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  • Blake Spiegel – Crop Conference, Tattoos, and Visual Rhyming – Ep47
    2026/04/22
    Blake is a designer and art director in Minneapolis with over 10 years of experience working at the intersection of brand strategy and identity. He's the most heavily tattooed person I've interviewed, and he literally traveled across the world to Australia to get tattooed by one of his tattoo heroes—RESPECT. After growing up with computer games, doing kickflips, and helping his grandfather tap trees for maple syrup, he studied graphic design at the University of Wisconsin-Stout. After college, he found himself working in corporate packaging design, and a year later, he took a calculated risk by leaving his full-time job for a design internship at Sussner, a branding firm in Minneapolis. Like us, Blake's been through burnout, low-paying gigs, and he's sacrificed more of himself along the way than he realized. Thankfully, he has a portfolio of strategic design work that helps offset those sacrifices. Blake's stepfather is a tattoo artist, so tattoos have always been a part of his life, and they are quite literally THE reason he pursued graphic design—more on that in the interview. Tune in for a talk about Crop Conference, the benefits of using Framer vs. Squarespace to build your portfolio, takeaways from designing brand identities for private clubs and golf courses, and the story behind a logo he designed for a former mobster. Follow Blake on Instagram @blakespiegel and check out his Framer website spiegeldesign.co. "Deep down, we're all just a bunch of bones. What really makes us different is what we do with them." Questions for this interview. Have you ever been to a design conference?What're you hoping Crop Conference will be like, and what do you want to get out of the experience?Which National Park was the highlight of the 4,000-mile road trip a few years ago?During your junior year of high school, your dad said something that changed your career path. Can you tell us what your dad said that day, why you trusted his advice, and why you haven't regretted it since?Why do you look up to Sam Clark? Then, can you share the story of meeting him, and tell us what you made for him?You made the jump from Squarespace to Framer. Can you talk about the learning curve, why you made the switch, and the advantages of using Framer over Squarespace?What is visual rhyming? Can you explain what you mean by that?Looking back, how did you grow beyond low-paying gigs, and what advice would you give someone experiencing that right now?Can you give us an overview of your role at Sussner and talk about what you enjoyed most about working in the private club industry?\I read that the strategy and design for Thunderbird Country Club took 3 months. What did you do during those three months, and how did you balance honoring the club's past while creating its future?In general, what are some of your biggest takeaways from working at Sussner? Did you learn anything from Derek that you'll remember throughout the rest of your career?What do you wish you had learned in college that was missing, and what would you add to the program if you had that ability?You designed a logo for a former mobster, George "Cowboy" Martorano. What's the origin of that relationship? How did you get involved, and what can you tell us about George's story? ---If you LIKE what you hear, please subscribe and keep listening. Sharing this episode with someone is the best way to support the podcast. If you LOVE what you hear and want to help me keep the interviews coming—consider buying me a coffee on Ko-Fi.Also, I'm always looking for questions from listeners. If there's a burning question you want to hear answered on the podcast, please email it to me at studentsofdesignpod@gmail.com.Follow @studentsofdesignpod on Instagram for updates, episode drops, and behind-the-scenes content.The music you hear on the podcast is Accident by Timothy Infinite and PUSH !T by Nbhd Nick.studentsofdesign.simplecast.com
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    1 時間 7 分
  • Dora Drimalas – Curiosity in All Things, Object Quality, and Working for Nike – Ep46
    2026/04/10
    Dora is the Co-Founder and Executive Creative Director of Hybrid Design in San Francisco, and the Co-Founder of Super7. Over the past 25 years, her studio has worked with some of the most recognizable brands on the planet, including Nike, Apple, Google, YouTube, LEGO, Amazon, TED Conference, The North Face, and many more. Interesting, it all almost didn't happen because she originally chose to study film instead of design at The University of North Texas. Luckily, she met her husband Brian, was exposed to the world of graphic design, and switched her major. I'm glad she did, or else I wouldn't be holding a copy of her studio's monograph, Hybrid: Curiosity in All Things. It's an absolutely beautiful book, filled with amazing work, insights, behind-the-scenes content, and the purpose and inspiration behind everything they do. It's so packed with thoughtful material that it made the interview prep MORE difficult, not easier, because there's SO much amazing work to discuss. Dora has many influences, like Charles and Ray Eames, punk rock, Swiss design, Star Wars, and so much more. Hell, she even listens to Slayer while driving her kids to school, lol. However, one of my favorite things about Dora is that her approach to creativity and her work sits at the intersection of design, content, and culture, guided by the belief that curiosity and play are essential tools for solving real business problems. Tune in for a talk about collecting junk mail, why curiosity is an organizing principle for Hybrid, grid "mathemagic", and why working for Nike in the mid-90s was such a special time in her career. Follow Hybrid Design on IG @hybriddesignsf, and check out more of their work on their website hybrid-design.com, and buy a copy of Hybrid: Curiosity in All Things from victionary or your local bookstore. "All projects change. All projects are fluid. All problems are different. Asking questions is the only way forward." Questions for this interview. Can you tell us the story about saving all your junk mail before meeting with the CEO of The North Face for the first time?Can you shed some light on the planning process for The North Face printed catalogs and discuss some of the considerations your team had to make before stepping onto a photoshoot set?Why is curiosity an organizing principle for Hybrid Design, and how does curiosity show up in your studio and the work you do?What were Hybrid's internal conversations like about the destructive nature of the perforated pull-tab on the front cover of the Mohawk Maker Quarterly #13?Do you struggle with feeling like every new thing you make has to be better than the last thing you made? If so, how do you manage those feelings and keep them from becoming a distraction?Can you explain "Grid Mathemagic" and give us your best PSA for grid systems?Can you tell us what Object Quality means, and explain why we would do better to think of our print work as object design?Why was your time at Nike so special, and how did working there during that specific time shape the creative person you've become?What's the difference between a campaign that simply solves a problem and one that stops us in our tracks?How can we connect inspiration to our work, and how do we leverage it to strengthen it?What happens if we loosen our grip and share creativity instead of trying to own it?Which aspect of the business of design were you awful at 24 years ago, but great at today? ---If you LIKE what you hear, please subscribe and keep listening. Sharing this episode with someone is the best way to support the podcast. If you LOVE what you hear and want to help me keep the interviews coming—consider buying me a coffee on Ko-Fi.Also, I'm always looking for questions from listeners. If there's a burning question you want to hear answered on the podcast, please email it to me at studentsofdesignpod@gmail.com.Follow @studentsofdesignpod on Instagram for updates, episode drops, and behind-the-scenes content.The music you hear on the podcast is Accident by Timothy Infinite and PUSH !T by Nbhd Nick.studentsofdesign.simplecast.com
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    59 分
  • Martina Flor – The Lettering Design Roadmap, Building Your Email List, and Typostammtisch – Ep45
    2026/03/16
    Martina Flor is an award-winning lettering artist, author, and educator living in Berlin. She also hosts the Open Studio podcast with over 200 episodes, and she's spoken at over 70 conferences across the globe, including TEDx, Adobe MAX, TypeCon, and many others. She's a lettering POWERHOUSE and has helped thousands of creative entrepreneurs become lettering artists and take their creative businesses to the next level. However, she wasn't always the super-confident person she is today, and it's taken her over a decade to fine-tune her creative business. Way before specializing in lettering, she was a creative director, but eventually hit a breaking point and needed a change in her life. So, she moved to the Netherlands to study type design at the Royal Academy of Art, and moved to Berlin after graduating. There, she started calling herself a lettering artist, joined a group of typographic aficionados, opened her lettering studio, and hasn't looked back since. Martina's an avid reader; in fact, she's written many of her own books, like The Golden Secrets of Lettering, The Big Leap, and Make It! Her favorite letter to draw is "M," and she can tell you all about the 3 main groups of letters: rectangular, rounded, and triangular. Like so many of us, she thrives within constraints and believes that no brief is the worst brief. Tune in for a talk about why an email list is the most powerful asset for a creative business, how trying to become Ken Barber helped her discover herself, and why printing a set of new business cards changed her life. Follow Martina on Instagram @martinaflor, download free lettering resources on her website: martinaflor.com, and sign up for her FREE annual workshop series, The Lettering Design Roadmap, at martinaflor.com/masterclass. "If not now, then when?" Questions for this interview. Can you tell us about your Free Live Workshop Series, The Lettering Design Roadmap, and talk about how that series is different from your signature course, The Lettering Seminar?How can someone who considers themselves a graphic design generalist benefit from learning how to draw letterforms?Can you give us a better understanding of your revenue streams and, if possible, a rough percentage breakdown of the overall income they each contribute?Will you explain the importance of an email list and talk about how you use your list to support your business?So, considering lettering didn’t have the following and support it has today, how much pressure did you feel to create lettering that met the typographic community's standards in Berlin?Why did Ken Barber's workshop make such an impact on you, and what can you remember about his visit?Where does your confidence and positivity come from?You saw your mom become a successful teacher and school principal. How does it feel knowing your kids have a similar opportunity because they can see you’ve built a successful lettering business?How can someone use the four cardinal directions to improve the balance of their lettering compositions?Where does readability fall on your priority list when you’re lettering or drawing letterforms?How did something as simple as printing a new set of business cards change the way you felt about yourself? ---If you LIKE what you hear, please subscribe and keep listening. Sharing this episode with someone is the best way to support the podcast. If you LOVE what you hear and want to help me keep the interviews coming—consider buying me a coffee on Ko-Fi.Also, I'm always looking for questions from listeners. If there's a burning question you want to hear answered on the podcast, please email it to me at studentsofdesignpod@gmail.com.Follow @studentsofdesignpod on Instagram for updates, episode drops, and behind-the-scenes content.The music you hear on the podcast is Accident by Timothy Infinite and PUSH !T by Nbhd Nick.studentsofdesign.simplecast.com
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    1 時間 11 分
  • Deja Jackson Howard – Making It on Your Own, a Fork in the Road, and the Numbers Don’t Lie – Ep44
    2026/02/28
    Deja is the Founder and Creative Director of Dejamakes Creative Studio in Chicago. Her focus is on the brand and web design, and she primarily works with small business owners and founders who've DIY'd themselves into oblivion and have realized they're ready for a brand experience that combines strategy and storytelling. But before starting her career in sports advertising and eventually working for her dream company, Twitter, Deja played D1 basketball for the University of Pennsylvania, so she's a hooper, y'all, don't get it twisted. Since evolving from an athlete to a designer and saying "peace out" to Elon and Twitter, she binged-watched everything on Bravo (shoutout to Dorinda Medley lol) and is out there making things happen on her own. Between lattes and walks with her dog, Goose, she's crafting thoughtful brand identity systems, wedding invitations, and short-form content to help you get to the next level. Tune in for a talk about how a "fork in the road" led to her decision to leave the corporate girly life behind, how saying yes to design changed everything, and how she measures progress and success for her design studio. Follow Deja on Instagram @dejamakes, and check out more of her work on her website: dejamakes.com. Remember. Quality over quantity, and the numbers don't lie. Questions for this interview. Can you tell us about the kind of small business owners and founders you typically work with?Who's the GOAT between Jordan, Kobe, and LeBron?If you look back on your time playing basketball at UPenn through a professional lens, how has being part of an organized, competitive team helped you run your design studio today?Thinking back, what convinced you that you could make it on your own? Had you already done something to prove to yourself that you could?Can you tell us about the time you tried selling merch featuring famous people and got a cease-and-desist?How do your live mood board sessions work? Do you do that with all of your brand identity clients?Can you walk us through your approach to writing your website copy? What do you feel is the most important thing to communicate to potential clients visiting your site?Why do you limit the number of projects you take on? Do those decisions have anything to do with quality over quantity?You also design wedding invitations, but don't advertise it. Did you intentionally bury that information on your site? Why is that information so hard to find?How has your intake and onboarding process changed over the past 4 years, and how has it improved?Can you tell us about your shift to a "Numbers Don't Lie" mindset and what that means?Which aspect of the Goldman Sachs One Million Black Women: Black in Business program do you feel best aligns with an area of your business where you find yourself struggling, and how do you think you'll benefit from participating?Can you share information for a few women of color we should be following and paying attention to? ---If you LIKE what you hear, please subscribe and keep listening. Sharing this episode with someone is the best way to support the podcast. If you LOVE what you hear and want to help me keep the interviews coming—consider buying me a coffee on Ko-Fi.Also, I'm always looking for questions from listeners. If there's a burning question you want to hear answered on the podcast, please email it to me at studentsofdesignpod@gmail.com.Follow @studentsofdesignpod on Instagram for updates, episode drops, and behind-the-scenes content.The music you hear on the podcast is Accident by Timothy Infinite and PUSH !T by Nbhd Nick.studentsofdesign.simplecast.com
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    1 時間 7 分
  • Tad Carpenter – The Two Pizza Rule, Complacency Breeds Death, and SUNday Suns – Ep43
    2026/02/12

    Tad is an illustrator, designer, author, and self-proclaimed BBQ snob from Kansas City. He co-runs a design and branding studio with his wife Jessica called Carpenter Collective. Their team has worked with companies like Macy's, Publix, Adobe, Hallmark, Coca-Cola, and MTV, among others. You've likely seen some of the illustrations from his SUNday Suns series, and if you've heard his Midwest vernacular, you might know the meaning of "Ope," "Alrighty, well," and "All good, no worries."

    His father, a Creative Director at Hallmark International for 41.5 years, is his biggest inspiration, and his mother is also an artist who works with fiber, so it's safe to say Tad would probably have been thrown out of the family if he hadn't pursued a creative career, lol. On a lighter note, he loves photos and videos of dogs driving cars; he believes the sausage biscuit is one of the most fantastic fast-food items ever created, and he won a drawing contest for season tickets to the Kansas City Chiefs when he was in the 3rd grade.

    Tune in for a talk about Joe's Kansas City Bar-B-Que, why he thinks you should work for someone before working for yourself, his studio's ping-pong approach to design, and the gigantic hole left behind after completing his SUNday Suns series. Follow Tad on Instagram @tadcarpenter and @carpentercollective, and buy his book, SUNday Suns, art prints, and gig posters on his website carpentercollective.com.

    "Happiness is not a function of what you achieve. It's a function of how you spend your time."

    Questions for this interview.

    • What was your best or favorite piece of advice to give students on the first day of the semester?
    • Why do you think it's essential for recent grads to work for someone before they work for themselves?
    • How do you and your wife, who is also your business partner, manage client work between the two of you? Do y'all work on everything together, or do you each direct your own projects?
    • What do you say to a client, or what do you ask to find out if they are willing to take risks?
    • Can you tell us about your Two Pizza Rule and explain why it's important to you?
    • You once said, "Complacency breeds death. I want that fire, I want the pressure, I never want to stop climbing." Do you still feel that way?

    ---

    If you LIKE what you hear, please subscribe and keep listening. Sharing this episode with someone is the best way to support the podcast.

    If you LOVE what you hear and want to help me keep the interviews coming—consider buying me a coffee on Ko-Fi.

    Also, I'm always looking for questions from listeners. If there's a burning question you want to hear answered on the podcast, please email it to me at studentsofdesignpod@gmail.com.

    Follow @studentsofdesignpod on Instagram for updates, episode drops, and behind-the-scenes content.

    The music you hear on the podcast is Accident by Timothy Infinite and PUSH !T by Nbhd Nick.

    studentsofdesign.simplecast.com

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    1 時間 3 分
  • Ram Reyes – 365 Posters, Self-Sabotage, and I Can Has Cheezburger? – Ep42
    2025/12/23
    Ram, aka Oversettext, is a graphic designer and content creator in Fresno, California. Shoutout: Lucena. He's probably best known for his 365 project; he designed one poster a day for an entire year. However, I discovered him through his "You know what font that is?" videos on Instagram.He loves Futura Condensed Bold, like LOVES, and he's an advocate for our rights to use Comic Sans without career-ending judgment. Fun Fact: Way before Ram designed vinyl album packaging for Kings of Leon, he worked for a newspaper called The RAMpage. Shoutout: Dympna and FCC. I know, it sounds made up, but it's true. It's as true as his recommendation to start listening to Alan Watts's lectures, and his current beef with illustrations of characters with rubberhose arms and legs. It's even as true as the fact that Ram will be a presenter at Crop in 2026. Get your ticket at cropcons.com.But, fr. What I respect most about Ram's work is the messaging behind it. The best way to experience it is to scroll through all 365 of the posters he designed from 2021 to 2022. You'll find an Air link to all 365 posters in his linktree. Some of my favorites are No. 204, 254, 263, 296, 302, 336, 349. UGH, there are too many to list. Seriously, go check them out.Tune in for a talk about how much "fixing" other people's designs sucks, what he learned from his 365 project, and the weight of responsibility from over 250,000 social media followers. Follow Ram on Instagram @oversettext, watch his videos on YouTube, and buy a shirt on oversettext.com.Fun Fact: Photoshop doesn't crash if you're pure of heart.Questions for this interview.Is there something happening in the design industry right now that’s lingering on your mind or getting under your skin? Feel free to destroy a design hot take if you want.What do you want to say to the people who think you’re trash at playing Fortnite?How did your technical skills as a designer improve, and in contrast, how do you think you grew as a person by completing your 365 project?Why did you almost quit 11 days into the project?Why was your design for poster No.27 specifically the one that made you stop and think, “WOW, now THIS is ME?”Was it difficult for you to come up with a design for the final poster, number 365?Do you think they’re just lazy, or do you think they’re scared? Why do you think they’re holding themselves back?What’s a legitimate regret you’re living with or something you’d do differently because it haunts you to this day?What kind of gravity or responsibility do you feel as someone on the internet with over 250,000 followers? Does the thought of that many people consuming your content affect what you choose to say?Is it nitch or niche?Where do you rank the “I Can Has Cheezburger” meme on the list of greatest designs of all time? ---If you LIKE what you hear, please subscribe and keep listening. Sharing this episode with someone is the best way to support the podcast. If you LOVE what you hear and want to help me keep the interviews coming—consider buying me a coffee on Ko-Fi.Also, I'm always looking for questions from listeners. If there's a burning question you want to hear answered on the podcast, please email it to me at studentsofdesignpod@gmail.com.Follow @studentsofdesignpod on Instagram for updates, episode drops, and behind-the-scenes content.The music you hear on the podcast is Accident by Timothy Infinite and PUSH !T by Nbhd Nick.studentsofdesign.simplecast.com
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    1 時間 15 分
  • Jen Wagner – Creative Market, Self-Worth, and Font Licensing – Ep41
    2025/11/28
    Jen is a Nashville-based independent type designer and resource creator for creative business owners. You might be familiar with some of her best-selling typefaces, like Perfectly Nineties, Editor's Note, and Founder's Hand. However, long before her formal education in type design from Type@Cooper, Jen got her start on Creative Market. She created and uploaded font after font, even though she didn't know the rules and guidelines of type design. The best part is IT WORKED, because people bought and used her fonts, and that was enough to inspire her to keep doing it. Surprisingly, Jen only wanted to make enough money to pay her water bill and eat at Chipotle once a week. But now, brands like Sprouts, Victoria's Secret, Kohl's, Bed Bath & Beyond, and Sweetgreen are using her typefaces. She's come a long way from wanting to be an orthopedic surgeon in Colorado; her love for type design has gone from hobby to career, and she's LITERALLY sold a digital product every single day of this year.Tune in for a talk about getting started on Creative Market, her struggles with tying her self-worth to her income, and finding the balance between making type that's accessible for everyone and becoming a world-class type foundry. Follow Jen on Instagram @jenwagnertype, and explore her typefaces on her website jenwagner.co. If you sign up for her email list, you'll get 20% off your first order!Questions for this interview.Which of these options do you think affects readability more: a combination of font size, leading, and line length, OR a combination of color, weight, and stroke contrast?Jen, who the hell do you think you are, thinking you could get accepted by Type@Cooper with no formal education in graphic design or typography?So, if you compare your designs from a few months before and after attending Type@Cooper, how did they change, and how are they better?Can you think of something you learned from being a type designer that you wouldn’t have learned otherwise, that is also something you believe every regular-ass graphic designer should know?How bad were the first 25 fonts you made and uploaded to Creative Market?If you knew just a little more about type design when you were getting started, do you think you would have gotten in your own way and held yourself back from releasing your first 25 fonts?What changed with Creative Market around 2021, and why did you feel it was the right time to explore different options?How many of the last 30 days would you say someone licensed a typeface or purchased any kind of digital product from you?You've struggled with your self-worth. Have you gained enough experience and confidence to grow out of that way of thinking, or do you still find yourself struggling with that perception of yourself?How difficult is it to balance making type that’s accessible for independent designers with a desire to be known as a world-class type foundry?How often do you design a typeface and think, “This is it,” this one’s gonna be my new best-seller, only to realize, nope, no one’s interested in buying it?Can you identify your typefaces immediately when you encounter them in the world? Have you ever come across a typeface you thought was yours but turned out to be someone else’s? ---If you LIKE what you hear, please subscribe and keep listening. Sharing this episode with someone is the best way to support the podcast. If you LOVE what you hear and want to help me keep the interviews coming—consider buying me a coffee on Ko-Fi.Also, I'm always looking for questions from listeners. If there's a burning question you want to hear answered on the podcast, please email it to me at studentsofdesignpod@gmail.com.Follow @studentsofdesignpod on Instagram for updates, episode drops, and behind-the-scenes content.The music you hear on the podcast is Accident by Timothy Infinite and PUSH !T by Nbhd Nick.studentsofdesign.simplecast.com
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    1 時間 4 分
  • James Edmondson – Counterspace Equals Letterspace, Toasters, and Vectorizing Type – Ep40
    2025/11/18
    James is an author, type designer, and the founder of OHno Type Company, a digital type foundry based in San Jose, California. You might license some of his wildly imaginative fonts, including Beastly, Ohno Fatface, Degular, Polymath, Regrets, Obviously, and Hobeaux. Before he got his start in the bowels of graphic design, James studied design at California College of the Arts. Then he learned how to cast typographic spells while attending the Hogwarts of type design, AKA Type Media at the Royal Academy of the Arts in The Hague, Netherlands. James is also an educator and a podcaster—check out his podcast, Ohno Radio—and swears that Canson marker paper is holy in the world of sketching. If you geek out over naming, you'll be excited to learn that James almost named his foundry "The Spaghetti Factory" or "The American International Type Company." I don't know how to make those options make sense, but hey, man, back OFF, Life's a Thrill, and Fonts Are Chill.Tune in for a talk about James's number one rule of letterspacing, his father's love for toasters, and the dominance of low-contrast sans-serif typefaces. Follow James on Instagram @ohnotypeco, purchase his fonts on his website ohnotype.co, or add them on Adobe Fonts, and read this blog post if you want to get started in type design. THEN, read his book, The Ohno Book: A Serious Guide to Irreverent Type Design, to level up even more.Questions for this interview.Why do you design a specific set of characters before others, and how does that make you more efficient as a type designer?Can you explain the “Counterspace Equals Letterspace Technique,” also known as your “Rule #1 of Spacing?”Another technique is something you call “Three at a time.” Why three, and what do you mean by that?Which of these do you think is less important? Spacing or drawing good vectors?Why shouldn’t someone digitize their letterform sketches in Adobe Illustrator, and what makes applications like RoboFont and Glyphs so much better?Can you tell us what you learned from Jesse Ragan and his process for vectorizing a typeface called Showcard Stunt?Your father was an English teacher for 40 years. What did he say he should have been instead?Do you think you’re following your passion in the way your father didn’t follow his?What you do as a type designer is very specialized. Have you ever felt like you backed yourself into a corner or regretted not becoming a more well-rounded designer?Selling fonts on your website generates around 50% of Ohno's revenue, and Adobe Fonts accounts for another 40%. Is this still accurate? Can you explain how Adobe tracks sales and how that works?Why wouldn’t a type foundry choose to distribute with Adobe Fonts?How do you decide which ideas to pursue and actually turn into digital fonts?You recently released a book called The Ohno Book: A Serious Guide to Irreverent Type Design. Who’s it for? What’s inside it? What are we gonna learn by reading it? ---If you LIKE what you hear, please subscribe and keep listening. Sharing this episode with someone is the best way to support the podcast. If you LOVE what you hear and want to help me keep the interviews coming—consider buying me a coffee on Ko-Fi.Also, I'm always looking for questions from listeners. If there's a burning question you want to hear answered on the podcast, please email it to me at studentsofdesignpod@gmail.com.Follow @studentsofdesignpod on Instagram for updates, episode drops, and behind-the-scenes content.The music you hear on the podcast is Accident by Timothy Infinite and PUSH !T by Nbhd Nick.studentsofdesign.simplecast.com
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    1 時間 1 分