The Ragged Edges of What’s Possible: with Max Ottignon

0:00Yeah, we're here to take you down. And yeah, it's the spirit of center. Actually, you may think that I'm a guy that supports industry positivity, you know, we're all in this together. I don't think that at all. It's all a show. Yeah, I think you got the wrong idea about yourself. No, no, no. That's the brand that I portray and the character that I put out online. I think you need to try a little harder on that. No, I know. Exactly. It's 2026. People don't believe in brands anymore, Alex. Yeah. Well, I'm here to crush, crush and destroy. This is a horrible bit. This is like the worst bit you've ever opened with.

0:38Well, I mean, the truth of the matter is actually I have thought about this.

0:42Max Ottignon:About tarnishing my legacy? Not tarnishing your legacy. It's actually the opposite. The truth of the matter is it was only like halfway through this podcast where I realized we're doing free promo for the people that we do go up against in most of our work. it's like yeah it's like mcdonald's doing a uh you know sort of a show about wendy's and burger king and like all these other fast food establishments but you know what max just like you a rising tide lifts all that's it boats that's it so that's the real truth is i never even considered that we were doing something that was like helping people that or never considered that we were doing something that was helping other people but hurting us i don't think you're hurting you unless you i agree unless you start crushing people very obviously on the show yeah no we haven't done that yet only a couple times and we first time for everything no it's a you're right um you're leading with positivity max i can't even get you to crack this is going to be really tough i'm gonna spend an hour trying to get you freaking dry bloke over here right off the plane we'll get the jet lag will kick in and i'll be all over the shop do you need some coffee yeah uh i've done two already right yeah i think max is it'll get worse i think it'll get worse i think we're made i think i'm not seeing you nervous my hand shaking no i know you're like what's gonna happen well nothing puts a person at ease uh talking into a hot mic then you know saying that we're gonna ruin them yeah and then laughing now with the cold dead eyes behind the laugh that's the scary bit We edit and, you know, I do a good job.

2:18Yeah.

2:18Max Ottignon:I trust you. Thank you. You trust Kevin and not me. Is that bad? Should I not trust you? No, you should. Okay. You should trust everyone, Max. We're trustworthy. I mean, usually I do, but you're giving me a little bit of pause. I wouldn't trust Alex. I'm a fan. That's why. The truth is, when we first met, we had a date at Red Rocks. I do the thing where I wear my heart on my sleeve. And I said that there's not many people in this industry that I see and they do great work. They're good people and they have smart ideas and they communicate them without a ton of bullshit. And you're right at the top of that list, Max.

2:59Max Ottignon:I'm going to start the show. Three, two, one. Captain. That's a preamble. Horrible enthusiasm. Bad, bad, bad enthusiasm. Don't do it again, though, please. This is why we don't record before 10 a.m. Where it's not behind the veil, 9.55 a.m. here in Brooklyn. Yeah, it doesn't matter. It's early, dude. Is that my fault? Did we give you a... No, I don't think it's your fault. Alex's fault? I think it's my fault. Okay. We have our biggest client in town. So they're from the West Coast. And so they kind of come in the afternoon-ish. And so... So what you're saying is I'm being squeezed in. You're being squeezed in.

3:35Wow. You and everyone else in my life. writing a whole textbook about podcasting making guests feel good and comfortable yeah yeah yeah um that is what uh good podcasting is you you make people feel good well we have a special guest and honestly one of my favorite uh people on the planet one of my favorite design agencies in the world it's max from ragged edge welcome max thanks for having me uh i have a confession i dreamt about you last night always a good start you guys you guys had a heart-to-heart at red rocks and then you had a dream about it was the first date kevin first date was at red that's powerful stuff and to be honest i don't dream that much do you dream a lot i don't dream

4:11Max Ottignon:don't dream ever zero zero the occasional nightmare yeah i think this was a nightmare are you sleep do you think you're sleeping good i think my sleep's okay yeah how many hours usually about seven seven yeah which is obviously yeah i try to get nine or ten okay that's my sweet spot yeah but yeah maybe that's the extra two hours give you some time to dream No, but I don't dream. I rarely do. And mostly they're anxiety dreams, which I think I'd probably put this one into. Jesus. It's typically like I'm playing for the Knicks, but I can't find my jersey. Okay. Last night, I had a dream that you came to do the show with a giant entourage.

4:51Max Ottignon:That'd be sweet. That is usually how I roll. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And all you wanted to do was sing karaoke. Huh. I think that'd probably be the best podcast we've ever done. Should we do it? What's the night there? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Should we do it? And I guess, yeah, you and a crew of ragged edge people, which I guess in this dream had been twisted to be like hard rock. They do love a sing song. They like karaoke. Okay. Oh, yeah. Do you have a go-to? Yeah. I detest it. Okay. Fair enough. But the team make up for it. Yeah. We did a karaoke thing the other week, actually. Really? I didn't go. You didn't go?

5:25No. That's good. That's good. I was listening to you talk about your team and everything, And I really admire how you, you know, sort of you said, like, I am, you know, sort of have built this incredible team that doesn't need me.

5:39Max Ottignon:No, they don't. Especially for karaoke. How do you do that? Asking for a friend. They don't need me. But that doesn't mean I'm not busy, which is a weird contradiction, like the worst of both worlds, I think. Yeah. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah. You also said it was like a blow to your ego. Yeah, huge, huge. To know that they didn't need you. Yeah. When we met, I was on a six-week tour of the US. Oh, yeah. So I was away from the studio for six weeks and not really doing any sort of proper work, but just like, you know, some slacks and having coffees and little meetings and things. When I came back, I was genuinely a bit gutted because everyone just like looked up and shrugged and just carried on doing what they were doing.

6:25Max Ottignon:I was like, I hadn't been away for a day. Yeah. And the work was great. Yeah, the work was quite better. Better. Can't you take pride in the fact that you set that up? Yeah, did I though? Yeah, I don't know. I am very proud of the team. You put the pieces together. Yeah, I'm very proud of the team. It's cool. But building the pieces and setting it up, and I totally relate where it's like, it feels good, but not quite as good. Not as good. No. But Ragged Edge, 18 years? How long? I've kind of lost count. I think it's coming up 19. Dang. Wow. Yeah, it's a long time. Yeah, yeah. two decades yeah yeah and i think that is the dream though for me and and being completely honest like i want to yeah take steps baby steps yeah further away from the work and and it's hard because i love the work that's why i got into this thing and so when i was hearing you talk about it i was like this is possible but also sad yeah yeah those things are true yeah so when you started ragged edge you were formerly an agency guy right you were on yeah i was i was a suit i was um yeah an account they called it a suit i was an account handler they called it a suit yeah yeah i was called a suit that's what a derogatory yeah it was a derogatory were you wearing a suit um no but you kind of there was a dress code you did have to wear like tight formal trousers and a dress shirt yeah um yeah and so what was your job as a suit um i had to i was basically i was a um client service guy yeah uh and so i was liaising between the client and the creatives the creatives basically the creatives were on one floor and i wasn't allowed up there honestly yeah well you go up there they just and like every time yeah exactly and it was mad because like we were all like dressed in our not quite suits but nearly suits and you know doing writing spreadsheets and using their bullshit uh timing plan software and stuff um like we could have been in any industry we could have been working for like a pwc or something yeah and and then you would go upstairs and you would every now and then be allowed upstairs to talk to the creatives and they were like sitting around barefoot lounging around not doing any work like hell yeah yeah smoking all sorts of different things i think maybe yeah yeah exactly what is this and why can't i be up there so do you think ragged edges you're like i'll show you guys on the on the 10th floor a bit yeah that's beautiful yeah it definitely is a bit like it's a ragged edge is the so that agency um which doesn't exist anymore was at the time had a great reputation but no longer exists was um super corporate super bureaucratic super slow they actually did have a good reputation for the work but they didn't really seem to care about the work oh shit um and ragged edge was just like the opposite it was just like well can we can we make something that's the opposite of that and I think that would be really good.

9:22Yeah, that turned out to be very good. Yeah. And so when you started, was it just, it was you and one other partner?

9:29Max Ottignon:Yeah, a guy called Matt Bland who, the way I met him, well, he was a web developer. I think they call them engineers now, don't they? Okay, yeah, yeah. But back then, just developers. And I had reached, I was like doing everything. I was basically a freelance. I left this agency and started on myself as a freelancer with my own clients. And I was trying to just do everything, like client service, the strategy, the design, the writing. And the thing I was bumping up against was everyone needed a website and I didn't know how to make websites. And Matt did. Okay. And so that was the beginning of a 19-year relationship.

10:07it beautiful how did you go from a suit to a like guy that could do all the creative work

10:13Max Ottignon:i think i was my talent was always in the creative space anyway like the things i would always get praise for was the writing and the ideas and all that stuff and i did art at school um i was good at it and then um i taught myself like design on you know just using youtube you put wow amazing and where does the name ragged edge come from i'm sure you've been asked this nine million times yeah we have and it's like one of those things it's like the joker's origin story where it's like a different he tells a different story every time oh yeah do you have multiple stories yeah oh yeah give us the worst one you got quite a few um the official one which we've kind of like post-rationalized a bit of course as you must uh is that in order to get work that works you need to push it to the ragged edges of what's possible that's like the edges of culture which feels good doesn't it yeah should we go with it let's go with the official one today yeah the official okay what's the unofficial one yeah maybe later what i love so much about your work obviously it feels fresh it feels exciting it feels new but i feel like you've spent years trying to change how people think about branding yeah what do you what what frustrates you that people seem to continue to get wrong i think all the things we as an industry complain about and And just like the idea that a brand is aesthetics and nothing else.

11:31Max Ottignon:Yeah. And for me, brands have always been about ideas. Yeah. I think a brand is the idea in the head of the person you're trying to speak to. Like that's the brand. Yeah. It's a feeling. A feeling. Yeah. And so what I've always believed in is trying to use all the different tools at your disposal to try and create something that communicates a feeling and an idea. Yeah. and obviously lots of that is design and aesthetics but it's also lots of other things too yeah um and if you have a really if you have a very clear idea of what that idea is it's much easier to then go and communicate that idea into the world it's when you say it it sounds revolutionary right yeah but i that's why i relate so much i love when you say it because i'm like yeah that's exactly how i think and feel but it's also like it's like kind of like no one gets it it's insane people call branding like the logo yeah people that are on stages we yeah our industry we do we do it yeah and i do it sometimes because it's just like so it's just it's so ingrained yeah but like yeah and i'm sure you people who watch this podcast will be like oh yeah alex called that the branding when he's talking about the logo but yeah me too i did yeah and why do we do that what do you why are we still getting it wrong why are the leaders of our own industry unaware or seemingly unclear about what we do.

12:52Max Ottignon:Yeah, it's frustrating. I think most people do get it, though, don't they? And we all know, but it's hard. And the thing people often are coming to an agency like Ragged Edge or Center for is a logo and a set of aesthetic tools. And so that's not necessarily what we sell, but it's what people buy often. Yeah. It's what they're coming for, looking to buy. Yeah, exactly. I say this a lot. I feel like 90 % of the clients come to us don't know what they're coming for. Yeah. And is that the same thing with you guys where it's like, maybe that's a high. Yeah. That seems a bit unfair, but definitely some.

13:28Max Ottignon:Yeah. I would say about half. Yeah. And it's like, I think it's because they start a business and they're like, I know I need these things. Yes. And we're high on that list. Yeah. And it's like, especially because we do so much work in consumer packaged goods, they know they need a thing that has a label. Yes. And a logo on it. Yeah. so again and they don't know how to do that they don't know how to do that they have to buy it yeah from someone yeah and then they're like let's go find those things google you know who did the ayo packaging we pop up shout out to our incredible seo which we do not pay a single penny for and then they're like cool let me email those guys and that's kind of how it goes yeah this i mean and i guess the question that i have for you and i think you talk about this a lot on stage which i've been you know sort of listening and watching um for years and now you know sort of preparation for today it's like how do we as an industry big question alert help ourselves help ourselves i think it's it's discipline isn't it and like when we talk about it what do we talk about discipline's tough and i for me when i see our industry how it represents itself to the outside world um particularly on social media but also in talks and things the things we talk about are not always the right things and mostly the wrong things and like my worst thing is getting these like pylons of rebrands and just dragging these um you know so and so rebrands i'm not going to say the names but we all know what they are and all of our industry just lays into it and all that does to me is it just makes our industry look like a joke yeah because that's the stuff that gets picked up and like i will say in it like the jaguar rebrand um or whatever a great one a great rebrand sure um like is actually yet to be seen on that one whether that will you know maybe but um i like that yeah sure that's the rebrand that everybody hears about and as a result of that people think oh well that's the stuff i'm hearing about so rebranding you know bullshit and and then what that happens we see the result of that and now like that and crack about and all the other ones and now we get when clients come to us they're like uh yeah we don't want to call it a rebrand yeah this isn't a rebrand yeah because we know what happens to rebrands and they get dragged on the internet we've seen them on linkedin yeah and they get cancelled and donald trump weighs in on them and all the other stuff and you know that's not good is it but the people that they're doing the talking about yeah we're doing it to ourselves yeah yeah yeah we're why do you yeah we hate on ourselves more than anyone does and you're right like the general public when they find out about branding it's typically because of these like tentpole projects yeah the cracker brows the jaguars and typically they're not favorable no why everyone likes to shit on them yeah why do we like to hate on our own stuff so much we're all quite competitive aren't we yeah and like we all like each other but we also we all want to win and at least like we all think we could have done a better job that's right and every time you see a rebrand you're like yeah i would have done it yeah yeah we wouldn't have done it like that we would have done this other one would have been better they should have chosen us they should have come to us and i think it's just a symptom of that isn't it yeah i think you're right which is one of the reasons also why i love that at the end of each year you do your like favorite brand projects of the year and i feel like that feels fresh to me yeah it was crazy it's crazy and i've always been a fan of of design and branding and what we do and i i don't see it as competitive i think as a lot of people do i'm not very competitive as a person you know no yeah I'm not.

17:03And I like genuinely like love the work you do. And that's part of the reason why we do this podcast is because these are people that I admire, people that I look up to, and I'm not trying to take them down despite what we were talking about earlier. But it's like that feels revolutionary in design where we are so used to being like, I wouldn't have done it that way. If they would have came to center, we would have done it amazing. And they can't do it without us. yeah that seems to be the thing of the industry when did you start doing that like listicle

17:33Max Ottignon:end of the year sort of roundup a couple of years ago yeah yeah i did like i've basically done about 10 tweets in my life and i did one of that and it went bananas yeah um okay people like this yeah and that and that's become linkedin sort of fodder as well yeah i mean i've always liked like talking about the work i want to talk about work i want to talk about the work i don't i'm like less interested in talking about you know the productivity or the process or all that stuff i want to talk about like great work because that's the thing i got into the industry for and so i want to if i'm going to be on the internet i want and talking on the internet i want to talk about that stuff yeah whether you did it or not yeah and i want to celebrate it and i want to make the industry look good because yeah that makes all of us look good and it helps us and so I think if you I think the more people that do that it just breeds more and more positivity and yeah I would love to see more of that yeah I think positivity especially in this time we're in we're like okay like you've been saying we are the industry yeah which is also seemingly makes a lot a lot of sense it's because we talk about the industry at large and it's like it's you and And Kevin and all the people that do it.

18:49And we need to, we're in charge. Yeah, we are.

18:52Max Ottignon:We literally are in charge. Yeah. We can make it what we want it to be. And so why don't we make it great? And we also need to defend it a bit. Yes, we do. I think that is something that I feel now more than ever, which is like defend the wall. It's time to, you know, kind of come out and argue or defend why what we do is so important, why it matters. Because I feel like we did that for a long time. you and I've been doing this for a while I think you know 20 years ago I think there was a narrative of like designers deserve a seat at the table and like it was a sort of industry narrative or a narrative that we deserve um to be recognized and appreciated and then I feel like we kind of got a little lazy maybe or just like we got it yep and then we're like cool we're good yep and then we've been you know sort of eating steaks and flying around private jets you know steaks yeah dude the best stakes.

19:46And I feel like now it's time to get back to work. What do you think about this, Max?

19:50Max Ottignon:I think I need bigger budgets. We've not done the private jet thing yet. Oh, you don't have a private jet? No. You got to, I mean, ragged edge on the side of a jet, especially with the new branding. That would look cool, actually. Yeah, I think you'd do great. Kevin, you got a question? Can you hook me up with your guy? Yeah, yeah. Oh, you don't have a private jet guy? So you talked about, like, I don't know, kind of like public reaction to Cracker Barrel and all these big brands. I don't know you guys were kind of on the not as big of a shit storm but like you know maybe a smaller shit storm quite a big shit storm are you talking about granola?

20:21Max Ottignon:talking about granola yeah that was pretty unpleasant at the time it was weird usually when those things well we knew the work was good and it was but it was rushed out a bit and like the client had to launch it for reasons to do with like media being booked and stuff like that and the timeline had been very truncated so the thing that actually suffered was being able to take a step back and make a plan about how to tell the story to the outside world and usually what happens when those things all those rebrands that don't work is because the stories it's not the work that's bad it's the way that the story is told got it um and launched and is bad they haven't told the right story in my opinion and we didn't quite get that right and what happened was um a few influential basically it kind of launched and overnight on a i think it was like a sunday night or something like that and then a couple of influential people got hold of it on twitter and were like granola's rebranded here's the before here's the after no explanation and so people just like weighed in yeah and it kicked off and it was this was during the sort of epstein and a bit of was it not quite iran by that stage but it was like there were a couple of big stories on twitter and i think it was the biggest story on twitter of that day for some bizarre reason i happened to be in in in in uh doha okay uh on my own uh in a hotel room on my own just like as this stuff next time i'll get yours and then um yeah i was just sat there like doom scrolling all night thinking all night yes they were just there it was infinite tweets to read they were just there was it was never the end yeah yeah yeah and like quite influential people like vcs saying this the designer should be sacked and stuff like that oh nice and it was rough and i and i was thinking like i don't think it's bad but your your brain starts to rewire and you start to get convinced actually the work's really bad and um and and i was very of course very worried about what the client would say sure would they roll it back or do something crazy like that and so that was a really unpleasant few hours um i woke up in the morning and got on the got on the phone to um the the two founders and were like how are you feeling and they were like yeah yeah rough night yeah but then what happened was they then first of all to their immense credit they were like we stand by the work we believe in it and that you know that was great to hear they didn't they weren't enjoying the reaction but they believe in they believed in the work so that was great and huge credit to them for saying that.

22:57Max Ottignon:But then what they started to see was the user numbers and the downloads. And they were like, hang on a second. Wait a minute. She sells, baby. Yeah, yeah. Wait a minute. And there was like record days, like the biggest ever day they'd had by a huge margin. And all of their graphs and all of the KPIs were just suddenly shot up. Yeah. And that continued. And there was an article that came out about the fastest growing software brands. And after Claude, it was Granola. Amazing. In that month since the rebrand. And then they went and did, they got an investment, huge 1.5 billion valuation, 125 million investment.

23:46Max Ottignon:So just like everything was working. Yeah. and so that was a horrible experience but it was also the job of a brand is to get noticed yeah if you get noticed you get more chance of getting remembered if you get remembered you get more chance of getting chosen and that's what it did it's tough to be the lightning rod sometimes but often it pays off you know yeah yeah has that has that happened to you ever before no yeah first time that hasn't that's good we've like had the odd rogue tweet and stuff which like cuts me to my core um but to get like 10 000 of them all in one go is yeah and the time to scroll and read them all which is and also no one was no one else was awake that's why i couldn't even really talk to anyone because i was just on my own and i think you're right though about sort of the the way in which people find out about something is so important because i think that same thing happened to cracker barrel right where it's just like new logo here's old logo here's new logo you know sort of they they killed the man or whatever you know so it's like that becomes the narrative and then people just want to pile on and yeah it's just like people are so you know they don't see it from a system perspective or even from a business perspective which is like hey this is the goal of this business which is to you know modernize or you know so we're going to get more downloads and if it works then then then there's no denying it is the lesson there you know sort of controversy sells or or just be brave and you know fight through it because i can't help but think about airbnb right or other brands that came out and people were like testicles you know yeah you know sort of granola sort of you know butthole you know and then it's like this is not a strategy that i would deploy but it maybe has created iconic billion dollar valuations i think what it means is that people care and the reason like the reason people hate rebrands is because they build all this they have a product whether it's airbnb or granola that they love and they build up all this emotional attachment to it and they associate that emotional attachment with the way it looks the logo and so when the logo disappears and gets changed to a thing that they don't recognize and don't know they feel like they've had something taken away from them yeah and they feel like you're that you're taking away the thing completely understandably like you're taking away the thing that they love and so they get upset about it and i understand i do totally get that and so you do have to mitigate that you have to accept that's going to happen but also you there are ways to mitigate that through storytelling yeah um and to help people understand why and i think making sure you get your story out first so that when people are critiquing it they're they have to before putting your forward their point of view they have to critique your point of view first they have to discount your point of view first kind of yeah so like getting your story out there first got it so then people then very very clearly yeah yeah people will have to sort of undo that yeah exactly exactly to have their own story and people are gonna be critical i think people hate change i think that you know again like to your point about whether they love something or even if they just are used to it yeah they don't even have to love it they're just like this is what i grew up with yeah exactly and it's just like oh that's what tropicana looked like when i was a kid and i love tropicana yeah and i whether you love it or not you're just like this is connected to my childhood yeah and like i love my mom and it's like that's what she got for me yeah and you're taking it and you're taking you've you've killed it evil branding yeah how dare you evil branding agency has uh has your inbox exploded with people being like uh we want to to be the next yeah yeah amazing it went crazy yeah everything went crazy yeah and that's got to be you know so rewarding knowing that like you stuck they stuck with it because I think that's also good partners.

27:24Yeah, good partners and hugely brave because you can't imagine that felt good

27:28Max Ottignon:for the first few hours and days of that all. No, it didn't. He won't mind me saying this, but one of the founders, Chris, he was saying basically everything we've ever done to now has all been positive. And now we've released this thing which we chose to do. Yeah. And it's created negativity. Yeah. And so he was initially quite upset about that for really obvious reasons. It's his company. But now he looks at it and it's a different story because it's been one of the most impactful things they've done as a business i think yeah and it makes me think that cracker barrel should have stuck with the rebrand definitely 100 like going back and changing it back doesn't make it better no cowards they're cowards i i agree and like the point was to help their business mature grow evolve and like we're like no yeah stay the way you were forever and like was it good what he kept like yeah there's no there's no benefit in rolling it back and i think um the uh speaking you know of like the design industry being friends and stuff i texted uh james from koto okay just asking him about like did he have any yeah you know he's had this experience a few times yeah that's good any thoughts and he was like people will forget about it in a week yeah i'm sure enough that's true yeah it wasn't a week it was a day yeah we had lisa smith on the show and uh you know the mat you You know, sort of.

28:48People are still mad.

28:49Max Ottignon:Yeah. Ten years later. Like, we posted this clip and people are like, I'm glad she can get over it. But Matt was never the same. I will never get over this logo change. Shut up. It's just like, calm down, people. But it did good for our show. You know, got clips, got listens and views. So, yeah, controversy, you know, is itself. You've got to do stuff that people feel uncomfortable with. That is the goal of the work. That's the ragged edge. Yeah, it is. It is. And like the goal of the work and like you guys, I think that's why I really always enjoy your work because you push it a bit further than is comfortable and you exaggerate and you do things that are just on the edges of, they look appropriate for the category, but they feel on the edges.

29:32Max Ottignon:And I think it makes people uncomfortable, but it means you notice it. Otherwise, they're not going to notice. I mean, I think I said this the other day, like the bigger risk is not doing something that's risky. because if you just do something that's familiar and kind of like expected no one's i can guarantee no one's gonna care no one will care no one will give a shit no one will pay attention no one notice let alone care that's the thing and so it's like the bigger risk is going that path yeah and if you take a chance and maybe it doesn't work yeah of course that is out there but if you take a chance and you take a risk and it does pay off then you um then you succeed for me like the idea that it doesn't work as well, like the risk of it not working.

30:16Max Ottignon:How many times has that actually happened? Not for us. Are there any examples? Everything we always do works. Yeah, and sometimes it doesn't get applied, but genuinely, sometimes stuff doesn't get applied well. Yeah, that's fair. And internally it doesn't get adopted and there's not enough buying internally, which means they don't really commit to it. The fact that we're still wheeling out the Tropicana example from... We need new examples. But I think that's true. like it that was that's the one that didn't work and how when when even was that 1992 yeah yeah it was in the tooth early 2000s it was a long time ago yeah 20 plus years and that the reason there aren't loads of examples of that because most of the time it works yeah let's talk about the gap remember they made that weird pixel logo for like yeah that was also like 25 years ago yeah but i agree with you like i think um more we need more examples of these rebrands gotten terribly wrong but also rebrands are you know again but they don't go wrong they don't go wrong if you do it right they go right also you had the sort of courage and i think also like you said like you knew it was good so it's like that conviction i think is really important because you're like you've made a million decisions to make it look like that we made a million decisions to do things that other companies weren't doing and like what the critique we got with that work from the like and it was only the twitter crowd really was this doesn't look clean this doesn't look like the green doesn't look like a tech green um why is there like handwriting it's meant to be a tech product and it's like all we made all of those decisions very intentionally yeah to move away from the these ai slop brands that people hate like people hate them yeah yeah yeah why do we look like a thing that other people hate yeah and then people are like it doesn't look like the ai slop that we are used to but don't forget the people onto it are other people making that AI slop.

32:09Max Ottignon:That's right. You said something great. You said, we've been making slop long before AI, which is so true. Which is like - By we, I mean, not just, not right at the edge. Not right at the edge. Not center, not center. Slop it up. Slop has been, it's just, it's a great term though, I do think. I'm really happy. It's a fantastic term, isn't it? Yeah. I like that also for a minute, it was like a slop bowls, like, you know, like a sort of - Yeah, I think that's a US thing. I heard of it. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I mean, English breakfast, that's kind of a slop bowl don't you think wow wow i'm just heaven i'm just kidding i like an english breakfast oh yeah i'm not a good english person but it's true yeah we've been making stuff that just kind of feels familiar boring yeah and the same yeah we don't need the is help do we as an industry yeah they're just here to help us make more of that i guess and uh you did this thing where you did a branding project where you're like oh i'll make a surf take a surf logo and take an illustration system and some uh live laugh live or something yeah a tagline that just felt kind of familiar and then you applied it to like a bank and a sauce and it just it worked on all of them the same yeah which is slop or a fine yeah we did it in like it was such a fun experiment we did it in like literally quarter of a day because it was for a talk and so obviously it wasn't quite prepared as i should have been and we did it with me and um becky who works as a designer on our team did it in like just as quickly as we possibly could we made this formula eyes brand and applied it to like three different you know uh like you say a tomato sauce brand and the payments brand yeah and it's been one of the most effective things we've done to just show this stuff is a formula yeah and if you do it as a formula it will just blend in and we use that we actually use that now in our like yeah exactly i mean it's brilliant i mean it really again uh so much what i admire about you is your ability to communicate things that like we all kind of know in some ways or we all feel but like in a simple and sort of inspiring way where it's like look at this design it looks good you can agree it's good or like visually appealing uh to some uh some aspect of it is is what someone would consider good yeah but the point of it is to stand out and be meaningful and different yeah and it doesn't do that if you just if it all looks gloopy and colorful and um Yes.

34:29Which is a pretty simple concept, but beautifully explained by you. I guess what's interesting, and I wanted to ask you, which is like working with AI companies that are trying to sort of automate some things and help people do things easier while still prioritizing the craft. I think it's really interesting that all these AI companies are also working with the best design advertising and creative companies they're not using their tools to make the work that sells

35:03Max Ottignon:the products no and that tells you everything you need to know they wouldn't come to ragged edge and studio dunbar and widening kennedy and you know xyz agency if they didn't need them as they need them but they also what the ai industry has done just as we all know has done a terrible job storytelling and like the word ai is kind of toxic yeah um and to the point where we were doing some ads uh recently for and we were debating like it was basically a really good shorthand to communicate what the product did was use the word ai but we're like if we put ai on the ads people are going to hate it yeah and they're like you know they're going to be graffitiing them graffitiing them on the subway and stuff like that and like the ai as an industry they've they've all they've cared about is speaking to shareholders and speaking to their like peers and they've as a result they've told this like abhorrent story about basically replacing humans with tech and taking all our jobs and people are like we don't like that and they're like why don't they like this it's like well we're threatening them essentially we're taking we're getting people to do all the things they love the most we're not talking about all these incredible medical advancements and how we're going to cure cancer.

36:18Max Ottignon:We're not talking about how we are going to sort the climate crisis using AI and tech. We're talking about how we can take designers' jobs. There's a famous meme and they're just like, why doesn't AI do the dishes? Or sort of prioritize the things that we don't want to do. And it would probably be beloved. We'd all be so excited. But instead of coming for our jobs directly and then confuse why we're upset or worried or mad about it or fighting back against it. Yeah, and so the brand we get, and I'm sure you have the same, because we've got quite a decent tech portfolio, we just get bombarded with inquiries from tech brands.

36:58Max Ottignon:How do we tell our story? How do we get this out there? How do we make people like us? And it's hard. In my opinion, you have to behave not as an AI brand. Or even a tech brand. Or even a tech brand, yeah. Yeah, and I think we don't work a ton in tech, but I can imagine it's similar to other categories or things we do work in where they have like a stigma attached to them. You're just like, ooh, people don't want this. They don't like this. So I kind of like that at times, though. I really enjoy it. Yeah, I really enjoy it. Like strategically, it's a really fascinating challenge. Yeah, it's a challenge to sort of say like, okay, everyone feels this way about something.

37:30We want to make people love it.