Episode Transcript
Don Mock 0:21
Episode 130 Rob, we’re back.
Rob Broadfoot 0:23
130
Don Mock 0:24
and you’re back because we had, because we had Mr. C last time.
Rob Broadfoot 0:27
That’s right.
Don Mock 0:27
So, all right, everybody, we’re sitting here wondering what in the world we’re going to talk about, quite candidly. And we started talking about what’s going on in the shop right now. I thought it might be an interesting idea to talk about what’s going on the shop right now without naming names, right? And the idea of may sound like a boring topic, but I actually think there might be some leveraged learnings here for people out there in the world, the topic of process, right? Following the process, hey, how do you do an ad? How do you do a logo? How do you do a brochure? How do you build a website, for example, right? There’s no specific, hey, here are the 10 steps to success, right? That every single agency, design firm, freelancer, brothers uncle, uses. You know, how do you come up with a logo? I don’t know. There’s a lot of different ways, right? There’s master classes out there from David Carson, how to do I mean, there’s a million different ways to do it, right? But at the end of the day, there is still kind of a, like, one foot in front of the other kind of scenario. You know what I mean? Like you kind of have to do certain things in order to make solid, foundational decisions to then build on that, you know, for a design methodology or an architecture methodology, right? I mean, it’s, it’s, yeah, I guess you could design the cover of your brochure first, instead of designing the inside back cover or the table, you know? I mean, there’s, there’s the loosey goosines, yeah? Like, before you get to those specifics, you still have to kind of walk in a straight line to make sure things are going right, you know.
Rob Broadfoot 1:54
So, yeah, I think it’s, it’s interesting, because we sort of, it’s a fine line right between too much process and too little process, right? I think you have to strike that balance. And we very much one of our selling points, and what clients, I think, really appreciate about the way that we do things is we wrap a lot of things up in efficiency, right? and part of that efficiency is being able to adopt to their methodology. So, and what does that mean? That means, oh, you happen to be using you would prefer to send it over in an Excel spreadsheet now, just look at it that way. Great. Yeah, you prefer to do it this way or do it that way. We are lean and mean and available, available. That’s not the right word. That’s what. I can use it. I can use it and available to to adopt to, yeah,
Don Mock 2:46
we’re not going to force you to use our 12 steps of success. It’s a little bit of whatever is the easiest way to get it off of your desk onto our desk. We’ll take it and then dump it into the way that we, you know, work, and then, to your point, we work efficiently and get things done, yeah?
Rob Broadfoot 3:00
However, there are certain tenants that you have to adhere to based on the type of project that it is, right? Yeah? So, I mean, I think for us, generally speaking, you know, we’ll pick on logos for a second, for the, for the, for the most part, if we’re doing logos or even initial concepts, we always kind of come in with, hey, black and white.
Don Mock 3:19
Yeah, right, totally.
Rob Broadfoot 3:20
And we’re gonna do black and white, whether that’s hand drawn or whether that’s on a computer. It doesn’t, yeah, it depends, but always black and white. And we do that for a very specific reason, because we don’t want color to sway people’s opinions one way or the other out of the gate, right?
Don Mock 3:36
Yeah, we don’t wanna influence the decision of composition based on, I love purple and I hate orange, yeah, yeah, exactly.
Rob Broadfoot 3:44
So that would be a tenant, right? Of that, I think, for websites, is another interesting one. And we, you know, I’ll give you a little bit of a case study, yeah.
Don Mock 3:51
kind of dealing with it right now, right?
Rob Broadfoot 3:52
Kind of, kind of in the thick of it right now. And so the project came along, and it was, it’s a hurry up, it’s a quick timeline. Got to get it done.
Don Mock 4:00
It always is, buddy, it always is.
Rob Broadfoot 4:01
I know it always is. This one was particularly rushed, I would say, and it was okay. Well, first things first, we need to, we need to wireframe this thing. We need to figure out the architecture, wireframe everything out and go down that path. Well, we got to the first round of wireframes. Presented those. Those went great, but then it was, I don’t want to say mandated, but we, the client, preferred that. We then went immediately to designing out all of the pages, yeah, what’s listening because they had the fear of, like, what’s it gonna look like? When is it gonna be done? Yeah, yeah. And so we deviated from the path of making sure the wireframes are fleshed out a couple rounds there to make sure we know exactly what we’re designing against,
Don Mock 4:47
yes, and the purpose of the wireframes is just that correct to understand what we’re designing against. But also, I would say, feel free to jump in and correct me. It’s a good step to make sure that we capture. Or all of the content buckets that you need for your website. Yeah, right. It’s easy to we could design a page this way, that way, purple, green, yellow, or whatever. We can design, design, design, design, but it’s really more, Hey, what are you trying to say, and who you saying it to, and what you know, we need to fill those buckets of content, right, or leave space for, oh, by the way, we need a button here that does XYZ or whatever, right,
Rob Broadfoot 5:20
yeah. And you have to think about the the UX of it, and the UI of it. And, you know, not only what content are we, but where is that content going to go on the page, totally, you know, it’s, it’s, you got to look at the blueprints of the house before you build the house. Build the house. Yeah, right. We’re gonna use that analog.
Don Mock 5:38
Makes sense, yeah
Rob Broadfoot 5:39
And so also, we did that, and so we kind of deviated, and suddenly we had this interesting place where it got to this place where we designed out all of the pages, okay? And we put them in the wireframe software. So you because it’s important also, too, when you’re designing a site, to be able to look at the map of the site, sure, right? It’s not just this, yeah. You know,
Don Mock 6:01
web design has changed tremendously over 20 years, and we’ve always had a site map. From day one,
Rob Broadfoot 6:05
you’ve got to be able to look at the map and see how the information flows, from an architectural standpoint. Well, all of a sudden, here we are, and we designed every single page out with no content, yeah, because that’s always a roadblock for people too.
Don Mock 6:19
Well, all right, well, that’s a different topic, but I’m with you.
Rob Broadfoot 6:23
Put it back into the software, and all of a sudden we’re like, Huh? Suddenly, this doesn’t make sense from an architectural standpoint, yeah. And information like, things aren’t aligning and things are so
Don Mock 6:35
and it’s things and it’s things they’ve requested, right? I mean, this is direct from, wait, wait, we jumped over this hopscot stat, correct? You know, I can’t even speak, but, you know, yeah, yeah. And then all of a sudden, yeah, we did what you asked for. But, oh,
Rob Broadfoot 6:48
yeah. And so the problem is, now, shocker, we have to go backwards, yeah, you know, it turns out it wasn’t an efficiency play. It was a very inefficient play, yeah, because now we have to go backwards and sort of re engineer the architecture, yeah, and then re engineer the design to map out what we should have done in the first place. Yeah.
Don Mock 7:10
There’s a lot of things you think sometimes are common sense, but all of a sudden they’re not common sense. And you’re and you assume you know, our client friendly partners would understand that, right? But it’s, where does that button go? Why did you ask? Like, what? Hold on, a second stop for a minute here. This isn’t make, like, you know, I get it. We’re all in a rush, and we got to get these things done and things like that. But skipping the process of the blueprints, to your point, it’s like, oh, was there supposed to be a bathroom here, right? You know, like, what, I was wondering, what this big house
Rob Broadfoot 7:43
How are they going to the bathroom, if they are in the basement? Yeah, there’s no bathroom down
Don Mock 7:48
Yeah, exactly, exactly you can build one after the fact. It’s just more expensive, yeah? Like, I mean, anything is doable,
Rob Broadfoot 7:54
you know, you know. And I would say, out of all the types, different types of projects we work on, that’s probably the
Don Mock 8:01
most process driven?
Rob Broadfoot 8:02
most process driven. That’s right, because it is so technical. There is UX to think about, there’s experience, there’s all these things to think about,
Don Mock 8:10
yeah, well, we haven’t even talked about technology definition too, which really is the crux of, well, in general.
Rob Broadfoot 8:17
Right. Depending on the complexity of the site. We do some sites that are literally just online brochures, and they don’t have any technology requirements. I’m gonna build this thing in WordPress, and I need to submit button to go to HubSpot. And yeah, there you go. Call it a day.
Don Mock 8:31
Yeah, contact us and we’re out. Yeah, that’s the extent. I mean, the technology definition is just more in the SEO aspect. And hey, can people find us, you know, right? But you’re not building custom middleware to tie into your SAP system. Or, to your point, you’re not dying in HubSpot or Pardot or sales, you know, like it’s, it’s, yeah,
Rob Broadfoot 8:49
you get into E commerce stuff, and it’s a whole different, yeah, whole different set of rules.
Don Mock 8:54
Fun sets of rules.
Rob Broadfoot 8:55
It is fun sets but it’s complicated. Yeah, it’s complex, and you better get it right, because if you don’t,
Don Mock 9:02
my lord, I remember one client we were working on, come to find out. You’ll remember this. They were, what, 500 patches back on Oracle. It was like, Oh, why isn’t the site? And it’s like, oh, oh no. You know? It was one of those like, oh well, we’re so ancient now that we can’t update certain things, because then it’ll break our Bill of Lading service, it ties into our, you know? And it’s, it’s a whole freight system,
Rob Broadfoot 9:34
yeah, our company will fail
Don Mock 9:35
Yeah And it was almost one of those, like, Guys JavaScript, like, Yeah, you can’t update that. Yeah. It was one of like, Oh no, you know, yeah, it was so funny. So, yeah, it gets complicated pretty quickly.
Rob Broadfoot 9:45
Yeah, well, and now more than ever, the speed at which technology is, you know, just change evolving. You gotta stay on top of it, for sure.
Don Mock 9:54
Yeah, it’s pretty funny, but, but clients don’t know these things. I mean, we’re dealing with marketing managers, or we’re. Dealing with Project, man, you know, things like that, right? They don’t know that IT is actually 500 patches back on, exactly things like that, right? So there’s definitely a fun uncovering, you know, when you start appealing back the layers of technology. But you know, to your point, that’s why the process exists for something like that, right, right, that, and I agree with you. I think that, you know, technology driven projects, and specifically sites, for us, probably the most adhere to, to a strict, a strict order of operations, yeah, you know, now sometimes we can.
Rob Broadfoot 10:34
You can be flexible within those, you know, within those different steps, you absolutely can, yeah, but you got to get the wireframes approved, yeah, yeah. Then you go to design.
Don Mock 10:45
Hey everybody, where’s the content?
Rob Broadfoot 10:47
Like, we can write content.
Don Mock 10:48
Well, it’s, and it’s one of those, like, yeah, we can write the whole site for you. It’s hard to write the whole site for you without any of your input, though, on, on what you’d like your site to say, right? That’s kind of, you know, like, you know, get something out of your head for us to work with, you know, you know. And also, like, we don’t know your, you know, your key, unique selling propositions yet, you know, things like, right? If it’s a brand new client. So funny, yeah. Sometimes you can really bundle the steps together. I’m thinking about, like, because consumer packaging, and you mentioned logos earlier, sometimes it’s, Hey, we got a brand new brand. We needed to do a logo, yeah? But then we also know it’s gonna go into this chip bag. You know, the chips are called this, you know. How do we, you know? And sometimes you know you’ll do, okay, do the full vis ID, you know, exercise. And then hey, then, once that’s approved, apply that to packaging, and to other things, right? And sometimes depending on scope, right? Just like the analogy for websites, you know, some websites are gigantic in E commerce, and sometimes they’re just five pages. And the truth, right, is like, Okay, well, hey, based on scope and based on complexity here, let’s just bundle that together, yeah, let’s just do your logo and your packaging kind of all at once, so you can kind of pick a path, and then we kind of massage from there.
Rob Broadfoot 12:02
Well, I think was with a project like that too. Context is important,
Don Mock 12:05
yeah, oh yeah, for sure,
Rob Broadfoot 12:06
you’re obviously going to need the logo on a sell sheet and a thing, and it’s done like that. But if they know that the application, we’re picking on food packaging, yeah? But if we know the application is going to be on a Mylar bag with the thing, they’re sort of free production and design things that you have to take total consideration, given the context of where the logo is going to be applied
Don Mock 12:06
Yeah, well, and it’s more important that it looks good on a retail Mylar bag and a freezer ad
Rob Broadfoot 12:28
than a golf shirt.
Don Mock 12:29
Yeah, exactly. Embroidered on a polo, right? Or, you know, shout out to those that are listening on that one, right? And there’s a little easter egg. But, you know, yeah, what’s your primary vehicle? It doesn’t matter what it looks like on your business card, as much as, you know, you want consumers to put it in their shopping cart, that type of thing, right? Yeah, a lot of process, a lot of you know, it’s, there’s a method to the madness, even though it sounds like we just run to the creative cave and use our crayons, right?
Rob Broadfoot 12:59
And there’s a time and a place for that.
Don Mock 13:01
Absolutely, absolutely, yeah
Rob Broadfoot 13:05
Once we have sign off
Don Mock 13:08
yeah, ad development. Is there a process to advertising?
Rob Broadfoot 13:13
I think again, and we were saying process, but our approach is always, you know, when we’re developing advertising, it’s always idea first, right? You have to the idea is the most important thing, yeah, and we, I’m sure we’ve mentioned it before, but we can go back to the Nike the Jordan gravity stick figure. Yeah, the best ads you can do, literally, in stick figure drawing?
Don Mock 13:39
Yes, for sure.
Rob Broadfoot 13:40
So I think the takeaway there is the concept is the most important thing, which is why we always up front, everything’s just kind of drawn out, very black and white just to get the idea. Because if you can’t get the idea across, in a black and white sketch,
Don Mock 13:54
yeah, it doesn’t matter what the production value is.
Rob Broadfoot 13:55
Doesn’t matter how pretty it is or how whatever it is, you’re not gonna it’s not gonna resonate. So again, that’s that just the idea that, like, hey, strip everything away from it. And if the idea isn’t there, it won’t be successful. So that’s the idea. Is, get the idea sold through first, then we can start bringing it to life, and making it look good, and tweaking headlines and finessing and refining until we get to the till
Don Mock 14:19
we get to the end result. Yeah, it’s funny. Visual identity, development and advertising from a client perspective, you know, people that work with us on the other side of the fence, that process is actually kind of the same, yeah, right? Because it is really sort of conceptual idea. Black and white up front, focus on the message, focus on the form, focus on the function. You know, that type. Don’t worry about, is it an illustration? Is it a photograph? Is it purple? Is it is it green? You know? So it’s funny thinking about process. It’s kind of like there’s our internal methodology of how we approach solutions for clients, right? But then there’s also the process which they participate on. You know? On that side of the fence, right, right, which is kind of interesting too, to think about. So their process is pretty similar, yeah, yeah,
Rob Broadfoot 15:06
yeah, all right.
Don Mock 15:07
Is that it for process?
Rob Broadfoot 15:10
That’s the end of our process. Told you it wasn’t a long one
Don Mock 15:13
No. Well, hey, I think it’s important, though. I think it’s important to be mindful of it
Rob Broadfoot 15:17
And that’s not to knock clients, certainly, and that’s not to knock other agencies that have Dr Seuss machines, yeah, you know, if you have an organization with hundreds of people, sometimes you need more structure to run the thing through the system.
Don Mock 15:32
Yeah, it is less efficient, but there is a paper trailer, yeah.
Rob Broadfoot 15:35
So there’s a reason that they exist. But again, for us, we feel like we found that sweet spot for clients, yeah. Whereby it’s we can be informal in the sense that we can, we can be malleable to whatever their system is and whatever works best. If you want to give it to us in a Word document, great, yeah. You want to just type it out a total bullet point, whatever, yeah.
Don Mock 15:57
Yeah. And then on our side of the fence we can decide, okay, let’s put steps two through seven together, yeah, into this next round, or whatever. You know, that type of thing too, for efficiency sake.
Rob Broadfoot 16:06
Yeah, our process, if you want to call it that does, never slows anything down.
Don Mock 16:10
Yeah, that’s true.
Rob Broadfoot 16:11
The end goal is to make it more efficient, and to bring it to market faster.
Don Mock 16:15
Yeah, it’s good point. Very good point.
Rob Broadfoot 16:16
The rules are in place for a reason,
Don Mock 16:19
yes, but then we know when to break the rules
Rob Broadfoot 16:21
we know when to bend them.
Don Mock 16:23
Do we break them? We just bend them.
Rob Broadfoot 16:24
We’ve broken them. We’ve broken them.
Don Mock 16:26
Yeah, yeah, we’ve broken them.
Rob Broadfoot 16:27
Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesnt.
Don Mock 16:33
well, you know. But sometimes they break the rules too, and then that’s problematic.
Rob Broadfoot 16:37
Yeah, so we have to slap the back of their wrist.
Don Mock 16:41
That’s okay, all right. Where can people slap our wrists?
Rob Broadfoot 16:48
I’m not sure how to answer that.
Don Mock 16:49
Yeah, they can metaphorically do it online.
Rob Broadfoot 16:52
Metaphorically do it online at www.mocktheagency.com you can find us on the socials, @mocktheagency and you can DM, slap us if you want. You could show up at our physical office. That might get a little awkward.
Don Mock 17:02
That’s gonna get awkward. We do keep the door locked down.
Rob Broadfoot 17:05
There’s a police station right across the street.
Don Mock 17:06
Yes, yes. Shout out. Zone three.
Rob Broadfoot 17:09
Zone three, where you at
Don Mock 17:09
well, yeah, they’re out there somewhere keeping us safe.
Rob Broadfoot 17:12
All right, we will talk at you next time for Episode 131, it’s gonna be a doozy.
Don Mock 17:17
Yes, it is. Thanks, everybody.
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