Mike Perry is the founder and chief creative officer of Tavern, a branding and packaging agency based in Brooklyn focused on food, beverage, hospitality, and sports. ~ With over 15 years cutting across NBC Sports, Hendricks Gin, Budweiser, TikTok, and beyond, Mike has developed a philosophy as richly layered as the brands he works on — one rooted in subculture, source material, and a relentless pursuit of what he calls "modern heritage."

In this episode, Radim and Mike explore what it truly means to build something timeless in an industry obsessed with trends. From his punk-poster origins to floating an inflatable pigeon down the Hudson River for New York City Football Club, Mike reveals how chaos, curiosity, and hospitality form the connective tissue of great brand work.

Key Takeaways:

• Subculture is the source of all icons. You need the chaos of punk rock, the feral physicality of real-world experience, to fuel brand work that actually resonates, and Pinterest boards will never replace it.
• Modern heritage is a philosophy built on tension. Holding heritage and modernity in productive conflict — never resolving it too neatly — is what creates brand work that lasts beyond the next trend cycle.
• The MAYA principle (Most Advanced Yet Acceptable) applies to branding as much as architecture. Push far enough to surprise, but stay grounded enough to be understood.
• Designers are the true brand guardians. Brand managers rotate every two to three years; agencies stay for decades. That longevity is a responsibility, not just a relationship.
• If you're chasing trends, you're already late. By the time an activation is built around a trend, the trend is usually over, leaving brands looking worse than if they'd never tried.
• Brand worlds should become universes. The goal isn't a rebrand every two years. It's a platform so strong that every new person who touches it can only build outward, never backwards.
• Three equities and a truth. Not trends. Find what the brand genuinely owns, ground it in something real, and build from there.

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Mike: I think like within Heritage Brands is the realm because they've existed for so long.

they may or may not be timeless already. Most likely they're not. And it's timelessness is, it's that thing you can never get, It's the point of the graph that keeps flattening out for some reason. But it's also something you have to constantly work and build. Towards, and you keep going to not get it, but that's what gets you to that level, right?

It's not a thing. Timelessness doesn't just happen, JFK or Carolyn Bessette Kennedy are timeless icons, but they just didn't happen over time. I'm trying to pick people, not brands on purpose, right? but there's an aesthetic, there is like a world in which like they pushed and that kind of came out.

Radim: Welcome to the Daring Creativity Podcast, a show about daring to forever explore creativity that isn't about chasing shiny perfection. It's about showing up with all your doubts and imperfections and making them count. It's about becoming more of who you already are. My name is Radim Malinic I'm a designer, author, and eternally curious human being.

 I am talking to a broad range of guests who share their stories of small actions that sparked lifetime discoveries, taking one step towards the thing that made them feel most alive. 

 Let me begin this episode with a question. Are you ready to discover what happens when you dare to create? 

Radim: Today I was speaking with Mike Perry, founder and chief Creative Officer of Tavern, a Brooklyn based branding and packaging agency. Mike has gone from designing pen posters and dreaming of working for sub Pop to now leading global brand work 

From Catholic school corridors and bartending shifts with his parents through NBC sports, five major agencies and strategic detour.

Through TikTok, he's chasing subculture to become a guardian of the brands that shape it. He never chooses between the chaos and the craft because we need both. In this conversation, Mike shares why timelessness is built on tension, why eBay beats Pinterest every time, and why he's widely optimistic about the future of branding.

It's my pleasure to share with you my conversation with Mike Perry.

 Radim: Hey Mike, welcome to the show. How are you doing today?

Mike: Thank you so much. Yeah. Good. Stoked to be here.

Radim: Exciting times. you are a person in the branding world with opinions and I like that. So today, we're definitely gonna go and see if we can sort out the world of branding in the next hour or so. But as from the show, I always ask people, for those who might have not heard of them, how would you introduce yourself?

Who's Mike Perry? What'd you do? Where are you?

Mike: Yeah. thank you. We're gonna, we're gonna get some hot opinions. I'm pretty sure by the end of this, but, some controversial ones we hope. but yeah. I'm Mike Perry. I am the founder and creative officer of Tavern, at branding and packaging agency, focusing on food, bev, hospitality, and sports.

 All the things that make up a great tavern. and right now we are in, and coming very soon potentially, London. but more on that later,

Radim: More later. Exciting times. Okay, Mike, I wanna know what's it like to be a branding designer in the year of 2026?

Mike: a lot different from when I started. I feel like,I love it. personally, I think it's challenging I think in a world where everyone thinks that they're a branding expert or marketeer, I think that definitely adds to the challenge and adds to. Hopefully some things will solve in this conversation of just a lot more education to people, to brands, to marketers, to consumers.

So it's definitely a challenge. it's a different world than I think when we started, when I started at least, and, and definitely a different world, two, three decades ago.

Radim: I like your answer when you said, I love it, and then you said it's challenging, it gets real, real quick. so walk me through where you are today and how you got here, because you've been in the industry for about 15 plus years and you've been running oven for the last sort of four plus years. So talk me what got you into it because you said it's, it's a lot harder, it's more challenging to when you started. So let's go back those 15 years and see what we can find. 

Mike: right,We'll go back, we'll go right when I graduated, I went to Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia. not many people know that, but of Paula share fame. it's a little shot out there. But yeah, I, my first job, was really at NBC Sports where I worked on.

basically all of their properties. it was reallyit was really cool. it was sports. It was, I could really explain that to my parents, which was quite nice. they knew exactly what I was doing. After a few months, finally, after all of these years of wanting to be a graphic designer, they could wrap their heads around it.

'cause I could say, Hey, it's on tv, and I made that. but yeah, we were working on properties like, it was the Tour De France hundred 50th anniversary, which is really cool. We did this whole thing where you would track the bikers on a website, which it was groundbreaking stuff back then.

That didn't really happen. It sounds so rudimentary now. Wednesday night rivalry for the NHL Sunday Night Football. Really designing the kind of look and feels for the properties. And then I was low man on the totem pole, obviously I was the junior, so I was just doing everything that everyone asked me for and asking for more ultimately.

Radim: I need to step in because, you just said that, your parents got to finally find out what'd you do, what was their background and what did you grow up to see creatively that got you tempted to go to Philly, to, to design school.

Mike: Yeah, so my parent, my mom is a Catholic school teacher and my dad is a mailman. and they were both bartenders, so that, that kind of comes in later, to the old tavern of it all. But, second jobs were always bartenders and service was half of the equation, I would say in, in their influence on me.

and my mom being a teacher, obviously, like they understood creativity and really pushed it. I feel like I was constantly in art camps since I was a toddler,of sorts. So it was very much there. in middle school I knew I wanted to go to art school. I was the kid that just hung out in the art classroom, like during free periods.

And at the end of the day, as I'm sure like everyone listening to this probably was in some way, and they were like, Nope, absolutely not. you're gonna get a real degree. It's art is a real degree. Nope. so that was just, the constant like middle school, high school battle of that. And that's why I actually went to Temple University and Tyler School of Art was the art school within the university.

And. Unlike risd, unlike like specific art schools. Art schools only you got a what they perceived as a college degree. And so if I had a fall back, I had a university degree, not just, bachelor of Fine Arts, even though that's literally what I got either way. it made them feel good it is a wonderful school.

So it was awesome. But that kind of led me into the design world. I always knew I wanted to do design. I didn't,and honestly, branding, I don't think I would've called it that then. But I wanted to really, punk posters and flyers for shows and album art. I've definitely, for a long period of time, I wanted to be, the art director at Sub Pop, who I actually ended up working for, dusty Summers, who was great.

but yeah, Wanted to do, that whole world didn't know what it was. As I think a lot of us at least in my, era of design thought, and then you went to art school and then you're in art school and you start thinking, maybe I should be a sculptor. That's a lot of fun over there. But then it's no, keep your eye on the prize.

we wanna be doing, not fine arts design. And that's really, it was nice because you got, in art school we got this kind of full world experience. We had to take the sculpture classes, we had to take the woodworking classes, we had to take the painting and the drawing, which did really inform your design really well.

I know it was forced in our first year, but, so yeah, it was really like knowing I wanted to do something like this and just, it the through line was there. Yeah.

Radim: I'm liking it as two different worlds. It's okay, I'm gonna be official. I'm gonna have a degree from something proper. But then you talked about, the punk rock posters and that kind of stuff, because it's almost dare to embrace the chaos. I came through music and design like this.

this was my initial connection. This was my step in, and I was totally immersed in that world. So what was it like for you that I feel like, was that a dissonant, did you. you're not the first person, by the way, to say that they were considering to be a sculptor and didn't become a sculptor. ' cause I'm thinking

 there's a 

punk rock and there's a sculpture. that?

Mike: there was like a week of that let's it was like, oh, we're gonna do that. We're gonna be a painter one week. it's, exploratory, early art school for sure, but yeah. Yeah. two,

I don't know. I still find that to be relevant today.

I think that you need the chaos, you need the subculture of it all, to really make corporate brand led of it all. without subculture, we wouldn't have icons. I was actually just listening to a podcast, I forget what it's called, but it's with Lee Mash, Meyer of Collins.

And, the woman who, I'm forgetting her name, I follow her substack, the Business of Sociology. But they were talking about what makes an icon? And it was all about like subcultures and bootlegs. And I was like, yes, exactly that. actually rationalizes those two worlds, right? we need to have all of this punk rock being in bands, making posters, shit that has no purely creative negative dollar effect on my life.

It's costing me money ultimately to do. And then you also need the like, big brand, or at least I do the big brand of it all, which is paying the bills, but also That's enforcing culture, enforcing brand and vice versa. So I think you need it both. And I think that's ultimately source material, which I'm obsessed with, in general I think many designers have said this, I'm by no means my thing, but I don't think designers even still with the computers and internet and whatever, we're not getting enough source material in general.

We need to be out exploring. We need to be, like you were saying, do you go to bookstore? I don't know if you go to bookstores. That's insane. I hope every designer you talk to is I'm constantly at a different bookstore looking at new things, right? and you need that material. You need that source material.

Radim: It is really interesting what you're saying because to you and I, that makes perfect sense. you need to go there. In fact, like you go to the bookstore, you turn left and you go to other places to find some source materials. The younger generation, they'd be like, I've done my Pinterest board. this is tap, this is what I've got. This is the source material, and there's nothing wrong with it. Apart from the fact that you need that lived in experience, that firsthand experience of something feral, something physical, like how do you matter? It makes you feel, because you get, first and foremost, you get taken out of your natural environment to actually say, you know what?

, ,I'm feeling something different. Rather than saying, I'm focused on exactly what I need to solve right now with the help of Pinterest or whatever, LLM machine trying to now formulate ideas. would you describe it? I think it's also because, yeah, those firsthand experiences from geeks, posters, all of that stuff when we talk about chaos, that was the main essence.

That was the main ingredient. There was no rules per se, as long as it was semi legible. Here we go, done.

Mike: Yeah, totally. yeah, the Pinterest, yes. I will say, to be fair, I feel like my teachers beat that into me in college, in, in art school where they're like, You get out of here, get out of the computer lab. I feel like they definitely beat that into it. So I'm closer to this current generation, I feel like, of being one of those people who maybe I wasn't getting enough source material and I remember getting reprimanded for it.

So even though I was in all the bands doing all the shit, still yo, need more constantly. And I agree with it. And, but to the Pinterest thing. we have a fuck Pinterest rule in our studio where it's like absolutely not. yeah, sure you can use Pinterest, but making your mood boards or making a Pinterest board and acting like that, it's like cool.

 Or even doing like all of your research purely on that. I am so utterly against. and I think it's be, not to get into the weeds, but it's because of algorithms, because we're all looking at the same thing. saw talk from Ragged Edge somewhat recently, he had a, image of someone holding a smoothie in a clear cup into the sky with the blue background.

And I'm saying that, and I'm sure you know what I'm talking about, I'm sure everyone listening to this has that on one of their Pinterest boards or one of their mood boards for some route somewhere. And I think it's, yeah, there's something nice about the shared experience, but I think it's.

If it's a shared experience in real life, IRL versus URL, then I find it interesting. That is what's really resonating with culture, not what's resonating in our little heads and our little boxes in on our little Pinterest boards. it's not enough. You gotta go deeper. Anyone can do that now, right?

 you have to go deeper. And I do think, you have to live in the chaos. You have to breathe in the chaos, and you have to go to the bookstore and something's gonna happen on the way there or the way home, right? maybe I'll find a new store along the way, I don't know, but I can't, that you need to op, I think open your mind to the unknowing and experience different things and force yourself to experience those things 

 versus typing it in.

Radim: So we know you went to Philly to school, Let's fast forward a little bit, like how did you get to starting your own shop? just more than four years ago.

what, where did you find yourself for that time? In the middle.

Mike: Yeah, so the time in the middle. So after that, after NBC sports, I went to this place in Philly called Quaker City Mercantile, where I led, Hendricks Gin along with a few other William Grant brands, and some Diageo work as well. We did that's the top line of it. Guinness while with Diageo, which was really fun.

New to world innovation stuff for Guinness Brewers Project Hop House 13, which is the UK focal. I believe it's still over there. It's not here anymore, unfortunately. and then I left there, went to Stranger and Stranger for a brief period of time, which got me to New York and then quickly left after that and went to JKR.

'cause it was a little, just too pack focused for me. I came from Hendricks, which was like deep immersive brand world. We were 360 a OR, to just pack, pack, pack every day. which I love. But, really, it's not really brand building, it's purely packaging in my opinion. when I went to JKR, I was hired to lead Budweiser, US, and Global.

 so worked on Bud along with tons of other Anheuser-Busch products. a lot of Diageo work. So we did some whiskeys, some noodle, world innovation type stuff, along with a few, fast food, fast casual restaurants. Left there, went to Design Bridge. purely because my time was up, grew and learned and wanted something different, but I purely left, at the end of the day just because I knew they had Paps Blue Ribbon as a client.

And I'm obsessed with old beer brands, and I knew they had all these old trademarks for under the Paps brand. And I was like, I need to just get on a Paps project. And so I went over there. they also had Diageo, so it made sense from a category shift,why they would bring me on.

So I led the beer and spears there, worked on some Be and Tory, which carried over to today. and then worked there for a while. learned a lot, learned how to grow a team,and really foster a team. So much that I had, we, no one's ever fired or quit under me at, on that team, which was, is incredible.

I actually haven't thought about that for a very long time. But yeah, so retention rate was a hundred percent. and everyone. When I left, I made sure that everyone grew into their roles almost rapidly. So I, when I left, I had succession planned for all of them, which I don't think creative directors do this.

I don't think many people think of it, but I felt so strongly about the team where I had two dds and kind of it split off and I left and made sure that they were creative director when, immediately when I left. So everyone elevated their roles and 'cause they were already doing it right. so I purposely did that.

it's important because I think You learn a lot at all these different places throughout your career. the ending was very much learning how to manage correctly, which isn't taught most, most of the time. And I don't know if I was really taught it, but I think you gotta learn the hard way.

And that was the bulk of it. I left, I went to TikTok, bookended my career at,in-house. I started in-house at NBC sports. I went agency side and then I, finished at, TikTok, which was a completely different role. I was hired as a creative strategist, so purely like kinda big ideas connecting, the brands to the platform and, creating work within that.

 It was partly to burn some non-competes as well, but, so that I could actually start my agency. But it was really interesting to step sideways, and really dip my toe and like grind it out in like more strategy work and writing work, which did really help. So using every step that I talked about in learning a different skill or upskilling or trying to do something different so that I had a better grasp on starting an agency.

And so after that, I started tavern. We focus on food bev, hospitality, like I said. And really we, We're deep within kind of the spirits. Spirits and bev, a space and hospitality. And small part of it is sports, which is more the big brand activation type stuff.

Radim: everything that you've described is like you've literally gone and trained yourself into becoming who you needed to become to open your agency. it just sounds amazing because, you even having a succession plans for your dds, Learning to be a good leader. and it's learning like no one teaches you that 

 unless you really go and spend time on yourself, it's a school of hard knocks to actually understand like how well this works. So this sounds quite absolutely amazing, like in a way have you put it all together and go, now I'm ready.

but as you were talking through this, apart from NBC and TikTok, obviously everything's about packaging, everything's about branding. Where did it love for products and brands and, F and B and FMCG come through.

Mike: I don't know. And I've tried to think about this many times. I think it came with my second job where I was like, punk posters, punk flyers, album art of any kind is the coolest thing you can do. Or at least to me, I thought was the coolest thing you could possibly do. And then, that's not, we're not gonna, no more, at least when we were starting, are you gonna totally make a career out of that?

You kinda have to do some other things. And then I really feel like. What do I wanna work on all day is alcohol was the coolest. Second thing, and now I think it's the coolest thing, I do think like that kind of opened my eyes when I fumbled into working in alcohol where I was like, oh, this is sick.

 This is, honestly, it's such a spirit specific spirit and beer are just such a different category than most other categories that, that we all work on. it's truly, there's like a wild west component to it where like it has to behave differently than most brands. I think spirits needs, no matter what the price point needs to act more like a luxury brand or a fashion brand than.

Any other brand in the world than a CPG brand ultimately in the world? I think there's crossover and we can get into the details of that, but it needs to behave differently. And the brands I was working on and the brands that Quaker City Mercantile, the agency I joined was on was Hendricks Gin.

It was Sailor Jerry, which was like literally rock and roll, we were throwing parties at, so by Southwest when there were still music there. and they were cool, right? and I'm blanking on the other ones, but every, everyone like, had this subcultural esque world and I think a good spirit has to have that.

A good brand has to have that in general. But alcohol really felt the coolest. And I don't know why I love chain restaurants, but I'm sure it's the same thing, like chain restaurants is like the other. Category passion. it's the experience. It's the hospitality of it all. It's the something else.

It's not just what the brand is, it's what else the brand does that goes into it. That may, that I find most interesting, and maybe I'm just describing brand worlds here, I don't know, but it's I don't know, it's like that extra little bit.

Radim: You mentioned your parents were bartenders, and that was the reason why you started Tavern Because I'm thinking in the world of agencies named after the adjective these days, like forever and fruitful and something, you got rn. I'm thinking, okay, it's good now to know how we can join those dots. Because when you talk about spirits, you talk about that world, it's like it's world building within each brand. there's so many layers. Even though the product is just the one thing, what everything that comes around it, like 360 world is so intricate and especially if it's done it's so intricate and so interesting and so immersive that the bottle sometimes, even though it's the main product, it becomes the almost the supporting actor to the hero of the campaign and all of the stuff.

Mike: Yeah. 

Radim: obviously you said like you find yourself like working on spirits, but how did you feel that change going from NBC and all of those roles into something which is so immersive and so intricate?

Mike: I feel like it all kinda, pairs, right? Like it was sports and it was entertainment, but why I love entertainment in general is you have to do that just in a different medium ultimately, because it's the medium is. It still is out of home. It's still campaigns.

It's still somewhat traditional adver above the line advertising, but you just have so much more motion. And literal airtime for it, which I think is cool. And I actually love and wish that you could do that almost with other brands. so there are interstitials, there's many more because it's like the brand, NBC sports is promoting their own properties, so there're advertising actually more than any other brand who's paying for advertisements.

And they're shorter. They're quicker, there's 6, 10 seconds. There's actual thirties and sixties whatever. And it is just more often more volume and you're trying to communicate and you have time. It's like weird that, like that gives you more time. I don't know if people would agree with this nowadays, but in 2012 that was definitely the case.

Like you had more time to be building your world. one of the projects we worked on was Formula One. When it came to the US like in 2012, no one gave a fuck about Formula One and like even knew what it was. Which is funny to think about now. So we had to create the look and feel and then really.

 Drag out that story and like overtly tell consumers like why they need to be interested in it, why this is so incredibly cool. And then you have to do it in a cool way because it's not just, you need to break the NASCAR of it all, which was a perception. So you need to build these worlds and just different platforms.

So I think, building out a brand world, for sports started me off. And then I think once I got into spirits, I was like, oh, this is cool. This is more like. Real life in the mix of it. We were doing,Hendricks and Sailor Jerry, we were doing parties, Hendricks.

We made like a flying cucumber at one point where we had multiple parties throughout the country and we did UK parties and stuff. So I think it was more immersive. It was bringing everything physically to life, which was just cool. and yeah, it's I don't know. They all make sense.

 I will say to rationalize like the food bev, hospitality and sports, like it you were mentioning tavern and the name when I was fishing this idea, everyone's Ugh, sounds dusty and old. You're gonna get pigeonholed, it's gonna be miserable. And I was like, no. if you literally look at what taverns were in the United States, they served drinks, they served food, like full meals, and then up upstairs was literally.

 A place to stay. It was, it is like full, everything was offered that we offer in a tavern. So it's a bit on the nose there. But I, the, and sports too, you talk about sports or you're watching sports, in the more contemporary ones with televisions. but it all goes together and there's the string between all of it is hospitality.

And that comes from, I think, where I'm gonna lay on this plane somehow that comes from my parents working in hospitality myself. I was a caddy. And then I'd also would bartend and serve in the country club and also at some hotels and bars and restaurants and stuff. And I was brought into that and it's both service, food and beverage service mixed with hospitality that I think is the connective tissue here.

And I know we're talking about like chaos plus hospitality plus big brand, but it, I think that's the magic cocktail there, right? Like of how it comes together and why when you do it correctly, it works.

Radim: When you talk about hospitality, it makes me think of my friends who work in hospitality. And it's chaos. 

Mike: You go.

Radim: I know he listens to my podcast. He literally says he, he used to work in, he's been working in hospitality for 15 plus years, and then he had kids and he was like, I was always ready for kids.

you are awake in the middle of the night, dealing with chaos, with dealing with rowdy people, little people. So I think the chaos part of it, I think is a sort of through line for this conversation so far. Because when you think about branding these days, it's easily formulated.

 we have been making, The brands, the visual systems, making them more refined, had been spreading faster and further than ever before. So it became a bit more formulaic. So I think that chaos element was slightly removed from it because it's easy to replicate something somewhere with small team rather than needing a, big team and created sort of assets, animations, that kind of stuff.

But the timelessness is vanishing. we, in a constant cycle,as you agree, we in a constant cycle of seeing new rebrands or, satisfying the price. Because is there movement, is there noise? Is there, are you making enough noise around the brand?

Because when you talk about Sailor Jerry or Hendrix. There was no rush anywhere. Like when you had a good idea, when you settle on what it is when you created that, that stayed what it was. And it made incremental moves. Whereas we have worlds with a lot of heritage and we've got new brands with zero Heritage, zero stories, and it was just like, how do you mix those two together because you can easily spot the Gen Z, fermented drinks or as a gut held drinks with the little stickers on them.

And then we sit next to you got something which is more of a heritage. So you've got clash of worlds, but ultimately we play in the same game almost. It's mostly the same customers. So in your quest for chasing the timelessness and not trends, where do you start in your challenging journey now?

Mike: it's very much our philosophy, which is modern heritage. and we work on a lot, mostly heritage brands. we do New to World definitely applies. We do, startup brands as well, and that absolutely applies. It'll get very confusing if we talk about all of 'em. I think like within Heritage Brands is the realm because they've existed for so long.

they may or may not be timeless already. Most likely they're not. And it's timelessness is, it's that thing you can never get, It's the point of the graph that keeps flattening out for some reason. But it's also something you have to constantly work and build. Towards, and you keep going to not get it, but that's what gets you to that level, right?

It's not a thing. Timelessness doesn't just happen, JFK or Carolyn Bessette Kennedy are timeless icons, but they just didn't happen over time. I'm trying to pick people, not brands on purpose, right? but there's an aesthetic, there is like a world in which like they pushed and that kind of came out.

 that might be a bad example because they're no longer with us, but they've grounded themselves in that because of that push. And I think brands need to do that as well, right? Nike is timeless. They keep innovating because they keep changing and because they keep pushing themselves forward.

 If they were just another stuffy shoe brand, we wouldn't be saying, we wouldn't be calling out Nike. We'd be calling out Adidas or Puma or whoever. vans converse, it doesn't matter. It is like trying to get to that point and you have to constantly build into it. So how do we do it? Our philosophy is modern heritage, no matter who you are.

 Heritage brand. we have a three step process, which really boils down to, discovery, strategy and design. We have cute names for it, but I'll save that for this, but not, step one is really the discovery phase where you dig deep and you go into the archives. you have to go to physical places.

Like we were talking before. We often go to historical societies or libraries and microfiche and we physically build archives. And I keep saying our secret, but the deep secret is not Pinterest, it's actually eBay. So you find stuff on eBay, from heritage brands that are sold. 'cause a lot of it is just like bottom of the barrel trade materials.

Some weird clock that was made in the seventies has some mark on it that doesn't match any of the other marks that they were, I've been using for the last 40 years. Or what old matchbooks or whatever, menus, things that individual restaurants underneath of a chain may have done in the sixties and seventies that are different.

 so you just have the, it's like the source materials almost never ending. and so we go and dig deep to find those things, the quirks, the difference. and you know that's the fun stuff. That's the real designy like nerd stuff, which influences us a lot. But you also now start to have a full visual.

 Archeological timeline of the brand, and you can really see what was happening visually speaking at least. And we can talk about verbal and strategy later, but like you could see what was happening. And once you start to see what's happening, things obviously pop out. First of all, we know, if it's a hundred year old brand, we know that maybe they were famous in the mid-century and then died out during the two thousands and they need to be brought back or whatever.

And so you can understand their dips and their peaks on,how they were performing in the marketplace. But then you overlay that on top of this visual timeline and see what was working, what, was coming to the top then. And also what makes sense for now Most of the stuff from the past does not make sense Now, this isn't an exercise of retro or novelty by any means. It's very much identifying what makes sense. And so we take all of those things and use them as the starting point and modernize them and craft them for the current consumer, but also the future, consumer.

 Radim: That's a really interesting process. And like you don't always get, obviously, a hundred Euro brands and having time to actually spend time on eBay, digging through stuff, that's a real good secret. That's a real good insight. But you said about timeless a few times and it's not always for example, people like me, when you say timeless always comes to music,

 like I feel like what is the definition of timeless?

it's something that sounded or made you feel something in a really positive way and then you replicated by every contact with it over and over again. And when you mentioned Nike, because there's always an element of something that really worked and you see it, it was like that still makes a connection.

That is still something what they did. If it was a luck, if it was a strategy, if it was just a feeling like it just works. And with music it's like you listen to a track and you're like, yep, still sounds great, still makes me feel something. And it's just like, how do you replicate that? Because. Those are moments that are almost physical.

Obviously you come to physical contact with something and you have that physical reaction and in that sort of treadmill of BRE brands, rebrands, retooling, like new launches, new campaigns, the world is much bus and much more noisier. I was like, how do you make that moment? Because it'd be really interesting to see how much of the things that we create now will become timeless.

Right.

Mike: Definitely. And I like the music analogy. I started with I don't know, American icons, which is probably the worst example of timelessness. But fashion, music, gimme, gimme gimme, a musical track that you find 

Radim: Oh, I just listened to Cowgirl by Underworld the other day it's good at Famous, everything Line and it just, it's from 2000, no. It's from like 91 or 92. and you can think of like how some of the things really sound of, its time. I had a big discussion with Xi about 1995 when they started Dixon bsi, and it was like in 1995 the music that came out was Most amazing and the albums that did something different but rooted in heritage and more traditional sounds or sampling something that was more jazz based or film scores survived, kinda stayed on and became timeless albums.

Whereas some people who tried like the gimmicky, like the new machines or whatever, like the drums just sounded just a little bit of its time didn't really last They didn't withstand the test of time. And they sound like 1994 where some of the albums absolutely survived.

And I it's hard to say like, how do you put your life, my heart and soul into something like this? But that shines through the work.

Mike: Definitely. And I think, there's a lot there. But I love the fact that you said it was 2000 and then actually it was 1991. I think that proves the timelessly. Like you just rationalize your timelessness argument with that. I can't even pinpoint it. Like it's always been there.

That proves that a bit of timelessness. And then I, you were saying in 1994 with your cheesy drum machines and whatever, that's because the drum machine was trendy at the time, right? that was the trendy thing. That was what everyone was doing. And I think that falls into the trend category and it sticks to an aesthetic of a time period because that's what everyone's doing and it's not.

 Because you're trying to make really great music, and really great music is built upon the past. Everything is built upon the past. whether we like it or not, we just have to make sure that we ditch the wrong parts of the past, obviously. But it goes to a principle where I love this and I forget who came up with it.

Some architect in the mid-century, I'm pretty sure, but it's called the Maya principle. It's the most advanced, yet acceptable. that's how he applied it to, architecture and commercial buildings for people or something. But it, I think you can apply it to anything, both music, branding, a any creative endeavor where.

 We're not trying to reinvent the wheel and throw the baby out with the bath water. We're trying to take all of the good parts that everyone is familiar with collectively, and then tweak them to where they still can be on board, but they're not gonna be oh, this is, left, completely left field.

 And I think that's where, that's the starting point of where you can really create timelessness and timeless brands or even music. So music for instance, right? Like we, we can inch it up with some, mids or, synthesizers or whatever. And if it was 1994, but it's when we go full bore into it and we're only using that and we're saying, this is our whole thing.

 it's not acceptable anymore. it's too advanced. And I think that. Balancing that tension of which is modern heritage. Literally it's like balancing the tension between heritage and modernity. You always need to, you need to be in conflict with that to get there. And I think that when you have that and there is tension that should equal timelessness if done correctly, repeatedly, time and time again, and protected.

But that's the hard part, is the repetition of the tension.

Radim: it can paralyze you. Like when you think about creating something that's timeless, it becomes only timeless. When it's proved its time that it actually, it works.

 And while whilst you were talking, I had to actually have to Google the release year. It was actually 1994 when that album came out. But I think it's all about putting the right effort into what you do. I think it's just that, element because so many things from a lot longer ago still is absolutely amazing. Some of music that's come out, 50, 60 years ago, crikey. Now you know, like it still sounds good because it's about the idea, it's about the execution.

It's about people believe in what they do and the Maya principle he talks about was actually Raymond 

Louis?

 was an industrial designer. Yeah.

 cause if someone is screaming, if not screaming at the speakers, go in.

You know what, it was 1994 and it was right with Loie. We covered both now. But I like that you used the word tension. I like that Your modern heritage is about tension, and tension is a strong word. that makes the process sound quite serious, quite important. How do you deal it with tension?

How do you apply it? How do you invent it and how do you keep it on?

Mike: when you say it and when relaying it back to me and very calm, very serious voice. It gives me anxiety just thinking about it, which I think is good. it's like that nervous energy when you're like GA project and you're like, I don't know, I, we're gonna do it.

It's gonna be sick, but I don't know what the fucking answer is. we gotta get into it. I, it's that, it should be that all of the time. which. It sucks, right? Like you can't just do the project. That's it. Move on. We did a good job. It'll go sell, it'll be cool. Everyone's gonna love us in 10 years, we're timeless.

 no, this is all a grind. which think took me a long time in, in, in design and branding and strategy, I suppose too, too,to realize all of these things are never ending pursuits just because the project ends. we are, we're gonna have to apply to someone else and we're gonna have to push.

And I think what I like to do with our clients is know we're quite young still, but like we bring on our clients and we don't want them to leave. We I believe in the brand guardianship, approach to branding, to clients. clients. You want them to stay.

For decades that's where the work doesn't happen in quarters, even though Wall Street wants it to, it doesn't, it does take time. Branding takes time, even though there's a rebrand every two years on most brands, which drives me crazy. It's a whole different podcast probably.

But, it takes a lot of time to implement these things, to do it correctly, to really understand what's resonating and the tension is the litmus test, right? it should be happening all the time. And as you're developing new and pushing assets or campaigns or, platform strategies that you're always making sure that tension is there and that you are forcing it.

And I think that kind of, litmus test your barometer on, is it working? it ain't easy. It's never over, 

Radim: yeah, it is not meant to be easy. That's the thing, because when you were, when you said tension, it felt heavy on this side. I was like, yeah. you can have a perceived tension from a client side going this needs to be something. Because it comes from some sort of pre premeditated, pre preformed or expectations.

 some people think that's whatever they create and have to be, absolutely most amazing thing. And then you get people with open mind and always okay, we see, let's see what we can find out. But the tension always is like, if you give a shit about what you create, there will be tension because you will hold yourself to high standards to make sure that happens.

So the word, the T word is loaded, but it's necessary.

Mike: Yes, and this is maybe a cliche, but we as designers and as creative agencies are literally on these brands most of the time, far longer than the brand managers. They will shift off one to three years. Three years is a lot even they shift off and they transition to brands.

And that's just how a lot of these brands, at least my entire branding experience has been. And I, again, maybe it's the cliche, but we are involved a lot more and we should care a lot more. And we should be, we have to be the guardians because no one else is, the umbrella company. That's holding all of these brands is not the guardian in the same way.

 they want delivery, quarter delivery. Fair enough. and the marketers want quarter to maybe a little bit longer 'cause they, they're gonna be on the brand, they wanna do something, they wanna make a name for themselves and they wanna put their hum right on it. Again, all fair enough. I agree that they should be doing that and us designers want all of the same things plus our full creative expression on it.

Plus we're gonna be on here hopefully if the relationship goes well, long after you all, and the brand's gonna go on long after all of us, hopefully if we all do our jobs correctly. And so we gotta keep that into consideration too. and that's where like that the heaviness or it's a never ending grind guardianship of it all needs to come.

Like we need to be protecting brands as well. so we both need to be the innovators and the protectors, 

Radim: You said something really important. You said as people that are working on a brand, they just shift off within a couple of years. Maybe that's part of the reason why we have so many rebrands, so many refreshes because yeah, people show up. It's It's hey, this is what I think we should do. When you think about it, it's almost like a short term thinking, like politics. You go people are in charge for four years, they fuck it all up and somebody just comes up, they try to fix it. And it's just, it's a short term thinking on a long term project, which, sometimes when you scale it up, you know, humanity, society, and then you scale it back to brands, it's I didn't think about it.

Even had that experience with my studio on situations where You get to the end and somebody new steps in? No,no, not yet. Let's change all of it. It's like why you've you've been here for five minutes. How do you keep that creative endurance and that guardianship in check that if you get new people on the other side, that you almost stop them from making mistake changing things?

Or is that input valuable at any time?

Mike: The input is always valuable. I'm gonna contradict myself, but there is a constant need to evolve is good. So having new leadership shift onto a brand like this is good in theory because we do want to continually push the brand. The Nike example, you need to modernize consistently.

and by doing so, you need to be innovating and doing different things or doing things better or changing how you go. So I'm not I'm not ehrenberg bass here saying these, this is your asset. Don't do anything by your asset and call me in 40 years. , That's wrong. That's been disproven more recently.

 I do still believe in. Equity and key brand assets. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying do that, but I think short answer is I think it's good and I think it's healthy, but we as the guardians need to be very clear in developing the work. So if we, let's say the project is, I, the brand manager number one hires us.

We rebrand them. Two years later, they shift off the brand. Someone comes on and says, we're gonna rebrand again. I think it's really important to do that rebrand work the first time you do it really well and make sure that it is set up for success. And if you are good at branding, you will create a brand that is impenetrable.

'cause that's the goal that doesn't need to be rebranded in two years. 'cause if you rebranded something that needs to be retooled in two years, that's a trendy brand. If you follow trends, you stuck to the time period, it didn't work. If you did it correctly, it should last. A minimum of five years.

It really should last a lot longer than that, in my opinion. But I'm talking in the modern sense. and so if you do that, then everything else is iterative upon that platform you made. So in my opinion, why the hell are we just gonna keep rebranding this beer brand over and over again every two years?

why can't we brand it once, make a really great brand platform for it that is strong, that has, that gives us room to play everywhere else, to expand the brand world and expand it from a brand world into a universe. That should be the goal with everyone who comes on. So when the new person comes on in two years, they say, great, this brand is ripping, it is working.

There's nothing to change from a, equity standpoint. We just need to build upon our equities. Nike dunks. Nike dunks was, Red, black and white, because it was after Jordan or whatever. And Nike dunks are now. Into skateboarding, right into drops, into everything.

And this is, that's old news now. I sound like an old man now I'm talking about Nike dunks. itit expand beyond itself because it was good from the start that had the assets, it had the brand, it knew exactly who it was. so the agency, the designers need to be the ones keeping the brand in check while still going wide.

 And again, that's a, I guess that's another point of tension. You need to be strict to your brand and your brand guidelines that you created. But at the same time, you have to have room to play and go wide. So you gotta go get, to go really wide and ex and do wild things within that brand, but then make sure that it's still tight so that you're not losing the plot.

 That's tough. That is really where brand guardianship from a design creative agency standpoint comes, is really, I think the gold standard if you get that right.

Radim: I love what you said about the brand world becomes the universe. that beautifully summed up what the goal is. Yeah. I mean it's just becomes the universe, you know that you've kinda almost reached a timelessness and actually thinking about ourt words today, we got tension, we got timeless. Then you used another T word, which was trends. And you believe that good design doesn't just survive trend cycles, it transcends them trends and transcending Where do trends come from? Why do they exist and why do even trend? that's a big question. Why does trend become a trend?

Is it because too many people find it appealing it's a big question to ask. Why do trends work a while?

Mike: I don't know, but they are short-lived, right? Like just inherently a trend is by definition does not last. it is only a short period of time and I think, in our current culture, those trends are burning brighter and faster as we go because of the internet and social and whatever. So like I don't know why a trend exists, but I know that it's not something you should be chasing as, as much as you want to.

 look in our own day-to-day lives, I'm sure we still do that. There is I don't know, the trendy new coat or jacket that you really want, deep down. You're gonna have to buy a new one next year, because you don't want to be caught dead in that. Like we we inherently as humans know what a trend is, but they are so alluring that we convince ourselves that we need them that we are going to follow them.

And I think it's the same for branding, but the easiest way I have a one pager that we take clients through and I coach new hires and stuff on, which is Brand at the heart. So it's branded, it says Brand at the Heart. And we have all of the projects we've worked on and all different types of, outputs.

That output can be branding, that output can be packaging, it can be experiential, it could be Hendricks Gin Q Flying Cucumber Activation, or a giant pigeon that we floated down the Hudson River, which we literally did for New York City Football Club. but it doesn't matter, like all of these outputs don't matter.

They're purely outputs and they're outputs that disrupt. The brand within culture, if you put the brand at the heart of it, nothing you do is incorrect because you're staying true to the brand. bubu, I'm just picking a random as trend that's no longer a trend.

Bubu, would it make sense for, Sizzler to create a cheese toast Laboo? That's really cool. I I connected it to the brand. Who doesn't want a plush piece of toast? I'm sure that would, disrupt quite a few weird internet, collectibles communities. But that's not building upon what the brand is at the heart of things.

The brand is a family steakhouse, right? Hospitality, good food, accessible prices, for families. Families are number one is the case. So by doing that, yeah, that'll be a cool little giveaway. But it doesn't, it's just a flash in the pan type thing. It's just a trendy little thing that you would do that you would hope to trade for clout or awareness or whatever.

 It's just dumb. dumb. it just is a flash.flash in the pan. It's it's alluring, I'm saying this and I'm, trying to convince myself that's a cool idea. ' cause it is would be sick and weird looking, right?

 but it doesn't make sense. it's gonna be too much time, effort for something to be also most likely dead. Going back to like.the trend cycles are faster and Labu is already dead, well for months now. And so even being able to put that into action, you're already late to the game.

So now you're focusing all of your energy as a brand to do something that is perceived at the moment as trendy, but by the time it comes out, it's gonna be old news, which is, double pain. not only did you do that silly thing when everyone was doing that silly thing, you did that silly thing when everyone was not doing it.

You're late to the party, which makes you look even worse and deteriorates your brand even further.

Radim: Whilst you've been talking, I was thinking about trends. It is like they grow by exposure and they get killed by exposure.

Like literally just like they just go way too high up and then they die. But I had a quote the other day and it was about pop songs and it said, all you need is three codes and a truth. That's what you need. I used to call it three chord wonder, but someone, it was only the other day when I had a quote, it was like, you need three chords and a truth. And that truth part was what made most sense to me. Because what you describing, what you do with your work and how you do it, need zero trends and a truth.

you need three things of eBay and the truth and find out like how you connect those together because the things that survived survive for the right reason. Because they didn't just jump up, too much and too high from the trend or survived. And I think the way you describing it, it makes perfect sense

 that you can go, you find out longevity,

Mike: yeah, I think you need three equities and a truth maybe. 

Radim: maybe that's what it is. Yeah, that's maybe what it is. so your work is varied. Obviously you, you. Coming from the world of spirits, as you said, you've been floating an inflatable pigeon on the river and I'm never one to ask people for oh, how do you see a future? Or What you doing next?

Because you could ask people 15 years ago, 20 years ago, what do you see yourself in 10 years time? now we've been talking about what you see yourself in 10 months, Tom. I think it's just everything changes so fast, but with your view on brands and with the view and overview way of how you think about stuff, how you create stuff, how excited and how apprehensive are you about what's coming next, because we are gonna get more of the same. It's gonna be a lot of work to actually make a meaningful change in the world of branding. That doesn't seem as formulaic. is it something that people need to embrace or does it come from good strategy that people look to the past or is looking to the past? Not always. For every brand I.

Mike: looking to, our past. I think the past informs the future, so I think For everything in any one in human history and culture, I think it, it is beneficial. you learn from your past. it should inform your future, good, better, or indifferent. it shouldn't inform how you then move forward.

 cause the goal is moving forward, movement, ultimately growth is always our goal. I'm excited by it. I've honestly, I feel like in the last you talked to me two months ago, I'd be like, it's gonna be agro, it's gonna be an uphill battle. I am weirdly optimistic in the last few weeks and there is nothing, there's no data points and no proof of this optimism.

 But I feel in my bones. That with ai, with social, with internet and the getting back to analog slightly. I understand that's a trend as well. We're not talking about the trend of back to analog. I truly believe that people wanting that also this post COVID world, people are wanting more of back to what things used to be, which felt more real and more human.

 I think it's probably gonna take longer than I'm hoping, but I think we're going to get back there as a culture just naturally and I think technology's going to push us back there, which makes me massively optimistic on what we can do because it's that then opens up the act.

the world of honestly activations of like brands coming to life. I wrote an article somewhat recently of IRL versus not URL and that's how you build a brand and I believe it. that's how you build friendships. Yes. I, we were talking earlier before on the call, like I did build.

A, a friendship with a designer on Instagram like we all do. But like that turned into a real life friendship. Like that's the goal, right? Like you use the internet to get to the real world, or to expand your real world, And I'm just like pining on the, like, why you use the internet now, but I'm optimistic we'll get back to IRL, more and more often, which will make brands more exciting and better, purely because there's more touch points in which you can develop.

and I think we've been in this stagnant phase of 10 to 15 years of branding that's just strip it all out, make it all clean, I know millennial branding's well over, but, it's still this, it's this sterile millennial branding, Berg Bass. Stodgy ass way of doing branding that it's not the case anymore.

And that's why I'm excited about every project we're working on. That's why we can do big ass pigeons and also, store remodels and, but still do fancy old booze. it doesn't matter. And that's why I think it's really cool. So I'm wildly optimistic, but really only in the last couple weeks 

Radim: I'm glad I found you in a wildly optimistic face because when you said,I'm optimistic, but I dunno why. And I was like, you just killed my question. I thought of like, why are you optimistic? then you beautifully articulated why it all happens because, I'm in agreement. I think what's happened through COVID and we still like the more tools, more apps, I mean everyone was on clubhouse mean during COVID and all of that stuff.

It just goes in waves, it osculates, it goes up and it goes down. I think what was magic and, 15 years ago of having. Events to go to all the time gallery openings, like there was buzz and no movement and

connection. And obviously we made it convenient. But convenience is a lie.

, Because just because it's convenient, it doesn't mean that it's actually getting us anywhere further. So the way you articulate it was beautiful because I can feel that you're optimistic and it is, I'm excited where it's all going. So

 Mike, thanks for coming to chat to me today.

 It has been really good. gives a, I can feel your passion for what you do and I'm excited what's gonna happen next. So yeah. Thank you.

Mike: Me too. Thank you so much.