Ted Audio Collective. Thank you to Target for sponsoring this episode. No matter what it is, that competition is so ceaseless and punishing. Do we certainly agree, but it's also the thing that kind of again keeps us moving. Maybe the glue is that the sort of person who's a good pentagram partner is one who's capable of feeling like shit on a regular basis. From the Ted Audio Collective, this is Design Matters with Debbie Milman.
For 18 years, Debbie Milman has been talking with designers and other creative people about what they do, how they got to be who they are, and what they're thinking about and working on. On this episode, Debbie talks shop with three partners at pentagram, the story Design firm. I think that going in, but then once I start, I sort of am thinking, the last problem you've cared. Yeah, and that's... This interview took place at the How Design Live conference in Nashville, June 6, 2023.
Hey, listener, a quick favor. We are conducting an audience survey, and we'd be really grateful if you could take just a few minutes to respond. Please visit survey.prx.org slash Design Matters to take the survey today. That's survey.prx.org slash Design Matters. Thanks. On Monday, June 12, 1972. Architect Theocrossby, graphic designers Alan Fletcher, Colin Forbes and Mervyn Kirlansky, an industrial designer Kenneth Grange founded the firm pentagram.
All five founding partners were leaders in their field with a successful practice, but they all believed that they could do better work as a group together in a larger setting. They established a really unique, non-hierarchical structure that preserved the autonomy of each of the partners, while also encouraging collaboration and a sharing of resources. From the moment the partners of pentagram opened their doors nearly 51 years ago, the firm was successful.
In the five decades since, pentagram has displayed an unprecedented and rather enviable longevity. With offices now in New York, Austin, London and Berlin, the partnership has renewed itself over and over over the years. Half a century later, they are the largest independent design firm in the world, wholly owned by the 23 partners. Today, here, I'm using the term design firm very, very specifically, as each of the partners of pentagram have always been working designers.
Pentagram actually restricts its ownership to only graphic designers or to only designers. And I think that I can confidently say that pentagram is only bringing on as partners the most exceptional designers in the world. If I were to go back in time to 1972 and survey the design scene on this planet, the only design firm still operating at the highest levels today with the same operating principles is pentagram.
In the book that they've just published, surveying all of the partners work, every partner that has ever worked at pentagram is featured in this book. And you can see it right here on this little side table. You would be able to see that the work has always been at the highest possible level. Adrian Shaunasi, who helped bring this book to life, poses this question in the preface. So how does a design group retain relevancy?
In truth, very few manage this beyond a decade or two before being acquired by a larger group or, as Colin Forbes noted, disappearing with the departure of the founders. For most others, it is a slow descent into irrelevancy and eventually closure. Pentagram by contrast, a full half century after its inception is still with us. And they're more relevant than ever before.
The three partners that are here with us today, Paula Shere, Emily Oberman and Michael Beirut, are still doing some of the best work of their career. Whether it's Paula's global Shake Shack identity or her city logo, Emily's titles for Saturday Night Live, or her redesign of Amazon Prime Video, or Michael's work for the New York Jets or Yale University.
The partners of pentagram have not only designed some of the most ubiquitous graphic design on the planet, they have literally raised the standards of all designers everywhere. And today, for the first time ever, I'm getting goosebumps, Paula Shere, Michael Beirut and Emily Oberman are here together on the How Design Life main stage to talk about a legacy 50 years long and their brand new two volume book pentagram living by design.
So please join me for this historic moment in welcoming Emily Oberman, Michael Beirut and Paula Shere to this stage for this very, very special live episode of Design Matters and How Design Life. Thank you. We have 34 minutes and seven seconds and counting down, so I'm going to just launch right in. First question, this is both for Michael and Paula. You've both pinnip pentagram for over 30 years each. What's kept you there so long? Paula, they're polite. That's why they like each other.
When I joined in, I joined six months before Paula, so I've been there just a little bit longer than Paula, though we both agreed at the same time to join the partnership. And when I joined, you know, in Paula's join, we were the two newest partners. It was 1990, I believe. Right? 1990, yeah. 1991 for you, Paula. I was in April. He was in November. November, I was November 1990. Paula was 90 when this is how we're going to chill, waste all the time.
I'm talking, I'm talking November 1990. Okay. But, you know, I was just being myself. I was like the newest partner there. I felt very young. I felt I didn't know anything. And we were surrounded by the five founders who you named were all still active then. Colin Forbes was running that office. I was asked to join by Woody Pertle. It was one of my heroes.
And, you know, you try, you try to keep your head low and not get in trouble. And then at about the time, you just get a little restless, something changes. And what happened was Paula, Paula joined and was a mentor to me to a certain degree. And then, I got to the Forbes retired. And suddenly then the remaining partners had to scramble and figure out if we could run this thing without a bother figure there. And Colin definitely was that.
And then in the subsequent years, people like Emily joined, Eddie O'Para, Natasha Jen, Matt Willie, Georgia Lupy, Luke Hayman, Abbott Miller. There's just name a bunch of people. But, like so, so pentagram has changed. One thing is documented the book is that pentagram has continuously changed over that period of time. It hasn't become just more like itself.
But it really does get transformed. It's a very different firm now than it was 30 years ago. And what keeps me there at least is being able to partake of that reinvigoration of almost like working someplace new without having to put my stuff in a box and carry it. Somewhere else. Paula, what about you? Well, what was interesting at the time I had already had a business that I closed down. And I joined pentagram.
And Michael and I were asked actually the same year by Woody. And I was scared about closing down my business. On the other hand, I was a woman in a soul practice. And I realized that if I joined this group, even though they were all men, I probably would be able to change and increase the visibility and the fees of the kind of work I was doing, which absolutely came true.
And it was really interesting in the New York office because these offices have different personalities. It's not one pentagram fits all. And each generation has its own personality. And what happens is you go into a situation. In our situation, it was actually a crappy office. And we moved to a better building when Jim Bieber joined and actually found a wonderful piece of real estate that we bought.
And during that period, I felt the business really grew. The kind of work we got really grew. And the core people that joined. After me and Michael was Jim Bieber and Abbott Miller. And then ultimately Emily and Natasha and Eddie. And you could feel the place grow and become more powerful with each partner.
And in the London office, the actual opposite was going on. A New York was growing. They had lost their older partners. And they had to start over again. And now you can feel the sort of the energy in London. Very similar to how New York moves. So I think these things are generational. And it's interesting to watch them grow and then watch them change. They can't stay the same. But they can always have the same values.
Emily, you've been at Pentagram now for over 10 years. Last year when you won the AIGA Lifetime Achievement Medal, you talked about how you've had three chapters in your career. First at M&C with T-Borin Maira Kalman. Then as one of two partners with Bonnie Seagler at number 17.
Before going to Pentagram, you told me your fantasy was to have your third chapter at Pentagram. And you achieved that. Why Pentagram as opposed to any other firm or going out on your own or staying in the partnership you had then? Because they asked. Okay, fair enough. Well, there's I mean, there is truth to that. Yeah, I sort of feel like if you know the Yankees ask you to join your sort of an idiot for not saying, well, I don't think you're an idiot. That's not true.
I felt like I had to give it a try. At the time, Bonnie and I knew Bonnie and I were had decided to stop number 17. After 17 years. After 17 years. I guess that was the reason we named it that. So we had decided to stop. And I wasn't sure about what my next chapter was. I had always been a huge huge obviously admirer of Pentagram. And they asked and I needed. I loved the idea of this challenge of sort of taking on this thing that I didn't know whether I could do.
I was I was a mother of two year old twins. My husband thought I was insane to do it. But I sort of had to do that. And I knew that by putting myself in a situation with all of these incredible talented, kind people. I would be better for it. My work would be better for it. And that I could like Paula said, I could suddenly be a woman with a practice.
I mean, having a, having a studio with Bonnie where we were a woman owned business was really amazing. But I knew that I could be in a position where I could do bigger, better, stronger projects and have a bigger voice. And that my work would get better just by osmosis by being around people who so drive is to make the work as good as possible.
Would make me a better designer, a better thinker. And there's just this like, like the zeitgeist of doing great work is just what drives the office all the time. And I sort of I said this earlier, I remember Bonnie saying, but why do you want to go to an office where your partners aren't people that you chose from the beginning that aren't your friends. And I said, because the work is the work is amazing and the drive is amazing. And 10 years later, they are all my friends.
And the thing that drives all the partner is what makes all of us better collectively. We're always there to help each other whether it's by sharing projects or supporting each other through ups and downs in the work. It's just incredible how strong the bond is between all 23 of us. In your remarkable new monograph, Adrian Chonise also writes that pentagram has lasted as long as it has because of its unique partner owned business model and a ferocious commitment to creative excellence.
For many, many years, the sort of business model at pentagram was this sort of mythic secretive. It felt like a really secretive thing. I know, Armin, Vid has written about this quite a bit. Can you talk about the partner owned business model and what that actually is and what it means? What's fantastic about it is that Colin Forbes designed a brilliant system and the system is based on two principles, generosity and responsibility.
The notion of responsibility matters because if you make a mess, you're making bad things for your partners, but your partners have to be generous enough to understand that sometimes you make a mess. So there's the balance of those two things that has to do with money, sharing, accepting responsibility and being part of a group. You're not really out on your own. Yet you get to be your own person as a designer, as well as share, and that these things generally work together very well.
And when a person can't adapt to the system or something is really wrong and it usually comes down to the business of generosity or responsibility almost in every instance, you can see it where down that way. So Colin Forbes had a right. And I think the thing that people really can't believe is that when someone's a client will get curious about how we're organized and they'll say, well, I asked me and I'm sure they may have asked you, are you the head of pentagram?
I said, no, pentagram doesn't have a head. There's no CEO. There's no managing director. Each one of the partners is sort of represents the highest level of the firm. So it's got 23 co manager is basically. And everything that's decided is decided by consensus. Any new partner that joins has to be unanimously elected by all the partners, even if it's a partner joining in New York.
The partners in Austin and Berlin and London have to be a unanimous agreement about it. And again, it's, it's based on that I even though I think Bonnie's question was a valid one. These people are in friends and I'm not even sure she didn't mean it malicious. No, no, and I'm not even sure the original five guys were quoting quote friends. There were colleagues, they respected each other, they got mad at each other, they fought with each other.
But they sort of had this great creative tension that was based on the idea that when we decide will decide these things together. Right. And I think there's just something so counterintuitive about that. And it's created this sort of funny. It's not even stability, but it's sort of this like it keeps everything in this state of tension that gives us enough energy to go forward, but enough to also kind of bind it together at the same time.
So there's 23 designers all have their individual P&L with an overhead. Do you do see like each other's numbers? Yes. Oh my god, that's terrifying. So you actually see every month the ranking. Oh my god. Okay, so that's what keeps you all like striving. You want to impress each other. Yes, we're scared shitless. But this is remarkable. I hope everybody is taking notes.
The funny thing is you're never looking at anyone's number and thinking why aren't you doing better? You're only thinking about yourself. Of course. And if someone's numbers are lower, you never are, if it's you, you feel terrible. But no one else is judging you for it. Everyone else is just thinking if you ask, how can I help you? And if your numbers are good, you look at Instagram and think, God, damn it. Why isn't my work as good as Paul's or Emily's?
And so, and so it's like no matter what it is that competition is so ceaseless and punishing to a certain degree, but it's also the thing that kind of again keeps us moving. Maybe, maybe the glue is that the sort of person who's a good pentagram partner is one who's capable of feeling like shit on a regular basis. I see a lot of people wanting to raise their hands.
I mean, for the first seven years that I was at pentagram, I would go home and be like every night just to sort of catch my breath from the like stress and like worry. But also that I would get to look at the work, not the work that I was doing that I felt was getting better, but the work you walk through the office and you see on the computers and on the debt like everybody's work and it's just like wow. What? It's very, it's very inspiring.
So it's interesting that you say seven years because buried in the book, I saw a line that said it takes about seven years for each of the pentagram partners to sort of find their footing. So I have a couple of questions around that seven years. Why seven years? Why? How do you make it through those seven years that takes an enormous amount of resilience? I think that seven years is some kind of life cycle that where I know I was sitting next to Eddie O'Para for his first seven years.
And I thought he said to me, how long is this going to take? I really don't, you know, he wasn't didn't feel like he got fit into the situation. He didn't understand why things were certain way. That's this way the other way. And I said, I would say it takes seven years. And then another two years would go by and it'd have the same conversation with him. And then one day said, it's been seven years I feel good.
I mean, there's something, it's something about adapting to the to responsibility and the expectation and feeling, feeling the kind of support that's really there for you in the structure. Because it's not just individuals being nice to you. There's an inherent thing within the way the business was designed to be fair. I mean, Colin at one point had designed a financial system that he based on figuring out who had the most milk in the refrigerator.
So that I'm not kidding. He told me this philosophy that that's how the financial structure was designed. And you made sure that if somebody was using more milk, they paid a little more for the milk. And that was the analogy of it of how sort of the model works because there's a way of calculating people's overheads that are based on what they're using and what they're doing and the size of their team, et cetera. And that's part of what the fairness is.
And how do you figure it out now that we have sorry milk, oat milk, regular? I'm happy you may or may not get to this, but it's not it's we've been there collectively what? 30, 60, 70 years. 70 years collectively. Holy cow and but there have been partners who have joined for a year, two years. Peter Savile, April Grime and it wasn't for them and they kind of bailed out.
So it's it's it is I'm not sure if it's like capacity for feeling shitty or it's this weird thing where you have to be independent enough to make it work. But for some reason in spite of that, feel like you're getting a benefit from being part of a larger group. And the people that have those two kind of contradictory urges, there just aren't that many of them, I guess.
I think I think it's it's really about something, you know that I've always felt that the goal of pentagram was to confound the expectations of being a designer that you you could do really good, important, sometimes groundbreaking work and still make money and that you could you could balance the financial and the qualitative in a way that the design industry is not successful at providing and that was always the difference. Now it's time for an ad I created with our sponsor target.
20% of Americans have some form of disability that we have excluded from our lives from partnerships from creativity and that is about to change. Tom DiMaria is the director emeritus at Creative Growth, an art nonprofit based in Oakland, California. The organization advances the inclusion of artists with developmental disabilities in contemporary art by providing them with supportive studio environments and gallery representation.
Creative Growth artists make work that's visually appealing and references their own worldview and many of artists have been coming every day for 35 or 40 years. I loved reading about one of your artists who is blind and it really pushed me to reconsider how people make an approach art.
Monica Valentine is an artist who has orthotic eyes and can't see and makes elaborately intricate sculptures out of pins and colored sequins and beads and styrofoam that are organized by color that she says she feels in her hands. There is an enjoyment of the work of an artist from Creative Growth because it's so personal, it's so visceral. And we still have to knock down doors and say this work is contemporary but that is really changing.
Now people come to us and say can we include your artists in this exhibition. What would you consider to be some of your biggest successes over the years? I think one of the biggest successes if I look back over 20 plus years is really how artists with disabilities aren't so many different venues.
If you go into San Francisco Museum of Modern Art right now there's William Scott painting on the wall and for William to go there with his family and to have viewers come and see it in a contemporary context is amazing. Next year the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art will showcase a major acquisition of work by the artists into the museum's permanent collection.
And I think if anyone then doubts that the walls and the barriers are not going to come down this will be a moment to say like it's all changing. I think what's interesting with the Creative Growth Artists is that they don't really separate the world of design from the world of art. Growth Artists have also partnered with brands and one of their favorite design collaborations was with a long time supporter target.
A transformative moment with our relationship with Target is the partnership that we did with Method So. Method said we really want to bring your artists work forward. We want them to be designers for us. So the Method team came and it's like what does that design smell like and we came up with the whole package and we sold millions of bottles.
Of all the projects and museums and exhibitions that Creative Growth has done walking down the block to our target store with the artists and they see the product on the shelf was amazing. How have these design collaborations impacted Creative Growth? I think it just broadens the scope of how our artists can be seen in contemporary society as creative leaders. The artists feel like they're valuable and they've done something to contribute.
You know, if you grow up with a disability in America, you're often measured by your deficiencies, not by your accomplishments. And when creative growth changes that idea and everyone has these accomplishments that they're proud of, they become different people.
Through strategic partnerships with organizations like Creative Growth, Target leverages their resources to help reduce disparities to provide equitable and inclusive opportunities to strengthen the diverse needs of the communities they serve. Visit target.com to learn more. I do so much work online and collaborate with a lot of different people, clients, students, partners, friends, sometimes even podcast guests.
And my favorite tool to help facilitate genuine teamwork is Miro. Miro is a visual workspace, any team, anywhere can use to manage projects, design products, and bring any kind of documentation together in one shared workplace. On Miro's infinite canvas, I work with my colleagues to brainstorm ideas, to create project deliverables, and I can even include audio and video in one shared integrated space. Frankly, I don't know what I do without it.
Now, your first three Miro boards are free forever when you sign up today at miro.com slash podcast. That's m-i-r-o.com slash podcast. Adrian poses a question in the book that he hopes becomes answered in the pages of the book through the work. But I do want to ask you all this question. Given your success, why don't more design firms adopt your system? Why don't more of you adopt this system? I mean, come on now. This is working.
I've always wondered that I also just want to say another reason I joined pedigram is I could not face the idea of figuring out how to lease a copier. No, it's true. But that's also, you know, it's funny. I think part of it is that it sort of, it happened organically at the beginning, and then the generosity, the vision of those original people back in the 70s, created a structure into which everyone sort of submits themselves.
I remember we keep talking about Colin Forbes, who was sort of the guy who sort of designed the whole thing in his head, and sort of was the de facto sort of first among equals of the original five guys, at least in terms of administrative work.
I think people would say, you know, Alan Fletcher was the famous designer, and you know, et cetera, et cetera. But Colin had really worked it out. And I remember one time he said, I'm amazed you guys are so eager to follow the rules or just rules that we made up, you know, and like, but like, you know, I think this is the answer to the question in that the reason I think pedigram lasted so long is that nobody who has been here for the longest periods of times were actually founders.
The founders, I was, first of all, there was Bob Gill, there was a business called Fletcher Forbes Gill, and they were going to share equally and they were going to follow the plan, except for Bob Gill didn't want to share equally and left. And then there was crossby Fletcher Forbes, and then there was, then there was a crossby Fletcher Forbes range, and then it became Pentagon because Mervyn Krulanski was left out of the mix.
And then all those guys by the time we joined, they were, they were, they were already mostly gone, I think Kenneth Granchang around. So the Pentagon kind of wasn't working if there hadn't been a whole new crew, there wouldn't be a Pentagon. That's actually true.
And it's true. It takes a really long time for us to find a new part like it, because you have to have a certain kind of personality. You have to be just sort of weird enough to want to join this. It's really, someone said this is wrong. We are like the island of misfit toys.
Like we're not really all normal. I don't know that that's how I would describe people. We are a very quirky bunch. We're not like, we're not like an agency. We're not like Wolf Olens. We're not, we're not. We're very specific. Like it's weird to have 23 partners. It's a, it's why we've never been acquired. It's why we can't be acquired. We're very, I don't know. It's very unusual.
It's a very unusual thing. And we're all very specific individual people who are very different, but all happen to sort of believe in the same thing. One of the same principles about the work. One of the highest hardest, most challenging positions to fill in any firm and any agency is a senior position. And the odds of a senior person working out in an established firm are actually about as good as any new product coming to market.
Given that your ownership strategy has now entered its fourth generation, how do you determine what new partners to bring in and what is that process like? It's getting, it's getting difficult. And I think some of it has to do with the choices that people are making in terms of their own careers. From my point of view, particularly with women, I see less women in independent design firms and more of them getting powerful positions and say advertising agencies.
And that makes them not interested in pentagram because in pentagram they have to run a team and manage money like a design firm. So it depends upon how you want to play in business and in work. I'm not quite sure what made that difference. It seemed like there was more available ability of people who wanted to be independent and would have liked the group maybe 10 or 15 years ago. And the emergence of there's a lot of talent around, but they seem to be employed otherwise.
There's a lot of talented people who are well placed in good positions within corporations and working in house like so many people here do. And then I also have thought for a long time that the basic, there's something kind of basic premise in 1972 was that five people could save a lot of money by sharing the same Xerox machine and splitting the rent five ways.
And in a day where you needed an office and you zerox machine and you needed all these things, you know, we compete with people who, you know, who are students at SVA or Yale or whatever three years ago have a virtual office where it's just three laptops. And Chicago, someone can be in New York, someone can be in Berlin. And they'll submit a proposal for a project. We're submitting to who as well. And we have rent to pay. We have all this stuff that we think is important to have as an office.
And we're competing with people who have like no overhead basically. And I think someone who sort of one of the propositions is come on in. And by the way, you know, take a look at this beautiful office. And there's overhead, head associated with it and everything else. And I think that was not negotiable back then. Now people have so many different options in terms of how they can work, you know.
Not only that, there was a slew my husband among them of people who had designed businesses and thought that they were they had big reputations. And I thought they would retire and sell their drawing tables and be rich into old age. And that was not too wise. And panogram, another thing, a Colin Forbes moment was he set up the notion of buying shares where everybody owned the company and the company would accrue value.
And yet now somebody can start a small business, be very successful as an individual designer and get bought out and even have more security than we have. So it, you know, things change in time and you don't know where it shakes out. But I think the ethic about the work is really the binding thing. Now, given that there were 23 people weighing in on any particular candidate, how often do you fight about who should come in or if is is a veto enough for somebody to say, no, don't want them.
It's acknowledged as a principle that a single partner is against someone they can just veto it. And if they feel strongly about it, there's no discussion. You have to be kind of an asshole to just like do it like that. And I don't think any of these three people are really that jerky, although. No, any of the 23 people are there sometimes if you think everyone else is, you know, that means you're the, I mean, you're the asshole, right?
You said these three. No, no, but I don't think any of the people, you know, no one, no one wants to be the one person to be a jerk about something. But it just happened. It has definitely happened.
Yeah. And, and, and usually what that person is doing is having the, is having the, the nerve to kind of voice something that's actually an elephant in the room, that's a concern that's more widely shared, which you only, which only happens when you're really committed to the idea of talking things through and reaching consensus.
I remember someone said, well, maybe we should just vote on these things. And then someone said, do you really want to invite someone in knowing that there were four people that voted against them in 19 people for. It just seemed like not right, you know, I mean, it's just, and I think that was true. And so, I think anything we just, most of the things we decide about there are, you can correct these numbers if you want.
There are like five people who really are in favor of it. Five or so people who think it's like not the greatest, I, one person, two people who might be sort of against it, but not going to really what? Just nothing. No, not talking to anyone, join. No, this isn't about someone's joy. This is about like what the Christmas cards should look like or something. No, low stakes thing.
So five people really into it. Two people are kind of against it, but decide they're not going to waste their time. They're not going to waste their political capital on this one. Five other people sort of, you know, don't care. Yeah, okay. And the other ones are like, what are we talking? What's it? The other one's checking their email. The other one also just checking their email. And then at the next meeting, they're like, what?
You're all a proof. Exactly. But just like you're all families, you all go to Thanksgiving dinners and stuff is not that unlike that. You talked about competing with the SVA student with three laptops. Pentagram works for giant corporations, startups, arts and educational institutions, entertainment property, sports teams, publishing houses, and even candidates for president of the United States. You also do quite a lot of pro bono work.
Do you still have to pitch a lot of work or just the work just sort of come through the door? What do you mean, define the word pitch? Somebody calls up and says, hey, Paula, we want you to design the new Westinghouse logo. Would you be interested in coming in and showing us your thoughts or your approach or your portfolio? We're also going to be looking at land or in fish and wolf islands. Sure. We do that all the time. Not to show us your, we don't, we don't do spec work.
Yeah, I mean, just sort of thoughts about a project. It's about showing your work, of course. I mean, the doesn't just slide in and you do it. And isn't that what you think that it would right after 50 years? No, it doesn't. No, no, no, no, listen. Correct me if I'm wrong, Paula and Emily, but people come in and somebody's expressed awe and admiration about pentagram.
And after about 15 minutes, they turn into whatever kind of client they were going to be anyway. And they start like, you know, it's like, you know, it doesn't, it doesn't matter at all, you know? Nope. No, sometimes it hurts. Sometimes it hurts. Yeah, but wait, and what wait is it hurt? Well, gee, you know, you really have a lot of experience in this area and we were very impressed with your wonderful body of work.
But we think we're going to go with another firm because we think we might get something new. Oh, for sure. When the work comes in through the transom, somebody's answering the telephone, hi, we have a project we'd like one of the pentagram partners to do. Who decides? Work never rarely comes in that way, actually. Oh, it just comes directly to the partners.
Work comes in that way, tons of good work doesn't necessarily come in that way. But there's usually someone who says, well, what made you call and then depending on what they said, it then goes to that like if they say, what we saw was because we saw the public theater work or because we saw MIT, then it would go to Apollo or Michael or if it's because we just saw the prime video or redesign, then it would go to meet.
Like, there's a filter that works that way or if it's not anything, it's sort of like, who needs work? I have to say that's really that isn't very much of it. Most of the work is what Emily was just described in and that's actually specified work. Yeah, that is still because of what you've done. Sometimes I think people just call up because they kind of want to know what a pentagram proposal would look like.
And often those are people who also, I didn't really put together an RFP. So what do you do in those situations? Sometimes you decline if it's really kind of lame. Sometimes if it's a really a project you really want to do, you just go for it. And each partner ends up being pretty much responsible for generating their own work and kind of leading the pitch meetings if we have in conversation.
How do you go about if you have to then, or if any of the partners have to, how do you go about looking for new work? What is your new business development process like? Sometimes you do make something out of a job like you brought up the Westinghouse logo. The call wasn't for redesign of Westinghouse logo. The call was from a guy who worked inside Westinghouse who wanted a standards manual based on a font he was already using for Westinghouse that looked crummy.
And he needed something to give to the licensees. And I said, why are you doing that? Paul Rand already designed this when he just used his, you know, and they owned it. But that wasn't the job. The job was this other job. And sometimes you just take the call. And if you have absolutely no interest in the job, you tend to get it because you have the courage to tell them exactly what they should do. And if they jump on it, then you get the project, which is sort of great.
How often do you have that courage? I kind of get the sense, Paula, that you have it all the time. No, no, I'm intimidated by things. Really? Yeah, absolutely. I'm intimidated by a big time competition and very complicated proposal writing. And I like it better when I can get the feeling of a client and have them begin to develop a relationship with me on the phone. I can do the job, but I really don't like this sort of big agency competition thing.
Can't, can't say, you know what I've never won a paid pitch. You've never won a paid pitch. Even when they pay, you know, they're like, okay, this is a pitch, but we're going to pay you. I still can't. No, like I hate paid. Why do you think that is? Why do you think that is? It's just something about that, like, you know what, just where every agency that you're talking to or every design firm that you're talking to, I'm sure we're all qualified.
Meet the people, talk to them, get a good feeling from them and choose someone. I can't perform under that kind of pressure. I would rather you take that whatever it is, $30,000 for the $10,000 that you're paying each firm or whatever it is, take that money and put it to good use for the actual job and choose someone.
Even if it's not me, it just seems like a better. I've never won a paid pitch either. Oh my god, I wish I knew that. Do you know how many times I've turned down work because I knew that pentagram was pitching? No, it's a, I know why I know why I've never won is because I... Second guessing or... No, you know what it is. It's sort of like, I mean, I think I've heard you say this too. And it's like not that it's pressure.
It's meant to fire up your competitive genes, but instead I think, you know, you're asking for good firms to work on this. You know, I'm sure one of us will come up with something. We have no real relationship. You've just sent everyone the same sort of, you know, donkey upon which we're supposed to put on our blindfolds and figure out where we pin the tail. So someone's going to come close, maybe it'll be me, maybe one of these other people. Like it's just, it just seems so random, you know?
And I sort of need to feel, I need to like lay in bed thinking, I am the only, you know, they're counting on me to do this thing. Yeah. There is no plan B, and they're going to get mad if I don't deliver it to them. Like if they, you know, they already know I might lose, that's the premise of it. You know, so if that's already, if they've already resigned to the idea that I'm not going to get the job, I mean, how much am I supposed to care about it?
That's complete this, not right, is it? But... No, but I need to feel, I need to feel like we've begun a relationship. Yeah, I can dive deep into this because deep is, I will dive deep and I will spend the time, the resource, the brain power, that's our super power. And just knowing they don't, there isn't a trust, I don't know. Well, I'm more cynical about it. You're really? Yes, you? Yes, because I do pay pitches for the money. Oh yeah, I don't win.
Yeah, I don't win. So it doesn't matter. You make the money anyway, you just decide it's worth your hours to get that amount of money. And then you do the paid pitch and you don't give a damn. Sometimes I think that going in. But then, then you get hooked. But I think that going in, but then once I start, I start of them, I can't. That's the problem you cared. Yeah, and that's... And I think the story of my life.
But the theme, if there is one, Debbie, is that... I mean, I think having attended some of the presentations here, you sort of keep remembering that design is done by people. And it's commissioned by people and people are in the process. It's people all the way up and all the way down. And I think a lot of times, organizations try to like, that's the messy part. And they try to figure out a way. Like, we do this without the people.
And just kind of like make it about a structure or make it about a process or make it about a plan. And I think pentagram is sort of just so committed to the idea. We're going to get people together, have them work as partners, have them work with clients, have them do the work, have them be responsible for the work, have their various opinions. Cinnacle or not about that work, or idealistic or not, or filled with pressure or filled with relaxation about.
No matter what it is, it's like the people are the ones doing the work. And that's where it comes from. And we're out of time, I have one last question for you, something that I didn't realize until I read the book. 50, almost 51 years, with the same logo. We were talking, we were hearing about Jello and how long that logo had lasted and the Pepsi logo. And you know, we were talking about how even though nobody liked the old Pepsi logo, it still had a pretty good run.
What any thoughts about ever changing your identity? Well, actually, at the last partner's meeting, we were looking at a better cut of the same logo. But I think the real reason we don't change our logo is we never agree on anything. We never have a logo. You got 23 partners. Type of graphic opinions. How would you even begin to do that? Well, I think it's pretty beautiful the way it is. Paula Cher, Emily Oberin, Michael Beirut. Thank you so much. So much.
That interview took place at the How Design Life Conference in Nashville on June 6, 2023. Design Matters is produced for the TED Audio Collective by Curtis Fox Productions. The interviews are usually recorded at the Masters in Branding program at the School of Visual Arts in New York City, the first and longest-winning branding program in the world. The Editor-in-Chief for Design Matters Media is Emily Wyland.