we recorded next week. Wait, that’s from when we recorded last week. KISS plays in like 3 hours! See you at the show!
Enjoy.
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Omaha-based designer Dani Donovan stopped by the Eleven19 office to discuss a design project that went huge – and fast.
In mid-December (of 2018), just two short months before we recorded this podcast, she posted a flowchart/comic showing ADHD storytelling. It started to get shared. It started to get re-posted. It got well over 25 million views, and is still circulating, being edited by others, and shared anew. I saw her post about it on Twitter the day after, mentioning that it went viral much quicker than you can plan, and within hours, I saw it show up in my social media feed from two other people, not even knowing who created it.
We speak of what happens when something you create goes viral, building off of it (Dani has been creating many more wonderful comics on Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), and can be supported on Patreon), and keeping it all going while you still have a full-time job, as well as freelance work.
I love seeing a designer’s side-project take off, and look forward to seeing Dani Donovan’s success on this.
This officially marks the beginning of Season 12 of The Reflex Blue Show, and thanks goes out to Paul Meyer for creating the new logo and images on this post – we will be using for the rest of the season (and likely through season thirteen). Thanks again for listening. We will be back in a week or two with anther episode. Until then…
Enjoy.
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