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- [00:02]
Radim Malinage
Hey, just a quick note to say thank you for joining me on this episode. If this is your first time or you're a regular listener, please take a minute and rate the show on your chosen platform. A short review helps every show to be more visible to new listeners and provides them with value. So thank you for being here and for helping out. Thank you. Foreign.
- [00:38]
Apurva Baksi
Yeah, look, it's been a long journey, as I said, you know, from the school of hard knocks to a certain way of working and to have self reflection. I think maybe creatives have the opportunity to introspect and maybe not introspect too much. But certainly for us, we very much thought about ourselves as individuals and about the company. It's the idea of design for life. So we're spending as much time designing the business as we are designing the work or the space for the team to feel excited. And certainly over the last decade we spent a lot of time thinking about how to be better ourselves as leaders, how to foster a healthier environment, one that's empathetic, to build a team blend that has people from. You know, with 55 people we have 18 nationalities.
- [01:35]
Radim Malinage
Welcome to the Daring Creativity Podcast, a show about daring to forever explore creativity that isn't about chasing shiny perfection. It's about showing up with all your doubts and imperfections and making them count. It's about becoming more of who you already are. My name is Radim Marinech. I'm a designer, author and eternally curious human being. I am talking to a broad range of guests who share their stories of small actions that sparked lifetime discoveries, taking one step towards the thing that made them feel most alive. Let me begin this episode with a Are you ready to discover what happens when you dare to create? Today I'm speaking with Apulva Baksi. He's the co founder and ECD of the global brand agency Dixon Baksi, where they focus on the power of creativity, fostering collaboration and challenging convention to develop brands. In our free flowing conversation, APOVA explores the dicks and bugs, the unconventional approach to client relationships where they start with conversations rather than showing portfolios, and their commitment to creating brands that compete with the future, not just each other. We also delve deeper into the concept of bravery and creativity, challenging the industry's tendency to talk about being brave rather than simply doing exceptional work. He also advocated for trusting instinct over following trends and the necessity of disrupting your own creative recipes to avoid complacency. It's my pleasure to introduce a POVA backseat. How are you doing?
- [03:22]
Apurva Baksi
Yeah, great, very Nice to see you, Radim, and thanks for having me on this.
- [03:26]
Radim Malinage
I've got so many things on my mind when it comes to branding and the state of branding and the general state of the industry. And you are one of the people standing at the forefront of this and doing it in your own way, which I think we need to talk about. Because in my opinion, you and Simon and your company fits very much the topic of daring creativity, daring forever. So if anyone may have not heard of Dixon Vaxi or Apurva Vaccine, who are you and would you do well?
- [03:54]
Apurva Baksi
Thanks for that intro. Very kind of you. I think we're always on a journey, so I would say it's a continual learning journey. But in terms of me, I'm not for the vaccine. Co founder with Simon Dixon of a global brand agency based here in London, working with large, influential, ambitious businesses all over the world. We're in our 24th year, so we've been doing this a long time. I was just saying to Simon the other day that this past February, I've known him for 30 years, so we've had a long relationship together, certainly very much rooted in respect for each other, but also pushing each other forward. And then in that time, we've been able to grow the business, not necessarily just in scale, but hopefully in influence in the things that we love doing. We've always had very strong principles from the beginning. I'm sure a lot of people may have heard this, but we did have a list of things that we would do and wouldn't do when we began. And although that list has evolved and changed, they were root principles. And I think we really like the idea of a principle based business as opposed to one that just has a rule set so that can adapt over time. And we've been working across many eras, so we've seen the industry change, culture change, music choice change, fashion change. And so it's amazing to be part of that journey and it still is. Very excited to be where we are now. But even this morning, there's a slight, always a slight knot and anxiety of where we're going to go next and what we can do next. I think the idea of settling is the opposite of what we or the industry should be doing now.
- [05:27]
Radim Malinage
I mean, I can literally take about everything that you've said so far and make a whole hour conversation about this because you said you met Simon 30 years ago. You talk about different music choices, you talk about different times. How did you guys meet and how did you actually establish the list of choices, like how do you establish your principles that you want to do this together?
- [05:48]
Apurva Baksi
Amazing. Well, we set the way back clock for February 1995, which is 30 years ago, a long time ago. I'd just graduated and I went to Middlesex University and I did a visual communication design course and I was an intern at a bunch of companies. And actually we run an intern program here, an intern academy, and everyone's very interested in how you find your way into studios. And back then, the way I did it was to create an introduction, a little kind of printed piece. And I hand delivered those to companies that I was very excited about, ones that I felt resonated with me. And that led me to meeting a company called Michael Peters, who was a really large company back then, probably 150, 200 people, focused on annual reports and then that type of thing. And. And I did a couple of months there. It wasn't for me, to be honest. I've got to say. I realized that was one of the turning points where I realized that actually that type of approach, that type of design felt too constrained for me. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I needed to feel more expressive. But the reason I go back there was a chap called Ben Tomlinson and he was a designer there, and he took me under his wing and said, you should chat to this guy called Simon. I said, okay, that's interesting. And actually a little side Note, funnily enough, 30 years later, we have Ben's son in the studio this week doing an interview with us. So it's a small world and there's a really nice kind of rhythm to that. But going back to that thing, Simon. Ben introduced me to Simon and so I met him in that early part of 1995. And it was in an interview I was thinking about joining this one agency and we ended up talking about everything from design to film to music. And what was supposed to be 20 minutes turned into two hours. And I think we hit it off then. And then I joined that company and it scaled very quickly and we got to work in New York, San Francisco, Sydney, London, on very large scale projects. So that was a really formative period. This is 1995 to 2000. So it was Brit pop. It was rooted in the first PlayStation. It was the kind of the music culture. You've got Aphex Twin and Boards of Canada and the Prodigy, all of that is phenomenal. So growing up in that time was certainly exciting. So that was that formative period.
- [08:22]
Radim Malinage
I had to Google the best albums of 1995 and I literally got goosebumps because I'm just looking at the list and it's just like one of the best years on this planet when you look at it. Goldie. Timeless. Yeah. You got Max and Key by Tricky Garbage. Garbage. Great Escape. I mean, oh my God.
- [08:41]
Apurva Baksi
Yeah. It was a soundtrack to life. And I think music and design go hand in hand. We have music playing in the studio all the time to bring some energy and that we tend to gravitate towards things that are a little bit more fast paced electronic and I think it's rooted in that time. So when I design fun, actually creating things, I tend to listen to high tempo music. And it was probably because of being rooted in that. And so it was a fascinating time. And so to answer your question, Si and I worked together for about a year in the London studio before he went to open for this company, an office in New York. I stayed in London that, that grew in an early age. I was a creative director, fairly young age, probably unskilled to do it, but about 27, do it doing all sorts of things. And then Simon went to San Francisco. I had an opportunity to go to Sydney, then New York and so on. So we'd never worked in the same studio in that time. But I guess what we had was a friendly competition. I always saw Simon as a phenomenal designer and he still is. His craft, his ability to make things, the level of invention is all fully baked and we got to do a lot of that. And I would always see Simon as a colleague, someone I respect, but always someone to compete with in a sense to pull me up. And we had that respect for each other. So then you Fast forward to 2001, when we started Dixon Batsy. That respect was there. And because we'd seen each other and how we work and how we collaborate with our own teams, at that time, we knew that there was something here. And I felt that if there was someone that he was going to work with, it was me and vice versa. And that was a Sliding doors moment in that I could have stayed in New York. I had a pretty good time there, I had a pretty good gig. But there was this other opportunity of doing something new and I didn't, didn't want to look back and regret that. So there formed Dixon Batsy and we spent the summer going back and forth figuring out what we would do. And we decided a couple of things. One, that we would be two, we'd go back to being two creatives with direct contact to the clients. So that was an A team. We decided to show no work, and it was all conversation. So when we spoke to clients, it wasn't about portfolio. It was about ideas and principles and the way of working and how brands can exist in the world in a much deeper way and how we have to understand the audience, which seem quite commonplace now. But again, back then, you could talk about aesthetics or you could talk about strategy, but the overlap and the bridge of that was very interesting to us. And more than anything, it was about our creative voice, finding our story. And the reason for starting with a blank sheet of paper and some principles was to figure out what that was. And we've worked really well together. I think one of the things that probably makes us successful is that we respect each other, listen to each other. We have our own points of view, and I would say we do things quite differently. But that's okay if there is room to adapt. And I think that's probably the biggest thing for the company, but for us as individuals, is that we know that there's an opportunity for us to continue to grow and learn and that we're not perfect. And although we grew up in the school of hard knocks and in a era and culture that is very unlike today in that it was, you know, work, hard work, 247 live work was just fused together, and partly because we loved it, but because that was how it was. And I think that trained us to work a certain way. And I think the thing that we've tried to do, and we've always tried to do, is adapt to what's happening in the world and create a space for our teams to enjoy what we do in a different way. That's appropriate now. But I'd say we. We still sit side by side. That's the other thing, is that we still sit side by side and we talk every day and we've gone off and done our own things. We made a feature film, so I directed that. I kind of focused on db, but we always overlap, and I think that's the strength. We always talk about the space between Dixon and Baxie is the space that we want to create, not Dixon and Baxie as individuals, which is hard to articulate when our name's on the door. But it's more of a concept and an idea that we're interested in.
- [13:21]
Radim Malinage
When you mentioned that work culture, that was more embedded in our lives, when you think about it, the life itself was almost 24 7, because one thing was blending into one another. Therefore, maybe we're more happier to go with the fact that you work 24, 7.
- [13:35]
Apurva Baksi
That's right. One of the core things that we thought about was design for life, you know, so for our lives personally, it's baked into who we are. But also design for life is in the millions of people out in the world. And that design has an opportunity to do things that move the world forward. You know, there's human progress in that. But I would agree, I think, you know, if I took you back to 95, 96, you know, we were lucky enough to work on the launch of the first PlayStation 1. That's the era of Wipeout. It's Ridge Racer, Tekken and those types of things. But we would work, we'd go out and then I would come back after the club and then go to the studio and then play Wipeout, designed by actually the designers Republic, which is a fantastic studio and still, you know, influential today. But that, that felt very natural, I would say, you know, with today's lens, work life, or certainly the environment in which we work could have been more empathetic. But at the time it just felt like that's what we do. And there was a joy to that. But as I say, you broke through walls, you broke through any imposter syndrome by making. So we were just constantly making things. And I think that is still a practice for life today is, I think, through making, articulate my days, through making anything, you know, whether that's a sketch, whether that's a coffee brand, whether that's creating things for yourself, a way, photography, making film. It's a way of expressing what's in here and bringing that to the world, even if it's just for yourself. And I think that's a brilliant practice.
- [15:17]
Radim Malinage
When you mentioned the cure for imposter syndrome was the making, I'm sure we can both agree that design is doing nothing or having nothing to do as a creative is important because you've got time to hear yourself. However, daydreaming hasn't got anyone anywhere because daydreaming just only lets the sort of negative thought seeps in and go, like, I feel a little bit confused here because our purpose, our focus on doing things is what gets us moving. And making stuff is best antidote to any kind of, sort of problem and anxiety. Because you start with zero and you get to one, it's some time, but you go, then you go from 1 to 100. And that sort of gives you something to do.
- [15:54]
Apurva Baksi
Even. I find it long into my career where you can either overthink and I think the quiet moments are important. You need to get away from things, to see things with new perspective or an objectivity, or talk to others, but that's still doing something. And you can't be on all the time. So the subconscious mind is the valuable mechanism and engine to solve things, but equally to push through something, as you say, is that small 60 seconds or two minutes. It's like any habit you want to form. Do one minute or do two minutes and it becomes something else. And I think it's the blank sheet of paper syndrome or any of those types of things where you make the first mark and it's not going to be the perfect sentence or the perfect thing, but you're on the journey. And I found that liberating. And what we try and do is help our team feel like that, though oftentimes we talk about creativity and the journey of making as a feeling. And so we have exercises, ways of working an operating system that we've now called Super Futures as a means to bake the idea of feeling liberated and enjoying the. Your sense of making and the feeling of that without an end result. There's something to get you going and what happens, it opens up the mind, it creates something new, it allows you to see things differently. And so we really enjoy that and we try and engender that in the team. And it's so exciting seeing it. I get really enthused by that. And it fosters a. An energy in the studio that feels palpable. We make it very visible. So our studio walls have work on, which seems an obvious thing, but I was just talking to some folks at the dnad, had a panel and we're just comparing notes with other ECDs and business owners and so on, and they were like, oh, yeah, you know, everything's in FIGMA at the moment or on a digital board. And putting things on the wall has sometimes been forgotten. And there's a lot of power to that. And that's how we sometimes find unrelated stories.
- [18:06]
Radim Malinage
The way you and Simon talk about your work and your principles, your philosophies, is 100% one of the key ingredients. How you see creativity, how you see the process. Because you said it a short while ago, that at the beginning you were not showing any work, you were talking about. It was a conversation and you were talking about principles and you said, now it's more of a commonplace.
- [18:27]
Apurva Baksi
I think it was a learning journey. We had, as I said, these principles and the idea of language was central to how we worked. And the team laugh when I talk about this. But our first project was Because I say it so often, but our first project was for MTV2. So we landed something pretty cool. And when we worked on that, when we came into the presentation, the original one, we actually took a painting rather than presentation. And the painting we laid, we took into the MTV studios. You know, we had made this triptych in Simon's bedroom actually back in the day because our studio was too small or it was just a desk at that point. But the painting captured a feeling and of what it was like to be a 16 year old in their bedroom listening to rock music. That was the root of the channel, MTV too. And it was an ethnography. It was us kind of getting inside and understanding what it's like to see the world through the lens of that audience as opposed to at that point, I think it was 20, we were 29, 30. Being a 30 year old designer designing for that. And of course, you know, we wanted to bring some style and flair to it, but it led us to somewhere new. And ultimately that for brand was all language. It was statements that we found of, of the fans from blogs and Twitter didn't exist there. Phones didn't exist in the way that they do. There's blogs and forums and we took hundreds of statements and credited to the handles, you know, things like MTV makes me want to smoke blue tac. Stuff we couldn't come up with, right? Just random stuff, but it felt so right. There was an irreverence and a maverick spirit. And the reason I referenced that is that it seemed to. It seemed like us figuring out who we were. And we enjoyed the fact that language and expressing the value of the audience and playing it back in a new way and doing things that felt like they have swagger in attitude and didn't round the edges. And I think that still stands true today. You know, we're lucky enough to work on brands of all sizes, you know, whether it's a global giant in international markets and so on, or you know, we currently working with an AI health business that's helping clinicians transcribe patient notes or early prevention of cancer. Very different. But what we're also trying to find is why they're relevant and valuable to the audience and how they can exist in the world in a distinct way, which again seems obvious for a brand. But everything can get rounded, you know, partly because we see everything right, we see what everyone else is doing and if that's successful, there's a feeling that should be emulated and you get to this sort of, of sameness that you know that term's been around for some time, and so what we're really interested in is trying to find the unique and the original. And that often is a recombination of things that exist in the world. But it's how you edit those reference points to create a new reference point, a new benchmark that can push the industry forward or create a new conversation. And that's why I cite that project. But that's what we continually try and do, either successfully or not. But that's the ambition.
- [21:54]
Radim Malinage
We'll be back after a quick break. This episode is brought to you by Lux Coffee Company, the first creative specialty coffee company building a platform to shine the light on emerging global talent with a mission to make a positive impact on a creative industry and Beyond. Lux Coffee Co. Offers exceptional coffee sourced from around the world through ethical and sustainable practices. And you can discover the current range of signature blends and single origins coffee hardware and accessories along with exceptional apparel. @luxcoffee.co.uk you can use the code podcast to get 15% off your first order. Before we started recording, I told you that my concept of daring creativity is not the things that you're scared to do or things you don't want to do, is the things you don't want to regret not doing. When you talk about a triptych of paintings, that is to me like perfect example of daring to express or dare to try or dare to challenge or dare to think. What could surprise people? Because you mentioned the word feeling and liberation, like, especially with your super, which is programming the way you do things. And I just love that story. I mean, it's MTV2 is one of your first projects. You don't have almost any doubts of the fact that you did the right thing because you're challenged to do something.
- [23:27]
Apurva Baksi
It comes down to how quickly things germinate in the world. There sometimes isn't the opportunity for something to grow and take its time to grow. And maybe because we see everything so immediately it's a trend and then it's gone. Whereas maybe there was time for things to grow. And that's, you know, studios, they have time to figure themselves out, they're not on display all the time and they figure a voice out. The same with music, maybe. You know, I still think, though there are subcultures and micro niches and so on that everything gets hyped to an extreme and it can lose its value and go mainstream much quicker. Certainly with the social platforms that we have that make things very instant. So there's much More spikes and there just generally is more of everything. It's like more and it can predict the distraction, you know, and distraction then kind of can throw you off your game and throw you into losing why you're doing what you're doing. We find that, you know, if you listen to the noise, it can start to dilute who you are. And it's very important to kind of trust your gut and be centered. And so we spend think about how we can delete the noise and focus on who we are and what we do. But I think the same happens in every industry. Fashion, music. There is a very big mainstream and things can be mechanized or process driven where it creates a hit. Supposedly stars rise and fall. But it's really interesting going to the edges. And you could argue, you know, things like Spotify and so on have been not great for the industry. Right. Certainly in terms of remunerating artists and so on. However, you know, we oftentimes discover new things because of the rabbit holes that we go down to find music and artists. And you know, I personally, I know friends that then go to their concerts, buy their records and go that way. So. So I think it's a bit of both and we should probably enjoy the optimistic nature of having, you know, all music. But then I think it's up to us to be daring or explore so that we don't fall down a rabbit hole. That is, is the mess.
- [25:57]
Radim Malinage
The Spotify problem, you can see it from Spotify and generally like platform problem. We see it as a problem and obviously it's never run by a co op. Things like Spotify are very much a capitalist project. Right. But let me talk about making money out of streaming. When you go back on the stories of inxs, Guns N Roses, those bands were broke. Like they got rinsed by the same people who are rinsing them through Spotify. Like the music module wasn't exactly always working, which is now we've got more clarity about like how little it's working in a clear view.
- [26:32]
Apurva Baksi
You could argue that off any platform. And I think there is an equity that can be baked in and maybe there's a better model of that. I know that Ben Affleck and Matt Damon have tried to do that with their production company called Artist Equity, which is about giving a better and more equal share to everyone that participates. Now, I don't know the ins and outs of that, so don't hold me to how effective that is. But I like the idea and I think you're right. These platforms can in some senses, be good in the reasons that you state you can choose, as you say, to participate and reach out. And I know I've certainly found artists that I would never have come across and that interrelation. And we've reached out to some, as you say, to collaborate with, but also, you know, to go to their concerts or recommend. And I think that must help the industry. But the thing is there's just so much of it. So I think like anything the same with recycling your plastics and so on, you have to participate in that, you have to take responsibility. And it really depends how you value that. So I think all those are important. There's maybe a love hate with that. On the one hand, it's all these things, you know, whether that's getting the food delivered to a platform like Netflix or Spotify, you know, those things are conveniences of life. They are baked into the world at the moment and it would be amazing if they thought of a different way of doing that. And I think there is. But equally they provide not only convenience, but they actually the music and access to music. And the democratization of that does benefit life, you know, and I think there's still a lot of conversation around that.
- [28:17]
Radim Malinage
As you said, we vote with our action. You know, what you buy in the winter, if you buy strawberries in winter, voting for strawberries in winter, if you get that takeaway, you know, once a week, you vote in for plastic containers. You like the cascading effect in all of this. We make choices and then we look back going, oh, you hear people saying this industry is broken. And I'm like, nothing's perfect. We can agree that we don't have a prime example of going, look at that industry, it's hunky dory, we should copy that.
- [28:43]
Apurva Baksi
It feels like there is this need certainly for certain businesses to scale and it's all about scale. And then scale equals new users or ultimately profit, if they can get to that. And that can lose sight of why they're doing it. So I think, you know, those craft based businesses or businesses that say actually, you know, we're going to limit scale because it dilutes the quality of what we do. I think they're really powerful and they hold onto their truth and their value. And I think with things like AI and so on, maybe that scaling is going to become easier. But I think there is a tension and a push and pull. And when you think about music, have their fan base and that fan base tends to be very deep and very rich and the same for the work that we do, we have an idiosyncrasy that is us. We do have to stay true to that, otherwise we'll lose our way as well. And in our 24 years, we found that we've had moments again where when you look back at the archives, everything is smoothed out. It's like you went from this to this. It's very neat and tidy when you do a chronology. But in the moment, you know, there are challenges, their missteps, things don't work. You realize that you said yes to things that you should have said no to. You said no to things you should have said yes to. And it's not that we don't have regrets, it's just that it's a journey and there are missteps and challenges. And there have been moments in our time when we have had to say, well, actually, you know, we're going to say no to these things. We're going to let these clients go, maybe give them to other agencies so they're not left in the lurch, but we're going somewhere else. This isn't where we think we should be, or the quality of work isn't where it should be, or the relationships don't feel quite right. And that's quite hard to do. But it's really important to do, to be objective and step out and say, well, hang on a minute, why are we doing this? And go back to the original source, so to speak, and find that way forward.
- [30:44]
Radim Malinage
You said, which I understand from my point of view, like the anatomy of opportunity, because we all go from what is the yes, what's the no? Does the no turn into a yes or yes into a no? Ultimately, you have to be daring, and you also have to be a bit brave about what you want to do and how you want to move on that journey with your craft people. Because as one of your first essentials, you guys saying brave brands change the world. Whereas I can't scroll on LinkedIn for more than 20 seconds without saying, hey, I build brave brands this, brave this, brave that. And I'm like, okay, it's definitely caught on. So how do you define brave? Because I feel like, you know, you talked about, like, this germination of the idea obviously, is propagated. It's multiplying, it's out there. So there's a lot of brave on paper or brave in pixels. How do you define brave? How do you do that with brave brands? How does a brave brand exist? And are brands really brave?
- [31:42]
Apurva Baksi
Yeah, it's a really good Question. I think we've always felt that we actually created a couple of books maybe eight years ago now called Be Brave. And it was. We were reluctant to kind of put a term to something. We felt we were always. That we had that within us, that we were always pushing businesses and brands to transform and be really distinct and not iterate. It's very hard to iterate to invention, you know, and we talk about taking brands and businesses too uncomfortable. And the process gets us to that Goldilocks moment of just right, you know, if you start it safe, the process gets you to boring. And no one wants to be boring. We don't want to create boring things in the world. And the idea of being brave stuck. And it's something that, that we used, you know, for the last six or so years. But you're right, like as with anything, you know, transformation, optimism, you know, bravery, all those terms become commonplace and they lose their meaning. They start to just become things that you say transformation at speed. All of these things had an origination and at that point they felt original, maybe and true and unique. But as with anything, as with a style, someone comes out with something and suddenly it proliferates, it starts to dilute and lose its meaning. So for us, you know, actually we just refreshed our site a couple of weeks back and we've taken that term off. We don't use it not because we see it everywhere, but just because the idea of it is very different. And we think it's. It's part feeling, it's part the fact that it's about creating something that feels distinct and original for that brand, but it's really setting that brand up for the future. So what they're competing with is not each other, they're competing with the future. And the future is changing so rapidly. We want to create brands that have the ability to adapt and change. So a lot of the work that we do is not only for today, but we're charting what that brand might do and be like in principle based strategically as well as aesthetically and inexperienced for the next five years or more. And we can't predict what that future's necessarily going to be like, but we think that's a form of bravery, is the fact that they need to acknowledge the speed of change and have the tools and the mindset to do that. And oftentimes the idea of brave brands is really a brave person or an ambitious person or an influential person in the business themselves, that is a change maker. And so aligning ourselves with those types of People is a superpower and clients then become people that you align with. And that partnership forges something new and transformative that's kind of more interesting. And ultimately our client is not the client, it's the audience. If we are creating something for cancer prevention, we want to know about the clinicians and real people. If it's for fans of a football club, you know, what's it like in the stands with the ultras at San Siro? So, you know, bravery is actually being honest event. And the hard part is the sustaining it. I think, you know, if you think about a Michelin starred restaurant or anything like that, it's not getting the Michelin star, which is extremely hard. It's the consistency of sustaining it year on year out. And I think, to be honest, the bravery is that it's not just for a term, it's not for a couple of years. It's a constant need for iteration, invention and that push towards maintaining who you are in culture and in life. And I think that's how we see it, is that it's not any one word, it's a shift from somewhere to somewhere else and then that continual shift. So the bravery is really the commitment. Keep doing it.
- [35:44]
Radim Malinage
When we talk about bravery, when you describe it, I'm thinking still nostalgically back to 95 or the 90s, you wouldn't necessarily think that anyone was being brave putting out that music. People were just curious, they were following their instincts, their feelings, they were technically creating music for the future, but actually they were creating music at that moment about how they were expressing the current environment, their feelings, their political views. And it was more innocent in a way. But when you look back, you're thinking, oh shit, that was quite brave putting all of this together and that this together because it didn't exist and potentially it could have upset people. In fact, what it did, it actually inspired people to do something exciting. Because I feel with that term, say be brave, it's almost misleading because it's like, what am I supposed to do first? I'm happy to be brave, but where do I go first? What do I do? Because whereas when you think about it, brave is that purpose almost personified going, I believe in my cause, I'm going to do this. As you said, you need your change maker on your side, I'm going to do this. And by the way, it might be perceived at some, a few years later, some people might say, oh shit, this was brave. How did you do that? You're thinking at that moment, you don't Even think about bravery because you focused on that next thought. But personally, I feel like we talk more about bravery than we being brave these days.
- [37:02]
Apurva Baksi
Greed, I think it's like anything, it's a sticker, it's a bumper sticker, or it has become. And with anything, whether it's about the diversity and eclecticism of a team, the voices that are seen in industry, the designs and brands that you might be involved in, it's through action that we see that actually manifests. So to say it is one thing, but to do it is so much harder. And it comes down to conviction, that belief in yourself. And we don't come into the studio and go, you know what, we're going to be brave today. We're just going to fucking call work and we're going to try and feel excited and find the joy in it for ourselves. And as with music, if you make music for yourself, then other people will find it. And I think that's true of this, you know, true of our industry and what we do. You know, finding that voice is quite hard, but when you've got it or on that journey, you have to trust that quiet voice, you know, the instinct that says, I think it's that way. And those forks in the road open up because you trust it and it may, you may not see where it leads you. Much like this conversation, I guess, right, it's open ended and, but that's super exciting and I think being open to that and not trying to solve your career or the next role too quickly opens up the opportunity for you to discover yourself and discover ideas and discover opportunities that may not exist if you've been clear about your path. And I think that's something to be mindful of, you know, as students come into the industry, as you're moving through your career, obviously the next, you know, title that can be, you know, you can put on LinkedIn and so on, is a massive accolade. And I think, you know, that shows progress. But I think there's something to be said for enjoying the journey, taking the time to participate in different ways and being curious. And it's those things that feel maybe more brave to not rush to the finish line because there is no finish line.
- [39:11]
Radim Malinage
I think we've lost the age of innocence. You feel like we let the world convince us, and I'm very careful about these worlds, we let the world convince us that if you're not doing something today, you've really missed out because somebody somewhere is doing that already. Because what you and Simon had, that's a beautiful self acceptance. This is our principle, this is what we're doing. You can take time to incubate, you can take time to develop, then be public. You could decide how visible you want to be in that world because you can say as much or as little about yourself as much as you want to back then. Whereas now I. And the reason why I said, are we talking about bravery more than we being brave? Because you get some of the studios out there right now, you know, they populate in the LinkedIn pixels with the fact how they explain what they've created and why they've created it and what they did. And I'm thinking, well, if this is all you did, how come you need 400 words to tell me that's what you did? Because the work should do it right. We've homogenized the branding style like we've homogenized lots of things, lots of decisions. I think you can get from 0 to 1 in terms of a new brand or from 1 to 100 as a rebrand or retooling. So much easier because just like with the music, you've got the leftisms, the maxing keys, you've got your porter's head. They've gone from zero to one and everyone gone. Thank you very much. We're going to take it from 1 to 100, but now we've taken it from 100, a million. And it's harder to create something unique and original.
- [40:40]
Apurva Baksi
You could argue everything has been made and we edit our cultural references and the things that we absorb and reconstitute them to create something new or different. And I think if you put a lens on that, something small, something big, it can be transformative. A small shift can have a big impact. But I agree, I think it's partly generational that there's probably a generation. I'm always hitting a brick wall when I mentioned some movies from pre 2000s and everyone's like, I haven't seen that. I'm like, no way can you have not seen that. So I think there is a maybe every generation there's like, I'm creating something new because they may not have known what came before. And there is a freshness to that. But I do agree that there is. It's almost too easy that at that bottom level to reconstitute, there's enough presets almost to create and invent a brand, a way of doing things. And there's so many examples of that. And people have, as you said, articulated how they do that. We spent a Lot of time being as open source as possible in sharing. Our brands are built why, they're built a certain way, but even those codes can be taken and you know, other folks do it and you start to create a, almost a textbook, a rule book for how to create brands. They're mock ups that make anything look good. There are, you know, bento boxes that at some point someone originated how to share that work, you know, and, and it's become something very common. So what happens is that even though a brand may have a distinctness, you put it into that mold and suddenly it flattens it out. And I find that quite surprising when you, you spent all this time trying to, I would imagine, create something very new and you put it into a preset shape and even if it shouldn't fit in that shape, it does. So I think a question to ask is what would you've made this brand? What would this brand do? It wouldn't sit in there. Although it's a good way of sharing work and it's a good way of maybe getting likes and creating that sticky content that everyone's looking for. But I think there's an opportunity to confound that. And that's the thing that I think keeps us up at night or propels us, you know, is the catalyst for us is how we disrupt our own recipes. You know, whether that's for us at Dixon Maxi or for our community, the industries, to ask those provocative questions that say, well, where are we going next and how do we articulate, create new ways of expressing things that are meaningful and different? And I think, you know, it's, it's a challenge for us in our team as much as anyone to disrupt our own recipes. You know, we have ways of creating things, we have a process and it works to create brands at scale. But I don't think that's good enough. You know, you kind of can settle and you know, we are always asking ourselves the question of what works. We don't want to kind of pull a thread on everything, but we need a space to play and to make things that haven't existed before for ourselves to not necessarily look at the world, but maybe invent new things so that we feel refueled to find new ways of expressing ideas or brands or communicating those things.
- [44:05]
Radim Malinage
I'm going to take you one more time back to 1995 because what you just described so beautifully and eloquently reminds me of, and I read on your website says design gimmicks, when you think about the music from the 90s 95s and early 2000s, the albums that used the new gimmicks, like the new presets, the new filters, didn't age well. Whereas you take dub note based with My Headman, another Underworld album that is timeless. It didn't really try to play into those gimmicks or filters or presets or latest drum machines. It worked with the sounds, which are timeless, because it was more about a creativity and more about a thing. And when you sort of put it together with the era of mock ups, as you just said, and the easy shortcuts, ultimately you're thinking that you've saved yourself time on development or research or immersion. It will bite you back in the ass because it's not necessarily created with the right substance. Because ultimately what you guys do is that you create brands to make people feel something. You're creating brands for the future. You create some brands for now. And I think I've never seen anything from Dixon backs. You'll be like, oh, shit, that's the trendy stuff. They finally back down to this and they're exploring this. It's like it always feels like there's a creative voice, the creative thread, creative output, and there's a creative bravery by actually saying no to this stuff, because that's ultimately why you're here today, because that's what's giving you that longevity.
- [45:27]
Apurva Baksi
Yeah, thanks for saying that. I think the thing that we try or we're proud of in a sense, or try to hold on to is relevance. Relevance to in today's market. This is so many amazing companies, agencies, individuals, creatives. And if you move outside a brand, as I said, into fashion, into music, into every Creator that's on TikTok, you know, it's. It's mind blowing and overwhelming the amount of stuff that's produced. But I think, as I said, you know, it's about finding the truth of who we are. I think we're proud of being idiosyncratic. We're part of the industry, but we've also felt slightly outside of the industry. Not through any form of arrogance and wanting to be in and out. I think we're trying to be open source and sharing work, but we have to almost create a safe space where we operate. And what happens in here is, in our own way, trying to be distinct and unique. And to be honest, that's a conversation that happens every day. It's something you have to work on because, you know, the speed with which things work, the speed with which we might need to work. Yes, the convenience or our recipes provide that framework. And so it's a constant challenge in every project to find that one unique thing that makes it stand out. And I think that's really powerful and I think there is a tension. Convenience can be powerful in that kind of 80, 20 rule where we try and create frameworks that allow us to not waste time doing the 80% that is easy to do. So we kind of have codified a lot of things, which saves the team tons of time so that we can concentrate on the 20% that has the biggest impact. The new ideas, the expression, the fact that we try and not do things the same way every time, those things are really meaningful. And we have to continue to do that and maybe either to set a benchmark for ourselves to inspire the team, or to inspire our peers as well. And we look to our peers to do the same for us.
- [47:32]
Radim Malinage
Beautifully said. Before I let you go, you mentioned super Futures and you guys put a lot of work in making sure that the fresh and new talent gets seen, gets developed. You have created enough space and resources to do this because it shows the level of leadership that you guys have achieved. You have allowed space for this and your sort of dedication is to being open source and say, hey, this is how we do stuff. This is what it is. And by the way, come and join us and we're happy to become something. Your imagination is invaluable. So with that shift and the change that you see in people, like, it must be quite satisfying to be that aware, compassionate, empathetic and emotionally intelligent, saying, we can do better. In fact, we can be brave and actually put ourselves out there saying, we'll look after you.
- [48:19]
Apurva Baksi
Yeah, look, it's been a long journey, as I said, you know, from the school of hard knots to a certain way of working and to have self reflection. I think maybe creatives have the opportunity to the introspect, and maybe not introspect too much, but certainly for us, we very much thought about ourselves as individuals and about the company. It's that idea of design for life. So we're spending as much time designing the business as we are designing the work or the space for the team to feel excited. And certainly over the last decade, we spent a lot of time thinking about how to be better ourselves as leaders, how to foster a healthier environment, one that's empathetic, to build a team blend that has people from, you know, with 55 people, we have 18 nationalities of people from all over the world, very multilingual, and that gives us different perspectives and then on top of that, with the Dixon Maxi Way journeys and so on, is rooted in maybe a point in our career where we're like, well, there's no point retaining this knowledge. Maybe it comes through a confidence in who we are and the ability to share that is empowering. And also the idea of being generous is something that we feel is optimistic in a world that can, you know, can be quite mean. You know, when we need that. Right. We need the. And we see it more often. Right? Yeah. I don't know if you're seeing that there's kind of a more generous spirit. Certainly maybe the comment sections get a bit unruly and it's not fair sometimes to, you know, everyone piles on to certain things and I think that's. Everyone should take a beat and pause and think about what they're doing because, you know, faced with the same barrage, it's not cool. But I think there's a responsibility for the industry to look after itself, to elevate and amplify as many voices as possible. Not just founders and co founders. You know, I think that we have a really diverse team, so we're really excited to show all of those faces. That's what the Dixon Batsy Way is about. So that people entering the industry or unsure about the industry see themselves and see an opportunity beyond being a designer through being part of the industry in so many meaningful ways. And then this industry is one that has creativity and the power of that. It's root, that is transformational, that can actually affect change in business, in policy, maybe in the way we see the world, in how the world exists. So that's really exciting. And as a business, we try and invest in that. We make space for the ability to open our team's minds, to be more liberated and inventive. And what we're doing actually in two weeks, time is stopping closing the studio, so to speak, from the day work for a whole week. And we're having a superficial week for the entire team. And we're going away for essentially a dixomaxi creative festival for ourselves. And the idea being it's a whole bunch of activities, talks are inviting different speakers in, but it's also a chance to have the team step out of their work, to create things that feel unexpected and different and to come back recharged. It's almost like a mini sabbatical for the entire business to take a moment. And I think those are the types of things that we'd love to see, you know, happen more often for ourselves. And I know, you know, there are many sort of empathetic and forward thinking businesses that are doing things like that. And I think, you know, the more we involve the community and participate in that and take responsibility for it, the better for all of us.
- [52:06]
Radim Malinage
It's beautiful that you said mini sabbatical because it's so easy to get lost in everything and all that noise you have. You guys look after your talent. With 55 people and 18 nationalities. Sounds like you've got amazing mix of ingredients in the studio because that proves the cognitive diversity, that proves the way that you do work, that it speaks for itself because that's ultimately you're investing in people, you're investing in their lives, you're investing in their futures.
- [52:35]
Apurva Baksi
When I come into the studio, that's the thing I look forward to. We have an intern academy of people of lots of backgrounds and it makes it. That's where the energy comes from and it's the ability for everyone to share that that empowers the work.
- [52:50]
Radim Malinage
In my opinion. This is your definition of brave. Be brave to challenge the status quo. Be brave to be that difference you want to see in the world. So we could easily talk about this for the rest of the day, but and this is not the last time we talk. I cherish our conversations that we obviously have today and our conversation that we have in real life because we believe in similar things, we believe in the same outcome. And yeah, I really appreciate what you guys do and how you look after the future because ultimately, as I see it, is daring to design for life. Like you actually have that North Star, you have that purpose, you have that vision and the ultimate destination. That's for benefit of all of us. So thank you very much for what you're doing and thank you for this conversation.
- [53:31]
Apurva Baksi
Thank you. Really enjoyed it. It's always a pleasure talking to you and I really enjoy this conversation too. Nice one.
- [53:38]
Radim Malinage
Thank you. Thank you for listening to this episode of Daring Creativity Podcast. I'd love to know your thoughts, questions and suggestions. So please get in touch via the email in the show notes or social channels. This episode was produced and presented by me, Radim Malinage. The audio production was done by Neil Mackay from 7 Million Banks podcast. Thank you and I hope to see you on the next episode. If you enjoyed this episode and would like more accessible resources to help you discover your daring creativity, you can pick up one of my books on themes of mindful creativity, creative business, branding and graphic design. Every physical book puts purchase comes with a free digital bundle including an ebook and audiobook to make the content accessible wherever you are and whatever you do. To get 10% of your order, visit novemberuniverse.co.uk and use the Code podcast. Have a look around and start living daringly.