This week Joelle joins Brandi to host the podcast! She wants to know what Brandi’s least favorite and most favorite things about design are.

Joelle’s week:

For those that don’t know, Joelle works at a cactus and succulent nursery that is local to the New Mexico area. This is her favorite time of year because all of the cacti are blooming and you get to see the different flowers that each of the cactuses have. You can see those flowers on her Instagram via @mrsjoelle_kaniff. She also joined a family Father’s Day camping trip which she hadn’t been camping in at least 10 years. And lastly, she got bangs which surprising she is loving. At 18 she thought she’d never do it again, but apparently not.  

Brandi’s week:

Talking about the camping trip we learn that smores are Brandi’s downfall and sadly we didn’t have any on our camping trip which is a bummer, but maybe a good thing since Brandi did end up getting a cold on the trip. Over the camping trip, Brandi read one of her Veronica Mars books which was really exciting. She loved it. Brandi is a Marshmallow (a huge fan of Veronica Mars) for those who don’t know. She is very excited about the new seasons of Veronica Mars coming to Hulu at the end of July. Brandi has also been hard at work with her website update and she has made some great progress on that. And lastly Brandi has been watching World of Dance with her family and she’s actually really been loving it. She really loved one specific routine that used color to change and reflect the emotion.

Takeaways from this episode:

• Sometimes, you can get caught up in one part of the design because it may not match completely with what you have in your brain. 
• There are so many different things you can do for hierarchy in the design. “Z” “N” “W”. Don’t get stuck on one just because it’s easy.
• It’s okay to want to do things differently.
• It’s easy to get caught up in one step of the process. Be careful and set time limits.
• Sometimes you just need to have some empathy. Clients are going to do things that won’t make sense to you when you “pass off your baby” (give them the final design). It’s okay, things happen.
• Sometimes people are stupid but you don’t need to say it out loud. 
• Assume positive intent. Some clients just may not understand. Try and have some helpful advice for them. 

Songs:

Joelle’s song: Same by Josie Dunne

Brandi’s song: Hunnybee by Unknown Mortal Orchestra

Please rate and review our podcast in iTunes and if you want to support our show please go to Patreon.com/designspeaks we would love it! You can give as much as you want. Every little bit goes to helping us keep this podcast going.

Thank you to Vesperteen for allowing us to use his song Shatter in the Night as our intro and outro music for Design Speaks

This Quarter’s Book:

We are reading and reviewing books on the podcast every quarter!

If you would like to read along, THIS QUARTER, we’ve been reading, The Secret Lives of Color by Kassia St. Clair.

Want to support us?

Go to Patreon and help support our podcast!

Find us on all forms of social media via @BrandiSea on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and you can email us any burning questions you want Brandi to answer on an episode at brandi@brandisea.com.

THANK YOU to the ultra-talented  Vesperteen (Colin Rigsby) for letting us use his (“Shatter in The Night”) track in every episode of Design Speaks.

TRANSCRIPTION

Joelle: 00:00 Yeah, I do not. I hate being sick

Brandi Sea: 00:02 Not sponsored. Yeah.

Joelle: 00:03 If they wanna sponsor us

Brandi Sea: 00:05 No, I don’t want to be sponsored by Zicam. What does that say about me?

Joelle: 00:08 It’s true, a design podcast sponsored by Zicam.

Brandi Sea: 00:08 That’d be weird. If this was like a health podcast. That would make more sense.

Joelle: 00:13 Oh gosh, so funny

Brandi Sea: 00:13 So off-brand

Intro: 00:14 Welcome to design speeds. This lovely podcast is brought to you by a graphic design geek and a regular human being. AKA a non-designer. We’re here to chat about music, pop culture, cool places or basically whatever we feel is relevant.

Brandi Sea: 00:32 Hey guys, I’m Brandi Sea

Joelle: 00:34 And I’m Joelle

Brandi Sea: 00:35 Joelle! And you’re listening to episode 105. I still haven’t decided if I want to say one oh five or 100 and whatever.

Joelle: 00:44 Oh yeah, I like one oh five.

Brandi Sea: 00:45 Yeah. Cause they like it to one 10 is just going to be 110.

Joelle: 00:48 Yeah, I think it just flows a little better.

Brandi Sea: 00:50 Okay.

Joelle: 00:50 That’s just me.

Brandi Sea: 00:52 You’re listening to episode one oh five of Design Speaks. So Joelle is filling in for Michelle. It’s been kind of a crazy, um, week since I got back from my two-week trip. And um, oh, just drop my pen. Um, and Michelle has been really busy, like doing landscaping on her yard and stuff. So, uh, we had to do a phone episode last week as you know, and this week, uh, Joelle’s filling in cause there’s just not enough hours. These like we’re trying to play catch up with everything. So Joelle’s here

Joelle: 01:26 I’m here.

Brandi Sea: 01:27 So she gets to edit out like her own transcription.

Joelle: 01:30 Yes.

Brandi Sea: 01:31 This week, so that’s fun.

Joelle: 01:32 Which I thought would be way worse, but since I was doing episode 100, it’s not as bad.

Brandi Sea: 01:36 What, which part? Like hearing your own voice is that part.

Joelle: 01:39 Yes, hearing my own voice. I thought I would hate it, but it’s not that bad

Brandi Sea: 01:42 Just don’t listen to it at two times speed. Like Kenny listens to our podcast and I get into his car sometimes and I hear us at chipmunk speed and it’s,

Joelle: 01:50 Oh gosh

Brandi Sea: 01:50 So obnoxious.

Joelle: 01:51 Yeah. I don’t want to be a chipmunk.

Brandi Sea: 01:54 Yeah.

Joelle: 01:54 I have my high enough voice as it is.

Brandi Sea: 01:56 Yeah. So

Brandi Sea: 01:59 Hey guys, so if you really love this show and want to support it, um, so we can continue making episodes now over and above a hundred. Um, we would really appreciate it if you checked out our Patreon.

Michelle: 02:10 Its Patreon.com/designspeaks and you can give as little as $1 and as much as you absolutely want to. And it could be monthly. A one-time thing that’s on you.

Joelle: 02:21 It will help us out immensely.

Brandi Sea: 02:23 It might make, make Joelle a full employee someday.

Joelle: 02:27 Yeah, to get paid to do this would be awesome.

Michelle: 02:31 You and me, both you and me both. All three of us, really.

Joelle: 02:34 Yeah.

Michelle: 02:35 So Patreon.com/designspeaks.

Brandi Sea: 02:39 All right, so um, I’ll let you start.

Joelle: 02:42 Okay. So my week or I guess

Brandi Sea: 02:46 Your couple of weeks

Joelle: 02:46 My month. Yeah, I mean there’s a lot of stuff going on at work. It’s warm now, so there’s a lot of outside stuff to do.

Brandi Sea: 02:54 Wait does, do, does our listening audience know what you do?

Joelle: 02:57 They might, I feel like one episode, if you don’t know if you’re new, I work at a plant nursery, which is local to the New Mexico area. And it’s so much fun.

Brandi Sea: 03:06 It’s like a succulent or sorry.

Joelle: 03:08 Yes, it’s true

Brandi Sea: 03:09 Which there are no, two cuter words. A succulent nursery.

Joelle: 03:13 Yeah.

Brandi Sea: 03:13 Awe

Joelle: 03:13 Cuz technically it’s cactus and succulents and cactus are succulents.

Brandi Sea: 03:16 So you, you grow like bay, you grow baby plants.

Joelle: 03:21 It’s true.

Brandi Sea: 03:21 baby succulent.

Joelle: 03:22 They’re cute. I love them. Yeah. So like a lot of the cactus are blooming right now, which is my favorite time of year because you see all the different kinds of flowers and you’d be amazed guys. How many types of catches and succulents there are.

Brandi Sea: 03:38 How many Joelle? How many seeds do you guys

Joelle: 03:40 We have over 7,000 different genuses. That’s just genuses.

Brandi Sea: 03:46 Jenai genuses, I don’t know

Joelle: 03:46 Whatever that word is. Um, so, and there’s like multiple seeds in each genus. So

Brandi Sea: 03:55 Oh my gosh, we heard job sounds like my nightmare.

Joelle: 03:58 Yeah, but see, I love it.

Brandi Sea: 03:59 That’s so good.

Joelle: 04:00 I think I just love tedious things

Brandi Sea: 04:02 And I don’t. That’s why I love you

Joelle: 04:04 Yeah, I think that’s why we work as friends.

Brandi Sea: 04:06 Yes.

Joelle: 04:08 Um, so yeah, getting to see all the different cactuses blooming and stuff. It’s my favorite thing. So

Brandi Sea: 04:13 You need to post more pictures of all these flowers. All these geni flowers.

Joelle: 04:17 Yeah, I have a few. So I’ll keep posting.

Brandi Sea: 04:19 Yeah.

Joelle: 04:19 So if you follow me on Instagram, which Brandi does

Brandi Sea: 04:22 I mean, yes.

Joelle: 04:24 Then you can

Brandi Sea: 04:24 What is your Instagram handle? You’ve changed it since you got married.

Joelle: 04:28 I did change it since I got married. It is mrsjoelle_kaniff so yeah, so it’s M R S J. O. E. L. L. E. Kaniff is K. A. N. I. F. F.

Brandi Sea: 04:41 Don’t look at me. She has like, if that how you spell it on her face. I’m like, it’s your Instagram

Joelle: 04:46 I just did it cause that’s how Kurtis has it on his Instagram. So I was like, well I’ll just keep it

Brandi Sea: 04:49 But you’re a famous podcaster so maybe you should make it easier on people.

Joelle: 04:53 Maybe I should, but

Brandi Sea: 04:54 We’ll see. For now. For now, I’ll just still be in the show notes.

Joelle: 04:57 Yeah, it’ll be in the show notes. I’ve changed my Instagram name so many times, so I don’t want to change it again. But I might

Brandi Sea: 05:04 I love change except for in places where I’m afraid people won’t be able to find me. I have not changed mine. Ever.

Joelle: 05:11 Yeah

Brandi Sea: 05:11 I don’t think. Not since like I only think I’ve changed my handle on anything since I was in high school. My, I don’t know if it was like, I don’t know. What do you have in high school? Wasn’t Google and Yahoo

Joelle: 05:25 Yeah, Yahoo. AOL

Brandi Sea: 05:27 AOL.

Joelle: 05:27 I’m trying to think when you were in high school, I was in like in elementary school. So I don’t know.

Brandi Sea: 05:31 It was probably, I don’t think I used AOL cause you had to pay extra for that unless you got those like free time disks.

Joelle: 05:37 Yeah,

Brandi Sea: 05:37 Do you remember those. Like, oh you got a desk with like 30 hours of Internet.

Joelle: 05:41 Yeah. And like I have my neighbor had AOL. We did not

Brandi Sea: 05:43 I didn’t either. So

Joelle: 05:45 I was, that girl who

Brandi Sea: 05:47 Meta Garb.

Joelle: 05:48 Oh yeah.

Brandi Sea: 05:49 Cause I loved the band Garbage. I don’t remember what part Meta came from.

Joelle: 05:54 Wow.

Brandi Sea: 05:54 I have no idea. That was the only one I remember.

Joelle: 05:56 That sounds super 90’s.

Brandi Sea: 05:57 Oh yeah, it was so 90’s it was like, I’m so cool. I like a band, I’m gonna name myself after it.

Joelle: 06:03 I love it.

Brandi Sea: 06:03 So anyways, um, yeah. So what else?

Joelle: 06:06 Um, well we went camping a few weekends ago.

Brandi Sea: 06:09 Yes we did.

Joelle: 06:10 Yes.

Brandi Sea: 06:11 You and I and family.

Joelle: 06:12 Yes. And family for Father’s Day.

Brandi Sea: 06:14 It was Father’s, yeah. It was a Father’s Day thing. We went to a Navajo dam

Joelle: 06:18 I think so, yeah.

Brandi Sea: 06:20 Which is up near Colorado almost

Joelle: 06:22 Yeah, it’s the San Juan River. Like the Farmington area.

Brandi Sea: 06:25 Yeah, here in New Mexico. So I I drove, you know, the whole thing that I talked about with Michelle and then basically dropped our daughter off to her dad’s, um, near Los Alamos and then drove another three and a half hours back up north to go camping. And then I got sick. Big surprise.

Joelle: 06:45 Of course.

Brandi Sea: 06:45 Big surprise.

Joelle: 06:46 I’m like Kurtis got sick.

Brandi Sea: 06:47 Yeah, we got Kurtis sick. My whole family was sick. I had been in, I was sick like the whole week after we came back.

Joelle: 06:52 I have been emergen-Cing up.

Brandi Sea: 06:55 Yeah.

Joelle: 06:55 Cause I

Brandi Sea: 06:55 We did Zycam like crazy.

Joelle: 06:57 Yeah. I do not, I hate being sick

Brandi Sea: 06:59 Not sponsored.

Joelle: 07:00 If they want to sponsor us

Brandi Sea: 07:01 I don’t want to be sponsored by Zicam. What does that say about me?

Joelle: 07:05 It’s true. A design podcast sponsored by Zicam

Brandi Sea: 07:07 If this was like a health podcast that would make more sense. So off-brand, um, camping was fun.

Joelle: 07:15 It was, it has been. I was trying to think the last time I went like actual tent camping was probably when I was about 15.

Brandi Sea: 07:23 Oh really?

Joelle: 07:24 Yeah. And I’m 25 for people who don’t know, so that’s, that’s 10 years.

Brandi Sea: 07:28 That’s a long time.

Joelle: 07:29 So yeah.

Brandi Sea: 07:30 Yeah. And, and uh, Kurtis and Joelle had cots and Kurtis so kindly and gentlemanly of a brother. Let me use his cot cause I’m all injured and stuff. Um, and I was sick so I slept great.

Joelle: 07:44 Yeah, I did too.

Brandi Sea: 07:45 The girls got the cots, the boys slept on the floor and it was fantastic. I will never camp on the floor again.

Joelle: 07:50 Yeah, I think we, we changed your mind.

Brandi Sea: 07:54 Well I used to bring a whole bunch of padding and stuff anyways, but yeah, it was really nice. Thanks, REI.

Joelle: 07:58 Yes, I am. Gosh, I love REI. Um, and I guess the only other thing is I’m loving my bangs right now. I got bangs cut about three weeks ago and I love them

Brandi Sea: 08:08 They’re super cute. Yeah.

Joelle: 08:11 When I was like 18, I swear I would never get them again. And I got a wild hair like a month ago and was like, I’m going to cut bangs. So I did.

Brandi Sea: 08:17 Once you go bangs you never go back?

Joelle: 08:19 I guess so. Even though I do look like my mother.

Brandi Sea: 08:22 Hey, it’s bad. Your mom’s really pretty

Joelle: 08:23 It’s okay. I know. I don’t want people to think, I don’t think my mom’s pretty, I just want to look like me.

Brandi Sea: 08:28 I mean, but we can’t escape it. We can’t escape looking like our parents. It just, I mean,

Joelle: 08:34 Yeah,

Brandi Sea: 08:34 we look like

Joelle: 08:34 It’s true

Brandi Sea: 08:34 Our parents. Yeah. And the older we get, the more we look like our mothers. I’m sorry to tell you

Joelle: 08:39 I know

Brandi Sea: 08:39 I’m like, I’m not sorry about it, but sometimes I do definitely look in the mirror and go, that’s my mom and the mirror. That’s not me.

Joelle: 08:46 Yeah.

Brandi Sea: 08:47 But I’ve always thought my mom was really beautiful, so yeah, I get it. I always want to be like me.

Joelle: 08:52 Yeah.

Brandi Sea: 08:53 It’s okay. Just keep doing crazy hair color and you will always look like you

Joelle: 08:57 Cuz my mom never dyes her hair. It’s all, she does highlights every now and then, but yeah.

Brandi Sea: 09:02 Yeah. She’s not going to go red, so I think you’re safe.

Joelle: 09:04 Yeah. I think so

Brandi Sea: 09:04 Um, so you brought a song.

Joelle: 09:08 I did bring a song

Brandi Sea: 09:09 You want to tell me about it before or after.

Joelle: 09:11 Yeah, I can tell you about it before. Um, so, oh gosh. Probably about two months ago I went to Denver and I saw Ben Rector, who’s amazing. Um, but this is the girl who opened for him and she was equally amazing. I love her so much. Um, and this is Josie Dunne and this song is Same.

Joelle: 10:33 Oh, I love this song.

Brandi Sea: 10:36 What do you love about it?

Joelle: 10:37 I love the lyrics and just, it just, it feels good. But yeah, just, I just loved it because it immediately just made me think of Kurtis just like going about little, like everyday things like being in the grocery store and then he’s like, I love you. And it’s just like, same like,

Brandi Sea: 10:51 Oh, I want I, that’d be so cute if you guys actually started doing that. It’s like me too. I love you too. It’d just like same

Joelle: 10:59 I do that with a lot of things anyways. Like I like post something on Instagram

Brandi Sea: 11:03 Same is like a word.

Joelle: 11:04 Yeah. I say in alike, so that’s probably why I like it.

Brandi Sea: 11:07 Yeah.

Joelle: 11:08 Just, and I saw her the day this song came out, so she had fun with it and

Brandi Sea: 11:11 Oh, that’s neat.

Joelle: 11:12 She’s just so fun. I loved her so much. So

Brandi Sea: 11:15 Yeah, I don’t think she, I dunno, I can give her like a college try and hear a few more songs and her style of voice is just not my kind of female voice.

Joelle: 11:27 See, it’s my kind.

Brandi Sea: 11:28 Yeah.

Joelle: 11:28 I love that kind of like settling deep

Brandi Sea: 11:31 Like, I don’t know.

Joelle: 11:32 Yeah.

Brandi Sea: 11:33 And I, I don’t, but I’m glad. That’s great. I like that. You like it.

Joelle: 11:38 Yeah, it’s fun. I love it.

Brandi Sea: 11:39 I like her album cover.

Joelle: 11:40 Yeah.

Brandi Sea: 11:41 I might like more of her music based on that

Joelle: 11:43 She’s kind of retro.

Brandi Sea: 11:45 Yeah, her clothes are really cute.

Joelle: 11:46 Yeah.

Brandi Sea: 11:48 Um, so we already talked about camping. I’m trying to think. We both decided that um, we regret not having smores.

Joelle: 11:55 Yes.

Brandi Sea: 11:56 Um, smores are my, my downfall. I don’t know if I’ve talked about this on the podcast, but

Joelle: 12:02 I don’t think so

Brandi Sea: 12:02 There was a time where Kenny would come home from work and I, there would be like just Graham cracker wrappers and Hershey wrappers and the the bag of marshmallows just sitting on the counter and he was like, how many did you have today? And I’m like don’t ask.

Joelle: 12:21 Oh my gosh, that is so funny. I did not know that.

Brandi Sea: 12:22 Yeah. So I, I don’t have a problem with sweets. I’m not like a sweets person. I prefer fruit. Like I’ll eat myself sick with fruit before candy any day and candy goes bad in this house so fast cause I don’t let my kids have a lot and I don’t eat a lot, but if there are smores in the house, like I have to like have super self-control because I will just make them over the fire on the stove.

Joelle: 12:45 Oh yeah.

Brandi Sea: 12:45 Just just keep making them and then yeah, it’s bad news. So I think it was probably maybe a good thing that we didn’t have smores cause I was feeling I was sick while we were camping and I think I would have probably been really sick.

Joelle: 12:58 Yeah. But I still regret it. I can’t remember the last time I had a smore

Brandi Sea: 13:02 It was probably here. Let’s be real

Joelle: 13:05 Probably, oh yeah, I think it was last summer, honestly. Maybe like the 4th of July last year

Brandi Sea: 13:08 Yeah, it probably was.

Joelle: 13:08 Yeah.

Brandi Sea: 13:09 Yeah. So, um, Kenny and I are, you know, in the process of figuring out the last few major details for our vow renewal. And I think the consensus is that we’re doing a smores bar.

Joelle: 13:23 I am so excited

Brandi Sea: 13:24 For the party portion of it. So I’m so excited.

Joelle: 13:28 I’m like, takes me back to my childhood. I worked two summers at a summer camp and we literally had smores probably at least once a week.

Brandi Sea: 13:35 Yeah.

Joelle: 13:35 So

Brandi Sea: 13:36 I have, I have though like become a little weird about doing it over a campfire because you don’t have as much control as you do over the stove.

Joelle: 13:44 I’m like

Brandi Sea: 13:45 It’s better at home over the stove

Joelle: 13:45 My brother has like figured out how to make the perfect marshmallow and he will not make, like, he will wait till there’s embers and then he’ll just the embers

Brandi Sea: 13:57 Oh yeah you just use the embers. Yeah, that’s the trick. Otherwise, it just lights on fire.

Joelle: 13:59 But he will wait like two hours before there’s like enough embers to like make his perfect marshmallow and his perfect smore

Brandi Sea: 14:04 I’ll just do one on fire and then another one on fire until there’s embers and then I’ll make another one

Joelle: 14:09 Oh gosh yeah

Brandi Sea: 14:09 I know. It’s ridiculous. So, um, yeah, I mean there wasn’t a whole, there’s not a whole lot of say for me about camping. Um, except that I read, um, one of my books in like, I dunno, eight hours.

Joelle: 14:21 Oh, yeah

Brandi Sea: 14:22 Would you say

Joelle: 14:22 Oh yeah

Brandi Sea: 14:24 Maybe

Joelle: 14:24 Like I didn’t, I at first I didn’t realize you had like started it that weekend and then you finish it. And I was like, wait.

Brandi Sea: 14:30 Yeah.

Joelle: 14:30 And she read it the entire weekend. I was like, what the heck? I want to read that fast.

Brandi Sea: 14:35 Yes. So, um, um, I’m a marshmallow, as you guys know, uh, which is, uh, basically a huge fan of Veronica Mars and, um, Kenny bought me a, I don’t know, like six months ago. Maybe these two books, um, that the author, the author, the writer of Veronica Mars, um, wrote these two fiction books that are basically an expansion on the Veronica Mars universe and they are so engaging. It’s like I’m watching the show with my eyeballs in print instead of on the screen. And I, yeah, I don’t know how many pages that book was, but I started reading it the morning of the first day we were camping and I was finished reading it by the next morning. And that wasn’t just reading straight through. I did read a lot.

Joelle: 15:20 Yeah, you did.

Brandi Sea: 15:21 I needed some me time. I needed some alone time after being in the car with people for two weeks straight.

Joelle: 15:26 Yeah

Brandi Sea: 15:26 I just needed some, like I’m going to just withdraw from people for a little while even though everyone’s around me. I’m like in my little book world

Joelle: 15:32 Oh yeah, no

Brandi Sea: 15:33 That was exciting. It’s um, it was called Mr. Kiss and Tell. And it’s the Veronica Mars, um, basically mystery book. Um, so I’m super excited. Veronica Mars is coming to Hulu, the new show, uh, at the end of July. I don’t remember. I think she’s like July 26th or something and all three of the original seasons of Veronica Mars will be on Hulu starting July 1st. I’m so excited.

Joelle: 15:57 Yeah.

Brandi Sea: 15:57 I’ve, I know like all the episodes and Kenny and I are currently rewatching all of them. He’s only, he’s seen it all once through, and I’ve seen them all, I don’t know how many times, so excited, so excited

Joelle: 16:10 I plan on watching it because I didn’t know that Kristen Bell was Veronica Mars

Brandi Sea: 16:16 Yeah

Joelle: 16:16 Wow

Brandi Sea: 16:16 She is always and forever Veronica Mars to me.

Joelle: 16:19 Yeah. And I love Kristen Bell so

Brandi Sea: 16:21 Yeah, the writing is spectacular. It’s the same writer as, and I think I talked about this a long time ago of I Zombie, it’s the same guy that writes, I zombie

Joelle: 16:29 Which I loved I Zombie.

Brandi Sea: 16:30 Yeah. And so once you see, so now that you’re, if you’re going backwards, it’s, you’re gonna see a lot of people that you saw and I Zombie.

Joelle: 16:37 Okay.

Brandi Sea: 16:37 On Veronica Mars and that’s where they came from.

Joelle: 16:39 Okay. Cool

Brandi Sea: 16:39 Yeah. So it’s really great. Um,

Joelle: 16:42 I’m excited.

Brandi Sea: 16:43 Besides that, let’s see, I’ve been working on my website. I finally got, um, my blog, all my old blogs to import into my new website. That was like the the few huge steps that I need before I can launch my new website. We’re getting my portfolio stuff up. The blog needed to trans, like all those files needed to transfer over my youtube. I finally got figured out and my last thing is this podcast, I’m still figuring out how to get this podcast transferred over from my WordPress into Squarespace.

Joelle: 17:14 Okay

Brandi Sea: 17:14 So once I get that, I’ll be launching my new website.

Joelle: 17:17 Yay!

Brandi Sea: 17:17 So that’s really exciting. That’s been a lot of work. Um, and yeah, I something I’m loving right now. Um, this is weird for me. We’ve been watching world of dance, I don’t even know.

Joelle: 17:28 What?

Brandi Sea: 17:28 I don’t know. It was on Hulu and it’s like kid-friendly. I’m like, what can we watch with the kids? Because half the shows I like the, are not even close to kid-friendly it’s like Handmaid’s Tale and Walking Dead. And like

Joelle: 17:39 For me, it’s Criminal Minds

Brandi Sea: 17:40 All sorts of things you can’t watch with your family. Even Kenny doesn’t like watching some of the stuff

Joelle: 17:44 Yeah, Kurtis doesn’t like criminal minds. He’s, he like, every time he sees me watching it, he gives me this look of like, seriously, you’re watching it again. And I’m like, but I love so much

Brandi Sea: 17:51 I know that’s what Kenny does to me for Supernatural, he’s like I can’t do this.

Joelle: 17:54 Yeah.

Brandi Sea: 17:55 Um, but we want, we’ve been watching World of Dance and we’re, we’re like down to the finals or whatever and um, I don’t know what season. I think we’re seasons behind. I don’t know. I’ve never watched it before. I don’t know where they are and like the real world. But, um, this guy named Poppin’ John has been on and he’s like a popper and he’s like amazing. And he’s from New Mexico, so I was like rooting for him. He made it almost to the finals.

Joelle: 18:17 Oh, wow

Brandi Sea: 18:17 That was really sad that he didn’t make it to, I’m like, nothing. Sorry. Nothing good comes out of New Mexico. That’s not true. Lots of good things come out of New Mexico, but that’s like, you never see people from our state on these kinds of shows.

Joelle: 18:29 Yeah. It’s true

Brandi Sea: 18:29 So I was like rooting for him and he was actually really spectacular. But the reason I’m bringing it up is because, um, this, this dance duo called Darien and Madison, their final, the last performance before they go onto the final final. Um, they did this really amazing routine. They, they came out like wearing all black and then as the dance progressed, like they were wearing these like button-up, um, blazer type jacket things and they like open up one collar and it’s yellow. And then the lighting all behind them like turns yellow. And then throughout the day, they keep dancing and then they open up the other collar and it’s like neon pink and the lighting changes and like they keep doing these things in the lighting change and like the way they danced. And I was just like, so in awe of how they used color to like change the emotion.

Joelle: 19:11 Oh yeah.

Brandi Sea: 19:12 Of like the dance that they were doing. And I was so impressed cause you know, usually, the the dancers on these kinds of shows, cause we watch America’s got talent too. Um, a lot of times they come out with really cool costumes, but it doesn’t have anything to do with, except like they look cool. But this was like incorporating the costume and the color into what they want you to feel about what you’re watching. And I was so impressed and I was really excited about it.

Joelle: 19:38 Yeah.

Brandi Sea: 19:39 I had to bring that. So

Joelle: 19:39 Yeah.

Brandi Sea: 19:40 Um, yeah, besides that, I have, I have a fun song.

Joelle: 19:44 Yay. What’s your song, Brandi?

Brandi Sea: 19:45 It’s called Huneybee. H. U. N. N. Y. Which makes it extra fun. Huneybee.

Joelle: 19:50 Yeah.

Brandi Sea: 19:52 Um, by so this is going to sound weird there. The band is called Unknown Mortal Orchestra, so wow. You kind of have like an idea like that sounds like a metal band or something

Joelle: 20:01 Yeah.

Brandi Sea: 20:01 Like what are we listening to? So, um, I’ll talk about it after, but here’s the song

Brandi Sea: 21:55 So, That’s Hunnybee. And they are not a metal band.

Joelle: 21:57 Not at all

Brandi Sea: 21:58 Oh, um, I think they’re classified as psychedelic folk.

Joelle: 22:03 Oh wow

Brandi Sea: 22:03 And dreamy Disco, which

Joelle: 22:04 I did feel like I was at a disco

Brandi Sea: 22:05 I think they made that up, but that sounds right.

Joelle: 22:07 Yeah, like dreamy disco. I like it.

Brandi Sea: 22:10 It’s like, I think that, um, you know, like we’ve talked about before, creatives make up our own titles. I think that like innovative musicians have to make up like their own categories, cause that doesn’t fit into anything.

Joelle: 22:21 No it doesn’t

Brandi Sea: 22:21 So it’s not folk

Joelle: 22:24 No

Brandi Sea: 22:24 It’s not metal

Joelle: 22:25 And it’s not like psychedelic, like disco.

Brandi Sea: 22:27 Yeah. It’s dreamy disco, psychedelic folk. That makes such sense. So, um, most of it, there’s like not a lot of lyrics. It’s very instrumental. Um, I love it’s, I found it on this playlist called Sunshine indie sunshine on Spotify, which I really love. And I kinda just play it as like, let’s be happy and motivated. And I just, every time I’m playing it and I just like, can’t help but move.

Joelle: 22:55 Yeah. I was like doing it.

Brandi Sea: 22:58 Yeah, it’s so like bouncy and happy and it feels like summer. Um, and, uh, so the the lyrics are basically about weather. Um, warm rain and thunder days are getting darker. A week is such a long time age of paranoia. Don’t be such a modern, I don’t know what that means. Stranger oh angel, Honeybee, Honeybee. There’s no such thing as a sweeter thing. Um, it’s just really cute and I don’t really understand it as far as the lyrics go. I like the honeybee part. I like that. It’s

Joelle: 23:28 Yeah

Brandi Sea: 23:28 I like that it’s different and inventive and

Joelle: 23:30 Yeah

Brandi Sea: 23:30 It’s like, um, chill but upbeat and fun. So, yeah. And the the artworks strange and the album name is strange so I’m not going to talk about that, but you’ll can find it on our, our design speaks podcast playlist on Spotify.

Joelle: 23:46 Yes

Brandi Sea: 23:48 That was a big recap.

Joelle: 23:49 Yeah

Brandi Sea: 23:49 That was a long time. So

Joelle: 23:51 I was kind of at a loss of what to talk about. So I brought it, I played d and d last week or last night with

Brandi Sea: 23:59 For for those non-geek among us

Joelle: 24:02 Dungeons and dragons.

Brandi Sea: 24:03 Oh Man.

Joelle: 24:04 Yes. I’m a nerd, geek, whatever you want to call it. Um, but it’s fun.

Brandi Sea: 24:10 I’m not sure what that category, what category that falls into.

Joelle: 24:13 Yeah. I don’t know.

Brandi Sea: 24:15 I want to say nerd, but

Joelle: 24:17 I feel like it might be

Brandi Sea: 24:18 I think it’s leaning towards nerd, but it’s okay

Joelle: 24:20 A little bit. Yeah. I have been getting into dungeons and dragons because my husband is obsessed with it and I’m like

Brandi Sea: 24:26 Now did he get into it because of Stranger Things like that. It like had this huge resurgence when Stranger Things came out like three years ago.

Joelle: 24:33 I have a few friends from college who I still follow on Instagram and one of them is like posting that she plays it and I was like, you do not strike me as a type to play dungeons and dragons, but okay

Brandi Sea: 24:43 Stranger Things being made. I made nerds. Cool again.

Joelle: 24:45 Yeah, I guess so. Um, but yeah, maybe who knows? I don’t know if they did, but I just asked them, I asked the group of seven of us, um, like what about design? Because a few of them are involved in design, like my brother. And then I have another friend who

Brandi Sea: 25:02 Your brother’s in video though, right?

Joelle: 25:03 Yeah, my brother’s in video and then I have another friend who’s in the art side of like video game. I’m not sure what it’s called.

Brandi Sea: 25:12 An illustrator, developer

Joelle: 25:13 A little bit. Yeah. Yeah. And so I asked them like, what, what about design? Like, if you could ask her something, what would you ask her and my brother thought of the question of what’s your least favorite thing may be in your process or like your least favorite thing when you’re designing something. Um, and how do you use it anyway? And then another person in the group brought up the question of, well, what about, what’s her favorite thing and how does she keep from using it too much?

Brandi Sea: 25:41 Ah, okay. Um, least favorite segment designing something.

Joelle: 25:48 Yeah.

Brandi Sea: 25:49 Okay. Like you said about my process like I don’t have a least favorite part of my process.

Joelle: 25:54 Yeah, I figured

Brandi Sea: 25:54 We’ll start there. Um, are you thinking, I you think that he was talking about more like, like design elements, like something specific that

Joelle: 26:02 I think that’s what I was, that’s what I was gathering from it. Maybe like the type or like a color or like, yeah, like a design element may be that you

Brandi Sea: 26:15 Um, okay, let me think about it. I’ll, I’ll go with my favorite first and maybe that’ll lead me to think about like my least favorite. Um, I have a hard time. It’s sort of like when I think it’s sort of like when we asked Leatrice Eiseman like, what’s your least favorite color? Do you remember that?

Joelle: 26:33 Yes I do.

Brandi Sea: 26:33 And she said something to the effect of like, I don’t have one because every color is beautiful for its own thing.

Joelle: 26:40 Yeah.

Brandi Sea: 26:40 Um, so my most favorite thing when I’m designing, um, I think I have to reign myself in on, on messing with typefaces because I don’t know, I have probably 10 or 12,000 typefaces, which is ridiculous. Like I admit, it’s ridiculous. Um, some of that is like versions of the same font. So like I’ll have like one typeface and it’ll have like 50 variations. So it’s like serif, sans serif bold, thin, thin italic, ultra-thin, like, um, but even when I know like what sort of tight, like what style of typeface I’m looking for, I can sometimes get really hung up on finding the exact one that fits what I have in my brain.

Joelle: 27:31 Oh, okay

Brandi Sea: 27:32 So like I know what I have in my mind and I have so many typefaces, I’m like, okay, cause I organize them alphabetical order usually. And I have, I updated my font suitcase, which is basically where all my fonts live. And it messed with all my folders. So I used to have them categorized like these ones, our display typefaces. These are sans serif, like retro, like all the different categories. And it lost that.

Joelle: 28:01 Oh No.

Brandi Sea: 28:01 So now I have to go through all of them like, and I’m pretty fast at it, but if I’m only at like let her g in the alphabet, even if I have like a solid choice, I have a hard time going. You have some solid choices, you don’t need to go all the way to Z.

Joelle: 28:20 Yeah.

Brandi Sea: 28:20 So, um, things that I love that I have trouble using too much is like my, my typefaces now in a specific like design layout, um, I think that I tend to gravitate towards certain hierarchy. Um, there’s some hierarchy, like the standard hierarchy is like z where your eye goes left to right down, bottom left corner to the right bottom corner. And that’s like what your eye will naturally do. So it’s really easy to want to do that for a lot of designs cause it’s easy. Um, and you don’t have to work too hard at that hierarchy. Um, but there’s so many different things you can do. Like even, it’s just like if you’re using letters, you could do an n, you could do a w like, um, you could go backwards, like all the different types of hierarchy. I tend to sometimes be a little lazy and go, this is what people’s eyes want to do. Eyes want to do naturally, all just go with that.

Joelle: 29:19 Oh yeah

Brandi Sea: 29:19 Um, so, but I think I recognize a lot of that and I always, you know, as me as a person, I was wanting to do things different.

Joelle: 29:27 Yeah.

Brandi Sea: 29:27 So I’m like, okay, this is the easy thing. What’s, what’s maybe better.

Joelle: 29:33 Yeah.

Brandi Sea: 29:34 Um, does that

Joelle: 29:35 Yeah, I think so

Brandi Sea: 29:36 Does that kind of like

Joelle: 29:37 Yeah. Cause I’m like, I just remember when we were designing my wedding invitations, we spent probably like one whole session just looking at fonts

Brandi Sea: 29:44 And yeah.

Joelle: 29:45 Yeah. And it was, I mean it was fun for me.

Brandi Sea: 29:48 I’m like I probably overwhelmed you.

Joelle: 29:49 Yeah, a little bit.

Brandi Sea: 29:50 I don’t do that with clients. Ever.

Joelle: 29:51 Yeah.

Brandi Sea: 29:52 That’s my, that’s my backend thing. But it was, and I think I even like had narrowed it down.

Joelle: 29:57 Oh yeah. You had

Brandi Sea: 29:58 A lot.

Joelle: 29:58 Yeah. That was probably like our second or third time sitting down and you had already like figured like okay this is roughly what font I want to use.

Brandi Sea: 30:05 Yeah. I think I only gave you like three or four. When we’re just messing with like the different layouts.

Joelle: 30:09 Yeah. Yeah. I liked it.

Brandi Sea: 30:12 Yeah. So I think that’s um, probably what I mess with more. I don’t, I don’t, I love color but I don’t mess with color cause that’s a lot more. Um, that’s one of those things that once you’ve got those like you can, you can kind of mess with shades a little bit. Like, if I know that I want like, like a forest green, there are many shades of forest green so I can like toy with that a little bit to see what works best. Especially because when you butt butt up to different colors next to each other, they affect how the other color looks. Right. So depending on the usage of color and stuff. Um, so no surprise, probably color, and typeface, but more so typeface and um, yeah, hierarchy of layout. I think our, our two favorite things that I like probably overdue and I don’t know that there’s such thing as doing it too much except for the typefaces.

Joelle: 31:04 Right, yeah.

Brandi Sea: 31:05 Yeah.

Joelle: 31:05 I think you can spend a long time on that if you want.

Brandi Sea: 31:07 I can easily, I can easily spend weeks just looking for the right typeface that is not okay.

Joelle: 31:13 Yeah.

Brandi Sea: 31:13 That’s why, that’s part of the reason why I’ve, I’ve talked about like setting up time limits on research.

Joelle: 31:18 Oh yeah.

Brandi Sea: 31:19 Um, because even with design books with like, because I can tend to go so deep into research, um, that I kind of lose sight of what I’m doing. Just stay there forever and waste so much time.

Joelle: 31:32 Yeah, I’ve done that. When I write like essays, like when I was in school and when I would write papers, like I had to write a 10-page research paper and I was like, oh, this means I can spend so much time on research and then

Brandi Sea: 31:43 Then you don’t have time to write the paper.

Joelle: 31:44 Yeah. Then I had so many sources and all this stuff and I was like, oh, okay, I need to actually start writing.

Brandi Sea: 31:49 Writing would probably be good. Yeah. Um, my least favorite thing. I don’t know. I don’t even know. I don’t know what I don’t like about designing things. I don’t know if that’s a question. Maybe it’s like a third party thing. Like I don’t, I don’t like like logistically I don’t like handing off my files.

Joelle: 32:12 Okay.

Brandi Sea: 32:14 Like even though like they’re done. I don’t say I don’t like it. I’m a little apprehensive.

Joelle: 32:18 Oh, yeah, kind of like handing off your baby kind of thing.

Brandi Sea: 32:21 Yeah. Kind of like, okay. When this leaves my hands, it’s literally out of my hands. What happens after this I couldn’t tell you. Like I’ve given them the guidelines, they know like how this is supposed to be used and where it’s supposed to be used. And I’ve given them all the files they could possibly, and I’ve told them if they need anything else to just ask me. But it’s kind of like once they pay you and once you hand that stuff over. Eeee

Joelle: 32:49 Yeah

Brandi Sea: 32:49 I don’t know. Um, I actually a client that I gave, I did a branding for just recently. I saw, I saw the logo that I did and she was, um, so when I give people full-color logos, I give them like all the different file formats, which like jpeg, PNG, PNG, which has transparency, um, tifs like pdf. I give them all the things in full-color white. So when it’s on something dark they can still see it and black and grayscale. So there’s every kind of version they would need depending on what the logo will go on top of. And um, I saw it on Instagram and she was using the full-color version on top of something full color. And you can barely read the logo.

Joelle: 33:37 Oh gosh

Brandi Sea: 33:37 And I was like this why.

Joelle: 33:39 Oh No.

Brandi Sea: 33:40 And so I messaged her and I was like, Hey, um, you know, it’s totally cool if this is what you want, but I’m guessing that you really want the logo to like show up really well

Joelle: 33:52 Right, yeah to stand out

Brandi Sea: 33:52 Just a tip. Like it would probably be best if you use the white version of this logo when you’re doing these kinds of things. And she was like, Oh yeah, sorry, I only ever downloaded, um, the one, the full-color one and kind of put it on my thing and I don’t have the link anymore to all the other versions and

Joelle: 34:09 Oh my gosh.

Brandi Sea: 34:11 Okay.

Joelle: 34:12 Oh No.

Brandi Sea: 34:13 So

Joelle: 34:14 Yeah, we’re dealing with that a little bit at my job

Brandi Sea: 34:16 That’s like literally on my plate right now to go back and send her a new link, cause I can’t, I’m not gonna keep those files on my Dropbox ever forever for her to just access whenever she wants. And she’s really sweet and, and like very naive about it. So I’m gonna, I’m gonna Redo it. But it was just like, that’s why I’m afraid. Like I told you, here’s what the stuff is for and literally took one out of 50 things that I sent you and downloaded the one

Joelle: 34:40 And I’m like, in my mind, it’s like you’re paying for this. Like I want all that I can get with the money that I’m paying for. So I’m like, why would you just download one and then get rid of them all? That just makes no sense.

Brandi Sea: 34:51 I don’t think that she got rid of them. I think she just downloaded the one she thought she needed and

Joelle: 34:55 Yeah

Brandi Sea: 34:55 She maybe would have access to them later and didn’t know what to do with the other ones.

Joelle: 34:58 Yeah, maybe

Brandi Sea: 34:59 Maybe forgot what to do with the other ones.

Joelle: 35:01 Yeah.

Brandi Sea: 35:01 So yeah.

Joelle: 35:04 Yeah, like we’re dealing with that and my job a little bit, there’s like paperwork that we send with some of the orders that like is required to send to some countries and some of like if we don’t, we don’t keep them like we send them. It’s basically like a certificate that like this is a certified plant and a lot of the, or a few of them are like, oh, I deleted this, can you send it so that I can show that this is like verified and right. And we’re just like, okay, no, we don’t keep it. Like you asked for this, you should keep this like

Brandi Sea: 35:36 Yeah

Joelle: 35:37 Yeah. It makes no sense to me.

Brandi Sea: 35:39 Yeah, it’s hard and it’s frustrating. But, um, I’m trying to be like more empathetic, especially through like this podcast. I’ve, I’ve become more empathetic I think instead of being like, um sorry, why are you stupid? Like this is your fault, you know? And I just wrote myself a note and actually it’s something I’ve been meaning to do for a long time is like creating a file use guide for, for my clients and say like, okay, I gave you this giant. I mean, and I do send an email and I say like, you know, the j there’s an my name, the folders like there’s Jpeg High Rez, there’s Jpeg web quality, there’s TIF high quality, there’s like all these things. Um, and I send in the email like you can probably use this for this and this is kind of what this is for. But I think it might be helpful to like do a pdf that says, you know, the the pngs white go good on photos as like marks and like full color is good on white for like letterhead or you know, brochures or whatever just to like not to treat them like idiots to like to be mean, but like assume positive intent that like

Joelle: 36:47 Oh yeah

Brandi Sea: 36:48 They just don’t understand.

Joelle: 36:50 Yeah.

Brandi Sea: 36:50 And that’s the majority of it. And like the the clients from hell thing, like there are no clients from hell. I’m not educating my client properly, you know, or, or more so like making it really easy for them to access that information. Or they might not have kept that email or who knows.

Joelle: 37:07 Sometimes there’s technical difficulties and you lose stuff like

Brandi Sea: 37:10 Yeah

Joelle: 37:10 Like your fonts getting out of order.

Brandi Sea: 37:12 I know, oh my gosh, seriously. I love you suitcase fusion brand. But every time I do an update I lose something.

Joelle: 37:20 Oh Gosh, that’s so frustrating.

Brandi Sea: 37:22 It makes me crazy, but I, I don’t have another option. Like that’s the best one that I’ve found so far to organize all of my craziness.

Joelle: 37:31 Yeah. Cause you don’t want to treat them like they are idiots, but you also like, you want to be like kind and just cause like you’re the designer and they may not understand what it was stuff, which is why they hired you. So it’s like maybe just a little helpful advice.

Brandi Sea: 37:46 Yeah. So that’s my least favorite. It’s not really about the design itself.

Joelle: 37:50 Yeah.

Brandi Sea: 37:51 Um, it’s more so like when it’s done, like handing it off.

Joelle: 37:55 Yeah.

Brandi Sea: 37:56 I love every part of design of the design process of the systems and the colors and all the crazy things. So, uh, I don’t know if I’m interested to know, like if any of our listeners have like a least favorite thing.

Joelle: 38:11 Oh yeah.

Brandi Sea: 38:12 And we can talk about their, at least favorite things

Joelle: 38:13 Maybe it’s the tedious stuff that I love.

Brandi Sea: 38:15 I Dunno. Yeah. So there are, there are definitely designed jobs, um, design, adjacent jobs. Um, like, you know, people that edit photos, like photographers that do this like edits a lot. But a lot of them like do a batch process where they can program it in and it does all the same thing.

Joelle: 38:34 Yeah. I have several photographer friends who do that.

Brandi Sea: 38:36 And so like the tedious things I don’t like, like there are tedious tasks that I’ve had to do time, a time or two, but there’s always better ways. There’s always better ways to do it. So if I’m laying out a lot of text in like a brochure or a magazine or something and I want all the titles of all the articles to be the same typeface, there’s things that you can do to make that happen easier.

Joelle: 39:02 Right.

Brandi Sea: 39:02 Um, it takes a little bit more work on the front end to program all that into the thing. But I’m like an InDesign, but that’s the stuff I don’t really like. And I do have to do it anyway, but I don’t do a lot of it because once you set up the systems

Joelle: 39:18 Yeah.

Brandi Sea: 39:18 You don’t have to do it again.

Joelle: 39:19 Yeah. Which is nice. See, any have systems is great.

Brandi Sea: 39:22 It is, yeah. So thanks for the question. Digger was Digger at who?

Joelle: 39:26 Um, and the other guy’s name is Jared.

Brandi Sea: 39:27 Okay.

Joelle: 39:27 So, yes.

Brandi Sea: 39:29 All right, well, um, Joelle, where can people find us?

Joelle: 39:33 Well, you can find us on all forms of social media via, at Brandi Sea you can spell it out for them.

Brandi Sea: 39:39 B, R, A, N, D, I, S, E, A

Joelle: 39:42 And you can give us some feedback or hit us up the old fashioned way at brandi@brandisea.com. And if you get any value from this little show of ours, it’d be amazing if you could give us a review and a five stars on iTunes, or you can share the episode with a friend. Huge thank you to Vesperteen for allowing us to use his wonderful music and our podcast. And you can check out the show notes, which is what I do on this wonderful thing. Um, and that’s our design speaks episode.

Brandi Sea: 40:16 Um, that’s it. And we will see you guys next week.

Joelle: 40:18 See you later.