The Future of Branding—Where Design Is Headed Next w/ Brian Collins

what brand is is differentiation differentiation is about making sure you do not become a commodity we did that for 16 years we've been agency of the year for six times in the last 6 years at this point where we stuck dynamite in our old business model and I've seen it make a CEO cry and I go holy I didn't think that was possible that's the power of real language if I'm on a golf course somewhere I would have made a wrong turn two things are about to happen and why I think the whole branding industry

the way you knew it is debt it's it's it's gone hey everybody what is up my guest for today's podcast is none other than Brian Collins the last time he was here he talked about generative design and those of you who have looked it up started to make this connection was Brian predicting the advancement of AI well I don't know but it seemed like he had a crystal ball well in case you don't know who Brian is he's a design luminary he's considered a design master and he's picked up multiple agencies of the year so

I'm super happy when Brian says hey let's have a conversation I got to share with you what is new in my life what I'm seeing I just want to pull up my chair and listen at the feet of the master Brian welcome to the show oh guys I'm in the feet of I want the feet of the other Master Chris you know five years ago when you when we had that discussion that resonated I was stopped in the streets of Elizabeth by a designer who watches you in London the streets of New York I am

so pleased to see your conversation and the important issues that you're bringing into the dialogue around this design and the future of design I'm so been so pleased to see your influence and the conversation you have expanded like around the world you know and now you're traveling around the world too so um and and we met I think it was was in Cairo right yeah because we were SP speaking of that great design conference and I was with um I was at Ben Kirk I was at and later I went with with with Tim Goodman

other men members of my team and so so I can't thank you enough for for that conversation 5 years ago it's so good to see you again I want to ask our fans and our friends of this because Brian has a very distinctive look if you ever see this man in the street stop him say hello be kind be respectful of his time but just let him know where you saw him so that we can continue this dialogue with people just like Brian so Brian I know that you've been in this game for a really

long time as the kids say you're seasoned you're not old you're seasoned you've seen lots of things as such I'm really curious as to the patterns that you're seeing and where we need to be because you seem to be pretty good at predicting the future you know it's interesting we Collins is going into 17th year when we started out after I had left um a pretty successful run as an executive at Ogle and Mayer uh i' been there for 10 years and worked at uh footon Belling San Francisco on Levis and before that um in

in the design division of pH melaga called the Duffy Design Group we worked on brands from Georgia Armani to Porsche to to Levis to to amazon.com to Disney and certainly at at at at ogleby at Ford Motor Company IBM um Jaguar starw hotels um and certainly the dove campaign for real beauty that my team worked on that was a pretty good run and then when I met Leland mhme my um my co-founder and my creative and business partner we decided start we're kind of a rag tag group of um I I I was looking for

gifted Misfits and certainly we met that criteria I met Lee and I knew that it was time for me to start you know my own design company I was in my mid-40s and I had a lot of energy and I thought made sense given what I saw uh for the future branding and we kind of stumbled you know along our premise from the beginning we started out with um you know two laptops four desks and an idea that design wouldn't be what we make design is what what we would make um possible that put the

emphasis not on the artifacts but on the outome and on the action that uh designers could have on cre the future in effect what we're doing is designers Are wizards we're able to kind of rehearse the future before um arise and the way that we would say it is there's really no such thing as the future what there are there are many Futures on competition with each other and your job is to fight for the one future that you believe in and then design is the bridge that helps you get to that future and so

we did that for 16 years and it turns out we we we played that game pretty well we we've been agency of the year for either ad age or dnad you know six times in the last six years and you know Bonkers that was a pretty good run you know um and uh we established ourselves um and we proved out our philosophy that design is not what we make but design would be what we make possible placing the our orientation around the outcomes by the way they didn't diminish craft because we're crazy we're crazy driven

about typography and color and form and illust ation and visuality but we were equally driven by strategy and business and growth and so during Co we thought that that model had pretty much run its course and The Branding model the way everybody was was now dealing with it with these crazy ass case studies of people were pumping out almost once a month that that had run its course and so we decided during Co to change I know that you had you know everyone had challenges during Co I imagine you know you did too right absolutely

those moments in your life where either things come to a crash or things are force you to reexamine things those are really incredible moments when you kind of get lost in the woods and you have to say Okay where do we go from here where do we get our bearings before we jump into the future what we decided to do was to completely blow up the old business model like like completely and in doing so um what we decided to do is reimagine basically the foundations of the business what we did is we looked back

at what we had done most successfully over previous 16 years and or at at that time 14 15 years and we try to find out what the pattern was through that through anything that we've done that was incredibly or outsized success we tried to find what that pattern was and we dis we determined or we doubl down on three things the first was design is not what it looks like design is what it does and how it behaves and then what it looks like is a result of what it does and what it behaves that

was the first thing that we we knew that made a big difference for us the second thing is that brand is not visuality brand is not the tight face brand is not the color brand is not the logo brand is not the design system brand is not the interface looking fuel what brand is is differentiation and differentiation is about change and differentiation is about making sure you do not become a commodity the third thing we realized is that companies if they're not a step ahead of the culture are going to be behind the culture therefore

companies always have to change therefore companies always have to transform we realized that the business that we were actually were in wasn't the graphic design business wasn't the Communications business was it the branding business the business that we were actually in was in the transformation business and helping companies transform form so they could build a better future that was a step ahead of the culture then we had a force realization coming out of it which was our most successful case studies in terms of design were also our most successful case studies in terms of business

like we were became very well known for our work with Spotify it was a it was celebrated as a great sort of creative and design achievement and branding achievement it also helped Spotify take off last year's fast company did a pretty cool story about the 10- yearold design program that we had done that they were still using um and so that was a nice proof point so what we looked at in fact was this that business and finance is not that far away from Art and Design as people think in fact what Finance does its

mission is to find the biggest areas of opportunity for a business to grow in where's the outsize opportunity finance will help you find that and that is what's most V iable so artists are really good at finding what does the future look like we're really good at anticipating what happens next and then we're really good at creating it which is what's most desirable they're really closely related so we realized we had to become fluent in a couple of different things first business transformation two business itself we were already fluent in the Arts and Design so

we've become fluent in the last two years in finance by bringing in people from McKenzie by developing a really good working relationship with black Blackstone one of the most powerful you know organizations on the planet that deal with you know um you know business building and brand building so we realized that we had to break a lot of our preconceptions about what we thought was design and what wasn't and we realized now that Finance is designed business strategies is designed management consulting is designed and so that's required us to really rethink the business that we're

in because as Disney said I can't talk pigs with pigs I can't continue to do the same thing and think we're going to get any place new now going talk to you about this because you understand this more than most people our Focus was external like we had a great internal team um I'm very proud of that team actually that the team has gone on to lead um uh that team is now leading human interface designed at Apple uh Chief uh the creative lead at Lor was here the creative lead at will Fen like people

or our people um which is more accurate who we hired years ago are not a really marvelous positions influence in the design conversation and I couldn't be prder than that and so what we realized is that we were for colins let's say one point out we were very externally focused case studies speaking that's how I met you in speaking at conference I bumped into friends of mine speaking conferences around the world Paul radwood say in a project I'm going to drop a name when I work with him like 20 years ago he said Brian designers

have to learn how to create a little Hollow about themselves and so we had to create you know we had show people that we were in the game and we were lucky but now we realize that the external Focus during Co we real realized the focus is not as much external for us as it is internal and the communities that we're building as it turns out you know after covid we start we launched this thing called coffee house which was just a we opened our doors we serve free coffee and pastries and donuts and croissants

and bagels and the first afternoon we did it 250 people show it just to talk then we did it a couple months later we we we bought a designer who we liked and he spoke about his book 300 people showed up then we decided to do it um in Rio de Janeiro when we spoke uh at the web Summit like 300 people show showed up and then we did it at the dnad conference uh we did in partnership with Google and 250 people show up and all it is is a bunch of people get together

talking about what the future might be how are you doing what are you learning and we just did it in San Francisco during the figma conference what's going on turns out we have a community of people who want to talk to each other and um we could broker these interesting conversations what we're trying to figure out is how do we have access to a remarkable Community designers writers animators technologists coders around the world and how do we bring a conversation about the future to our to that community and to our colleagues so that's what we're

that's one of the things we're really focusing on is building our community of extra and I do mean the word Community without like an all seriousness like people who admire each other stay in touch with each other learn from each other share with each other and have are in constant conversation with each other it turns out that is extraordinarily valuable to people right now consider considering you know how much of the industry is upside down and yeah before you even get into conversations about how advertising issues he's now entering the brand conversation and AI is

already been here for six years and now really starting to you know show its face those are the things we've been working on over the course of the last two years and it's been we we better blow everything up because we want to become something different and something new I'm really fascinated by this conversation about this uh 2.0 internal conversation is community building it speaks to my heart I'm I'm just crazy curious about how these conversations are structured how do you facilitate this I'm having a hard time imagining two 300 people gather how do you

connect with each other what do you talk about what is the format how do you do this Brian Chris we're making it up as we go along okay but there's one thing about it that's true we make sure that there our principle there's no strangers it's just friends you haven't met yet that's the first principle and the second principle is everyone who comes in we we're keeping an eye on them and if they feel left out or they feel uncomfortable um my colleagues of mine are so Adept and they love people and they're sociable they

keep an eye on people to make sure that they feel like they're part of that conversation because some people many designers are introverts they want to be able to have a conversation so they show up but they don't quite know how to do that we help facilitate that we introduce people to people we make sure people have something to drink something to eat um sometimes people are uncomfortable at first so what what I'll do I'll walk up to them and I'll ask them who they are and where they are in their life and there are

any questions that they're dealing with and I they often tell me quickly and then I'll go up to the library we over 5,500 books here and I'll go to the library and I'll pull a a book off the shelf and I'll say why don't you read this passage for the next 15 minutes and then tell me what you think and all a sudden I have a conversation with them and they open right up at the end of the first time we did this CU I would take my you know I have Library letters on both

sides of this place I clim a library that I'd give somebody a book and someone said it was um it reminded them of going into olivander Wand Shop in Dagon alley when they wanted a wand and I would climb up and I'd find them a book and um turns out we're pretty good at that we found ways and protocols through food through eating through coffee through sharing to get people to sit down and and and hang out and I couldn't get them out when the day was over at 6:00 so it's St through 7 and

8 we don't do that anymore cuz I like to go home the notes that we got back from people in next day were in incredible No Agenda no like you have to do this no pitches just people sitting around having coffee and really good Donuts so it was just you creating space and making sure the the awkward introverts in the room had something to do something to someone to talk to and you would just Meander throughout the crowd and just help people facilitate or participate in the conversation with them that's what we're talking about here

yeah well we all do actually cuz I been my two other colleagues are really good at this too other members of my team I'm hypers social when I need to be but then I have to go away for a weekend so um because people said you're you're not an introvert oh like actually I'm I'm I'm half an introvert and half an extrovert which means I have to go and recharge so I know what it's like to be an introvert you know but I also know what it's like to be an extrovert so I can use

my extrovert abilities to to introduce people other people and I can use my inor part of myself to ident to identify other people who may be un comfortable in in a social situation with 200 other creative people and that's made a big difference for us in fact what we're doing and and I'm so glad we're doing it we you and I decided to to I decided to take you up on your invitation five years ago to invite 20 people and have this conversation in Ireland it's happening everybody it's for real and it's happening I'm so

excited for it and what you don't know we're also doing the same the same kind of thing we're doing it um two months later in Bhutan what are you doing in Bhutan going up to Tiger's Nest incredible Monastery so it turns out that these conversations are enormously productive for people and we you know we're inviting clients we're inviting friends we're inviting other colleagues just as a chance to have a conversation about what does the future look like and how are we going to shape it it's unburdened from any other agenda except for the conversation itself

so what we discovered was this unmet need for people to talk to really meaningful conversations about saying things that you didn't know you knew like you had the best conversations you go I need to realize that and you're saying and the of talking you we end up creating narratives and stories that give meaning and give structure and kind of give an understanding to not only where we've been but where we might be going one of my favorite favorite television shows to watch was or well Disney presents and my favorite thing he ever did was when

he talked about the creation of Disneyland and imagine a CEO of a major Media company today spending an entire Hour episode talking about the design of of any of the things that they did and that's all Disney did for one of these episodes that I watched but what Disney was particularly good at is driving a conversation through storytelling film design animation music to help create worlds and particularly he was actually an incredible futurist one of the things that Disney did I was was inspired by in the 1950s before the na before NASA ever appeared was

he was fascinated by space technology and particular the the potential adventure of man going to the moon and so what he had to do is normalize it and he had to make it feel that going to the moon and the kind of space technology that he was fascinated by was socialized and so he creates in the center of Disneyland I actually have a model of it here that people Disney actually made for I'm going to grab it hold this is the rocket that they put right in the middle of um in in Tomorrowland like in

the mid1 1950s and he braided it tww the tww the brand that we're familiar with because brands are mentors of things to come and he said it's going to be inevitable we're going to be going to the moon so that conversation that he had back in the 1950s was so compelling that the Eisenhower White House called Walt Disney Studios on Monday morning and said could you please send us that film because Disney did such a good job at creating a new conversation about going to the Moon I mean that fil you can still check it

out on YouTube it's amazing but there in the Walt Disney Studios he created a vision and a story with music and animation it was dramatic about men's next step into the future That's The Power of designning conversation to create new Futures and he pushed up against the tide of fear it actually took what he did is he took the distance from the earth to the moon and he said it wasn't empty space it was a sea that you could trap and in fact in a in 50 years tww will be selling you tickets C made

it not only desirable he made it so desirable we would say it it see made it so irresistible it became inevitable so one of the things that we're trying to do in the in in building our own conversations with our own communities is that we discovered that these conversations are incredibly rich and they lead to other conversations have you heard this I've not read that but I'm a big fan of Frank Herbert's work and one of the things that really fascinated is the difference between the har Conan power control scale which is like we're going

to we're going to come in and take this over we're to run it it's going to be ordered and power control and scale is sort of the dominant driver of so much of what happens in I think in in a lot of America or Global Marketing and and brand work but contrast that with desert power which is more organic sensitive responsive anticipatory reactive Po and in my mind poetic we went this year to the heart of the marketing industry we went to K and Ken over the course of the last 15 years has been hijacked

by these giant Pavilions they've taken over the entire um Sea Coast which used to be able to walk into and and and swim has now been taken over the giant Pavilions by technology companies holding companies they blast techno all day long and people were tired of it and I remember going to Ken 20 years ago that's where I would meet my heroes it's been hijacked by all these massive Brands and massive consulting firms and massive media companies and massive technology companies unless you have massive amounts of money you're not in the conversation so we decided

to say okay okay we need to have a different kind of a conversation we found out about this 1866 Chateau was called Chateau D domain up in the hills of of Ken about 12 minutes from the Waterfront you you could walk in 12 minutes easy up in the hills in a forest an incredible Ted bedroom I think the place had like 20 rooms and it had Gardens and it had a pool and it had backyards and had landscaping and you walked into it through a giant almost a three- story gate that opened up and we

said let's have a conversation here and it will be free people have to take their lanyards off but we open up the conversation we had basically it was four days of conversation we invited Scott Galloway we invited Michael kassen who's a very influential player in the media space we invited Marcus Collins we invited Cindy Gallup who was the chair that year of of judging K we invited Jee batne from Disney we invited Jackie Genta our client at Spotify we invited basically everyone who weird marire and they all came and we had lunch and we had

breakfast and we had live music and so and then we invited people come stay with us like Dre London who produces um uh post morong and so we had really good access to really good music and the conversation blew up and we realized that we were could host a conversation in can for free we just invited people to come and then we we made all sorts of cross you know new relationships build build new conversations and uh to the point where very very very very very famous agency Global agency one of global agen of the

year called me up and they said what are you doing over there we were going to go out to this very famous hotel about 15 minutes out of town can we come and have our celebration party at your house some it and so 70 of them show up on a Saturday and we had their big you know uh they won agency of the year or Global Network of the year and they had their big party at uh at our house that's just what we want to have happen so we're figuring this out but we recognize

that there's this unmet need for Meaningful conversation that is not driven by any agenda except for curiosity I have to imagine Brian that that is a very expensive Endeavor I I don't know what it's like to rent a chateau or to host this and have your team there so I have to ask this question without an agenda what what do you personally get out of what does Collins get out of it we meet amazing people who could come work with us we meet we meet amazing creative partners either um writers animators coders Architects planners Finance

people Venture Capital people our agenda is to create a place where people can enjoy themselves if something comes out of there great if some you know if a specific client comes out of that great if a specific client doesn't come out of that great it's just we have a really good band tonight we have really good appetizers and we're going to serve a really good dinner and if you want to swim ly in the pool come on over it's literally that open ended any any other thing anything else than that start to feel really insincere

I have to ask this question then people who put on these large scale events or even a small Summit or whatever it is not on the scale of can but why is it they seem to underestimate the value of conversations in community because they seem to to do wall-to-wall programming where it's just speaker after speaker and I know this two speakers in you're kind of your brain is fried but yet here they are two days 3 Days parade of speakers what is it that they're missing like usually these things start out with good intentions we

want to invite a bunch of our friends together people we admire respect love and create a a chance for for one another to have conversations but it winds up being just a pra of speakers and then it it then creates this thing for you where you feel like you need to do some anti- programming where you know what let's get away from the mass the the size of all of this stuff and let's just slow down and just no agendas come in and have a conversation and it definitely struck a chord because people are like

asking to show up and then asking to use the space we're trying to do things that feel native to us and the other thing we like about it is we are absolutely egalitarian about this one of the things I've learned in these when these sponsored conversations they want to talk to CEOs and CMOS and you're missing the entire equation we it's not about exactly who we bring it's about our intentionality to have interesting conversations the celebrated leader of the international marketing Community came up to me on our second day and she's from Scotland and she

bumped into two young design GRS have a small design firm in Glasgow and she said what are they doing here I'm like I invited them they're really talented and they just won I think they won a small go like wine or something and they could have been thrilled but I knew them they said could we come I said of course you could come and she said that doesn't happen at these things the only people I ever meet at these things are senior vice presidents and other people I'm like yeah isn't that boring you know that's

really boring it wasn't about um your position your title your prestige your power it was do you have imagination what's the quality of your thinking what's the generosity of your spirit and do you want to come and hang out with us and engage in conversation not worry whether about someone is a senior vice president of marketing or something how boring we make people so when you walk around in can everyone has these lanyards right it has your name it has your title and has the brand that you're with we make people take them off before

they come in the gate and that's really uncomfortable for some people like I'm not going to take it off then you can't come in well why because it's a garden party and we want people to meet each other and then what ends up happening these things is everyone's looking at their titles so instead of looking at people in the face and I want to have this conversation I do want to have a conversation where you're constantly trying to figure out who are you and oh okay um all right oh you're really interesting or you're not

interesting and that's changed a lot of that changed a lot of of the quality of the dialogue and the other thing too is that and you know this your most interesting thoughts and your most interesting ideas aren't when you're sitting down to say oh I'm now going to have an interesting idea the interesting conversations happen on the staircase in the hallways over over a beer standing at a bar you suddenly bumped into someone and someone else you know suddenly comes in so so the epiphanies don't happen when you're listening to Scott Galloway although they might

the epiphanies happen afterwards when you're talking to Scott Galloway you know over a glass of wine which is what we encouraged people to do and because we're not programming 1:00 2 o'cl 3:00 we had a breakfast thing we had a lunch thing and we had an evening thing that was it and then people could stay all morning long all afternoon and then at after the evening event we had music and people hung out and had food and so the so they're basically three conversations during the day and the rest of the time people hung out

at a 19th century shouts out it sounds wonderful are you planning on doing this again next year we are it's our place actually it's a we found out that other people you were were trying to find out if if it was available for them and they called us said all of a sudden our place is becoming very popular uh we just want to make sure you would like to do it next year I'm like yes we are so yeah we we we we've already booked it and we've already have I think we have half our

programing uh almost already done we I was shocked Chris by the response we got to counter programming an informal fun relaxed mornings afternoons and evenings free of any agenda beside having a bunch of interesting people talk to one another what shocked you about this I I thought that was the intention it was I didn't know that it would blow up um on social media I didn't know it blow up on LinkedIn I didn't know that we would be getting letters and notes from uh from companies asking if we could do it again next year we've

got two people have called up and said could we sponsor you know one of those conversations next year okay like really good companies who said can we how do we get involved like sponsor they that or sponsor your conversation but there's no logos going up at this thing none this it's just a lovely Chateau um and and good people having good conversations about how we transform the future I think the the the thing that shocked you is a testament to who you are how you show up your intentionality your circle of friends and how you

want to curate experiences and setting some very minimal ground rules about hey no name tags it's about conversations and it's going to be a mix of diverse people in all different stages of the career your your one criteria is like do you do you have a good imagination do you have a generous spirit and I I really love that and it's clear to me that everybody's looking for something that's less processed and manufactured and less overdesigned you know we have no banners that says you no logos this is event it's a it's a house it

was so interesting to me that people actually came up to me and asked me if this was if it was my house because we had no we only had one we the Collins logo was on the front door and that was it it was not overt it was like showing up at someone's wonderful garden party when there were incredibly interesting you know people showed up like famous people shout out we have to learn how to transform ourselves and we couldn't do that unless we had the input and insight from the community the people that we

work with um so we're going to continue to do this and college will continue to be more about our community than than than our company at this point where we stuck dynamite in our old business model you know The Branding industry is about to go through a Hu two things are about to happen and why I think the the old branding in the way you knew it is dead it's it's it's gone the big case that you you pump out every month where that game has run its course is one there's an article on Monday

in ADH about how the advertising agencies that are now getting in the game almost all of them are are getting in the brand and design game all of them you know when the advertising agency showed up whatever model you had is dead because it's like okay and they're like oh there something going over here if it takes a takes a while for advertising agencies to see what's going on and they find caught on to this and they're now going to come in with story and resources and power and they're going to try to hijack are

they acquiring branding firms is that what they're doing they requiring branding firms and they're starting their own you know even within the holding companies where there already branding firms like wolf olens at Omnicom you all of a sudden you the big Power Players the holding companies advertising agencies all want to get in the game and then you also have now what's going to happen with the influence of AI and the ability for AI very very short order it's already here to create the kinds of images that were inconceivable even two years ago and the ability

the unique ability to make images like the value of good-look image will be instant will be replaced so the bra so people work in design are going to have to rethink the value they actually bring to the conversation when uh when generative systems are going to be able to create pretty remarkable imagery from animation to typography to packaging I saw a system six years ago that I spoke about on your on your podcast that were re that blew my mind five years ago and the thing about Ai and I still hear designers and creative people

talk about this oh it's really terrible the AI you're looking at right now is the worst it will ever ever be you're looking at the model A of AI we got from the model A to the Moon in 60 years it's going to go twice as fast as that because the AI systems will be able to self-generate and that's going to have a dramatic impact on the way that designers are historically driven to create images those images will be made by um AI I want to follow up with these two things that you brought up

first with the ad agencies and the holding companies these powerful conglomerates that can spend all kinds of money acquiring and doing things that now are going to I think potentially threaten the the independent branding firm how do you respond what is your reaction to that are are do you have plans to sell your your your agency no never we have no interest um in selling agency um at all and I as far as I'm concerned when it comes to advertising agency I'd say welcome to the fight Kongs will never be sold why there's no reason

to to sell the company you're so funny to to me people say well we sell the company and then you can then go off and do what you want to do we're doing what we want to do I'm doing what I want to do I work with you know almost 60 amazing creative people every day and I work with some of the best clients and the best companies in the world if I'm on a golf course somewhere in Florida with the view of a fake Pond I would have made a wrong long term something the

quote we work really hard to get to a point where we love what we do we love the people we work with why would why would we want to sell that I I don't like you know I um yeah no no no this is what we do I'm a designer like this thing is a table so you work how do I say you work at a holding company you become a designer and so I you know it was interesting I went back we have a place in Woods Hall a property of about 5 Acres uh

near the ocean ship and about a mile and a half from the house is Buckminster Fuller's very very first geodesic dome and you know bminer Fuller said don't worry about you know destroying the all old model make a new model that's more interesting so and that's what he did time and time and time again and that I pass that every day when I'm in Woods Hole and um so it's it's a that's a reminder of me is don't worry about the past create something yeah so the space in in in branding is going to get

really crowded really soon because you said the ad agencies are a little slow to get to once they arrive it means we've hit the Tipping Point how do you reinvent yourself you've blown up the old model how do you reinvent reinvent yourself so that you're not in competition you're you're a category of one yeah well that's it like I'm I'm not interested I'm not interested in being the best or better or or the leader I'm interested in being the only right and so that's where this is happening so so we're moving out of the brand

I to say this each of these conversations Encompass the conversation that came before right so I was a kid I started out drawing and an aunt of mine I love drawing like packaging and posters and she said you're a commercial artist and my father introduced me to someone I was 10 who gave me a book on the push pin style and he worked for Walter gropius in Cambridge and he said here's a book that I just got in Paris it was about the book of pushin Studios he introduces me to the term graphic design by

the time I get to College graphic you don't it's no longer called graphic design it's called communication design then by the time I start practicing it's no longer called communication design it's called corporate identity and then it's no longer called corporate identity it's called branding so each of these things commercial art graphic design um uh communication design corporate identity now branding design now ready to make for for we saw is a new leap and the new leap for us is in transformation design which is the ability to imagine create better and new Futures that are

enduring and differentiate with our clients that's where we're going because we had to differentiate ourselves as otherwise we're just playing the you know otherwise we're trying to toop pigs with pigs trying to do oh a better looking case study a a you know a cooler use of gener of typography I can't play that you know you we will continue to do that work and I'm very proud of that work but we're now looking at at G getting involved with other kinds and and luxur kinds of things we're doing like hosting these remarkable events in can

going with you to Ireland our trip to um Bhutan and then the space that we're building down on Cape Cod for our for our people and our clients you know where we can have conversations about how we build a better future those are transformative conversations and we're trying to figure out what that looks like right now the thing that got us here is not the thing that's going to get us there well I'm excited about where you take this idea and you talked about the integration of different disciplines and the integration of finances part of

like what you're doing because if you're going to make an impact on businesses and organizations on that level I think you're you're bringing all the things that you need to to be able to create that kind of transformation you're talking about turns out that we developed a discipline in in in financial analysis that's informed by imagination and by deep deep competences that has allowed us to go into have conversation with CEOs and Chief Financial officers and CMOS that's quite remarkable literally realigning working them to figure out where's the outsize opportunity for the business to grow

what's most viable and that's a creative endeavor it's backed up by data it's backed up by analytics and backed up by great discipline and people who studied McKenzie and at mbas and went to Stanford and Harvard yeah and who are very think very differently than I do but it turns out the ability to imagine that future using Finance is very is rubs right up beside the ability to imagine the future as an artist artists are particularly good at trying to imagine what's Over the Horizon what's around the corner so are Finance people and so it's

j about these disciplines are native to one another and they're actually quite creative designers you say oh the finance people you know the finance people are creative as you are it's just a different discipline and so by embracing that that's opened up entirely new conversations for us and so I will be able to carry on and my and the the designers of my team will be able to carry on the conversation about creativity design Craft um Communications environments culture um product all the things we know how to create design engineering and build and then there

are other members of my team who have NBAs and backgrounds in in in in finance and management consulting and they speak with great Authority in areas that I don't so we can be fluent or carry on two conversations what conversations about Finance growth and relevance with the CEO and the CFO and the CMO and with the chief creative officers and in some cases the chief marketing officers we a conversation about creative relevance and creativity and building you know differentiation through design and copy and film and animation so we can carry on the craft conversation about

design we can carry on the craft conversation about Finance it turns out that they are two piece in a plot who knew it's the common language between the different creative disciplines imagination and transformation and that's the Connecting Point of the Hub it's one of the hubs because in both cases what you have to do is try to anticipate where do we go next and you do that through financial analysis and some imagination but also by plotting and you know all the things that people have left brain sorry can know how to do far better than

I do what's turned out is the finance people uh within our company and the creative people in our company have extraordinary Infinity for one another when I started to be first invited to go to Davos years ago the world economic Forum as it turns out I end up becoming friends with political scientists economists and I don't have to talk any of their language they invited me to to n to one year I was asked to moderate Joseph stiglet the Nobel Prize winner in economics because we found out that our common it were great stories about

not belonging and so all of a sudden having a conversation with Stig about how people belong or they don't belong which is the basis basically everything that has to do with economics economics is often related to status so you end up finding affinities with people who you think would be in the opposite part of the world than you are and you end up finding that you're almost almost the same there's a very celebrated political scientist who see who secretly told me he loves fam is famous around the world he loves The Muppets and so I

made a muppet of him for his birthday he lost his mind and now he uses he uses it as his Avatar and this is a very responsible political scientist who loves The Muppets you know somehow we think people who work in finance or business you know or management they they were kids too you know they had imagine they're at home watching Lord of the Rings or Star Trek or or or Game of Thrones or or or or gaming and so the hard line that creative people often put between people who are business people and um

people who are creative people is nonsense I have a question for you youve talking you're you're talking about this these big ideas and things that feel I think for a smaller design firm really far like far out of Out Of Reach can you share a story with us about something that you've done recently that can ground the entire thing that you're talking about these different disciplines working together to create this kind of massive transformation that creates a Preferred Future uh maybe it's a project you've worked on that you can share so that people can map

it out because I think that's the beautiful thing about your brain Brian that you're you're a student of history art design you're very much connected to culture you're the most well- read designer I've ever met in my life yet you're also kind of hey what's the point size on that thing and is the curring correct for that so you're able to bridge those two world so can we can I ask you to bridge this big thinking to something grounded in in design so that people who are listening can understand so there was a company that

had been around for Generations based in midwestern California and it was a wrench turning heating air conditioning pump water company they were called Therma Holdings and they were a collection of basically wrench turning businesses um that took care of air conditioning systems heating systems the incredibly powerful way that people use and spend and save energy turns out most of the problem in the world carbon isn't from gasoline it's from buildings that's where all the carbon problems are coming from the amount of energy that comes off buildings is most of the problem and so Blackstone had

made a massive investment in this company and they realized that that the company was growing it was growing but it was a collection of these badly branded basically incredibly Adept wrench turning keing an air conditioning companies hbac systems all around uh North America and so they came to us in this said we get all these companies what do we do and they're all about you know reducing energy I'm like no one's going to want a reduction story no one's interested in a reduction story business want to maximize story and so the team went including you

know teams of ours that would do portfolio analysis and finance analysis we realized that what they're actually doing they collectively were solving the carbon footprint problem because of what they knew how to do and we said really through some research and through analysis and some time with their CEOs that what they actually weren't doing is was wasn't reducing energy they were maximizing building efficiency solving they were what the world needs right now but no one's going to listen to Thermal Holdings really and they were collection these amazingly gifted companies all across North America so we

rebranded them we called the company Legions and the thing took off we connected their core value what they did to a bigger story about maximum iing efficiency of energy and the thing blew up we did a new logo we did a new brand Story We redesigned the company conceptually from the inside out and said your new future is not run turning hbac people your future is to maximize the use of energy across every building potentially in the world and it turns out they did the first zerocarb hospital they did this um a carbon they did

the zero carb first zero carbon Hospital the first zero carbon um Airport and they and they were say hey we've done these things I'm like that's what you do they just didn't have the story The Right sensibility and um sort of the right narrative and certainly the right branding in order to tell that story they have and the thing exploded and you can check out their site it's called Legions dcom and they've been remarkably successful that's a transformation story I didn't once mention the word type face or logo how deep into the engagement is it

that you come upon the Insight that this is the story we need to tell my favorite quote is from um one of the most celebrated Chief justices in the history of um the United States Oliver wol said forever seek Simplicity on the far side of complexity which means you get to do your work you going to do your research you get to find out what the answer is you get to see what the story is that is going to not only resonate with the marketplace but more importantly the thousands of people who are already running

your business dayto day so it seems sincere and honest to them and a big enough leak for the future that will capture the the imagination of the marketplace you want to speak to that doesn't happen in a week that requires research writing leaps of imagination alignment with a board aligning with the people are paying for it aligning with your aligning with the customers you already have and an anticipation and alignment with the communities that you want to serve that don't know about you yet that's a lot of work um but it's rewarding because then after

you figure out your story is about maximizing the efficiency of energy then all of a sudden you have a narrative that informs storytelling photography design interaction design environmental design product design then your aesthetic form comes out of that new story and you're having a conversation about values one of the things that has been shocking to me that designers still present this way particular when they work with Brands ready we have three ideas here's the one that's closest to him here's the one that's per they set up and here's the one in the middle the problem

is designers were taught to teach this to to to to introduce ideas this way because that's how they were taught to introduce them in design school it's insane it makes no sense because what ends up happening is everyone does Goldilocks this is too hot this is too soft this is too you know this is too cold this is too hard and everyone goes right to the middle and therefore the kind of leap that you could have made with your client vanish so we never present our work that way we say your value is about efficiency

or your value is about speed or your value um was about um reliability and reassurance whatever those are I mean knowing that those are three values that will important for for the brand then we lean into one over the other and certainly in the case of of Legions it was Ed they incredible engine they're towering compliments in engine engineering and efficiency and we buildt the brand around that around that ambition that's a different story but when once you have the story you design to the story otherwise you're just swing trying to second guess well CEO

like this I don't care if the CEO likes this honest to God what I care about is does I have three values that are really Paramount to the CEO for the future does this design answer and this strategy meet his value he wants to build and if I believe it does we've answered it if he doesn't like the color well interesting when you talk about values you talk about the vision of the future there's very little conversation with the CEO about whether or not he likes that shade of yellow those conversations vanish they never happen

because you're having conversation about what the future is and which are the Futures that you want to build designers ultimately rehearse the future before he arrives that's our superpower and when you want to transform the future we're like Wizards we can imagine any potential future before they arrive when you know how to do that you shouldn't say this is the closest to this is the for this out say we have three ways in the future which one is the most promising and which path do you want to go I have a couple of follow-up questions

for you as you're combing through vast amounts of information data interviewing people getting the stories collecting it what it is that you're talking about what people don't understand is arriving at a simple truth is not easy it's not easy at all so how do you know and with your team that you've arrived at that moment and now we're ready to talk about that as the essence of what it is that you're going to do the essence of your story you first you've done your work you it'll feel like the last tumbler in the lock has

opened up and when you read it and it's read in the room the hair should go up in the back of your neck you go like there it is that's the story and the story has an emotional resonance and then when you share it with somebody it should explode in in their imagination they say I feel that and I can build a future on that when you do that and you read it to someone and it and if we done our work right and we spent a lot of time to make sure it's right we

will read this ambition in the room we we we read it to a very celebrated CEO a project we just did in redefin their brand a member of my team had a chief strategy officer uh Tammy M read this to the CEO and the CEO um he did this he started crying he put grabbed a tissue paper and he said I've never cried in a meeting that's my ambition that's the reason I started this company that's the reason why we exists and no one's ever ever put it into language somehow you went into my brain

and you pull it up and there all of a sudden there it was it was no longer a mystery you put it into language and people say ah there it is you got emotional in the room that will off it's really weird that happens more often than than not with us when we read that ambition to a CEO particularly a Founder they will sometimes get emotional because if we done our work right we've uncovered the thing that makes their company meaning as a younger person I underestimated the power of language and words I'm not that

stupid anymore can you talk to us philosophically intellectually about the the potency of the words when you find the right words in the correct sequence it can unlock that very strong emotional response from this powerful CEO words it's create Worlds the powerful language to create and paint a picture of the future that is grounded in understanding of where the business has been where it is and where it needs to go language that identifies what is language identifies what must be right then language that identifies what could be like what is what must be what could

be you in your articulation of a company's future you hit those three things and you help people to understand what future it is that they're fighting for it opens up enormous Wells of trust because people say you've listened to me and you've heard me and you've given me a map that I never thought I would be able to get um and then you can go exploring one of the reasons we're going to Ireland Chris and we're taking you know those people with us is when I took that trip there with the poet David White you

know the power for the first real time I I I'm sadly it happened to me so late in my life but the real power of language to shape a future was suddenly present in in in in my in the week that I spent with those poets in Ireland it's one of the reasons we're going back there is the power to craft something out of nothing there's this quote that people in design use often they said Einstein said imagination is more important than knowledge right youve heard that but then you have to ask the next question

what's more what's more important than imagination what's more important than imagination is craft can you make it can you create it can you animate it can you ship it can you write it and the craft of writing is actually more important than that itself imagination is easy everyone think it's like particular in in in some Industries um they oh I've got a good idea I wake up like you do like anyone who's listening to you right now we have a 100 good ideas hit us during the course of the day you probably wake up with

50 it's not the person who has 50 good ideas it's the person who has 50 good ideas and says I'm going to do that one today or I'm going to do that one this week so the ability to build one of those ideas the ideas are easy they shake out of my sleeve in the morning when I wake up just like you like just like anyone it's not about the big idea it's about the big craft can you make it real and that's what language is about do you know the difference between the right word

and the wrong word or as Mark Twain said the difference between the right word and the wrong word is like the difference between lightning and a lightning book I've seen it in a room and I've seen it in a room I've seen it open up the head of a CEO and I've seen it make a CEO cry and I go holy I didn't think that was possible that's the power of real language the power of real language is not to out and say we're connected and this is a human brand and we're going to bold

and relevant and Innovative kill me now I me if I see these interchangeable brand decks they're all the same everyone has bold relevant Innovative you it it's they're interchangeable so the power of language to create not only meaning but more importantly in terms of brand differentiation one of my favorite lines that we wrote a couple years ago was for KW the first public radio station up um National an NPR station in San Francisco I a giant billboard we put the bar station and at the bottom it says in our giant logo K aw and the

headline says on the left of your dial and everything else writing is actually that's the other thing we probably do writing is our secret weapon we have really really good writers here Brian when I do my workshops I I I try and tell people my my objective is to teach you something but I don't know if I've done a good job until somebody here has a genuine emotional response and I think I figure it out people are wandering through life in these adult suits but inside is a child who is misunderstood is looking for meaning

and wants to be seen Y and so I think when I know what that is and I say that to them I give them permission and I am looking into their soul and saying saying this is what you've always wanted in your life and when I say that yep they burst into tears I imagine something has happened when your team is presenting or you to the CEOs or these large corporations when you say these are your values this is the story and they spontaneously burst into tears it's because I think some part of them has

been waiting to be seen in that way so profoundly so deeply and connected to the words and you find the right words that can happen I think it can happen like doesn't happen all the I'm I I don't want my CE nerv it's Brave downs and weeping through there always that's the scene I don't want to say that I encourage but it does mean that we hit an emotional cord brings and all and your decisions about a brand if you get back to a brand conversation all decisions that you make in your life are emotionally

driven and then rationally Justified so you've got to find a way into the emotional story first that's part of the brain that we that activates us and then you can back up with data and and the facts and that's where language can make a really profound difference I'm not surprised in your sessions because uh and because I think creative people many creative people are very close to the first things that they were creative about I mean I draw I start drawing like everybody did when they're very young and I drew through kindergarten first grade you

know I drawn until today creative people I think tend to be very close to the first Genesis um or the first Spark of their creative Endeavors and so I think they feel more protective of it somehow where's a lot of people who go on to Finance Management and I think we Short change them when we say that there's not extraordinary creativity in every profession um so I'm I'm not surprised that people have that kind of spontaneous reaction when when you say that to them the the desire and the need to be seen um and valued

is also one of the Valu this driving our community making here and that's one of the things I think that's made a difference is that we have no other agenda except to have you participate in any way you want if I'm a designer a creative human yeah or a strategist or marketer or brander and I come upon this point in our conversation I said you know what I've overlooked the power of words are there any resources or things that you would point us to to say like this is how you can be more intentional in

your word choice because words create worlds I would point you in the direction of my friend the poet David White and I point you in the direction of a book of his called consolations and he takes 52 words that are overlooked common and often dismissed and he breaks them apart and he makes you look at them in the same way those and that book is a really good beginning on understanding how the power of language is easily as important as the power of visuality the thing about visuality can be more powerful is something communicates before

you understand understand it but if you can understand it and help people understand it through language then you get then You' get two ideas working together you incredible visuality and very powerful language those are two creative disciplines and when they work together they're Unstoppable well thanks for sharing that I can't wait to hang out with you in person to geek about the power of language and words because I'm a a late Comer to this myself I'm just like a little kind of antsy just thinking about this trip that is happening in in October why an

not not an in a in a bad way like Anie like I'm with great anticipation like like that nervous Jitter like a big day of fishing for me I'm like this is it's happening soon and I'm really looking forward to it but I'm just going to kind of surrender myself to the process to the this curated event or this multi-day event that you've planned we're going to the book of Kel's at Trinity College we're going to get to um visit some ancient architecture we're going to go see a dance recital we're going to some of

the best um the best cook and the best food in Ireland it'll be a really really good trip and I think the difference in the events that we're having and maybe the difference between cins 1.0 and maybe Collins you know 2.0 is this Chris is consider colins 1.0 a March okay we had a goal we wanted to become good at what we did we wanted to become well known for doing what what we did and so we hit that goal aimed for it and a March is a very powerful song uh a very powerful beat

because the purpose of a March is to get you from one part of of of the country to another part of the country in some case thousands of soldiers that's what marches were to get you across in some typ cases a very difficult landscape right the marches have a intention and they have a function I think college 2.0 is a waltz and the purpose of the Walts is the Walts purpose of the Walts is to listen to the music engage with someone and dance with everybody else there's no purpose to wall have to enjoy it

and to enjoy it with other people and it has no agenda except outside of itself except for doing it well and there's no goal except for learning how to do it really really well so if we were the difference I think for 1.0 and two is the difference between to March and a waltz I love that metaphor I'm kind of visualizing in my mind right now and I feel like part of our conversation has been a waltz the metaphor Martian Walts something that I've been thinking about for the last few years and then I rewatched

Mary Poppins with my nie and I heard the March and then by the end I'm like that's the shift in the music the character Poppins introduces them to an idea that you can enjoy your life without being so prescriptive that you take a look at what's around you you take a look at the systems that you have around you what's available to you what is in your environment that you can turn into something magical or as we say maybe the difference between the desert power and the harcon how do you Leverage The Magic and optimize

all all the things around you to make something that's more like a waltz drop the March and Waltz how did we as humans as a society think about ideas and experiences and then say this is the word that will mean that and we have to have the same shared meaning and that trips me out a lot well it's hard because languages can sometimes be slippery and the things that carry the most amount of meaning are often the areas things that carry the most so I power poetry is powerful because it it points to and and

gives language to the things that are ineffable when people say I I I don't have the words for it literally they don't have the words for it because the emotions that are hitting them are hitting part of their brain that doesn't have language and so what you end up having to do with language it's like trying to find a black hole you can never see the black hole what you see is all the star systems and how light bends around it you can never see the black hole you can only see the consequences of it

and that's what language is and many ways that's AOS Tre is cuz trying to find the Black Hole by looking at all the things that are around it and that's what good language does it's able to articulate something that's hard to articulate by finding the pattern that resonates in a way and and you feel it and you sense it and that's um and that's very hard to do and you end up tripping over language because we don't have language for this stuff but when you nail it there it is and you can see it and

you can feel it I'm kind of tripping a little bit because I'm tring trying to remember all the things that we talked about last time then checking in my mind like did we hit all those things we didn't and I think we we didn't hit the the dark stuff but maybe that's a conversation for another day yeah yeah yeah I think it is a conversation for another day as always Brian I really appreciate your time your generosity and I think um it won't be another 5 years but we'll look back on this in 5 years

and see how many of these things that you're talking about as a futurist as a person who's really deeply connected to culture who's super observant the things that you talk about we're going to see the ripples of in in a few years and see how spot on you've been we'll see it is you know it's it's a dance and it's a bit a Walt so we're going to see how are we just but we what we realize now is the March that got us here is not the March that's going to get us to our

next to our next chapter absolutely thank you very much Brian I'm Brian Collins and you're listening to the Future