Diego Segura goes through the doors that open

Summary

How Brands Are Built: Diego Segura Goes Through the Doors That Open

Episode Release Date: March 1, 2021

---

Introduction

In this compelling episode of How Brands Are Built, host Rob Meyerson delves into the extraordinary journey of Diego Segura, a young designer and writer who defied conventional educational paths to secure a transformative apprenticeship at Collins, a renowned brand strategy and design firm. This episode sheds light on the power of self-education, relentless networking, and the importance of inclusive programs in the design industry.

Brian Collins Sets the Stage (00:09 – 06:37)

Rob Meyerson begins the episode by referencing the previous interview with Brian Collins, the Chief Creative Officer at Collins. Brian introduces Diego Segura, a high school dropout from Leander, Texas, who sought an internship focused on diversity and inclusion. Brian recounts Diego’s impressive initiative and dedication, highlighting how Diego’s determination led him to fly to New York City with his mother to secure an internship opportunity.

Brian Collins [05:20]: “He saved up his money, he brought his mother and they flew to New York. He saved up his money. He works after school. Like, he works after school. He does like some freelance work.”

Brian further discusses how Diego excelled during his internship, leading to an extended apprenticeship and eventually becoming a full-time associate designer at the age of 18. Brian emphasizes the value Diego brings to Collins and how his presence has enriched the team.

Diego Segura’s Journey (06:50 – 47:43)

Early Background and Introduction to Design (07:14 – 11:09)

Diego Segura, the guest of the episode, shares his origins from Leander, Texas, a suburb of Austin. Growing up away from the bustling design hubs like New York City, Diego discovered his passion for graphic design through online platforms and self-teaching.

Diego Segura [07:25]: “The backdrop through which I kind of learned about design was in the suburbs, just going to school, pretty normal life. But then I kind of discovered design through the Internet and YouTube and started to teach myself.”

He recounts his initial foray into design by creating forum banners on hacking forums using basic tools like GIMP, sparking his interest in graphic design despite lacking formal education or training.

Decision to Dropout and Pursue Design (13:09 – 19:30)

At 16, Diego realized the potential of his design skills after an internship at a home builder in Austin, where he automated tasks using Python, freeing up time to focus on design. This experience solidified his commitment to graphic design, leading him to make the bold decision to leave high school prematurely to pursue his passion.

Diego Segura [14:16]: “I think within a couple months, I did get somebody to pay me to do a logo. And I made like 500 bucks. And it became very real when you get your first little paycheck from doing design.”

Diego authored “The Dropout Manifesto,” a self-published book outlining his rationale for dropping out and his plans to self-educate in design. This manifesto chronicles his journey of networking and skill development, ultimately leading him to secure roles as a designer and copywriter before reaching out to Collins.

Networking and Reaching Out (16:23 – 19:00)

Diego emphasizes the critical role of networking in his journey. From cold emailing industry leaders and attending startup events at Austin’s Capital Factory to persistently reaching out to influential designers, Diego leveraged every opportunity to connect with mentors and gain exposure.

Diego Segura [40:26]: “Expressing what I was ambitious about, and asking for more meetings for other people that they knew. Because it turns out when you meet people and connect with people, they're also connected to people.”

Despite early rejections, such as being turned away by Pentagram Austin, Diego’s perseverance paid off when renowned designer Michael Beirut responded to his emails, leading to supportive introductions and eventual opportunities.

Landing the Apprenticeship at Collins (23:16 – 28:38)

Upon reaching out to Brian Collins, Diego impressed Collins with his portfolio and determination, leading to his apprenticeship at Collins. Diego describes his initial weeks shadowing senior designers, particularly Leo Porto, who entrusted him with significant projects despite Diego’s limited formal training.

Diego Segura [27:03]: “The key to the start as an apprentice, when nobody knows exactly what you're capable of, frankly, I didn't know what I could do. That's why I doubted myself so much.”

Through hands-on experience and mentorship, Diego rapidly developed his skills, contributing to major projects like the redesign of Medium. His story underscores the potential for growth when given the right opportunities and support.

The Importance of Internship and Apprenticeship Programs (23:34 – 35:18)

Diego discusses the pivotal role that structured internship and apprenticeship programs play in diversifying the design industry. These programs provide access to opportunities for individuals who might otherwise lack exposure to professional design environments.

Diego Segura [25:07]: “The goal of that internship is to bring them in and expose them to everything we can find for them, which is having them shadowing client meetings and having them learn about different studios and different designers.”

He highlights how Collins’ intentional approach to mentorship fosters an inclusive environment where young talents can thrive, bridging gaps for those from underrepresented backgrounds.

Changing the Design Industry Through Inclusivity (35:18 – 37:24)

Diego advocates for a paradigm shift in how design studios approach hiring. By moving beyond traditional educational credentials and valuing self-taught skills, studios can unlock a wealth of untapped talent.

Diego Segura [35:26]: “They are so, so, so good. They constantly question myself and see, geez. Why don't they have the apprenticeship? These people are talented.”

He urges studios to embrace diversity not just for tokenism but for the genuine business benefits and enriched creative perspectives it brings. Diego envisions a more inclusive industry where talent is recognized regardless of background or formal education.

Advice for Aspiring Designers (37:24 – 45:05)

Diego imparts valuable advice to those aspiring to break into the design field:

1. Reach Out: Actively connect with industry professionals, express your ambitions, and seek mentorship.

   Diego Segura [40:26]: “Make a lot of friends and leave a good impression on these people because you never know. It might be in five years or in 10 years even, or it might be in six months, you might get your first internship, or they might know somebody who has an internship opening and can make an introduction.”

2. See the Whole Board: Maintain a broad perspective on career opportunities, ensuring you’re open to diverse roles and pathways within design.

   Diego Segura [41:26]: “I think the same thing goes for when you're chasing something in your career. I was very tunnel visioned about Collins, but that was after having my eyes wide open to the wide world of possibilities in design.”

He emphasizes the importance of flexibility and continuous learning, encouraging individuals to explore various facets of design to discover their true passions and strengths.

Future Plans and Continuous Growth (45:05 – 47:43)

When asked about his future, Diego remains open-minded, considering various possibilities from running his own studio to freelancing or continuing his journey at Collins indefinitely.

Diego Segura [45:26]: “It might happen that I go freelance for a couple years. It might happen that I stay at Collins until I'm 85 years old.”

He aligns his aspirations with the philosophy of embracing opportunities as they arise, staying committed to excellence in his current role while remaining receptive to future ventures.

Conclusion

Rob Meyerson wraps up the episode by commending Diego’s inspiring journey and resilience. Diego’s story is a testament to the impact of self-driven learning, strategic networking, and the significance of inclusive apprenticeship programs in shaping the future of the design industry.

Rob Meyerson [47:12]: “I can't wait to see where those different doors lead you. Diego, thanks so much for making time. It's been really interesting and inspiring to hear your story.”

Key Takeaways

• Self-Education is Powerful: Diego leveraged online resources to build his design skills without formal training.
• Networking is Crucial: Persistent outreach and relationship-building opened doors that conventional paths might not have.
• Inclusive Programs Enrich the Industry: Apprenticeships like Collins’ internship program foster diversity and unveil hidden talents.
• Flexibility and Openness: Keeping an open mind about career paths allows for unexpected and fulfilling opportunities.

Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Brian Collins [05:20]: "He saved up his money, he brought his mother and they flew to New York."
• Diego Segura [07:25]: "But then I kind of discovered design through the Internet and YouTube and started to teach myself."
• Diego Segura [14:16]: "And I made like 500 bucks. And it became very real when you get your first little paycheck from doing design."
• Diego Segura [40:26]: “Make a lot of friends and leave a good impression on these people because you never know.”
• Diego Segura [41:26]: “I was very tunnel visioned about Collins, but that was after having my eyes wide open to the wide world of possibilities in design.”
• Rob Meyerson [47:12]: “I can't wait to see where those different doors lead you.”

---

This episode not only chronicles Diego Segura’s remarkable path into the design world but also serves as an insightful guide for aspiring designers seeking unconventional but effective routes to success. His story underscores the importance of determination, strategic networking, and the transformative potential of inclusive apprenticeship programs in the creative industry.

Transcript

[Rob Meyerson]

Welcome to How Brands Are Built, where branding professionals get into the details of what they do and how they do it. I'm your host, Rob Meyerson. Thanks for listening. Today's episode is brought to you by squadhelp, the world's number one naming platform. Last episode featured Brian Collins, chief creative officer of Collins, an independent strategy and brand experience design company. As I mentioned in that episode, the person who originally put me in touch with Brian was Diego Segura, a design apprentice at Collins. Diego reached out in response to a call I put out on social media for interviewees who could speak to diversity and inclusion in the agency world. He suggested I learn about the internship program at Collins, which focuses on high school students of color. So in the last episode, Brian talked about the impetus for the internship program and how it's going. Now, if you haven't listened already, I suggest you go back and check it out. But today I wanted to get Diego's story. Diego is a designer and writer. He's written Two to a Man, Much Like Myself, and the Dropout Manifesto. In case you're wondering about that second title. Yes, Diego is a high school dropout, and instead of going to college, he's doing his apprenticeship at Collins. In today's conversation, I'll ask him all about his personal story, as well as his point of view on how the design and branding world can be more inclusive. But first, here's a short clip of Brian, who provides some context for the conversation with Diego.

[Brian Collins]

You know, Rob, it's so interesting to me the number of young designers who are fluent who start looking at this career in junior high school or even high school, and because of the transparency and the ease of the interfaces of so many of the design programs and systems so many young people teach themselves. And because there's so many good tutorials, whether it's from any of the brands, whether it's Figma, which is incredible, Adobe, any of the software tools that people use. The students and high school students and even junior high school students are teaching them all of these skills. So we've oddly become, because probably because of our work with Twitch and Spotify, we seem to be well known to high school students who want to pursue a career in design. So we got a phone call and an email from. We get scores of them, actually, from those who want to know about how do you start a career in design? And Diego's was particularly interesting because he'd sent a video, and it was a long video. It might have been like 20 or 15 minutes. And I said, I'm not going to look at a 15 or 20 minute video. Send me one that's less than five minutes. And two days later I got an edited five minute video from Diego Segura, high school student who's the child of an immigrant parent from Mexico. He grew up near Austin and he's fascinated by design board by high school. And he wanted to work with us that summer as an intern. So I said to him, well, when you're in New York sometime, I'd be very happy to meet you to consider you for our internship program. So, you know, I think that would be the end of it because I really could only work with interns who are either in San Francisco or in New York. I got a phone call, like on a Friday. They said, brian, yeah, are you open this afternoon? Like, what do you mean I'm in New York? He saved up his money, he brought his mother and they flew to New York. He saved up his money. He works after school. Like, he works after school. He does like some freelance work. He put his money away and he flew, he and his mother. He was 17. He flew to New York and he waited in my lobby until I had time to meet with him. He waited all afternoon, assertive. And I said, okay. I came out to meet him and it was a very nice meeting. He showed me his book. He'd written this book called the Dropout Manifesto. He was self published. I look at his work and for a high school student, I think he was doing second year college student design work. Easily, easily second year college design. Like, well. And he was 17. I'm like, all right. I said, this is really interesting. Let me think about it. This is still the spring. He said, thank you very much. It was nice meeting you. And I let it go. And he called me up and he said, well, are we going to make this happen? I said, yes. And he said, okay, well, let me think about it. And so he said, are you going to be around next week? And I said yes. He came back to New York and he said, are you free today? I said, what? Can I come and talk with you? Yeah. He just showed up again in New York City on a Saturday. I said, sure, I'll make some time. And I wanted to know exactly how serious this kid was. So I did. What I sometimes do with someone is I do errands in New York on a Saturday. I just walk around, I go to bookstores, I'll go to a store, I'll go shopping. I said, this is what I do on a Saturday. Do you want to join me. And he said, sure. I basically walked around New York City with him. He hung out with me all day long as I went to bookstores, shopping, got some food, we had dinner. We bumped into friends that I knew. At the end of that day, he put up with everything. And then I brought him back to the team. He interviewed with all the creative directors and Yokosa lachapelle, and he said, this kid should be an intern. So he came to New York, he got himself an apartment, and he was an intern that summer at Collins just as he turned 18.

[Rob Meyerson]

That's great.

[Brian Collins]

Yeah. And then he was so good, he did not want to go to college. And so we extended the internship into an apprenticeship. He so over delivered and so worked so hard. The other members of our team really liked him and we made him a full time employee at the beginning of last year. So he started in January of 2020 as a full time associate designer as part of our apprenticeship program. And he has stuff he has to do, he has stuff he has to read, he has stuff he has to write. But if you've seen the redesign of Medium, you've seen his work.

[Diego Segura]

Wow.

[Brian Collins]

At 18 years old. So now he also did that with the other members of the team who were just like, remarkable. And George Lavender and Nick Ace, who led that team, welcomed him into that work. And so I think we've had a good opportunity to create a space for young people to kind of work together.

[Diego Segura]

Well, that's great. And I'm looking forward to talking to Diego and hearing about his personal story and his experience.

[Brian Collins]

Yeah, I think it was good, you know, and I think Diego's life has changed. He was, you know, a high school student a year and a half ago in Austin. Now he's an associate designer and he has an apartment in Brooklyn.

[Rob Meyerson]

Now that you've heard that little intro from Brian, here's Diego Segura, design apprentice at Collins.

[Diego Segura]

Diego, thanks so much for joining me on the podcast.

Thank you, Rob.

Appreciate you having me.

We just talked to Brian and I heard from his perspective a lot about Collins, and he talked a little bit about you. But I'd love to hear just from your point of view, can you start by telling us just a little bit about yourself, your background, your design experience and so on?

Yeah, for sure. I'm Diego. I'm the apprentice currently at Collins. I'm from Austin, Texas, about 30 minutes.

Outside of the city, a relatively small.

Suburb outside of Austin called Leander, Texas. Needless to say, it is the furthest away you could possibly get. From the high design brand world that.

Is New York City.

That was my background. The backdrop through which I kind of learned about design was in the suburbs, just going to school, pretty normal life. But then I kind of discovered design through the Internet and YouTube and started to teach myself. One thing led to another and I've.

Ended up here doing this apprenticeship and.

It'S been pretty fantastic.

You said you started to learn about design when you were living in Texas. Did you take design classes growing up or in high school or anything like that? Or was it really through your own research online?

No classes, no formal training? It's funny that you ask.

I've revisited this introduction to graphic design.

And it's actually one of the questions.

I really love to ask other graphic designers or creators in general.

How did you discover the thing that you do? I think graphic design is an oddly specific skill set. Photography. Every family had a camera and so.

You probably were exposed to a camera.

As a young person and took a specific liking to it.

Or maybe the game of chess.

You had a chess board at your family home. Graphic design is not something that you.

Naturally run into on a Saturday night. But as a kid, the way I.

Ran into graphic design was actually because I hung out on these hacking forums because as a third grader I wanted to be some sort of programmer, developer, hacker.

I was just fascinated with computers.

And on these hacking forums they always.

Had graphic design sections.

I'm not sure exactly what the overlap was between selling illegal credit cards and graphic design.

Well, you got to be able to design a realistic looking credit card, right?

Apparently, yeah. I'm sure some of these guys are doing fake IDs and all sorts of crazy stuff. So through that I started to see these really cool. I don't know if you remember being on message boards and people had their.

Little signatures at the bottom of the messages.

People would make all these custom little.

Banners that they put down with their cool usernames.

And it was all matrix looking because they were on hacking forums and wanted to look like the most elite programmer in the community. That was kind of my introduction to graphic design. Sure enough, I started making banners for these people on the forums. They were awful. They were awful cheesy. I was using just dafont and whatever free fonts I could find on the Internet. It was awful, but it was really, really fun. I used to make myself a new forum banner every couple days and it was fascinating to me. And I'd gotten started with gimp, the GNU image manipulation program, Free as can be. And that was my Start. I didn't take it too seriously. It's not that I learned about graphic design per se. I just knew I wanted to make.

These forum banners and I knew I.

Wanted to make little logos for myself and I used to play video games and we'd have me and my friends would make a team and I would.

Design a logo for the team.

It was all kind of branding from a young age. But I didn't take it too seriously at that point.

But at least that was an introduction.

That later on, when I did Kindle an interest in graphic design, I kind.

Of knew where to start.

Right. I'm sure you didn't know. You probably didn't have the terminology to call it graphic design or branding. Maybe didn't know that you could even do that for a living. But then once you saw it, I assume it all kind of clicked. Like, oh, this is what I want to do 100%.

Yeah, well, and quickly. I can touch on when that clicked. It clicked later on when I did my first internship, it was really just a summer job at a home builder in Austin, Texas, and I got to.

Work in the office.

I was 16 years old, mind you, the introduction to all these hacking forms and graphic design.

I was probably 10, 11 years old, scouring the Internet uninhibited by any privacy.

Parental restrictions, for better and for worse. At 16, I did this internship and.

I was working on spreadsheets. Rob.

It was awful. I was plugging in numbers and just exporting things over. I'd written some programs in Python to make the work faster. I had quite a bit of free time by the end of my internship because I'd automated most of the antiquated process. Then I remembered that I loved graphic.

Design and there was some sort of.

T shirt somebody was making. They wanted to do a T shirt. I jumped on the opportunity to mock.

Up some versions of this T shirt.

And people thought it was really cool. I don't have the files anymore. I'm sure it was awful. Too bad, too. But I was more aware of the business world.

I knew what a freelancer was.

I knew what it meant to actually make money at that point. That summer, I'd also bought myself a new laptop from my money doing that summer job. It was at that point when it clicked that, like you said, I started to put this skill that I had.

Used on and off over the years to make random cool stuff for myself.

And really say, well, hey, I could.

Actually make some money.

And If I made $500 doing a logo, that's awesome. And I could do that in school while still in high school.

Of course, the school didn't last long, but that's another 10.

Well, yeah, let's talk about that, because what I'd love to know is how you got from small town Texas to New York City and Collins and I understand you didn't go to college, but I'm not sure sort of what the decision making process was. Did you move to New York without a job just to experience New York, or did you find out about Collins and that's what brought you to New York? How did that connection happen?

Sure.

The bullet point version is this didn't go to college, didn't finish high school properly. So after that, I guess it kind of starts at that internship. I went back to high school for my junior year. 17 years old, I realized that I could possibly hone this design skill set.

And make some money.

I think within a couple months, I.

Did get somebody to pay me to do a logo.

And I made like 500 bucks. And it became very real when you get your first little paycheck from doing design. That year, I remember distinctly walking into my art teacher, into my art teacher's classroom. I was very quick to go grab a marker and go to the whiteboard. I said, Ms. Kacen, come here. I'm going to show you my plan. I'm going to be a graphic designer by the end of the year, and I'm not going to go to my senior year of high school. And she said, what, of course you're going to do, you're going to graduate. You're not going to. But I mean, yeah, I want you to do cool things, but you're going to graduate.

I said, no, no, no, no, no.

Ms. Kacen, here's what's going to happen. I wrote up on the board, I wrote three bullet points. I don't remember exactly what it was.

I think it was theory, practice and portfolio.

Very McKinseyite way of explaining, mutually exclusive, collectively exhaustive. I don't know why I was so structured about this, but I said, I'm.

Going to learn the theory of design.

I'm going to go get books, I'm going to go read on the Internet.

I'm going to learn about composition and all these art terms that she had.

Been teaching us about. I'm going to practice, of course, every day. I'm going to do a logo a day for X amount of days and portfolio. I'm going to turn the theory and the practice into something tangible that I can show companies in the area. That was my threefold plan to get a graphic design internship by the next year. Of course, the part that is grossly left out of that is probably the.

Most key, which is networking.

I'm 17 years old in Leander, Texas. Trust me, there are no hyper talented brand designers the likes of the people at Collins, Pentagram, Mother, they're just not in Leander, Texas. And so the other big prong of that was I had to reach out to people in Austin. And luckily I was near a major.

City like Austin, known for creativity and design, 100%.

I was close enough to it that I started cold emailing everybody, everybody, everybody.

I emailed founders, CEOs.

There's a place called the Capital Factory in Austin which is just startups on startups. I started to get in touch with them. I remember this one guy invited me down to the Capital Factory. He spent a whole day with me introducing me to different founders. He took me to some techstars event. Of course I wasn't old enough to drink, so they gave me a drink ticket.

And then here I am standing next to the guy who invented Ethernet or something.

I forget, it was crazy. But I was just networking and networking. And of course, every time I used my age, I said, I'm 17 years old.

This is what I'm trying to do.

And everybody loved it. It's Austin. It's very forward thinking. I did that. And I even remember I went to the Pentagram office.

They have an office in Austin?

Yep, they do.

DJ Scout runs the office. And I drove up there and I just showed up cold and just knocked on the door. And that office manager looked me up.

And down and said, get the hell out of here.

Like, do you have an appointment? And I said, no, I don't have an appointment. I was just wondering if somebody, you know, wanted to help me out, you know, maybe tell me a little bit about design. I had no idea any of these things, Rob. She shooed me away so quickly. But at one point I got a little bit more ambitious. And the wonderful part of that is that it wasn't a year later that I had kind of skipped the ladder. I wasn't reaching out to office managers. I was reaching out to whoever's email I could find. And I reached out to Michael Beirut.

Michael Beirut returned many of my emails.

And then finally I said, can you introduce me to DJ Stout in Austin? He gave me DJs. I emailed DJ, and all of a sudden, a year later, I had an appointment. And the same office manager, I said.

Do you Remember me?

Last year I showed up cold and you shooed me away, but now I have an appointment.

She said, no shit.

She remembered the day she knew exactly what it was.

She said, no shit.

I can't believe it. That is just wild. That was really the important part of I had all these things working for me as far as teaching myself design. But inevitably I needed a network. Ultimately, how I got out of school.

And didn't return to my senior year was this.

I had written a book. Someone I had met at some entrepreneurial.

Meetup of some sort in the area.

He had mentioned how easy it was to self publish books on Amazon now and how you could write them and.

Get a copywriter and hire an editor.

And I wrote most of mine myself. And then I hired an editor to, to work on it with me. And I wrote the Dropout Manifesto, which was my manifesto about why was I going to go to college, let alone high school. But really it was just a book about, here's what I'm doing to educate myself and I'm making incredible progress that I wouldn't be making if I was focusing on my biology assignments right now. Because personally I don't care about that.

This is what I'm trying to go.

Do and this is how I'm going to do it. And I wrote about how I was reaching out to these people, how I would find these people's emails. It was just a chronicle of that kind of crazy. Junior year, one of the people I reached out to was David Self, a wonderful founder in Austin, Texas. And he gave me my first job. I worked there for four months as a designer and a copywriter in Austin, right on 6th Street. From there I did another remote internship. And then I reached out to Brian Collins the same way I reached out to everybody and kind of sold him on the idea of bringing me to Collins for an apprenticeship. Wow. Wow.

[Rob Meyerson]

This episode of How Brands Are Built is brought to you by squadhelp, the world's number one naming platform. Here's how Squadhelp works. You launch a naming contest to engage hundreds of naming experts. You're guided through an agency level naming process that goes beyond traditional crowdsourcing. The platform uses AI and includes name validation features such as audience testing, trademark validation, linguistic analysis, and quality scoring. And squadhelp doesn't just do naming. You can also use their platform for taglines or slogans as well as logo design. To launch your naming contest Today, go to squadhelp.com and start receiving custom name suggestions instantly. Company, brand and business name ideas by Experts.

[Diego Segura]

So in brief, what was behind the decision, you know, what was the rush, I suppose, to do this your junior year as opposed to finishing high school and then doing it? Did you just really feel that high school was not worth your time and so why not start now? Or was there something else motivating that.

Yeah, it really was dead simple that I felt like I would be wasting my time horribly. I always felt like I was wasting my time at school. That's not to say that I didn't have some fantastically influential teachers, some really smart ones.

One of my favorite teachers, Mr. Hunt.

Shout out if you're listening. One of the most incredibly intelligent people I'd ever met in my entire life.

He was a debate teacher of mine. It was great in that respect.

But at the same time, when I was networking, and I say networking loosely, I hate the term, but I was.

Reaching out to people, saying hello, asking.

Them questions, and I was meeting more fascinating people day to day. Rob I would show up to class at 9am and at 9:30 I'd have something on the calendar. And so I just walk out of.

Class and take a call.

And I wish I could find some screenshots of my calendar. I'm sitting, I'm a high school student.

I should be doing my homework.

And I literally have four, five, six meetings a day with founders. Anybody I could get in, CMOs, marketing.

Directors, design directors, typographer, anybody, anywhere. They would take little 15 minute calls.

With me and I'd ask them, how.

Did you get into design? How did you do this? What would you recommend?

How should I do my portfolio? Ask all sorts of questions, five, six calls a day.

It was insane.

My teachers, luckily most of them were pretty supportive.

They didn't ask a lot of questions.

I think, because if you have the audacity to walk out and just have.

The phone to your ear, people think.

It'S really important for me. Of course it was, though surely it wasn't an emergency.

Let's talk about getting to Collins. So you said you reached out to Brian Collins. I assume you maybe reached out to other. To others at the same time, and Brian was one of the ones that responded and maybe one of the ones you were most interested in.

For sure.

Can you talk a little bit about what it was like starting out at Collins and why you think, whether it's an apprenticeship program or an internship program, why programs like this are important and useful?

For sure. So first of all, what was the start again? It's, it's a little bit more than in high school. Internship because the high school internship has a really very simple and beautiful goal, which is to bring young people who are interested in art and maybe showing promise in art or graphic design or any sort of creative endeavor, and then.

Bringing them into a real creative studio.

And showing them the world as it is in creative professions. For example, Safiya and Cesar, who were high school interns at the same time that I had started my apprenticeship. Cesar was working on all sorts of.

Crazy illustration, beautiful art.

He very much was unaware of the world of graphic design as I know it, for example. Of course I'd entered it through reaching out to these people and learning more.

About all the studios.

I knew Pentagram and Ann Walsh, Sagmeister and Walsh before they were and Walsh. I knew all about that.

I kind of took it for granted.

That I understood the professional space of the design world. For example, Safi and Cesar were just a little less aware of that because they hadn't been exposed to it. It's not through any fault of their own, it's just they hadn't been exposed to that.

The goal of that internship is to bring them in and expose them to.

Everything we can find for them, which is having them shadowing client meetings and.

Having them learn about different studios and different designers.

Every designer in the room mentors those interns and it's fantastic, it's amazing. That said, my story was a little different simply because one, it had never been done before, but two, nobody exactly.

Knew what to expect.

I had a portfolio, but it surely.

Wasn'T of the quality of some of.

The young people that Collins has hired in the past. I was able to perform work and do Indesign and Illustrator and Photoshop. I didn't need any training per se there, though at the same time everybody was unsure of exactly what I could do or what I could handle because.

I hadn't gone to school, I didn't.

Have a true portfolio.

I hadn't been guided by any sort of professors on this is what you should show in your portfolio, this is.

How you should do it.

I very much sold my way in.

And said, take a chance, I'll figure it out as I go. And if you think I'm capable of that, then it'll all work out. My start was the first week I.

Just shadowed in different meetings. I followed Tom around and I would listen to any client call that he was on and listen to him present work and see the work that they were presenting.

And then the wonderful, incredibly talented Leo.

Porto took some time to let me kind of look over his shoulder and.

See what he was working on. At one point, he was teaching me these little tricks and shortcuts and he was like, do you know that one already? I was like, yeah, I've done that before. And a couple more like that where he would kind of gut check and.

Say, you already know this, don't you?

I was like, well, I mean, yeah, I'm not saying I know it, but I mean, I'm aware. And so I've looked back at my.

Calendar from those days and I realized that it was about two weeks in, which I never would have expected.

But it was about two weeks in before Leo was putting himself in my calendar and handing me a brain guidelines he was working on.

Said, you do it.

I remember telling Leo, yeah, I don't.

Know how to do that. I've never done a brand guideline.

He goes, yeah, but let's be honest.

You can do it.

He believed in me way more than.

I believed in myself.

My start was Leo handing me these things and saying, well, just go for it. You'll be fine. Don't worry about it, just go for it.

And then, of course, he would critique.

The work and come by and take a look at it and we'd make edits. And then I started to learn by.

Seeing how he would make edits.

It was very much trial by fire then. The more Leo gave me, the more I got to do and the more.

He trusted me with the work.

That turned into working on a packaging project that he was on for many months.

Then I ended up doing a lot.

Of that even after he wasn't on the project anymore.

The key to the start as an.

Apprentice, when nobody knows exactly what you're capable of, Frankly, I didn't know what I could do. That's why I doubted myself so much.

When Leo handed me simple tasks.

And that's not to say I was.

Running an entire design team or a design system by any means, but it.

Was just that little belief that Leo.

Said, well, here, take this one small task and do that, and then do.

A slightly bigger one. So on and so forth.

Very soon it turned into late nights.

At the office just like anybody else.

Yeah, it really speaks volumes of Collins that they were able to, frankly, take.

[Rob Meyerson]

A risk on you.

[Diego Segura]

I mean, in your own words, they sort of didn't know what to make of you. You hadn't gone to design school, they couldn't get references from design professors that you had. Had. They'd seen your portfolio, but they didn't know what you were capable of. It Sounds like you didn't even know what you were capable of at the time. I'm just wondering, is a big part of these internships or maybe more specifically what Collins has done with you? Just, is it changing the design industry? And this was something that Brian spoke to a bit in that it's bringing less traditionally trained people in and frankly, maybe bringing more diversity to the industry, even from a age, gender and racial standpoint, because it's not relying on that very traditional avenue of you go to high school, you graduate, you go to design school, you graduate, then you get an internship or your first job at a design studio.

Yeah, for sure. And this gets back to your question on, like, why is an apprenticeship like this important? And the simple answer for me is this. And this is from personal experience.

I had no idea at 16, 17.

Years old what SVA was. RISD, ArtCenter.

I had no Parsons.

These were not on my radar. The only thing that was on my.

Radar was the guidance counselor saying, hey, you have pretty good grades, you could.

Get into a lot of great schools and you're automatically accepted into ut. All that stuff, the standard college stuff.

Coming out of high school, I had no idea that these things were available.

It's funny that when I was out of high school for a year already.

Joining Collins, people said, well, why didn't.

You go to art school?

I said, to be completely frank, I.

Made my dropout decision before I knew any of those things existed. I didn't know you could go to school really for design. Which sounds stupid, but it just wasn't.

I wasn't thinking about it.

And so when you look at the.

Broader industry, I would venture to guess that the people who get into design somehow were made aware of it.

Well, obviously they were made aware of it at one point. And I would guess that a lot of lower income high schools, for example.

The high school I went to was.

The lowest income in our district.

We weren't made aware of those things maybe as much as we could have been or should have been.

And so it's a clear discrepancy between going to a wealthy school where, oh yeah, my friend is the director of marketing, my friend's mom is the director of marketing at some massive corporation. And so they're aware of that. What you end up with is, of course, the ideal thing is that we reform K12 education in a lot of ways. That's kind of where I stand on, we need to do a better job of preparing people for the real world, but also giving them a truly holistic Education. That's why I'd always felt like I was wasting my time at school. But on the other hand, that's more.

Of a long term solution though, right? It's not going to happen overnight.

Exactly. That's a much more long term solution. The short term solution is this. The people who didn't discover design when they were in high school making a decision about college, a lot of them still discovered it somehow. And so I get a lot of people reaching out to me via email who find me on the Collins website.

And say, you're a design apprentice.

I would love that. That sounds like my ideal role. And I always ask them, well, how did you discover design?

A lot of them had no idea until 22, 23, they met somebody who.

Went to design school and now they wanted to do it.

And it turns out they're teaching themselves.

And getting really, really good, Rob. Really, really good. And they're not doing it by paying a lot of money for design school, they're doing it by teaching themselves, meeting.

Other designers, getting better, getting critiques. It's pretty insane how much better you.

Can get at graphic design from scratch, right?

And for free. For free or relatively cheap. Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, I've had a very similar experience, I suppose. I mean, my trajectory was very different than yours and I'm not a designer, but just in the fact that I had no idea that branding was a thing. And most brand strategists that I've met throughout my career, almost, it's, you know, it's almost to a person, they, quote, unquote, fell into it. You know, they were trying, they were shooting for something else and just kind of somehow got bumped off that path into brand strategy and thought, oh, this is fantastic, this is what I really want to do. And had I only known it existed now, maybe that's less and less common these days, but. But yeah, I think a point that I've made many times is just that I think what I wish I had known growing up was just the incredible diversity of occupations out there. You know, I think I really, you know, even children's books, you know, they say you can be all these things, but it's always the same 30 things, right? It's like you can be a postal worker or a teacher or, you know, a fireman or a scientist, quote unquote. But even within each of those, there's a thousand shades of what it means to be that kind of, to be in that world. And so I think just like you say designer, I mean designer is what, like 5,000 different jobs? Probably. So I think knowing that sooner would be really useful.

100%.

Undoubtedly, I had an advantage by figuring something out that I wanted to do.

Young Collins was small enough where Brian still had the time to personally champion.

A young person who he thought would be a good apprentice through the organization.

If it wasn't for that, it would have been a problem. Collins was also big enough that they weren't a tiny studio where they can't really afford to take a risk like that. It was kind of the perfect organization to test pilot something like this. Of course, after six months, I was able to work on some of these projects and I would say provide a lot of value. Again, I'm significantly younger than all the other designers, so by all means, I lack experience.

I would never in a million years.

Claim that I am as good as some of the people I work with. These are the most talented designers I've ever met, and I've met a lot of designers. There's that challenge. But at the same time, I've been able to provide value. The message then is for all those.

Studios, smaller studios or even larger ones, that you get someone reaching out to you. A young kid who's.

And when I say young kid, that.

Doesn'T even mean a kid per se.

That just means someone who's trying to break into the design scene and do really good work.

They email me all the time, and.

I know they email Brian all the time. You can say, well, you need to work on your portfolio and you need to do this and you need to do that. But the reality is we need to have more conversations with those people and say, wait a second, there's some real promise here because we've seen it happen at such and such agency. Well, Collins did it, and they got these interns and apprentices, and people in the high school internship program are now graduating from design school and have really badass portfolios. They're home growing talent from the random suburbs in Texas. Why do we have to pay somebody crazy top dollar?

Because they went to a famous school.

Like the sva, the risd. Not to say that it's about money.

Or economics per se, but you can.

Take a bet on somebody who maybe has less credentials. I'm telling you now, if I was.

Out to start a studio today, I.

Would practically build it solely on young ambitious people led by a really great creative director, head of design, because the.

Level of talent who reaches out to me personally because they see I'm the.

Design apprentice on the website, the level.

Of talent is insane.

They are so, so, so good.

I constantly question myself and see, geez.

Why don't they have the apprenticeship? These people are talented. There's no doubt they can add value. It's just they didn't come from the same places that all the other designers came from. And we've got to be okay with that.

Do you think it's important? You just gave some advice, I suppose, to design studios, like you said, big and small, to be a little more open minded. Do you think it's important that they create formal internship programs or apprenticeship programs? Or is it more just that mindset shift? How would you weight those two things?

I would imagine, and I'm not a studio owner myself, but I would imagine.

It depends on the size of the organization. Collins was able to do this in.

A more organized way because they're a.

Little bit larger, not huge, but a little bit larger.

There's more people involved, there's formal HR department.

There's more structure in general at Collins.

And so for Collins to put it.

In the structure, it shows we are.

Being hyper intentional about it.

And we're doing it very much so on purpose, which, if you have the.

Ability to do that, why wouldn't you? Incredible value creation technique, if you want to put it that way. It's also just an ethically good thing to do, is to institutionalize bringing people into the fold who may otherwise not be there. That said, at a smaller studio, it.

Is about the attitude. Like you mentioned, it's less about the.

Formal, whatever you call it. You don't have to put a logo.

To your apprenticeship program, but it is whoever's in charge of hiring or whoever's in charge of recruiting.

It really is just a mindset change. And as subtle as that might seem.

You might not get credit for it.

Per se in the way that Collins is right now. Yocosta has been able to get many speaking arrangements and do these things to kind of spread the gospel of doing.

More internships and apprenticeships and bringing more.

People into the fold who otherwise wouldn't be in design. And that's great. And of course, Collins has a brand that people know and love. For the small studios. You might not get any credit for it, but hopefully you wouldn't just want to bring in people of color or people like me who come from immigrant parents. My dad immigrated to this country from Mexico. I would hope you don't do it so that you can say, oh, we have an immigrant child here. I would hope you do it because there's a genuine want in your organization to have different people around.

That's good advice. Don't do it just for the credit. And I've talked to other people and I think this came up with Brian as well. The importance of diversity is more than just getting credit for it. It's more than just doing the right thing. There are real business benefits, and I think that's becoming more and more clear over time. You gave some advice to studios. What's your advice to people that are listening to this, that maybe are in high school or college and they're hearing what you did and thinking that sounds pretty amazing. It seems like things have gone well for you and I'm sure you're very happy with where you are now at Collins. But if you had to do it over again, is there anything you would do differently? Or is there any piece of advice that you haven't already mentioned that you think people need to know in order to try to pursue doing something similar to what you've done?

Well, two things.

One is reach out.

Two is see the whole board. So I'll cover these quickly.

One, on reaching out, the number one.

Thing more than all the theory, practice and portfolio work that I did from my whiteboard sketch with Ms. Kacen, it was reaching out to people, meeting them.

Expressing what I was ambitious about, and asking for more meetings for other people that they knew.

Because it turns out when you meet.

People and connect with people, they're also connected to people.

Fascinating, that is. The number one thing is if you're learning Discord, if you're on a Discord channel for designers, or if you're on some designing forum or learning on YouTube, that's awesome. But reach out to people, make a lot of friends and leave a good.

Impression on these people.

Because you never know.

It might be in five years or in 10 years even, or it might.

Be in six months, you might get.

Your first internship, or they might know somebody who has an internship opening and.

Can make an introduction. That's really what made the difference for me. So that's one piece of advice. The second piece of advice, though, is.

To see the whole board.

And what I mean is, in chess, if you're only paying attention to one side of the board, you'll get checkmated on the other, which happens very often for amateur players as they will try to attack on one side and then completely lose on the other. I think the same thing goes for.

When you're chasing something in your career.

I was very tunnel visioned about Collins, but that was after having my eyes.

Wide open to the wide world of possibilities in design.

I spent months and months and months talking to typographers, talking to product designers.

Talking to brand designers, talking, talking to marketers and copywriters, talking to creative directors.

I spoke to a lot of different people in design before I saw Collins.

Reached out, got a response and really.

Set my sights on it. I do have some people reach out to me specifically because they want to work at Collins.

And I say, you should.

It's wonderful to work at Collins. That said, sometimes they don't know exactly why Collins specifically. And then I look at their portfolio and I say, well, wait a second.

You love Collins, but you're a filmmaker.

We're a brand design firm. Of course we do film sometimes and we do some amazing experiential design and there's more to it.

But you're a filmmaker.

Is there a way that you could lean into that love? Sure, you can admire Collins, but I know this studio so and so or this person who's a filmmaker who I met in New York City.

You should talk to them. Then they say, you're right, I love.

Film, or they love photography, or they actually love product design, or they have a real interest in software engineering and they want to blend software and product design. When I say, see the whole board. If you see a company like Collins.

And you're just tunnel visioned on them, either you know for sure or you.

Do need to step back and let everything open up. Because the fact is Collins is a team of about 50 people. There's only so many people that can.

Work at Collins and there's only so.

Many people who can work at Annual Walsh and there's only so many people who can work on a team at Pentagram. We can cry until the cows come home that we need to include more people. But in the end, there's also a numbers thing, which is columns can't hire people endlessly.

I'm sure there have been many people.

Brian wanted to hire that he said, well, we can't do that because we can't have a staff of 500 people when we don't have work for 500 people or money for 500 people. There's so many talented people. And so that is people meet me and say, well, you made it to Collins. It's possible. I say, yeah. But I also recognize that I was incredibly lucky that Brian happened to be very open to that and it was.

Feasible to do that at that point.

If not, you just got to open up your eyes because I can almost.

Guarantee you Wherever you go, even if you go to someplace where they do poor work for your first internship and.

You feel like they're not as good as all the best agencies in New York City or their hometown kind of advertising or marketing agency, I guarantee you're going to learn a whole lot from that internship. Get your first thing, go do it, and then go through all the doors that open. Trust me, you can always walk back out of them and reassess the landscape. It doesn't have to be so. It's just like when kids apply to colleges and they don't get into the one college they wanted to go to.

It'S like there's a million colleges. You'll find one.

Don't worry about it. Just go to that one, learn what.

You need to learn and then keep going.

Yeah, great advice. The only thing I'd like to end on is just what are your plans? What do you see in your future? You mentioned if you were to start your own studio, do you think that's something that might happen? Or what else do you do you hope to do?

Yeah. So it might happen.

Running my own studio.

It might happen that I go freelance for a couple years. It might happen that I stay at Collins until I'm 85 years old. There's a whole lot of possibilities and I think it actually connects to the answer I just gave on going through.

The doors that open.

A great quote that I love is, and I don't remember who said it, don't remember where I heard it, but the quote is, the next opportunity is the one you have now at Collins. I always wanted this opportunity to be here.

Of course, I could constantly be thinking.

About, well, how am I going to advance in the organization, how do I ladder my way up to design director.

And creative director, and how do I.

Earn the fancy titles? The fact is, in the short term, my job is to do as good work as I possibly can. Now at Collins, when I get off this call, I'll be back in indesign doing what I do on a daily basis. That said, the long term ambitions I think will show up and become clear to me. So long as I keep meeting new people, reading books as I constantly do.

Learning from the mentors I have at.

Collins, those things will become apparent.

Like you mentioned, how many brand strategists.

Have fallen into brand strategy as an example, I think it'll be the same thing in many ways. For my career, I'll probably fall into the next opportunity. It might be that one day I meet an amazing designer who we feel like we need to go run a studio together. Or hell, Rob, it might be that.

I end up a management consultant at McKinsey.

I have no idea. The possibilities are endless. It's my job just to tap on.

The doors, knock on the doors, see.

Which ones open and go through them when they do.

Well, I can't wait to see where those different doors lead you. Diego, thanks so much for making time. It's been really interesting and inspiring to hear your story. I wish you the best of luck at Collins and if you're not there when you're 85, I wish you the best of luck on whatever that next step in your journey is.

Thank you Rob. I really do appreciate the conversation.

Thank you.

[Rob Meyerson]

Thanks for listening to How Brands Are Built. To learn more about Collins, Visit we are collins.com youm can also learn more about Diego and see some of his work at diegosagura. Me Segura is spelled S E G and Diego's on Twitter. Diegodoes his books to a man much like myself and the Dropout Manifesto are available on Amazon. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. If so, please leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. I really appreciate it. How Brands Are Built is a production of Heirloom Agency, llc. Our logo and original podcast artwork is by Joel Sherlo with additional design work by Lacey Honda, web development by Matias Garrido. Our theme music is by Isha Erskine Project. If you're still listening, a quick programming note. This was the final interview of Season four. I'll be back soon with a wrap up episode. Until then, I'm Rob Meyerson and I'll talk to you next time.