March 26, 2025 • 56 mins
In a world where everyone calls themselves a creative, how can business owners tell who’s legit—and who’s just selling templates in disguise?
In this episode of Over The Bull, we sit down with a 30-year design veteran to talk about what separates real creative work from the cookie-cutter designs flooding the market. We cover what happens when businesses undervalue originality, the hidden cost of hiring the wrong designer, and how to qualify creative partners—even if you don’t know anything about design yourself.
With Google attributing up to 70% of ad success to creative and Meta reporting 56% ROI impact from design on Facebook and Instagram, the message is clear: creative isn’t just pretty—it’s performance.
If you’re working with a designer, thinking of hiring one, or just wondering if your branding’s actually doing its job, this one’s worth your time.
Over The Bull is brought to you by IntegrisDesign.com. All rights reserved.
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Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
You're listening to Over the Bull, where we cut
through marketing noise.
Here's your host, Ken Carroll.
SPEAKER_01 (00:09):
Google says that up to 70% of ad performance comes
down to the design.
Meta says it's 56% on Facebookand Instagram.
So if you think design is justabout how something looks, or
that it's optional, you'remissing out on what really
drives business.
How can business owners tellwho's legitimate and who's just
(00:30):
selling templates in disguise?
In this episode of Over theBull, I sit down with a good
friend and 30-year designveteran to talk about what
separates real creative workfrom cookie-cutter designs.
Hey, Brendan, how you doing?
SPEAKER_03 (00:44):
Good.
How you doing, Ken?
SPEAKER_01 (00:45):
Doing good, buddy.
How about share a little bit ofyour background with us?
SPEAKER_03 (00:48):
Certainly.
I always...
knew that I wanted to be acommercial artist.
And I'm, I'm close to being 60or I'm 60 now.
So when I was coming up, wedidn't have backs and we didn't
have clip art and we didn't havethe internet.
And, you know, I saw goodadvertising and I knew I wanted
(01:10):
to somehow be involved with it.
And I'm not a, I'm not atraditional artist.
I was a, I wanted to be acartoonist to begin with.
And I knew that if I were to getinto an ad agency or something
along those lines, I had to workmy way into it.
And I did go to college, but Ididn't go to an expensive design
school.
I almost did.
My parents couldn't afford it.
(01:31):
So I started working in printshops in their art departments.
But at first, I had to work inthe actual print shop itself.
So I started in Santa Barbara,California.
And I worked for a companycalled Reem Engineering
Graphics.
And I learned how to screenprint.
And I also learned how to worktheir camera and do the basic
things that a commercial artistdid back then.
(01:52):
And I I realized in SantaBarbara, I wasn't gonna ever go
anywhere because it's a touristtown.
So I moved to Fort Worth, Texasand started working for some
really big screen printingplants.
And my agreement with them wasthat I would work production
because I was good at it.
But after a year or two, theywould have to move me into their
(02:13):
art department.
And so I worked in a grueling,burning hot plant that was huge.
And after about a year, I wentback to the vice president He
said, okay, but I still need youin production.
So I worked, I think, two and ahalf days in production and then
two and a half days in the artdepartment.
Things back then were donecompletely different than they
(02:33):
are now.
We had machines that youactually photographically made
type and then you pasted it intoplace and then you shot it on a
repro camera.
And we also did a lot ofbillboard work and that kind of
thing.
And we used giant opaqueprojectors in dark rooms where
you actually traced images onenormous pieces of paper the
image that was being projectedagainst the wall and then you'd
(02:55):
go and you'd cut it out of amberlith or ruby lith and you would
burn that into a screen or you'dburn that into a giant film
negative but what that taught meis it taught me how to use my
hands better and at one point icut so much film that i could i
could do big circles pretty muchfreehand.
(03:16):
I'd be leaning my arm on adrafting table, but it gave me
the discipline to be able todraw on a computer like I can
now with a Wacom pad or evenwith my mouse.
So it set me up for being ableto be much more accurate and my
abilities with Illustrator.
(03:36):
I worked in another artdepartment and then I moved into
several other art departmentsand eventually I started working
for advertising companiescompanies.
And I began as, you know, as agraphic supervisor.
And then I moved into, you know,essentially an art director and
then eventually a creativedirector.
And I've worked for smallcompanies and I've worked for
(03:58):
very large companies.
I worked for Thousand Trails,which was bought out by Equity
Lifestyle Properties.
And I was their creativedirector for about eight years.
We did everything.
We had marketing meetings wherewe coordinated with marketing
how we wanted to, you know,support sales.
Now we're moving into, ofcourse, the internet and we're
(04:20):
doing more of that type ofthing.
And we're doing at one of thefirst companies that I worked
for back after the screenprinting part, my wife and I
broke off and we started F sharpadvertising and we bought two of
the first production Macs thatwere made for creative and Oh, I
forgot the name of the thing.
SPEAKER_01 (04:39):
It was like a Quadrate 800.
Yeah, it was
SPEAKER_03 (04:40):
a Quadrate 650, something like
SPEAKER_01 (04:43):
that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I rememberthat.
SPEAKER_03 (04:44):
And it was$14,000 with the printer, and we got
QuarkXPress.
And you talk to designers now,they don't even know what that
is.
But they didn't have half thethings that you have in Creative
Suite right now.
And, of course, the thing movedslow as could be.
But we had people from all overDallas come into our small shop
and say, Oh, wow, look at this.
(05:04):
So I've been using Illustratorprimarily and Photoshop since
back then.
And that was the, you know, theearly, the late 80s or early
90s.
And, yeah.
I've been using it ever since,and I'm a stone-cold believer in
Creative Suite.
(05:24):
You hear people coming up to youand talking about Canva and all,
and I'm like, really?
There's just so many things youcan do with the Photoshop,
Illustrator, InDesign, andPremiere.
Back to what I was sayingbefore, I ended up working for
Equity Lifestyle Properties, andthen they moved their production
(05:45):
to Florida.
And I had to find other jobs.
And I found a number of creativedirector jobs.
And then I ran into the owner ofChef Minute Meals.
And I have been with him on andoff, but primarily on.
I was off for one year when hisdaughter took over and then he
fired her.
But I've been with Chef MinuteMeals as their creative director
(06:05):
for 14 years.
And about two years ago, heoffered me the job as vice
president of marketing.
So I've been in...
literally hundreds of creativemeetings with marketing firms or
advertising agencies, discussingwhat clients need.
And I've dealt with large artdepartments and small shops And
(06:30):
we've been friends for, what,nine years, Ken?
I know it seems—
SPEAKER_01 (06:34):
Oh, I think it goes back further than that, maybe.
It
SPEAKER_03 (06:36):
might even go back further than that.
So I've been working on and offwith him, and we do projects
periodically together, and weshoot together and things like
that.
But I have designed thousands ofprint ads and designed logos,
and I do Internet work.
(06:56):
I put together videos all thetime.
I've gotten pretty good at that.
I still think my core strengthsthat I have is simply drawing.
I think if you can't see alayout in your mind's eye when
someone is talking to you, andyou can't take...
Here's the other one, thebellwether that I use.
(07:16):
There's so many people out ofcollege that rely on clip art
and they rely on...
taking something, an image offof a deposit photos or something
and designing an ad from that.
And they don't see it.
They just, they go throughdeposit photos and they see
something that they think isappealing and they put it
together.
And I, I don't, I have prettymuch a strategy before I even
(07:39):
start the design process.
But back to what I was gettingat is the bellwether is if you
can take a blank piece of paperand sketch out what you see in
your mind's eye for your client,then you really are probably
going to be a good designer.
SPEAKER_01 (07:56):
You know, one thing I think of, I'm sitting here in
preparing and I shared the shownotes with you, was, you know,
Google attributes about 70% ofthe success or failure of an ad
campaign to the creatives.
In metas, their number is around56%, not the Instagram and
Facebook.
(08:18):
So, you know, when you'resitting here looking at this,
And from the standpoint of theowner of a business, I think
that they ask a lot of questionslike, you know, well, what makes
a creative really creative andwho should I hire?
And, you know, should I shortcutcertain pieces or should I not?
So I'm curious, you know, whenyou think about like here's
(08:40):
something I'd like to get yourresponse on is often talk about
people who are designers.
And in the last podcast, youknow, What I did was, you know,
I was equating some of thesedo-it-yourself design programs
and people that use them.
And one question that I had was,well, what about the person who
is a professional or good thatis using something like Canva,
(09:02):
for example?
And my point was, I go, well,that would be like Michelangelo
having– Uh, all the tools, youknow, but, but he goes, nah, let
me use this eight pack box ofcrayons instead.
Right.
What's your feedback tosomething like
SPEAKER_03 (09:18):
that?
Well, I, I agree with you.
If, if you're gonna, if you'regonna go into a fight, you use
the best weapons you can.
And, uh, you know, yeah, ifyou're in junior college and
you're doing, you know, uh,junior college layouts than
things like Canva.
And there's several others outthere that don't cost a lot and
they're basic beginning stuff.
(09:40):
But you really still need thebasics.
And I don't want to belittlepeople that don't have a lot of
experience.
And you know, Ken, how I lectureyou all the time about what
drives me crazy about Everyonethinking that they're creative.
I mean, I've got a person thatone of the companies that I've
(10:00):
worked for who was questioningme why I didn't do design work
in Word.
And she kept telling me that shecould do anything in Word that I
could do, all of my box of magictricks.
And then she'd come and she'dshow me one of her layouts and
I'd do a layout and I'd show itto her and our boss.
And it was night and day.
(10:22):
But she honestly thought it wasgood work.
And it wasn't.
It was grade school work.
And that's the problem.
Again, I mentioned this to youearlier, too.
I could run around and say that,well, actually, I am pretty good
at plumbing.
But I could say I'm anelectrician because I've seen it
(10:44):
done.
And then you could ask me towire a dryer into the house.
And I don't know how to do that.
And there's a good chance I'mgoing to end up getting killed.
And the best thing I could do isjust realize that I don't do
this for a living.
I don't sit and study this.
It's not what I've been doingfor 20 years every single day.
And so why not just capitulateand say, you know, you have the
(11:10):
experience, do it.
And one of the things that willprove that to you, you were
mentioning showing this to asmall businessman who doesn't
doesn't know the ins and outs.
And one of the first things thatwill do it is your portfolio.
If you cannot show a portfolio,especially if you're saying
you're a designer or a creativedirector or an artist, if you
(11:30):
don't have a portfolio thatreflects that, then obviously
you're a beginner.
Here's an interesting story.
One of the businesses I workfor, had a guy that was handling
marketing who really had no ideawhat he was doing.
And he hired a guy that said hehad an international internet
(11:51):
company.
And in the beginning or theopening page of his website, you
couldn't get in, first of all,which is a telltale sign.
It was password protected.
which right off the bat, ifyou're trying to sell services,
why are you password protectingyour portfolio or your company?
(12:12):
It's kind of ridiculous.
But it said that he had officesin Cairo and Paris and Moscow.
And I'm like, you know, and it'sa small town that we're in.
And I'm like, what?
And The person that hired him atthe company I worked for, he was
going to do the internet.
I was creative director.
I did so without me knowing.
And then he said, oh, this guyis going to build us a great
(12:33):
website, yada, yada.
And I asked the guy if I couldlook at his portfolio.
And he said, oh, no, we don'tknow you well enough.
And what happened is he wascharging us.
He had signed a contract with usand he was charging us.
I think it was eight,$9,000 amonth for his creative work.
And I started having red flagsright off the bat.
(12:54):
And after about two and a halfmonths, we were beginning to
pressure him now.
And we said to him, show us whatyou've been doing.
And he couldn't do it.
And then when he did show uswhat he was been doing, it was,
it was so bad that, um, I mean,it looked like a, uh, it didn't
even look like a college, uh,graphic artist was doing it.
He had virtually no idea what hewas doing.
(13:16):
And, uh, uh, we ran a backgroundcheck on and found out that he
was, uh, he had just gotten outof prison for embezzlement and
it was, yeah.
And it was, uh, eyeopening andit, it embarrassed the guy that
the marketing guy, because itmade him look like a moron.
And, um, But there are so manypeople out there that they
(13:37):
really think that this is easyand they think that they can
just swim in the stream, butthey can't.
And again, if somebody can'tshow you the work they've done,
And they can't sit down with youand they can't carry on a
conversation about the ins andouts and about, and Ken can do
this, Ken can rattle off garbagelike a ninja.
(13:58):
If they can't sit down and talkabout a modern SEO and the ins
and outs of internet marketingand, you know, the advantages of
Amazon and the disadvantages ofit, and they don't know this
stuff, then they really haven'tbeen working in different fields
and with different parametersand they don't No, I mean, Ken
(14:18):
and I didn't know a lot aboutAmazon marketing a couple of
years back, and we've got throwninto it because the guy that was
handling it for one of thecompanies I'm with messed it up
really bad.
And we learned an awful lotabout it the last, what, two
years, Ken?
SPEAKER_01 (14:38):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
It's amazing that it's anever-growing process, isn't it?
SPEAKER_03 (14:44):
Yeah, and unless you were in the weeds...
and you're in the weeds for along period of time, you really
don't need to be in the weeds.
And that's the other problem isyou can't be doing this.
We probably can't be an expertat everything because, I mean,
think about it.
You go onto YouTube, and I loveto do this, and this is
(15:07):
something that every artistshould do, is go onto YouTube.
I've run into roadblocks.
Let's say I'm working Premiere,and I want to do a fade-out, or
I want to do some kind of atransition that– I've seen, but
I've never done before.
And Premiere has a series ofplug-in or already there
(15:28):
transitions that are good, butthere's all sorts of things you
can get off the internet.
And if you go to the internet,YouTube, there are thousands of
experts that don't doIllustrator.
They don't do Photoshop.
All they do is Premiere Pro.
And so they know more about it.
They've forgotten more about itthan I know.
(15:49):
So I go and I watch their videosand I glean something from them.
And it's, it's, um, I, and Idon't mean to, don't mean to
ramble, but it's Jeet Kune Do.
Bruce Lee made a martial art andhis whole idea was that the
martial arts were ridiculousbecause you were trying to learn
a style of fighting that wasused by Okinawans 600 years ago.
(16:11):
And they were fighting thesamurai, which were armed with
samurai swords.
So why would a person living inour society today learn a
martial art that might haveworked 600 years ago against
somebody coming at you with asword?
You're not going to get attackedby a guy with a samurai sword.
Jeet Kune Do was a compilation.
Bruce Lee wanted you to takelittle bits and pieces of things
(16:33):
that worked for you fromdifferent martial arts and put
them together into your ownmartial art because it works for
you.
You know, I'm Brendan Furnish,and so I have a martial art I
call Brindoism, which is whatworks for me, and it's a whole
compilation of things.
So when I do design work, I havea whole compilation of tools
that work for me.
(16:55):
They may not work for otherpeople, and I may not be able to
do what other people can do, theway they're doing it.
I do it the way I do it.
But I do it by getting, gleaninglittle things that I steal from
other people that are expertsand they're one little part of
this thing.
And I put it together and I endup with a giant briefcase of
weapons that I can take on mynext job or I can take when I
(17:19):
talk to the next client.
SPEAKER_01 (17:21):
You know, that's interesting, you know, when
you're saying that, because, youknow, as I'm kind of going
through it and you're talkingabout a portfolio, you know,
when I think about the averagebusiness owner, the problem is I
think there's a lot of muddinessin it.
So this will take me a while,just a second or two to
formulate.
Yeah.
But, you know, you takesomeone...
(17:41):
who maybe puts together theportfolio.
And maybe they're using a lot ofdo-it-yourself stuff or they're
tracing images or whatever mayhave you.
But then you take it and youtake someone like...
Who was the guy that did all theillustrations back in the day?
Norman Rockwell.
(18:03):
Yeah.
And, you know, he would takephotography and then he would
take it and then composite hisimages based on photography.
Sure.
I remember.
Yeah.
So it's like he had a– it'salmost like there's a
foundation.
Like the way I'm looking at itis you have– a really strong,
firm foundation.
You're one of the most talentedguys that I can think of when it
(18:24):
comes to design stuff.
I don't know about that.
You're talented.
You cross the gamut.
And so when I'm thinking ofthat, it's like you've got this
foundation.
And from that foundation, youcan say, well, I'm going to I'm
going to use the style ofWindows, which maybe is, you
know, your portion of AdobePremiere or something like that
(18:45):
or or whatever.
But the thing is, is that youyou do have that.
that innate ability thattranscends, let me go look at
clip art or let me jump into ado-it-yourselfer and find this,
this flyer layout that I thinklooks good, but it may
completely alienate a brand.
SPEAKER_03 (19:06):
Right.
SPEAKER_01 (19:06):
So, so for me, I kind of, I kind of wrestle, I
mean, for me, I've beeninterviewing creatives for over
20 years on and off and, andkind of, you know, you got that
smell test that you can pass,but for the average business to
go, um, this is the, themethodology to, to know the
(19:26):
answer.
I think that's, I think it's, Ithink it's a harder challenge
because there's so many ways youcan mask with, with things going
on today.
SPEAKER_03 (19:35):
Well, that's, that's true.
And I think, I think the realproblem is there are a lot of
semi good designers and, andinternet people.
And there are a lot of peoplethat are Mr.
Haney's of, um, And if you everwatch Green Acres, Mr.
Haney drove around in an oldtruck and he had these placards
that he'd pull down and anythingyou needed done, Mr.
(19:58):
Haney would be an expert at it.
You know, Mr.
Haney could re-roof your house.
He could plumb your house.
He could milk your cows.
He could do anything.
And he always had a placard hepulled down.
Haney's cow milking.
And you run across people likethat a lot.
And some of them can puttogether a good plan.
marketing plan for you and agood website, but it'll just be
(20:21):
so good.
And then you run into thesepeople, and I've run into, and I
was telling Ken this, and Idon't want to butter his ego up,
but I've run into two peoplethat are really, really good
with websites and the internetand that type of thing.
And Ken's good at a lot of otherthings, but that in particular,
he's very good at.
And I've run into two people inthe entire time I've been doing
(20:42):
this that I really think weretop-notch, and it's Ken and a
guy named Daniel out of Dallas.
And, um, and I've run into a lotof people that were mediocre and
that were, uh, could do certainthings.
Ken can draw, Ken can do all thethings that I do.
Um, but he, he's much, you know,he, I don't know code like Ken
by any stretch of theimagination.
And Daniel doesn't do designwork as much as I do, but he's
(21:05):
a, just a wizard at, um, atstuff, the internet end of it.
So, you know, you, you, there'sso many firms out there and a
lot of them, what's really scaryright now is that you're going
to see all these marketing firmsthat don't actually have a brick
and mortar store where, and Iknow some people think that
(21:26):
that's good, but you, what itis, is it's a salesman and he
has a people, you know, outsideorbiting that don't really work
for him, but he says they do.
And so when he needs a logodesigned or something, he goes
to this guy in Toledo and heneeds, um, you know, uh, a
(21:47):
couple, he needs a brochuremade.
He goes to this guy in NewBrunswick, you know, and they
just, it's not a compilation ofpeople that work together.
It's, it's, um, you know, peopleall over the place and they may
not be, you know, be held to hisstandards or they may not even
know what standards are.
(22:08):
So, I mean, it's like present ordoing print work without
understanding what the printerneeds, bleeds and traps and, and
all those things.
You're going to create a problemwhere the printer is going to
send you your stuff back andyou're going to have to do it
again.
So, you know, it's, it's reallyhard to tell what's out there.
Simply by what people tell you.
(22:30):
But again, I think the bestthing you can do is look at
their portfolio.
And if you do know anythingabout it, sit down and talk to
them at length.
And usually you can tell ifthey're legit or not.
But the average person is goingto have a hard time with it.
I mean, it's like you sit downwith a mechanic and talk about
how an engine works.
I know how it works, but I don'tknow all the intricacies and I
(22:54):
don't know the sizes of therings that are going into the
cylinder and things like that.
And they're going to know allthat.
SPEAKER_01 (23:01):
So one of our contentions when we take on a
new client for a web project ormarketing is to sit down with
the client and then we want tounderstand what their goals are.
And so there's this...
There's this thing that happensin the beginning where they're
sharing our thoughts, and thenwe're kind of bouncing thoughts
(23:21):
back over feedback about how wecan help their specific
business.
And so a lot of this is kind ofverbalizing creative ideas and
organizing things together.
in a way that kind of puts itinto perspective.
So maybe part of this inconjunction with looking at what
they've put together is maybefirst ask, well, what do you
(23:45):
think about X?
Or what do you think about Y?
And then get their feedback.
It's almost like that feedbackmay give you a signal whether or
not that person is truly acreative or if they start
talking about things that are soeither vague or ambiguous or
nonsensical, in terms of lookinglike it's really going to
(24:05):
achieve the goal.
SPEAKER_03 (24:07):
Right.
You have to understand, though,what it takes to achieve the
goal to be able to ascertainwhether or not they're pulling
your leg.
That's the problem.
And unless you're you or me...
Talking to these people and youcan narrow them down.
(24:27):
And you were talking to some guyout in California the other day
that was saying he could do Xnumber of things and you were
asking him specifics and he wasavoiding you because of it.
Because he knew he didn't knowanything about it.
And that's the problem that asmall business has that doesn't
have somebody that cancoordinate this that's done it
for a long time.
(24:48):
They're going to run intoproblems.
Now, again, the portfolio, Ithink, is the number one thing.
But I've actually seenportfolios where people have
stolen other people's art andactually put it in there.
And I knew it was wrong becauseit had been in national
publications and things likethat.
But there are people that arethat...
and they would, first of all,it's illegal, it's fraud, but
(25:13):
people do it just because theywant to leg up or they want to
impress somebody.
And you wouldn't believe, mywife worked in marketing for
many years with a very largecompany, and I won't get into
the specifics, but she hadpeople that came and went in the
marketing department andcreatives and all that were just
not at all what they claimedthey were.
(25:34):
She saw it.
I think it's prevalenteverywhere.
I think there are welders thatget caught because their welds
aren't up to par.
I think that there's obviouslydoctors that aren't as good as
they should be that hurt people.
Our business is filled with itbecause, again, I think there's
(25:57):
a lot of people that seethemselves this way.
Everybody wants to look atthemselves good, but but they're
not going to take the time to doit.
So back to what you were gettingat is I think it's going to be
very difficult for a typicalbusiness to be able to truly
tell if someone is what they saythey are, unless you have
(26:18):
somebody like you or me that cantell they're not.
And it's going to be a trial anderror because this person may
say they're going to increaseyour sales, or they may say
they're going to give you abetter outlook or, on the
internet and they may or theymay not.
And, you know, the other thingyou're going to have to do is
(26:40):
find some kind of a impeachablemeasuring point to be able to
tell whether they're lying toyou or not.
And, you know, like Google cantell you the traffic across your
site and it can tell you yourexposure.
And, of course, it can tell youany sales you do on Google and
so can Amazon.
(27:01):
So I suggest to anybody that'snot, you know, swimming in this
pool to figure out how they canmonitor that and gauge it
themselves.
before they hire a marketingperson that says that they're
going to increase your salesdramatically.
And that way, if the guy tellsyou that he's increasing traffic
and you look at the thingsyou've determined before and you
(27:24):
realize that he has not, you canmake that assumption.
We are inundated.
My boss is inundated with peoplecalling him up, or not calling
him up, but emailing him,telling him that they can double
his sales in six months.
And the funny thing is, is we'rein a kind of a niche business
(27:44):
and these people are looking atit from, you know, a thousand
miles away, knowing nothingabout the market that he is in
and about his niche product.
I don't know how anybody canlook at a niche business that
they know nothing about.
They haven't gone and lookedinto the industry that we're in
(28:05):
and the ins and outs and say tomy boss definitively that I'm
going to increase your internetsales by 400% in three weeks.
They can't do that.
And I keep telling him when hesends me, he sends me their
proposals.
And incidentally, they'refishing on LinkedIn.
They're finding them on LinkedInand they're going after them.
So are they really thatsuccessful?
(28:27):
You know, if they were reallythat successful, they wouldn't
be going through LinkedIn tofind this guy's email
SPEAKER_01 (28:32):
address.
What gets me is you're hiringsomeone who claims to, because
creative is kind of marketing.
And it's like my point in thefirst episode of the podcast
when we're talking about havingto fire a client was that he
would have this kind of barragehappening too.
And it was kind of like youwould get accusatory and then we
had to explain it.
(28:53):
And then you kind of go and thenthe idea is, ultimately in the
synopsis in podcast one is ifthey're having to email you
anything yeah block them justblock them man
SPEAKER_03 (29:05):
they hit me up all the time and it's it's it's
really disturbing yeah i have todefend myself on a regular basis
how come we can't do this and umIt's kind of obscene.
And most of the time you go backto their, and this is what I
normally find, you go back totheir business and a lot of the
(29:25):
time you'll scroll down theirwebsite and all it's doing is
screaming at you that they'regoing to increase your business
by 400%.
But they won't show you wherethey're at.
SPEAKER_01 (29:35):
Modern day alchemy.
SPEAKER_03 (29:36):
Yeah, it's exactly right.
You know, I'm going to turnstraw into gold.
Just trust me on this.
And I work for a guy who thinksthat if I turn straw into gold,
he'd turn around and say, youshould turn straw into diamonds.
Yeah, that's what he would.
He's actually said that to mebecause I called the alchemist
out on him.
But he gets these all the timeand he sends them to me in their
(29:58):
page long proposal and let'sschedule a meeting.
And again, they don't knowanything about the business.
And every business, here's theother thing that anybody who
tells you that they're going toincrease your sales by 400% in
four weeks, it's nonsense.
Because first of all, they don'tknow your business.
They don't know the demographicthat you're selling into.
(30:18):
Yeah, if you're selling pizzasto people that are starving and
you're selling it for a goodprice, you're going to be able
to sell as much as you possiblywant.
But most businesses havecompetitors and some businesses
are niche.
And how can you market to theniche person?
How can you get out with all ofthe 350 million people in the
(30:39):
country and find the 200,000that want to buy your product?
How can you do that?
And you think that these guyshave some kind of a machine that
they put parameters into and itpops up.
AI is great.
But AI has its limitations, andright now it just regurgitates
facts.
It's not at the point where itcan tell me who every single one
(31:03):
of my people needs to be.
Now, when it gets to that point,it may get to the point that it
does design work and all of usare out of a job.
Now, you know, it very
SPEAKER_01 (31:13):
well.
I don't see that happening.
I don't see.
SPEAKER_03 (31:15):
Well, they've got what gets me now is you're
getting these people that lookat these Photoshop plugins where
you can take your picture andyou can try and make it smile
and you can put in a note.
There's a you're posing on thebeach and there's this morbidly
obese guy walking by behind youthat's sticking his tongue at
you.
SPEAKER_01 (31:34):
Have you done that where you select something in
Photoshop and then you do thelittle generate and you type in
what you want it to do and thensee if it does it?
Have you done that yet?
SPEAKER_03 (31:42):
Yes, I have.
SPEAKER_01 (31:43):
So I did it the other day.
I had this really complex pieceI was trying to put together the
other day.
And I asked it to basicallyremove shadows from a tree that
was broadcast on the house.
And it was a long line ofcowboys.
What in the world?
Where did that come from?
SPEAKER_03 (32:04):
Well, it knows how much you love cowboys, right?
SPEAKER_01 (32:06):
Apparently, I'm a Clint Eastwood
SPEAKER_03 (32:09):
fan.
There you go.
They do it on TV and it lookslike it's been professionally
done.
And then you try it in real lifeand you get this.
What they did for the fat guy isthey just stuck another section
of ocean over him and it didn'tmatch with the ocean that he was
in.
And anybody that really is goodat Photoshop knows that a lot of
(32:29):
the time these things takeYou've got to blend the thing
together and you've got to usethe stamp tool.
And, and it, it, it, you almosthave to be, honestly, you almost
have to be a painter to be ableto make something really look
right with, with Photoshop.
Um, I did a, a picture of, whereone of my bosses, and I won't
(32:50):
say who, was with a high-poweredpolitical person, and I won't
say what kind of person, but hehad one of the people that he
brought to the trade show withhim in the photograph, and he
wanted to take her out It wasn'tanything bad.
She was at the trade show as atrade show person.
(33:12):
So they wanted me to completelyremove her from him and this
high-powered political person.
And it literally took meprobably three days because it
didn't work at first andnothing.
And then the other thing heasked me to do is make himself
look thinner.
UNKNOWN (33:29):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (33:29):
Everybody says this to me.
You can go in and just do basicthings, but if you think you're
going to squish his face to makeit look thinner, you're going to
make him look like he's puckeredup or something.
At one point, I had to go in andshave pieces of his face out and
then put his face back togethera little bit further squeezed
(33:50):
in.
The only reason why it worked,and it did work, was because
I've done Photoshop since theQuadra 650.
And I also can paint a littlebit.
I understand how it works.
And so that's why I could dothat.
But until they get a PhotoshopAI program, they can actually do
(34:13):
that.
And they very well may becausedata compilation is increasing
dramatically.
And they're building huge AIfactories in Texas right now.
with giant computers.
They're talking about using morenuclear power around the country
(34:35):
because AI pulls in so muchelectricity.
Who knows what they'll come upwith?
It's kind of scary, andeverybody's terrified of AI
because if it gets that smart,it might outthink us and decide
we're not necessary.
I think we've got a long way togo before we can actually sit
down and do the type of thingsexperts can do.
SPEAKER_01 (34:58):
Yeah, you know, this is funny because when you were
talking about this idea, becausethere is this idea of, well, you
know...
You know, you're, you're, uh,you know, what, late fifties and
I'm, uh, I'm 52, I'll be 53 thisyear.
And you know, there's part ofthis idea of, well, guys are,
you know, maybe you're justoutdated, you know, maybe you're
just not playing the, the AIgame, or maybe you're not
(35:22):
embraced.
And like, I've spent a ton oftime looking at artificial
intelligence.
I know you
SPEAKER_03 (35:26):
and I have gone into it at length.
SPEAKER_01 (35:28):
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
And it's like, but here's thething, man.
It's like, when you really goback to it, it's like, you know,
we were talking prior to themeeting and going back to some
of the history of marketing anddesign, the technology changes.
Right.
But aside from people like theirattention span being almost
nothing.
I mean, aside from that, it'slike the, the principles of art
(35:51):
and design.
I mean, let's go back to theRenaissance.
I mean, you take paintings, the,the painters would have the
people either looking orpointing, or you'd have these
abstract triangles or anglesthat would, that would push your
eye to where they would want itto go in the painting and then
bounce you back into thepainting.
And it's like, these conceptsare not something that, just,
(36:14):
you know, is here today and gonetomorrow.
These concepts that are coreconcepts are, they have to be
there and they have to have asentient, something sentient in
order to put it together, in myopinion.
SPEAKER_03 (36:29):
No, I absolutely agree with you.
We're all about telling a storyand and showing a client or
self-actualization where aclient says, you know, that's me
in that picture, you know, withthe fancy car, with a good
looking woman or eating aperfect steak, you know, out on
my date or whatever.
(36:50):
It's all about making someonesee themselves there.
And, and if you can't do that,uh, and you can't tell a story
and, and, you know, relay thatdirectly to the person you're
trying to get to buy, um, You'renot going to sell.
And there have been a lot ofunsuccessful big companies, Bud
(37:12):
Light, the mess that they gotin.
And I'm not going to go oneither side of that, but I'm
saying that you've got to knowthe people you're trying to sell
to in order to sell to them.
And then you've got to be ableto tell a story.
And if you can't do it and you,and what we beforehand, if you
before, and I'm not talkingabout TV commercials or
(37:34):
anything, but even print, youhave to have visuals that make
people want to buy your product.
And if you haven't stared at itlong enough and you don't have
an idea of really the motif thatfits different products.
I mean, if you're selling beautycare products, products, you're
(37:55):
not going to be using hardcolors and lots of blacks and
khaki, that kind of thing.
It's not a macho thing.
You're going to have a totallydifferent look.
You'd be surprised at what I'veseen over the years with what
people thought was going toactually fit the market they
(38:15):
were trying to sell to.
Like I said, the market that I'min right now is very niche.
We've struggled to to handleretail sales simply because it's
a niche market.
And I think we've gotten it downthat we're going to be much more
successful at it.
But it's a tough nut to crack,marketing is.
(38:38):
And then again, I think when youfinally get to the sweet spot
and you know it, you've donemost of your job.
But there's a lot of people thatdon't even know where the sweet
spot is and they don't know howto find it.
SPEAKER_01 (38:51):
Well, this is the other thing, too.
I know, like, for example, ifyou look at people who– one of
the things I talk about, too, isthis mythology of the internet.
You know, back if you were inRome, you'd follow these
mythologies, Greek, you know,whatever.
But it's like today's mythologyis I want to start a business.
(39:14):
And I'm going to advertise onthe Internet or I'm going to
have AI create these creatives.
And it's going to magicallyconjure up this perfect recipe
from beginning to end.
And all I've got to do is justfund it and make money.
And I do think, honest togoodness, that that is a huge.
(39:35):
I
SPEAKER_03 (39:36):
know there's so many people on YouTube and TikTok and
all these places that are goingto tell you.
that they started this at homeand now they're making$300,000
of sales a month.
And there are people that aredoing that.
But for the most part, what isthe old term?
There's nothing new under thesun.
If you're doing something,probably there are a thousand
(40:00):
people doing it.
So it's, And they're alladvertising on social media and
they're all advertising on theInternet.
And some of them have muchdeeper pockets than you'll ever
have.
So the real killer that you'regoing to come up with is where
do you end up on a search?
You know, anybody who says thatthey're going to start a company
(40:21):
and they're going to immediatelymake enormous sales is mistaken
because they're not even goingto be seen by anybody.
SPEAKER_01 (40:29):
Well, you know, it's like this.
It's like, you know, you takeany market.
There are so many considerationsoutside of design and all other
stuff.
Like, you know, you take some ofthe rental cars.
I forget which one it was.
But, you know, one was We TryHarder because they knew their
position was not good.
The other one is if an area hasbrand recognition and that brand
(40:50):
is trusted, for you to breakthrough and you have to work
hard just to gain a marketshare, which is part of the
problem too.
And then you start delving alittle bit deeper into those
kind of issues and then you go,wow, it's really a lot more.
I've got a couple of questionsfor you.
This is where I want to takethis and I thought this might be
(41:11):
fun.
So in getting an owner of abusiness, you know, because
right now I feel like what we'vedone is said, oh man, you know,
without somebody who knows whatthey're doing, you can't find
somebody that knows what they'redoing.
SPEAKER_03 (41:23):
It's kind of a vicious circle, isn't it?
It's a mousetrap.
SPEAKER_01 (41:28):
So here I'm going to ask you a question here.
Just some quick, maybe rapidfire style questions.
If the person's portfolioinvolves do-it-yourself
builders, right?
Would you say that that is a badsign or would you say within
reason that's a bad sign?
SPEAKER_03 (41:45):
So you're talking about clip art?
SPEAKER_01 (41:46):
Well, I'm saying, well, let's start with clip art.
Let's do that one first.
SPEAKER_03 (41:49):
Well, okay.
If he significantly modifies theclip art so that it becomes
completely different and does soin a fact that it looks like
it's done right, then I thinkthat that could be acceptable.
But I think there are an awfullot of people that are going to
do it yourself, builders, andthey're going to try and pass it
as real stuff.
Another thing you're going tolook at in a portfolio to see if
(42:10):
they really are legit is whatthey've actually printed.
Because you're talking tosomebody to spend a print run of
$200,000 and they're spending$30,000 on this.
Did they actually print it?
So a lot of the time in myportfolio, I'll have the actual
concept or I'll have the pressproof and then I'll have the
(42:30):
printed sample sitting next toit to prove to the person that I
not only conceived it, and putit into a die line or whatever
format it needed to be in, butI'm actually presenting a
picture of the actual part.
And that's hard to do becauseyou have to actually print the
part or you could Photoshop it,but most of the time you could
(42:53):
tell.
SPEAKER_01 (42:53):
Well, what about Canva?
I
SPEAKER_03 (42:56):
don't, again, I don't like if you're going to
learn, if you're going to fighta war, you best use the best
tanks that they make.
And you're also dealing withsomething that's not industry
standards, not close.
Most printers, most anybodythat's producing something is
used to CS.
And, you know, I know there'ssome programs for video
(43:16):
manipulation that are just asgood, if not better than
Premiere.
So I'm going to defer to that.
As far as just basic design workand photo manipulation and page
layout, InDesign, Photoshop, andIllustrator are the bellwether.
I mean, you just don't haveanything that replaces it.
(43:36):
So my first question would be ishow come the person is using an
amateur program to design work?
SPEAKER_01 (43:43):
I would agree.
I would agree.
So I would say number to thatanswer would be, yeah, if
they're using Canva, that'sprobably a flag versus an
advanced background.
And
SPEAKER_03 (43:54):
if they're using Word to do design work, then
it's a flag that they don'tknow.
You need to let them walk themout of your office.
SPEAKER_01 (44:02):
Maybe have police escort them out.
Oh, my God.
SPEAKER_03 (44:04):
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, it's that bad.
This woman actually put woodgrain into brush stroke.
You know what I'm saying?
Yeah, she did a headline copyand the headline was in
brushstroke.
And hey, the 90s called and theywant their typeface back.
And then she wanted to show tome how...
(44:25):
technically superior she wasshows she put the brush stroke
into, um, uh, they put, she puta wood grain background into the
breaststroke and then she had ona dark background.
And when I looked at it, Ithought, this is just sad.
I
SPEAKER_01 (44:41):
don't mean, I don't mean to
SPEAKER_02 (44:42):
be
SPEAKER_01 (44:43):
in the restaurant for you guys who don't know is
like, there are certain fontsthat really encapsulate, um,
timestamps in the history of the
SPEAKER_03 (44:53):
world.
That would probably even
SPEAKER_01 (44:57):
be 70s.
That's probably the 70s.
I'd go back to the 80s in aminute.
All
SPEAKER_03 (45:01):
right.
Yeah, I would too.
All
SPEAKER_01 (45:02):
right.
So I think that, yeah, I thinkthat those things, any kind of
amateur programs that you seeand those kind of things.
And like you said, there aresome people that are just
exceptional talents that arenaturally there.
Now, you and I both Now, we maybe a little bit biased in this
statement, but I would arguethat your best talented
(45:26):
creatives, like you said, cansit down and, like, I could sit
down.
Like, if somebody came hereright now and said, I want you
to sketch me out a giraffeeating off a tree or whatever.
Right, right, right.
I could do that with themsitting here and not feel a bit
of intimidation.
I wouldn't need to look at one.
(45:47):
I could, too.
I love seeing someone that cantake a blank piece of paper with
a regular graphite pencil andjust sketch a concept.
SPEAKER_03 (45:56):
Yeah, yeah.
And it may not be perfectanonymically, but I have in my
mind's eye what a giraffe lookslike.
And I know what a tree lookslike, so I could draw it too.
But it just irritates.
And I'm saying that even onlayouts of stuff, I see a layout
(46:18):
in my mind and I see typefacesand things that I would use that
would facilitate the mood that Iwant to create because the
typefaces have a lot to do withthat.
And you won't have that if youhaven't done this long enough.
Now, there are people that aregeniuses.
There was a car show with ChipFoose where he designed cars and
(46:42):
he built these crazy cars from,you know, just normal cars.
And this guy can sit down with abunch of felt tip markers.
Have you seen the show?
SPEAKER_01 (46:51):
No, no.
Wait, wait.
I think, I think you sent mesomething or somebody showed me
something.
Oh,
SPEAKER_03 (46:56):
he's insane.
SPEAKER_01 (46:56):
It was, it was an incredible, he
SPEAKER_03 (46:58):
went to high school with a guy I knew that was also
an insanely good artist.
This guy could paint andeverything.
And they ended up, uh, uh, theguy that, uh, I knew ended up
working for an ad agency in LAand, um, he did movie posters
and, He did Tremors, thatposter.
And so he actually did theartwork on movie posters.
And he probably did a lot of itjust by looking at pictures and
(47:20):
drawing it.
But Chip Foose could sit downand a guy would tell him what he
wanted to do with his 1968Cutlass.
And he'd start drawing withmarkers and a couple of straight
edges on a big piece of paper.
And when he got done, it lookedlike an airbrush of a car.
It looked like it was taken.
If I did it like that, and Idon't even know if I could, with
(47:43):
an old airbrush, because I usedto airbrush, it would probably
take me three weeks.
And he would do it while hetalked to you.
Now, I never have been anywherenear that level, but there are
people out there that are likethat.
So there could theoretically bepeople that have just graduated
from junior college that areinnately talented, but they're
(48:04):
few and far between.
And the other question is, he'sdoing something that's...
And by the way, he was not outof college when he was doing
that.
He was younger than me, but hewas up there.
And so he had done what I keeptalking about.
He had taken that time, doing itagain and again and again, to
get to the point that he was at.
And there's no excuse.
(48:26):
There's nothing that adds up toexperience.
And if you don't put in the timeand put in the sweat and and,
you know, research andconstantly try and get better,
you're not going to be as goodat what you take pride in your
work.
Do it because you're going toyou're going to get good at it
(48:46):
and it won't be as hard andpeople will like your work
better.
SPEAKER_01 (48:49):
You know, one thing I think interesting, I think you
really keyed in on something.
You know, if you take someonewho is talented, that is
younger, you know, which is hardbecause when you're younger,
it's like you need experience toget a job, job experience.
You know, you got this weird.
thing there too.
But the idea is that even whenyou have someone who may have
that level of talent, if you'rehiring them for your business,
(49:14):
they may have no idea.
Like, for example, one of theclassics that I give is if
you're trying to reach an olderdemographic, you use a larger
font.
You use black and white.
There's just certain things thatyou do.
And even if someone's got a lotof talent, it's still not honed
in with being able to lookthrough the lens of what that
(49:36):
business needs for theirdemographic and still be able to
get that.
So I do think that if it was mybusiness and I didn't know it, I
would personally be one Canvawould be a strike.
Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop,not Acrobat, you know,
Photoshop, Acrobat, you know,those programs, anything Adobe
(49:57):
Creative Suite, Premiere, AfterEffects.
I think those are huge.
Yeah.
After Effects, you know, alittle, you know, but I do think
experience.
I mean, if I'm banking mybusiness on something, I want to
make sure somebody understandshow to look at my particular
business and be able to look atmy audience and put together a
(50:19):
plan, which to me, the juniorcollege kid, even though he has
talent, I would take a guy whounderstands
SPEAKER_03 (50:25):
that better.
I think the junior college kidneeds to go get a job at the
lower level and work his way up.
SPEAKER_02 (50:31):
I
SPEAKER_03 (50:31):
don't want to get into that, but I know a guy that
is very young and he's trying toget into the movie producing
business And what he needs to dois get a job in a studio and
work his way up.
And the beginning commercialartist needs to do kind of what
(50:53):
I did.
And that is, you know, I had towork my butt off in a factory in
order to get into the artdepartment.
And that was a factory artdepartment.
But I went from that to betterart departments every time.
And eventually I ended up in acompany that was worth$3 billion
as their...
creative director.
(51:14):
It was long and it took meforever to do it.
The problem is you have to payyour dues.
There are so many people outthere that want this business
and they think they can justsnap their fingers and do it.
I don't think that there is...
I don't think there's an easyway to anything.
I mean, if you want to become adoctor, you've got to be an
(51:35):
intern.
You've got to get a collegedegree.
Then you've got to go to medschool.
Then you've got to go and be anintern.
And I hear being an intern islike hell.
You're treated horribly.
You don't sleep.
You work seven days a week.
for what, two years.
I'm not sure how long you're anintern, but you know, you, the,
the problem is, is if you'regoing to be an expert at
(51:56):
anything, you've got to pay yourdues.
And, and so somebody coming toyou with a portfolio saying
they're going to help yourbusiness and they haven't
designed, they've designed twowebsites.
They've never gotten anythingprinted before.
Um, and they just don't have avolume of work and it doesn't
look like the volume of the workis, is done properly.
the same way that we do work,you know, yeah, you need to,
(52:18):
they need to go pay their dues.
SPEAKER_01 (52:21):
I agree.
I agree.
And it, you know, it's hard tosay those things because, you
know, neither one of us want to,you know, we both want to
encourage young talent, but likeyou said, you've got to, I like
your analogy, you know, ifyou're in martial arts, you
don't matter how good you are,you start at the bottom, you got
to work your way up and you'vegot to understand things that
frankly are common experienceteach and the, uh, the old
(52:44):
stuff, you know, like Elvis,
SPEAKER_03 (52:46):
Elvis got a black belt in two years because he, he
essentially bought it and it wasElvis.
But, uh, most people, um, well,old school, you didn't get a
black belt unless you practicefor 10 years.
And, and I'm a huge, uh,believer in, um, You train, you
gain, and if you don't, youwon't.
(53:10):
There is no substitute forrepetition and for learning.
If you're not willing to put inthe time, you're just not going
to get good at what you do.
Again, there are people thathave been in this business for a
long time that still aren'tgood.
That's the other thing thatbusinesses have to look out for.
(53:31):
Either they don't have goodpeople, and that's another
thing.
You can get a great salesmanthat can go in and tell you the
moon, and then back at theirshop, or the people they use
are, are, are, you know, juniorhires or whatever.
And, and then you're still goingto get the same thing.
So, you know, it's, it's a, it'slike anything, you know, the
(53:55):
difference between this andrunning a restaurant is if you,
if you're, if you're in a citywhere there's a lot of good
food, you're probably not goingto stay in business too long.
If you don't, produce good food.
So probably in our business, ifyou don't really do a job,
you're probably going to weed itout eventually.
(54:17):
But the question is eventually.
And the other question is, howmuch business are you going to
take from companies that reallydeserve it?
SPEAKER_01 (54:25):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I think well said.
All right.
So I've held you up, man.
I told you I'd get you out ofhere and you probably won't
catch the end of the Ole Missgame or...
Go celebrate or cry.
Do you have any closing thoughtsother than the kind of what we
talked about to kind of helpbusinesses point them in the
right direction?
Give us your best advice.
(54:46):
fault to leave this podcast.
SPEAKER_03 (54:48):
I've been talking my mouth off here.
Again, I just think that it's amatter of, okay, you're going to
make mistakes.
You're probably going to hirepeople because I've been in so
many companies that have.
You're going to make mistakes.
So find somebody that once youdo think that they're doing the
right job and perhaps they'reincreasing your sales, somebody
(55:10):
that it's easy to work with,somebody that you can trust and
because there's so many of themout there that you can't and
hold on to them like grim death.
That's my closing remark.
SPEAKER_01 (55:23):
Well, there you go.
You've heard it straight fromover.
And I, that's what I've done.
I, I,
SPEAKER_03 (55:28):
I found two people that could really do this stuff
well.
And I know some good designersand I know some really good
artists.
But if I do anything, I'm doingit with those two people because
I've had so many bad ones.
So the ones that I have, I holdon to like grim death.
SPEAKER_01 (55:45):
Well, there you go.
There you go.
I think that's well said.
That kind of fits the over thebowl motif.
Well,
SPEAKER_03 (55:50):
that's no bowl.
All right, Ken, I want to go seewho won the game.
SPEAKER_01 (55:56):
All right, well, thank you so much for being over
the bull, man.
I appreciate you.
SPEAKER_03 (56:00):
No problem.
Thank you.
SPEAKER_01 (56:01):
So in conclusion, choosing a good designer can be
complicated, but it doesn't haveto be a gamble.
Look for someone with real-worldexperience, freehand
illustration skills,production-ready print work, and
advanced knowledge of AdobeCreative Suite, not just those
drag-and-drop website tools.
But honestly, the most importanttrait, a designer who takes the
(56:24):
time to understand yourbusiness, your goals, your
market, your message, and bringsoriginal thinking to the
planning stage, not just theexecution.
So ask the right questions, lookdeeper than the portfolio, and
choose wisely.
Because good creative isn't justabout how it looks.
It's about whether it works.
(56:46):
Until next time we meet.
SPEAKER_00 (56:48):
Thanks for tuning in to Over the Bowl, brought to you
by Integris Design, afull-service design and
marketing agency out ofAsheville, North Carolina.
Until next time.
You're listening to Over the Bull, where we cut
through marketing noise.
Here's your host, Ken Carroll.
SPEAKER_01 (00:09):
Google says that up to 70% of ad performance comes
down to the design.
Meta says it's 56% on Facebookand Instagram.
So if you think design is justabout how something looks, or
that it's optional, you'remissing out on what really
drives business.
How can business owners tellwho's legitimate and who's just
(00:30):
selling templates in disguise?
In this episode of Over theBull, I sit down with a good
friend and 30-year designveteran to talk about what
separates real creative workfrom cookie-cutter designs.
Hey, Brendan, how you doing?
SPEAKER_03 (00:44):
Good.
How you doing, Ken?
SPEAKER_01 (00:45):
Doing good, buddy.
How about share a little bit ofyour background with us?
SPEAKER_03 (00:48):
Certainly.
I always...
knew that I wanted to be acommercial artist.
And I'm, I'm close to being 60or I'm 60 now.
So when I was coming up, wedidn't have backs and we didn't
have clip art and we didn't havethe internet.
And, you know, I saw goodadvertising and I knew I wanted
(01:10):
to somehow be involved with it.
And I'm not a, I'm not atraditional artist.
I was a, I wanted to be acartoonist to begin with.
And I knew that if I were to getinto an ad agency or something
along those lines, I had to workmy way into it.
And I did go to college, but Ididn't go to an expensive design
school.
I almost did.
My parents couldn't afford it.
(01:31):
So I started working in printshops in their art departments.
But at first, I had to work inthe actual print shop itself.
So I started in Santa Barbara,California.
And I worked for a companycalled Reem Engineering
Graphics.
And I learned how to screenprint.
And I also learned how to worktheir camera and do the basic
things that a commercial artistdid back then.
(01:52):
And I I realized in SantaBarbara, I wasn't gonna ever go
anywhere because it's a touristtown.
So I moved to Fort Worth, Texasand started working for some
really big screen printingplants.
And my agreement with them wasthat I would work production
because I was good at it.
But after a year or two, theywould have to move me into their
(02:13):
art department.
And so I worked in a grueling,burning hot plant that was huge.
And after about a year, I wentback to the vice president He
said, okay, but I still need youin production.
So I worked, I think, two and ahalf days in production and then
two and a half days in the artdepartment.
Things back then were donecompletely different than they
(02:33):
are now.
We had machines that youactually photographically made
type and then you pasted it intoplace and then you shot it on a
repro camera.
And we also did a lot ofbillboard work and that kind of
thing.
And we used giant opaqueprojectors in dark rooms where
you actually traced images onenormous pieces of paper the
image that was being projectedagainst the wall and then you'd
(02:55):
go and you'd cut it out of amberlith or ruby lith and you would
burn that into a screen or you'dburn that into a giant film
negative but what that taught meis it taught me how to use my
hands better and at one point icut so much film that i could i
could do big circles pretty muchfreehand.
(03:16):
I'd be leaning my arm on adrafting table, but it gave me
the discipline to be able todraw on a computer like I can
now with a Wacom pad or evenwith my mouse.
So it set me up for being ableto be much more accurate and my
abilities with Illustrator.
(03:36):
I worked in another artdepartment and then I moved into
several other art departmentsand eventually I started working
for advertising companiescompanies.
And I began as, you know, as agraphic supervisor.
And then I moved into, you know,essentially an art director and
then eventually a creativedirector.
And I've worked for smallcompanies and I've worked for
(03:58):
very large companies.
I worked for Thousand Trails,which was bought out by Equity
Lifestyle Properties.
And I was their creativedirector for about eight years.
We did everything.
We had marketing meetings wherewe coordinated with marketing
how we wanted to, you know,support sales.
Now we're moving into, ofcourse, the internet and we're
(04:20):
doing more of that type ofthing.
And we're doing at one of thefirst companies that I worked
for back after the screenprinting part, my wife and I
broke off and we started F sharpadvertising and we bought two of
the first production Macs thatwere made for creative and Oh, I
forgot the name of the thing.
SPEAKER_01 (04:39):
It was like a Quadrate 800.
Yeah, it was
SPEAKER_03 (04:40):
a Quadrate 650, something like
SPEAKER_01 (04:43):
that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I rememberthat.
SPEAKER_03 (04:44):
And it was$14,000 with the printer, and we got
QuarkXPress.
And you talk to designers now,they don't even know what that
is.
But they didn't have half thethings that you have in Creative
Suite right now.
And, of course, the thing movedslow as could be.
But we had people from all overDallas come into our small shop
and say, Oh, wow, look at this.
(05:04):
So I've been using Illustratorprimarily and Photoshop since
back then.
And that was the, you know, theearly, the late 80s or early
90s.
And, yeah.
I've been using it ever since,and I'm a stone-cold believer in
Creative Suite.
(05:24):
You hear people coming up to youand talking about Canva and all,
and I'm like, really?
There's just so many things youcan do with the Photoshop,
Illustrator, InDesign, andPremiere.
Back to what I was sayingbefore, I ended up working for
Equity Lifestyle Properties, andthen they moved their production
(05:45):
to Florida.
And I had to find other jobs.
And I found a number of creativedirector jobs.
And then I ran into the owner ofChef Minute Meals.
And I have been with him on andoff, but primarily on.
I was off for one year when hisdaughter took over and then he
fired her.
But I've been with Chef MinuteMeals as their creative director
(06:05):
for 14 years.
And about two years ago, heoffered me the job as vice
president of marketing.
So I've been in...
literally hundreds of creativemeetings with marketing firms or
advertising agencies, discussingwhat clients need.
And I've dealt with large artdepartments and small shops And
(06:30):
we've been friends for, what,nine years, Ken?
I know it seems—
SPEAKER_01 (06:34):
Oh, I think it goes back further than that, maybe.
It
SPEAKER_03 (06:36):
might even go back further than that.
So I've been working on and offwith him, and we do projects
periodically together, and weshoot together and things like
that.
But I have designed thousands ofprint ads and designed logos,
and I do Internet work.
(06:56):
I put together videos all thetime.
I've gotten pretty good at that.
I still think my core strengthsthat I have is simply drawing.
I think if you can't see alayout in your mind's eye when
someone is talking to you, andyou can't take...
Here's the other one, thebellwether that I use.
(07:16):
There's so many people out ofcollege that rely on clip art
and they rely on...
taking something, an image offof a deposit photos or something
and designing an ad from that.
And they don't see it.
They just, they go throughdeposit photos and they see
something that they think isappealing and they put it
together.
And I, I don't, I have prettymuch a strategy before I even
(07:39):
start the design process.
But back to what I was gettingat is the bellwether is if you
can take a blank piece of paperand sketch out what you see in
your mind's eye for your client,then you really are probably
going to be a good designer.
SPEAKER_01 (07:56):
You know, one thing I think of, I'm sitting here in
preparing and I shared the shownotes with you, was, you know,
Google attributes about 70% ofthe success or failure of an ad
campaign to the creatives.
In metas, their number is around56%, not the Instagram and
Facebook.
(08:18):
So, you know, when you'resitting here looking at this,
And from the standpoint of theowner of a business, I think
that they ask a lot of questionslike, you know, well, what makes
a creative really creative andwho should I hire?
And, you know, should I shortcutcertain pieces or should I not?
So I'm curious, you know, whenyou think about like here's
(08:40):
something I'd like to get yourresponse on is often talk about
people who are designers.
And in the last podcast, youknow, What I did was, you know,
I was equating some of thesedo-it-yourself design programs
and people that use them.
And one question that I had was,well, what about the person who
is a professional or good thatis using something like Canva,
(09:02):
for example?
And my point was, I go, well,that would be like Michelangelo
having– Uh, all the tools, youknow, but, but he goes, nah, let
me use this eight pack box ofcrayons instead.
Right.
What's your feedback tosomething like
SPEAKER_03 (09:18):
that?
Well, I, I agree with you.
If, if you're gonna, if you'regonna go into a fight, you use
the best weapons you can.
And, uh, you know, yeah, ifyou're in junior college and
you're doing, you know, uh,junior college layouts than
things like Canva.
And there's several others outthere that don't cost a lot and
they're basic beginning stuff.
(09:40):
But you really still need thebasics.
And I don't want to belittlepeople that don't have a lot of
experience.
And you know, Ken, how I lectureyou all the time about what
drives me crazy about Everyonethinking that they're creative.
I mean, I've got a person thatone of the companies that I've
(10:00):
worked for who was questioningme why I didn't do design work
in Word.
And she kept telling me that shecould do anything in Word that I
could do, all of my box of magictricks.
And then she'd come and she'dshow me one of her layouts and
I'd do a layout and I'd show itto her and our boss.
And it was night and day.
(10:22):
But she honestly thought it wasgood work.
And it wasn't.
It was grade school work.
And that's the problem.
Again, I mentioned this to youearlier, too.
I could run around and say that,well, actually, I am pretty good
at plumbing.
But I could say I'm anelectrician because I've seen it
(10:44):
done.
And then you could ask me towire a dryer into the house.
And I don't know how to do that.
And there's a good chance I'mgoing to end up getting killed.
And the best thing I could do isjust realize that I don't do
this for a living.
I don't sit and study this.
It's not what I've been doingfor 20 years every single day.
And so why not just capitulateand say, you know, you have the
(11:10):
experience, do it.
And one of the things that willprove that to you, you were
mentioning showing this to asmall businessman who doesn't
doesn't know the ins and outs.
And one of the first things thatwill do it is your portfolio.
If you cannot show a portfolio,especially if you're saying
you're a designer or a creativedirector or an artist, if you
(11:30):
don't have a portfolio thatreflects that, then obviously
you're a beginner.
Here's an interesting story.
One of the businesses I workfor, had a guy that was handling
marketing who really had no ideawhat he was doing.
And he hired a guy that said hehad an international internet
(11:51):
company.
And in the beginning or theopening page of his website, you
couldn't get in, first of all,which is a telltale sign.
It was password protected.
which right off the bat, ifyou're trying to sell services,
why are you password protectingyour portfolio or your company?
(12:12):
It's kind of ridiculous.
But it said that he had officesin Cairo and Paris and Moscow.
And I'm like, you know, and it'sa small town that we're in.
And I'm like, what?
And The person that hired him atthe company I worked for, he was
going to do the internet.
I was creative director.
I did so without me knowing.
And then he said, oh, this guyis going to build us a great
(12:33):
website, yada, yada.
And I asked the guy if I couldlook at his portfolio.
And he said, oh, no, we don'tknow you well enough.
And what happened is he wascharging us.
He had signed a contract with usand he was charging us.
I think it was eight,$9,000 amonth for his creative work.
And I started having red flagsright off the bat.
(12:54):
And after about two and a halfmonths, we were beginning to
pressure him now.
And we said to him, show us whatyou've been doing.
And he couldn't do it.
And then when he did show uswhat he was been doing, it was,
it was so bad that, um, I mean,it looked like a, uh, it didn't
even look like a college, uh,graphic artist was doing it.
He had virtually no idea what hewas doing.
(13:16):
And, uh, uh, we ran a backgroundcheck on and found out that he
was, uh, he had just gotten outof prison for embezzlement and
it was, yeah.
And it was, uh, eyeopening andit, it embarrassed the guy that
the marketing guy, because itmade him look like a moron.
And, um, But there are so manypeople out there that they
(13:37):
really think that this is easyand they think that they can
just swim in the stream, butthey can't.
And again, if somebody can'tshow you the work they've done,
And they can't sit down with youand they can't carry on a
conversation about the ins andouts and about, and Ken can do
this, Ken can rattle off garbagelike a ninja.
(13:58):
If they can't sit down and talkabout a modern SEO and the ins
and outs of internet marketingand, you know, the advantages of
Amazon and the disadvantages ofit, and they don't know this
stuff, then they really haven'tbeen working in different fields
and with different parametersand they don't No, I mean, Ken
(14:18):
and I didn't know a lot aboutAmazon marketing a couple of
years back, and we've got throwninto it because the guy that was
handling it for one of thecompanies I'm with messed it up
really bad.
And we learned an awful lotabout it the last, what, two
years, Ken?
SPEAKER_01 (14:38):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
It's amazing that it's anever-growing process, isn't it?
SPEAKER_03 (14:44):
Yeah, and unless you were in the weeds...
and you're in the weeds for along period of time, you really
don't need to be in the weeds.
And that's the other problem isyou can't be doing this.
We probably can't be an expertat everything because, I mean,
think about it.
You go onto YouTube, and I loveto do this, and this is
(15:07):
something that every artistshould do, is go onto YouTube.
I've run into roadblocks.
Let's say I'm working Premiere,and I want to do a fade-out, or
I want to do some kind of atransition that– I've seen, but
I've never done before.
And Premiere has a series ofplug-in or already there
(15:28):
transitions that are good, butthere's all sorts of things you
can get off the internet.
And if you go to the internet,YouTube, there are thousands of
experts that don't doIllustrator.
They don't do Photoshop.
All they do is Premiere Pro.
And so they know more about it.
They've forgotten more about itthan I know.
(15:49):
So I go and I watch their videosand I glean something from them.
And it's, it's, um, I, and Idon't mean to, don't mean to
ramble, but it's Jeet Kune Do.
Bruce Lee made a martial art andhis whole idea was that the
martial arts were ridiculousbecause you were trying to learn
a style of fighting that wasused by Okinawans 600 years ago.
(16:11):
And they were fighting thesamurai, which were armed with
samurai swords.
So why would a person living inour society today learn a
martial art that might haveworked 600 years ago against
somebody coming at you with asword?
You're not going to get attackedby a guy with a samurai sword.
Jeet Kune Do was a compilation.
Bruce Lee wanted you to takelittle bits and pieces of things
(16:33):
that worked for you fromdifferent martial arts and put
them together into your ownmartial art because it works for
you.
You know, I'm Brendan Furnish,and so I have a martial art I
call Brindoism, which is whatworks for me, and it's a whole
compilation of things.
So when I do design work, I havea whole compilation of tools
that work for me.
(16:55):
They may not work for otherpeople, and I may not be able to
do what other people can do, theway they're doing it.
I do it the way I do it.
But I do it by getting, gleaninglittle things that I steal from
other people that are expertsand they're one little part of
this thing.
And I put it together and I endup with a giant briefcase of
weapons that I can take on mynext job or I can take when I
(17:19):
talk to the next client.
SPEAKER_01 (17:21):
You know, that's interesting, you know, when
you're saying that, because, youknow, as I'm kind of going
through it and you're talkingabout a portfolio, you know,
when I think about the averagebusiness owner, the problem is I
think there's a lot of muddinessin it.
So this will take me a while,just a second or two to
formulate.
Yeah.
But, you know, you takesomeone...
(17:41):
who maybe puts together theportfolio.
And maybe they're using a lot ofdo-it-yourself stuff or they're
tracing images or whatever mayhave you.
But then you take it and youtake someone like...
Who was the guy that did all theillustrations back in the day?
Norman Rockwell.
(18:03):
Yeah.
And, you know, he would takephotography and then he would
take it and then composite hisimages based on photography.
Sure.
I remember.
Yeah.
So it's like he had a– it'salmost like there's a
foundation.
Like the way I'm looking at itis you have– a really strong,
firm foundation.
You're one of the most talentedguys that I can think of when it
(18:24):
comes to design stuff.
I don't know about that.
You're talented.
You cross the gamut.
And so when I'm thinking ofthat, it's like you've got this
foundation.
And from that foundation, youcan say, well, I'm going to I'm
going to use the style ofWindows, which maybe is, you
know, your portion of AdobePremiere or something like that
(18:45):
or or whatever.
But the thing is, is that youyou do have that.
that innate ability thattranscends, let me go look at
clip art or let me jump into ado-it-yourselfer and find this,
this flyer layout that I thinklooks good, but it may
completely alienate a brand.
SPEAKER_03 (19:06):
Right.
SPEAKER_01 (19:06):
So, so for me, I kind of, I kind of wrestle, I
mean, for me, I've beeninterviewing creatives for over
20 years on and off and, andkind of, you know, you got that
smell test that you can pass,but for the average business to
go, um, this is the, themethodology to, to know the
(19:26):
answer.
I think that's, I think it's, Ithink it's a harder challenge
because there's so many ways youcan mask with, with things going
on today.
SPEAKER_03 (19:35):
Well, that's, that's true.
And I think, I think the realproblem is there are a lot of
semi good designers and, andinternet people.
And there are a lot of peoplethat are Mr.
Haney's of, um, And if you everwatch Green Acres, Mr.
Haney drove around in an oldtruck and he had these placards
that he'd pull down and anythingyou needed done, Mr.
(19:58):
Haney would be an expert at it.
You know, Mr.
Haney could re-roof your house.
He could plumb your house.
He could milk your cows.
He could do anything.
And he always had a placard hepulled down.
Haney's cow milking.
And you run across people likethat a lot.
And some of them can puttogether a good plan.
marketing plan for you and agood website, but it'll just be
(20:21):
so good.
And then you run into thesepeople, and I've run into, and I
was telling Ken this, and Idon't want to butter his ego up,
but I've run into two peoplethat are really, really good
with websites and the internetand that type of thing.
And Ken's good at a lot of otherthings, but that in particular,
he's very good at.
And I've run into two people inthe entire time I've been doing
(20:42):
this that I really think weretop-notch, and it's Ken and a
guy named Daniel out of Dallas.
And, um, and I've run into a lotof people that were mediocre and
that were, uh, could do certainthings.
Ken can draw, Ken can do all thethings that I do.
Um, but he, he's much, you know,he, I don't know code like Ken
by any stretch of theimagination.
And Daniel doesn't do designwork as much as I do, but he's
(21:05):
a, just a wizard at, um, atstuff, the internet end of it.
So, you know, you, you, there'sso many firms out there and a
lot of them, what's really scaryright now is that you're going
to see all these marketing firmsthat don't actually have a brick
and mortar store where, and Iknow some people think that
(21:26):
that's good, but you, what itis, is it's a salesman and he
has a people, you know, outsideorbiting that don't really work
for him, but he says they do.
And so when he needs a logodesigned or something, he goes
to this guy in Toledo and heneeds, um, you know, uh, a
(21:47):
couple, he needs a brochuremade.
He goes to this guy in NewBrunswick, you know, and they
just, it's not a compilation ofpeople that work together.
It's, it's, um, you know, peopleall over the place and they may
not be, you know, be held to hisstandards or they may not even
know what standards are.
(22:08):
So, I mean, it's like present ordoing print work without
understanding what the printerneeds, bleeds and traps and, and
all those things.
You're going to create a problemwhere the printer is going to
send you your stuff back andyou're going to have to do it
again.
So, you know, it's, it's reallyhard to tell what's out there.
Simply by what people tell you.
(22:30):
But again, I think the bestthing you can do is look at
their portfolio.
And if you do know anythingabout it, sit down and talk to
them at length.
And usually you can tell ifthey're legit or not.
But the average person is goingto have a hard time with it.
I mean, it's like you sit downwith a mechanic and talk about
how an engine works.
I know how it works, but I don'tknow all the intricacies and I
(22:54):
don't know the sizes of therings that are going into the
cylinder and things like that.
And they're going to know allthat.
SPEAKER_01 (23:01):
So one of our contentions when we take on a
new client for a web project ormarketing is to sit down with
the client and then we want tounderstand what their goals are.
And so there's this...
There's this thing that happensin the beginning where they're
sharing our thoughts, and thenwe're kind of bouncing thoughts
(23:21):
back over feedback about how wecan help their specific
business.
And so a lot of this is kind ofverbalizing creative ideas and
organizing things together.
in a way that kind of puts itinto perspective.
So maybe part of this inconjunction with looking at what
they've put together is maybefirst ask, well, what do you
(23:45):
think about X?
Or what do you think about Y?
And then get their feedback.
It's almost like that feedbackmay give you a signal whether or
not that person is truly acreative or if they start
talking about things that are soeither vague or ambiguous or
nonsensical, in terms of lookinglike it's really going to
(24:05):
achieve the goal.
SPEAKER_03 (24:07):
Right.
You have to understand, though,what it takes to achieve the
goal to be able to ascertainwhether or not they're pulling
your leg.
That's the problem.
And unless you're you or me...
Talking to these people and youcan narrow them down.
(24:27):
And you were talking to some guyout in California the other day
that was saying he could do Xnumber of things and you were
asking him specifics and he wasavoiding you because of it.
Because he knew he didn't knowanything about it.
And that's the problem that asmall business has that doesn't
have somebody that cancoordinate this that's done it
for a long time.
(24:48):
They're going to run intoproblems.
Now, again, the portfolio, Ithink, is the number one thing.
But I've actually seenportfolios where people have
stolen other people's art andactually put it in there.
And I knew it was wrong becauseit had been in national
publications and things likethat.
But there are people that arethat...
and they would, first of all,it's illegal, it's fraud, but
(25:13):
people do it just because theywant to leg up or they want to
impress somebody.
And you wouldn't believe, mywife worked in marketing for
many years with a very largecompany, and I won't get into
the specifics, but she hadpeople that came and went in the
marketing department andcreatives and all that were just
not at all what they claimedthey were.
(25:34):
She saw it.
I think it's prevalenteverywhere.
I think there are welders thatget caught because their welds
aren't up to par.
I think that there's obviouslydoctors that aren't as good as
they should be that hurt people.
Our business is filled with itbecause, again, I think there's
(25:57):
a lot of people that seethemselves this way.
Everybody wants to look atthemselves good, but but they're
not going to take the time to doit.
So back to what you were gettingat is I think it's going to be
very difficult for a typicalbusiness to be able to truly
tell if someone is what they saythey are, unless you have
(26:18):
somebody like you or me that cantell they're not.
And it's going to be a trial anderror because this person may
say they're going to increaseyour sales, or they may say
they're going to give you abetter outlook or, on the
internet and they may or theymay not.
And, you know, the other thingyou're going to have to do is
(26:40):
find some kind of a impeachablemeasuring point to be able to
tell whether they're lying toyou or not.
And, you know, like Google cantell you the traffic across your
site and it can tell you yourexposure.
And, of course, it can tell youany sales you do on Google and
so can Amazon.
(27:01):
So I suggest to anybody that'snot, you know, swimming in this
pool to figure out how they canmonitor that and gauge it
themselves.
before they hire a marketingperson that says that they're
going to increase your salesdramatically.
And that way, if the guy tellsyou that he's increasing traffic
and you look at the thingsyou've determined before and you
(27:24):
realize that he has not, you canmake that assumption.
We are inundated.
My boss is inundated with peoplecalling him up, or not calling
him up, but emailing him,telling him that they can double
his sales in six months.
And the funny thing is, is we'rein a kind of a niche business
(27:44):
and these people are looking atit from, you know, a thousand
miles away, knowing nothingabout the market that he is in
and about his niche product.
I don't know how anybody canlook at a niche business that
they know nothing about.
They haven't gone and lookedinto the industry that we're in
(28:05):
and the ins and outs and say tomy boss definitively that I'm
going to increase your internetsales by 400% in three weeks.
They can't do that.
And I keep telling him when hesends me, he sends me their
proposals.
And incidentally, they'refishing on LinkedIn.
They're finding them on LinkedInand they're going after them.
So are they really thatsuccessful?
(28:27):
You know, if they were reallythat successful, they wouldn't
be going through LinkedIn tofind this guy's email
SPEAKER_01 (28:32):
address.
What gets me is you're hiringsomeone who claims to, because
creative is kind of marketing.
And it's like my point in thefirst episode of the podcast
when we're talking about havingto fire a client was that he
would have this kind of barragehappening too.
And it was kind of like youwould get accusatory and then we
had to explain it.
(28:53):
And then you kind of go and thenthe idea is, ultimately in the
synopsis in podcast one is ifthey're having to email you
anything yeah block them justblock them man
SPEAKER_03 (29:05):
they hit me up all the time and it's it's it's
really disturbing yeah i have todefend myself on a regular basis
how come we can't do this and umIt's kind of obscene.
And most of the time you go backto their, and this is what I
normally find, you go back totheir business and a lot of the
(29:25):
time you'll scroll down theirwebsite and all it's doing is
screaming at you that they'regoing to increase your business
by 400%.
But they won't show you wherethey're at.
SPEAKER_01 (29:35):
Modern day alchemy.
SPEAKER_03 (29:36):
Yeah, it's exactly right.
You know, I'm going to turnstraw into gold.
Just trust me on this.
And I work for a guy who thinksthat if I turn straw into gold,
he'd turn around and say, youshould turn straw into diamonds.
Yeah, that's what he would.
He's actually said that to mebecause I called the alchemist
out on him.
But he gets these all the timeand he sends them to me in their
(29:58):
page long proposal and let'sschedule a meeting.
And again, they don't knowanything about the business.
And every business, here's theother thing that anybody who
tells you that they're going toincrease your sales by 400% in
four weeks, it's nonsense.
Because first of all, they don'tknow your business.
They don't know the demographicthat you're selling into.
(30:18):
Yeah, if you're selling pizzasto people that are starving and
you're selling it for a goodprice, you're going to be able
to sell as much as you possiblywant.
But most businesses havecompetitors and some businesses
are niche.
And how can you market to theniche person?
How can you get out with all ofthe 350 million people in the
(30:39):
country and find the 200,000that want to buy your product?
How can you do that?
And you think that these guyshave some kind of a machine that
they put parameters into and itpops up.
AI is great.
But AI has its limitations, andright now it just regurgitates
facts.
It's not at the point where itcan tell me who every single one
(31:03):
of my people needs to be.
Now, when it gets to that point,it may get to the point that it
does design work and all of usare out of a job.
Now, you know, it very
SPEAKER_01 (31:13):
well.
I don't see that happening.
I don't see.
SPEAKER_03 (31:15):
Well, they've got what gets me now is you're
getting these people that lookat these Photoshop plugins where
you can take your picture andyou can try and make it smile
and you can put in a note.
There's a you're posing on thebeach and there's this morbidly
obese guy walking by behind youthat's sticking his tongue at
you.
SPEAKER_01 (31:34):
Have you done that where you select something in
Photoshop and then you do thelittle generate and you type in
what you want it to do and thensee if it does it?
Have you done that yet?
SPEAKER_03 (31:42):
Yes, I have.
SPEAKER_01 (31:43):
So I did it the other day.
I had this really complex pieceI was trying to put together the
other day.
And I asked it to basicallyremove shadows from a tree that
was broadcast on the house.
And it was a long line ofcowboys.
What in the world?
Where did that come from?
SPEAKER_03 (32:04):
Well, it knows how much you love cowboys, right?
SPEAKER_01 (32:06):
Apparently, I'm a Clint Eastwood
SPEAKER_03 (32:09):
fan.
There you go.
They do it on TV and it lookslike it's been professionally
done.
And then you try it in real lifeand you get this.
What they did for the fat guy isthey just stuck another section
of ocean over him and it didn'tmatch with the ocean that he was
in.
And anybody that really is goodat Photoshop knows that a lot of
(32:29):
the time these things takeYou've got to blend the thing
together and you've got to usethe stamp tool.
And, and it, it, it, you almosthave to be, honestly, you almost
have to be a painter to be ableto make something really look
right with, with Photoshop.
Um, I did a, a picture of, whereone of my bosses, and I won't
(32:50):
say who, was with a high-poweredpolitical person, and I won't
say what kind of person, but hehad one of the people that he
brought to the trade show withhim in the photograph, and he
wanted to take her out It wasn'tanything bad.
She was at the trade show as atrade show person.
(33:12):
So they wanted me to completelyremove her from him and this
high-powered political person.
And it literally took meprobably three days because it
didn't work at first andnothing.
And then the other thing heasked me to do is make himself
look thinner.
UNKNOWN (33:29):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (33:29):
Everybody says this to me.
You can go in and just do basicthings, but if you think you're
going to squish his face to makeit look thinner, you're going to
make him look like he's puckeredup or something.
At one point, I had to go in andshave pieces of his face out and
then put his face back togethera little bit further squeezed
(33:50):
in.
The only reason why it worked,and it did work, was because
I've done Photoshop since theQuadra 650.
And I also can paint a littlebit.
I understand how it works.
And so that's why I could dothat.
But until they get a PhotoshopAI program, they can actually do
(34:13):
that.
And they very well may becausedata compilation is increasing
dramatically.
And they're building huge AIfactories in Texas right now.
with giant computers.
They're talking about using morenuclear power around the country
(34:35):
because AI pulls in so muchelectricity.
Who knows what they'll come upwith?
It's kind of scary, andeverybody's terrified of AI
because if it gets that smart,it might outthink us and decide
we're not necessary.
I think we've got a long way togo before we can actually sit
down and do the type of thingsexperts can do.
SPEAKER_01 (34:58):
Yeah, you know, this is funny because when you were
talking about this idea, becausethere is this idea of, well, you
know...
You know, you're, you're, uh,you know, what, late fifties and
I'm, uh, I'm 52, I'll be 53 thisyear.
And you know, there's part ofthis idea of, well, guys are,
you know, maybe you're justoutdated, you know, maybe you're
just not playing the, the AIgame, or maybe you're not
(35:22):
embraced.
And like, I've spent a ton oftime looking at artificial
intelligence.
I know you
SPEAKER_03 (35:26):
and I have gone into it at length.
SPEAKER_01 (35:28):
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
And it's like, but here's thething, man.
It's like, when you really goback to it, it's like, you know,
we were talking prior to themeeting and going back to some
of the history of marketing anddesign, the technology changes.
Right.
But aside from people like theirattention span being almost
nothing.
I mean, aside from that, it'slike the, the principles of art
(35:51):
and design.
I mean, let's go back to theRenaissance.
I mean, you take paintings, the,the painters would have the
people either looking orpointing, or you'd have these
abstract triangles or anglesthat would, that would push your
eye to where they would want itto go in the painting and then
bounce you back into thepainting.
And it's like, these conceptsare not something that, just,
(36:14):
you know, is here today and gonetomorrow.
These concepts that are coreconcepts are, they have to be
there and they have to have asentient, something sentient in
order to put it together, in myopinion.
SPEAKER_03 (36:29):
No, I absolutely agree with you.
We're all about telling a storyand and showing a client or
self-actualization where aclient says, you know, that's me
in that picture, you know, withthe fancy car, with a good
looking woman or eating aperfect steak, you know, out on
my date or whatever.
(36:50):
It's all about making someonesee themselves there.
And, and if you can't do that,uh, and you can't tell a story
and, and, you know, relay thatdirectly to the person you're
trying to get to buy, um, You'renot going to sell.
And there have been a lot ofunsuccessful big companies, Bud
(37:12):
Light, the mess that they gotin.
And I'm not going to go oneither side of that, but I'm
saying that you've got to knowthe people you're trying to sell
to in order to sell to them.
And then you've got to be ableto tell a story.
And if you can't do it and you,and what we beforehand, if you
before, and I'm not talkingabout TV commercials or
(37:34):
anything, but even print, youhave to have visuals that make
people want to buy your product.
And if you haven't stared at itlong enough and you don't have
an idea of really the motif thatfits different products.
I mean, if you're selling beautycare products, products, you're
(37:55):
not going to be using hardcolors and lots of blacks and
khaki, that kind of thing.
It's not a macho thing.
You're going to have a totallydifferent look.
You'd be surprised at what I'veseen over the years with what
people thought was going toactually fit the market they
(38:15):
were trying to sell to.
Like I said, the market that I'min right now is very niche.
We've struggled to to handleretail sales simply because it's
a niche market.
And I think we've gotten it downthat we're going to be much more
successful at it.
But it's a tough nut to crack,marketing is.
(38:38):
And then again, I think when youfinally get to the sweet spot
and you know it, you've donemost of your job.
But there's a lot of people thatdon't even know where the sweet
spot is and they don't know howto find it.
SPEAKER_01 (38:51):
Well, this is the other thing, too.
I know, like, for example, ifyou look at people who– one of
the things I talk about, too, isthis mythology of the internet.
You know, back if you were inRome, you'd follow these
mythologies, Greek, you know,whatever.
But it's like today's mythologyis I want to start a business.
(39:14):
And I'm going to advertise onthe Internet or I'm going to
have AI create these creatives.
And it's going to magicallyconjure up this perfect recipe
from beginning to end.
And all I've got to do is justfund it and make money.
And I do think, honest togoodness, that that is a huge.
(39:35):
I
SPEAKER_03 (39:36):
know there's so many people on YouTube and TikTok and
all these places that are goingto tell you.
that they started this at homeand now they're making$300,000
of sales a month.
And there are people that aredoing that.
But for the most part, what isthe old term?
There's nothing new under thesun.
If you're doing something,probably there are a thousand
(40:00):
people doing it.
So it's, And they're alladvertising on social media and
they're all advertising on theInternet.
And some of them have muchdeeper pockets than you'll ever
have.
So the real killer that you'regoing to come up with is where
do you end up on a search?
You know, anybody who says thatthey're going to start a company
(40:21):
and they're going to immediatelymake enormous sales is mistaken
because they're not even goingto be seen by anybody.
SPEAKER_01 (40:29):
Well, you know, it's like this.
It's like, you know, you takeany market.
There are so many considerationsoutside of design and all other
stuff.
Like, you know, you take some ofthe rental cars.
I forget which one it was.
But, you know, one was We TryHarder because they knew their
position was not good.
The other one is if an area hasbrand recognition and that brand
(40:50):
is trusted, for you to breakthrough and you have to work
hard just to gain a marketshare, which is part of the
problem too.
And then you start delving alittle bit deeper into those
kind of issues and then you go,wow, it's really a lot more.
I've got a couple of questionsfor you.
This is where I want to takethis and I thought this might be
(41:11):
fun.
So in getting an owner of abusiness, you know, because
right now I feel like what we'vedone is said, oh man, you know,
without somebody who knows whatthey're doing, you can't find
somebody that knows what they'redoing.
SPEAKER_03 (41:23):
It's kind of a vicious circle, isn't it?
It's a mousetrap.
SPEAKER_01 (41:28):
So here I'm going to ask you a question here.
Just some quick, maybe rapidfire style questions.
If the person's portfolioinvolves do-it-yourself
builders, right?
Would you say that that is a badsign or would you say within
reason that's a bad sign?
SPEAKER_03 (41:45):
So you're talking about clip art?
SPEAKER_01 (41:46):
Well, I'm saying, well, let's start with clip art.
Let's do that one first.
SPEAKER_03 (41:49):
Well, okay.
If he significantly modifies theclip art so that it becomes
completely different and does soin a fact that it looks like
it's done right, then I thinkthat that could be acceptable.
But I think there are an awfullot of people that are going to
do it yourself, builders, andthey're going to try and pass it
as real stuff.
Another thing you're going tolook at in a portfolio to see if
(42:10):
they really are legit is whatthey've actually printed.
Because you're talking tosomebody to spend a print run of
$200,000 and they're spending$30,000 on this.
Did they actually print it?
So a lot of the time in myportfolio, I'll have the actual
concept or I'll have the pressproof and then I'll have the
(42:30):
printed sample sitting next toit to prove to the person that I
not only conceived it, and putit into a die line or whatever
format it needed to be in, butI'm actually presenting a
picture of the actual part.
And that's hard to do becauseyou have to actually print the
part or you could Photoshop it,but most of the time you could
(42:53):
tell.
SPEAKER_01 (42:53):
Well, what about Canva?
I
SPEAKER_03 (42:56):
don't, again, I don't like if you're going to
learn, if you're going to fighta war, you best use the best
tanks that they make.
And you're also dealing withsomething that's not industry
standards, not close.
Most printers, most anybodythat's producing something is
used to CS.
And, you know, I know there'ssome programs for video
(43:16):
manipulation that are just asgood, if not better than
Premiere.
So I'm going to defer to that.
As far as just basic design workand photo manipulation and page
layout, InDesign, Photoshop, andIllustrator are the bellwether.
I mean, you just don't haveanything that replaces it.
(43:36):
So my first question would be ishow come the person is using an
amateur program to design work?
SPEAKER_01 (43:43):
I would agree.
I would agree.
So I would say number to thatanswer would be, yeah, if
they're using Canva, that'sprobably a flag versus an
advanced background.
And
SPEAKER_03 (43:54):
if they're using Word to do design work, then
it's a flag that they don'tknow.
You need to let them walk themout of your office.
SPEAKER_01 (44:02):
Maybe have police escort them out.
Oh, my God.
SPEAKER_03 (44:04):
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, it's that bad.
This woman actually put woodgrain into brush stroke.
You know what I'm saying?
Yeah, she did a headline copyand the headline was in
brushstroke.
And hey, the 90s called and theywant their typeface back.
And then she wanted to show tome how...
(44:25):
technically superior she wasshows she put the brush stroke
into, um, uh, they put, she puta wood grain background into the
breaststroke and then she had ona dark background.
And when I looked at it, Ithought, this is just sad.
I
SPEAKER_01 (44:41):
don't mean, I don't mean to
SPEAKER_02 (44:42):
be
SPEAKER_01 (44:43):
in the restaurant for you guys who don't know is
like, there are certain fontsthat really encapsulate, um,
timestamps in the history of the
SPEAKER_03 (44:53):
world.
That would probably even
SPEAKER_01 (44:57):
be 70s.
That's probably the 70s.
I'd go back to the 80s in aminute.
All
SPEAKER_03 (45:01):
right.
Yeah, I would too.
All
SPEAKER_01 (45:02):
right.
So I think that, yeah, I thinkthat those things, any kind of
amateur programs that you seeand those kind of things.
And like you said, there aresome people that are just
exceptional talents that arenaturally there.
Now, you and I both Now, we maybe a little bit biased in this
statement, but I would arguethat your best talented
(45:26):
creatives, like you said, cansit down and, like, I could sit
down.
Like, if somebody came hereright now and said, I want you
to sketch me out a giraffeeating off a tree or whatever.
Right, right, right.
I could do that with themsitting here and not feel a bit
of intimidation.
I wouldn't need to look at one.
(45:47):
I could, too.
I love seeing someone that cantake a blank piece of paper with
a regular graphite pencil andjust sketch a concept.
SPEAKER_03 (45:56):
Yeah, yeah.
And it may not be perfectanonymically, but I have in my
mind's eye what a giraffe lookslike.
And I know what a tree lookslike, so I could draw it too.
But it just irritates.
And I'm saying that even onlayouts of stuff, I see a layout
(46:18):
in my mind and I see typefacesand things that I would use that
would facilitate the mood that Iwant to create because the
typefaces have a lot to do withthat.
And you won't have that if youhaven't done this long enough.
Now, there are people that aregeniuses.
There was a car show with ChipFoose where he designed cars and
(46:42):
he built these crazy cars from,you know, just normal cars.
And this guy can sit down with abunch of felt tip markers.
Have you seen the show?
SPEAKER_01 (46:51):
No, no.
Wait, wait.
I think, I think you sent mesomething or somebody showed me
something.
Oh,
SPEAKER_03 (46:56):
he's insane.
SPEAKER_01 (46:56):
It was, it was an incredible, he
SPEAKER_03 (46:58):
went to high school with a guy I knew that was also
an insanely good artist.
This guy could paint andeverything.
And they ended up, uh, uh, theguy that, uh, I knew ended up
working for an ad agency in LAand, um, he did movie posters
and, He did Tremors, thatposter.
And so he actually did theartwork on movie posters.
And he probably did a lot of itjust by looking at pictures and
(47:20):
drawing it.
But Chip Foose could sit downand a guy would tell him what he
wanted to do with his 1968Cutlass.
And he'd start drawing withmarkers and a couple of straight
edges on a big piece of paper.
And when he got done, it lookedlike an airbrush of a car.
It looked like it was taken.
If I did it like that, and Idon't even know if I could, with
(47:43):
an old airbrush, because I usedto airbrush, it would probably
take me three weeks.
And he would do it while hetalked to you.
Now, I never have been anywherenear that level, but there are
people out there that are likethat.
So there could theoretically bepeople that have just graduated
from junior college that areinnately talented, but they're
(48:04):
few and far between.
And the other question is, he'sdoing something that's...
And by the way, he was not outof college when he was doing
that.
He was younger than me, but hewas up there.
And so he had done what I keeptalking about.
He had taken that time, doing itagain and again and again, to
get to the point that he was at.
And there's no excuse.
(48:26):
There's nothing that adds up toexperience.
And if you don't put in the timeand put in the sweat and and,
you know, research andconstantly try and get better,
you're not going to be as goodat what you take pride in your
work.
Do it because you're going toyou're going to get good at it
(48:46):
and it won't be as hard andpeople will like your work
better.
SPEAKER_01 (48:49):
You know, one thing I think interesting, I think you
really keyed in on something.
You know, if you take someonewho is talented, that is
younger, you know, which is hardbecause when you're younger,
it's like you need experience toget a job, job experience.
You know, you got this weird.
thing there too.
But the idea is that even whenyou have someone who may have
that level of talent, if you'rehiring them for your business,
(49:14):
they may have no idea.
Like, for example, one of theclassics that I give is if
you're trying to reach an olderdemographic, you use a larger
font.
You use black and white.
There's just certain things thatyou do.
And even if someone's got a lotof talent, it's still not honed
in with being able to lookthrough the lens of what that
(49:36):
business needs for theirdemographic and still be able to
get that.
So I do think that if it was mybusiness and I didn't know it, I
would personally be one Canvawould be a strike.
Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop,not Acrobat, you know,
Photoshop, Acrobat, you know,those programs, anything Adobe
(49:57):
Creative Suite, Premiere, AfterEffects.
I think those are huge.
Yeah.
After Effects, you know, alittle, you know, but I do think
experience.
I mean, if I'm banking mybusiness on something, I want to
make sure somebody understandshow to look at my particular
business and be able to look atmy audience and put together a
(50:19):
plan, which to me, the juniorcollege kid, even though he has
talent, I would take a guy whounderstands
SPEAKER_03 (50:25):
that better.
I think the junior college kidneeds to go get a job at the
lower level and work his way up.
SPEAKER_02 (50:31):
I
SPEAKER_03 (50:31):
don't want to get into that, but I know a guy that
is very young and he's trying toget into the movie producing
business And what he needs to dois get a job in a studio and
work his way up.
And the beginning commercialartist needs to do kind of what
(50:53):
I did.
And that is, you know, I had towork my butt off in a factory in
order to get into the artdepartment.
And that was a factory artdepartment.
But I went from that to betterart departments every time.
And eventually I ended up in acompany that was worth$3 billion
as their...
creative director.
(51:14):
It was long and it took meforever to do it.
The problem is you have to payyour dues.
There are so many people outthere that want this business
and they think they can justsnap their fingers and do it.
I don't think that there is...
I don't think there's an easyway to anything.
I mean, if you want to become adoctor, you've got to be an
(51:35):
intern.
You've got to get a collegedegree.
Then you've got to go to medschool.
Then you've got to go and be anintern.
And I hear being an intern islike hell.
You're treated horribly.
You don't sleep.
You work seven days a week.
for what, two years.
I'm not sure how long you're anintern, but you know, you, the,
the problem is, is if you'regoing to be an expert at
(51:56):
anything, you've got to pay yourdues.
And, and so somebody coming toyou with a portfolio saying
they're going to help yourbusiness and they haven't
designed, they've designed twowebsites.
They've never gotten anythingprinted before.
Um, and they just don't have avolume of work and it doesn't
look like the volume of the workis, is done properly.
the same way that we do work,you know, yeah, you need to,
(52:18):
they need to go pay their dues.
SPEAKER_01 (52:21):
I agree.
I agree.
And it, you know, it's hard tosay those things because, you
know, neither one of us want to,you know, we both want to
encourage young talent, but likeyou said, you've got to, I like
your analogy, you know, ifyou're in martial arts, you
don't matter how good you are,you start at the bottom, you got
to work your way up and you'vegot to understand things that
frankly are common experienceteach and the, uh, the old
(52:44):
stuff, you know, like Elvis,
SPEAKER_03 (52:46):
Elvis got a black belt in two years because he, he
essentially bought it and it wasElvis.
But, uh, most people, um, well,old school, you didn't get a
black belt unless you practicefor 10 years.
And, and I'm a huge, uh,believer in, um, You train, you
gain, and if you don't, youwon't.
(53:10):
There is no substitute forrepetition and for learning.
If you're not willing to put inthe time, you're just not going
to get good at what you do.
Again, there are people thathave been in this business for a
long time that still aren'tgood.
That's the other thing thatbusinesses have to look out for.
(53:31):
Either they don't have goodpeople, and that's another
thing.
You can get a great salesmanthat can go in and tell you the
moon, and then back at theirshop, or the people they use
are, are, are, you know, juniorhires or whatever.
And, and then you're still goingto get the same thing.
So, you know, it's, it's a, it'slike anything, you know, the
(53:55):
difference between this andrunning a restaurant is if you,
if you're, if you're in a citywhere there's a lot of good
food, you're probably not goingto stay in business too long.
If you don't, produce good food.
So probably in our business, ifyou don't really do a job,
you're probably going to weed itout eventually.
(54:17):
But the question is eventually.
And the other question is, howmuch business are you going to
take from companies that reallydeserve it?
SPEAKER_01 (54:25):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I think well said.
All right.
So I've held you up, man.
I told you I'd get you out ofhere and you probably won't
catch the end of the Ole Missgame or...
Go celebrate or cry.
Do you have any closing thoughtsother than the kind of what we
talked about to kind of helpbusinesses point them in the
right direction?
Give us your best advice.
(54:46):
fault to leave this podcast.
SPEAKER_03 (54:48):
I've been talking my mouth off here.
Again, I just think that it's amatter of, okay, you're going to
make mistakes.
You're probably going to hirepeople because I've been in so
many companies that have.
You're going to make mistakes.
So find somebody that once youdo think that they're doing the
right job and perhaps they'reincreasing your sales, somebody
(55:10):
that it's easy to work with,somebody that you can trust and
because there's so many of themout there that you can't and
hold on to them like grim death.
That's my closing remark.
SPEAKER_01 (55:23):
Well, there you go.
You've heard it straight fromover.
And I, that's what I've done.
I, I,
SPEAKER_03 (55:28):
I found two people that could really do this stuff
well.
And I know some good designersand I know some really good
artists.
But if I do anything, I'm doingit with those two people because
I've had so many bad ones.
So the ones that I have, I holdon to like grim death.
SPEAKER_01 (55:45):
Well, there you go.
There you go.
I think that's well said.
That kind of fits the over thebowl motif.
Well,
SPEAKER_03 (55:50):
that's no bowl.
All right, Ken, I want to go seewho won the game.
SPEAKER_01 (55:56):
All right, well, thank you so much for being over
the bull, man.
I appreciate you.
SPEAKER_03 (56:00):
No problem.
Thank you.
SPEAKER_01 (56:01):
So in conclusion, choosing a good designer can be
complicated, but it doesn't haveto be a gamble.
Look for someone with real-worldexperience, freehand
illustration skills,production-ready print work, and
advanced knowledge of AdobeCreative Suite, not just those
drag-and-drop website tools.
But honestly, the most importanttrait, a designer who takes the
(56:24):
time to understand yourbusiness, your goals, your
market, your message, and bringsoriginal thinking to the
planning stage, not just theexecution.
So ask the right questions, lookdeeper than the portfolio, and
choose wisely.
Because good creative isn't justabout how it looks.
It's about whether it works.
(56:46):
Until next time we meet.
SPEAKER_00 (56:48):
Thanks for tuning in to Over the Bowl, brought to you
by Integris Design, afull-service design and
marketing agency out ofAsheville, North Carolina.
Until next time.
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