DRAMA on Tour: with Chris Nott and Frankie Guzi

10:16Frankie Guzi:Yeah, in the early days, it was trying to figure out what we wanted to be, the type of work we wanted to do. It was going to be kind of a blend of traditional brand design and then also some custom type within that as well. And I guess over the last few years, we've really kind of honed in on that specialism of we've got the brand expertise. We understand how type works in the system. We're storytellers coming from the world of brand design, but kind of combining that with the technical excellence and kind of production quality you get with the traditional type foundry. So, nice little kind of sweet spot that we've honed for ourselves.

10:44Frankie Guzi:Yeah, it's great. It makes it a lot easier to collaborate. So I'd say 80 to 90 % of our work is in collaboration with other agencies. So we all come in and become kind of like the type department within that agency. And as soon as we realized that was like a door that we could open, we now are becoming like every brand agency's best friend when it comes to talk. Nice.

11:05Chris Nott:And that's why I'm happy you guys are here. What do you need? I mean, we dabble in custom type, but I think what you guys do and a lot of the work that you guys have done with JKR is sort of taking type aces and really blowing out to full systems. And they're the heart and soul of the brand identity work. And that stuff is really, really powerful and really strong.

11:24Frankie Guzi:Yeah, definitely. Also in the last couple of years as well, like there's never been such a lens on type and custom type. It was almost, well, in my time in the industry anyway, it's almost like the last piece that you get to when you're doing a rebrand or a brand identity project. um it was often overlooked but i think now it's definitely almost like made it up to the top kind of spotlight you know we end up coming in a lot earlier on processes traditionally you might get a normal family coming in towards the end you set the system you need a production button to bring it to life we find a lot more joy kind of getting involved in the nitty-gritty the concept stage getting custom type baked in as early as possible getting clients thinking about it and getting them excited about what that could look like yeah it's almost like treating type design as miniature brand identities yeah and thinking about it like that and casting that out quite wide in that initial concept stage and just like um powering up your brand kind of creative territories potentially with custom directions as well but from stage one so that makes it a lot easier for the clients actually um imagine what that's going to look like in the end you know so it's a win-win

12:22Chris Nott:it works really well yeah and especially with the work at jkr and the sort of these big iconic brands you know i i've known tosh for like 15 20 years i always joke with him it's like do the jkr thing you know where you guys you just take the logo you turn into a typeface and you blow it out it sounds really easy but it's way harder and of course the details are what make it so special but how did you guys you had worked there it sounds like in sort of a biz dev role Frankie and then how did you guys link back up with them and sort of they become their type crew because they have a lot of type foundry partners and stuff like that

12:58Frankie Guzi:I guess it probably came from you judging at D &AD yeah I think so so we also worked a stint at JKR too. So that really helped. And then I'd say that relationship started. So I was judging on the type design category a few years back at the same time. We want a graphite pencil. Good to mention that. Graphite pencil for Vogue Brazil. Shout out Tom and James on that one. We have a lot of words, no pencils. No, yeah.

13:22Chris Nott:Just, you know. There's a few.

13:24Frankie Guzi:It doesn't matter. Yeah, sure. But then Elise and I got chatting quite a lot. Lisa Smith. Yeah, yeah. Lisa Smith. And the first project she got us involved in was a project for mozilla okay cool massive custom typeface family um but recently uh no so that was a couple years ago again but prior to that actually we'd done a few smaller projects with some of the other teams at checker as well but that's where it really kind of got supercharged god it came out yeah yeah years maybe um but that's where we got a lot more um serious after lisa and i had more conversations and then she'd get us in on a lot of different projects all comes back to Lisa yeah yeah it really does shout out Lisa yeah legend of the

14:03Chris Nott:game definitely uh yeah she was on this podcast and uh told the story about the Met and it's our our top viewed clip yeah yeah she she you know it's funny like she's still getting beef with the Met logo ridiculous people people are still mad yeah it's been 10 years yeah just chill out guys yeah it's not that deep you guys have any controversial work to the studio drama you know that you can you'd think wouldn't you yeah what'd you guys do to Heinz how dare you yeah how dare you yeah and so you guys so Mozilla that's super interesting that's an interesting that's an interesting project but not necessarily the like classic JKR thing in some ways it's kind of more of a a new rebrand yeah this is sort of the sort of thing that I think again when I think of of like typeface you know sort of system work which of course is like that's won them every award there is possibly you know to me super cool that's that's so much

15:01Frankie Guzi:unpacking that project in particular um but i think that's like a great superpower at least is they're trying to get other types of work into jkr as well yeah you know so getting more tech kind of projects within that um but that was a funny one she basically like messaged us on the last day of the year it was like oh i've got this uh this project i'm thinking about work through christmas yeah she was like no no it wasn't even that no it wasn't even that it was more just sowing the seed. She's like, so this project's like about this, thinking about like slab serif, like all these kind of different ideas.

15:29Frankie Guzi:And obviously I then got obsessed and thought what that project could become. And then we pretty much started that the first day back of the year. I love those emails.

15:38Chris Nott:You guys don't do Christmas, do you? Yeah, yeah, yeah. We got a sick, incredible, amazing, life-changing project. But the catch is you're going to have to work through your holiday. No, no, no. Lisa Smith would never do that.

15:51Frankie Guzi:No, she didn't either. But that's a cool project. It's also, that's now on Google Fonts. So free to use for everyone, which is kind of cool. So the whole part of the project was to honor Mozilla's open standards as a business. So as part of that, they wanted to make the typeface free and accessible for everyone to use. So super cool.

16:08Chris Nott:It's an amazing typeface. I'm looking at it right now. There's like 5 ,000 different weights and headlines. And I think - It's a big family. Yeah. How long do these take? How do you get your clients to sign up for this? Asking for a friend.

16:20Frankie Guzi:The easiest way that we get things going, we do sprints with people. I guess, as I said, like coming in earlier in the process, treat it more like a concepting stage. Get some sketches up on the wall, look at a couple of words, get the client kind of excited about where it's heading. But typically that's the easiest way in because if you're going with a big unwieldy cost, a timeline, you're never going to get that through. No, definitely not. No, that was a super cool one that like we cast an outside wide early on. At the time when we first got involved, it was only supposed to be like a single star bold display typeface.

16:49Frankie Guzi:But in the end, that evolved into like a 42 style multi-weight, multi-classification display and text typeface family. But that kind of grew alongside the identity timeline as well. So that's quite a cool benefit of like getting us in early and then us being able to curate and expand that typeface for the need of the brand itself as well. So super cool. Can I ask a really specific question? What is Mozilla up to these days? What are they doing over there? You know, they're doing some really cool stuff. and the typeface that we designed for them has given them a lot of flexibility as well. So now they're starting to use the more extreme cuts of it for different products and for sub-brands, for example, like the Festival.

17:25Frankie Guzi:Seeing Pentagram using it for a new brand as well. Oh, cool. It's a family, so it's cool to see other people kind of adopting it and having fun with it.

17:31Chris Nott:I love when companies dip into the sort of like not the main typeface. I really loved Apple's been doing this, right? Like you see they only typically use their like custom typeface. One weight and one size and pro. It's like thick and chunky. And then they got the air. Yeah, yeah. They're having a little bit more fun over there at Apple with their typefaces. They've dipped into the three or four other weights and cuts of SF Pro. Yeah, sure. Let's go. Let's get crazy. All caps. Yeah, why not, Apple? Let's get weird. But Mozilla opens the door for what looks like five other projects with JKR. D &AD one is really cool, really funky.

18:08Chris Nott:Yeah, talk to me about that one. So what was the story there? Obviously, huge, sort of prestigious award. It sounds like your background was there.

18:16Frankie Guzi:Yeah. Nice full circle moment. Yeah. Now that was another funny one. That was really born from a conversation late at a bar between Lisa, Frankie and I. And then what do you know? I mean, you guys are so British. You guys were on an island having meetings at bars.

18:31Chris Nott:Yeah. It's like, come on.

18:32Frankie Guzi:That was great. So that was just like, we were talking about, okay, we think we can do a custom typeface here. What should it be? How could we be inspired by the pencil as much as possible? and then we had this conversation on the fly like oh maybe the weights could be inspired by all the shades that you get within pencils for example from an 8 h to an 8b for example um but that idea was all about trying to integrate kind of that cross-section motif within the dnd logo into the letterforms themselves but then not going too far for it to become like too much so really curating that detail across that and it was a bit of an homage to franklin gothic which is the typeface that D &D use, of course, but this was all about trying to make that more display-driven so they could use it larger as part of the festival identity.

19:15Frankie Guzi:But yeah, I did an amazing job. Proper kinetic identity that typographically. From a K-Study perspective, seeing it slapped on every surface in the Festival Hall in the South Bank last year was a very nice moment. 100%. And then we also, for whatever reason, we had this idea that we wanted to... We got a space there at the festival and I do want to give some ideas to us that you could then kind of showcase the typeface in some some way and we had this idea that we wanted to get a robot to recreate the typeface with a pencil okay approached dnd sold this idea and they were like love it and we're like oh no we've got to find a robot we gotta do it we gotta do it we actually gotta make this happen all super last minute end up ordering this uh robot from china all turn up yeah yeah literally and then it was super that was a super 360 close a loop come a moment as well the fact that the typeface was inspired by a pencil and then we managed to get a robot to recreate the typeface with the tool that inspired it so yeah it was yellow pencils to do it yeah exactly that's really cool yeah it's super cool it's funny because i've

20:20Chris Nott:seen a lot of this work because i'm familiar with through jkr but uh for those people at home like go on studio-drama.com these case studies are really in depth and thank you uh they really are focused on the typefaces and the systems because you know obviously there's so much like they're the heart and soul of these brand identities but you really kind of go into the details of h to 8b yeah there you go which i was not aware of uh i didn't know there were that many pencils yeah there you go what's the popular one to be right or no what can you be or not to be yeah what's yeah i don't know hb hb is hb the hot pencil top here that's the top pencil of the game well we got the number two over here in america uh there you go i think so for the standard what's the most popular pencil right there's one that they give you in like elementary school it's the number two hp oh number two oh i guess we call it number two i guess we're both right i don't know but a really cool project and so wait talk to me what this robot yeah we still got it

21:16Frankie Guzi:the studio we need to find something for it to do get that clanker to work yeah genuinely mate that robot worked hard at that festival that's for sure is it just the three guys or do you guys have uh no so there's there's about eight of us now oh wow really exciting so yeah started off two to three and then that grew um quite a lot last year last year was a really big year for us um spent i guess the first few years achieving problems working out who we wanted to be obviously we launched when we first launched it was kind of 50 50 brand identity and typeface design i think it's quite confusing for people that are you a type foundry you branding agency what do you do yeah so then we really started to work out and carve out our niche i guess kind of year two year three and then yeah it just kind of blew up from there to be honest for me it's

22:02Chris Nott:interesting because when i first got your email and i was looking at your site i was like oh type foundry yeah and then i as i was doing the research for this podcast i was like not just a type foundry really it's really a brand studio that does type yeah so but 90 of your work uh sort of you mentioned is with other studios 10 and potentially growing yeah like direct to client working with companies directly. Is that something you guys like to do or sort of want to do a little bit more of? Or do you like the mix?

22:30Frankie Guzi:Yeah, we've got an interest in growing that kind of direct relationship stuff as well. But for us, it's just, I think, collaborating and partnering with so many kind of incredible agencies. It's just that immediate shortcut to some really amazing projects. And let's have it lifting and convincing them to say yes, because they're already excited about it. Yeah, it's very true.

22:46Chris Nott:JKR has figured out how to sell giant systems of typography. And like, again, when I first met Tosh, not to make this about me, but on the coast of this podcast, it's kind of what we do around here. But I always really admire JKR for their ability to do work at scale that was crafted and beautiful and sort of pushing the boundaries. Because working at Coke for me was really hard to get work at that level through the system. And they were able to do it for Budweiser and Domino's and Hines and all these giant companies. I'm like, how do they keep doing this shit? Like, how do they get away with it?

23:20Chris Nott:And part of it is, I imagine, just the cell, but also just the system that they've created and all the work that they've done. And so, yeah, for you guys to get to come in and do the fun part of really getting dirty and building it out. That's great. Can we talk about Heinz? Sure. Because that's my absolute favorite project of you guys. I think it's our favorite project as well. Yeah, definitely.

23:40Frankie Guzi:Heinz is probably one of our most recent projects, I'd say. Well, that's come out anyway. That was last year. Was that last year too? I think it was. Last year, yeah. But it's hard to remember. Yeah. Baby brain doesn't. But that was JKR again, got in contact, knocked on the door. And that project was really interesting actually because it was all about preserving and refining something that already existed, but then also expanding out into new typeface design parts of the system as well, which is really cool. Insanely, they didn't have a lower case. They were just shouting at you all the time.

24:13Frankie Guzi:Yeah, yeah. So new creation. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All caps all the time. Yeah, all caps all the time. Who needs to send this?

24:19Chris Nott:is who needs to be chill and quiet no yeah exactly heinz buy this but that was really

24:25Frankie Guzi:interesting because then we had to go really deep into learning about that glyphic classification which is what the heinz label typeface is kind of inspired by like albertus for example another iconic typeface so we needed to really study that to then enable us to work out what the lowercase could become based on the findings from going deep into that classification that was a really fun part of that project so there was all that that was all refining and preserving and evolving the hinds label typeface to make it more robust work better we added more weights expanded the character set for example then we also made um hind sands which is like the harder working simplified typeface that was designed for backer pack and harder working scenarios for example but both of them still very much being built with the same dna so it felt familiar but there were assets designed for specific purposes which again is stuff that we like to do as well so like think more strategically about typeface design and how that tool is actually going to be used I think it's really important.

25:18Frankie Guzi:I love how the SANS is used for like storage.

25:20Chris Nott:Yeah, you know. Like on the back of this package, like it's going to be like six points. And it's going to be so tiny. And you guys are crafting these R's perfectly. And you're like, it's just going to be this like, you know, utilitarian type.

25:34Frankie Guzi:Exactly that. Yeah. We took a lot of learning. So we had to go really deep into accessibility and type of design for Mozilla. We took a lot of that learnings for this project as well, actually. The fact that it had to work really, really small point sizes. So what could we optimize and develop to make it more hardworking, more legible, more accessible in those smaller scenarios?

25:53Chris Nott:Is it on every single piece of packaging now? Not yet. We're waiting. We want it on the ketchup bottle. We're waiting for that ketchup bottle.

26:00Frankie Guzi:Every time I go in the supermarket, I'm looking, I'm like, nah, it's not there yet. That's so funny.

26:04Chris Nott:We have the same thing with a project. It's one of those brands that's just in every grocery store. Every time I see it on a shelf, I'm like, is it ours yet? No. Patient. It's like such a subtle thing. Exactly. so that's but that's coming you're saying it's coming yeah

26:18Frankie Guzi:the DJ Mustard collaboration that was set in our typeface we've been trying to get hold of that it just sells out really can't get it they sell it yeah wow you gotta get on a stock X or something yeah genuinely wouldn't be surprised if it's in stock X I think last we looked it was about$40 for a bottle of mustard on eBay oh my god you guys got that come on can't find anywhere I'll pay for it just one of your

26:40Chris Nott:still an island sweatshirts yeah I was like let's put that up on stock X yeah exactly that's so cool yeah that mustard dj mustard thing was very cool mustard yeah exactly and they're using in like ads and things like that yeah yeah yeah so it's everywhere yeah that brand obviously i would imagine means a lot to you guys as uh british people that like to eat beans

26:59Frankie Guzi:yeah little beans beans means hines you know that's right yeah yeah but not like we've grown up with that brand it's been there like from day one so the fact that yeah we had the honor to then work on that and then craft that and refine it and improve it it was a it was an honor to work

27:14Chris Nott:on that one for sure yeah shut it down right studio at that point you're like how where would it go from i know genuinely yeah heinz beans uh can i say something about you guys some of the best smelling guests we've ever had here today i just want to say right thank you yeah no it's it's an important part of the brand no exactly you listen you're selling a brand and uh it's It's a full 360 experience. I've got time for that.

27:38Frankie Guzi:I appreciate it. All the senses. There you go. Exactly. So how are you feeling

27:42Chris Nott:or how are you enjoying New York?

27:44Frankie Guzi:We love it here. I think we're going to be here a lot this year. We've got a lot of big projects launching. Yeah, a lot of big US-based brands. So expect to see a lot more of us. Okay. All right.

27:52Chris Nott:Can you talk about it or just keep drama, you know, kind of like simmering?

27:56Frankie Guzi:We would love to be able to talk about them. They're all very exciting, but we are indeed up to the idols. Do you want to shut the mics off? Yeah, yeah. We'll take it afterwards. But of course, and obviously TDC, we're both judging together in communication design. So I think we'll be back over in March potentially because I know there's a physical judging day for that.

28:13Chris Nott:Is that in person?

28:14Frankie Guzi:I think there's one in person day for local people. Okay. We're going to make our mission to come over. Okay. Well, I'll come to you guys for DNA.

28:21Chris Nott:Do you come to TDC? And we'll just, again, lads, we'll hang. Lads on tour. You'll have your Stoney piece by then, obviously, right? And, you know, again, this is what it all comes down to, really. Yeah, yeah. Talk to me about Body Armor because I go way back. Mike Rappoli is the infamous founder or co-founder of Body Armor. He's a vitamin water guy, a brand that is now part of the Coca-Cola system. Correct. And, you know, it's funny. I've never really considered it to be great design. And that's just, you know, again, someone that does a lot of beverages and it's a design system. And I don't want to be too mean here, but it's just, I don't know.

29:02Chris Nott:it just like it doesn't make any sense it's like very confusing to me it's a bottle that has like this armor on it but um you guys got in there uh the typeface is a it's a weird one yeah it's kind of funky it's like it's it's serif but it's not and it's it's slabby it's sporty yeah it's it's quite confusing or at least it always felt confusing to me and then you guys got in there

29:26Frankie Guzi:and you made it make sense oh thank you so much so that was really fun one as well because obviously there is that shield armor motif on the packaging design itself so a big part of the brief there was to see how we could successfully integrate that kind of motif and that detail into the letter forms and you can see that more obviously in the way in which you treated the diagonals in some of those letters for example like the m almost extracts that exact shape from the product design into the letter form design itself but that the original word mark which we again had the honor of kind of refining and developing to perform much better that was all based on a typeface called din yeah so there's a lot of kind of racetrack proportions within that so we use that as a kind of inspiration for then um the custom typeface that we created for body

30:11Chris Nott:armor yeah it's a really cool project and again it's like it it's a brand that i don't necessarily think of for great design and then i kind of see this like new identity system and this typeface and you're like oh they made it make sense and it like that's what i love about your work it's like all these obviously type uh sort of families but they're not like they're rooted in a concept and i think that's something that uh type uh typography for me sometimes is is aesthetic leaning forward but i feel like you guys for each project are like leaning into an idea and then taking the idea and running with it how important is that i guess in every project that

30:43Frankie Guzi:you guys do super important i think that just goes to show a lot our brand thinking when it comes to custom typeface design as well like it's a craft-based um kind of design tool you know so So there's a lot of history there, of course, and you have to respect some things. I guess you have to kind of know the rules before you can break those rules. But I think we like to try and think about it very much through that brand lens from the get-go. So if there's ideas or characteristics that we can borrow from another part of the toolkit and then integrate that into the letter forms, and then if you strip everything else away and you're just left with a typeface, if you can recognize that brand alone just from the words, then you've done a good job, you know.

31:18Frankie Guzi:So that's what we strive to do with a lot of our collaborations is just think about if you can recognize it about anything else there, then big win. Powerful asset for a brand as well.

31:27Chris Nott:I think that's the main pitch, right? For me, it's like, why does a brand need a custom typeface? That's right. The answer is, well, because you don't want to put your logo on everything. Yeah, exactly. And you want to be able to talk like your brand and you need a tone of voice, but then the brand can talk in its own custom typeface. and it feels like, oh, that's Vogue or that's, you know, sort of body armor. Exactly.

31:50Frankie Guzi:Wydon and Kennedy are leading with type as the brand for Heinz. And there's a GIF going around of kind of our typeface. It has to be fries, beans, whatever it is. And that does so much heavy lifting for us. It's the easiest way to get a client kind of bought into the idea of why you need a custom typeface. Yeah. It's a fantastic asset for us. Yeah. Now, I guess if you think about any out of home campaign or any kind of poster design, The percent that's taken up with words is a lot in comparison to everything else on that, you know. So surely you should spend time and energy into crafting those words and those letter forms to be as recognizable as possible.

32:23Frankie Guzi:So then, you know, you'd be like, okay, I know exactly who that brand is. Own the word you speak. Yeah. 100%.

32:28Chris Nott:Kevin, did you see, sorry, I have to have a conversation with Kevin real quick. Did you see the commercial for Dr. Pepper during the national championship game where they used the TikToker who made the like theme song for Dr. Pepper? and so this girl on TikTok she's like I made a theme song for Dr. Pepper it's like Dr. Pepper baby it's good and sweet da da da and that was it that's like the whole thing and like it blew up and everyone's like Dr. Pepper uses Dr. Pepper uses and then during the national championship game for college football they ran a commercial and it was they had taken her theme song and souped it up well they gave her credit in the corner they were like theme song inspired by you know this TikTok handle and and but they had souped it up and given it like a superstar sort of audio treatment but the reason why i bring it up is because the typeface it was like you know basically it's just a type driven ad but dr pepper doesn't have a custom typeface so it just kind of looked like some just you know kind of sounds like when you're talking the door yeah i believe actually james somerville uh the great british uh sort of designer um and legendary guy is now actually

33:33Frankie Guzi:dr pepper boom there you go connection neville brody now yeah so yeah bang their line studio drama now i spent some time with james so he was part of the tcc unity typeface project that we created at brody associates back in the day so that was the first custom typeface created for the coca-cola brand but he was leading that from the coca-cola team's point of view that's right

33:54Chris Nott:and we've kept in touch since then yeah they made that cool typeface together it's like Was it the Seraph one?

34:00Frankie Guzi:Originally, there was the Sands that was made quite a few years ago. We're getting really nerdy here. Yeah, yeah, legit. And then they made the Seraph as well. It was super cool.

34:09Chris Nott:Yeah, and it's kind of funky. It's kind of unexpected for a cook. And they've used it actually a decent amount. I really do like it. And also, Neville Brody has done some really cool football kits. Yeah, yeah. He's done some numbers and things like that. Did you get to work on any of those? That one, unfortunately not.

34:23Frankie Guzi:Some of the projects, he keeps himself, of course. Oh, he does. Yeah, yeah. but rightfully so look come on if something like that coming in not me i share with everyone yeah

34:32Chris Nott:yeah basically uh you know so it's very kind of me to do but no he also like neville brody's such a legend like he's got um the supreme world i don't know just like just i don't know he's just a badass of graphic design there's not enough badasses of graphic design these days right like i don't know there's not i couldn't name one that's what i'm saying zero

34:52Frankie Guzi:it's a different world now isn't it i don't think you can really be a celebrity as much as he could have been back then, you know, in the industry.

34:59Chris Nott:Yeah, I mean, he has like a fuck you attitude. I feel like, you know, the designers, we don't have that anymore. I don't know. We're going to try to bring it back with the podcast right here. We're rebellious. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, so you guys are four years old. You guys are coming, you know, just doing all this custom work. Like, where do you guys want to take it? Like, what's your dream client? Like, what's next? like where are we doing?

35:26Frankie Guzi:Type on a plane. Type on a plane. That needs to be done at some point. Big point sizes. That's what we want. What's the biggest so far? I don't know. That's a good question.

35:35Chris Nott:It's got to be Heinz, right? I mean, there's got to be some big-ass Heinz billboards.

35:38Frankie Guzi:No, 100%. But no, so Will and Frankie are very into football. So I think that's high up in the list. Yeah, type on a football shirt. It's got to happen. We did one of the biggest projects that we ever did that we don't really talk about much is the global brand system for New Balance. Oh, yeah. And we were really pushing hard to try and create a custom typeface for that. It never kind of got signed off. However, we will continue to knock on that door

36:00Chris Nott:until that happens, for sure. Bang it down. Yeah, yeah. We were knocking on that door at one point as well. And yeah, they just, you know, they have that sort of Garamond book and dance thing. Like, it was one of our first projects was working with New Balance and same thing. Like, we just went right into the history and just like, Garamond book and dance. Like, those old ads are so good. So good. And they're running with it though. Yeah, totally. For a minute, they were kind of like just lost in the sort of design world. Now they've figured something out, but it could be more.

36:29Frankie Guzi:100 % of us, before we got involved, so that was in collaboration with McFall and Day, another agency. They brought us in to help really kind of push that brand system and think about how we could give them more tools and guidance. Because before we got involved, they only had like a 10-page guideline, which is wild. If you think about brand as an e-balance, there were no rules, you could do what you wanted. So then we came in and really helped with that. That's fuck you out. Maybe that's what you need.

36:54Chris Nott:I don't think brands need guidelines.

36:57Frankie Guzi:No one ever listens to it anyway, do they?

37:00Chris Nott:Bread without guidelines. That's actually a good pitch, you know? Hey.

37:04Frankie Guzi:But a big part of that job was to really help me work out what type's role was in the brand. And I think there's a lot of sports brands that are leaning into that luxury lifestyle, kind of editorialized typographic approach. But I think if there's any brand that really deserves to own that, I think it's New Balance because they were doing a lot of that back in the day anyway, you know? Yeah.

37:20Chris Nott:it's tricky to own do any clients or people sort of struggle with that where they're like can we own this typeface or do you know they worry that like maybe

37:29Frankie Guzi:it won't be recognized

37:30Chris Nott:as the brand is that something you guys face

37:32Frankie Guzi:sometimes but I think the way in which we think about the projects and we start to work out smart ways of integrating other parts of the brand into those letter forms you'd hope that in the end it does feel like them so it takes time it does take time the more you work into something like that the better it gets like anything really

37:48Chris Nott:are you guys ever going to launch your own typefaces Is that something you guys think about? Great question.

37:52Frankie Guzi:We talk about this all the time. All the time. So like we kind of pride ourselves. This is the drama. Yeah, exactly. This is us fighting. Because I guess traditionally when you look at TypeFit design and TypeFoundries, it's normally library first and then custom second. Yeah. Yeah. They don't really talk about the custom work that much. And that's almost like a hidden part of the website. However, we kind of flip that in its head and we focus a lot on the custom. And then of course, yeah, we have these conversations about do we ever launch our own library? like does that align what we're going to do maybe i think there's smart ways that we could do it but yeah it's conversation you have almost every single day like is it is it the right time should we do it is it smart i don't know let's see so watch your space yeah watch your space i think

38:33Chris Nott:it's smart though you're totally right that most type founders are like we have these six type faces or 20 type faces and then like look what we did with adidas or look what we did with you know this big project and that's like kind of like the thing and you know hidden or yeah exactly it's it's in the background of the other sort of more commercial typefaces. I kind of think maybe you don't need to have your typefaces. Maybe it's just because I think you are like, again, it's a brand forward type approach. I find that to be really fascinating. And I totally understand that people might be confused by it.

39:03Chris Nott:Yeah, exactly. But I do think it's unique in that way. And it's like, we own this thing that most brands need. Exactly that. But how do you describe it, I guess, is the challenge.

39:16Frankie Guzi:Yeah. Yeah, it's true. I don't know. We're always talking about ways in which we can make it more interesting. If we did decide to do it, you know, like not going down necessarily the traditional way of having a library. Like how can you make that as customizable as possible potentially? Like there's loads of different ideas floating around, but we haven't pressed a button yet.

39:32Chris Nott:No, no need. What's the story behind the drama typeface? Like where did that go? Yeah, because I love that one.

39:38Frankie Guzi:No, yeah. So both Will and I, we were quite passionate about slab serif typefaces. Yeah. Um, so it felt only right to create our own custom typeface for the studio. Cause if we're like preaching that all the time, if we didn't have one ourselves, I think that would have been a bit. Is there a full like family of it? So there's the core typeface is called drama queen slab currently, currently only single style. Um, but we're also inspired by.

40:03Chris Nott:I just love that you said we're both really passionate about slab, which is just, again, it's like, it makes perfect sense on this podcast, but I just have to sometimes take a pause and be like you guys are both passionate about slab serif typefaces like we gotta yeah that's insane but it's listen so am i yeah you go they kind of rock but it's important we wanted

40:25Frankie Guzi:to try and think about how we could yeah just have something a bit more ownable as well and like the our actual word mark as well we made that variable so from like extreme condensed to super wide so that was super cool as well that was inspired by other kind of slab serif typefaces as part of like the rise of attention grabbing typefaces of the era for example and then seeing how we could modernize that but yeah it's very slab serif driven um our type graphic identity anyway no i

40:49Chris Nott:love it it's really cool it's got a it's got a cool energy too i love the d and yeah i guess i don't see the other weights or things but i know you guys have them somewhere yeah look we're talking

40:59Frankie Guzi:about expanding that out there's been a few people have contacted us like oh is that uh yeah can we have that.

41:05Chris Nott:Maybe. We got an email actually like a month ago that was like, yeah, we love this custom typeface to do this project. Can I have it? I'm like, no. It's not for you. No, absolutely not. That's the whole point. But yeah, no, maybe that's the typeface you guys released. It's like your custom typeface. Kevin looks like he's got a question. Kevin? No, I don't have a question. Okay. I mean, not on the top of them. I got questions. Oh, okay. Hit it. Fire him. What's your favorite typeface? oh fuck yes kevin i knew that was gonna come out yeah yeah that's funny that what are y 'all

41:37Frankie Guzi:rocking with yeah just stuff you haven't designed of course yeah exactly yeah yeah i'll go for the more romantic answer there's a typeface called egizio by nebbiolo foundry um really old kind of clarendon style for the people at home eg eg i-z-o jesus christy egizio egizio typeface but It's like a Clarendon-style slab. So you can see there why, for example, Dramagreed slab came to be. But yeah, really beautiful typeface. That's my more romantic answer. I don't know what Frank's going to say. We do have a lot of serious conversation on types. So things like Comic Sans and Wingdings are like great.

42:12Frankie Guzi:Oh, great. Shout out. Always definitely. Why not?

42:15Chris Nott:My favorite is Impact.

42:16Frankie Guzi:There you go. Yeah, great.

42:17Chris Nott:Iconic. I fucking love that typeface. Hobo? Oh my gosh. Yeah, yeah. That shit, Slabs. Yeah, that makes sense. I just like, that checks out. We've never had this conversation on the podcast. It's about our favorite typefaces. Yeah, Impact is great because it just screams at you. Again, that's what I'm looking for in a typeface. Yeah. I actually have been starting to send more work emails in all caps. Oh, yeah. I think I really can own it. I think it's quite unsettling. Get this done now. It's not aggressive like that. It's more like, you're the best. Let's do this. Yeah, yeah. I asked for this shit on Monday.

42:52Chris Nott:I've got time for that. Pay this invoice. All caps. Hobo is a great one. Sorry, Wingdings? Wingdings, yeah. Yeah, of course. It's nonsense. It's fucking insane. My second favorite typeface is Jokerman. Are you guys familiar with Jokerman? Yeah, there you go. That's an insane one.

43:10Frankie Guzi:Do you know, they've all got a space and a place in the world, you know? So I wouldn't say any typeface is better than the other, but there's obviously ones that you all fond of. Yeah, it's true.

43:19Chris Nott:It's true. No, Jokerman is one of the top. It's one of the greats. and the lead singer Vampire Weekend used to have a Jokerman Instagram page. This is a deep typeface, you know, sort of information where he would just post like places that were using Jokerman. Very cool. It's always insane. It's just like, it just doesn't make sense for anything ever. It's very memorable. Look at that. Yeah, yeah. Distinctive. For those at home, I'm showing off Jokerman, my favorite typeface. Second favorite typeface other than Impact. What's your favorite typeface? It fucking rocks. I'm a big brush script guy.

44:01Chris Nott:That's one I've been using recently. I'm not a big designer, though. I'm a copywriter. I like the words. Love all caps, though. You know what I also like about Impact? It's use in memes. Because I feel like that's the first one. It's the meme typeface. So utility is high on the internet. that's recognizability exactly just needs a stroke and it's ready to rock have you guys ever thought about doing like a sort of i guess updating garamond dance or something like taking a project like that like i remember someone did like helvetica now yeah yeah exactly is there any typeface that you have your eyes on that you would like to fucking get your uh your paws on

44:38Frankie Guzi:the whole garamond space love that serve yeah most definitely love to do that but um thank you guys

44:44Chris Nott:for coming i mean outside of uh you know sort of the the studio drama website instagram anything that you guys want to promote anything that um you guys got coming that this won't come out for a little bit so you guys can uh you know maybe as long as you know you can share things secret information oh yeah yeah you can break ndas on this podcast oh yeah great thanks to permission we just have a few million people watching youtube come on everyone comes on and breaks nda yeah that's that's the that's the rules isn't it yeah that's the front and center like that's what people tune in for yeah people that's a drama yeah they want drama lawsuits are the big you know drama cease and desist that's what we're trying to go for right now why not well we could talk about snickers oh you're not you and you're hungry yeah big project big project another

45:34Frankie Guzi:iconic brand blessed to have worked on it um even managed to refine and optimize the snickers wordmark as well which big responsibility of course eagle eyed listeners may start seeing it in the ads um some digital stuff as well so yeah it's starting to work its way into the program yeah super cool custom typeface and that's a display and text typeface we expanded that into greek and cyrillic as well so big global coverage on that one super cool whoa crazy yeah i feel like

46:00Chris Nott:they've used their typeface a little bit right where they had like sort of different packages

46:04Frankie Guzi:that use different words yes there was there's a few iterations of like the kind of italicized wordmark typeface but that was only ever um an outlined a to z heartboard so it wasn't actually a typeface at all um so that was just having to be hand set every time which i don't know how they managed to keep on top of that yeah no thanks wild um now we've given them tools that are a lot more flexible cool you know so yeah keep eyes on that one that's going to come out soon to get nerdy for a second like how do you start a project like that how does that like begin like a lot of it's about looking back yeah to move forward i guess it's yeah finding things that are always there gotta look back to my classic you do it's very important especially when with brands that have been around for a long time like digging back through the archives is such a nice way to find kind of things that inspire you to then uh remake in a more contemporary way you know so they had so much stuff but that whole project was all about um really digging deep into the american gothic classification um just because there was a lot of that kind of typography within the snickers archive and really inspired by that.

47:07Frankie Guzi:So super American, but then we think about how can we globalize that? How can we locate the DNA extracted from the Snickers logo and start to systemize that into that typeface classification as well? So the brief there was to try and see how we could be inspired by that word mark, but give it more meaning and think about basing it on a classification that felt authentic to the brand, you know? Yeah, I think from a client perspective as well, kind of showing it the journey of where it's been, it's always been there. it just makes that conversation of getting them to commit to it far far easier it's iconic uh so

47:38Chris Nott:iconic that it's actually on the font.com you guys didn't even need to do it it's right there you guys know about that website it's where all the best type there's some good ones in there can i tell you uh i tell the story when i do talks but uh one of my first big projects was powerade and uh it was sort of a global rebrand and i got the type is from the font bitsumishi it's called and that's a true fucking story you heard it here first yeah yeah you ever see power eight on the side of a world cup yeah type in shout out and check it out that's that's the kind of legendary type designer i am i love that but look you know snickers i could just type in center but it's done it's done it looks pretty damn easy peasy easy they don't have a Greek or you know lowercase or Cyrillic or anything but it'll get the job and I'm sure this type setting on the Defont one is pretty probably need to hand dial that one in no yeah probably I imagine so

48:44Frankie Guzi:that's a big one for us coming out this year yeah congrats that's a huge one

48:48Chris Nott:is that through Drake Error?

48:50Frankie Guzi:that is again another little teaser that we can give we've been working with BBH and they haven't rebranded their entire business for many years but we've created a custom typeface for them, it's actually available on Google Fonts at the minute so you're going to have to play around with it but we're not necessarily talking about it just yet but yeah that's super exciting for us an iconic player in the communication space and being able to give them this incredible new asset with lots of mad zag alternates within that character set so yeah you're trying to tell me

49:23Chris Nott:that agencies need custom typefaces too well do you know what they really do it's the thing

49:26Frankie Guzi:it seems to be happening more and more you know like agencies going through rebrands and then why not create custom typefaces part of that as well yeah

49:33Chris Nott:no I'm kidding I do think it's actually really it's important I mean it's part of our brand like our typeface is Ginto and you know we stretch the shit out of it for this podcast there you go oh yeah that's our brand yeah so shout out to Dynamo guys yeah y 'all would hate watching me work nah do you know what I'm into it

49:50Frankie Guzi:oh I'm stretching the shit out

49:54Chris Nott:on 30 seconds you'll see your name's like stretch it stretch it yeah and you'll see it and you'll be like ooh that looks like you're gonna say who the hell types at this and it's me I don't even really care it's Kevin yeah there you go I just gotta get it done

50:07Frankie Guzi:yeah as long as you're using tight that's the main

50:10Chris Nott:thing oh thank you well thank you guys for coming in and I'm so glad that you guys kind of did the pod this was like a cred stack podcast sort of a hybrid yeah it was you should do this for all your intros maybe we should start doing this the London edition listen every agency needs a podcast that's what I say thank you guys for coming in love the work it's really fantastic before you guys leave you guys got any type hot takes are you sick of seeing anything what's going on in the type world these days you want to put anybody on blast giving them on their flowers there you go we could talk about that yeah so we we recently crafted a

50:54Frankie Guzi:talk uh really talking about um kind of the age of typographic distinction and just the fact that we feel like now um everyone's moving beyond this kind of sea of sameness or sea of sansness which we call it um to try and think about making type more distinctive again you know so we've got a talk that we're doing a few different places so cool yeah super plug that come come and listen to us. Where is it? We're putting it into lots of different shows. Yeah, sure. Dan Dad, taking it overseas. So yeah, all over the place. We're talking about this year's the year of the boy band, Mike. Get it on the cheek, mate.

51:27Frankie Guzi:Oh, yeah, you know. More talks, more stages, bigger crowds. Let's go to dance. Mate, you know what? Will always talks about making it more performative. It's more memorable, isn't it? You guys got three of you,

51:38Chris Nott:you know? You guys could hit a little step. There's something there, you know? Do a little one-two spin. Yeah, get Stone Island to make you guys some kids. 100%. All right.

51:48Frankie Guzi:Maybe Stone and I need a custom type. Let's hit them up. Yeah. Good. Thanks. Very on brand. They should. Yeah.

51:53Chris Nott:In exchange for these fits that you guys are going to wear for the rap, dance, that boy band. Type super group. No, I mean, yeah, we went through that moment, right, where every type of, or every agency, or I don't know, every company decided that they just wanted to look like everyone else. Yeah, yeah. The whole point of branding is to be different. Exactly. Distinction. Did we say the age of distinction? yeah topographic age of distinction that's good yeah yeah again just start with those cats and hats yeah that's where we began get people warmed up i think it's important you know like you can't

52:27Frankie Guzi:expect to kind of get the best job in the world i think you have to kind of do your time to get to this point you know like you can't just it's it's an important part of growth as well i've

52:34Chris Nott:listen kids on youtube you got to pay your dues yeah exactly you heard you know you can't just Jump to agency D &AD award winning stats. That's true. You got to put some hats on some cats. Mate, you got to do it. You got to put your time in. Listen, I did so many coupons and so many fucking local market static flings. Wedding invites for friends and family, that kind of thing. Oh, second kid's birthday part. The best. I remember one of my coworkers was like, my daughter's turning two and her party's Olympic theme. Oh, nice. We're going to need an identity for that. full experience that's the kind of stuff you just got to do when you're you know I hope you integrated

53:14Frankie Guzi:the two into the Olympic rings for that you know

53:16Chris Nott:there was definitely a motif where there was like you know the staggering sort of stages and then the two on there smart it was a huge but no I think you guys are you guys are killing it and four years old that's you guys are you know toddlers still young still young still young

53:36Frankie Guzi:this year it's going to be a good year this year for sure. Already jam-packed is what day it's in now. Oh, my watch is telling me to stand up. It's the 21st of January.

53:46Chris Nott:Well, we got to cut that out because we're in spring time here. Oh, sorry. We're in the mystique. Kevin always gets upset when I'm like, well, it's Sunday. It's like the Lisa Smith interview and Jaguar just drops. They spend like 20 minutes talking about Jaguar. I got to leave some of it in. Yeah, exactly. That's evergreen content. How do you guys feel about the Jaguar rebrand?

54:09Frankie Guzi:Do you know what? I've got much beef with it. Do you like that tight face they use? As I said, every tight face got its place. He doesn't want to drag it. How do you feel that? It's very diplomatic. I've noticed this, I guess. But no, you've got to think about that. That made big waves and it got recognized, whether that's good or a bad thing. If you get press, any press is good, press.

54:29Chris Nott:For an agency called Studio Drama, you guys are very diplomatic. that's what I'm picking up here one of our superpowers

54:38Frankie Guzi:we're everyone's best friends you know it's important

54:40Chris Nott:no that is true because you got to play well with others exactly not Kevin and I we're bad boys I'm Neville Brody yeah that's true shout out to him I love him he's got a typeface that I've been seeing people making a lot like that blur type you know classic and I feel like it's getting a lot of use right now. I feel like I've seen it around. People love that gloopiness and the meltiness.

55:08Frankie Guzi:No, it's cool. I've seen it in use a few times as well. He's got so many iconic typefaces. There's so many more that no one's ever seen as well that exist that he just hasn't come looking with.

55:18Chris Nott:Yeah, real quick. You got a hard drive?

55:23Chris Nott:That's the conversation we have off the top. Yo, want me to get that hard drive? You want me to get that Neville Brody outtakes? Yeah, we got to get into those archives. because blur is like super trendy too yeah you know i feel like frank ocean used it on some project or something i was like oh fuck but i think that's a great thing about typeface you

55:39Frankie Guzi:know like they maybe have a time and then they go away for a while and they come back so it's like what's coming back what do you think is coming back we had a period last year where all we were getting was tasty type yeah tasty type people just wanted like big fat serifs maybe italicized just i don't know what it was but tasty type was definitely what's a tasty what's a tasty typeface you know like if you think about like a food brand kind of aesthetic chobani yeah chobani esque i'm thinking more like script fat script serif okay but that seems to be coming in they melt into each other i was probably getting skinny now with all the ozempic yeah

56:19Chris Nott:now we're on a roll oh yeah we go it's the good stuff podcast is about uh well thank you guys You guys are legends and thank you for popping by. I appreciate it. See you out there. Peace. Awesome.

56:31Frankie Guzi:Cool. Boom. Boom.