National campaigns

- [Interviewer] Von's almost obsessive focus on process and refining his craft has taken him to stages and projects around the world. He's a high demand conference speaker and is regularly hired to collaborate on creating and evolving some of the most recognizable brands in the world. (intense music) - [Von] Over the years, there's been a few projects where somebody with acid usually it's somebody who's not plugged in or industry and they find out what I do and they go, what's something you've done that I've seen? And usually I have something of a marquee status I can point to the one right now would be the Dungeons and Dragons logo. So growing up, I played that when it first came out, and then their creative director contacted me a couple years ago and it started with branding, rebranding their parent mark for that product line and then it was going to roll into all the iconography for the game and I got the logo done. And then Hasbro came in and fired their whole creative staff at Wizards of the Coast. - [Interviewer] Oh no. - [Von] They still use the logo, but I never did get to do the iconography. - [Interviewer] So you're still somewhat king of nerd them? - [Von] Somewhat, yeah anytime a friend of mine, I have a couple of comic book artists friends and they go to comic book conventions and have booths where they sell their art and they're always sending me pictures of people wearing the DND logo. So that sounds cool. - [Interviewer] What are some other ones that? - [Von] This goes back about three or four years I did all the packaging for Orbit gum at that time. And all the graphics on it were just made up of dots. And I was kind of excited about that. Apparently, whoever was doing the dots, decided they didn't want to do it anymore. So they gave it all to me and I did it for him. And then they never told me when they got rolled out and I was at a grocery store one day and they saw the package out. That's my designs you know, and so I grabbed like 12 packs of gum. I'm buying it I put it down the lady is looking at me. - [Interviewer] Why are you buying so much gum? - [Von] I did the artwork on there as all excited she picks one up looks at it. You mean the dots? Like totally unemotional, and I'm like, yes, the dots. Thanks, lady. - [Interviewer] Did you work or were you on one of the pitches for the Wendy's logo? - [Von] Yeah, I worked with a company out of San Francisco on that. I developed like three or four Wendy iterations for them. But they ended up I don't think Wendy's wanted to full sell change the character. So they ended up just updating the kind of same look and feel by just improving it. I like what they did. I don't buy the whole, the hidden mom in it. I just think that was a happenstance 'cause that wasn't in any of the creative groups. - [Interviewer] That's when I told my kids that you're working on that, so every time they go by Wendy's, they still think it's your logo. So least they think you did. - [Von] No, not my logo. That's the thing is a lot of the projects I work on. A lot of is exploratory. So I'm part of the process to help them move a project to get it to a point where they decide to go sometimes it's the direction I do, but a lot of times it isn't so. - [Interviewer] So one of the ways that we connect every year is we get to see each other at conferences and sometimes we'll speak at same conference, which is great. And, but I know you're doing a lot of other things now. So do you want to tell us a little bit about that? - [Von] Sure, this goes back 2012, I was approached by linda.com. And right at the time I had a publisher wanting me to do a book and their contract was sitting on my desk and I was like on I really don't want to get in the middle of the book again, it's fun when it's done. It's a nightmare when you're working on. So as soon as Linda offered to do something, I just thought the format was, would be a lot more enjoyable and engaging. So I turned the contract down on the book and started developing content for Linda and it's designed, I call it skill based design content. So whether it's talking about logo design, or just building vector graphics of any variety. I just basically document, create a process and do it in a way where others can kind of sit in on the process and learn from it, it's been a lot of fun I enjoy it just because it's like a mini vacation. I get to go to California they put me up in a hotel you know and they just record me doing stuff I would do whether somebody paid me to do it or not. - [Interviewer] Sounds like a dream right now. - [Von] Yeah, it's kind of nice. And the fun part about it they never thought about beforehand was some of the people I get to meet. So I've been emailed out of the blue by it can be somebody young who's just starting out and, but getting an email where they say I learned more from going through your course than I did, going through the design program at the college I graduated from and that it makes me feel good and on the other hand I feel sorry for them but they're and there's other ones where it's like some guy who got injured on the job. And he needed to be retrained for a new career. And he always wanted to do artwork, but he just happened to grow up in a time period where his dad said, you need to get a real job. And so he never pursued it. So now he is and I get an email from him. He's just thanking me because it's helped him to understand what it's going to take to do it. And so it's that kind of stuff. That's kind of cool. It's fun, I enjoy it. - [Interviewer] That's fantastic. So, do you draw every day, you think? - [Von] Yeah, yeah, definitely not, you know, not as much as my daughter. She draws all the time and so much so that she's building a following within kind of the manga art community. And so she goes to these little Comic Con conventions. With her friend Jenna who has an online comic that's really popular, - [Interviewer] What's it called? - [Von] Oh, you know. - [Interviewer] Okay, we'll put it in the post at the end of the show notes. - [Von] It'll be in the show notes, but they have their own art booth and they set it up and go to these cons and she gets all her prints done by an online printer out in New York and she sells them so she's doing she's really good. I look at her when I was her age and she's better than I was so she's going to be better than me when she is my age and she's smarter. She's just a lot smarter than I was at that age, yeah. - [Interviewer] Seems like all other kids will love her that way.