Starting out in design can be like taking your first steps. To learn how to walk, you have to do a lot of falling down, too.
That’s why we made Did I Do That?: First Steps, a miniseries about designers who are just starting out, and the things we stumble through while learning what this field is all about. It’s hosted by Sean Schumacher, a design teacher, and Gabe Bidney, a design student. On each episode, Gabe, Sean, and a special student guest talk through what’s inspiring us—and what's making us sweat—as we figure out where we fit in this whole big world of graphic design.
New episodes drop in this feed every other Thursday all summer long, starting on July 17.
Did I Do That?: First Steps is produced by Sean Schumacher and created with students from DES 425 Rodeo at Portland State University during Spring term 2025. To learn more about the PSU Graphic Design program, visit psu.gd.
Special thanks to the student team behind this project: Gabe Bidney, Mycah Brandley, Nica Mork, and Joel Williams. Additional thanks to the students whose voices featured in this trailer: Gabe Bidney, Jillian McWhorter, Mycah Brandley, Nicholas Zapata, and Nica Mork.
Did I Do That? is a podcast about graphic designers—the ups and downs they face in creative practice, because making design means making lots (and lots) of mistakes.
Every other Thursday, host Sean Schumacher (Ass’t Professor of Graphic Design at Portland State University) is joined by a designer guest with a story about their own mistakes starting out and how they ended up where they did. It’s very weird, pretty silly, and definitely not serious—but neither are designers.