Michael Bierut is Partner at Pentagram, President Emeritus of AIGA National, best-selling author, recipient of countless awards, and so much more. Michael worked for ten years at Vignelli Associates before joining Pentagram as a partner in 1990. In this episode Michael shares a behind-the-scenes Pentagram perspective, cultivating great talent, inspiration, and more. Hosted by Cameron Moll and recorded in 2013.
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Hired is a podcast hosted by Cameron Moll that ran for several seasons in 2013-2016. Although the original files for many of the episodes were lost, we've published full episodes or excerpts for the surviving episodes.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hello again, everyone.
It's good to be back.
I have just been traveling a lotin the past few weeks, and we've
been working on our Septembercampaign with Charity Water, and
so between those two things,we've not had a lot of time to
focus on this show, but we'reback at it.
This is episode 12, and I thinkyou'll agree with me that we're
kicking things off in just ahuge way.
We've got Michael Beirut on theshow.
Michael needs no introduction,but I'll give you one anyways.
(00:24):
He's been a partner at Pentagramfor more than 20 years.
Before that, he worked with MamoElli, he's won hundreds of
awards.
His work is in MoMA and otherprestigious museums.
He's done identity work, signagework, packaging work, and the
list goes on and on.
Michael, it really is an honorto have on this show today.
Thanks so much for coming on.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
My pleasure camera.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
So I, I don't even know where to start.
I mean, there's so manyquestions I could ask you.
This is a show that's focused onfinding and cultivating talent,
which we'll get to, but, uh, Iknow very little about
Pentagram.
I've, I've not had the pleasureof working at a large agency
like Pentagram.
Can you tell me a little bitabout the composition of
Pentagram and what it means tobe a partner there?
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Sure.
Pentagram was set up back in1972, so it's over 40 years old.
I've just been a partner herefor about half of its existence.
Uh, when it was set up, the fiveguys to set it up, and that's
where the name Pentagram camefrom, each ran their own at one
point or another, freelancepractice and came to enjoy and
value and treasurer, in fact,the pleasures and the struggles
(01:27):
of, um, operating independently,being the person who was solely
responsible for the output of asmall studio, having first hand
contact with everyone who workedfor you and everyone you worked
for.
On the other hand, each of thosefive guys had come to realize
what the limitations of thatsetup could be.
There's a limit as to,particularly back in the
(01:48):
seventies when, um, it wasdifficult to scale in any way,
except through more people andmore equipment and more space.
It was difficult for each ofthose guys to, uh, uh, take on
jobs of a, beyond a certainscale, ha on jobs that were
multidisciplinary, take onprojects that might be, uh, you
know, multinational ortranscontinental or stuff like
that.
(02:09):
And they realized that if theythrew in together and, uh,
combined these separatefreelance practices into a
bigger organization, they mighthave a shot at doing bigger what
they thought could be moreinteresting, more challenging
work.
And indeed, it's sort of came tobe they made one critical
decision when they joinedtogether, which was that they
decided not to elect one of thefive as boss, and in fact, to
(02:32):
keep it so that each of the fivemaintained, uh, their own
separate teams within thatstructure.
And their own authority withinthose teams remained the main
point to contact with clientsfrom the outside and the main
point of contact for the peoplethat worked for them so they
could stay close to the works,close to the things that
actually had gotten them intothe business to begin with, and
from which they were deriving,you know, pleasure every day.
(02:55):
Turned out that that model theycreated 40 plus years ago was,
uh, expandable and scalable thata six person could join, a seven
person could join.
One of the original five movedto New York.
They started in London, one ofthe original five, moved to New
York, set it up here in NewYork.
And now 40 plus years later in2013, we've got 19 partners, uh,
working in five offices, eightpartners working in New York.
(03:18):
Eight partners work in London,and then one each work in three
smaller offices that we have inBerlin, San Francisco and
Austin, Texas.
Each of those partners basicallyworks in a way that aside from
the, uh, electronic devices wehave at our disposal would be
completely familiar to thosefive guys back in 1972.
(03:40):
Each of us has what amounts tois a fairly small staff, like a
small studio would have.
The biggest is probably a dozenpeople and partners can be
really productive with as few asthree or four designers.
And each of us works out in theopen.
Each of us collaborates with theother ones when the situation
requires it and worksindependently, when that seems
to be the right thing with theproject as well.
(04:00):
There's still no hierarchy,there's still no boss among the
19 people.
And anyone who's sort of seekingthe head of my firm, pentagram,
if they're talking to a partner,that person for that moment is
in charge of that relationshipand in charge of the, in charge
of pentagram as far as that, uh,person's concerned, right?
And so, and so, it's meant tosort of like preserve everything
(04:21):
that people like about workingat a small independent scale as
a creative person with some ofthe advantages of working at a
larger scale.
We have access to greaterresources, obviously the
security that scale can bring toa certain degree.
And, you know, if you're asociable type of person as I am,
it mitigates the kind ofpotential loneliness of being on
(04:43):
your own, closing the door andjust kind of feeling like, um,
you know, I hope the phone ringswhere I hope, you know, I have
to do something to distractmyself.
You know, there's plenty ofdistractions here if you, uh, if
you seek them.
So, so I've been a partner since1990.
When I joined, I was probably, Iwas certainly the newest
partner, and that's one of theyoungest, now I'm one of the
most longstanding ones here andone of the oldest as well.
(05:05):
So you get to see the wholetransition going from, um, sort
of a quasi prodigy slash naiveto, uh, being kind of grizzled
old man, which is what I amtoday.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
That's fascinating to me as an outsider.
Pentagram I is in consists ofthose, those partners that you
mentioned.
Are there, is there any hope forthose who are not at that level,
the junior positions or eveninternships?
Is there any side kind ofstructure like that at
Pentagram, or is it mostly madeup of senior level, uh,
(05:35):
individuals?
The
Speaker 2 (05:36):
Hierarchy is pretty simple.
We don't have titles here in NewYork.
The eight partners are the oneswho really determine the
direction of the office.
And every project that's beingdone at Pentagram is happening
with the direct involvement ofone of those eight partners,
sometimes more than one of thoseeight partners.
Every creative employee hereworks was hired by one of of
(05:57):
those a partners, and, uh,eventually we'll go in, most of
them will go in to quit whenthey decide it's time to move on
by telling one of those apartners the one that hired
them.
And so it's really simple.
The appeal for anyone workinghere is that they're working
directly with someone at the topof the organization because the
hierarchy is simple.
Unlike a lot of firms that have,you know, hundreds of employees
(06:18):
in five different offices, mostof our time with our designers
is spent doing work directly forclients who tend to know us and
know the designers.
So it's kept really tight.
Now, each of those designers,you know, is talented and
ambitious.
Most, almost all of them willstart here at Pentagram, often
as interns or just outta schooland will leave having had what
(06:39):
we hope is a great experience,but to move on to bigger,
brighter things that probablyexist outside of pentagram.
A culture developed here thatthe firm could be kept most
interesting by having newpartners joined from the
outside.
So when I joined Pangram, itwasn't as, I wasn't like a
junior designer at Pentagram whoworked my up way up to a partner
(07:01):
here.
I was working at another firm,and, uh, when I decided that I
was ready to do something else,they thought, well, maybe a
partnership here would be ofinterest.
You know, Paula Share who joinedat the same time I did, would
been running her own office witha couple of partners and decided
that Pentagram model would begood for her.
Abbott, Miller, Luke Haman,Emily Erman, Natasha, Jen, Eddie
(07:24):
Par, all of them were runningindependent of things before
they joined.
There are a couple ofexceptions.
Michael Gek is one of thepartners here in New York, was
actually a, uh, designer, then asenior designer, then an
associate partner, and then camea partner just because he knew
the business so well and had putin the time here that, uh, it
just was an irresistible choice.
(07:45):
But of those 19, uh, currentpartners, only three of them
came up through the ranks.
Now, the one exception in theremaining 16 is our newest
partner here in New York,Natasha Jen, who actually was a
designer on Paula shares teamway back at the beginning of her
career, and, uh, then went on towork at a couple of other firms
(08:05):
and then opened her own officeand finally came back here as a
partner.
You know, we've been around longenough at this point that I
think the idea of preserving akind of very specific culture is
very important to people.
And that means that you sort ofcultivate your own personnel
from the inside, and you, um,you sort of like bring them up
(08:26):
so that every single person whojoins sort of like knows the
firm inside and out.
They made a really differentdecision here, and it was
already happening when I joined,you know, 23 years ago, that the
vitality of the firm would bebest served by having it
refreshed from the outside.
And the trajectory changes everytime someone joins from the
outside or the time or anypartner comes in, because every
(08:47):
partner is sort of expected tobehave in an entrepreneurial
way.
We each basically get our ownbusiness.
We each manage our own accounts.
We each call up clients who oweus money and try to find out
when we're gonna get paid.
There's no sort of like, youknow, Mr.
Pentagram or Ms.
Pentagram who actually does thatwork for you.
They sort of have a have to havea, an appetite for that and take
(09:10):
it seriously if you're gonnasucceed here as a partner.
And so having people come fromthe outside, having demonstrated
their own entrepreneurial bentsomehow in some arena as an
independent practitioner, hasended up being a good model for
us.
And I have to admit, it's keptit a really interesting place.
The pentagram I joined back in1990, obviously was a completely
different place from the onethat exists today, and it's
(09:32):
because the partners that Ijoined, then all of them really
retired, and then Paula joined,uh, six months after me.
And the firm that I'm in now hasreally changed with these new
partner coming in, and that'swhat keeps it exciting.
I love it from that regard.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
Yeah.
So let's talk about, uh, findingtalent, design talent.
Uh, I know you did an interviewwith Computer Arts not too long
ago, and you talked aboutlooking for three things in
perspective, employees,intelligence, curiosity, and
passion.
Can you elaborate on that alittle bit?
Speaker 2 (09:59):
I think that intelligence, curiosity and
passion, if you picture what theopposites are, I don't imagine
that anyone looks for dumbness,um, you know, dumb people who
aren't curious about anythingand act jaded and bored all the
time, Although, I swear to God,if you're gonna bar with a lot
of designers and not thedumbness part is sort of hard to
abide.
But I think a certain amount ofjaded San Freud is sort of
(10:20):
actually very much in theprofile of, uh, what people
fancy designers are like.
I aim into that myself.
I like people who are energetic,really passionate, and who
really are ready to getinterested in anything.
One of the things about graphicdesign specifically that is
really interesting and differentfrom a lot of other creative
professions and designprofessions is that, uh, graphic
(10:43):
design is almost always aboutsomething else.
You know, it's sometimes it'sabout design, sometimes, you
know, it's, uh, a self contained, self-referential subject and
audience, but usually a newassignment in graphic design is
an invitation to throw yourselfinto another world, right?
So I've learned, you know, abouteverything from, you know,
(11:04):
avantgarde performance art to,um, the regulations that, uh,
govern the way parking signslook in New York to, um, how the
NFL approves changes to itsuniforms, to the way that, um,
you know, a major urban hospitaladmits patients to have, you
(11:25):
know, cancer therapy.
And that's all just by way ofdoing mundane things like logos
or, you know, annual reports orwebsites or stuff like that.
So if alls you're interested inis fonts and curing and
resolving the white space andmaking something line up just
the right way, all of which arereally important things, by the
(11:47):
way that you have to care about.
But if that's all you careabout, that won't sustain you,
that won't get you through alate night be, you know, if
you're not interested in whatthe words say and what who the
audience is and why they'resupposed to be interested in it
as well.
You know, the intelligence iswhat's required to make you a,
um, a good active receptor toall this input you're gonna get.
(12:08):
The curiosity is a thing thatdrives you to keep asking
questions about it and keep, andit makes you ask those questions
that I promise you they forgotto tell you the answers to.
And those are the usually theanswers you need.
And then finally, the passion isthe thing that'll keep you
pushing at it until you get notjust the answers you need, but
until you can kind of transformthat information into something
(12:28):
that you personally findcompelling and that the audience
is gonna find compelling aswell.
There, you know, everyone has adifferent thing they look for in
employees.
There are people out there whojust look for nothing but pure
craft skills.
And I, I, and I sort of takethose for granted or something
you can learn.
You can't learn to be smart, youcan't learn to be curious.
You can't really, uh, learn tobe passionate.
(12:49):
Maybe you can, I don't know.
But, uh, if I'm looking forinbred traits, those are the
ones I like the best.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
Yeah, it really is hard to inspire someone to,
well, not hard to inspiresomeone to be passionate, but
to, to have them do that ontheir own and be to continue to
be passionate throughout theircareer.
I mean, it really has to comefrom inside that individual.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Yeah.
I mean, as an employer, I thinkyou can model that behavior.
And in fact, you know, Iremember the first internship I
had that really turned my headaround was working for a
brilliant, uh, designer namedChris Pullman, who was the
design director at W G B HTelevision, the public
television station up in Boston.
And he put together an amazinggroup of people, of which I was
(13:32):
the, I, there were two interns,and I was the junior intern
there, and so I was like thelowest person on the totem pole
by any measure you could have.
But I just remember, I learnedso much just from watching the
behavior of everyone else there,how you actually, how much fun
it could be to do stuff you'reinterested in how, how
opinionated they were about thesubject matter they were working
(13:54):
with.
You know, if one person waslaying out a cookbook for Julia
Child, another person was doingthe ONA graphics for the big
documentary they were doingabout Vietnam, someone else was
doing the title sequence forMasterpiece Theater.
Those things weren't the sort ofdry technical exercises that I
was doing in school.
People were throwing themselvesin, like just had such facility
(14:17):
and interest in, you know, whatthe plots for Masterpiece
Theater would be the per, youknow, Julia Child's personality
as a human being and how youcould express that with, uh, uh,
the way you would deploytypography, what you knew about
Vietnam, and how you couldtranslate that into compelling
graphics that a mass audiencecould enjoy.
You know, that was a revelationto me.
(14:38):
I had been moving dots around insquares back in school and kind
of like just hand drawing, youknow, characters, uh, in my
typography class.
And as you see people engagingwith this bigger world with such
a thrill, and I'm not not sure Iwould've gotten there on my own
had I not seen those models.
So I, I sort of take it back.
I'm not sure you can't learnthem.
You just need to really, uh, beattentive to the examples you
(15:00):
have around you.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
Yeah.
So in addition to Chris, whohave been your other mentors
over the years,
Speaker 2 (15:05):
Great teachers in school back at the University of
Cincinnati, Joe Batton, GordonSouthco.
Great teachers there.
Uh, Chris Poman was a greatmentor to me.
Of course, when I graduated, Imoved to New York.
My very first job was workingfor Mamo and Lela Vili who are
legendary designers.
And again, there I was the, um,lowest person on the totem pole.
(15:25):
I did things every day at workthat designers, no matter, no
matter where they work now,would not even recognize as
being related to designactivities.
They look more like janitorialactivities, the kind of stuff I
did there.
And it wasn't because it wasn'tonly because I was, uh, very low
in the tonal pole.
It was also because design backthen was a very analog activity
(15:46):
that involved pouring, you know,benzene into rubber cement and
stirring it until it had aperfect consistency.
You know, we don't need, um,rubber cement anymore to do our
work usually, but, um, there's alot of that going on back in
those days.
And so, um, I was low on thetotem pole, but again, to sort
of see designers working at thisunbelievably high level was
(16:08):
revelation to me.
Also, I had led a veryprovincial life up to that
point.
You know, I grew up in northernOhio, went to school in southern
Ohio, and I thought I'd gonearound the world just by
traveling on, uh, you know, I 71from, uh, Cleveland to
Cincinnati.
Instead, Mamo Lela madereferences to designers from
around the world to, you know,artistic or architectural
(16:31):
experiences from around theworld they had lived lives of,
to me, astonishing, cosmopolitansophistication.
And, um, and I was just sort ofa go.
I just think just as I had been,uh, working at W GBH as an
intern over a summer in the lateseventies when I started working
for MO in Lela in the earlyeighties, in addition to all the
(16:53):
things I learned about design, Ialso learned about, you know,
about food, about art, aboutarchitecture, about reading,
about literature, just abouthow, how a civilized person
could use design as a tool toexplore the world.
It was thrilling for me.
It was intimidating at first,you know, And even when I think
about it, not still sort ofintimidated, I don't think, uh,
(17:14):
I could hold my own with, uh,either the vis and even today,
nearly, uh, 35 years later, butstill, the things I learned in
those days were on every level,not just about, um, typefaces.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Yeah.
If all of us could have had ourfirst job with, uh, the VIGs
mm-hmm.
right outtaschool, you know, going back to
what you said aboutintelligence, curiosity,
passion, though, it's, it'swonderful to see the paths that
all of us take and and where weget to.
Yeah.
And it doesn't require that wework with a VII or something
like that.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Absolutely not.
When I'm interviewing people, Ican tell sometimes I admire
people that are ambitious andpeople that want to, that set
their sights on certain targets.
But it's an important thing toknow that, that trust me, no
matter where you are, no matterwhat, what your position is,
that inspiration is available toyou right there.
It's right there.
You don't have to move to NewYork.
(18:03):
You don't have to work for someperson, you imagine is a legend.
I happen to be lucky, and Ihappened to have probably been
hired nearly by accident.
I don't think I was sort of likethe guy that they were dying to
get just because I, I certainlydidn't, um, fit a profile of
sophistication that I think thatoffice actually deserved to, uh,
(18:23):
have amongst this employees,even the low level ones.
Instead, I, you know, I gotthere and I just sort of just
started learning by payingattention.
But that attention, if youdirect it anywhere, you know, no
matter where you're working, nomatter who you're working for,
no matter who you're workingwith, no matter who's working
for you, there's inspiration andinformation to be had just so
easily and even more easily.
(18:45):
Now, remember, um, when I wentto school and when I started
that job, you know, I will nowbe an old guy.
There was no internet back then,you know, and that means that a
book or a magazine that say Mamowould have on his desk that I'd
ask if I could borrow that waslike treasure to me.
You know, it was likeinformation from far off places
like Zurich or Milano or Tokyoor something now barely a person
(19:09):
within the sound of our voiceswho can't, you know, access a
million more things that I couldhave in those days.
Right.
And, you know, maybe it, maybeit's worth finding, um, you know
, mentors you can serve asguides to help sort out or
instruct you what all that stuffmeans.
And I had that inherently Ithink by people who, you know, I
mean, what was in masimo's trashcan at the end of the day was
(19:31):
probably more interesting thanmost stuff that I could find
with a few clicks, um, you know,right from my desk.
However, I think that theinspiration is always there.
It's always, you know, where youlook for it, where you find it
and what you do with it afteryou've, um, turned it up.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
Yeah.
It's a very different worldtoday.
Inspiration though isinspiration no matter where it
comes from.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
Uh, our listeners can't see this, but I've been
smiling the entire time we'vebeen chatting cuz it's just so,
it's so infectious to, to watchyou and, and listen to you talk
about, uh, what we do and, andit inspires me to be better.
Let me ask you this maybe as ourour final question.
Um, as you look back over yourlife thus far, what are you most
proud of?
Speaker 2 (20:07):
There's things I've done that I'm proud of.
I'm proud of having designedthings that, um, that some
things that people see every day.
You know, like a lot of parents,Dorothy and I have managed to
raise three kids and I'm reallyproud of each of whom are under
their own trajectories.
Each of whom I think haveengendered.
We've engendered to kind ofcuriosity within them.
(20:28):
This led them to very differentpaths.
Not a single one of them is agraphic designer, so they
haven't chosen to follow in myfootsteps, but they're each
being curious.
And I think, you know, uh, tothe degree that, you know, in my
work life, you know, I'vemanaged, I think to serve as a
mentor to a lot of people whohave worked for me over the
years and also been inspired bythem.
(20:50):
Often, sometimes we, um, willlook at a chart that someone
made here in the office.
It just shows kind of a, it's alist, it's sort of a bar chart
of all the people that have justworked on my team since 1990 and
it's gotten longer and longer.
And, um, sometimes someone justworked from 91 to 94, sometimes
they work from 94 to 98,sometimes they work from 98 to
2001, et cetera, et cetera.
(21:12):
It all seems like yesterday tome, a lot of them have gone on
to do amazing things.
All of them.
I sort of remember moments withthem, things that they worked on
where they made the, the designwe were working on better
through something that they knewhow to do.
And, um, in a way, one of thegreatest things you can do, I
(21:32):
think as a creative person is,you know, be both a receptor of
all the inspiration that youacquire from the people who
you've surrounded yourself with,but at the same time take that
and turn it out to other peoplewho then can multiply it out on
their own.
It's really, it's a great thingand it's sort of a, the kind of
(21:53):
thing that not every professionaffords.
I love my dentist, but I sort ofcan't imagine that that sort of
sense of exchange is happening,you know, in his practice as it
is in mine.
Nothing against dentists who areprobably more important than
designers actually to ourwellbeing, but I think that's
just such a, it's such a greatthing.
It's a gift and it's a privilegeand it actually is such a great
(22:17):
source of, of energy that it'spart of the reason that I think
so few people who do what we doend up kind of retiring and just
planting flowers.
You just kind of want, you getaddicted to it and the better
you get at it, um, if you'relucky, the more fun you can have
doing it.
And the more people who you cankind of count among your circle
(22:40):
of those who you've influencedand those who have influenced
you.
And sometimes you can't eventell'em apart if you're doing it
right.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
Well, on behalf of that incredible community of
designers throughout the world,thank you for everything you
you're doing to make our worldbetter.
Uh, and thanks for taking timeoutta your day to come on the
Speaker 2 (22:56):
Show.
It's been a real pleasuretalking to you.
Hello again, everyone.
It's good to be back.
I have just been traveling a lotin the past few weeks, and we've
been working on our Septembercampaign with Charity Water, and
so between those two things,we've not had a lot of time to
focus on this show, but we'reback at it.
This is episode 12, and I thinkyou'll agree with me that we're
kicking things off in just ahuge way.
We've got Michael Beirut on theshow.
Michael needs no introduction,but I'll give you one anyways.
(00:24):
He's been a partner at Pentagramfor more than 20 years.
Before that, he worked with MamoElli, he's won hundreds of
awards.
His work is in MoMA and otherprestigious museums.
He's done identity work, signagework, packaging work, and the
list goes on and on.
Michael, it really is an honorto have on this show today.
Thanks so much for coming on.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
My pleasure camera.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
So I, I don't even know where to start.
I mean, there's so manyquestions I could ask you.
This is a show that's focused onfinding and cultivating talent,
which we'll get to, but, uh, Iknow very little about
Pentagram.
I've, I've not had the pleasureof working at a large agency
like Pentagram.
Can you tell me a little bitabout the composition of
Pentagram and what it means tobe a partner there?
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Sure.
Pentagram was set up back in1972, so it's over 40 years old.
I've just been a partner herefor about half of its existence.
Uh, when it was set up, the fiveguys to set it up, and that's
where the name Pentagram camefrom, each ran their own at one
point or another, freelancepractice and came to enjoy and
value and treasurer, in fact,the pleasures and the struggles
(01:27):
of, um, operating independently,being the person who was solely
responsible for the output of asmall studio, having first hand
contact with everyone who workedfor you and everyone you worked
for.
On the other hand, each of thosefive guys had come to realize
what the limitations of thatsetup could be.
There's a limit as to,particularly back in the
(01:48):
seventies when, um, it wasdifficult to scale in any way,
except through more people andmore equipment and more space.
It was difficult for each ofthose guys to, uh, uh, take on
jobs of a, beyond a certainscale, ha on jobs that were
multidisciplinary, take onprojects that might be, uh, you
know, multinational ortranscontinental or stuff like
that.
(02:09):
And they realized that if theythrew in together and, uh,
combined these separatefreelance practices into a
bigger organization, they mighthave a shot at doing bigger what
they thought could be moreinteresting, more challenging
work.
And indeed, it's sort of came tobe they made one critical
decision when they joinedtogether, which was that they
decided not to elect one of thefive as boss, and in fact, to
(02:32):
keep it so that each of the fivemaintained, uh, their own
separate teams within thatstructure.
And their own authority withinthose teams remained the main
point to contact with clientsfrom the outside and the main
point of contact for the peoplethat worked for them so they
could stay close to the works,close to the things that
actually had gotten them intothe business to begin with, and
from which they were deriving,you know, pleasure every day.
(02:55):
Turned out that that model theycreated 40 plus years ago was,
uh, expandable and scalable thata six person could join, a seven
person could join.
One of the original five movedto New York.
They started in London, one ofthe original five, moved to New
York, set it up here in NewYork.
And now 40 plus years later in2013, we've got 19 partners, uh,
working in five offices, eightpartners working in New York.
(03:18):
Eight partners work in London,and then one each work in three
smaller offices that we have inBerlin, San Francisco and
Austin, Texas.
Each of those partners basicallyworks in a way that aside from
the, uh, electronic devices wehave at our disposal would be
completely familiar to thosefive guys back in 1972.
(03:40):
Each of us has what amounts tois a fairly small staff, like a
small studio would have.
The biggest is probably a dozenpeople and partners can be
really productive with as few asthree or four designers.
And each of us works out in theopen.
Each of us collaborates with theother ones when the situation
requires it and worksindependently, when that seems
to be the right thing with theproject as well.
(04:00):
There's still no hierarchy,there's still no boss among the
19 people.
And anyone who's sort of seekingthe head of my firm, pentagram,
if they're talking to a partner,that person for that moment is
in charge of that relationshipand in charge of the, in charge
of pentagram as far as that, uh,person's concerned, right?
And so, and so, it's meant tosort of like preserve everything
(04:21):
that people like about workingat a small independent scale as
a creative person with some ofthe advantages of working at a
larger scale.
We have access to greaterresources, obviously the
security that scale can bring toa certain degree.
And, you know, if you're asociable type of person as I am,
it mitigates the kind ofpotential loneliness of being on
(04:43):
your own, closing the door andjust kind of feeling like, um,
you know, I hope the phone ringswhere I hope, you know, I have
to do something to distractmyself.
You know, there's plenty ofdistractions here if you, uh, if
you seek them.
So, so I've been a partner since1990.
When I joined, I was probably, Iwas certainly the newest
partner, and that's one of theyoungest, now I'm one of the
most longstanding ones here andone of the oldest as well.
(05:05):
So you get to see the wholetransition going from, um, sort
of a quasi prodigy slash naiveto, uh, being kind of grizzled
old man, which is what I amtoday.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
That's fascinating to me as an outsider.
Pentagram I is in consists ofthose, those partners that you
mentioned.
Are there, is there any hope forthose who are not at that level,
the junior positions or eveninternships?
Is there any side kind ofstructure like that at
Pentagram, or is it mostly madeup of senior level, uh,
(05:35):
individuals?
The
Speaker 2 (05:36):
Hierarchy is pretty simple.
We don't have titles here in NewYork.
The eight partners are the oneswho really determine the
direction of the office.
And every project that's beingdone at Pentagram is happening
with the direct involvement ofone of those eight partners,
sometimes more than one of thoseeight partners.
Every creative employee hereworks was hired by one of of
(05:57):
those a partners, and, uh,eventually we'll go in, most of
them will go in to quit whenthey decide it's time to move on
by telling one of those apartners the one that hired
them.
And so it's really simple.
The appeal for anyone workinghere is that they're working
directly with someone at the topof the organization because the
hierarchy is simple.
Unlike a lot of firms that have,you know, hundreds of employees
(06:18):
in five different offices, mostof our time with our designers
is spent doing work directly forclients who tend to know us and
know the designers.
So it's kept really tight.
Now, each of those designers,you know, is talented and
ambitious.
Most, almost all of them willstart here at Pentagram, often
as interns or just outta schooland will leave having had what
(06:39):
we hope is a great experience,but to move on to bigger,
brighter things that probablyexist outside of pentagram.
A culture developed here thatthe firm could be kept most
interesting by having newpartners joined from the
outside.
So when I joined Pangram, itwasn't as, I wasn't like a
junior designer at Pentagram whoworked my up way up to a partner
(07:01):
here.
I was working at another firm,and, uh, when I decided that I
was ready to do something else,they thought, well, maybe a
partnership here would be ofinterest.
You know, Paula Share who joinedat the same time I did, would
been running her own office witha couple of partners and decided
that Pentagram model would begood for her.
Abbott, Miller, Luke Haman,Emily Erman, Natasha, Jen, Eddie
(07:24):
Par, all of them were runningindependent of things before
they joined.
There are a couple ofexceptions.
Michael Gek is one of thepartners here in New York, was
actually a, uh, designer, then asenior designer, then an
associate partner, and then camea partner just because he knew
the business so well and had putin the time here that, uh, it
just was an irresistible choice.
(07:45):
But of those 19, uh, currentpartners, only three of them
came up through the ranks.
Now, the one exception in theremaining 16 is our newest
partner here in New York,Natasha Jen, who actually was a
designer on Paula shares teamway back at the beginning of her
career, and, uh, then went on towork at a couple of other firms
(08:05):
and then opened her own officeand finally came back here as a
partner.
You know, we've been around longenough at this point that I
think the idea of preserving akind of very specific culture is
very important to people.
And that means that you sort ofcultivate your own personnel
from the inside, and you, um,you sort of like bring them up
(08:26):
so that every single person whojoins sort of like knows the
firm inside and out.
They made a really differentdecision here, and it was
already happening when I joined,you know, 23 years ago, that the
vitality of the firm would bebest served by having it
refreshed from the outside.
And the trajectory changes everytime someone joins from the
outside or the time or anypartner comes in, because every
(08:47):
partner is sort of expected tobehave in an entrepreneurial
way.
We each basically get our ownbusiness.
We each manage our own accounts.
We each call up clients who oweus money and try to find out
when we're gonna get paid.
There's no sort of like, youknow, Mr.
Pentagram or Ms.
Pentagram who actually does thatwork for you.
They sort of have a have to havea, an appetite for that and take
(09:10):
it seriously if you're gonnasucceed here as a partner.
And so having people come fromthe outside, having demonstrated
their own entrepreneurial bentsomehow in some arena as an
independent practitioner, hasended up being a good model for
us.
And I have to admit, it's keptit a really interesting place.
The pentagram I joined back in1990, obviously was a completely
different place from the onethat exists today, and it's
(09:32):
because the partners that Ijoined, then all of them really
retired, and then Paula joined,uh, six months after me.
And the firm that I'm in now hasreally changed with these new
partner coming in, and that'swhat keeps it exciting.
I love it from that regard.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
Yeah.
So let's talk about, uh, findingtalent, design talent.
Uh, I know you did an interviewwith Computer Arts not too long
ago, and you talked aboutlooking for three things in
perspective, employees,intelligence, curiosity, and
passion.
Can you elaborate on that alittle bit?
Speaker 2 (09:59):
I think that intelligence, curiosity and
passion, if you picture what theopposites are, I don't imagine
that anyone looks for dumbness,um, you know, dumb people who
aren't curious about anythingand act jaded and bored all the
time, Although, I swear to God,if you're gonna bar with a lot
of designers and not thedumbness part is sort of hard to
abide.
But I think a certain amount ofjaded San Freud is sort of
(10:20):
actually very much in theprofile of, uh, what people
fancy designers are like.
I aim into that myself.
I like people who are energetic,really passionate, and who
really are ready to getinterested in anything.
One of the things about graphicdesign specifically that is
really interesting and differentfrom a lot of other creative
professions and designprofessions is that, uh, graphic
(10:43):
design is almost always aboutsomething else.
You know, it's sometimes it'sabout design, sometimes, you
know, it's, uh, a self contained, self-referential subject and
audience, but usually a newassignment in graphic design is
an invitation to throw yourselfinto another world, right?
So I've learned, you know, abouteverything from, you know,
(11:04):
avantgarde performance art to,um, the regulations that, uh,
govern the way parking signslook in New York to, um, how the
NFL approves changes to itsuniforms, to the way that, um,
you know, a major urban hospitaladmits patients to have, you
(11:25):
know, cancer therapy.
And that's all just by way ofdoing mundane things like logos
or, you know, annual reports orwebsites or stuff like that.
So if alls you're interested inis fonts and curing and
resolving the white space andmaking something line up just
the right way, all of which arereally important things, by the
(11:47):
way that you have to care about.
But if that's all you careabout, that won't sustain you,
that won't get you through alate night be, you know, if
you're not interested in whatthe words say and what who the
audience is and why they'resupposed to be interested in it
as well.
You know, the intelligence iswhat's required to make you a,
um, a good active receptor toall this input you're gonna get.
(12:08):
The curiosity is a thing thatdrives you to keep asking
questions about it and keep, andit makes you ask those questions
that I promise you they forgotto tell you the answers to.
And those are the usually theanswers you need.
And then finally, the passion isthe thing that'll keep you
pushing at it until you get notjust the answers you need, but
until you can kind of transformthat information into something
(12:28):
that you personally findcompelling and that the audience
is gonna find compelling aswell.
There, you know, everyone has adifferent thing they look for in
employees.
There are people out there whojust look for nothing but pure
craft skills.
And I, I, and I sort of takethose for granted or something
you can learn.
You can't learn to be smart, youcan't learn to be curious.
You can't really, uh, learn tobe passionate.
(12:49):
Maybe you can, I don't know.
But, uh, if I'm looking forinbred traits, those are the
ones I like the best.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
Yeah, it really is hard to inspire someone to,
well, not hard to inspiresomeone to be passionate, but
to, to have them do that ontheir own and be to continue to
be passionate throughout theircareer.
I mean, it really has to comefrom inside that individual.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Yeah.
I mean, as an employer, I thinkyou can model that behavior.
And in fact, you know, Iremember the first internship I
had that really turned my headaround was working for a
brilliant, uh, designer namedChris Pullman, who was the
design director at W G B HTelevision, the public
television station up in Boston.
And he put together an amazinggroup of people, of which I was
(13:32):
the, I, there were two interns,and I was the junior intern
there, and so I was like thelowest person on the totem pole
by any measure you could have.
But I just remember, I learnedso much just from watching the
behavior of everyone else there,how you actually, how much fun
it could be to do stuff you'reinterested in how, how
opinionated they were about thesubject matter they were working
(13:54):
with.
You know, if one person waslaying out a cookbook for Julia
Child, another person was doingthe ONA graphics for the big
documentary they were doingabout Vietnam, someone else was
doing the title sequence forMasterpiece Theater.
Those things weren't the sort ofdry technical exercises that I
was doing in school.
People were throwing themselvesin, like just had such facility
(14:17):
and interest in, you know, whatthe plots for Masterpiece
Theater would be the per, youknow, Julia Child's personality
as a human being and how youcould express that with, uh, uh,
the way you would deploytypography, what you knew about
Vietnam, and how you couldtranslate that into compelling
graphics that a mass audiencecould enjoy.
You know, that was a revelationto me.
(14:38):
I had been moving dots around insquares back in school and kind
of like just hand drawing, youknow, characters, uh, in my
typography class.
And as you see people engagingwith this bigger world with such
a thrill, and I'm not not sure Iwould've gotten there on my own
had I not seen those models.
So I, I sort of take it back.
I'm not sure you can't learnthem.
You just need to really, uh, beattentive to the examples you
(15:00):
have around you.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
Yeah.
So in addition to Chris, whohave been your other mentors
over the years,
Speaker 2 (15:05):
Great teachers in school back at the University of
Cincinnati, Joe Batton, GordonSouthco.
Great teachers there.
Uh, Chris Poman was a greatmentor to me.
Of course, when I graduated, Imoved to New York.
My very first job was workingfor Mamo and Lela Vili who are
legendary designers.
And again, there I was the, um,lowest person on the totem pole.
(15:25):
I did things every day at workthat designers, no matter, no
matter where they work now,would not even recognize as
being related to designactivities.
They look more like janitorialactivities, the kind of stuff I
did there.
And it wasn't because it wasn'tonly because I was, uh, very low
in the tonal pole.
It was also because design backthen was a very analog activity
(15:46):
that involved pouring, you know,benzene into rubber cement and
stirring it until it had aperfect consistency.
You know, we don't need, um,rubber cement anymore to do our
work usually, but, um, there's alot of that going on back in
those days.
And so, um, I was low on thetotem pole, but again, to sort
of see designers working at thisunbelievably high level was
(16:08):
revelation to me.
Also, I had led a veryprovincial life up to that
point.
You know, I grew up in northernOhio, went to school in southern
Ohio, and I thought I'd gonearound the world just by
traveling on, uh, you know, I 71from, uh, Cleveland to
Cincinnati.
Instead, Mamo Lela madereferences to designers from
around the world to, you know,artistic or architectural
(16:31):
experiences from around theworld they had lived lives of,
to me, astonishing, cosmopolitansophistication.
And, um, and I was just sort ofa go.
I just think just as I had been,uh, working at W GBH as an
intern over a summer in the lateseventies when I started working
for MO in Lela in the earlyeighties, in addition to all the
(16:53):
things I learned about design, Ialso learned about, you know,
about food, about art, aboutarchitecture, about reading,
about literature, just abouthow, how a civilized person
could use design as a tool toexplore the world.
It was thrilling for me.
It was intimidating at first,you know, And even when I think
about it, not still sort ofintimidated, I don't think, uh,
(17:14):
I could hold my own with, uh,either the vis and even today,
nearly, uh, 35 years later, butstill, the things I learned in
those days were on every level,not just about, um, typefaces.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Yeah.
If all of us could have had ourfirst job with, uh, the VIGs
mm-hmm.
what you said aboutintelligence, curiosity,
passion, though, it's, it'swonderful to see the paths that
all of us take and and where weget to.
Yeah.
And it doesn't require that wework with a VII or something
like that.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Absolutely not.
When I'm interviewing people, Ican tell sometimes I admire
people that are ambitious andpeople that want to, that set
their sights on certain targets.
But it's an important thing toknow that, that trust me, no
matter where you are, no matterwhat, what your position is,
that inspiration is available toyou right there.
It's right there.
You don't have to move to NewYork.
(18:03):
You don't have to work for someperson, you imagine is a legend.
I happen to be lucky, and Ihappened to have probably been
hired nearly by accident.
I don't think I was sort of likethe guy that they were dying to
get just because I, I certainlydidn't, um, fit a profile of
sophistication that I think thatoffice actually deserved to, uh,
(18:23):
have amongst this employees,even the low level ones.
Instead, I, you know, I gotthere and I just sort of just
started learning by payingattention.
But that attention, if youdirect it anywhere, you know, no
matter where you're working, nomatter who you're working for,
no matter who you're workingwith, no matter who's working
for you, there's inspiration andinformation to be had just so
easily and even more easily.
(18:45):
Now, remember, um, when I wentto school and when I started
that job, you know, I will nowbe an old guy.
There was no internet back then,you know, and that means that a
book or a magazine that say Mamowould have on his desk that I'd
ask if I could borrow that waslike treasure to me.
You know, it was likeinformation from far off places
like Zurich or Milano or Tokyoor something now barely a person
(19:09):
within the sound of our voiceswho can't, you know, access a
million more things that I couldhave in those days.
Right.
And, you know, maybe it, maybeit's worth finding, um, you know
, mentors you can serve asguides to help sort out or
instruct you what all that stuffmeans.
And I had that inherently Ithink by people who, you know, I
mean, what was in masimo's trashcan at the end of the day was
(19:31):
probably more interesting thanmost stuff that I could find
with a few clicks, um, you know,right from my desk.
However, I think that theinspiration is always there.
It's always, you know, where youlook for it, where you find it
and what you do with it afteryou've, um, turned it up.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
Yeah.
It's a very different worldtoday.
Inspiration though isinspiration no matter where it
comes from.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
Uh, our listeners can't see this, but I've been
smiling the entire time we'vebeen chatting cuz it's just so,
it's so infectious to, to watchyou and, and listen to you talk
about, uh, what we do and, andit inspires me to be better.
Let me ask you this maybe as ourour final question.
Um, as you look back over yourlife thus far, what are you most
proud of?
Speaker 2 (20:07):
There's things I've done that I'm proud of.
I'm proud of having designedthings that, um, that some
things that people see every day.
You know, like a lot of parents,Dorothy and I have managed to
raise three kids and I'm reallyproud of each of whom are under
their own trajectories.
Each of whom I think haveengendered.
We've engendered to kind ofcuriosity within them.
(20:28):
This led them to very differentpaths.
Not a single one of them is agraphic designer, so they
haven't chosen to follow in myfootsteps, but they're each
being curious.
And I think, you know, uh, tothe degree that, you know, in my
work life, you know, I'vemanaged, I think to serve as a
mentor to a lot of people whohave worked for me over the
years and also been inspired bythem.
(20:50):
Often, sometimes we, um, willlook at a chart that someone
made here in the office.
It just shows kind of a, it's alist, it's sort of a bar chart
of all the people that have justworked on my team since 1990 and
it's gotten longer and longer.
And, um, sometimes someone justworked from 91 to 94, sometimes
they work from 94 to 98,sometimes they work from 98 to
2001, et cetera, et cetera.
(21:12):
It all seems like yesterday tome, a lot of them have gone on
to do amazing things.
All of them.
I sort of remember moments withthem, things that they worked on
where they made the, the designwe were working on better
through something that they knewhow to do.
And, um, in a way, one of thegreatest things you can do, I
(21:32):
think as a creative person is,you know, be both a receptor of
all the inspiration that youacquire from the people who
you've surrounded yourself with,but at the same time take that
and turn it out to other peoplewho then can multiply it out on
their own.
It's really, it's a great thingand it's sort of a, the kind of
(21:53):
thing that not every professionaffords.
I love my dentist, but I sort ofcan't imagine that that sort of
sense of exchange is happening,you know, in his practice as it
is in mine.
Nothing against dentists who areprobably more important than
designers actually to ourwellbeing, but I think that's
just such a, it's such a greatthing.
It's a gift and it's a privilegeand it actually is such a great
(22:17):
source of, of energy that it'spart of the reason that I think
so few people who do what we doend up kind of retiring and just
planting flowers.
You just kind of want, you getaddicted to it and the better
you get at it, um, if you'relucky, the more fun you can have
doing it.
And the more people who you cankind of count among your circle
(22:40):
of those who you've influencedand those who have influenced
you.
And sometimes you can't eventell'em apart if you're doing it
right.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
Well, on behalf of that incredible community of
designers throughout the world,thank you for everything you
you're doing to make our worldbetter.
Uh, and thanks for taking timeoutta your day to come on the
Speaker 2 (22:56):
Show.
It's been a real pleasuretalking to you.
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