Designing Brand Identity with Rob Meyerson and Robin Goffman

Focus Lab's CEO Bill Kenney chats with Rob Meyerson (co-author) and Robin Goffman (Creative Director) about their work on the sixth edition of Designing Brand Identity, a branding classic created and authored by the late Alina Wheeler.

You don't want to miss their discussion on the challenges and excitement of developing a highly collaborative book, their predictions for the future of design, their reflections on working alongside Alina, and her impact on the creative community.

0:00 - Introduction

07:01 - What's new (and what's the same) in the sixth edition

11:17 - Is there anything you would have done differently in this edition?

14:38 - The constraints of print in a digital world

17:20 - The challenges of developing a highly collaborative book

22:55 - What new brand trends are you seeing? And what trends are dying?

28:10 - Predictions for the brand space in the next 10 years

32:50 - Reflecting on working alongside the late, legendary Alina Wheeler

41:10 - How can we carry on Alina's legacy?

44:40 - Where to buy Designing Brand Identity + where to find Rob and Robin

Resources mentioned in this episode:

>> Buy Designing Brand Identity on Amazon

>> Rob Meyerson's "How Brands are Built" episode w/ Alina Wheeler

>> AIGA Alina Wheeler Memorial Scholarship

>> University of the Arts Scholarships

>> Rob Meyerson's Personal Website

>> Robin Goffman's Personal Website

Full Episode Transcript:

[Bill Kenney]

Hey everyone. It's Bill Kenney, co-founder and CEO of Focus Lab and Odi, two global B2B brand agencies. I'm coming at you with another episode of something you don't see very often. In this series called In Conversation, we're sitting down with people in the industry that are doing interesting things. Of note, this is a book that was just released. You may recognize it. It's a very famous book. Actually, this is the sixth edition. First one came out in 2003, Designing Brand Identity.

And today I sat down with. Rob Meyerson. I sat down with Robin Goffman, who was the creative director on the book. We talk about what is it like to create a book that's 332 pages full of everything. Brand identity. Look at this stuff. Look at this. So much content. Years in the making.

Literally. We talk about what it's like to do a book for two to three years. We also talk about brand trends, right? They just spent two to three years doing the book. There's 800, I think Rob said, images in there from different agencies, all walks of life as far as like clientele, subject matter, different work from each continent.

And then finally we finished the conversation. Highlighting the now late Alina Wheeler. She was the original author and catalyst of this book back in 2003. Sadly, she has recently passed, so we spent some time talking about her legacy, her impact. A fantastic conversation about what truly matters.

So, this is a different type of episode than we're usually recording. Really valuable, insightful, and fun episode. So, I hope you enjoy it.

[Bill Kenney]

All right. All right. All right. I'm really excited for this. For a couple of reasons and I'll share them throughout. But let's not start with me. Let's start with the both of you all. we're here to talk about most specifically, let's hold it up so everybody can see, Designing Brand Identity.

Excited to talk about the book, all things book and more. If you all would just take a second, maybe, and just kind of quickly introduce yourselves so everybody knows who the hell we're talking to.

[Rob Meyerson]

Yeah. Thanks so much for having us, Bill. I'm Rob Meyerson. I run Heirloom, a brand consultancy based on the west coast. And I also run a blog and podcast called How Brands Are Built. And most recently I'm the coauthor of that beautiful book that Bill just held up, Designing Brand Identity.

[Robin Goffman]

And hello, everybody. I am Robin Goffman, a creative designer strategist. My favorite job ever is being the creative director for that same beautiful book, Designing Brand Identity.

[Bill Kenney]

Yeah, it's a beautiful book. Let's just say that. Rob was gracious enough to send me a copy so I could see the book itself before we were chatting. It's a book that I would have gotten anyways, but I appreciate the free ride. Thank you, sir. and selfishly happy to see a little bit of, uh, Focus Lab work worked featured in there.

So let's spend some time talking about the book very tactically the book itself. Robin, I'm gonna start with you. If you're good with that.

[Robin Goffman]

All right.

[Bill Kenney]

A big question quickly said, how long does it take to produce a 332 page book? Robin?

[Robin Goffman]

Yeah, for, well, for this edition and the past few, it's about two to three years. I actually just texted Alina's wonderful husband to see if he knew how long the first edition took because I, Was super curious actually, when I was thinking about that, but you know, like everything, it's a big process from figuring out what to update, to actually making the updates from a copy and design standpoint, to the back and forth of contacting and waiting to hear back from all of the parties involved, agencies, experts, publisher, getting permissions, high res images.

Um, yeah, it's definitely a big process.

[Bill Kenney]

Two to three years. That's a long haul. I know working on my book was just under a year, different type of book, right? Straight words, all from me. I can't imagine working on something for two to three years. Honestly, that sounds really long.

[Rob Meyerson]

Well, yeah, I've had both experiences because my first book, like, like yours was sort of a brain dump and it's all words, not a whole lot of imagery in there. That took a long time too, but it's yeah, it's time that you have more control over. Like Robin said, there's, there's a lot of waiting on other people in this.

And, you know, everyone's doing their best to get things back to you as quickly as they can, but they've got other priorities. And also just waiting for the publisher. It's still shocks me, just in general, working with publishers, how long it is between when you think you are quote unquote done with the book and when it actually launches.

So. Yeah. You know, we're just as excited as everybody else that this book is out because we feel like we've, we've been waiting on it for a while and it's, it's great to see it in the world.

[Bill Kenney]

Is it one of those kind of ideas where like the last 10 percent just feel like it takes forever, but maybe the meat of it in the beginning is not so bad?

[Rob Meyerson]

Uh, it all takes a long time, but yeah, one of the things Robin just mentioned very briefly was like, getting high res images and getting permissions on images. And that's where it does feel like it takes forever because you think you're done, like, everything, you know what the book is, you know, what it's going to look like, but you're waiting on, you know, we have this beautiful image on this page, and we just need a higher res version so we can send it to the printer and it looks good when it prints, and sometimes you're waiting, you know, weeks to hear back from people.

So, yeah, that part's, that part's a different kind of pain, I think, than the pain of like, oh, I actually have to work on this and I have to write something or edit something, but it's, yeah, it's a slog.

[Bill Kenney]

It's out of your control at that point. Was there something that was like 400 or something type, um, partner agencies?

[Rob Meyerson]

Well, it's 800 images, uh, meaning anything from like, just a logo to a big, beautiful image photograph to a diagram. About 75 percent of those are new in this book. So that means we had to get high res versions of those and get new permissions on things.

[Bill Kenney]

Yeah. I'm also assuming there's a little bit of anxiety like the night before it prints, if there is such a moment and you're like, Oh God. Is there one word spelled wrong in there? Is there one image that's not going to render right? Uh, but I guess you just give it up to the book gods and you say, ship it, print it.

[Rob Meyerson]

Yeah. Eventually you got to stop at it. Sorry. Go ahead, Robin.

[Robin Goffman]

Yeah. Just gonna say that was more my role, Rob was like, it's fine, can we just be done and like, send it? And I was like, can you just look at this one thing one more time?

[Bill Kenney]

Oh my God. I remember when I was getting to the tail end of my book, I actually, I couldn't read it in full again. All right. Uh, so this book has been out for a while. In social media all week leading up to this. I said, first edition came out in 2009.

I think that's actually incorrect. 2002, is that the correct date?

[Rob Meyerson]

I think 2003. Is that right, Robin?

[Robin Goffman]

Yeah, 2003.

[Rob Meyerson]

So 20 year, 20 year anniversary. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[Bill Kenney]

So from then to now, I'm sure there's been a variety of changes, but maybe Rob, you can spend some time on the most notable changes in this most recent book.

[Rob Meyerson]

Yeah, I mean, one thing to kind of flip the question. Uh, I'll tell you what's the same, which I think is important too. So the way Alina structured this book is and always has been 3 sections. The 1st section is Fundamentals. So it's, you know, what is a brand? What is brand strategy? What is brand architecture?

It's kind of definitions, all with examples and quotes and some detail on what we mean by different things to really kind of help understand. And one of her big things was giving people a common vocabulary, because especially 20 years ago, but I think we all know still today when one person says brand architecture, they might not mean the same thing somebody else says.

So she wanted to develop that common vocabulary for sort of the suits and the creatives or however you want to divvy it up. The 2nd section is a process. It's a five-phase process of how brand identity or really just branding projects work, and that has been consistently the 2nd section.

And then the 3rd is, she calls it Best Practices, but it's case studies, um, about 50 case studies each. And one of the things we're really proud of to, to get to what's new. Is, uh, we felt like if we're asking people to buy this book again, uh, and a lot of people already own it and we want them to buy the new one, we felt like we should give them a full refresh on those case studies.

That way, if you own, if you have the 5th and the 6th next to each other on the shelf, yeah, there's going to be overlap, obviously, because, you know, brand positioning is still brand positioning, but you now have a 100 plus case studies that you can go through. And so that was one of the big lifts in terms of updating, but also there are entirely new sections.

We talk about we talk about social justice in ways that weren't covered in previous editions. We added information on iconography. We talk about senses beyond just visuals and Sonic was always in there, but we wanted to have taste and smell and a little bit about that because we think identity, you know, does go into those other senses, potentially, and then other sections just got sort of major updates.

For me, as a strategist and namer, it was easy for me to kind of start there, you know, digging into a project this big is daunting. And so it was nice for me to have, like, well, let's just focus on the naming section because I know that pretty well. What can I update here? And so some of the pages, even though they're still in there from the 5th to the 6th, you'll notice pretty significant updates in terms of the content.

[Bill Kenney]

Okay. Yes. I hadn't considered the fact that in some of that foundational, let's get on the same page, same language that that could be repetitive book over book. Now you're talking 2 to 3 years, right? That's still a long time. You get a lot of new readership, I suspect, even in that smaller of a window.

[Rob Meyerson]

Yeah, yeah,

But getting all new work, that's probably huge draw.

[Rob Meyerson]

That's a huge lift. A lot of the people who read this book are students. And so they presumably are coming to this book for the 1st time at the 6th edition and what we do, you know, where every single page has been reviewed and a determination has been made as to, you know, what should be updated.

Almost every page has been updated, at least in some small way. And a lot of that is just examples, because even if you. You know, positioning is still positioning. We might not change the definition at all because we don't really feel like it's changed, but maybe we have a 10 year old example in the 5th edition.

So we'd always ask ourselves, can we get something fresher? Um, something from the past 5 or 6 years that that especially again for those students like brands that they'll recognize that will resonate things that feel more like today. I mean, Mr. Beast is in this edition on the personal branding spread, you know, stuff like that.

That that just feels like it's more of the moment. Um, even though the definition of personal branding maybe has, it has only evolved, more than it's changed. And so some of the content, some of the quotes might be the same, although 50% of the quotes in the book are new. But yeah, the examples we can definitely always, I think, find something newer.

[Bill Kenney]

Yeah, yeah, exactly right so I know the book has only been live for how many days?

[Rob Meyerson]

Five, depending on how you count it, but let's, let's say five days.

[Bill Kenney]

I have the jerkiest question of all time being five days out. I feel bad even asking it if you could do something different, it's only been out five days.

If there was something that you would do now that you're like, Oh, we should have added this or this should go into the next one. As people that have worked on the book that long, are those natural feelings? Do you not have those yet?

[Rob Meyerson]

Robin. I'll let you take it first.

[Robin Goffman]

All right, I'd, I'd say, I think from a less tactical standpoint, in honor of Alina, I think for me, I would just say more celebration all around. Um, For anybody that knew Alina, she loved to celebrate every small detail, big thing happening in anybody's life around her. But she did share with me at one point that she wishes she spent more time celebrating specifically the success of this book.

So, I would definitely, um, I've done that more throughout the process of this one and Rob, hopefully it's okay I'm saying this but stay tuned for some potential maybe DBI parties in the near future.

[Bill Kenney]

All right.

[Rob Meyerson]

Some live events. Party might be a little too hard of a, a sell, but yeah, we're trying to plan some, some actual in real life book launch events. Maybe I don't want to over promise, but maybe one of the West Coast and one on the East or something like that. So, yeah, stay tuned to social media and everything. We'll, we'll share dates.

[Bill Kenney]

Look at this. Stay tuned into our podcast and video feed for breaking news. Uh, DBI East coast sign me up. I shall be there. Yeah.

[Rob Meyerson]

Great.

I would add, I mean, in terms of the output of the book, there's, there's nothing that we were, I mean, to your point, it's, it's new and we just feel like we love it. We love, we love the content of the book. It's interesting you said, though, has anything sort of new come up? I mean, one thing, like I said, there's a, there's a decent amount of time between when we sort of say, we're done and draw that line of, like, we're not going to change any more content.

And when it actually comes out. So. Already, I can't think of anything in particular, but, you know, there's great work as, you know, being done on a daily basis. And so things come out and sometimes I see him like, oh, that would be good for this page, but it is, it's not sort of I'm disappointed.

It's not in the 6th edition. It is like, if and when 7th edition, let's put that on a list. And I do feel like, DBI, which is how we refer to the book. It feels less to us having worked on it, like discreet editions and more just sort of a thing that exists continuously. And so I feel like we're sort of always now and I know Alina was like this too.

She was a collector, a clipper of quotes and like, just projects that she loved and it was sort of always in her either digital or real like scrapbook. And so when she got to a new edition, she had some stuff already. And, you know, to the degree that I can follow in her footsteps, I think I'm sort of taking on that role.

And I'm sure Robin will be helpful too anything. We see that. We're like, oh, my God, that's perfect for this page. It kind of goes in our, our mental bank of, you know, could use that in the future.

[Bill Kenney]

Yeah, yeah, lucky number 7.

[Rob Meyerson]

One day.

[Bill Kenney]

All right. Cool. Let's, let's get down to designer nitty gritty stuff, which is, this is a printed publication.

We live in a digital world, said 3000 times a day. Um, so I'm very curious about like the constraints of that. I personally haven't worked in print in like true print like this and like forever, I can't even remember. So I definitely want to hear the take on like what it's like to work in print. If that's exciting because it's old and not done a lot. Or if it's like, uh, it's really constraining and quite challenging. Open floor.

[Robin Goffman]

I mean, I love it for all of those reasons that you just listed. It's not very often you get a project like this in print, so I love it. I think specifically for this book too, it's a really fun process, at least for me, because the structure hasn't changed, the layout for the most part, and the grid hasn't changed. So the process of really figuring out how to make a brand or in this case a concept even, come alive on a single spread just two pages with limited space is really fun and I think unique, so I love it.

I'll say we do have some really in my opinion, cool ideas, for how to build out some digital components of the book. So maybe that lucky 7, DBI 7, maybe. That being said, will always love having that print component of it.

[Rob Meyerson]

Yeah, we should note that Alina also, talked about, trying to have more digital sort of experiential aspects to the book, whether, I mean, we just sort of brainstormed all kinds of different things, you know, adding rich content beyond the book.

So for each of the 50 case studies, could we have an interview like this with with the agency so that you could, you know, dig a little deeper. So lots of ideas. Um, it's just a question of how and when to to implement.

[Bill Kenney]

I got to tell you, I love that idea. I love the idea of staying true to print. And I know you're not asking for my opinion, but here we go. An idea that you could now build DBI bigger and broader and even more digitally with interviews and like taking a case study that is on a single page or three and bringing that into an interview format to go deeper on it.

That seems like an easy win. Not easy to execute. It's a lot of work. Seems like a total easy win.

[Rob Meyerson]

All right, Bill, I'll call you after this episode, and we can work on how to implement it. I need some pointers.

[Bill Kenney]

I'm here for it. It would only make sense to bridge into that world anyways. It's the reason we're all doing this, right? I look forward to seeing where that goes. There's a lot of things for the people listening and watching.

There's going to be a lot of things about creating a book and I guess all of the work that went into that, that people don't really know about, right? I've kind of touched on it for a minute. Oh, what's it like to design in a constraint, in a grid, and it's only on pages and it can't animate. But beyond that, the process of the book creation and, and all of these things is, I'm sure like wide and deep and crazy and hard.

So can you maybe like peek behind the curtain a little bit of like what, what is really hard about the process? That we don't know, that we'd be like, Oh, I never even thought about that.

[Rob Meyerson]

Yeah. I mean, some of the things we've talked about, like, that I didn't realize, I mean, Alina gave me a heads up on a lot of this stuff, but you know, it's one of those things where as much as somebody warns you it's going to be hard, you still underestimate how hard it's going to be. Um, uh, getting high res images, getting permissions, was hard.

One thing that was maybe a little easier than I expected, which was nice, was just getting a response from people. I think because Alina has built such, you know, her professional reputation was amazing. And then the book is, has a sort of a brand unto itself. People would get back to me pretty quickly and say, oh, you know, if it's Alina, I'm happy to help.

And she, I mean, her, her personal networking was, was incredible. Like, she really took an interest in other people's careers and lives to the point that it felt like it wasn't a sort of a transactional. Hey, can you give us some new assets for the book? And it was much more of like a friendly conversation.

So that was easier to, to, like, get some responses and get some new content, but it's still a lot of work to get it sort of formalized. And then, you know, this is just an interesting book. I like to, like I said, it's so different from a written all text book that you really read cover to cover. Although nobody reads branding books or business books, cover to cover.

Uh, but that's the ideal, right? But this book, I like to think of it almost as the encyclopedia of brand. So hopefully that gives people an understanding. If they haven't seen the book of kind of what it's like, and how it works. It would be hard to read the entire thing cover to cover each spread.

Each two-page spread covers a different topic. And so it's really designed to, live on, live on your shelf and be pulled down on a regular basis for I need to understand something about usability testing or, you know, how brands handle social justice issues and just turn to that spread and read through it.

And, you know, there's a lot of content in there for each of these, but also there are sort of pointers out from the book of, oh, they quoted this from this book. Maybe I should go read that. Or here's an example they gave, maybe I can go find some articles.

So because it's structured like that, it's kind of 150 ish discreet little projects of, you know, how and we, we managed it like that. We did almost like the software developer thing with like cards moving across from.

[Bill Kenney]

Oh yes, Kanban. Yes.

[Rob Meyerson]

From kind of have an idea, but haven't implemented yet to we have an expert that we've talked to, but we haven't put his or her words onto the page yet to, you know, we're just waiting on final images and we moved the cards across and we had a bunch of those. And yeah, that's how we managed it. So that's, I doubt that's the experience a lot of people would have writing a book, unless it's something kind of, kind of like this one. Although, yeah, I can't think of too many similar examples.

[Bill Kenney]

Yeah. Maybe you don't want it to be called this, but for me, I think about it as a beautiful, more of a coffee table type of book experience, right? Uh, it's so rich in its content, beautiful visuals.

You can hop around in it and kind of get in and out of it without having to do this linear experience of a book, right? If I open page one, I got to read chapter one. I got to read chapter two. I can't skip between chapters necessarily. And most books, this is a different type of book. Uh, and what you've created in that way beautiful.

[Rob Meyerson]

Thanks. Yeah, well, and I said, thanks, but Robin should say thanks that the she's the creative director and she handled the internal beauty of the book. We also have to give a shout out to Eddie Opara of Pentagram, uh, who did the beautiful cover design this time around. We were, we were so lucky to get him uh, It was very fun to get to work with him.

Yeah, we're really happy with the result. Thanks for saying that about coffee book too. I mean, that, that cuts both ways, right? We don't want it to be the coffee book that just sits there and nobody opens it, but Uh, We actually have a list in the front of the book, um, that Alina started and I think we just maybe made some edits on.

But, it's how to use this book and, one of them is to beautify your coffee table. And I, I mentioned that actually to my mom the other day and she was like, who would put a branding book on their coffee table? And so now I'm gonna go tell her, Bill Kenney at Focus Lab. It's on his coffee table at home. You just have to be a branding, a branding nerd.

[Bill Kenney]

Yes. You just have to live and eat branding all day, every day. But yeah, I mean, even the spot gloss on the cover, right, that the weights, and the details of the book are really well done. I wouldn't expect otherwise given the amount of effort, the people on it, sixth edition, et cetera, but it really lives up to what we would expect it to live up to as kind of, let's call it like a design brand nerds buying the book.

It's like, oh, it's as good as we expected it to be. So well done. All right. So let's get off the book for a minute, but we'll stay inside the book. Let's transition to kind of industry trends, right? So y'all have this kind of deep insider track now having to lay out all these damn pages and do all this work.

You're actually looking at the work itself. You're getting a deep perspective on the types of work that's being created. The types of movements that are calling for brand and the gravity that they're pulling in that way. So I'm really interested to hear, I guess, what, what new trend or trends do you see pushing into this book and maybe more interestingly, like old trends that are dying. Was there stuff that was like super cool and like seemed to be bleeding edge in the last edition that doesn't really take any stage at all this time, again, open floor for trends.

[Robin Goffman]

Yeah, I'll jump in. I, there were definitely to your point, there were definitely emerging trends from previous editions, whether it was fifth or fourth. I think everything from third prior has probably been updated, but there were definitely those emerging trends, that are now just mainstream, not trend.

So things like smartphones, that was a spread is now digital interfaces, social media was removed because, you know, it just is social media. I don't know how else we could say that. China is no longer its own spread. It's now folded into a new spread called Global and Local. So things like that.

And, um, there are new. Rob already touched on this a little bit, but there are, um, there's a lot of new dynamics too, that we added into this edition. So that I think play into this conversation around trends, things like social justice, AI, um, a really big, I think, increasing emphasis on sustainability.

So, both of those things.

[Bill Kenney]

Crypto. Bitcoin all time high today, let it be known. Crypto is in there.

[Rob Meyerson]

Oh really? Good to know. Uh, we, yeah, we actually, it's funny. I mean, those are things that change while you're working on the book. Um, we have a nod to, we have a nod to crypto because we, there's a spread in there that's mostly about technological trends that we see and some of the main brands that that fit.

So crypto's mentioned there with some of the big brands underneath it, but it doesn't get its own spread. I think there was a time where we might have done that. And then it sort of felt less relevant as we started really digging into the content. Well, one other thing I'd add to what Robin said, and her list was great, but we really wanted to track down at least one case study from each continent.

And this was something that Alina was big on.

[Bill Kenney]

Love that.

[Rob Meyerson]

It's still, you know, I think maybe everyone knows this. It was almost surprising to me, though, how true this still is. It's so easy to find great work out of New York, London, you know, the US, the UK and Western Europe more, more broadly, tracking down the best work in other parts of the world is still a little tough and it's not, obviously there's great work being done there, but maybe not shared as much as it, as it should be.

There's a language barrier sometimes just getting in touch with people. And so that's a little bit of a slower process, but, but that's another thing that, I see sort of shifting over time. I think, I think we'll see, we'll see more and more work out of those parts of the world.

And we're super proud. We were, we have only one case study from Africa, unfortunately, but we were able to get at least one case study from each continent. And that's something Alina, really wanted to make sure that we did.

[Bill Kenney]

I love that push. That actually makes me think of something from one of my LinkedIn posts this morning. I had posted. This idea that I was curious to what people's kind of childhood memory, nostalgia was towards brands, right? So I use the example of the cherished brand of my childhood. Number one, it seems to me in the moment creating the post was a Nintendo, right?

I remember what it was like to open that box. I remember what it smelled like, the cartridges, the plastic, probably gross, but good because you're so happy to have it, right? These ideas. So I opened it up. And one guy from India commented, so then, I should back up a little bit. It was like GI Joe and it was all these things that we would all kind of cherish from this 80s 90s kind of lifestyle growing up as a kid.

Gushers was thrown in there a lot of these like comic books, Marvel and all this stuff. And then one guy from India said Cadbury. I found this so interesting, right? Like I don't feel drawn to that brand at all. So I even asked him in there, like, why did you call that out? Are you talking about the Cadbury egg specifically, which is pretty notable.

Are you talking about like Cadbury as a brand? Cause I don't find all that much relation myself to that brand. I know what it is, but it's not like top of mind for my childhood. So he explained why that was in his country. So going back to your point, it's really important for books like this to get outside of our own bubble.

Let's just say it. Right. Of America, if you will, the U.S. Um, it could be quite interesting and really eye opening.

[Rob Meyerson]

Yeah, absolutely. And, we really want as much diversity as we could get in the cases. And that was something I told agencies when, even when they were picking which of their projects to highlight, we wanted a good mix of B2B and B2C. We wanted a good industry mix. Yeah, we wanted a good mix of not only where the agencies were located, but where their clients were located.

So sometimes, even if it was a London based agency that they would share a project on in Eastern Europe or something like that. Just getting a really good mix and good cross section. All of it is fantastic work, but we want other than that, it was like, let's, let's mix it up and show people some different, some different looks.

[Bill Kenney]

Thank you for doing that. All right. In looking at all of that work and seeing everything that you saw, I'm going to kind of open you up into making a prediction.

[Rob Meyerson]

Oh, boy.

[Bill Kenney]

Just take your shot, right? You just, you just take a shot. If it's wrong. It won't be replayed if it's right. It'll be replayed and you'll look really smart. Uh, so yeah, maybe from each of you, if you could just take a shot and say like in the next 10 years, I think X will happen within the brand space.

[Rob Meyerson]

So I can go first. If you want Robin, this is a tough one.

[Robin Goffman]

Go for it.

[Rob Meyerson]

Yeah, I'll let you, think about it too. I mean, I, I guess I already said, I was talking about markets outside, the U. S. Western Europe. I do feel confident having looked at the work that's happening, a lot in South America. A lot of what we saw in Africa, I think we're going to see massive growth in the number of agencies in those places and sort of the size and level of recognition that those agencies get a lot of that.

I mean, and this is the case now, like, a lot of it is still going to be some of the big agencies just having bigger offices in those places versus maybe local startups. But I think, and I hope that they'll just be more sort of appreciation in the industry for the importance of those markets. They may not be, driving the sort of emerging trends that that may that may stay in, the North American and Western Europe for for quite a while.

But I do think we're going to see some just fantastic work coming out of those places. So I look forward to hopefully having even more case studies to share from those places in future editions.

[Bill Kenney]

Plus one to that.

[Robin Goffman]

Well, I don't know how I can top that prediction, but, um, I don't know, maybe for Designing Brand Identity, DBI 10 or something like that. There'll be holographic video, who knows, when you open up a spread and maybe that will just become the new, um, a new outlet for storytelling in a new way. So, don't know what year that'll be, but.

[Rob Meyerson]

If we can't do that, we'll just make it a pop up book. It'll be, uh, we'll, we'll figure out.

[Bill Kenney]

It's close enough. Yeah. Well cars still have to drive on the road. We're like, we never, we never got to that fantasy, but that's cool. Uh, but if we do, we'll be able to play it back now, Robin. Uh, yeah, Rob, well, so both of you, I also wish and think that those types of technologies are coming. Maybe sooner rather than later, more holographic and maybe the less kind of having to be in a headset.

Like we're finally getting to that point and being able to experience that more and like relational kind of space that will be quite interesting.

[Rob Meyerson]

It's a great point though, that we have the technology now to some degree, right? If you put on an Apple Vision Pro and looked at a page and just had an augmented reality experience that would, That would be smoother than, you know, go to this website. I talked about earlier about see the animated version. Um, we could do that now.

And I'll tell you, Alina would absolutely have loved that. She always wanted to try to be on the cutting edge. So, um, again, it just gets to like, oh, how hard is it going to be to try to make that happen? But, hey, uh, you know, we'll, we'll, we'll look at it and try.

[Robin Goffman]

I don't know, Rob, you just made that sound very easy, so this may be like a DBI 7 thing.

[Rob Meyerson]

Alright, sooner, sooner than expected. All right, we'll try.

[Bill Kenney]

You've got Elon Musk it. You can't worry about how hard is it to send the biggest rocket to Mars, you just have to start building

the damn thing and see how it goes.

[Rob Meyerson]

Move fast and break things. Yeah, we'll try it.

[Bill Kenney]

Yeah, I do agree though that I think that the talent overseas Is about to boom and I don't even want to speculate maybe why that is.

[Rob Meyerson]

I did want to add Bill. I think part of the reason we're seeing this maybe is I was just saying this the other day. I think we're, we're in a bit of a golden era here for just education and branding being available, being affordable. Um, there's just a lot of good content on YouTube or, just podcasts like this.

I mean when I started, uh, a podcast five or six years ago, I felt like, oh, there needs to be a branding podcast. There were one or two. Now there, there are plenty and then they're all really good. And so there's so much free content, so much if you can't afford to pay for some of these classes, um, people can educate themselves on how to do this stuff, uh, without, you know, going to school in the US or something like that.

[Bill Kenney]

That's right. That's right. Yeah. Tip the hat to the Internet. Right. The Internet opened that up to everybody. Right. Democratized all of that learning. Yeah. Everything's got its ups and downs. It did a lot of good. Let's be real. Uh, okay. Okay. Okay. Let's move into the back section here.

I don't want to turn this into a, like a watershed tears moment, but I know, um, Alina was the person that founded this book back in the day. You both have had the pleasure of working very closely with her, built relation with her, and she has sadly passed since the creation of this book. So it's only right that we spend time talking about her.

I have no relation. And no background and no history with her. So I'm going to do a lot of letting y'all talk. Okay. And whatever you would like to share, so first to maybe make it not so deep as the opening question.

I know I set us up pretty deeply there. Um, can you both maybe speak to how you got to know her in the beginning and even in the sense that you got to work with her on this book, like, how did that, how was that connection made for each of you?

[Rob Meyerson]

Sure. Well, Robin's known her longer than I have. So I definitely want to hear her answer to this, but I'll, I'll do mine quickly. I met Alina through my podcast. I, I asked her if she would be a guest, obviously knew her reputation in the industry. I considered myself lucky to be able to get people like her onto the podcast.

I knew the book very well. I couldn't tell that story separately, but I've known it for years and years. And so I had her on to talk about it. The conversation was very fun. She was just a blast to talk to and talk about, like, vulnerable. I mean, she, she just has no sort of walls up, you know, she's just very honest, very genuine person.

Um, and so we got to know each other there. And then, I mentioned earlier that she really invests in other people. And I think that's one of the things that. I hope to take away from this amazing opportunity that I had to get to know her very sort of deeply in a relatively short amount of time is just the degree to which she really cared about other people's lives.

Um, and so she sort of, uh, I give her credit for the fact that we grew closer because she would follow up with me and she wanted to know what I was working on and whether I was interested in, certain opportunities to, to work together and things like that. And it just kind of grew from there.

And then I wrote my first book, Brand Naming, and I asked her to write the forward for it and she did. And so I think that kind of cemented the relationship from a work standpoint in terms of us getting to write together, getting to edit each other. She had lots of opinions about my naming book, even though, you know, she wasn't a coauthor on it, but just, she has so much experience.

Of course, I was looking to her, you know, any, any advice on publishing a book. And then we worked on that forward that she wrote, and I think that's, I assume that that that's where maybe the seed was planted in her mind of maybe us working together on the 6th edition.

And so, a while after that, she reached out and asked if I would, would join her on this edition. And she had said, on my podcast that she was kind of trying to step away from the book as as hard as it was for her because it's her baby and her masterpiece, but she recognized that she wasn't going to write these books forever.

Her husband that Eddie, who Robin mentioned earlier, she had apparently given her an ultimatum that you either choose the book or you choose me. That was one of her, her lines. I can share that because it was one of her lines on my podcast. And so she was looking for someone to kind of take it, take it on and asked me if I would do it.

And of course it's a huge honor. But still was not an easy decision because she was very transparent about how much work it was going to be. But I, I'm glad I said yes. And yeah, that, that's kind of the story of how, how we got to know each other.

[Bill Kenney]

Beautiful and props to you for reaching out in the first place, right? I guess like, you know, a lot of us need to remember that. The people that we look up to and aspire to be more like learn from are generally often very nice open people. Um, and you just got to reach out and you never know what will come from that relationship.

Sorry, Robin, go ahead.

[Robin Goffman]

No, I didn't mean to cut you off. I was just going to say I am also very glad you decided to say yes to that, Rob.

[Rob Meyerson]

Yes, I appreciate that. You could have been saddled with some evil author.

[Robin Goffman]

No, Alina, Alina never would have done that. She didn't have it in her to do that. No. Bill, that's actually, I can share, when, and how I started working with Alina, but that's actually one of, I used to say this when I earlier on when I first met her, but that is one of the things most that I learned from her.

Like a person is just a person, whether they're CEO or the coolest designer in the world, or, VP of marketing for your dream company or brand, the way that she would talk about people and reach out to people was literally, it's just a person and, and not to think of it like anything else. But yeah, I started actually the majority of my college career I, um, got to work with Alina.

So, I was a sophomore. Um, when I started working with her on the fifth edition of her book and it was obviously a job, but I'll put it this way, all of my college roommates used to yell at me. They'd be like, you literally don't want to hang out with us. You just want to go to Alina's.

And I was like, yes, you're not wrong. Um, and that is, that is true for many years. That was, that was said. So working with her was, quite literally pure magic, not even just working with her, but knowing her, being around her. I definitely would not be where I am professionally, but also personally.

Um, if I haven't, if I hadn't known her. Um, now for a little over 10 years, um, despite all the reflecting over the past few months, um, it's still a very hard question to answer. Like what, what was the impact that she had on you? Because it was so deep and so broad. Um, but I'd say that there are a few things that I keep coming back to.

Um, in her last few months, she never let the details of the book and also her contributions to this edition go, ever. And getting to to really experience that especially during a vulnerable time for her really showed me what commitment to passion is, um, incredible and beautiful and, and everything in between.

Um, and I think the other thing for me is, just believing, whether it was intentional or not, everything about her, her words, her actions, her presence, and I'm sure many others and Rob can relate to this, but she just made you believe in everything small things, the big things, our wildest dreams. And I think she'd want everybody listening to to really do the same, to believe in ourselves on each other and I don't know all the possibilities to come. I hope that was deep enough for you.

[Bill Kenney]

No, it's not for me. I really, I wanted to give you all the moment, right? You've come to build a relationship with somebody and work on something so intimate and it's, there's a lot of feeling there, right? So I just, I wanted to give you the space and, and also the ability for the people listening and watching to learn from what she gave you all as well, right?

So that that legacy does persist and go on and reach more people.

[Rob Meyerson]

Yeah, one of the things I asked Alina for any advice she had for, for young people at the end of my conversation with her on the podcast and I'll, I'll post it or I can send it to you if you want to post it in the notes for this episode, because it was, it was amazing. She just kind of started rattling off these like incredible little bits of wisdom and, and like one-liners, very, very memorable.

But one of them is, um, find an, I believe in you person and, um, and the Robins point at the end there, liket he reaction of a lot of people who know her is that she is that she was that person for so many people. She, she was optimistic to put it simply, and she believed in people's ability to achieve their dreams and she was not shy about sharing that with you. So, um, that was, that was pretty amazing.

[Bill Kenney]

Well, how can we. How can we all, three of us and everybody listening and watching support her intentions moving forward? Or anything outside of that, that you think helps to bring her impact to the world.

[Robin Goffman]

Yeah, well, there are two scholarships in her honor, which is amazing. AIGA has one, the Alina Wheeler Memorial Scholarship, and then her alma mater, University of the Arts in Philadelphia also has one, the Alina Wheeler Design Scholarship. Most people, most people know she was an incredible mentor to students all over the world.

So both of these were really meant to support a future generation of designers and creatives.

[Bill Kenney]

Love that. So she therefore is going to impact people that she's not even met. Yeah, I'll put links to, to all of that in the show notes for everybody that's interested in checking those things out and learning more about her as well. I, uh, all right, let me, we'll take us back up a little bit.

Rob, it looks like you were maybe going to say something. I don't want to cut you short.

[Rob Meyerson]

Oh, no, you would ask kind of more broadly how we could, continue her legacy. And I think, you know, you're a great example of someone doing this already, but it's just, supporting each other, in the industry and in our personal lives.

But, you know, to keep it, to keep it specific to the branding world that she cared so deeply about and the design community, it's just, helping each other, now that those of us who are lucky enough to be sort of more, more experienced at maybe later stages of our career, helping newer people and, and sharing the knowledge that we have.

So, you know, again, podcasts like this is a great example of that, but also Alina was so great at doing it on a personal level. So, you know, respond to people who have, who have legitimate questions or, or concerns. If you can mentor someone, if you can, just give someone advice on a, on a 15 minute phone call, try to do it.

[Bill Kenney]

Well said. Let's stay on that soapbox for a minute. Let me pull the mic closer. For everybody listening on both sides of this coin, there's going to be people that are younger in their career that are nervous and hungry to learn from other people. We've already said it. We'll say it again. Reach out to people.

Yeah. Reach out to the three of us. I won't plug our emails. I don't know what kind of spam, actual spam that will create, but reach out to us. You'll be able to find us socially. You can hit us up in some version of an inbox. We would be happy to speak with you. Reach out. On the other side of the coin. Yes.

To what Rob said, and maybe let's all brace more Alina in us. And support people and lift them up and be a believer in them. This is not to put myself on a pedestal, but I am a big believer in this. I actually love it when people reach out to me.

I hop on calls with people all the freaking time and it's actually surprising to me how many people go like, Oh my God, I can't believe you would take time out of your day to speak with me. Thank you so much for helping. If we could all do a little bit more of that, even if it doesn't come natural, our industry, we don't have to go to the world yet, but let's just say our industry would be a better place.

We can all start there. We can all make an impact. And maybe having never met her, Alina was the best version of that. And you all got to see that. So maybe that's the collective takeaway for all of us. And thank you for kind of opening up that sentiment, Rob.

[Rob Meyerson]

Yeah, thanks for saying it so eloquently. I think you summed it up perfectly.

[Bill Kenney]

All right. Sales pitch time. Here we go. Everybody. Everyone, go get your book.

Uh, no, but seriously, the book is beautiful. I mean, look at this thing, right? Like here, let's, let's do a little fly through. I mean, just look at the size and the scope of the content in this book. 332 pages. Well done by both of you. Um, You can find the book on Amazon.

Is that the easiest place to go to get it? Is that the easy plug?

[Rob Meyerson]

That is go to Amazon to get it. I will say, depending on when this episode drops, it may not be available in the UK, in Australia, and other parts of the world, but it will be in the next few weeks. It is available now in the US, and I think all in North America.

But yeah, Amazon's the best. Um, there are other places to buy it. If you're not an Amazon fan. Um, so we can maybe share links to those as well.

[Bill Kenney]

Sounds like there might be other things in the works that we've kind of leaked and maybe not leaked, which is, is there a DBI kind of event thing that might happen?

So let's also talk about where people can follow, uh, each of you, or just DBI in general so that they might catch news of those types of things.

[Rob Meyerson]

Sure. So, the easiest thing for me is RobMeyerson.com and there you should be able to link out to any of the things I'm working on. You can follow on social media, which is where you'll get updates on things like events. I'm pretty active on Instagram at just @robmeyerson. And then, there is a DBIbook.com.

I wasn't making that part of the address up. It's just, there's no slash animation. We're updating that site now. Hopefully, by the time you listen to this, the new site is up. We will try to also, give some updates there. And then sorry, just one last thing. I have a newsletter that goes out every month.

You can sign up at HowBrandsAreBuilt.com and that's another place that I'll share, uh, information about the book, but also just branding news and things like that.

[Robin Goffman]

Awesome. Yeah. Excited for the new, the new DBI book. com website to get live over the next week. And for me personally, RobinGoffman.com and you are welcome to follow me on social, but only if you're hungry because I only post, my baked goods. So.

[Bill Kenney]

Fact, I went hunting around, I'm like, all right, at least I know what the feed is dedicated to. It's not confusing. I know, I know what it's about. So yeah, if you love food, if you're a sweets person, my wife, uh, you'll probably have a new follower later. Uh, that's the feed that you want to follow. Thank you both for joining. I think we did Alina right. I think we did the book right, which is talking about what's in it. What matters. Um, I really enjoyed spending time with both of you and I look forward to seeing what comes. Thanks. We'll just leave it there.

[Rob Meyerson]

You too, Bill. It's always so much fun to chat with you. Thanks for having us on.

[Robin Goffman]

Yeah, thanks for having us.

[Bill Kenney]

All right. Bye y'all.