← The Creative Boom Podcast
The Creative Boom Podcast
Brian Collins on Fighting Second Dragons, the Power of Orange Ties and the Future of Creativity
00:58:50
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- [00:07]
Katie
Today's guest is Brian Collins and if you've worked in branding for more than two minutes, you've probably heard the name. Co founder of Collins. The blokes worked with Spotify, Nike, Dropbox, basically all the cool kids. But don't let the big names fool you because Brian's not here to rattle off a portfolio. He's here to talk about courage, curiosity and why we should all be asking better questions, including the ones we're a bit scared of. We got into his Irish roots, why orange is the colour of transformation and what happened when he wore a giant cravat to school. There's also poetry, family, a bit of Leonard Cohen and some very strong feelings about Oreos. It's a big hearted, honest and very funny chat with someone who's been around the block, asked the big questions and come back with even better ones. This season of the Creative Boom podcast is is proudly sponsored by James Cropper. The last mill standing in Britain for premium coloured paper. Its new colour source range puts designers first, giving you direct access to 50 stunning shades in a range of weights and textures. Straight from the mill, incredible colour crafted in the Lake District and delivered straight to your door. Discover the paper that brings your ideas to life via paper and packaging. James Cropper.com.
- [01:33]
Brian Collins
Out of curiosity, were you sick? Did you have an accident?
- [01:37]
Katie
I did, yes.
- [01:38]
Brian Collins
What happened to you?
- [01:40]
Katie
I was on the floor most of last year, so I herniated a disc in my back on my lower spine. I know. It was so horrendous, Brian. Honestly, I think I went through an acute phase for about six months. It meant I couldn't sit, I couldn't sleep, I couldn't stand, I couldn't do anything. My whole life was taken away from me. So all the things that I had planned, which was in, you know, there was a. I think I was coming to Barcelona and I was going to interview you. It all just got put by the wayside. But I carried on running Creative Boom throughout all of that and I'm only now, 20 months later, just getting back to normal.
- [02:19]
Brian Collins
Please. Oh, my God.
- [02:20]
Katie
It's been quite horrendous. I don't know if you've, touch wood, ever been through something like that, but it really. Wow.
- [02:29]
Brian Collins
It's one of those things, I think our lives continue and then all of a sudden the life we had and the life we're now currently living, it can happen. It can happen with an accident, it can happen with a slip, it can happen with a phone call. Right, yeah. In my case, it happened several years Ago, they found something in the back of my neck. And I went in and they discovered it, and they were like, this is not good. It's not really good. It was Friday. We're gonna send you first thing Monday morning to this specialist to take a look at it.
- [02:58]
Katie
Oh, gosh.
- [02:59]
Brian Collins
So it's Friday noon. They got me to see an incredible specialist on Monday morning. But on that Friday night, Saturday night and Sunday night, I had to think, like, I'm gonna get some bad news on Monday.
- [03:10]
Katie
Yeah. What horrible thing.
- [03:11]
Brian Collins
But the thing about it was, look, what am I gonna do? So some people go, oh, now I. The life I was living, I now have to change my life. I'm gonna go climb Machu Picchu. I'm gonna open up. I don't know. I'm gonna become a writer. I'm gonna open up a cupcake store. God knows I wanna do the thing I've always wanted to do. And I realized that I just wanted to continue to do what I was doing.
- [03:31]
Katie
Yeah. Yeah.
- [03:32]
Brian Collins
And I'm like, go.
- [03:33]
Katie
The shelves.
- [03:34]
Brian Collins
Wait a second. Go for a walk. No, no, no, no. I want to continue to work at Collins. I wanted to show up on Monday morning after I went to the appointment. I'm like, after I had my check, my appointment, and after they did the test, I made all sorts of appointments in the afternoon so I could continue to do my work. Because then I realized if I get bad news, it was a weird epiphany. I'm like, I want to continue to do what I'm doing.
- [04:03]
Katie
Yeah.
- [04:04]
Brian Collins
Like, I was like, time's up. You know, that was. And, like, that's it. And you get like, we're all. You know, we all run out of time.
- [04:11]
Katie
Yeah.
- [04:11]
Brian Collins
But all of a sudden, you're confronted with it, you know, and here's. And here's the deadline, and your plans might have changed. And I said, my plans may have changed, but I want. This is what I want to do. I don't want to suddenly, you know, certainly, you know, start. Go off and, you know, you know, raise barley in Vermont. I wanted. I wanted to continue to do this. So it was a weird blessing that I felt. I was surrounded by people I loved. I loved my work. I loved this company. I loved design. I love this community. I love this. I like everyone in it. Some more than others. But for the most part, I felt like, oh, I want to continue to do what I've always done. And that was a weird, weird. Like, I couldn't get weight. To continue to do what I love to do.
- [04:57]
Katie
That's amazing. That's amazing. I think that's exactly what I went through. There was like an epiphany where you go through all this hardship and pain and suffering and you lose so much of what you once had. But when you start to slowly get it back, it's incredible. The courage you suddenly have, the confidence, the gratitude. And then, yes, that realization, oh, God, I love what I do. And I'm not going to let fit fear hold me back anymore. I'm not going to let other people hold me back. You know, it was kind of like a, watch out, world, I'm coming back out. You know, this is my moment. And that's how I felt. You know, it's been a really liberating. On the flip side, positive experience.
- [05:39]
Brian Collins
That's great. Well, I'm sorry. Well, welcome back.
- [05:42]
Katie
Yeah. And you're okay? The health is fine.
- [05:44]
Brian Collins
Oh, it was completely benign. It was like you get nothing. Nothing to worry about, and I got nothing to worry. So that was. But for the moment, I was like, ooh. And then I said, nope, it was completely. But it was nothing. It was. Yeah, it was zip. So that was fantastic.
- [06:04]
Katie
Did you give it a name?
- [06:06]
Brian Collins
No, I didn't give it a name, but it was removed in the back of my neck. And some people go like, you have a big scar back there. I'm like, yeah, story.
- [06:13]
Katie
There's always a story behind a scar.
- [06:15]
Brian Collins
Yeah. But now I'm at the gym and I have weird. I'm in my 60s and I have zero cholesterol. Don't ask me, because half of my diet is Oreos. So I have an Irish diet which involves carbohydrates. And Would you like more fat with that, Brian? We get some butter. Would you want more fat? We'll boil something for you and you can put fat on it. We want some more fat with your fat, please. All Irish people eat is carbs, bread and butter and tea. Like, that's all we eat.
- [06:40]
Katie
That's brilliant.
- [06:41]
Brian Collins
And somehow both my parents made it until their mid-90s. Wow.
- [06:45]
Katie
Do you know what it is? It's Irish stock, Brian.
- [06:47]
Brian Collins
I have no. We just keep on going. It's crazy.
- [06:50]
Katie
We're incredible. You know, I have a great grandmother who is in the World Book of Records, Guinness Book of Records for having the world's heaviest triplets. No one's beaten her.
- [07:01]
Brian Collins
No one. That was random. Heaviest triplets. Here's the resilience is extraordinary. So my mom died when she's 92. I buried both my parents were. It Was a strange thing, but they Both went within six weeks. Six weeks of each other. My dad 94, my mom 92. I was with my mom to the last few months. Slight dementia. Started kicking, but she was, like, sharp as attack. The last night before she went, I went to her house on Cape Cod, which. Where she lived a little cottage on the sea. Thank goodness for Ogilvy and my salary there I could pay for a lovely house that she wanted, a cottage on the ocean. And I went to go tuck her in. My sister had dressed her and got ready for bed, and she just finished watching her episode. Every night she watched Murder, She Wrote with Angela Lansbury.
- [07:53]
Katie
And I would watch it with.
- [07:54]
Brian Collins
And I would watch it with her. Yeah, the last few weeks. Because I spent the last few weeks with her. And I said, you ready to go to sleep now? She says, yeah, well, you used to tuck me in like this as well. She said, yeah, I know. Brian, I love you very much. I said, mom, I love you very much, too, and good night, and I'll see you tomorrow morning. But is there anything else I can get to you? Is there anything else you need before I go home and before you go to sleep? And she goes, yes, Brian, I need a man.
- [08:24]
Katie
I wasn't expecting that.
- [08:27]
Brian Collins
Not good night. This is what was coming in out of dementia. But at that moment, my mom, like. I think many Irish people, when it gets too earnest, they, like, go too much, too much. And my mom feel too earnest. The joke was, yes, Brian, I know it's a special moment. What do you need? I need a man. She. You snap back into sort of the kind of whimsy that was filled with in my family, a very serious moment. And she pulls it like she pulls a joke. Yeah. So. And that. And that was my last conversation with her. And she was gone the next morning.
- [09:03]
Katie
Oh, what was her name?
- [09:06]
Brian Collins
Mary Collins?
- [09:07]
Katie
Mary. There's always a Mary.
- [09:08]
Brian Collins
Mary Byrne. Mary Byrne. So, yeah, but she's. You know, she was. She was great. And to have a mother who encouraged that kind of creativity was a blessing.
- [09:19]
Katie
What did she teach you?
- [09:22]
Brian Collins
Well, my mom was a high. My mom was a. My mom had her master's in childhood education. She went to Boston College, and she studied education. So she's a school teacher. So she. I learned how to read before I got into school, so. And that accelerated everything by the time I got to elementary school, because I was reading, you know, in kindergarten, because she just taught me how to read. And I love to read because I like. I like to figure. I want to Know what the pictures were saying. And I. And then she always encouraged whatever part of me, both my parents did, whatever part of me was expressive. I like to paint, I like to dance, I like theater, I like to perform, I like to write, I like to read, I like to draw. All the things that were creative. Both my parents were endless cargoes of encouragement, you know. And when a father, an Irish Catholic father, finds out his son likes to dance and perform and likes opera when he's like 7 and 8 years old, most fathers are like, well, we'll see about that. But no. My dad got me a tutor when I was 11 who was a professor of romance languages at Harvard. And he would take me to the opera and he'd take me to galleries and take me to museums every Saturday when I was a kid, from the fifth grade until through high school. Because my father didn't come from the arts, but he knew that I had that. He knew I was fascinated by those things. So I had a tutor that took me into. Across Massachusetts and Boston almost every Saturday. And we would visit museums and the opera and theater and poetry readings. And so I had the benefit also growing up in Boston, which is a community that encourages. Encouraged that kind of creative self exploration. Yeah. I was never told that what I was doing was either weird or strange or.
- [11:14]
Katie
That's good.
- [11:15]
Brian Collins
Yeah. I was really lucky. No one ever said, you know, that's weird. I'm like. Or if they did say that's weird, they'd say, you're weird. I'm like, damn, right, yes. Not that. Correct.
- [11:26]
Katie
That's what I say to my nephew. Cause he said that to me. He's like, you're weird. And I went, good. Cause I'd hate to be normal.
- [11:32]
Brian Collins
Right. And so I was told that fitting in and conformity was probably the wrong path ever. And all of my brothers and sisters are like this as well. So my parents never worry about fitting in.
- [11:46]
Katie
How many brothers and sisters do you have?
- [11:48]
Brian Collins
There are five of us.
- [11:50]
Katie
So typical of that kind of family. And Catholic as well.
- [11:54]
Brian Collins
No, I live in New York and they all live 10 miles of where we grew up, so up in Boston. And I have a house up there in Boston as well. But that kind of environment where you are encouraged to pursue your own questions and chase your imagination, are. I just thought that's how most. Most of the kids in my neighborhood were also raised in similar ways. And I didn't know that that was. I didn't. I thought that's the way kids were raised.
- [12:19]
Katie
Was. Were your parents were Your parents immigrants or was it their parents?
- [12:23]
Brian Collins
Their parents were all from Ireland.
- [12:25]
Katie
Right. So it was probably instilled in them to work hard and make the most of opportunities.
- [12:31]
Brian Collins
Yeah, it was. And but the thing that's interesting is my parents on both my parents side, especially on my mom's side, is my grandmother was a musical fousant. So she played the piano, she played the accordion, and she could play a harmonica. She was a genius when it came to music. She just write play it. And so we. I grew up in a house filled with music and I danced as a kid. So my brothers and sisters learned how to dance. And so when you grow a house with music and then you dance all across the floor, that changes. Because even if you're like, like my uncles and aunts dance badly, but you just did it. It didn't matter what noise you made, you just did it. So that being encouraged, whatever you, you don't know how to sing, but you can dance. Okay, so dance. You don't know how to play the piano, so you can sing. So sing. So growing up in a musical house kind of like is. It's a way to be present in the way that you like. Okay, you don't sing, you can't tell a story, but you can dance or you can't really tell a story, but God, you know how to play a harm. So everyone brings. You can't do anything, but you can clap or you can hit your knees or you can applaud and you can participate and no one's ever left out.
- [13:45]
Katie
Yeah, that's lovely.
- [13:47]
Brian Collins
Rooms made for everybody. Right? So it's not just the audience and someone performing, it's everyone's participating. So my family always, even when we had guests, we always made sure that they always felt like they were. That they belong.
- [14:00]
Katie
Did you have to do turns at Christmas?
- [14:03]
Brian Collins
Do what?
- [14:04]
Katie
So in our family we had to do a turn at Christmas on Christmas Day. So everybody had to get up and perform. So it might be a poem or a dance or a song or a play.
- [14:13]
Brian Collins
No, no, it wasn't that prescribed. We didn't have to go now. You know, it just would happen. My grandmother would be there, she'd start playing the piano, someone start singing and it would just happen or it didn't happen, but it was never now we'd start performing at 10. Yeah. So one of the things that we do now at Collins Treehouse in Woods Hole is whenever we have an event there, we have friends. I always have Irish musicians come and play folk tunes and they play some Ancient Celtic music, and they play popular music, but it's all acoustic violins, drums, mandolin, guitar, piano. But we have. There's always. Whenever there's people, there's always. We try to have live music in the house. It changes everything.
- [14:57]
Katie
It sounds like you're really proud of your heritage.
- [15:00]
Brian Collins
It's fuel. That's all it is. You know, if you look back and you try to preserve it. I don't want to put it in amber and then it becomes shellacked. But you use it as like. Well, I knew what that was like. I know what music does to change a room. I know what certain kind of music does. It has a rhythm that has a beat that makes you want to dance. I know how that can change the energy in a room instantly. So it's that knowledge that's more interesting to me than the heritage. So you can bring that heritage forward, and you bring it into a room and people go, this is great. I'm like, well, my grandparents taught it to me. So that's where heritage makes sense. Because you bring it forward. You just don't put it. You don't put it in a box and say, who cares? But if you know how to turn it into something that can, you know, light up a room, then that's, you know, that's fun.
- [15:50]
Katie
Have you been back to where your great grandparents were from, off in Ireland?
- [15:55]
Brian Collins
Yeah.
- [15:55]
Katie
Where was it?
- [15:56]
Brian Collins
Yeah. So my grandparents were from where I'm from. Wicklow. Can sail the Aran Islands and Cark.
- [16:03]
Katie
Wow.
- [16:05]
Brian Collins
So, yeah. But I've been to. I have stones from my grandfather's farm in Wicklow that are great. Yeah. Being able to see. I mean, the voyage that those men and women made, particularly my grandmother on my mother's side, a lot of them would go. They come to the United States in the early. This is. My grandparents all migrated here in the early 20th century, that voyage that they made. I interviewed my grandfather when I was in sixth grade because that was part of our history class. And I remember him telling me that he was taken. He took his crate that he had with everything he was going to bring home. He was never coming back. This is in 1918. His family gave him money. His mother set two British crowns inside his leather jacket. So if he was mugged, he'd still have money. Put his crate, went to Galway in a cart, like, with horses. Okay. Went to Galway. But before he left, he went to his parish priest and he had a quick mass, and his parish priest gave him a blessing before he left for America. Yeah, right. As we were building Collins Treehouse, my aunt finally passed from the family home in Boston. And we were digging out an attic, and then we forgot there's an attic above the attic that we had never been into in maybe 50 years. And we found a crate. And my sister Jeannie said, I think I found Grandpa's crate.
- [17:42]
Katie
Are you kidding?
- [17:43]
Brian Collins
She said, nope, here. She called me. She said, it has these tickets from Galway on them. And we opened it up, and it was my grandmother's wedding dress. So she has the wedding. She has the wedding dress. And a clipping from the South Irish. So the South. The South End News, which is where an Irish neighborhood in Boston. And it was a front page that Mary and Jim Byrne were getting. Or Mary Manning and James Byrne were getting married. So I have that crate in my house in Woods Hole. And my grandfather's entire world, when he was 17 years old, went into that crate.
- [18:22]
Katie
Good.
- [18:23]
Brian Collins
And so it's now in my house. So the journey that they made and just left their family behind, he went back on aer Lingus in 1966, when they had jet service between Shannon and Boston. They didn't do Shannon, New York, they did Shannon to Boston, because it was. Yeah. And so he went, but he had not been back there in 50 years.
- [18:44]
Katie
Wow.
- [18:45]
Brian Collins
So, yeah, so that was quite. That was quite a thing. But we're, you know, all of our ancestors, at least here in the United States, we're a country of immigrants.
- [18:54]
Katie
Yeah.
- [18:55]
Brian Collins
But that trip and that decision to leave their. Their world behind, it's one of the reasons why, in fact, I think at least what we do at Collins is I. To hear someone's. An accent here in the United States means that you've made a journey from leaving wherever you are to come here. And you're from another world, you're from another place. And so I'm always fascinated by the people who are different than we are, not the same. So I think, you know, that kind of. Those kinds of differences, that kind of variety, the kind of different perspectives is what I've tried to generate, because I'm more fascinated by people who are not like me than people who are like me. And so when I hear accent, when someone like you've made a journey from someplace else, you've made a decision to leave wherever you're from for something different, hopefully something better. So in that decision to redesign your life, that's a big choice. So I'm always dazzled by either my students, my graduate students, or the members of my team who are from anywhere from South Africa, from France, from India, from China, from Singapore, from Korea, and even from Scotland, because I don't think they speak English there anyway. But I love that. That real rich tapestry makes for really interesting people, makes for an interesting community, and I think makes for more interesting work because people come from different experiences. Right. Someone from India is gonna grow up with entirely different aesthetic and narrative range than someone who grew up in Connecticut.
- [20:37]
Katie
Yeah. It's a leap of faith, isn't it, to change your life?
- [20:41]
Brian Collins
It's a huge leap of faith. And when you make that leap, all the other subsequent leaps are easier to make. You know, Maya Angelou said, courage is the first of all the values because they enable all the others. So your first value and the most important one is courage.
- [20:56]
Katie
Courage, yeah.
- [20:59]
Brian Collins
It's the first.
- [21:00]
Katie
Yes. You talk a lot about courage, actually, don't you? It's kind of one of the recurring themes.
- [21:06]
Brian Collins
I think it gets back to as a creative person. You have to be true to yourself. You're trying to be true to yourself, because if you're not careful, you can spend a lot of your career or maybe even your life answering somebody else's questions instead of answering your own. So. And in my mind, I'd sooner risk failure chasing my own imagination than trying to chase somebody else's hundred percent. That's what Collins is about. And I learned that through a number of different experiences where a number of opportunities were presented to me at some amazing companies. When I was at the 10 years that I ran Design and Brand and Innovation Lab at Ogilvy, every two years, I'd get an amazing phone call, One like every famous brand that I admired in the world, I'd get a call from the CMO or the CEO, and every time I would come back, I'm like, you know what? That's good. But at Ogilvy, I get to create every day. It's like it's IBM and then it's Vera Wang, or it's National Geographic, or it's Coca Cola. And so I got to. It was a giant toy box. And then so I got to build an amazing team in Los Angeles and then in New York, but it was our team. And then. So I decided that kind of ability to experiment and make interesting things instead of just answering one question, or we could answer lots of people's questions, and then learning how to answer your own question and chasing your own imagination and then learning how to help other people chase their own imagination, not just as creative people or strategists or writers or business leaders like what's important to you? That turns out to be a transitive skill for our clients because they're chasing, particularly CEOs and founders and CMOs, they're chasing their own imaginations and their vision of the future as well. So it turns out the decision for me to find out whose questions am I answering? It turns out to be the transitive value for the questions. You're working with your clients is they want to build something that's meaningful for them. So that's what we do. We try to make sure people are finding ways to chase down their own imaginations.
- [23:19]
Katie
So it's. Rather than just answering a brief, it's saying, well, hang on a second. Let's. Let's break this down and ask more questions and figure out the brief is just the beginning.
- [23:29]
Brian Collins
The brief isn't the problem.
- [23:30]
Katie
It's just the beginning.
- [23:32]
Brian Collins
It's just the beginning. Every project we've gotten where we become well known, we've always went back and was like, there's always a question. Under the question. My team reads Beowulf and the Seamus Heaney translation, which is the best, and there's a reason he won the Nobel Prize in poetry, is in Haney's book Beowulf, which is an incredible. The first epic poetry poem in English he talks about. Beowulf has to go and defend a city from being attacked by a horrible monster, Grendel, who comes up out of a lake. He goes, kills Grendel, almost kills himself. He almost gets killed in the process. Saves the city, saves the king. He wins. The king's. The daughter wins a bonus. And he is in his freelancers. You know, by the way, the original term for freelancers save the city. And then they rest and they go to sleep. And then something even worse comes out of the. Out of the lake, which is Grendel's mother, and she's the original Swamp Thing, and she is really pissed off. So there are always two dragons. There's a dragon that presents itself. Oh, I'm the problem. But if you pay attention to only that dragon, which is what people are presenting to you, then there's always another problem lurking under the problem. And if you don't start finding out what that is, you'll end up chasing the wrong. You end up solving the wrong problem. Like years ago, Spotify said, we need new identity. We need a new identity system. They've been through three or four different agencies, and they said, it isn't your identity. It isn't your visual language. It's you think of yourself. As a streaming service, as an engineering company, you're talking about download speeds and building a playlist. No one's waking up worrying about your engineering or download speeds. They wake up wondering where Beyonce is.
- [25:22]
Katie
Yeah, exactly.
- [25:24]
Brian Collins
So you're not an engineering or streaming company. You're really a music company. Be the music company. Because people want to build a personal soundtrack to their lives. Stop talking about download speeds and start talking about David Bowie and Cardi B.
- [25:38]
Katie
Exactly.
- [25:39]
Brian Collins
And then. And they had all the cameras, which is what bad advertising agencies do, is they take picture of the consumer. We call it mirror marketing. Oh, they'll like this. And like, why are you painting? Why are you pointing the camera at the audience? Point it at the stage. People want to see Katy Perry, you know, they don't, you know, they don't want to see a bunch of kids cavorting in Reykjavik at 2 o' clock in the morning. They met might, but the musicians hold the center of the conversation. And that was a self conceptualization. That wasn't a design. What was a design problem. But they want us to solve a graphic design problem. No, it's a self conceptualization problem. You guys think you're selling streaming engineering and no one cares about your streaming service. They care about music. So you should behave and look and sound and do things that a music company would do and look like one. But had we solved the original brief, we would have vanished like their three other agencies did. But we said, wait a second, you're asking us to solve the wrong problem. You're actually not a technology company, you're a music company. And that might sound strange, but it shifted them internally.
- [26:47]
Katie
So clever, it's so simple. But I think people get so wrapped up in something, don't they? In and amongst the storm, you can't see the clearing beyond. It ends up being that sometimes you need that clarity from somebody else to say, well, hang on a minute, let's just go back to basics and think about what it is that we really are. How do you deal with that when you're talking to very, I presume, very intelligent people at Spotify who haven't been able to sort of work it out for themselves, really, I guess.
- [27:21]
Brian Collins
Well, my co founder, Leland Ashmeyer should really speak to this because he was really crucial in really getting at the heart of the question. But when you see really smart people and the engineers of Spotify are the best product engineers in the world that I'd ever met, because they figured out Daniel Ekin, his team figured out how to stream music in a Way after he's seen what happened with Napster and Kaza, after they saw what happened with that. And he goes, I think I know how to save the music industry by giving something to people that's so good they'll pay for it. And he was right, is that sometimes we're so close to what we make, that what we make is meaningful, but might not be relevant. In other words, meaningful to us, but might not be relevant to other folks. And so you end up selling what you make instead of selling what people need, or you talk about what you've made. And so. So the product is brilliant engineering, but the need is being able to listen to my music and whenever I want. And so, in particular, when you have brilliant engineers, they're so focused on the product, which is what makes them entirely viable, is they sometimes have to be reminded that there's a story that has to be told. And people don't buy engineering, they buy the benefit. You don't buy the product, you buy the outcome. You buy the benefit and you buy the story. Same thing with brands. You don't drink the beer, you drink the brand. So that a niche and the engineering will capture the early audience, but a brand will capture the larger audience, can capture the mass market, because you need to speak to a larger idea. Not that's beyond the technology itself. And that requires work. That requires the curiosity to go and ask lots of questions, particularly if you look at history that a brand might have had and say, well, this isn't working, so let's not continue to repeat this. What else can we do? And what are people really looking for that we can uniquely provide? And what's the story? What's the bridge to that? And that's, you know, and that's the conversation. The puzzle with designers is, we so want to answer the problem. And we're usually so adept at making things that we get, wow, that's a great logo, or that's a great interface, or those colors are great, or that's a great restaurant design, or that we know how to make stuff quickly. As we can sometimes convince ourselves that the aesthetic solution is the right solution because it looks good. But we might be answering with a beautiful identity or beautiful design system. We might be doing a beautiful answer for the wrong story. We might build a ladder, but might be up against the wrong wall. That's why strategy here and our writers, we spend a lot of time making sure that we are really answering the problem under the problem. We're trying to find the second dragon, not the first one. But there's always a second one. And the second one, you either have to take it out for tea and make it your friend, you have to tame it, or in some cases, you literally have to call it out and slaughter it.
- [30:27]
Katie
Wow.
- [30:27]
Brian Collins
But you have to be aware of what's the conversation that isn't being had, and you have to listen for what isn't being said, because sometimes what isn't being said is as important as what they're saying. And we find that again and again. And we usually carefully, diplomatically say, you say this is the puzzle, and we'll solve that, but maybe this is the puzzle, and that's when we've always made a leap. Oh, there's a larger problem here. Yeah. And here's how we can probably solve that larger problem. Then you solve that problem, Then you solve the smaller one. There's a great quote that I love. Of all places. Let me see if I can find it. Oh, listen to this. It was great. He said so. One of the most incredible leaders of the 20th century during World War II, along with Roosevelt, Churchill, and de Gaulle, was General Eisenhower. And when asked about his success, here's what he said. How did he succeed? He said, whenever I run into a problem I can't solve, I always make the problem bigger. I never solve it by trying to make it smaller, but if I make it big enough, I can begin to see the outlines of a solution.
- [31:45]
Katie
Clever.
- [31:46]
Brian Collins
I never solve it by trying to make the problem smaller, but if I make it big enough, I can begin to see the outlines of a solution. So you take these and you try and make it bigger. And the process of solving the larger problem, you'll solve the smaller one. So always ask the next question. The next question. Why are you doing this? Why are you doing this? Why has that happened? And then you start to get some real answers. Instead of just taking what's in debrief, you really have to carve in the brief, otherwise you might be solving a cosmetic problem. And designers love. We love it because we're good at it. But you're leaving a huge opportunity on the table.
- [32:24]
Katie
Yeah, exactly. And there must be so much satisfaction out of giving that value. And when the penny drops and you've realized that you've found that second dragon, I mean, that must be such a moment.
- [32:36]
Brian Collins
It's amazing. Like, there's the problem that's the issue. And when we've done it with our strategies and we present it to our clients, they go. They feel it, and they go, oh, my God, you found the yeah, that's what it is. Or that's true. We didn't have the language for it, or we didn't see it, or it's something that we knew, but we couldn't find a form to it. So that's our job, is to try to answer the questions that they don't know how to ask. So. And we've had writers in our team striping. We've had. There was a very famous CEO and we presented what we thought his brand really stood for because they were at a big crossroads. And he started to get emotional in the room. He goes, I started this company. No one's ever put voice. Ever put a voice to what my ambition was. And you just did. And he goes, I have to step out for a second. He got emotional in the room. And our director of strategy, Tami Maize, presented. Oh, my God. And he came back and he goes, let's continue. But you. No one's ever done that to me. So what happens is, you know, you hit a truth and you go, that's what we are. And you find that truth and it opens up everything.
- [33:47]
Katie
And when you're going through that research process, is there such a thing as a bad question?
- [33:52]
Brian Collins
Yeah, there's some questions you shouldn't ask. But I think you have to be daring. I remember a CEO who's known for being a bully, but who's remarkably successful. We were meeting for the first time. What an assignment from the CMO I hired. But I need you to come and meet the cmo. The CEO was just really successful, but like to, you know, I walked in to the meeting room, I was wearing a Paul Smith. Like a pretty, like vivid bright blue. Not crazy blue, but like Paul Smith. So a little brighter than normal, but not crazy. Right.
- [34:24]
Katie
Gorgeous.
- [34:26]
Brian Collins
And I walk in and the guy goes. And the CEO goes, that's a bright jacket. And I said, thank you. And he was wearing head to toe black. And I said, well, thank you very much. And he goes, I didn't mean it as a compliment. And I looked at his outfit and I said, whose house did you sleep at last night? David Copperfield.
- [34:46]
Katie
Good for you.
- [34:47]
Brian Collins
And he loved it. Because no one ever makes fun of him. No one ever teases him back. Cause they're all scared of him. And I'm like, where'd you sleep? David Copperfield's house.
- [34:57]
Katie
Give them a banter. Irish banter.
- [35:00]
Brian Collins
You give it back and you do it in a playful way because you come across as mean spirited. And you do it a playful way. Then he knows, oh, this guy's gonna play. But if you get intimidated and you go, you're creating a hostile atmosphere. And so he goes, yeah, I am. Deal. My company, my building, okay? I own this part of the city, I own this industry, okay? Like, I'm calling the shots here. I'm banging the drum. This is my beat you want to play. And I recognized what he was doing. And if you'd cowered in that moment and I said, oh, oh, oh. I'm like, he never would have paid attention to me. And we've worked with him ever since and we've done some really good work with him, but I won't tell. I'll never say who that person was. Stone's business, we do some really good work with them. But in that moment, I asked a question, which is, did you sleep at David Copperfield's house? And that was a question that was meant to tease. Yeah.
- [36:01]
Katie
Yeah, that's a good answer. I appreciate that. This season of the Creative Boom podcast is sponsored by James Cropper. The last paper mill of its kind, still making premium coloured paper right here in Britain. For nearly two centuries, they've been perfecting the art of colour and craftsmanship in the Lake District. Their new Colour Source range gives designers direct access to 50 beautiful shades, all made with care, precision and a deep love of making things properly. Discover the joy of British made paper@paperandpackaging.jamescropper.com I think most of this business is about people, isn't it? And just recognizing the politics at play and who. Who's holding the purse strings, who's sort of who you've got to kind of keep, keep an eye on, do you know what I mean? There's. There's a lot of things to sort of navigate and dance around, but I can imagine you handle it all beautifully.
- [37:03]
Brian Collins
Not really. I fumble it a lot, you know, but tomorrow is another day. So it gives you a chance, you know, to try something new. Yeah, but, yeah, you're constantly managing different energies, different ambitions, different. Different trajectories all the time. That's why that original question that I asked, which is, what's. What's the question that I want to answer in my life? What's the question that you want to answer in yours? If you try to remain true to that and try to remain true to how you're built, then the answer will come making sure that you're aligned with the things that are curious to you. And if you're trying to second guess, you're trying to perform, you're trying to figure out how would I work in this place. You'll end up second guessing yourself into irrelevance. It's always interesting to me. I'm a big fan of the Camelot and the King Arthur mythologies and particularly the search for the Holy Grail, which actually led the search for spiritual transcendence and identity. And there's a scene where Percival, who is the last knight that gets sent out because all the other knights have failed to find the Holy Grail. And Percival was the last one. Percival was with our squire. Then no more knights. They're gone. And he knights him with Merlin and he says, please, and you're the last hope. Go and find the Grail. And he gets to the Grail castle and he meets the king who, who has the Grail King, who owns it. Percival fails to ask because the Grail king is sick. The Grail king is dying. And Percival in his mind's, in his mind's eye, in his heart, he has a question that he doesn't want to ask. And the question is, you know, your majesty, what ails you? And he fails to ask that question. And he's kicked out of the Grail castle like he knew his heart told him, ask the king what ails him and how he can help. And he doesn't ask the question because he thinks it's either rude or it's not right. Then he has a second chance and he makes his way back to the castle and he asks the king what ails you? And then he wins the Grail because he doesn't worry about whether it's appropriate. In that moment. It was spontaneity and his sincere heart. He asked the human question is, are you okay? How can I help? And that's when he wins the Grail. And then he. And he brings the Grail back to Camelot. And then. And they have their. And Camelot has their resurgence because they found their identity again, which is about generosity. Seeing my problems and yours and your problems in mine. But that requires sometimes asking really difficult questions. In that moment, the king is dying, the king is ill, and Percival fairs to ask what ails you. So that's the question we always have to ask. Sometimes the most difficult questions are the ones that are most transcendent. We have to learn how to ask them. My experience, if we ask them with sincerity and you ask them with generosity and curiosity, you usually get some pretty good answers.
- [40:03]
Katie
I think it's a good way of making sure you don't become too self absorbed as well. Allows you to Carry on looking out in the world with curiosity and giving back.
- [40:14]
Brian Collins
Well, the other thing, too, in the story about Percival is Percival has gone because he's the last knight, and he gets sent out to find the girl. And he's the last hope of Camelot before it collapses. And the last hope of Arthur and Merlin is that he has to go to a place in the woods. And all the other knights have taken the other paths. The only path he has is through a woods. There's no path. So you know you're on your path when there isn't one. You know you're on your curse. Correct trajectory when you're not following somebody else's path.
- [40:47]
Katie
It's easy to do, though, isn't it? We get lost, we get distracted.
- [40:52]
Brian Collins
Yeah, but when you're lost, that's your path.
- [40:57]
Katie
I get it.
- [40:58]
Brian Collins
Like, how do I say this? Your path is not going to go all the way, Katie. No, your path is not. You don't end up in the city with golden towers. You end up in a ditch. You end up on your back, on the floor. On the floor floor. You end up like, how do I pay the rent? I got my mortgage. How do I keep payroll? Oh, my God. This client didn't do what you thought they were going to do. That's the path, and that's the path where you learn. And if it's a path that's already made for you, it ain't yours, it's someone else's. You can check all the boxes, but, one, it's not your path. Two, it's not how you're built in. Three, it's not your question. Your question is going to be on a path where you do not know where you're going, and your process there is to find it.
- [41:42]
Katie
That's incredible. So do you think we ever find that?
- [41:45]
Brian Collins
Yeah, we do. Yeah.
- [41:47]
Katie
Have you?
- [41:47]
Brian Collins
I'm on the path to finding it always. And you do this. It's here, and you do the most boring place. Have you ever been in an accident on a highway? Or, like, have you pulled over on a highway?
- [42:00]
Katie
Yes. Yeah.
- [42:01]
Brian Collins
And the cars are going by, like, 50, 60, 70, 80 miles an hour. How terrifying that is.
- [42:07]
Katie
Yeah.
- [42:07]
Brian Collins
So that's a really easy path. Like, you wouldn't want to walk that path, right? No, the path you want to walk is the place, our place in Cape Cod that goes through the woods and goes over a hill and goes over a stream and goes out to the ocean. And you don't know where it goes. It's hidden, and it reveals itself you go, where does it go? Oh, there it is. It's over there. That's a great walk for a day, right? Because you're not sure where it's going to take you. And maybe the three paths in the woods, which way you want to go. I don't know. Let's try this one. And you end up in a village, or you end up by a coast, or you end up in a field. So those are the ones where you're not quite sure what's going to unfold and you surprise yourself, Constance, by the way, the thing is unfolding. That's a more interesting life. Being on a highway. You know exactly where you're going on a highway. Would you want to walk on a highway?
- [42:57]
Katie
No. Hell no.
- [42:58]
Brian Collins
Most people. Yeah. But a lot of people go, here, do this. They go, okay. And the one question they have, which is their own question, they abandon because they can see where they're going. And I know where the company wants to go. I know the kind of company that my partners and I want to build. But as for my own path, I always know that I'm in an interesting place where the path is revealing itself and hiding itself and then revealing itself and then hiding itself again.
- [43:26]
Katie
Yeah, it keeps things interesting, definitely. You don't want to. You don't really know what's happening next to too much of an extent. You want. You want adventure.
- [43:36]
Brian Collins
Yeah. See, this is where. So this is why. How do I say, this is why it's important to have a brand as a company. But you. This whole thing about being a. A personal brand is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. What's your personal brand? I'm like, why would you want to do that to yourself? Why would you want to put yourself in a costume? Human beings are supposed to change and be whimsical, fall down, get back up, get depressed, get sad, get happy, get joyous. We're always off brand. And yet all this talk about building your personal brand, like you have to build it for someone else's expectations, is mad.
- [44:12]
Katie
Can't you remember all that agony we went through trying to sort out our Twitter bios back in the day?
- [44:18]
Brian Collins
Yeah, well. Oh, my God, what am I? It makes perfect sense for a business. It makes perfect sense because it can be an amazing thing to create value and drive the difference and help build meaning in a company or organization, or in our case, a design company. But this whole idea of personal branding is just so literate to me and limited and unimaginative. You really want to put Yourself in that kind of a cage, really?
- [44:51]
Katie
Yeah.
- [44:51]
Brian Collins
Good for a company because you have to be specific and you're constantly battling, you know, competitive forces to be and maintain relevance. But what a limited way to look at your life.
- [45:02]
Katie
How would you describe yourself then? If we. If we're going to force you, Brian, how would you describe yourself in three words? Go.
- [45:10]
Brian Collins
Curious.
- [45:12]
Katie
Yeah.
- [45:13]
Brian Collins
Ambitious, hopeful.
- [45:16]
Katie
Oh, lovely. That's great. And if you could go back and talk to your younger self. I know this is going to get quite earnest now for an Irishman, but what question would you ask your younger self?
- [45:30]
Brian Collins
What question would I ask myself? Oh, I thought you were going to go someplace. Like, what would you tell your younger self?
- [45:36]
Katie
No, I just thought I'd twist it a little bit because we're talking about questions, aren't we?
- [45:41]
Brian Collins
Yeah. Because I would never tell my younger self anything. Like, what would you do? What would you tell your younger self? I would tell me nothing. Like, don't tell them anything. You have to learn all this stuff.
- [45:50]
Katie
Exactly.
- [45:50]
Brian Collins
Make their own mistakes you have to fumble through. What question would I ask? I think we're the authors of our own tomorrows.
- [46:00]
Katie
We really are.
- [46:02]
Brian Collins
I'm very fortunate. I'm really happy about. I will ask the question, but I kind of wouldn't know the answer. Why? My fifth grade self insisted on her first day of school wearing a bright orange, like, tie, Giant. Okay. Around my neck, a giant cravat. Right. And I had my aunt make it for me. I wore a bright orange one. And then. Why? My first day of class, I was beaten up, not pushed around, by the kids in the sixth grade who were like, you know, fifth and sixth grade, that's when all the testosterone starts coming in, like when you're 12 and 13 years old. And I wore this because I wanted to show up. And I carried a briefcase, and I wore this really bright, like, cravat.
- [46:55]
Katie
And I was fabulous. Yeah, I was.
- [46:58]
Brian Collins
And I wanted to wear it this time. My aunt made it. And then that Saturday, on Sunday, I saw my aunt, who was a seamstress, I said, I got pushed around, beaten up for wearing this thing, but I kept it on, she said. And she took me shopping, and she said, you're gonna learn this. And she made me five more colors, and she took me to a material shop in Boston, and she brought out all the giant. My first time, I went to a fabric store. There's giant bolts where they put them bang down on the desktop. And we selected, like, paisleys, fluorescent colors. Dacron and polyester were just coming out as materials. So these colors that do not occur in nature, I'm suddenly, I want that. She made five of them and she said, if you don't learn to stand up now, you never will. So on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday I wore a big tie, like a giant tie with a ring around my neck.
- [47:52]
Katie
Did they keep beating you up?
- [47:54]
Brian Collins
No. Here's what happened. Monday they pushed me again. Tuesday they pushed me a little. Thursday they kind of stopped. Or Wednesday they kind of stopped. Thursday they were like. And they made fun of. Friday they didn't pay attention to me.
- [48:06]
Katie
Amazing.
- [48:08]
Brian Collins
You just persist. And by the way, the reason I wear this color, because the first day it was my orange.
- [48:13]
Katie
Orange.
- [48:14]
Brian Collins
It was orange. Yeah. I shuttered. I loved orange. I've pictured myself in the fifth grade and I haven't been. So I would go back to my 10 year old self and ask, why did you do that? And we ultimately are the authors of our futures and we make decisions today that ultimately inform who we become. And so I would. So the question, I'm grateful for that decision and my aunt telling me, stand up to this and don't cower. And then two, I'm curious now, what decisions can I now make for my people and my team? And for me, that will be the person who I want to be ten years from now. So you're always making those kinds of future making decisions. So the questions I would ask is what can I best do now so I can have the impact and the conversations on the things that are most meaningful for me and the people I work with 10 years from now?
- [49:14]
Katie
Because otherwise that little Brian would have conformed. He would have walked along the busy highway.
- [49:20]
Brian Collins
Yeah, take this off. Don't wear that. Boys don't wear things like that. Boys don't dance. Boys don't sing. Boys don't draw. Boys play football. I'm like, what? Great. Boys play football. That's great. I'm really happy you do. You're really good at it. I have no desire, no interest. Glad you do. I want to paint. I want to draw. I want to sing. I want to dance. You know, I want to wear. You know I want to. I wear. It was bright red and bright orange. I have a picture. I have it. It's crazy. And so I think trying to make sure you're remaining true to how you're built and making sure you keep on, as I said before, answering the questions that are yours.
- [50:00]
Katie
I want to leave on one final question and it ties in nicely to all of, all of these things. We've been discussing. There's a lot of creatives out there, Brian. They're feeling a bit lost at the moment. The world's changing. Lots of things going on. I won't go into AI. You know, you've probably been asked about it a million times, and it's just. There's a lot of shifts going on.
- [50:20]
Brian Collins
There are.
- [50:21]
Katie
And people are, you know, struggling. They really are. So what, you know, it's. It's. I mean, how do you. How do you navigate this new world if you're feeling lost? If you've lost yourself.
- [50:34]
Brian Collins
Yeah, you will. There are two things. We're now at the boundary, literally all of us. And it's where I always love to live. Livery at the boundary of what I know and what I don't know. I've always lived there. It's much more interesting to me. I'd rather go down a wooded pathway instead of walking down a highway. Right. You discover more things.
- [50:53]
Katie
Yes.
- [50:54]
Brian Collins
So we're now going to have to recognize that we're right at that boundary, right at that frontier where everything's about to change. I don't think people really understand how profound this change is going to be. Here are two things that are going to happen. One, the low and the middle end of design will be replaced by AI. Replaced, Yeah.
- [51:13]
Katie
I agree.
- [51:14]
Brian Collins
And what I saw happen in the 1990s and the early aughts was the professional organization, the professional conversation, at least in the United States, in design abandoned the web. Our leaders, they talked about posters and they like, as if it was Paris between the wars. I mean, it was like posters, books and things like this. We continue to do this. I love this sentiment. But like, they kept on doing this, right?
- [51:40]
Katie
Prince is not dead.
- [51:41]
Brian Collins
Prince is not dead. Well, sorry, it is. It's changed. It's not dead. Obviously, people, books. I have, you know, I have gazillion, like, look, we have crazy number of books. We've, like, in this book we wrote 6,000 books. Wow, I love books. But if you don't recognize that there's a dramatic shift happen, and I saw what happened is the leadership in the United States and North American design community doubled down on posters and books. And just as the web was coming in. And so what ended up happening is the younger members of our profession led that while the others continued to pretend it was 1947. So I'm not doing that. AI is coming. Well, it's here, actually. And so we have a choice. The ones who understand what it is and use their artistry and their Imagination and their skill and their generosity as well as their discernment will be masterful at turning this and turning it into something. Those who are in denial about it, that's fine, do that. But the kind of career you might have wanted to have is now going to be very different. So what we're trying to do is within our own way. We've been at the frontier of generative work, starting with our work at Spotify 11 years ago, or our work with the Type Directors Club, or the work we did with the San Francisco Symphony or something we just did with Muse, where music responds real time to sound and system. We create generative work. But this is the first time in human history where physical labor, so machines replace physical labor. Now machines are replacing intellectual and creative labor. And that's. And by the way, we're just seeing, this is the Model A. Everyone's like, this is terrible. This is the worst AI will ever be right now. And soon enough it's going to be, well, you joke. Oh, it's terrible. It's crap. It's crap. Yeah, I know. So it's the Model A right now, but soon enough it's going to be a suborbital transatlantic plane and then it's going to be a rocket ship that's going to get us to Mars. It's going to happen like that. And so what we need to do, if you're interested in being a designer and continue wanting to be a designer, then you have to find ways that are natural to you and that are generous and they're open minded. I think about finding ways that you can make these systems work and learn them. And it's not, as I said, it's not artificial intelligence. It's an alien intelligence. There's nothing artificial about this. It is another intelligence. And you have a choice when it comes to aliens. You can run down in the basement and put a tinfoil hat on, or you can go out and meet the spaceship and have a conversation. We're choosing to go out and meet the spaceship.
- [54:28]
Katie
Yeah, we get a lot of replies to newsletters at the moment for creative boom. Whenever we share any kind of updates about AI because we're trying to help our community out. And I understand the difficulty position we're in having started this platform to support the creative community 16 years ago now. And again we'll get a reply saying, oh, I'm unsubscribing. You've shared an article on AI And I'm like, I get it, but if you don't embrace it you're just going to be left behind. And I just. I'm frustrated for them.
- [54:58]
Brian Collins
I understand your sentiment. You've got to understand the sentiment, particularly people who might have been working for 10 or 15 or 20 years.
- [55:02]
Katie
I care about them so much. I worry about them.
- [55:07]
Brian Collins
And we should. It's ultimately up to them to make a choice that's sincere and native and true to them. And so all I'm saying is what I saw here in the United States is the design leaders, the people we look up to, the most famous designers, abandoned the conversation. They didn't talk about the web, they didn't talk about digital, they didn't talk about interactive design. And everything was moving there. And so what ended up happening is the kind of leadership that those people would have represented. Evacuated, they abandoned, and it's happening again. So I'm in my 60s. I've been at this game a long time, and I've seen this before. I've absolutely seen this before, when people get upset about a new technology and they complain. It's horrible, and this is terrible, and this is mean, and it's cheating and it's not real. In the meantime, someone somewhere is figuring out something incredible.
- [56:02]
Katie
Yeah.
- [56:03]
Brian Collins
And that person might be you. It might be someone who's listening to this podcast. It might be some young designer who goes, you know, so we have a staff now that's, you know, oriented around this conversation. We also have people who continue to work in other ways, but we're. I'm. I've been here before. It's horrible. The new technology is terrible. It's cheating, it's awful. And that may be true, but there are also people who are inventing the future, and then we want to be doing that. And so that's where we're aiming. And I recognize the conflict, I recognize the disagreement, and I can recognize the deep frustration. But you can either recognize that the future's at the door and knocking, and you can either open the door or you can go run for the hills. Literally. That's your only choice.
- [56:55]
Katie
Well, Brian, thank you so much for joining us on the Creative Beam podcast. It's been an absolute pleasure.
- [57:01]
Brian Collins
Thank you, Katie.
- [57:07]
Katie
Well, that was a bit of a ride, wasn't it? I'm still chuckling at how Brian described what he's like to work with. And that's story about the CEO bully. Why should we allow anyone to get to us? Big shout out, of course, to Nottingham's finest, Paul Smith. And can we just take a moment for the Oreos? I've never met anyone so passionate about a biscuit. I mean, sorry, cookie. Although I'm not sure he appreciated being compared to Elton John, even if I did mean it as a compliment. What really stayed with me though, was Brian's beautiful take on paths, how the best ones aren't mapped out, and how not really knowing what's around the corner is actually the whole point. As someone who's never quite followed the herd, it's always a joy to chat with a fellow non conformist. That said, I definitely feel like I need to up my game after meeting Brian. We'll be back with him this Thursday for the Spark, our bonus episode where we ask our guests the really important questions like who'd be your dream dinner guest? And what's the weirdest compliment you've ever received? Aside from being compared to Elton John, Brian does not hold back. It won't disappoint. It's an absolute riot, so don't miss it. Thanks again to James Cropper for sponsoring this season of the Creative Boom podcast. Remember, its Colour Source range gives designers direct access to 50 beautiful shades and a choice of T textures, all crafted in the Lake District and delivered straight to your door. Explore the collection and bring your next project to life at paperandpackaging. Jamescropper. Com.