553 - Kate Bingaman-Burt

It's about time you meet Kate Bingaman-Burt. As an Educator, Illustrator, and Rule Maker Extraordinaire Kate has made a career from her endless stream of creativity that never seems to turn off. As Associate Director Of The Art And Design School at Portland State University, a Published Author three times over, and sought after Commercial Illustrator Kate is a driving force in the world of design. The interview takes you inside the mind of a creative who thrives on self initiated, rule based projects based off what challenges Kate the most. She didn't like credit card and she didn't like drawing so she forced herself to make a project combining the two. She didn't like talking to people and was interested in why we buy things so she made a project out of that too. The result of these decisions is a confident mark maker who's found their voice and knows how to use it. 

Talking Points

• How can this week be better than last week?
• Taking a sabbatical. 
• Accidentally teaching three classes as a graduate student just trying to figure it out. 
• Would you even fit in to a traditional agency model?
• Learning to tell your story before your paid to tell other people's stories. 
• Where is the problem solving for students at universities?
• Creating a self initiated experience and discovering what is missing to fill the gap in education. 
• Getting a peak at what your design career will look like. 
• Email composition in class to successfully navigate through a people profession. 
• Starting with rules to make thinking easier and reclaim your day. 
• Putting in that first hour and liberation through restrictions. 
• Lincoln Nebraska Target Customers get grilled on why they bought what they bought. 
• Obsessive Consumption comes to life. 
• Pushing and punishing yourself to stay accountable.
• Don't be a blob. 
• List making maniacs, stockpiling notebooks, and information design at its purest essence. 
• Good design only exists inside the architecture for success. 
• Wandering thinkspace routes. 
• Pulling a narrative out of the messy spiderwebs and the importance of talking out your choices. 
• The difficulty in being a student these days and career FOMO. 
• Personal style, confident wonks, and rules for repetition. 
• An eight year personal project that led to a book deal and finding your loosely goosey voice. 
• Confident mark making no matter what it looks like. 
• Giving attention to the overlooked and slowing down to make something that will give you something to remember. 
• How to sustain interest in daily projects that can lead to something else. 
• Public Design Center, Portland State University, and Mississippi. 
• The value of design and creative thinking to a community. 
• Steam rolling Outlet into a reality.
• Learning to trust your voice in a class filled with intelligent confidence. 
• Making, defending, and talking about your work to act as if and set your energy level at what you want to happen. 
• Yelling about Symposium. 
• Self confidence levels, becoming yourself, and the importance of a supportive community around you. 
• From weaver to principal. 
• Doing things that make you nervous and sweaty. 
• The right place and the right time that leads to the next thing. 
• Experimenting in public will be scary but rewarding and soft spots for outside kids. 
• Does JBB feel successful?
• The less glamorous role of the Conductor. 
• Bad ass grandma desks, progressive moves in the forties, and mind gyms. 

Chris Parks is another artist who looks at what scares him and dives in headfirst to uncover everything he doesnt know and come back with something truly impressive to show for it like controlling your dreams of putting together an entire Luchador event.

Dawn Handcock at Firebelly realized she could best use her talents of client relations to take Firebelly forward the same way Kate orchestrated Symposium so masterfully. This interview shows you the value of sidestepping the direct role of designer.

Dylan is another non stop creative who has applied his creative focus on making what he wants. From photoshoots in the woods to following a fragrance, Dylan has that same fire your hear in Kate's voice throughout his interview as well.