"From Blank Canvas to Brand Anthem: A Conversation with Rocio Spaciuk"

In this conversation, Chantel Soumis and Rocio Spaciuk delve into the intricacies of branding and design. They discuss the importance of starting with a solid foundation when rebranding, including understanding brand identity, conducting market research, and the psychological impact of colors and typography. Rocio emphasizes the need for professional design guidance and the essential elements every brand should have in their toolkit. They also explore current design trends and tools that enhance the design process, while reflecting on what design elements should be retired. The conversation concludes with insights on creating effective brand guidelines and the importance of connecting with the audience through design.

Takeaways

• Start with a clear brand mission and vision.
• Mood boards are essential for visual representation.
• Research competitors to differentiate your brand.
• Color choices should evoke specific emotions.
• Typography plays a crucial role in brand perception.
• Establish rules for logo and color usage.
• Brand guidelines should include the target audience and voice.
• Icons should be included in brand identity.
• Stay updated with design tools and trends.
• Some design trends should be retired for clarity.

Chapters

00:00 The Art of Rebranding
02:39 Understanding Brand Identity
05:48 The Importance of Market Research
08:57 Color Psychology in Branding
11:53 Typography and Its Impact
14:53 Essential Design Assets
17:42 Building Effective Brand Guidelines
20:23 Leveraging Design Tools
23:30 Current Design Trends
26:25 Closing Thoughts on Design

Chapters

• 0:00 The Art of Rebranding
• 2:39 Understanding Brand Identity
• 5:48 The Importance of Market Research
• 8:57 Color Psychology in Branding
• 11:53 Typography and Its Impact
• 14:53 Typography and Its Impact
• 17:42 Building Effective Brand Guidelines
• 20:23 Leveraging Design Tools
• 23:30 Current Design Trends
• 26:25 Closing Thoughts on Design

Transcript

Chantel Soumis (00:00.556)
So grab your sketchbooks or at least your curiosity because you're about to get a master class in turning blank canvases into brand anthems. Roachy, welcome to the show.

Rocio Spaciuk (00:12.757)
Hi, I'm really excited to be here.

Chantel Soumis (00:17.677)
Thank you so much for tuning in. For everybody who's watching, Rochi and I have had the pleasure of working together over the last five months already, although it seems like yesterday. And I have had the privilege of watching her glow up almost every single brand that we've worked on together, which has been amazing. So to kick things off, I wanna ask you my first question, Rochi. When you're approaching a rebrand, where do you start?

Rocio Spaciuk (00:27.445)
Yeah.

Chantel Soumis (00:46.144)
Like what questions do you ask and what data or emotions do you need to collect before you even touch a design tool?

Rocio Spaciuk (00:54.555)
okay. Well, I like, calling this, like I have two sorts of information. like to gather. I call the first like, like the written part. It's the part that includes, things like which one is the brand mission, which one is their vision, which ones are their goals for the future. And maybe even who their target audiences.

And then on the second part, it's like the most abstract and creative part that includes how the brand would like people to see them. And this is like the more visual part. Maybe I like creating with a client mood board or a vision board that represents how they will be seen in the future when their brand is created.

Chantel Soumis (01:48.391)
a good mood board. One of those things that I've been taught as an entrepreneur or a growing career specialist is to vision board everything. And I feel like there's so much that you can encapsulate in a mood board. How is your strategy like for that? Do you usually use specific tools? Where do you grab your inspiration from?

Rocio Spaciuk (02:11.912)
Well, I like looking for inspiration everywhere. Maybe it can be like one of your competitors and see what they look like and what they are doing. And maybe it can be like any other sort of brand that has your same values and maybe not even any of that, but just pictures on the web, on websites or on Pinterest that kind of like...

shows the vibe you want to have on your brand.

Chantel Soumis (02:45.959)
I know you just went through one practice with our updated website and it was so cool to see the collage of creative ideas and they don't always connect or overlap in any way. Sometimes they're just complimentary, which is cool too. So in terms of making things blend together in a harmonious brand or design, what common mistakes do you see businesses making with branding, especially

when they try to do it themselves or rely on templates like in Canva.

Rocio Spaciuk (03:20.148)
Maybe this is kind of obvious, but I believe that the video's mistake is not relying on a professional. It's like maybe relying on a designer, not even a designer, someone that has a little of experience on designs because when we make a design, it's not just about style and just about making it look pretty. It also has a structure. It also has a strategy.

And that's why I would always recommend brands to hire a professional. And yes, because if you, when you have a template or something like that, usually brands make the mistake to start moving things around and these sorts of things that they are thought they have a lot of thought behind of them.

And sometimes when you do that kind of mistakes, the audience sees your design and your communication in a completely different way.

Chantel Soumis (04:29.499)
There is the one, so we worked on another project together, completely separate from the last one I mentioned, and it was, you helped me understand the power of research in overcoming those common mistakes. For example, you had done a bunch of research, I had done a bunch of market research on a brand that was in the entertainment industry, and their core color palette was red,

black and white, and every competitor had the exact same color palette. So how do you expect to stand out if you're completely blending in with your approach? So what kinds of activities do you usually try to do in that competitor research to help your brand or the brand refresh really take things to the next level? Do you have a specific go-to resource? Is it a lot of web?

review, social media, can you tell me a little bit more about that?

Rocio Spaciuk (05:33.429)
Well, in this case, when you're looking for a competitor, it's really important to see what you want to do similar, but how you're going to differentiate yourself. And in this case, the problem were the colors. And I would have suggested to use some different colors and colors that nobody's using that still represents who you are.

as a brand, but still makes you be original. For these sort of things, just go back to the investigation and to the visual part. I talked in the first question and I just look for inspiration in similar brands or in completely different ones and see how they are using their colors and their elements and just try to create like

a visual vision of how it will look in the future and what can we make that makes the brand look different from the others.

Chantel Soumis (06:40.845)
Tell me a little bit more about in the research what market research has to play, like your audience, right? When you think of consumer psychology and how that reflects in your brand and your visual assets, that was another thing that we explored with that project. And because it was a younger market, right, we really wanted to build vibrance, like activity, energy, structure into the brand.

Can you share a little bit more about how you research the market itself, whether that's through surveys or public research through deep research on perplexity or an AI tool, and then how you explore breathing that into a design?

Rocio Spaciuk (07:26.036)
Well, it's really important. think one of the most important things in a brand is to know your audience, to know what they want to hear and how you can communicate with this target you're searching. And what? Sorry, I got stuck. I lost my word. OK.

When we talk about the target audience, you can do it with a forms question. You can make a form to ask questions for the target audience and maybe you can see what interests they have. You can look on their linkings or

You can see which pages they follow or which brands they use and see how all those pages and brands and things are working on their brand name or working on their identity and see what this audience, well, with what they feel represented.

And in this case, in this brand you are talking about, it was like a really young audience. And it was really important to see maybe they are in this sort of experience that the brand was making. They are looking for something that represents energy and that is bribe and that

I don't know, they wanted to feel excited when they saw this branding. So you have to represent those feelings with your colors, with your elements, with your logo, with everything.

Chantel Soumis (09:22.456)
I love that you that the color is just represented and so much more than just a visual. It's the feeling, right? Like you said, getting excited. We want them to feel excited that we want them to be energized to come in. And those colors are very well. They're strategic. They're strategically placed in every single element. And I loved that with all of your designs, because you always think about those little details.

In terms of color psychology, so diving into that a little bit deeper, when we work, so sometimes before the whole redesign or a design of an element, a handout, a graphic, whatever it is, sometimes we do brand sprints. Can you share a little bit more about a brand sprint is or the foundational lab and how we use those foundational labs to really breathe understanding?

into the graphic side of things.

Rocio Spaciuk (10:24.914)
Well, the brand sprints usually include a lot of information. We would be like a whole day here talking about what it includes, but it goes from things like your goals and well, some of the things I took in when we first started talking, they include things like your vision. And of course that

how you want the people to see you, how are you going to reach your target audience. And this includes a lot of things related to the visuals. For example, the color psychology. It's as simple as saying like, if you have a calm brand, you can use like a super bold color. Or if you have a brand that represents energy, you can just use a color that's super calm and super soft.

So we start talking with our clients and with the brands.com about which feelings or which sensations they want their brand to give. example, if you want your brand to give the feeling of security and trust, you would probably use a blue one. Or if you want your brand to look passionate and strong, you would probably use a red one.

These are the sort of things that we have on our brand springs. And I think it's really, really important. You can't start a branding without these things because you need to comprehend what the brand is about and how you're going to work with that and what you want to communicate with what you have.

Chantel Soumis (12:10.289)
That's beautiful. It goes so much further beyond the color as well. There's a story that can be told and even the typography that you use. When you're using fonts and typography, what advice do you have strategically for companies?

Rocio Spaciuk (12:31.572)
Well, I think that when you think about the whole investigation that Collor has and all that, it feels like typography is being kind of left behind because you can't put typography in a box. Like you can say, well, I want to make my brand look strong, so I use red. It's like you can have a formal brand and you may be using a font that's sans serif or a font that's serif.

So I believe the most important thing when you're talking about typography is to set rules. Set rules in your brand book that show the way you are going to use the typography because if you are choosing to use all capitals or not, or if you are choosing to make the size between lines super close or super far away.

It's like, will give a completely different feeling to the people that's seeing this brand. And those are the things that, that I like to take care when I decide with which typography or how I use the typography on a brand.

Chantel Soumis (13:46.204)
It's very well thought out, Rochi. And it's not something that people really look into. don't like, especially business owners or CEOs, no one's gonna look at the text or the font. But then when you're like, us, deep in the weeds, it's like, you're using Comic Sans for a business proposal? This is not good. We need to level this up. I remember my typography class in college.

Rocio Spaciuk (14:02.292)
Yeah.

Rocio Spaciuk (14:08.444)
Yes.

Chantel Soumis (14:15.612)
and I thought it was gonna be the most boring thing ever. I was like, great, I get to study letters, okay. But what we did in it is we went through like old movies and we got to analyze the fonts they chose in these movies, like a dated piece from a Western. You're not gonna use some form of sans serif font. You're going to use something that is extremely appropriate to the time period.

And it's only when you have a trained eye that you notice these things. So beyond what we're doing in our designs, it's important to think about timepieces too. If you want to reflect forward thinking, know, like an AI brand, you want to make sure your font is really focused on that as well. So thank you for bringing that up. Let's talk design assets. What should every brand have in their digital toolkit? And what's the hierarchy of importance when

Budgets are tight because we know that most people always put marketing at the bottom of the list or priority list for budgeting. But tell me a little bit more about what everyone needs to have in their design toolkit.

Rocio Spaciuk (15:28.402)
Well, mostly if you are on a budget, I think that you should have four things in particular. First of all, your logo, and if possible, a logo variant that could be vertical and horizontal, or maybe with an icon and without an icon. But your logo, first of all. Then, of course, your colors. Colors are like the second thing of importance.

then your fonts, of course. And what's most important about all of these, that it's my last element, it's having rules for all of them. This is because if you have, you can have certain colors and certain fonts, but if you use it in, you can use them in 10 different ways and you will have 10 different brands, literally. So it's really important to have rules on your brand book.

to show how you're going to use them. And it's really important to have some graphic style examples because that way you can show if another designer comes later how to keep the brand consistency.

Chantel Soumis (16:46.666)
Genius i remember. That i was working for a company and one of the first things they sent me when i came on board was a brand guidelines. Now it's like wow this is very forward thinking of you to equip every new hire with a brand guidelines. What's it's really important right your brand is your it's your culture i mean there's so much about your brand that.

explores things, takes things further and it breathes really life into all throughout the business, not just the way that you appear on social media. When building your brand guidelines for businesses that might not know, what are a couple of things that often go overlooked in the brand guidelines? We talked about colors, we talked about typography, but what else can you think of that should be in a brand guidelines that

Rocio Spaciuk (17:17.907)
Yes.

Chantel Soumis (17:39.008)
some businesses like completely forget about.

Rocio Spaciuk (17:42.293)
I like including things that we investigate beforehand, like in our brand sprints. I like including things like who your target audience is, which one is your voice, because there are a hundred different ways you can speak. And your voice also depends on your target audience. This is really important and brands usually forget about it.

Rocio Spaciuk (18:08.816)
Of course, I would include ways to use things and ways you should not be using them. Because sometimes when you work on a branding, then in the future another designer comes and doesn't know if he should be using or she should be using the logo in a certain way or not. And it's really important to choose, for example, in which background you should use each color and things like that.

Usually brands forget about that and it's as important as the the dos and things you can do.

Chantel Soumis (18:50.091)
You know, one thing that you've added into some of the brand guidelines I've seen lately are like icon usage too. I feel like that's super helpful when you think about how to present or represent your brand, even in like PowerPoint presentations, right? Or decks, like you having icons in there or certain elements, right? Is that the right word for it?

little elements like the splash or a cracking or something feature or something like that. Where would that fall into the brand guidelines and how would you suggest people use those?

Rocio Spaciuk (19:17.864)
Yeah.

Rocio Spaciuk (19:32.053)
Well, I think icons are kind of secondary in a brand book. You have like your most important elements and icons comes next. But it's really important because they are part of your identity and you should always include how they are supposed to be used and what they will be used for because sometimes for a brand you may have like

posts and things that have more creative freedom and maybe you have decks that have more like important information and sometimes icons can be used for just for informal stuff and not for formal stuff so it's important to have in your brand book which ones are your icons, how you have to use them, which rules you have about your icons and things like that.

Chantel Soumis (20:27.219)
Yeah, that makes sense. Making sure everybody's on the same page with the creative assets too, so designs don't go rogue. That's really important. You know, when we work together, I feel like you have a new tool you're working on almost every week. Like there's a new feature that comes out and everyone's like, hey, give this a go. I got a subscription. Check it out. What are some of your favorite?

tools today to use in your designs, whether that's like animating a can or one of these other assets that we use to make things more interesting or appealing from a design perspective.

Rocio Spaciuk (21:08.254)
Well, actually, one of them is just the one that you recommended. We were working on a brand that has some cans as packaging. And I'm working with a page that has some sort of AI inside that you can create a mock-up. And this creates some short videos like GIFs. Well, it also creates

pictures for mock-ups and it's super because you have the element like in 3D and you can see it from every side and it's super important when you're working on packaging because you can design something playing like in 2D and then you don't know how it's going to look on the real life. this is great because before we used to

print things and try maybe like how in a can you had at home and things like that. So this tool is super exciting. I'm testing it out now and I'm super happy with it. And after that, even if it's kind of obvious, I'm super excited with ChatGBT because with its new image creation, it's

It's allowing me to create some real pictures and we don't have to go through a photo shoot or things like that because I can create like mock-ups in like two seconds and then put my design on top. And that's amazing. I guess these two are my favorite ones at the moment.

Chantel Soumis (22:50.694)
That's genius. And you bring up a really good point there about how we can get around the photo shoot. We can get around the video shoot with these tools today. And not only does it help expedite everything, but it keeps things on such a tight budget because the subscription cost, right, is so low compared to hiring your own in-house videographer, which we have, which we work with, and they come into play many times. But when it comes to products or activities,

like one of our brands that we're working on, they are a salon studio and we need to make sure that everything's like clean in the background, you know? Those little tweaks and edits can go so far and they're such low cost, but only a trained designer like Rochi would be able to really see the impact that that would have on your market ahead of time. So.

What design trends do you, I'm wrapping everything up because we're reaching the end of the hour, but I've got to ask you about the design trends because you did share that tool. But what other trends are you loving right now in terms of design?

Rocio Spaciuk (24:01.812)
Well, I'm super excited that gradients are on trend now because I have always loved gradients and right now there are like a lot of variants that are super trendy. One of them is called Aurora gradients that it's inspired by, I think they are called the Northern Lights in English. And it's amazing how they are using it. Of course they are being used for a lot of tech.

industries and they are being used for like AI companies and things like that but I really like applying them to everything I can. I think it brings you like the possibility like if you have some like a new color palette you can use colors mixed up and create something completely new and besides that I just love bento boxes.

It's like super simple, but like they organize everything, no matter if you put it in decks or in websites or whatever. But they just let you like, put a lot of elements on the same page without making it look that it's not organized.

Chantel Soumis (24:58.605)
Yeah!

Chantel Soumis (25:19.707)
love that. I'm a fan for a bento box any time of day. So my last question then for you would be what trends do you wish would just disappear already that we've seen too much of and it's time to retire them and put them away?

Gabe Leal (25:24.009)
Wow.

Rocio Spaciuk (25:36.629)
I hope this is not... I hope I don't get into a mess with this but I just... I just hate anaglyphs. I don't know if you know what an anaglyph is but it's this sort of picture maybe like of a person like black and white and you have on the background on one side like a super red neon color and on the other side like a super...

Chantel Soumis (25:51.588)
No, explain more.

Rocio Spaciuk (26:05.972)
light blue neon color and it looks like it's moving and it looks like it's glitched. I just can't stand it. It's like something that came back. It's a trend that came back. It was used like a couple of years ago and I think that it should have stayed there and not came back. But okay, this is just an opinion. I just don't like using it in my designs, but.

Chantel Soumis (26:13.87)
Bye!

Rocio Spaciuk (26:32.134)
I know it's trendy and I know a lot of brands are using it and if you use it correctly, it's great for you.

Chantel Soumis (26:38.264)
Yeah, it's got to be one of those like product placement pieces. It's got to be placed well in order for it to thrive. I understand that. I thought you were going to say drop shadows because for a while everything had a drop shadow on it. And that's one of the things where I'm like, come on, we can can lighten up here a little bit.

Rocio Spaciuk (26:43.284)
Yeah.

Rocio Spaciuk (26:57.926)
Yeah, there are a lot of different tools that can replace drop shadows, but at the same time, it's a classic. You can't just erase it. Yeah.

Chantel Soumis (27:05.719)
Yeah, that's fair. That's fair. Don't fix what isn't broken, I suppose. Well, Vrotie, this is awesome to have you on. Thank you so much for taking time out of your day and away from your busy design projects to chat about all the design trends to invest in a designer, especially if you're serious about your brand and about the future of your business, because your brand is what's really going to outshine and catch on before anything else does.

So thank you.

Rocio Spaciuk (27:37.268)
Well, thank you so much for having me. It was an amazing experience. I hope I can come back in the future.

Chantel Soumis (27:45.24)
Yes, yes, we'd love to have you. We'll definitely chat more.

Gabe Leal (27:51.757)
Okay, and that is a wrap. Thank you. I love this. She is like literally like even when you guys were talking about brand design and everything else it it brought up in my head just think listening and paying attention actually not having to participate. There's a scene in the movie. I don't know if you've ever seen the movie the devil wears Prada.

Chantel Soumis (27:58.158)
Thank you so much. Roachy, isn't Roachy just a gem?

Chantel Soumis (28:20.45)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Gabe Leal (28:21.549)
there's a part where she's talking about the belts and the character, Andy, laughs and she's like, what's so funny? She's like, well, they all look the same. And then she goes into her diary about why and all that stuff and why is it important and how it comes full circle back to her and how she dresses and why it's important.

Chantel Soumis (28:50.669)
I love it.

Chantel Soumis (28:55.101)
Such a good movie. Gabe, I need to rewatch that. That needs to come out of my archives and live in my mind again.

Gabe Leal (29:01.985)
Here. It's just so confusing to Yeah, I Where are the advertisers? we have some pieces from Banana Repo. Well, we need more, don't we? this is...

What do you think? Yeah. Well, you know me. Give me a full ballerina skirt and a hint of saloon, and I'm on board. But do you think it's too much like a La Croix from July? I thought that, but no. Not with the right accessories. It should work. Where are the belts for this? Why is no one ready? See they're ready. It's a call. They're so different. No, it's the visual. They look the same to her, apparently. She's Snickers, of course.

Chantel Soumis (29:39.564)
you

Gabe Leal (29:41.559)
Something funny.

Gabe Leal (29:46.349)
No. No, no, nothing's... You know, it's just that both those belts look exactly the same to me. You know, I'm still learning about this stuff and, This... stuff? Okay. I see. You think this has nothing to do with you.

You go to your closet and you select, I don't know, that lumpy blue sweater, for instance, because you're trying to tell the world that you take yourself too seriously to care about what you put on your back. But what you don't know is that that sweater is not just blue. It's not turquoise. It's not lapis. It's actually cerulean. And you're also blithely unaware of the fact that in 2002 Oscar de la Renta did a collection of cerulean gowns. And then I think it was Yves Saint Laurent, wasn't it, who

I think we need a jacket here. And then Cerulean quickly showed up in the collections of eight different designers. I'm going to filter down through the department stores and then trickle down into some tragic casual corner where you no doubt fished it out of some clearance bin. However, that blue represents millions of dollars and countless jobs. And it's sort of comical how you think that you've made a choice that exempts you from the fashion industry when in

In you're wearing a sweater that was selected for you by the people in this room from a pile of stuff.

Chantel Soumis (31:18.077)
that you just inspired me to do another video. Thank you, Gabe.

Gabe Leal (31:21.329)
Yeah, so that brings it full circle though. Like when you were mentioning at the beginning, like eight different brand colors and they were all the same, right? It's a trickle down sort of view when it comes to design. You see, you know, that's exactly how trends are started. People look at something and say this font or this color scheme or it's stuck out and it makes a difference.

Rocio Spaciuk (31:21.737)
Yeah

Gabe Leal (31:48.813)
And to the trained eye, like you guys, and this is I love the conversation, it just brought me there, is that it literally makes you think about all the things that you have in your life. You can look around and see on your bookshelf or somewhere that that was important because it all matters in how somebody actually sits down. because again, you guys, again, I'm going have to break this down even more. Okay.

I know we're tight on it, the whole, you know, whole CFO and everybody, they don't pay attention to that stuff. That's not their job. That's the job of the people that they've selected to be in this place that really do matter. And it really just says, hey, look, there's a pattern to this. There's a psychology to this. There's a lot that goes into this and not people just go,

Chantel Soumis (32:19.077)
you

Gabe Leal (32:46.517)
I can just build it on Canva and it'll be okay. Not that they're doing wrong with Canva. I'm not saying that, but just throwing stuff together, there's actually a science to building out a brand that is unique and stands apart from everything else. I love that you ladies were sharing.

Chantel Soumis (33:00.519)
Detail.

Rocio Spaciuk (33:02.654)
care.

You actually made me remember that one of the first classes I had in university, the professor came and said, everything you see in your world, like everything when you look around is design. And it was like at the first time, I wasn't like comprehending what he said, but he meant that everything is thought. can't imagine how much thought was.

was there when they created everything like the signs you see on the streets and like the handle you use to open a door or the bottle you are drinking from. Everything has design, everything was thought so that it works perfectly for you and that's design. Design is everything.

Gabe Leal (33:57.91)
It is. It is. Who thought of an octagon as a way to... Like that shape became the symbolization of style. And no matter what language, what country, it is usually the octagon with a red, white color scheme. And it's like, it stands out. mean, it's...

Chantel Soumis (34:08.035)
Stop.

Chantel Soumis (34:17.712)
So funny.

Rocio Spaciuk (34:17.992)
Yeah, psychology.

Chantel Soumis (34:22.65)
Gabe, do you know why? So, should I ask Roti how people should connect with her? That's the one thing I forgot about with closing. Am I supposed to do that?

Gabe Leal (34:32.085)
Okay, so in closing, yeah, we can do that real quick. Because I think it would be cool to have people connect with her who want to go see because that's the whole point is to drive people to understand and discover who she is and what this is about as well. So ask her that if you can. then secondly, and here's the thing, it's the beautiful thing about love about podcasts and just all of this.

Chantel Soumis (34:36.676)
Okay.

Gabe Leal (34:59.317)
I can put all this stuff together in post. So don't worry about all the other extra stuff. if you ever think, if so, if you think of a closing that you want to do, we can add it in. If not, we will just roll with what we have. but yes, please guide people to find out what it is that she does in Roche if you want to, or even you Shantel later on, to put in the show notes to kind of have a link to some of these tools that you might guys might want to mention. then for you.

Chantel Soumis (35:04.623)
Okay.

Chantel Soumis (35:26.755)
Now we can share it.

Gabe Leal (35:27.925)
And then, of course, for you, if you have an upcoming class, please make mention or anything that you might have coming up, either one of you, because that's going to just guide people into discovering this. Because once I have all these done by the end of the week, I'm dropping all the episodes, all the shorts. We're just going to blast. We're going.

Chantel Soumis (35:47.548)
wow.

can't wait, alright.

Gabe Leal (35:52.109)
Okay, so it's still recording, so whenever you want to or however you want to go do it, you can. We still have a little bit more time before we go to our next guest.

Chantel Soumis (36:00.516)
Let me see here. What's a good spicy sign off for my vodka? Scratchy BT.

Gabe Leal (36:12.418)
Thank you.

Chantel Soumis (36:14.146)
Let's see, was thinking. Thinking.

Gabe Leal (36:16.341)
is thinking. Thinking.

Gabe Leal (36:21.357)
I love that AI does a lot of this stuff though.

I went to a comedy show last night and literally while we were watching and hearing the comedians talk, I looked to see if there was a generative AI to write a comedy standup routine, which it actually did, which is pretty funny. I was like, wow. mean, not that you want to just use everything that AI gives you, but it does give you an idea of like, maybe this steers my routine in a way.

Chantel Soumis (36:54.552)
These are all interesting, but I'll just, I'll pick number one. All right, so.

Gabe Leal (36:58.549)
Okay. Okay. Okay. We'll do this. ask, or kind of give a lead into, Hey, if you want to connect with Roche, please, you can head over to her here or ask her if she wants to give where would be the best place to find her. then secondly, you give any information that you want to do before we do the sign off and then sign off and we're done. You got that?

Chantel Soumis (37:19.875)
Okay. Yeah. Roti, you want me to say where to find you? Where to find you? LinkedIn? Instagram? Where do you want people to find you?

Gabe Leal (37:31.86)
Or if it's your Insta.

Rocio Spaciuk (37:32.308)
probably my Instagram is pretty left behind but you can comment on that too. It's just that I don't know if people will find it because it's raw spasiuqdg, also kind of difficult. It's in Spanish.

Gabe Leal (37:42.029)
Give it to the professional.

Chantel Soumis (37:48.855)
say your last name. That's one thing I was gonna say it and then I was like I'm gonna screw this up.

Rocio Spaciuk (37:54.685)
It's spa siuk.

Chantel Soumis (37:56.493)
That's kind of what I thought. All right.

Rocio Spaciuk (37:58.078)
Yeah, it's a gradient.

Chantel Soumis (38:02.232)
All right. Okay. Ready, Gabe?

Gabe Leal (38:03.479)
Okay.

Gabe Leal (38:08.779)
I'm ready. You're we're going right now as it is.

Chantel Soumis (38:11.222)
Alright.

All right, thank you, Rochi, so much for joining us today. If anyone wants to get in touch with Rochi, you can reach her on LinkedIn or learn more at stayinyourlaneco.com. We also have many trainings on train in your lane, like AI for marketing, where you may find out another really great tool that Rochi's obsessing over.

both obsessing over. It's usually obsession followed by usage. Anyhow, thanks all so much. Stay fierce, stay curious, and above all, stay in your lane. Until it's time to burn some rubber.

Gabe Leal (38:58.061)
There we go. I love it. I love it. Hey, we're going to roll with that because that's what's going to pay the bills, And that's what we're doing right now. Okay, cool. Thank you so much. And then I need you to kind of out of practice. Sorry, I do apologize. Just give me the

Chantel Soumis (39:00.994)
burn some rubber.

That's a stay in your lane one at least. I'll keep that on brand.

Chantel Soumis (39:17.666)
Alright, I'll be brief. Yes.

Gabe Leal (39:27.606)
the brief bio read and then I can pull everything and splice it all together. It'll be easy.

Chantel Soumis (39:29.644)
Yes, sir.

Chantel Soumis (39:33.228)
Okay, sounds good. Thank you, Rochi. We'll see you later. I'll stay on. Adore you. Bye.

Gabe Leal (39:34.997)
Good morning, everyone.

Rocio Spaciuk (39:35.815)
Thank you. Goodbye.

Chantel Soumis (39:41.868)
Alright, ready?

Gabe Leal (39:43.04)
Ready yet. I'm ready to go.

Chantel Soumis (39:44.641)
Okay, today on the fractional CMO advantage, I'm ridiculously excited to pull back the curtain on the creative brain trust that keeps our visuals vibrant at Stay In Your Lane. Joining us is Rochy Spasiuk, our lead graphic designer, freshly graduated from Universidad del Vergrano, and already a force of nature in brand identity and visual storytelling.

From crafting mouth-watering Alphajor packaging to mapping Buenos Aires neighborhoods with eye-popping infographics, Rochi's portfolio shows a fearless command of color, typography, and emotion. Rochi doesn't just make things pretty. She engineers experiences. Distilling big ideas into clean, scroll-stopping graphics,

that translate across ads, pitch decks, and social feeds. Her designs have helped shape the visual DNA of every project we touch, and the energy she brings to our seed stage clients rivals the buzz of a Series C launch. Off the clock, you'll find her absorbing street art palettes around Buenos Aires, diving into Swiss typography theory, or experimenting with motion graphics to keep our brand assets breathing.

her secret power, an uncanny ability to spot the one pixel that's sabotaging Harmony and fix it before you've even noticed. So grab your sketchbooks or at least your curiosity because you're about to get a master class in turning blink canvases into brand anthems. Rochi, welcome to the show!

Gabe Leal (41:31.979)
That's it. Ta-da. So I got it right there, right where you, think you were mid reading and I said, holy crap. you didn't hit record, Gabe. he saw the numbers pop up and I go, huh? my gosh. So.

Chantel Soumis (41:33.952)
Ha ha ha!

Chantel Soumis (41:44.703)
I saw it, I was like, five, four, I just kept going.

Chantel Soumis (41:52.607)
I've got, so are we going to stay in here for Tori?

Gabe Leal (41:56.703)
So I actually have another one set up for this because I'll send you the link to that as well here in a minute. We'll go just hop in that other one. The reason is once I'm done with this one, it's actually going to be uploading all the stuff, the transcript, the show notes, everything automatically. And we can just keep rolling and go into the next studio. So that way it'll be good. yeah. Yes, I'm going to eat.

Chantel Soumis (42:20.959)
awesome concept. So you're going to email that to me?

Gabe Leal (42:26.029)
Probably yeah, I'll email it to you in just one second. I'm going to head over there and get that one set up. But great session. Natural. It was natural.

Chantel Soumis (42:36.031)
Alright, I'm gonna run to the bathroom quick, I'll be on in a minute.

Gabe Leal (42:40.173)
Okay, I'll get everything set up. All right, see you in a minute. Bye.

Chantel Soumis (42:41.983)
See you later. Bye.