Adam JK (AKA Adam J. Kurtz) sits down with Sean to talk about his design mistakes… as well as parking scams, bootleg Barts, and Advanced Macaroni. It’s the episode that will make you ask, “is this for the podcast?” over and over as someone tries and fails to describe the plot of Back to the Future to you (and somehow the answer remains yes).
ABOUT THE GUEST: Adam J. Kurtz ("Adam JK") is a Toronto-born, Honolulu-based artist whose illustrative work is rooted in honesty, humor, and a little bit of darkness. His books and journals including Things Are What You Make of Them have sold over a million copies in twenty languages. Obsessed with aphorisms and ephemera, Kurtz's work seeks to craft new reminders from familiar sources, offering his brand of "back-handed optimism" as a token of encouragement and camaraderie for other creative, emotional, and deeply human people. In 2024, Kurtz and his husband opened a shop called SMALL KINE GIFT.
You can find Adam’s latest journal, Now What: A Creative Companion for Whatever Comes Next, is available for preorder now from just about any bookseller, online or otherwise—including in a signed edition directly from his site.
This episode was recorded Thursday, October 15, 2026.
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 (Associate Professor of Graphic Design at Portland State University) is joined by a designer guest to share stories 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.