Episode Transcript
Don Mock 0:20
Alright, everybody. Episode 11. We’re back. Rob is on vacation. So, we have a special guest sitting in.
Cuyler 0:27
Yes.
Don Mock 0:27
In Rob’s seat here. Kyler, who was one of our art director designers here at the office. Thought it’d be interesting to have him sit in on today’s episode. Kyler is, as I just mentioned, art director designer, so we’ve got a little double dose of design.
Cuyler 0:42
A little extra design.
Don Mock 0:43
Extra design.
Cuyler 0:44
Specificity.
Don Mock 0:46
Kyler. How long have you been? You’ve been here a number of years, haven’t you, a couple of years? Three years, something?
Cuyler 0:51
Going on four.
Don Mock 0:51
Four years, wow.
Cuyler 0:53
Four, around the end of summer.
Don Mock 0:55
Okay. Four of the best years of this business’s history. How about that?
Cuyler 0:56
Well, I appreciate it.
Don Mock 0:56
I know. Well, Kyler, before we jump into design, I’ve got what I think might be an interesting topic for two designers to talk about. Before we get into that, I want to talk about the music, because Kyler is also the mastermind behind our theme song. Talk me through the creative process for writing our little opening ditty. I know you did, like five or six different examples, right? I think you wrote everything basically on a keyboard, right?
Cuyler 1:29
Yeah, so I did everything on a MIDI keyboard. Which if you don’t know, you just kind of plug that in to your computer. Then you can emulate a bunch of different sounds, through various different programs. I use the free one.
Don Mock 1:44
Yeah. GarageBand or whatever.
Cuyler 1:46
Yeah, which isn’t the best, but it gets you by.
Don Mock 1:49
I love the song. I think it’s cool.
Cuyler 1:51
Yes, it’s surfy, it feels a little..
Don Mock 1:53
Yeah, well, it’s got a little Certify, but it also has a little bit of Private Eye.
Cuyler 1:57
Inspector Gadget.
Don Mock 1:58
Yeah, I was gonna say, not Inspector Gadget for me. More Archer, like Sterling Archer, sort of fun spy thing. A little man of mystery, dare I say.
Cuyler 2:05
It does.
Don Mock 2:09
So, I guess when you sit down, and you’re a musical guy by nature, now you played a bunch. We talked about music on a previous episode. And I know that you play guitar and played in bands and musical upbringing as a lot of creative people, kind of dabble, both in illustration, photography and music, whatever the case.
Cuyler 2:25
Multi disciplinary.
Don Mock 2:26
Yeah, exactly.
Cuyler 2:26
Pretty common.
Don Mock 2:27
So, when the assignment comes in, we need a little theme song for our podcast. How do we approach that? Is there any?
Cuyler 2:34
So, I just sat down and was trying to play around with some chords and try to figure out what the sound or voice..
Don Mock 2:42
What the vibe is.
Cuyler 2:43
Yeah. And then, how long should it be, I guess with podcast intros usually don’t..
Don Mock 2:48
Yeah, don’t want it too long.
Cuyler 2:49
15 seconds to 20 or something like that. Then I just tried a lighter one. There was a darker one that was a little too dark, was a little weird.
Don Mock 3:00
Sure.
Cuyler 3:01
And then, then I just started kind of playing with different styles.
Don Mock 3:05
Yeah,
Cuyler 3:06
More rock or, kind of a softer thing. Then I was like, maybe I’ll try a surf thing, and then rob really liked it. Yeah, you know, this one could work.
Don Mock 3:16
I think it’s cool. I love it. I love it. I think you’re a talented guy that can sit down on a keyboard and just write all the different parts of the song, whether that song is 10 minutes long, or 10 seconds long. I think it takes talent to do that.
Cuyler 3:27
I had a class, actually in high school where this is all we did. We had a full size MIDI keyboard.
Don Mock 3:32
Okay.
Cuyler 3:33
And we would make songs. But then also, we had projects where we would score 10 minutes of a scene from him.
Don Mock 3:41
Really?
Cuyler 3:42
I think we got to do Mission Impossible, tunnel scene. Jon Voight, on top of the train.
Don Mock 3:46
Interesting.
Cuyler 3:47
And we did that, like every year. It was the same scene pretty much.
Don Mock 3:49
Huh, interesting.
Cuyler 3:50
And sometimes guys would get creative and even dub in fake.
Don Mock 3:53
I didn’t have anything cool like that. I mean, I went to high school a million years ago, so there was no, we were still learning how to write checks and do boring things. It was no fun. We barely had computers, Kyler. I think we updated from typing to keyboarding. You know what I mean?
Cuyler 4:10
I mean, when I was in elementary school, there was still pretty early computer stuff.
Don Mock 4:15
You’re gonna make me feel old.
Cuyler 4:16
I know.
Don Mock 4:17
No, we had Apple II E’s when I was in elementary school. Macs weren’t even a thing yet. I sound like a Grandpa.
Cuyler 4:23
Macs weren’t popular. If you remember, it was like Jobs had gone away, and no one had Macs.
Don Mock 4:28
We had that was the clone years, where they were trying to do the PC model. You probably don’t remember that.
Cuyler 4:32
I do remember them.
Don Mock 4:34
They were terrible.
Cuyler 4:35
Very much. I remember my grandfather getting one he was very confused. But yeah, the whole interface of the..
Don Mock 4:36
Grandparents and computers, that’s confusing to begin with.
Cuyler 4:42
Well, that was the only computer ever. Thank God, no iPhones.
Don Mock 4:47
Alright, well, that’s enough about the theme song. So two designers sitting in the chair. I thought what might be interesting is to get a couple of different perspectives about the concept of doing better design. The two of us being very visually driven, right? I’m gonna lump us together. We go out in the world, and we see the world visually different, potentially than a lot of the rest of the people do. I would say that and I mean this lovingly. But the world’s worst design is almost always in a Mexican restaurant menu, you know?
Cuyler 5:19
Oh yeah.
Don Mock 5:19
I look at that thing, and I’m like, My Lord
Cuyler 5:22
But, that’s how I trust a Mexican restaurant.
Don Mock 5:25
Well said. Very well said.
Cuyler 5:26
If it’s too nicely designed. yeah.
Don Mock 5:29
Well, you always want two or three typos in there. You write for authenticity. But, that’s an extreme example of, we look at that. Next, we look at that menu probably different than 95% of the world looks at a menu. For a restaurant, right? So, I don’t know what the numbers are. I think we consume three to five thousand different visual messages a day, or something like that, right? Through advertising, through billboards, just living our lives.
Cuyler 5:56
It’s constant.
Don Mock 5:56
Sixteen hours a day. So, the idea of doing better design, I think could be an interesting topic. You know, as we get assignments from clients, I’ll throw the question over to you about the idea of how do you approach making something, air quotes, better, right?
Cuyler 6:17
Right.
Don Mock 6:17
Any any initial thoughts that come to mind in terms of approach? Okay, here’s a brief. Got an assignment from a client, it’s packaging. It’s sales collateral. It’s a website. It’s a video. It’s whatever the deal may be, right? Are there any universal principles that anybody listening to this might be interested to, how designers formulate better design? It’s a tough question.
Cuyler 6:38
Yeah.
Don Mock 6:38
I was gonna say it’s not an easy one sitting in Rob’s seat here.
Cuyler 6:42
For me, I feel like it I approach different projects, probably a bit differently. There’s not the same starting point for a new client logo project.
Don Mock 6:55
Yes.
Cuyler 6:55
As there is for, even if it’s a new client, a client that has an existing brand.
Don Mock 7:01
Correct.
Cuyler 7:03
Feel, or at least they have some brand elements?
Don Mock 7:06
Yeah.
Cuyler 7:07
If it’s just color, or type, or some kind of visual elements that they’ve used.
Don Mock 7:14
Yeah.
Cuyler 7:16
If it’s in a case like that, I’ll try to take those things. And try to see a different way to combine those elements.
Don Mock 7:25
Yeah.
Cuyler 7:26
And how they’ll work with the given project? If it’s a new..
Don Mock 7:31
So, let me interrupt, though. That sounds like it’s really more of a visual order of operation, I’m not trying to put words in your mouth.
Cuyler 7:37
Right.
Don Mock 7:37
But it’s, we’ve got all these elements. It’s an existing brand.
Cuyler 7:40
Right.
Don Mock 7:41
How do we organize this in a manner that’s going to be easily digestible?
Cuyler 7:44
Right, or is there, if they’re using some kind of design element, is there a better way for them to use that? Or is there something, if they have a logo already? Is there something in the logo that can be used almost like a brand system?
Don Mock 7:59
Sure.
Cuyler 8:00
I mean, you know, I’m a fan of system.
Don Mock 8:02
Yes, and patterns and all that. Yeah. Yeah. But, I think that works. That’s taking what you’ve got, and solidifying it and making it better.
Cuyler 8:13
An example would be Amazon’s arrow, from A to Z.
Don Mock 8:19
Correct.
Cuyler 8:19
Right. Most people today, I feel would think that it’s a smile.
Don Mock 8:23
Yeah, everybody almost universally says it’s a smile.
Cuyler 8:25
But really, I think that was just a utilization where they saw that on the packaging, if you just use this, it kind of looks like your package is smiling at you on your doorstep.
Don Mock 8:33
Well, I think it’s now that they have prime and video and we’re watching football on Amazon. They have kind of Nike swooshed that thing, and they’ve taken that smile, or the arrow as we would probably call it, and they have disassociated from the type, so it used to be used to be from A to Z, right? We have everything.
But it was always with the type.
You never see it without type. So, remember Amazon started as just books. All they were, were the world’s biggest bookstore. Call it the glorified Barnes and Noble, right?
Cuyler 9:00
Right.
Don Mock 9:00
So, when they did that, rebrand that tied into oh, by the way, we have..
Cuyler 9:05
Yeah, we everything.
Don Mock 9:05
We have plumbing fixtures. I would think of anything and type it into Amazon and it exists. It’s crazy, right?
Cuyler 9:11
But, I feel like there was probably a designer along the way.
Don Mock 9:14
Yeah.
Cuyler 9:15
Who was like, this also looks like this. There’s a double way of using this element that’s already in the logo. For all we know, they might have tweaked the logo a little bit at that point. Because some people don’t realize that logos get tweaked little by little over time.
Don Mock 9:33
Sure. Absolutely.
Cuyler 9:34
Pentagram just redid AmEx’s design. And I would say 95% of people would not even notice that.
Don Mock 9:41
Correct.
Cuyler 9:41
That they spent, God knows how much money.
Don Mock 9:43
But it’s been cleaned up. The illustration of the person’s head is cleaner and the type. The type, when I look at it, it’s dramatically different. Especially that C to A ligature, because you get that weird C, A, thing which they’ve always had. How do you feel about, is that better or worse?
Cuyler 9:59
I think that they improved AmEx.
Don Mock 10:02
Yeah.
Cuyler 10:03
That said, it was just a slight upgrade, if you want to call it that.
Don Mock 10:10
Yeah, it’s not the Tampa Bay Buccaneers going from the creamsicle, and the photo, or not the photo, but the illustration of the..
Cuyler 10:17
Pirate.
Don Mock 10:18
The buccaneer with a knife in his mouth. To now we’ve got like full skull and crossbones. That’s like a full rebrand.
Cuyler 10:23
That was.
Don Mock 10:24
I would consider what AmEx did an evolution.
Cuyler 10:26
Right.
Don Mock 10:27
Then I think too, a lot of it is just utilization, right? Everything is trend. I’m not breaking new ground here, but everything trending digital, needing a digital specific utilization. I mean, American Express is a long word mark. It’s got a traditional lithograph looking illustration in the middle that looks like money. But now, we’re competing with PayPal and Venmo. All that stuff, right? So, they’ve developed..
Cuyler 10:53
Called a syntek, which has become a big thing.
Don Mock 10:56
Yeah, for sure. So, they’ve got the little teeny moniker now that plays well, socially, and things like that.
Cuyler 11:01
The little square.
Don Mock 11:02
Yeah, and it says AmEx because everybody calls it AmEx, right? It’s gonna like Federal Express going from Federal Express to FedEx. So, I think I got off topic, though. We were talking about the difference between, do they have a existing system, and can we clean that up, versus potentially something new?
Cuyler 11:20
So, if it’s a brand new project, then I start to go into, I feel like when you’re a designer, and you have to, inspiration has to be kind of instantaneous. You have to kind of turn it on and just go, then I start to kind of go through, call it a progression of things that I commonly will try. And not necessarily for every project.
Don Mock 11:50
Sure.
Cuyler 11:50
Right now we’re doing a project for a new client that is definitely leaning more towards a clean, modern sans serif of style, and that’s what they’ve already expressed, that they’re interested in.
Don Mock 11:50
Absolutely.
Cuyler 12:06
So, I in a case like that, I don’t go down the road too far of traditional, Trajan style.
Don Mock 12:16
Sure.
Cuyler 12:17
Some things are just never going to fit with certain projects.
Don Mock 12:21
Yeah, of course. Of course.
Cuyler 12:22
But that said, I try to start relatively wide on a project in terms of iteration.
Don Mock 12:27
Yeah.
Cuyler 12:28
Then sometimes you’re just tinkering and some things start to work better. Then I’ll go down that rabbit hole, and see where that goes.
Don Mock 12:36
See where it leads you.
Cuyler 12:36
Try not to go too far down, early on.
Don Mock 12:40
Exactly.
Cuyler 12:40
Then start back and try to find another pathway, that kind of thing.
Don Mock 12:43
I mean, again, I’m throwing you a hard question here. Because it’s like, how do you make the world better, right? One design at a time, I guess, I don’t know. But I think for me, when I approach, the concept of doing things better, or doing better design, it kind of comes from a place of clarity, right? That’s one thing that I’m always, you know, what is the mission objective? Of course, you need to know what the objective is, right?
Cuyler 13:08
True.
Don Mock 13:09
But, how do we design that in as clear a way as possible? And make it whatever it needs to be insert, you know, term here; sexy, quick, fast, whatever the case may be. But, brands in general are what consumers use as shortcuts.
Cuyler 13:28
Right. Right.
Don Mock 13:30
It’s, oh that’s Starbucks. I know what that means. Oh, that’s Sunkist. I know, that’s a good orange, or that’s how you know Dole is high quality fruit, even though it’s just a little sticker. There’s no packaging on fruit, really. I mean, there is with Driscoll, some things, but the brands really started as a visual shortcut for consumers.
Cuyler 13:49
Sure.
Don Mock 13:49
So, I think clarity, I think is definitely a place to play around in terms of making the world look a little bit better. Tie that with what the objective of the project is. Then, I don’t want to discount target audience and competitors.
Cuyler 14:04
Sure.
Don Mock 14:05
Right. Again, I’m coming at it from a business side, right? But whatever the assignment is, are other people doing that? You know, what are they doing, is anything else? Can we learn from their successes or failures?
Cuyler 14:16
Yeah.
Don Mock 14:17
Things like that. Right?
Cuyler 14:18
I didn’t want to go too far into it. But, sometimes looking at examples that could help inform the sign that you have to work on now.
Don Mock 14:30
You have to be mindful of marketplace. If somebody came to us and said we’re a new wireless phone company.
Cuyler 14:37
Right.
Don Mock 14:39
You know, let’s not do a logo that is a giant T, that’s magenta.
Cuyler 14:43
Yeah.
Don Mock 14:44
You know what I mean? You have to be aware of what everybody else is doing, right? You need to be okay, AT&T owns blue. Comcast has kind of got the red down. T-Mobile’s holding down the pink and the magenta.
Cuyler 14:55
Don’t go lowercase Helvetica with a check mark.
Don Mock 14:58
Yeah, exactly, for Verizon, right? Yeah, exactly. So, I think it’s important to know what competitors are doing. But, for me, I think design isn’t necessarily, how much more can I add right to it?
Cuyler 15:14
I was gonna say that.
Don Mock 15:15
Well finish my thought for me, then.
Cuyler 15:17
I had a professor who said, the point of design is to take something complex and make it simple.
Don Mock 15:24
Yeah.
Cuyler 15:25
In this case, in our class, I think we had a lot of students who were taking something simple and making it complex.
Don Mock 15:32
Adding and adding and adding?
Cuyler 15:34
Which is a common thing, I think, for young designers. But, on a previous podcast, you mentioned Massimo?
Don Mock 15:41
Yeah.
Cuyler 15:41
And the New York subway system.
Don Mock 15:43
Love Massimo.
Cuyler 15:43
Yeah, one of the great examples is that the train, the actual map of those trains.
Don Mock 15:49
They don’t go that route.
Cuyler 15:50
And aren’t actually, if you look at it, the total map of the subway. It’s everything straight, and then just comes to one angle.
Don Mock 15:57
Correct. Correct.
Cuyler 15:58
Obviously, it’s not like that.
Don Mock 15:59
Correct. In the land of if you were to look at a topographic map, where the subway route actually goes.
Cuyler 15:59
It’s not.
Don Mock 16:04
It’s not what the map.
Cuyler 16:05
It’s not what the map shows.
Don Mock 16:06
Correct.
Cuyler 16:06
But, the map simplifies for someone.
Don Mock 16:09
Yeah.
Cuyler 16:10
Understanding the general direction, and pathways of these things to make it far easier to look at and therefore understand.
Don Mock 16:17
Great example.
Cuyler 16:18
So, I think that’s got to be one of the core principles of design, is to, like a recipe where you don’t, you want to use as many ingredients as is necessary to accomplish what you’re trying to accomplish and no more.
Don Mock 16:35
Correct, correct. I don’t know the phrase. I’m gonna butcher it. But, it’s perfection isn’t achieved by what you can keep adding, it’s achieved by what you keep removing until you cannot remove anything.
Cuyler 16:46
Right. Right.
Don Mock 16:47
Then without it faltering or failing. So, if we use the the New York subway system as an example, it is very clear. There is clarity there in terms of what I’m talking about, right? The objective is to inform people of how to get from train to train and go to go where they need to go, which is exciting. Then think about their target audience of, I don’t know where I’m going.
Cuyler 17:07
Yeah.
Don Mock 17:07
I don’t want to say idiots. That’s not what I’m saying. But like, people that don’t know how to get to wherever, so I’m gonna call it fantastic. Mission accomplished.
Cuyler 17:17
That’s one of the greatest design projects of all time.
Don Mock 17:20
Exactly. There’s only been one change to that interest.
Cuyler 17:23
What’s, from the black, black and white? So, using the color system?
Don Mock 17:26
So, when it first was deployed, it was all white. The background was white, and everything was fine. Everything was colored on the white.
Cuyler 17:26
Okay. Yeah.
Don Mock 17:27
And then the next year, everything is black. Right? The background is black. Then, all of the lines are colored, and the letters in the train, numbers are all colored. The reason for that was graffiti.
Cuyler 17:47
Oh.
Don Mock 17:47
People were graffiting all over it, right?
Cuyler 17:49
Right.
Don Mock 17:50
The white kind of opened itself up as a canvas for people to add their own artwork to it. So, but nothing has ever changed on that ever since and nothing will.
Cuyler 18:00
It doesn’t need to. And if you look at a lot of other major cities who have some kind of public transit system, it’s common to have all taking the cue from Massimo. He comes from the school of Swiss simplicity to begin with, right?
Don Mock 18:15
There are five typefaces. Yeah, basically, the rest of it like no more.
Cuyler 18:20
Well, he had three sans three serifs, of something like that.
Don Mock 18:25
I want to say a Bodoni. Futura, Helvetica, Univers.
Cuyler 18:30
Century Gothic.
Don Mock 18:31
Century Gothic is pretty, it was, one of those a serif. Yeah, yeah.
Cuyler 18:35
And I think Garamond, the old style Garamond he might have used.
Don Mock 18:39
Yeah.
Cuyler 18:40
But, he mostly used Helvetica.
Don Mock 18:42
If my wife listens to this, she’s gonna smack me because she knows all of this, or whatever. So, she did a whole course with Massimo and was his assistant.
Cuyler 18:51
That’s right. I remember you telling me he doesn’t like white dinner napkins.
Don Mock 18:55
No, only everywhere we went, we went out to dinner. It was always black napkins. Because white napkins leave like the fuzz on your lap.
Cuyler 19:04
That’s true. That’s true.
Don Mock 19:05
I’m talking like cloth napkins not like, paper towels or whatever.
Cuyler 19:11
He did used to wear black a lot.
Don Mock 19:12
Yeah. Well, there was a time where he designed his own apparel, because he was also part of the fashion is inherently seasonal, and that’s why it’s garbage kind of crew, right? Why would you design something that is meant to be destroyed?
Cuyler 19:26
Right.
Don Mock 19:26
I say, kudos to that great business where if every three months, we have to buy a whole new outfit that’s good for the people making outfits, right? But, his approach was always timeless design, timeless design. Design should not be a fad. It shouldn’t be like 90s is the grunge.
Cuyler 19:41
I agree with that. I know we did a previous episode about timeless design.
Don Mock 19:46
Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
Cuyler 19:48
I mean, for most situations should be most designer’s goal.
Don Mock 19:53
Yeah.
Cuyler 19:54
With whatever it is that they’re designing, particularly brands, you know.
Don Mock 19:59
Alright, well I think again, two designers, we could probably talk for another hour on design, but we should probably let this one go.
Cuyler 20:06
It’s already 20 minutes.
Don Mock 20:06
Yeah, can you believe, I know goes quick right?
Cuyler 20:08
It does.
Don Mock 20:08
It’s kind of fun to sit in these chairs and talk about design.
Cuyler 20:11
Not too bad.
Don Mock 20:11
Yeah, maybe we’ll have you back sometime. Alright, everybody well, thanks for tuning in. You can find us online obviously at mocktheagency.com Drop us a five star review only at wherever you may review podcasts, Apple or Spotify or whatever the case may be. And we will catch you next time. Thanks everybody.
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