Revision Path

The journey of a creative is never a straightforward path, and Mark Smith knows this well. As the head of design of Studio Mark Smith, he draws on experience from studying design at Auburn University, designing textiles in NYC for urban apparel brands like Avirex, and serving as the head of idea and innovation for Swarovski. Talk about inspiration! Mark and I talked about his current project — a collection of jewelry — and spoke about his time working in Austria and Denmark...

Dana James Mwangi has really helped put Memphis, TN on the map when it comes to design and the creative community. As a web and branding consultant, Dana helps companies and creative entrepreneurs reach the next level of their business through her agency, Cheers Creative. But as you'll hear in our interview, Dana is all about striving for excellence while also knowing your value and taking care of yourself...

Camille Selvon Abrahams is a trailblazer in the animation industry...

2020 has been a year full of difficult changes for a lot of people, but Darold Pinnock has managed to navigate this difficult time pretty well! Aside from his work as a brand designer for Georgia-based agency M&R Marketing, he's also interviewed creatives and artists from all over the world through his podcast Passion Behind The Art...

If you live in the United States and have read the funny pages any time within the past 30 years, then you already know about the work from this week’s guest. Ray Billingsley is the creator of Curtis, the daily comic that follows the life and times of a precocious 11-year-old Black boy, his family, and his classmates. I’m so glad to have the opportunity to share this conversation with a cartoon legend...

Tech can be a lucrative career, but how many of us think of it as a way to close the wealth gap in the Black community? Nici Kelly does, and I love that her mission is to show people the different pathways into tech and tech entrepreneurship as a way to build a legacy. We started off talking about Nici’s company, Care Covr, and her inspiration behind starting it in the midst of a global health pandemic...

Britt Lyle II is more than just a designer — he contains multitudes. Currently, he works as a graphics assistant at AMB Sports + Entertainment, where he helps out on visuals used by the Atlanta Falcons and Atlanta United. But outside of work? That’s when you see the different facets of what makes Britt unique...

Lately, I have been doing a deep dive into the magazine archives of EBONY and JET. While skimming the masthead of one of the old issues, I stumbled across this week's guest -- Brandi Davis! Brandi served as Johnson Publishing Company's web designer from 2004-2012, and was front and center at the company's shift from print to web...

Have you picked up on the connection between this month's guests? It can be easy to look at the advocacy work and projects around diversity in design and think it's a new movement, but the reality is that the work is built on the shoulders and legacy of Black designers like Vernon Lockhart. As an artist, creative therapist, and the executive director of Project Osmosis, Vernon has worked hard to empower the next generation of designers through education for at least the past 20 years...

I can't tell you how excited I am to share this conversation with Antionette Carroll with you. Longtime listeners of the show may remember her first appearance here back in 2014. In the six years since then, Antionette has risen to become one of the design community's most outspoken advocates, and one of its fiercest critics. As the founder and CEO of Creative Reaction Lab, her advocacy work has been shared around the world. This week's episode is a bit different than usual...