Design Team Takeover: The Creatives Who Only Settle for Dope | Inside the Oval

In this episode of “Inside the Oval” presented by Dignity Health, 49ers Creative Director Aaron Llavore, Graphic Design Sr. Manager Christine Zambetti and Sr. Motion and Graphic Designer Noah Hammerman break down everything that goes into creating the team's visual brand.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
Welcome to the Inside the Oval podcast presented by Dignity Health.
I'm Hayley Jones and I'm Patty Kwan, and today we
are doing a forty nine ers design takeover. So I'm
excited to introduce Creative director Aaron Levore who was Inside
the Oval episode thirty two, Graphic design Senior manager Christine
Zambetti who was episode twenty three, and Senior motion and

(00:32):
graphic designer Noah Hammerman who was episode thirty seven. Welcome guys,
what or welcome back?

Speaker 2 (00:40):
I guess we are back in a different format the
second takeover that we've done on Inside the Oval.

Speaker 3 (00:47):
Back and better than ever, Back and better than ever.
That's what I like to hear.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
So to start, we just wrapped up the twenty twenty
three NFL draft.

Speaker 4 (00:56):
What goes into creating a look for the draft.

Speaker 2 (00:59):
Take through the process from like the time you get
the name to the time you you know, research and get.

Speaker 4 (01:05):
The graphic out.

Speaker 3 (01:07):
I feel like a lot of the work starts way
before the draft, Like you get all the prep work done,
you create all the templates. Noah really led the charge
on it this year, but a lot of that is
just having everything prepared ahead of time so that when
it happens, you're just hopefully cranking it out.

Speaker 5 (01:23):
Yeah, we've had the benefit of having this established faithful
to the Bay brand for a few years now, so
coming into those we were just kind of like exploring
some extra things. But then this time it's a little
bit more authentic with our style, with like our embroidery
and our visual style and graphic design, so anything extra

(01:43):
was cool. Really when it came down to it this
past week, and it was like we were spending a
lot of time waiting, like we're ready, We're just ready,
So we were kind of bored. It was kind of
funny what we were doing in between draft picks.

Speaker 1 (01:55):
How much pressure do you guys feel each year on
an event like draft to add something new or make
it look at least a little different.

Speaker 6 (02:05):
Yeah, I think that's the challenge, right.

Speaker 3 (02:07):
It's like every year you've been sticking with the same
brand because you have that same storyline, but you're trying
to elevate it and like one up yourself and figure
out how to like make everything that you're doing that
much better. But it's a fun challenge. That's the stuff
that makes it interesting.

Speaker 5 (02:22):
We're really harder than ourselves. Actually we like one up
ourselves and like, really we just serving ourselves. But then
our fans and not our fans are so adept to
like seeing the changes in are creative, which is really cool.

Speaker 3 (02:34):
Yeah, it's fun when a fan calls it out too,
they're like, oh, you added this or you went with
this direction this year, and you use this photo.

Speaker 6 (02:41):
I mean we even got to use Aj Murray, he's.

Speaker 3 (02:44):
I think he was on your podcast too, but yeah,
to use his photo that he was out and there.

Speaker 5 (02:49):
Yeah, as soon as he posted it, I was like, Aj,
we got to use this, and I knew exactly where
to use it. And it's also really cool seeing some
of our fans and their fan artwork and a lot
of it, all of the stuff they do is inspired
with what we're already doing, which is kind of humbling
and also scary.

Speaker 3 (03:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (03:09):
No, they said you kind of took the lead with
this year's draft.

Speaker 4 (03:12):
Just how did that go?

Speaker 2 (03:13):
And you taking on this responsibility just welcoming these new guys.

Speaker 4 (03:19):
To our team.

Speaker 7 (03:20):
I think a lot of it's preparation, Like as long
as you're you know, extra prepared for whatever case may be,
I think everything's ready to go. So the actual drafting
of guys part is less scary, it's less daunting. You know,
there's not a lot less unexpected. But yeah, it was
a fun process getting to put all of it together.
A lot of it's like building your original piece, hating it,

(03:44):
going back to it, scratching it three times over, and
then figuring it out on your own and having a.

Speaker 8 (03:49):
Team behind you that supports that.

Speaker 7 (03:51):
So yeah, that's it was a really cool you know look,
and I think it was appreciated by many, But yeah,
I loved it.

Speaker 3 (03:59):
I think no a special is being prepared for anything
at any point in time.

Speaker 4 (04:02):
I agree with that.

Speaker 5 (04:03):
I think he has a perfect demeanor for draft and
our game days as well, because it's high pressure, Like
you have to be very agile, Like we don't know
when we know what picks are coming in, but as
soon as we know, Like he's like the most calm
person in the room. Like and I don't see what
what's on is I watch, but I'm sure he's very calm.

(04:24):
His heart rate's really low. Yep, I have a low
heart rate.

Speaker 2 (04:30):
You guys are really collaborative group. How do you decide
who is working on what? Sometimes it just depends on availability.

Speaker 3 (04:40):
Best ability is availability, Yeah, but like who's available to
do what? Like while he was doing draft stuff, I
was getting some of the schedule stuff prepared. Aaron was
working on some of the bigger picture things for the
season that's going to come up afterwards. So some of
it who's available. Some of it's like if you have

(05:01):
an idea, we're open to it, and then we will
work off of each other's ideas, which kind of makes
everything that we do that much better.

Speaker 5 (05:08):
Yeah, kind of gauge who's kind of already doing the
work back end work, Like No is already like researching
you know, stuff for motion graphics or whatever that you know,
the packages he already works on. So it's almost like
we're assuming, but also we know what we're all good at,
which is which is great with our team where we

(05:28):
have different strengths and kind of lean on each other
for that.

Speaker 9 (05:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (05:31):
I think that's what I was going to say. It's
like play to the strengths. A lot of us are
great at some things and not as good at others,
but it takes practice to get there. I think we're
all Swiss army knives though in that respect, so we
can kind of work on anything and be fully prepared.

Speaker 5 (05:46):
It's kind of a common understanding. We're such a small
team that there's no way we can't just be good
at one thing. Like we have to like teach each
other new things. Like no is like really well versed
in what's new with Adobe, and he's got some ins
with Adobe, which is great. Like we were trying out
new programs this offseason, and draft is like the first

(06:06):
time we get to try out some things. So like
new textures are like a fun it's a really deep
rabbit hole we're jumping into.

Speaker 1 (06:16):
The other week, you messaged me and you're like, name
some ridiculous scenario. How have you been exploring some of
the new technology in AI and what is coming?

Speaker 7 (06:29):
I feel like I should get commissioned for this or something,
But no, I think what's cool is making connections. I
think that's like something we talked about on my episode.
But it's also like coming full circle in moments like these,
capitalizing on those connections too, you know. Happily, I've made
like a lot of friendships in this field that aren't

(06:50):
just like in sports design.

Speaker 8 (06:52):
I think that's really important, and.

Speaker 7 (06:54):
Due to that, I've been able to have like beta
tests and different things, especially in this kind of AI
world that we're living in. So I've been testing out
generative AI programs and stuff like that and it's been
really neat. And Adobe has this new program called Firefly
and they have you know, different things you could do
with it. You could do you know, letter letter forms

(07:15):
and creating new three D layers and stuff like that.
I think what I've been focusing on is the generative
imagery kind of realm and.

Speaker 3 (07:23):
The craziest prompt But that's the.

Speaker 7 (07:25):
Cool thing is that it's a non non I guess
copyrighted prompts. You can just test and it'll give you
crazy images. So testing from Adobe stock, so basically it's
not from anywhere on the internet. It's really just this
finite resources. But I've been giving folks around my team
and around the office opportunities to give me wacky scenarios

(07:47):
like monster eating bagel in the ocean, things like that,
and then it'll come up with imagery that may be accurate,
may not be. But it's really neat to start to
see where we can use this as a resource instead
of a hinde where people believe this is scary. I
believe it's an opportunity.

Speaker 5 (08:03):
So looking at looking back at our team history and
like random social content, especially game day content, We've had
instances where we could have used AI, Like Christine did
a Mitch witch Snowski standing on or kicking on top
of a blooming.

Speaker 9 (08:19):
Onion a few years ago, but like we could have
used AI for that.

Speaker 5 (08:23):
And we've had several like Nick Bosa, you know, bear reference,
and I think that that might come in handy in
near future.

Speaker 1 (08:32):
In the AI world we live in or are starting
to live in. I feel like the thing I've seen
is how easy things like chat GPT would be to
do homework. Would you have used it to write an
essay for you when you were in school?

Speaker 9 (08:45):
We'll be honest. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (08:49):
AI is such a huge topic right now, like every
job type people are talking about. Like my brothers are
all software engineers in Silicon Valley, and it always comes
up in our text conversations. Like my brother was like
this whole prompt, this coding prompt I spent I usually
would spend like eight hours on it took me thirty

(09:10):
seconds with this chat GTP thing. It's just like kind
of mind blowing. I feel like it's like every generation
there's a new thing that kind of transforms how people
do things. And I mean, I'm a millennial, and back
then it was like the the use of the internet,

(09:30):
Like once people adapted to it, it was like part
of every job, every part of every home. And now
it's like AI. How is that going to make everyone's
job efficient? Or is it people are talking about like
it's going to take people's people's jobs and you know
it's going to be like the future and a bunch
of these movies that came out that is kind of

(09:51):
hinting at that.

Speaker 3 (09:52):
I think it opens opportunities. Like you were saying, it's
kind of like it can speed up your process because
it it takes out some of the back end work
that maybe you would have had to put in hours
to do something, but that gives you hours back to
do something else, even more advanced or different with your
creativity that you can come up with outside of what

(10:14):
the machine can do. So just lean into letting it
help you rather than being afraid of it.

Speaker 5 (10:18):
Like lean into it to remove them mundane part Like
we were just looking at this prompt for there's an
example for video editors. You could run an AI plug
in and it removes all the silences and cuts your videos,
your raw videos down by a lot, and like if
you film like an hour worth of content, it could
do it by itself and trade it down to like

(10:41):
ten minutes, which is amazing. Kind of it's very useful
for things that you know, people have jobs, entry level
jobs and do these things that are mundane and lets
people be more creative.

Speaker 7 (10:52):
And I think people find themselves always saying in this field,
especially like oh, if I only had X to do
this thing I'm passionate about, only had like an hour
to do this a day, then I'd be so far
along in this kind of thing. Well, these are the
opportunities where you could see that forming. So I think
that's it's really neat.

Speaker 2 (11:11):
Wow, that was a great pitch for for Adobe. Well done, Noah, Adobe.
If you're listening, Noah Hammerman.

Speaker 5 (11:19):
The movie was it Wally Yeah, where like in the
future you get a glimpse of people who are just
not functioning physically. They're just sitting on things, there's screens
in front of them, and they fall over. They don't
know what to do with themselves. Like people's fear is like, oh,
A is going to take over a lot of jobs
and no one's not going to do anything physically. Everything's
gonna be done for you, which is kind of funny.

Speaker 4 (11:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (11:41):
The only I'm not super well versed in AI. The
only when I hear AI, I think Allen Iverson.

Speaker 9 (11:46):
So across, Andre Goodala.

Speaker 2 (11:50):
You guys have a slack channel called only Settle for Dope.

Speaker 4 (11:55):
What does that mean?

Speaker 3 (11:56):
It's the motto of you.

Speaker 5 (12:00):
I think when we first established our slack name, it
was just like design team or something.

Speaker 9 (12:07):
We were like, make it funner.

Speaker 5 (12:09):
And I kind of brought this the term dope and
we've used it a lot in my previous jobs with
creative and I've always experienced like, when you're looking at
you're critiquing someone else's work, is.

Speaker 9 (12:23):
The work cool? Is it good enough? Or is it dope?

Speaker 5 (12:28):
And I, you know, I thought it was a cool
idea to just use that word a lot with our team,
and Christine and our original team loved it, and we've
just been using it all these years.

Speaker 1 (12:38):
I want to go back quickly to something Noah said,
which was if you only had like an extra hour
to do this something creative, and we don't usually have
that because we work in a very busy industry. But
I'm curious and this is actually a question I learned
from Christine. What's the last thing you learned?

Speaker 3 (13:02):
I'm taking Italian?

Speaker 1 (13:04):
Yeah, Kris can tell you my sister is in jail.

Speaker 4 (13:09):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (13:09):
Wow, it's the important things that you learned.

Speaker 5 (13:11):
To do a lingo do Linguo's random. I'm doing due
lingo too, Japanese and I'm on a one.

Speaker 3 (13:18):
Day streak, one day at a time.

Speaker 7 (13:23):
I think like hard skills wise, I think we're all
learning three D stuff. So like here at work, we're
learning a lot of you know, interesting things and how
to dive into that space.

Speaker 5 (13:34):
So we just as a team downloaded Adobe Substance three
D Christmas for us. Oh you should have seen Noah's
body language last week.

Speaker 9 (13:45):
He was so excited.

Speaker 8 (13:48):
I think it's all about potential though.

Speaker 7 (13:49):
I think it's like really some cool stuff because we're
as like as viewers. You guys see a lot of
our work and it's very organic, and I'm sure that's
the feeling we want to give off. Like you know,
you're in a scrap book or you're watching you know,
somebody embroider something, or you're feeling these stickers Like that's
the kind of feeling we want to bring with programs

(14:11):
like these, we can try to bring that digitally and
not only for the sake of us, Like we don't
have to spend a lot of money to get it
printed or anything. We can stay in house and make
it digitally and it still has that look and feel.
So I think that's the really exciting part. But yeah,
that's what we've been all learning collectively.

Speaker 1 (14:30):
Sorry, non designer in the room, what is that?

Speaker 7 (14:33):
Oh, they're all like three D programs, so essentially like
you can create with materials and shapes and start to
put new things together.

Speaker 5 (14:44):
For us, we're using it specifically for embroidery and things
that look like stitching. So stitching has been a part
of our DNA for our faithful to the Bay brand,
and it goes back to the jackets. The jackets have
been you know, any fan will tell you, like one
of them most prized things in our closet is a
foreign or satin jacket, So we've always leaned on like

(15:04):
that piece. I mean, it's in the museum as well.
So one of our first exercises when we kind of
wanted to rebrand was we went to Joanne's Fabrics. We
spent like two hund and fifty dollars and all these
like random fabrics and textures, and you took that and
we did a photo shoot right before the pandemic, and

(15:28):
then the pandemic hit and then we're literally shopping in
our own closet. But fast forward to today, how many
years later, three years later, we're still exploring that textural apparel.
It just feel if it feels hand crafted and cutting.
So I don't know if that's a real term, but
it is now. I think I've heard it before. But

(15:50):
we're we're we've been on the edge of like do
we buy an embroidery machine or do we go digital
and figure out how to do it digitally? And we've
kind of jumped off the digital end, which is amazing
because it looks amazing as far as our first expirations
with with stitching.

Speaker 3 (16:06):
I think the really cool thing about it is it's
open the opportunity of being able to save us time
on certain things, so you can do certain things digitally,
and then we have like actual physical textiles and physical
patches and like physical embroidered things that we can include
into it that like keeps it authentic to what we've

(16:28):
been doing and makes it feel real and like things
that we can Like I got really excited when we
got delivered a box of patches. I was like really happy.
It's just like opens the opportunity. But then having like
an application like that that you can do digital as
well gives you that many more assets that you can
work with.

Speaker 1 (16:48):
Where is your two hundred and fifty dollars worth of fabric?

Speaker 4 (16:51):
Now?

Speaker 9 (16:51):
Oh, I have some of it. Yeah, it's in a room.

Speaker 5 (16:55):
I think half of it is my drawer of like
unused fabric. But we did take photos of them, so
you're gonna collage it.

Speaker 1 (17:03):
I feel I think I should do like design room
pillows or something, So.

Speaker 4 (17:07):
You might need to get that machine.

Speaker 9 (17:10):
There you go, Amazon.

Speaker 2 (17:12):
So you mentioned the you know, the fabrics and the
textures and things like that are kind of a nod
to the historic nature of the satin jackets and sort
of what it means to a forty nine ers fan.
How do you just how do you blend together that
nostalgia with just upcoming trends and keeping things fresh and relevant.

Speaker 3 (17:35):
I think we've leaned into like what the like culture
of the Bay Area is, so it's more than just
the you know, we try to use like city landscape things.
We try to use textiles, we try to use music,
we try to use cars, food, like anything that you
can think of that like goes into the Bay Area

(17:57):
culture is what builds the Faithful to the Bay brand
and leans into who the faithful are and like who's
cheering for this team and who the team is.

Speaker 5 (18:05):
Yeah, a lot of teams and brands like to use
it if you know, you know, type of.

Speaker 9 (18:12):
Creative DNA.

Speaker 5 (18:13):
And luckily, like our fan base, our fans our region
are very like prideful a bunch. So if you see
something like, oh, I know what cross Street that is,
like we use a photo of like hate Ashbury.

Speaker 9 (18:23):
I mean that's it. That's obvious one.

Speaker 5 (18:25):
But like you no seeing things that they're familiar with,
like we hope and you know, we'll kind of strike
a chord in that sense.

Speaker 3 (18:34):
And then if you're not here, you feel like you're
part of what is happening here. Back to Faithful to
the Bay.

Speaker 2 (18:41):
What industry trends are happening across maybe not only just
sports design, but you know design, brand design in general
that you've seen that you know you might try to
incorporate into into our look and feel.

Speaker 7 (18:58):
I mean beyond a stuff. I think there's plenty out
there to discover. I think, like branding design, a lot
of people like to keep it like I wouldn't say minimalist,
but like simplistic. That's a big trend keeping everything to
like a cutout of a player and a texture and
then the stat or whatever it may be.

Speaker 8 (19:19):
That's super popular. Yeah, I'd say.

Speaker 7 (19:21):
Like very simplistic design, but mixed with like crazy design,
Like there's some that's like three D craziness. And then
in my like specific kind of focus in motion design,
I think there's plenty going on. I think like that
it's a lot of social design, but mixed with video,

(19:42):
so video with imagery, with like light layers in different things.
It's not just like you know, static flipping through like
twelve frames per second, like super simple stuff. It's like
very high quality using four K footage twelve seconds, you know.
So they're making really good quality things in a shorter

(20:05):
amount of time, whereas it used to be let's make
the simplest things for the small amount of time and
then we'll move it.

Speaker 5 (20:11):
The balance is really interesting. Football is a very aggressive sport.
We like seeing a lot of like high impact things
on photos and videos, but as creatives, as designers, I
mean I might speak for all of us, but like
we all learned in design school to become to be
very minimalistic. What's the easiest way to communicate something without

(20:32):
doing too much.

Speaker 9 (20:33):
But then you get into football.

Speaker 5 (20:34):
In sports, it's like people want to see like high
impact stuff, things blowing up. I mean, it's just you know,
we have to find this balance that we've been trying
to craft. I mean, every off season we're trying to
think of that, like how do we make it cool
in a designer creative way, but also address like what
our fans like to see.

Speaker 3 (20:54):
Yeah, also from like what other teams are doing. We
try to stay aware of what they're doing and we
definitely look to it. But I think at the end
of the day, we try to set our own standard
and figure out what people outside of sports are doing
that we could bring in, like what our design trends
or like the surf brands, or we even went on

(21:14):
a trip to a museum here to see what kinds
of different styles of art that we could incorporate in.
That makes you think outside of the box of what
you're seeing across the social landscape for sports.

Speaker 5 (21:26):
Yeah, easy to get inspired in the Bay Area with
all all our resources and recreational activities.

Speaker 3 (21:33):
Sometimes just like go to the beach for the day,
to get away and like clear your mind a little bit,
and that gets you creative in a different riber I've read.

Speaker 5 (21:40):
So I have this book that I Leave in the
office by Rick Rubin. I forgot the name of the
book but there's a bunch of quotes on it that
like kind of inspire you as a creative. One of
the quotes that I'm probably going to butcher it was
you have to disengaged. Sometimes you have to disengage to engage.
And it's very very relevant actually, Like if you're working

(22:01):
six days a week, the football season is very long.
Some days some makes are like, man, I can't wait
for that Saturday, that one day I have off.

Speaker 9 (22:09):
But I mean we.

Speaker 5 (22:10):
Could probably I mean, you guys all go hiking and
play pick a ball, and like you can't wait for
that Saturday, so you could kind of disengage, So you
could like.

Speaker 9 (22:18):
Re engage on come game day or or Monday.

Speaker 3 (22:21):
Yeah, even draft we're you know, doing forty yard dashes
to try to clear our mind. In between while we're
waiting for the next draft pick.

Speaker 8 (22:28):
I could say that's probably not an industry standard.

Speaker 1 (22:31):
Aaron had the best running form I've ever seen, though
his arms were ninety degrees.

Speaker 5 (22:37):
To be honest, I've been in practicing my first grader.
He loves to race me, Like when we have wherever
we have a basketball practice outside, He's like, dah, I
want to race you. Like eventually he's gonna beat me,
but like I give him like a three second head
start first.

Speaker 9 (22:50):
But I've been practicing. So that's where it comes from.

Speaker 1 (22:52):
Each show that this is not to do with design
at all. What is your thought on, Like what age
do you stop? Or do you ever let your children
beat you? And like board games or like running races?

Speaker 5 (23:07):
Hmmm, they're gonna so pretty soon my kid's seven are
probably I still let him beat me an arm wrestling,
which is kind of funny. I'd say in a couple
of years, maybe like before ten years.

Speaker 3 (23:21):
Old, because at some point he's gonna beat you for real,
maybe never, you know, never, Yeah, you know. Learning to
lose is also a good is a good lesson in life?

Speaker 4 (23:33):
Can you tell us about a time you learned to lose?

Speaker 3 (23:36):
Well? I'm the youngest, so I have a brother and
sister that they would never just let you in board games,
you know, video games, basketball outside. My brother's older than me,
taller than me, he'd still block me. There was no
just letting me get a shot in. You know you're
gonna learn those lessons.

Speaker 1 (23:53):
You know what, though, you're a really gracious loser.

Speaker 3 (23:56):
Well, thank you. Maybe that's because I've been all my life.

Speaker 8 (23:58):
That will be a great cli.

Speaker 9 (24:03):
That's a teaser right there.

Speaker 1 (24:06):
I'm curious on like drawing inspiration. You talked about going
to the museum. You guys have done a bunch of
other field trips, But in terms of the field trips
that you guys go on, do you go in with
any sort of agenda or like THECES what we're trying
to like find inspiration for, or do you just kind
of pick somewhere and let it speak to you.

Speaker 3 (24:28):
I mean, we've had things that we are trying to
find inspiration for vaguely, Like the last year's Media Day
set was kind of inspired by our museum trip, but
it wasn't specifically that we went into it to find
inspiration for Media Day. I think if you went into
it with like a agenda, it would kind of take

(24:51):
away from the creative, like just openness of being able
to take in whatever you see and like apply it
to wherever it might fit best.

Speaker 5 (25:01):
Last year was kind of fun at the the Young
Museum of Art. There was a piece that could kind
of stopped us in our tracks, and we were already
looking for inspo for media Day and that was like
the most obvious thing had some It was like a
painted a bunch of panels, wood panels, hammered together and
it had so much depth to it. I was like, oh,

(25:23):
we should do that for our media day set. And
that's kind of like the the thing that started at all,
Like we were think about what we could put in
our panels and paint things gold and even the heat
of the summer, we were painting outside and having fun.
But like that that kind of brought our team together,
I thought.

Speaker 7 (25:44):
I think, and also like those trips reaffirm ideas that
we've had, not only like create them. I think at
the end of the season last year, after the seventy
fifth campaign, it was like a lot of focus went
into that and then once it kind of down, we
all got together kind of pitched like ideas of what

(26:05):
we could look at and start doing. And one of
the ideas that was like on kind of a collective
all of our things, but you know, some more than
others was stickers, which you saw like was kind of
the brand look last year, and it was kind of
an idea, like a baseline idea and also like very digital,
like not at all like organic or anything like that.

(26:26):
And then after the Day Young Museum, we went to
hate Ashbury Street and quite literally just walked around like
from Keysar onto Hate Ashbury and just you know walked
and then kept noticing that as a trend, like it
kept popping up, like, oh, there's there's more like packs
of stickers that are just like falling off like stacked
on top of each other of like pizza places, to

(26:47):
taco trucks, to like anything you could possibly imagine.

Speaker 5 (26:50):
A Miba music store of that the famous music Store
had the whole wall of like stickers and band stickers
and was like this has probably been here for forever
than every store, even like the boutique stores had some
sort of like sticker decor, which was like, okay, there's
this is definitely the common threat, and that kind of
reassured us that we were on the right path with

(27:11):
like our creative But.

Speaker 7 (27:12):
I think that goes to show like when you come
if you come into it with preconceived notions, I think
you're doing it the wrong way. I think like we
went into that just looking for ideas.

Speaker 5 (27:22):
And that it turned out for lunch, Yeah, and we
were hungry and we had good Mexican food and the
rat Mexican.

Speaker 1 (27:28):
When I think of stickering, this is just this is
going to show my age. I remember in textbooks, I
was the person who made their textbook cover out of
like the brown paper, but like grocery bags, you could
either like buy the stick the stretchy ones or make them.
And then I stickered it. Do you guys remember what

(27:51):
you did to decorate slash cover your textbooks?

Speaker 3 (27:54):
I definitely thought you were gonna go to the Lisa
Frank Was it Lisa Frank sticker?

Speaker 6 (27:58):
Now?

Speaker 1 (27:58):
I was never into Lisa Frank.

Speaker 6 (28:00):
My sister loves I felt like that was kind of
a staple.

Speaker 2 (28:04):
What's so funny is I had this conversation with Nick
Bosa during our MLK School Packing Assembly community event this year,
because we were packing school kits for kids in Oakland
and we were just getting really nostalgic that we literally
started talking about like textbook covers, like were you a
stretchy person because that showed you were kind of bougie

(28:25):
or were you like the brown paper Yeah, you were
kind of bougie, but very bougie. Like I think I
had like the stretch you won for like two of
my textbooks and then like the rest were brown paper
bag courtesy of my father who did that. But yeah,
like I feel like there was like kind of a

(28:46):
like a stigma, like, oh, you were cool if you
had like the stretchy book cover from Target.

Speaker 9 (28:51):
Wow, the recycled paper bags.

Speaker 3 (28:54):
Yep.

Speaker 5 (28:55):
My mom was amazing at wrapping books, so I my
uncoordinated stuff would never do it.

Speaker 9 (29:01):
It was my mom.

Speaker 3 (29:02):
I just like the colors. They were like a sock
for your book kind of but they had all sorts
of different colors. And I don't know, isn't that they
probably were handed down honestly for my brother and sister.

Speaker 4 (29:12):
It's just wild to me that like we were covering textbooks.

Speaker 6 (29:16):
Like we don't pay for the damage in the corner, I.

Speaker 2 (29:19):
Guess, but like, I don't know, it's just like a
funny concept.

Speaker 1 (29:22):
I think It's crazy that we would carry ten plus
pounds of books and backpacks as children.

Speaker 6 (29:28):
Yeah, do they still use textbooks or is it like
all online?

Speaker 5 (29:30):
It was those old library books were amazing because they
were like stuck in time, like be stamped and you
check books out.

Speaker 9 (29:37):
Some of them went back to the seventies. It smell,
it still smells like whatever.

Speaker 6 (29:41):
That smell is, who's this person?

Speaker 5 (29:45):
You know you have to do your research, just google
this person. Yeah, you guys are having fun over here.

Speaker 7 (29:49):
And I think my last four years of college were
all like PDF shows.

Speaker 6 (29:54):
For your back though.

Speaker 8 (29:55):
Yeah, it's great for my back my age.

Speaker 2 (29:59):
You guys touched on just how much work goes into
building a look and feel for a brand, And I
want to know what the feeling is like for you
guys when you see your work in the wild, Like
literally we walk into the studio and Christine is sitting
in front of a banner that she designed, or like
in Mexico, you know you were at you know, La

(30:20):
Cosa Deela was forty nine ers and you saw your
your your designs on the at a grand scale, you know,
beyond digital.

Speaker 4 (30:27):
Just like, what is that feeling like?

Speaker 5 (30:29):
The most humbling is seeing like like pulling up to
a gas station and seeing like some guys selling bootleg
T shirts in the back of her truck and like
want to pay him, Like that's cool, man, where'd you
get the design from?

Speaker 6 (30:44):
I think one of the cool ones.

Speaker 3 (30:46):
So I did the banners that were on the stadium
for a couple of years ago Faithful and People Now,
and it had players on it. And I was home
in Memphis and there was like this bright red truck
covered in forty nine er stickers and some of the
stickers were cutouts of the banners of the players that
were on the banners that I created, And I was like,

(31:06):
how did how did they even do that? And like
turn it into a decal on.

Speaker 9 (31:10):
There from social media screenshot.

Speaker 3 (31:14):
Of a photo of a banner that I don't know,
And then like this was like Memphis, It's like thousands
of miles away. It was just a really cool experience
to see that impact that it made, like to someone
someone's like passion.

Speaker 5 (31:28):
For the team, Seeing people wear T shirts you've designed
in the gym, That's that's a cool feeling.

Speaker 9 (31:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (31:34):
I think it's like extremely humbling to see all that stuff.
You know, I take myself like I try to take
myself backwards a lot because I always like focus on
the next thing. I love doing that, like, Okay, we
got to tackle this, this and this, and those are like,
you know, mundane tasks that you just keep moving on.

(31:55):
I think I was walking in a draft the other
day and I parked in the completely wrong parking lot
and whatever, and everybody was watching me, you know, walk
to the building, and I think like I took moments
like that to stare at the stadium and I was like,
it's unbelievable, Like this, this whole experience is unbelievable that
I'm you know, able to go in here and like
do the job that I do every day. So I
think like it takes a lot of moving forward, you know,

(32:18):
because you have to take a bunch of steps forward
to eventually look back. And I think that fans looking
at our designs being able to comment like how awesome
they are, like it does not go unnoticed.

Speaker 5 (32:29):
Like he Lloyd the other day during the during draft week,
I think he was just waiting around, but he's been
with the team for over twenty five years, and even
he said like I'm just you know, I'm soaking it
in I'm we're blessed that we're even in this position
to be like help with the team, be part of
the team. Yeah, we definitely don't take any of this
for granted, Yeah, I think.

Speaker 6 (32:49):
And then you touched on the Mexico thing.

Speaker 3 (32:51):
That was really cool to see too, Like to be
in another country in Mexico City and like see this
work that like months went into the making of all that,
whether it was across the branding for social or the
physical signage that went up in the fan central area,
and then seeing the fans like interacting with it and

(33:13):
like taking photos with it and waiting in line for
hours just to go inside and to see like how
much that meant to them, or like just getting one
of the stickers that we had as a giveaway or
a T shirt and how much that meant to them,
And like seeing that in person was really cool.

Speaker 1 (33:30):
In terms of being in person, you guys are obviously
here every game day at home, but all of you
have had the chance to also work games on the road.
What kind of learnings can you take from that, whether
it's being in a new stadium, seeing their game at presentation,
or just kind of like being in a new environment.

Speaker 3 (33:50):
I mean, I think one of the things is you
can learn from the other designers that are on other teams,
Like you get to meet them and they can show
you around like their space and how they do things
maybe slightly differently, but also just seeing the environment of
what they're doing, seeing your fans on the road, because
that's one thing that our fans do really well is

(34:11):
travel and go.

Speaker 6 (34:13):
To away games.

Speaker 3 (34:15):
I mean, no, you could probably touch on the Vegas game.

Speaker 8 (34:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (34:18):
This past year, I was fortunate enough to go to
our game against the Raiders, in which we won in
a shootout. It was a very exciting game in Las
Vegas kind of fashion, and it was on New Year's Day,
so it was like kind of an all encompassing, lovely
trip to Vegas. I think what you take away from

(34:39):
that though, is that it wasn't just like the experience
of being there being able to design and do what
I love to do. I think on that Friday, we
had just gotten there and been able to check out
the brand new Allegiance Stadium, this one billion dollar stadium.
Get to meet the designers there, I think that's super valuable,
and get to be in environment like Las Vegas is

(35:02):
not necessarily like Santa Clara in the way that there's
not a ton of like fandom because there are a
new franchise there, so you learn different you know little
things about these you know pieces and how it operates.
Like the Mexico trip was super valuable for a lot
of our team. I think like taking these little advantages
not only for like our team, but you know, personal growth.

(35:26):
It's like, you know, a really fantastic opportunity.

Speaker 5 (35:29):
It's a cool thing to notice, Like every every brand
team has their own canvas, their own their own blank
space to create and to brand, and every stadium has
so many different things about it. I mean, no, you,
I think you and your dad had visit in many

(35:51):
arenas around the country and that's been your thing.

Speaker 9 (35:53):
You want to explain that.

Speaker 7 (35:55):
Oh yeah, I mean it goes separate from work. But
my dad and I when I was a kid, I
tried to visit every NBA stadium in the US, So
we were not Toronto Raptors fans, but I think it
was a really cool opportunity. We made it to like
sixteen and got to see like Steve Nash, Alan I Vers,
and Kobe Bryant play in the peaks of their career. Like,

(36:17):
I think that's always been like a part of the
DNA of how I operate, like learning from different places,
but you know, physically being there and all these arenas.

Speaker 8 (36:27):
It was super cool to do that with my dad.

Speaker 3 (36:30):
It's really about testing out the different press boxes, seeing
what the food's like.

Speaker 4 (36:35):
Yeah, yeah, we should start a ranking.

Speaker 1 (36:37):
Yeah, I'm surprised you don't have that yet, Patty.

Speaker 4 (36:41):
I didn't think of it till now.

Speaker 3 (36:43):
So we could use some ANI technology.

Speaker 5 (36:46):
Yeah, you know, off off the top of your head,
what's your top three?

Speaker 4 (36:50):
Ooh?

Speaker 2 (36:52):
From what I recall, I think Tampa Bay's press box
had a really good setup. Like any place that has
like a meat carving station, you know, it's got.

Speaker 8 (37:01):
To be pretty good.

Speaker 6 (37:02):
Those are good days.

Speaker 2 (37:03):
Those are good days. That comes to mind. I think
Kansas City was pretty good. They have you know, barbecue
and things like that. And then during the Pro Bowl,
Vegas had a really good dessert spread. So not necessarily
like the food provided, but they had this like doughnut
setup and like cook oh, so it was like a
sweet tooth dream.

Speaker 7 (37:23):
I do remember in Vegas they had a forty nine
ers cookie. They had like the cookie of the team
that they were playing and themselves. Yeah, I wonder which
we're eating more often, But I don't think anybody.

Speaker 6 (37:37):
Got that data team or do you eat the other team?

Speaker 8 (37:39):
I know.

Speaker 4 (37:40):
I think also it might have been Carolina. They have
a soft serve machine, big points that's always working.

Speaker 1 (37:47):
This isn't as exciting as a soft serve machine. I
really appreciate that Lambeau has a salad bar, so I
feel like game day food, You're like, how many chicken
nuggets can I eat? Having a salad like having a
green on.

Speaker 9 (38:01):
There was very nice, stressful games during the season.

Speaker 5 (38:04):
I always reached for, like the worst thing for your body,
ice cream in the mid fourth quarter.

Speaker 9 (38:10):
I'm like, I meaning ice cream for bread, drinking nacho cheese,
whatever's like helping my emotion, I know.

Speaker 3 (38:17):
I think the most disappointing was the Super Bowl press box,
And maybe it's because we were in the auxiliary. You know,
nothing against what they had going on there, because the
food outside of that was amazing, But the press box
was like a boxed sandwich, which is not my thing,
like a canned water, which is a really strange feeling,
and I think that was kind of it.

Speaker 9 (38:39):
I forgot about that. I was just happy to be there,
to be honest.

Speaker 3 (38:41):
Yeah, I mean I was kind of too stressed to
eat much anyways.

Speaker 4 (38:45):
But that's funny because when I'm stressed, I like over eat.

Speaker 2 (38:47):
I'm eating like em and M's and like sour Patch
kids like at the same time.

Speaker 4 (38:52):
Like it's just you know, I.

Speaker 3 (38:53):
Think I eat before, Like my dad always texts me
before a game and it's like, what do you guys
have in the press box today? What are you eating?

Speaker 6 (39:01):
And then I don't really eat as much throughout.

Speaker 1 (39:04):
What game have you been the most stressed for recent memory?

Speaker 5 (39:08):
I would probably say the NFC Championship game against the Rams. Yeah,
that was a roller coaster, so.

Speaker 3 (39:15):
We had it. It's right there.

Speaker 7 (39:21):
I mean, fortunately, two years in a row, we've been
able to plan my birthday and I feel like, and
it's January, so it's late January football January twenty second.
So we beat the Packers the first time in the
Blizzard game, and then we this year beat the Cowboys,
So I feel like I have to give it my
all so that you know the team can do the

(39:43):
same with me.

Speaker 8 (39:45):
And it's worked out so far, so you have.

Speaker 3 (39:48):
More playoff games on your birthday.

Speaker 4 (39:49):
How fortunate for you.

Speaker 7 (39:50):
They just need to move the schedule up. So then
you know what was just keep playing on my birthday?
Then you know, yes, it turns out, well.

Speaker 4 (39:56):
Let's keep playing on Noah's birthday and never on mine.

Speaker 1 (40:00):
Do you ever feel weird having to share your birthday
with the forty nine ers?

Speaker 8 (40:05):
No, never weird.

Speaker 2 (40:07):
No.

Speaker 7 (40:08):
I think it's a really fun experience though, because it's like,
you work so hard to get to moments like these,
like you know, that's the most important part of the season.
It's super fun to be there. You are one of
like eight to four teams left, and you just want
to win so bad for many reasons. One of them
is because you want it to be like a gift.

(40:29):
So it's been a gift two times in a row.

Speaker 9 (40:32):
You've had that Disneyland credit for.

Speaker 7 (40:34):
A while, right, Oh my god, Oh my gosh. Yeah,
that was a whole story in itself. Like I thought
to myself, you know, I'll go I'm in California for
the first time or whatever. So two years ago I
wanted to visit my buddy down in LA and I
go to Disneyland and you know, have a good time,
and I still have the ticket sitting in my queue

(40:54):
because they don't cancel it, thankfully, but I still have it,
like I can go whenever I want. It's like a
ticket that it's, you know, use whenever.

Speaker 3 (41:03):
So we didn't, we didn't start that season super hot,
and I was like, be careful. I mean, we can
turn around. I've seen it happen.

Speaker 8 (41:09):
Yep, and it happened.

Speaker 4 (41:11):
Here's to no One never going to Disneyland as long
as we keep winning.

Speaker 6 (41:17):
If we win the super Bowl, then he can celebrate.

Speaker 1 (41:20):
We're gonna do the meme of I'm going to Disney, but.

Speaker 4 (41:22):
We're gonna ask Noah where he's going.

Speaker 8 (41:25):
Yes, oh yeah. You guys are so supportive.

Speaker 4 (41:29):
Do you guys have or you do. What is your
favorite project that you've worked on.

Speaker 5 (41:36):
I'm gonna say the Fatal to the Bay gold Jackets.
I mean we've done some U between the three of us,
there's we've done so much that we see on the
stadium and you know, on social media. But when you
see diehard fans like really wearing this gold jacket and
like so proud of it, it's it's I almost get emotional,

(41:57):
you know. I see like pictures of like fans with
their kids, and decked out. I think it's just you
kind of see the game day part of it. Like
when we leave for the stadium on game days, we'd
see like our fans putting up their car flags and
then like their cars all decked out, and like that's

(42:18):
their whole day. They plan their whole outfit, and it's
they've been looking for it for the whole year, and
it's just like, man, this is really people's lives. So
that Jack is just an example of that, Like it's
just so meaningful for them.

Speaker 3 (42:34):
I think mine's also not like a design. It's like
a apparel design in a way, but it's the belt
buckle just because it's such a unique thing to like
see your design on a belt buckle. It's the only
kind of metal thing that I've designed in that realm.
And then it has so much meaning with being the

(42:56):
NFC West champions and you know, a legacy that I
think it's unique to the forty nine ers that they
do that for every NFC West Championship and so it's
kind of going to live in history to be one
of four hundred, four hundred and fifty and then a
really cool design to be able to do that for
our I think it had Levi's Stadium on it because

(43:18):
we'd had so many wins at Levi's Stadium for that
playoff run.

Speaker 9 (43:22):
It's heavy.

Speaker 5 (43:23):
It's like my favorite line from the Dressing Park movie,
is it heavy and it's expensive.

Speaker 9 (43:28):
Put it away.

Speaker 7 (43:31):
If we're going along with the theme of like physical
things this past season, I made for a giveaway a
pennant flag, and I've seen it like several times used
by people, so like that does not go unnoticed. It's
like super neat to see, you know, people actually using

(43:53):
these physical things. Like we said, our brand is so
like organic. We love that stuff. We're trying to make
it digital as best as we can. I think we've
communicated that early in this podcast. But seeing like that
physical organic stuff like out in the wild, that's amazing.
So yeah, I think just to reiterate, you know, all
of these projects are they're like very tangible things, like

(44:15):
you could pick it up and place it.

Speaker 3 (44:17):
Somewhere right well that we've all done like thousands of
social graphics and digital graphics every year, and we all
picked something that's like tangible analog.

Speaker 9 (44:25):
Like people still love.

Speaker 5 (44:27):
I went to the I went to Barnes and Noble
the other day and there's still a CD section and
like there's like a handful of handful of people in
there like digging through CDs. I'm like, it's not going
to go away. And like Vinyl too, Vinyl has been
around forever, and people love the analog like actually holding
something and reading the cover or you know, things that

(44:49):
they could be emotionally attached to. So I think that's
where it comes from. Like I'm not like emotionally attached
to like social graphics. I mean, as much as we
love doing social graphics, like I'm not going to hold
my phone close to my heart and he.

Speaker 2 (45:00):
Now like kermit me where he's like holding the phone,
what are.

Speaker 6 (45:07):
People playing their CDs on?

Speaker 3 (45:09):
I mean I feel like record players made a comeback
and like it's cool to have that sitting in your
living room, but like what are they playing CDs on now?

Speaker 6 (45:16):
CD players? Do people still have CD players? Yeah?

Speaker 4 (45:22):
So my two thousand and seven Toyota Islander.

Speaker 8 (45:24):
Does the twenty fifteen super rapt.

Speaker 4 (45:27):
Mine can actually hold six at one time?

Speaker 6 (45:30):
Wow, oh my goodness, yep, that is fancy.

Speaker 5 (45:32):
I had like one of the first Nokia uh MP
three phones and it held like eight songs at a time.
So when I my brother went to school in San
Diego and I would go on the road trip to
San Diego by myself, and I had to choose wisely,
like these better be the best, the most the best songs.

Speaker 6 (45:49):
Do you remember any of them?

Speaker 5 (45:51):
It was I was really into like Incubus and it
was like a Mexic Incubis and Kanye West and whatever
is hot back then early two thousand and.

Speaker 2 (46:01):
You just listen to those eight on repeat until you
got to say.

Speaker 9 (46:04):
It better be like the most addicting songs.

Speaker 1 (46:08):
Are you someone who can listen to the same song
over and over and over again or do you need diversity?

Speaker 2 (46:15):
I am not.

Speaker 9 (46:17):
I've gotten used to it.

Speaker 5 (46:18):
I do music production on the side, like on my
spare time, which is very little, but you have to
be able to do that, like if you're writing a
song or making a beat, you have to you literally
listen to it like hundreds of times.

Speaker 9 (46:32):
So I'm acclimated to that.

Speaker 8 (46:34):
Yeah, I'm a bad person.

Speaker 7 (46:35):
I have Apple Music and I just put on like
the radio create station button, and I don't know like
any of the song names or the artists that sing
any of the songs. I like, so it might come
back one day and I'll see them again.

Speaker 8 (46:48):
But I have no idea.

Speaker 4 (46:49):
You're a rare Apple Music person.

Speaker 8 (46:52):
Nice to meet you. I'm the guy, I'm the one
Apple Music.

Speaker 4 (46:57):
Yeah, I mean it's not that rare. What did we
have an Amazon Music once? We had?

Speaker 1 (47:02):
So every year the Digital Social team shares their end
of the year Spotify rapped, rapped, thank you, And every
year Keana Martin, who was the whole team reporter, couldn't
do it because she was Pandora Pandora, and Phil Testa
was Amazon and he couldn't do it.

Speaker 2 (47:22):
So we always had two holdouts Amazon Music. I'd like,
never met anyone that listens strictly to Amazon Music.

Speaker 5 (47:29):
I'm pretty sure I signed up for Spotify the day
it came out. I was working in the office and
I saw that pushing afication, Like signed up, So I'm
a og.

Speaker 4 (47:38):
I think I was using in college.

Speaker 2 (47:40):
I was using Pandora, but I was also using this
thing called a groove shark, and like.

Speaker 9 (47:45):
So Pandora, there was slacker dot com.

Speaker 4 (47:49):
But I am someone who can listen to the song
over and over again, and which is.

Speaker 1 (47:53):
Like ken one year on your Spotify Rapped it said
you listened to one song like a thousand It was
like it was like four hundred times, and we looked
it up and the song came out in like August,
so that means from August to December she listened to
it four hundred and.

Speaker 2 (48:07):
I can tell you which song it was, like it
was Peaches by Justin Bieber.

Speaker 6 (48:10):
They played it out on the radio a thousand times.

Speaker 4 (48:13):
Yeah, but I don't listen to radio.

Speaker 9 (48:14):
All are in for a treat.

Speaker 5 (48:15):
When you have kids, you have no control over that.
So like the past three years, I've had like the
Mowana theme song, great song, a whole New World, and
now it's black. My daughter's really into black pink. So
songs you hear like hundreds of times a day, so
get used to it.

Speaker 3 (48:34):
I crave the variety, Like I want to listen to
country music one day and then classic rock the next day,
and then some like nineties pop hits or something like.

Speaker 6 (48:44):
I just crave the variety.

Speaker 3 (48:45):
I don't like listening to the same thing over and
over again.

Speaker 5 (48:47):
I'm proud of my Spotify unwrapped every year, like yep,
all kids songs, I share that.

Speaker 2 (48:52):
Again, good dad, aword, I'm gonna send this back to
the Apple Music man in the room. Tell me about
photoshop Thursdays and how that came about.

Speaker 7 (49:03):
I don't know how it relates to Apple Music, but smooth,
but yeah. So photoshop Thursdays have been like a really
cool tradition that I've started here. So I noticed like
a lot during the season other marketing folks were coming
up to me and being like, hey, that was really cool,
Like I'd love to learn someday how to do that. Like,

(49:24):
and people say that all the time about design stuff,
and you never really think of any proactive way to
deal with it. It's just like, oh, well, you know, thanks, Yeah,
I hope that for you too, but you know, and
nothing ever comes of it. So, you know, I think
we had some time this offseason and there was plenty
of interest in downtime where people were like, yeah, I'd
love to learn. And it's hard when you're in a

(49:46):
full time role to like actively still churn your brain
and not become a robot and just like keep doing.
And I think that's what I tried to solve with
these photoshop Thursdays. So Thursdays at three thirty, right before
the forty nine ers, Happy hour. We have a lovely
get together for about forty five minutes to an hour

(50:07):
of just folks who are interested.

Speaker 8 (50:09):
You know, you make it, you can. If you can't,
it's totally fine.

Speaker 7 (50:12):
We pick up and it's not like at a pace
where you get too far off you can't come back.
We create graphics together. So yeah, we've created I think
six weeks worth of you know, super neat graphics that
are totally tangible things that we create during the season.
And yeah, I think people are really enjoying like having
a new skill to learn using their brain and also

(50:35):
like doing it together because that's the easiest way. A
lot of design is muscle memory, so using your hands
and me, you know, I used to be, you know,
the type of teacher where you'd go up and like
try to press the keys for somebody. I think it
takes a lot of like my brain power to like
not do that, Like I don't want to be the

(50:55):
hands on one.

Speaker 8 (50:56):
So it's great.

Speaker 7 (50:57):
It's like a lot of folks are learning, you know,
super cool things around here. Makes my job a lot
easier in the long run.

Speaker 8 (51:03):
If they can do their own. Breathe to fish.

Speaker 5 (51:05):
Yeah, honestly, just being the observer. I'm gladly the ta
in that that hour of every week. It's the most
heart heart warming hour in the week, which is lovely
to watch it. And Noah his long term goal, I
believe is he wants to be a professor, so he's
using that muscle and it's like really cool to see.

Speaker 3 (51:27):
Yeah, he like will put together the lesson plan every
week and he's just very natural at it. So it's
cool to see him thrive in that environment. But like
everybody gets really excited about it too, so it's cool
to see them get to learn it. And you know,
if we're all out on the same day, then hopefully
somebody can step in, right Patty.

Speaker 4 (51:45):
I'm probably the worst dudent ever.

Speaker 2 (51:47):
I think I've attended two classes and I haven't done
any of my homework, but I can attest.

Speaker 4 (51:52):
He's a great teacher, and I really enjoy the classes part.

Speaker 7 (51:54):
It's nothing I think, like it is all about being there,
and like it's funny because I thought, like, oh, I
make these presentations every week or whatever on Google slides
or something, and I thought, oh, you know, that won't
really help. And then I've seen like folks who join
late be able to create using those. So it's it
is really helpful to start to use your brain again,
and it's it's some great stuff. But Patty's been phenomenal too.

Speaker 5 (52:17):
She made some great stuff, some fire graphics.

Speaker 1 (52:20):
It's also expanded outside of marketing, which I think is
really cool. You have someone from the BSA team, you
have someone from EEDU. So I also think it's a
really cool way to like build camaraderie within like the
organization itself, beyond who you work with and see every day.

Speaker 5 (52:36):
Yep, what exactly what would be the equivalent coming from
the content team of Photoshop Thursdays.

Speaker 1 (52:44):
We don't like helping anyone.

Speaker 4 (52:47):
When in fact we help everyone.

Speaker 3 (52:50):
You just had a caption probably.

Speaker 4 (52:52):
Captions or like just one on one.

Speaker 2 (52:55):
So like when I'm talking about like paid ads and things,
people know what I'm talking about. Or like when I'm
telling you guys about the latest trends right like oh,
Instagram's pivoting from reels to.

Speaker 4 (53:07):
Carousels.

Speaker 1 (53:08):
I mean, do you guys want like a grammar and
punctuation Tuesday? Does not sound that exciting.

Speaker 4 (53:14):
But you know, I think it would pay off in
the long run. I think it's very underrated.

Speaker 9 (53:17):
I would benefit from that.

Speaker 2 (53:19):
I I, as someone who consumes social media, I'm very
attuned to addiction and proper grammar and syntax and things
like that, and so like you.

Speaker 4 (53:31):
Have a wrong there there there, Like I.

Speaker 5 (53:34):
Look at you a little bit differently when I post capture,
when I post on Instagram, I spend like an hour.
I think That's why I take my my social media breaks,
because like I find myself spending too much time like
creating content, and like I do this at work, you know,
I build the content at work, but then I'm taking
time away from like my family, and it's like, oh,
I gotta put my phone down.

Speaker 4 (53:54):
How long did it take you to do that? It's
gonna be my story that you did.

Speaker 9 (53:59):
That was like.

Speaker 5 (54:00):
Legits for the moment. It was like nine pm last night.
I was like, you know that song that in the
end sync, it's gonna be May song. It's been stuck
in my head. I'm just gonna record that. So I
had this app called al Cappella app and you just
record your harmonies and your voice singing and that. I
hadn't used that app in like four years, so it
was fun and it's may.

Speaker 4 (54:22):
How long did that take?

Speaker 9 (54:25):
Probably like forty five minutes about what.

Speaker 1 (54:28):
Are your tips for someone who's trying to create like
an esthetic on their personal social Like you guys all
kind of add like design elements Like.

Speaker 4 (54:38):
No One just looked at me and shook his head.

Speaker 1 (54:42):
I mean he helps Patty create.

Speaker 4 (54:44):
For those who.

Speaker 2 (54:45):
Don't know, my aesthetic is brought to you by Noah
Hammerman himself.

Speaker 8 (54:51):
I wish I was as cool as Patty. One thing
I want to grow up.

Speaker 5 (54:55):
Most people do with their own content is like committing
to one type of filter or one will way to edit.

Speaker 9 (55:02):
Like photos.

Speaker 5 (55:03):
People like to use the white frames and you know,
shrink down their photos so like their the thumbnails, their
photo steam looks really clean. I'm like the worst at
that because I just I'm kind of running gun when
I push content on my own social. But that's what
a lot of content creators do.

Speaker 3 (55:21):
I feel like I wait till the end of the
day because I want to enjoy whatever it is I'm doing.
And then I'll do like a curated story and I
use an app called Unfold, and I just like place
in the photo and video and then kind of the
text as I go. But I think the thing that
takes me the longest is when I can. I'm fine
with filtering a photo. I'm fine with the layout and

(55:43):
all that stuff. It's coming up with what to say
in the caption, like it gets me every time like that.
I could just sit there for like thirty minutes, like
I don't like any of these ideas. I don't know what.
Sometimes Batty will reach out and be like, what do
you think like our caption should be? And I'm like,
I don't know why you're asking me that. I'm terrible
at this part of things. Sometimes we can come up
with good stuff.

Speaker 5 (56:00):
Yeah, I worked in your department. I would I would
only put out one piece of content per game.

Speaker 4 (56:05):
Overthinking things, yeah, just sitting there thinking about it. I mean,
I'm constantly overthinking.

Speaker 2 (56:11):
And like I think my captions are so bad on
my personal account because I spend all my good words
on the team account.

Speaker 6 (56:19):
Do you guys pre plan a lot too?

Speaker 2 (56:21):
We try, Yeah, when we can, But then like things
like draft where you're just like on the fly, that's
when that's when you're really put to the test.

Speaker 9 (56:28):
Do you have stuff in drafts during like on a
game day?

Speaker 4 (56:32):
Yes? Yes?

Speaker 5 (56:33):
And do you have a list of captions like ready
to go? Ready, to fire off.

Speaker 4 (56:36):
I do.

Speaker 2 (56:37):
Yeah, So I typically will look at the opponent that
we're playing and then you know, use jargon that is
used in their from their city and and you know,
sometimes it's a little shady for sure, but like I
try to match like our our copy to to things
that people associate with the other team.

Speaker 3 (56:58):
So, I mean, Haley, you even have a list of captions.

Speaker 1 (57:01):
I do. I have a list of captions for my
personal anytime I like have inspo because I just know
where I would like to travel someday. So I have
a list of like Egypt captions that I've had for
like five years. Eventually I was gonna go prepared.

Speaker 5 (57:18):
Yeah, do you feel obligated to stay in the not
like new new albums, say, like a new Drake album,
Becuse you have to listen to those songs so you
know what to caption and what's what's hip or not.

Speaker 2 (57:30):
Yeah, I mean I think naturally, I actually like listening
to Drake, so I think that makes it easy. But
I mean there's there's artists dropping stuff every single day,
and I can't keep up with all of it.

Speaker 4 (57:42):
I think also trying to trying to keep up with
what the guys are.

Speaker 2 (57:47):
Listening to so it resonates with them as well is
also hard, and I'm gonna be really honest, I'm not
listening to every single album that's out there, like, especially
if it's not in my in my genre. So Google
is incredible helpful when it comes to finding lyrics or
trying to tie a lyric to you know, a certain
play or a highlight or whatever. But I think it

(58:10):
is important to stay on top of pop culture trends.

Speaker 5 (58:13):
For sure, when you're getting closer to forty, you're gonna
use Urban Dictionary a lot more like what are that kid?

Speaker 9 (58:18):
Just say?

Speaker 4 (58:19):
For sure? Noah, your tips?

Speaker 8 (58:22):
Oh, I don't really have.

Speaker 7 (58:24):
I mean, I'm not really good at social media, to
be honest. I think I'm taking a lot more photos recently,
but I'm not like posting them necessarily. I think like
it's been more of a family thing that we love
taking photos and not posting them or putting them anywhere.

(58:44):
I think they're just like for us, and I don't
know where they go one day or whatever, or somebody
messes up some iCloud thing and they're all gone. But
I think it is like a very neat thing, like
family tradition that we all loved just taking images despite
where they go media ways, though, I'm posting, like you know,
pickleball highlights of myself.

Speaker 8 (59:05):
Pretty much exclusively.

Speaker 3 (59:08):
I like your brand hashtag sweaters.

Speaker 7 (59:10):
I you too, I like continue, like, you know, if
something stuck, it works forever. I think I've hashtag sweater
since like twenty sixteen or seventeen, and it's because I
feel like a I wore a lot of them, and
in our high school, like allowed it was like a
uniform kind of thing, so you could wear this, you

(59:31):
could wear a suit or whatever. You could wear you know,
a collar shirt, or you could wear like a nice
quarter zip with like a polo underneath. Those were like
your options. And every day I chose the quarterszip because
it was comfortable, it felt me, and I haven't turned back.
So like every day I'm either wearing like I'm never
wearing like a T shirt. I'm always wearing like a

(59:53):
layer over it, so I feel that comfort and secure.

Speaker 5 (59:56):
Noah has a brand, like when you get to know him,
it's very endearing to see every day, like walks in
like Mahiso on brand with himself, and it's just I'm
just happy to be around you.

Speaker 8 (01:00:07):
A mom and dad, you'll love to hear that one.

Speaker 2 (01:00:13):
What are aside from the social media apps, what is
one app everyone should have if they want to work
on their personal branding?

Speaker 3 (01:00:21):
Well, I said, I use Unfold. I also use Photoshop
on my phone for photo editing, but I don't I
think that comes with creative clouds, So I'm not sure
what the free version is.

Speaker 5 (01:00:33):
Like, I use this app called inshot. I think it's
a paid it's only like twenty bucks per year. I'm
not sure, but you could do video editing on the
fly and also edit photos.

Speaker 9 (01:00:46):
It does a little bit of everything.

Speaker 5 (01:00:48):
So if you're just trying to use one app on
all your content, that's a really great app to use.

Speaker 7 (01:00:53):
Yeah, this used to be a big conversation in the
sports design space where it.

Speaker 8 (01:00:57):
Was like app for app, like what apps do you
use and whatever?

Speaker 7 (01:01:00):
And the answer for like professional designers was always like, oh,
photoshop or whatever. But you know, I started doing like
design in twenty sixteen or twenty fifteen on my phone
in Temple when my mom said I couldn't be using
my phone, and I was like, please just let me.

Speaker 8 (01:01:16):
This is so boring.

Speaker 4 (01:01:18):
She's going to be thrilled to hear that, no, but
she knows this story.

Speaker 7 (01:01:20):
I've told it a million times and it's true. Like
you just start off and I thought, I don't even
know what app it was. I think it might have
been Visco or something which I still use today, which
is would be my answer for if you want to
like filter things, you know, not only like photos but videos.
But it's it's like I turned up all the settings

(01:01:40):
on every single like thing to the top of the
meter on one of these pictures and it was like
super saturated and disgusting by the end, but at least
like it gets your brain thinking, like, oh, this is
really interesting. You can like manipulate imagery, and I thought
it was super cool.

Speaker 8 (01:01:56):
So I'd say that for like.

Speaker 7 (01:01:59):
You know, if you want to get into creating a
personal brand with imagery and then professionally. Christine has me
on this whole kick of using like LinkedIn for actual
like business purposes, so I've actually like been using LinkedIn
and keeping up with it, so I.

Speaker 3 (01:02:14):
Mean people will look at it.

Speaker 6 (01:02:16):
It's not bad to have up to date.

Speaker 8 (01:02:18):
For sure.

Speaker 3 (01:02:18):
When you get a promotion, you know, shout it out.

Speaker 4 (01:02:21):
You have my.

Speaker 7 (01:02:21):
Business, which isn't an app necessarily but you know it's
an app.

Speaker 4 (01:02:27):
This is the end of part one.

Speaker 2 (01:02:29):
Make sure you stay tuned for part two.