Preserving Standards Manuals

Ian Paget: I actually found out about you through the work that you've been doing with Standards Manual, which is a company that you founded back in 2014. I've seen these manuals every time they come out, they are absolutely stunning. I bought a couple myself and hopefully listeners, if they're not already aware of you, they'd be excited to go and check out what you're doing. Would you mind sharing, how did this company happen? Because I love what you're doing and I'd love to know the story underneath it.

Jesse Reed: Yeah, for sure. Well, thank you. I'm never really sure if people are sick of hearing this story, or not yet, but if you haven't heard it already, the company was started really and truly by accident. I started the company with my business partner, Hamish Smyth, and we were both associate partners and designers at Pentagram in New York City. At the time, we were both working for Michael Bierut in that office. Yeah, this was a sort of a fluke occurrence where him and I and a group of other designers were down in the basement of Pentagram, which was the old building, if anyone was lucky enough to go there in New York. It was 204 Fifth Avenue and it was this amazing old bank building.

And in the basement, the vault was still there. So you can walk into the vault and that's where our server room was. And it was really cool basement, but it was like full of stuff because they've been there for a couple of decades at this point. And so we were looking for a tarp to put on top of a foosball table that was on the roof of our building because we'd had a party the night before and it was going to rain. And so we were looking for this tarp to cover it up. We were rummaging through drawers and places to see like, surely there's something down there that we can use. And there were these old gym lockers that the partners use to store their belongings, but I don't think they really use them that often.

So we opened one of them up and on the very bottom of one of the lockers, sort of like peeking out from like really old gym clothes and newspapers, almost like trash, I mean, not like real trash, but just rubbish. We saw the corner of this red binder that was peeking out. I sort of instantly knew what it was. You sort of see a little bit of white type sentence standard medium. And so we pulled it out and it was the New York City Transit Authority and graphic standards manual, the big red binder that is sort of the Bible of the New York City subway system signage, designed by Massimo Vignelli and Bob Noorda. We can get into those details in a bit, but essentially we found that original binder and we took it upstairs to where we sat, all the designers. Two of the teams in the New York office sat on the first floor, Michael Bierut's and Emily Oberman's.

And so we took it upstairs and sort of shouted what we had just found all like around this amazing piece of history that none of us have ever seen in person. We've never touched it. I think a lot of us knew what it was, but some of us didn't. Yeah, we spent the whole day going page by page through this manual, and sort of like shock in disbelief of what we were holding in front of us. And then word got around in Pentagram and other people started coming down. So it was a very exciting day. So that happened.

And then I think like very quickly, either later that day or the next day, I think Hamish and I, we're friends and work on the same team. We just casually said, Oh man, we should put this online somewhere so that other people can see it. And so him and I just naturally did it, again, there was no plan, but he just said, yeah, I'll grab the camera. Let's go into a conference room. And let's just photographs each page, like high resolution. And then maybe we can make a website and put this up. And so we just did that very quickly. Like I was on the floor under the table. And then he was on top of the table with like a tripod that was like Jerry Ray to like go over the table. It was like a very sketchy setup, but essentially I just turned every single page and he photographed it.

And then another designer on my team at the time, sort of new web development. And so he developed this very basic website that essentially just had a grid of images. And the only cool feature about it was that it had a magnification tool, so that you could zoom into every page and read the text. And this was actually the piece of the manual that was so fascinating to us, was the way that it was written. The words and like the captions for each page were so meticulous and authoritative. This was written by Massimo Vignelli, so you're sort of imagining him writing this thing.

And so that's what we wanted other people to see. It was just the way that this manual was written. And so we'd launch that website. I guess that was in 2013, we launched the website and it did end up getting quite a bit of traction. We got a quarter of a million unique visitors in the first week that we had launched it.

Ian Paget: Wow!

Jesse Reed: Yeah. We just wanted to share it with the other designers that we knew and we thought probably other people would be interested in it. We put it on Twitter and then Michael Bierut, I think retweeted it, or just tweeted about it in general. I think Steven Heller also tweeted about it. And so between like those two heavy hitters, it sort of went mini viral. I don't think it went like viral in the true sense of the word, but within the design community, it got a lot of traction. We launched that website and got this response that was unexpected, but we didn't really have any plans beyond that. So it was just like, cool. It was like, wow! People other than us are appreciating what we had found.

Just to sort of end this part of the story and to fast track it a little bit, it wasn't until a year plus later that we sort of revisited the website and I think we mentioned it to a couple of people. And one of those people was a woman, Alex Daly, who would eventually become Hamish's partner. They weren't dating at the time, but when they first met, he mentioned this manual that we had found and the website and how it got all these hits, and how we loosely thought it would be really great if it was republished or if it was reproduced in some way. And so we mentioned that and she said, "Oh, that's a perfect project for Kickstarter." Because she has been doing a lot of work with crowdfunding and in that world.

And so she mentioned Kickstarter and that at the same time, the MTA was our client at Pentagram. And so we just mentioned to them, Hey, we found the original Vignelli manual. We thought it would be a cool project just to republish it in some way. We can do that through this thing called Kickstarter. So we explained that to them and essentially they gave us permission to republish the NYCTA manual for 30 days through Kickstarter and see what would happen.

And so the conclusion to this long introduction to the company, is that we did launch that Kickstarter. I think our goal was a hundred thousand dollars, which would allow us to print a thousand books. And at the end of the campaign, we essentially pre-sold about 7,000 books and raising, I think it was around $800,000. It was like 700% more than we were anticipating. And this sort of began the journey of Standards Manual.

Ian Paget: It's an absolutely incredible story. It's almost like finding a piece of treasure, but being able to share that treasure with everyone. I do remember when that was on Kickstarter. Everyone was talking about it. I've seen almost there being a trend since then of resurrecting the manuals. Obviously they become incredibly popular because now you have a whole company bill out off the back of that what you found at that time, which is incredible in itself.

How do you go into like recreating one of these manuals? Is it just simply a case of, like you said, going through taking photos of them or is there a more in depth process that you're running through to recreate these books?

Jesse Reed: Yeah. One thing to clarify which we've always tried to make very clear, is that we're not actually touching the design of the manuals. So we're not editing, we're not adding anything to the original content of the manual. Just with the NYCTA manual, for example, we stepped up from photographs and went to scanning. So every page is scanned. I think that one it was still I think 2,400 DPI, every single page, extremely high resolution. And then we made a very intentional decision to print the pages of the book, and leaving that paper included. We didn't delete or remove the actual paper background if you will, of the original pages of the manual.

If you've seen our reissue, you can see the yellowing of the page and sort of the texture, and even like the very subtle shadow through the punch holes where the binder went through. We just wanted this to be an archival document. We weren't looking at it, again, to suggest any changes or to modify anything about the design. It was simply to archive it and then distribute the manual as really an educational tool. That was sort of our focus and our goal from the very beginning is that we found this objects that most people don't have access to, particularly thinking about students and younger designers, even working professionals, but we just want it to make this accessible.

So we scanned every page, but the thing with the original binder or the original manual is that it's large and doesn't fit on any flatbed scanner. And so we had to scan each page twice and then stitch them together. I actually ... Give me one second, because I have the manual right in front of me. I can get like the exact page count and how-

Ian Paget: Sure. No worries.

Jesse Reed: The original manual is 364 pages. So we had to scan each of those pages twice and then stitch them together. It was a very labor intensive efforts. We had one of our, I think she was an intern at the time, Sam Solace. At Pentagram, she helped us scan every page and then we stitched them together. And then on top of that, in the original manual, there are 13 spot colours that were used for the different train lines within the system. They were printed up on the map that I think most people are familiar with.

And so we extracted and separated those colours out from the pages so that they were spot colours. And then we printed those colours that they were accurately represented from the original manual. So that's a process that also took a bit of time and that this wasn't printed just straight CMYK. Those are sort of like the highlights of the production process on how we created it. And then obviously it's not in a binder, so it's now in a hard case bound book and it's wrapped in cloth and soap strains. It wasn't meant to be a reproduction. It really is a reissue of the original manual. We try to make those things as clear as we could.

Ian Paget: I absolutely love them. I think that extra thing that you did, like actually leaving the paper in there, I found that a really nice touch because it ... You know how you found that piece of treasure originally, down in the basement? I'm going to call it treasure because it is. All the little stains on the paper, I think that's all part of it that is aged, it's been used and so on. And I think it's nice to see that. So it is almost as close as possible, looking through the thing that you actually found at that time.

I do appreciate that extra effort and all the extra details that you've done using all the different spot colours. I wasn't aware that you went into that detail. So it really goes to show the attention to detail that you have gone to recreate them. Based on my experience of what you've done, every time I get a piece it's immaculate quality, you really do strive to create the very best quality product. Thank you as a fellow graphic designer for going to the extra length, because it just makes it such a nice piece that you want to collect, and it's a pleasant to look through. But obviously it's educational as well that you can reference back through that material as well.

Jesse Reed: Yeah. Thank you.

Ian Paget: You're very welcome. So you've got to this point now where you have recreated quite a few different manuals and you've gone through each one in a lot of detail. You would have looked through all of them very carefully, especially if you are having to scan each page in some cases twice. Have you learned any lessons from those manuals by studying them in the way that you have?

Jesse Reed: Yeah. We've done asked this question before, and I feel like each time I have a slightly different answer because even when you're spending time with it, for the first time you miss things that you don't see until you sort of given it a break and that you look at it a year later, or the more so. I guess what I have observed as the most interesting part about these older manuals is that a lot of it really is still the same today. I call them legacy manuals and I don't know where I got that term. And there's certainly not the very first ever brand guidelines that were designed, the ones that we have republished. There's many, many amazing examples and Unit Editions. The publisher in the UK, they published two volumes of manual books.

And so those show a much wider variety of them, but really they were very early examples of brand guidelines. And they weren't called that. I mean, sort of like the vocabulary and the nomenclature. Now we call them brand guidelines, but they were standards manuals back then. Everything being done in a very analog way. And the systems that they had to think about before computers were involved.

So none of these manuals came from a computer, none of them, all of the ones that we have republished. I would say the large majority of the ones that are in the unit edition books. And so you really have a sense of appreciation for the thought and care and pre-consideration for the design systems that these designers were creating. They didn't rely on technology or computers to generate the outcome. They've really had to meticulously think about every circumstance and application, whether it was a business card or a letterhead or the side of the space shuttle in NASA's case.

And everything is just detailed to the smallest nuance into the smallest degree. Even what's inside of the manuals, all of it was drawn by hand. All of the applications, all of the type setting was either done with photo type setting or other sort of early analog processes. So you just really have a sense of appreciation for thinking through a design system and not letting the tools or technology drive the design. Really these are so highly conceptual and sort of driven by a really big, simple idea that everything is sort of like in the place that it should be. And then the way that it's articulated to continue that system is so direct and straightforward. There are no questions sort of left unanswered.

Again, going back to that writing component of the manuals, the way in which they're articulated are so clear that really anybody could pick up any one of these guidelines and recreate the design system, even if you're a designer right out of school, even a very early designer. So I think that's what I appreciate the most, and that's what we carry forward. In our own design practice, Hamish and I run a design office called Order, and we do client work and we create these brand guidelines for our clients ourselves, and definitely the way in which they're structured and written and authored, I think we pick up a lot of that from the early manuals.

The only difference is that technology has changed and the applications have changed. So now we're dealing with a lot more web digital applications rather than print materials and that's okay, but the principles of a design system and the way in which it expands across an organisation or a company or anything, those are really very similar to what you find in those early manuals.

Ian Paget: That really doesn't surprise me at all, because if I was going to create a standards manual, I would reference what's been done previously and you always look to the best that's been created. They just work. I've got both the unit additions manuals that got put together that are fantastic. Even though the applications have changed, like you said, it's such a useful reference to create something new. It really doesn't make sense to reinvent the wheel because what was created then is still very much relevant here today. So it's not surprising.

Jesse Reed: Yeah. One sort of aspect of brand guidelines or standards manuals that now we're seeing is that they've sort of came from printed sheets in ring binders. And then in the nineties they moved to PDFs through the early two thousands. And now, it's no secret, or it's not really a new technology, but now you have brand guidelines that live on the web. And so companies and organisations have a website that acts as their brand guidelines.

It's amazing because in that medium you can go there and everything is always up to date. There's no versioning of PDFs or files, and then you can download those assets immediately. They're always direct and up to date. That's what we've started to do with a lot of our clients is that we're developing website brand guidelines as an alternative to PDFs that are really outdated at this point.

It's fascinating to see the sort of arc of this particular subset of design, which is part of the reason why I think it was as popular as it was. I think a lot of non-designers and even designers, maybe young designers or students, weren't that familiar with this sort of just the object of a brand guidelines or sort of the deliverable of a brand guidelines. A lot of people didn't know that that existed. And then that was something that was handed over to a brand when you develop an identity for it. So I think exposing essentially like the culmination and the codification of that identity system in one document was new to some people.

And I think it's a really exciting component to look through like, wow, these are all the pieces that go together to create the brands that I'm very familiar with, whether it's like FedEx or UPS or a museum or MoMA, and all of those have a toolkit of parts and pieces of design that needs to be instructed on how you put those together in order to communicate the sort of the brand and their mission, their communication. That's the really sort of cool aspects of where brand guidelines have gotten to today.

Ian Paget: That was brilliant. Thank you for explaining where it's originated from and what people are doing today. It's not something that I've thought to ask about, but actually it's useful for people to be aware of, if they're not already. I do really want to ask you about your agency and your experience, but just before I move on to that. With the manuals, out of curiosity, what are you working on today? I have recently purchased, or pre-ordered what you're doing with NASA, which is really exciting. Are there any other exciting projects that you might want to mention?

Jesse Reed: I wish there was, but The Worm, which is the book you're referencing, that was ready for print I think last week or a couple of weeks ago. And so now we're in the proofing stages of it and it's going to be on press within the week or so. We try to do one thing at a time. I think one year we did at least like two or three books and we were just totally burnt out from it. There's quite a lot that goes into it. And honestly, it really is just myself and Hamish leading the project. And then we might bring on one designer to help out with the production, but it's a very small team. And so there's a lot of heavy lifting that needs to be done sort of between all three of us. And so just on top of our day jobs, it gets quite time consuming and exhausting.

We don't have anything simmering at this moment. We always have a couple of ideas, but I think where The Worm, that book, is an example of where the company has gone. We're not really republishing or reproducing manuals that much anymore, because we sort of feel that two or three that we've done are the ones that, the biggest and sort of best ones that maybe we'll want to do. And ones that have I think the broadest audience of interest, and that just sort of like set the standard for so many companies and design systems that came after them. And I'm referencing the NYCTA is one, NASA is one, and then the EPA system is another.

I don't know how many manuals will actually continue to reissue, but what is really exciting is that we get to do these other types of books, like the Parks book or Chermayeff & Geismar & Haviv, those sort of monograph. And then The Worm, which is essentially a photography book. We'll look forward to doing some more traditional publishing in that sense are ones that have still a foundation in the history of design. So we have like a criteria for what books we would or wouldn't publish. And I think as long as they include design history, more specifically graphic design, I think we wouldn't be opposed to other areas of design. Who knows maybe one day we'll do something in architecture or fashion design or interior design or product design.

But right now there's nothing very juicy to reveal, unfortunately, but we're very proud and excited for The Worm to come out. We'll let that happen and then see where things go. But that's the beauty of being a publisher and being an independent publisher is that we don't have anybody pressuring us to do another book. Maybe we'll never do another book, hopefully we will. If we didn't publish a book for the next two years, like to us, that's okay, we're not trying to meet a quota or we're not trying to force it. We're really just publishing the things that we want to see be more accessible and teach. And that's sort of how we will, I think, continue to go about it. Sorry if that's not as exciting answer as you'd want.

Ian Paget: No, that was a really good answer. It's actually quite inspiring to think that something like that can be created just by two or three people, because you've recreated quite a few of the manuals and you brought out quite a few books. And to think that is just from a couple of people that are running their own agency as well, I think it's amazing what you've done. I actually think the approach is nice because as someone who likes to collect these books, if you was to release three or four a year, it kind of saturates it a little bit. It's actually quite nice that you release one every year and drip out slowly.

The NASA book I mentioned, I don't think that comes out for a while yet, but I've seen it promoted in a number of places. And I thought I'm going to pre-order it, it looks amazing. It's something I could buy now and I'll look forward to coming out, was it like November or something? It is quite a while away. I think because you are releasing them quite slowly, it makes it more accessible to be able to collect them all.

Jesse Reed: Yeah. Transparency is a big thing. I think I've said that word a couple of times with our company, we really do like being transparent about our process and the way that we go about it and what you're getting or what you're not getting. And the reason why you won't get that book until later this year is because it is a pre-order and we essentially created the book or the concept of the book very quickly. I mean, I would say within four weeks time from the data, we said, "Hey, we should do a book of these images celebrating The Worm, because NASA is bringing it back."

And four weeks later we had released it on our website on a pre-order. There's no physical book created yet, but it's very similar to the way that we did it through Kickstarter. Essentially, we're just doing it ourselves now. Because Kickstarter allows you to have an idea and then show in some way or another, what that idea is going to look like once it comes to fruition. And then you ask people to fund that idea and then once it's funded, then you go and make it.

Now we're just doing that ourselves. And so we're using our website as that platform and the pre-orders, we had it on pre-order for about a month, and then we knew how many copies were purchased. And so then we know at least we need to make that many. And then we sort of anticipate that we want to have this throughout the year and for the holidays. And so we're able to invest some of that profit basically of what we make into purchasing more books so that it extends further. It really is a model that has been working for us. And I think more and more independent publishers are probably using that model.

Actually just today, on the Order side of things, we've designed and we're helping to produce another book that's related to the music industry and they are also launching a book on pre-order today. They're not going to place the print order for another two weeks. And then we'll see how many of these sold, and then they can sort of justify that print-on without guessing.

Before, traditional publishers would just have to guess how many books they were going to sell. And so if you thought you were going to sell 10,000 books, and then you only end up selling 2000, that's a big issue and you've wasted a lot of money. Yeah, so that's the reason why we do pre-order and that's how we sort of started this company, which is through Kickstarter and that sort of transparent buying scenario from the consumer was delivered.

Ian Paget: It's good to know that as well. I'm glad that you've been transparent about it because actually pre-ordering it quite early on is supporting what you're doing and making sure that you can actually produce it, and so on. It's a little bit like supporting a Kickstarter project. I wasn't aware that that was the way it works. Definitely the next time I see one that comes up that I really want, I will be pre-ordering it early on as a way of supporting what you're doing. So I think it's fantastic what you are doing. I've said so many times, the quality and the attention to detail is superb. You've maintained that quality through everything that you've done so far.

Jesse Reed: Thank you. Thank you so much.

Ian Paget: I understand that you worked for probably one of the most famous identity graphic designers out there today, Michael Bierut, who hopefully everyone that's listening will be aware of. I think that in itself is phenomenal to be able to work with someone of his caliber. How does one get the opportunity to work with Michael Bierut?

Jesse Reed: Yeah, definitely. That was an experience that I will cherish forever. It shapes who I am as a designer and a person to this very day. I and we, Hamish and I definitely owe Michael quite a lot. And I think all of the designers who have worked for him would say a very similar thing. Michael and I have a have an interesting relationship or I guess a history that's sort of similar. What that means is that him and I both attended the same university. We both went to the University of Cincinnati in Ohio, and they have an incredible design school for graphic design, industrial design, fashion, digital architecture and in arts. And so it's a very well known design school.

Admittedly, I only went there because it was an in-state school and cheaper than going out of state. When I enrolled for college, I really had no idea what I wanted to do as a profession. I didn't originally go into a school for graphic design, I transferred at the end of my freshman year, but it was in my design classes that I first heard of Michael's name. And it was basically through our professors showing student work. And they would say, this project was done by Michael Bierut, who is now a partner at a design firm called Pentagram. And I had no idea what Pentagram was. I didn't know what that meant. It didn't mean anything to me when I first heard it. And then you start to dig a little deeper and then you see the amazing work that they have done and who they are. I mean, this is like me as a sophomore in college.

I was aware of Michael's work in school. And I think a couple of my professors mentioned that they thought someday I would probably do well at a place like Pentagram, just because ... I sort of just wanted to do with the work that Michael was doing or that looks like the way that Michael was designing. I was certainly inspired by people like Josef Müller-Brockmann and Paul Rand and Tomoko Miho, and sort of all of those sort of figures, sort of Swiss international style. Very systematic thinking.

And so one of my professors mentioned that one day I should get in touch with Michael and see if I could intern at Pentagram. Actually on one of my internships in Seattle, Washington, I was working at a firm called Cornell Anderson and one of the partners there, Lisa Cherveny, she worked for Michael, I think back when he was working for Massimo Vignelli and then transferred to Pentagram when he became a partner. She essentially put me in touch with Michael's intern coordinator.

She loosely said like, "Oh, would you want to intern for Pentagram?" I said, "Yeah, sure. One day" And I didn't really think she was serious, but she did put me in touch and I ended up getting an internship while I was still in school on Michael's team. And so I had a three month internship with him and I don't think ... He's so busy and has so many projects going on, so many designers. I don't know how much he really pays attention to all the interns that come through. I mean, he pays attention to them, but there's so many, he can't really remember all of the names and I don't blame him. It'd be difficult for anybody.

So I did that internship and got to work with him a few times, but I don't think I left a big mark at that moment. And then I guess fast forward to me graduating college, I moved to New York City. My first job was at MoMA, The Museum of Modern Art, working under Julia Hoffman on that team and then a year and a half into it, I was sort of reintroduced to Michael through an AIGA event and he let me know that there was a position open on his team and if I wanted to interview for it.

It's funny because of course I wanted to interview for it. But again, if I'm being honest, I was only working at MoMA for a year and a half. And that was my very first job out of college. And I just sort of thought arbitrarily that you had to work at a place for more than two years, if it was your first job. I don't know where I got that from, but so I had this moment where I was like, well, I don't really know if I'm ready to leave my job. I actually really liked it. MoMA was an amazing experience, but I said, I'll just go interview. Of course I'm not going to pass that up and see what happens.

So I interviewed, and then I left the interviews thinking, okay, I want this job. Like now, I've made my decision. I really wanted it. I sent a followup email to Michael saying, thank you. And then I think that evening he emailed me and saying that he would love to offer me the position. I put in my two weeks notice and that started my position with Michael.

Ian Paget: That's amazing. I bet you were so excited. I mean, especially, having learned about him through school and so on. It must've been almost like getting your dream job at that point.

Jesse Reed: 100%. I thought maybe when I was, late, late in my career, in my forties or whatever age, I wanted to make up that maybe one day I would work at Pentagram and sort of like work my way up to it. But I was ... I'm trying to think how old I was. I mean, I must've been 23, around that when I started at Pentagram. So I was very young and that's actually ... I quickly learned that's pretty typical Pentagram. They have a lot of designers that come in there right after school or pretty early in their careers. It's a pretty standard thing. Yeah, I never thought I would work there so early.

And then I ended up staying with Michael for five and a half years. Hamish was there for six years. He was an intern. While I was working at MoMA, he was interning and then sort of rolled into the designer position, sort of one after the other, when I had a break. So I interned. Went back to school. Finished up my last two quarters and then worked at MoMA and then came back to Pentagram.

I would say every designer who, at least on Michael's team, I'll only speak for him because every team is so different. Everyone who becomes a designer, I would say 95% of the time has interned with him previously. It's very rare that someone gets hired right off the bat as a designer. It's truly sort of an easing in transition that you sort of intern, you make sure that you like it. Because it's not for everyone. It is a very intense working environment. And then if you're lucky, there's a seat that opens up and if you're there at the right time, you can sort of raise your hand and hope to get it.

Ian Paget: That's amazing. What is it like working with someone like Michael Bierut? Because I've seen him speak, I've also seen Paula Scher speak here who is another partner of the company. And I do remember Paula being quite firm when someone asked about working with her, she made it very clear that she is the person that makes the call on everything. And you just need to do as you're told. She was quite firm about that in this presentation she did. It was an answer to a question. Is it the same worker with Michael? I mean, do you pretty much do exactly as Michael says, or do you have some input? Do you work together? Can you give us some insight into how that typically works at a company like Pentagram?

Jesse Reed: Sure. Yeah. That example really I think paints the picture of Pentagram and how it's different from other agencies. Because as you know, and I think probably most of the people listening know that it's a partnership. So there's no owner of Pentagram, there's no CEO, there are partners that make up the company and all of those partners are very different from one another. It's a very personality driven company, I guess in my opinion, you could argue that.

Every partner has their own approach. They're a different personality, a different interest in design and sort of they tend to do a sort of a body of work that is more focused on either editorial work or exhibition design or product or identity design. And that's the beauty of Pentagram, I think. So Paula is very different than Michael and I think they would both agree. Michael is different than Eddie Opara and different than Natasha Jen. And the list goes on through all the partners.

They each run their teams independent from one another. The structure and the process in which designer will go through on any given team is almost black and white. That's why I don't even generalise Pentagram because you can't generalise it as a company. You have to say who it was you were working under and which partner. I can only speak from my own experience and with Michael. I mean, listen, the general statement that I make is that it was the best and one of the best experiences of my life and working with him, he became, whether or not he wanted to or not, my mentor. I really looked up to him as a person and he really does shape you as a human being.

And then of course, the way in which he handles design and the relationship with other human beings, which is what we're doing, we're working with people. He really exposes the humanity of design. One of the lessons that I learned from him, one of many, was simply listening to the other person on the other side of the table when you are asked to give your advice on design work. So you're hired by somebody, they're trying to achieve something, and they think that you can help them achieve that.

And really your role in the very beginning of that process is to simply not talk and to just listen to them and hear what they have to say and what their goals are, what their pain points are. I mean, it's very similar and I don't like this whole analogy for designers being like doctors, because I think we're nowhere close to doing the work that doctors do, but in the sense of having a bedside manner and really understanding the human behind the organisation or the brand which we're designing for most of the time, that's really where the work starts.

He really taught me and I think everyone that if you listen enough, they will articulate what it is that they really want. And then it's your job to sort of observe that and then to reimagine or to interpret what that looks like visually, because that's what they can't do. He really taught me to listen first and design second. And I think I applied that to this very day. And I try to also teach that to our designers working at Order.

Ian Paget: That's fascinating. When you say about listening, I mean, that sounds obvious as an outsider, that when the client comes to you, you need to listen to what they have to say. Is Michael asking any particular questions to try and trigger them to describe what they're looking for or what they need. Is there like any extra little bit of nugget that is there that could help people?

Jesse Reed: I'm trying to remember. What I'll say is that there is no list. There's not like a list of 10 questions like he always ran through. It really was different every time. That's sort of the beauty of it. He's conversational. It's not like you are going into some sort of interrogation and you have to get through the first five questions to unlock the next five questions. And only if you do that, will you get the result that you're looking for.

He treats every person and every client differently. I mean, treats them with the same amount of respect and sort of understanding, but also understands that every person is different, the situation is different, the industry is different. So it's not sort of a one size fits all approach. I think that's what we took away from it and the way that I go about my own client interviews and the way that we sort of meet new people is that I need to understand who you are first in order for me to even ask any questions and to understand your background and your history and why you're doing what you're doing.

I mean, his clients are so diverse. He'll work for restaurants or a technology company or a school. And that could be like a public school or it could be university, or it could be ... I mean, you name it. It could be the MTA, it could be anyone. And so that diversity was the most exciting part of that job and what we are luckily sort of doing at Order. We sort of found ourselves also having that diversity of work. Right now I'm working on an identity for a yoga studio, and then also an IT company, and then also a college and higher education. All three of those clients and those people and those groups of people are very different from one another. And the questions that I would ask one don't necessarily apply to the other. It really is about trying to understand who those people are first and then getting into specific questions next.

I'm sure he asks things like if you were a car, what would you be? Or if you were a meal, what food would you be? Sort of like weird zany questions like that, that don't have a lot to do with design, but sort of gets them thinking visually to some degree that they might not have practice doing. If you ask someone to say what type base are you, most people who aren't designers won't know how to answer that. So you have to ask them something that relates to them. Again, like if you're working with a yoga studio, you have to relate that to some sort of aspect of yoga or mindful practice or whatever it might be for them to start speaking about themselves in the way that their company is sort of being run.

I don't think Michael ask this too much, but we're really fascinated by the business aspect of our clients. And we'd like to know how do they make money? Like, what is their business model? Or, how do they reach people? What are the approaches that they take in communicating? This has been said many times before, but design is about everything that's not designed. So, you ask the questions that are not design related and that should influence the work that you will be doing, the outcome of that work.

Ian Paget: That's absolutely fascinating. I think that's one thing that really sets apart graphic designers that are really succeeding out there. They are asking questions and truly understanding what the problem is and working in that way. I think that that's, one of the things I've learned by speaking to lots of different designers, is asking questions and listening. So I think that's a really fascinating insight.

I'd love to ask more questions about Michael, but we've got 10 minutes left and I want to hear your side of the story. So in 2017 you left Pentagram and you started your own agency, which you mentioned earlier, which is Order. You mentioned that this was your dream job, you was doing something amazing work with Michael Bierut. That was an incredible experience for you. What's the reason why you left that to start your own business?

Jesse Reed: Yeah. Another very valid question and one that people often wonder, particularly coming from a place like that. And as a designer, it's like, why would you ever leave? Hamish and I had been there, like I said, for about five and a half, six years. We had come from interns to designers, to associate partners, which from a role perspective, that's sort of the highest you can go to at Pentagram, if you're not a partner, and that was amazing. I think we were very fortunate and really respected that position and that title to be an associate partner.

I'll sort of answer a question that you asked, I didn't really answer, but that leads into this general answer is that, Michael, working with him, from what you said about Paula, and how she sort of had the response of, she's the one in charge and you as the designer should listen and do as you're told. Michael had a very different approach. He gave you almost full autonomy over time, when you were working with clients.

And so three, four years into working with him, we were running projects, more or less independently as a designer. And I guess another thing that I should clarify is that on his team, you don't work with the other designers. The structure is that Michael is the partner and he brings in new clients and he sort of drives the general maybe overarching approach and the direct sort of communication with the client. And then he assigns one designer to that job. And it is your sole responsibility to see that project through from the very beginning to the very end. You don't work as a team, and that's a very different way of working than I think most people are used to. It is stressful in the beginning, but then over time, you start to really love the ownership that you get by working that way.

And so it's really you and Michael thinking and working together through that entire process. This leads me to say that because he did that so often and gave you such trust and responsibility, and until you seriously messed up, which you were terrified of ever doing, you were acting as sort of a lone designer, and always with his support, you could show him things all the time. And a lot of the times, he would just be like, "Yeah, this is great. Run with it." He just really trusted you as a designer, if he was hiring you on his team.

Almost to his fault or the detriments of his team, because of that independence and autonomy that you get over time, you really feel this confidence to be making decisions on your own and to work with clients directly, speak with them directly, and sort of go through that entire process without having someone looking over your shoulder, which he did not do. And again, it was an incredible amount of pressure to have that trust and responsibility.

So five and a half, six years into it, we felt that, man, if there was ever a moment that we could do this on our own and sort of prove to ourselves that we could do this sort of outside of the wing of Michael, it was just like a gut feeling. It felt like this was the right moment. Hamish and I had been running Standards Manual at that point for, let's see, two to three years. So we had that company together, and that him and I, we really saw that we ran a business very well together. We made business decisions very quickly and very sort of unanimously together. We never, I mean, everyone argues, but we sort of worked very seamlessly together from a business point of view.

That company, which had become a company, we had released I think, two or three books at that point. It was more than just a side project. It was taking up our nights and weekends and like, it was getting sort of bigger than we thought it was going to be. We had standards manual, we had a few clients that we were probably exhausted of working with at Pentagram. They were all amazing, but you just, at a certain point, want to see what else is out there.

And so we thought let's just do this. We were both 29/30 years old. And we said, "This is probably the right moment." Hamish was the first one to say he's thinking of leaving. I'll just tell you that really, try to keep this brief, but this sort of the seed of how Order started was that Hamish mentioned after the MasterCard identity rebrand, which he led and did with Michael, once that was going to launch, he was going to leave Pentagram. And so once he said that, I said, "Oh man, well, I could probably leave sometime soon thereafter myself."

And so we had this conversation at breakfast one morning. We were speaking at a conference in Atlanta and we were at breakfast having this conversation. He said he was going to leave. I sort of said, Oh, I guess, I probably could too. Then we said, well, let's do Standards Manual full-time and let's do an agency as well. And so we thought of the name very quickly. And then we've registered the domain, which was available and we got email addresses. This was all within a 60 minute period of time. And I'm really not exaggerating at all.

And then later that day we sort of walked to a bar and we just got a couple of beers and we sketched out the logo and we like did all the things, which it's really is exactly the way that our company brand looks like today. I have like the piece of paper, I still saved it, of what that looks like. It came to fruition that day and within that hour very quickly. Without sort of drawing this on too long, when we left Pentagram, we felt ready and we felt that we had learned so much from Michael and our experience at Pentagram, that we felt like we could try to do this on our own.

We definitely carry over a lot of the same practices and principles that we learned specifically from Michael. And again, not like generalising Pentagram, but specifically from him, on how we manage a team, how we work with our clients. And that's where we are today.

Ian Paget: That's a phenomenal story. I love how quickly you created everything. Just a quick conversation and register and that domain. It's a really incredible story. I think in terms of our time for our interview, we're pretty much up. I'd love to keep asking question after question, but maybe we'll save that for a later date. But that was absolutely incredible. Thank you for sharing the story of Standards Manual, your experience with Michael and then obviously your own agency as well. I think it's been an absolutely fantastic episode. Thank you so much for your time. It's been amazing.

Jesse Reed: Yeah, my pleasure. Thanks for having me.