If you’ve mastered the Adobe pen tool and maybe accumulated a double digit screen time, you’ve probably heard of Elliot Ulm, or elliotisacoolguy on YouTube. His high energy and sarcastic charm appeal to the trials and tribulations of anyone who’s ever had the misfortune of downloading the Adobe Creative Cloud app. His opinionated commentary and relatable quips have carved him a space in the online design community, with a presence amassing nearly 300k subscribers on Youtube and over 300k followers on Instagram. Ulm’s comedy show, Graphic Design Live! won the Best Comedy Award at Sydney Fringe 2024 and made its way down for Melbourne International Comedy Festival (MICF). Hosted over March and April at Paw Paw Jump at The Greek, the show promises Elliot’s “finest client work in what is a completely serious portfolio presentation by an established industry professional”.

Nathan: I still can’t believe you didn’t realise he was in a Steve Jobs outfit the entire show.

Chiaki: I still can’t believe he was in a Steve Jobs outfit the entire show.

Nathan: Why was he in a Steve Jobs outfit?

Chiaki: Why was that introductory dance so much longer than it needed to be? Wait. Nathan, tell them about the dance. Tell them tell them.

Nathan: It went on forever.

Chiaki: It was some sort of zumba hip hop routine. He was running on the spot for like five minutes straight.

Nathan: What? What is zumba hip hop… Whatever man. Anyways, what did you think about the show? Dancing aside.

Chiaki: No, the dancing was funny, I laughed.

Nathan: It didn’t take much for you to laugh, did it?

Chiaki: Wow. That’s kind of rude.

Nathan: No no no. In the sense that…

Chiaki:  You just hate it when women enjoy themselves.

Nathan: What the…

Chiaki: Anyway, I did like the show.

Nathan: For sure. What I did like is that there were quite a few meta jokes as well as references to things pretty specific to what's going on right now, even in Melbourne. But I could totally get it being confusing if you didn't know what was going on.

Chiaki: Yeah, wait… that Jesus Christ Superstar bit… wait Nathan, tell them about the Jesus Christ Superstar bit!

Nathan: He told a whole story about how he was snubbed for the lead role in Jesus Christ Superstar by his graphic design partner. Brett or something?

Chiaki: Moments after we literally saw a Jesus Christ Superstar poster on our way there. It was chilling.

Nathan: Well I guess we made it to the next best thing, Graphic Design Superstar.

Chiaki: Crickets…

Nathan: Speaking about graphic design, I didn’t think there were enough graphic design jokes! I was really looking forward to some super niche jokes about my Scratch Disk getting full or Comic Sans.

Chiaki: It was general enough to be understood by non-graphic designers, and that has its own ups and downs. The guy is funny because he’s a comedian, not because he’s a graphic designer. He just happens to be a graphic designer. And a Youtuber. Have you seen his videos before?

Nathan: Honestly, it’s been a while since I’ve seen one of his videos, but there were quite a few jokes where you only got it if you really got it. Like the recurring Steve Wozniak bit.

Chiaki: Steve Wozniak?

Nathan: Yeah, exactly.

Nathan: The show was kind of like his life’s story, except I’m 99% sure that the life he was talking about was not his own life. I probably spent half the show trying to figure out if this was real or not.

Chiaki: I spent half the show dismayed and sympathetic.

Nathan: Yeah, his humour is quite self-deprecating, isn’t it? Love it, though. He kept making references to a show he put on in the past, called SO LONG RANDWICK, but I can’t find a single thing about it online. So the entire thing was probably not real, right?

Chiaki: More lies. That design company of his…

Nathan: SweenyFont! That was a funny pun. Chiaki doesn’t get the reference.

Chiaki: Sorry guys…

Nathan: His PowerPoint clicker ran out of batteries a third into the show. Did you think that was on purpose?

Chiaki: You can’t ask me this now. I’m still hung up on the Fake Design Company.

Chiaki: How’d you find the Obligatory AI Segment?

Nathan: I can’t lie, that was pretty funny. Like, that AI generated Deer Design? I don’t know man, you just had to see it.

Chiaki: It does raise good questions, though. About the future of graphic designers in the age of generative AI.

Nathan: Whatever, man. Just put the fries in the bag.

Nathan: Why are you looking at me like that? Guys, she’s giving me a really weird look right now.

Chiaki: I was trying to mimic the weird Deer logo.

Nathan: 8/10.

Nathan: What’d you think about his delivery ? I couldn’t tell if he was trying to be super nervous on purpose or not, like if it was part of the character– but he spoke so quickly, right?

Chiaki: I suppose that’s why I felt so sorry for him the whole time. The sad life story seemed too real.

Nathan: You felt sad? Bro, that was so funny, real or otherwise.

Chiaki: I found the Five Quick Jokes segment really funny.

Nathan: I don’t know if I laughed because the jokes were funny or because they were just that bad.

Chiaki: Complex and multi-layered comedy.

Nathan: Well, Chiaki, I thought the show was pretty funny. I feel like I wasn’t always laughing because the jokes themselves were all that good, but I loved Elliot’s energy throughout the entire set. But, the venue was super stuffy, right?

Chiaki: It’s just what happens when forty-odd people are crammed in a small room for an hour I guess! And I hope nobody takes this the wrong way but it made leaving and stepping into the cold night air feel pretty satisfying– that and the fact that we had lots to talk about after it ended. Which is all you can ask for in a show, really.

Nathan: I think there were not enough niche graphic design jokes. The Pen Tool was only mentioned once! 6.5/10.