And I remember walking in and the woman said,

didn't I tell you to put it in the mail?

I said, yeah, but today the male's coming in person.

It's easy to make jokes about stuff.

But to understand it deeply, I don't think I do.

The most wonderful thing about a professional is that we cannot repeat ourselves.

From the TED Audio Collective, this is Design Matters with Debbie Milman.

On Design Matters, Debbie talks with some of the most creative people in the world about what they do,

how they got to be who they are, and what they're thinking about, and working on.

On this episode, in celebration of the 20th anniversary of Design Matters, we'll hear from some of the illustrators Debbie has interviewed over the years.

You do your sketches, you get to a point, and they're like, whoa, whoa, that's too much, that's too strong, and it gets dialed back.

Just be who you are, and I love you. You know, what more do you need?

Yeah. are and I love you. You know, what more do you need? As a form of visual communication,

illustration works fast. A good illustration will communicate an idea almost instantaneously.

A great illustration will induce us to linger over the details. Over the 20 years of design matters, Debbie has spoken with some of the great illustrators of our time.

Today, we're going to play some excerpts from a few of our favorite interviews.

Debbie has interviewed Brian Ray at least three times over the years.

He's not quite a podcast regular,

but every five years or so, she's had the opportunity to check in on him and see what he's up to.

In 2011, Brian Ray had recently completed a stint as art director of the op-ed section of the New York

Times. He had also already started illustrating the Times column Modern Love, which he is still doing to this day, along with a lot of other stuff. I mean, I was spending a lot of time working in a certain kind of way when I first got out of school. It was very collage-driven. But in the evenings and when I had free time, I would go and draw from life, you know, the things that I saw along the avenue or different parts of Baltimore.

And I would send those drawings to different art directors who I respect, like Leanne Schapton, I showed some to Paul Serra, who was living in Baltimore at the time.

...