Brief Yourself: with Diego Guevara

0:00Yeah, no, I mean, it's... For me, I will say I have a couple other things in my life. Reality shows, documentaries. That's it. I know you're a big Bravo fan. Bravo. Are you a big Bravo fan? My wife's getting me into that. Okay. Yeah, yeah. What did she got you? Vanderpump Rules. Vanderpump Rules. It's a slippery slope. Oh, man. Oh, man. What's the one with the yacht? Below Deck. Below Deck. Yeah. Nice. I like to watch those every now and then. Oh, yeah. Yeah. My wife has got me into those. That's what they all say. It's okay. It's okay, Diego. This is a safe space. Safe space. We can admit that we got to shows.

0:41But it plays a similar role for me that sports do, where I'm like, for that hour, all I'm thinking about is those - The drama. The go cheese balls. Yeah. That's sir. And is Jack's going to fly off the handle? Yeah. I'm not thinking about graphic design.

1:01three two one what's up buddy i'm sorry nothing how's that fresh coffee it's good we uh we just got a coffee machine in the building here today wow wow the first run and and quality did it live up to all the hype yeah pretty good is that a 600 cup of coffee you know no but if you stack a bunch of$1 cups up over time. Where are you getting$1 cups of coffee around here in Greenpoint, Brooklyn? I think probably right here. Oh, wow. Oh, there you go. I can break down the math on that bag. Yeah, yeah. Kevin is our new CFO. But Kevin, we have a special guest in the building today. Special. A very, very special guest.

1:43Multidisciplinary creative director by way of Portland, by way of Miami, by way of Ecuador. Currently working at a little company called Nike as a senior global design director. who's driven by a love of design, a passion for teamwork, and a dedication for fostering vibrant communities. Welcome to the show, my friend, Diego Guevara. Thank you very much. Good morning, buddy. You just need the little results may vary. Yeah. Contact your doctor if he fucks up. Well, it's 1024 AM, which is, I think, a record for us as far as early morning podcasts. Are you a morning person? I'm a night guy, for sure.

2:15Yeah. I'm a night guy. But no, thank you. Thank you for having me. I know we've chatted about this for a long time. It's a long time in the making. So finally. It's an honor. We took it from the DMs to the boardroom. Yes. You want to see it? We're here. You're here with your team on a cultural trip to soak in your culture, go to some stores, go to some, yeah, just live in the community. Get inspired. Get inspired. Yeah, we try to do that. We try to go out, see the world. See the world. And bring that back to HQ so that it helps the teams, it helps everyone, helps the culture, and then everyone gets inspiration.

2:49That's awesome. How long have you been doing this? Is this something that's new? Since I started. I've been at Nike nine years now. Wow. Okay. So it becomes a thing. Yeah. Can Kevin and I join the team just for the week, you know, be a part of this? We don't have any work to do. We can go watch the Knicks tomorrow. I'm good, actually. I take it back. But no, I think that's really awesome and certainly something for all teams, you know, in-house, outhouse. Yeah. I think it's important. You have to. And also you get inspired, but also you spend quality time with each other. I imagine that's a big part of it, right?

3:24Yes. Yes. One of the things that truly bonds a team is to get outside of the office. That's when you truly get to talk about like not just projects, but life and everything. Nick's, whatever comes up. So it's a great bonding experience with teams. I know the keeps are going to keep coming up on every topic. No, yeah. Yeah. Nothing bonds people together like trauma. Yeah, pretty much. So yeah, go watch Nick game and you'll become very, very close. us very quickly but no i agree with that i think it's really important and when i was on an in-house team in my career we would go skiing we would go uh you know just rent a house we would do things that sort of friends would do right and things that are not just uh you know sort of work things i always felt that those things really yeah i mean you still do that yeah we do it here and we i've continued that tradition along but i yeah and i think you can you you bond not necessarily by uh going to meetings and talking about design yeah yeah it's about sort of seven it's it it helps a Yeah.

4:19You grew up in Ecuador. Yes. So what was the design scene like in Ecuador and when did you discover it? I can't remember. I moved when I was 16 years old. So my whole life I thought and I knew that I wanted to be an architect. Okay. So I knew a lot of architects. My parents knew a lot of architects. So that was my thing. I grew up convinced that that's what I wanted. at 16 years old you don't have much of a say so you just get the notice from your parents like oh we're moving so we're dropping everything here we're moving to a different country and it's not until probably college that I got into design and I said you know what maybe this is something that I can do because architecture was just too boring for me I was like after the second semester I was like nope did you go to school originally for architecture?

5:12Yes. Yes. Two semesters. Two semesters. That was enough. You were like, these buildings and these plans. Yeah. And I always talk about that. You know, I'll see like a Latra and Gary and all these things. And I was like, oh, I want to do that. That's what I want to do. But then you go to architecture school and it's like the outlet needs to go two centimeters to the left. And you're like, no, no, that was not me. I couldn't do that. Have you ever heard of brand architecture? Yeah. It's classic. Yeah. That was a big shift. and luckily my parents were supportive of that. And yeah, do what feels right.

5:47And that's when I discovered design and just switched. You switched majors. Yeah. And then you started studying design. Did I read that you lived with The Rock or The Rock lived in your building? What's the story there? 16 years old. I moved to Miami and we were living in this apartment complex. We were on the second floor, I believe. First, second floor. On the third floor, It was this massive dude that you would always see, right? And this was like 96, 97. So he was still under Rocky. Sure. Name wasn't The Rock yet. He was part of the, at the cusp of his transition, I would say. Okay. He was getting there.

6:25And then I remember like we got to meet him and I was like, wait a second, he's in WWE? And I started watching tapes. I was like, oh, that is him, right? That is The Rock. Met his wife and him. It was just both of them living at that time. they were amazing like extremely nice he was really became really good friends with my mom like he'll get stuff from fans and stuff and tell my mom do you want it yeah i'll take it so he'll have stuff from the rock we'll send to the rock in our house um and then i remember one time also uh when he got his first uh bull tattoo okay he came home with a whole thing we're like oh what did you get because it was all the kids running around like what did you get what you get so he was like that tattoo so that was his part of transition and we were there for that fast forward i'm like yeah hey two different paths like yeah he's had a quite a path he's not okay he's not okay he's not okay yeah no i guess 96 97 this is like yeah very early on in his wrestling that's when he got championship yeah when he was kind of popping off as a wwe superstar yeah yeah that's pretty crazy He was just living in the building.

7:28It was just a big guy. Just chilling there. Just chilling. My brother and I would see, for example, we were playing outside and we'll see his wife pull in with groceries. We're like, oh, you need help? And we'll just help him carry the groceries and stuff. Help the rock carry the groceries. It was great. And he was extremely humble, very nice, very open to people. He was not a superstar mentality. So it was a great experience. That's incredible. Who lives on the second floor? Pitbull? I have no idea. We just live in this building with Miami superstars and celebrities. They've done well. I'm trying.

8:01Did you watch wrestling as a kid? Yes, when I was a kid. When it was WWF, I think. Grew up with that, obviously. Then kind of disconnected. That brought me back a bit. You stay in touch? No, no. We saw him at an event many years ago. and we approached him and he was kind of like and then we told him like do you remember we lived in this building? I was like oh yeah so yeah that was our moment. Amazing what a crazy life that's I mean incredible so design you graduated from school and then I read you started your own agency and you were like yeah so you were like okay I got this design thing open up shop how hard could it be?

8:42Yeah how hard could it be and then but the first two clients you got were the NFL and the armed forces? Yes. Those are two pretty fucking massive guys how that's that's what gets you all cocky and like i can do this um yeah so the way it happened was um i had a kid very early on okay so i went to school with a kid like i had a one-year-old um so it changes everything for you sure right it's like there's no partying there's nothing you're just driven to your careers like you have to put in the work um so as i was going through school i got my design jobs um and i was already working on the field so i wasn't waiting i was kind of like working and i worked my way up to like an art director role um i fought for it and i told the owner of the agency i was like you know i've been putting the work i've been busting my ass everybody else is doing the same thing i think i deserve it again very young in a way uh naive and sort of like hungry for that that world experience that that pushed me and the guy was like yeah you know what yeah you you are an art director now so i graduated school with an art director degree in a small studio um so you're working while you're in yeah yeah so i got to work through my whole pretty much my entire time uh of school uh years and then uh i remember i had to fight the school a bit because um you know you have to do your internship yeah of course um and i was like you know what i'm not gonna do an internship because i'm already working yeah you're i'm already an art director like no no no but you have to you have to do the internship so it took a bit of them to understand what's the point of me quitting my job yeah to go to an internship to go back to my job later so um sounds like a downgrade for uh for me anyway again yeah it was a very small studio so it was not what you think so it was just a bit of the other pride and sort of like doing what what i was doing um so when we did that my brother also my brother is the one that got me started got me hooked into design really he was uh older brother younger brother younger brother He was 16 years old when he was playing with Photoshop, playing with flyers, album covers.

10:43And I was like, what are you doing? So he would show me that stuff. So as I decided not to go into architecture, he was the one that got me into design. And he taught me some stuff. And I was like, all right, cool. So I picked it up from there. So he was the one that actually got me into design. So I always say, if it wasn't for him, I don't know. Is he still a designer today? He's still a designer, yeah. He's worked in an agency since he was 16 years old. Wow. Yeah, he's a crazy story. So he got me into that. So we were both working. He was working in his own agency. I was working at my own agency.

11:12And, you know, it's one of those moments, I think, that some of the clients got to get to like you. You create that relationship with the clients. And sometimes they'll tell you, like, I know you're doing all the work here. You know what I mean? Like, why am I paying for all this when you're the one doing this? Yeah, let's cut the middleman out of the way. So, you know, we were young. We were kind of like, again, a youth, like hungry. and they were kind of like, well, if you ever decide to open your own studio, we'll come to you. So at that point, we were like, how hard could it be? We've been doing this for a while.

11:46We could do it. We opened a studio and we did it. We opened a studio and our first clients were the NFL and the armed forces. Were they clients of that previous agency? Yes. Amazing. Sorry. Sorry. Apologies. We'll bleep the names. What was the name of the agency that you started? It was Trio. Trio. Because it was three of us, three brothers. Okay. And Trio is three in Spanish. My younger brother and I were the designers and my third brother was, we were studying marketing. So we were like, fuck it, you're part of it. Got it. It's a family band. Yes. Okay. Yeah. And we were always being, we were always close like that.

12:20So we were like, if we do it, we do it together. Amazing. So, you know, we'll have the, the work that we did for the NFL and armed forces were like publications. So we did all the, we worked with the publishing houses. So we did all of their magazines for like Hall of Fame inductions, uh purple heart magazine armed forces magazines magazines that you never even knew existed but we were just like working on those cool and uh yeah you had the mask head of like career director whatever like marketing founder like the whole family was there nice family like fuck it we got this yeah and how long did that uh run for about two years i would say uh until 2008 2008 we had the big housing crash recession.

13:02And, you know, first thing that goes or gets cut is budget. So it was one of those, like, guys, I don't think we're going to be able to give you more work. So it got to the point that we saw where things were going. And we said, well, you know, either we sink with the ship or we split everything 50-50. Because at the time it was just my brother and I, because we had some partners and some people that we had hired that were like, dude, sorry. So we split everything 50-50, picked it up and said, okay, that's it. It's done. Wow. And we went back to agencies. So we went back, applied for agencies and went back to the agency world.

13:35Cool. And how long did you stay in the agency world? Oh, I jumped a lot. I jumped a lot. In Miami, back in the day, back when I was there, there was not a lot of agencies. I think the biggest one at that point was like Crispin Porter. I was going to say Crispin Porter, but when I was at Coke, we worked with them and I went to Miami office. And it was pretty amazing. Yeah. it was great like the shop yes it was the the biggest one um but i made a decision early on in my career of uh not working for big agencies okay one because i wanted to explore what else was out there and i wanted to be pretty nimble and move around and also because i have like family so i had friends of mine actually i had friends of mine that were like art directors and creative directors at chris pain like would call me like hey come work with us you know like the invitation was there.

14:24But at the same time, I would get calls from them on like a Friday night, like at 10, 11 PM. I was like, oh, we're still at the office. Come over. I was like, no, dude, no, no, no, no, no. I'm in a different sort of like a lane right now. I have kids, I have a kid, I have family. So that didn't do, but that's, I moved around a lot. So I would do always smaller studios, smaller agencies. And what that allowed me to do was work on my daytime job. And then at the same time work on my personal i was gonna ask when did you start doing personal projects uh 2000 it's a blur now yeah yeah that old yeah uh 2000 i don't know probably right around the time when i moved back to miami and what were some of those personal projects because i want to talk about the uh the inter miami one yeah well before that what what what kind of stuff were you doing i was learning stuff i was actually talking to someone about this yesterday um i there was a moment with like the canon released the the mark ii camera and everyone bought it because you can do video you can be a filmmaker now so i got a camera so we started doing photography and i was like i've always have a passion for photography and like videography so um i learned how to do a bit of photography and then i started doing like uh baby photo shoots because i had a baby at that time so i was like oh i'll do the photos myself why am i gonna pay someone so i did it posted and people were like oh that's great i was like okay wait a second i can charge for this uh so i started doing that i started doing um weddings because the next step after that people were like well i have a wedding you know like do you know anyone i was like well i have a camera i can do that yeah so uh we did that and it was just for not for fun because you don't have fun when you're filming a wedding but uh it was just to learn right to get your shit together and like learn like behind the scenes and how it's made how you edit how you tell the story um in hindsight when you look back things that help you you know understand a bit of like life and design yeah um so yeah moved a lot and uh some of the projects that allow me that that sort of like commitment to the smaller studio or we're kind of like that open and then i started getting into design then i started writing um shout out to armin because he did inspire me a lot to like at that time we had blogs yeah you were an early blogger in the blogger days yes yeah so when did you start reading brand new and going to brand new conference i think i went to the first one i was always following brand new.

16:43I followed it as a guide as a, honestly, when I started my career and to this day, it's like a, like a Bible, you know, it's like you go in there, uh, not only to see the work, but to see how agencies and studios think, how they present their work, but at the same time, the feedback that they get. And then without having your, your sort of like skin in the game, you're, you're, you're building the tough skin. You're like, okay, this comes with the game. It doesn't matter how great the project is. People will still hate it. People will still talk shit about it. Oh, especially, yeah, of course. Do you read all the comments?

17:15I love reading comments. Are you kidding me? You have a burner? No, I don't. Do you write any comments? No, I don't. I've never had a burner, and in fact, I've always been very honest and very straightforward. Yeah, I mean, listen, that comment section can get wildly. Wilding. People, yeah, they have strong opinions and they're not afraid to say them. Yes. But no, I think for a generation of designers and I'll put myself in this, like, yeah, those early blogs and brand new and even some of like Under Consideration and Speak Now and these other parts of the brand new universe, not just like the branding section.

17:53We're a big part of our sort of coming of age of design and really understanding. Learn a lot. Yeah, and so I credit a ton of that. And have you had work on brand new? Yes. My first project was the Miami one. Okay. So I want to talk about the Miami project because that's the first time I ever was introduced to your work. And that was sort of, I think it was 2014. Yeah, 2014. And as the story goes, Miami was getting a football club. Yes. And it was announced to the world that this was happening. David Beckham was involved. Yes, big show. But they didn't have a name. They didn't have an identity.

18:31and a young designer by the name of Diego gets an idea to create the identity, the branding, name the club, do the jerseys. And next thing you know, it's wildfire all around the internet. Everyone's talking about a complex, brand new, because it looked incredible. Thank you. Yeah. What made you do that? like what made you do that obviously a fan of football yes yes i grew up in south america so that's the one thing you do yeah um i grew up playing every single day so that's it's my life uh when in 2014 the team was announced uh yes david beckham was there like the mayor was there but you know by that time i've lived in miami long enough to know that i was like okay what type of scam is this you know i was like okay you're on trust for it yeah yeah i've been in miami for a while so um i was like okay let's see how this plays out um you know there was it was announced um the whole thing about like we're gonna pay for it the the the citizens are not gonna pay for these things because we were just coming off the marlins which was a huge huge disaster um yeah and they built a stadium and like we all paid for that stadium yeah and that art that beautiful uh dolphin yeah yeah that's what hurts the most only we paid for that crap um it's kind of iconic though yeah yeah yeah you're so you're still bummed about it's kind of like a bad mascot now it's kind of yeah it's our thing yeah yeah um so grew up with that and and i knew like deep inside i was okay this is not gonna be as great as we all think um to prove the point like we launched in 2014 and atlanta united all these other teams came like five years after and they won a championship before the teams was set up so it's kind of like i was proven right um so we all kind of had that idea of like okay what's what's gonna happen here um and again like 2016 17 came came up like came up and and nothing was announced really dead silence nobody was talking about it like oh yeah the team ended at that point was like oh messi's coming and ronaldo's coming and neymar's coming all this big names they were just selling a machine right like this entertainment circus kind of thing for Miami.

20:45But nothing was done. So at that time I was working at agencies and a lot of the work I was doing during the day was pharmaceutical hotels, very corporate. So I needed an outlet and then this came up. So I was like, you know what? I'm going to take on this project. I'm going to build it and I'm going to treat it as real work. I'm going to treat it like I'm going to brief myself. I'm going to treat it and give myself some time. I give myself a month. I said, this has to be completed in a month. So it has to be created and treated as a client project. So I did the whole thing. My goal was to create not just the kit, but the identity, the naming, the thinking behind it, the potential naming for the stadium, all these different things that I would do at an agency for clients.

21:26So for a month, that was the goal. And a lot of people thought I was crazy, especially my wife. She was like, why are you up at two in the morning working on something that, why? And I was like, you know what? I have to, I have to get it out of my system i have to get it done and also the the the funny thing was that at that point kit design or like team design was not a thing like you go and be hands and you probably find maybe one sure one that you could find like oh that's kind of cool but nobody else was doing it now everybody's got an opinion everybody's creating kits and jerseys and all that tech talk yes like you can be hands and it's plethora of stuff um so at that point i was okay nobody's doing it as much as I would love to see this be a thing.

22:09Um, and I took on the project, I spent a month, uh, working on it. And, and, and again, it went through that. I had to pull from my personal experience with the sport, uh, my experience with Miami and sort of what I wanted. And one of the things I wanted was to get away from the typical Miami cliche, right? I was like, I'm not going to do pink. I'm not going to do like neon colors and all that stuff because, you know, I grew up on Yeah. And I, and I honestly, I didn't like that. You know, I was like, yeah, I don't, I don't like it. And to that also stand corrected because I say Miami people don't want that.

22:41And then the Miami heat came up and I was like, okay, nevermind. What the fuck do I know? so it was a bit of that so my goal was to elevate a little bit more give a different take my point of view to the team and I built that so after a month I put it on my blog again how old we are like blogs back then put it on the blog and Diego.blogspot.com it was dblog yeah it was dblog oh sorry yeah it was t-h-e-e blog and then for a while people just knew me as that. Right. So I was like, okay, cool. So the blog did well because you know, how magazine picked it up. I was like, Oh, you're going to be a writer for us.

23:21So I got into that. So I was feeling comfortable. So you had a community a little bit of. Yes. Yes. At that point I was just doing daily posts. I would get to the office or like an hour before my shift started and I would just dedicate an hour just to write. Cool. If there was anything that I liked, I'll just save it and come back and just, I'm like, go to my bookmarks, pull it up and just be honest about it. And it helped me because he helped me create that confidence that you need as a designer it gave me the confidence to tell stories and sort of like give my point of view whether you like it or not you are getting my point of view and you know the 10 people that were reading like you know seemed to liked it um so i put the project online and and it just blew up you know people just the comments started like crashing like the website crashed wow that's when i knew i was like okay wait what's going on here so the thing crashed uh i had to call the thing go daddy was at the time i was like oh no wordpress wordpress yeah and i was like dude it crashed so So before you know it, it started showing up on like Complex and like football magazines in Spain and stuff.

24:21And people were just like, oh, this guy just did the stuff for Beckham. I was like, no, no, no, no. I did not. Like this is not. This is a personal project. The news, like I did like news interviews and people were like, oh, is this what's coming to Miami? I was like, no, it's not. It's just my version of it. But then again, and Armin posted it on Brand New. And to go back to your question. And that's when I first got my fresh air of comments, real comments. Mostly were positive. And then the negatives, you know, you just take them. Well, I think it shows just how good of a job you did with it that people thought it was real.

24:56And I think another thing that happens a lot today, but I don't really remember happening quite as much at the time, was sort of the way that you broke down the shield inspiration. you kind of showed sort of the pieces yeah sky and the ocean football and yeah yeah how all these things come together and now sports branding we talk about on the show you know you gotta have the hidden mountains yes sort of great the great yeah yeah it's all like trying to fit like hundreds of little you know easter eggs inside of these logos but i think the work that you did obviously just was at a level that it could have been the real identity thank you and i think that huge compliment.

25:32And not just the real identity, but like a real good identity. Thank you. And I think that's why it went viral. And I think ultimately why it garnered so much attention, right? What did that feel like at that time? It was great. Yeah. It was great, but I I'm kind of a masochist. It was great, but then I was like, okay, this work. What's next? What's the next one? I like how you said you had to get it out of your system. Yes. I relate to that because sometimes I, you know, as a designer, it's not just about doing work for clients. Sometimes you have an idea for something or you have a vision for something and you're just like, I got to put this down and I got to make it.

26:12And it's not really necessarily for others. Yeah, it was for me. Yeah, it was for you. And then all of a sudden, it's for the world. And I think, yeah, it's a really beautiful system. How did it feel when then the Real Identity launched? And it did have pink. And also, it had Inter Miami as the name of the club. Because didn't you name it? You're not going to name into this one. No, no, no, no. Because you named it. It didn't have a name, right? Like four years before it launched. Yeah, it didn't have a name. And so you named it Inter Miami FC and then the real club launches Inter Miami FC. Does David Beckham owe you a giant check?

26:51Look at this camera, this camera, this camera. Yeah. And just let David know who to make the check out to. Yeah. My LLC. So, again, it was a passion project. True passion project. Like, I put it all out there. I told my story about, like, playing, about, like, my relationship with Miami and sort of, like, what he felt to, like, compete against giants and all that. So it was a very honest story. So I think people related to that. And that's, again, part of the storytelling of the project that I think connected with people. It wasn't just like, here's the shield. Here's the kid. Put it out there and start shopping it around.

27:24No, it was like a story. So yeah, for the name, it was a bit of that work. I was like, I'm living in Miami. I know this place. I know how international this is. And like inter-Miami, it was like, it took a bit to get to that point. But I was like, that's the one thing that like all of us can relate and agree on. Sure. And it doesn't matter what language you put it in. Like it works. So I was like, that's it. You know, there's naming. There's all this happening. A lot of people thought that I would meet David Beckham out of this thing. I never did. So you never met David Beckham? No. I never met him.

27:55Okay. I mean, I'm still open. Yeah, yeah. David, call me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's a big listener to the show. So we'll just end the story. So we did that. And then the new Identity came out. You know, it was a bit of like... Double Day and Cartwright, I believe. Double Day and Cartwright, yes. Who does great branding and actually just did... Fucking amazing. Yeah, just did the one for the Utah Mammoth, the one we're talking about, which we think is great. They do, yeah, in my opinion, the best sports branding identity in the world. I think they did a nice job with the Miami Football Club. I think the pink is, to your point, is a Miami cliche.

28:31But I don't think they led with pink and not the combination. It's not quite so Miami Vice. It sort of leans into the pink and the flamingo. It is a nice job. And I think it obviously has galvanized Miami around this. It's become a fashion symbol. And so, you know, again, it all worked out for you because ultimately it led you to a job at Nike. Well, it led me to another job right after that. So a lot of people thought I would meet David and become best friends. A lot of people. But what, you know, and this is where it kind of like came full circle because my wife was questioning, like, are you sane?

29:12Why are you putting all this time into this? A lot of people are like, why are you working on this stuff when you can go out? But I never knew. Again, it was personal. But then one day after Complex and all these people had the logo out there, I got a call from an agent or a manager. Really? And he calls me and he says, look, I have a client that saw your work. He's very interested. He's launching a project. Would you like to talk to him? Would you be open to have a conversation? I was like, of course. Yes. He's like, okay, cool. Now I can tell you. his name is carmelo anthony he plays for the new york nix i was like dude i know who carmelo anthony is um so he brings him up and he's like look carmelo is buying a soccer team in puerto rico because he's you know he has roots in puerto rico so he's always been connected to the to the island so uh he saw the work and he wants you to build it wow uh caveat uh he's it's between you and an agency so he's he needs to decide between the two so you need to submit your proposal you need to submit ideas and he'll decide so at that point i was like amazing right like you fucking like this turn into something that can actually become a thing now um excited for that but what got me more excited was uh now i get to compete with an agency right like fuck yeah if i beat them that's already like a big thing for me so it came about that um and again it was a kind of like a i forgot how long it was it was a very quick project it was like probably three months okay from beginning to and um had to like do a lot of zoom calls with carmelo which at that point we didn't even have zoom i forgot what it was but it was some crappy ass like internet connection thing or facetime so i got to meet him talk to him kind of like pick his his brain and what he wanted to go guide him a little bit too because again when you're working with clients and when you work with an athlete that's already has played in sports his entire life he knows the importance of a badge he knows the importance of like that that that that symbol um but at the same time they come with biases of like, oh, it has to have this and this and this and this.

31:07So we did that project together. He trusted me to the point that he was like, no, you write the copy. So I was writing copy for it. I was doing everything that I did for Miami, just transfer it here. And then as I was presenting options, he was like, no, no, no, go back to the Miami style. Like it needs to look like that. I really like that. So that's why there's a bit of similarities from like the fake one to the real one. But it was great. It kind of like gave me the the confidence to say, you know what? I can do this. I can compete with, with people out there. Uh, cause I've never pitched or like, sure.