DESIGN IS A LOT LIKE MAGIC: WITH GANDER

29:08It's like, you know, she used the word yassification. but it's really just like making good designed and better looking and more fun brands for everything and shelves and like i remember when i started center and actually like at coke in my later years just seeing like bonza and like some of the very early projects you're doing i was like these are the next wave of brands in the supermarket yeah it was so cool and so it's so cool that you guys are like behind so many of those brands and it's like there's a clear delineation between the past and and and the present that we're now living in but also these businesses like they're still around and they're still thriving and they're they're they're they're just multiplying and expanding i think that's such an important thing to know because i feel like there's this uh thought that like we just create like viral internet brands people clients say that sometimes like like i love your work do you have anything that's like just like a little you know it seems like you create a lot of like really fun like millennial brands i'm just like well Well, Bons has been around for nearly a decade.

30:11They haven't touched their packaging once since we did it. So maybe more than that. And they're also the number five pasta brand in the US. We're talking like Barilla, whatever one, Big Pasta. Big Pasta. Bons is an alternative chickpea-based pasta in their number five, which is crazy. And really good, too. Yeah. Also, again, I consume a lot of these products because they're better for you products. A lot of times, better for you products taste pretty shitty. They're better for you health-wise, but not better for taste-wise. Banzo is one of those ones where it's like, if you put enough sauce on it, I can't tell the difference.

30:51You don't eat dry pasta for noodles. Put that on a billboard. That's right. Also, their mac and cheese is really fun. I think I probably go to the mac and cheese pretty often because by the time it's covered in cheese, you're like, what do you, give me some more protein. Nothing to complain about. Yeah, just here for the protein. Yeah, no, it's just protein, so hook it up. We also had Mesa on the show. Yeah, we were listening to it on the way here. She's just one of the - Yeah, she rocks. Gems, yeah. And you guys crush it with her brand. Oh, man. We love it so much, yeah. And just, yeah, hit after hit after hit for you guys.

31:25It's just really something. I think to contextualize it a little bit, I'm not an actual historian of design or grocery stores, but I do think that when we started Gander nine years ago, there was like a kind of perfect convergence of both food science and like a shift around branding. So like we had just kind of come out of this like contemporary, like new movement of brand creation for both startups and like, oh, like even small startups come out of the gate with high production, ready to go. Like honestly, Red Antler did a lot of that back in the day. like the casters of the world. But there was like more of a pivot from like the startup being in like other like tech or financial to like food and like so many food founders.

32:11Apparel and like all these things. And we took an approach that like these alternative food brands were coming to us and they were like, you know, their food is different. It is literally like, you know, this food science had kind of updated. And so taking a traditional approach to healthier food or alternative foods was kind of like unheard of. And so we thought like, well, the branding should be not like you would expect for healthy food. And so bringing kind of like this sense of like a design brand centric focus to the food industry had not happened as much. Like, again, I'm not a historian of the grocery store and we were probably influenced by other brands doing this in different spaces.

32:48But like Bonza really broke through as this kind of like brand centric. Yeah. You know, it was an identity if you got Bonza, you know, it was like that kind of thing. Pantry items deserve to be seen, you know? And I think that's another Andrea sort of quote. And I think that you're totally right, not to get all history lesson, but it's true. There was a moment in time where every product on shelf was being reimagined from a product perspective. And the ability, the wall or the barriers to entrepreneurship for a lot of these companies were being lowered so that you could kind of put out a product or put it on the internet or sort of get into some of these smaller stores and not have to be like a giant conglomerate sort of uh totally you know craft to have a sort of brand in that space or something like that and then it's like how do we differentiate how do we show that we're new and different and you guys really set the tone for what that looked like and in in the food world we've created a monster now you have created a fucking monster and now shoppy shops globally that's right and and brands that are more than just products to be consumed i think that's also something like i worked on vitamin water for many years talking about it on every show uh so i have to bring it up but yeah vitamin water was just a water with sugar and vitamins yeah oops water down right on cue uh kevin drops his water bottle also wants a show that's also that's a bit we do we're good we're good let's tell you some physical prop diversion I bring a vitamin water bottles go down our walls get stolen show's over but it was something like you know you want it to be seen with a vitamin water and I think there's something about like having a shelf of products that are not just like you know the pastas for the only for the purpose of just cooking them and it's like it's cool to have magic spoon it's cool to have you know behave or not just like the old kind of the old guard of candy like how did you find the right people because I think a lot of this is like about the right opportunities and the people that are like mesas and I'm you know the magic spoon greg and like like other the bonds of mr.

35:04bonza like that like are like oh they're gonna like do it yeah my grandfather's mr. bonza actually that's how he found it that yeah no nepotism yeah yeah yeah heir to the bonds of fortune that's right there's so many layers to that yeah I mean it's like do you have a system for how to like weed out the like I mean well we have like a form that's like when people are but for real like it's like there's like a certain like your product has to be kind of like interesting we'd like for there to be some kind of like deeper you know it's not just like I'm trying to make you know speaking of protein or whatever like if somebody's just like I'm trying to make this like whatever thing that's just like okay I don't know I feel like the health angle is nice like sustainability even better there's of course like are they just getting started we've gotten so many emails lately from like jennifer at gmail.com that's just like i'm starting a business just when i'm already i'm already like i love you so much however like you probably are not the right fit just because you're emailing me from your gmail account you haven't even this is just an idea that you've yeah we're redesigning our site because i'm like i gotta get i saw i gotta get i cannot keep getting emails yeah so there's like certain things like that but then like there's personal fit like values alignment.

36:21In early days, success begets success. How we got each client one after another is completely based on success. We worked on early days with June Wine Bar, which is in Carroll Gardens. They're dope wine bar. Natural wine bar. So good. That was a really fun project. Even before we quit our jobs that we finalized that project. um and then like you know that like core street grocers which fire some soda yeah so we did their soda bottles years and years ago um and those are really fun to do um and like that was like a foot into the food space and so like we you know bonza comes to us and then we've worked with fire yeah yeah the uh the that you know bonza comes to us and we have like this little foothold in food like Katie and I are a bit of foodies ourselves.

37:19And then Bonzo takes off really successful. And, you know. But like that was total, they were totally taking like a risk on us. Like we're going to hire you guys, but like, are you legit? This was like one of our first projects. Yeah, yeah. Really? Bonzo was, yeah, yeah. We were like just becoming a studio. In our apartment, in our bedroom. It was just Mike and I at that point. Yeah, we did the entire project ourselves. Before the Shanghai office. That's right. Before, yeah. And even before Orlando and London. The Orlando factory, yeah. Honestly. but like project and then like that led to doing the branding for exo which was magic spoon greg and gabby's previous brand the cricket yeah cricket protein brand and then like they uh we did a rebrand and because we did that rebrand and we increased the value of their business so incredibly much just kidding um we they got acquired and uh and then like a year later they came back just like they're like remember that keto cereal thing we were talking about doing and And we did that.

38:15And before we knew it, we were launching Magic Spoon. And then that took off to the stratosphere. And then we did like Gotham Greens. And we did Coconut Bliss. And then some other ones. And in the meantime, we've been also working with like nonprofits and other organizations. But the food was really like kind of rolling. That's been the thing that's been kind of rolling. Has there been a project that you were like, oh, we don't see the vision. We don't really get it. Yes. And then it's a huge deal. Yo, what do you got? Okay, wait, not a huge... I don't know if... Or just like... I don't know if...

38:47Okay, the Reshovenator. What's that? Oh. Okay, look up Re... Wait, shoe... Is it like VN8R? Yeah. Oh, Reshovenator, like the shoe cleaner? Yes. Yeah, yeah. Can you show me what you're looking at? I'm looking at it right now. They have a dope brand now. They came to us. Okay. Is that it? This keeps growing. A shoe cleaner? I think their website's not as dope as it used to be. Okay. Their brand and their packaging, If you look at the branding case study, it's going to look way cooler. Yeah, sure. Whoever did the brand for them did a great job. But that was like one where I was like, okay, this is a great example of how like if you can just like go with it and just be like, I'm going to make a dope brand.

39:28I don't really care what it is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you didn't see the vision. No. I was just like, this product seems so silly. I just couldn't see it. And then as soon as I saw the brand, I was like, oh my God, it is so good. Could have been us. Could have been us. Yeah. But that happens though. So, I mean, you can't guess the right 100%. I mean, also sometimes you just don't get them and you're just like, there's that thing. And maybe you didn't take it quite as seriously and then all of a sudden it becomes fly-by-jig. Not that I have any experience with anything like that or anything. No, shout out to the channel.

39:56Yeah, wait, what's yours? Or not that it becomes like Omsom. Oh, yeah, we were talking about Omsom. Oh, yeah, yeah. What other brands did we talk to and then they become like huge, huge things or things that we're like, oh, yeah, there they are. You always forget and it's like two years later. Oh, yeah, we talked to them. That brand kind of looks like we designed that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They gave it to Gander, but it was going to play someone else. Now I'm blanking on all of them, but I had a list, and it was like I would go around to supermarkets. I'd be like, oh, fuck. Yeah, that one got away from us.

40:28Yeah, but that happens. I mean, because I imagine people, I'm starting a brand in the food and beverage space. I'm like, I'm going to talk to Gander. I'm going to talk to other agencies. I'm going to talk to Center. and then like, you know, because we, you know, we don't have the fixed pricing model. Yeah, yeah. You know, it goes in one way or the other. Do you guys have aspirations to do brands that are not in CPG or do you like, are you guys just like absolutely dialed? No, no, no, no. No, we want to get so far away from this. Yeah, okay. We share that in common. Yeah. Well, it is like a little bit of an existential crisis.

41:01We did a talk at the Dye Line one year about how like designing packaging for goods that essentially get tossed in the trash is like a pretty huge like bummer sometimes. Right? I love what we do, but it's just like - At the end of the day, it ends up in the recycling at best. Can I, you just reminded me of something. You guys did a talk, I believe it's some Thailand thing, and you were going through the names of your companies that you worked on. Yes. And it was so fucking funny. Yes. It was like, Zuzu, Ba, Beep, Beep, Beep, Beep, Beep, Beep, Beep,

41:38I'm glad that you got it because I'm not sure anyone else did. And then we were like, mama, dada, gaga, gaga, gaga. And I was dying. One death, success. Yeah. It's kind of funny. Like there is like this weird, like, yeah, if your name of your company has two syllables and it has a Z in it, we probably did the private thing. I mean, listen, it just works. Right. And you guys do naming, right? That's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. We'll do something, Amy. But we did the Locavore branding, which is a New York City guide. Shout out to Locavore. If you want to know where to bring your receiver that needs to get repaired or your turntable for your record player, and you're like, where do you find that kind of person these days?

42:29Google Maps is not going to be reliable information. There's a website called the Locavore. um caroline is a fantastic she used to have a pencil shop in the city if you're what was that called the pencil shop i think it was like her name it was it was like she sold pencils and um she's just like a real um champion for local businesses and uh and now she has like her own variety store uh in the west village i'm looking at it right now on your new website that's right you can go there and buy things from within like 100 miles from you yeah that's right very cool yeah and so that's a fully digital brand that's not based on you know we did celebrate brooklyn food and bev the brand identity for the for the last three years we've done their brand identity yeah it's tough right because it's like you do enough of these things yeah i think we both share this and that's why i wanted to ask because i was curious if you guys like we're like this is our thing we're going for it we probably should be yeah i mean we've come to terms with it is that it will always be a part of our business.

43:29At least I have being like, this is something now I've done for 20 years almost. Yeah. You're good at it. It comes naturally based on experience. And we do like doing it. Yeah. But it's not the only thing we want to do. Yeah. And that's the challenge. But the opportunities will not stop knocking on your door. Jennifer.gmail.com. No, she's going to keep coming. She keeps coming. She will not stop. I love what you do with Ayo. and make my own line of sauces as well. Yeah, I'm just getting started, but I figured I'd start branding right now without having developed a single thing. I just had an idea brunch.

44:08I'm still kind of drunk, but whatever. I'm four or five mimosas in, and I have an idea. Like a mayo. With other ingredients. And so I just started looking for design agencies. on the internet and I love your work. That's right. Yep, that's exactly it. And you seem super affordable so like do it for free? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Ironically, I had a call three hours ago. And I was like, I'll feel for it again. So you don't have pre-screenings of any kind? Oh, we do. Okay, okay. Just making sure. Sometimes it's like you want to believe. Someone's not true, I guess. You want to believe. You want to believe too.

44:50And I do enjoy those conversations. Yeah, it's true. There is a part of me that's like, what if Jennifer's got a big idea? Yeah, that's right. What if this is the next resuvenator? I mean, exactly. It's tough. And we feel like we are like a little bit of like, you know, standing in front of the fire hydrant with like emails. We get like multiple emails a day with people reaching out to us wanting to work with us, which is like an embarrassment of riches. Yeah, so grateful. So grateful. I remember when we didn't have any of that. Right, yeah. And it's like success begets success, right? Exactly.

45:19Or it's like you get these wins and then people are like. Yeah. Right. I got something for you guys. And it's like, I always think like, I don't want to lose that spirit of like, I'm grateful and I'm excited and this is amazing. But anyone is emailing us and finds us. But I have to do work sometime. I have to have time to do something else besides new business calls or vetting things or making proposals. It's so hard. How does it break down? Like you guys split duties? Like do you guys focus on, you guys are both designers. Uh, we were, yeah, by trade. One's a magician. Yeah, one's a magician.

45:58Yeah, one's more magic. One takes care of snacks. Heavier magic. Well, design is a lot like magic, actually, when you think about it. Chief magic officer. That's right, yeah. Totally. CMO. Yeah. I mean, yeah, we're both creative directors, and so we kind of split. We just split projects. Really? You guys don't work together. No. Was we falling out of some sort? Oh, yeah. It's for the sanity of ourselves. It's for the sanity of our team. We used to work on every project together. How inefficient. If you can imagine staffing two creative directors on the same project for nine months, you'd be like, whoa, we went over on billing.

46:36We have a two creative director per project minimum. Okay, wow. So we're doing it wrong. Yeah, we like to have three or four in there. As many. Everyone who works here is a creative director. That's true, yeah. We're very top-heavy. It's a flat organization. That's right, yeah. we find lots of opinions that all matter yeah yeah yes exactly key to great some of us are more like instagram creative directors okay yeah yeah fresh out of college yeah uh just got a degree i got a shirt with it on creative director on it so that's that's my that's my bid right it's like i thought you were gonna do the work no no i thought i was the creative director i thought you were doing the work no i'm the creative director you're doing the work yeah yeah just lots of directing.

47:19That's right. That's how it used to be. And then we're like, maybe we should split projects. And it was just like a numbers thing. Like there are too many projects for Mike and I to possibly be on everything. So it was kind of like, I guess we have to do this. And it was really for the best. You guys ever like swap, you know, like just like a fun day where it's like, let's just like swap for the day. I mean, we do a lot of, a lot of just like, I'm so stressed about this. Like, I just don't know what the answer is. can you please like look at this for me? And a lot of that. How do you not bring it home with you?

47:55No, we do all the time. No, there's no difference. There's no rules. You don't like. We tried one time to have rules. Okay. We were like, no talk at the dinner table. No, there's no difference. That's why, yeah, I couldn't imagine like that. And again, like there's so many creative partnerships from married people. Yeah. And it must work. It works. I actually can't imagine it the opposite. Do you all have life partners? We both have life partners, I guess. Yeah, mine is married for almost 10 years. My wife has her own business. It's a designer shower cap company. Oh, right. And so she's got her brand.

48:34So she's entrepreneurial as well. Yeah, it's kind of. I feel like that's why it works, to be honest, because I've seen some. because when you own your own business or even if you just care a lot about your work, like it comes home. It comes home no matter how hard you try for it not to. And so I feel like if your partner, not everyone has that relationship to work. Some people are just like, hey, listen, I'm just here for a paycheck and that is totally fine. But if you've got that, plus somebody who like lives, breathes work and they're together, it probably creates some like tension. So I honestly can't imagine doing what I'm doing with someone else.

49:07It would be so hard. You're probably right about that because the disease-less passion that we have, which is our work is more than just work. You're going to have to share that, I think, or it would be weird if the significant other maybe didn't get it. So I get that part, but it's also the like, hey, we're having dinner. Hey, Bonza, just email it again and they're looking for some changes on that mac and cheese. right we don't yeah it's less that and it's more just like we're constantly talking about like our business and like what do we do we got to do reviews we got to do there's always something that you're like thinking about wanting to talk about and like thank god i can talk to mike about it because if i just couldn't i would just be like in my own little brain yeah so when does the uh the gander baby uh hit the uh the sticks you know start designing stuff yeah we're starting early we have the cards that she can identify typefaces and we're having her do baby kerning baby loves kerning she just pushes the letter over a little bit and we're like a little bit too tight between the O and the E but it's okay you're just getting started branding for babies actually it would be pretty tight we'll talk about that off mic it's a great idea a little green point corner office, a studio, it's a business, you bring your baby.

50:35Yeah, teach them. Oh my God. You would make so much more money than running an agency. You know how many parents would love their kids to be branding experts by the age of five? Oh my God. Let's do this. Under tapped market. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they could do a little DJ class too. A little break from branding. Put them on the decks. I've thought about this idea before. Don't steal it. It's mine. Make it happen. We're here for it. Brooklyn babies. Yeah, Brooklyn. Yeah, I mean, listen, creative people make creative kids or they want to. She does have a little artist book that she really likes.

51:11It's all about like artists through time. Yeah. She likes that one. How has that changed your relationship with work? Having a baby. Yeah. Is that disease? Pretty immensely. Yeah. Like, well, let's start. like after we had her I feel like I'm pretty immediately a pretty big spike in creativity like I think you work so hard at work but like you can get really burnt out and then feel like oh I'm not even really like a creative person I'm just kind of like moving this machine around and like making sure it's flowing but like feeling truly creative and I feel like I feel like you know a month after she was born we came up with like three business ideas like new things that we wanted to do instead or like in addition to or whatever um so i don't know that's like one thing so it makes that uh part of us i think like ignite even more um but it also makes like the work that we do even more important that we care about it because if i'm gonna be like working instead of hanging out with her all day like it needs to be for something i care a lot about and yeah having kid just also makes you like question everything you're like what am i what what am i doing here on earth like why am i here um what's my purpose uh i'm still asking myself these questions all the time it's beautiful um not trying to be the greatest graphic designer that ever lived you know for the for the design competition that doesn't exist right that's right uh and do do you guys um do you guys have aspirations to just going off of what you just said like do you have aspirations to start other businesses.

52:49I know you guys have Meadows. Do you like want to get into being entrepreneurs with product ideas? It sounds like maybe Baby might inspire Baby product, business, design by Gander. I see the future. Yeah. We have like four different books that we want, kids books that we want to create. Which by the way, I mean, again, like I feel like we could just make a killing designing like a good kids book because there's so many that are horrible. Their favorite ones are just like images of like stock images of like other kids doing things. Not even joking. I was so surprised. Getting images? Yes. Is that the book?

53:27She's like, hands can touch things high and low and it's just a kid touching something high and a kid touching something low. Yeah. And it's like, she loves it. And they can't even see the watermark either. No, no. So you don't have to buy the image. No, you don't have to. That's right, yeah. So can make a killing that way. So books? We have a few books that we are really excited about that we don't have any time to make because we're running Gander. And then we have another, it's kind of funny because I was like, I don't really want to do like CPG stuff so much. But we do have a couple products that we're trying to create, which is very hard.

54:02We need help. Turns out, very hard. Turns out it's a lot more fun to do the branding than to start the actual company. Yeah, our clients made it seem so freaking easy, launching brands left and right. Yeah. It is hard, actually. We should give them more credit. Especially putting beer into cans. I guess they know something. Yeah, I guess fine. Building businesses and putting products on their shelves isn't as easy as it is. It's not easy. Supply chains, manufacturers. Cost of goods. It's crazy. Well, I guess one thing now that I'm still on your website, I did notice is here. Open for biz Monday to Thursday.

54:37You guys got Fridays. That's right. That's why we're here. We're here on our day off. You should be writing your kid's book right now. Exactly. Exactly. We appreciate it. Yeah, why you got to do that, guys? Hey, that and the fixed pricing, we can be, we can unite on this front. It says currently we're closed because it's Friday. That's right. That's pretty cool. Don't let my team see this. What do you want to know about the 4-Day Work Week? I am an evangelist for the 4-Day Work Week. I'll take this out, Alex. Clips it, sends it to the group chat and Slack. I'm sorry. No one will see this. Check out Gander's new website.

55:09I love this little piece in the corner, right? If anyone from Center is looking for a job where you don't work on Fridays. Shut it down. We're hiring. Beep, beep, beep, beep. If anyone for a beep is looking for a beep. That's why they're all not here today. Well, I guess, Alex, the only thing to do is, you know, you gotta follow. Yeah, shut down the microphone. No, yeah, we gotta close on Fridays. Close on Fridays. What do you want to know? Let's talk about it. Yeah, let's talk about it. That's so important. Today work week. Yeah, 2020, the heat, the midst, the depths of the pandemic, um we realized that like you know people weren't taking pto because they couldn't go anywhere they couldn't go anywhere like not only were you like waking up turning over to your computer and doing some work and then like finishing your day then turning over and getting in bed and going to sleep it was like people were working living breathing work and um we had already been doing summer fridays for a while and had kind of i you know played with the idea of doing a four-day work week and we were like, you know, could we do this full time?

56:11And like, let's try this as an experiment, give people like a real mental break. Cause like, there was a lot of like lack of mental health that was happening during COVID and, um, and you know, work-life balance is really out of balance. And so, um, that just was enough to push us to try it. And we started out with a six month experiment and then that six month experiment led to the last four years. We haven't stopped it. And so we've done it for four years now and in the midst of that we got named Fast Companies. Fast Companies. Most native company 2024. If you want to make lists, Alex. Yeah.

56:46Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, think of all the cool brands we've launched. It truly felt like it was His lists, man. You know, the creative boom one. Most popular ones. Oh, yeah. Yeah, we got snubbed by that too. Oh, yeah, that's right. You guys aren't on there either. I actually saw something that made me feel good which was agencies that got snubbed and it was like Gander Center. Oh, there's a follow-up article. No, no article. just someone on LinkedIn. Yeah, hell yeah. LinkedIn is, love the drama. And I was like, oh, you know what? We weren't the only ones who got snows. Not that we care about lists.

57:13We've said that on the podcast. Yeah, yeah. We don't give a shit about the list. But if you want to put us on a list, we would love to be on one. You know, specifically that one. Specifically, because we're voted on by their peers, but we're not upset about it. Who are the peers? We should be mad at them. That's what I'm saying. We didn't vote. Did you vote? No, they didn't ask us. Yeah, exactly. I would have put gander. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry, I would have put centra. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Gander yourself. But yeah, four days. Four days. You can get it done is what you're saying. It's possible. I mean, it's an intense four days.

57:44Don't get us wrong. And that is probably part of the - You're like having intense four days. It's intense. It's an intense four days. How late do those days go? They don't go late. Okay. But there's like no time for lollygagging. There's no like, I think it does create a little bit of like, we're here to like get something done every single day. I will say we also do like an hour long dedicated lunch break every day at the same time. Okay, it helps so much, right? It's new for us. Oh, okay. Yeah, it's really good. It really makes sure that everyone eats. 1230 to 130. Nice. We do one to two. One to two.

58:18Nice. I like that one better. Yeah, it feels more like a round number. 1230 to 130 is a little. I didn't set it up. What's with the half number? I don't know why, but it is. I like 1230 to 130. Yeah. It's a little early. Sometimes I feel like ours is a bit late. I usually take mine one or two. That's the whole point, Kevin. It's 12.30 to 1.30. We do it as a group. You're breaking the rule. Oh, whoops. But I will say, I like it. It's nice because everyone's just taking lunch at different times. And like half the time, you wouldn't eat at all. You would just like, because you're not on the same schedule.

58:45And like there's a client meeting, then you're starving. People schedule shit over things. And it's like, well, if I have a meeting that starts at this time and then a meeting that starts at that time, there's no fucking way I'm eating lunch. So yeah, it was really self-preservation. Well, there's nothing worse than sitting in a meeting just hungry. Tummy rumbling like crazy. Yeah, in a meeting right when you're supposed to be eating lunch. It's worse. Worse. Nothing makes me grumpy. And like if you don't put a time block, then someone will just take it. Yeah. Savages. You get – Savages. With the – Clients.

59:16Yeah, savages. Clients are – Savages. No. Clients are savages with gander is the podcast title. That's right, yeah. So our theory is that like you will take the amount of time that you give yourself to do something. Generally, that's the case, right? Like if you give yourself five days, you're going to take five days to do it. You're not going to like finish it on day one. If I finished it, it's like, no, I'm going to probably take my time. I'm probably going to procrastinate a little bit. I'm going to, you know, lollygag. And I think that we found that if we give ourselves four days and also the math to think about there is that like our timelines might be a little bit longer.

59:53but like you know it's not like we took all they actually aren't though yeah they've gotten shorter overall over time we also yeah that's right that's what i mean like i i think that it doesn't really dramatically affect our projects we've found a lot of efficiencies like one thing that would always throw us off is like you can present any day of the week you're waiting for client feedback for who knows how long right if we try and like present more toward the end of the week or like midweek right Wednesday Thursday then clients have Thursday Friday weekend because they're they have the disease like us they work on the weekend and then we have feedback in our inbox on Monday we hit the ground running again versus before it was just kind of like you present on a Monday they take four days to get back to you you've wasted the whole week now it's the end of the week you have to dive back in on a Friday no so do you have any clients that are like fuck your schedule we're savages like we're just gonna like I think we do have to like yeah we do have to like Like, check things.

1:00:53Well, we are flexible. You know, like, the idea is that the four-day work week is a privilege, not a right. And so, like, you know, the idea that, like, if you have to do a photo shoot or if there's going to be a last-minute meeting, that we're going to make ourselves available for that. Things have to go to print on this day or there is a typo in the print files. Or a site's going live. Yeah. You're going to need to jump in and do it. And like, it's better to do two hours of work that you knew was going to happen or whatever than to, you know, still it's better than a full day of work. Or, you know, sometimes we need to do a photo shoot on a Friday because that's when we have the most availability.

1:01:28So it does actually open up Friday to, you know. To podcasts. To podcasts. To photo shoots. Privileged on a right though is, you know, is a good way of thinking about it. And I think, you know, I mean, we are, Fridays we are certainly less and we're trying to continue to like do keep that going and like we're often not like today we don't have many meetings like i think it's it's definitely like a a bit of a wind down yeah versus the rest of the week which is certainly more full-on as you can tell our office is completely empty yeah but people are working and they're you know it's a you think they're hard at work right now yeah all of them they're fucking grinding yeah yeah now on the bands of the future have you thought about doing a four-day work week?

1:02:11I've thought about it because Kevin can't keep stop talking about it. No, Canada's a four-day work week. Have we considered that? A lot of people are doing four-day work weeks. Really? All of Sweden. I think all of Finland does it. We have a hard 10 to 6 policy in terms of like our work day with an hour-long lunch. So 6 o 'clock people, it's over. Yeah. And it's like... That's good. And I think that was hard for me for a minute where I was like, we have so many hours left in this day as someone who has a disease. And I think what I've learned though is, is by kind of making that a definitive end and listening to the kids who, uh, it gives you a couple hours at night for yourself.

1:02:55And I get to watch real housewives of New York and like, there's like really important stuff that I do after work. Yeah. That is, it builds my brain. Yeah. And that's right. It's going to feed your work. That's right. And it feeds the work in the vicious cycle. Before we get you guys out of here, anything on the horizon? Anything looking forward that you guys are particularly excited? Obviously, a new website. Yeah, go to takeagander.com. In two weeks from now. Yes. It's probably out by the time it's podcast. Yeah, that's right. It's out. It's still out. Yeah, it's definitely out. It's already won a few awards.

1:03:29It's on a few lists, actually. Best website in the world. That's right. Today. Yeah, in Dimmis Park. Yeah. i i love the footer the little dots in the uh the counters yes yeah they they follow you i'm having a lot of fun on this website cool yeah it's really nice nice i'm so glad that it seems like you're having a blast i think the studio the studio page is probably my favorite with the animations uh we got those are like kind of like it's a little bit wacky and fun and like the header animation is probably one of my favorite things that we did um on the site and our process animations are all like shout out to benji and our team who uh those are all like just stop animations you know drawn on an ipad cool yeah so cool oh your team photos are also incredible nice they're very uh like um mall yes like mall chic that's right that's what we're trying that's our aesthetic florida mall core that's right yeah that's it strip those photos will be on the final site to be honest have you ever it's very hard to like keep up with the people that work at your yeah our our team photo has multiple people that do not work here okay so we're right there okay yeah uh anything else that you want to promote or share just kind of just like hey um well yeah uh meadows i do think we want to that's one of our things for the year we want to make that like an actual a thing right now do you want to explain what meadows is because i show that speak where speak.

1:04:58I saw that talk where you guys went through meadows a bit. It's very cool. Yeah. Make meadows. It's all about native plants and rewilding and dismantling the American lawn because we got inspired about the potential for our soil to heal the planet and draw carbon down through the roots of lovely plants. And so we didn't really know where to start with it. So for now, it's just like an Instagram account, educational post, fun hub of content. Go check it out. Make Meadows. Make Meadows on Instagram. Yeah. If you have a lawn, consider getting rid of your turf grass and planting native plants instead.

1:05:41The whole mission is for us to kind of like provide resources and information on, as Katie said, replacing like non-native turf grass with native plants that are like more meadow-like. Meadow is, you know, in the plant cycle or like, you know, development cycle is like a meadow is like we're like shrubby, shrubby kind of like medium sized plants, wildflowers, those types of things that have like much deeper root systems and allow for better soil health because they're literally like fixing our soil better. and for carbon sequestration because plants draw down carbon from our atmosphere and actually positively affect global warming by pulling it out of our atmosphere.

1:06:25And there's a really great documentary called Kiss the Ground that really inspired us. And, you know, soil health is one of those things that in our country has been really like wiped out by, you know, all these companies that yeah the lawn is the number one uh most irrigated crop in america yeah the lawn the grass the lawn yeah the american that's my new york yeah yeah the one lawn i thought it was corn or soy i had a lawn on long island i was growing up yeah it's right yeah there you go question for you guys uh before you get out of here you're really trying to get us out of here no i mean no i've been recording for a while and this is really fun and yeah we could talk for we could talk forever and I actually the question I'm about to ask is like a question I probably shouldn't ask onto the microphone or on the podcast.

1:07:13I'm judging an award show and apparently I got asked to field a team of other people that are going to judge with me. Would you guys be down to do it? Yeah. Okay, cool. I'll talk. Yeah. I'd love to do it, Alex. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'd be honored. They did actually say I could bring my own team and I was like, absolutely not. Can't be trusted. Not interested in sharing with my team. I mean, we'd be honored. Thank you. Yeah, it's core 44 if you guys are familiar with it. Yeah, yeah. It's only going to take like 45 to 80 hours of your life. Perfect, perfect, perfect. Judging the dye line was like a bit intense.

1:07:47Oh, man. Yeah, that's a lot of work. That actually does sometimes take – I can promise you they've promised me that it's a – That's fine. There's only four awards. Oh, perfect. So yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll just have to like pick them together. It'll be fun. Cool. Fun. But see, this is like we're getting shit done. Yeah, that's right, yeah. We're making things happen. And we should hang out outside, you know, the podcast. We really should. I think, honestly, like, we were having this conversation last night with Lisa Smith, who was on the podcast a couple weeks ago. Time, time. Thank you for keep mentioning this.

1:08:17It may have come out and probably did come out, but who knows? Maybe in this podcast world that we live in. But we were saying that, like, in the past, right, agencies would be, like, in tough competition with each other. Right. Like, battling. And I think like our generation of design studio owners, like I don't think we feel that way. You guys have been so sweet every time we've, you know, massacred one of your brands. Yes. And, you know, and we should just, you know, we should hang out more and we should go bowling. Price fix and everything. And talk about our big price fix idea. And, you know, just enjoy and talk about the lives that we live.

1:08:57Yeah, I would love that. commonalities because there are so many guys just you know we're fans here and just keep crushing it and putting out brands into the world that made me say damn it i wish we we did that so fucking good and the latest one is your websites because it's really really well done and i know how hard it is to do so sweet thank you and our thank you guys so fun

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1:13:35Thank you.