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- [00:09]
A
Because we've all seen people spend a ton of money on terrible work, right? You can do that. You can spend a ton of money on terrible work. And I tell people all the time that you can make beautiful things with small budgets. And here's proof. It's nice to have a mixture of budgets. I'm not courting all the small budgets in the world, but you can make beautiful work with small budgets. Absolutely. Cost the same to print ugly and to print beautiful, right? When you're putting just say four color ink on paper, running it, taking the time to run it through a press or build a website or whatever, it's time, right? You're paying for time. So if you think about it and if you've done all the homework and the years of learning, right, you're carrying all that, all those experiences with you. It shows up, right?
- [01:06]
B
Welcome to the Daring Creativity Podcast. The 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 Marinic. 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? My guest today co founded one of San Francisco's most influential design studios, and she spent 24 years proving that the refusal to specialize is under liability. It's a superpower. Dora Dramalas is the co founder of Hybrid Design, a studio she's built alongside her husband Brian. After five formative years at Nike, where fearlessness wasn't of value, it was just how things got done. In this conversation, we explore what it takes to keep creativity alive across decades of real client work, why curiosity has to be a studio, wide practice, and the monumental effort behind Hybrid's debut monograph, Curiosity in All Things. This conversation is about designing without thee and why the best creative work starts with a very good question. It's my pleasure to introduce Dora Drimalis. Hey, Dora, it's great to see you today. How are you doing?
- [02:56]
A
Doing great. Thanks for having me.
- [02:57]
B
You're most welcome. I am so excited to talk to you today because your new book that you guys released, even the title got me really excited because I call myself Eternally curious Human. If I speak to my friends, I say I'm eternally. Curious idiot, because I try to discover the things that we cannot find in many places. But your book is called Curiosity in All Things, and it's a wonder of design, color, shapes, thinking philosophies. So I'm glad you're here so we can talk about your book. But for those who may have not heard of Hybrid, your design studio and your book and yourself, how would you introduce yourself?
- [03:35]
A
I'm Dora, and my studio, Hybrid Design, was started 24 years ago by my husband and myself in San Francisco. And the title is a reoccurring theme in RStudio ethos in how we explore new projects and what influences us and inspires us. And it's truly 24 years of all of it. The process. And the process of design isn't a straight line, as anyone who's in design knows. I like to say the design process looks like a plate of spaghetti. There's phases, there's the beginning of the meal, middle of the meal, and the end of the meal. But if you truly get to explore, right, and you follow that spaghetti around, that's what the creative process is like, at least in my head. And it's beautiful that way.
- [04:26]
B
You said it was you and your husband who started Hybrid, and in your description of who you are, you guys say that you are problem solvers, improvisers, artists, craftspeople, thinkers, collectors, adventurers, roll up our sleeve doers, and many other things. How did you get up to be at the helm of such intricately beautiful output that you run right now?
- [04:50]
A
I think to be really curious, you have to let it all in and you have to follow the inspiration and the beauty of being. I've worked in house and I've worked at an agency on the outside. And the beauty of being on the outside is your clients are different. Different clients are going to come in through the door. And we've never wanted to specialize. I feel like our lives would have been a lot easier as business people if we focused on one thing, if we were a branding shop, only if we were a web studio. But our clients have more complicated problems. Our clients have campaigns with multiple touch points and our interests are varied. So as a creative person, I can't understand why I would just want to do one thing. It just seems like a great way to kill creativity.
- [05:39]
B
I've been thinking about this for a very long time because I admire people who can do the one thing potentially they might be more happy and more content because they know what they want, they've got it, and they doing it. But as you said, design is a bread of spaghetti. Do complex things produce so many more complex solutions or possibilities that we just, you know, if you do just that one thing, it might be a lot of potentially be more predictable. But I like that when you say to be curious, you have to let it all in.
- [06:10]
A
You have to let it all in. And some people embrace change. Brian and I very much have different design styles. So when we first started, I'm the Swiss grid designer, Brian is the mad scientist, illustrator, brain. So where I have a love for typography, Brian has a love for illustration and chaos. But we both love telling stories in those two different ways. So the studio from the beginning was this blend of styles, was a blend of clients. And then as we brought on employees, we hired in these two buckets, right? And made sure that we were balanced and everyone who came in wasn't a copy of somebody else. They had their own unique voice and their own unique point of view and their own unique weirdness, which made everything better, Right? And then we all. I think that's the. Those are the conditions to create good work for us. And I have a good friend, we spoke about this earlier. You need fertile soil to plant a lot of different seeds and see what comes up. If everything is the same, that's one crop that doesn't work for us.
- [07:20]
B
How do you keep your soil fertile?
- [07:22]
A
It's that diversity of interests, ideas, points of view, people from different countries, guys, girls, right? If anything gets too much of one thing, it just throws the whole thing off completely. You don't have the same mixture of ideas and it just gets boring.
- [07:44]
B
I guess that's why we would call it biodiversity in the world out there. Right. Again, I feel like the nourishment comes from that curiosity.
- [07:51]
A
As a creative person, you have to. Right? And we have crazy standards in our industry where the client wants to know what's new, what's beautiful, what, what's the latest thing, and there's only so much of that chasing the trends and whatever. But there's like solid foundation, good design, right? You gotta have the solid foundation of a brand. Is the brand behaving as it should? Is the brand doing all the right things? And then if it is, then you can start telling stories, then you can start activating on the good things that are already there. It's not about chasing trends. It's not about, oh, everyone's using this illustration, let's do that. It's about challenging yourself every time. And it's not efficient from a business point of view. It doesn't make sense at all, right? You have to get up to speed every time. New client, new process, new homework, new skills, new technology. But we do it right. That's what it takes to do something new.
- [08:52]
B
I think there's a time and place for the work like that to happen because it's not to everyone. Because as you said, it's not always the best for business. It's not always the best for. For time and speed. But this sentiment has been echoed on this podcast before by other people that you know you need to do your best work and do it afresh. Otherwise you're just repeating your best hits, if at all. Best hit. When I look at your book and I see your profile, it just says change, change and more change. And to some people, change is scary because you've established, hypothetically, someone's established what they've got is working. Why break it? I am with you. Change, change and more changes is uncertain. But it's so thrilling.
- [09:34]
A
It is thrilling. And you get one pass at this, right? And some people need comfort from rinse and repeat. Right? In that stable world. And others, that is not satisfying. Right? And for us, I feel like it's not satisfying. Like I can see the look on the designer's face. If we've been doing the same thing over and over and over again, it's this I'm dead on the inside face that I get. And then we have to have a discussion about what are you doing outside of work, what are you doing right now to keep it fresh? Because it's. If work isn't giving it to you creatively, then where are you going to find it? And I say that also because the work in the book is this much of the work that we've done as a studio. Right. And part of including the inspiration and the essays and the thinking in there is that it takes work and you do a lot of. Really, I say ugly, you do a lot of work that you don't want to put in a book to have to get to this. We'll be back after a quick break.
- [10:39]
B
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. 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. This is interesting and I really want to talk about the curation of the book and how you guys put it together, because I. I know the feeling when you've got so much and how do you curate it? But before we get there, I still want to trace it back a few steps back because you've co founded Hybrid with Brian. How did you guys meet and how did you decide to start Hybrid together?
- [11:47]
A
Brian and I met in college. He was a design student and I was a film student and I was really close to graduating, met Brian, saw what he was doing and then realized, oh, you know what? I think I've been doing this design thing all along too. I just didn't know that it was design. And then I thought about film and decided to change my major and. But still love film, still want to do something with film, but changed my major to design. Brian graduated, got a job at Fossil Watches, then was recruited to go to Nike. And then while I was still in school, I got an internship at Nike and then went up there and then stayed up there. So we were both in Portland for about five years working at Nike, and it was the absolute best time to be there because they were growing like crazy and you got thrown into all kinds of projects and all kinds of work and it really, you didn't have to be an expert in environmental graphics. You were a designer and you were going to figure it out, so you got thrown into projects. It was amazing. It was absolutely amazing to work there.
- [12:51]
B
What was one of the fundamental things as a takeaway, apart from this one that you've taken from Nike from that time?
- [12:57]
A
There so many takeaways from Nike and my time there was wonderful. I know everyone has a different experience, but, and I'll speak for Brian too, we learned so much and we saw how fearless a company could be and how a company could elevate design and really care about design and really get behind the stories of innovation and product innovation and athlete storytelling, and it was everything. It was grad school for design for us completely. And I was thrown into environmental projects, Olympics, World Cups, you name it, opening of flagship stores, everything. And it was fantastic. It was the right place to go and learn and understand that you can be fearless and you can touch logos and different mediums and video and print and photo shoots, and that's being a designer.
- [13:49]
B
Would you say that the benefit of your time being there at that time was that it was more of an age of innocence or ignorant, shall we say? Because Nike, this is Not a show about Nike, but obviously it's going through different phases now. This is more about a bottom line, about a margin, about a shareholders price, about this and that. And again, the sentiment has been mentioned on this podcast before. Have we lost that fearlessness? Because at that time you didn't almost. I'm assuming that's what happened is that you didn't have that baseline of previous precedent. It was like some of the things we just done for the first time. Whereas now, as you say, there's a lot of precedence, there's a lot of trends, there's a lot of examples and references. How did you enjoy that time? That when you reflect back on it, are you able to recreate it now?
- [14:35]
A
I loved it. I absolutely loved it. And when I left, I left a good, really good job. I loved what I was doing, but I knew that creatively I had touched if you have a creative bucket list, which I think we all should have. I had done all of the things that I really wanted to do at Nike, and it had given me so much. But it wasn't just about Nike at that time. I wanted to live in a different city. I had done big and in house, and I wanted to go to a big city. I wanted to work at a small studio. I wanted to do the opposite experience. And for some people that's ridiculous, but for me, I did big. Now I want to do small and I want to see what that's like. What is that pace like? What are those projects like? How do we work with our vendors? How do we work with our clients? So completely different. And what is it like to have different clients, not just one.
- [15:32]
B
What was the new list populated with when you realized that you can go and do your own thing?
- [15:37]
A
The new list was essentially the opposite of what my experience had been at Nike. I wanted Boutique. I wanted to. What I thought was maybe spend a little more time on projects, which I got to do. But then that was too long, right? Like, I can't. A project that takes a year to complete is difficult for me. I needed to go much faster. So I got the opposite experience and I wanted the opposite experience, including Citi. But it wasn't just for me at that point. It was for Brian too. It was. Both of us had checked all the boxes. He had gotten to work in different departments. He had gotten to work on a skate shoe before Nike had a skate department. That was pretty amazing for him. But we worked there at an interesting time when sportswear and collector culture was just coming into being. So when we Were there. What was being discovered was dead stock of inventory of Cortez, of Air Force ones, of unit dunks. And that became sportswear, right. That became collector culture for shoes. Now at the same time, Brian and I are collectors of design, right? So we understood like we were like, oh, you're a collector, it happens to be shoes, right. We collect design stuff, right? Design ephemera design, furniture, books, Brian, vintage toys. So if you're a collector, you're a collector. And if you're a collector of design and culture, you understand how these things feed into each other. So it was interesting to see and we understood it there and helped it get off the ground. Brian did the first limited edition logo for collector shoes. And then it was like, okay, we did all these things, we did all these things. They're not getting this off the ground fast enough. Our momentum was still to leave and come to San Francisco.
- [17:36]
B
Did you do that thing that you left Nike but Nike then became one of your first clients? Is that what happened?
- [17:41]
A
Yes, exactly. Because I love everyone we worked with. We worked with great people, talented people, incredible people. And Nike has been a client ever since. So that's pretty good.
- [17:54]
B
Yeah. Did you feel like you actually can switch the gears? Because obviously it's one thing is to be in house and within the brand and the other thing is actually now be on the outside and have been more scoped to be dynamic. And did you have more freedom? Did you enjoy yourself on the other side with more flex?
- [18:09]
A
I did and I understood the internal workings. I knew who to go to to get things done, to get answers. But then I could also satisfy the creativity of oh, okay, now I'm also going to work with a paper company, I'm also going to work with a technology company. I'm also going to work with and learn from them, learn about their business. And maybe as a business owner, that's interesting to me to understand business needs. So it was the best of both worlds.
- [18:39]
B
Sounds amazing. But now obviously we enter into curious phase the wider lens when you can work with anyone. So wouldn't it feel like after years of being immersed in the world of sports and then all of a sudden you've got a chance to work with different clients. Did you find that muscle memory had loosen a little bit because it's one environment that Nike is the new client, but then the other conversations happen. So did you feel like you had to switch gears or was it naturally, were you ready for a change?
- [19:06]
A
I was super ready for a change. And that's just part of enjoying Change. But everything we learned at Nike we brought with us. So Nike was that grad school and being able to take those ideas and bring them to a different client and say, hey, have you thought about this? What if we tell a story this way? What if we activate the brand this other way, right. And borrow from one client behavior and execution and bring it to another. And that is one of the biggest strengths of being on the outside of being an agency is that you get to cross pollinate. And that's really important. I think it's happened. I think so many people have left Nike specifically and gone on to a million other companies. And you see the playbook, you see the Nike playbook for activating, for marketing especially, but it's more fun. It's so much more fun to do.
- [20:01]
B
So what I like about this, that we have traced it to the beginning, but now we're going to fast forward 24 years because as you just told me a while ago, some of your work is documented in your new book, Curiosity and All Things. I Want to know, how did this come about? Because this book landed on my doorstep. I said landed and Courier brought it in a very heavy box. It's like nothing I've ever seen before in terms of production, the diversity of the thinking, the words. And as someone who's been publishing books, potentially in a combined pagination to yours, this gives me mild palpitations because there's a lot of work that's gone into it. How did you plan it? How did you do it? So I really want to get to now with your book. I can see your copy behind you. How did this come about? Are you finally relieved that it's out there and it's done?
- [20:53]
A
It's a huge relief that it's out there. The worst part of the process was proofing that thing. That was unbelievable. And it's like, how are we still finding mistakes? We've all looked at it a million times, right? It's hard to proof 650 pages over and over and over again. But what is a book made by people who love books? I mean, hopefully that just comes out at you is, oh, these people love print, these people love books. And Brian and I have collected books. I have a book problem. I feel if I go to a bookstore, I'm leaving with books. It's just what's going to happen. And since going to bookstores while I was in college, I've just been a good student of beautiful books and beautiful printmaking. Back in the day, you could go to a paper Merchant. Remember, you could go into a paper merchant and get all the paper samples from all the different paper companies. And you would leave, even as a student, not a working professional, with bags of samples and they would push it on you. Take all this good stuff, look at what you can do here, look at what you. How you can print on this paper. And that was experimenting, that was learning. That was spot inks on different colored stock and different printing techniques and the edge painting. All of that stuff, all of those details, those are like the little love letters to bookmaking and to printing completely in that book. So when you see it, you're like, oh, this person loves books. But then the stories that are woven throughout are seeing so many monographs from different creative people executed differently. And everyone has a slightly different story to tell. Everyone has a slightly different thing they want you to walk away with. And I think what we want people to walk away with is that it's all about the process. It's all about exploration. And creativity is something that has to be fed. So hopefully you get that diversity of thought. There's multiple voices in the book. It's not just Brian and I. We didn't name the studio after ourselves. We named the Studio Hybrid to reinforce that thinking, to reinforce inputs and outputs. And hopefully that's what people get to take away 100%.
- [23:12]
B
Because when you talk about this book is made by people who love books, it shines through it. It absolutely shines through it. And I was on my monthly book, I call it Trip. I make sure that when I'm in central London, I spend half of the day just walking around bookshops and just see what's happening, not just in a design category. And I'm gonna start to say that our design category section is. It's a little bit sad at the moment your book stood out, but the monographs, the grid books, the kind of thing you only need to pan by 20 degrees in the bookshop and you go, oh my God, what's going on here? Because stuff is incredible.
- [23:49]
A
We.
- [23:50]
B
I feel so incredibly lucky on our behalf that we live in such a visually privileged times that the books that are not meant to be interesting are incredible, in fact, beyond incredible. And in our category, I think it's a little bit stern, I think it's a little bit safe, it's a little bit maybe outdated. I'm trying to bring my own sort of version of chaos and riot into what books can be feel like. With what you guys did, it feels like a salvo to the new era of what A monograph can be. Because even just seeing. And if I count it right, six bookmarks, those ribbons, that's already given me goosebumps because you know that someone thought about it and not just in one color. There's lots of colors I love. So how do you tackle a project that's going to have output of 600 pages? How do you build the storytelling? How do you build the peaks and highs and the lows? And how do you keep the reader entertained? Because this is something that is going to take a while to jump through. So how did you get to first planning, and how do you get to actually bring the project to life? Did you get approached by publishers or did you pitch it? Can we zoom in onto that?
- [24:59]
A
We. We knew we wanted to do a book, and we've started and stopped a few times over the years. But it's probably great that what happens in a small studio is you get busy, real work comes in, and then you have to stop working on your book. And then you do the stuff that pays the bills, which makes sense. But we had gotten a book pitched together and we were starting to go out, and early on in the process, Viktionary said, yes, we'll do it. And we had worked with Viktionary multiple times in the past, contributing to their books. And their books are beautiful, and you can tell they love bookmaking and they weren't going to cut corners. So it was a no brainer for us to work with Viktionary. And throughout the process, they were fantastic. They were absolutely fantastic. And as we moved through the process, we kept adding pages to the book. Okay, it's gonna be another hundred pages. Okay, another 50. Because we would put stuff in and edit it out and put stuff in and edit it out. But they never said, what are you guys doing? They were just like, okay, crazy people. Sure, keep going. But they were fantastic. So it was important, first that we had a partner that wasn't going to cheapen the experience. And I say cheapen because paper matters, the finish matters, the bookmarks matter, the edge, printing matters. So when you make a book for us, we're making an object. Even though we think of graphic design as 2D, that is a 3D thing. So that was really important. First of all, Viktionary, second was we knew it would have worked. It's the proof. It's the proof that, hey, we're a good studio. Look at the work. Okay, Check the work box. Diversity of studios, diversity of kinds of projects, stories, people we got to work with. But I Always feel like it sells a studio short to only show the finished work because any designer will tell you behind the finished work are tears. Is a messy process, is a ridiculous timeline. Every project is different. And years and years and years of that gives rise to theories and approaches to doing the work which are the essays that you see inside. It's the writing, it's the thinking. And even before that is the inspiration. So including the collecting weirdness and showing how disparate that can be. It's a glider pilot training kit. It is their vases from Italy. It's Japanese vintage toys. It's movie posters. You know, what are all these beautiful things that are everywhere that designers and creatives I think should be paying attention to? They should be building on this knowledge. And when you get to build on the inspiration, then it just flows into all these other things seamlessly. And I love a snackable book. So back to food. We're gonna. There's gonna be a lot of food. I wanted people to come in wherever they were and I wanted the book to meet creatives wherever they are in their career. And I'm usually not a linear person. When I pick up a creative book, I will just snack. I'm going to flip through it and decide where I want to enter the story. And that's okay. You can enter it anywhere and it's fine. Or you can start at the beginning and go through.
- [28:33]
B
I found out when I did my first book in 2016 that it was a stackable book. It was hidden portfolio in plain sight. I just create a book with my showcase but I put lots of words in it and people said yeah, I can just dip in and do my thing. That was the secret sauce, which I didn't know. But it's nice to be there because doing books for creative crowd. I found that most of our creative friends do not read as much as we would like them to do because from my colleague research or findings or data points. People appreciate when something's broken down, when there's a risk fight, when there's what I call the peaks and troughs. In that sort of excitement, do you have a bit of a time to rest and digest what you just read? And is there something else that you can particular curiosity with? Because heavy books are for other times, therefore for other shelves for something else. How do you make that book interesting? It's a whole different story. But with yours, I think the balance is fantastic. And you mentioned earlier, how do you keep proofreading 640 odd pages? I'm sure that you Spotted. After printing everything, there's still mistakes because it's impossible to somehow catch these typos because it's looks all fine. Everyone checks it. You print it. How do you make a typo on page two?
- [29:44]
A
I've told friends, I said, if you see anything, don't tell me. Just don't tell me. It's okay. I don't need to know.
- [29:49]
B
I want to go to the thing you said just a short while ago. You said, we knew we wanted to do a book. There is a statement of intent. So in a world of all of the books possible, obviously you stand tall and proud saying, we are hybrid and we know we want to do a book. What was that intent? Was it to inspire, educate, inform?
- [30:11]
A
It was absolutely a statement of intent. And it feels good to have proof, right? A printed book is proof. And in the past, we have print as ephemera, right? It wasn't going to last. But as it turns out, in our digital age, printed things last. They last a whole lot longer than digital things. So first and foremost, it's proof. It's proof of many years of effort, many years of learning, and that's a good feeling as a design studio. And the work that we did was good and it holds up. But the other part of that is that we have a unique way of getting there, and that's important as well. Of course, we have a process depending on the kind of work that we're doing and who we're working with. But I really shudder, and I hate people that sound overconfident. And there's one way to do things, and we're the experts. Anyone who comes across that way to me, and I hate it. Because in business, this is how you do things. But in a creative business, it's really important that you listen and that you ask a lot of questions. And that's a different way to approach work. It's a softer way to approach work. It's a curious way to approach work. And only really confident business people appreciate that. You can't do what we do with fear because the work won't be good. You have to approach it with curiosity, and you have to ask a lot of questions, and you have to bring your client along the journey with you. And the clients that do this with us together are the clients that we've had for 20 years, for the many years. Right? These are relationships that we build and that we have together. But I felt like there was a need for a voice that was softer and weirder.
- [32:07]
B
I think you very much accomplished that because you just hit on something which I had to make a note of. You said you can't do your work with fear. That's a very lived in experience statement.
- [32:20]
A
It's really easy to do your work. Caleb, who's one of our creative directors who's been at the studio for over 20 years, he likes to talk about a factory system of design and that's how we internally think about the very rigid. This is our phase, we don't change our phases. A client, get on board. This is how we have to work together. You almost get to check out and not engage as a creative if everything is so rigid. And that's the worst thing that you can do as a creative. But to explore, to even be brave enough to ask questions of really brilliant minds that are sitting in these rooms across tables from you sometimes that you get to meet, there can't be fear. You have to say, I'm going to be the vulnerable one and I'm going to ask all these questions. These are the right questions to ask and we'll all get further. But you can't do good work if you're afraid.
- [33:17]
B
No, I can only agree with you. I think it can be a part of the process because some people love the uncomfortable. Some people potentially has to accept the uncomfortable, but it's a good point. Anyone say, yeah, look, we did this, but we were scared, but we did this because there is a breakthrough, isn't it? You can start in the unknown, but you get to the other side. Which kind of brings me on the curation of this book, speaking of the unknown and the other side, because from the hundreds and hundreds of images and the dozens and dozens of projects, how did you even start picking the ones to use, picking the ones to choose and the ones that you have well documented and said, okay, this is the process, how we can showcase it? Because that's a mum of tasks. And you mentioned obviously earlier that sometimes you wanted to do the book, but then the clients come in and the work needs to be paid. The client does, needs to be a paid client work. So who was in charge, was it a democratic process of choosing the work? Who was in charge of curation? Who was in charge of looking at all the design assets? Because there's literally thousands of pieces in there.
- [34:19]
A
The process is pretty democratic, I would say. And there were many, so many rounds of design that we did. But when we got to the end of the process, it was clear that some projects had too much love, too many pages and other projects hadn't even made the book yet. And my hope was to be sure that we had the range, the range of clients, the range of projects represented, and to be sure that we represented 24 years. That was really important to me. And if someone was working on the book that hadn't been here that whole time, maybe they didn't know. I had a very fortunate role of designers doing the layouts and the hard work. I got to look at the whole thing, which is wonderful to look at it in pieces and then be able to step back. And when you step back, you get to say, oh, we're missing this moment. We're missing this moment. So I get to step back and look at it chronologically and see what I feel is missing. And it's really making sure that it had all the voices of all the clients and all the studio moments. And I would think back to everyone who worked here and made sure that they were represented as well in the book, which was really nice. And we just had a book launch on Friday, and it was so amazing to see some of the old designers, and they're just part of the whole, right? They're part of the whole. That is the Hybrid story. And so many people have gone on to great jobs and great experiences. It means a lot. It's like having kids right when they leave, it hurts, but I'm so proud of what they're doing. So looking at it and making sure we had that diverse representation of work that felt equal to the bizarre, diverse representation of inspiration as well.
- [36:19]
B
You beautifully described the curation and the must for having the representation of the 24 years. What did it feel like to look back and make peace with some of the stuff that potentially was bit older, not necessarily of the full quality that you now produce. How did you make peace with that?
- [36:38]
A
Yeah, there were. There's projects in the book from the very first years of Hybrid. It's wild to look back and think, that was 25 years ago. I'm old. Oh, my God. But it's what you. What the perspective gives you is the thinking. The intent was right. And of course, we edited stuff out right. This is the benefit of picking what we're proud of to put in the book. But you do think back on what you learned with each project and the relationship with the client, what we were trying to accomplish. This was the first time a company did this. You don't just think about what it looks like, but I think about the process of what it took to get there and who we worked with. And it is a trip down memory lane completely and it's also wonderful too. We had to reach out to all the clients in the book and get clearance. We had to reach out to and get permission. And so it was great to connect and say this is going to go in and it's somebody we either haven't talked to in a while or they're excited you're doing a book. What? And all the flyers and all the skateboards that you see in there and all the photos, everything had to be cleared. So there's a reason people don't do these books. It's a ridiculous amount of legal clearance as well. I think Nicole, head of operations, said There were over 440 contributors clearances that we had to get for the book.
- [38:10]
B
It's an incredible amount of work. And it reminds me of conversation I had with David Sheldon Hicks from the Territory Studios who they produce incredible work for films. And they're like, we can't print anything because next to what we do might be picture might be Ryan Gosling or some other actor. And like, we cannot put that in a book. It just won't happen. So what you're describing is just like that absolute logistical challenge. I'm not going to call it nightmare, but it's a challenge. So how long did it all take? When did you guys start? Because we now know that now it's out. But how long was the process?
- [38:42]
A
I think consistently working on it? Probably two years, a little less. And I want to say six months of that was proofing easily and editing and saying, oh, we don't have enough of this in there. Add this section, take out these pages. The last six months was the most active, but two years start to finish feels like a safe guess of time. It was a lot.
- [39:05]
B
Did you have a project that you were actually so happy to see again that kind of slipped your mind? It was, okay, this is a good memory. We need this in and we need it.
- [39:13]
A
There's, there's early Nike projects that were lead ups, that were press kits for the Olympics. So proud to be doing something for the Olympics. Excited to be printing, doing crazy foil stamping, foil edge painting, gilding. When we. This gilding project that we did. How many places did gilding back in 2004? I'll tell you, printers that printed Bibles. So we had to stop production on Bibles to get this Nike press kit inserted into their workflow so we could gild the edges of these images of Marion Jones. But you think of these weird moments that happen during projects that I look at, or we did a hypebeast issue with Virgil Abloh and we got to send pages back and forth so he could write on them. And then we would scan those pages in and put them in the magazine. So it's the interaction, right? It's these weird moments of working with LEGO and reminding them. This was when, back when LEGO was first getting into licensing. And you think, oh, they've always been doing licensed kits, right? Not the case. So when they were first partnering with Star wars, we worked with them to imagine how do we launch this collaboration with LEGO and Star Wars. And my husband, who's got an amazing imagination and is a big kid, said, you just need to make a life size X wing and let's fly it into Times Square. And that's that. Life size X wing. That's the answer. And they LEGO said, you know what? Yeah, that is the answer. Let's make a life size X wing. So that's how they launched the announcement. So it's these projects where you say, what if at the beginning of a project, I like to ask a client, if you didn't have your constraints, money, I'm if there were no constraints, what would success look like? And it doesn't have to be a concrete answer. It could be an emotional reaction to a campaign. What would it do for the business? How would we all feel personally? And when you remove the constraints, you can dream for a while and then you put back in all the constraints, right. Time, money, et cetera, and you get the project done. Right. I love a deadline, I love to beat pencils down. I love to say we're finished. But it's also good to teach the client how to dream bigger than maybe people lock down their abilities.
- [41:51]
B
This is my question here because I love that you say, hey, if you could do anything, what would you do? But you say sometimes you need to teach clients to think bigger because is it the tinge of their fear because they might be on the client side with more of the business sort of strategy, tactics, responsibilities. Could that be suppressing their curiosity, their fearlessness?
- [42:14]
A
I think there's a lot of locking it down before, before we even get started.
- [42:20]
B
Right.
- [42:20]
A
I think that happens all the time that people say, oh, it's just a catalog. Oh, it's just whatever, right? And they've already oversimplified it, rather than saying would be fantastic is if we could do this and then let the team figure out what's possible, let us figure out how to get some better paper, let us figure out how to make it feel more elevated with materials, with experience with whatever, right? With animation, you don't know what's possible till you ask. And if you never ask right, you're already hurting yourself. And some people never ask, some people never ask. And I learned this when I was at Nike. I, as an intern, as new designer, Nike had decent budgets. The projects that I got weren't the projects that anybody wanted. But when you're getting your work done and you have a budget, it's great that nobody's paying attention to you. You're like, I get to do whatever I want. You're paying for a photo shoot, I get to design a catalog. It looks like whatever, this is what I'm into right now. You just go and you see, when you remove constraints, you're free and it's back to that. Creating without fear. You just don't know until you try sometimes. And when other people figure out that this is possible, there's projects that we do where the budget is absolutely minuscule, but it's a long term client because we both get to take something small and we get something out of it. They get something out of it. It's beautiful. No one would ever know it's the tiniest budget in the world. But it's this little bit of joy in what we create that is the takeaway.
- [44:03]
B
My takeaway from our conversation so far is the fact that you talk with so much passion about curiosity about what could be as opposed to what is. That must be infectious to when you speak to your clients. Because removing the fear, adding possibilities. Again, I'm going to rephrase your quote. Well, to be curious, you have to let it all out. To be curious, you have to let it all in. Because that creates the opportunities, the people who are just there to produce the job, produce the commission, produce, go from A to B to A to Z in the safest manner and be done. That's a scary place to convince people that you can do something great. Because I love when you said talking when you were a Nike flying under the radar gave you freedom. Because then you can actually, you've got that almost that sound when you can prove yourself and go, you know what, what you thought was impossible. It's possible. Not only possible, it was really good. So I just love that passion for, and I hate to use word passion, but I love that eloquence and curiosity that shines through the book, shines for your work, shines for what you say and because it's, it makes me excited about a conversation that you guys have with your clients and telling them what what could be? And they go, yes, this should be.
- [45:16]
A
I think it's great. And when clients see the possibility, that's when everybody is engaged. That's when everybody is on board to do something amazing, to do something they've never done before. And not all clients are ready to do that at all. Some clients are like, look, things are terrible. This is my marketing budget. With the economic times that we're in right now are pretty depressing. But finding the moments, finding the places where you can surprise people and insert the little bit of joy, the little bit of joy that gets inserted, I feel like it comes out the other end. Like people somehow find it and it's there. They can tell it's there.
- [45:56]
B
It's interesting when you think about what you just mentioned, about the sort of the economic times, we still talk about creative brilliance. It still happens, it's still there. And sometimes when you mention the small budgets, again, that's under the radar for possibilities rather than try to be everything to everyone because that might sell extra X amount of the product. And I think this is the thing we can take into our satisfaction and to our realization that amazing things still happen regardless of what times we live in. Because the number of times that I've had, I've heard in my creative lifetime where people said the budget wasn't big enough so we couldn't do xyz and someone said, if you had all the money, what would you do? We have enough cash. Because even the people with the most budget. Yeah, we could still do everything. So the constraints don't really matter, do they?
- [46:47]
A
No. Because we've all seen people spend a ton of money on terrible work, right? You can do that. You can spend a ton of money on terrible work. And I tell people all the time that you can make beautiful things with small budgets. And here's proof. It's nice to have a mixture of budgets. I'm not courting all the small budgets in the world, but you can make beautiful work with small budgets. Absolutely. Cost the same to print ugly and to print beautiful, right. When you're putting just say four color ink on paper, running it, taking the time to run it through a press or build a website or whatever, it's time, right? You're paying for time. So if you think about it and if you've done all the homework and the years of learning, right, you're carrying all that, all those experiences with you, it shows up, right? All of that curiosity and weird facts and beautiful sci fi films and posters and all the things that you learned along the way, it shows up, it finds a home. But the creative process is so much more interesting when you get to bring all that stuff with you.
- [47:53]
B
What did you find that on reflection, you've learned as a person, as a creative, as a leader about yourself? Because times have changed. You've grown up a little bit from that time. You had to employ people. And I always used to enjoy asking people this question, like, so what have you learned about yourself being a leader? And like, how did you do it? People say, yeah, I did it. I was a bad leader and I did things badly until I learned how to do them properly. What was it that you've learned about yourself having a front row seat to your business? What was it like for you to look back and realize how much you've grown and how much, how far you've gone yourself?
- [48:29]
A
I think the same approach to learning about other things, I've learned by watching others be good leaders. I've had good managers and I've had bad managers. And I think of everything. I could probably learn to be more patient, without a doubt, with all the curiosity, with all the interest, with all the stuff slowing down, for sure, I think if there were moments where I could slow down, that would probably be important. But the same way that you pick up creativity and you pick up, you're curious about things, watching how other people lead has been really eye opening to me. And Brian and I also compliment each other, right? We find the moments where, okay, you're going to take on this role. Okay, now I'm going to take on that role. So having different people within the company that have different skills and different talent and understanding that I don't have to do it. All right? Being a small studio, being coming from a very DIY background, immigrant parents. So I was born in Greece. My parents came here when I was little and I watched them do a lot of different careers and explore and try things. I think all the exploration comes from them completely. I give them all the credit for fearlessness. But you just learn, right? You have to keep learning and you have to get better. And being able to step back is the biggest learning for me because I'm gonna do everything. I've tried this, roll up my sleeves, I can. I'm the custodian, I'm the creative director. You own a business, you do all the things. But teaching myself to step back and let everybody else come into the roles their own roles is beautiful. Like, it feels good and it does feel like a very parental thing because now I have older kids, I Say older. High school, middle school. And they're doing things for themselves. And I'm like, look at them. Look at them doing things for themselves. It's amazing. It's amazing. So I love that part of where I am now.
- [50:37]
B
It's satisfying, isn't it?
- [50:38]
A
Yes.
- [50:39]
B
You hear someone who's 25 and it's their birthday and they're like, I'm so old now. You're like, wait till you're older. And you actually enjoy being old because it's the magic of growing older and knowing more stuff. And when you said slowing down, letting go, it's magical because all that frenetic nonsense we do in our teens, 20s, early 30s is why it's a learning point. Of course it's a learning point. I mean, enjoy it more as we grow older. Do I really enjoy this? But I have to ask you, after 24 years of hybrid, I'm not going to ask you how you see the next 24 years as Hybrid, but how do you see the next 24 months in what you guys do and what you hoping that the book's going to bring to you as a result of putting all that work and care into the project? Where do you see almost immediate future?
- [51:29]
A
So back to the conditions, right? The moment the book is launched into a time of change, right? So you never know. You make a thing and then it lands in time and place. So we've landed in a time and place full of change, full of confusion. And I think having dialogue about how we navigate where we are and showing that there's a lot of different ways out of where we are in a lot of different ways to have we dealt with change in the past? When Brian and I started InDesign, computers were new, there was software was new. Lots of change in this industry over 24 years. So when you've seen change, there's going to be more change. It's going to be okay. It doesn't freak you out as much. But some of my younger designers who haven't experienced that much change, it's over. The world's ending. AI is going to eat our brains. Right? It's all of this. So I think it lands at a time where when conversation and discussion is always needed, always helpful. How do we keep things creative? How do we stay inspired? How do we navigate change? If we can have those discussions then and inspire people and be curious, we're doing okay.
- [52:47]
B
Thank you. I'm going to summarize this conversation with quote by Francis Drury, who said, book is only good if it finds the reader in the right time. When you talk about concept of change, that book will always be in the right place at the right time. Nora, thank you very much for coming to talk to me today. I really enjoyed have you speak about what you do about that quiet, confident eloquence and passion that you put into your work and your projects. The book is fantastic and people should get a copy even though the delivery person might have struggled to deliver it to your house because it's so big and heavy. But it's a fantastic piece of work. I'm really happy that you guys made it happen. And yeah, you're showing people what change could look like and I think that's one of the most important parts of what you do.
- [53:29]
A
So thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you for having me. Been awesome to talk about the book.
- [53:35]
B
You're most welcome. 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 Bikes 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 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% off your order, visit novemberuniverse.co.uk and use the code podcast. Have a look around and start living daringly.