'Being brave' has become a bumper sticker' (Aporva Baxi bonus episode)

0:01Radim Malinic:Hey, welcome to this bonus episode of Daring Creativity Podcast. In these episodes, I revisit the interview published earlier in the week, giving me an opportunity to zoom in on a few standout moments for extra value and meaning. I take time to digest the goodness my guests share with me every week. and this week I released a conversation with Apova Baxi, the co-founder and ECD of Dixon Baxi, the global branding agency. And again, I was super happy to find yet another eloquently elegant creative leader who didn't hold back peeling back the layers. Let's start with the moment where Apova told us how he met Simon Dixon and how they defined the principles?

0:46I was just saying to Simon the other day that this past February, I've known into 30 years. So we've had a long relationship together, certainly very much rooted in respect for each other, but also pushing each other forward. And then in that time, we've been able to grow the business, not necessarily just in scale, but hopefully in influence in the things that we love doing. We've always had very strong principles from the beginning. I'm sure a lot of people may have heard this, but we did have a list of things that we would do and wouldn't do when we began. And although that list has evolved and changed, they were root principles.

1:22And I think we really like the idea of a principle-based business as opposed to one that just has a rule set so that it can adapt over time. And we've been working across many eras. So we've seen the industry change, culture change, music choice change, fashion change. And so it's amazing to be part of that journey and it still is very excited to be where we are now but even this morning there's a slight always a slight knot in anxiety of where we're going to go next and what we can do next i think the idea of settling is the opposite of what we or the industry should be

1:57Radim Malinic:doing now the working relationship between opova and simon dixon is something of a milestone to cherish in our industry they've been working together for 30 years they have created a list of principles why they wanted to create an agency with the reason they wanted to create it with i mean they couldn't really fail could they because their principles made them stay true we have agencies who are obsessed with getting bigger or making more money or we're just keeping the lights on but here suppose we're talking about something completely different even despite having they find principles where they're going they are not settling they're looking ahead so even if they've been successful they could easily coast but there's a constant anxiety about what's next that's not a neurotic worry that's a creative hunger that keeps them sharp and the moment when agencies think they have figured it out is the moment where you start declining because let's be honest everything changes all the time but it's easy to create one formula and hope that formula will carry you into the sunset, but it does not.

3:08Radim Malinic:In a prover's reply, he talked about anti-settling mindset as a core principle rather than leaving things to chance. And this explains why Dixon's Baxi work never feels stale or formulatic, because they're actively resisting comfort zones as a company policy. The second quote is about putting conversation ahead of the portfolios. So when we spoke to clients, it wasn't about portfolios, it was about ideas and principles and the way of working and how brands can exist in the world in a much deeper way and how we have to understand the audience, which seemed quite commonplace now. But again, back then you could talk about aesthetics or you could talk about strategy, but the overlap and the bridge of that was very interesting to us.

3:55And more than anything, it was about our creative voice, finding our story. And the reason for starting with a blank sheet of paper and some principles was to figure out what that was. And, and we've worked really well together. I think one of the things that probably makes us successful is that we respect each other, listen to each other.

4:15Radim Malinic:We have our own points of view. When we think about it, agencies often walk into meetings with proof of work, portfolios showing that they have delivered, they've got case studies, awards. But Apova told me that they've been running this process of talking over portfolio or conversations over portfolios ever since they started. They started with showing nothing and talked about everything that mattered. They chose conversations over credentials, philosophy over portfolios. It can be terrifying, but it can be liberating. You have to be confident in your ideas and principles to walk into a room empty-handed, but armed with your linguistic acrobatics and knowledge because this approach forces both agencies and clients to focus on the future rather than the past.

5:05Radim Malinic:It's a difference between, hey, here's what we've done as opposed to here, how we think. And in the third moment, I had to ask Apuva about bravery and how does he see it? Because they've been one of the agencies that have used this term bravery for quite some time. However, that mindset and that view is changing. I think it's like anything. It's a sticker. It's a bumper sticker, or it has become. And with anything, whether it's about the diversity and eclecticism of a team, the voices that are seen in industry, the designs and brands that you might be involved in, it's through action that we see that actually manifests.

5:48So to say it is one thing, but to do it is so much harder. And it comes down to conviction, that belief in yourself. And we don't come into the studio and go, you know what, we're going to be brave today. We're just going to do fucking cool work. And we're going to try and feel excited and find the joy in it for ourselves. I had to ask this because I had such respect for Apova's honesty here.

6:15Radim Malinic:I mean, they literally created this brave brands language that became a massive in the industry. and now he's told me that they took it off their website and just used it as one of the points within the websites because it's been germinated it's been hijacked it's been used and that terminology when everything gets rounded it loses meaning because a lot of us catch up things because we use them and see that talking about brave brands it makes us look braver but in the conversation, I very much question the fact, are we talking more about bravery than we are actually brave? Because there's a proverb replied, they literally removed the statement from their website because most people started using it too.

7:00Radim Malinic:Not because it was the question of being copied, but it's a question of actually being true to their mission. It's a perfect example how genuine insights can get commodified and lose its power. And what started as authentic philosophy became almost an empty marketing speak, not for them, but generally for the industry. And the tragedy is that real bravery, their practice of pushing boundaries, gets buried under performative language. The next point we talked about was disrupting own recipes. But I think there's an opportunity to confound that. And that's the thing that I think keeps us up at night or propels us, you know, is the catalyst for us, is how we disrupt our own recipes.

7:44Whether that's for us at Diximaxi or for our community, the industry, is to ask those provocative questions that say, well, where are we going next? And how do we articulate, create new ways of expressing things that are meaningful and different? And I think it's a challenge for us and our team as much as anyone to disrupt our own recipes. We have ways of creating things. We have a process. And it works to create brands at scale. But I don't think that's good enough. You know, you kind of can settle. And, you know, we're always asking ourselves the question of what works.

8:25Radim Malinic:I think this is the probably most honest thing I've heard a successful creative say. Because most agencies, most designers, we all develop systems and processes that work. And as I said earlier, we are not always too keen or welcoming to change. But here's what most of us don't talk about. That same systems that we create can become a creative prison. It takes enormous discipline to question your own successful formulas. Most people double down at works. Dix and Baxi actively sabotage their own comfort zones because they're essentially creating internal friction to prevent external irrelevance.

9:06Radim Malinic:This explains their longevity. They've been disrupting themselves for decades before disruption became a buzzword. but it's not about a change of sex it's about staying ahead of your own patterns because it is a courage to break what's working before it breaks you the last woman is the one that inspired the title of the episode design for life and a pova said in a couple of moments in our conversation how they see the meaning of designing for life the core things that we thought about was design for life you know so for our lives personally it's baked into who we are but also designed for life as in the millions of people out in the world and that design has an opportunity to do things that moves the world forward you know there's human progress in that so when he said this something simply clicked for me it's not just a clever wordplay but it's a beautiful dual meaning that captures everything about how they think in the previous moment he talked about disrupting recipes.

10:07Radim Malinic:In this moment, they're not just designing brands, they're designing their own existence and considering the ripple effect on everyone else. This connects the intimately human with the broadly social. This is why their work feels authentic rather than manufactured, and it comes from genuine life experience and consideration for real human impact. It can be said that too many agencies can treat creativity as intellectual exercise, but Apova is here talking about creativity as a life practice. When design is integrated in how you live, not just what you do for client, it changes everything. I really cherished my conversation with Apova.

10:50Radim Malinic:We covered so many more topics than just highlighted in here. So if you haven't had a chance and you're curious, please check out a full interview in the previous episode and I will see you again next week.