112 • DANA ARNETT

Our guest is Dana Arnett, Co-Founder and Chairman of VSA Partners — one of Chicago's most celebrated and enduring design firms.In this episode, Dana speaks with host Christian Solorzano about a career that began in the cornfields of Morton, Illinois and grew into four decades of work with some of the world's most iconic brands. He reflects on the sophomore portfolio rejection that redirected everything, and the three serendipitous mentors — Robert Vogele, Rick Valicenti, and April Greiman — who each shaped his creative courage in a different way.Dana traces the building of VSA from a storefront on South Dearborn to a firm of 375 people, and the landmark client relationships — including the Chicago Board of Trade and Harley-Davidson — that defined an era of Chicago design. He speaks candidly about what it means to lead without getting in the way, the fragmentation happening across the design industry today, and the questions he still asks every time he picks up a pencil.The conversation closes with a genuine reckoning with AI — not as a technology conversation, but as a craft and labor conversation — and VSA's three-word design philosophy that has guided the firm from the beginning: empathy, optimism, and intent.Music by the band Eighties Slang.

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