AIGA Design Podcast

For more than 25 years, Camille Finan has been building kitchens and helping women create something beautiful. She started her journey in a rather unexpected way though. She was a business development consultant and taught marketing to graduate students in California, and while she loved helping people start and grow small businesses, she didn’t feel she had the chance to be very creative with her hands. She shut down her business and went back to the basics. She dug ditches and hung drywall in the beginning but slowly over time, she realized she really loved carpentry and joined the carpenters union. That led her down a path of exploring different kinds of carpentry, eventually falling in love with kitchens. About AIGA Design Adjacent AIGA Design Adjacent is a monthly podcast series with AIGA’s Executive Director, Bennie F. Johnson, in conversation with industry leaders who are innovating and designing the future. These conversations expand beyond the design community, encompassing industries and areas that intersect with design and shift the ways in which we think about and interact with each other and the world around us. About Bennie F. Johnson Bennie F. Johnson is the Executive Director of AIGA, the professional association for design. Bennie thrives on the connections between marketing, technology, education, and innovation. With experience in strategic and consumer marketing, brand management, and innovation management, he is drawn to opportunities that allow him to lead and create new modes for business engagement. He has broad experience growing brands, businesses, and organizations with a special focus on venture launch and brand relaunch business environments.

Paul Taylor is the Chief Creative Officer and Founding Partner at global branding agency BrandOpus. Founded in 2007, BrandOpus creates meaningful and connected brand experience for some of the world's most revered brands. Fusing wisdom with wonderment, his role today is to lead all creative output across the London, New York, Chicago and Melbourne studios. Paul has served brand experience for a wide portfolio of brands including Nestlé, Kraft Heinz, McCain, Britvic and First Direct. His work has been recognized by the likes of D&AD, The Design Business Association, Pentawards and The Drum. About AIGA Design Adjacent AIGA Design Adjacent is a monthly podcast series with AIGA’s Executive Director, Bennie F. Johnson, in conversation with industry leaders who are innovating and designing the future. These conversations expand beyond the design community, encompassing industries and areas that intersect with design and shift the ways in which we think about and interact with each other and the world around us. About Bennie F. Johnson Bennie F. Johnson is the Executive Director of AIGA, the professional association for design. Bennie thrives on the connections between marketing, technology, education, and innovation. With experience in strategic and consumer marketing, brand management, and innovation management, he is drawn to opportunities that allow him to lead and create new modes for business engagement. He has broad experience growing brands, businesses, and organizations with a special focus on venture launch and brand relaunch business environments.

On this episode of AIGA Design Adjacent…Moving from hobby to work, taking advantage of the experts in your corner, value of a business coach, investing in yourself, making data work for you, and being helpful with Chris Hervochon, Better Way CPA, Virtual CFO for marketing and creative agencies and nonprofit organizations Chris Hervochon, CPA, CVA is the sole proprietor of his CPA firm. Chris Hervochon provides outsourced accounting and tax preparation for small businesses and individuals. Before starting his own CPA firm, Chris spent ten years between forensic accounting and corporate accounting and finance. He has been featured in publications such as the Journal of Accountancy, Accounting Today, AMEX Open Forum, Parakeeto Podcast, The Agency Management Institute Podcast and the Digital Marketing Agency Builders Podcast for his industry knowledge and accounting expertise. Chris' passion for the accounting and finance industry is evident by a number of extra-curricular programs. He volunteers as a committee member of the AICPA Young Member Leadership Committee, and lead of the Retention Task Force.  Chris is a member of the Business & Industry and Government Affairs Committees, as well as the CPE Facility Task Force of the South Carolina Association of CPAs. About AIGA Design Adjacent AIGA Design Adjacent is a monthly podcast series with AIGA’s Executive Director, Bennie F. Johnson, in conversation with industry leaders who are innovating and designing the future. These conversations expand beyond the design community, encompassing industries and areas that intersect with design and shift the ways in which we think about and interact with each other and the world around us. About Bennie F. Johnson Bennie F. Johnson is the Executive Director of AIGA, the professional association for design. Bennie thrives on the connections between marketing, technology, education, and innovation. With experience in strategic and consumer marketing, brand management, and innovation management, he is drawn to opportunities that allow him to lead and create new modes for business engagement. He has broad experience growing brands, businesses, and organizations with a special focus on venture launch and brand relaunch business environments.

Archie is a nationally known art director, designer, author, business owner, and educator. He was chair of the Graphic Design Program at California State University Long Beach for 12 terms and was named Outstanding Professor of the Year in 2004. He has also operated his design-consulting firm, Archie Boston Graphic Design, since 1972. He was the first African American recipient of the prestigious AIGA Fellows Award from the Los Angeles Chapter of AIGA in 2007. The Fellows Award recognizes individuals who have made a significant contribution to raise the standards of excellence in practice and conduct within their local or regional design community. In 2021, he was the recipient of the AIGA Medal for expanding voice—he was recognized for his longstanding commitment to his students as an educator, mentor, and profound influence on the community of Los Angeles, as well as his bold, funny, polemical designs from a lifetime body of work. Archie and his brother, David, are the creative force that created the 2016 documentary, Black Pioneers of the Sunshine City, which has been shown on WEDU in the Central Florida area during Black History Month, since 2017. He was also interviewed and his posters were featured in the documentary, The Real Mad Men of Advertising of the 1960’s, which was donated to The Smithsonian Museum in 2018. As one of the few African-American graphic designers in California, he impacted generations of designers as an educator, writer, and designer. About AIGA Design Adjacent AIGA Design Adjacent is a monthly podcast series with AIGA’s Executive Director, Bennie F. Johnson, in conversation with industry leaders who are innovating and designing the future. These conversations expand beyond the design community, encompassing industries and areas that intersect with design and shift the ways in which we think about and interact with each other and the world around us. About Bennie F. Johnson Bennie F. Johnson is the Executive Director of AIGA, the professional association for design. Bennie thrives on the connections between marketing, technology, education, and innovation. With experience in strategic and consumer marketing, brand management, and innovation management, he is drawn to opportunities that allow him to lead and create new modes for business engagement. He has broad experience growing brands, businesses, and organizations with a special focus on venture launch and brand relaunch business environments.

AIGA Executive Director Bennie F. Johnson talks with today's leaders in design, business, and technology, focused around the topics of leadership growth, the future of work, and creating a culture of design. Join us in welcoming Robin Petravic, Co-owner and Managing Director of Heath Ceramics. Heath Ceramics is the 2022 AIGA Corporate Leadership Awardee. Founded in 1948 in Sausalito, California, is an American maker of goods for the home. The company is best known for its handcrafted tableware and architectural tile in distinctive glazes. Led by husband and wife, Robin Petravic and Catherine Bailey, who are shaping the relationship we have to things we own, and the way we come to own them.

Llisa Demetrios, the youngest granddaughter of Ray and Charles Eames, is a third generation maker, following in the footsteps of her creative legacy. Llisa is leading the Eames Institute as Chief Curator, and has previous experience as an Archivist at the MoMA, Eames Official, and has dedicated her life to keeping the Eames name present throughout design endeavors. Additionally, Llisa is on the Board of Directors for the Petaluma Arts Center, and is a passionate bronze sculptor. About AIGA Design Adjacent AIGA Design Adjacent is a monthly podcast series with AIGA’s Executive Director, Bennie F. Johnson, in conversation with industry leaders who are innovating and designing the future. These conversations expand beyond the design community, encompassing industries and areas that intersect with design and shift the ways in which we think about and interact with each other and the world around us. About Bennie F. Johnson Bennie F. Johnson is the Executive Director of AIGA, the professional association for design. Bennie thrives on the connections between marketing, technology, education, and innovation. With experience in strategic and consumer marketing, brand management, and innovation management, he is drawn to opportunities that allow him to lead and create new modes for business engagement. He has broad experience growing brands, businesses, and organizations with a special focus on venture launch and brand relaunch business environments.

AIGA Executive Director Bennie F. Johnson talks with today's leaders in design, business, and technology, focused around the topics of leadership growth, the future of work, and creating a culture of design. Join us in welcoming Rick Griffith, the 2022 AIGA Design Conference Chair, who will share his vision and the theme for this year’s upcoming conference in October taking place in Seattle, WA. Rick Griffith has been a full-time designer, occasional writer, teacher, activist and printer, who produces, collects and loves artifacts (often made of paper) that are sometimes qualified to be discussed as art. He also participates in a studio called MATTER, and every Saturday he works in the shop at MATTER; these are both enterprises and collaborations with his Partner Debra Johnson.

Elise Schuster is a sexuality educator with 15 years of experience in youth development and pleasure-based sex education. Elise has a masters in public health from Columbia University with a specialization in sexuality and health. Elise began their work in public health at Physicians for Reproductive Health, training doctors to provide adolescent-friendly reproductive health care. They also spent many years teaching workshops at Babeland and having thousands of one-on-one educational pleasure-based sexual health conversations. After their MPH, Elise spent almost a decade at a premiere NYC youth development center serving over 11,000 marginalized young people every year. Elise had several roles here including running intake and assessment for over 30 new young people every day, overseeing capacity building work, managing 30 student volunteers, starting a professional training institute, and a youth council, and overseeing a $6.5 million wraparound services grant with twelve subgrantee partners. Elise also serves as a trainer on LGBTQ+ competency issues and regularly facilitates workshops for healthcare professionals, educators, artists, corporations, and more. About AIGA Design Adjacent AIGA Design Adjacent is a monthly podcast series with AIGA’s Executive Director, Bennie F. Johnson, in conversation with industry leaders who are innovating and designing the future. These conversations expand beyond the design community, encompassing industries and areas that intersect with design and shift the ways in which we think about and interact with each other and the world around us. About Bennie F. Johnson Bennie F. Johnson is the Executive Director of AIGA, the professional association for design. Bennie thrives on the connections between marketing, technology, education, and innovation. With experience in strategic and consumer marketing, brand management, and innovation management, he is drawn to opportunities that allow him to lead and create new modes for business engagement. He has broad experience growing brands, businesses, and organizations with a special focus on venture launch and brand relaunch business environments.

Margot Bloomstein is one of the most prominent voices in the content strategy industry. She is the  author of Trustworthy: How the Smartest Brands Beat Cynicism and Bridge the Trust Gap and Content Strategy at Work: Real-World Stories to Strengthen Every Interactive Project and the principal of Appropriate, Inc., a brand and content strategy consultancy based in Boston. As a speaker and strategic adviser, she has worked with marketing teams in a range of organizations over the past two decades. The creator of BrandSort, she developed the popular message architecture-driven approach to content strategy. Margot teaches in the content strategy graduate program at FH Joanneum University in Graz,  Austria, and lectures around the world about brand-driven content strategy and designing for trust. About AIGA Design Adjacent AIGA Design Adjacent is a monthly podcast series with AIGA’s Executive Director, Bennie F. Johnson, in conversation with industry leaders who are innovating and designing the future. These conversations expand beyond the design community, encompassing industries and areas that intersect with design and shift the ways in which we think about and interact with each other and the world around us. About Bennie F. Johnson Bennie F. Johnson is the Executive Director of AIGA, the professional association for design. Bennie thrives on the connections between marketing, technology, education, and innovation. With experience in strategic and consumer marketing, brand management, and innovation management, he is drawn to opportunities that allow him to lead and create new modes for business engagement. He has broad experience growing brands, businesses, and organizations with a special focus on venture launch and brand relaunch business environments.

Meg Mothershed is the strategy guru and resident wordsmith for Mothershed Design Co., a boutique branding and web design studio based near Denver, Colorado. Having wanted to own her own business since she was six years old, joining her partner, Josiah, was a no-brainer. Meg combines her passion for entrepreneurship with a love of problem-solving to help small businesses. Meg manages all the nitty-gritty details of the business, as well as handles the copywriting for brands and websites. About AIGA Design Adjacent AIGA Design Adjacent is a monthly podcast series with AIGA’s Executive Director, Bennie F. Johnson, in conversation with industry leaders who are innovating and designing the future. These conversations expand beyond the design community, encompassing industries and areas that intersect with design and shift the ways in which we think about and interact with each other and the world around us. About Bennie F. Johnson Bennie F. Johnson is the Executive Director of AIGA, the professional association for design. Bennie thrives on the connections between marketing, technology, education, and innovation. With experience in strategic and consumer marketing, brand management, and innovation management, he is drawn to opportunities that allow him to lead and create new modes for business engagement. He has broad experience growing brands, businesses, and organizations with a special focus on venture launch and brand relaunch business environments.