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In Episode #66, Ross is joined by Jeff Staple, the founder of REED ART DEPARTMENT (formerly known as Staple Design). Jeff is a creative visionary whose work encompasses graphic, fashion, and footwear design, as well as brand marketing. He has worked on countless creative projects for clients ranging from startup brands to Fortune 100 companies. Ross and Jeff discuss how brands and branding change...

In Episode #65, Ross is joined by Teemu Suviala, Global Head of Brand Design for Reality Labs at Meta. Reality Labs is a diverse group of developers, researchers, engineers, and designers that leads the expansive work being done at Meta in building the next computing platform and bringing the metaverse to life. Before joining Meta Teemu led creative work at brand and design agencies, Collins, as E...

In Episode #64, Ross is joined by David Gersch, Creator of CryptoLeos. CryptoLeos is an NFT collection celebrating pop culture by world-renowned artist David Gersch. Each NFT is a multi-utility asset – ownership of a CryptoLeo welcomes you to the Leo party, an exclusive club of stylish Oscar-winning winners! Ross and David discuss how he created 1000 unique artworks for CryptoLeos, the power of me...

In Episode #63, Ross is joined by Bryce Anderson, Production Executive at Clubhouse Pictures and part of the team bringing Omega Runner to life. Bryce Anderson started his career and bought his first Bitcoin as an assistant at United Talent Agency. He joined Clubhouse Pictures when it was founded in 2015 and has worked on the producing team for Bright, Birds of Prey, and I, Tonya, among others. Ro...

In Episode #62, Ross is joined once again, by Jack Butcher, Founder of Visualize Value. Jack spent 10 years working in corporate advertising in NYC as a graphic designer for billion-dollar brands. In search of fun and freedom, he started his own agency...and found neither. After 2 years of further iteration, he built Visualize Value – a project he used to build a network of mentors, a $1M/year pro...

Highlights from the conversation "When I got into PVNKS I quickly realized that I was building a brand, building a world" "This hub for like-minded people are invested in the project, but they're also invested in you, as an artist" "Art is something that you do of your own will, not for the sole purpose of selling" "Everything I saw at the time was really repulsive – terrible drawings of terrible...

Highlights from the conversation It still takes a creative person at the center to say – this is what it is, this is what it isn't We don't need to make a hundred million dollars on a movie. We just need for that to be a great experience for people in the DAO It's gonna be the most dangerous audience in the world. They're gonna green light [+ have rights to] their content Films could become more l...

Highlights from the conversation You're used to thinking of technology as the value creator, but it's actually brands, studios, and agencies Your cost of failure is small. And the only way to get asymmetric gains is to participate early You can call them NFTs, but they’re actually strong property rights of ownership for physical and synthetic assets Now, the value is in the community, the content,...

Highlights from the conversation For the majority of the people right now, there is just not a fast way to enter the tokenised world It doesn't matter whether you are in the app store or whether you have a web-based game, you need to work on the marketing strategy regardless Projects are getting a lot of traction for no reason – just because of the hype We are very early and there are a lot of opp...

Highlights from the conversation: A graphic novel [is] one of the few ways a single creator can create the entire product You go to a meeting and they're just like "Cool art, kid – but what does this look like as a movie?" Once NFTs + Web3 happened. It was just like, well, maybe this is a more interesting way to launch a product? You can't one-to-one sell a product like you would in Web2, you have...

Highlights from the conversation The concept is the most important thing, because that's really what paints a picture in people's heads We're always asking how can we exaggerate that idea? How can we make it really, really clear with every element? If you filter yourself, you run the risk of blending in with everyone else If you can use storytelling to bring those ideas to life in people's minds,...

Highlights from the conversation My lack of conviction about branding may be [because] everything is being presented as a brand nowadays Branding was this shorthand for authority Designers are taught form follows function. What really makes design contribute to culture are those 'other things' that come into play Brands provide visual and experiential cues that help us work through a complicated e...

Highlights from the conversation We have to be doing work that is going to change the world around us The boundaries of branding are absolutely limitless. What's not limitless are designers As designers, we cannot continue to think about the planet as a completely replenishable resource We have the opportunity to show what we support through what we buy At the end of the day, maybe you just are se...

Highlights from the conversation One thing with simplicity is to not confuse it with minimalism. Simplicity is about focus and really defining your purpose If you don't come together as a collective, sometimes you'll never be seen Purity is really important. It's where we try to get to the essence of a brand Great design doesn't mean good results. It's really the power of everyone together Motion...

Highlights from the conversation I think Wrapped is a magical project because it's one of the only marketing projects where you have millions of people sharing their own experience of the year through the share card Start with guiding principles – What does your brand stand for? What are you trying to do? How does that come to life? That's part of the magic of Wrapped – you release it to the world...

Highlights from the conversation: Then you become a trusted advisor or partner who has got their back rather than a gun for hire When we, as an industry, get it right we add unbelievable value to the bottom line of a business I definitely think there's gotta be a smarter way to be compensated for the work that we do But the minute something's asked for free, then they have all the power and we’re...

Highlights from the conversation: Since it's a living organism, a brand can behave really well if it's managed well. But it can also misbehave. There's also no such thing as a perfect brand In the industry, we hand out brand manuals and they're sometimes treated as the Bible that the in-house design team has to conform to, but I actually don't see style guide that way – I see style guide as parame...

Highlights from the conversation: If you build upon communities that have organically been created, the chances of success are much higher People are not buying products, people are buying stories [Brands] not just an economic entity, [they’re] a social entity or cultural entity The most successful brands piggyback on their existing communities If you're not part of someone else's story, then you'...

Highlights from the conversation I'm always encouraging my clients to brag in a good way. A logo is just a mark and some of the best-known brands in the world have really crappy logos As far as trying to build a brand or a personality, that's memorable. It always comes from a unique place. And usually it comes from a smaller place [A logo] is just a symbol. A symbol only has meaning once you do al...

Highlights from the conversation Any public institution has a brand and is a brand The Constitution has a lavish and generous set of values...but it comes down to the promise of human dignity It doesn't matter if you've got this amazing message and amazing marketing collateral – if you don't actually do the thing that you said you would do, it all fails One shouldn't over mythologize the element o...

Highlights from the conversation: In the comic book world, there are thousands of characters but only a handful rise above. My theory is they've done a better job of telling their story. We can identify with them. Great characters have a strong story. Their strengths and their weaknesses are almost mirror opposites of each other. Perfect is boring. Perfect is inauthentic. Perfect is unrelatable Pe...

Highlights from the conversation: A brand is an organism composed of hundreds of elements, logos, copywriting, photography, colours, and of course, typography Big companies spend millions of dollars on their fucking brand. Why can't they spend a little bit more money to make sure they have a font that is recognisable? They don't even have to say anything. They just have to put type on a page and p...

Highlights from the conversation: You collect ideas by looking around the world and doing things, and all of those things form a vocabulary of ideas that you then come to use I always try and encourage young designers to not just look at design – to look wide and experience wide Things lead to other things. The more you collect ideas, the more you will have opportunities to make them happen It's i...

Highlights from the conversation: Your brand is this decentralised thing that essentially exists in other people's heads. It’s this thing that you're building in other people's minds Where you really start to feel the compound effect of brand [is] 12-18 months down the line It really does take a long time to win that battle of attention and fire off the sequence of neurons when someone sees your w...

Highlights from the conversation [On rebranding] You don't change from one day to the other. But I do think that makes a wave of different thinking It means something. They work their asses off for a purpose, and that logo signifies the purpose. We tend to pretend that a brand needs to portray something more positive than it is, and I think, No – beauty is honesty Design is about goods and about c...