Podding Not Podding: with Justin Gignac

34:45And I was always too corporate. I was always like working at Coke doing like very like not cool things. Very serious things. And I was like, yeah. And I was like, man, these guys are doing such fucking cool internet-y like just design ideas and just putting them out there and making things. But it was never for a purpose. And I think that's the thing is like the friends of mine and people that I've just seen find a lot of success in this industry put like i described as giving gifts to the internet like jessica hish is really great at that yeah for sure like mom how does twitter work or should i work for free and that kind of stuff and yeah and people who just keep putting things out there and it you know has no real benefit it's just like hey here's an idea i'm excited about and i think other people might be into it and i think there's a big opportunity for that now for any creatives and yes the internet is magic and everything is possible now like back when you know the olden days of 2001 when i'm making my own damn websites.

35:36I didn't have a Squarespace or WordPress or anything else. I didn't have TikTok. I didn't have Instagram. I didn't have any of that stuff. And now you can just have an idea on Friday and make a site over the weekend, launch it on Monday and have it go viral by Wednesday. Yeah. We're going to sound like the old guys real quick here, Justin, being like, back in our day. Let's picture this podcast in 10 years when AI is doing everything. And we'll be like, we used to have to come up with ideas and comp things. Yeah. Yeah. I went to an advertising director's club. I think you were there. Remember George Lewis sent in that message?

36:04and Debbie Millman read it. It was basically like, you fucking lazy fuckers. He's amazing. Yeah, it's just like, you don't have to make anything anymore. You guys just basically are just, yeah, the computers make it for you. And it's just like, I just saw us becoming that, obviously. We are that. Clearly, this just happened in real time. Oh, boo-hoo. AI, it's like, yeah, you kids, we have to make our own websites. You guys just put in a prompt. You just speak it and it happens. But no, those things are the spirit of them, I think, is exactly what you're talking about. It's just like making things because you want them to exist and you want to get into other people.

36:38And this podcast actually is that. And I actually similarly told you a couple years ago, so I'm making a talk show. I'm making a design show that's just fun and just is going to be in the spirit of the shows that I love, Porn and the Interruption, Deezus Amaro, and those type of things, and just about design and branding. And now we're sitting inside of it. And so it's like, yeah, put those things out there. People will get it. They're more attracted to those than the really dope, case study that you just made. Because I think we all try to one-up each other making the world's greatest case studies of projects.

37:09Well, I think there's also a thing now which isn't really in vogue is putting too much effort into things. I remember I worked with BuzzFeed for a while a few years ago, and they said that all the stuff they put the most production money and production value into did the worst performance. Because people wanted stuff that looked like their friends made it. And so that's such a big thing. But I've got to take you to task a little bit about this podcast right now. now that when you pitched it to me yeah two three no before the like 20 before the pandemic yeah when you're first starting the studio you said i want to have a talk show and i want to have a set yeah and i want to have a logo like where the fuck is the set this is the set we're all no no no no no you guys have great branding for front and center yeah yeah yeah you can put those like little square things on the mics maybe okay you could put that's trying too hard yeah yeah but But it can be janky.

38:01You can just put it with paper and tape it together. I think you need a little bit of the branding here and make it feel like a studio. Maybe you just have ties that you slip on over your necks for the interviewer. I don't know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Jimmy Fallon. I like it fitted, you know? No, I... If you only... If Kevin only wore a suit... Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. With that... For every interview? That Hurricane's hat. Yeah, I think that'd be amazing. But it's only like a front of a shirt and a tie and then the jacket that you put on specifically for this. we have talked about having like an official set i do think i i do like having it in the studio sort of as like this is just a thing that's happening inside of our design i should be right here and it should look mostly like this but you need a couple things i think in office 4.0 there'll be like a little section that would be like the front and center like filming set separated from do you guys still have printers yes we do all right so you guys could print off some 11 by 17 front and center right up in the corner here we could yeah we could we could hang that from the back there.

38:57Justin, you know, we need you to hire you to consult us and get the show up to par. I mean, listen, Justin, we can't do it all. We're doing our very best. What, are you also doing award-winning design work? We're trying. I mean, listen. Cut to the can lines. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, listen, when we started the... Oh, those are Dylane Awards? Those are, yeah. And that's a silver pencil. Yeah, we got awards. Is that in frame? Does everybody see your awards in frame? No, I don't think so. Maybe some of the D is there. That'd be embarrassing. but no, I mean, when I started the studio, it actually had on the site, it was centers of design, you know, studio and front center as a show.

39:34Yeah. And then for like the first three years of this business, it was only the studio part. I really only focused on the work. And so now it's really fun to be able to like take that idea that's been sitting in my brain and then try to continue to push it. And yeah, this is like the sixth week of YouTube. So we're, yeah, it's so great. Justin settled down. We're going to, we're going to get there. We're walking. But I do want to get to topics. And then I also want to, we have to talk about working out. Oh yeah. Yeah. that thing so then obviously you have all these ideas they're they're they you put them out in the world you um my one question before we get to working networking do you have any ideas that you put out into the world that just totally flopped did not work yes like completely like no one reacted to and there was no virality yes talk to us about like one of those quickly so i you know i put things out all the time and i wanted to see what would happen and you know back in whatever year this was 2010 uh chat roulette was a big deal yeah remember that so for those of you who don't know uh the youngins on the podcast uh it was basically a video chat in the browser that you just hit you know random and all of a sudden it paired you up with a video chat of someone else around the world yes and then you could hit next and it would bring you to someone else and what would happen a lot on there yeah is people would show their wieners or add their body parts yes yes i remember this and so i had a i was like wait if all these people are posing nude for me maybe i should draw them ah this is a good idea and so i did a project called nudes of chat roulette okay and i spent about two hours one night at like midnight to 2 a.m uh screenshotting people naked because one thing that happens when they're naked and you're not yeah they skip you very quickly yeah because they're scared well i think they're looking for a little bit of fun yeah yeah they wanted a party and i was not there for it so i had to be really quick with like my my screen grab so you know I just I deemed on chat you're either the wiener or the wiener hunter and for two hours I was the wiener hunter and I got a bunch of screenshots and I did charcoal drawings actual size of the browser the video window and I drew it on this nice paper and I gave them artistic titles like large man small twig pair pair of plums a still life of plums pair of melons yeah um and so i tried to make it really artistic and it was nice because i've been selling trash for years and i was like oh i went to art school i can draw your fine arts idea so i sat down and like had a blast for over a weekend drawing like a dozen of these sure they look lovely you can call them up off my website um and they um i put them out and uh put it on facebook which was around and a couple people shared it but my mom didn't share it yeah weirdly um but But one thing I realized is like, that's a great litmus test.

42:22So I have the people who are my biggest fans and most like-minded people in my life are my friends and colleagues. And they didn't really share it. So probably nobody else's. Because I was like, oh, I'll do more of these. I'll sell these, whatever. And I put it out and I was like, oh no, nobody cared. They thought it was funny, but nobody bought them. I think I sold one. But that's okay. Because I was like, oh, I got to scratch the itch of being able to draw again. That was exciting. And I proved I could do it. I could prove it to do something else other than put garbage in a box. And it just like, it was satisfying.

42:54And I learned that I learned like, cool. Like it's probably better to fail small. You do a few things that you like and just send it out to your, your fans. And if it doesn't go anywhere, that's okay. It's not an L. Yeah. I was like, I really enjoyed it. And I learned from it. So it's like, you should have brought one here. Maybe I've got a bunch. We could have put it up. Maybe that could be our set decor. Yeah. Yeah. Beautiful. Just the buns right behind my head. Yeah. Yeah. This one I think is me. Yeah. So. oh my god so yeah if you could bring me that one oh is that oh that's man with sausage yeah yeah for sure um yeah no that it is good like especially because your projects like you said like it's not like you're dedicating years and years and years to the execution you were able to sort of like yeah it's a brilliant idea it's really funny and and sort of spend yeah yeah charcoal pen and a yeah and also not overthinking and not like yeah like i spent a year thinking about the garbage thing which yeah i didn't need to and it was a lot of fear that it's going to fail and so with this was like i'm just gonna put it out there and now i'm not afraid to shit failing because it's just like oh it's volume like yeah i used to see this artist daniel etoc who i really looked up to he does like a bunch of like cool experiments with like an entire rack of you know super personal color markers yeah on a stack of paper and just leave it there for a week sure and then like his additions were all of the sheets and how deep it bled into it and i was like a lot of conceptual stuff like that but he was so prolific he had like a hundred projects and i'm sure oh it's that it's just playing it's just having fun and not taking it too seriously and just putting shit out there yeah and i think kevin and i talk about this a lot because we make memes uh you know that's one of our uh you know sort of our our artwork is that the center tagline yeah the front dot center page and i'm always one to be like is this good enough or thinking about it a lot and kevin's just like post it and like just do 10 of them just like stop overthinking and i am absolutely want to overthink because i i think like oh how could this be better but then at certain point is just like you're causing yourself to not do things.

44:44And you don't know. The one that's going to hit is not always the one that you think it's going to hit. No, you have no idea. It's always the one that you just put out there and you're like, oh, maybe this is a thing. And then all of a sudden you're like, It's got some misspellings on it. Yeah. Well, that's why I like things with parameters. Yeah. So then you have excuses for it sucking. Yeah. So you're like, hey, we're going to make all of our memes in 10 minutes. Yeah. And we're not going to put more than 10 minutes into it. Cool. And we're going to put every single one that we come up with or the top 10 that we put and we're going to put it in a carousel and we're going to do that every week yeah and it's like all right cool yeah we only took 10 minutes and how good do you fucking expect it to be yeah but then you have that out which sometimes you need that for the creative disclaimer yeah but then you start getting faster you start having more fun with it and you start taking it less seriously for sure so when does working not working come into your brain so i went freelance in 2007 okay at the time not a lot of people were freelancing it was like uh you know some some good people that I knew maybe like a dozen.

45:36And then a lot of people who just were in between jobs. So finding freelance work is maybe you and the listeners might be familiar with, is a pain in the ass. And so every time I would need a gig, I would call and email every single person I knew in the business, but I only had three full-time jobs. So I didn't really know that many people. And I was like, hey, do you got any work? And they're like, no, not right now. And then two weeks later, I get booked on a job. And then without fail, I get like four or five more offers that week that I couldn't take. I'm like, this is stupid. And I was like, so I'm a bit of a smart ass as you could probably already tell by my work.

46:10It permeates. Yeah, smart assery. And so on my portfolio site, I just put a giant blinking neon sign that I called the Justin Genac freelance status apparatus. And it either said, Justin is available, Justin's working, or Justin's working, but available soon. And then I had an over-utilization of technology for people to follow my availability. So I had a Facebook group, a Twitter feed, a text alert, an iPhone app, and a mailing list. And it was like, whatever is the most convenient way for a recruiter to follow me, they could do that. I ended up with like 40 recruiters from different agencies following me.

46:44Every time I'd flip my status to available, I'd get two or three job offers that day. Wow. Any jobs I couldn't take, I would just start emailing to my art director friends and people are like, oh my God, that's so cool you do that. And I do what? They're like, share your contacts. I'm like, yeah, of course. Like there's plenty of work to go around. I want to make sure, you know everyone's hooked up and but that really helped me because now the recruiter started hitting me up first and say hey justin i see by your little sign you're working but are any of your friends available wow and so i'd be like all right cool does anybody want this job in the can and people would be like yeah cool and so my buddy adam thomkins and i were talking one day and we're like well if that little vacancy sign could work for me it probably could work for everybody wow and so in like uh summer of 2011 we started reaching out to some design studios to work on it uh and we launched it in january 2012 yeah i mean it's just one of those things that just like you made it because you want it for yourself the problem yeah it literally solved the problem and it really worked and i think there's a spirit of like like you said before it's like putting stuff out in the world that you wanted to to be there but also to kind of help other people and to like give people gifts yeah and i think that is a gift to any single person and i do think this is right before you like you said the freelancer economy where everyone was like you know it wasn't really a thing it really wasn't a thing what's that do you think you made the freelancer i think i think your last economy boom i think from what people told us it really helped create a safety net for people like it got to the point where like you know we've all been in the corporate world we've been in jobs that have been like a slog and like you just like fuck this shit i don't want to deal with this anymore so to know you could go and like put your shit on a website and be able to say hey i'm available and you know a good chance to be able to find some work that really helps.

48:24Yeah. And I think the spirit of it was always sort of like, yeah, like the more people that can get freelance jobs, the more people can make this a living. And I think to me, that's like the biggest gift you can give anyone is to be a creative professional and to do it every day or to do it for your life. And I think that's something that is like a beautiful thing. And I think for freelancers, right? Like there is always that uncertainty of like, well, it's really popular right now, but maybe in a month or so, it's going to be, you know, sort of not there. And so I think that uncertainty or that sort of like, calmness or that feeling of just like, okay, I can do this is so rewarding for people.

49:02And I think, yeah, I never experienced it. I had a working, not working page. I just had working for like the first like 10 years or eight years of your company. And I always looked at it and admired what you guys were doing because it just went from like, like you said, like a simple idea for yourself to a sort of idea that maybe could help other people to a full-fledged business that just was legitimately uh as as as popular as any other freelancing sort of recruitment uh sort of a job portal i guess if you were about that oh and i liked when like even like you left your full-time gig and you started center yes it was really just you taking out projects and like people kept going like hey and you still told me like brands would hit you up or you know companies would hit you up on the site and they'd be like hey can you come in and you're like well i got my own studio but I can do projects with you.

49:48And then that led to like a lot of the stuff up here, which is like so cool to see. Yeah, no, that is actually the secret is like, I was, when I quit my job, I was, I knew I wanted to start center, but I, and I knew I was interested in doing it with other people. I didn't want to be a solo practitioner. But like, that was the gigs that were coming to me. It was like, hey, we have this project for you and not a project for a company. And I would be like, cool, I'm going to take this job and maybe I'll bring someone with me or I'll bring it back to the - Or you just prove you're good to work with and a great collaborator and they'll give you something next time that's a little bit juicier.

50:18And I actually was so shocked when I actually turned it on, when I had my working. I was like, turn it to not working. And then I got a really good gig with LeBron James' sort of one of his side companies. And I was just like, wait a second. It can't be this easy. What a wonderful website Justin has created that I've... Thanks. Maybe I should have been using this for a long time on the side. I think it's really funny because when I look online, people will go, oh, I never got anything off of that. And I'm going to take blame for a lot of that because we didn't communicate exactly how the site works very clearly to people.

50:52But people who update their status pretty regularly get shown at the top of search and they find stuff. But a lot of people created the site page once and then they never went back to it. So they're showing up at like page 500 of search results. And so, yeah, you never got anything. And so, I think that's a thing we're working to improve now. Got to flip it on and off. Yeah, is making sure that people are aware of how that works and making sure we're only showing people that are actively looking right now. And then if you're not, we'll leave you alone until you are. And then when it came to actually starting to recruit and hire people for my company, I used Working Not Working for my job posting.

51:23This is now fully an ad. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the best part about this whole story is that Kevin applied to an internship posting on Working Not Working. Let me tell you, I didn't have very much success on there for the first several months. I think it worked out all right for you. Yeah, yeah. No, it did. Now you get to check four people's phones from the office to make sure they're recording throughout a podcast. and living the dream kevin what did you work in that working profile say if you got a problem you all solve it and i was like that's i got a lot of problems yeah and kevin's been solving them for years and so it's like that truly changed my life and i i do like to uh i like to give you credit for it because thanks man i know that makes you happy because it literally it went it enabled me to get jobs when i first started yeah and like was essentially a freelancer and then when i got enough jobs that i needed other people to help with i used it to it's the dream scenario yeah Yeah, fill a room and hire the best people.

52:15And then now we're at a place where obviously people email us and it just, yeah, this wouldn't be possible without you. So I really appreciate that. That's awesome. And I guess the last question we got to just ask it is like how emotional sort of was the decision to sort of sell the company to sort of make that decision? We can cut this. No, no, it's fine. it's such a hard thing when you're working for, you know, at that time it was almost a decade, it was 2020, you know, our everything. What was going on there? From marketing wise, it went to a standstill. We didn't know what the future of our business was going to be.

52:54We were still like, you know, kind of able to tread water, which was great. But you know, like we took an approach that wasn't the most profitable approach. I think if we had been part of every transaction and taking a percentage and all that, we would have been printing money but like we didn't want to be taking money out of our friends pockets so we never charged creatives we didn't charge a commission on any of the hires so we're like hey let's just give companies easy access to this for a few hundred bucks a month and they can hire as many people as they want you know smarter business people would not have done that approach but like you know we were creatives ourselves and we wanted to do right by people we were just trying to make everyone accessible um and so like yeah we were like all right trying to do what's in the best interest of the community over and over again and like you know it was a fiver reached out to us and we had a couple years earlier we had conversations just because i'm like oh i'll always have a conversation never know where people end up or whatever else and i was like uh you know it was hard it's hard when you build something and it's your baby yeah and you care deeply about the community and you feel an obligation to the community and so like for us when we had those conversations with fiverr i was like very pleasantly surprised that they were on board with our mission they were on board with like us doing what we're doing but just doing it bigger and better um and they just wanted to see us and help us succeed and so you know we got a fuck ton of backlash when it happened of course but like i was also pretty critical of fiverr you know publicly prior when we were going against them for the webby awards um but there's that great but all those conversations i had you know really surprised me yeah um and really went like oh they actually care about the future of work, giving people work, enabling people to work, and they want to help people on, you know, the entire spectrum of talent level of experience, all of that.

54:44And, you know, it's, it's been cool to see what they've been doing and they're, and they're evolving their business and getting more enterprise customers and business customers and all of that, and really trying to, to expand. And so for us, it's, you know, it is a learning curve when you go from being a scrappy eight-person company to then being part of a bigger organization. But they kind of let us just do our thing and then support us and all the logistical stuff that we have the resources to hire for. So to be clear, you're still working? Yeah, yeah. Are you working or not? I'm still working, baby.

55:15So yeah, I'm still not working. I'm working. It's been a little more than two years since the acquisition. Working. Working, working. If I was you, I'd be not working. Well, that would be cool. If I was you, I'd be a mascot. Yeah. my back would want me to be a mascot too but uh i think that yeah that's a take one shot from a kid and oh my god yeah you'll change your mind real quick uh you're gonna need those someday you're like i'd like to go back to my home office yeah where i can make a sandwich for myself so now now it's fun it's like all right figuring out like how do we make a platform that's relevant for 2023 as opposed to 2012 when we launched and uh we got a lot of things that we're working on and and changing things and launching new things and, um, just still like kind of reinvigorated now, uh, because we don't have to worry about keeping the lights on now.

56:00It's just about like, Hey, how do we have an impact and really help the community? Which is amazing. And I think it hasn't, in my opinion, or, you know, from my viewpoint, hasn't seemed like it's changed working, not working. It doesn't seem like they're like, you know, trying to turn it into something different. They're not trying to sort of like, you know, scrap it and just have you guys work on fiber. Like it does seem like you guys are still doing the same thing you've been doing just with a little bit of support. and less. I think a lot of the stuff people haven't, you know, not a ton has changed on the platform, admittedly, that people have seen on the front end, but things have been changing in the back end, but things are going to start changing a lot.

56:34Great. And, you know, brushing the dust off and making it sexy again. The parties, those are always the best part. I think that's the key to the success. I don't, you know, I was talking about the parties yesterday. Free ideas around on this podcast, but I got a big idea for you. Okay. The parties, yeah, they got to keep throwing the parties. Well, that was the biggest thing, like, you know, I think what we did really well is we built amazing community in person, you know, and mainly our key markets, New York, LA, San Francisco, but like, that was the stuff. Like, it was like, cool. Like we'd have happy hours all the time.

57:02We'd get people together, like a lot of collaboration. Bring it back. We got to bring it back. Got to bring it back. Yeah. Cause I remember when you talked to me about the parties originally, cause I was like, Oh man, you guys are throwing these amazing parties. You're like, well, every agency has an incredible holiday party, but what about the freelancers? Yeah. We never got to go to those. They don't, the world's biggest freelancer holiday party, then you can create the best party around. And I think you guys, you did some crazy things. You had like, like installations and performances. Well, we knew the best creators to work with.

57:30So that really worked out well. And it was like, for some reason we were able, it was our holiday parties would be like Adam and I, and this is like, you know, early days were really small. And the time was like, maybe just the two of us. It would be like the week before Thanksgiving, two weeks before Thanksgiving, like, oh yeah, what are you doing with Thanksgiving? I'll go see my parents. But like, oh shit, we got to plan the holiday party. And it would be like something we'd play in like three weeks. Wow. But we had that restriction. It was like, we didn't really have a big team. And we'd spend what we could afford.

57:57I think the first party cost us like less than 10 grand. And I think the most we ever spent was like 25 grand. Was that House of Vanity? Yeah. Yeah. The House of Vanity was the last one we had in 2019, which I think might have been a COVID super spreader event. Yeah. Because some people had lost taste and all that, but didn't know what it was at the time. Interesting. December 2019. We were there. Yeah. But that, yeah, those parties, that one was the most expensive by far. but those parties we were doing for not a lot with like booze and beer and great djs and we were just like being as scrappy as possible like yeah we had wacky inflatable tube guys on the dance floor and bootleg cinderella and minions you know yeah and i think those things are really important again it goes back to that spirit of like yeah giving back to other people helping other people and you have that great quote on your website that uh i have here on the wall here but uh yeah what who is zig zagler zig zagler so i thought this was my dad's quote for the longest time like oh my dad's well my dad was also a motivational speaker so i was like oh wow dad this is great but he said uh help enough other people get what they want and you'll always get what you want and i found out later it was exactly my dad plagiarized but it's fine um but that's kind of how i lived my career it's like you know just trying to hook people up and it's like becoming a connector and helping other people succeed and seeing like oh my god this person should know this person and they got to collaborate and just making those introductions, you know, always into paying off because then people are always looking out for you too.

59:19Yeah. And I think one, you know, that I resonate with that so much because I do believe that, you know, one of the reasons why I love being a designer, why I love being a creative is because I genuinely like to make other people happy. Yeah. And of course it, it helps my sort of endless need for validation. I've talked about before, but like there is a part of it where it is truly an act of, of seeing other people achieve their dreams or making them, you know, happy or bringing them joy or helping them solve problems. And I do think a lot of times young designers are like, well, I wasn't paid.

59:51I was going to do that project, but the salary wasn't right or the budget wasn't there or this other thing. It's like, well, you're doing it for the wrong reason. And I genuinely think that people oftentimes forget that like, if you can just go around and make a lot of people happy and be helpful for other people and then it will come back to you tenfold and i think it is important to know your value and you should never work for free unless it's something for a cause or someone you really care about and you're deciding to do that on your own and that i'm asking you for it but um it's the spirit it's the spirit and also just being a great collaborator like there's so many stories of people who you know like the dark igloo guys yeah they were working on a project that wasn't that glamorous at MTV with this guy, Alex.

1:00:33And they were just like, hey, we just tried to stay really positive. We knew everybody else was feeling a lot of pressure and it was kind of stressful. So we just tried to be great collaborators. That guy ended up starting Giphy and they ended up doing all the branding for Giphy. So it's like, just like make great connections, be great to work with, don't be an asshole. And then things come back to you. Yeah, no, that's, it's a perfect segue to sort of some topics here today because I do think - Can we take a break? No, I'll take five. Just like a, no, just like a one. I got to make sure this shit's - Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:00:58Okay, sorry. can I just say one thing real quickly is thank you Justin I think that spirit and that sort of mentality and that sort of way of thinking is is is is how uh I always like to think about uh the studio and I always like to think about my career and I think it's sometimes you know it doesn't have enough people championing it yeah spreading that idea and it's just like yeah of course if you go and help a lot of people it's gonna help you in the end yeah and it's like you just you You just have to trust that. Well, I think that's how you've built the studio. Like, you know, we've done a project together for work, not working.

1:01:30And it's like your whole team just came with a ton of energy, a ton of light, enthusiasm. And it was just like, hey, let's just have a blast and we're going to make some cool shit. And it's like, yeah, that's what we should just do. We should just do something that we're all psyched about and just make some cool shit. You ever print that Steve Jobs poster? Yeah. Make some cool shit? Oh, the Steve Jobs poster for who we're going to work. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's funny. yesterday i was trying to do some writing about like company value which i find to be like the hardest thing in the world and just like it's just like a a mind block because it's like you know giving yourself a haircut and like you know i could do that for it's it's very like much trying to do therapy on yourself it really is really hard and i i i went i started looking up this guy zig zagler um and he's got a hot fucking gem zig zagler zig zig zagler right great name yeah Yeah, great name.

1:02:19Amazing name. Yeah, yeah. Incredible bars of wisdom. Good books. But yeah, yeah. And so I just, you know, and enthusiasm came to the top of my list of things that I pride myself on. And I do think that is a word that's come up quite a bit here in this conversation. It's just something that I've been thinking about a lot. And just how that, yeah, is many ways the key to any success that I've had. And obviously a lot of the success that you've had. And I think it's something that like you can feel when it's there and you can feel when it's not there. And it's like the biggest difference for creatives.

1:02:48And so, yeah, I mean, it's contagious and like, you can't teach enthusiasm. You can't teach passion. And I think that that's a big thing. You know, I talked to, and especially now we're going to start talking to students again. And I do a talk for schools called how not to get a job in the creative industry. Yeah. I'm going to just tell them, tell them all the ways they can blow it in their portfolio and interviews. But one of the biggest things is a lot of times people try to be the version themselves that they think the interviewer, the company wants instead of being who they really are. So if you're really fucking nerdy about tie dye t-shirts and that's what you're all about then like let that let that shine and because like that individuality is what makes you unique and what makes you special and and what happens is if you're trying to be some other version of yourself and they hire you on that then you got to keep that lie up the entire time you're working there yeah and you're going to be unhappy that's why kevin wore a full canadian tuxedo when he came in the first day and he has hair down it was just like yeah he walked in like he owned the place and it was like that guy yeah and now he's the owner now it's called kevin yeah Yeah, no, yeah, yeah.

1:03:46Center and Batori. No, and again, like we could talk for hours and hours about your career. And I do want to get to some topics. But you brought us in for BuzzFeed products. So Center started. I forgot about that. We were still very small and very scrappy. It was like me, Kevin, Pete, Andrew, a bunch of white guys. Yeah, this was pre-me. It was pre-Kevin, actually. Yeah, so this is like really, really, really days. It's like early days. And you were like, hey, I am building a little bit of a super team to rebrand of BuzzFeed. and it was sort of a working not working adjacent project and you're like i'm you know can you join this squad and can you build a little team and i was like i already have built a working not working team i'll bring those people yeah and you partner yourself with dark igloo uh who are uh david mark and an amazing crew over there that do amazing work and we kind of put our heads together and tried to figure out the future of buzzfeed in like a week and a half yeah and so super quick yes so we don't need to get into it.

1:04:41We could talk a lot about it, what happened to it. We don't really need to know. On Monday of this week, Pepsi announced its giant rebrand. It's out there in the world. And so everyone can see it. It's the biggest story in design. Yeah, I have a lot of opinions. But one of the things that is interesting is that it is going to hit shelves next year. And they are finally going back to some of their original, really the iconic Pepsi mark. There's been a bunch of different logos, but they made a big mistake. And at least this was sort of part of our thinking at the time was in 2008, they created what I would argue would be the greatest strategic rationale behind a design system, which was the gravitational pull of the Pepsi.

1:05:25And they created this mark that nobody liked. And they've decided finally to go back and rewrite history. I think they needed to burn enough days where the cost per day of having that logo was under like at least$10 ,000 because they spent a lot of money apparently on that rebrand. I think they needed to re-up that strategy. They needed to bring it to 2023. We need the gravitational pull. I think they fell a little short in that regard, maybe a step backwards, making the brand a little smaller. They don't even have a gravitational pull anymore. We've got new explorations with space that they could have tapped into, UAPs, a lot of stuff going on there that could be pulling.

1:06:04And they just didn't. They're not pulling at all. Yeah. And so the gravitational pull, if you've not seen this deck, it's available to download on the internet. I don't know exactly where, but like go find it. Oh my God. And it has - I think it's just a Pepsi Arnell presentation. Yeah. And your mind will be blown. And some hallucinogenics would really help get you through because they clearly were on it. Yeah. And there's some really breathtaking charts and that's what they call them, which is the perfect way to describe them. It's got the golden ratio. It's so sick. It's the work of art. It's the best piece of strategy that's ever been written.

1:06:37Okay. Okay. Hold on. An entire fucking history of design. Can we talk about design strategy? Sure. So I've never been on the inside of these places doing these things. You have clearly. Yes. Yes. Maybe this isn't good for your business to admit this, but this is all bullshit made up later, right? No. Are you kidding me? Absolutely not. Post-rationalization. Mm-mm-mm-mm. No. Wrong. Wrong. It goes. This is a - You always start at 3000 BC. Yeah. You got to go back to move forward. That's the key about brand strategy. You always have to look in the past to look towards the future. And so what Pepsi did is they went all the way back to prehistoric time.

1:07:15That's gravity, baby. AMSR moment. Hold on. I'm going to open up the draft cola Pepsi. So Justin was so kind to bring us some gifts here today and has brought a selection of Pepsi and is going to open up a nitro Pepsi here on the pod. I've never had this. But these are like historical cans now. So I thought you could have them as collector's items. Yeah. Yeah. There we go. Ready? Ready? AMSR. wow oh it's it is now spilling all over the place oh not on our rug yeah yeah not on our rug absolutely needs to get cleaned it's fine it's totally fine don't worry about it got paper towels uh yeah we got paper towels uh we'll get it we'll get that later um so uh justin's opening up a nitro pepsi we actually talked about this on the program i thought this was a coffee it doesn't no no you just gotta hard pour it really yeah you gotta sort of yeah it's sort of like a guinness meets pepsi okay proposition i thought it was gonna have coffee and it doesn't no it's just nitro it's just a way in so it has a little ball in it like guinness does yeah it's just the nitrogen gas or whatever oh i had no idea um i didn't know what i was getting you ever have you ever have coke coffee coke coffee no is it good it's great yeah wow what uh do you want to try real quick here on the program i've had it before i'm i'm want to pour some for you?

1:08:32Yeah. I don't know. Oh, I hit it. You hit it. I hit it. Yeah. Pour me some. I don't need to try right now to know that it tastes like a sort of flat Pepsi. It says smooth, creamy, easy to drink. Flat. A.K. Flat. Yeah. Like what your mom would give you when you're sick. Yeah, exactly. Cheers. Yeah. Or if you go to like a, a restaurant and their tap doesn't have enough like carbonation. Oh, it does taste flat. Well, because Pepsi normally is a little spicy. Yeah. I'm a Coca-Cola guy. Oh, so am I. My mom used to drink Pepsi every morning. My mom drinks Diet Pepsi. Oh, wow. Yeah. And even for the 10 years I worked at Coke, Diet Pepsi.

1:09:12Loyalist. Shit runs deep. No, no, no, no. That's brand loyalty. Be authentic. Yeah. No. So that strategy deck was insane. The new branding, I think everyone feels good when we tap back into nostalgia and the things we knew younger. I don't know if the typeface necessarily goes with that nostalgia, but I like an attempt there. But going back to the 1904 Pepsi-Cola logo. Oh, yeah. That's the best. Holy shit. That's like Hunter S. Thompson. No, it's so fucked. It's so great. It's amazing. Someone was definitely out of their mind making that. Because they must have had some actual Coca-Cola with cocaine in it.

1:09:52Oh, hell yeah. And they made that Pepsi-Cola logo. Yeah. When are they going to bring that back? Yeah, that is the best logo that Pepsi has ever had. When we did this project. I think you can find that Coke and Greenpoint. Yeah, look at that. Look at the original, original, original PepsiCo logo and go find that because it rolls. Don't you put this stuff in the show notes? Yeah, we do. And you can look that up. And we'll also put it on YouTube if you're watching there. So you'll see sort of all the logos in the history. And here's what I'll say about the new Pepsi branding. They got it like 90 % right.

1:10:21They went back to the big thing that they needed to do was put that sort of, yeah, go back to the original disc logo. I'm sure they have a name for it, but like Pepsi is inside of the wave. It's inside of the red and blue sort of circle. And they did that. They went back to sort of the glory years of the 80s and 90s. They smoothed it out a little bit. And they simplified it a little bit and then they made it nice and big. the only thing that people are giving them a hard time about which i absolutely do agree is that the lettering the word mark is a bit um it's a little sharp yeah it's a little chunky they brought in this like very hard-lined eye that is giving me a little bit of uh pause i just it's just a little too it goes right for me it goes right into the ass i get that but it just feels like you know maybe they just needed some gravitational pull is there is the gravitational pull here happening on the type of this has no pull i maybe it feels god damn it's an improvement no it is the right decision look at the last two yeah no it is it is a real it's a real nightmare 2000s like remember everything had water drops in the logo yeah no that's crazy i think they yeah they they made the right move they just made it like 10 years too late i think they should have done this a long time ago and i think yeah i think it it looks solid i think the funny part that people also have been noticing is that you know pepsi has some really great packaging in their sort of archives they really do have some uh script is some some really great cans like this one that kind of was in the 80s and sort of 90s was really that's very similar yeah it's just given that a little little refresh yeah they have some really good ones the black is pretty harsh though in the new logo yeah that's the thing that i don't also agree with totally because like if you're trying to be the anti-red, like doubling down on the blue really helps.

1:12:11Look at that Diet Pepsi can. What does it look like, Alex? It looks exactly like this. If you've seen the Pepsi logo sort of being sort of reverberated, I guess, or sort of looks like wavelengths or sort of music sort of amplification. It's one of my favorites. It's got lines going through it. It's really sick. Oh, man, that's so nice. That old script is really nice. It's really interesting. So I just think there's so much stuff in the Pepsi archives. They've done some really cool stuff over the years. And the worst can design of the entire history is the one that they have in market right now.

1:12:48And so they almost could have went back to the archives and picked any one of these cans. And they would have. And they probably will. Everyone loves the retro shit now. Bringing it back for your brand. Nostalgia is always good. Yes. And so they got it right. And so I will say shout out to them, but there's a couple of details. I don't love the black and I don't love the typeface. If someone could just turn that black to blue and see how it looks, that would be really helpful. I like the bolder blue. Yeah. It's a bit dodger blue. Yeah. Shout out to Pepsi and shout out to them for genuinely making the right decision here and like kind of going back.

1:13:22And I think they've, you know, it's tough, right? When you make a big brand decision to go with a new logo with the gravitational pull of the moon, and then you put it on the side of MetLife Stadium. And you create these huge, huge, huge signage moments. And this is a global brand. So to go back, it's not as easy as like, oh, we're going to go back to our old logo. You have to like, these are millions and millions and millions of dollars too, to just like start even the transition away. like there'll be some old Pepsi logos in the market for, for decades really. And so I do think they, so I understand from a giant corporation perspective to be like, yeah, it's not as easy as just saying, oh yeah, let's go back to this old logo.

1:14:07But I think to sort of have the courage to finally say, okay, this thing is, it's not the brand that people remember. It's not the brand that people love. And, you know, I think the, the, the logo that they are referencing or sort of the modernization of, this new version is the right logo, even if some of the details are a little wonky. I'm just going to point out that you are fully Pepsi. You're fully Pepsi blue right now. I know, I know, I know. And for me, coming from Coke and working on Pepsi, to be honest, was a huge treat just because I do think that brand is the second best soda company in the world.

1:14:45I'd say third. Third, yeah. Coke, Coke Zero, Sprite. No, no, no. Coke. United Sodes of America sorry United Sodes of America yeah cut that whole part about ranking them United Sodes of America, Coke RC Cola Coke Zero Zevia there's a long list Pepsi Clear I think the only thing that's interesting to me is that the entire internet is like a tempered congratulations it's like you came really close to nailing this. You know what I mean? How often do we see a rebrand on this scale really go over well? Burger King? Oh, yeah, you're right. Sprite. Sprite. I mean, Sprite was smaller. Even the new 7-Up is pretty nice.

1:15:34Oh, new 7-Up bangs. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. New 7-Up. But it's hard to do. Oh, it's really hard to do. And again, I'm not taking anything away from these people and anyone who worked on this project because I know firsthand how hard it is. A lot of cooks in that kitchen. a lot of cooks, lots of things. And so to get it 90 % right is a massive achievement. And I think the internet and people are generally saying, this is good. It's just like, it's not the slam dunk that I think it could have been in just a couple quick moves. And it might evolve. There might be a couple of things that evolve. Who knows?

1:16:06What would be the slam dunk? Like bringing back that older type? I think so. I just think the type is a little weird. And I think that black is a little heavy. But again, I almost - If that type just went blue, if someone can just Photoshop that, I think it's going to make a big improvement. I need to see it in person. I do really love the cherries. Like the cherry design is really fun and kind of does remind me of some of the like 90s-ish fun package design. So I do think generally it's more fun. Yeah. And it's also just, yeah, it's just, it has a little bit more energy. And I think ultimately this is the right decision.

1:16:37And I think I'm glad that they made it and I'm happy that it's out there. Bring back the gravity though. We need the gravitation. Gravity is great. I think everyone's got to just use their own. psychedelics of choice and look at this can and it'll gravity up yeah so we have we have some details on it we're gonna just keep moving but um it was done in house and this sort of vagueness of sort of uh you know again how it came to be but it's really good and um moving on new york city gets a rebrand for the second time for the second time in a month uh new york city i thought this was a correction when i first saw it they were like oh we really fucked up we love new york uh we got a new york city logo yeah but it's a totally different ball game yeah so maybe the Two of the more iconic New York City branding marks, which is iHeartNY and NYC and Company, or NYC Go, got rebranded in the same month.

1:17:26So we're talking about New York City Tourism and Conventions is sort of the marketing organization that helps. Do you think they were aware that they both were doing this at the same time? It's a great question. It has to be. I think Mayor Adams came in. How great does New York City Tourism and Conventions feel that they did this second? They probably are upset. no I think they're happy they come in and people go like oh thank god this isn't terrible I take back what I said you're 100 % right if this had come out first I think people would be up in arms to be like how dare you because I do think this mark is really nice the original one I think New Yorkers do like it I don't think they have the affinity that they have for the Milton Glaser you know it's a good one if you asked me what's the NYC and company mark I would not be able to tell you until I saw this I'm like oh yeah it's that like chunky and bled out Yeah, it's on every taxi.

1:18:14They left their Sharpie on the page too long. It's on every taxi. And so I do see it a lot. And I think it's, to be honest, it doesn't have the history that the sort of Mel and Glazer mark does. But I do think New Yorkers, like, we appreciate this mark. I don't know. I think there's an affinity for it. And maybe it's not like, you know, maybe if it was around for another 30, 40 years, I think maybe people would be sort of up in arms about it changing. but they did change it and there is a new there's a new company so it has a new name new york city tourism and conventions really rolls off the time yeah yeah yeah and i guess the idea is that it's it's dedicated to sort of maximizing travel and tourism opportunities throughout the five boroughs building economic prosperity and spreading the positive image of new york city worldwide which i think is interesting right because we were talking about the marketing alliance campaign and like all that work which is like yeah it's trying to help new yorkers help new yorkers and And then this is about tourism.

1:19:11And it's just like, yeah, these two things coming out of it right around the same time feels very bizarre. I don't know. It just feels like Mayor Adams came in. We're redoing the whole damn city. Yeah. Yeah. He's like, hey. A whole refresh. Yeah. First day on the job. He's like, okay, let me see all these logos. Let me see all these brand systems. Hey, Sonate's sitting right. Let's go. Finally, a mayor with his priorities. Graphic design. He's just really catering to us. Yeah. Pandering, really. this new identity was done by uh two by four i believe they had done the original one so i think they were sort of i think someone else did oh really is that true in my research i think it was oh your research is uh i didn't do much research um i forget was it wolf owens oh you're right it was wolf owens that did the original i read through this yeah no this is why we sent how dare you you said research yeah how dare you um i i my first reaction to this is it feels a little and you know i don't hate it uh it feels a little bringing the noise bring it to funk yeah a little west side story public uh yeah public theater uh that wasn't that pentagram i think i think it's freaking tough you know new york you gotta be tough to make it here you've got what's tougher than stenciled tight yeah it does have a little bit the stencil thing is a little funny but i do like like some of the lines that the through line on the e to the o so the t is nice the diagonal line from the W or the K is nice so they have good alignment going on it's nice and clean it's got some like cool letter forms that are maybe not expected in a stencil type yeah if you love grids yeah that R that R is real nice that R is nice the C is kind of funky so it's it's definitely evolving some stuff I gotta say my most favorite part of all of this locks pink I fucking love the color palette yeah the color palette the color palette with the pictures against it okay I looked at this and maybe alright so I moved out of Brooklyn the right answer i've lived in the color palette i've lived in new york for 24 years i moved here in 20 or 1998 i moved out of new york full-time at the end of january to go to the catskills for a few months we're just hibernating and chilling out and then we're going to get an apartment back here but i saw this and so maybe i'm like nostalgic already for my two months of missing new york got it yeah but i'm like yeah fuck that coffee cup blue is amazing the fairy orange i'm like yeah you really have the subway green all of it just the thank you bag red it's good i'm like all of it just like just like really resonates with my heart and it feels good and then all the complimentary like locks pink and liberty green and skyline blue sure that's maybe the biggest stretch rockaway sand feels fun though but like all of it just i was like yeah that feels new york yeah uh as a jewish like really excited as a jewish new yorker i feel really seen with The locks pink.

1:21:55Yeah. No, I do love this stuff. And when you talk about brand strategy and post-rationalization. I love this one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is the first one in history of likes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Strategy sometimes is really an important part of brand building. And obviously, sometimes it can be overblown and over-intellectualized. But sometimes you are working on a palette and you're like, I need something to draw inspiration from. And maybe sometimes you have a palette and you're like, oh, that kind of feels like taxi yellow. And then you're like, well, that's blue. we bring in a blue that's kind of like the coffee cup and then you're just like okay cool off what else is like in the fairy orange i'm like oh shit that's right yeah i do think this is a little bit of your like i just moved out of new york and like i'm living outside the city kind of nostalgia yeah hitting just right yeah and but i and to be fair i've been in new york uh pretty much once every two weeks for the past two months but no i i do think there's a sense of like when you live here or when you like sort of move away from it it's like man new york city you know that that's the greatest city in the world i'm gonna say new york gritty runway black is kind of bullshit yeah no no there's that's the only one i was like really rock away sand i'm like you know like it's the city at night yeah never sleep in black yeah yeah yeah nighttime black no it is i do think overall it's really nice i do think the sort of like what i like about it is is the uh sort of the street grid yeah and sort of using that as a uh you know as as a type system and sort of bringing that through the logo the walk signal with the logo on it's pretty cool too yeah I want to see that.

1:23:19Is that a thing where you can do that? No, that's a great mock-up. A little LEDs on the box signals? They need to make it. With messaging would be cool. Make it real. Yeah. No. So I think it's pretty good. Yeah, it looks pretty good. Yeah. And I think it's a nice mark. I think there isn't as much affinity, like I said before, for the original mark. So I don't think people are going to be quite as upset. They're not really bringing it through to the poster, though. That poster is just kind of. Yeah. Like, I'm missing a little bit of that in the typeface. It just feels. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if I need stencil everywhere.

1:23:47but like maybe a little more of that but it's a lot of stencil yeah a lot of stencil i also don't know how well this scales down i hate to be a weirdo like that but like you know it gets really small yeah you fucking weirdo i want to see the graffiti arts i want to see the graffiti artist just starts tagging this everywhere yeah just to really piss the city off with their own vandalism yeah you made it a stencil bro yeah i mean i got a stencil stencil got a stencil my favorite part is to read the brand new comment section shout out to armin who uh yeah people uh you're never going to believe it but they're not really feeling this um but i do think you're completely right about the time of this thing if this had come out two months ago i think people would be up in arms after the sort of i love ny or we love nyc debacle this is like this is just gonna it's just the perfect time to slide this one i'm gonna say something might be controversial yeah a lot of people complain that the city changes they complain how many friends i have like i don't know it's just not the same anymore that bar isn't here anymore that's not and i'm like no fucking shit this whole city is built on change it's the the thing that is the dna of new york is that it never stays the same it's never content it's never complacent it's constantly going to be tearing shit down and building shit up and it's never going to be the same so like we can't be too precious about all this branding and shit because like it's just part of who we are and what this is all about like you go and leave for two months and i come back and my neighborhood's got my old neighborhood's got like four new weed shops and it's totally different zaza depot yeah i love the zaza vacation of new york city yeah yeah zaza or us wait what is zaza it's weed it's so it's zaza is like a nickname exotic weed and and and i didn't i wasn't aware of this kevin brought this my attention he's so cool for whatever reason though because like in new york city they you can't call it like weed depot or right right right weed or us or something so yeah but zaza has taken has become the number one slang term.

1:25:42It came from drill rap. Okay, yeah. Is that true? Yeah. Yeah, but I guess it got approved. It's cleared to put on a sign in the street, I guess. Oh, that's cool. So every single place is Zaza City, Zaza Rouse. Oh, I got to take a look for this button. You got to just take a gander at all the new shops. And they all call it Zaza. They've got amazing design. It's so good, Zaza Diner. We also got to, speaking of Jeff Greenspan, who we mentioned earlier, who had a lot of great projects. He helped name a weed shop in Union Square called the Union Square Travel Agency. Oh, wow. It's like, oh, I like that.

1:26:16That's really nice. Yeah, that sounds nice. That's good. That's good. Yeah, no, the weedification of New York is really funny to see. That's too much. Yeah, no, it's interesting. But I do think this branding, Justin, I have to disagree with you there. Designers, we have to complain about things like this. This is like a part of our DNA. Grow the fuck up. This is like everything we stand for. this is like we we have to freak out we have to throw a temper tantrum also design it better and why is it like we always have to shit on everybody else's work well that's it's like trying to make us feel better because we're better yeah better than they are that's how it's just we would have done it we would have done it better it's bullying no you wouldn't have you would have the same fucking clients they had and you would have made the same shit now we're different yeah it's a little bit like that too yeah that's we're built we're built yeah we're built different we We're built in a favor for tough.

1:27:06Yeah, yeah, yeah. We would have dominated those clients and changed their opinions and actually gotten something much, much better out into the world. No, I like this. I like this new stuff. It's good. And I don't really give a... I'm not a fucking font weirdo. Wait, wait. We haven't talked about font weirdo yet. Yeah, yeah. Ice-T dropped the greatest tweet of all time. Wait, can we just read that? Let's get to that. Yeah, we forgot about that. So Ice-T tweeted, I do not give a flying fuck about fonts. Weirdo shit. Okay, first of all, how am I not wearing a weirdo shit hat right now? I thought you guys would have one ready for me when I came in.

1:27:38Weirdo shit in Comic Sans. Because I had to read what this was all about. But basically, he put a quote out there in Comic Sans. And someone said, yo, bro, that font, you got to use impact. I don't even know why that guy was like, you got to use impact, bro. And then he goes, I do not give a flying fuck about fonts, weirdo shit. I'm like, can we just make a weirdo shit hat? first off that's facts yeah second of all how dare anyone online shame the use of comic sans now yeah now comic sans is back it's back in a big way oh yeah stop with the comic sans shaming i did a working out working logo in comic sans on a dad hat and it was just like it really it always hits i love this tweet so much and when i when i first saw it and uh i was like i really hope this is real and then i went on his twitter page which is final level for some reason that's his like twitter handle and it was like yeah right there at the top is a you know i do not give a fine fuck about fonts and uh i just knew that the design community was uh some people are actually like like offended by this i just thought this was not being a baby just jesus ice tea he doesn't have to worry about yeah he doesn't have to give a fuck about fonts he's fucking ice tea but can we just put this as tweets from other people can we just make this like a michael bay root tweet yeah no this is the best tweet i have seen some weirdo shit um designs some like logos and stuff that you could you know could potentially put on a hat but like i i think this is incredible and my you know shout out to t we posted a meme on our uh instagram page and he liked it oh that's good nice yeah so uh the validation is all you need i thought really good about hell yeah we're uh this is this is the peak yeah yeah i don't know where we got we gotta shut it down it's so good we're gonna get better than this but it's like i love someone also put like his face on a black background and like nice serif type this quote this tweet yeah i hope this doesn't start like a wave of like celebrities or people trying to like use graphic design to get attention because i feel like anytime i disagree that would be really good for our brand oh you're right i take that back that'd be really good everyone trying to boost their own brand by graphic design terrible for design agency i think this would be i think this actually would be good if i if i was a celebrity pr person i'd be like hey actually anytime a celebrity talks about graphic design like there's this giant community of people that like yeah love the either love it or hate it because like kanye says something about a font once and like it's like printed on a million things uh john mayer mentioned fonts on something and like they're just like anytime we just anytime any celebrity or anyone that has notoriety is like talks just acknowledge that we said things that we do exist yeah oh my god that's amazing it just is can someone and if uh if it's not you guys here uh somebody who's listening yeah one of the 10 of you yes um can you please design an iced tea typeface now that would be actually really like what is the iced tea font for someone who doesn't give a flying fuck about fonts that's a great idea see this is justin's justin but it could be like it could have multiple different styles in it if you really don't care it just could be a mismatch like a little bit like a ransom note it could be only made up of windows 95 fonts but it's like just a haggard bunch of them together yeah no No, it's true.

1:30:46We need, he needs his own typeface. Yeah. I don't know why I said it like that, typeface. Yeah. It's a great tweet and a great moment in graphic design history. And so shout out to him. I know you got to get out of here just quickly. We'll hear about a few more. Heinz and Absolute paired up together. Nostalgia. Heinz came out with a vodka, tomato vodka pasta sauce. And to sort of announce that, they partnered up with the most famous vodka brand, which is Absolute, and brought back some of those 80s, 90s advertisements, which obviously all featured the silhouette of the bottle with Heinz in front of it.

1:31:21So Justin, famous ad campaign. This is such an ad nerd. Ad guy. Such an ad nerd layup and just pandering to the highest degree. Yes. I think for people who grew up in advertising or big fans of it, this will resonate. I don't know if the general public knows or loves that campaign as much as all of us dorks do. Yeah. But I really liked it. and I was like, oh, that's cool. That's good that they brought it back. All right, good. It's just something you missed. Totally. It's one of the greatest ad campaigns of all time. And yeah, you're right. Ad guys and people that appreciate advertising. So it's vodka sauce?

1:31:53It's vodka sauce. So that's the sort of concept. And it works. I don't know if it works tremendously. Kevin always gives me crap because I always say things are like good but not great. It's always like a - You could have went further. But I also hate that it has to be either a slam dunk or garbage. and truth is most things land somewhere in the middle. It could be a layup. It could be a mid-range jumper. I think the intention of this is great. It's a floater from the paint. I do think this is like a fairly easy win, right? Because you're just tapping into something that people love. We need the bloody...

1:32:24Well, you can't overthink it either. We need the Bloody Mary mix now. Oh, now you're... See, now we're... Canned cocktails. Matt Hines. Yeah. Canned cocktail, Bloody Mary mix. Yeah. That's smart, man. I'm into this. I definitely would like to try it. I definitely think it... Listen, it got attention. Because if they were going to launch it without Absolute, it's kind of like whatever. It's just vodka sauce. But to do it with Absolute was super smart. And then you have that Heritage step into. Oh, yeah. I'm sure. I can't live it as use Heritage. I'm sorry. Yeah, yeah. I'm sure that the canned Bloody Marys is coming.

1:32:53Yeah. It's got to be. If not, we're putting it out in the universe. I don't even like Bloody Marys, but I want to see what happened. I also like how they took the Heinz sort of packaging and made it blue. That feels like a nice little nod to Absolute. Oh, yeah. And so, yeah, I just feel like this is a job well done. And yeah, maybe pandering to Justin and I a little bit. but I think, listen. Just a couple of geezers. Yeah, just a bunch of guys. Ed Admin. Back in the day when things were really visual, not overcomplicated with that. Yeah, these new digital ads, fucking pre-rolls. Back in my day, I drank a scotch and went to work and we came up with good ideas.

1:33:29And we drew it in a Sharpie, transparent, tracing paper. Tracing paper. We put a square around the border so you knew it was going to be an ad. You had to really sell an idea. Oh my God. Yeah. I was looking at us like, what the fuck are you guys talking about? Like, that's what you had to do. You did marker comps. Yeah. Sharpies. Yeah. Congratulations. You played with markers all day. Yeah. You've seen Mad Men, right? That was like Justin and I. Yeah, that was pretty much. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wait, let's get to the twisted tea. This is an idea I feel like I would have had. So this is, this is the most important idea we have to talk about here today.

1:34:00And it doesn't even feel real. Cause that looks like clearly a comp, the worst comp I've ever seen. And I will say, So good. We got to introduce it, which is it's twisted to vasectomundis, right? Am I saying that right? I don't know. It's a mouthful. It's got to be. According to urologists, March is the busiest time of the year for vasectomies. First and foremost, where does that come from? It's got a link. It's got a link. So it's got to be true. Okay. Some doctors, I didn't click that link yet. Yeah. Shout out to Kevin for the preparation and for me for not doing my homework. Some doctors report up to 30 % increases this time of year, with patients saying that they're scheduled the procedure to coincide with March Madness.

1:34:42Recovery after a vasectomy requires a few days of rest and no strenuous activity, making a perfect excuse to sit on the couch and watch sports balls while on the mend. That's a Rudy. That's a Rudy line right there. Oh, this is from the Dialine? Shout out to the Dialine, the best packaging website in the world. Twisted Tea is helping the recently snipped comfortably recover while watching the action on the hardwood this March Madness with specifically designed underwear called the Sectamundis. The unique pair of boxers include two integrated pockets designed to hold cans of Twisted Tea. Guys on the injury list can ice their sore nuggets hands-free and make fewer trips to the fridge for a cold beverage.

1:35:22Justin, what do you think of this? I love it. It's so fucking stupid. It makes me so happy with how idiotic it is. Yeah. I love dumb shit, but actually I've had friends who've gone through this and they're like, yeah, it's super painful and it's not very comfortable and you do have to ice them. So if you're going to go and ice them, this is a great way to keep your nads cool, but not a great way to keep your twisted tea cool because you're putting it at the warmest part of your body, which I learned in Little League, in your pants is always 98.6 degrees. Oh, wow. So if you're cold and you're out in the field, you put your hands to warm them up in your underpants.

1:35:57So Justin walked into the studio with two twisted T's in his pants, tall boys, you know, sort of icing down his nether regions. Yeah, we got to open these. Yeah, you got to go. I got the half and half if you want to. Yes. So I'm, I got to finish my Pepsi, but yeah, for sure. So I'm looking at the research. We got Dr. Ackerman, who's a radiation oncologist, said his office is already seeing a spike in patients coming in for effective surgery. Patients that we are seeing within our practice around this time of year may then bring up the fact that it's March Madness in NCAA tournament. So these are pretty smart men here, knowing that they're going to be a little bit out of work potentially.

1:36:37So they're timing it just right so they can watch as much basketball as possible. It's really funny. It's great. I mean, the first two days of the tournament, it's all fucking day. Yeah. It's like 12 to, I think, 9 or 10 p.m. So I think if you're going to do something that's silly and you're going to tap into an insight, like this is a way to do it. And going back to us, it's like talking about just putting ideas out there. I don't even know if they actually made these based on this comp or they're making them as people are getting them. I don't know. The absolute worst comp in the history of comps.

1:37:10And it's basically two pockets that are on the front of the boxers and then you're supposed to slide the cans in there. Sure. So you're supposed to be on these pain meds and be drinking twisted teas. Yeah, exactly. Because surely you're getting a little... Yeah, a little loopy. Yeah, a little something-something off the prescription shelf. Yeah, I think what they're missing here is the nickname of your painkillers with a twisted tea. But it does say on the boxers itself, in giant bold italic type, keep it twisted. So maybe they are just alluding to you having a hell of a time watching these games.

1:37:45If I just got snipped, I don't think I want to keep it twisted. You know what I'm saying? it seems like poor medical advice it's actually the opposite of what you got done yeah you gotta keep them gotta keep them in line yeah you gotta need these pockets hold 12 ounce cans of twisted tea near and dear to your tea bags icing and soothing to help you recover from quote cutting down the nets wow wow just insert a couple of cold cans lay back and relax see they had fun with this this we might know what this reminds me of yeah we might have to cut this yeah but did they ever make it did buzzfeed ever make buzzfeed uh no no our greatest idea that was the greatest idea they came in was buzzfeed oh i know i've seen slides we have the the original drawing is it framed yeah i don't think it's framed but it's it deserves to be in in storage for uh for for framing purposes for sure so good um this is an incredible merch extension i feel like twisted tea has come out with some things they they were well they had a big moment last year where um it was like that gas station moment and there was something was saying you know what a gas station moment is um it was like security footage at a gas station and i think there was something said one customer said something else to another customer and they took a twisted tea and like bop just hit it oh wow smash it right over their head it is a funny brand and it's like it got a lot of play off of that then there should be like more shame with drinking it but there's none like i have so many friends are like yeah man i love twisted tea can i tell you something okay i've never had a twisted this is my first this is my first one and delicious it's pretty terrible Can you pass me the half and half?

1:39:17I don't think it's as good as the regular one. The half and half one is gross. Try the regular one. Maybe I need to try the regular one. Yeah. It's a really interesting brand because the sales of it are huge. Yeah. It's an absolute monster. Wait. Try this. It won't taste any other. I mean, you could just, you know, I could have it. Drink out of the can. It's fine. And it's not an iconic brand. No. The packaging is kind of terrible. The packaging is terrible. But it... The half and half is not as good. It's not as good. No, it's bad. Try the regulars. one of the things about it that i do like is that it truly doesn't give a fuck it just has that sort of energy of like yeah we're not we're not here to try to impress you graphic designer it's like the cargo shorts of beverages yeah i mean look at these they put up they put images on this can yeah of like i've just a couple couple bros yeah Jason S from Zanesville, Ohio in a pool float.

1:40:02I feel like the two of you, if you start going hard on the twisted, you'd be a big sponsorship opportunity. I would love to get an alcohol brand sponsorship. Also, I'd love to get a DraftKings. Oh, DraftKings? Yeah, I got some action on the Miami Hurricanes this weekend. You get$100 in free bets with the promo code front and center. Yeah, we're ready to do the ads. I love me some gambling. Oh, me too. Justin's a big gambler. Yeah. Hell yeah. Bachelor party, I remember. Oh, Darren's bachelor party. Oh, Darren. It wasn't your bachelor party. yeah um kevin i'm leaving i'm hanging for the piss bomb get that youtube yeah yeah yeah a big moment uh no so this uh sold out uh first set of drops uh sold out but get it come back to our last drop on april 1st 2020 i don't know if they need the button there was yeah that copywriting really but yes um cut down the nets but but it has nothing to do with balls yeah yeah so um if you are uh you're hearing this and you're like man i really want to get these i guess um it's too late uh but um it's a brilliant idea and look at the last line all the sect of undies ship by 420 yeah i mean they're really deliberate with this opportunity to to tie in the zaza how does how does they not have a twisted tea with cbd or thc yet i mean they they really are just rocking they're coming up we're really good at coming up with line extensions yeah i mean twisted tea i don't think they need much advice from us i think they're just rocking and absolutely i think it's like i think you gotta like do it it's a diy situation yeah this in a blunt yeah i think um twist the t if you need ever considering a rebrand yeah no i mean listen we would love to in some ways i almost think it doesn't need it i'm gonna say something i'm gonna look around here it doesn't need it but like i don't know if any of your work is as silly as all of you are oh that's fair and i think you need some opportunities for even more silliness we got to be you're really like you guys are a bunch of goofballs we make really fucking beautiful work thank you yeah we try to uh have uh yeah we try to keep the silly gooseness to the to the pod but yeah i mean listen we we uh we should be sillier we should be sillier in our work but i think we we bring it at you know at the appropriate times and i think sometimes at the appropriate times and appropriate brands yeah and some brands appreciate our silliness and some brands are not interested.

1:42:21And we have to evaluate that upon kickoff. But no, we are - More silly clients. Yeah. And I think we love to, we leave this silly ad stuff to the ad guys. We're in the brand building world. But I agree. I think more brands need to be more silly, have more personality, have more fun and the spirit of sort of, yeah, whether it's 80s or 90s or 2000s before things got very sort of uh capitalized yeah if you want a good pun joke you've guys got that yeah we got not at all nonsense joy delight whatever you want i'm just gonna i'm gonna house this fucking twisted tea yeah i'm getting twisted kevin's gonna be twisted um i think if you work this hard with four four iphones borrowed from your uh co-workers yeah setting it all up getting all the angles this is you guys really should post this view because it's and there's like one that has a case with the smiling face on it that's You want to take a picture of it?

1:43:18Yeah, you put it below so it actually looks like a face. Yeah, no. I mean, this is the magic behind the show. But Justin, thank you for coming. Of course. I would say we should pour one out for Chanel West Coast, but I already did on your rug. Yeah. Yeah, before we leave the show, a sad moment. Moment of silence. A moment of silence. Yeah. She didn't pass. After years of being part of the Ridiculousness family, dot, dot, dot, it's time for me to step off the red couch damn so chanel west coast is uh is is leaving ridiculousness and uh it's a sad day for all of us here in the studio well i gotta say like robin big was my favorite show yeah such a good fantasy factory is my favorite show and i got to go to the fantasy factory before the disassembled it and i got to jump in the phone pit and then the person who invited us there said don't stay in there too long a lot of weird shits happened in there yeah they have a lot of parties there yeah definitely have been some i couldn't get out and i'm just like i don't want to touch anything and i cannot get out of this one bit uh we did a project where robin uh rob dyrdick was an investor and uh after the show i'll tell you some of the stories about him legendary and uh the legendary zoom we had where he talked about how he breaks down his time and to be the most efficient version of himself oh in a very tony robbins way that's amazing i saw chanel west coast perform uh she was spitting bars before oh yeah that's right she opened for riffraff oh wow it It was a fucking, that's a match made in heaven right there.

1:44:44Fucking crazy shit. Yeah, that was my first thought when I read this. I was like, great for Chanel. She can finally go back to, go back to that rap career. that's amazing. Um, uh, and I also saw a clip yesterday. One of the greatest moments in, uh, sort of fantasy factory history is when, uh, they're playing dodgeball and, uh, she gets pegged in the face and you could tell that it really made her like upset and kind of hurt a lot. And she was trying to like be tough, be tough for the camera. And then Rob was really sorry. and then immediately, no less than like 20 seconds later, kicks a ball, smashes her in the face, and she just immediately starts crying.

1:45:18And if you've never seen that clip, look it up. It is genuinely laughing. She's a trooper. And we salute her service for all those years on the red couch. She's got a great laugh. Just laughing. Yeah. Just laughing. That's kind of all you need sometimes. Absolutely. I think that's a good way to end the show. Sometimes you just need someone to laugh at you. Yeah. and that's that's all that's my sales pitch for being married that's true or a relationship yeah that's something that I think about a lot on this podcast I convinced a friend I'm just gonna tell you I convinced a friend to get married and not intentionally but he said you know like what's it like being married and I said well here's my theory you know if you're single you can be in a room by yourself and fart and it just smells but if you're in a relationship and you're in a room with someone else and you fart they get really grossed out and you laugh hysterically wow and that's kind of a metaphor for life wow that's really beautiful thank you that's my tony robbins right there yeah yeah zig ziglar zig ziglar if you could just put that in a nice quote with some serif typefaces because i i give a fuck about fonts yeah uh thank you for coming uh thank you for telling all your stories and uh thanks buddy and and uh the fans check out justin uh instagram working not working.com if you're not on it uh anything else you want to plug sign up for free at justingnock.com.

1:46:35If anybody wants me to give a talk at their schools about how not to get a job, I will tell you all the ways to make sure you don't blow it trying to get a job. I could also tell you that as well, but from the opposite. But where being yourself inhibits you. That's not true. Always be yourself. Drinking twisted teas on the job. It worked out for the best. Keep it twisted, guys. Yeah, keep it twisted. Keep it twisted. Thank you. Peace.

1:47:03Keep on it, only you

1:47:08See I'm riding high

1:47:14Kinda broke the scene, y 'all So I got five I got five Flayer, give me some groove and I might just chill But I'm the type that likes to light another joint Like Cypress Hill I still do these spin loogies when I puff on it I got some bucks on it, but it ain't enough on it Go get the S-T-I-D-E-F Nevertheless, I'm held up fresh rolling joints like the cigarette So bad to cross the table like ping pong I'm gone, beating my chest like game tone And some wrap my lips around the fogey And when it comes to getting another stogie Fools all kicking like Shinobi Know me ain't my homie to begin with It's too many hands to be Probably let that micronutrient fit Unless you pull out the fat crispy Five dollar beer on the real before it's history Cause we be having them vacuum lungs And if you let them eat them a free you hell of dumb That I'm dumb I come to school with a tailor on my earlobe Avoiding all the flick teasers, geezers and weirdos Got me going off the land like where the bomb at Give me two bucks you take a puff and pass my bomb back Suck up the dank like a slurpee The serious bomb will make a nigga go delirious like Andy Murphy I got more growing pains than Maggie Cause homies snag me to take the dank out of the baggy I got five on it, got it good, got it good, let's get heat.

1:48:32I got five on it, messing with that ain't no weed. I got five on it, it's got me stuck and I go back. I got five on it, let's go half on a side. I'll take sacks to the banks whenever I can, don't need no creps.