Back to the Bottom of the Barrel (with Colby Nichols & Sean Bucknam, Live at Seattle Design Festival 2026)

Hello, Seattle Design Festival! And welcome to Did I Do That? A podcast about graphic designers making mistakes, because when it comes to making just about anything, it's all part of the process.

I'm Sean Schumacher, and I am joined today by not one, but two very special guests live on stage here! Woo! But before I introduce them, I think I should set some baseline expectations for what this show is about.

Because as I said, when you do design, mistakes aren't optional.

Normally, though, this is where they would end up.

The trash.

But Seattle is a special place.

A nasty wall covered in ABC gum can be something monumental here.

Just this year, in fact, rather than looking at a littler version of this little guy rummaging through a local bin for scraps and dismissing it, you all have turned a raccoon sighting into a serious nationwide case of Jimothy Fever.

Yes.

Now, if any of you out there actually have symptoms of Jimothy fever, though, please see a medical professional right away.

Every second counts.

But this isn't just me cashing in on Seattle short spine, but long legged king, though.

Jimothy and most designers have a lot in common.

Taste and fine dining, for instance.

But there is another similarity.

You see, every once in a while, a piece of trash comes along that is so monumental, so special, so magnificent in its own twisted way that the garbage simply isn't where it belongs.

We pull it out with our tiny little hands and secret it away because we know it deserves somewhere else, somewhere better.

Even if that somewhere is just a secret folder we pretend not to remember.

But we open up every once in a while to glance in at the horror we wrought and wonder, is this the worst thing anyone has ever made? Rather than suffering slash admiring their crapulence and silence, today we've scavenged up that work from two of Seattle's best designers to share with you.

The goal, to find the most interesting, silly, and hilarious scrap and give it the pomp and circumstance it so richly deserves.

That is why we're here today for an upside down critique competition where our designer presenters will share their funniest, weirdest and most misbegotten work that they've ever made.

And then you out there will get to choose whose work is the worst in show or as we call it here, the bottom of the barrel.

Sound like a plan.

Thank you, one person.

Let's introduce our first competitor here today.

Sean Bucknum is a designer, maker, conceptor, problem solver, and former student of mine at Portland State University.

He honed his designer's eye and art director's skill set at places like Amazon, Nike, REI, and Brooks Running.

And these days, Sean serves as a senior designer at Starbucks.

Sean Bucknum, everybody! Thank you.