Dare to never be the same again - Luke Woodhouse (RaggedEdge)

0:28Luke Woodhouse with that positioning we sort of went for it we pushed and we created an entity that was I guess divisive even for me some days I loved it sometimes some days I hated it and I think over time we realized we sort of it didn't really reflect perhaps who we are now because it was just going so hard and we we felt we were a very different agency now I think then we were sort of like the outsiders the sort of challenges and now we're sort of up there competing with the best in the world

1:05welcome to the daring creativity podcast a show about daring to forever explore creativity that isn't about chasing shiny perfection it's about showing up with all your doubts and imperfections and making them count it's about becoming more of who you already are my name is ryan malinich of a designer, author and eternally curious human being. I am talking to a broad range of guests who share their stories of small actions that spiked lifetime discoveries, taking one step towards the thing that made them feel most alive. Let me begin this episode with a question. Are you ready to discover what happens when you dare to create?

1:54Today I'm speaking with Luke Woodhouse, Executive Creative Director at Ragged Edge, a London-based studio that makes category-defining work. In this conversation, Luke discusses why the best creative work lives in a space where a client feels genuinely uncomfortable, how Ragged Edge makes the concept of the creative director to eliminate ego battles by preserving creative ambition. He also opens up the two-year journey to rebrand Ragged Edge itself. I got to hear about the process and the benefits. We also talked about real-life relationship building with clients who are confident in the unknown during the process of making bold bets on the future.

2:35It's my pleasure to share with you my conversation with Luke Woodhouse.

2:47Hey Luke, it's great to have you on the show. How are you doing? Very good, thank you. Thank you so much for having me on. long-time listener first-time caller Luke it's a pleasure to have you on the show because I am a big fan of Ragged Edge of what you guys do how you do it and it was just about time to get you on the show to talk more about you know the evolution of Ragged Edge the work that you do and I thought it'd be great to switch the gears today and actually really talk about branding because you are right in the middle of it of what's happening right now so I thought you know well let's do that but if somebody hasn't heard of Luke Woodhouse or Ragged Edge who are you would you do please introduce yourself oh my goodness yeah who am i yeah so i'm luke i'm one of the executive creative directors at ragged edge i've been at ragged edge for a long time i think it's about 15 years now there was just four of us when i joined and now there's 40 incredible people and i think the team just keeps getting better and better as we go on as we figure out what the hell we're doing here and it's just a real privilege to be part of that and just amazing to be part of this incredibly talented team that we're building here.

3:51Wow you said 15 years and 14 people I mean like literally four people when you started seeing a real change in pretty much well how agency can you know grow and change as well as seeing the shift in branding for the last 15 years. What was the jump to join Ragged Edge and what drew you to the outfit and what did it feel like 15 years ago to actually be just something that potentially neither of you knew what you might be building yeah i think so that was about 2009 and it was sort of coming out of the tail end of the big sort of recession and i'd actually be main redundant twice in eight months and as a result of that i just started freelancing around town and i had been a few different places and i sort of landed at ragged edge because they had this office in mayfair there's some nice clients who are doing nice work and i could see that sort of we we sort of had a sort of sort of shared mindset and the kind of work we like to do so honestly at that time it was like quite modernist in principle and the projects at ragged edge the typical product was just like do a nice brand for a nice client and create a nice website for them so we just had this real nice cycle of projects where we just do the brand do the website and then go around again the whole time we had some nice things from grey goose vodka and so like the people at ragged edge were great to work with you know max and matt the other founder it was just the work was really great the people were really great and i just come from like really big agencies where there's like i don't know five creative directors all with different opinions and things like that and i got to ragged edge and sort of max let me sort of take the lead a little bit and i've really enjoyed that yeah and i guess having my own way with the work sort of max was max and matt are really supportive of that and i just really enjoyed that whole process and it was quite freeing to come to a much smaller much agile much more agile place and we just built from there and to sort of just try to get better and better with each project.

5:48Having been on a side lives watching the progression and evolution of Ragged Edge what you described at the beginning is like nice clients nice work nice output nice website that's it but there was this real shift when you guys came out with your Ragged Edge 2.0 yeah and said okay we're here for the change makers and lots of conversation that I had on this podcast, but you're like, so for Paul Vabaxi or Simon, it was about the fact that you follow your belief, you follow your messaging, you follow the principles and your values and your strategy, and then the rest of the world shows up and go, hey, we're here for the change makers.

6:24And you're like, wait a minute, you know, let's say it's Dixon and Vabaxi, it was about the bravery, creating brave brands, changes the world. And you guys have done that in the past. And I like to believe that was quite successful at first, because what you decided to stand for was very much a statement to say this is what we're here for yeah it was a real statement i think that was a real moment for us because i think up until that point i guess we'd been in terms of how we presented ourselves to the world we perhaps didn't necessarily put out a really strong point of view and we were just like i guess we were sort of arguably looking at the outside influences and things like that and i guess we sort of always felt like we're outsiders and the way we had presented ragged edge up to that point had been sort of almost trying to fit in with what a branding agency should be and look like and it was quite nice but honestly the way we sort of the sort of work that we really believed in the sort of work we really wanted to do we wanted to do stuff that was really different stuff that really drives stuff that really drives like meaningful change for a business and we knew that to do that you had to be sort of really bold you had to put yourself out there and you needed to push to to do something different and that's something that we always like really naturally believed in but perhaps we didn't we had up to that point we had never quite articulated it in us in such a strong way and so it was a real statement and we really went for it and we really put out this really strong point of view and presented it in such a way and that worked incredibly well for us because it meant that clients became sort of self-selecting meaning that people who shared that mindset people who shared that belief and that ambition would come to us and we wouldn't be it meant that we weren't like pushing this philosophy on them they were already sort of believers and they already wanted to work with people who believe the same thing and so yeah for a period of time that positioning that change maker thing that was working so well for us and yeah I mean when we did it honestly we sort of built the brand around this idea of being a brand for change makers because no one else was using that language no one else was talking like that and yet after a period of time it everyone else seems to sort of seemingly came to a similar conclusion which meant that we had to like look for a way to stand out again and that was the point of this latest rebrand it's interesting what you said about self-selecting clients i think it's literally like when you stand for something there will be some people for you and some people against you but that's okay because obviously you've got those people who actually can understand what you're trying to achieve because how would you say the mindset of a natural change maker because of course we still have the people who are self-selecting or who are self-believing in them being a change makers but how is the mindset of people who are actually trying to do things for the good of the planet or for the good of the human society how would you say that the language and the belief and the philosophies of such clients has changed or are we in the 2.0 of change makers how would you see that I think those people have always been there and always will be.

9:27And there'll always be clients that just need the sort of safer thing appealing to a particular common denominator. Those will always exist. But I think we know that those sorts of clients probably aren't for us or rather we would rather be pushing for something different and more creative and interesting and all of that. and so i think like the mindset that we always look for is first of all the people who are kind of confident like in the unknown and and are trusting of the process that if we travel across this sort of like unknown territory that we'll get to somewhere really good if we just sort of push forward with the idea and the strategy and all of that good stuff so it's the sort of mindset is the people who sort of really believe in what could be and sort of care less about you know what has been and what other people are doing but also I think what we notice is that on the client side you need people who really know their own mind and are comfortable making decisions and I think also in terms of getting this work through on the client side you need people who are willing to like really push and really commit to this thing and sort of arguably put their neck on the line a little bit you said something really interesting you said they need to be confident in the unknown and that is a big ask how much of the work sometimes do you have to do to make people feel confident in the unknown because the unknown is very much the unknown yeah labor in the obvious yeah i think part of that is comes down to building really good relationships with the client and so the start of the project is really important the immersion is really important I think we found that getting together in real life is kind of crucial at the start of a project to build that relationship.

11:16So we have clients these days sort of in all different parts of the world. And so it would be easy not to get together in real life. But we found that is something that's really important when you want to sort of travel across these unknown territories with people. You sort of have to have that relationship, so you sort of have really good conversations about what it could be, where it could go, and sort of trust each other that we're all pushing for the best of the work. And so I think being confident in the unknown just sort of means trusting the process and knowing that we'll get through it together and working through it together.

11:53I think we both agree that the process of being a designer, being a creative or brand director on ECD, it's part of a therapist. It's part of a guiding line of trust us. This will go well because there is something in our psychology when we're doing something for ourselves, we are doubting ourselves. like this blue that blue but when we're working for other people most of us i would i don't want to sort of generalize this too much but there is an element of confidence and because you are focused you're in your executive mind and therefore you're focusing on the task ahead and you don't necessarily entertain the ifs and buts and can this go wrong and can it because you try you're there to deliver and as you said you know traveling and seeing clients in real life it strengthens that relationship because what's really interesting what you just said leads back to the episode i just published this week with was with Joel Pilger who's an advisor to studios and he says you can work from anywhere but you can't get work from anywhere because to make meaningful work you need relationships you need to travel you need to work in clients shoes how much of the travel and how much of that experience for you as an ECD do you get with these clients and how has it changed your process especially with the travel and seeing clients because once upon a time it's it's easy to get a brief through an email and go and let's do it and hope for the best to be honest it hasn't really changed the process loads we just sort of choose to do certain parts of the process in real life and there are different parts where you get the most benefit from being in the same room and doing the work together in the same room so in terms of the process that'd be like near the beginning like in the immersion once you've kicked off and then another really important part would be initial concepts whether that's territories for strategy or concepts for the identities those are the moments where conversations you have and the work you do on the work is best had all in the same room because sort of I suppose because those are the moments when the ideas at their most delicate and the sort of nuance in the conversation and being able to really understand everyone is so crucial to the direction the work could take because I think, you know, on Zoom being remote, you know, things can get lost in translation.

14:04So yeah, those are the moments that we sort of choose to be in the same room. So how does it work in a practical way when you're in a concept stage is when the idea is delicate and there's a lot of nuance? Is the client involved? Do they come to you or do you come to them for this initial period? The reason why I ask this question and the reason why I want to know the answer to this is that when it's delicate and it's nuanced and it's messy and it's not there yet, and I'm going to paraphrase Johnny Ives. Sometimes ideas can be killed by people with opinions who try to prove their worth. So you're getting people involved in a very tricky stage where anything goes, but is it too many cooks?

14:41Luke Woodhouse:We'll be back after a quick break. This episode is brought to you by Lax Coffee Co., the first creative speciality coffee company, building a platform to shine the light on emerging global talent with a mission to make a positive impact on a creative industry and beyond. Lux Coffee Co. offers exceptional coffee sourced from around the world through ethical and sustainable practices. And you can discover the current range of signature blends and single origins, coffee hardware and accessories along with exceptional apparel at luxcoffee.co.uk. you can use the code podcast to get 15 % off your first order

15:32yeah I love that quote that's a good one in terms of how like the logistics of it sometimes we go to them sometimes they come to us yesterday we had the client in our office yesterday that had come over from Norway and we had a really good workshop and went out for drinks and things last night and i think next time they're talking about taking us to barcelona for the next round of presentation and it's just we just work it out and sort of take it in turns a little bit sometimes they come to us sometimes we go to them and just try to make it work for everyone who's on the project our team and their team as well so it's pretty pretty relaxing we just work it out so So let's kind of forward it to where you are with Ragged Edge now, because you've recently refreshed your branding, rebranded, the language has changed, the visual stuff has changed.

16:21And now the website says, never be the same again. The first time I had Max speak in like 2018, 2019, that was before the 2.0, it was like, look, we're going to rebrand because we want to do something for ourselves that we do for our clients. As you've quite beautifully explained earlier, this is what's happened. and now you ended up in the spot it's now 3.0 it's taken a while i believe because it's always never the process that goes fast but if we can start from the top where is the initiative what is the sort of review of the studio so far and how would you decide on where do you go next with it yeah so in terms of the initiative and like why we started it it was because yeah the change maker thing had become sort of industry convention a little bit everyone was talking about change Everyone was talking about Changemaker.

17:07We realized that we needed to stand out again. So that was like the main impetus. But also sort of when we did sort of relaunch the brand in 2019 with that positioning, we sort of went for it. We pushed and we created an entity that was, I guess, divisive. Even for me, some days I loved it. Sometimes some days I hated it. And I think over time we had realized we sort of, it didn't really reflect who we are now. because it was just going so hard and we we felt we were a very different agency now i think then we're sort of like the outsiders the sort of challenges and now we're sort of up there competing with the best in the world i think and so we sort of needed a brand and identity that sort of reflected that positioning a bit better and felt a bit more true to who we are and yeah so we were just in terms of how we started with strategy and as max said we tried to do what we did for clients intentions were good we wanted to run it like a proper project and it probably ended up taking about two years like from start to finish obviously we weren't working on it the whole time but as with anything internal client work would come along that's the first thing to get bumped and pushed along so yeah that's sort of like how and why we started and how and why it took so long how dependent is the rebrand for new business is it something nice to have or do you see it as an important thing to have it's a i would say it's a very important thing to have it's pretty crucial and i would say that it was quite frustrating the delay was quite frustrating because we felt we knew that our what our new brand was going to become would work really hard for us and so yeah i would say it is really crucial yeah did you ever think of getting a third party involved like getting someone else's view someone else's input because in the past I've seen design studios rebranding other design studios because someone is too close to it so that was my thought did you ever think of anyone to break the deadlock yeah we did a little bit we brought in a freelance designer who we really love working with to like help give us a little boost sort of in the middle of it and that was great because it just meant that we could just have someone outside of the studio moving it forward for us they gave us a real good boost and got it moving and then we picked it up again with the team in house so yeah that helped and i sort of really love the idea of doing that like the famous one is a bibliotech doing moving brands identity which is iconic love the idea of it but also sort of want to do it ourselves as well you know don't want to give it away be proud of what you've created i want to skip ahead before i come back but obviously now it's out in the open it was quite well documented in design press people talked about it extensively now we've established that it's an important thing to have what was the outcome what was the sort of uplift on the business and results to see or is it something that trickles down a bit slower honestly it was kind of immediate there's a very direct line between us launching our new website and it winning us work because we're in the middle of rebranding someone obviously that's what we do all the time but one of our clients saw our new website and just literally said send us a quote for one of those please and that that's the feedback you want right immediate direct results that you can tangibly tie back to business impact and that as that was the best compliment yeah as you know the theme of the podcast is daring creativity daring forever and i believe that very much will be self-initiate will be sort of send out the arm to the universe comes back to us because as you just said we were rebranding the client that's what we do about it it's easy to be stuck in that sort of endless cycle because you know so many studios including yours and i spoke to max about like thinking you know are you guys launching your own products are you doing this i speak to other sort of founders they're like well we know everyone we know where to get stuff done we know how to do xyz and we can have zillions of our own products but we never have the time to do it so it's quite nice that when when everyone's got sort of refreshed and a boost of energy there's a new brand it feels right magical right i mean that must have been for like hey you're going to finally do a hit of dopamine when you press go the website launched everything's out there thank god for that and then seeing the sort of almost immediate response because i always believe and this is a whole idea for the podcast and for the book is do the thing that you would otherwise regret never starting and i think you know self-initiating this and actually pushing and knowing that you need it and it was great to hear from you that no the previous brand was divisive and you didn't always like it on the outside it looks like hey that seems to be still out there maybe it's all fine but no one really knows what happens behind the closed doors yeah i think that's the thing with branding i think you said earlier that there's so many opinions kill great ideas but i think the mistake that some people make is that when you're creating a brand it's not about personal taste or sometimes it's not even really about aesthetics it's about the idea and the story you want to tell and what's the correct story that you want the brand to tell for your business and i think yeah following too many personal opinions when you're doing a project like this can lead to weaker work and that that's really hard to do i can imagine what you guys did with the new website i've noticed that you just added what normally marketing agencies would do just have a little stat or like a design agency or company agency would say hey 92 percent of days of no 50 million clicks on this and that and the design corner of my industry were like oh this is clever and i'm thinking and this is no sort of it's not disrespect like obviously like no shade on this like obviously what you guys did you obviously you bring in elements of different industry and different knowledge and different ux pieces together to say you know what this is the outcome of the work because once upon a time and i'm sure we'll agree on this one a good rebrand was the one that was liked by a few people was like okay we agree this is a nice rebrand and then whatever happens and in five years something new might happen whereas we live in a world where data is measurable data's presence results are very much measurable and this is ultimately what we work into was like actually a rebrand or branding or enabling businesses to succeed is the primary purpose most of the time so with the even just a little nugget of thinking how do you present this to pass advice to say hey we do work that works what was the logic behind just adding these proof of success yeah i it did make us laugh that people picked up on that in such a big way because we're definitely not the first people to do that like you say that's something that we've seen in other industries and everything else but i think like in terms of why it's something that we've always really believed in like the power of branding to transform businesses and honestly it's the motivation for me personally using creativity to create this incredible value in real life and have these brands work in real life one of the one of the things i most enjoyed when hack it is was just four people doing a brand then website the stats before and after were really easily trackable and You could see that we increased conversion by 400 % sometimes with those small brands that we were working on back then.

24:32The numbers were crazy often. And that was really inspiring to me personally. But of course, that's why we do it. Everyone, it's really hard to attribute the value of brand to business results because it's in the ether a little bit, isn't it? It's all feelings. But we can try our best to track that. and I think trying to find the right stat that is attributable to the brand work as strongly as possible is a bit of a challenge sometimes but we see that a week after Wise launched all the numbers are going up and to the right and the conversions have gone up 10 % and the only thing that's changed is the brand so we all know it's real and just trying to find the numbers where we could prove that is the game.

25:15I think what happens in the world of creativity especially if someone's too close to creating a brand and I think generally that's also a problem with creativity and humans is that sometimes we are too close to it and we get too emotional about what we've created often in a vacuum I think if someone reacts emotionally to a change of feedback and takes it really badly it's like how would you remove yourself like how would you understand that you are not doing it for yourself there's still so much verbal punch-up across LinkedIn and Instagram client this and client that they've changed the color and they've changed this but what we're here to talk about is really the fact that it needs to work you know like what is the subjective feeling about this sometimes you just need to let go and i think that's been one of the biggest sort of themes of this season so far it's like letting go and focusing on the actual principles and business application is something that really matters otherwise you can really eat yourself alive if you think about it that you know it needs to be just the way you thought about it yeah absolutely that's like the age-old conundrum for creative people really to celebrate to separate your sense of self-worth from the work and i think that's something that we will try and encourage is tricky because you've got these insanely talented people pushing working really hard to do the best work they possibly do and then asking them to like almost separate any feelings from it which is just it's it's so hard isn't it but i think what we try and talk about with when we talk about our no egos approach to collaboration is that it's just about the work we're just talking about the work good ideas can come from anywhere can come from anyone and all we care about is really trying to do what's right for the idea and we try and say that like the concept is the creative director it's not about personal opinion it's not about you it's not you know sometimes it's not even really about aesthetics and what you like It's about pushing to communicate the idea in the strongest way possible.

27:16And that's sort of like, I think that helps a little bit to get some separation where you can. But yeah, it's hard. In the 15 years, going from four to 40, how was it your jump into your role to going from a designer to being an ECD and now having a team that wants to instill that sort of no ego collaboration? and what happens when inevitably we get emotional and we want to push something through. So how do you deal with that and how does it go? I mean, it's a good thing, right? We've got really passionate people and it's never a big problem or anything like that. I think one thing that we've found that works really well with the sort of bigger client teams that we're working with, often the client teams we're working with come with in-house design teams who are incredibly talented and amazing at what they do as well.

28:04And so one thing we've found is that keeping the work rougher, looser, faster at the start of the project and inviting the clients in a little bit more so that they can help sort of feel they are helping shape and direct and contribute to the work in a meaningful way. works in two ways sort of helps the client feel really part of the team but also it does help our team sort of get less attached and less pressures to something amazing that they've created right at the start of the project so it's sort of easier to let go i think we talk about those concepts being strong opinions but loosely held so we go in with big exaggerated ideas they're strong opinions we'll try and talk clients into it but we hold them very loosely so we can we're free to change our minds as we learn as we get more information as we move through the work as you know i would like to talk about some of the projects in a second but i still have to stay for one more point on on the website because i had to look through it just before we started speaking i had to look through it again and all of the case studies are so rich and so deep and so full of storytelling and actually explaining what happened and how and why how much of an importance is there on a case study these days to explain it to people because going back to very initial sort of your responses yourself you said some of our clients are self-selected with the mindset you know some of our clients are sort of relating to it so how much of a work and importance do the case studies online still have in the world that works on more partnerships and collaborations and relationships and a business relationships i want to know that because they are amazing that's clearly i know where i've gone into it but i wanted to know if from you know even from data like how much of these actually are a converters or just the elements that seal the deal when someone comes to you and just look for what you do yeah there are marketing they're important they're the case studies are what winners the next project and so yeah you're only as good as your last project right and sort of that's how we see it and sort of telling the story in the best way possible is really important to us and sort of helps paint a picture for those new clients for what we could potentially could do for them and sort of i think yeah talking about why and how not just you know pretty pictures at the end is really important because yeah i think the way we work is very strategic very conceptual and sort of helping communicate the value of that behind the work is really important and something that people really like people don't people don't care about design they love ideas and stories and that's the stuff that gets you excited yeah the design is just the vehicle for that so yeah they work they're important to us and how we use or when you work yeah because i've definitely noticed they have grown bigger bolder richer since the last website and the last website had a some of the stuff saying and it was real focus what max told me about verbal sort of verbal storytelling and verbal branding.

31:11And I think we've got, I think now there's a sort of perfect sort of split between the 50-50 that the visuals, they really do some of the heavy lifting and it's fantastic. It looks really good. So I want to talk to you about some of the projects. Let's start with a project number one I can see on the website is for Palmetto and it's for making clean energy irresistible. And what's really interesting when it goes to your tagline, never be the same again. when i see palmetto i'm thinking vespas i'm thinking something very much a lifestyle aspect rather than renewable energy company so let's go into it a little bit like how did it come about and how did you guys work on it yeah well i love that project i'm really proud of that one i didn't i didn't lead it that was all out of the team on that one as andrew matt christy fear led that one and i think what's really smart about that is that they have created a lifestyle brand for an energy company and if you think about it really i suppose how you use energy is such a crucial part of your lifestyle why not and i think the insight there is that sort of renewable energy conserving energy doing all those things that are really good for the planet has been about had a bit of a scarcity mindset about it it's about always about using less whereas i think the idea behind palmetto is that this renewable you can use it and not feel guilty about it and you can do whatever you want and live your life in the most abundant way possible and this brand is there to facilitate that and make you feel good about it rather than make you feel bad about the environment you know that's quite a punchy idea some people might even find that offensive but i think the reality is that people are selfish and that will really speak to lots of people who who want to do something good but also feel really good doing it with the work that you guys been doing obviously like if you've seen a real change from heavily print-based work i would say you know from the world of branding 15 years ago now to things that are more sort of ui based more digitally based and i think with the example of palmetto and i'm sorry i picked a project that you didn't work on i should ask right just realize that what is the evolution of brand and what's the evolution of working because you're working with different touch points with different surfaces different sort of applications yeah this wasn't an overnight change by like how does this make the initial stages and planning different to what it was, let's say 15 years ago?

33:38Yeah, I think sort of in Racketage's history, we've always done all of that. We've always sort of done the print things and had a hand in digital. That's a big part of our DNA, I suppose. And so we've always had this aptitude for the digital side of things and digital products. And I think one thing that we've got really good at over the time is working out how a brand will show up in the product. in a digital product and working with design teams to really systemize that so that I think the sort of trend is with digital products they sort of get they sort of all start to look the same don't they it's all about reducing the cognitive load and being invisible and seamless whereas with branding it's about the opposite it's about disrupting your attention and so we're quite good at finding the balance that works in those digital spaces but in terms of like the planning and the process and how that changes things.

34:31We do build in sort of moments for like quite deep collaboration with product teams, with internal design teams where we just have a little pause on creating new things and start playing with the things that we have and sort of push and pull and apply things to the product in a way that really stress tests the elements in the brand codes to sort of see what's working, see what's not working, see if there's any gaps, see what needs to tweak. Because I think, With the digital stuff, some of the visual things that can make a big difference are tiny little details that can make a product feel really slick or really clumsy and crowded.

35:09And so, yeah, we just build in deep collaboration about three quarters of the way through. And I'd say that's a little difference that we've seen over the past, I don't know, five years. It's something that we've been building more and more into the process. I love what you said. You said balance in digital spaces. when worlds collide when you think of a traditional designers now working in digital spaces or towards digital spaces the word product means something different to what it meant 15 years ago yeah it does yeah and what you guys achieve with wise is really remarkable because the product the interface every touch point feels very ownable it feels like nothing else and you can never get lost with wise going what website am i on like it feels so much of its own kind and reading the case study like that has been rolled out in 175 countries that is a mammoth of a project let's talk about balancing digital spaces and how do you get to achieve them well yeah it's i mean first of all wise did such an incredible job of doing that they've got an amazing team and cam nikki josh kaya pria rosie all those people like did work so hard to push that through and definitely wouldn't have happened without their commitment to doing that it would have been much easier it would be much easier to do something easier but yeah in terms of how do we make it work across all those countries i think wise has the benefit of a global team they've got sort of a 200 person design team all around the world and so at different points those people all contributed to the branding project in different ways, big or small.

36:51And so it meant that they were all aware of the path it was taking, the direction it was heading, and were able to influence it. And that was really important to the integrity of it. What we're trying to do, we're trying to create a brand, a truly global brand, and having those diverse inputs was crucial to that sort of manifesting in the final thing. When I think about when the brand, or when the rebrand came out, went from transfer wise to wise you know it did it almost felt like the rollout on the outside felt quite minimal because i think i think it'd be fair to say that there's always a rush to get a case study ready when the rebrand's out there it's very fresh it hasn't matured you know it's just got it's just it's still quite a bit sort of sometimes rough around the edges but the initial spike of interest and the excitement is there so with this coming out did you feel that you are actually hitting something which is a studio defining project no we had no idea what the reception was going to be like we had there'd been some testing but we were testing for distinctiveness we weren't necessarily testing for do you like this and we had sort of put wise and regular we'd put ourselves out there with what we had gone for is like incredibly bold and distinctive i think people in the studio here who weren't working on the project was telling me this is going to be big this is amazing and i was like oh god i don't know and yeah so we had said no idea and the client cam the client had three scenarios for his career if it went well or if it went wrong or somewhere in between he's we sort of just didn't really know yeah but luckily it went well that's incredible because yeah i mean sometimes you could be too close to it and even know you know if it's where it is but it's been i mean it'd be all known i was it's been a great success has been imitated endlessly i know yeah it's so funny it seems like the world has adapted just to one sort of color theme and it's just let's do this and sometimes you feel like really why i mean have we just have we sort of democratized the design and branding and the design system so much that it feels like it just becomes a new status quo therefore that's where we all should start because as you said it was tested for distinctiveness and that worked but then it just gets hijacked by others going, well, if that was a good idea maybe we should have the same.

39:13I think that's the thing, isn't it? People forget what branding is for and they confuse or they conflate aesthetics with ideas and I think here, Gin Lane, they aren't going anymore but they were famous for doing things like Hymns, which is the fastest ever startup to unicorn brand and they came out with this very premium very slick, very beautiful what we would call now a bland, but That's not what was clever about it. What was clever is they took this really sort of divisive subject matter and made it really accessible. And that's the clever bit, not what it looked like. And then you had this whole trend of people copying the aesthetic without the clever bit.

39:51And that's not how it works. So, yeah, it's quite funny to see people copying the aesthetic of WISE when you need to start with the idea. Yeah, I think it's quite seducing. What should I say? Quite seductive for a designer or a creative team with a not to the depth of the knowledge just to actually borrow that sort of veneer and say okay well this makes us look good whereas as you said with for example the hymns it's more about how do you define something in a category how do you do that because that that requires a different way sometimes you see a designer trying to make things minimal and they just like that thing but again like everyone's learning everyone's growing everyone's discovering you know yeah we've all done it and it's very tempting and it's it's hard to push beyond that and of course for some things it'll be the perfectly perfectly good thing to do just make something beautiful make something simple and and it will work but yeah with branding is the game is to be unique and stand out so you get noticed speaking of which next project i would like to talk about which is the one i know you worked on and we talked about in person about it when i saw you last is the soul flare because not only you talk about a whole new category of branding which you couldn't imagine now with the team of four 15 years ago cryptocurrency was nowhere near to where it is today and as you know from my conversation and i'll bring in here on a record i was like i was fascinated with just what you had to do in a way and how it was rolled out the whole intricacy of the application and the whole let's say the old different ecosystem and sort of subset of branding that you wouldn't really expect years ago.

41:32It's a project that's, yeah, it's going to bring my mind, especially the more I spoke about with you about it. You've got to see more behind the scenes of what this all entails. So since we got a chance to revisit that conversation, I think we should, because I would say crypto will never be the same again after this one. Yeah, maybe not. I think, yeah, I mean, that's an incredible project to have worked on because the clients are amazing. They knew what they wanted. They knew their minds and they're incredibly decisive as well so they're really inspiring people to work with and they came to us sort of knowing they need to do something different i think the funny thing with crypto is that it's probably an easier space to do something different because if you look at it as a whole there's you know lots of purple gradients and beautiful simple sans serif things and yeah it all it all very much looks the same so the sort of clear space for doing something different within the category there's opportunities there and with soulflare sort of they knew they wanted to put out a particular personality they wanted to come and really challenge what crypto is known for which is you know often a bit of a lack of integrity and like things like rug pulls and ripping people off and scammers and things like that there's a lot of that in that world and soulflare really stand against that and they build a product that is incredibly safe incredibly secure and sort of has their users best interests in mind at all time often at the expense of potentially sort of bigger commercial results for soulflare if they wanted to pursue the slightly shadier side of things which they absolutely do not and they had some really inspiring stories for some of their users where crypto is like really important to their life because they might live in countries where their governments aren't as trustworthy and could sort of reach into their bank accounts at any moment and crypto is like one way to keep their assets secure so there's real important use cases out there amongst the amongst their users that were really inspiring to us for the project what a great story to actually hear especially from someone who doesn't know too much about crypto apart from you know the horror stories and nfts yeah how we can work towards someone's security that's amazing the tagline that you've got in here which is says in every wallet a kingdom on every head a crown is it something that you guys created yeah yeah so i think in terms of the concept we landed on the positioning we sort of defined the idea behind the soulflare brand as the stronghold of the free so this vision of perhaps what banks used to stand for this incredibly high moral purpose and sort of soulflare has the safest wallet on solana and so we felt like they could credibly own that territory and the huge benefit with soulflare is that it's self-custody meaning you are you own your own stuff and sort of if you have your money in a bank they can sort of invest it without you even knowing about it they use your money in different ways whereas like with crypto and particularly soulflare what's yours is yours and so sort of what that line really means is that you are the king of your own kingdom or queen or whatever and you're in charge of your own stuff so in every wallet your whole kingdom and on every head your own crown i mean this perfectly works because when i see the rest of the design system that plays into visually into that storytelling into that vision of what you can own and mostly how you can feel because in a way of creating these visuals especially in such a purple gradient sanser's face as you just said creating something that has got so much of a rich storytelling how much of that do you need to push to the client or convince the client or was the client just going yeah we don't want to be purple can we just please be something so those guys were pushing us to do something different we knew they wanted to be brave and they wanted to really stand out and they knew that they were challenging the category as a whole and so they wanted to put that message out there and so that definitely came very much from them and their direction and we're there to facilitate and have and and push them as well so i would say it's very much like a back and forth relationship in that regard of course well what we find is that at certain points in the projects where the clients have to make a decision they have to really commit to this reality that we're building for them it gets real basically it's at one at some point and then you sort of realize that oh we're gonna have to go for this now or not and that's the point where we might have to talk them into it or we might have to sort of remind them why they started this project in the first place or we might just have to do some testing which is what we did with Solflare and so like we got to this point and the guys uh Vido and Philip were like oh my god are we gonna do this and so had a little wobble but we did a little bit of testing with their users with some some anonymized testing and different things we tested it against whole bunch different stuff and we tested it against the competitors for we did test it for distinctiveness but we also had to just test it are you inspired by this would you buy this do you like this which is quite tricky to do with testing because it's just a bit of a lottery sometimes but the results came back really strongly in favor of this new brand and it just gave them the confidence to press forward which was a really great thing to do and with these with our clients often the founders they have to be so brave to do this and i have so much respect and admiration for our clients that do make these big bold bets on the brand working with us because it's their baby it's their business often they're working with ragged edge because it's already a successful business it's already going fine and they want to shake things up even more often for the benefit but it can get scary and the people i've just got so much respect for the people that continue to push on and do that it's amazing to see and yeah they're an inspiring team so love them it's really interesting what you just said and i like the words big ball beds and i'll come down to come back to them in one second but the way you the as we talked about it a short while ago we talked about adding just the validators or the social or the work improves to your website like okay you know this has actually achieved some data this is actually why this has been this to have this testing obviously at the stages where the founders might be a little bit you know having a wobble and thinking oh we have something new and you know it is again the confident in the unknown it's just this is the new version where even yourself couldn't really see how wise could be good because you're in it you usually use product focus your design focus with you in it and you can't see outside and our brains at that stage haven't really had time to understand and actually you know grow the understanding of the work and you know when something feels really different always feel that you're onto something because if it feels too obvious sometimes you're like oh this is safe you know we can borrow the veneer this is safe but when you're doing something different within the space would you agree that it's sometimes a signal that you're doing something which is uneasy or feels weird it's a potentially signal that you're onto something absolutely and I think different is new and new is unfamiliar.

49:03Unfamiliar is uncomfortable and that's a really good thing. So that feeling uncomfortable when you're faced with something different, that's a really good sign. And I think the challenge there is to sort of remember the purpose, remember the job that this brand needs to do for the business. And is this piece of work that we're looking at, is that going to help move the needle and get us to where we need to get to? When you think about uncomfortable, no one wants to feel like resilience. Yeah, yeah. Resilience is important, but no one wants to feel resilient. Of course, uncomfortable sounds like a great idea, but who wants to feel uncomfortable?

49:41I think getting comfortable feeling uncomfortable is crucial, and then you can start to enjoy it, and then you can start to have fun with it. But remembering that that is the whole point is the key. Because obviously with my previous question, there was a validation. When you build business and you get the user, the testers, the focus group, whoever, like research, validated you're onto something, it's usually half a battle is almost one because you're going to bring something to the market that potentially is going to like to work. with my real curiosity was when i was going through the case study there's this whole element of the social media takeovers branded celebrations all of that stuff and you're thinking oh so you can create on your polish case study obviously the brand architecture is fixed and everything's looking great fresh and new and then it meets the user and he goes wow we're gonna take and we're going to make our own and you've got no controller of this so whilst you're at a branding stage obviously trying to control this you know working with founders making sure that when they make their big bold bets you know that part is right and then it goes into the public and you're like well we just have to accept what they do with it because ultimately is what it means to them is the true understanding of doing something right yeah that was an amazing response to see and we absolutely loved it i think yeah before this project i didn't really know anything about crypto either but what i've found is that the community particularly on x as it's called now they're so vibrant and so engaged and seeing the responses to the brand was so interesting because what we've done for soulflare is is quite conceptual there's a rich story there and they just picked up that story and ran with it and put their own spin on it and really embraced all of the ideas that sort of went into building that brand and it's just incredible to see what they do there's like nearly a new one nearly a new meme created by one of their users one of their fans every day and it's just incredible to see that engagement and see people pick up on the idea like that there's no need for any future validation of the of the system because if you get people doing their own thing of their own accord and so happily and with a love and support i think that gets you validated that what you've done makes perfect sense look it's great to have you here today to tell me more about what you do you can easily unpick a few more of your projects but i know i need to let you go thank you for sharing with me what you guys do and how you do it and where do you we've seen your progression from 15 years ago to today and being excited maybe about the next 15 years so i don't normally ask about how do you see future or where we're heading that I think, yeah, that potentially feels quite adequate in this instance.

52:23Because you've seen the change for the last 15 years, till about the next 15 months in the world of branding. Yeah. Yeah, well, it's a big moment, isn't it, with all of the AI things coming through and how are we going to make use of that? I think getting good at utilizing those tools is going to be really important and crucial to what we do. but remembering the core purpose of branding is do something different and finding ways to sort of use ai to facilitate the creative process but the i don't know if it's just like the sort of clients we're working with these days but i think seeing the lines blur between agency and in-house teams so that we're working a bit more as like one team is probably the trend i've seen gathering momentum over the last five years and i would see that continuing and that's just a great way to work because the clients are experts on their business.

53:15They're the ones that are going to get this work through, get this work live, get this in the hands of the users. And so for us, that's a big focus, bringing those teams sort of into the project team more closely is probably the trend we'll be building on and maybe will be the biggest difference of the last 15 years, working more closely with the clients, I think. Thank you so much. Love it. Absolutely love it. I'm always excited to see what comes up next from RanguDedge because you've achieved something which is some studios will almost dream about what you've set out to achieve is happening it's working and yeah it's nice to have a conversation about it and as i said i'm just looking forward to the next 15 months because the next 15 years who knows what will change and what will happen next but yeah well thank you so much for having me it's real privilege to be invited on and yeah i love your podcast yeah i've been listening to it for a long time and yeah amazing to be part of it now so thank you so much for having me it's been a real pleasure having you thank you cheers thank you for listening to this episode of daring creativity podcast i'd love to know your thoughts questions and suggestions so please get in touch via the email in the show notes or social channels this episode was produced and presented by me Radim Malinage the audio production was done by Neil Mackay from 7 Million Vags Podcast thank you and I hope to see you on the next episode

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