Doing A Lot Of Things: with Mackey Saturday

0:28Do you still skate? flip on a snowboard. On a snowboard? That's what it says. Who says it? You said it. I did not say that. No, no, no. You're Mackie's interview now. Is that possible? A 360 flip. Usually if you flip and spin, you end up doing at least what they would qualify as a 540. Oh, sorry. This is a skateboard. That's what he just asked. A tray flip is a 360 flip. We're showing our harvest introductory I can do like a McTwist on a snowboard, which is a 540 and a front flip. Pretty sweet. Or a rodeo, which is a back flip and a 540. Okay. That is fucking sick. You're still nice like that?

1:09I have not snowboarded since before COVID. Okay. Really? What's holding you back? I left all my gear at my friend's house in Denver. And just two ways to pick it up. Yep. And I've just been surfing in the winter as much as I can. And so I haven't been making time for snowboarding. Well, I mean, Denver's not a bad place to have it. you know yeah it's close close the mountains not close to here but well you know quick flight how do you rank them snowboarding skateboarding surfing i surf the most okay i probably put the most effort towards that now but i started that last i think surfing would be the most fun thing to be really good at that seems pretty cool especially because of the little cows you know everything it's also like you definitely can do it till you die that's a lot like graphic design yes quite similar in that way

2:00three two one kevin what's up what's up do you have the same uh tiger on your shirt and your arm yeah it's pretty sick i got it at the same spot in smith street yeah oh wow look at that coordinated i'm very in tune here uh we have a special guest in the house today not that special very very special. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No. Mackie Saturday is a designer who specializes in strategically creating and advancing visual identities. He's designed iconic visual identities for major brands including Instagram, Oculus, Unsplash, Affirm, Silk, GoPuff, SeatGeek, and many others. He runs his own design firm, Saturday.

2:41Great name that designs enduring authentic identities that clarify and inspire. Mackie was formerly a principal at New York City design firm Chermayev, Geismar, Haviv, his average surfer skateboarder and uh uh what was the third one snowboarder uh based in uh Brooklyn New York thanks for coming over Mac you welcome to the show thank you so much for having me claps to you all all right on a Thursday hey Saturday on a Thursday how many bad Saturday jokes do you get on a on a weekly basis or how sick are you talking where I go depends where I go and who I interact with if it's not new people you don't get new jokes is it a real last name no really Really?

3:19It's a fake last name. It is a real last name. It was not the last name I was born with. Okay. What was the last name you were born with? I'm not going to tell you. Oh, all right. Keeping the anonymity. Wow. That's just your pen name? It was a true Paul Rand, you know, Peretz Rosenbaum. This is graphic design history. Here we go. Yeah. I mean, that's his name. Okay. What's yours? Oh, Paul Rand's name is not - It's Peretz Rosenbaum. Is your first name Mackie? It's Matthew. When I learned how to speak, it just came out Mackie. oh that's awesome and uh it stuck my mom's a hippie i love this my mom's a hippie too yeah my real last name is center though so i actually started people calling me out for it being like fake name yeah yeah and i was like so i started saying alex center is my both my is my real last name in the name of the studio i started there you go i'm leaning into it uh originally from chico california where the hell is that it is two and a half three hours north of san francisco whoa inland nor cow nor actual nor cow and so that is where you grew up i was born in chico i grew up in a little town called paradise okay these are that's a fake town that's a real town that is that is unfortunately very much gone now because it burned down oh wow the whole town yeah in 2018 that what was the most deadly fire in u.s history until the maui ones okay that was there oh rough So everything I grew up around is, yeah.

4:44I heard it gets pretty crazy up there. In which way? A lot of ways. Like a lot of rogue individuals. Paradise is a non-wealthy, it's a lot of people in trailers and things like that. Oh, really? Okay. It's lower income. An ironic name. It is. Okay. Well, it's because of the location. Got it. It is beautiful. It's a beautiful place. Yeah. There's a valley. Mountains. it's kind of like not quite the yosemite thing but you're starting to edge into that so what age did you start uh ripping it skateboarding surfing when i moved away from california really yeah i feel like all california kids they just grow up with a skateboard i know i know everybody thinks that i surfed because of california no skateboarding no none of that that's so funny because i think of you i'm like i'm actually saturday he's like a surfer skater from california i know i know that's I started skateboarding when I moved to Wyoming, which was when I was like 12.

5:40Okay. Why did the family move to Wyoming? For my dad's job. Okay. What did he do? But my dad ran health clubs and he moved there to start a new franchise of them. And then you're in Wyoming. You're like, what am I going to do here? Literally nothing to do. There you go. So skateboarding is perfect. You can do it alone. You can do it as long as you want. That's true. You need nothing. Everybody hates you. It's perfect. Yeah. You just need a board and a street. Yep. that's it uh when did you start uh thinking about uh design when does that come into the mackey saturday equation yeah the truth of it is i designed before i understood design i thought graphic designers were cheaters because they use computers they are yeah we are but actually got into design only after college when i said i did it before before i even knew what I was doing so my dad we moved to Wyoming okay he was running health clubs he got out of that and he started being a financial planner wow good pivot one of his clients was in his office and he had some of my art uh hanging in his office because I always had done art yeah as long as I can remember and the guy goes who did that like who made that and he was like oh it's my son he's like great I need to hire him he's like you can't he's 13 and uh yeah and he's like no we got to figure it out and they they figured out a way and this guy was an inventor and so he would come to me and he liked that i wasn't like jaded by the world you were a child i was a child yeah and he would tell me the things that that he was dreaming of and yeah i would draw them and then i would put them onto bigger documents and watercolor them and whatever and then he would take them to the cad people and they would use that yeah and make he's doing drawings yeah essentially yeah he's a freelance client 13 there we go send him invoice yeah i got paid that was you know much more design than sure and then i just did art it's technically product designing i guess weird way i guess so but then i went back to art and i have a fine arts degree i made my money through college just like drawing portraits and painting murals and and doing all of that yep are you do you still draw and do that kind of stuff today or not as much i wish i made time for it you have a of hobbies though so you can only uh pick so many this is the truth yeah for me it's watching netflix and uh eating sandwiches so you know those are those are my main two top priorities i think you're i think you got a few other things yeah but so that's art you're like i got a little bit of talent or you felt like this was fun for you it was just something you already had a full time freelance gig with this guy uh making weird patents does that guy own any patents for anything like that ever went on to make a lot of money in any way or no clue and then uh but yeah i only got into design after college god what'd you study in school fine arts okay just drawing a painting yep and so i actually got my concentration in metalsmithing you do any of that i don't anymore but it was just i went to school and i was like i already know how to draw i already know how to paint i already have like i've done all this for a long time like what haven't i done anything of I was like metal smithing yeah nothing and facts and I always really enjoyed thinking about things like in in context okay like the full experience of something versus just a singular dimensional version of it so that fit and I was like well I'm here I want to learn new things yeah let's do that and so then I did that my senior thesis was all mixed media stuff I built canvases so they were dimensional painted them did some like raised metal and put interactive pieces on it and so it was like wall sculpture kind of stuff you and i are about the same age uh so we're both washed we we can admit it yeah i always like to talk about um how when i went to college and i also studied art that design was not something i was even aware existed yeah until my sophomore year because i had to pick a major and so the choices were like communication design or computer art or other you know metal smithing which i don't think they offered but like um you know and i was i just like was looking through the options and it was like graphic designer logo works with brands brochures and things like that and i was like oh interesting that that's what i want to be when i grow up but like today obviously kids grow up and they just they're so inundated with graphic design you open up tiktok or instagram and there's like i'm making a logo for pickles and it's just like everywhere but for us we were just artistic kids that didn't know how to make money with it in a way right for sure so i got a teaching certificate okay because i was like okay the only way i'll make any money with art yeah it's like being an art teacher yeah so what were you teaching art painting just art generally art i taught at a middle school for one academic year was that like your first job yeah straight i got hired while i was still in school amazing and you were just teaching kids everything making things yep cool so i taught middle and high school at a charter school did you enjoy that no but it was exactly what i expected it to be i wasn't surprised yeah like i had done all of i went to school i did all of my whatever teaching while i was there it was exactly what it was but i was very very bored and i felt like i was doing a disservice to the kids like oh really yeah because i was like i'm not i don't love this and there's people that love this there's people that they live for being a teacher have you done teaching at all since in your sort of later years yeah yeah a little bit here in new york we when i was at cgh we would teach a branding class for sva yeah and that stuff but just you know one day a week okay not the full commitment um i always joke that eventually maybe i'll go teach college again or something that's how i feel i'm always in the like one day i would like to teach yeah but not today that day is not now that day is not i'm too busy with the netflix and the sandwiches and you surfing skating snowboarding and uh i felt like it was a disservice to the kids and i felt like i wasn't doing what i was supposed to do like i had so much more that i wanted to do with my time and intention and efforts okay and um that wasn't gonna happen what did you do next i started designing yeah inadvertently okay but for skateboard brands makes sense snowboard brands friends that were things i knew yeah and so i just took a skill like oh i can draw i was like how do you get that onto a skateboard right how do you get that onto a t-shirt so taught myself the programs figured it out learned photoshop learned illustrator and started that way and pretty quickly pivoted that into doing some web design okay because i was like you got to make money and nobody's paying for very much for t-shirts is this 2010 is this like 2012 2008 2008 okay yeah straight out of school yeah just making t-shirts yeah and then met a friend he knew how to code okay so we made websites i learned uh flash oh yeah remember that that world um we did a few websites yeah and in that though i got a chance to meet with these businesses and i'd be like hey you want us to do the site but like all of your all of your communication sucks yeah it's like can we redo the logo can we do this and pretty quickly like sub one year i realized that was really what i wanted to do got it you're like i'm this is my future this is my path this is where i'm going how long did you do that sort of freelance mackey saturday like a year available for hire one year yeah and then from there okay i'm honing in and this is going to be a business that's focused on brand so that's the start of your independent practice yep and so that's been 15 years yeah and it's crazy yeah and obama's the president life is good you're like okay i'm just making design for skateboarding companies at that point it was like anybody you know it was just who would yeah who would hire me who would let me do it and um treat everybody like they're the most important client that's ever existed because yeah they don't yeah and you don't know who their aunt is who they're going to talk to whatever like the word of mouth especially at that point in time and your reputation to this day it's still all you have i mean i totally relate to that because i think even today when people uh you know i talk to them about a project and it's like to me it's like it's not just a assignment it's like i'm just getting started it's the most important thing i could ever do is because it could lead to this other thing and that's how you have to think about it yeah and i hope that never goes away so how long did you like have that practice did it start to do you start to hire other people did you start to work with bigger brands like how does that sort of evolve over that time so yeah i hired an intern and that was like my first you know employee and that was a good more of a learning experience for me than for them i'm sure yeah um as i'm sure you can attest to also when you hire somebody that's right kevin was my intern at some point but what but who was the first employee uh pete he still works here and he was he's not behind the wall but he he was the first so he's got the good stories he does i always say he knows where the bodies are hidden yeah and so that and then a few more and when did the big brands come some of the the snowboard stuff i was doing was for big brands at that like it was a k2 you know that from skiing right and those kind of things and i went out to san francisco actually in 2011 yeah early 2011 my friend benny was opening a new shop he had benny gold if you know i was gonna say benny gold the famous yeah so my my friend benny he was moving shops and so he was going to open a new store on 16th street which was just becoming this up and coming kind of corridor in the mission and i went out there helped him while he was opening that meaning like I would just show up and just try to be a friend.

15:28And he had introduced me to the guys at Deluxe, the skate brand. So it's like antihero, real, crooked, all of those brands. And they were like, hey, if you can do some work, like we need it now. And I'm like, yeah, I'll be there. I can do it. Like, you know, when there's a fire, put it out. Like if you get the chance, jump. And so I was there. I was doing that stuff during the day, hang out with him. So those were big brands to me. Oh, my God. Benny Gold. it's hard to describe how famous in a very niche way benny gold was at this time he was like a straddled like street wear because that was very much at those early stages but also skate culture and then also design culture yeah i remember he had a blog yep i definitely had a hat at least one at some point yeah and yeah it was it was i hadn't heard i haven't heard the name in a while yeah he's done a lot I mean he closed down the brand and then he joined Goodby Silverstein and now he started the brand up again but he's still helping out there he always was and I mean if like if you don't know him Kevin you should check him out because he really does straddle all these worlds and he's a man of craft yeah which I always really appreciate like he really was pencil to paper drawing these things coming up with really unique interpretations and ideas a real designer's designer I'll check him out yeah yeah no his his work and I yeah I remember he did he even dabbled with he had his own brand but then he also did some like uh packaging work and he did some work a lot of collabs very beginning of like artists working with brands to do limited edition things yeah he did huff like a bunch of stuff for huff the original logo the quake um yeah it's be like all of that stuff and then that's what catapulted his personal brand a legend of the game yep and so did you move to san francisco were you just for just for a small period of time i was living out there in a horrible studio apartment above a club like okay if people know san francisco like 16th between mission and van ness across from the bart stop there it's still not a place you really want to be but it got me there and and got me into doing some of that work and just being around people that i really cared and respected i also got engaged at that point in time nice and that was like okay so i'm not gonna stay here i'm going back to colorado okay there was a lot of things that happened at that point in time yeah how did you start working with like instagram oculus because you have a run of projects that are just now the the some of the most iconic brands in tech i met with kevin kevin's the founder and ceo of instagram system around that time maybe maybe that same year 2011 it might have been that time actually it was i met within that time yeah i remember i'm put like piecing it all back together and they hadn't they didn't even have any designers at that point in time he was on dribble and he posted like the original glyph that he had made himself on there he's got a great eye and good skills like he learned how to build that in photoshop um he designed the whole original app himself it's crazy that instagram is just an app where you can put filters on photos well and it became what it is well it was a bigger thing it was called bourbon and it was like this whole check-in app and bourbon yeah look it up like four square type yeah yeah but then you could take a photo and then the photo thing kind of took off.

18:46We got to translate it for Kevin because he's like, I'm tracking. There was this thing called Instagram and then Foursquare. Remember Foursquare? You can check into locations. Did you ever use Foursquare, Kevin? No. No? It was a thing. It had a moment right around Benning Gold. It was like, I'm going to go to this restaurant. I'm going to check in and so all my friends will know that I'm here. Be the mayor. Yeah, be the mayor. I don't think I was the mayor of anything at any point. And then you should read the story. then his now wife had a thing about wanting her photos to be beautiful and he was like I've got it so they were really small at that point in time but we had coffee and we talked and we were talking about like you know design in general and I was like I just I just want to do brand like I love all such stuff that you're doing I think it's great and like go go nail it but if you ever want to do the brand if you ever want to get this right let's talk I didn't get to do the work then I moved back to Colorado got married did all of these things and I I followed up with kevin one day i drew a sketch and literally in my notebook of the logo and was like hey like we talked about this but if you ever want to get into this like i think that we could really fix some of the problems that you have you know and he was like your timing couldn't be better you gotta do that sometimes yeah yeah and so we started working on on this and we were meeting like once a week just he and i and i review some stuff and then he was like hey we're launching android this is before instagram was on android okay he's like we're gonna launch android next week so can we can we wait to do our meeting to the following week you know we're really busy like yeah we can wait um and they launched that and then that sunday i get this urgent email like literally you know when you get those urgent all caps yeah yeah thing and it's like urgent please sign and it's like my contract that i had already we'd already signed and we were working and everything and it was just like please acknowledge the following sections like initial these it's like you don't work for instagram like you're not owned and i was like yeah but isn't this all done whatever yeah sign for sure go to bed wake up the next morning and it's like instagram's getting acquired for a billion dollars at that moment instagram like was just an app on your phone yeah and did you at any do you do you think i should have maybe done this project for equity or i don't think that was an option that was pretty pretty smart obviously if you could have had equity and everybody assumes that i do did or something you don't have to say is do you do you remember how much you were paid for the instagram like i do they paid exactly what i asked okay in the end and it was a very small amount of money you can go to dinner in williamsburg yeah a couple times yeah a couple times um and the rest is history i wonder again i think about this sometimes $1 billion for Instagram is the steal of the century from Facebook.

21:31Because that company is probably worth$100 billion, if not more, now, today, right? Mark Zuckerberg stopped the IPO to make the acquisition. Everybody's like, this dude's crazy. What is he doing? They were in the process. You have all these waiting periods and all this stuff in order to go public as a company. And he restarted everything so that he could make this acquisition. I mean, looking back, it was the right move. Instagram is still, you know, their largest grossing product. Yeah. Crazy. They got fleeced by Zuck. Zuck. Yeah. Zuck. He did a number. He Zucked them. That's what he does. But.

22:08Well, it depends on how much of that equity they've held onto since then, which I don't know. That's a good question. Lots of Facebook stock. Then he's upheld his side of that bargain for sure. What's it like to see your logo every single day? Like, I assume you go on Instagram every day. I do. Yeah. Everyone else on Planner. It's more strange to just see it everywhere else than like to see it yourself. Got it. Got it. Like out in the world. A lot of times when people, when I start working with new people, I'll talk like, hey, the longer you work here, the more you're going to just like see your stuff everywhere.

22:39Yeah. Like it's going to feel really exciting at first and then it kind of gets weird. Yeah. And like Instagram's like that. Do you ever not associate it with yourself or do you always think that's my logo? Like I did that. because I have that with some of my stuff where I'm like, it doesn't go away. I think every single time I see it, I'm like, I remember all the weird little decisions that are in there that nobody would ever know about. Yeah. No, I think it's a weird thing designing logos that become part of the vernacular of life. And you've had a number of those, which is pretty incredible.

23:13Got fortunate a few times. Well, fortunate a couple of times is, you know that happens to to some people you have designed some of the most iconic logos of of of society so i guess i have a lot of questions about sort of doing that type of work so i imagine the instagram you know moment helps a lot for the mackey saturday yeah business what i tell people that i think it's important to realize is all it did was get people to trust me more my work didn't get any better like it was just that they then trusted that it could do what I said it was going to do bars. I mean, that's really important because I forget who it was, but it was the designers talking about pricing and he was, and it was probably like Chris Doe or someone like that, that talks about pricing.

23:58Shout out to Chris Doe, shout out to the future. And I'm going to butcher this, but the idea was that you could pay someone a dollar for something, or you could pay someone a million dollars. And the only difference is the person with a million dollars, there's a certain level of trust with that person that what you're getting is going to work and that is how pricing in many ways works because there if you give someone a dollar the chances of that succeeding for them are very low yeah but not zero but not it could turn into a billion dollar could be the 90 swoosh it could be 35 bucks it can be but if you give someone a million dollars they're putting you know there's a much higher chance likelihood that that yeah will do what it needs to do that you would hope you would hope i don't know how true that correct remains to be as we know from a lot of large agencies but that's because i think of lack of transparency in terms of who's working on things and correct all of that but if you know who you're working with correct you have that trust your proof point of saying i have a logo and a brand that is now a hundred billion dollar company yeah allows you to say do you want to be the next hundred billion dollar company i don't say that but i not that you would say that but that idea yeah we're gonna make for that yeah we're gonna make something that's able to to do that and to to change as much as instagram has changed or as these other brands have changed and still hold true to a certain nuance and essence yes um that's not tied to a trend or tied to a time or a yes you know product feature also they have to do their job which is make make a great company yeah make it which is another part of design that doesn't get talked about enough which is you can only do so much for sure you can do a hundred good logos and you know however many of them are great companies are the only ones people will know i always say you can build a great company with bad design or you can have a tremendous company or a great design in a terrible company.

26:07And some of my favorite designs are like Sriracha or something where it's like, that's just the best, you know, it's not particularly great design, but it's... It's also not a great business. The guy has intentionally made it not a good business. He's kept it very small. He can't seem to keep his supply under control, the peppers. Right. So from there, you now have this, you know, kind of, yeah, this win under your belt. How soon after does Oculus, that must be many years later. So what comes after that? Not that many years. And what's funny is that didn't come through Instagram. That in some way makes sense.

26:42No, they had got acquired. They had just been acquired. And then they needed the work done because they literally were using a drawing of an eye for their logo. Well, because they made it as a Kickstarter thing and it just blew up and never changed it. And so they needed something they could trademark. Yeah. So that was a totally separate thing. Yeah. Totally weird, different story. And so a lot of your designs, I will say, are iconic and they're crafted in a way that is least design possible, I would say. Or the idea of simplicity and iconic marks. And maybe least elements possible, but not least design possible.

27:18That's fair. at least most design necessary least um i guess what i'm trying to say is there's a there's a simplicity to your work that i think comes through uh in everything that you do and i think you have this rare um skill that i like to say fuck how did he get that approved thank you yeah that's the greatest compliment it's a huge compliment sit well so now that i have you here in a in a room with a microphone. Yeah, bash me, go. No, how do you get, how do you do it? It's a combination of trust, I imagine. Yes. And then what else? What are the other Mackey Saturday ingredients for selling simplistic, brilliant identities to clients?

27:59Selling is the last part and the least important. A lot of people are good at that. Yes. And you can train yourself to be good at that, and it can hurt you. Because you can get so good at selling anything that then you can trick yourself into getting bad design into the world because you can get people to say yes getting what i would hope in terms of a solution something elegantly simple but distinct is only possible with a deep understanding of of the client and where they need to go so it it's not just hey answer these questions here's a series of things it really is in these conversations and like seeing into someone's soul not reading information on a page and how they respond to the questions and the little nuances and the way that they light up at something or that they shy away from something it's not what they say it's how they say it and interpreting that into something that they can then understand to help them see that this very simple mark is a representation of those feelings emotions ideas personality traits characteristics nuances that they love giving them a clear path to that that's how you get those into the world damn it sounds easy but you're right like you can't sell in something that doesn't work without it working i mean a lot of people do yeah of course and that is a way that lots of the bet to your point bad design makes it to the world but you have to it's like irresponsibility and so i want things they only like we said kind of in the beginning or maybe before this we were saying it's it's just your reputation it's your integrity sure and so if the work doesn't have integrity it doesn't last so a lot of your work is logo based yeah how many logos do you pitch to a client on an average project five five it's average yeah so someone comes in they're building a new type of motorboat we did a boat yeah that's uh i remember that's why uh it was sick what's it called what's the name of the brand arc arc arc boat company electric boats yeah an electric boat company's got an incredible logo thanks they come to you and you're like they have what just a name or nothing they had they had a name okay that was it they didn't have a boat they didn't have they were like we built we built rockets now we're gonna to build boats quite literally they're building the boat while they're building the boat yes okay yes and so you are going in you're like okay sign sign the deal we're going to do this electric boat company yeah you come into the first meeting five logos so the first presentation or the what do you mean uh first presentation yeah yeah five logos five and that's not a that's not a formula that's just only present things that absolutely can work that have been tested to work are proven to work and represent a range of personalities that are all appropriate for what this needs to communicate, but are distinctly different.

30:56If they don't have a reason for being, they're not there. And there is never a promised number. And there's a variety. You're showing a range. You try to show different ideas executed at the same craft and level. What happens before that presentation? All of the actual work? Research, strategy? Research, strategy, audit, all of that up front. We got to know what we're dealing with. Yeah. So you've got to have a really clear understanding of like what and why does this need to happen? Yes. Obviously, all the functional requirements, obviously all of that stuff. But then that real zero to one, the like the magic, the stuff that's really hard to quantify that you can't always teach is that creative exploration of what are these key ideas?

31:38What are the things that we have gotten from the interviews up front? What are the most important moments, the most important things that need to be conveyed to the world? How do we get that into a visual? got what's something that pertains to that what's something that is that we can make a case and that people might understand naturally ties to these ideas feelings that you want your yeah the first thing you could do is ask me what the logo should be we don't want them to tell us what they never they never would know right otherwise they wouldn't have hired you well you hope so but yeah so there's all of that we've never had a bad client never so all of our clients are great let's look at all the cameras great clients great clients great clients we love you yeah and so we do huge exploration and then from there the ones that are the most viable we do preliminary trademark search before we show anything oh okay on the actual marks themselves yes got it and how do you do that you just uh we have a lawyer yeah we're amazing and you're they're looking in the trademark research yeah so they have there's a search there's a database they search them and then they evaluate them they give us their read on them so we never present things that aren't viable how many of them come back because we do this with naming we don't do as much logo work as you do you know we throw in 20 names in a sort of same similar thing with the lawyer yeah 25 come back how many logos typically come back as like dead it's dead or like say how many do you send to your lawyer you're like you're sketching and you got like no we don't we will 10 or something that you're like maybe these were maybe maybe 10 we don't usually send a lot more than what we end of presenting it's rare that things get knocked out really okay that's good yeah and so when you're presenting sorry i'm getting very granular because i've always been intrigued by this because i think what you do is some of the hardest things to do in design which is selling stuff that is elegant and simplistic and beautiful and um part of that it's hard to do that yeah well i hope that whoever's listening to this is probably design oriented and that there could be some value yeah take notes take notes kids um distinctiveness of course is you know of course what you're trying to create.

33:40How do you, so in that presentation, how much of brand world are you showing to go with it or is it really just kind of like here's your mark and here is it flexed in application? Depends on the client and the criticality of that. So when you say like brand world, kind of like the visual language, the supporting elements, the other things like we do, we always will do the physical world and evolutions of that. So showing the company where they are today to where they could go and not outrageous things like i've seen some presentations where people just do yeah you know ridiculous things we try to be like within viable range of what they're going to do and really think about like oh if they had a corporate headquarters what would that look like sure so it's all tied together but then the supporting graphics that might go with that if it's a packaging project food and beverage thing like you need more of that for them to be able to to see how it's gonna boats like they didn't have a boat yet so we're we're doing material studies we're doing things like that okay we showed a couple nice boats but not theirs um but it was more it's fellow boats future boats yeah yeah but it's more like what's it going to be like in leather and wood and all the places that they're going to really need to see it and get excited about um and i always find and i think this is this is a notable thing that's that people shouldn't take lightly is the impression that a client has when they see it in presentation like that can be much more significant than you realize like sometimes they buy into image 12 yeah and it's like that's what sold the brand you had no idea why yeah and they're like we need that we need to make that literal thing so caring for every one of those pieces that you show them is super important it's it's it's a great note it's a great tip because uh i can think back to the projects that we've done and what was the slide that sold them in on that idea.

35:30United Sodas, a very simple and elegant sort of undesigned design approach. There was a wheel of 50 flavors. And it was just like, you know, the future of sodas that are all very similar in color, but a wheel. And that was the slide. And I knew it was the slide going into the presentation. Like this, if we do this and they go and it clicks, they will go with it. And that worked. and i think that's important because you never know which slide that's going to be you never know sometimes you have a feeling but like but sometimes it's literally the hat mock-up yeah totally they're just like i love the way that feels it can also be detrimental so people need to be careful like i think a lot of people look at a mock-up and think of it as cool but they don't realize what that might do to the perception of the work that they're showing or take enough consideration for how it shifts the viewer's mind on it yeah so being really cautious about this is the first like you've gotten to live with these things for such a long time you're asking a client to like see something new see themselves in it and then walk through hundreds of slides like it's overwhelming totally so really being responsible with somebody's emotional roller coaster they're going through it's scary for them for sure especially you know if you're building it's horrible yeah it's like i apologize to most people when we show work instead of being like today's the greatest day ever i'm like i'm sorry you're in a really tough spot this is gonna be hard for you i tell them like you're sitting in an uncomfortable seat it is actually it's funny i never think of it that way because it is really scary and i think also like they put a lot of pressure on it i mean scary for us is the people that have to present the work but also you know people come in and they're like i've been waiting all month for this you know and you're just like okay here we go or showing you something that is your future it's your baby and your electric uh boat company that is uh you know is is is your is your legitimately everything i just bought a boat it was only 258 000 there you go good job pre-order yeah it only took a 500 deposit um and especially into the question that you're asking if we're trying to get a mark yeah into the world it's so much harder they love to see their name designed beautifully because they understand it of course when you show them something they don't understand an abstraction it's so hard to get them to be comfortable with that especially because it's an unfamiliar abstraction you know a familiar abstraction like is an icon totally if you give somebody an icon for a logo they'll get it but it's a terrible logo if it's a great logo it's unfamiliar in some way it's distinct yeah and to get somebody to come around to an unfamiliar abstraction is a really hard thing to do and it's something i really admire that people yeah how do you do it like what we're just talking about okay but it's helping them see themselves and seeing and understanding how that abstraction how that unusual thing can become a beautiful representation for them that it allows them to be bigger than they are now and also i imagine the feeling that they want people to feel has been put into the thing that you've made.

38:39That is the hope. What's the craziest client response to something like that? Because I imagine some people are just like, potentially don't get it. A lot. Yeah. When you say the craziest, do you want a negative crazy thing? Yeah, negative, maybe. Or positive. People don't do that crazy of things. I remember when I was at CGH, which Ellie Reed was in the office. Yeah, of course. Famous music producer. And he jumped out of his seat and was like, that's it. That's the one. And like, come on, get up. Like to other people, like his level of excitement. That's great. Did that get you really juiced?

39:16Yeah, you were like, whoa, did you get up? Like, yeah, let's get up. Okay, we have to start singing now or something. Like there's that kind of a thing. Yeah, that's great. And if it's hard for people, they will either try to be really polite about it or there's been times where people are like actually and this is maybe a better answer to your question that people would like to hear they'll be like i like all of them except this one yeah and then they'll like come back and they're like it's that one the one that they didn't like really that's interesting it happens i imagine people sometimes need to like i mean this happens with us too it's like people need to like sit with it we tell them to yeah more like don't make a decision right now please you're not here to like i have that at the beginning of every presentation the objectives today that what we're doing it's just sit back yeah and i say ask questions amount of time that you would like a client to sit on something um we like to present on fridays and let them have the weekend yeah and actually click through it i tell them like don't look at a comparison slide that's irrelevant like click through the whole thing look at it tiny look at it big look at find everything that's wrong with it that you can like make sure that you're really comfortable with it in all of the context spend that time with it and i often say like there might be one that just irritates you there's a good chance that's the one yeah it's memorable yeah it sticks for a reason how many times do people bring up the fedex logo when talking to you about logos a lot less now okay that's good when they bring it up i bring up the point of good yeah it's great because it works without you seeing the arrow not because there's an arrow in it yeah but there's an arrow but what about the arrow that's sick it's a hidden it's hidden inside of it it's hidden not many people know that it's there yeah it's discreet yeah industry secret does hiding lots of things in a logo make it better no because that's a big trend i've noticed now in sports branding specifically where they're making a clipper logo that's also a clipper and a basketball that's facing north and just jam everything yeah jam it all in that really was something yeah no i mean justification for design lots of uh lots of hidden meanings lots of excuses yeah that's it um making stuff that's simple and timeless is obviously you know the goal um do you ever design anything and the client is like all for it and then they sort of like get cold feet or they like you know they don't uh their mom saw it and then they just yeah yeah that stuff happens for sure when you get into a project really understanding why they're doing it and making sure there is a very good reason why is so critical to avoid that that's what removes the subjectivity yep um mount rushmore favorite logos of all time unranked four go gosh impossible all right i'll go because i had time for yeah it only has to do with what we think about the brands not the logos themselves which is so okay and then yeah you're right this is all minor based on what the brand is yeah not the logo yeah shit go ahead it's getting deep you already committed to it i already committed yeah come on it's it's it's nike it's apple it's the olympic games rings yeah and then i and then i went ibm i don't know why nice i think that was my mount rushmore yeah i mean if you how many of those if they got hung up in the wall here would you already kill before they're the lines that should get that out of the apple you'd be like come on it's the freaking name yeah it's just an apple with a bite yeah uh you're right those are all based on how my honorable mentions were mcdonald's and coca cola i think i think i think ibm is probably your like designer side i don't think regular people like that logo that's totally fair totally fair and that's just we respect paul rand and that's right what he's done that's right um the you know nike is a great example of a logo to help get people over the hill of like needing it to be a representative mark which is really important so getting into abstraction i think it does a great job with that there's not very many good letter marks in the world that are that are iconic so mcdonald's is really relevant in that way but but i mean singular singular letter yeah like there's not too many big beautiful iconic brands that are singular letters you bring up a good point um the milwaukee brewers with the m and the B.

43:39That's a good one. No, no. That's an M and a B. I'm saying singular letters. There's a lot of monograms, but singular letters. The Atlanta Braves, A. Crown C. Which is also who else, like how the other sports teams is. I know that you're right. You're right. It's a good point. I'm trying to think of other singular letter owned logos that are iconic. I mean, they're out there, but it is a hard one. So I want to pivot to you. You have your own freelance business. You have your own company. You got some employees. I do a lot of stuff. You're doing lots of stuff. And then in 2016, is that when this move happens?

44:14Yeah. You get brought on to be a principal at Chermayov, Geismar, Haviv. Iconic names in the world of design. You're a designer's designer. You obviously look up to these guys. Two of three are much older. Yes. um and what was that experience like how did that even happen when i got asked to work on the oculus logo they had already hired two really huge brand agencies that you know that i'm not gonna say and they had unsuccessful efforts doing the brand okay then the creative director was like i want to just bring in some people that i trust and will like together figure this thing out super team he literally called me on the phone i was like i want to rent a house in the desert and like that's not what ended up happening but that was the that was like the concept that's kind of sick yeah yeah they should do that that's what they do with like songwriters yeah like justin bieber at cheer and they just like get a whole bunch of songwriters put them all in a house and just like make an album yep and so that was the idea it didn't quite play out like that but it did sort of play out like that because he brought cory schmitz and nicholas taylor myself out to orange county where their headquarters were to hey guys we need to solve this we need to design this logo um we worked on that we were only there for like three days and then we went back and did stuff and blah blah blah and the actually true story of coming up with that mark that's as cheesy as the sound is but it is true i was eating pho and i was like what if you stretched it out like very dumb but like no it's just like golden ratio oh what if we do it i went back i did it on the computer we had a group skype i think hell yeah and i put it into that skype and i said like abd which in skateboarding means already been done okay like question mark and people like what does that mean i was like has this exist and everybody's like i don't think so but nicholas nick taylor he was on that and he was a teacher at sva and saggy and tom and ivan taught at sva and i was like hey man would you be willing to make an introduction to these guys for me like i really look up to them i admire the work they've done i think there's some of the last in the world that are doing this that have that history sure he was like sure i'd be willing to and he did and i reached out and i was coming to new york here and there for clients for different work and um i asked him like could i come by and they agreed to it which was very kind of them so i for the first time ever made a portfolio because i didn't go to design school okay i printed a physical leather bound a book i printed a book a actual book okay um i went to the office and i gave it to him and not to try to get a job i just was like a physical yeah physical book mag saturday boom here's my book book pages of logos just turn the page symbol symbol symbol symbol symbol and uh we talked and i was like asking questions and i've been or this was just saggy at that point in time he was like the entry the next time i went out like yeah ivan came in too and we would talk and they would just ask what are you working on what's going on how's it going show us something you know and and i would and then i'd go along my way and uh i was in denver at this point in time working there and most of my work was coming out of of california i had freelancing technically or i had like two employees no but i'm saying when they brought you in to work with them was it more not yet i wasn't working with him oh you weren't so i'll get there sorry this is a long story but i try to be clear i love it like i still had an office in san francisco and i was like i'm gonna my wife is from out there too and we're like let's move back to san francisco all my work's there it makes a ton of sense i went to new york had meetings went into the office i could normally deal with them and i was like hey we're gonna move to california doesn't like oh that's cool you know all these things before i got to the airport i left their office and then you know went to the airport before i got there i had an email from them it was like well if you're thinking about moving what do you think about just moving here instead and coming to run this with us i was like oh you You know, like flip everything on its head.

48:30And so my wife and I talked about something that we never would have considered before. And said, you know, it's truly a once in a lifetime opportunity. Tom and Ivan are in their late 80s. Yeah. You know, and they're from before the time of graphic design. Correct. And saying, hey, they want me to come work alongside them and lead this studio. It can't happen again because there's nobody left. Yeah. No, these are legends of a time that you cannot go back to. Correct. But you jumped into a time portal. Yes. And went to an era of design that no longer exists. What was I like? It was an amazing experience because it was not just that I saw the past.

49:13It was like I got to see my future. So deep. So beautiful. But what I mean by that is I got a chance to go, look if i go after this with all i have for the rest of my life what's it gonna be like and this is it and this is it these guys are 84 years old they've worked together for 60 years what were there what were the days like just come to work and and review work and yeah yeah making stuff making stuff every day so sick and they were super different which was awesome yeah ivan what's funny is people are like oh he was like stuck in the past it was no he wasn't stuck in the past he hated buttons that's just here he was like buttons are stupid like i don't want to type on a keyboard i don't want to type like i don't like buttons could you imagine being a designer before buttons like he hated that and so he was actually okay with like touchscreen stuff but he mostly would would draw he would cut and paste logos like literally he could sit he could just draw like you know times new roman like perfect and tell you everything about it like by hand and then tom's in there like on his iphone dude to do like making everything in illustrator still is like that today tom's still alive he's 93 yeah i was gonna say i've been passed away a couple years ago and um still going at it at 93 that's impressive 93 yeah and so the days were like that we'd be in there ivan would be ivan made art about 50 of the time okay and design the rest tom was just always designing making stuff to the day and then saggy is yeah how old is he like probably a little bit older than us yeah he's 11 years older than me got it and so he is uh yeah he's the spry chicken around there yeah yeah yeah and so the days were we literally all collaborated and worked together every day fuck like every project everyone was working on kind of thing yep all of us together so what were the projects that you were uh like happening at that time while you were there because there's some pretty iconic ones yeah yeah yeah we just one i'd like to talk to you about okay i don't think you were i don't know if you're involved with it but i'm curious okay do you want me to save ones or do you want to ask first no how which ones did you work on i worked on a lot of stuff right when i got there we were finishing up yoshinoya if you know that the okay yep the food brand and so that was like one of first things i did was that fix that bowl yeah the y in it um a big one that we got into not long after was the us open that's the one i want to talk to you about i'd love to talk to you about that we did animal planet while i was there yeah which was a lot of fun started on royal caribbean did dominion energy did uh hit co with ellie reed yeah his record label um he jumped on the couch yeah not the couch it jumped up yeah it was good um there was there were other ones and i feel bad that we did uh the the split for xerox when they started conduit okay which was an interesting thing but we got to work with randy golden who was paul rand's like assistant for all these years so we got all this crazy paul rand knowledge um and then i still i still work with them amazing so they still have me on the side i was gonna say you're still on the website yeah as a principal so how does that work like i said i i do a lot of things so we still uh so secretive i like i do a lot of things yeah we still work together we amazing so g and i were just in la like a week ago for a presentation amazing so you're so you're still about yeah but you have your own thing on the side that's your thing yeah and that's my primary got it and i'm there i work with them on on projects where my experience is relevant and helpful cool so i still get to work with tom who's 93 and legit still works that's amazing wow it's i mean it's unbelievable so i have a confession I didn't like the US Open logo because I'm New Yorker.

52:57You wanted that burning flag. I wanted the burning. You hate patriotism. Yeah, exactly. I wanted the burning ball, which was bad design. But it's one of those things that you just kind of, you know. Yeah. You grew up with it. It's a certain aesthetic. It's a certain way. Yeah. The new one is, you know, it was quite a departure in many ways. It was only in the middle if you were to see in the whole spectrum. it was there was a walk jog run situation and this was the uh jog yeah um and so when it came out i think i was uh yeah i i don't know i was i was i was not ready for the change and i didn't feel like it was um i i was wrong and i'm gonna put it up hand up admit it i think it was like when did that new logo come into uh sort of 2017 i believe or 2018 got it so it's only been like seven or eight years or so and it took me five it took me like five full years to be like you know what alex you're wrong that's a that's a great logo it works really well and now it's like the coolest hat to own you know you see them everywhere yeah because i'm saying that like the subway thing it's like there's the instagram there's the uso logo there's this logo there's like yeah they're all around you and it works really well like it is simple it is still has the the energy and the motion yeah and that italic type is it just that it just yeah we did a whole custom typeface for that we don't like bring it up yeah but we did we worked with kyle reed he's a cool guy out of denver and i designed it all but he did all the dev on it yeah um so if you go to out to the stadium and everything you know you walk around and there's signs everywhere it's all in that custom type we did arthur ash stadium too oh really for that yeah yeah do you watch tennis do you watch uh I admittedly am not a big tennis fan.

54:41I think it's the skateboarder side of me. It's like the most opposite. I think it's weird that there's like child labor and they compete for it. Oh, the kids that run around. Yeah, and get on their knees and lay down like, don't look at me. Like, I'm going to throw sweaty towels at you. Yeah, and those kids come from a lot of privilege just to get that opportunity to run around and sort of grab these balls quickly. but no i mean it's it's it's a testament to the sort of uh to your point about seeing the future and like the longevity of marks and how putting great design out into the world even if it's hard to you know take or it feels like something that maybe uh you don't get right away yeah it's not about that it's about 10 years from now and i guess now it's almost 10 years with this mark and it's now i guess it's coming into form in a way that i think is really fascinating yeah and those guys they have done it for so long they can see it and they know it but the funny story with that logo that you probably won't hear many places is i mean sicky loves tennis yeah loves it yeah which is awesome so he was so excited for this project i mean it's a dream it was the when we were doing the project that was the first vacation i took working there and i went to barcelona i went skateboarding you know did that stuff and i came back and he had his desk was like which is this big just covered in drawings you know and then he had up on the screen like his logos that he thought were the the best ones i think we're gonna do this and we're looking at it and sitting there and i looked on his desk and i was like what about this one and i picked up he's like you like that one and i'm like yeah i think it's great and he was like ivan and ivan was walking around ivan comes in he's like what do you think is this oh that's great like i mean he's like huh okay so we pulled up and then that's the logo it's a great story and that was the thing there everybody was in service of whatever was the best design and that was it i watched ivan like fight for things like his life depended on it and then somebody would present something better and that was garbage he was there and it didn't matter who did it nothing mattered like yeah that's a that's a beautiful thing and i think uh i i think about that a lot actually because what we do is very selfless yeah you know and you have to be um willing to put the work above yourself absolutely and there's a lot of people that struggle to do that yeah and i was watching him do it at 85 which is unbelievable and he's an absolute legend and has all the right to be like but i think this and you think that in my opinion this but it's not it doesn't you know it doesn't work like that no uh rick rubin has a great quote about that it's like you have everyone in the band has to just kind of come together and just be like we're here the best idea wins yes and that's how it is there yeah those guys i mean i learned a lot from just being around those guys it was more about if anything they taught me hey everything you already did naturally was right just keep doing that yeah and here's all the things about life that you could learn what a beautiful cosine or like for your own confidence in your own yeah it was like it was crazy um and i imagine it it pointed the future to yeah to what you said earlier which is like this is who this is who i am and this is what I want to do for the rest of my life.

57:50Yeah. I mean, I got to, I was there. I was taking that. We did a book for their 60 year anniversary. Beautiful book. Order, right? Yeah. Design. Yep. And we were doing the covers and Ivan was in the hospital like at his last, his last days. And he just wanted to keep working. Like that's what he loved. And so I have photos of me that his brother took in the hospital with him with the cover of the book. And we were working on it. like and had the us open logo on it but it wasn't released yet oh my god we knew it was gonna get released and like he cared you know that much um i just got chills like i mean that's truly like yeah i mean it's it's we were talking about sort of hobbies yeah we're so lucky to do something that like you would want to do that's a job to the day that you die yeah and i know you and i both shared that where we're like i was joking studio i want to be approving um my tombstone yeah you know and in the hospital and it's like yeah that's what it's about like it's about this thing that we all love to do and that we get to do yep and so we gotta appreciate it and do it the right way and and make the world better than how we found it yeah treat all of our clients and everyone that we come across and nackie you're one of those guys um yeah saturday is so now sad it sounds like this has just been always happening yeah yeah always happening so but you have a place you have a team yeah i've got a team there's six of us amazing seven of us and every day come in yeah stuff on the walls making stuff yeah built out of space focused on collaborating like that's the idea we put up you know literal pin up built the walls with it in it so that you can put the work on the walls and live with it and breathe it um there's no we have no corners on the desk so the sweatshop guys they designed it all for us and uh so all of the desks weave so there's no corners so you can slide around all the corners and collaborate that was always the idea like wow i'm with you you're with me like yeah you have a space but we can always keep moving and then there's a stand-up working area that runs the whole length of the office because i i appreciate the stand-up sit down but also like as a creative just moving changes who you are so like you want to stand up here's this place to stand here's a soft spot over here here's that like a fluid work environment amazing i want to come check it out yeah uh before we get out of here anything uh you uh want to promote or do you want people to to come find you now just just just uh good design promote good design just promote good design uh work-life balance you want to promote that uh you only have one life it contains work and it contains hobbies and it contains everything but there's like you can't take the work out of life if you don't enjoy the life you need to yeah so how do you reconfigure that's that what do you do to enjoy life i would i i work yeah i skate i snowboard yeah work out spend time with friends spend time with people that matter my wife try to do as much volunteering yourself with things you can like make time for the things in the world that matter you know care a lot about the stuff that you can control and like let everything else go it's beautiful control the control bulls baby yeah uh and let them get rid of the other ones well i'm also with you here on this work-life balance is bullshit that's what i say but it's because it's true for for for you know we're lucky though because we our work is a major part of our life and to me it's not a either or situation yeah and it makes my life much more fulfilled as does other things work is magic if you think about it the fact that you can do even if you're in this kevin work is magic but even if you do even if even if you mow lawns i did that for years yeah like it still is amazing that i can do one task and that one task can afford me all of the things that i wouldn't have time to do in life to weave my to make my clothes to make a place to live to support it to mill the fire like to do all these things the tasks of life are too many and yet we can work for a limited amount of time and be able to through this magical trade do all these things so what i'm hearing is hustle grind execute repeat not quite but uh grind skateboard grind yeah skateboard grind uh yeah well thank you mackie uh really appreciate you you're uh you're one of the good ones and uh hey man thank Thank you for sharing some of the stories, really.

1:02:18I'm inspired and I've known you for a little bit. And yeah, it's really just what a career and just getting started. Hope so, man. Thankful for everything. Thank you, guys. I'll see you out there on the half bite. S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y I'm gonna keep on dancing to the rock and roll On Saturday night, Saturday night Dancing to the rhythm in our heart and soul On Saturday night, Saturday night I, I, I, I, I, I just can't wait I, I, I, I, I got a day At the good old working logo show I'm gonna go Saturday night, Saturday night Gonna wrap it up, pull it up, do it all, have a ball Saturday night, Saturday night

1:03:27Saturday night. Saturday night. Saturday night. S-A-P-U-R-D-Y. S-A-P-U-R-D-Y. S-A-P-U-R-D-Y. S-A-P-U-R-D-Y. And I dance with my baby till now it's through. On Saturday night. Saturday night Tell the wrong little things I'm gonna do On Saturday night Saturday night I, I, I, I, I, I love her so I, I, I, I, I'm gonna let her know That you could all rock and roll So I gotta go Saturday night Saturday night Gonna rock it up, roll it up Do it all, have a ball Saturday night, Saturday night. Saturday night, Saturday night, Saturday night. S-A-T-U-R Thank you

1:04:59This is a Saturday night This is a Saturday night