Collection One is here, and to celebrate, Different Leaf podcast host Brit Smith sits down with our inaugural guest editors, Nick Cave and Bob Faust, for an exclusive conversation about the making of this issue.

LISTEN HERE

Nick and Bob bring extraordinary creative weight to Collection One. As longtime Chicago-based collaborators with over 30 years of work spanning art, design, and community building, they shaped every corner of this issue, from the contributor lineup to the cover itself.

In this episode, Brit digs into what drew them to the project, the ideas that shaped the issue, and what it means to hand two endlessly curious creative minds the keys to a magazine. They talk about their creative process as life and work partners, how they decided to use fiction to hold the entire magazine together, and the spontaneous car ride from Detroit to Chicago where the character of Mr. Karen was born from an autocorrect error in a text message.

They also talk about cannabis, not as a subject, but as a thread. As Bob puts it: "We didn't choose our features based on whether subjects are or aren't cannabis users. It's just another one of those things that's part of many people's every days."

And Nick, on what he hopes readers take from the issue: "Art has always been a reflection of societal perspective. We're in a critical time where we have to speak louder than we have before."

This is just the beginning. Listen to the full conversation below and stay tuned for more from Collection One.

LISTEN HERE