Episode 18 with Oskar Lübeck

[Music] So hi Oscar, thanks so much for joining me on my, I think it is now the 18th podcast. - 18th? Wow. - Yeah, it's quite amazing really, that, you know. People like, like, you could say I was a willing to do it, so thanks for, thanks for taking time for the day. As you maybe, you know, hopefully you've listened to some, maybe you haven't, it's pretty much your journey into design, influences and things that have inspired you and other things you kind of pass on to people. So with that, Oscar, I'm going to try and find out what inspired you to become a designer. - Well, first of all, thank you so much for, for having me. I've been listening to, I think, most of your previous conversations. And I think it's really interesting how each and everyone has their kind of own unique way into graphic design. And for me, it kind of, it kind of happened by coincidence, actually. I did a mandatory military service here in Sweden when I was 19 and I've always been interested in creativity, kind of felt drawn to it. But during that time in the military, I really felt like looking for a counterpoint to that structure, you know. - Yeah. - So, so I applied to a arts arts and crafts school, close to the small town in Sweden where I kind of, where I kind of grew up. Like two year painting, painting course, basically in boarding school. So, and at the end of the first year, the teacher or the professor asked us to do, the someone, the someone want to do a poster for, you know, the final exhibition. And I thought to myself, like, wait, I've never done a poster before. That sounds like fun. And it turns out that for me, making the poster was more fun than doing the paintings. So he kind of told me that, you know what, I think graphic design is probably something that you should look into, which is something that I had, you know, almost never heard of before. So I kind of learned as much as I could started buying like books and magazines and kind of, and it was like a whole world opened up in a way, you know. And so I felt like this is, this is it. This is what I want to dedicate my life to. And so the whole kind of second year of that art school, I basically just focused on, on learning as much as I could have our graphic design and start into kind of apply to, to design schools and kind of see, see where I could take it. And when reading and looking at books and magazines, what kind of early influences were out there? Was it like a swistile? Was it a bit more edgy? What was the sort of fill? Not want to emulate, but that's where I like to go. Yeah, to me, it was, I think the very first book that I bought, I can't remember the name of it now. It was, it was a black book with some Swiss topography, but also had this kind of iconic logitipes and marks on it, like, you know, IBM and the old app. So I think I was drawn to creating things that last a long time, I was, I wasn't inspired. I wasn't so interested then and I'm not interested now in doing like trends or kind of like things that felt very in there in the now, I was very kind of, I thought it was amazing to see these kind of graphic design pieces that are already at that time, maybe had lasted for quite some time, but just still felt fresh and timeless. Like, could you could I somehow be a person who do one of these things that lasts for a long time? So I bought a lot of books about kind of logitipes and symbols and and those types of things and this was pre internet as well. So it was a lot of, a lot of books, probably have hundreds of graphic design books by now. It would be worth a bit of money if they're the original. See, I know I so I so miss actually seeing books that said the reason why I was slightly late today is over in London, cartridge, the bean, we're having an archive sale and I've just bought loads. I mean loads of their old stuff because it's always the stuff when I was at well, I was out of the college uni and I was already starting in design practice. A friend of mine, Ben was already working there, but they were, you know, just really beautiful design and yeah, they're having an archive. So you just walk in there and it's like a kid in the candy shop was like one of those one of those one of those take that yet, yeah, get two of those one for the archive one for the studio. So yeah, that that kind of thing of I suppose internet's good in a way, but it just feels so disposable now that you know there's nothing there to actually collect and hold on to in my view. No, it's true, it's true. Yeah, it's we were at the studio, bold is actually turning 15 next year. Oh wow. So we just had a meeting yesterday in talking about what we should do and obviously kind of some kind of comfortable or some kind of book or something that you know last longer than the hangover after the party is always. Always nice, you know, absolutely. Yeah, so when so when you were going through. Art school and college was your first job, where did you land was it is more editorial was straight into branding was your route into before actually setting up bold. Because when I went after kind of the second year of art school, like I said, I started looking into more design oriented education. And I found a found one that I thought was really interesting. It was sounded interesting was the Academy of Arts and Design in in Gothenburg in the southern part of Sweden. And they had a five year kind of master program in design. So I got into that one actually and did about a year and a half. And I did like in some internships at Gothenburg by studios and but after already a year and a half I felt like this need to see more or explore more or kind of you know get out into the world because I just felt like I just discovered this magnificent thing you're called graphic design and even though that education was great. I was like, what else is there and I've always been inspired by Japanese design. So I managed to set up an exchange with a with a school in in Japan called Hokkaido to Kai, which is arts and crafts and design school and the northern part of Japan. Right. So I spent a spent about eight months, I think in Japan. So was school for six months, but I flew over a bit before the school started. So I have proper time to spend in Tokyo just you know walking around and just being so inspired by everything that you see the you know the culture and the food and obviously kind of the amazing design that they have. It's kind of similar to Scandinavian aesthetics in a way because it's kind of like clean, but it's very emotional and also quite humoristic, quite often, which I think is really interesting. Wow. I was going to say that must have been a bit of a culture shock really just to you know even if even if you spent a week there right you know this whole difference from Europe to. Because luckily I think I luckily I didn't know what I was getting myself into because when I flew over I could basically say one word in Japanese like Konikyuwa, which is like hello and it turns out once I'm there that I'm living with this little old Japanese lady who speaks no English only Japanese. All the students everyone in school can only speak Japanese and all the teachers can only speak Japanese as well. Wow. Now I really felt like a stranger in a strange land you know like you know yeah so I basically got these little handwritten notes in English like this is your assignment and then I could work on it myself. And then when we had presentation they had like one teacher at school in there who I think he was like a wood like an arts and within wood kind of teacher and he could speak a little bit of English so he he acted as interpreter. When I presented my work and they're and they're you know they're so they're so humble and they're so well mannered as well so when I presented you know that kind of projects that I did for this whole class of people like 30 people no one understood what but they're they sat and that kind of listened intently and kind of like nodding and and I was speaking about the project in English. And then this translator come up or sorry the professor came up and kind of would give me feedback and he would talk for 10 minutes or something and then the interpreter would look at me and I was like yeah great. But he's been he's been talking for 10 minutes. Yeah a lot of like stuff that I would probably you know benefit from hearing so it really felt like you know that lost in translation motion. And so if you've seen that picture the maybe yeah well yeah well but after that I think about eight years in Japan I just felt like this has given me so much to so I really believe that you know design is in a way a response to culture and you know everything else that's going around in that part of the world. And then I just felt like I need to see more I need to explore more so I went back to Gothenburg finished that the BA and then I went to New York to study at Pratt. in Brooklyn, which I did for a little while. But I just felt like, for, I mean, it was a great school and everything, but it felt like a little bit, it's extremely expensive to go to design school in the US. So it felt like some of the students that maybe felt like, you know, I'm gonna get a job anyways, 'cause I'm gonna get a degree from Pratt. So they didn't maybe push themselves as hard as they could. I think felt like, what else is there? So I started looking into St. Russell Martins in London. So it actually went from New York to London and I got into the MA Master's degree, a Master's course in typography at Central St. Martin's. Which was extremely different, I would say, from the school that I've been previously, 'cause it wasn't that tricky to get into it, 'cause they accepted by a lot of people. But then again, they would kind of really push you. I think every two or three months, we had this project that we had to present in ACOT scored. And if it didn't score high enough, you were basically out, you know? - Oh, it did. - Yeah, so they even had like this poster, remember where they kind of like, with headshots of all their people accepted and they're like, crossed people out. - It was like a survival game, you know? - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - But yeah, kind of. - But during kind of on the second year, we're gonna do the Master's project. And I did a kind of a typographic project called typographic interpretations of Good and Evil. Like philosophical views, is philosophical views of Good and Evil. I was reading quite a lot of philosophy at the time. And I was looking for a mentor for that project. And I reached out to Angus Highland, who was one of the partners at the Penta Grams London office. So we met, I showed him some of the work that I had done and early sketches of the Good and Evil project. And he really liked what he saw. So he kind of became my mentor. And that mentor, kind of that mentor collaboration or situation led then to an internship, which then led to kind of a paid job. My real first paid job, you might say. - So your real first paid job was in London after going from Japan to New York to London. And then the Penta Gram. - Wow. How old were you? I mean, well, 'cause you started off at 19, so early 20s, mid 20s, huh? - Yeah, I'm actually a crap with years, but I must have been something around 20, 24. - Okay. - I'm like that. So basically the second year was extremely intense 'cause I was working on that master's project, like 100% of the time. And also whilst working 100% of time for Angus at Penta Gram. So it was really kind of 18 hour days every day. - Wow. I suppose. It shows your commitment, really. I think that's the thing. If you believe in something and you want to achieve something, you've got to go for it. And you know, it's only you who's going to make it work, really. And you obviously have, which is superb. So from Penta Gram, you did a couple of years at Penta Gram. Let's think about, was there anything that Angus might have said or another creative at Penta Gram, that has sort of held onto or sort of looked back and gone, actually, this, you know, someone said this to me. And it really resonated. - Yeah. And actually Angus is really one of those people where I felt, 'cause I mean, it's interesting with Penta Gram, 'cause I mean, it's a huge, it's huge agency, but each partner run their own little team. So in Angus' team was basically just me and three other people. So it felt like a really small studio and you're really big setting. So the cool thing about that is that I actually got to spend quite a lot of time, you know, with Angus and with kind of the other interesting people in the team. And one of the key things that I think that I learned from Angus was the speed of kind of how fast he could be without losing quality. So I remember one specific time when I had been kind of working and kind of racking my head around creating a symbol for an identity we're working on. So I've been at it for about two days. My whole screen was like full of stuff. - Yep. - And he basically just came back from lunch, you know, passed my screen kind of like stopped, like mid, mid, what's it called? Like mid-step, like wait a minute, zoom into that thing up in the left hand corner. All right, that's interesting. Now flip it around, remove that thing, there you go. And I was like, wow. Now, you know, just so. - Yeah, yeah. - Yeah, and I think that's kind of like something that I picked on later on in life when I actually kind of started bold. And as a creative director and had to be kind of creatively responsible for a lot of project at the same time, you get kind of pulled into different rooms where kind of a lot of things are going on. And you have to have this kind of eye. And I think that's something you learn with time to be kind of like put yourself in the shoes of the client. And like if I don't know kind of, you know, try to pretend to not know so much about design, but what speaks to me and kind of like be able to pick out things that make sense fairly quickly. - Yeah, yeah, if something. Yeah, it almost comes a filter doesn't it? Is that a thing? - I remember when I gave a talk to students, you know, the pre-internet, you know, you know, you are curating bits that you really loved and everything. And you're kind of finding it. Nowadays, you're just so bombarded, you're actually kind of just rather curating, you're kind of just trying to filter out nonsense going, no, no, no, no, no, no. And it's so interesting, because you could just sit there and just absorb it. But something nice about actually finding things yourself. So let's think about this. So you're at a pentagram, you mentioned bold, which is a studio you founded. - Yes. - And you're coming up to 15 years, so congratulations on that. Tell me about what was the sort of catalyst or the moment when you thought actually, I've worked in great countries, I've studied amazing places. I've done some great work at a pentagram. Now I'm gonna jump ship, 'cause that's a bold thing to do. Part of the pun on the name, yeah. - No, but I mean, going back to when I was, where we started this conversation, when I was really, really young and kind of already then the second year in art school, you know, when that professor opened up the door to graphic design, and I just fell in love with the whole kind of space. Even already then, I kind of decided to myself, like some, I'm gonna try and learn as much as I can from as many talented people as possible. - Yeah. - Then some day start my own agency. And that's an extremely, how was it, cocky thing for a young kid from a small town and the middle of nowhere, in the middle of Sweden? But that kind of became like a fire or kind of a big, hairy goal for me to like some time, I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna do that. I'm gonna found my own agency. So that was kind of always in the back of my head during all that time. And in that art school that I mentioned, I met a girl, a then-girlfriend now wife. So we've actually been together for 27 years. - Wow. - Congrats. - Which is crazy. But when I was working at pentagram then, and I finished school, I had kind of like, you know, thought that I wanna stay a pentagram for, for a bunch of years, 'cause I really, really liked it there. But at that time, I had spent, I think, six years abroad and, you know, a part, like a long distance relationship, which is, you know, not easy, especially at that age. You know, so she called me up actually and said, like I got into this school in Stockholm, where something I really wanna study. And if you believe in this, if you believe in us, maybe it's time to start thinking about, you know, moving back home. So, but I hadn't ever spent much time in Stockholm honestly. I mean, I'm from a small town called Linköping, so obviously I had visited, but I hadn't ever spent much time. So I didn't know much about the design scene in Stockholm. So I reached out to a friend and was like, 'cause already then I knew that I'm interested in big, complex branding work. I'm not interested in kind of, you know, smaller, kind of like coffee table books or posters and stuff like that. I mean, that's fun to do, but what I really, really love doing is these kind of big transformations and kind of like complex transformation projects, equal parts, kind of creativity and strategy. So I asked him, like, are there any kind of goods and fairly big design studios in Stockholm at the moment? And he mentioned you should reach out Hans Breamfosch, the guy who drew the absolute vodka bottle. He's like a. iconic figure legend here in Sweden and he he ran a design studio called Brimforsk design which was then renamed to brand union. Okay and they have a they were kind of so Brimforsk design was part of the Enterprise Network that was then renamed to brand union and they had like 25 30 offices around the world or something like that. So I met a met Hans. This was even before kind of so this was just straight out of school. So I went to Stockholm met with Hans and he was like oh I cool you've been to a lot of cool places nice portfolio can you start tomorrow? So I basically started working for for him and since I already had this kind of thinking in the background ahead like I'm going to try and learn as much as I can from this place and then I'm probably going to start my own agency in maybe two years. So I actually quit my job there every two years, three times. So I ended up staying six years but every every two years I kind of quit but then they offered me you know something that's like a better a better salary and a better title and some fancy projects coming up I felt like okay let's I can I can stay a couple of more years. So one guy who worked there I mean I did learn some things from from invaluable things from Hans being Forskuss he he was like equal parts creative and business man in a way. So he kind of he it felt like that that balance between commerce and creativity was something that I learned from from Hans and I think that's important when running bold because I'm going to get back to that but you know when we founded bold there was never a goal to become a big big studio but then when we we can't when we became a big studio I thought that that learning was really important to have the understanding of that it's not just creativity is commerce as well and the business part of it and another guy working at brand union at the time Jonas Allen the Sean who's now running it he told me that because I told him over wine at one point to another like you know I want to fund I want to start my own agency and he was like if you do that I'm not worried at all about the creative level or the creative output because you're you're really good at that but you're probably going to end up being paid in iPods because you're you're you're shit with a with a business part of it which was true and it says something about how long ago this was when he would told me it was going to be paid in iPods because basically that won't exist anymore yeah but anyways so I just that's when I started thinking like oh that's actually true I need a business partner because if I want to do this these kind of transformation projects and larger brand identities is going to be really tricky for me as a if it's like pure creativity so I'm going to I need someone who can be my my my business partner and kind of who knows all the things that I don't so through through a mutual friend of ours we a mutual friend of mine we were both really tired of our jobs at the time we went out in the town during quite too much wine and kind of complained about our jobs and he said like if you're looking for a business partner who's kind of interested in branding and design but from the other end from this strategy side you should meet my friend called Frederick who is then called Frederick of Sunberg with the guy who I found it bold with and so we met up and we had we had scheduled one hour lunch that turned into like a three hour lunch where we just you know talked about everything and just felt like you see he had he was the CEO of a kind of a pure strategy firm at the time and he had grown really tired of how these kind of you know smart power points or beautiful words in a power point how they kind of usually kind of stay kind of within the the board or kind of the the the management and never get out there they don't mean anything unless they get executed into something you know a narrative story a brand identity and experience so he was kind of like I need to find a way to do that and from my end it was like I need someone who can help me build an agency a branding agency and kind of win larger projects so we kind of found each other at that point and he invited me over to the strategy company that he was working at and we spent almost a year I spent I founded like a small design studio kind of on the side for within that company and after I don't know a year maybe we felt like this this is actually you know working so that was mainly a way for us to get to know each other and see if we click you know business wise and we did so then we then we both quit on the same day and and found a bold so that's been going 15 years almost yeah almost 15 years how many people there now it sounds like you've built it from two or three or four to yeah it's we're about 80 now 80 80 yeah wow and I just in one location the head office is in Stockholm that's where we started out and then we also have a studio in Copenhagen and we also have a studio in Oslo and we have a studio in London in the works like a small satellite studio in London coming up yeah so that's where we're currently talking quite a lot about yeah so you built bold which is superb you've done so many great projects and it's always been a great featuring them on visual thank you what was the what's the best part of the project for you the bit that you just go that is the project not it might not be the delivery it might be something totally else or just get in the phone call it just interested in what that is not for me I would say that my favorite part is what we call the explore phase because we usually we have a fairly large strategy team so most of the projects include a fairly big part of strategy you know kind of finding that the drivers in the target group the positioning kind of sometimes it's naming sometimes it's you know different parts of the strategy but their what follows is what we call the explore phase you have some kind of an idea of a strategic framework or like a guard rail to hang on to but it's still very much a blank sheet of paper and I've noticed that kind of when we take on younger people some people get kind of scared or intimidated by that black sheet of paper that you know whoa we can basically kind of do anything but I think as long as you have some kind of strategy in place you basically have like a square more circle if you will on that paper so you know you know you have some kind of foundation to build upon but it's still very open like what how do we turn these insights and this data into a strategy or how do we turn it into like a narrative or a concept that that kind of holds potential and to explore that that that that's that would be my sweet spot that's my favorite part of of every project basically wow and is there project on the site currently or maybe in the past that you let you think wow that is an absolute maybe joy to work on or going back to your thing of being transformational that really has transformed a brand into something that they might not have thought they could have been oh tricky question I mean in the early days bold was mainly known kind of in Scandinavia I would say we did a lot of transformations of big Scandinavian brands such as Scandinavian airlines and Norden SEA and many others and then came a brief from Moldgang Studios the the creators of Minecraft and they were basically looking for a new logo type was I think if I remember correctly the original brief like we need a new logo type because we're gonna do we're gonna release a couple of new games we need a splash screen and they're and the symbol that they had back then it was extremely tricky to to animate or kind of do anything with really because and it also didn't really hold much equity because when we spoke to people it was like some people thought it was a dragon some people thought it was a sewing machine so it was no like internal kind of understanding of what that symbol means or what stands for so we started out kind of and Moldgang is actually a Swedish word Muyeng which is a Swedish word for like a gizmo or like a weirdly a thing that no one knows what it is or what it does so we thought it was really interesting to kind of like what if we create this kind of 3D letter forms that's seen from one end it's quite legible as letter forms but as they kind of twist in turn in a 3D space they become these little Moldgangs these little weird little gizmos so we kind of start toying around with that and we we were actually one of the first agencies in Scandinavia to to to build our own motion studio like a fairly you know like a proper motion studio working working only with motion and then we followed up on that and also created an audio studio so we have an audio studio as well only working with you know sounds and music so we we brought kind of you know the creatives together with with the motion artists and with audio artists and we created this little splash screen, where in I think it's just three seconds. These weird little, you know, Mojangs or Gizmo's kind of flip around and they write out Mojang Studios. And the client was so, you know, happy and impressed by that. So that way they were like, this has the the, we have an opportunity now to make this into a much larger world, you know, like, or a big identity. So that kind of followed to create the whole kind of brand identity around it, how we can turn those little Mojangs into bliffs in a custom typeface and, you know, graphics and patterns and we even turned them in 3D space into furniture and all that kind of stuff. Wow. So that was one of the projects that kind of really became like a, a, a, the world opener, I would say it would, you know, it won a lot of awards and it popped up on a lot of creative platforms and and and and and and and blogs and stuff and a lot of people started reaching out and thought what we did for them was really cool. But the main, the main part I would say is that the client was so happy with it. So they asked us to take on Minecraft, which, you know, it was their number one IP. And that was a huge undertaking because they basically wanted to go from being a game to whole franchise, something you could only compare to like Disney or Lego basically. How can we go from just being a game to whole platform? Yeah. Everything from TV channels and and games and theme parks and movies and you know, that kind of thing. So that was a big, a fairly big project and that happened actually during during the pandemic when I know that a lot of people were struggling a lot. So we were really lucky kind of timing wise to land that project to kind of keep keep the agency kind of stable during that time, even though everyone was working for home. But, you know, they're, they're, they're, they're kind of that that project worked really, really amazingly well to do with just kind of daily check ins over over slack in teams and working in Figma. And so that, that was really kind of transforming it from from a game into to a franchise was kind of one of the coolest things I would say up and to date. Yeah. Well, I've got it is on my notes here to talk about the Minecraft free brand because that was the Mojang. Yep, definitely had that on visual then the the Minecraft. But I'm interested. You mentioned earlier about not following trends, not kind of just jumping on the yeah, the bandwagon, which can you explain a bit more about that because it's obviously, you know, each studio gets influence from other things and other bits and some people might take a bit more from something else. So I'm just interested in in your comment on that. There were, there were a couple of things when we found it bold like when it was just being called Frederick, there were a couple of things that I mean, we had a lot of discussions in the early days like what's important, what, what will the cornerstones be of old and, you know, and one of those things was to work with a lot of different types of clients because I had been an agency's where it was like focused around fashion or focused around packaging. And I was really interested in different types of challenges, different types of kind of strategic and creative tasks and challenges and problems. Yeah. So that was one thing and the other thing was that we are not or I am not at all interested in having an agency style like a preferred aesthetic. You know, almost like some, some, some, projects you might see and you're like, it's probably from that studio because I recognize the style we really try hard to stay away from that because I think if you are a strategically driven kind of brand agency, then you should let the strategic choices or the kind of the strategic platform guide the creative decisions. So if you're doing a gaming studio or if you're doing an airline, if you're doing a restaurant, I mean, you have to create something that makes sense for just that brand, something that kind of rhymes with that, with that position you want to take what you want to be known for and the minds of the consumers and also the personality, it has to be authentic to the brand. Yeah. So to me, first of all, it would be impossible to do something that is authentic and true for a lot of different brands because they are unique and they have to have a unique brand identity that makes sense for them. And also, you know, honestly, I think it would just be kind of boring to kind of flesh out, kind of similarly looking stuff even though it's like a preferred aesthetic. I would probably get bored after a while, but yeah. Who speaks volumes, it's great. I was just scrolling around while you were talking. Thank you so much. Yeah, it looks like you might have had a new site built, it looks really nice. Yeah, we launched it by less, slightly less than a year ago. Okay, we always say everything's great all the time. Has there ever been a moment when it like a client hasn't got it or something's just gone, oh my goodness, the rail guard is slightly wobbling here. Someone's gone slightly wrong. You don't have to mention names. Yeah, it's always a hundred percent, I'm sure. It is so tricky to talk about those things without everyone understanding exactly what I'm talking about, especially here at the home audience, but not honestly, I think as you probably be understood, maybe compared to other designers, I have a quite pragmatic commercial view on branding, how how it's not about taste or personal opinion is not so much about color or form either. To me, it really is kind of a long term strategic direction, a framework, a foundation that's that's built to claim a position in people's minds. So branding is business crucial. I mean, you work as a creative director as well. So you know that sometimes you kind of have your job is to educate people once in a while to kind of like make them understand the importance of branding and how it's just not about a new logo or something like that, but it's actually kind of business crucial to create that space in people's minds, so let them know who you are, which stand for. So what frustrates me the most, I would say is when a client pulls branding down to what I like level when it's reduced to taste. Like I don't like that color or that font feels weird or you know, basically putting their personal taste over what is the right thing to do. That's kind of a slight maybe slightly political and boring answer compared to like those juicy stories when people have said crazy things, but they always get edited out. They always do. I'm like, oh, maybe we should take that out and like, sure, it's your part. But I have one fun thing that is not what is not what was said, but it was like we had this big rebranding project and they had a logo type that didn't really work because they had a name that's very closely connected to the symbol. And we really suggested to kind of redo that symbol, so it works better in small sizes, so it looks the way it should do, be unbalanced. And the client was fighting it and we didn't understand why because we really kind of like showed the opportunities here and then it turns out that the CEO had that symbol tattooed like like this big on his chest. It was like, oh, all right, then it's kind of tricky to change it. I can now get it. I mean, he obviously believed in his brand so much so, and that was in a small hand gesture, even that was quite a big size tattoo. Yeah, well, brilliant. And so we've spoken about that and any advice you'd give to sort of young creatives or even senior creatives, you've obviously mentioned the business and the commerce, but is there anything else that might stick out? I mean, I do quite a lot of both me personally, but also at Bowl, we have a lot of close relations to design schools. We kind of do a lot of talks and kind of hold courses and stuff and then we take on quite, we try to recruit, recruit young talent to create a bit fresh and push up bold work and something that I usually say to kind of interns coming in or junior designers is how branding is finding that story. It's so much about storytelling and finding that strong concept should be like a filter or a hook that you can hang everything on. Yeah. So it's like a, it becomes a red thread like the big idea. And when you find it, you know, because it should feel, you know, like unlocking a treasure chest. All of these kind of beautiful things come out like, wow, with this is a foundation, we can do this and we can do that and we can do this and this. So that's just kind of, that's exactly how it felt when we came up with that Mojang Studio's idea, for example, when we had those shapes and forms, like there were so many things that we could do. So I usually talk to them like how it's not just diving into kind of doing visuals or kind of cranking out design sketches, but just start with trying to find the story, the narrative, the authentic core of the project. And how can we tell that narrative in the best way possible? And then also, and this might sound maybe basic, but I've seen so many people in our industry kind of struggling with anxiety and mental health and the pressure and the stress. Because I think a lot of us kind of come from an arts background and we have to perform on a daily basis like, "No, no, no, no, no." Compared to maybe an artist who just goes out to a studio whenever he feels creative and so also something that I try to talk and write about, especially aimed at kind of younger talent is to try and stay calm and stay positive and especially perspective. You know, we're not saving kids' lives here, but get that perspective and also think like if you have a mind that is kind of at peace and a joyful mind, then that reflects on the work as well. I think you just got to keep on enjoying what you do and you meet people who just treat it like a day job, which is fine. But for me, you know, it's everything. That's why I do the visual. Just seeing is everything to me. It's not just like, "I'll go and do that, do that bit of work, go home, come in." No, 100 percent, 100 percent degree. I've been lucky enough to be on quite a lot of juries during the past couple of years, like Cannes and D&D and Euroveston and Leos and stuff. Sometimes you run across a project and you just feel that joy. You can almost tell that they had so much fun doing this. And that also kind of, I think adds a lot to a project when you can feel the energy that went into it and the joy. So I think that's super important to hold on to make the work relevant. Absolutely. It's interesting going back to what you said about some interns, juniors. That blank piece of paper, it does scare them. It really does that kind of, you know, just make them up. It doesn't have to be their final thing. Just get yourself in there, get off the computer, make stuff, go and see something, just being inspired by something else. No, I think, because I remember as well early on how I thought like a blank piece of paper was kind of scary. Like, "Oh, we're going to do this project." Then the client is very open to new things. So just kind of, you know, rock and roll, let's go. And you sit there with a blank piece of paper and it was like, where should we go? That's why I think it's so for me at least important to work closely with strategists. Because it's already whilst working at brand union, they acquired kind of a strategy, small strategy agency, I think there were maybe 10 people and they kind of moved in. But it was so cliche, but you had kind of the strategists in suits, one end of the studio and then you had the greatest in t-shirts in the other end of the studio. So the strategists did their work first and then they kind of, you got like this piece of paper handed over and you had to somehow interpret it. But two of those guys from that. So we got on really, really well. So we kind of spent a lot of time together to kind of, you know, go out for drinks, go out for dinner and we ended up doing a lot of projects together, where it wasn't that kind of ceremonial handing over a piece of paper, but actually kind of talking about things and finding that guardrail that I talked about, which is like if you have a blank piece of paper and then at least you have some kind of square or a circle, something to like, this is the space where I should explore. It's not like an endless fig my board or whatever, it kind of, you know, doesn't end anywhere. So you have a space and I think that for me helps a lot. Brilliant. Brilliant. I just like to thank you again. We're coming up to an hour of chat. Wow. It does go quickly honestly. Crazy. What I really like is kind of how you get to talk to people behind all the amazing work because when you go into different kind of websites and you see these amazing projects from from these talented studios, but then you get to hear the voice and the thinking and the people, real people behind it, you know, lift up the hood a little bit. Exactly. Exactly. So important to do and I mean, I'm really happy that you say that you enjoy your work and this is the stuff that we've managed to do and I cannot say anything else than I've been just been lucky to be surrounded by so many talented people. We have attracted top talent from all over the world. We basically switched to English as an agency language about 10 years ago because we have so many international superstars. And that's also something that's been important for us to keep that like we talked about non-agency style and trying to push, you know, bold work and maybe the last thing that I wanted to maybe mention, you see if you have time in the find report. I was actually going to ask where the name came from. Oh, like, you know, I took my master's in typography. So when I started thinking about names, I felt like I wouldn't have something related to typography because there's so many nice words and terms within typography that would make sense. And then one day I was out running. It usually happens. I don't know if it's the same for you, but when I have this kind of forward momentum on a bike or running or in a car or on a train or something, it does something to the brain. So I was out running and it just hit me like a punch in the face like, "Bold, that's a great name." And I really like how it kind of, yeah, you can use it in a lot of different ways, talking about kind of like being bold, you know, it really influences how our work, you know, thinking and our culture and how we like to push ourselves and our clients to be a little bit more bold. Yeah. So that's kind of where the name kind of came from. And as we started just in here in Sweden or Scandinavia, we're just known as bold. But internationally, I think we're more known as bold Scandinavia because that's kind of the URL. Yeah. So I think kind of after having worked for so many years abroad and we have so many international clients, it's interesting to also kind of have that Scandinavian mindset to things that a lot of people are kind of interested in Scandinavian design and Scandinavian thinking. And so it has been kind of beneficial for us to actually be connected to Scandinavia in a way. Right. But the last thing I just wanted to mention since you said if I had anything I wanted to add was, and it kind of ties back a little bit to what I said before about being kind to yourself, because I have always had this very harsh inner voice like, you know, when you talk to yourself in your head, I haven't always been that nice kind of to myself. So we have talked a lot about kind of psychological safety at all then how can, because that's basically it was a big shift to me going going from like a designer or a craftsperson to being a leader. And that kind of meant a lot of kind of dropping of the ego and just trusting the team and and to be so my new kind of goal or has been for quite some time is to be as good of us as a good of a manager or leader or creative director that I can be in a big part of that is building a culture where people feel safe. Like if you have a culture where people feel safe to suggest these kind of crazy bold ideas, I think that's the sweet spot that's when you can really come up with groundbreaking stuff. So that that has been my goal for a long time now to kind of try to create the space where people feel safe. Like we're not going to, people don't shouldn't be kind of worried that they're going to get fired tomorrow or kind of or have a very kind of top down like some of the agencies that I work that with a creative director was basically sitting in a glass box somewhere and had to knock on the door and like show something. But a culture where everyone feels involved and kind of feel safe to share even the most ridiculous ideas. Absolutely. Because it just comes out in the work, doesn't it? You're not coloring in, you're doing creating together, which is the whole point. Thanks so much. How did you feel about it? Really good. You did really well. It's all right. Everyone feels so pressured about it. It's just like a conversation. [MUSIC]