Hello and welcome to the AIGA Design Podcast.
This season we are exploring the theme of design and performance.
My name is Lee Sean Huang, Senior Director of Learning and
Programs here at AIGA, the professional association for
Design. Hello everyone, my name is Julia
Donatello and I'm the design Competition and Event Manager at
AIG. Hello, I'm Michael Kay and I'm
the Chief Design Officer at Sylvane in New York.
Welcome, Michael, and it's great to have you on the show today.
We'd love to learn more about you and your work at Sylvane, as
well as your career, how you got to where you are today.
So to jump straight into things, can you tell us a bit more about
your career so far? How did you end up landing in
the design world, and what were your initial motivations for
choosing this career path? So I came to New York after art
school where I studied more drawing, painting, photography,
and the program that I went to at the University of Louisville
offered four design classes, Graphic design one, Graphic
design 2. Graphic design three and four
very. Descriptive.
Pardon. Very descriptive.
Exactly. But I did take that coursework
more as backup, thinking that I was going to go into a fine art
profession or maybe teach fine art.
But I also wanted to be in New York.
So immediately after school, I moved to New York and found out
that in order to go to school, I would probably have to sell art
supplies. It probably couldn't afford to
live in the city. So I started looking for jobs
that I was qualified for and at that time there was a job
listing in the Village Voice, a printed publication to be the
design assistant to the design director at Penguin Books who
was responsible for designing all of the book interiors.
So not book covers, not book jackets, but really kind of all
of the non fiction, the fiction, illustrated books, things like
that. And somehow with my kind of
thrown together design portfolio and my enthusiasm, I landed that
gig, which is where I learned so much around kind of this fun
typography. Just because since you are
working on the insides of books or the interiors of books,
typography becomes kind of your main tool to hierarchy.
Understanding of messaging and how to kind of guide somebody
through what can be a complex kind of journey of words, if you
will, and three kind of conceptual approaches to
typographic solutions. How do you make type not only
function that notion of hierarchy, but means something
that and merge into the craft of typography and conceptual
thinking kind of really was the foundation for a lot of the kind
of design knowledge and design philosophy that I have with me
today. And through my experience at
Penguin Books working on book interiors, I got the opportunity
to design a book cover. I think what had happened was
because they were very separate departments, you either were in
the book Interior Department or you were in the book jacket
department. But I think an author had killed
a book cover and they needed something really quick.
And it was my first opportunity to design a book cover.
So I took that knowledge and kind of my enthusiasm and
crafted what was my first book jacket.
And it was a successful attempt and the book was well received.
And that kind of really changed, I guess, I guess, the canvas
that I had been given and I began to get more opportunities
to design the covers within that organization or book jackets and
really became kind of immersed in the world of publishing and
design in a way that I didn't even know existed prior to that.
What it allowed me to build really is an understanding of
kind of, I guess you know, how creativity is can be used as a
tool to bring ideas, whether those be the ideas of the author
or your own ideas to a format that engages audiences, right?
And helps bring these ideas and give them dimension and shape
and stuff like that without sacrificing one's own sense of
creativity and one's own passion.
And it really just excited me so much to be reading books and
creating book covers and kind of helping authors move their ideas
forward. So as I was doing that or and
these book jackets became notice, I began to think about
how these book jackets were kind of these mini brands, if you
will. I was helping authors to find
their brands and wanted to know whether I could do that in a
larger context. So from publishing, I migrated
to branding, where my first gig was at Ogilvy and Mather and a
group called the Brand Integration Group where I was
working with Brian Collins. And then from there, I migrated
to a smaller communications agency that focused on luxury
and fashion. So I began to kind of continue
to build really kind of, I guess, new reference points and
new understanding of making, right?
All the sudden I'm in the world of image making and photography
and things like that. And from there, I went to a
place called Mother where I helped build or found their
design group and also began to build a career that kind of
straddled design and communications, if you will.
It really, you know, kind of, I always kind of felt like design
was a little bit of a stepchild in the world of communications.
But I knew that design was a driver where communications were
concerned. And that's where kind of, I
think that kind of changed really kind of, well, it's
funny, I'm rambling a little bit, but kind of changed kind of
my perception of design and what can design can do for brands.
And then from Mother, I went to a place called Sylvane, which
was primarily a strategy company.
And that's where I am now. And I've been building a
creative practice here now for about 3 1/2 years.
Well, thank you for that overview of your career so far.
There's so many threads that we want to pull on, including going
maybe deeper into your book design process, which we have is
a question coming up. But I wanted to follow up more
on the entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship side of your
experience. So you've talked about at
Sylvain building out design practice and what was primarily
a strategy practice previously at Mother Design or you created
the design practice at Mother, which was an advertising firm
before that. So can you tell us what you've
learned about entrepreneurship? Entrepreneurship in terms of
like starting new things or developing out service lines at
companies that were maybe focused on other things before
that? Yeah.
Sure. For me, I think I've always
looked for these roles that provided an opportunity for me
and my philosophy and my approach to kind of both making
and teaching to drive my decision making from a career
perspective. And entrepreneurship wasn't in
my mind about starting a new thing.
It was actually about coming in and helping a brand or a company
understand what creativity can do for them.
And at the same time, and this is a little, I don't know
whether it's wonky or not, is that I've also always looked for
a place where I can have a creative outlet.
And I want to make sure that that those scales right, how I
can help a company, but they can provide a platform for my voice.
And then when I say my voice, it's not about my design, it's
about my approach. And in that approach, it's about
bringing in talent that I can help grow and make part of a
culture and help really bring the culture of creativity into
an organization or a new way of thinking.
I mean, that is entrepreneurship.
But I've never been like, I'm a founder, right?
Or that hasn't been my motivation.
My motivation has always been to try and further kind of, I
guess, this pursuit of giving creative a larger platform.
Nice. I like how you said that it's
not only about your design, but it's your approach.
And I think I'm curious to learn more.
You, you mentioned earlier how you started your career
designing book covers and we know that you have also been
responsible for designing the cover of books such as The
Tipping Point and Fight Club. Can you share a little bit of
the the steps of designing a book cover and how the process
is similar or different than designing for a brand, for
example, and how that has influenced your approach to
design? Sure.
I mean, I think, I mean it's influenced my approach in many
ways. But I think that fundamentally
understanding is really where we begin in all projects, both in
terms of book jackets and in branding.
And with the book jackets, it was understanding the content,
right? Like really trying to, you know,
immerse myself, read, read a book or many books, understand
the author's intent, understand the publishers objective with
that author, how they were positioning that author.
And then also understanding the cultural landscape, what's going
on in design at that time, what's going on in the cultural
zeitgeist in terms of book jackets.
And really synthesizing kind of the information that you're
getting from the book to get to a potent thought, a singular
idea that you can express through that book jacket with an
understanding of all of those other parameters, right?
And what's interesting about the book jacket thing, and I speak
to it a bit, is that a lot of times, yes, it was all of those
things, but you were also creating something for the book
shops and the people who unpacked books and you wanted to
appeal to them because they were the people who were deciding
where that book was going to be phased out in the bookstore.
So it wasn't only about this larger kind of understanding of
the book, the marketing, etcetera, but of making sure
that you were really connecting with bookstore owners and
authors and understanding what that book jacket could do in a
bookstore. Because books didn't have big
advertising budgets. So a lot of times where a book
was in a store was the only promotion that it got.
So that was a lot of it. And even thinking in terms of
the design where so many book jackets, especially at that
time, were wall to wall type or super aggressive, well, maybe
one should be recessive. Maybe one should allow for a lot
of space because what you're doing is you're actually drawing
the eye in a crowded environment to a, a singular things.
There's a lot of information and understanding in in in the
development of those ideas that go beyond just the conceptual
thinking. But I also think that
channelling an author's idea and trying to make those ideas
potent in a singular thought, like a singular match for The
Tipping Point or a Bar of soap for Fight Club, both.
I don't even think a match appears in the conversation
Malcolm Gladwell was having, but it was much more around how a
match is a symbol for kind of ignition of an idea and things
like that. So what are these metaphors that
we can create that actually represent the ideas that the
book holds? That's interesting too, that you
found these singular symbols for both Fight Club and The Tipping
Point that were not so literal or obvious, right?
It wasn't like a scale or for the Tipping Point or like, I
don't know, boxing gloves for Fight Club or something else.
There were different things, but they were still the singular
objects that still was saying something about the theme of
those books. And to connect that to the
larger question, it's like, how does that relate to what I do in
branding? We are as kind of branders,
makers, creating these kind of singular thoughts that need to
have layers, right? They need to have multiple
layers and of meaning and inspire more creation, right?
It's not just a logo, it's an identity system, it's a
philosophy. It's a way in which that
identity goes, excuse me, out into the world.
So those book jackets were fundamental or the process of
book jacket design was fundamental in my migrating from
publishing to let's say, kind of branding, branding calms.
And another thing in that kind of, I'll say experience was the
fact that especially when I was a creative director at Little
Brown, you're responsible for maybe the creation of 5-6
hundred books a year, not designing them myself, but you
know, whether it's freelancing them, your designing teams,
etcetera. And some of those would be
romance books, some of those would be thrillers, of those
would be literary fiction or nonfiction.
So you also really need to be quite ambidextrous, if you will,
or kind of the ability to understand many things and then
kind of reduce those things to those core essence.
So when I think about all the different kinds of brands that
I've touched and impact, I feel as though that experience of
kind of quickly trying to get to solutions for so many different,
different things has really helped in my approach to
branding. That's great.
I love your explanation about metaphors and symbols and how
that is representation of cultural zeitgeist.
And I'm curious to hear from you, how do you pursue the
changes in graphic design trends in the past decades and how like
what is the direction that you think they are headed right now?
It's funny, it's, you know, trends in design are always
there. I think that have always been
there, right? But for me, I think that there's
a speed now. I think we go through trends
much more quickly because we're exposed as consumers to so many
more things so rapidly that the arc of a trend is much more
compressed. And for me, I don't think I've
always been influenced by trends and what's going on and want to
understand how that might impact a design solution.
But I'm never driven by trends, especially in the world of
branding. I think that there's a trap in
that. And, but it's something that I
question a lot now. I, I kind of grew up thinking
that what we created, especially in the brand space as graphic
designers, were these artifacts of permanence and an identity
should last forever. And what I'm seeing even in the
reinvention of some identity work that I've done 10/15 years
ago is that there isn't really this sense of permanence in
these artifacts that we're making.
I think branding has really only been a term been a thing that if
you think about graphic design, which really like maybe 60-70
years, but there are very, very few identities that were created
50 years ago that are still in play today in their initial
conceit. In the same way, there are very
few Fortune 500 companies that existed 50 years ago today, 70
years or 50 years ago or 70 years ago that still exists
today in their true entity. So I think that permanence,
which was something that I truly strived for in my design, is
something that I'm always going to strive for, but I don't know
whether it truly kind of exists or will exist.
So trends and speed is a big shift based on technology and
how we receive information. So, so yeah.
And I think that we're, you know, it's like there's a,
there's a, a maximalist aesthetic that has been
prevailing where it's about lots of things with lots of things
moving. And I think we might be
migrating to something a bit more simpler, which I'm
appreciative of. Very cool.
As a follow up, now thinking about the trends and the sense
of permanence that you you brought with the rise of AI
based tools for many functionalities but also for
design, how do you think designers work?
Energy and attention should be focused from now on, So what
should be the priorities? I think this is such a loaded
kind of area, right? And I do think a lot about it.
And I think around the tools that currently exist within AI
for designers and why they're created.
And I think there's a lot around efficiency and getting things
done more quickly and I think. For me, these tools are tools
and we can't forego the things like context and understanding
the context from which we're pulling reference points.
We can't forego our own kind of values when it comes to design
and kind of why we're bringing in different reference points.
And there's, this is bizarre, but for me, even in a digital
space, design is quite physical. I love the physicality of seeing
things move, and I understand more when I move an object
around a page. What I feel as though though is
design will evolve to maybe something different through
these tools. But what I love about what kind
of both my product is, but what I truly feel design is, is this
kind of physicality, this multidimensionality.
And I think one can get there through prompts, but those
prompts need to come from context that you have.
How we get to that physicality, to that notion of understanding
through diversion is something that I don't quite know yet
because I like to explore really broadly.
And I do find the AI tools much more iterative and building
along a thought and kind of kind of adjusting prompts.
And so for me that that sense of diversion and how we understand
things differently is a little bit lost.
So what I've always kind of thought whether it's any new
tool that's being introduced do this is we need to become
familiar with that tool and how that tool can help us realize
our vision, not rely on that tool to construct my vision.
For me, yeah, I wanted to pick up on what you said about your
love of physicality and actually moving objects.
So going back to these examples of two of your iconic book
covers, like the the soap bar on the Fight Club cover or the the
match on the Malcolm Gladwell book, Like were those concepts
that you kind of sketched out on paper where you like playing
with physical objects and laying them out to see how they would
work? Like because those are like real
life objects. Like how?
How did you come to those concepts?
I think that Fight Club kind of different stories, right, Like
Fight Club was this very violent book, but yet the soap and the
soap made from liposuction fat played a key role as a kind of
as a moment in the book. And for me, this notion of what
we think of something as so clean and kind of, you know,
like nonviolent actually reference this kind of very kind
of, you know, aggro kind of idea there.
There's just something in that tension.
And there I actually, I, I did research and I went to a soap
maker and I was like, what would soap made from liposuction fat
actually look like when they told me it would be this clear
glycerin like bar. And I loved that tension between
the kind of clarity of the soap and again, the violent
undertones of the book. So we actually made so and I
designed that you see kind of the typography there has a bit
more of that kind of masculine kind of boxing reference.
And so that idea of stamping that typography into that soap.
So we made these physical bars of soap with a metal plate and
photographed it. And similarly, there was a, you
know, at that time kind of garage fonts and kind of things
like that were very trendy. And so I used a garage font and
kind of this, I don't even remember the name of it and
fucked it up a little bit again to get at that thing.
But I know I spent not only a shit ton of time crafting the
Fight Club typography to have this kind of, you know, poster
like quality, but how I moved objects around the page,
creating space for that soap. If I remember correctly, that
type kind of bleeds off the bottom and is working with the
edges to create this sense of tension.
So not only is there the conceptual thinking and the
creation of the soap, but there's a lot of attention
played to the letter forms and what the letter forms are doing
not only with each other but to the physicality of the book.
Sorry, that's the one that I did with fight or with, excuse me,
with tipping point quite different, right?
What are the what are the symbols that you know, you said
the scale, what are the symbols that might represent the
transference of ideas or trends or how things might move?
And also kind of there was a, this is kind of a, you know,
social sciences business book. And I wanted to change the
paradigm of a category. And it was also Malcolm Gladwell
who was like a New Yorker writer.
It wasn't like a business book. And so I, I kind of wanted to
shift that. So I took a lot of the
typographic information from literary fiction and added just
this little kind of symbol around the transference of ideas
to really shift how books in that category might be seen and
perceived. And both elevate the category
into a more literary space, but also not use the conventions of
both the category or the metaphors to express the ideas
within the book. And so this, and it's funny, by
the way, I collect so many things and objects and, and I'm
always moving my shelves around to be like, oh, how do I
highlight this thing? Or does this, it's almost like
these like little shrines, if you will.
And so the moving of objects and the space between objects makes
us feel differently. And I've always looked at
typography and design as a vehicle to make people feel.
And when things are tight, they create tension.
When things are loose, maybe sadness or a sense of ease.
So objects, and that could be a physical object or that could be
a piece of typography has meaning in itself, but how it's
placed, how we use it actually adds an additional layer.
Things that I strive for, whether I'm working in on a book
jacket or an identity as I want to make sure that we're not just
talking about surface. It's not it's never 2
dimensional. Even when it's two-dimensional,
it should always have meaning. It should always have a sense of
kind of space and what that space means.
And that's that physicality that I'm talking about.
It's, I don't know, it's the richness.
How do we bring, And this goes to that trend conversation too.
It's like, yes, there are trends and yes, we can use some of that
componentry, but I'm not using a trend for trend sake.
I need to build layers and meaning into it so it stands
out. Like it needs to fit in and
stand out, right. So I might rely on something
that is cultural zeitgeisty, but that's only about fitting in.
That's a value to something brands, right?
But if I just fit in, how am I me?
How am I standing out? How do I kind of, I don't know,
move forward, move beyond that. So it's like these delicate
tools that you really need to use with care.
I love your example about the soap and how you you played with
the physicality of the object to get your inspiration from it.
And I think it reminded me of when I was in my master's
degree, master's program last, last year actually, not last
year, the previous year, no. Yeah, we talked a lot about
research through making. And I think that's it's a good
example of how you used you saved some time to play around
with physicality of the objects to get to a point of what's the
symbol that I want to make sure I include in the in the cover of
of my book. So I love that example.
Yeah, and, and accuracy and understanding where, where,
where accuracy is important. And then how do you build on
that? It goes back to one of the first
things I was saying around understanding.
And it isn't only understanding of a brand or understanding of
the content of a book. It's actually the understanding
of, and it actually goes back to the AI thing too, right?
It's like understanding of the cultural references that you're
pulling in. That's where the AI thing hurts
me a little bit is like when I'm using those tools, I'm actually
pulling in data that I have no frame of reference for.
And is that OK? I mean, yes, because it's a tool
and everybody has it, but it has less meaning for me.
And so I have access to it, but I don't have understanding of
it. And I don't even know what part
of what I'm making through those tools is influenced by things
that, you know, again, no, no, no frame of reference for and,
and, and, and frankly, am I biting somebody that I don't
even know exists? And how are they getting credit
for what I'm making? It's, it's so loaded.
And because I think of design and what we do as such a
personal thing, it's so hard for me to accept that I'm going to
bring in things that I don't understand and kind of claim
ownership or claim craft over it.
So that's it's hard for me. Yeah, that's great.
Michael, you you've spoken about the anomaly of the date.
I'm curious to hear more from you.
How do you define this concept and why do you think it's
important for today's design context?
Sure. The anomaly of delay is for me
kind of a warning, a watch out that these things that we're so
used to in the physical world around serendipity and
happenstance and how we kind of, I don't know how we now try to
replicate these things in a digital space.
And how brands are beginning to Co opt notions of serendipity
into how they market to us. And the dopamine releases that
were once just things that existed out there are now things
that are actually being cultivated by the brands that we
work with to illicit clicks. There's a, you know, I always
want brands to do things that are surprising and delightful,
but at times I feel that they're tired and manipulative.
And we see these things over and over again.
So when I talk about the anomaly of delight, what I'm actually
talking about is the anomaly of true delight.
The anomaly or meaning that these things that are happens
dance that bring joy into our world or excite us or engage us
are now synthetic at times. And we as designers are being
asked to make these things right, to create these things,
to craft these things because our work is now to the, to the
point of the conversation, Our work isn't being evaluated by
our brands as wow, that's an amazing piece of design work.
It's that piece of design work, work garnered X amount of views
and X amount of clicks. So can you do that?
Again, this touches on all the conversations we've been having,
right? Trends, AI like, and so for me,
how are we kind of creating? I'm going to say, I'll say
dissonance, but how are we not reinforcing what brands are
asking us to do, which is to create not our best design work
ever, not the not those artifacts, but the artifacts
that are actually generating engagement?
And are we as designers looking at our work in that same way?
Michael, do you have an example of how serendipity plays a role
in in in the brand like brand design process?
I like with my teams when we're crafting brands to create a set
of tools that allow for I'm going to say anything to happen
and for those tools to be responsive to a cultural trend.
Can the tools that I make in a conservative way appear
literate? Can they appear trendy?
Can they make somebody laugh? Can they make somebody cry?
Like a brand needs to be prepared to do all of those
things through their voice. And so for me, it's when you
start to go down the trend path, when you're creating a piece of
design for a brand, you're actually making it smaller than
it needs to be and potentially not giving it the lifespan that
it could actually have. And so whether that's a trend
that you're kind of sculpting and moving forward, I'm not
going to speak about specific work out in the world, but
sometimes I feel as though identity is being crafted for
this moment in time so that people notice it, but it's not
being crafted to do all the things that a brand might need
to do over time. Yeah, I love to think that
you're the example you gave is I'm reflecting on how how hard
it is to design for a brand to be somehow flexible.
So it's flexible in a way that can navigate different times and
then make sure that exists for longer, but also not to lose
that it loses its personality, right.
So that's I think that's the the hard part.
What's the limit of how loose you designed this for?
And what's funny and cuz, you know, I probably won't be
around, but it's, it's this notion that maybe at some point
I like the brand shows up differently for me than it shows
up for you. And that's where I'm super
interested in like, you know, what do I use X brand for and
how do I see that brand in my world?
And you know, I think algorithmically brands are
already doing that in some ways in terms of the bits of content
that they're sending out to different kinds of people.
But imagine if identity showed up differently because it
understood me. It understood that I liked brown
and orange and slightly retro things, and then you may be more
minimal and black and white. And it actually showed up that
way because it understood that it would get more engagement
from you if it showed up that way then for me, And I do think
that that will happen over time, but I don't know whether that's
good or scary. Yeah, that's a good point.
I want to jump into the new hot topic, which is the Mata is now
changing its fact checking processes and that might reflect
in in the influence of algorithm on on the way we interact with
content in social media being even more important, So
increasing the influence of algorithms.
So how this algorithm era that is shaping our digital
experiences and oftentimes make us live in a digital space in a
very curated bubble. How is this limiting the real
life interactions and the surprises that you mentioned
earlier as surprises being also good or bad or some type of
friction? So in your opinion, what do you
think is the role of designers in reintroducing the humanity
and this unpredictability into this digital?
Spaces, there's a lot in there. That's a lot of questions.
I'm going to try and kind of like I was because I knew that
question might come up. I have been doing a lot of
thinking around it and on. It's very interesting to me that
what we've been working towards, I'm going to say over the past
however many years to kind of eliminate the the elimination of
fact checking in essence for me creates something quite
dangerous. The Metavert Where we've taken
great strides in trying to eliminate spaces for hate in the
real world, taking statues down, changing street names, the
metaverse is now a place where hate can exist.
And so this new metaverse is actually going backwards in
terms of the values that I believe we should uphold.
But maybe I'm a minority there. And really what's happening is
the true voice of the collective world is coming forward.
I'm going to stick with my point of view.
Frankly, what we fail to see is, you know, we we pay for it to be
part of those platforms in the same way a brand pays to
advertise. And so we're actually paying for
our voice to be seen and heard. We're providing opportunity for
clicks and clicks are where brands are making money.
And so these decisions are money making decisions and they're
money making decisions that potentially reverse some of the
progress that we've made in terms of social equality.
But I can tell you right now, if I wanted to buy a billboard to
talk about viewpoint that was negative towards a group of
people, I wouldn't be allowed to do that.
Yet I can pay to optimize my platform, to boost my platform,
to boost my point of view in the metaverse, to move forward ideas
that don't necessarily align with culture.
And I find that problematic. And then more broadly, and this
might again just prove out that my ideas of social progress are
really held by a minority. And I hope that that's not the
case, but the notion that that we don't even understand that
we're participating in the like somebody's making money from the
monetization of our ideas. We participate in it for the
dopamine release, but there's there's no like, oh, somebody
did like somebody's making money off of all of that.
And we're innocent by stick, not even innocent.
We're bystanders in that because we're addicted to something
different. And I know that that's not truly
the question that you're asking. You're asking how does that
impact kind of us as designers? And for me, and this might even
go back to the entrepreneur question is why are we working
where we are working? Are we aware of what we are
doing when we take a job as a creative or when I work for a
brand and I work for that brand, so I'm actually a participant.
And so it gets to this really weird value based conversation.
It used to be as a design. I'm not as a designer, I'm not
going to work on tobacco or I'm not going to.
But we don't really think about the brands like this that are
now employing a huge percentage of the creative community.
We don't really look at those as value based decisions or I don't
think we do. And so and this is something
that I do now struggle with personally in terms of brands
that I work with that have recently eliminated D and I
initiatives after Trump selection.
It's like how do we as designers have our not be compromised with
our integrity, but also understand that what we're
doing, even though it might be as I go off screen all the way
over here, truly kind of generating or participating in
something that culturally is misaligned to our own values.
Was that way too off piece? No, I thought that was really
helpful. I mean, I think it's a, it's a
tough topic and a big question for sure.
You've mentioned before and I think it connects to the next
question of what you do as a teacher, as an educator.
So I looked on your LinkedIn. You've taught at the School of
Visual Arts in the past, but also in your leadership role
now. I'm sure you are teaching,
educating members of your team as well as listeners of this
podcast. So do you have advice for our
listeners, our viewers who are maybe earlier on in their design
careers? Like are there yeah, anything
that you would say to a younger Michael or to a younger
designers coming up today? Care, it's really simple.
It's like, for me, I care about everything that comprises a
piece of design as a reflection of myself and as a reflection of
where I would like design to go or where I would like the world
to go. And I'm not saying that I'm
perfect by any stretch of the imagination.
I've actually worked on projects that I now regret based on not
understanding the company's values kind of more deeply.
And I'm not saying that we can do that 100% of the time.
But I do think that what I've noticed is that because of the
commoditization of design over the past 1020 years, that a lot
of people are moving into the design space because it's a good
job. I didn't want a job.
Yeah. You know what I'm saying?
Like I wanted a space to make, and I think that those who enter
into the design or the creative profession because it's
lucrative now are actually doing design a disservice.
Yeah, I agree. So to connect us to our theme of
performance this season, I'd love to hear what you think of
this word performance. We've already touched upon it in
different ways, whether it's about the kind of super
quantification of things, say on social media or how brands
measure their performance online.
Obviously doing it a podcast interview like this is also a
kind of performance teaching is a kind of performance.
So yeah, how do you think about that in terms of your current
work at Sylvain, like how you measure performance or how you
think about performance when you're pitching your work,
presenting your work? However you want to take this,
this is meant to be open-ended. Yeah.
I mean, there are a lot of layers to that.
I think it connects immediately back to the last thing around.
I want to make sure that my performance as a professional
has really helped in terms of inspiring, whether that be
businesses and brands or individual creatives, in terms
of finding their voice and being able to similarly perform.
I think for me, like the performance, the physicality of
creating, the act of making, Which I see as a dance.
I've always like wanted to, you know, speed up the creation of
an identity process, you know, film illustrator and all of the
moves and the dance and the choreography because that is
poetic in some ways. And you can see kind of
movements and gestures and kind of the swelling and the
reduction to get to simplicity. So another component of
performance that I really like. And you know, when we talk about
AI and it becomes much more around prompting versus kind of
sculpting, how are we using words to perform?
And then I like, I want the work that I do and the work that my
teams do to perform for the brands and the businesses that
we're kind of hired to, to the reasons why we're hired.
I evaluate that performance through the metrics of
engagement, yes, but also brand perception, brand integrity,
things that add substance to that to to brands, right.
And so I think it's the like you could look at the word
performance as kind of artifice, but if your values are intact,
then performance should have meaning and impact and help
brands progress, help individuals progress and help
ideas progress. Thank you for your thoughts on
that final two-part question to take us out for the show.
We'd like to ask all of our guests for recommendations of
inspiration. So what is something that you
would like to recommend to our listeners?
To our viewers could be any piece of media as long as you
didn't make it yourself. And then we'll give you the
final say as well in terms of whether self promotion or just
connecting with our viewers, listeners, you can tell folks
where to connect with you online as a call to action to take us
out. I'm going to be more broad here,
OK? I mean, this is not from the
perspective of being a Luddite because I'm definitively not.
I embrace technology and everything that it allows us to
do, make connect to, etcetera. But for me, my recommendation is
more broadly going out and experiencing so that you can
bring those feelings back. And I know you're wanting what
exhibit, what thing I got a bad exhibit is as influential as a
good exhibit. And so for me, it's exposing
oneself. And I like it in the real world
because I think that there the physicality comes in.
But I think that the way in which we allow ourselves to be
exposed to different points of view, different kinds of work
out in the world called media formats, etc, is super important
to inform our points of view and what we put out into the world.
And I think there's so much stuff that is kind of insane and
amazing that we can touch, feel, partake in that we somehow are
feeling satisfied scrolling by it and being like, oh, I got
that right. Oh, I got that.
But for me, it's the physicality part of it, the see, like
understanding what it smells like, right?
Or looking at the person next to you reacting like it's not only
about our approach to seeing, it's about our approach to
seeing other people see. And so without that, when it
becomes so singular screen oriented or so contained in
boxes, I believe that we're missing things that can actually
truly inform what we make and how we change and how we engage
with a, you know, it's like, and so I am avoiding a question, but
I'm not avoiding the question because I actually believe the
answer isn't in what's the next best thing, it's potentially in
what's the worst thing. Yeah, and we can learn from
those things, too. Like, I'm not going to say the
movie, but I saw a terrible movie this week and it's like I
learned a lot from it. And there were things that were
like, interesting that I liked about it, but then other things
that were just fundamentally awful.
Right. And but that was still a
learning experience. Yeah.
And it's gonna change your approach to the next thing that
you do, you make. And we need that, yeah.
More than ever. Well, thank you for sharing your
wisdom. I love getting our questions
reframed as well. I think that's a really
important part of being a designer and thinking critically
just as a as a citizen, as a person living in the world
today. So yeah, finally, Michael, could
you give us a call to action to take us out, whether it's to
connect with Sylvane or with you or however, wherever you want to
send our listeners and viewers? I mean, my name is Michael Ian K
and I am at Sylvain. And I don't know, like reach out
via insta. That's probably the best way to
kind of get me at this point. And I'm citing a meta thing,
right? Which is kind of wonky after
what I just said, but I am there and it's probably the best way
to ping me and we'll figure it out from there.
Awesome. Thanks again for joining us.
Thank you for tuning in to the AIG Design Podcast.
Again, we're on video on YouTube or you can listen to us wherever
you get podcasts and also save the date for our upcoming 2025
AIG Design Conference in Downtown Los Angeles, October
9th through 11th, 2025. Hope to see you there or at a
future AIG event or episode of the show.
Bye.