Our guest is Alisa Wolfson, EVP and Head of Design at Leo Chicago, where she built the agency's design department.

Alisa grew up in the suburbs of Chicago and found design sideways. Her dad was in the wine import-export business, and she kept asking if she could design the labels — she didn't yet know that what she wanted to do had a name. She taught herself design history and layout, made projects in her garage, shot her portfolio on slide film, and applied to a program a friend had gone through. She still has the Kodak Carousel that portfolio came back in. She got to VSA by calling until somebody finally picked up.

In this episode, Alisa speaks with host Christian Solorzano about being a generalist among specialists, and about what it took to figure out how she actually wanted to work. She describes the stretch she spent working for herself and finding it lonely, and walking into Leo expecting a short freelance project.

The conversation turns on a question about polish. Alisa argues that almost nothing made for a brand reaches us unedited — that the images built to look like someone's bathroom have been edited too — and that designers have been standing right next to that since the beginning of advertising. She doesn't think that's cause for despair.

She also talks about what makes collaboration work, why she thinks happy is a weird word, the Chicago designers she came up around, and a project she once made about her own hair, with a line in the corner she remembers as "I take myself wherever I go."

Our next guest is Anne H. Berry — designer, writer, educator, and Director of the School of Design at the University of Illinois Chicago.

In this episode, Anne speaks with host Christian Solorzano about her path into design — how a middle school visit to a publishing house sparked something in her, and how that spark took years to find its footing. She's candid about the periods of doubt, a toxic early work environment, and the graduate school experience that finally brought everything together.

Anne discusses her two books — The Black Experience in Design and her upcoming Guiding Principles for Inclusive Design Values — and why both feel more urgent now than when she started them. She speaks directly about what design owes to democracy, the chilling effect of anti-DEI legislation on creative work, and why she believes designers cannot afford to sit on the sidelines.

The conversation also explores what brought Anne to Chicago, what sustains her on the hard days, and what it means to build a career rooted in service — to students, to the community, and to the people coming up behind her.

Anne will also be featured in the upcoming issue of Faculty, a publication by the Chicago Graphic Design Club.

Music by the band Eighties Slang.

Our guest is Coby Regehr, son of Carl Regehr (1919–1983)— a graphic designer, educator, and community builder who helped shape Chicago's visual identity.

In this episode, Coby speaks with host Christian Solorzano about his father's life, work, and philosophy — from a Mennonite upbringing in Kansas to building a design practice in Chicago rooted in ethics, relationships, and an unrelenting drive to create.

Coby shares what it was like to grow up inside that world — weekends spent in his father's studio, Summers at the Indiana Dunes alongside the designers who defined an era, and a father who was up at four every morning with Coltrane on the stereo.

The conversation explores Carl's role in reframing Chicago's image through the 1963 Chicago magazine — his uncompromising ethics in business, his teaching philosophy at the University of Illinois, and his participation in the 1971 Aspen Design Conference.

Coby also reflects on the boxes of journals, collages, and unfinished work he continues to discover — and what it means to be the keeper of a legacy still unfolding.

Music by the band Eighties Slang.