Did I Do That?

Legendary educator and detail-oriented designer for good Precious Bugarin sits down with Sean to talk about her design mistakes… as well as John Cage’s call-in show, clothing tags, and the challenges of “Illustrating” a 200-page book. Plus, help fund our smash-hit sequel to Backrooms: Creepy Hallway Is The Portal (To Creativity) (And Also There’s Tiny Locked Room In The Room That Has A Sink).Precious Burgarin comes from a family of immigrants, migrant farmers, veterans, journalists, artists and teachers. She’s a first generation Filipino American; born in San Francisco and raised in Stockton, California. Over the span of two decades, she’s been a designer and design educator. Her studio amplifies the work of nonprofits and helps businesses grow through thoughtful branding. She was a senior adjunct professor at Portland State University in the School of Art + Design (2003-2023), teaching students about type details and branding for social good. Previously, she was Art Director at Mercy Corps and currently serves as Graphic Design Manager at Toole Design Group.This episode was recorded Saturday, April 25, 4 A.R. (AKA 2026) in the Rat’s Nest.While this is our final episode recorded from the Rat’s Nest, it isn’t the last episode that will be published from it! Come back in two weeks for that last recording from the weekend before, and what might be our final episode of season 8 (unless I can figure out some interim recording space in the mean time—talk about a cliffhanger to end the season on!).

We can’t go too crazy, but we try to get close! Gianni Scarpino Candy (AIGA Portland Mentorship Program co-chair and Senior Visual Design Lead on the Player Experience Editorial and Loyalty Team for XBox) sits down with Sean to talk about her design mistakes… as well as cemetery parties, Shoemaker’s Lung, and Icy Hot for galas.Gianni Scarpino Candy is a visual design leader with a passion for exploring the intersections of design, communication, and culture. Throughout her career, she has had the pleasure of working with a diverse range of clients and industries. Her objective has always been to design experiences that are interesting, have aesthetic appeal, be easy to understand, and bring impact. Bonus points if she can wiggle in humor and delight.This episode was recorded on Saturday, April 11, 2026 in the Rat’s Nest.

In the confusingly-named conclusion to our first-ever two parter, Jelly Helm continues sitting down with Sean to talk about his design mistakes at Wieden+Kennedy and beyond… as well as the Season 6 cast of Saturday Night Live, Zip plus-fours, and bean basements. What can we say: it’s a freaky time and we’re feeling freaky!Miss part 1 with Jelly? This episode should be fairly self-contained, but if you want the full story on Jelly’s early career, go back and give part 1 a listen here.Jelly Helm is a creative director, brand advisor, and educator based in Portland, Oregon. As founder of Studio Jelly, he provides thoughtful creative leadership and trusted brand partnership to organizations seeking to powerfully express who they are and what they are about. Previously, Jelly served as Executive Creative Director at Wieden+Kennedy, Group Creative Director at The Martin Agency, and Creative Director at Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam. He was also founding faculty at VCU Brandcenter and founder/director of Wieden+Kennedy 12, the agency’s experimental in-house school.CW: the latter part of this episode includes discussion around self-harm that some might find distressing.This episode was also recorded on Saturday, March 28, 2026 in the Rat’s Nest.

In our the first half of our first-ever two-parter, the legendary Jelly Helm sits down with Sean to talk about his early career design mistakes… as well as urinal content, slowly becoming the big gray bean cube, and the worst conversations you can have on a long flight. This is interesting to other people—we swear!Since we recorded more than 3 hours together in studio, I broke our conversation in two to give you as much of the good stuff we talked about without needing to lose any of it. Listen in two weeks for part 2, where we’ll talk about his more recent career milestones including Wieden+Kennedy 12, Studio Jelly, and more. Subscribe wherever you get the show to hear that episode as soon as it drops!Jelly Helm is a creative director, brand advisor, and educator based in Portland, Oregon. As founder of Studio Jelly, he provides thoughtful creative leadership and trusted brand partnership to organizations seeking to powerfully express who they are and what they are about.Previously, Jelly served as Executive Creative Director at Wieden+Kennedy, Group Creative Director at The Martin Agency, and Creative Director at Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam. He was also founding faculty at VCU Brandcenter and founder/director of Wieden+Kennedy 12, the agency’s experimental in-house school.This episode was recorded on Saturday, March 28, 2026 in the Rat’s Nest.

This might be the first you’re hearing of it, but we feel very strongly you should listen to a new episode of Did I Do That?! Rinee Shah (Executive Creative Director at Hatch) sits down with Sean to talk about her design mistakes… as well as chinchilla celebrations, ceremonial cream cheese tastings, and Sleepytime satanic panics.Rinee Shah is a creative director and illustrator, based in Portland, Oregon. She is a 2023 Ad Age 40 Under 40 honoree and is currently Executive Creative Director at Hatch. In the last few years, she’s led creative for Oatly in North America, created an episodic video series for Spotify, creative directed Snapchat’s first global TV campaign, led prototype-building product design sprints for Kodak and published three illustrated books. Her illustration clients include The New York Times, NY Mag, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, Inside Hook, BuzzFeed News, O Magazine, Apple, IDEO, and Simon & Schuster.You can find Rinee’s work online at rineeshah.com, and on Instagram as @rineeshah. You can get her latest book with David Roth, LOL 101: A Kid’s Guide to Writing Jokes, from Chronicle Books directly, or from tons of other booksellers including Amazon, Powells, or a local retailer near you via Bookshop.com)! You can find her previous book, The Made-Up Words Project, on her website, Amazon, and many more places!I have given us a mission, listeners! Let’s get Justin Hager of the Partanna Mission Spicy Pepper Olive Oil his accolades: please go and review this good can design anywhere you can review the product itself and let them know that it is Sleepytime Tea hell. Maybe if we’re lucky, we can get a very weird collaboration going! A few places I’ve found it that offer reviews: Amazon; Partanna Foods’ own page for the Mission Spicy Pepper Olive Oil; Best Sicily, whatever that is; and probably others, though Zupan’s is disappointingly not among them. That said, you can probably go in there and just tell somebody you think the design is sick!This episode was recorded Saturday, March 21, 2026 in the Rat’s Nest.

A new Did I Do That?!? Holy cow, we don't even know how to attack it! Neven Mrgan (Creative Lead at Panic) sits down with Sean to talk about his design mistakes… as well as German dub Darth Vader, turning your company’s office into a mad scientist’s lab, and the Seinfeld Presidential Library.Neven Mrgan is the Creative Lead at Portland very own Panic. Born in Croatia, he moved to the US in the 1990s, where he has pursued a career in design, software development, videogame design, and occasional writing and event production. His personal interests include cooking & eating, books, and psychedelic music.You can learn more about Neven by visiting his website, mrgan.com; there, you can find links to his games, his blog, and his book, Have You Tried Sketch?. Panic’s latest game, Big Walk by House House, is coming later this year, but in the mean time, you can see their whole library of games, Mac software, and even pick up a Playdate at panic.com. If you want to hear more about Panic’s history and even more on some of the stories we touched on in this episode, give a listen to The Panic Podcast (new season out now!), produced by Neven’s partner Christa Mrgan!This episode was recorded on Saturday, March 14 2026 in The Rat’s Nest.—Like this episode? Subscribe wherever you found this podcast, or visit us on the web to see all the options.Subscribe to the newsletter and get each episode delivered to your inbox.

Put on your biggest, fuzziest Jamiroquai hat because this Did I Do That? is virtually insane! Illustrator, art director, set designer, game maker, and more Emily Suvanvej (AKA Emy Su) sits down with Sean to talk about her design mistakes… as well as comforting crustaceans, “gardening,” and The Backrooms at the mall.Emily Suvanvej is an award-winning, Thai-American designer & illustrator who lives at the crossroads of visual mischief and lovingly-crafted imperfection. Formerly an Art Director at BUCK, she’s worked with top brands like Spotify, Nike, YouTube, and The New Yorker, and was recently a core creative force behind BUCK's first game called Let’s! Revolution!.You can peek at Emily's work at emy-su.com, or send her your favorite lost media on instagram at @emy_su. You can find the link to the many places you can get Let’s! Revolution! (including Steam, Xbox, Playstation, and Nintendo Switch) from its website, letsrevolution.com. You can see Emily’s production design work for the Fergie’s "Love is Blind" and Zed’s Dead “Too Young” music videos on YouTube.This episode was recorded on Saturday, January 31, 2026 in the Rat’s Nest.📣 WANT EVEN MORE ABOUT THIS EPISODE, AND/OR A VERY WEIRD BLOG POST VAGUELY RELATED TO THE OPENING BIT? Check out the show's newsletter for my Rome Transit Report, as well as other bits and bobs from our past two episodes this season.

Why not make a new Did I Do That? All the listeners could say is no! Katie McHugh (Group Design Director at Wieden+Kennedy) sits down with Sean to talk about her design mistakes… as well as pledge drive phone banks, magical janitors, and Spartacus’ bulk aisle.Katie McHugh is a Design Director at Wieden and Kennedy. She has also played strategist, senior art director, 3D space and experiential designer, digital designer, stylist, painter, and sculptor. She has worked for brands including Nike, Old Spice, KFC, Coca-Cola, Weight Watchers, GoPuff, Trolli candy, Laika movies, EA Games, Velveeta, Travel Oregon, Samsung, Quibi, P&G, Fisher-Price and more. She is fiercely loyal, always looking to elevate my EQ, a risk-taker and a mediator. She believes in the power of good design, strategy, and branding.You can find Katie’s work, including glimpses of her Dante’s Inferno, Coraline, Velveeta, and KFC projects mentioned in this episode, at mcwhatever.com. Additional thanks to the great Macy Eiesland for just being rad.This episode was recorded 1 February 2026 in the Rat’s Nest.