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- [00:10]
A
When you think about professional creativity, which is how do you bring yourself but also create something that is useful, actually relevant to people. And I think again, we all live in the same world. We all have the same hopes and dreams, things we want. And for me, I get great satisfaction from design that I see has a meaning, has a degree of distinction. I think the word would be. I think it's hard to be truly original, but I think you can be distinct in your creativity and worldview. But then it's only as good as how well it meets the world and whether or not it actually works. Because anybody can be daring in a vacuum.
- [00:55]
B
Welcome to Daring Forever, a podcast about being human, wired for wonder, capable of courage, perpetually becoming. It's about the waves that knock us under and the strange, stubborn grace with which we surface. My name is Radim Malinj. I'm an author, creative, and an eternally curious human being on a mission to speak to incredible people whom I call Forever Daring humans, those in pursuit of an extraordinary life. Every week I share an interview that is packed with amazing stories of value and I can only ask you, how will you dare forever? This podcast is inspired by my upcoming book titled Daring Forever, which is now available for pre order out in October, My guest today co founded one of the most in demand design and brand agencies 25 years ago and today they are building systems for TikTok, Formula One and brands billions of people use every single day. Simon Dixon is the co founder of DixonBaxy and a returning voice on this show. In this conversation we talk about what it really means to feel comfortable in your own skin, why doubt is the price of growth rather than something to fear. And how taste, not talent, is what separates work that lasts. We get into permission, access and why Simon believes there are no dead ends, only thinks you've won. This is a masterclass in staying curious after 25 years and daring to challenge everything. Simon, welcome to Daring Forever. How are you doing today?
- [02:34]
A
Very good my friend. Nice to see you again. It's always a pleasure to spend time with you.
- [02:38]
B
Thank you very much for saying that feelings are very much mutual. I'm really enjoying the fact that you here as one of the first guests of my new season that coincide with the release of my new book called Daring Forever. Because I've enjoyed loads of beautiful conversations about creativity, about mindful creativity, how we do our businesses and stuff. But I wrote a book that I wanted to share with the industry and society at large about the fact that how we are capable of so much more than we tell ourselves, and you are one of the living and breathing examples of what you can do when you apply yourself, when you create yourself, a trajectory, your Runway, of what you wanted to achieve. So as you, my returning guest, we can potentially point people back to the episode we recorded a long time ago. But I will still ask you for a little introduction to tell my listeners who you are, what you do.
- [03:26]
A
My name is Simon Dickson. I'm one of the co founders of Dixon Backsea. We're a creative agency, design agency, brand agency. I don't really know what we should call ourselves anymore. But we work from London, all over the world. About 90% of the work we do is international. In October, it will be our 25th birthday. So there's 60 of us making work for TikTok and Formula One and lots of different types of companies that tens of millions, hundreds of millions, in many instances, billions of people use every day. So we build strategies, identity and brand systems and the application thereof to very complex large scale organizations globally.
- [04:07]
B
What does it feel like to be creative? With 25 years of having a history of your own studio and obviously a longer history of working as a creative, what do you feel like now?
- [04:16]
A
I don't get afraid very often, to be honest. It's not something I'm hardwired into. I guess there's a couple of things at play there. One is if you have a body of work and a body of experience, you can meet the world in a way that gives you greater strength than when you first started out because obviously you've learned from your mistakes, you've built the scar tissue and things like that. So I feel very comfortable, and I mean comfortable not as in settled or atrophied, but comfortable in my skin. I feel confident in my decision making, I feel confident in the team, I feel confident in the way we meet the world and why that's important is that the world is crazy. The world is moving very quickly, it's very complex. And what I'm actually interested in is what's happening tomorrow. Many of the people I know, and we all know where the industry is and the world is in general. And I think creativity is a superpower. It has the ability to make things better and improve things. And I want to meet the world on those terms. And I think our industry needs to re challenge what creativity means at scale for people around the world, particularly in a world of intelligent technology. So I'm super excited about that. I feel good about knowing where I am in the world and I feel good about taking on what's next?
- [05:29]
B
What I want to know about you feeling comfortable. Do you remember when did it come for you? When you actually realized you can lean into yourself? Because I believe that comes with aging, that comes with time, that we can just say, this is me, this is my body, this is my vehicle, this is what carries me. This is my experience and my body of work. Do you remember that moment?
- [05:48]
A
I've met many people in my career, in my life. Some meet the world almost immediately with a self as self. Awareness, independence, emotional intelligence, creative independence. And some take time to build a scaffolding to be able to do that. I started my first agency when I was 19. I didn't go to university, didn't go to school. So I just started and I didn't stop. I didn't ask any permission. I probably didn't either have the creativity, intelligence, or knowledge to know that I shouldn't do that. But I've never been a person that has to ask permission from the world to do what I do. I believe everybody should do their version of it. And I think it takes time to get elite and to get to a very high level and skill there. But I've just always met the world the same way. I'm exactly the same person inside in terms of my desire for creativity and the things that drive that. Obviously, I carry a body of experience and skill sets and the things that come with that.
- [06:45]
B
You mentioned a word, which is actually the first chapter in the book, which is permission. Permission has been in some way always part of a conversation about how creativity is approached. Some people feel that potentially they need someone to show them where the dots lie and how to join them. But in your case, I think you pretty much find it yourself. Would that be right?
- [07:06]
A
As you enter the industry or life in general, you start to do things. You test yourself against the world, your relationships, your friendships, how you learn, what you like to make, how you carry yourself. And you start the first version of discovery about what you are, and then you continue to do that, and your relationships shape that. I think relationships are incredibly important, but they should be shaped around a mutual benefit of doing something together, rather than a generic notion of a particular idea. I think our industry is amazing at coming up with buzz phrases and ideas, but under that, it's not that complicated. The biggest thing, I think, if you're talking about this particular subject, is access. It's very easy to be daring if you can pay the rent. It's very easy to be daring if you have created the infrastructure for that to happen. Because It's a broad notion and the idea that we excavate bravery or daring is the opposite. It's actually creating the infrastructure in a safe space and mindset for people to feel they can be creatively expressive and then figure out how that meets the world. So when I was young and nascent, I didn't realize I needed scaffolding and furniture. I just thought, I'll make things and see what people felt. But I've always wanted to make things that move people emotionally, that get a response from people. I like that feeling of making something and seeing people use it and it improves things or excites them and there's an emotional context to it. And I think being a designer, when I started out, I like the idea of making things that I think push the envelope of where I am and to a certain extent the industry.
- [08:44]
B
A while ago you said that you had a desire for creativity and what it made me think about with your recent thing that you just said, you said there's a mutual respect and partnership. You give yourself permission to be. But when you're a solo architect thinking about creativity plus the creativity versus the world, some people don't necessarily have the access to mentors or support or even agency jobs that they have to work out stuff on their own.
- [09:12]
A
That's why I did. I didn't have a job. I've never had a mentor. Any infrastructure I have, I built. I think there's a confusion between solo and group. It's a bit like specialists and generalists. They're made up ideas. Even if you're an individual, you don't operate individually. You have to have some infrastructure. Your relationships in life, the work you do, whether that's self initiated or it's for other people. As you and I are talking about applied professional creativity that has a number of stakeholders in that. If we're just talking about pure creativity and pure self expression, where you have zero responsibility, then what we're talking about is art and being an artist. And then that self expression is about how you meet the world. But we're talking about applied creativity, which has stakes and stakeholders. Whenever I've developed my career, I've considered those people. The first stakeholder is me. How does the work make me feel? Does it elevate me? Am I growing? The second thing is my partners are people I would work with. That could be a sound designer, it could be one of my creative partners, it could be typographer. And then there's the client, the person who facilitates or sponsors whatever I'm making. But Actually, I'm designing for people around the world. Whether that's a rave flyer for 50 people in a nightclub when I started out or a billion people a day with TikTok. It's the same feeling, which is I share something and I hope I love it, but really what I want is the end audience not to love it because they'll never know I designed it. But I like the idea that it will be useful, meaningful and move the needle for them in some way. If I was an individual solopreneur, I would still think the same way. We're all interconnected and there is a contextual nature if you're professionally creative.
- [10:54]
B
You said that when you design with zero responsibility, that's art. And you talk about work for billion people, which you said you like to do work that moves people. I know you balance it well, but how do you balance responsibility for creativity, for something that has the desired outcome that you actually want to move people and you can't manipulate them, but you create stuff that appetizer to actually say, look, this is meaning something to you. 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 the creative industry and beyond. Lax Coffee Company 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 at luxcoffee.co.uk. you can use the code podcast to get 15% off your first order.
- [12:10]
A
Great question. When you think about professional creativity, which is how do you bring yourself but also create something that is useful or actually relevant to people? And I think, again, we all live in the same world, we all have the same hopes and dreams, things we want. And for me, I get great satisfaction from design that I see has a meaning, has a degree of distinction. I think the word would be. I think it's hard to be truly original, but I think you can be distinct in your creativity and worldview. But then it's only as good as how well it meets the world and whether or not it actually works. Because anybody can be daring in a vacuum, anybody can be brave in a vacuum. But it's actually, when you're tested in public on something that has responsibility, do you actually see if it works? And those skills are very hard work. That takes a long time to get a leap of that when you're carrying the responsibility of something large. But I think the principle is the same, though.
- [13:07]
B
Actually, when you were talking, it just reminded me a quote by Alain de Botton, who said, the book is only good if it finds the person at the right time. When you think about creativity, commercial creativity, sometimes the work clicks when it finds the audience at the right time. Would you agree?
- [13:23]
A
Yeah. The difference between him and us is that he's writing a book for an audience which he instinctually will know because he's part of that audience, but he will trust that they exist. We're creating design and infrastructure and communication system to communicate something else. We're in service of the thing we're creating. So there is a different master and a different level to it. I have to operate in a world which has lots of different kind of interconnected and contextual moving parts. If we, as an agency, build a design system for Formula One, I have to think about somebody in Asia and somebody in Europe and someone in North America and how they'll interact with that brand. But then I have to think about, is it on the phone or is that a race trial? What level of ticket did they buy? How does the brand sit alongside Tag Heure and the King of Spain? What if I'm watching that drive to survive versus watching the highlights versus watching something else? So that's a different way of looking at how design and creativity works, because it's in service of something. If I write a book, which I have done, it's in service of the idea of the book. And I hope that would connect with a specific audience and actually maybe reach some people who wouldn't necessarily think about my topic in general.
- [14:35]
B
It's interesting that you zoomed in on the author and the particular topic with a specific audience, because I think that quote applies to general. Any book is a good book if it finds you in the right time. Sometimes it takes for a brand retooling or for rebrand, it takes time to mature, for it to propagate in a way or just spread into the right places. Because I feel when we see lots of new case studies, as they happen, they're quite light on depth because. Newness to it.
- [15:04]
A
Yeah. Who's your favorite author?
- [15:06]
B
Actually? Oliver Bergman. Oliver Bergman's my favorite author.
- [15:09]
A
Okay, great. So let's say I say Kurt Vonnegut is my favorite author. Just for argument's sake, you might have no relationship with Vonnegut whatsoever, and I might have no relationship. Did you say Bergman?
- [15:21]
B
Oliver Bergman? Yeah.
- [15:22]
A
Yeah. Obviously I've read some of his work, but am I not having a relationship with that particular author. But both are meaningful, both have value. And branding works the same way, which is you're creating something that has great meaning for a certain audience, and then that meaning gets looser as awareness kind of fades. And then there will be certain people who actively are not interested in what you've done. So if we created a brand for at Milan, a soccer club or football club, Inter Milan fans will have an active dislike in that. So it's okay to have different types of relationships. And authors, I think they stand and fall by their reputation. So obviously what happens is over time people will decide how well they write, whether their ideas are adding to the canon, are they bringing an insight or an approach that is capturing something fresh and different. And over time, your reputation is a differentiator because you win things, awards come and go, things happen. But over time, your body of work and the way you meet the world tells people what you are. And that's unequivocal and undeniable because it's everything. So authors get that, painters get that brand, or designers get that you are perceived by the effect of your work and how it shows up in the world.
- [16:40]
B
I can only agree with work at large. One of the chapters in the book is about curiosity, because I believe that we start with permission when it actually aligns with the journey that you had. But I had that. I didn't search anyone's permission. I just started because I had a pure desire for creativity, for design, and that will lead me because I felt there was fewer resources, fewer mentors at that time, at least in my journey. And it was a beautiful melee of wrong decisions and mistakes to work out. What can you actually do and how to work it out? When you realize that you've got no clients, no portfolio, no philosophy, but you're still trying to make it work. That's a beautiful definition of madness in a way. But you still make it work because you're going after that desired effect, which is, I want to have a studio one day and I want to do this for a living. So it starts with permission, because I already said this question between now versus how opportunity or commission comes to you, and you said, this is the moment of now. I've got no idea how to do this right now, but I'm going to say yes to it and work it out. I'm sure you will totally attest to some of the decades where everyone's taken lots of commissions and had no idea how to do any of it. But we went out and made Stuff. I mean, we didn't always were fully formed and fully ready for this. At that moment when you give yourself that permission or you accept that this is a permission to go somewhere, you come to the point of acceptance, realizing that I'm the person here right now who can create that work. As you said, you bring yourself to this equation to say, when you allow yourself to enjoy the moment and say, my name is Simon Dixon, and this is what only Simon Dixon can do, kind of sets you, in my opinion, on this journey of curiosity, when you realize that you don't have to second guess yourself, what you can do, how you can do it, and actually enjoy the path. So on the topic of curiosity, how do you see the word? How do you see the topic?
- [18:27]
A
The thing I would say is, what are you curious about? Because curiosity doesn't mean anything. It's like saying, I like something. I'm interested in what people are curious about. And I think there's another thing which goes in parallel with that, which is being attentive and is being aware of things. Because a lot of great insight and creative inspiration comes from looking at things and absorbing them and figuring them out and reprocessing them back into your creativity. So I think what happens is curiosity is conflated with a lot of different things in the creative process. So whenever I think about any broad term, my thing is, so what is the thing? So if you're curious, what are you curious about? Or why does it matter to me and why does it matter to you? Or why does it matter to the world? That's the thing I'm constantly thinking, because words don't come into my head when I'm working and somebody offers us a project. One thing I've never thought I couldn't do, what I've always thought is that this might stretch us. But that's like being in the gym. So you get used to curling 5k. You get used to being in the gym, you and your show, you know how it feels. You've hydrated, you've had your power bar, and then you try to curl seven and a half kilos. But it's an extension of something you've already done. Cut to a year Later, I'm curling 15 kilos. It's part of a journey. You don't start every moment empty. Your hand is full of things. Your experience, your relationships, your confidence or lack of confidence, the tools and techniques you've learned. And you say, right, with these things, I'm going to go make something now. And that gives you great Strength. So that's how I see things. I don't ever see anything as empty. I see things as contextual, which is today, what am I curious about? And what I'm curious about today is you, because you're saying things to me that are challenging me to think about creativity. So it's an interesting conversation. So I'm really curious why you picked the word daring. Also really curious why you picked the word forever. They're really interesting things and not to pick on that now I'm just as a thing. So when you send me information, I'm curious about what our relationship is and what we might do together or what the benefit of that is. So that's how I think about it.
- [20:35]
B
I can actually fill in the backstory for you. Because Daring Forever seems to me this gentle manifesto of reminding people that we can live in a world with no regrets, of pursuing things that we want to do because the story is. And actually it was after I saw you at of not this year, but year before. I had four titles for this book. This book is inspired by my TEDx talk from late 2024, which was about life lessons from creativity. I believe that lessons in resilience, self acceptance, curiosity come from creativity. I think creativity is a great teacher, which kind of gives us the vehicle and the drive and the explorations of what we can find in our lives. And I had four different titles. One of them was Creative Life Lessons. And I was just about to interview James Victore for the previous podcast, which was called Daring Creativity. And before I had that title, I was thinking James Victoria would never name a book Creative Life Lessons. He would call it something F this, F that, do this, do whatever, be a rebel. And I thought Daring Creativity was one of the titles I wanted to do. Daring, in a way. I speak English as a second language. So for me, daring obviously is. I've got my own personal meaning to the word. Then there's a societal meaning and there's a dictionary meaning. Just like everything else, everyone's got their own meaning of creativity. There's a societal idea of what creativity might be. There's a dictionary. And that definition for every person is different because we all got our own relationship to it because we feel it differently. So what I wanted to do is just to say, look, when I ask people what Daring Forever means to them, I'm almost always astounded and amazed by the positive reaction when they say, this is who I am. This is what I stand for. I don't sound over the edges. People stand tall when you Ask them something which is almost rallying. Cry. What does daring forever mean? Because they might not always think about the fact that they are daring and they do it all the time. So this is what I wanted to challenge the topic. Because some of the people that I know that answer that question. I know about their struggles, I know about their insecurities, I know that they haven't always gone for the thing they should have gone for. And when I think about your career, I can totally say this has been a Daring Forever career, because you are where you want it to be, in my opinion. You are standing tall, you share a lot, you've got this generosity because you don't have to second guess yourself about who's Simon Dixon. So that's my backstory on Daring Forever.
- [23:05]
A
You've talked a lot there about being aware of how things work. And I think that's really helpful. It's really powerful because what you're doing is listening to yourself. But you're flexible enough to adapt to things contextually. And what that means is you're constantly learning you're not calcified in an idea. And I'm very nervous about calcifying around a specific idea because things change, you learn things, the world changes. But what I do like are principle. I like ways of acting. And the biggest one of all, there's two of them really. One is self determination and the other is control. Neither of which are in a kind of ego maniacal way. If you control your environment, you can improve your ability to serve people well or do things that are amazing, again based on your terms, relative to what you do. And a lot of people find it very difficult to be self determined because the world limits people's access, tells them things that are just not true, overloads them. When I think about daring, I think actually most of the work is done in an unglamorous, quiet way. It's like this idea that everyone's on the edge of a cliff is just bollocks. That's not how bravery and creativity works in our world. There are people like that. If you want nurses and doctors and people who actually work in a way that is fundamentally difficult, maybe an astronaut. But for us it's about creating the environment for people to feel they can create the best version of themselves. And through what you just described in that conversation, which is if you want to say fuck you, you can do it. If you don't want to say that, it's also cool and within the remit of creativity. It's a very broad thing and I think often what happens is we try and collapse it down to a handful of things. It doesn't work like that. I mean, even creativity is a word. You talked a moment ago about learning from creativity. I don't think it works that way. What you're actually doing is using creativity as a vehicle to either gather insight or translate that insight into something. Then that's kind of its job, and you can learn from that process. But again, for me, it's the actual process of doing it that is the key, because a lot of these conversations are stood on the sideline. So if you talk about being daring, that's about what you're willing to give up, what you're willing to lose, not just what you're willing to gain. You have to turn down free pitching. You have to say, we're doing remote working or we're not doing remote working. You have to say, we won't work in gambling. You have to actually make choices, which in the dark, when no one's watching and they don't see that, that's actually what determines you. Not necessarily a glamorous ideal of being the coolest designer. Because you and I could have cool ideas instantly, I would hope. I've not worked with you personally, but I'm guessing you have a lot of cool ideas based on what I've met from you. But they die very quickly if you haven't created the environment and the context for them to live and to actually meet the world. So that's my job. That's what I do.
- [26:10]
B
Yeah. I mean, there's definitely something about the systems that you can have an idea that just doesn't go. If you don't let go of something and you believe in it, it can take a long time to make it. But I think it's determination that in this case, I would say actually that curiosity of what something can become. Because I'm enjoying how much you are flexing the word daring. Because to me, from this, I've spent a long. A lot longer thinking about that word. And the concept I knew, to me, that feels like a cherry on top, because it's almost a reminder that things are possible. Because the book itself, overall, is about the neuroscience of the brain. The neuroscience of the brain. Because I wanted to almost create a body of work where we can share it with our industry or maybe be outside the edges, where when you think about the labels of imposter syndrome, shyness, introverts, that kind of stuff, there's a lot that happens in our bodies and in our nervous system. And in our brains that dictate how we operate what I call the vehicle, which is the body. And there's lots of emotions that hardwired systems and emotions that we feel. From very much in ancestorial times. We've been hardwired to look out for fear, We've been hardwired to look out for danger and that kind of stuff. And our world has moved on, but our ancient system hasn't moved on that much. So we've been built for pursuit, but yet I feel like we find ourselves in a generational era where we are pursuing pleasure.
- [27:38]
A
The interesting thing about this is, again, it's the semantics of the word. You say fear, I say down. If you're going to grow and develop as a person, you will feel down. It goes back to being in the gym again. When you exercise, you'll feel an ache in your arm because you're growing and developing. And creativity is the same. You'll feel it in your head. So things like imposter syndrome, they come from two places. One is doubt and the sense of identity and place in the world and people looking at you, which it can manifest itself in lots of different ways. Fear, lots of different things, but it's not a fear instinct. It's contextual down about how you're changing and growing. Then the other thing is the infrastructure around you and how that allows you to be creative and say, this is a safe space. It's okay to make mistakes. It's okay for you to not know the answer to that. It's okay for you to understand that you're on a journey. It's okay for you to make bad work before you make good work, because that's how you grow. So if you create an environment that allows for that, the imposter syndrome side of it melts away because there is nobody looking at anybody with that mindset. The fight or flight thing and the fear thing, it's very heavily loaded. So what you could do is you could just break that down and demystify it and just say, look, it's not that complex. What you're feeling is the uncomfortable nature of being challenged to improve. And that's a positive thing because it means you're growing and learning and developing, but you have to create the right environment for that.
- [29:04]
B
I agree with you that these words, fear, failure are very heavily loaded because I think they've become an easy carrier for situation. We don't always decode really well because what the book does, it very well describes how we have inherited in a certain way, working Mechanism where we carry around with ourselves. Because I like when you said the word. There's a difference between fear and doubt. There were people that had a fear of being eaten by the saber toothed tiger some 5,000 years ago. I don't think they were in doubt, but I fully understand how we have moved on. And actually creating safe environments for our creativity is something that works so much better for us. But the amygdala, the fear system in our brains, doesn't always distinguish between the fear of the tiger rustling in the leaves and sharing your work with thousand strangers.
- [29:48]
A
It does if you talk to people
- [29:50]
B
initially, but it's a learned experience if
- [29:53]
A
people keep using the same language. What it's doing is straightening the intensity for people. And let's not say that, let's say that nobody's going to be eaten in this building. Everyone in this building is warm and safe. Everybody can get the polio vaccination or they can go to the dentist so they're not going to die from bacteria. There are no dragons outside this window. There's just trees and swans and ducks. You're being paid to do something. You've been educated to do that thing. And what we're doing is something wonderful. We're doing something amazing together. We're making something beautiful for other people. As soon as you do that, everything calms down. If you talk about what happened generationally, hundreds of thousands of years ago, you continue to manifest the intensity on people. But I don't do that in these war. We protect people from those dragons. So everything you say I agree with. I think you're absolutely right. Fear is a powerful motivator. Dopamine is a really powerful motivator. But I talk about it in another way so that people are not on edge by the intensity.
- [31:03]
B
I suppose, as you were beautifully explaining, there's no one's getting Ethan in this building for social media.
- [31:09]
A
I was overextraction a little bit. What I'm saying, really, and not to disagree with you, because I think everything you do is very well considered. You think very thoughtfully about how you put systems together. And you and I have been in enough rooms together for me to see how you do that. So I appreciate the trust and effort that takes and the honesty to do that. But I do think in our industry there's a lot of heavily loaded language and ways of saying things that can be extremely unhelpful. And then there's also limiting beliefs and biases that affect people's ability to do what they want to do. And I'm really interested in taking the scaffolding down of those two things.
- [31:50]
B
I suppose you mentioned the word calcifying earlier, and that makes me think that what you describe is some of that language. And some of those beliefs come from people classifying in certain time and space. Because when you keep moving, you get a new data, you get new ideas, you make more sense of things.
- [32:08]
A
You're a literal example of that. In the conversations we've had over the years, you've brought many ideas to the table which are really valid and useful to people. But you've also been emotionally intelligent enough and creatively flexible enough to take input from other people and grow and add to your canon. Really. Which is what I think great authors and great writers and great thinkers do is they don't remain fixed on a single thing. They might have a worldview. Of course, you and I probably share a lot of thinkers in common. I would guess both our worlds are slightly different because you create content and thinking and structures for people. I create an entity that creates design structures. But I think the thinking is probably relatively similar.
- [32:53]
B
I would like to believe so. Yeah, I think so. What's really interesting when you talked about creating a safe environment and creating conditions for the plants to grow is the role of a gardener. That's a Ken Robinson quote.
- [33:06]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [33:07]
B
For example, what do you do when you see someone struggling or when you see someone needing help? What is your method?
- [33:14]
A
It's another great question because it's a reoccurring fundamental of the creative journey, working in teams. I think there's two parallel paths to the answer of that. One of which is contextually creating a situation where people understand change is a constant, growth is a constant, and being unsettled or uncomfortable is a constant, because that's the nature of adaptive creativity. And challenging yourself to get better is pre warning that there will be periods which you might be unsettled. And you talked about a dead end as an example. So we have a thing which is there are no dead ends. There are no cul de sacs. There's no mistakes. What you're doing is just looking at what you've won. And if you've won nothing, it tells you at least something. And it's okay to feel that. The other thing as well is you also want to balance the ability to help people with them going through the same experiences you did to get to where you are, because falling down and feeling what that feels like is part of the journey. So if you constantly stop people feeling uncomfortable at all, they don't grow Enough so you're in between those two states. We have to balance it and make sure you protect people mentally and literally, but also give them enough room to do their own version of it rather than micromanage them. But you can tell. You could just see. Well, you can't always tell, but in lots of instances you can tell. There's signals in the work, there's signals in the way people carry themselves and talk. And what you've got to do is remain open and sensitive to that. And it's one of the hardest things to learn, I think. I think I was not very good at that when I was younger. I think particularly when you start your career, you're very self obsessed, you're narcissistic, it's about you and you're supposed to be because you're finding yourself. But then you realize it's like doing things with other people. And once you realize that, learning the sensitivity to how you carry yourself and spot in the problems before they happen, I think is a big thing. So we have lots of tools and techniques and systems in place now that do that. And they have one, I suppose.
- [35:21]
B
Yeah. Because I don't want to mention about dead ends just to get an idea of the mechanics, but when it comes to curiosity, one of the phrases that put in a book is that when you're curious, you can never lose because you can even find what you're looking for or you find something else.
- [35:34]
A
Exactly.
- [35:35]
B
The next chapter in the book is actually what something that you signal now unknowingly. It's a chapter about gratitude. Because I believe that from permission, acceptance to curiosity, what you go and find is element of gratitude. Because I believe people in our positions and many others are very lucky that we can do what we want to do without being eaten in a building. Because I think it's an incredible thing to experience in our lifetime. And what I believe, and partially based on our conversation before, I think there's three stages of our lives and our careers, which is the inward stage, output stage, and then the forward stage. The first one is about I all about me and ego. So that's the inward focus. The second one is about, okay, you know what? I can let go of what I really want to crowbar into everything. I can work with all the others. And I believe you're right in the forward stage where it's just pure generosity and gratitude.
- [36:26]
A
Yeah, I think, yeah, I mean, I'm not sure they're the correct words, but I think the principle, it works. But actually I think what it is is they're not stages, they're layers. So what happens is you start internally because you have to figure out how to self determine and you learn those things. Then you learn the skills of interaction and working with other people. And then to a certain degree, depending who you are, a degree of altruism or sharing knowledge comes into play. But you don't lose the two formal ones, you still keep those.
- [36:56]
B
I like it. You said it's not stages, there are layers. And then you're right because you can still have inward focus.
- [37:01]
A
It could be an egg model, could be whatever you want, you could radiate out to it. But I think in principle I still think about myself, I still think about psi inside and I still think every single day about relationships and how to serve them and how to get better at that. Where early in my career I started sharing knowledge with people because what I felt was the industry was closed. So I think a lot of these conversations that you and I are having is you talked about us being lucky. Now, two types of luck. There is the look of how you enter the world. So I'm very privileged relative to a lot of people. My background, I'm male, lots of different things. But I've also made my own look when no one was looking, when it was difficult. And I've made sacrifices and choices to get where I am and balanced the value of that against what I want to achieve and said it was worthwhile. So I think there's a constant balance. But ultimately I think there is a responsibility to help other people get access to and live the amazing things we have. Which is why I talk about protecting them, which is I don't want people to be scared of our industry. I don't want people to be scared of being creative. I don't want people to be scared of having ideas. I want people to feel free and feel that we can all be part of this regardless of where you come from. So a lot of what I do is talking about the underlying things, about the creative journey and life, things like that, because they're the things that give meaning to everything.
- [38:37]
B
I think you said about access three or four times so far and I really know how much it means to you that you're trying to provide better for people who are following your footsteps. But when you said I've created my own luck when no one else was looking, that comes from a place again, I think of wanting create something that wasn't there for you. So I would say from what I'm hearing from you, and mostly how I know you. And obviously what we talk about, how you feel, the generosity and gratitude for the journey is there because when you're comfortable with where you are, then you can give it away. You can actually say, this is the information I'm happy to volunteer because you're on a constant journey.
- [39:20]
A
I've always done all the things. So when I started out, I didn't think I was making a thing.
- [39:26]
B
I don't think anyone was, but that's
- [39:28]
A
the truth of it. When I started Dicks and Baxter with Apolva, I didn't know how long the journey would go, but I trusted that the journey in that moment was worthwhile. And based on everything I'd done previous to that, I felt this version of what we did was an improvement for lots of different reasons, but we still had to find what the truth of that was. But the first day we started Dicks and Maxi, we had an intern and that Internet we've known for a very long time. So we've had interns for 24 and a half years. Then I had interns when I worked at other companies. And the reason for that is I have a belief that you should help the next generation or other people get access. So that's at least 30 years of doing that. There's a perception in the industry that you can wait until you're successful to do things, not do shit, work for money, to help people, to be generous. The truth of it is you do that the first day. The first decision you're making when you start out in the industry or in your career or in a business or an agency is already determining what you're going to be. So that's why I base what we do on principles, because they're more returned and trends and other stuff like that. Everything you're saying makes complete sense to me. It's just the way we do it is slightly different, that's all.
- [40:46]
B
I really like what you said, that you almost start as you mean to go on in a way that you don't wait till you're ready for something again. I think that takes us back to that permission because to some thinking that they need intern right from the start. Do they know enough? Am I the right person to have an intern? What does internship even mean, in a way?
- [41:07]
A
Yeah, you're thinking of micro slices. Are you? Because if you said to me, si, you've got an agency that's lasted a quarter of a century, it is relatively successful on lots of merits, whereas just in the brand system for TikTok and F1 and ESPN or whoever you want to say. 19 year old sigh wouldn't have been able to imagine because he didn't know it existed. There was no TikTok for a kickoff, it didn't exist.
- [41:32]
B
There was no smartphone and many other things.
- [41:34]
A
Yeah, yeah, lots of things. But what 19 year old SI wanted to do was get really good at design and loved the thrill of seeing design in the real world with other people, collaborating with people, pushing the envelope, but also wanted to do well by the other people that he interacted with. And those habits, those kind of basic things, they've continued. And each micro slice you get, you become the thing you're going to become. Of course it's not a straight linear journey and you can't project. You know, you could project to say I wanted to be in a rock and roll band and play at Wembley, but probably you started out and you said I want to be a musician, I want to play music or I want to kick a football around and then you start dreaming. Or maybe I'll play for Leeds United at Ellen Rogue, I'll play for England. But the love of football is what gets you into it. For me, the love of what we do is the thing that drives everything. That's why we do everything. I love design and I love the power of design and then everything hangs off that.
- [42:37]
B
Have you ever tried to be in a band? Do you play instruments?
- [42:40]
A
When I was 16 I played bass and drums very badly. I wanted to be in older a footballer, an astronaut and a paleontologist. They were the three things I wanted to do when I was younger. But for lots of reasons it didn't work out. So I ended up being good at visuals side of things.
- [42:58]
B
I wonder how many people actually would say they wanted to be an astronaut because that seems to be this great unknown. Can I what is. What is out there?
- [43:05]
A
I was crazy into science fiction books. I was born just as the space race was really hitting its height. I've always been into deep time and ideas that are more eternal and long term. When I think about creativity, I don't think just about creativity in terms of design. I think about creativity for how has moved humankind forward. It's literally our superpower.
- [43:29]
B
I've got a question to ask you, which is actually one of your questions. What makes great creativity actually work? Great creativity doesn't start with a clever thought in a room. It starts with attention. Then it takes conviction, judgment, care, craft to turn that what you've noticed into something people can feel, use and remember. So what makes great Creativity actually work? Because I think you've touched on so many different points, and I think when you talk about slices or layers, I think what we become as people outside creative worlds, how we become more of a human or become more of who we are, really brings that unique blend of a person into the room that can solve the question like that.
- [44:05]
A
In the case of what we do, it's about things that improves the people's ability to interact, communicate, navigate, choose, watch, shop, manage their health, manage their finances. So they're things which are useful to people in the systems that they use globally. Sometimes that's entertaining, sometimes that's more fundamental in terms of great creativity. I think that's really about the input and the output, which is why I was talking about being attentive. And if you just look at the industry, you're doing the same thing as everybody else. But if you look at the world and what the world needs and how the world works and how people work within the world and the hopes, desires, the difficult is it makes you a better designer. Fluency in people is really powerful. And then when you think about great work, you have to have conviction in that work because it's easy to have an idea, but getting that through to the world in a way that is meaningful and useful is quite tricky. So that's consensus building, that's storytelling, that's ideas that are tested. And then you get to the point of craft, which is it has to be made in a way that works. There's no point in having a cool idea if it doesn't work. And the thing that wraps it all is your taste. You have to have taste. There has to be some perspective on creativity. And for me, that's a duty of care thing. Some call it style, some call it taste, but somebody has to have the judgment. Nobody else has a stake in it. The software, the systems, intelligent systems don't have a stake in it. You're the one that has a stake in it. So you have to care about it and you have to have taste and judgment and conviction in your work and I think the driver of it. But it needs good input.
- [45:52]
B
I'm quite actually glad that you brought out the word taste, because it's been so much more amplified in recent conversations. Wherever you look, wherever you be in a room, someone talking about taste, or people talk about it online, obviously always with the connection to AI. And it almost seems the AI signaled some form of change or revelation. That taste is important because you say you need to have taste. I think we can have people in Creative industry, who are the heavy lifters who don't need to be, they need to be good at their skill. Not everyone has a great taste in a way. And hear me out, because I have worked with many incredible talented artworkers, designers, and they were happy to follow, just they were happy to bring the stuff from the vans.
- [46:37]
A
Just because you're following something, it doesn't mean you're up there.
- [46:40]
B
But when it says you have to have taste, you can't teach someone to be interesting. But how can you encourage someone to have a better taste? Because we have some become sort of pre formed from past references.
- [46:53]
A
There's millions of tastes. The reason that Hemingway exists and Jane Austen exists is people have different taste. So taste isn't a single thing. Curiosity is not a single thing. Being daring is not a single thing. So what we're saying is it's your taste. What do you want to do? What do you believe is correct? What's your conviction in that work? No, it's taste in general, because standards shift. So if you're making product design, it's completely different to if you're building brand fame in Manhattan or if you're writing a novel. So taste is only as good as its application. Ultimately, I think the thing with taste in AI is it's not like people have discovered tenants. What they're doing is trying to make an argument for the validity of human creativity in a machine world. That's what they're doing. And most people are making one of two bets that are not going to pay off. I don't think one is speed, efficiency and commodity. And the other is that it's a tool. And ultimately it's not going to be either. There will be tools in there, but there'll be thousands upon thousands of tools that are intelligently led. And actually what it's going to be is a cognitive relationship between our intelligence and the machine and judgment, a stake in it.
- [48:10]
B
Care.
- [48:11]
A
All the things you've described, curiosity, taking creative risks in the way you shape this conversation, they will be part of it. AI will be the infrastructure of everything and how we communicate and interact with the world. What we make will filter through that. So you have to be native in that it's not a tool that makes another laser sneaker. That's great, but that's not what the world needs. What the world needs is systems that still move people along in the things that they need in life.
- [48:42]
B
I like when you took it with the Hemingway and Jane Austen. Because everyone's got different tastes. Because when you say everyone needs to have a taste and everyone needs to have some creative courage. It makes it more democratic because you can bring your own taste to the table and that taste might not be for everyone. Are you creating something which ultimately moves the needle? So this is interesting because I feel in the way of social listening and real conversations and real life conversations, you're talking to people where they might be challenged by the advent of new technology, new tools.
- [49:15]
A
Yeah, exactly.
- [49:16]
B
They say, oh, I need to make a more hand drawn or I need to have, I need to do X, Y, Z. I'm thinking, well, why does it matter now because you've had your authentic career?
- [49:24]
A
Well, it's just that's how they're processing the change. So in any change state, there will be the people who don't want to do change at all. Then there will be the people who understand change is happening, but they're afraid that they'll be left behind. Then there's the people who, in the other extreme, which is I want everything and it's all over here and that that's another extreme. And then somewhere in the middle is the actual reality, which is some people will benefit and some people will lose out from the change, but the change is going to happen and fundamentally you have to find your place in that and it's better to be an active participant in that than not. Ultimately, most instances, as long as it's respectful, moral and doing the right thing and people have to process that change, it's difficult. So that's why I was talking about language and processes and systems that allow people to be naturally adaptive to change and not afraid of it. So they're uncomfortable in a positive way that they're becoming more engaged with what's next rather than being left behind.
- [50:24]
B
The way you said idea processing change, it makes perfect sense because we got certain amount of data points from the past and then certain amount of nils and zeros going, what does this mean, what we're going to do with this? Because ultimately, would you agree that as you say, change is the only constant? How important is that world moving outside our windows for our own creativity and for our own careers?
- [50:49]
A
Well, I don't know how you can separate them. You can't separate them, that's the point.
- [50:53]
B
No, we can't. But as you said, sometimes the element of classifying can be comfortable because you finally got something that works, only to realize that you have to change.
- [51:02]
A
That's what I'm saying. So it's perfectly fine if you want to remain a thing and do that, say you want to do hand drawn pencil illustration and you'd like to do that indefinitely for the rest of your career, then that's a creative choice. And fundamentally you should be allowed to do that, but it shouldn't be at the exception of somebody else doing something else. But the problem is if you want to be part of a professional creative system that is changing and adapting to meet new needs for the world, then you will change. So when I came into the industry, there were no product to designers digitally. There's no real digital designers. Now there's tens of millions more designers than there have ever been. So you could make a judgment. I don't want to do digital design. I want to do the traditional analog version of it. That's fine, but eventually the truth will out, which is unfortunately. Unfortunately, actually for all of us is digital technologies are the infrastructure of life now, good and bad. And we both know there's good and bad to them. But what I focus on is the things we can control in our world and the way we carry ourselves and our footprint. And then we do the things we think have meaning based on our kind of moral compass and a creative compass. And then I'm not responsible beyond that because I can't change anything. In my personal life I do the same thing.
- [52:22]
B
Of course, there's always a magic happens around a one hour mark of recording. People come up with the most beautiful summary of everything that they believe stand for they've been talking about for an hour. Society, thank you very much for summarizing this beautifully because as always it's been pleasure to see you, Pleasure to chat to you and I look forward to our next conversation very soon.
- [52:43]
A
Thank you Adam. That was a lot of fun. I appreciate it.
- [52:45]
B
Thanks. Hey, thank you for joining me on this episode of the Daring Forever Podcast. As always, I'd love to know your thoughts, questions and even suggestions. So please get in touch via the show notes or social channels. This episode was produced and presented by me, Radim Malinj. The audio production was done by Neil Mackay from 7 Million Bikes Podcast. Thank you for being here and I hope to catch 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.