Smash Notes

Back to Electric Feel with Colin Dunn, with Colin Dunn.

How Did Colin Dunn Get Into Graphic Design?

Colin Dunn got into graphic design by making NBA fan art in high school, before he knew the work was a career. He made fan art of Jason Richardson, LeBron James, and Michael Jordan, then wallpapers and websites. Internet forums and a site called West Coast Remix, where people downloaded wallpapers, connected him with other creatives. He treated it as a hobby.

His oldest sister, Katie, asked if he had considered art school, around his junior year of high school. A friend of hers was a type designer who had gone to art school, he thinks RISD, and that made a career feel possible. He looked up the average income of a graphic designer and saw he could expect to make as much as $35,000 a year when he graduated. The draw was passion, not a lucrative path. Art school let him explore it full time, and that is when it turned into the career he has today.

Transcript

Electric Feel with Colin Dunn ·

First of Kind

More from this episode

  1. Why Did Colin Dunn Choose Daycare Over a Nanny?Colin Dunn chose daycare over a nanny because he felt the social environment would help his child's development.
  2. Does Venture Capital Change What a Real Problem Is?Colin Dunn says the definition of a real problem is very different if a company is funded by venture capital.
  3. How Big Would Visual Electric Be Without AI?Colin Dunn says Visual Electric is about half the size it would be in a pre-AI world.
  4. What Skill Is Left When Everyone Can Design?Colin Dunn says the skill left over, once design tools get easier and everyone can make things, is taste and the ability to tell a story.
  5. Why Do AI Designs Look Finished From the Start?Colin Dunn says AI lets you design at full fidelity from the beginning.
  6. Why Do Complicated AI Interfaces Become Simple?Colin Dunn says complicated interfaces usually exist because the models are not good enough, and once the models get good enough the interfaces become very…
  7. What Surprised Colin Dunn About Being the Designer?Colin Dunn says the most surprising thing about the CEO and chief designer role is how weak his attachment to being the designer has been.
  8. What Is the Best Career Advice for Motivation?Colin Dunn calls the best career advice getting in touch with what is uniquely motivating and figuring out how to optimize for it.
  9. Why Does Taste Make Designers Great Founders?Colin Dunn says designers are uniquely positioned in 2025 to be great founders because taste is the new skill.
  10. Will AI Replace Brand Guidelines?Colin Dunn says AI models are going to replace brand guidelines, and the entire creative production process is going to be remade in the image of AI.

People

More answers like this

More with Soleio

Related episodes

Plays from this note through the rest of the episode.

Note

Weekly highlights

One letter a week.

The notes worth hearing, with the minute they were said.