SCD Spotlight: Affiliate Eric Benson

Associate Professor of Graphic Design and Siebel Center for Design Affiliate Eric Benson justwon a 2026 Design MasterPrize for sound design and a Gold and Listener’s Choice at the Signal Awards for his podcast What Makes a Good Day, an honor he shares with the likes of Amy Poehler and Jon Stewart.

 

 

 

Gold and Listener’s Choice

What Makes a Good Day is a podcast for anyone who creates. It asks whether we are living by our own values or reacting to everyone else’s expectations, drawing on Stoic philosophy, contemporary psychology, and conversations with creative practitioners. The Signal Awards recognized it with Gold in the Indie Podcast (limited series) category, along with Listener’s Choice, the fan-voted award. Benson learned the news the morning of his interview for this story, and he has just returned from New York, where he accepted his awards. 

For Benson, the recognition is a surprise. He originally planned just six episodes and wasn’t sure anyone would listen. “My goal wasn’t to win a Signal Award,” Benson said. “My goal was, very selfishly, to figure this out for myself. And if other people found some guidance, then hey, I’ve done my job.”

The show’s reach has already extended beyond what he expected. After it was nominated, a listener wrote to share that hearing a young guest voice feelings her teenager had never opened up about started new conversations at home. “That wasn’t my goal,” Benson said, “but it’s incredible.”

The idea took shape during the pandemic, which Benson remembers as an “infinite Groundhog Day” in which he would look up to find it was already 3 PM. He designed the show’s artwork at Fresh Press and took inspiration from podcasts like Alie Ward’s Ologies and Steve Burns’ Alive, where the hosts reflect openly about their own lives and how they relate to their guests’ stories.

Benson also shared that his podcast guests offered lessons he has carried into his own life and work. One encouraged him to think in longer timescales, trading daily to-do lists for a week-long view, and another recommended ending each day by naming a few things you’re grateful for and treating a rough day as a small “blip” to learn from.

From Corporate Design to Climate Action

Before the podcast, Benson was a UI/UX designer at Razorfish and Texas Instruments when a book changed his direction. On the flight home from an American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) conference, he read Cradle to Cradle by William McDonough and Michael Braungart and came away convinced that the way designers make things had to change. “It was a calling for me to change the way that I made things,” Benson said. The corporate world he worked in wasn’t responsive, so he chose graduate school and earned his MFA in design from the University of Texas at Austin in 2006.

His thesis became Re-nourish, an open resource that gives graphic designers strategies and tools for bringing sustainability into their professional practice. Over the years, it grew to include design educators and became a nonprofit, and as of this May, it is a for-profit studio run by Benson and his business partner. He also co-authored Design to Renourish: Sustainable Graphic Design in Practice with Yvette Perullo.

Benson’s climate work is now expanding to reach new audiences! He is the latest guest on Not a Climate Scientist, a podcast from the Woodwell Climate Research Center and hosted by award-winning radio journalist Heather Goldstone. In the episode, he discusses “creativity as climate action” and how nature inspires how he designs and creates. 

 

Connecting Art and Design with Siebel Center for Design

As a nine-year program head for graphic design, Benson has focused his Affiliate role on building bridges between his students and Siebel Center for Design. After Director Rachel Switzky invited him to get involved, the two began brainstorming joint events, including Design Illinois. 

Growing Fresh Press

Fresh Press, Benson’s agri-fiber paper lab, explores how regional agricultural fiber waste can become paper and paper products. It began as his own lab, but it outgrew him almost immediately. With campus funding, he brought in graduate students to train and help run the studio. “The ecosystem of the lab is like an amoeba,” Benson explained, “shifting shape with whoever is in the room.”

Today, two collaborators, Nicole Kim and Christina Chavez, help him run the studio, and they are pushing Fresh Press further into the community. The lab has led workshops for Prairie Fruits Farm and Creamery and the Champaign Public Library, and is exploring a presence at Urbana’s Market at the Square.

What's Next

The awards have Benson thinking bigger as he considers what’s to come. So far, he’s sketched out a second season of What Makes a Good Day featuring psychology and philosophy experts who can go deeper on the questions the show raised. He has also applied for grants for More Than Human, an audio documentary investigating life-centered design, a thread that runs through his broader research on life-centered systems thinking, climate fiction storytelling, and the role of AI in sustainable design.

Whatever comes next, Benson’s work keeps returning to one idea: that the things we make, and the days we live, can be designed with more care.

Listen to What Makes a Good Day →

Highlighted Publications:

Benson, E., & Perullo, Y. (2016). Design to Renourish: Sustainable Graphic Design in Practice. Focal Press.

Benson, E. (2022). Fresh Press Agri-Fiber Lab. Ground Works: Vibrant Ecologies of Research.

Benson, E., Jennings, J., & Gibson, M. (2017). Dezombies and the Coming Design Apocalypse: Confronting the Urgent Need to Increase Racial Diversity and Environmental Awareness in University-Level American Communication Design Programs. Dialectic, 1(2).