Span

Heading into the weekend with a good one for you: our John Pobojewski is the latest guest on The Design Of Podcast from Rule29 Creative.

The conversation touches something we believe deeply at Span: design is not just what you make for clients. The practice itself is a design assignment—shaped, refined, and rethought over time.

As John puts it: “The business is also a design assignment. You’re constantly improving it and thinking about ways in which you can revise it. It’s not precious; it is in and of itself a living thing.”

A thoughtful listen on creativity, leadership, and building work that can adapt, endure, and matter.

Designing Against Hate.

Hate doesn’t always announce itself with violence. Too often, it slips into everyday spaces, unchallenged and normalized.
In , Span’s own Nick Adam () writes about how the creative community has a unique responsibility and a powerful toolkit to resist hate.

Design isn’t just decoration. It’s declaration. A phrase, a poster, a campaign can interrupt the rhythm of hate, offer solidarity, and point toward belonging.

Read the full piece [link in bio]

In the piece Nick references work from

📸: Help Stop Hate for the and designed by our and at Span

Did you know, we named a fish and got it accepted in to dictionaries!

Invasive carp are the greatest ecological threat facing the Great Lakes a looming crisis that demands bold action and fresh thinking. At Span we saw an opportunity to turn this challenge into a catalyst for change.

Enter Copi. A brand we created to rename, reframe, and reposition this invasive species not as a problem, but as a solution. It’s (likely) the only living species ever named and branded by a design studio. Copi transforms a misunderstood fish into a compelling, delicious, and sustainable choice. One that the call a ‘Best Choice’.

For the next 2 weeks at the , Chef Maurice Jackson brings Copi to the people — elevating fair food with innovative dishes that prove responsible consumption can be both impactful and irresistible.

Eat well. Do good.

This week, two of our design directors— and —head to NYC to speak at Type Lab, the experimental heart of the annual Typographics Festival at The Cooper Union.

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Bud Rodecker will unpack his team’s recent rebrand and website for IIT College of Architecture, where the solution wasn’t trendy—it was timeless. In this talk, Rodecker shares how a revival of Mies van der Rohe’s “Allzweck” type—became the foundation of the rebrand that embraces typographic archaeology.

It’s a story about design as memory work. About how the right letterform can carry decades of cultural meaning, quietly and precisely, into the present.

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Nick Adam will offer a powerful meditation on typography’s civic role across three recent projects: South Side Sanctuary, Chicago Lowrider Festival, and a state-wide anti-hate project. This talk centers typography as a civic act—an expressive force capable of celebrating what matters and safeguarding what’s at risk.

Because the real question isn’t “what’s next in our field?” It’s “what do we want to last in our world?”.

Both talks will be part of Type Lab at Typographics

Bud Rodecker’s talk will be on Thursday, June 26
Nick Adam’s talk will be on Sunday, June 29

All TypeLab events will be open to the public with free registration.

See you in New York?