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Happy New Year Everyone! For episode 4, I got on the mic with my group chat besties, Carrie Mifsud and Victoria Black to talk about our in's and outs for 2025, our personal and professional New Year resolutions/goals, what is going wrong with social media, what we think should change in the industry, and so much more. 

Carrie Mifsud is an esteemed art director working on the New York Times home page. Victoria Black is an amazing fr...

In this week's episode, I interviewed the self-proclaimed "Dennis the menace" of conceptual illustration, Pete Ryan.

He has received a Gold and Silver medal from the Society of illustrators in New York and has worked with clients including Time Magazine, The New York Times, Mother Jones, Wall Street Journal, The Walrus, The New Yorker, Buzzfeed, and many others. In this episode, we talk about golden retrievers, Justin Bieber, mov...

I flew into Minneapolis, MN, to attend this years, ICON12 Illustration conference. This conference started in 1999 to advocate for illustrators' rights as the rise of stock photography, stock illustration, and digital tools began to impact illustrators' livelihoods. Today, the conference further educates illustrators on different aspects of the industry, both tried-and-true and new and emerging, and acts as a kind of state-of-the-u...

I have asked Maya Scarpa and Sophia Franco to be guest hosts on this mailbag episode, where they asked audience questions, and I answered them. Most of the questions revolve around how to find illustration work, agents, burnout, time management, and taxes. Maya and Sophia are both recent graduates of the illustration program at the College for Creative Studies and former students of mine. Both are very talented and you should hire ...

Nicole Rifkin is an illustrator. Their clients include the Atlantic, Audible, The New Yorker, New York Times, Simon & Schuster, and many bands, including Remember Sports, Water from your eyes, Pile, Adult Mom, F*cked up, and the New Pornographers. I had a thoughtful and hilarious conversation with Nicole on the podcast. We talk about growing up with a punk dad and how weird that was, stories about skipping class to go to punk/hardc...

Lynn Scurfield is an illustrator. Their clients include The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Walrus, Google, Chronicle Books, Image Comics, and Puffin UK. We talk about the bliss of living in the suburbs over the city, the cost of art schools in Canada vs America, teaching at the art school you were once a student at, the evolving process of mixing traditional and digital media, the issues we have we procreate, transitioning from ...

John Malta is an illustrator, author, art director, comic artist, and educator. Their clients include the NY Times, the New Yorker, Complex, Liquid Death, and Dr. Martens. John talks about growing up in Ohio, how punk rock and wrestling changed his life and the communities around it, how leaving Brooklyn for Kansas City was a strategic personal and business move, the source of his comics inspirations, and the ever-evolution of the ...

Sara Wong is an illustrator and art director. Sara's freelance clients include the New York Times, Tor.com, NPR, Red Bull, and Mondo. In this episode, we talk about growing up in California, working remotely from Baltimore for a tech company in the bay area, finding work-life balance, transitioning from a Wacom tablet to an iPad and Procreate, and working on the board of 2024’s ICON illustration conference, about her dog's moose an...

Victoria Black is a Senior Art Director and Freelance Designer. Victoria’s freelance clients include Grey Advertising, Art Directors Club, Simon & Schuster, Harper Collins, and Macmillan Publishers. In this podcast, Ms. Black talks about working as a designer in the book publishing industry for many years and their transition to doing design in Advertising. We jump around on a lot of topics, from plant-based food, veganism, and veg...

Akeem S. Robers is a cartoonist and Graphic Novelist. He is the illustrator of the JD. the Kid Barber series, published by Penguin Random House. Akeem has also published a bunch of cartoons in the New Yorker. If anyone follows Akeem on Instagram, you are probably familiar with their regular auto-bio comics they post about him and his wife and their two cats. Akeem and I talk about a lot of things, including working at Starbucks whi...

Dian Holton is a Freelance Designer, Art Director, and self-proclaimed creator of experiences. While Dian is known for being the art director for AARP’s The Girlfriend and Sisters digital newsletters, she is more than that. Dian has a freelance design practice where she art directed and designed the NY Times best seller, ”Do the work, An Anti-racist activity book,” and a really cool collaboration with HP called Daily Digits. For 14...

Jeremy Nguyen is a cartoonist and illustrator. He is a regular contributor to the New Yorker and has illustrated a few books, including his latest author/illustrator title, “Can I pet your dog?” In our conversation, we reflect on our 20’s in Brooklyn and how we’re glad we’re in our 30’s; Jeremy’s past life working at a comedy club, I struggle to remember the term “indie sleaze,” finding and building a space for community, and so mu...

Ben Currie is an illustrator and an Art Director at HuffPost. Before that, they worked at Gizmodo Media as a Senior Designer and a Staff Illustrator. He is also a denim aficionado and very into men’s fashion. I’ve known Ben for years, and I think that you all will really enjoy our conversation.

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Ben Curries Links:

https://benjamincurrie.net/ https://www.instagram.com/hellobencurrie/  https://www.instagram.com/huffpostvi...