SNASK: Doing Things Differently

Ian Paget: Something I'm keen to do with this, is create a little bit of a journey story for the listeners. So, I think probably the best starting point is, first of all, to mention SNASK, which is your agency. So I think we should talk a little bit about the origin story. I don't know how it all started, so can you guys share a little bit about how SNASK started out?

Fredrik Öst: Me and two other co-founders were studying in Caroline, north of England, for three years. And in second year at university, basically, we did our internships in New York and London.

And we decided to, we all wanted to start our own agency instead of getting employed. And people asked us like, "You need at least 10 years of experience to start your own agency." And then we thought, "Whose experience this that we're getting?" And we thought of, probably, old men's experience, where loads of it comes from. And then we felt like, "Then we might as well just do all the mistakes ourselves. And 10 year along the line, we will have found our own way and their own solutions to problems and ways."

That's basically how it started out. And that's where we are still. Almost 15 years later, we still make mistakes and we try and learn from them.

Ian Paget: I think that's really interesting. And I think we should dive into to some of that. Because I know, starting an agency straight out of university, you have no experience, you haven't been in an agency before; you're not familiar with how things work.

Unless you've obviously spoken to some people. So, you will inevitably make some mistakes along the way. Is there any that come to mind that you could share, so that if there's someone listening now that wants to do the same as you did, they could potentially avoid making those same mistakes?

Fredrik Öst: It's hard. We started with us, like best friends. So that could be one mistake to choose your business partner wisely. Because it will affect, basically, everything in your business, if you can't work together. And just because you're best friends, doesn't mean that you are optimal as a working team. That's one thing I think is really important. Because you don't want to lose friendship because of business or the other way around either.

Erik Kockum: Yeah, That's definitely one. And I think, the whole freedom aspect of when you're starting something, you feel like you don't want to put any restraints on what you do. You don't want like, "No rules, no nothing.:" It's just going to be like, "We can do whatever we want, however we want it." And I think that was something that we realised early on, that, that doesn't work.

Because it's like, "You need some structure and agreements on things, make you feel more free." Because then, you understand the framework that you're in. I remember that, the first year is when we were just on vacation and stuff, we were like, "Whenever we have time, we just take time off. We can do it a little bit how we feel." It sounded so great.

We could just be off when we felt like it, or when we could. But then in the end, of course, that had a complete opposite effect that no one knew when we could take time off. We were always trying to clam vacations together. No one really knew what was the deal. So it just became this looking at each other, "Is it okay if I'm off on Friday? Because I need to go away and do the... Or, "Will someone be mad?" But I think those type of things too, it's important to find that balance. But like Fredrik said before, it's a lot about trying it out too.

I almost don't want to say too many things like, "Don't do this or do this." Because our way was to find out ourselves. And I think that's the best way.

Ian Paget: I think that's something that really shows through everything that you guys are doing. Because I was watching a couple of videos over the last few days, as research for this interview, and there is stuff that you guys do that I don't know if any other agency does.

Fredrik Öst: Love that.

Ian Paget: As an example, you have a band. I was really surprised with that. You have your own beer. You have, literally, this painting with all of your staff in. There's some really stuff that seems quite... It's not something that you would expect to be attached to an agency any in any way. And it seems very inventive, and it's part of your identity. So I was wondering if you could talk about some of those things as well. How did you end up with a band?

Fredrik Öst: I think that, in general, maybe because we didn't get any experience from the agency world. We just invented what we thought a company should be like. And to us, we invented it so that it would enrich our lives. And instead of going to a job, we would go to a hobby. And in this place, which was called the company, we could do whatever we wanted. So if we wanted to create a record label, we could just do that.

The story of the band, it was Erik's band from the beginning. And then the singer sold it to me at an after party at 4:30 AM in the morning, after I bashed, I told him, "Your trombonists suck, and your name is shitty, and you play very strange music, Kang Chanda. Why don't you play rock and roll like you want to?" And then he said, "You can change all these things, if you buy it from me." I'm not sure that, he didn't have any right to sell his own band, without asking Erik or anyone else before.

I couldn't buy it, but then we agreed, anyway, and then said, "Let's start a record label and, and sign you guys, if for the same rule apply." So, Erik, you know the rest, right?

Erik Kockum: Yeah, yeah. For sure. And I was a fun journey. What we realised quite early on... Freddy saying, "We mixed our work a lot with our social life, and what we like to do." Maybe other people would be like, "But that has nothing to do with your agency." Or like, "That's something that you should keep separate."

But we, instead, brought it into the agency, tried to... The things that we like to do, we wanted to enrich through the agency. Music is one of those things. We were having a club with SNASK too, at the biggest music venue in Stockholm. And then, we could instead create budgets, and do things, almost the way we had dreamt about when we were running clubs on our own, before SNASK.

You never had any budget, you were just putting all your time and effort in, to trying to create something. And suddenly, we could give ourselves some more muscles to do really fun stuff. And that made us more happy. The music industry is one of those things, that where, if you compare it to the commercial world of making branding, or films, or something like, "You can take a small budget post for something, and lift it over to the music industry, and you get the whole album; made and produced.

It's funny sometimes, when you compare worlds like that, where buddies and stuff can get through as well. And that was something too, that we were like, "If we see this as the same, we can actually start doing a lot of things." The band will say, "Definitely a fun thing." I just want to add to that, none of this this stuff has never been a business idea.

It's never been a marketing idea, where we're like, "If we do this, we might get attention, or something." It's always been more an interest that we're just trying to push, or have fun.

Fredrik Öst: It's basically our passion projects because client work is fun, but it's way easier to have more fun to be your own clients, sometimes, and create your own projects. So we have lots of those projects, where we do our own things.

All our bathrooms are very strange. One bathroom has eight toilet rolls. It sings in different tones, when you pull them. Pretty intimidating to go to the bathroom, in that one. And the other one is, the world's smallest Will Ferrell museum in the world. I guess, all of these projects that we do, even if it's a beer, or a bathroom, or a rock band, it's comes from passion, like Erik says, it's us wanting to do something.

Erik Kockum: And it's also fantastic to have yourself as a client, in that way, that we are like, "We're going to create posters for this club night. Hmm, a poster budget, that's often very small. But what if we do it for like 5,000 pounds or something?"

And the client is like, "Us being like, 'Yeah. That sounds like a great idea. It's a gold foil. The biggest gold foil that anyone has ever seen. And he's put it on a big basket. What a great idea. Here's the finance.'" That's a fun thing to be in, as well, to give you...

Ian Paget: I love it really. Because when you think about branding, especially for an agency, all of this stuff that you're doing, even though it's not planned, you are probably attracting a lot of the best talent that's out there, because you look like a fun agency. You don't look like a business. It looks like, "when you go and work for you guys, it's going to be fun." It's going to be somewhere where you want to be with people that you want to spend time with, doing work that you actually want to do, rather than companies like I've worked before, where it's in a stay-all-office. You are told to sit down between certain times. All this stuff. I think, even though it was an intentional, it's definitely worked in your favour.

Fredrik Öst: Like Erik said, we never did anything with that purpose in mind. But as you say, of course, most companies believe that if we create a really boring office, and tell people to sit down and work really hard, they will achieve great results. Which is stupid. And it's probably the opposite. If you give people freedom and you create a very fun environment, that is also inspiring, God forbid, and people will thrive.

It sounds like we're genius, when we cracked this code, but Harry Potter could have cracked it. It's very easy to realise.

Erik Kockum: But it's funny, that everyone, when you start a company, or business, it's like, "You believe that you have to act in a certain way." You immediately step into this old structures of how it's supposed to be done. That's something that we found very quickly. That we found out that, everyone was trying to tell us to act accordingly.

But as soon as we broke some of those rules, whatever it was like, "We don't need our office to look in this certain way. Or we can have a bar in our office because it's fun. And it's a social thing where everyone wants to hang out."

Whatever it was, that was things that really stood out for other people. They were like, "Wow! How did you dare to do that? But you're an agency." It was almost like, "We'd never thought about, that that would be almost a rebellious thing to do."

When people reacted to it, we were like, "What? This is actually a thing." And then when we know start, that then maybe we wanted to do it even more. Because it's fun to make people a bit upset sometimes.

Ian Paget: I just really like what you said about, bringing in your own personal interest into it. With my stuff, I focus mainly on logo design, all they show is logo design, blah, blah, blah. But actually, mixing your own interest into what you do and... As an agency, it seems more like a personal brand rather than a natural agency. You are really injecting things that you all seem to like. Not just graphic design, it's a bit of everything in there and all your personalities really shine through it.

It's not about the work, it's about the team, and the team make this amazing work. And there's the interest and everyone's getting support order to be creative; to create even better work. Like I said, even though it wast intentional, it's probably working really well for you guys.

Fredrik Öst: Thank you for saying, that's super nice. I think that we always wanted to empower everyone to be the best people, and the best creatives that they can be. And we strongly think that this is the best way of doing it. Like Erik said, it feels like everyone else is playing roles, and playing grownups. And I think that's, what we do differently.

We basically know that we are still very playful, and childish, and naive. And we use that to our advantage. We thought for five years; our first five years, that everyone knows so much and we know nothing, soon someone is going to call our bluff, and then understand that we are just imposters.

And then after five years, we realised, "Everyone plays grownup in meetings." And playing grownup, is probably the most childish thing you can do.

And then we started to realise, "We actually do know some things and we are pretty good at it. Why do people sit and play grownups, and try to sound so secure about everything?" So then we just decided to talk differently to clients. Be just very honest, and really say what we think. But also, tell them when we are not sure about something, et cetera.

And that comes across so good. Our clients, everyone else says, "It's so different working with you guys, because there's no bullshit, or we don't make words up, or use strange lingo, or et cetera. We just tell them what we believe."

Ian Paget: I'm laughing this one, because I've worked in companies where there have been buzz words, which we've been told to use in meetings.

Fredrik Öst: Oh my gosh!

Ian Paget: I think it's really nice to hear, actually, because there is this expectation that you need to wear certain things to be perceived a certain way. I do think there is some truth to that in some industries, and different people will, will react to different things. But I really like the fact that you are very truthful, very real, you're just yourself, it is what it is.

And I think that, more and more people should be like that. Because, let's face it, nobody knows everything; nobody is the ultimate expert. They can be good at what they do, and they can know a lot about a topic. But there's going to be situations when they don't know something. And when they don't know how to do things, and we're all human.

I really like that, you guys really push that and encourage that. it's weird, that it seems to be different, but it's, nice that you've been able to do that. Being able to speak about it now on platforms like this, hopefully it will encourage more and more people to just be themselves.

Fredrik Öst: I agree so much. I think that, it's the most natural thing to people. We are brought up treating humans and people like people, not as target groups, or clients, or et cetera. And I think that, that thing; the vulnerability to have in a meeting, or any relationship, even if it's a client relationship, you have to communicate. And there will be conflicts, but it's the way you handle conflict, that makes it a good or bad relationship.

We recently emailed one of our biggest clients at the moment, we're rebranding, and we wrote them, "We cry when it hurts, we are stubborn because we care, and we curse because we're stupid." And it was a reply to... Because they got anxious that we started to hate them. Because we had some conflicts and disagreements, but we were like, "No, of course not.

This is just a relationship between humans, and this is how we deal with them. We are all doing it for the greater purpose of creating something amazing together." As you said, it's the most natural thing to people. But somehow, someone, probably an old man, decided that in the world of business, we have to not be humans.

Ian Paget: When you consider things like the process that you should follow when you're working on a project, a lot of us, me included, learn that from books. So you read a book, and it tells you how it should be done. And you follow that process, and that runs through, and people share that, people talk about that. Other people assume that's the way it should be done. And then it gets accepted. But actually in reality, there is no one way of doing things. It's just how we culturally agree, that this is the way it should be. Things we wear, the things we do, how we act, how of our lives in general, it's all just culturally accepted things. So there's no one set model for doing anything, really.

so when you guys started out, you mentioned that you made mistakes, so you all wanted to be free, and go on holiday when you wanted. But actually you realised, "There needs to be some system in place for that." And you created a process when you needed a process to be. It feels like you've done things when you feel it's needed to be implemented, purely because of the situation, rather than referencing a pre-existing model that someone else has created like 60 years ago.

Erik Kockum: True. But that is that type of evolution, or learning process that we have been trying to give ourselves. That we are basically trying to do it our way. And then, after a while you understand that some things needs to be, maybe decided on, or structured, or be more explained, able to keep on doing it in the same quality.

You see things, but then it's in our way of doing it. And I think, a lot of processes and things that people create, and following the end, it's just the same in the end when it practically is being used. It's very similar, even though they want people present it as being this super unique, different type of way they handle things. But in the end, it's like you said it's a human interaction.

And we, culturally, know how to do that together. So that's something. Many years ago when we were trying, a lot of people asked us, "But what's your process? You need to explain that, and so." And we were worried then a bit like, "Oh my God! Do we to read more books to find out, so we can explain this better?" But then, we more decided, "No, it's The SNASK way process." Try to go our own way and explain that, "We didn't believe in this old marketing."

People that brought something in like a hundred years ago, and that we should follow it now, and so on. And that we are trying to find a more natural way of doing it today.

Fredrik Öst: More human. I think that, like you say, Erik. The SNASK way was completely different. We invited women, like our professor of art, for example, to our studio. And we had champagne in the evening with her, and asked her about, everything that she knew. And then people told us, "You are unprofessional. You shouldn't drink champagne in the evening with clients, et cetera.

And we were like, "But unprofessional, business have been made by old men, snorting cocaine, and drinking whiskey, in Chesterfield sofas in the evenings through all times. So just that we changed a drink to champagne, and also white women to it, would make us unprofessional. It's just, so, so strange, for someone to say that.

Ian Paget: You guys started to talk about the SNASK way; the process that you follow. That's a topic that I would love to go into. Because every graphic designer I've spoken to, they seem to work in a slightly different way. There's always some similarities, but would you guys mind talking through, and bearing in mind, this is a logo design podcast. We can go into branding as well. But say if you had a branding project or a logo design project, what is The SNASK way, what is your process in order to create a logo, or a brand identity?

Fredrik Öst: So how we started out, we were basically three graphic designers doing logo design for sample from the beginning. And we did a lot of work. And then, a fellow person from the industry came by and he was like, "You guys do branding strategy, but you don't invoice for it. That's the stupidest thing I ever seen". And we were like, "What?" And it's because we always wanted a reason, behind why we did things. We did a lot of research, strategy, that we never sent to the client. And then, it ended up being a logo, or a graphic identity. So we always have that. Today we see that, as comparing it to a person, basically.

If this person comes in to a room that you're in, that you never met, who the person is, the personality, the values, the passion, the drive, the engagement, that's basically the brand platform. And we need to find that out, personality, anyway. And then, what does this person say, and how does this person say it? It's the brand voice. And we also need to find those out. And those goes hand in hand, of course. And then, we can choose out it for this person. Because we now know who this person, is and how he or she speaks. And that is the graphic entity. The brand identity is basically the visual appearance that is based on who the person is, and what's the voices of this person, and what he or she says.

And I think that, basically, sums up our process in three steps, when it comes to brand identity. So that's, personality, voice, and appearance.

Erik Kockum: Say, maybe more, almost, emotional aspect of how we work. And within that, a very important thing is to give yourself freedom to again, make mistakes. We've been talking a bit about before. If you do more creative work, you also need that. That's why you need more time, maybe sometimes. And that's why you need to try to give yourself that space and freedom in your thinking, to be able to go outside of the classic books or to do something differently. That then, that can become very wrong. And then maybe like, "Oh! But we tried it out. That wasn't the right way of doing it. We need to reassess, try something else, or whatever. Sure. You could do something. If you have, like, you can use your experience and you can sort of do the same work over and over again, you will be very safe in doing that.

You can deliver it at a high good level. But if you want to create something new, or something more original, then maybe, that's going to be harder. Then you need to reinvent yourself a little bit, sometimes. You need to go into strange waters, try things out. And it's not always, that is going to end perfect. That space is something that I think is very important, and that feeling of freedom to be able to do that, it's something that we strive to like to create. It's not always easy, but it's like, "That's definitely the overall part of the process I would say.

Fredrik Öst: Yeah, exactly.

Erik Kockum:

And also, I think something worth pointing out is how we bridge between strategy and visual design work, because they go hand in hand. But you need to bridge it somehow.

Erik Kockum:

For example, if you have brand values, it's not as easy as to just take the brand values and then translate them in to visual form in instantly.

Erik Kockum:

If you have caring as one of the brand values, it's very hard to make that visual. So what we do is, we translate to brand values into visual keywords. And then those keywords, is what would sum up the whole, basically, identity.

Erik Kockum:

But that doesn't mean that all values have to be in a logo, because that's impossible. You can't have caring, for example, in a logo. Or if you take eclectic, it can't be in colors, as well as typography, as well as phototype, or expressive, or bold, et cetera.

Erik Kockum:

So maybe you have sophisticated in longer type and topography, but you have eclectic and expressive in colors, for example, that's where you can get those.

Erik Kockum:

And as a whole, or when the person is looking at the identity, it will, most of these will come out. I think it's important to do that bridge, where you're like, "Okay. We can get these keywords or values from these parts, identity entity.

Erik Kockum:

The other part of identity should push these ones and together they will give this whole image. Because I think when I was a student, I had a hard time getting all these words into a logo.

Erik Kockum:

And it quickly ended up with me talking bullshit, trying to get things in there. But I think that, now there is a reasoning behind this. There is a way that you can do it.

Erik Kockum:

And it's basically also to not putting too much bullshit in. You know it when you start doing it. A logo type should be memorable and easy to recognize, and that's basically.

Erik Kockum:

It shouldn't contain 100 different values. It's the same thing. Because you put those into a visual container, which is logo. You put that in your values and experiences of a brand, in to a logo type or a symbol.

Erik Kockum:

But the symbol, a logo type itself, will never give that, automatically. And I think that's very important to remember, as a logo designer to like, "No. Just because the client says that they want caring in their logo, doesn't mean that, that's what you have to do. Because it's basically possible."`

Ian Paget:

I like the thing that, I think Michael Berry might have said it. One of the famous graphic designers, at some point, they said that a logo design is an empty vessel.

Ian Paget:

So when you first create it, it has no meaning it has no attachment to anything, it's just a shape. And it's through that ongoing use with everything else, with the marketing messages, music, branding in general, that all pause into the logo.

Ian Paget:

And then, when people see it, they begin to associate it with that symbol. So an easy one to think that with is Nike. Nike is just a tick. It's just a swoosh. If you wasn't familiar with Nike as a company, you would think it's nothing.

Ian Paget:

I'm aware that the owner of the company didn't even like the logo at the beginning, thought it would do. But now when you see it, you associate it with fitness, with just doing it, and all these other things.

Ian Paget:

And that's not the symbol doing that. That's just all of the connections with it. And you can think of symbols like the Christianity cross. When you see that, you get all of those attack comes with it.

Ian Paget:

Across just two lines overlapping, it's meaningless on its own. So things like caring, you can't put it in a logo. That will come through use.

Fredrik Öst:

Exactly. It's the same with naming; same thing. Like apple, or acne. We don't think about that anymore, what it actually means, the word. That's branding, that's branding.

Erik Kockum:

And it's the same with, when it comes to color. People tend to like to, especially young designers and myself, including when I was younger, to put meaning into colors.

Erik Kockum:

And you quickly wind up, because you open the door to bullshit. So I end up in the libra, where your arguments will be used by the client. And suddenly, they come back and like, "Yeah, I asked my husband or wife last night. And he, or she thinks this look much like marijuana, because of the green color."

Erik Kockum:

He's like, "But the green can mean grass. Yes. In many ways, it can also mean ecological, it can also mean green for go. It's so many different things, and it just depends on where, and what situation you see it, and what's your or subjective thought about that color?

Erik Kockum:

Same way as red. Red means anger, red means blood, red means so many things, love. But also, some say it's a warning color by nature. But people fly Norwegian in Virgin, and they drink Coca-Cola from a red can.

Erik Kockum:

That means that people don't give a shit about the color, when they buy a product, in that sense. And in that sense, that's the easy exercise to do as a designer, to like, "Do I try to explain colors in a way that doesn't make any sense?"

Erik Kockum:

And then it's like, "Stop that." Because what you do, is you open the door to bullshit, and the clients will then be able to use the same door as you just did.

Erik Kockum:

So yes. The only logic is, "Basically, this color is not used by any of your competitors, and we think it's a pretty color. That's fine. That's good. If they want to change it to another color, there's millions of diff nice other colors we could choose.

Erik Kockum:

Don't use values when it comes to colors, because it's just made up.

Fredrik Öst:

Exactly. Like I said, this emptiness with the logo, or it's still empty, it's the first thing that people want to do, if they see it. If it's a new logo, is to find some type of meaning for it.

Fredrik Öst:

So the first thing we do, is go into our brains and look for references. So it's like, "Where do I recognize this from?" Where it's that's just how we do it as humans.

Fredrik Öst:

And meaning that, if something it's new, we haven't seen before, we're quickly going to find something that looks similar, and then say that.

Fredrik Öst:

It almost sounds it's like, "It's so common when we..." The thing when you design a new logo is on that, that you will always get the reaction that, "It looks like this."

Fredrik Öst:

It looks like this other brand. Because that's just the first, that's how the brain works. But then, you need to ask yourself, does that matter?

Fredrik Öst:

Because, of course, you need some time then to fill this logo with the right values, and so on, the branding of it. I remember sometime we did some round symbol for an environment thing for a municipality in Sweden; a project around walking, and biking, instead of going with cars and so on.

Fredrik Öst:

Just because it was around, somehow we got the feedback that it looked like a BMW. And we were like, "Okay. If someone is going to get this material sent to them in the mail, and pick this up."

Fredrik Öst:

And it's about like, "Hey, you should go think about the environment." Will they be like, "Oh my God! Why does BMW send me this?" It's never going to like...

Fredrik Öst:

It didn't look like it at all, anyway. But it's so often not a problem too. It's like, "In the context it will be used, people won't make that assumption, or make those mistakes. For sure."

Ian Paget:

I'm glad that you said that. Because I've had clients that have said, "This looks similar to whatever."

Ian Paget:

And you are right. That it's all down to context, and in the situation that is going to be used, what you said then about BMW.

Ian Paget:

I don't know how similar it was, but like you said, "Just because it's around, it's not going to ever be used on a car, or any scenario related to cars."

Ian Paget:

So just doesn't make any sense. In that situation, did you just literally tell them-

Fredrik Öst:

I think that's what we told them. We got a call from the brand person of this city municipality. And he was like, "The logo is blue and round.

Fredrik Öst:

So it looks like BMW." And then we were like, "Okay. It doesn't look like BMW, but if it did look like BMW, what is the problem?"

Fredrik Öst:

And he was like, "It's a problem, of course." He's like, "But do you think that if someone gets a mail from the municipality; from your city, with your logo of it that says, 'Go walk and use the public transportation.'.

Fredrik Öst:

Do you think then when it's going to actually think it's BMW?" And he was like, "No." And then it's like, "So we don't have a problem." And he was like, "That's right."

Ian Paget:

Nice.

Fredrik Öst:

I think he just needed to hear it; the explanation behind it. But people are not, of course, educated in everything. So it's of course, natural that people ask. and it's fine.

Fredrik Öst:

It can be loud, "This looks like an elephant." Yeah, it can look elephant. Any cloud on the sky will also look like an elephant if you wanted to. When we did a logo type with an H, it was just an H-

Erik Kockum:

History Channel.

Fredrik Öst:

... someone was like, "Yeah, this looks like History Channel. I also asked my grandparents about this." That's great.

Fredrik Öst:

But do you think that anyone who is going to the home crafting association meeting in a little town in Sweden, will accidentally end up in London, and walk into History Channels office, and be like, "I thought this was the home crafting."

Fredrik Öst:

So then he was like, "No." I said, "Okay. So we don't have problem. And secondly, it doesn't look like that, but that's fine. Even if it did."

Erik Kockum:

It's almost that point. It actually does not look like it either. Like we said, we can also be like, "This is a very human thing to do; to have that reaction on it."

Erik Kockum:

That's why we should get to upset about it more and be like, "It's fine. That's how it works." And then, try to help people make a better decision.

Fredrik Öst:

That's a part of our job too, to convince and, and educate a little bit.

Ian Paget:

Yeah, exactly. I wouldn't mind going back to earlier on with the process, you mentioned about, basically, working out who the business is. So creating a person and going into the three different things.

Ian Paget:

How exactly are you going about doing that? Is it just a case of sitting down with a client and going through questions that you have prepared, or is there some other way that you're doing that? Sorry, it's turning into a long question. How are you then presenting that back to the client?

Fredrik Öst:

No worries at all. I love the long questions. We always start every project we do, no matter what it is with a workshop, with key people. And with key people, we mean decision makers.

Fredrik Öst:

And if it's not the highest people in the company, we need people in this workshop to have the mandate, to actually take decisions about brand.

Fredrik Öst:

Once you have that, we go through loads of different steps in a branding workshop, where we talk and discuss, and we basically point out a direction for the brand. And we also divide it.

Fredrik Öst:

So we write up product values, or service values. So like, "Efficient always works, blah, blah, blah." And those things are like, "Okay, if you don't hit these values, you're fucked, and there's nothing we can do about it." Your service or product have to be great.

Fredrik Öst:

And that's on the client. Secondly, we write down company values, and that's internal. There are companies that have great brands that are really shit internal, but no one really knows about it outside, or care about it.

Fredrik Öst:

So the company culture also is fine. You do that, that's good for you guys to have that in place.

Fredrik Öst:

Thirdly, we come to the brand values. And that's all the external parts, what is your story you tell to people, and customers, to the values you want them to perceive you as.

Fredrik Öst:

And that can be different from the company or product values. And I think that's important, because the client is always stuck on product or service.

Fredrik Öst:

So anything, "We do vacuum cleaners." That means everything have to feel like vacuum cleaners, or clean homes, et cetera. Apple is the best example, we just made...

Fredrik Öst:

If you take Simon cynic model, it just happens to be computers that we're doing because they're why in their how is so much bigger. Think that's like the first step.

Fredrik Öst:

And then after we have that, we send them a summary of the workshop. Where we also push them in their position to be like, "You should be more like this and this and this."

Fredrik Öst:

And then, we basically start writing the brand platform and their brand voice. And that's a long process, of course. We rather work with the client than force. We have lots of meetings, we present them and talk with them during this process. That's basically how we do this.

Ian Paget:

That sounds really good. We're very detailed. It is good to hear that, you basically gather together all that information, put together some document, present that back to them, and then proceed with all the graphic design work.

Fredrik Öst:

Yeah. And I think something to put emphasis on is, that we push them a lot in this workshop. So even if they're like, "We want to be like this.

Fredrik Öst:

We don't want to be too playful, we don't want to be too conventional, we don't want to be too provocative, we don't want to be too innovative."

Fredrik Öst:

Then we're normally like, "Okay. So then this is basically what you should be on these scales."

Fredrik Öst:

And then we paint up, "How about this? Your competitor, a young group of people get bought up and invested by another company.

Fredrik Öst:

And they create a brand that is full on playful, very bold and innovative, and provoking, for example, are you then happy to be in the position you just took?"

Fredrik Öst:

And they're always like, "No." Because now is a time when you should take the position. Because in five years time, there will be competitors and younger ones that sue a hole in the market.

Fredrik Öst:

And they were like, "We can take this position." And then most of the times, they're like, "Okay. We should actually risk a little bit more here, and be a little bit more clear in our brand, and a bit more brave." And I think that's, that's very important for us, when we push them.

Ian Paget:

I really like that. So it is not just a case of just understanding who they are. You're really encouraging them to, I guess, really differentiate and not be boring.

Fredrik Öst:

It's pointing out the direction for the brand, and make sure that it's visionary, so that it's not just very low.

Fredrik Öst:

It's like, someone coming in at Leicester 10 years ago, and pointing out that we should win the Premier League. And people are like, "No, no. That's too bold. We should just maybe make it the Premier League."

Fredrik Öst:

And say, no, someone pointed out that direction and said like, "We are actually going to win the whole league." And no one believed them. And I think that's the same, that anecdote can be taken in everything.

Fredrik Öst:

You have to push a vision in order for it to come true. And in the workshop, we point out the direction to where the brand should go and become, and then, it have to be visionary.

Ian Paget:

I love that. So we're about 46 minutes into this now. We have maybe about 10 minutes left. So I want to talk about the SNASK manifesto.

Ian Paget:

I saw something on your website, it's a little bit like 10 commandments. Again, it's not something I've seen an agency do before. I read through it, and I thought, "I like this."

Ian Paget:

It's more a set of beliefs that you guys follow, your team follow, and so on. Can we talk about this? There's a few that I wrote down, there are... How many are those, is it 10?

Fredrik Öst:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Ian Paget:

So it's 10 commandments. One of them is always achieve greatness yourself before pointing out the faults and mistakes of others. I really love that.

Ian Paget:

Another one is, talk with clients like you talk with your family, friends, and pets. And that's something that you've already mentioned.

Ian Paget:

Why did you do this manifesto, and do you feel it's impacted the company in any way?

Fredrik Öst:

I would say, it's a little bit what you spoke with about Apple, and so, it's not about what we do, it's about why we do it. That is so true with us, as well.

Fredrik Öst:

We could have built computers instead, then we would've done it in this way. Anyway, I think that's how we met and how we unite as people as well.

Fredrik Öst:

When we started building SNASK, we had the same vision of how to do that, and why we were doing it. And I think, making a manifesto is a part of defining that somehow, is helping us both...

Fredrik Öst:

It's funny because it's such a long time ago, actually. We have updated a little bit, at some point through the years. I don't remember exactly what it was.

Fredrik Öst:

Some point needed to be a little bit more in the now, than 10 years ago or something. But it gives us something that we can feel like, "This is us." Especially, I'm almost surprised how many people see this, and really react to it.

Fredrik Öst:

And we often get people, "I saw you manifesto." So it's really something to that, I think a lot more people and companies could do to make it a little bit more, communicate world what they stand for.

Erik Kockum:

Exactly. And I think that from the beginning, we had 50 or a hundred different ones that we just wrote down everything that was thought didn't make sense. And then made it into 10 in the end; the top 10.

Erik Kockum:

One thing that many of these speak to like, talking how you talk with clients, or seeing people as people, for example, it's just that the fact that B2B is even relevant, is just a means that it's so much bullshit, so much wrong in the world, the way of seeing communication.

Erik Kockum:

Because it's the wrong misconception that if a person sits in a suit in an office, he or she will react different to a brand. And then, when he or she is at home, in a sofa watching television, which doesn't make any sense.

Erik Kockum:

The person at the office would then book a travel with Airbnb, for example, a hotel room. And then he or she would be, "Disgusted, this is a B2C brand. It doesn't suit me at all in this environment."

Erik Kockum:

And then when he or she came home, they would be like, "Airbnb looks very nice now when I'm in my sofa." It doesn't work like that. It never worked like that. It's just made up.

Erik Kockum:

It's all about, one human being is sending a message that is going to be received by another human being. And it's just, a lot of bullshit trying to make up, that that person would change just because if he or she sits in an office or not. Then something else is, it's role.

Ian Paget:

That makes a lot of sense. I'm glad that you said that. I love the honesty, and just the transparency. It feels weird to say it, but it's...

Ian Paget:

I don't know why it's not like this, why more people aren't like this? Just being very frank, and blunt, and honest, and doing things the way that human being would do it. It's nice, and it really comes across.

Fredrik Öst:

People are scared. Everyone's so scared all the time, too. It's this plain grown up thing that we talked a bit about, an old white man set up some rules for how this should be the on.

Fredrik Öst:

And they're doing everything they can to like, keep that domination over people. And everyone's just trying to fit in, in that world. And basically, playing is like a playground when everyone's like, "Now I have to be like this."

Fredrik Öst:

That's why people don't. People ae so scared of like, "What will happen if I say something differently?" But the funny thing is that when people do, that's when they often get attention.

Fredrik Öst:

And actually, most of the people that we love in the world are successful, they often are a bit of rebels. They're there to do something differently, and that's why they stand out.

Fredrik Öst:

So it's so funny, that we still find that hard, even though we can see that it's a recipe for success. You know what I mean?

Ian Paget:

Yeah. Yeah. I know sometimes people are scared to share certain things with clients. Prior to this interview, I mentioned to both Fredrik and Erik, that I'm having a little bit of a tough time.

Ian Paget:

I was thinking, "I'm not sure if I should tell them that." Or, "I'm not sure if I should mention that to clients." But I have mentioned it to clients, and they've been so supportive.

Ian Paget:

I come up with some excuse saying, "I'm really busy at the moment. I've had to push this back, blah, blah, blah." But just being transparent and honest about where I am with things, they have been very supportive, very understanding.

Ian Paget:

And if anything, actually, it's improved the bond with my clients. There's that real great sense of trust. I really do. I personally believe in honesty. I think that's something that's really important.

Ian Paget:

And you guys really do that through everything that you do. I don't know if there will be people out there that will think negatively of that, but I've never met someone that has, or has disliked real transparency, and honesty.

Ian Paget:

Unless it's something that is physically negative, that could cause some damage in some way. But in most cases, things like being in a band and wanting to bring that in, he wouldn't like that. He wouldn't like that. It's nice to see.

Fredrik Öst:

What's funny with that is, during the first years, especially, when we had this type of openness and we were talking more about things like this with clients as well, and we also had our own beliefs and things like that, we barely...

Fredrik Öst:

We had one single male client. All our clients were females, and we could have this type of discussion with them. And we felt like leveled in a good way.

Fredrik Öst:

While when we acted like that in meetings with these manly CEOs, they got so uncomfortable. And they started to ask us about like, "What's your turnover done?"

Fredrik Öst:

He was immediately trying to shift focus. And also, again, dominating the situation, being more like, "But who do you think you are?" It's changing a little bit, for sure.

Fredrik Öst:

Luckily, even if it's more, maybe polarized today, it's still hopefully a more positive development. It was very clear that, there was a difference in the first years.

Erik Kockum:

For sure. Thank you for sharing that, Ian. And I love that you say that. And I think that, that's so true. And I think that our being able to be vulnerable, is strong. It's not a weakness.

Erik Kockum:

It's just strength, and brave, and it's something that improves a relationship; a client relationship, or a friend relationship, or anything.

Erik Kockum:

I think that, the world is getting tired of the machoism and the negative things that comes with that. And I think that, we're moving away from that slowly, the whole world, and realizing that empathy is something, and vulnerability is something that actually is strong and empowers us, rather than the opposite.

Ian Paget:

Exactly. And the more that it's mentioned openly, it's a good thing.

Fredrik Öst:

Exactly. The world needs to hear it.

Ian Paget:

I think that's a really good point to end the interview. We're nearly at an hour. This has been amazing. I think there's been so many nuggets of inspiration.

Ian Paget:

But I think in general, just the way that you guys approach everything with truthfulness, and being yourself, and pulling your own interest into your company, and building a brand in a very organic way, I think that's really inspiring.

Ian Paget:

So I hope that, people listening, which will be mostly graphic designers, will have got something from this. So thank you so much to you both. I've really enjoyed this. It's been a lot of fun.

Fredrik Öst:

Thank you so much for having us and all the great questions that you have.

Erik Kockum:

It was super interesting. Thank you for being so open.

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