How Brett Lovelady Helped Shape Modern Industrial Design (and Why He’s Still Just Getting Started)

Chris Whyte (: 00:01

Brett, welcome to the podcast.

BRETT LOVELADY (: 00:03

Thanks, Chris. This is awesome. Appreciate the opportunity.

Chris Whyte (: 00:05

No, it's really great to have you. You are a design industry legend. it's great to have you on the show. So as we're just saying before we click record, usually at this point, I've got a pre-rehearsed kind of speech just introducing you, which is always a bit of this is your life kind of moment, a bit cringe, but I've realized as well, I also repeat what I've pre-recorded. So rather than...

put you through the cringiness of that. you could, for those of you who are tuning in and don't know who Brett Lovelady is, perhaps you could do the quick kind of intro.

BRETT LOVELADY (: 00:44

Sure. Not a problem. I'm happy to take a stab at it. Yeah. So I've been an industrial designer at my core for well over 30 years, 35 years in the industry. Coming out of school, came out of BYU here in Utah a long time ago and immediately went to California. Started working in industry and supercomputers and then jumped over to consulting and with lunar design or frog design.

Realized quite early if I'm going to work that hard, might as well start my own studio. so I had a vision for what Astro Studios needed to become. So we started that at the dawn of the internet back in the early 90s. And, you know, for 30 some years, essentially pursued my own pathway in design. Industrial design was a core, but we also were doing branding, consumer insights, putting all of that together to completely commercialize properties.

Also from day one, 20 % of our business was set up to work on equity based programs. So taking the opportunity to work for fees and royalties and equity and any number of hybrids, but mainly so that we can work with startups and enable them, really bring the power of design early in the process instead of being a of a paid for afterthought. In doing that, we probably worked well over a hundred different startups, but also had three of our own that were

that were private equity and venture backed. Most notably Astro Gaming was something that we did and we spun off and incubated in our studio. But we did quite a few different companies there. not only were we kind of doing the consulting side of design for a lot of folks, we were also walking the walk by running our own businesses and producing product, which I think, I know I was one of those designers that wanted to do that from the beginning.

And so anyways, put all that together for quite a while. And then a few years ago, I sold the company to a company there in London, actually PA consulting, and they absorbed it and morphed it and done all kinds of things as we've come out of COVID. And so then at this point, I'm actually in between San Francisco and Salt Lake City, advising, consulting, investing, and stirring up a few things that I really can't talk much about, unfortunately, at this moment.

Chris Whyte (: 03:07

interesting. We'll try and navigate around the stuff you can and can't talk about and might use the edit button later if we get too close to that. yeah, it will blur everything out. But no, that's awesome. So yeah, thanks for that. we met at Vegas, didn't we? At CES. it was really great to meet you out there. And it was when we got talking and you went through

BRETT LOVELADY (: 03:07

See you.

BRETT LOVELADY (: 03:15

Black box in a black box

Thank

Chris Whyte (: 03:36

some of your stories from your time in industry as like we need to record this we need to get this on the podcast because no it's

BRETT LOVELADY (: 03:43

Well, you're kind. I appreciate it. You know, know old guys and stories we like to like, know, reminisce. Well, the days in Silicon Valley in the Bay Area.

Chris Whyte (: 03:55

Yeah, it's all no, but that's, that's what I love. It's so yes, truly an honor to have you on the show. So let's start at the beginning, shall we? And I think from from memory from our conversation, it wasn't a traditional, you know, wasn't straight into an industry design actually started with illustration and art. But what let's go back further, why design? Where did it all begin for you? And, you know, what first pulled you into kind of the world of product design?

BRETT LOVELADY (: 04:25

Not a problem. So actually, I was an illustrator and a political cartoonist in college, not, you know, studying engineering, realizing that engineering just wasn't enough of where you come up with a big idea and put it out there and get reactions and, know, more of a cartoonist mentality, I guess. And so I started looking around the illustration programs, realized that that was pretty awesome, but I needed to make a living a little faster than that might take. And so the hybrid in between engineering and illustration.

came about when I stumbled through the ID lab one day in college and it's like, wait a minute, they're doing all the stuff that I love to do. And, know, if you put this together and then I happened to be fortunate to have a little bit of a business background prior to that. And, I realized like, okay, design is where it starts, you know, and then how do you harness the power of design and, know, put it into business, which again, the difference between art and design for me is the commercialization factor, right? You've got to.

You got a lot more things that have to eventually create revenue for folks. And anyways, that was the genesis of it. Fell in love with the challenge. It's always been a challenge. I think it's addicted to that. Like what's the next problem and next opportunity. And yeah, so that's what started it off in the industrial design space. I was fortunate. I had an internship at IBM in Florida a long, long time ago.

Chris Whyte (: 05:43

Awesome.

BRETT LOVELADY (: 05:49

And the guys that I met there were so like charismatic and love design, even though they were in a corporate setting, that I'm like, okay, this is the industry for me. And then graduating from school, I'm like, all right, go to California, make my way in the world, pay off student loans, know, hang out with even more interesting folks. And I think I found myself right in the middle of the renaissance of industrial design in the Bay area. seemed like the, you know.

Chris Whyte (: 05:53

Hmm.

Chris Whyte (: 06:14

Yeah.

BRETT LOVELADY (: 06:17

Mecca for the rest of the design world at that time.

Chris Whyte (: 06:20

Absolutely. Yeah, you had quite the journey early on, you? Time at IBM, working with Richard Sapper and Hartman Esslinger. What kind of impact did that have on you early on?

BRETT LOVELADY (: 06:33

man, you you don't know until you look backwards a little bit. So Richard was at a distance as an intern. I think I was sleeping the floors while he's presenting, you know. But, and then when I worked at Frog, so Hardmut, you know, the founder is a legend and a half and then some, and a character really learned the power of design, I think working for him and the emotion that was just, you know, design is wrapped in. At the same time, it's big business, you know, it's international business.

and, that was the part that I really liked. I also kind of realized that if you, if you are going into design, you really need to know the other disciplines that empower design or using design as the catalyst to empower the other disciplines. And that's what it takes so many, you know, different, different people to come together to actually put something in the market and make it successful. So, you know, working with professionals that were at that stage in their careers and seeing how that worked, like, okay, this is a business.

you know, on top of design. how do you, how do you manage those two, you know, working with creative people and a lot of ambiguity and then at the same time, putting it into production. And that's a, I don't know, that's a space I like to play in. I'm, you know, I think I got pretty, uh, pretty, uh, efficient at, kind of bridging the two.

Chris Whyte (: 07:50

Yeah, massively. That's wonderful.

Chris Whyte (: 07:56

You spent time at Frog early on your career. But let's move on to Astro because that's obviously that's big thing, isn't it? So, in 1994, you founded Astro and you said with a mission to fuse culture, creativity and commerce. And it became one of the most iconic US studios, not known just for the work, but the way that you worked as well.

BRETT LOVELADY (: 08:06

sure.

Chris Whyte (: 08:26

What was the vision when you launched Astro? And what were you trying to create that didn't exist at the time?

BRETT LOVELADY (: 08:33

Yeah, no, and it's a little bit of reaction to the opportunity, right? You could see that technology was going to come just screaming into consumer brands, right? And high volume consumer goods, pop culture was a big part of it. The designers that I was hanging out with in California, you know, we were just as excited to work on snowboard graphics as laptops and semiconductor equipment, right? Like, and I think we wanted to tap into the pop culture.

You know, if you will, California edge of America, West coast gateway to Asia that we felt there because of all the manufacturing was going on as well. lots of energy there. And so with Astro, was like, okay, we'll start something that reflects a lot of that same energy. mean, we were in the shadow and I mean, the shadow of IDEO and frog design and Palo Alto, you know, and you know, we were, you know, a lot of the other design firms, you know, in the Bay area and we're like, well, how do we, you know, really differentiate ourselves?

And we decided the best way is just to be who we were. And so we started really kind of working in these, you know, high volume, highly emotional areas, surfskates, snow industry, worked a lot in Southern California with some great brands. Started working with Nike, started working with HP, Compaq way back then before they were acquired. So we were balancing out this sort of lifestyle driven culture brands along with this, you know.

high volume consumer goods and emerging technologies. So the vision for Astro was to be authentic in that space, a bit irreverent. Honestly, we were a little young and naive, I think. We thought, well, everybody's designing for MoMA. That's fine if you get there, but we're going to design for Main Street, for mass markets and for high impact and also just high energy. Probably a little too much ADD in there.

We didn't do a lot of medical long-term projects, but then we tapped into really becoming, I think the uniqueness of it, became the company that could take your company DNA and take you into new territories. And so when we did that for Nike, that was sort of our calling card. And then we replicated that over and over again, where you have a great brand, we'll take you down into this new technology or new market or a new demographic.

BRETT LOVELADY (: 10:53

The other part of Astro for me was the entrepreneurial side. I'd always sort of considered myself someone who like, okay, design is awesome, but it's a catalyzer and a magnifier. And it's just the beginning of the process. There's a lot of hard work to deliver a product to the market. But we were important and I wanted to make sure that we captured the value proposition there. So equity as opposed to, you know, fees for service only, which nothing wrong with that. So we had about an 80-20 split.

80 being the fees for service day in and day out with Fortune 100 to start up to everyone to fit our model. Yeah. And the other 20 % was some sort of creative hybrid. Silicon Valley, I 50 % of the world's venture capital is coming from right up the road from us, especially in the nineties and through the dot-com bubbles and whatnot. So it was really easy to sort of tap into the startup culture and be helpful, right? And be part of that scene.

Chris Whyte (: 11:29

Classic consultancy. Yeah.

BRETT LOVELADY (: 11:51

And out of that, was like, well, you can pay us or you can also, you know, incentivize us to come along and be partners. And, and that was a lot of fun. last little nugget of that, that 20 % was licensing, maybe some of our own ideas, partnering with companies proactively, like, Hey, we've got this idea, you know, what if you produce it and we'll help you do that and, you know, and step into a royalty position or whatnot.

of proactive side, which really wasn't happening a lot in that area at that time. Everybody was just sort of fielding briefs, you know? And then the last thing was, eventually we started, okay, we're going to do this for ourselves. So we spun up a couple of our own companies, some success, some failures, and, you know, got to walk on that side of the aisle, so to speak.

Chris Whyte (: 12:39

There's so much we can dive into there. I think that, yeah, we've got to be careful for time, I think, because there's so many questions I've got.

BRETT LOVELADY (: 12:48

I'm over caffeinated right now, so I'll just keep going.

Chris Whyte (: 12:52

So, oh yeah, I want to dive more into the 20 % work and go back right to the beginning. So that was the model from day one, I understand, was it? Or very early doors? So looking back, were there any that you pitched that to, like any styles that pitched that to that didn't take you up on it because maybe you too green at that point or it was new, untested?

There you go. Damn, they turn into something massive. We were this close to being part of that. And then, and then the other.

BRETT LOVELADY (: 13:26

Yeah. Yes. Yeah. More than one. 1994 in Palo Alto was literally the dawn of the internet. was things were just starting to bubble. The Netscapes of the world, I just started and we had the opportunity because we have a brand team as well. So brand and products together. We had an opportunity to design the first identity for Yahoo and we pitched that and they were like,

Chris Whyte (: 13:54

wow.

BRETT LOVELADY (: 13:56

Yeah, that's great. You know, would you guys take stock instead? Right. And like, man, you know, we're a new company. We really need the cash. We don't know about this Yahoo thing or whatever. And so, you know, we thought about it and a week later, the venture guys showed up with the team and we're like, no, we'll just pay you kids. You don't worry about it. know, like they were, you know, like, so we, you know, I don't know, we took our, you know, 20, $30,000 project, which was at the time we've been a lot, you know, but we could have had stock, I suppose.

Chris Whyte (: 14:16

Chris Whyte (14:22.669)

Yeah.

BRETT LOVELADY (: 14:26

a similar thing early on with the Google guys and you know, Google anyway. so, so those are the, those are the things we kind of missed out on. Yeah. We, we actually did a project. the very first project that we did was with, licensing from the NFL, Major League Baseball, NBA, for remote controls of all things. And so we came up with an idea that sort of took the, you know, the sports,

Chris Whyte (: 14:33

Yeah, the ones that got away. Yeah.

Chris Whyte (: 14:48

Okay.

BRETT LOVELADY (: 14:53

enthusiasts sitting on the couch with the remote in their hand, put it all together and we actually, you know, licensed it to a company. And we actually were able to get substantial advances on royalties and a big contract. That was our first project. So we were at a lot of like, this isn't so hard. We can do this. Right. So, so we started down that path. And I think we had a little more success with companies where we were doing hardcore industrial design and then helping them fully commercialize.

Chris Whyte (: 15:08

Awesome

BRETT LOVELADY (: 15:21

And so over the years we kept working at it in the different models. And, you know, some things worked out, you know, you get a nice payday for the bonus pool and other days that, you know, the stock is still in the drawer, right? So it's the pen.

Chris Whyte (: 15:35

Yeah, that's the fun, isn't it? So what's the most famous one then or the one that you're most proud of in terms of those? If you're able to say, I'm pretty sure I'm asking questions.

BRETT LOVELADY (: 15:45

Sure. No, no, Not a problem. So help design and develop and commercialize over 500 products and over about a hundred brands. Okay. So I have to admit the one I'm most proud of is Astro Gaming because we did everything. We spun it off and we got to fund it and built it and exit it. So that probably has to be at the top of the hill. A lot of hubris there. We named it after our own studio and you know, was...

Chris Whyte (: 16:02

Yeah.

BRETT LOVELADY (: 16:13

This was coming off of the Xbox 360, which came off of doing all the original Alienware gaming PCs. So we had this really strong gaming thread. So very proud of that work. It was highly impactful, not only from a culture standpoint, from revenue standpoint for those companies that helped them springboard, helped Alienware springboard into, know, Dell acquiring them or the acquisition. And, you know, all of those were tied together.

I would say the most impactful, if I have to talk about it and all my employees will cringe a little bit, only because I've heard way too much, was probably when we got the job to do Nike's first electronic products, which were their sports watches. That was actually what put Astro on the world stage when we did those products. Nike had not done electronics. We sat between Seiko and Nike and created a whole line of watches that really reset the watch industry. We won a whole bunch of

Chris Whyte (: 17:09

Awesome.

BRETT LOVELADY (: 17:10

for it and that was sort of the magnet that drew everyone in. But at the same time, it was one those ones people would go like, you know, in our category, what you did for those guys. like, and so we created about a two, $300 million business for them in about three years. You know, it's Nike, right? So we pretty understand what's going on there. But that one we replicated kind of the process. We also stayed with Nike for almost 20 years doing their first hockey helmets, their first golf clubs.

Chris Whyte (: 17:27

Wow.

BRETT LOVELADY (: 17:39

They're first in a lot of different categories, all the way to the fuel band, industrial design and product design. Really the definition of a lot of it. know, early on people will give you a brief that's sort of like, I want to watch that does this, one of the sweat band that does that, that also talks to your phone. like, what do think that is? And that's the brief, right? Or, you know, we want a Palm killer. Like what's a Palm killer? Like, well, ran away with the PDA market. And so we want you to come up with something that'll knock them off that.

Chris Whyte (: 17:55

Hmm.

BRETT LOVELADY (: 18:09

Like, okay, that might be the brief as opposed to, you know, a lot of elaborate research and things that, know, maybe you don't have time for.

Chris Whyte (: 18:12

Yeah.

Chris Whyte (: 18:18

So how long into Astro was it then that you kind of won that Nike project? And I'm guessing that was then the springboard onto, you know, to just capital business forward winning that.

BRETT LOVELADY (: 18:30

Yeah, we were working in the gaming space a bit and also in the PC, supercomputer space and laptop space a little bit. But the Nike product came along when they started an advanced concept team, do basic advanced concepts and equipment design. And, you know, some really great contacts there had been set aside, you know, two guys with some money and said, go find the guys that would understand this. And, you know, we, we pitched and we won the pitch and

Then we got to sit on a plane between Japan and, know, and Portland and, you know, for about three years, designing all kinds of watches, which is a dream project. know, is a wearable and, know, it's very highly, highly visible and price point was great. You know, you could buy one for your, you know, your friends and your mom and everybody else wanted, and just kind of fell into that part of it. But, but anyways, that's that project, that along with like, we want design of the decade with, you know, with IDSA and,

Chris Whyte (: 19:16

Hmm.

BRETT LOVELADY (: 19:27

and business week and, you know, and then it snowballed into some other awards. And so all of a sudden it was like, it was just a calling card that people knew us for. And, you know, it's sort of like, you know, fortunate that that was the one, you know, about four, it was about three years into the, the, to the studio being open that we got that project. And then we stayed with that team to just explore all kinds of other things while they built a watch team. After about three years, we're like, can we, can we do something else? Like eyewear.

Chris Whyte (: 19:32

Mm.

Chris Whyte (: 19:53

Hmm.

BRETT LOVELADY (: 19:57

golf clubs or something. And so we got to go and be the scout team, if you will, for, for other areas, working inside the company and outside the company, again, bridging that gap between partners. some partners that were like, okay, that didn't work. And so what we did was valuable in them making the decision that that's not a great partnership. So, you know, there was a lot of fun. It was in the early kind of business creation cycle that you would think, you know, would come out of maybe marketing or research or.

Chris Whyte (: 20:02

Hmm.

Chris Whyte (: 20:17

Yeah.

BRETT LOVELADY (: 20:26

You know, but it actually was coming out of the design arm, which, you know, in our, we were fortunate that Nike, you know, they've been very design centric and design led for a long time. the funny part was almost every time we did an electronic product, felt like eventually it would go, it would end up back in Apple's camp or something. It was like, okay, we said, we started this fire. We don't know where to take it. So, Hey, Apple, can you pick this up and run with it? And, know, and, and, you know, they're just down the street from us as well. So that was always, I always kind of felt like it was instilled.

Chris Whyte (: 20:54

sounds wild. Just so what it Yeah, what a really interesting and exciting kind of time to be around and a place to be around as well. In terms of that that project, would you say that was the one that really captured the astro philosophy at its best? Or is there another one where you think, you know, this is this is the project that Astro, you know, that kind of captures it? Yeah.

BRETT LOVELADY (: 21:18

Yeah. I mean, think it did early on and then we replicated it. know, we, we, you know, we morphed it into something that I call astro theory. And, you know, and a big part of that was to just let it lock in, like, why was this special? How do we replicate this? Is it worth replicating? Right. You know, and, and how do we communicate that with new, new clients and employees and things. And I think it actually set the tone for the company.

Chris Whyte (: 21:25

Yeah.

BRETT LOVELADY (: 21:42

That was one of a few projects that were like that. mean, we, you know, we went deep into headphones, went deep into gaming. went deep into audio, wearables, you know, almost anything with, you know, you know, wires, bits and batteries, that was a new territory. and so it really just depended on, you know, w you know, where we needed to focus or maybe even what we were interested in. Cause after a while it's sort of like, okay, we haven't done this. Let's go talk to that industry and see if.

you know, our way of working, our process makes sense for them.

Chris Whyte (: 22:15

So that review process that kind of looking at, yeah, like say astro theory, that's something you are continually looking at and you know, would you put that down to, know, or your success down to that is like never never standing still never taken anything for granted. So let's reflect what what did we do well, what can we repeat?

BRETT LOVELADY (: 22:36

Yeah, I mean, it's, you know, you know, it's a little bit like this conversation, right? Where, you know, it's like, okay, what, you know, what is it that, you know, I don't know, looking back, what worked, you know, what was yours? What was uniquely yours? we spent a lot of time trying to figure out, you know, differentiating aspects. So, you know, we were fortunate that we lived at this epicenter, if you will, culture, design and technology. And most of our clients wanted.

some combination of those where they felt like they were maybe a little lacking. And a lot of it happened to be culture. we, you know, we were fortunate to express in our process that we were just closer to people. We were the human advocate in the process, or we might, we might understand trend a little bit better than our corporate partners, right? Or, or maybe, you know, in a lot of cases we'd have like Japanese or Korean clients or Chinese clients that would come in like, Hey, how do we approach the American market? You guys seem to understand.

pop culture really well, and you also get technology. So, you know, let's work together. So I think that was, that was something we wanted to like make sure we were consistently authentic in. And our studio was set up that way, right? It was a, was very much a designer habitat where people could come culturally, technologically experiment along with, you know, the lifestyle part and the design part of, of, you know, maybe hopefully doing their best work.

Chris Whyte (: 24:02

awesome. That's brilliant. let's talk about creative capitalism then because you mentioned that on our briefing call. yeah.

BRETT LOVELADY (: 24:07

Well, you've gotten some hints at it, right? Which is, know, like, um, I mean, I was the CEO of Astro gaming, you know, we started that and early on with the venture folks and, know, so I'm a designer and, you know, a design led company. And I think a lot of it comes back to vision and consistency of vision. Um, and so at the same time, you know, I got to get it into the market. There's gotta be profit margin, you know, in order to like hire the best people and to pay them well, to do this work and to expand.

to go to Europe and to go to Asia and to like, go, you know, do all the things we wanted to do. So you've got to make it a business. And so I always thought like, well, design is really like creative capital, not just venture capital. Like it has value. And that comes back to that value chain, which is like, you know, in fact, it was Hartman that said, you know, if you don't value yourself first, you know, in the process, no one else will. And I was like, well, if we're the first ones in the door or it's our idea, whether it's our company or someone else's like,

Chris Whyte (: 25:01

Yeah.

BRETT LOVELADY (: 25:07

It has this value in the marketplace. At least this is how we approach it. And so more and more, I found myself kind of helping catalyze companies, starting new brands, being more of a firestarter in that space. And I'm like, well, I'm not really a venture capitalist, but more of creative capitalist. And what I mean by that in the positive sense is taking an idea and putting commercial value to it and getting it to the marketplace to let the market decide.

if they like the product and they want more of it and they like the brand and they like what you stand for. And so that becomes really fun, to be honest, and kind of addictive. And it's one thing to build a design studio, which I love doing because it's like the ultimate playground. But also like, oh, we got an idea and we're going to get it into the market and it's going to create jobs and revenue and relationships that we never would have gotten to otherwise. And so that's the role, if you will, to me, of creative capitalists.

Chris Whyte (: 25:37

Hmm?

Chris Whyte (: 25:48

Mm.

BRETT LOVELADY (: 26:04

I've teamed up with bunch of venture people and private equity folks that are really good at creating a return on investment and money and empowering entrepreneurs. And I'm like, well, we're kind of doing the same thing, but can't we help craft the vision and the product and the creative positioning, right? The branding, the naming, like we've named so many things. It was kind of crazy how many things we had to name along the way. And also like, you know, the packaging, the out of box experience, the retail experience.

Chris Whyte (: 26:23

Hmm?

BRETT LOVELADY (: 26:34

And then, and even in the last 10 years or so, you know, a lot more of like, let's do the launch video. What is all of our, you know, influencer strategy, you know, what are we looking like in digital space? So we would, that would become part of the package, right? Like, okay. We can create a whole new brand for you and the assets that help do that. You have to put on a bit of a business, you know, mind and overlay, or at least be able to converse with the guys that are going to be responsible and pay for all of

Chris Whyte (: 26:45

Hmm.

Chris Whyte (: 26:54

Yeah.

Chris Whyte (: 27:03

Yeah, it's not just a sketch, is it? I love what you said. It's talking about the difference between fire starters and fire tenders. A lot of designers make great, the greatest starting fires. But if it falls down, you need to be able to build the structure to keep it burning.

BRETT LOVELADY (: 27:05

Yeah.

BRETT LOVELADY (: 27:21

Yeah, I think we, uh, you know, I mean, I love the fact that it starts out of the ether a lot of times or a spark from a conversation or a request, but while we put the design skills toward it and bring it to life. And that's awesome and so powerful and catalyzing, but I'm telling you this like 10, 15 % of the whole deal, right after that, it is hard work and busting rock and consistency. And then, do it again. Right. And keep that other.

design creative plate spinning while you're delivering something to the market and dealing with supply chain or something. Right. And I think when designers recognize that they'll also know like, okay, this is where I can be the most impactful and not feel like, okay, well, you know, we're the most important thing on the planet. you know, or the project where, no, you're actually just really, really important to get it up and running and moving and then shepherding it and being the human advocate, the design advocate.

voice of vision and reason, right? So staying connected to it. And to do that, you've got to understand what the other guys are up against, right? To stake into your project, not just sort of throw it over the fence and hope it gets produced, which, you know, sometimes that's just the way it is in consulting. like, well, we only get it taken so far. Or even in, in, in-house people will be like, okay, great. We're divisional, right? Do the design work and then hand it to engineering and get out of the way, you know, whatever, whatever their, their setup is. Designers should really stick with it and stay.

but we're recognized that there's a lot of other people working really hard to deliver to the market. So, little soap opera there.

Chris Whyte (: 28:54

Yeah, it just seems, it seems you're just making more work for yourself or more work for other people if you're not kind of tending it, just chucking it over the fence because there's going to be questions and you know, you're just causing problems aren't you? But so Astro Gaming, if I'm right in saying is one of your most successful spin outs. What would you say you'd learned kind of most from taking that all the way through from Spark through to

acquisition because now part of Logitech is it.

BRETT LOVELADY (: 29:27

Yeah, Logitech owns the brand. Yeah, it went to, well, let's see if I can answer that one somewhat short and feel free to, I'm going to be quiet. So after coming off of the Xbox 360 and doing a lot of research there, as well as all our Alienware PC work and just being in the industry, like really close to the industry, we saw the emergence of professional gaming and we're like, okay, this is a pretty cool space. What's going to happen here? And then you look into it you're like, it's massive and people aren't paying much attention.

Chris Whyte (: 29:28

Yeah.

Chris Whyte (: 29:34

You

BRETT LOVELADY (: 29:57

And then you go talk to like pro gamers, which is where we always started, right? It like, who, who has a problem to solve? And so we dove deep into, you know, the pits, if you will, of gaming leagues. And we recognize that audio and headphones and communication was a big challenge. And so we came up with some ideas on how to do that. And that was the Genesis. And then the courts were like, Oh, well, people know us for designing Alienware and Xbox. So we'll just use Astro Gaming as the name and spin it off as, you know, from the studio.

Um, a little hubris, but it was, it was fun and, uh, seemed to make some sense. So we raised around a venture capital, um, had a really awesome chairman and a really good partner. And you asked me what I've learned. What I've learned is from an earlier company that we started and actually fold it. That was deeper in the studio. What I've learned was on this one with Astor gaming, I need to set it up separately. And so even though it's incubated in the studio and a lot of people were involved with the studio, um, I brought in a great partner. It was a Stanford MBA.

Chris Whyte (: 30:48

Right, okay.

BRETT LOVELADY (: 30:56

great chairman who was like connected to global markets and financing and whatnot. And then with those guys, we built a company that was a direct consumer business separate, but we were intertwined as we were covering all the design and the development. And I was this bridge of a CEO, not only the vision side of it, but also kind of helping commercialize the brand. Long story, we built that up as pioneers in this industry.

When we started, it was mainly on high-end gaming headphones that we wanted to be professional grade equipment for the pros that were playing every day. And this was their livelihood. And so we put everything we knew about design into making something that was just like solve a lot of problems and fit the right feature set. But it was too expensive for retail. Retail's like, we sell $7,500 gaming headphones and yours is $300. So all of sudden we were pioneering.

Chris Whyte (: 31:33

Mm-hmm.

BRETT LOVELADY (: 31:53

We were going to be like, okay, we've got to reset the market. So we started doing that. And so for six years, we ran a direct to consumer business with almost no retail at all. We did that actually out of London and for most of Europe, as well as our home base there in California. We built up the company, raised another round of venture funding. That was around the 2009, know, 10 timeframe, which was a little crazy. Anyways, we built it up over about six or seven years. And now we're like, okay, we're at scale. We need to go to retail.

Chris Whyte (: 32:04

Okay.

BRETT LOVELADY (: 32:23

And so our venture folks helped us out and we started looking for another investors or partners. And so we ended up selling the company in 2011 to Skullcandy, who was massive at retail and was pre IPO. And we thought like, this is a great partnership. They understand retail. They've got supply chain galore in Asia. So yeah, we sold the company and then I helped run it as an interim brand CEO, if you will.

anyways, long story longer by: 2017

Chris Whyte (: 32:55

amazing.

BRETT LOVELADY (: 33:20

And they split the company and they sold Astro Gaming, which was about half the company at that time, to Logitech. And there's some articles about it out there and stuff. And Logitech took over and started building the brand and merging it and kind of helping them grow their Logitech G brand. So very long story for that, but that was where I got my design creative capitalist MBA, I guess, working with people to deliver product.

Chris Whyte (: 33:46

Yeah.

BRETT LOVELADY (: 33:50

Loved it. Loved everybody. You know, started with five guys in the basement and next thing you know, there's 40 people on a whole floor of the office. And then they, they, we, you know, spun them off into a whole nother company set up. um, so what I've come back to your question full loop and what I learned at that time was, um, know what you do really well and hire people that do what they do really well and like to do it like a CFO. CFO is awesome. You have to have one if you're actually taking people's money.

You're, you're an investor, you have investor relations, or you're talking to Best Buy and GameStop and you've got to manage giant POs and, you know, and Money Flow and banking and, you know, it just goes on and on. That's just one example, but you do that with engineering and manufacturing, a supply chain and customer service and blah, blah, blah, all this stuff. Again, very important, but winging it, you know, is one of those things like, wait, there's professionals. Like I can take a, I can take a photograph, but I know there's photographers that are a lot better.

Chris Whyte (: 34:47

Yeah.

BRETT LOVELADY (: 34:48

I'd rather clear them. so, you know, the sooner you can get to that, that part of the better in any new venture, I think you're working on, whether it's small or large.

Chris Whyte (: 34:57

Well, yeah, hear that a lot in terms of the, you know, get the operational side nailed down as soon as you can, you know, because once that it makes scaling a lot easier if you've got the systems and processes in place and the people that know how to put them in and tend to them. That will make everything a lot easier.

BRETT LOVELADY (: 35:14

Yeah. So selfishly, selfishly, that's one of the only things you can sell at the end of it. You know, like otherwise, otherwise you bought it, right. But, is there systems, your brand, you know, and you know, you're, really your brand reputation and goodwill. Those are the things that go with the company, but systems are a big part of it. And I didn't know that early on, you know, it like, it gets back to that replicating what's, what's working and not, you know, invent the wheel every time.

Chris Whyte (: 35:20

Yeah.

yeah.

Chris Whyte (: 35:40

Yeah, absolutely. It's gonna be very difficult to sell the business no matter what industry sector and if if the owner is kind of in the weeds and in the day to day, you know, if the owner is the business, you know, to a lot of extent. Yeah, there's a lot of fun though, isn't it? So that's brilliant. And in terms of just a random question, you mentioned that you've named a lot of companies or helped name a lot of companies, do you have a

BRETT LOVELADY (: 35:48

Yeah, we own our starters getting away pretty quickly.

Chris Whyte (: 36:10

technique or a tip for coming up with names quickly and I've put you on the spot there

BRETT LOVELADY (: 36:16

Well, that's fine. I mean, we have a pretty good, you know, we had a process again, coming back to a system, everybody, every design studios got a process. this is our patented proven process. You know, it's like, and we sort of had one of those as well. Naming kind of fell into that as well. We called it the 5D process, which was dialogue, define, design, develop, deploy. Okay. So that's what you write 5Ds. It's kind of, kind of works.

Chris Whyte (: 36:21

Yeah.

BRETT LOVELADY (: 36:43

but that first one, dialogue was really important. And so to get in and understand what either the founder of the company or whoever's in charge of the project. So like really understand the positioning of what it is we're trying to do, who we're trying to speak to in the marketplace, who we're trying to inspire and get excited about a new brand or position or name. And so we would try to really define what we were going to do before we started, you know, designing it. Right. So the third one was always designed. a good dialogue, define it really well.

So from a naming standpoint, naming is tough. It's really hard. Part of it's very subjective, but again, you put it in context, right? So we would come up with names, maybe have different themes, if you will. Right. And we talked in terms of thematics quite often, like, Oh, this is a more technology, technological theme, right? Or this one is a more emotional theme or more organic theme or whatever, whatever it might be. And it wasn't just in naming. This would work for almost all the other design disciplines pieces of it.

But in naming it worked as well. And so we would come up with name concepts, if you will, and then we would put them through our own filters. We'd get it to a short list of things that we liked, you know, have some brainstorms. usually try to have some people to do nothing about it, as well as those of us that were way too immersed in it and come together and kind of, you know, basically spit good names out and see what made sense. Edit those down. And then before you edit too far is go do a legal check.

because you can come up with the best name in the world and the lawyers will stop you cold in your tracks if either not available, already taken, confusing in the marketplace, know, take too long to get that, you know, that, that name, all kinds of stuff. you, so you get it to a short list and then you take that, okay, this is clearing. This is what's inspiring. This is what's working. Now you've got a matrix and you say, okay, these are the ones we're going to present. Let's put them into more context, which might be putting them on a package.

putting them on a product, putting them on a website, putting them on an app, whatever it might be, and then present those and the story and coming up with a backstory. Almost every great brand name, logo, identity, you know, a really good authentic backstory, even if you kind of make it up after the fact sometimes, is really important, I think, to get people to coalesce around an idea. So that was sort of the process. And then we'd keep funneling down just like you would with

Chris Whyte (: 38:56

Mm-hmm.

BRETT LOVELADY (: 39:06

Here's a bunch of design concepts and you keep whittling down the one you're going to execute on. then the legal guys would usually come into play. I got one quick story there that was kind of crazy. Western Digital, the hard drive company, massive hard drive company, came to us and said, you guys know gaming, we're not in gaming. We want a brand that's absolutely focused on gamers, authentic to them. We saw what you did with Astro Gaming, we want a similar world.

Chris Whyte (: 39:17

Yeah, go for it.

BRETT LOVELADY (: 39:34

So we created something called WD Black for them. WD Black had a whole bunch of other names that were way better. And they were on a really tight timeline. And we got to this meeting where everybody was there and we're like, we like these other names and we've got all these things going. And we were doing everything, like the whole brand, ID, packaging, retail, digital, like every aspect of the brand as like a property, right? Like the full property. So we're getting there, we're presenting.

And the, you know, we're sitting there and the lawyer is in the room and he's quiet. And finally he goes, look guys, he goes, we got to be in 120 countries within like eight months. We don't have time to go and make sure these clear around the world. We can't fight for it. Blah, blah. You know, like, like, like the name checks really well in all the major countries, like, actually here's a list of names we already own. Can you just pick one of these? Because it's the only way we're going to get this into production. So WD Black.

was a name they own kind of like, uh, uh, you know, kind of like if you were, you know, uh, a company, you know, wine company might be, you know, black was like your reserve or your premium brand. So anyways, we took that made it work with all of the look and feel of everything that was going on. And, uh, you know, they, they did like 30, $40 million in sales in the first year and it's continued to fly ever since. anyways, naming is subjective. Sometimes it comes down to the crazy stuff like lawyers, you know, um,

Chris Whyte (: 40:32

Yeah.

Chris Whyte (: 40:42

Yeah.

Chris Whyte (: 40:59

Yeah.

BRETT LOVELADY (: 41:02

having to make sure you got a business you can work with. anyways, I know it was little bit of off-ramp, but it was a fun story.

Chris Whyte (: 41:06

Yeah, that's a great story. Yeah, absolutely. whilst you've not had to come up with the name there, I guess you still created a backstory in some respects. You've created a dialogue to go with that, make the best of it. So that's brilliant. So the 5D process then again is dialogue, define, design, develop, and deploy.

BRETT LOVELADY (: 41:22

Yep. Yep.

BRETT LOVELADY (: 41:32

A lot more deploy these days than it used to be for designers. know, like to get it into the market, to be part of the story, like for designers to basically, you know, be part of a video or be part of the social media presence or the launch. Like, hey, show up the launch party and tell the story, you know, that kind of stuff.

Chris Whyte (: 41:35

Yeah.

Chris Whyte (: 41:46

Yeah.

Chris Whyte (: 41:50

Well, yeah, especially with the kind of Kickstarter's of the world, know, it's the, you know, meet the designer talk to the walkthrough. It's, yeah, it's no good just being great sketch and you've got to be a professional media personality now as well. Yeah, absolutely. So where do you see, mean, that kind of segwayed really nice actually, because the next section on one notes is it here is to talk about the role of design and commercialization, which I was going to ask you about your 5D process.

BRETT LOVELADY (: 42:04

Some cases, some days, do your best, you know.

Chris Whyte (: 42:19

So that worked. So where do you see design having the most impact in the lifecycle of a product?

BRETT LOVELADY (: 42:28

Wow, that's a good question. I think it's in the beginning, still, beginning stages, but being part of the conversation really early so that you, know, most, a lot of us as designers would listen to what people are asking for and looking for, and then hop up on a whiteboard and go, oh, is this what you mean? Right. Or,

Hey, you know, hold that thought. We'll come back with some of our illustrations or our mockups or whatever it might be. The power of design, I think, hasn't diminished. I think AI is, you know, as a good friend of mine says, you know, is making mediocrity free. And so there's a lot of things that people go like, oh, that's super, super good and polished and whatnot. But I think it's design's job now is to be an editor and a curator on top of

a generator of new creative content. And if you're not there in the beginning, it's really hard to come in and sort of sweep up after the elephant and make something out of this. You've got to be part of it. So I really advocate for being in the C-suite, being in the decision maker meetings, being as early as possible, if not even the instigator, if you will, of the conversation in the first place.

And that's the cool thing about design, right? You can come up with some imagery and a positioning or a quick video clip or an interview and go like, Hey, I think we've got something here, guys. Let me show you this. And you can sway a meeting. You can change the direction of a business. So if you're there, try to be part of the early conversation. Be part of the visualization team, if you will, for the big idea people, if they're not in the design side of things, partner with them.

Chris Whyte (: 43:40

you

BRETT LOVELADY (: 44:07

And that empowerment is like, it's two plus two makes 10, right? Like you come together to basically create a lot of value. So that's, that's, know, and then if, worst, worst case, you know, sometimes don't ask permission, right? Let's, know, just, just go, just go do it. Like be proactive versus reactive. That's one of our theory lines, by the way. But,

Chris Whyte (: 44:29

You've got examples of where that's worked really well, where you've just run with something. Obviously, your own ventures aside, but with a client, I suppose.

BRETT LOVELADY (: 44:41

Yeah, a variety. you know, it's a lot of times people would come to us not with a real well-defined brief, right? And so they might say something like,

Okay, we've got like this emerging EDM music, know, electronic dance music, EDM market, right? How do we talk to them in a very crowded space with new headphones, for example? Okay. And that might be, again, the whole brief. And so then we go back and like, okay, dive into the culture. Okay. Luckily design teams, part of it maybe, or some younger folks, or actually go out and experience what's going on. Bring that back.

and then create a perspective or a point of view, right? Fundamentally above all, I believe design is a point of view. So you need to have one. You got to go develop one usually. And so, you know, whether it was a new headphone company that was directly marketed to like emerging, you know, EDM, you know, if you wave, if you will movement coming out of college, as an example, or in the case of like when we did the watches that I mentioned before.

We've got our most inspiration by talking to college and high school athletes, coaches, people that ran, you know, constantly. We started running ourselves. had to experience that yourself even more than maybe you were doing before. All of that feeds into what I think is, you know, developing that point of view early on. And then, you know, that's, that's, that's for us was just became process. It's like, you know, someone would walk in with a, you know,

a new product that they needed, especially in the commodity market. Like, do you really need another shoe? Do really need another headphone? you really, you know, okay, well, yeah, but you've got a good idea. We can take that, put it in context and build it up. by, you know, and doing that, create value for them and, know, maybe take market share or mind share or just express an air of futurism, you know, whatever was needed at the time.

Chris Whyte (: 46:41

Yeah, that's great. So let's talk about the future of studios and kind of, you know, you've stepped back, obviously stepped away from Astro a little while ago now it's and you're now working on a new leaner, more focused model for creative business, less infrastructure, more intent. I mean, this might be one of those areas where we're kind of bridging the...

dancing on the line of what we can and can't have on the Finnish podcast. you know, what inspired you? know, and I know that at the time, PA, we're going through quite a lot of acquisitions, but you know, what inspired you to step back from Astro and think about what's next?

BRETT LOVELADY (: 47:10

That was

BRETT LOVELADY (: 47:29

Well, the original vision for Astro with PEA was to roll up a variety of other design development firms under the brand and establish a footprint for PEA in America. As we're just getting that started and coming out of the pandemic, lots of upheaval. The company was half acquired by another company and they decided that the strategy was better, that they just continue to focus on PEA and building that brand, if you will, around the world.

So they bought a couple of other design firms and, you know, it was brought together some really amazing people really balance out, you know, this development side, along with the management consulting. For me, after the, you know, the Astro brand was being, you know, essentially retired. I was like, need to go do something else. so about three years of shepherding the company and then seeing how the company was being reconstructed, I decided it was time to move on. And in doing so.

I kind of gave myself a break. I've been working since I was like 14 years old. So I was like, okay, I'll take a year off. And then just started looking at everything. You know, we're all working so differently now, even than I would say five, six years ago. You know, the impact of remote has hurt a lot of design studios. And I actually believe in the physicality of a studio, the culture, the interplay, the, know, I think is way more valuable than, you know, than just everything, you know, developed in a

Chris Whyte (: 48:28

Yeah.

Chris Whyte (: 48:36

Hmm.

BRETT LOVELADY (: 48:54

Figma Borden, know, on a Zoom screen. And so I think that it'll be interesting to see how that comes about, but you got to work with who might be the best of the best in certain areas. So I've been really fortunate to work with like amazing designers, collaborators, clients around the world. And so I'm like, okay, if I step back to what would be an optimum scenario. And so starting to put together, if you will, for lack of a better term, a little bit of a collective of ways to work.

Chris Whyte (: 48:55

Hmm.

Chris Whyte (: 49:23

Yeah, the super group.

BRETT LOVELADY (: 49:24

But yeah, know, yeah, exactly. Work with the, uh, you know, the different all-stars in different industries that can kind of come together, uh, you know, under a, under a bit of a construct and still a studio model. Um, so there are people outside and around the world. There's people inside and then, you know, out of that, you know, uh, can we be effective? Um, I think the people that already have been doing it for a while are fairly well proven. And in this day and time, um, you know, I think you, know, you know, anything you can do to manage risk.

You're like, why not go with people that have done it a lot over and over and have that kind of success. And then also attract new young talent that can spark that and be part of the process. so creating a bit more of an engine that, you know, is, is open a little smaller, a little leaner, um, you know, maybe a little more pointed, you know, and just get to this stage of your career. it's like, okay, I like working on that. Not so much that. So let's be a little bit more proactively directed. Um, and then I'm advising investing and.

you know, doing a variety of other things with some startups. And honestly, that's pretty addictive. It's like, you know, it's one of those things just you get to go work with other people. They're responsible for it in the end, you know, and you get to like give your two cents and hopefully make it a little better for

Chris Whyte (: 50:35

You

Chris Whyte (: 50:39

where you've got so much experience to kind of pull lessons from, haven't you, in terms of you've been there, done it, got the t-shirt. you've personally through Astro as well, you'll have seen the studio model evolve. And I guess you were at the forefront of kind of forcing that evolution in a lot of respects. But how do you see the...

the model kind of evolving over the next five to 10 years. I know a lot of studio owners and leaders I speak to both in the UK and the States are finding it tough now, especially if they're focused on ID as opposed to like more holistic kind of design. So, well, yeah, have you got the crystal ball? What would you say coming?

BRETT LOVELADY (: 51:28

No, mean, honestly, some of it's been the same forever, which is, know, industrial design has always been a little bit of like, explain yourself. What do you really do outside of product and then product design? And then our digital brothers and sisters have taken over product design, you know, and as part of what they do. So I think there's going to be that constant battle of educating. It's never gone away. Like, okay, this is what we do is why we're important. You know, we're the architects, you know, new ideas for products and, you know,

Chris Whyte (: 51:39

Mm-hmm.

BRETT LOVELADY (: 51:58

commercial experiences and things. But I don't think that's going to change. think it maybe gets a little harder here and there, but you can't stop defining and communicating what it is you do and what our industry design is about. It's got to be more diversified, not only geographically, but people and perspectives. mean, the global impact you design for

You know, for one culture, but next thing you know, like, my company's taken off and I'm in 10 different cultures that look at things completely different. You've to try to consider that early on. I know early on, like we would get asked at Astro, like, okay, Hey, can you design something for this, for the Japanese market? Right. We're, working for, you know, 18 year old office girls in Japan. And we're like, looking around like that's none of us, you know, like, right. So you reach out and you talk to a design studio there and you like, Hey.

Chris Whyte (: 52:50

Hahaha.

BRETT LOVELADY (: 52:56

This is what's going on. Do you understand this? You know, can you help us understand and get a grasp on that? Can you be part of the project? Right. Can you help collaborate in this area so we can authentically communicate to the, again, you know, who it is we're designing and developing for. and that's one, that's a small illustration, but I think now that's even a lot easier to do. And I think it's to be more open. and, know, and, and how you construct a solution for either your program.

you're trying to move forward or your client's program. And, you know, if you can be that solution provider, it's just, you know, looking at all the new tools to do that. I don't think it's, it's easy when you're not in the same environment, to be honest. struggling with that. Maybe that's just because that's how we came together. We had a design habitat, right? When I was at Frog, we had six studios around the world.

You could go into one studio and it was like, wow, the energy is amazing. You go into another one and it's like, did you have a funeral in here? You know, it's like, I mean, just depend on, who the dynamic in the mix was. Right. But then if everybody's so, you know, disconnected, if you will, and just kind of comes together and, know, everybody's this big on a screen and it's just, you you're missing something. You're missing the spontaneity. And so I'm a big advocate of the studio, try to get it together.

Chris Whyte (: 54:00

Yeah.

BRETT LOVELADY (: 54:18

Even if they're small little node studios, you know, then you try to get those people together as much as possible. Um, especially if you're collaborating, you know, or multidisciplinary, you know, which, um, I think is a big part of it. Um, the tools, you know, mean, obviously AI is like everybody's panicked about, um, as well. Um, I don't know. I've been through enough, I guess, uh, adoptions and, you know, every thinks that even though this one's moving at the speed of AI.

Chris Whyte (: 54:20

Mm.

Chris Whyte (: 54:28

Hmm.

BRETT LOVELADY (: 54:47

I think it's a matter of, okay, designers figured out, curated, like we've talked about earlier, be the, be the people that can put it into context so that you can help the other people in other disciplines. utilize the, you know, the power of what's going on. part of, be part of the conversation, you know,

Chris Whyte (: 55:08

Yeah, absolutely. it very much is a tool. And you still need to master, lose that tool. Otherwise, like you said earlier, it's, yeah.

BRETT LOVELADY (: 55:16

That's actually really fun. I'm taking a webinar from a past employee who's just an awesome guy who dove into it two or three years ago. And, you know, just to like learn even at peripheral level, how does this all, you know, what are all these tools do? And then if you've created stuff in the past, you go like, wow, that would really help me do this and that. And I could explore stuff I've never done before. And so I think part of it is maybe just developing a very positive attitude and experimenting.

just like a little kid with a new box of crayons. It's like, what can I do with this? I can draw on the walls, can draw on the furniture, go to paper, see what comes of it.

Chris Whyte (: 55:52

Yeah, absolutely. No, that's great. So the of the final section I wanted to run into is community mentorship and culture. Because you mentioned, when we spoke before, threat you create, you've always stayed involved in the next generation of designers, mentoring through accelerators, invested in creative culture. Why is mentorship been such a priority for

for yourself and what do you get from it?

BRETT LOVELADY (: 56:26

Well, start there. Selfishly, you get the positive energy and the vibes from, you know, other like enthusiastic, maybe even slightly naive, you know, highly energetic designers with vision that want to do things. And that's really empowering to kind of like, you know, validate what you might be doing as a designer and as a mentor. You're like, okay, this has some impact. There is some value to it. They don't know everything.

Or, wait a minute, you know what? You guys just inspired me to think about something differently. That makes me a better mentor or a better advisor or collaborator. I do kind of find myself, like most design consultants, stepping into an ownership mentality when you're dealing with a client or a startup. And part of that is because there's big voids you need to fill usually. But other part of it is like, it's fun, right? It's like, I'm helping create something from scratch. And so to do that well, I think is a...

You know, it's just part of the cycle of design, right? So you start with the folks, bring them to the meeting. Like we used to bring our interns to like the biggest meetings that we would have like here, you got to hear this firsthand. You got to see what's going on. you know, they have just gotten there the day before, they would show up right. Or, you know, you see a designer that's just struggling and he was like, okay, look, how do I like help this person stop, put their pencil down.

Pick up the idea that they've already got, or you know, take a break or whatever, without like squelching their soul, you know, their design, you know, as a design director and bring them along. So over time, you kind of learn that some of the techniques that do that and kind of to pull the best out of folks, that's really rewarding. But it's also like, I think it's super valuable to help people self edit, if you will, during the design process. And then empowering people like, Hey, you know what? You can go down that path. That's awesome.

but you probably would be better off going on this path, giving guidance, direction, helping people, you know, make decisions. Sometimes when you're so close to something, you can't see, you know, what's working, what's not. I think that's where designers that get off on their own, just work at home, only work remote, don't have the sounding board, you know, aren't, aren't involving somebody that maybe has been down the path. I think it's key to have that.

Chris Whyte (: 58:30

Yeah.

Chris Whyte (: 58:40

Yeah.

BRETT LOVELADY (: 58:44

So again, I come back to like, always said, you know, our place was a designer habitat, if you will. And we had, at one point we had three offices and each office was different. But the one thing you tried to do was to keep that nurturing, you know, all ideas are, are welcome. You know, like, let's put your heart out on the table every day. And, know, if you get, get it beat up, that's fine. It's not personal. Let's, you know, get back to it the next day. And, and when we had that, that openness at all these three studios,

The work was amazing. Okay. It's when people became judgmental and became hierarchical and like, no, has to go through this one director's, know, filter, you know, then you've got like, you know, you can end up with a, you know, a studio style and not always a good one. So anyway, that's the handling response to what you just.

Chris Whyte (: 59:31

Yeah.

That's that's great. You've kind of reminded me of some of the stories that through Creativity ink as well and some of the challenges they have when they were getting bigger and you know you start getting these little silos and and You know these yeah, but yeah, it's pretty natural We got to keep a give a grip on it Which is what it's lot easier to do when you're smaller faster leaner isn't it so And then spent yeah Absolutely

BRETT LOVELADY (: 59:48

Very natural.

BRETT LOVELADY (: 59:58

And when you're in the same space, when you're, mean, you know, it's like, think the pandemic created a lot of design therapists as well as design mentors, advisors.

Chris Whyte (: 01:00:06

Yeah.

Chris Whyte (: 01:00:10

Absolutely. So do you do that as the mentoring? you do as like a is there an organized group that you do it through? Or is it kind of self kind of self regulate that because I guess you've got to be mindful of your time as well as the impact you can offer.

BRETT LOVELADY (: 01:00:28

Well, in the studio, like during the Astro Studio days, know, we, the, the fortunate thing is we had multiple people that could cover those requests, if you will. but to get involved in accelerators and incubators, you know, it's like formally, we were very involved and I was involved in quite a few for, you know, long periods of time, you know, as, know, as a, as a role and, that we would play in it, but it was, you know, the commitment was maybe a couple of days here and there.

Chris Whyte (: 01:00:36

Yeah.

BRETT LOVELADY (: 01:00:54

You know, schools, know, even VC accelerators or innovation teams with companies, you know, are good ways to do that. A lot of times it ends up with being, you know, one of them that'll be like, Hey, we've got like six companies that we're incubating here. Can you come talk to them? Right. So it's a little more informal for me at this stage, but early on, you know, getting involved with like RGA and RGA Ventures was awesome out of New York, Techstars a bit.

Chris Whyte (: 01:01:15

Yeah.

BRETT LOVELADY (: 01:01:23

some accelerators, was, there was one in the Bay area called highway one, which was like 120 companies. And I mean, and there was tons of other design teams that were there mentoring and talking to folks as well. But, again, someone had to kind of create, you know, either like a six month or six week or, you know, two year environment for those, those things to be developed. And then that was a more natural advisory state for design. these days, like,

Chris Whyte (: 01:01:49

Mm-hmm.

BRETT LOVELADY (: 01:01:53

You know, it comes together where even out of the design community or out of the business community that I have experience in, they'll be like, you know, come talk to this class or come talk to that. Um, this group or this, I have this one startup who's just needs, you know, needs someone to kind of, you know, shake them up on, know, about their design approach or whatever it might be. Um, so it's pretty informal. Um, you know, and then the organizations that are out there, you know, the IDSAs and AIGAs and stuff, if you get connected there.

the schools that are out there in design, that's always a great place to go and be useful. The next generation of designers. People think of it terms of give back. I think it kind of is a mutual exchange, quite honestly. It's a lot of fun to, again, feed off that inspiration and energy.

Chris Whyte (: 01:02:45

Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, I think it's human nature to want to be helpful. So if you can tap into that and, you know, have fun with it as well, you know, it's my philosophy with with everything really is, you know, try and be helpful, add value. And, you know, it's a lot of fun along the way, isn't it? Because you generally see that you're having a positive impact.

BRETT LOVELADY (: 01:03:06

It's hard to manage your time. you, I know you asked about that. But I've found that if I just make the time, it's, it's, it's well worth it. Now there's just sometimes you have to like, can't do it, but someone else can for wait till I have more free time later. If you don't mind that kind of thing. you know, I've tried to worry about that part of it too much.

Chris Whyte (: 01:03:21

Hmm.

Chris Whyte (: 01:03:25

Yeah, absolutely. It's always pays off in the end. guess, know, there's a win-win for both parts as well, isn't there? You're helping them out in the early days. you're part of that community. Who are they going to come to or who they going to speak to when they have a design challenge a little bit later on? You you're in a great position there.

BRETT LOVELADY (: 01:03:38

Yeah.

BRETT LOVELADY (: 01:03:45

think most designers, fortunate or unfortunate, we kind of fall in love with the challenge and the ideas no matter what. Whether we should or not, it's a promiscuous sort of relationship. Like, that looks good. that looks good too. Okay. That's one. It's like, okay. Sometimes you have to like focus and limit yourself.

Chris Whyte (: 01:03:51

Yeah.

Chris Whyte (: 01:04:04

Yeah, absolutely. So I'm conscious on the timekeeping, we've run over the hour mark here, but we'll wrap things up neatly. We like an hour or so because people who have got half an hour commute, they can listen to half. But, you know, just on reflection and it kind of ties back to your kind of your origins with Astro and your 80-20 principles there, you know.

BRETT LOVELADY (: 01:04:18

Feel free to edit how you need to.

Chris Whyte (: 01:04:34

And advice for young designers looking to start a studio or, you know, a lunch product or indeed, you know, kind of studio owners that are kind of maybe a bit more experienced, but feeling the pressure. What advice would you give, you know, to get into that kind of, I guess, more sustainable from a commercial point of view, business model or just general advice?

BRETT LOVELADY (: 01:04:47

Yep.

BRETT LOVELADY (: 01:05:01

It's a good question. think a couple of things, this is going to sound maybe overly practical, but if you're starting your own studio or you're starting your own company, you're starting a company, you're starting a business. We don't learn that in design school. So go talk to the people that you respect that are in other kinds of businesses, even not even, know, if you can find somebody who's doing exactly what you're doing and where they're at, then yeah, like go talk to them as well. Find out what their challenges have been and what their solutions have been. You know, for example,

You know, like, you know, probably need like one admin person for every four designers, for example, like there's some rules of thumb, you know, are you going to need somebody that actually focuses on marketing every day while you're designing and even doing business development and, you know, managing clients, right? So learn as many of the parts of what it takes to run a business, any kind of business, service business, if that's the case, or your own product producing business talk, like do the research just like you would do on a project go.

the, you know, find out what it, what that takes. and you know, get enough of a vision for what that is and educate yourself on, you know, like, like, look at a spreadsheet, my eyes roll back in my head, but I kind of needed to know what a P and L statement was, right. And not a, how to talk to banks and how to like, finance stuff and, know, like, okay, that learned that design school. So be open to like learning more about it and then empowering somebody else. Like we talked about earlier, right. Like, okay. I need a bookkeeper. If I do that, then I'll have more time to go.

sell more design business and hire more people, right? Or whatever that package might be. So do the practical things of what it takes to run and learn about how to run a business if you're going to open your own studio or start your own products. The other part is don't anybody talk you out of it either though. You know, like, like a lot of people will be like, it's just too hard. I just want to be an employee. You know, that's fine. I mean, thank goodness, right? Awesome employees. But if you really are, you know,

Like you want to create your own environment, your own ethos, your own culture, your own brand, your own, you know, your own equity, right? Your own value. you know, take the time, plan it out. call them business plans for a reason, you know, map it out, do a mind map design style on a whiteboard. That's a great business plan, right? Just, you know, erase it every other day and put a new one in or, you know, move things around, but make it a creative project. and I think if you, if you do those things, you'll realize like, wow.

BRETT LOVELADY (: 01:07:24

design process allows me to build this kind of a business. If I actually like listen to what I probably am telling my clients needs to go through a process of development. And, you know, that, that part doesn't change. I don't think no matter what industry you're really in, but for designers in general, you know, there's always a little bit grasses greener, like, if I could just do this, every one of my ideas would go through or every one of my things would be produced. And, you know, it's like,

got to be in a position of influence, you know, so a lot of people start their own businesses in order to have that. So, okay, now that you've got it, what are you going to do with it so that it's successful and lasts for, you know, for, you know, more time than maybe, you know, your, um, I don't know, maybe even your own attention or focus can give it. Um, that's why people partner to you by the way, partnerships, you and I can do a whole other podcast on partnerships. They're hard. They're hard to do.

Chris Whyte (: 01:08:14

Yeah.

BRETT LOVELADY (: 01:08:21

but almost necessary at certain points too.

Chris Whyte (: 01:08:24

Yeah, absolutely. think, you know, just calling from my own experience that he was starting Kodu is, you know, could have been a lot easier like the first year if I had a partner going in as a co-founder, you know, certainly there's two sets of eyes looking at the market, but now to deviate from the admin tasks. But the ownership is half the, you know, it's sharing it and it's like a marriage. You've to make sure that

BRETT LOVELADY (: 01:08:51

Yeah.

Chris Whyte (: 01:08:51

everyone's, you know, you're both on the same page and you're in it for the same reasons. You know, and you complement each other in terms of skill sets. yeah, taking that step and actually starting to build out the foundations of a team, then it's like, okay, I need it. I actually need to plan now. I can't just do this stuff. I know I can do well. It's like I need a team around me. But that's brilliant. we've

BRETT LOVELADY (: 01:09:00

very similar.

BRETT LOVELADY (: 01:09:10

Thank

Chris Whyte (: 01:09:15

We've spent, obviously, much of this conversation looking backwards. What are you most excited about going forward, Brett?

BRETT LOVELADY (: 01:09:25

Well, you know, as one of the, I guess the fringe benefits of being, being in the, at the beginning of a lot of things in design, that's the state place I want to stay. So I'm always looking for like, where can you have the most influence based on your skillset or even interest, you know, that's what, cause that's what you passion your heart will follow. So for me, I think getting closer to like where, you know, new businesses, new products, new, new ideas come from is a big part of it.

You know, so there's either like the equity side and the venture side, you know, or the, like, there's the school side, for example, there's a lot of, a lot of, masters level incubators that are actually in universities and colleges where, you know, startups are just bubbling up, you know, you go all way back to the Y Combinator side of things and Stanford. And then you see these other companies or other, institutions doing those kinds of things. that area of just being where things start.

is the most intriguing to me. At the same time, you know, like probably a little bit more of the classic, you know, maybe picking up and doing a little bit of my own design work again, you know, a little bit more writing, do a little bit more, I mean, I'll go back to do some more cartooning, who knows, you know.

Chris Whyte (: 01:10:35

Hmm.

Chris Whyte (: 01:10:41

Awesome. Now it's very exciting. I'm looking forward to following your journey, this next path of your design journey. wonderful. Absolutely. Brett, it's been an absolute pleasure having you on the podcast. Thank you so much for joining me. And yeah, we definitely will.

BRETT LOVELADY (: 01:10:49

Yeah, we'll stay in touch.

BRETT LOVELADY (: 01:10:57

Thanks for the opportunity and for putting up with all the plather. You're welcome. Good to see you.

Chris Whyte (: 01:11:02

Not at all. It's been an absolute pleasure. So yeah, thank you again