Unbothered: with Natasha Jen

0:28We have a very special guest in the house. thinking is bullshit talk, but I know her as someone who keeps it real and without question, one of the most legendary designers working today. Welcome to Front Center, Natasha Jen. Thank you. That was a very big and flattering introduction. Glad to be here.

0:51She's a legend of the game. Only legends on the program. I'm a humble designer. only legends in the building that's a rule of the company of the podcast i got some ice cream wow that's my design right there what a timeless work there is timeless literally i went out i didn't have to go very far to go get it you know seriously we didn't anticipate um that simple design would carry out for really for for all this time the project was done a decade ago And, you know, it was a very enjoyable process, you know, and the outcome was really great. But as you know, nowadays, brands tend to change their branding and packaging design very often, right?

1:36So we didn't know that how long this design would actually survive. But obviously, this has become part of the brand language. yeah for the listeners i just surprised natasha with a pint of van leuwen ice cream cake french ice cream i picked this one only because of the color i thought it was really great this is like free advertising free advertising yeah yeah yeah for you and just to put it right there in front of the camera right here yeah it's one of my favorite products of yours honestly i was going through all of your work thank you um i think you and i were talking about a second ago i like stuff i like brands that you can pick up in a store and uh you know bodegas yeah you can feel that you can touch, that you can experience the sensory aspect of the brand.

2:20That and also the democraticness. Like, I like that I could just go to a bodega and I don't need to go to some fancy store. I don't need to go to Soho. I could just go down to the corner store and get a beautiful piece of design. Yeah, it's not dependent on Wi-Fi or, you know, it's not dependent on technology. No, no. And I don't need to buy it for$1 ,000. It's not a sports car. It's not a piece of fashion. It's just a beautiful. It's accessible. It's accessible design that anyone and everyone can love. And then, of course, you get the delicious ice cream. There's actually a Van Leeuwen shop. You should go after we record.

2:56Right here? Right outside. Oh, wow. It just opened. It just opened. Wow. They're doing great. Yeah. They're opening up stores everywhere. Yeah. They call it like a flavored lab or something. I guess they're testing us. We're the guinea pigs. Amazing. In Greenpoint here. Amazing. yeah amazing but no it's a great project i want to talk to you about van lewen because the project when did you do this uh i think it was around 2015 2015 so it's 10 years 10 years and when you first got the gig the packaging had like tons of shit on it right like if i remember it was very claims it was like all type it had a lot of typography it had a lot of different variations um across not just only packaging but overall throughout the entire brand you know from menus to anything you can imagine.

3:44I don't know how Pentagram works, but do you pitch multiple directions? Do you pitch one idea? Was this like one of the first things that you presented? Do you remember? Well, first of all, you know, every Pentagram partner works a little bit differently. You know, each of us has our own team, has our own interest areas, has our own clients. So I can't speak for other partners but I always try to present different options and the way that I look at options and I have to say the word options isn't really not great because it feels it feels very transactional but they're more about directions meaning that you know the same problem can be looked at different ways and that's that's how I always try to frame these different directions and these directions may not become the final direction and some of them can actually be reconsidered, hybridized, you know, combined together.

4:40But, you know, I always try to present different ways to solve the problem or to answer, you know, a question. Yeah. And I think I went to the Pentagram, like, Partners Tell All. It was an AIGA event last year. Yeah, yeah. And I thought it was going to be, like, some sort of, like, salacious, like, reality show, Andy Cohen kind of thing where everyone was, like, giving secrets. Were you disappointed that it wasn't? There was no slapping. There was no drinks poured on anyone. No, no. We're very modest people. I know, I know, I know. Yes, we're very modest and polite to each other. No, I'm used to my reality housewives.

5:15Yeah, okay. That's what I was hoping for. I think we can actually have a little bit of that. If I would have hosted that event, I would have tried to cause more drama, some more chaos. Well, then you can host the next one. Please. Yes, that's my dream is to be like a reunion host. But you had all the partners there. And I thought it was so fascinating because here I am, a design studio owner, a team of 10 people. And I've always loved Pentagram, right? I've always admired the work, but I never knew how it worked. And in that hour and a half, two hours, there was a lot of behind the scenes breakdown of how it works.

5:52And so believe it or not, you're the first Pentagram partner we've had on our show here today. And you have 22 fellow partners, right? Yeah. 23. 23? 23, no. Okay. Can you name them all? I'm just kidding. If I can actually think about the website bio page layout, I probably could. Yes, no, I won't make you name them. But I thought it was so interesting. And so for maybe the listeners who don't know, Pentagram is essentially 23 small design studios or small to medium design studios, all run by individual people, a lot like Center. who have their own P &Ls, their own clients, their own businesses.

6:34And they come together to form a mega design powerhouse institution. Correct. That's correct. Designers are running the show. And how big is your team in comparison to the other teams inside of that building? So at Pentagram, the team sizes are more or less the same. Oh, really? We stay within a range from, say, a small team would have maybe five people. Oh, wow. Very small, up to, say, 15, 16. That would be considered a bigger team. And then everything in between. But we're an organization that does not pursue scale. So this idea of scale is really not that important to how we do design, to how we take on projects.

7:32But we prefer the kind of smaller teams just because, first of all, you can really curate the right people on this team. Because the working relationship has to be really intimate. And you want to know every person on your team. You want to work with them very closely. So smallness actually works out for us really, really well. And, you know, my team size ranges somewhere between, say, eight people to, say, 12. It's honestly fascinating to me because my – and we talk about it a lot on the show because we have a lot of founders on. Yeah. And we talk about sort of like finding the right number for your studio.

8:12And for me, it's been roughly 8 to 12 or around that range because I just feel like once you get bigger than that, you start to – yeah, it's hard to go to dinner together or you start to like create clicks inside of a studio and you just want everyone to be in it together. But I never realized that Pentagram had already figured this out for me, that there is a perfect size or there is a right size for a studio. It's really fascinating to me. And then you guys formed together like Voltron or some sort of Avengers. Avengers is the right analogy. To become this mega powerhouse Pentagram. To be a mega house was never and still is not in Pentagram's sort of ambition.

8:53Having lived many, many decades, you know, Pentagram is 54 years old now. I think having lived through many decades as an institution definitely helps because there's a long trail of works as well as experiences behind you, right? And that contributes part of this sort of the mega perception. But in fact, you know, we don't see ourselves that way. And we don't talk that way. We don't operate that way at all. Yeah, no, it's fascinating. And from the outside, it looks like this big thing. But when you break it apart, it's fascinating how small. We're all small. We're smallness that actually work together.

9:34And that, I think, probably leads to the great work. How many projects do you take on at a time? Depends, depends. You know, we always on my team, we always have one or two what I would characterize as this sort of mega size projects, meaning that they are, you know, they are very known brands, you know, big brands. there are a lot of stakes in the ground and it's a kind of you know full full package type of project looking at brand positioning messaging by architecture design and then design has to live in many many different places we always have one or two that type of project on the team and the rest of projects are more small to medium sizes right for for startups for example we always have a handful of them or, you know, very small nonprofits, for example, or fun projects that we take on for pro bono.

10:36Yeah. So there's always this sort of, you know, mixture. It's always a mixture. One of the things I found out at this AIGA event I thought was fascinating was that you guys all come together at some point. Because I think about this as like, what's the benefits of having all these separate teams? And you're like, well, you can learn from each other and you can kind of help each other but you also come together and you do two things you put all the money together so that no one is making more money or less money correct it's a sort of uh it's a socialist system yeah um amongst the partners it's a socialist system what are those meetings like do you are there meetings where everyone comes in and like uh do you share like how much profit and how much sort of loss and sort of like how you're doing it here?

11:21Yes, we do. We look at profit and loss on a monthly basis, you know, so it's by the office. So New York office and the partners here will actually look at our monthly profit and loss, you know, team by team, partner by partner. So we always have a very up-to-date view on how we're doing together as an office and how each of us is doing so that that that is reviewed on a monthly basis we're pretty um i don't want to say relaxed yeah about about profit and loss you know we do care about um you know running a healthy healthy business but like i said we're not going after big profits yeah um so you know um a little a little loss here and there is actually totally okay because we operate on the collective because someone else maybe having a better because someone else someone else would have a better year so it's this sort of very intricate equilibrium that we have yeah fascinating it's really it's really fascinating even for me as well because you know i have to say i contribute to the overall performance but i also benefit from it yeah right there are times when we're not doing uh super great right we're just sort of like you know floating there right but then but but then you know other partners are doing great and then they care they they sort of we have this sort of net effect that is by the collective probably take some of the pressure off right because you're like well if i'm not having the world's best year, maybe, you know, sort of Michael Beirut's kicking ass over there.

13:05Well, here's the thing. Michael Beirut did kick ass. Thanks, Michael. But I think that the pressure is more about your own pride. Yeah. As one of the members in the collective, because nobody wants to be the downer. Right. So it's that pride that kind of keeps everybody going. So ultimately, it's a kind of positive reinforcing system. But the stress actually comes out purely from that, just from your own self expectation and your own pride. That's where the stress comes in. You never hear partners sort of looking at you or your numbers, right? And you know, question, hey, we got to intervene here.

13:47You know, that does not exist. At least in my experience, in my 13 year experience at Pentagram. Well, that's amazing. I think that's really wonderful. I guess, do you feel more pressure to deliver great work then? And in comparison, of course, with all these incredible legends, right? Because there's also meetings from what I've heard that where you guys showcase what you're working on and what you guys are doing. So how often are those meetings? So the entire partnership gets together twice a year. These meetings are in-person meetings. They're, you know, four days retreat where we would we would be together for four days and there there's show and tell, um, from different partners, you know, every single day, there's a, always a dedicated session, you know, in the early evening, um, where we look at several partners work.

14:40And that is when inspirations, you know, come about. Um, that is also a little bit, uh, this sort of what I call peer pressure because, you know, So when we're really busy with our own practice, we're not looking at other partners, other teams work as deeply as what you would see in those presentations. So those presentations are really, really important to the business as well as to the general understanding about the quality that we're doing as a whole. That sounds really interesting. I have an idea for you. You should film these meetings. I feel like... and then made them podcast. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

15:22Video podcast, four days each partner. Password required. Yeah, yeah. No, we'll sell them. We'll sell tickets. Yeah, pay-per-view. Give me in there. Let me produce. Yeah, no, this is because - You're a fast thinker. Listen, you know. Yes, you're very business-minded. I mean, listen, I'm just trying to make money here, you know? Well, you're a sole proprietor. And that's important. No, it's great, but I think there's pressure that comes with that, of course, right? Absolutely, absolutely. Of course, you know, there are going to be some years where things are flowing And I imagine the release of that pressure allows you to focus just purely on the pressure of doing great work.

15:55And then you have these 23 other partners and, you know, they that that to to meet the standards of what Pentagram puts out there is kind of, you know, that pressure is probably plentiful. That is plentiful. One of my questions also that I had was about the case studies. So how do you guys decide which projects turn into case studies? Every project can turn into a case study. Every project. Every project. And the decision is really up to each of the partners, which explains why we had so many projects on our website. Well, we revamped our website. We actually parked the majority of our work into a different related site that we call the archive.

16:43And the archive is where you can actually find all the projects that are older than, say, four years ago. And then you can actually just do, you know, AI, language-based research, you know, whatever that you have in mind, right? You can say, hey, you know, show me all the red posters. And then all the red posters will actually show up. Hey, show me anything that has dogs, right? So all the images that have dogs would actually show up. But then you can then dive into each of the images and see the project behind it. So that is something that we just did on our new website. Okay. This is why people can go search this?

17:29They can actually just basically look at past work without being overwhelmed by the sheer volume of Pentagram's work. And yeah, every project can turn into a case study. It's fascinating. It's total freedom. I imagine people come to Pentagram and they say, I want to work with Natasha and I want to work with her team. But I imagine there are also some people that come to Pentagram and they're just like, I want to work with Pentagram. I have a snack company. I have a museum identity. How do they decide or who decides what projects go to what teams? Our new business team would first understand, you know, if the client saw past Pentagram projects that resonated with them, right?

18:15So if there's a connection there, then the partner and the team who worked on that project may be the most, you know, the best, you know, to actually take the new project on. But if the client does not have any particular project in mind, then we will actually have a conversation amongst the partners. Hey, you know, who's interested in this project? Who needs a new project right now? So it becomes like a pretty open conversation. If there's something really good, right, does it become contentious ever? Does people try to like… No, no, not really. I'm trying to create drama here. Yeah, I mean, I wish that we would have more drama to share.

19:01You know, like I told Alex that I'm a very boring person and it's going to be a really boring interview. I wish that we had more drama, but somehow we don't. Just nice people that care about each other. Well, let me tell you this. It's like, you know, this sort of, hey, who is the most qualified partner to work on this is a relatively new thing that happened in the last, I would say, maybe five, six years. Before then, it was a simple email to all the partners. Hey, we got called by so-and-so who would like to work on this. So whoever that responded to the email, the first would actually get a job.

19:44I'm not kidding you. wow no that's shocking that is shocking because someone comes in and like they're like i want that is shocking right but that sort of kind of you know underscores the the how chill the spirit of the spirit of pentagram you know we're really the kind of we're the opposite of meg like mega institution yeah kevin's right the dip system i call dibs you know that's it that's a system I mean, it sounds utopian. It sounds a little, it sounds insane. Yeah, it's a socialist utopian system where everyone is just nice and everyone is kind to each other. And yeah, it doesn't matter if Yale or like, you know, SNL or Ben Lewin.

20:29They're just like, oh, I want that one. I want that. I want that. Okay, you responded to the email. You got that. Oh, sorry. They responded first. You're like, oh, I was at dinner. You know, that could have been me. Well, now we can probably use AI to actually do some sort of auto reply, right? Now we're thinking. Yeah. Are there people that just work on Pentagram alone? They're not on any of the teams. They just work on Pentagram, the business? Meaning that any sort of central staff. Yes, we do. We do share a lot of the central admin level staff, such as our comms communication team is shared by all the different teams and partners.

21:09Our accounting team is shared. Our HR team, our new business team, which is pretty small. So these central functions are an IT as well. So they're shared by all teams. So this sort of like another pentagram design is that when it comes to design, it's a hyper individualized, right, by partners, by the teams. But when it comes to central support, right, we all share the same pool of great central staff. Interesting. Yeah. So if your computer breaks and Paul has computer breaks. So that means that they sometimes have to juggle a little bit because they do encounter, you know, pressing priorities from multiple teams or partners.

21:58So they have to juggle a little bit. But we somehow all learn how to work with this sort of, you know, democratic slash socialist sort of set up. You know, when to step back a little bit, when to push forward a little bit. I think we all intuitively know how to be nice. Yeah, no. Do you think other design studios should band together? This is a thought that I've had with other smaller design studios like our size. Should we pool together and try to be a socialist pentagram utopian business? That's really a fascinating question. And we actually really welcome… Competition? I would say experiments.

22:42Okay. Because Pentagram, for us, it's an experiment that started 50-something years ago that actually worked out. I'm sure that there must have been similar experiments by other designers and teams, but didn't work out for whatever reason. But that does not mean that you can't try to actually do that again. Yeah, it's an amazing experiment and it has absolutely worked, but I don't know that anyone else has tried to copy it or try to do it. No. There's not a one-to-one example out there. In my knowledge, I think that that is definitely a worthy experiment to take on. It's been pitched. More at a drunken sort of rooftop party.

23:33Roof at the party level. But once you sit down looking at the spreadsheets, right, things become… We haven't even gotten to the spreadsheets yet. As yet, yes. Which can be daunting. Which can be daunting. Yeah. But it is interesting because it's such a fascinating idea to do it this way. Yeah. Like you said, it does feel a bit like an experiment. But for 50 years, it's worked. What truly amazes me is the socialist profit sharing amongst the partners. That is the most shocking part. That actually has worked. That is always the thing that baffles people. Because people are like, you know, what if you're actually bringing in the most profit, right?

24:19Do you just take home less? Yes, we take home less. You know, that is the most baffling part. But I think that this sort of design collective can be done in other economic models, right? That is not entirely socialist. You can actually look at different ways to, you know, to share the profit or not, right? I'm sure there are different math formulas that can be tried. Yeah. Well, I think also what's interesting about it is like, you know, designers, you know, maybe profit and being the richest like monetarily isn't their goal. They want to be happy. They want. Correct. They want to make things.

24:58They want to do great work. They want to do it with people they enjoy working with. And we talked about that a lot amongst the partnership. Yeah. We talked about, you know, making, making things. I think this idea of making is so fundamental to Pentagram. And of course, making then is manifested in different ways by different partners. But we really see ourselves as a making studio, as a making company. And that is critical, too, to us. It's very different than all other companies. Is that right? No, I think, I mean, creativity and design, like I think a lot of companies are sort of oriented towards making and the joy of making.

25:38But most businesses are oriented around making the most amount of money. Well, here's the thing. It's like, you know, for us, there has to be a balance. And sometimes it's really a tradeoff there that, you know, if doing certain things brings you more joy, but you're actually making less money, be it, right? But at the end of the day, you know, we still have to be a healthy business across the board, right? And that is where the network comes in. But again, you have to also negotiate with your own with your own pride that you do want to contribute to the group. You don't want to be making losses all the time.

26:15Right. So that is something that each of us has to negotiate. Right. You have your own interests. You have your own impulses, but you're also you're you're part of a group that you're responsible for. Are there ever any trades between teams? Like if someone's like, I'm going to take Kevin and Hannah and we're going to trade them for Steve and Jennifer on your team. That sounds like human trafficking. No, it's just, you know, like a football team, you know, we're all in the NFL, you know, we're just like, we're going to, we're going to, I like, you know, a future draft pick and a couple of, a designer, a writer.

26:52We do have borrowing. Borrowing. Okay. Now we're talking about traffic. Not so much trading, but more borrowing for short term for particular reasons. If there's a talent on this team who's so great at animation or coding, for example, these more specialized skills that we can actually benefit from, then we borrow pretty freely. Okay, that's cool. So the borrowing is just a quick conversation, partner to partner, and you talk to a designer, hey, you know, is your workload okay right now? Can you also, you know, take on this work? Can we deprioritize this? And you can jump in on that. So it's all very informal.

27:47I love that, borrowing. Yeah, because I think about like, what are the benefits of having all these teams? Because it's not just that you guys pull the money, that is obviously a huge benefit. but you also all work in one building. So there's got to be other sort of benefits or sort of advantages. And borrowing is one I hadn't thought about where you're like, oh, Maisie over there is amazing with motion. Can we get her for a six-week contract or a six-day contract? Until the borrowing gets a little bit expensive. You have to pay. You have to pay. No, it's not about paying. It's more about workload.

28:21It's more about that. you thought you thought the borrowing has ended meaning that okay we agreed that this whole this whole thing will be done by friday right right exactly but then you know next wednesday you walk up to a designer this the designer is still doing doing it you're like hey what's happening oh hey i just got pulled into this over and over again right you know that that that that that does happen yeah but but that's never a huge problem and you just have to actually go figure out you know how to how to kind of reprioritize things and making sure that yeah other projects are done too so i love it is there anything else that people would be surprised to know about pentagram in terms of like the you know sort of this this model and these benefits and these teams while working together there's this sort of pretty pretty fixed perception on pentagram that it that is we're you know we're massive we're we're a mega you know we're we're slow you know we're not cool right you know and i think that the last thing is very subjective you know like what what is cool yeah yeah well you know commenters on instagram yeah there there there's a lot of you know small sort of memes yeah like out there right that you see here and there um So like, you know, this week I just came across a diagram.

29:41It's a quadrant, okay? It was created as a joke, okay, by somebody like a mean journalist type of person, okay? So the quadrant goes, the upper half is good vibe. The lower half is bad vibe. And the left is traditional. the right is like new or you know cool or something right yeah so pentagram is situated at the lower left quadrant which is bad vibes and traditional okay so so so so we we looked we we saw it right we we laughed but we're not really bothered by that i think this is sort of another quality about us is that we're not so sort of entangled with this whole media and sort of critiques on who you are and what you're not whether you're cool or not because we care about work and we do know that there are a lot of things that we can really reconsider right you know um because time is evolving you know the landscape is evolving ways of working is evolving like we were very cognizant of that but but but yeah like this sort of you know uh bad vibe you know they hate you because they hate you yeah traditional you know like sure yeah we don't really care well did you guys hear that out there you meme generators natasha saw your meme and she's unbothered.

31:19All right. You know, unbothered and they have a good job. Exactly. Yeah. They, they saw it, but they are unbothered. It's where we're not bothered. You know, you know what you need to make is a pentagram meme account. That's really fight fire. That's another opportunity. Yeah, no, I think we got, well, there's a lot of opportunities to fight, fire back, you know, people that would be unexpected. You know, you should get the official account just to be like, we are unbothered by this. Exactly. Yeah. Official statement from all 24 partners. Or, well, you know, you basically just offended 23 partners and then will never take you on as a client.