Episode Transcript
Rob Broadfoot 0:19
MOCK the podcast. Hey, everybody. Happy Friday, I guess it is.
Cuyler 0:26
It is Friday.
Rob Broadfoot 0:26
Today. I thought it would be, and this is episode 31 which is hard to believe. But, I thought it might be interesting to have a conversation and get a little bit of a different perspective from one of our art directors Cuyler affectionately referred to as Mr. C around here.
Cuyler 0:45
Hello, hello.
Rob Broadfoot 0:46
Jack of many trades. I hear he makes a mean pizza.
Cuyler 0:51
I do.
Rob Broadfoot 0:51
I haven’t had one.
Cuyler 0:52
I gotta make pizzas tonight.
Rob Broadfoot 0:54
Okay, what are we making?
Cuyler 0:56
Well my mother in law is coming over with my four year old five year old nephew.
Rob Broadfoot 1:00
Okay.
Cuyler 1:01
So they want a pepperoni pizza. But Angela, I like to make Angela one that some of the listeners might be opposed to but…
Rob Broadfoot 1:10
Pineapple?
Cuyler 1:10
Yeah, so I go olive oil and garlic bass, pineapple jalapeno.
Rob Broadfoot 1:15
Ooh!
Cuyler 1:16
Sometimes a little red onion.
Rob Broadfoot 1:17
See, I’m totally good with that.
Cuyler 1:18
Oh dude, I love pineapple.
Rob Broadfoot 1:19
We may lose half of our audience.
Cuyler 1:22
I mean, I like you know, traditional Neapolitan pizzas. But there’s a place in the world for pineapple on pizza.
Rob Broadfoot 1:27
I think there’s two everyone who says they hate it hasn’t had it.
But I agree with you. It’s got to have a kick to it. You got to balance the sweet out with some sort of…
Cuyler 1:36
Right! If I’m doing it, and because Angela’s vegetarian, if I’m doing it by myself, I put bacon, pineapple jalapeno. And you get the whole, you get everything.
Rob Broadfoot 1:36
Yeah.
Cuyler 1:36
It’s good.
Rob Broadfoot 1:38
I agree. Well, it sounds great. I hear he makes a mean pizza. He’s yet to offer to make pizza for the office. But we’re hoping someday he also shreds a mean guitar. I’ve heard it. That’s pretty cool. But he also is an extremely talented graphic designer slash art director here at the agency. And I thought it might be interesting to talk about. And Don, and I’ve talked about this before, but the idea of where to begin, right? So I’m always interested to learn how different creatives approach projects when it’s time to start, right? So let’s say a project has come in and let’s say, we’ll pick on logo design, because we often do, but let’s say there’s a logo project that comes in and for whatever it is x company, and they need a logo. What is your process? Like when we say ready, set, go! Where do you start, you’re staring at a blank screen what does that look like?
Cuyler 2:44
I feel like the the best place to start with a new logo project for an existing company? Or, one that has no look and feel at all?
Rob Broadfoot 2:53
Let’s say they got nothing. Let’s say they have a totally blank slate.
Cuyler 2:57
Okay, then the best situation, I would say to start with is to try to figure out what the company is what they do. Try to figure out whether that’s a company that is, maybe more on the tech side of things, whether it’s a b2b, client or consumer facing client, and try to get a feel for is this the kind of client that is going to need a super modern and sleek design or something like that, or something that needs a more traditional kind of saref style design. Now, that doesn’t mean that I’m not going to explore both for whatever it is
Rob Broadfoot 3:41
Right
Cuyler 3:41
But there’s definitely some clients where, you know, there are certain things that right off the bat is not going to suit, whatever it is that they do.
Rob Broadfoot 3:50
Do you think about like… When you’re starting, do you think about how the logo is going to be used?
Cuyler 3:59
Ya.
Rob Broadfoot 3:59
Meaning, like let’s say it’s a bowling alley. Let’s say we’re opening up Mr. C’s bowling lane. Do you think about oh okay, well, then it’s probably going to be used on physical objects.
Cuyler 4:10
Ya, on physical objects.
Rob Broadfoot 4:12
T-shirts, and on bowling pins, you know, whatever.
Cuyler 4:15
Yeah, I think that that’s very important. I mean, a lot of times, the way I like to approach a logo is to try to think about a logo that can have one maybe primary iteration with two or even three secondary iterations. So whether it’s stacked or in a horizontal setting, or if there’s a mark, that can be a standalone mark, or if there’s a word mark that can be standalone. That way that generally there is a format for whatever use they have, regardless of the company. You mentioned a bowling alley. So that’s the kind of client where right away I would think this doesn’t have to be a super super buttoned up kind of ultra sleek or minimal looking design. That’s something that can have a little bit more personality you can have a little bit more fun with. So, you know, that would be one where I wouldn’t take really anything off the board straight away, and I would play with a lot of different stuff. You know, if it’s a law firm, or something immediately kind of puts you more into a convention, you kind of know the general realm of what this is going to look like, and you play within that sandbox. And then in other projects, the sandbox is much more wide open, right? And then in other projects, it’s a similar sized sandbox, just a different one.
Rob Broadfoot 5:45
Sure.Okay, so then when it comes to actually starting to work do you sketch things out first? Do you…
Cuyler 5:56
I like to start with typography. So I like to see what the name of their company is going to look like in lots of different typefaces. Lots of different weights of typefaces, or even sometimes I like to see what is this going to look like in sentence case, or in just lowercase, or in all caps, or in some kind of combination of the two, and start to kind of create iteration that way. And sometimes something will jump out at you. The way I like to do logo stuff is that I just kind of start playing with type. And then I start thinking about a glyph, or some kind of mark, apart from the type. Then I try to figure out is this something that can be integrated with the type, or is this something that should be, you know, kind of floating above the type, you know, underneath it, that kind of thing, and start to kind of format different ideas that way. And I try to usually give a client a range where one option might be a word mark with just a small little element to it, that maybe is within the type. And then one might be more of an actual, like, glyph mark with the type being almost a secondary part of the logo and kind of arrange within all of those kinds of styles of logos, just word marks, letter marks, you know, abstract marks, glyphs.
But you start with type.
I like to start with type, because at the end of the day, it’s gotta have, you know it’s got to say the name, right?
Rob Broadfoot 7:30
Right.
Cuyler 7:32
Not every company can get to the point of Nike, or Apple where they never even show the word Apple, you know. I think they did initially, the original Paul Rand design did say Apple.
Rob Broadfoot 7:43
Well sure, had to at some point.
Cuyler 7:45
It did, yeah, but that was back when it was the rainbow colored Apple. And obviously, over the years that just went more and more minimal until it’s just a silhouette of an apple.
Rob Broadfoot 7:55
So you then you’ll come up with a range, right, which we’ve talked about before. We always like to present a nice range. You know, there’s certain things you mentioned a law firm, and there’s certain things that you kind of have to explore, just to kind of get it out of your system.
Cuyler 8:12
Yeah.
Rob Broadfoot 8:12
You know, I mean, I hate to even mention it, but there’s a gavel, and there’s the scales of justice. And there’s all the things that evoke, you know, that sort of legal imagery that you kind of almost, it’s the same thing with writing, there are certain ideas that are so super obvious that you just have to get out of your head almost to get that out of your head and to then start.
Cuyler 8:33
Right. And every now and again, when you’re doing that, you’ll find a smart way of integrating something obvious. You know, we did some work for a battery company.
Rob Broadfoot 8:43
Right.
Cuyler 8:43
I know, there was like a week where all the designers in house, were just playing with, you know, lightning bolts, and power symbols, in every different way possible. And every now and again, I think one or two of us will come up with something that did look pretty sleek, and it wasn’t an obvious use of an obvious symbol, right? So I think that there’s, the more that you play around with stuff. Sometimes you stumble upon things, which is kind of a nice part of the process with logo making.
Rob Broadfoot 9:14
Yeah, I mean, you know, a lot of people say everything’s been done. There are no new ideas. I couldn’t disagree more.
Cuyler 9:19
There’s always new ideas.
Rob Broadfoot 9:20
There’s always new ideas.
Cuyler 9:20
Cause there’s always someone who makes a new idea. And you’re like, dammit, I wish I had thought of that!
Rob Broadfoot 9:24
There’s always new ideas. So I don’t subscribe to that theory. And I think you’re right. I think that there’s always a new take on an old idea, which in and of itself is a new idea. Oh, that was super meta, wasn’t it?
Cuyler 9:38
It was.
Rob Broadfoot 9:40
But yeah, and so I think you’re right. I think sometimes in your head, you might be thinking about, hey, let me just get this idea out of my head.
Cuyler 9:47
Right.
Rob Broadfoot 9:48
But then it ends up being kind of a new take on it right? And it may end up being perfectly appropriate at the end of the day. What’s the most difficult part for you about the process of creating a mark?
Cuyler 10:02
I would say that sometimes it’s a later part of the mark, where we’ve shown them ideas, they’ve picked direction, and now you need to refine it. I wouldn’t say that that’s difficult. It’s just it’s hard for me sometimes to stop and say, okay, this is perfect. You know, because that point is always hard to kind of figure out, because I’ll sit there and nitpick, you know, one curve endlessly, you know.
Rob Broadfoot 10:28
Yeah.
Cuyler 10:28
Well, should I? Should this be a little bit bigger, should that? You know, and probably to someone on the outside looking in, they would see very little difference between all the different iterations of the refined version.
Rob Broadfoot 10:41
We were talking about that just yesterday on the project that we’re working on right now. And the pixelation
Cuyler 10:46
Right. Yeah.
Rob Broadfoot 10:47
You were not caught, but you were like, Oh, this isn’t? It’s not?
Cuyler 10:51
Yeah, I was zooming in and the squares weren’t…
Rob Broadfoot 10:52
And it was like, well, no, the design allows for that. And I think we say around here a lot. No one’s gonna notice that but us.
Cuyler 10:59
Right.
Rob Broadfoot 10:59
Like, at the end of the day, nobody’s gonna notice. But, that’s interesting though because where to begin is a good question, but where to end is another good question. Because if I’m doing a math problem, two plus two is four.
Cuyler 11:11
Right?
Rob Broadfoot 11:12
We’re done.
Cuyler 11:13
We’re done.
Rob Broadfoot 11:14
We’re done here (laughter).
Cuyler 11:16
Yeah. Unless your reinventing mathamatics.
Rob Broadfoot 11:18
How do you know when you’re done?
Cuyler 11:20
I think that you get to a point where it’s kind of like a Goldilocks zone, you have three or four or five different iterations of the exact same thing that probably, to the outsider, would think that they look identical, right? And you would find the right balanced one, something that finds a happy medium that works. You know, sometimes you’ll hear designers talk about something feeling heavy, or feeling off balance, that kind of thing.
Rob Broadfoot 11:47
Yeah.
Cuyler 11:47
You’re always trying to find that, you know, happy medium where it’s in balance with the type. It all just is kind of working. Even if you’re just looking at the type, how far is the type tracked out, or how tight is the type? Or, you know, Don and I will sit there and nitpick kerning between two letters endlessly. We have slightly different takes on on how we’d like thing kerned.
Rob Broadfoot 12:12
Sure, sure.
Cuyler 12:14
I know Don likes to go more metrically between, you know, like, spaces between letters. And I tried to look at it more as like liquid between letters. As like a volumetric thing.
Rob Broadfoot 12:27
Yeah, I mean, I think in any industry, that’s like ours. Where creative is so subjective. You have to trust your gut.
Cuyler 12:37
Yeah.
Rob Broadfoot 12:38
And there’s a certain point where and whether it’s writing, or designing or, you know, whatever, you can noodle it to death. But there comes a point where you just kind of trust your gut, and you go, okay, I feel like we’re done here.
Cuyler 12:51
And a lot of the best logos, I mean, the probably most iconic logo, Coca Cola. While they have switched to like that lowercase thing that they did, I think it was probably 70s or 80s. And then they went back to the script, there is slight differences between that over the years. Like they’ve gone in and refined little things here and there. Most people probably wouldn’t notice that that’s happened. But a lot of big companies with iconic logos. Like the Nike swoosh has changed over the years. Just ever so slightly, you know? It was softer at one point, it got stretched out a little bit more. So you can always refine, if you make a great logo that’s timeless, and then that company is big, you know, eventually you’ll probably tweak it a little bit. But it’s hard to ever say when something’s totally done, but usually you stand back, you print it out small, you print it big, and you say, Okay, I’m happy with this. And at some point, you have to let go of it, right?
Rob Broadfoot 13:48
Right. You do. And so not unlike that logo design or headlines or any creative work we do. The podcast too, we could just go on and on.
Cuyler 13:58
You can just talk.
Rob Broadfoot 13:58
You gotta know when to when to stop.
Cuyler 14:00
Right (laughter).
Rob Broadfoot 14:01
So that said, enjoyed the conversation. Appreciate the perspective always like to hear how creatives approach projects. So thanks for tuning in everybody that’s gonna bring us to a close today. You can find us on the interwebs @mocktheagency.com of course and on all the socials @mocktheagency. And we always love to hear feedback, positive feedback (laughter). We don’t like to hear negative feedback (laughter).
Cuyler 14:25
Five stars only.
Rob Broadfoot 14:26
Five stars only. No, shoot us ideas, things you want to hear. Reach out if you want to be a guest on the podcast, all those things and have a wonderful weekend everybody. Thanks. See you next time.
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