Here is a very thorough summary with selected quotes from our 2013 Brand New Conference speakers and a very edited selection of tweets. Like what you see and read? Get the videos.

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Stuart Watson, venturethree

Selected, transcribed quotes

We’ve always had this belief that content is king, and it’s really hard for a creative to create things that are better than the stuff we love: the movie stars, the football players, the great athletes. Wo we wanted to just find a way of creating an identity that owns the content in a really clever way. (On The Times campaign)

We don’t really have a formula but we do love working for really big clients that touch millions of people, and we kind of call that ‘Mass Fantastic’. It’s this idea of everyday products made exciting for everybody.

It’s really hard to get work out into the world that you are proud of. I’ve managed it five times in 13 years, so that’s one project every 2.6 years; far from prolific. It’s always painful, I always think I’m going to get found out, but somehow you get there.

Tweets

Jason Klein and Casey White, Brandiose

Selected, transcribed quotes

We try to give them a risky idea, a riskier idea, and the riskiest idea.

I was so excited I was, like, I’m gonna draw all of our concept sketches in red colored pencil. That was the dumbest idea ever. Oh, yeah, like really go method. There was, like, red dust everywhere, and it wouldn’t erase. (On designing for the Cincinnati Reds).

We love the history of baseball design and we love it for those same reasons of that history, that folksiness, the folk art and quality that it has in it. So we really try to carry on that tradition but try to add our own story elements to it.

Tweets

Josh Higgins, 2012 Obama Campaign

Selected, transcribed quotes

A friend of mine who had just graduated from design college suggested that I would be interested in graphic design. And I asked, you know, why she thought that and she said, “Well remember the fliers that you just to do for the band? That is a form of graphic design.” I said, oh really? that’s awesome I want to do that.

First time in American politics that online raised more money that the TV ads, and that really pissed off the old guard. They were unsure who these new kids were, playing with their computers, until the money started to rolling in.

We did a lot of vehicle wraps as well. It was surprising how some of the things that you think, like door hangers, I thought that those were some of the most boring, and uninspiring things, but they are the most important when it comes to an election, so we tried to make the best door hangers that we could.

Tweets

Debbie Millman, Sterling Brands

Selected, transcribed quotes

I wanted to know why they thought branding was so crucial to our lives right now in the planet, and how has branding become the reflection of branding has sort of become a reflection on the condition of our culture. Well, how did that happen? (On the interviewees of her book, Brand Thinking)

If you look at all of the anti-brand movements out there — the No Logo people, the Adbusters people, Starborgs, Buy Nothing Day — one of the interesting ironies to this backlash is how these brands are willingly employing the very tenets of branding that they so willfully disdain.

There was a lawsuit in 1921 titled “The U.S. versus 95 Barrels of Alleged Apple Cider Vinegar” and at that time it went all the way up to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court ruled that every statement, every design, or every device on a product’s label could not mislead or deceive. We were, as a species, legally entitled to buy brands that were safe for consumption.

Tweets

Bob Gill

Selected, transcribed quotes

You have to look really hard to find an idea in graphic design. They are all LAYOUTS!

We are all such victims of what the culture tells us is good and bad, and hot and not hot. How are you going to do something original when the culture tells all of you the same thing?

I don’t have any particular style. I don’t see how you could have a style if you tried to solve each problem doing justice to it.

Tweets

Bruno Maag, DaltonMaag

Selected, transcribed quotes

They put the Roman lettering everywhere were they went in the entire Empire so therefore if you were a traveler going through the Empire you would see the Roman lettering, you would know you are under the Roman protection. That is branding.

And then. The. Hard. Sheer. Labor. Starts. That’s when you really earn your money. When you have to do spacing and kerning. Just imagine: Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic, it’s about 800 characters and you have to kern it. That’s a week’s worth of kerning. It’s the most boring job you can imagine. I usually put on the newbies on to that. You know, they have to earn their spurs. I pay them good money. Kern!

What I really like about this project is… it’s not Helvetica. It’s not even sans serif. And that makes me very happy because for the last twenty years every single client has asked me to design a sans serif typeface and I am so bored of sans serifs. It’s unbelievable. I want to do serifs. They are so nice.

Tweets

Matt Stevens, The Design Office of Matt Stevens

Selected, transcribed quotes

I was trying to think of an analogy, what that has been like for me, and for me you know, I had a full time job and it was kind of like working hard to lay down tracks in a different direction.

Poor Dunkie had been hijacked by someone and it was really confusing because it was like, you know, a blatant rip-off of an unofficial version of a real mascot for a pretend rebrand… so, what do you do to deal with that? (On Varsity Donuts ripping off his April Fools work)

You can’t minimize risk enough for it to no longer be risk.

I love what I do. I keep this [picture] by my desk to remind me what I love about it. I’m really greatful to get do it, and the best thing that I get to do is try to chase that feeling of that kid sitting on the kitchen floor, drawing whatever he wants, and kind of losing time in it.

Tweets

Michael Bierut, Pentagram

Selected, transcribed quotes

When I was thinking what to show you for this presentation I realized this is a special audience. The Brand New Conference attendees are… it’s an inside audience. […] This is an expert crowd.

If you can take some solace from the fact that I fail miserably too and Pentagram can do some crummy work now and then and lose jobs to other people maybe that will make you cheerful. I believe there is a German word for that: Schadenfreude. So feast away. Here we go.

I hate and love [paid pitches]. […] You get a fairly good brief but you don’t get any real give and take with the client that lets you inform the work so you just say “Okay, let’s make up some things that we might do for this and just at least show them how we think.”

Tweets