Episode Transcript
Cuyler 0:00
All right, we are back. Episode 82. This is how Don starts every podcast with “we’re back. No Don and Rob this time. This time. It’s myself, Mr. C. And Mike, our fellow resident designer. Today we’re just going to talk about working at an agency – specifically here at Mock, the Agency. Talking about everything from design to work culture to… maybe we’ll touch on some favorite projects that we’ve done. But I figured we’d start with how we got the job here. I can go first, if you want.
Mike 0:54
Sure, yeah, go ahead.
Cuyler 0:55
I don’t know about you. But I was scouring the internet on Indeed and found a nice little listing for a junior designer. I was fresh out of college. I had never worked a professional design job before. So it seemed like a good fit. I applied and then I got a message back from – at the time, senior designer, who worked here. Came in for an interview. We’re sitting actually in the same room that we’re in right now. And just talked about everything from the kind of projects that they do, the kind of projects I like to do. Somehow we ended up talking about heavy metal music and all kinds of things. They gave me a hard time about wearing a tie. No suit, but I did have more or less a suit on without the jacket. Then I think I got a call back from Rob and that was four years ago now. So it’s been a minute. Been here a while.
Yeah, for me very similar kind of story. I think I was, I’m sure I probably found that on Indeed. But I was searching for a long time for a new job. I was in the real estate business before this, working for them as a graphic designer. So searching for a new job, I found this one listing. One of the more interesting out of the few that I was looking at. Other ones were just kind of like generic in-house designers. This one stuck out because I wanted to… I had never gone into an agency. I wanted to work for an agency, because I wanted to do more different, unique kind of things. Rather than working on the same thing for years and years.
Mike 1:25
Right. Like an in-house designer, you’re kind of always working with the same brand.
Yeah. I got a call. I just so happened to take that week off or something like that, at my old job.
Cuyler 2:55
That’s convenient.
Mike 2:56
Yeah, it was pretty convenient. So I came in. I also wore a tie, but I wore a full suit.
Cuyler 3:03
I remember you wearing a full suit.
Mike 3:05
I was like, “I’m sure they’re probably chill, but I’m not taking the risk.”
Cuyler 3:10
You always err on the side of being overdressed.
Mike 3:13
Yeah.
Cuyler 3:13
You don’t want to show up in a T-shirt. And everyone else is in a suit.
Mike 3:18
Yeah, for sure.
Cuyler 3:18
I’d rather it be the other way around.
Mike 3:20
Yeah, so I showed up full suit, jacket and all. We came in here. We had a short interview, they asked me what I like to do and stuff that they did around the office and the work culture. I didn’t stay for too long. Then I left and then I came back, I think it was the next day.
Cuyler 3:43
That’s right. We did like a little trial thing.
Mike 3:44
Yeah, I did like a one day trial because, I guess, what they said they usually do, is that they have somebody in for like a month or so –
Cuyler 3:54
Yeah, that’s what I did.
Mike 3:54
- To try them out. And then if they fit, if they don’t, they don’t. But for me, I was already working a job so it was a bit different. I couldn’t do that. So they had me come in for one day on my week off at my old job. So it ended up working out great. Did a few things, worked on a few projects, got them all done. Then I think it was later that day that I got the call from Rob and he was like, “Hey, we want you.” Later that day I got back to him and I was like, “Yeah.”
Cuyler 4:29
Then you put in your two weeks at the other job, right?
Mike 4:32
Yep, put my two weeks in and then I was out. Hilariously enough, the office that I came from, there was two designers in that office. And the other designer had just gotten a new job as well.
Cuyler 4:44
Oh no. They got cleaned out.
Mike 4:46
They got cleaned out.
Cuyler 4:48
Well, it seems like the labor market is pretty tight. I’m sure they found someone.
Mike 4:51
Oh yeah, they found people. For sure.
Cuyler 4:53
Yeah. It’s nice that when I applied and I looked online at what Mock does, I was intrigued that it seemed like there was going to be an opportunity to do branding projects and to do packaging projects and things to help build a brand from the ground up. Or work on something that’s an advertising campaign, like we’ve gotten to do a little bit more of recently. So yeah, that was kind of a nice little foot-in-the-door situation on Indeed. Timelines. Figured I’d jump to timelines. Here we have a pretty… we’re kind of built on efficiency. We have fairly quick turnarounds. Not every project is super quick, but most of them are. Mike, I know you were working on a catalog recently where you had to have same day turnarounds, which is definitely… it’s not common, but it happens with certain clients more than others. But usually, we have enough time to ideate, work through a couple different rounds with the client, before having to build out the final project. Other times we do have to do a fast turn around. Usually clients are pretty understanding. Not always but –
Mike 6:08
Yeah, clients are clients.
Cuyler 6:11
Every now and again, you’ll get a client that is a little bit more of a pain, but let’s see… what else do we do here? Sometimes we have a nice little discussion about TV, the shows were watching. Or what was it last Friday, we had a nice little discussion or slash arguments about rock music.
Mike 6:32
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Cuyler 6:33
Who’s been inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame deservingly or undeservingly? And then who’s been snubbed? I think that eroded into me ragging on Soundgarden as being the –
Mike 6:47
Little bit. I felt like it.
Cuyler 6:49
My least favorite of the three big grunge bands.
Mike 6:52
Yeah, it eventually devolved into arguing over the better rap group.
Cuyler 6:59
That’s right. Yeah.
Mike 7:00
It was anywhere from Outcast to – what was the… Run DMC?
Cuyler 7:07
Rob said, best rap group of all time, Run DMC. As if it was a non-discussion. I give credit to Run DMC, but now they’re definitely not my favorite.
Mike 7:23
No. I mean, they were innovators. I mean, they had their time.
Cuyler 7:27
But not the best.
Mike 7:29
There’s been better. People have –
Cuyler 7:31
There have been better.
Mike 7:32
- Evolved and done better things with it. So, I mean, we like one of the first but –
Cuyler 7:39
So we sometimes will go off on little tangents. Have all kinds of talks about the shows are watching or the music we’re listening to or everything from politics to what’s going on, on Twitter. And when Elon took over Twitter, we had a lot of laughs with how that platform devolved rather rapidly. Speaking of which, did you see the Instagram today launched?
Mike 8:05
Yeah, Meta launched Threads, their competitor.
Cuyler 8:10
I just downloaded it and it’s gonna kill Twitter, potentially.
Mike 8:13
They said in their press release… They said something about like, “Are you tired of crazy leadership?” or whatever. Something – like a dig at Elon.
Cuyler 8:13
It wasn’t direct.
Mike 8:27
It wasn’t direct, but it was kind of like a hint. I think Elon responded to it.
Cuyler 8:33
Well, we got to see if this grudge match is gonna happen between Elon and Zuckerberg. They were talking about it pretty seriously, for a minute.
Mike 8:45
Yeah, it just feels like nothing. It’s not gonna happen.
Cuyler 8:48
For those of you who don’t know, the internet was taken by storm with the potential of a UFC-style cage fight, in all seriousness, between Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk. I even saw a video of Elon training for it.
Mike 9:05
Yeah.
Cuyler 9:06
And someone was vouching for him, like, “I was so impressed by his power and sttrength.” I think that Zuckerberg has actually trained in jujitsu.
Mike 9:14
He was in a BJJ tournament or something. He won it, that’s what I heard.
Cuyler 9:19
I guarantee Vegas would be given the odds to Zuck.
Mike 9:23
Yeah.
Cuyler 9:23
I think I would take the smart money there as well.
Mike 9:26
Probably.
Cuyler 9:27
And the pay per view, I’m sure it would be $100 or more. In any case, we have nice discussions here and there about that kind of stuff. Mike, do you have a favorite project that you’ve gotten to work on?
Mike 9:41
Ummm.
Cuyler 9:41
You’ve been here for about a year, correct?
Mike 9:43
Yeah. About that. About a year.
Cuyler 9:45
About a year now. Yeah.
Mike 9:46
Yeah. I go to recent just because my memory is not super great. The Squeeze campaign we just recently were working on… that design that I did, I enjoy that.
Cuyler 10:02
Yeah. That illustrated design?
Mike 10:04
Yeah, that illustrated design of. It’s a beach chair next to a pool out in some tropical location. Kind of fun little travel design poster kind of thing.
Cuyler 10:16
Kind of looks like a little travel design. So we’ve been getting the chance to do some work for a cannabis company. It’s actually a broad cannabis company that then has like several subsidiary companies underneath it. They’re trying to break a new product into a different company of drinkable cannabis. I don’t know how appetizing that sounds. But us being here in Georgia, we have not gotten free samples. I doubt that that will happen.
Mike 10:46
For sure.
Cuyler 10:47
We might have to take a trip to Colorado.
Mike 10:49
Yeah.
Cuyler 10:51
I think one of the favorite projects I’ve gotten to work on was actually, also cannabis. But it was hemp, actually. CBD. It was a CBD company up in Vermont called Sunsoil. And they needed a brand book, a brand Bible. So in this case, I didn’t get to do any branding. But I got to take the branding that Don and Rob and some of the others here had already kind of established and make a book. Book design was always something that was interested in, in school. Finally got a chance to do it. The client more or less kept the look and feel that we originally designed. They did start to overcomplicate the book a little bit. But it turned out to be really cool. I think it was like an 80-page something book. So that was a fun one for us. Let’s see. I think that’ll do it for today.
Mike 11:46
I think so. Yeah. I mean, one thing to note. We kind of touched on it, I think the culture here is like… to me it’s way different than any other place I’ve ever been. It’s like super –
Cuyler 11:57
It’s pretty chill.
Mike 11:58
Pretty chill.
Cuyler 11:59
Pretty chill, pretty laid back. We work hard when we’re super busy. We definitely work hard. Then there are times where things are a little bit lighter and a little bit slower moving and we can drink a beer at four o’clock if we so choose.
Mike 12:16
Yeah.
Cuyler 12:18
And yeah, it is fairly chill. It’s a nice… I worked previously in the restaurant world. So it’s kind of nice to come in here, where it’s not like a you-can-say-whatever-you-want situation, but it does feel less corporate and does feel a bit less like, “Um, oops, what did I just say?”
Mike 12:36
Yeah, watch a 30-minute movie on why you shouldn’t say these certain things. That’s one thing that I had to do at my last job was we had to sit through –
Like the video tutorials?
It was like, they would have these… every year you would have to watch like, “Don’t say this. Don’t say that.” It was, you would have to take a class afterwards.
Cuyler 13:01
I think I had to take… Yeah, I think I had to do that in a couple of corporate jobs where you had to take quizzes about… it was like an HR thing.
Mike 13:08
Yeah, it was definitely an HR thing.
Cuyler 13:11
We don’t really have an HR here.
Mike 13:13
No.
Cuyler 13:14
Well, we kind of self regulate. But yeah, that’ll probably wrap it up for today. You can find us online at mocktheagency.com. And on the socials @mocktheagency. We will catch you next time.
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