Episode Transcript
Don Mock 0:18
I see you already writing copious notes. No, no notes? Alright, we’re back. I thought you’re gonna jump in there. We’re back and we have a special guest. Episode 26, and we have another drive by visitor.
Rachele Mock 0:32
Our daughter and my mother asked if the voice at the end MOCK the podcast was me?
Don Mock 0:39
Yeah.
Rachele Mock 0:40
Because I’m the voice of your voicemails. And they were disappointed to find out it’s not me.
Don Mock 0:48
It’s not you. No. We brought on a special talent just for that one.
Rachele Mock 0:52
I know you did.
Don Mock 0:53
Alright, so 26. So last time we chatted a little bit about our personal life, of course, and our sort of brush with greatness, right? So I thought we do another fun sort of team up adventure. We’ll call this the Batman braving the bold. He always has a team up, right? Where last time you did a bunch of clinics and Charettes as you’re fond of saying workshops and whatnot with famous people. We actually did one together with another,
Rachele Mock 1:21
Famous designer.
Don Mock 1:21
With another, oh hey they’re famous people. To us their famous. And we can make this a series we can do like a Mount Rushmore designers, we can do conferences and things we’ve been through together, which could be fun. But I thought it would be kind of interesting to share about another clinic we did since the last time we chatted. And we both did a one day with Stefan Sagmeister, which was interesting.
Rachele Mock 1:45
Yeah.
Don Mock 1:46
So this was how many years ago was that now? This was a while back?
Rachele Mock 1:49
Well, I think it was less than five years ago. Because, do you remember at the very end very had us write a letter? And I think he said he was going to mail it back to us in five years.
Don Mock 2:01
I think it was three years, but we never got our letters.
Rachele Mock 2:03
No, I think it was five.
Don Mock 2:04
Was it five?
Rachele Mock 2:05
Yeah.
Don Mock 2:06
Oh, okay.
Rachele Mock 2:06
And I believe that was in 2018. Because we were doing some things around the house at that time.
Don Mock 2:12
All right, you would know. I’m bad with space and time. So I’m good with advertising, design, and layout, right?
Rachele Mock 2:18
Look at our Facebook memories and you’ll find it.
Don Mock 2:20
I’m not spatially reliant. So, we got the opportunity to jump on board a one day clinic. Not clinic, but workshop with him over at SCAD Atlanta, which is super fun.
Rachele Mock 2:20
Yeah.
Don Mock 2:20
I believe… Were you still teaching at the time? You weren’t teaching anymore. But we still basically knew a lot of the professors over at SCAD Atlanta.
Rachele Mock 2:39
I get a lot of those emails, you know, do you want to do a career thing? Do you want to do this? And it was hey, Sagmeister. And this is open to alumni and current students. And I was like, Well, Don was like, 1997.
Don Mock 2:52
Oh, no.
Rachele Mock 2:54
So is he ok? And they were like, totally, we totally want him there.
Don Mock 2:58
Yeah.
Rachele Mock 2:59
So we were accepted.
Don Mock 3:01
Yeah. So we get there. Super cool. He’s a remarkably tall man. And he had a great run on all the print magazines and Communication Arts and everything in the 90s and 2000s. He later went on, he had his own studio. Then he partnered with Walsh. Sagmeister Walsh, and then I believe they have now split and she is just “and Walsh” and he’s off doing his own thing. He’s doing a lot of interesting infographic sort of work. He’s designing a lot of clothes now. He’s doing a lot of repurposing of paintings. He’s got an interesting thing going on, too, so.
Rachele Mock 3:33
Does he still take that sabbatical? Like, doesn’t he do that every three years?
Don Mock 3:36
I don’t know. I don’t know if he does or not. At the time when we met him. He was very, I don’t wanna say famous, but one of his things was he would work for seven years and then take one year off.
Rachele Mock 3:47
Right. One time it was in Bali.
Don Mock 3:49
Yeah, the most recent one, when we met him, he was talking about being in Bali and it’s full, like, shut down the studio shut everything down. Like I’m out, don’t email me. I’m not doing any work nothing. And he was kind of getting back to his roots, and doing personal projects and doing all, you know, the things that he loves to do and what, and he would go to a different country and basically live there for a full year.
Rachele Mock 3:50
Yeah. Who wouldn’t want to do that?
Don Mock 4:08
Yeah. I mean, gosh, all of us were alive. We were like having kids. Oh, my god, this is the most amazing thing in the world, right? So anyway, so he came to SCAD. We did this. Shout out SCAD Atlanta. We did the one day workshop. And do you remember what the assignment was?
Rachele Mock 4:28
Was it Bank of America?
Don Mock 4:29
It wasn’t Bank of America, but it was a bank. It was basically redesign an entire brand and an approach and everything for a bank. I don’t remember the name of the bank. I’m sure we’ve got all the work somewhere.
Rachele Mock 4:29
Was it maybe a fictional bank? Like, The Atlanta bank or something like that?
Don Mock 4:44
Yeah. And when we last chatted you had joked about hey, you didn’t sleep for a week. This wasn’t that but it was one of those just jam as fast as humanly possible.
Rachele Mock 4:54
Yeah, I remember they brought pizza in and people wouldn’t even go grab the pizza because they didn’t want to take a break.
Don Mock 4:59
Yeah, that’s funny. And, you know, he would kind of meander, you know, he launched the project, we all kind of run off to our own little thing. And then he kind of meander around and do interesting touch points with with us throughout the day, the end of the day was a composition of everyone’s work together. And then he basically, you know, kindly ripped everybody a new one, at the end, you know, going through everybody’s feedback.
Rachele Mock 5:23
Except for you. I think you won that one. You won that.
Don Mock 5:27
I don’t know if I won that one. But I mean, we’re getting to the end of the story here. But I do remember, he didn’t have anything negative to say about anything that I had done. So, I’ll call that a positive and move on, you know. But again, just like your Masimo example, we had a wide variety of people in their careers at that time, right? So it’s reasonable to expect that if you are, you know, a grad student, or someone new in your career, you might not necessarily be as fast as somebody like us who has been doing it for 20 years or so. So I mean, I’m really able to just jam out, you know, a plethora of ideas very, very quickly, under a time constraint like that, right? As we often are fond of saying, a catchphrase that you are fond of saying and and has permitted this agency.
Rachele Mock 6:14
Is this circa 2007?
Don Mock 6:16
Yeah. What do we always say?
Rachele Mock 6:18
“Deadlines compel focus.”
Don Mock 6:19
Exactly. I’m gonna give that a circle R with a credit to you for that one.
Rachele Mock 6:22
Thank you.
Don Mock 6:23
So yeah, um, we did the workshop. We did all sorts of crazy stuff. And it was super fun. What memories do you have of Sagmeister? And sort of the approach? Any interesting thoughts? Because it’s funny, we went to that thing together.
Rachele Mock 6:39
Yeah.
Don Mock 6:40
And we may have sat close to each other. But I don’t know that we talked to the entire day.
Rachele Mock 6:44
We sat next to each other. I don’t remember if you put in some earbuds or what I remember a girl who was in the Vignelli workshop that we referenced earlier. She was sitting on the other side of me and she was working at Coke at the time. I don’t remember a lot. I mean, it went really fast.
Don Mock 7:06
Yeah.
Rachele Mock 7:07
It was kind of just fun to be in the same room as him and watch him interact and teach other students. I really did take away that he kind of stayed away from you and me. I mean, we were almost more his contemporaries. I don’t know if we introduced ourselves and explain that at the time, I was a professor of graphic design. I’m sure you didn’t say you ran a shop.
Don Mock 7:31
No, probably not.
Rachele Mock 7:33
You probably just said you’re a creative director.
Don Mock 7:35
Well, if we were to toot our own horn a little bit, I mean, we’re on our own podcast, and we can say whatever we want. But I think it’s safe to say that we maybe didn’t need as much tutelage or guidance to push the envelope further than potentially some of the other students. I say, students, for the populace of people in there. Not everybody on there was a student. Of course, most people have graduated. But you know, we didn’t need as much attention, I guess, you know, it was an interesting experience. I really was looking forward to seeing how he creative directed a roomful of people, right? And what the approach was. And banking, you know, hey, it’s a kind of a conservative thing. It’s not like we’re doing these crazy, wacky, wackadoodle graphics. I mean, I definitely pushed mine out as far as I felt that I could.
Rachele Mock 8:18
Do you remember what yours looked like? Because I don’t really recall mine, which means it was really great… (Laughter).
Don Mock 8:26
I think I used like a deconstructed stencil typeface where like, the letter forms weren’t always connected together. I mean, it was definitely a mix of old and new. And I think part of the approach was, and by old I mean, like, Line-o cut graphics and sort of illustrative qualities from currency from money.
Rachele Mock 8:47
Yes, yes.
Don Mock 8:48
So I kind of had, that old sort of established like, super complicated, crazy one color layouts and design elements, right? But then paired that with very, very modern type, right to be contemporary. And so I think that was part of the, I’d have to go back and dig it up.
Rachele Mock 9:03
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. I’m gonna search on my laptop.
Don Mock 9:06
Yeah, we’re doing some animations and ads.
Rachele Mock 9:07
Yeah, you pull the animation together really quickly. Yeah, and it kind blew everybody away.
Don Mock 9:15
But I think we’re also writing taglines, and we’re doing all sorts of crazy stuff. I mean, I just kept going and going until the two o’clock stop.
Rachele Mock 9:22
I remember it was neat being in the room with you, because you and I do not collaborate professionally too often.
Don Mock 9:28
No.
Rachele Mock 9:29
And, it was just a really nice experience. I mean, we’ll say this probably five more times if I come back ever.
Don Mock 9:38
Well, it depends on how many ratings we get for these episodes.
Rachele Mock 9:40
Design School is utopia. You know, and for you and I to be there not dealing with a client and just dealing with the project was pretty cool. You know, we didn’t have to turn it into somebody. We didn’t have to defend it. We didn’t have to send it to a printer.
Don Mock 9:55
Yeah. We could kind of just do what we wanted.
Rachele Mock 9:58
So that was fun. And then you know, He’s, he’s an interesting guy. He’s a really interesting guy. You know, personally, he couldn’t be any farther from the two of us again, he can take a sabbatical, that kind of thing. So, um, that was sort of an interesting conversation to touch on with him. That’s sort of something I remember.
Don Mock 10:18
I was just gonna ask you, I mean, as we kind of think about maybe wrapping this one up. I was gonna ask you if you had any interesting, funny little, little touch points and whatnot, of your memory of interacting with him? Because I’ve got one that’s kind of stuck with me.
Rachele Mock 10:31
Yeah, I think I asked him a question about like, you know, was he giving up something personally, to be such a rockstar professional?
Don Mock 10:43
Oh, interesting. Okay.
Rachele Mock 10:44
And I don’t think that went over so well with him. But he was a nice guy.
Don Mock 10:50
Super nice guy. Well, we haven’t met him once before to at an AIGA conference.
Rachele Mock 10:54
Yeah. And I’d seen him speak a few times. I have a book that’s signed by him. I mean, yeah, he wants to give back. I mean, he’s a teacher at heart. So what’s yours?
Don Mock 11:04
So my funny story is, and I don’t know how this came up. But it was about records and the availability of music. Do you remember this?
Rachele Mock 11:13
No, not at all.
Don Mock 11:14
Okay, so it was one of those, he had talked about how he had gotten a new record player, and like, you know, super awesome. Like, audio, technical, whatever stuff, I don’t even know what I’m talking about, you know. And had the speakers and had designed to the room to listen to music to in a certain way. And, you know, vinyl, as opposed to digital music and things like that. And so the point of the story that he was sharing with everybody, he was coming to the conclusion that the more readily available, and the easier the music is to listen to, is directly proportionate to how shitty the music actually was. And he was kind of holding court and doing this whole thing on like, if it’s easy, if you can just flip a device and hit play and listen to the music, like you turn on the radio, or whatever, the music is generally speaking, terrible. But if you have to work for the craft, and you have to find the vinyl, and you have to place it in the thing, and you have to close the thing and then you have to sit on a couch at a certain angle with the speakers at the whatever. Like, it makes the experience of music infinitely better.
That’s probably why live music is amazing. Sometimes.
Yeah. So again, I mean, this is through the filter of my memory. And did he say those exact things? I don’t know. You know what I mean? But I’ve always kind of stuck with that funny little aspect of, “oh, yeah. If it’s readily available, it’s bad.” If you have to hunt for it, it’s worth it. You know that type of thing.
Rachele Mock 12:43
Right, right.
Don Mock 12:44
All right. Well, hey, thanks for stopping by super fun.
Rachele Mock 12:46
Thanks for having me. I mean, this is…
Don Mock 12:48
Super fun, right?
Rachele Mock 12:48
I am flattered to be here. I love a good podcast.
Don Mock 12:52
You’re welcome. Anytime. I know you consume a lot of podcasts compared to myself, for example.
Rachele Mock 12:56
Yeah.
Don Mock 12:57
All right. Where can everybody find why don’t you do the outro? Where can everybody find us?
Rachele Mock 13:01
@mocktheagency on the socials. On the interwebs, as Rob likes to say, yeah.
Don Mock 13:06
All right.
Rachele Mock 13:07
Leave us a review.
Don Mock 13:10
All right.
Rachele Mock 13:10
Our middle daughter just left a review.
Don Mock 13:12
Oh, really?
Rachele Mock 13:13
Yeah.
Don Mock 13:13
Oh, no. I don’t think I knew that yet. All right. Well, thanks, everybody for listening, and we’ll chat with you next time. All right. And Rachel, you’re welcome back anytime.
Rachele Mock 13:21
Thanks.
Don Mock 13:22
Yeah, you’re welcome.
Comments are closed.