Episode Transcript
Rob (00:00)
I hate ads that are just hits you over the head. Obvious. it's always more fun to have people go, ⁓
And that kind of takes a
Don (00:06)
Yeah.
Rob (00:08)
minute to get. To me, that's the most effective stuff.
Don (00:09)
What is
that? that sophistication? What is that? I feel like it elevates, you know, the communication. Yeah.
Rob (00:13)
It does. Yeah, I think it does. think
a little bit of faith in humanity. We're not all idiots,
Don (00:18)
Yeah.
Alright, episode 161, Rob, we're back. Yeah.
Rob (00:44)
161
I was trying to think of something interesting to say about the number, that's, yeah.
Don (00:49)
I don't know, rhyming,
you know? I mean, does it even really matter that we even reference what... I feel like the reference to the episode number is just for us and it's not necessarily for anyone else. No one gives a rats, you know? ⁓ And podcasts, you don't have to like listen in order, like watching an HBO TV show or an Apple show or whatever. You know, it doesn't build on itself. It's not, you know, I guess we've done a few series, right? We would talk about certain things, but you know.
Rob (00:57)
It is. It is.
Now.
Yeah,
but we've never really done like a part one, part two where you have to like know the, you know what I mean? I don't think.
Don (01:20)
The only time
I think we ever did it was for ⁓ the tennis Atlanta Cup, right? Where it was like, hey, you know, does not ⁓ real time design type type approach, you know, Alright, episode 161. What are we talking about today, man?
Rob (01:25)
Well, that's true. No, you're right. That's true.
That's true. Yep. That is true.
⁓ Well, I'll tell you. ⁓ So I recently stumbled across a book, believe it or not, with words, with lots of letters and lots of words. ⁓ And I will tell you, I'll show you the book and tell you the book. It's called ⁓ Advertisers Anonymous, 12 Steps to Creative Salvation, and it's written by a gentleman by the name of Ron Huey, ⁓ who is a storied Atlanta. ⁓
Don (01:43)
Okay. I love books. huge fan.
Okay.
Rob (02:06)
say. And it sort of got me thinking about, you know, back when, when we were starting out, I was starting out people that I looked up to in the industry, right? And that inspired me in one way or the other to sort of go down this path and to do work that I was proud of and all those kind of good things like that. So I thought maybe we would talk a little bit about that today. Oh, yeah.
Don (02:33)
I love it. love it. Did you ever meet Ron?
Okay. Okay. I never met I never met either Ron or Joe. Yeah.
Rob (02:36)
I worked with him. Yeah.
Or Joe.
The ⁓ no, it's a good book. It's a good book. Here's my here's my quick little plug for the book. It's advertisers anonymous. It's obviously a play on a 12 steps ⁓ and all that. Not making light of it, of course, but ⁓ and it's an easy to read. ⁓ It's kind of in little stories and snippets, so it's not it's not. It's a great ⁓ it's a great travel read, I'll say. ⁓
Don (02:44)
I mean, just being in Atlanta.
Yeah. Sure. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Is it kind of like the Rick Rubin book I know that we had talked about and that sort of like little different vignettes of like, I like that kind of approach. I think that's
Rob (03:11)
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, and
it's good just, you know, ⁓ advertising war stories, anecdotes, know, lessons learned, all those things. I do recommend it. It's a good book. So congrats to Ron. ⁓ I was on the socials and we're connected on the socials and he mentioned it on there. So I ordered it off the Amazon. I went back to Amazon's roots and actually bought a book on Amazon.
Don (03:27)
Okay. How did you come across it? Okay.
There you go. Okay.
Okay.
Amazing, amazing. If only you bought a book from Amazon on one of those old 10 inch or 13 inch IMAX that was like the blueberry colored with the big deep thing and the wacky mouse and all that. You know, I feel like I used to order books on Amazon on one of those little little little Macs, you know, back in the day. So
Rob (03:46)
which was amazing.
yeah, ⁓ yeah.
Yeah, there's
like a space, they were in all the different colors.
Don (04:08)
Yeah, I wonder
what those go for on eBay or something like that, you know, I bet they're still out there people selling them and stuff You know, so yeah, that's crazy alright, so ⁓
Rob (04:14)
Of course they are, I'm sure they are. ⁓ But that got me thinking
because when I came out of school ⁓ being Portfolio Center, ad school, back in, gosh, the late 90s we'll say, ⁓ early alts, ⁓ there was a, so Ron Huey, it was a writer, and he had, for those who don't know, ⁓ and his ⁓ art director partner was a guy by the name of Joe Paprocki.
Don (04:28)
Mm-hmm.
Rob (04:42)
And they had kind of bounced all over. They were in Minneapolis at Fallon for a long time. And I think out in California, anyway, had kind of worked in a lot of big agencies and then ended up back in Atlanta ⁓ and opened a shop called Huey Paprocki, which is a great name. mean, it's yeah, it's a great name. And they opened up this, this shop. was a creative boutique. They were only, I think only as I recall, eight or nine of those guys in the basement of an old historic inn.
Don (04:56)
Yeah, it's a fantastic name. Yeah.
Rob (05:12)
in Atlanta off of North Island. And ⁓ they just started cranking out great, great work, right? So they were kind of the, know, they had a great run. think their agency was seven or eight years ⁓ and they had a great run of just, I mean, it was creative, creative, creative. They won every award in the, you know, every award in the books. And not only that, but it was, wasn't awards for the sake of awards. It was just really good.
Don (05:12)
Okay.
crushed it.
Yeah, it was awesome.
Rob (05:40)
noticeable work. ⁓ And so I sort of stalked those guys a little bit. Coming out of school, I really wanted to work there and ended up ended up meeting both of them just through interviews and things. The problem with a shop like that is they don't hire all the time. Either that or my book wasn't good enough. Who really knows? But they did bring me on for a couple of freelance projects, ⁓ which was really cool. And so worked on a couple of things with them, kind of got to see how
Don (05:48)
Yeah, that's impressive.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That is cool.
Rob (06:09)
how they worked. ⁓ And then later in my career, I ended up working with Joe as an art director on a couple of campaigns and things. ⁓ So those guys to me were always something to aspire to just in terms of creative output and the work and how hard it is, but how I suppose creatively rewarding it can be.
Don (06:35)
Well, knowing how the sausage is made, When you see output, consistent output of such a stellar quality for year after year after year. And to your point, not like just creative and wacky and zany for a creative, wacky, zany sake, right? It was like, ⁓ man, that is an unbelievably smart solve for that communication challenge, right? Or like, that art direction kicks ass. I have never seen anything, you know, like.
Rob (06:45)
Yeah.
Don (07:02)
It was just hit after hit after hit for those guys. think everybody in Atlanta was like, you know, somewhat in awe, right? Of how badass everything they did. mean, it was just, the cup never ran empty. It just kept going and going and going. It was pretty impressive, so.
Rob (07:16)
Yeah, yeah,
and I think, you know, a couple of quick highlights, I suppose lessons learned. One is just the simplicity. Like you get the idea and that's great, and then you work on it and you peel it back and you work on it and you simplify it and you boil it down and boil it. And this idea that, at least from a writing standpoint, like every single letter makes a difference. And you take the headline and you write it.
Don (07:38)
Yeah.
Rob (07:41)
14 pages different ways until you, you know what I mean? And then, just the, or Joe's art direction, just simple, simple, simple, simple, to get to the ad and it's simple, but it, but, the most effective ones and what they did really well was give you that. It takes a half a beat for you to get it. You know, I, I hate ads that are just hits you over the head. Obvious. ⁓ it's always more fun to have people go, ⁓
Don (07:43)
Sure. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Rob (08:11)
And that kind of takes a
Don (08:11)
Yeah.
Rob (08:12)
minute to get. To me, that's the most effective stuff.
Don (08:14)
What is
that? that sophistication? What is that? I feel like it elevates, you know, the communication. Yeah.
Rob (08:18)
It does. Yeah, I think it does. think it
restores a little bit of faith in humanity. We're not all idiots, right? And yeah, I think it adds a little bit of sophistication to it. So I always liked that. then also too, I think one big takeaway was the balance of visual and headline. And this idea that really at the end of the day in almost every ads, the ones that are good,
Don (08:26)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Rob (08:48)
One of those does the heavy lifting and the other supports it, right? Be it the visual, which is the nice supportive line or an amazing headline with just a nice, clean, simple, straightforward, ⁓ simple art direction. And I've always tried to adhere to that balance, right? In work that we do. ⁓ So those were just a couple of ⁓ lessons I learned. And I still, you know, every now and again, I'll still ping back and forth with Joe and... ⁓
Don (08:51)
Yeah.
I tend to agree.
Yeah. Yeah.
Rob (09:16)
They're kind of on the separate paths now, but that was a really cool time in Atlanta advertising history, I think. ⁓ It was kind of a fun time.
Don (09:21)
Yeah. Yeah, I agree.
That's cool. That's cool. ⁓ I think if we think about like mentors or people that I aspire, there's a couple that like, you know, I studied or that I became familiar with through kind of the history of graphic design and things like that. Right. ⁓ But unattainable to meet for various reasons. Right. I think I think my my favorite ⁓
Rob (09:28)
We're about to.
Don (09:50)
My favorite graphic designer, right, who kind of transcended design and kind of gave me a lot of like ⁓ energy and judge of like, hey, it can be more than just making something look awesome. You know what I mean? More than just design. can be conceptual. It can be experiential. It can be experimental. You know, all these different things, right? Was a gentleman named Tibor Coleman, T-I-B-O-R, Tibor Coleman. He ran an agency in New York called ⁓ &Co, right? But the dude was just,
Rob (10:13)
Okay.
Don (10:19)
unbelievably prolific. He unfortunately passed away in his 50s, I believe. And he was married to this unbelievable illustrator too, this woman named Myra Coleman, who's done a whole bunch of books. ⁓ But the output from that studio was just unbelievable. he did a lot, all of the, ⁓ in no particular order, because it's like a greatest hits album. ⁓
Rob (10:25)
Okay, young.
Don (10:42)
He did all of the Colors magazine, the United Colors of Benetton magazine, and he did all this crazy, like really, really far out there, a really interesting graphic design. He did a lot of stuff with museums in New York. ⁓ He did, you know, and then, so he worked with like the Museum of Modern Art and some of that, but then not only that, he ended up designing all these products that ended up kind of in their gift store, right? So it's like, ⁓ the umbrella that has the...
Rob (11:05)
yeah.
Don (11:09)
It's a black umbrella, but then when you open it inside, it has like the sunny sky with the clouds, you know, like he designed that. ⁓ He designed like all these paperweights that look like balled up ⁓ legal pads and paper and stuff like that. Like he was just this unbelievable designer. I was really into the fact that he did all the Talking Heads album covers and all of their artwork, right? And not only that, he did all of their music videos, right? So he is credited with one of the first people to use typography.
Rob (11:14)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Don (11:37)
in one of the music videos, right? And the talking heads like, know, nowadays it's like, whatever, talking heads. But if you think like contextually, the talking heads were like completely, totally insane. they, like, there was nothing like the talk. It was like, what in the world am I listening to? How is this even a thing, right? And so they like projected typography on David Byrne's face and filmed him and did all these things. I mean, I could go on and on and on on and on about like how many different. ⁓
Rob (11:55)
Yeah.
Don (12:04)
awesome designs and things that I did, but he really was. I it's there's a unbelievable anthology book, ⁓ which I don't have right now. I can't pull it on screen, but ⁓ just a retrospective of his entire career. Tibor Coleman. And I will say it's probably the only graphic design book that I have literally read every single word to, you know, like, yeah, a lot of design books and anthology. It's kind of, you know, it's a show and tell. I mean, you kind of look through things, you know, you know what mean? It's a picture book, right?
Rob (12:24)
Really? Yeah.
yeah, right. Sure.
Right.
Don (12:32)
I mean, I studied this thing forward to back. I was just completely infatuated with how someone could be so versatile, you know? ⁓ And I mean, they even designed their own, you know, like Christmas gifts and made their own little like chocolates and things like that. I mean, everything sort of typography. He was also famous for doing again part of the Museum of Modern Art, the watches that only would have one number on it, you know, or all the numbers were blurry and all like he did a lot of really, really cool. ⁓
Rob (12:40)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Don (13:01)
experimental design things which is just ⁓ incredible designer. So it's based in New York based in New York. Yeah.
Rob (13:05)
And he was based in New York, I'm assuming. So
I wonder what, cause yeah, the talking heads were always known for just artistic endeavors, right? So I wonder if they just ran in the same circles or how that, and then it's also interesting to think about the fact that usually, not all the time, but it seems like typically artists have all kinds of different artists working on different albums or different poster designs or things like that.
Don (13:13)
Yeah, yeah.
I have no idea. I have no idea.
Rob (13:34)
I mean, you have some stalwarts, But they're stalwarts, but a lot of times they kind of mix it up. So interesting that they used him for all their stuff.
Don (13:41)
Yeah.
I think colors is probably what is most well known for. I mean, if you like Google, Tibor Coleman, it's gonna come up with all the colors thing. He did, I'm gonna screw this up, so this is not 100 % correct, but he did an issue, every single issue of colors was based on one topic, right? So everything, and it was always very controversial. It was like, here's the one about AIDS, here's the one about racism, here's the one, it was very, very, you know.
Rob (14:02)
Okay.
Don (14:11)
aggressive, right, by design. And he did one about race and it was like, he did, this is all like pre Photoshop. I mean, this is like the eighties and stuff, right? mean, so, I mean, we did have photo manipulation, but it wasn't like what it is now. And it was like, I think he made Arnold Schwarzenegger, like a black guy. He made the Pope Chinese, like he changed everybody's races, right? And it was all about what does that mean for your perception of how you view those people, right?
Rob (14:32)
Yeah.
Don (14:40)
He made, you know, ironically, I believe one of the things was Michael Jackson became a white guy. You know, was like things like that. It was, I know, shocking, right? So it's, anyway, he was just a really interesting, interesting graphic designer ⁓ that did the transcended design outside of just graphic images into like all these different aspects of your life. It's really, really interesting. So he's definitely someone that I really studied and admired. So for sure.
Rob (15:05)
Yeah. Well, and it's interesting
when people are, you know, that creative and prolific, I suppose, ⁓ that the advertising or graphic design in this case transcends graphic design and becomes a thing and a product or a you know what I mean? It's like, ⁓ or an advertising, becomes a cultural moment, right? Like,
Don (15:20)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, totally, totally.
Anybody else for you? I mean, I can keep going. I've got more on my list, but
Rob (15:36)
I mean,
you know, the folks that I looked up to were all, know, yeah, I mean, there's all kinds of writers and, you know, the Luke Sullivan's of the world, I'm dating myself, but that were great. You know, I think what was another really inspiring time, and again, this is years and years and years ago, but when, as a shop, when Crispin was putting out all that crazy work.
Don (16:01)
story.
Rob (16:03)
and they had a
crazy run where they were doing mini and Burger King and Volkswagen. mean, they had, they had everything under the sun. And it was like, you were kind of jealous because it, it, it seemed like they were allowed to do whatever they wanted. You know, if you look back at like subservient chicken, and again, I'm, dating myself, but younger folks go, go look that stuff up because there's lessons to be learned there. But it just seemed like they could do
Don (16:06)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
I know, I know.
I was just gonna say, some Serbian chicken was incredible, man. Yeah. Yeah.
Rob (16:32)
No wrong at the time. And not only did they have the biggest accounts, but they were doing the best work. And you don't often get that combo. And to your point, again, and again, and again, and again, it was not a one hit. ⁓
Don (16:33)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
I think
what was cool about that time too was, especially as it related to Mini, and we're talking Mini Coopers, right? ⁓ Was print magazine was still huge. mean, print magazines in general. I mean, just the concept of print. Like you'd still go to Tower Records or you go wherever and like people bought magazines. I mean, it's still a very physical thing. And so their media placement of all these different brands in different places was incredible too. You know, so. ⁓
Rob (16:52)
Yeah.
Yeah.
It was awesome.
Don (17:11)
their print campaigns were just legit. I mean, now we're in a digital world and everything's got to be viewed through the prism of your phone and all this, you know, but like their print design was just spectacular. I mean, to the point where like I had like file folders where I would tear out all of their ads that I knew that they had done and I would keep like I keep a running tally of all those kick ass mini ads.
Rob (17:32)
That's because
most of the time they weren't just pages in a magazine. They would come up with some wacky insert piece and, you know, a puzzle or a magnet. all.
Don (17:36)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean,
they put in like iron on transfers, scratch and sniff things. I mean, it was very yeah, they were pretty badass. So were you teaching at that time when Crispin was rocking? It was Crispin Porter Bogusky. All right. Yeah, because every every student I taught, it was like, I want to work at Crispin. I want to work at like, mean, that was everybody's dream was to get out of creative circus, move to Miami.
Rob (17:44)
yeah.
⁓ Yeah, I think so. I think that did overlap when I was teaching.
Yeah, yeah.
and go to them.
That's right.
Don (18:04)
right? Because they
were in Miami and then they opened up a thing in Colorado, think, right? Denver or somewhere. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I just I can't even imagine what it would be like working there, though. It's probably just all day every day. mean, work life balance probably did not exist just for the record. So yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, interesting. Yeah, that was that's a great. That's a good account. So
Rob (18:09)
Yeah, maybe somebody fact check us, but yeah.
Well, that was the other thing I was going to say. There's no balance. There's no life. There's no life in that equation.
Don (18:31)
I mean, the other person for me personally, I would give a shout out to one of my professors had a, this is how teachers make an impact on your life, right? know, Bernard Knieff, shout out, Bern, feel the Bern, right? ⁓ Was this crazy Welshman who came to SCAD and taught in whenever I went to college in the mid 90s. ⁓ And I ended up having him for three different classes and he ⁓ was an unbelievable professor.
Rob (18:41)
Yeah.
Shout out.
Don (18:59)
⁓ and still is an unbelievable professor is an under unbelievable. He's trained a gajillion people that are totally awesome. ⁓ He's still he he's still teaching. Yeah, he's still teaching. He is out at the university. I'm gonna screw this up. It's the University of Iowa. He's out of Iowa. He's at Iowa State where he is Iowa State, not the Hawkeyes. He's at the cyclones, right? He was the Dean out there. That's why I was on the advisory council for a while. He invited me to be on the advisory council and I went out there and
Rob (18:59)
Yeah.
Who is he still teaching, do know?
Okay.
Yeah.
Don (19:28)
gave that speech and everything like that for a couple days. Yeah, he was an unbelievably kick ass awesome professor that really helped shape design philosophies and things like that. Right. And so I would say, you know, is he a mentor? Absolutely. Like he totally helped foster the love, you know, and then we, you know, post graduation, we became, you know, great friends. He'd come and visit. I mean, you know, he had twins and bottle feed the babies since, you know, I mean, it was, yeah, he's a
Rob (19:39)
Yeah.
Sure.
Yeah,
Don (19:56)
He's a great dude. I don't get to see him enough.
Rob (19:57)
that's cool when that happens though.
Don (19:59)
Yeah, yeah. He was a really, he's a really, really cool. He's a really, really cool guy. So ⁓ yeah, I mean, so I would say T-Bor is probably my number one burns, probably my number two. And then if I had to, if I had to do a, not a Mount Rushmore, but a number three, I was, there was a time I was infatuated. This is kind of funny. There was a time I was infatuated with ⁓ the publication graphies right from a design perspective. It was always graphies was like,
Rob (20:23)
Sure. Yeah.
Don (20:25)
the creme de la creme of all the best posters, all the best whatever. And I used to buy all their books and they were crazy expensive. And there was a firm in all their books all the time called Studio Archetype out in San Francisco. Studio Archetype, right? And hilariously enough, their creative director was a guy named Clement Mock. But M-O-K, not M-O-C-K. Clement Mock. And they just cranked out unbelievably awesome work in the 90s, late 90s.
Rob (20:37)
Okay.
Wow, another mock.
Don (20:55)
crushing it on a design front. ⁓ Then they opened up, they got UPS as an account, they opened up a branch in Atlanta and not dissimilar to you and your Ron story, like I stalked them until I finally got a job interview, you know, went in there. ⁓ I did not get the job just for the record. ⁓
Rob (20:56)
Yeah.
Don (21:15)
And but that's another good like I haven't thought about those. just literally thought about that right now. I haven't thought about them and forever. I don't know whatever happened to them or where they went. I mean, I kind of went off on my own path and did whatever but they had a good run in the 90s from a sheer graphic design perspective studio archetype. So he did I'm trying to think of what they did. I know he did the Mirage out in Vegas did their entire brand, which is just his handwriting actually, you know, in the sketch of the trees. Yeah, it's a scribble, you know.
Rob (21:29)
Yeah. Yeah.
Well.
Yeah, because that's great. Yeah.
Don (21:45)
I'm can't, I'm drawing a blank on everything else, but another great design.
Rob (21:48)
It's either lazy
or brilliant. It's hard to...
Don (21:51)
Yeah, I mean, I think the
article that I read was, you know, everything went through all these different iterators. I couldn't couldn't crack the nut. You know what I mean? Like just design after design. It couldn't do what they wanted. And then it was one of those like, yeah, just write it. Just let me write it out and see if it comes. And then it was like, there it is. Yeah. Yeah, there we go. You know, that type of yeah, it is. It is so any other any. Did you have any other professors or any anything on the sort of academia side of life?
Rob (22:00)
Yeah. Yeah.
Wait a minute, yeah. It's funny how that happens.
I
mean, I could go on and on. There's a couple more Atlanta guys. Shout out to Brad Ramsey and Jeff Cole. They were creative partners forever and went on to manage and run ⁓ three advertising, if you remember three. They were always great just from a, they did great work as well, but more so for their, I had them both as teachers at Portfolio Center. Yeah. ⁓
Don (22:36)
Okay.
nice, okay.
Rob (22:50)
studied under both of them and they were just very, it's interesting because teachers have obviously a critical role and the difference between the people that you sort of see from afar and admire their creative work versus the people that are actually hands on teaching you how to do like it's a pretty interesting thing. But those guys were great, kept in touch with them for a long time. Trone, remember they were at Trone.
Don (23:13)
Yeah.
yeah, I remember Trone, yeah.
Rob (23:16)
Yeah,
so they were the creative directors at Trone for a long time and then they went to three. ⁓ I'd have to look and it's been a minute. I have to look and see if they're what those guys are doing now, but they were they were great too. And you know, I think and we'll come around the corner here. ⁓ But you know, I would say for people out there, if there's a lesson to take away from this or a takeaway, it's find the people that really inspire you and go stalk them.
Don (23:23)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, totally.
To a certain level. Yeah. Yeah.
Rob (23:47)
And I mean that lovingly. ⁓
Go show them that they made an impression on you. And if that's where you want to work or you want to go and do, make sure that's abundantly clear. ⁓ So I would say go do that and pay attention. Pay attention and find and take the time to learn the lessons and do the things and ask the questions and all those things.
Don (23:56)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's funny.
There was a time in my life where I read ad week every week and I was totally in the know on everybody's accounts and who everybody had and all the different agencies in town and this and that. And now I'm like, huh, I don't know. Yeah, whatever happened to those guys or what? You know, like, I don't have that information at the tip of my tongue. I mean, I guess we're too busy, you know, working on clients, you know, running our own day, right? It's a different it's a different vibe, I guess, you know. yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah.
Rob (24:21)
Yeah.
busy and old. What's happening? So anyway, alright, well good stuff.
⁓ Where can all of those people that look up to us find us,
Don (24:41)
Yeah, super good stuff. All right.
They can send us emails through
our website at mock the agency calm and tell us how amazing we are how? unbelievably appreciated our work is how handsome and funny we are all the good things, you know, Yeah over at mock the agency calm and all the socials. So All right. Oh, it dogs are barking and on that note, we'll see you next time, right? All right. Thanks everybody
Rob (24:50)
That's right.
That's right.
all the good things.
man, man's here. Dog barking.
We'll see you next time.