Jessie McGuire — Managing Partner of Thought Matter & Winner of the Cooper Hewitt National Design Award for Communication Design

23:18Then another project would come in. And so we were doing work with Bob Green, who was Oprah's trainer at the time. And so Bob Green had something called the best life, which was a large program for, I guess, weight loss, but it was really about foods would get like the best life badge and they would be a part of, you know, being a healthy food. But that was a really great project because I got to see a little bit about what it was like to work for like a celebrity like Oprah Winfrey, even though you weren't at all working for Oprah Winfrey.

23:56Claire:Yeah. Yeah. Fair enough. So is it the first time you kind of saw a true sort of articulation of the brand rather than just the advertising and the comm side of things? Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Interesting. And is that what I take it? That's what you sort of fell in love with more than the advertising side? Yes. Yeah. Because we also got to work on a wine brand called Hobnob, which I think still exists, But Hobnob was a wine that the distributor wanted it to not only have like a campaign, but he wanted a visual identity with the label. He wanted us to dig into like, who's the drinker of this wine and how do you really help them like see themselves in the wine?

24:42And it was the first time where I realized it's not just about one singular message and it's not just about one graphic label. It's about how the messages and the look and the feel in the brand world that you're creating for the Hobnob Drinker actually sells the product.

25:02Claire:So how long were you there for? I was there for almost four years. So that was my at the time. That was the longest job I had had. And I loved it. I mean, we really we you know, there are ups and downs. You know, you figure out that sometimes it was like really stressful to the client. Sometimes it was like the interpersonal. But I really felt like I grew as a just a designer because I was just thrown so many projects. And there were times where I would hope my sketch won or my idea won and it didn't. And then you'd sit in your feelings, but then you'd have to, you know, take on the next project.

25:34And so I really, you know, when I look back at that time, I really appreciate the environment that Luke and Kristen had created. And I really appreciated the growth that happened while I was there. And it's just, like I said, for me, I just think back to when you really are excited about the work that you're doing. It's about just wanting to do more of it.

25:58Claire:So when did you find out about Thought Matter? When was the transition to where you are now? So to fast, so to do a quick, like fast forward to thought matter. So while, while I was at dog's name, I mentioned, I had gotten my first car is driving up the Taconic Parkway. And I started listening to a radio show called design matters, Debbie Millman. And so that must have been, maybe she was on like the Apple podcast. Like, I don't remember exactly how I listened to it, but I was obsessed with it. And I listened to Debbie's early podcasts. Like they were the like blueprint Bible of like where my life was going to go.

26:35She had these beautiful monologues and so absolutely loved it. And so she announced probably in around 2010 that she was starting a branding program.

26:46Claire:So that's when she started at the School of Visual Arts. Yeah. I always, I also used to listen to Debbie's sort of podcasts from the beginning and yeah, totally mind blowing. It opened up so many possibilities. Yeah. Like she was just, yeah, it was just one of those things where you, you know, when you just feel like someone's like speaking to you. And so I just was like, I don't know who this Debbie Millman is, but I just know that I need to be in and around her like orbit. And so she announced that she was doing a graduate program and it was going to be at the school of visual arts. And I was like, I have to, I have to get into this program.

27:19Like it was one of those things where I was like, there's no way that I'm not, I can't not be in this program. So I did a tremendous amount of research. I think I read all the books. my husband at the time, Mike, he, I remember when the letter came for whether I was going to get in or not. And he tells a story that he had to pour himself a couple of martinis because he was like, if this is a rejection letter, like our lives are over. Like it has to be an acceptance letter because this was like, my wife is going to be so like devastated if she doesn't get in, but lucky for everyone, I got in. Brilliant.

27:55That's very good. So what did that entail?

27:57Claire:Tell me about that? Yeah. So that was a really intensive nine month program. And I've said this before, I have two, I have two children. So I've been very fortunate to go through nine months of pregnancy, but the nine months with Debbie Millman at that branding program still holds the, the record for pressure and anxiety, but it was tremendous. Was it? Was it, did you learn a lot? I learned a lot about myself. I think, you know, up until the branding program, I definitely worked as hard as I could possibly work at whatever it is that I was doing, right? Like I would, like I said, show up on the bench ready to like help out my manager.

28:38I was somebody who would make sure that, you know, my boss knew that I was bringing as much value as I possibly could to the role. At Dog's Name, Like, I'm sure they, you know, Luke and Christian probably look back and say, like, Jesse never stopped asking questions. Like, I just had a tenacity that I was just like, I'm going to be the person who does the most at all times. I think what the branding program did with not, you know, with Debbie's obvious leadership, but the founding faculty is they really helped me figure out how I could harness that tenacity in a way that could be more generative to the work I was doing.

29:17not just for like me, but for a client or for a piece of thinking or a new trend. Like, I think they actually opened my world up so much more that it made me really more intentional about how I wanted to spend my energy and my time.

29:38Claire:So how did that open things up? What did that change in your sort of future career trajectory? Did you look for different types of jobs as a result of doing Debbie's course? Yes. Yes. So when I was getting when we were doing our thesis project, our thesis was with Procter & Gamble. We were doing a project for Fakai Hair Care had just been purchased. Frederick Fakai had just sold his salon and his product line to Procter & Gamble. And so we as, you know, really eager master's students, we were like, you know, we were going to change the trajectory of Frederick Fakai at Procter & Gamble. No, we didn't.

30:23But I feel like I was really introduced to branding through the lens of design excellence at a really large company. Yeah. Okay. And like, I had never heard of the term design manager, right? I knew that there were, you were, you know, you were maybe a designer at a graphic design studio, or you were an art director at an advertising agency, or you were maybe a creative director that got to see both print and digital and campaign. Like I kind of knew that and I knew that there were clients. Right. But I had never understood that there were roles within large corporations helping to translate agency work with corporate priorities.

31:13So that was around, say, 2011, 2012. And so there was the rise of like the chief design officer. I think it was 3M and then PepsiCo and like Johnson and Johnson. And even I think Procter & Gamble had somebody who was like their, you know, chief ultimate design visionary. And so I really loved that. And I also had an opportunity to read a book called Chief Culture Officer. And there is something really wonderful about this idea that you could be a designer, you could be a strategist, and you could be somebody really excited about brand building and bring that all together in a giant corporation that's creating products that people see every single day.

32:04Yeah, absolutely.

32:06Claire:So did that make you want to work more in that sort of environment? Yes. So then I was like, I need to go to a big company. Where did you go? I went to Kimberly Clark. I see. Okay. So you joined there, was that as a design manager or? Yep. So I had gotten to know Christine Mao, who was at Kimberly Clark at the time. She became a really tremendous mentor of mine. And so I had a chance to go work with her at Kimberly Clark as a design manager. I was like a baby design manager. Like I came in thinking I was going to like, you know, change the course of design excellence at Kimberly Clark. But I came as like a really humble little design manager working on the Cottonelle brand.

32:48Claire:Oh, OK. Actually, you know what? Could you tell us exactly what a design manager does? So anyone sort of listening that doesn't know the ins and outs of that would be able to know. Yeah, absolutely. So when I joined Kimberly Clark, they had created a Design Excellence Center. And the Design Excellence Center sat in the chief marketing officer's sort of realm. It laddered up to the CMO. And so what the Design Excellence Center was all about doing at a company like Kimberly Clark was helping brand managers and the innovation teams, the R &D teams and the research teams really put design thinking at the center of what they were doing.

33:33So a lot of times at big companies, you have silos, you have your R &D team thinking about innovation, maybe they're thinking three years out, then you have your research team who's thinking maybe a couple years out, and then you have brand managers who are thinking six to 18 months out. And so it's just how do you sell more product to more people more often, but how do you sell more cases of something? And so they're not necessarily being asked to think about the long term brand building. They just need to make their numbers. But and then you have your R &D folks who just want to think about like the most magical, innovative things that could go on shelf in the next three years.

34:15And there's like a big gap between those two things. And so I really loved that they had a design excellence center and design managers who really helped bridge that gap. So I got to work with really amazing brand builders on the business side. And I got to work with really tremendous agencies that were being hired to be thinking about long-term brand building. I got to see advertising agencies. I got to see graphic design agencies. I got to see packaging design studios. And I was kind of the translator of that work with the business, the business goals that Kimberly Clark had set. So it really was like almost like a mediator, which I really loved.

34:57And I got to touch a lot of different of the departments. And I also got to be engaged in a lot of the conversations about how do you actually build a brand? How do you actually, you know, you have an agency that makes a brand world and you have brand assets and you have all these really important visual tools. But if you have a brand manager or a brand team that is so focused on selling their next, you know, big, the next big thing to target, they're not going to be like, oh, let me make sure everything's really, really consistent, unless somebody is helping them understand how that's going to deliver on their goals to keep selling more, more product on, on shelf.

35:36So that really was the role of the design manager at that time. Interesting. So how long were you there for? Three years. What attracted you back to the agency side? When I was working at Kimberly-Clark, I was living in Wisconsin and it was a great experience to be in the Midwest. I'd never been in the Midwest, but I had just had my first child and I realized I needed to come back to family and just be back to the East Coast. So after three years, I moved back to New York City with my husband and, you you know, 18 month old, we had a dog and some plants. And so we were like, we're going to make New York work.

36:13And so I actually came back because I had gotten a job at Elmwood. Elmwood is a, yeah, a UK, UK leads based agency at the time. And I got to know Jonathan Sands. Yeah, I actually think I listened to Jonathan on your podcast because I was curious. I hadn't heard him talk about Elmwood since it moved into Born Ugly and different things. But I really loved Jonathan. I think what I really loved about Jonathan was just his own tenacity. He is somebody who's like, he's just going to show up always ready to over deliver. He really wanted to create a culture of creative thinkers who just wanted to help clients and just really wanted to help clients in the most honest way possible.

37:01And I think that's what I really loved about getting to know Jonathan. Because again, I say Leeds-based because he would always be like, we do have a studio in London. He had a studio in New York and in Singapore. But I feel like his heart and soul was always in Leeds, which I feel like is slightly different than the shiny London city.

37:21Claire:Yeah, I completely agree. So tell me about Elmwood. What were the sort of highlights? What kind of things did you work on there? Yep, so I was there. So I was their first director of strategy in their New York office. And so at the time, it was a really small studio. I got to work with their managing director and their head of account. And really, I mean, I was not there for very long, but I felt so excited about the people I was working with because we would pitch clients down in New Jersey or we would go to Cincinnati. like we did a lot of travel together and I feel like we got really got to know each other so the creative director and the the account lead and the managing director and myself as the head of strategy like the four of us would just go and like pitch exciting work like we were we were just really excited about and it was all packaging so we were doing work in fem care we were doing work in coffee we were doing work in pet care and it was a lot of fun like I really enjoyed it maybe about a year or so, Elmwood wanted to get bigger.

38:29And so they hired a head of North America, you know, everyone loves a good title, but a head of North America who was going to come in and, and really grow the studio and like, you know, kind of make it go sort of game, you know, just really get much bigger. And I realized that's not what I wanted to do. Like I, I didn't, you know, I appreciated that there was somebody who was going to be coming in to try to grow, you know, the projects, 20 % year on year. I appreciated that they wanted to be able to take, you know, maybe one or two projects at say a big corporation and make it 10 projects by the end of the year.

39:06Like I know that that's how companies scale and that's how you build a business, but there was something that felt just not right with what I was looking to do. And so I started putting my feelers out to maybe freelance because I was like, you know what, maybe it's more like I can come in, do the strategy work. I understand the big corporate side. I understand how agencies can, you know, build and nurture that work. So maybe I want to be a consultant. So I set out to be a consultant and my first consulting job was at Thought Matter. Fantastic.

39:38Claire:Okay. So that was when you met Tom and the team? Yes. So they hired me. So Thought Matter hired me to help think about their offering to CPG companies. So I was coming in, I was going to do strategy and I was also going to help this, this thought matter, which was only about a year old, this, this very young studio, think about how they could grow their footprint in at like a Procter and Gambler, a Colgate or a PepsiCo. And so it felt natural, the things that I had been doing. So I was like, this sounds great. And when I started, it was in a beautiful office in the Flatiron and everyone was like really genuine and sweet and wonderful.

40:22And I was like, okay, let's look at the portfolio. How can we position the work to, you know, get more work? And so I remember going into the conference room and the creative director at the time was like, well, we don't have anything in our portfolio. I was like, well, so how are you, what are you growing? And it was like, well, actually, if you want to, you know, come in and help us understand how to do it. So, so I recognized that there was a huge gap in what they thought they could do with what they had already done. And so I immediately was like, okay, let me get to know the founder. His name is Tom.

40:55Let me get to know the founder. Like, what is he thinking? Like, how are you, how do you have a, you know, it was a year old studio in a beautiful office with really wonderful, talented people, all just kind of ready for the next project. And so I kind of wanted to understand what his thinking was, because was it that the studio hadn't gotten an opportunity to do the work or was it that, you know, something wasn't quite right with the team? Like I actually wasn't, it was like, it was mind boggling to me. Right. So when I got to know Tom, we had, we had some lunches together, just like kind of understanding.

41:28I realized that he had taken over the agency from his late partner who had a traditional marketing and branding studio. And so she got very sick and she passed away in 2014, he actually stepped in to help wind the studio down. Like he was coming in to make sure that anyone who was a part of her legacy and the clients and everybody was kind of, not only had somewhere to go, but also that the studio could kind of figure out its next, you know, last chapter. But what it turned out is Tom is a magazine journalist. That was his career for many, many years, 30 years. He's also an art collector. He is somebody who's very interested in like the arts and culture.

42:20And so he's had many different careers and different things. And so when he started coming into a creative agency, he realized how much he liked it. He liked being around creative people, art directors. He loved being around photography. he just he really was so excited about the intersection of art and business that he was like let me I'm going to rebrand the studio into something that I'm you know will suit me and the things that I'm doing so that's where he rebranded it to Thought Matter he rebranded it to be a branding studio and he had this phrase that he really loved which was an artful perspective he wanted to bring an artful perspective to business.

42:59Yeah. And so when I got to hear a story and I got to hear his thinking and it's just like his insatiable curiosity for like the arts and culture and business, I was like, why do you want to just do packaging? And he was like, actually, that's someone told me that branding is packaging. And that's why I've been trying to build up talent to help me do more packaging. And so I did say to him that that maybe is a little short sighted. Like I was like, I actually think if you're into the arts and you're into culture and you're into where the intersection of businesses, like maybe there's other areas that we could be looking at from a business development standpoint.

43:42Like, could we be looking at public arts? Could we be looking at cultural institutions? Could we be looking at ways that branding is showing up in industries that typically don't use that word branding. Yes, absolutely.

43:59Claire:And that's how, so that must be the influence of how you're, you're work today with a sort of civic action side of things and big foundations and all that kind of side of it. Yeah. And so it was, I remember I came home, told my husband, I was like, I have convinced Tom that we should work with cultural institutions and nonprofits. And I didn't know, I didn't use the word civic at the time, but say civic work. And I remember my husband being like, do you think you could build a business doing that? And I was like, that I don't know, but I'm ready to, ready to try. Yeah. So tell me about how did you get into that side of it?

44:37Claire:Because I love the work that you guys do is fantastic. How did you get into that side of it? And then let's talk a bit about the award because that's all built up to winning the Cooper Hewitt Design Award, hasn't it? Yeah, no, absolutely. So, so yeah, so when my husband said, can you, can you think you can actually just focus work in that way? And I said, well, we're going to figure it out. I realized I, we really quickly needed to gain experience in the areas that we wanted to do. Because if there's anything that I had learned from my time at the studio in Connecticut and even at Kimberly Clark, and then certainly at Elmwood is that clients aren't going to hire you unless you can show that you have, you're effective in the work that you're doing, that you can actually deliver results based on your work.

45:21Like no one's going to hire you on like a hope and a dream, even though every day I'm like, maybe, maybe there's a hope and a dream. But no, I knew that there needed to be an area that we could be really successful in to show that we could deliver this work. And so I, you know, this is funny to say, and again, It wasn't that far. It was about 10 years ago. Like I would call people, I was calling a lot of business improvement districts and Tom is, is notoriously known for clipping articles. Like he's always bringing in things that he's excited about. And so there were times that he, in the metro section in New York, he'd clip an article.

45:57And so I would find the organization and I would call them and I'd be like, you know, is there something we could do with you? Even if it's just like, um, some, like a collaboration that's like on a small scale, or is there something mutually beneficial because I knew we had to build a portfolio. And so one of our first projects was with the Lower East Side Partnership, a project called the 100 Gates Project. The 100 Gates Project was a public art program in the Lower East Side matching business owners with artists to paint their roll down gate. And so that program was already off the ground. And there was a really tremendous woman named Natalie who was spearheading it.

46:34And so when I called them, I said, well, you know, this program is so successful because there's so many people taking photos of the gates and there was so much excitement around how art could actually be a graffiti deterrent and it could lower crime. There's just a really wonderful story about what happens when a neighborhood really cares for itself and brings in art. And so they, we ended up working with them on a brand identity that could get them more grants through the city to expand into more neighborhoods. And so through our work with them, we expanded into downtown Staten Island and East Harlem.

47:15And it became one of those things where even the Thought Matter team at the time got so energized because here was an actual brand identity, visual program that could be applied to a public arts initiative that could show its expansion in the city. Yeah, absolutely.

47:37Claire:That's fantastic. There are lots of stats associated with that, aren't there, about how it did lower graffiti and lower crime in the area? Yeah. Yeah. And I really love it also because it was one of those, like, you know, as designers, we always want like an insight. And so it was public arts, it was artists, it was business owners, it was all of that. But the actual insight we had was that it was an open air gallery and it was open when closed. So when the businesses were closed, the gallery was open to see these beautiful, these beautiful murals. And a lot of times neighborhoods where businesses are closed or when there's nobody in a neighborhood, it's like, oh, all this crime could be happening because it's all like, you know, at night.

48:18But what was, what they actually saw was like people coming into the neighborhood at night to take pictures in front of the gates. You saw, you know, people wanted to protect the art. And so, you know, there was less people coming in trying to, like I said, do any sort of graffiti tagging. You had artists who lived in the neighborhood who like became like almost protective of certain businesses and certain gates because they didn't want, you know, anyone to do anything. And so it just was, I think, a really wonderful program that I mean, I wish it still, I wish there was more neighborhoods that did this because it really shows communities wanting to be out and support of their local businesses and like in their local artists and so it really is public art and I love that in public public design yeah absolutely yeah me too and then you've gone on with Thought Matter

49:11Claire:to do a lot of this kind of stuff and this kind of project as well as sort of more commercial things as well yep so we so we did a lot of work with business improvement districts for the first couple of years to show the real impact of visual identity to neighborhoods and communities. So we did flags and trash cans and public programming. And so, and there really is a clear result in that work because you see communities and neighborhoods investing in sanitation and investing in beautification and investing in ways to get the public to engage with the businesses. And so, you know, you do a simple flyer, but the simple flyer becomes something that's like a visual indicator of commerce and, you know, support and pride.

50:01And so we did quite a bit of that work for quite a few years. And then we also, I think because my background is packaging, we did also have packaging clients kind of running as part of the work. And one of the first big clients that I was excited about because our creative director at the time had worked with their chief maybe innovation officer. It was Misfits Market. So Misfits Market had just started out of a warehouse in Philly. We met the founder and it was all about misshapen fruit and misshapen produce that was left to the wayside. And Avi, their founder, knew that that was going to be a way to get people to understand a little bit more about our sustainability and logistics in produce.

50:48And so we started working with them on their private label.

50:52Claire:Misfits Park, it's such a good idea. It's such a cool thing to get involved in. Yeah. And we've actually been working with them now for six years, six, seven years. Yeah. I mean, and it's been one of our longest standing client relationships. And like I said, they started out of one warehouse. And right before the pandemic, it was, you know, there's a big hurdle to getting people to want direct to consumer produce and the pandemic hit. And it was like, that's now, that's all we want is our produce at our doorstep. It's been wonderful watching their growth as well as just having a client relationship that has been that long because we've both believed in each other's mission.

51:32Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

51:33Claire:Could you tell me about winning the Cooper Hewitt Design Award for communications design? It's such an awesome honor. And I think you guys are so well deserved. Tell me about that. Yes, yes. So we, so again, for I feel like for all of my time working with Tom, I started as the head of strategy that I moved to managing director and then I became a managing partner, which just means that I run the day to day. And I think that was a good indication and commitment from him that was like, you know what, Jesse, this is your studio, run it how you would. And so actually let's talk about what that means to really be the day to day lead on the work.

52:17But through my like 10 years of working with Tom, I have really learned how to take his interests and his curiosities and his commitment to great work and sort of shape it along the way to be able to deliver, you know, clients and deliver revenue and deliver a return on his investment for the commitment. But alongside of that, which is great. And I'm always like, I've learned a lot about how to run a business. But alongside that, I feel like there was always moments of why are we doing that? Or, you know, there's been plenty of times where I've had opportunities to pitch Thought Matters projects to conferences, or I've gotten opportunities to pitch it.

53:09And a lot of times it's like, well, this work isn't really commercially viable, or this isn't, you know, you don't have, where's your PepsiCo project? Where's your Colgate project? Like, you know, there's always been this, like, you guys don't really quite make sense. Like, Thought Matter has never really quite made sense. And so I've been okay with, you know, I have learned to be uncomfortable with not always making sense, right? And we've also applied to many award schemes, and we've been lucky. We've won a lot of different awards, like Art Director or Type Directors Club and Graphese and all these things, but not all of the time, right?

53:47And it's sort of this push and pull of we know we're doing work we want to be doing, but we also want to be recognized by the industry. But we also want to be like told that we're doing great. But we also know that we're like so committed to that, that maybe it doesn't matter that anyone notices. So over the summer, when I got the email that said that we were nominated for the Cooper Hewitt National Design Award, I thought it was spam. Did you? I was like, wait, what? I did. Well, because it was like this whole big, and I was like, wait, like we didn't, we didn't apply for it. We didn't, you know, I wasn't even on my radar.

54:26I mean, I was very familiar with, I mean, obviously I'm very familiar with the Cooper Hewitt. I was familiar with the National Design Award because it was always considered the highest national honor. You know, those were the, you know, the big torchbearers of our industry winning these awards. it's, but so when we, so when I got the email that said we were nominated, I was like, well, we didn't nominate, like, what is this? So I didn't think it was real. So then I remember emailing and it turns out that it's anonymous. It's very highly confidential and it's an anonymous submission, nomination.

54:58And then it's a very confidential submission process. And so we found out a little bit more. And so I remember sitting with Tom, our current group creative director Abel Paris and our executive director of operations, Jennifer Bono, and like, okay, guys, like, are we like prepared to put a submission like this together? It's recognizing a body of work that's 10 years. It's, you know, the highest honor you could possibly have. Like, do we really feel like we have, you know, the time, the resources, the commitment, and even the chance to do that. Because, you know, sometimes you as a, you know, leading a studio, you never want to totally take people down like a, you know, a tunnel that has no light at the end of it, right?

55:43Because then people get really frustrated. And so I wanted to make sure we were like, you know, eyes wide open that we were really going to put together this submission. Because you have to, if you're submitting to something like the Cooper Hewitt, you know, you have to be all 100 % in. Yeah, absolutely. So how long did it take to do all this? Yeah, so it was exactly, I think it was exactly six weeks. So maybe there's like a week or two here, but I think we pulled it together in about six to eight weeks. A huge testament to Abel and Jennifer, who have now been with Tom and I for, I think, three and two years, respectfully.

56:19And so, you know, they've seen a lot of our work and they've really shaped a lot of it, but But they both had to they both had to understand that we were putting together 10 years of history. And so you're honoring creative directors that have come before, you know, before them operations folks who, you know, were doing the work with us. They had to deal with Tom and I like it was it was a really wonderful, I feel like commitment of people like holding hands and saying we believe in the work. and we believe that there's a way to talk about it that hasn't been talked about before. And so we took, I said, six to eight weeks to pull the submission together.

57:04We submitted it and just kind of like crossed our fingers. And I think I was like, it's not probably going to happen, but it's an honor to have been nominated. Like, let's just go with that. What does that look like? And so when we found out that we won, it was like, oh my gosh that means we've been doing something right definitely yeah that must have felt so good yeah and so it was it it was a because one of the things that we said when we were putting the submission together and I remember is Tom and I with Jennifer and Abel we all said that if a studio like ours which hasn't always made sense it doesn't you know we've really committed to non-profits and cultural institutions and civic organizations and our commercial clients have always been sort of like founders or underdogs.

57:53Like, again, we're not taking on these big, giant behemoths that I feel like is usually what is recognized as success in graphic visual identity. If we as a studio can be recognized, that means that there's a chance that other studios that are doing work that they've committed to as something that matters, as work worth doing, as really like civic and impact-driven work, Like that work can be held up to those same sort of industry standards. And so then when we won, I felt like it was that. It was like, okay, that's such a validation of our work, but also an indication that like this is where as an industry we need to be doing more of.

58:38Claire:Yes, absolutely. Getting the recognition for it, putting in the public eye. Yeah. And recognizing that communication design is, yes, it's branding and it's commercial success, but it's also all of the communication that is invisible that we don't think about. It's how we walk down the street. It's how we recognize our our neighborhoods. It's how we recognize the civic institutions that support our day to day. It's the, you know, systems that help us understand how to vote. It's the ways that we connect with each other or don't connect with each other. Like communication design, I feel like is such a through line to most of our lives that when it's when it's shortened to just commercially successful brands, I feel like it's sort of short sighted in the discipline and our ability to create work that moves people and helps people understand their own identity.

59:46and like where we're headed as, you know, people. And so that to me has been the most exciting parts of winning an award that's for the public, by the public at one of the highest levels you could be recognized. Yeah, that's fantastic.

1:00:07Claire:Yeah, I love what you're saying there. That's, I mean, it's one of the reasons I set the podcast up in the first place to get a spotlight put on this kind of design because it's that thing that it's all around us, but people don't quite see that it's been designed by someone and there's a reason for it. Exactly. Yeah. And I think the Cooper Hewitt, this National Design Award started in the 2000s. So it was a White House initiative in 2000. And so it recognizes disciplines like architecture, interior design, sustainability, you know, emerging designers. but it's definitely designed with a capital D.

1:00:46So it's all the design, right? And so what I think is really exciting about communications design is really entering that into the conversation at the same level as like architecture, which we know is important and tremendous and has had a lot of money behind it in history and there's theories and philosophy. And like, we understand the importance of architecture in our lives but I think that communications design is just as important a design to help us understand our daily lives yeah completely yeah I'm absolutely with you

1:01:24Claire:can I can I ask you a final question then about how sort of beyond design skills like how can how can young people today wanting to get into the industry stand out yeah that's a that's a great question. I love emerging designers. I love young people who want to live creative lives. We at Thought Matter, we've had high school interns. We've always had interns across the board from undergrad to master's students to recently graduated. We right now have what we call the Ascenders program, which is meant to not just say, oh, you're an intern, but you're an ascender about to make your debut in the industry.

1:02:11And I think what I've learned the most from designers who don't quite know what they don't know is that there's an optimism to it. there's an openness to wanting to learn as much as you can. There's a, there's a sense that nobody can take anything away from you yet because you're just about to like grasp whatever, whatever that is. And I think that, I think in many ways, like as we get further along in our careers, we sort of lose that. You can get a little cynical, you can get a little skeptical. You can start to like get real critical of other agencies and other people. And like you put work out into the world and then you want to compare it to like somebody else.

1:02:59Am I further, am I as far along as that person or am I not far along? You know, you sort of get this very sense of like tightness of like closing in. And I think what emerging designers bring is this tremendous amount of openness. And I think if I had somebody tell me when I was back, when I was 22, sitting on park benches or just figure out where I was going, somebody had said, Jesse, just keep doing that. Just keep being hungry and just keep being open and just keep being really curious and don't let anybody soften that for you or tell you that it's not possible. I really feel like that more designers need to hear that.

1:03:44Claire:Completely. I wasn't told that, but somehow I kept, kept going. But I think if you want to stand out as, as an emerging designer, I think you need to recognize your own power and the openness of what you don't know, what you don't know. Yeah. And you sort of like open heart, open mind, open hands to say I'm going to take in as much as I can, but not lose sight of what you bring to the conversation as part of your lived experience. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it's so important. I talk about this a lot about the kind of, I think agencies are turning around on their heads a bit and becoming more bottom up, like the voice of the young people joining the agency is super important to connect with culture.

1:04:32Yeah. And I think it's also really just as important for agencies to help and support young designers finding their own voice and teaching skills that they might not get out of school or they may not even know that they didn't know. And I think that that's also this like give and take. It's mutually beneficial. Like you have young emerging designers who are coming into studios with an openness and a hunger and a curiosity. And then you have studios saying, I'm actually going to invest in their development. I'm going to invest in their ability to see how to present work, how to talk about work, how to show up in meetings, how to, you know, not get frustrated if something doesn't happen immediately.

1:05:13And so I think it's that, that, that give and take of allowing everybody to learn something new. And I, I mean, I really believe that that is what we all need to be thinking about, especially with the acceleration of, of technology and everyone telling us that technology is going to make everything so much easier. I think that's probably what, for me personally, I think that's one of the hardest things to tell somebody like, oh, just use technology because it makes your life easier because creativity happens in the tension, in the like friction, in the things that are not easy.

1:05:45Claire:Jessica, thank you so much. Thank you for joining the podcast and thanks for your time today. I really enjoyed it. Claire, thank you. This has been a lot of fun. I feel like I love you. Now I know we're both only children. So I feel like now we just need to call each other up and just have conversations when we're definitely