The Secret Behind A Successful Campaign: Creativity, Freelance Life & Brand Identity with Quinn

This week we're doing something a little different — our guest is Olivia's sister Quinn, an art director and creative director with over five years of experience building brands from the ground up. 

From planning full photo shoots to running social media, email marketing, and everything in between, Quinn has worn every hat in the creative world — and now she's going freelance.

We get into what actually goes into building a campaign pitch, why brand books matter more than people think, the trend cycle moving faster than ever, AI in advertising (looking at you, Pepsi), and why slapping text on a great photo can undo everything. 

Quinn also opens up about rediscovering her love of drawing and painting, and what she's most excited about in this new chapter.

Whether you're a photographer, designer, or creative of any kind — this one's for you.

A podcast about what really goes on behind the scenes of building brands, businesses, and personal platforms. 

We talk marketing, content, branding, community, and the uncomfortable middle between idea and execution.
Built for founders, creators, and business owners who want honest conversations, not recycled advice.


Hosted by Matt and Olivia. Audio-only for now. New episodes regularly.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_05 0:00

Episode nine.

SPEAKER_02 0:01

Crazy.

SPEAKER_05 0:02

This one is a little bit different. We usually have photographers, videographers, content creators on. This time's different because who do we have on, Liv?

SPEAKER_04 0:15

We have my sister Quinn. Hi. Quinny. Quinny. Super Sweet100.

SPEAKER_05 0:21

Also not. We're just gonna call you super sweet. Okay, great. Awesome. Thank you for coming on. Of course.

SPEAKER_02 0:27

I'm so excited.

SPEAKER_05 0:29

This will be a great conversation because I'm also fascinated with the stuff you do and the work you do because you work very closely with creatives and teams and photographers. And so yeah, let's just start off with for everyone listening, who is Quinn?

SPEAKER_03 0:44

Hi, I'm Quinn. I'm Olivia's older sister. I am technically art director, creative director, which essentially means I'm everything all at one time. I just went freelance recently, which is quite exciting. So yeah, you become your own boss. I get to be my own boss. But then other people will also be my boss when I want them to. Yes. It's a very exciting time.

SPEAKER_05 1:16

So you have a lot of roles. Yes. Technically. Especially with your old job. Yeah. You we were talking briefly before this podcast about everything you did. And I'll let you name all of them, but I didn't know how extensive it was.

SPEAKER_03 1:34

Crazy list of hats. Well, yeah. I think it's it might not be the same for everyone, but most people that I know that are in that position, you have to be a little bit of everything and super adaptable. I worked with a really small team that just kept getting smaller and smaller as the years went on, which kind of forced me into developing different roles and skills. So towards the end of my career at this company, I was planning all of the photo shoots. I was hiring models. I was producing them, styling, steaming clothes, but then I was also running our social media and taking content, but then also handling our email marketing, any other digital marketing of every kind, maintaining the website and doing also any print assets that our stores would need. There's probably more that I was doing, but in a nutshell, that was essentially everything that I did. That's a whole jar paper on a weekly basis. And most of it was with working with at least one other person. And but again, towards the end, it was just me. And then we hired a junior designer and she took over for me. So I hope everything is functioning still. Still afloat.

SPEAKER_05 3:02

That's crazy. I remember like on Christmas, you were working pretty much all day.

SPEAKER_03 3:05

Yeah. Because you think about it, if if you're having a Boxing Day sale, who's updating the website? That's a good point. Yeah. We're not there in technology yet, apparently. Shopify.

SPEAKER_05 3:21

Calling out Shopify right now.

SPEAKER_04 3:24

Whatever.

SPEAKER_05 3:25

What okay, two questions. Yes. What did you enjoy the most out of what you did? Dislike.

SPEAKER_03 3:33

I think the biggest thing that I ended up liking was doing all the photo shoot stuff. Planning that from start to finish was really rewarding and fun. I don't know if Livby's ever mentioned this, but we both worked in service for a really long time. So we're like so used to being on our feet. And it was just having those shoot days. Everyone was so exhausted by the end and complaining. And I was like, that was the best day ever. I got to run around like the crazy person and like just create all these looks and style all these outfits and get to know the model, the makeup artist, the photographer, and you just listen to music all day and like you see something beautiful at the end of it. And I think that was the best part. I think for me, the worst part about that job. Not even that job, or just like in general, is doing kind of the more mundane, like pitch decks and things like that. They're a little bit less creative. And I think when you're also working with one specific brand all the time, it can get a little bit repetitive and everything looks the same. You're not pushing the boundaries, you're not doing anything like really new or inventive because it has to stay in the scope of the brand identity.

SPEAKER_01 4:50

But yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:50

Yeah, doing those little mundane things were not as fun. But it's part of the job, someone has to do it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 4:57

I feel the same way. I feel like whenever I'm planning and coming up with mood board and ideas and then getting to see the final product from that is super exciting. So fun. But on the flip side, just like you said, when you're doing it the same over and over again with the same people and the same brand or same business. Yeah. It can be so mundane.

SPEAKER_03 5:18

Yeah. Yeah. Cause it and I don't know if you either of you find this when you're working with people, like it takes a lot more work to try and get them to push it and be like, let's try this or let's do that. So I feel like you're not able to have as much creative freedom as you would when you get to like work with a bunch of different brands. 100%.

SPEAKER_04 5:38

I think that's the beauty in freelance work though, too, right? Like I feel like now you're gonna have more opportunity to be creative and you're not just working with one brand, you're gonna be working with multiple, so your days aren't gonna look the same all the time. Yeah. And I think that's really cool and exciting for you.

SPEAKER_03 5:57

Yeah, I think that's why I wanted to do it.

SPEAKER_04 5:59

And I think that's what you've been missing in your life for so long. Because this was what, five and a half years of your life of doing the exact same thing. Yeah. And because and also I think as you became smaller and smaller as a team, more work that you were putting on, the harder it was for you to just enjoy what you do. Exactly now. I think being freelance, it's just gonna open up so many cool doors for you.

SPEAKER_03 6:24

I hope so. That's the goal. I think that's like it like exactly what you said. That's what I've been missing. So it'll be nice to be able to reach out to different types of brands and people and have that opportunity again.

unknown 6:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 6:39

I was gonna say even for us when we're working closely with a business, there's so much noise out there that you have to come up with these creative and unique ideas because let's say their competitors are doing the exact same thing that they're doing. And we're the experts that have to come to them to basically pitch this new idea outside of their comfort zone.

SPEAKER_03 7:07

Yeah, exactly. And I don't know if you guys feel this too. I've been interviewing a lot lately, so I've been having this conversation a little bit more than I probably did when I was obviously working full time. But with pushing those things, I feel like it changes so much that you can't base it off of trends, and people are really trying to have to do something new all the time. Yeah. And it's like way more frequent than when I started in this industry. Like before it'd be like a couple of years and you'd have time, but now the turnover of trends is like two weeks.

SPEAKER_04 7:42

Yeah, or even like days.

SPEAKER_03 7:43

Yeah. Especially with social stuff. Yeah, it's like days, and it's like, how do people keep up with this stuff? Yeah. How are you try trying to invent something new?

SPEAKER_04 7:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 7:52

And anyways.

SPEAKER_03 7:53

That's a good point.

SPEAKER_05 7:54

We have this conversation a lot. Yeah. Where every single podcast and every single conversation with our clients and on discovery calls, the same thing gets said every single time. It's we don't want to follow these trends, but since it's the easiest thing to do in the moment, yeah, that's what people resort to.

SPEAKER_03 8:11

Yeah, because you're gonna that's what's gonna see immediate result. But it's just unfortunate too, because I feel like a lot of brands will do these things, but it's like also not on brand for them. So the industry's changed a lot, and I'm learning this also just from interviewing because I've been in my bubble for the last five years. Yeah. But it's just it's interesting to see that.

SPEAKER_05 8:33

It's cool that you recognize that through like bigger brands too, because it is so prominent with the local businesses and smaller businesses. Yeah. Oh, for sure. So it's cool, it's actually fat surprising that the same problems happen across bigger brands too.

SPEAKER_03 8:50

Oh, for sure. Like you even look at all of these like high fashion brands like Loeve and Prada, they've introduced these AI campaigns recently, and that kind of just doesn't feel like the integrity of the brand, but they're doing it because it's what everyone else is doing, and it's pushing I don't know, new creative, but it doesn't also feel to me.

SPEAKER_04 9:14

Yeah, but sometimes it I find that when especially like higher end or like luxury brands are doing these things, it's like reducing them a bit. And it's and I feel like that's just like with content in general these days with brands, is I feel like if you're following these trends, it reduces them to this, I don't know, normalcy of whatever. And I don't I feel like it's just no one's unique anymore.

SPEAKER_03 9:41

Yeah, it's hard to yeah, it's I feel like it's hard to stand out. Yeah, I suppose, with a lot of these things that are going on. Again, because the trend cycle is so much more frequent than we've ever seen. And it's just it's hard to keep up with. I don't know how people do it, but we're gonna try.

SPEAKER_05 9:59

I was watching a YouTube video actually pretty recently, and I I forget the context of it. I think this guy was basically pitching his business and trying to figure out how to scale it. But his business, listen to this, he produces AI campaigns for brands for a tenth of the cost. And so he'll basically take what these production companies and agencies are doing for a hundred K, 20K, million dollar campaign, and only charging 5k because it's AI produced.

SPEAKER_03 10:33

Yeah, see, that was the thing. And I think that's because I don't know if you guys remember when Adidas came out with that like video content and it was like fully AI, but it was using AI models, and there was that was like a huge controversy because it cost them like half the price because they didn't have to hire real people or a production company if someone was just able to create it on their computer, yeah. And it's just crazy.

SPEAKER_05 10:59

Do you think any press is good press?

SPEAKER_03 11:02

That's a really good question. In my experience and working for other brands and agencies, yes, that was always the standard. Just because like you want people to be talking about you, and I guess it does as long as it's not like the most provocative scandal in the world. If it's like you as a brand using AI for the first time and it being a little bit controversial and people are talking about it, yeah, I guess that's not the worst thing, but again.

SPEAKER_05 11:31

There is another one, another commercial actually is airing right now, I think. It's Pepsi, it's Pepsi's commercial, and they are it's an AI produced commercial, and it's two polar bears, or it's a polar bear basically taste testing blindfolded, and he's picking the Pepsi can because he likes that one more. And so it goes through this entire like therapy session and like this walk of shame. And then he sees he looks into a window and he sees like a couple drinking, or there's a group of four people drinking a Pepsi can too, and he like puts his paw on the window, and then he walks by and someone, another polar bear, like a female polar bear, walked up to him and hands him a Pepsi can. It's no, that was the right choice, but it's all A produ a AI produced, but the controversy is it's actually putting more awareness towards Coca-Cola now, too. Because the first product shot was both Pepsi and Coca-Cola.

SPEAKER_03 12:32

So the attention's on both. Yeah, and because historically the polar bears were like the identifier for Coca-Cola. Yeah. So like you that's so weird. Oh, that's so good. It makes me feel bad, also. Like, I just had this thought, and maybe I'm going a little bit off topic. But I used to be so fascinated by anyone that was like an animator and was able to create this content basically out of nothing, like out of drawings and then to render in their own. It's such an impressive skill, and not everyone can do it. Yeah. And now that I think is like the number, obviously, there's a million other industries that have been affected by AI, but that one feels really sad to me. Yeah. Because the anybody can now just plug in prompts and create like an animation event, some kind. And that's such a beautiful craft.

SPEAKER_05 13:23

Honestly, going back to when my dad was in school, he went to graphic design in Conestoga.

SPEAKER_04 13:28

You guys went to the same program.

SPEAKER_05 13:30

And I remember him showing me his like art book and catalog and portfolio. Yeah. And like posters that you would see for like the maple syrup Elmira festival. Like he was creating the poster mock-up for that. Yeah. And drawing it by hand. Yeah. And drawing these other things by hand for like advertisement, and now it's all gone to AI, photo, graphic design, like digital stuff.

SPEAKER_03 13:55

It's crazy because like I also like I didn't know what graphic design was. Cause I had my heart so set on being a drawer, uh drawer, a painter, and to be like a visual artist in an in every other sense. I guess drawing was one of them, but drawer is not the right word. Anyways, I digress. I was so adamant about that. I didn't know what graphic design was. And then my dad had heard from someone else that their kid went to school for graphic design. And luckily in my program, because this was, I guess, 11 years ago now, they were pretty adamant about splitting, at least in the first year, doing the more analog version of everything, like drawing the posters, drawing your animations, and drawing like your mock-ups for everything, as opposed to just doing it on the computer so that we understood where it started from, which I thought was quite interesting. And I liked, I honestly looked at that a lot more.

SPEAKER_05 14:55

That's why storyboarding's still a thing. Yeah. When it comes to shooting a video, like most of the times, if it's higher produced, it has to start with you drawing it.

SPEAKER_03 15:04

Yeah, exactly. Everything for me still starts from me drawing stuff out.

SPEAKER_05 15:08

So I'm not also the best draw. Like I am my storyboards are stick figures.

SPEAKER_03 15:13

That's okay. Stick figures are beautiful.

SPEAKER_05 15:15

And then trying to show that to a client, be like, no, this is what it's supposed to look like.

SPEAKER_03 15:19

Obviously, like you look so great in my mind, but I don't want to insult you.

SPEAKER_05 15:24

This is super cool. What was your favorite campaign or project you were a part of?

SPEAKER_03 15:31

It's such a good question. There's been quite a few that have been pretty notable. I think for a long time I was working in a lot of more of the branding side of design. And then when I switched over and I started doing like these kind of pitch decks for directors, I found that to be really cool because you do a lot of more research and you're seeing a whole different side of what design can do to influence people. So I really liked doing all of those. I'm trying to think of like my favorite one. And maybe I don't even have a favorite one yet. And maybe it's coming.

SPEAKER_04 16:13

When you've worked with so many different industries too, like it hasn't just been one thing. No. You've been with like a variety of different styles of brands and businesses. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:26

So done a little bit of retail fashion and restaurants. Like independent brands. Like I did a lot of cannabis work at one point. And then what else was I doing? Again, stuff for directors. It was, yeah, I guess it's a mixed bag, which is what I missed. And now I'm gonna do that again, hopefully.

unknown 16:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 16:48

I feel like we should go back to like where you started though. I feel like you like we I know we touched on it a little bit, how like you were as a kid, you were very creative and you were always drawing. Like Quinn had multiple books of like sketchbooks. Yeah, I wonder where those are. I think we still have them in the basement. That'd be interesting to look at. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 17:15

They're probably better than than they aren't because I've lost it all.

SPEAKER_04 17:19

But it's crazy that there's been such an evolution of your creativity, just from like you started with painting and drawing, and that's the origin of where you started. Yeah. And then from there it went into graphic design, and then you started working more so on the digital end of things. And I feel like that's all you've done in the last little bit. And then recently you touched on the fact that you miss drawing and you miss having that like art form.

SPEAKER_03 17:47

Yeah, I because I think it's also like a little bit more therapeutic. Because I think when I was like even a teenager, and you can attest to this, I would isolate myself for like days and days on end. And I would just sit in the same spot and I would draw paint for days until I couldn't see anymore. And but then I would come out of it, I'm like, wow, all of my problems are solved, whether it's because I ignored it for three days or because I actually just thought about it and was able to have a release of some sort. I don't know which one it is, but either way, it it there was something that I really miss about doing that. And I think because and not to like disregard any of my work or like any other designer, but there's so many different platforms now where anyone can really design. But I think when you're like drawing or painting or like making something a little bit more tangible, it sometimes does feel a little bit more like just personal for you. Yeah, it's not gonna look the same as anybody else's because it's coming from you creating it with your hands, yeah, as opposed to having a digital form or like template that anybody can really use. So I like to also incorporate a lot of my drawings into some of my work.

SPEAKER_04 19:06

You did that with your last company, like there were small elements of things that you drew that you input in your newsletters or your Instagram posts and things like that.

SPEAKER_03 19:16

And like I did a whole series of drawings for a restaurant that I worked on, and that was really fun, and now I have a project coming up where I'm gonna be doing something quite similar. So I'm exploring different ways that I can push that, which is exciting. But now that I have the time.

SPEAKER_05 19:33

That's exciting. I think one of the what we talked about yesterday was how when sourcing out these photographers and basically teams, letting them deliver the content, and then from there, like the graphic design on top of that. A lot of what we see is delivering content and then them either just posting the photos as is, which is great, or just slapping on silly text on top of it.

SPEAKER_01 20:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 20:02

And that just defeats the entire purpose behind the photo shoot and the brand and the messaging and the tone. And so I want to hear your approach to that too, when it comes to if it's going to a newsletter or it's going to a social post or if it goes going on like a billboard.

SPEAKER_04 20:17

Like what goes into that?

SPEAKER_05 20:19

It's a loaded question.

SPEAKER_03 20:21

It is a loaded question. Obviously, I'm not a photographer, so I like I don't understand how I have a very basic knowledge of how like all of the editing and stuff goes for most people. But for us, when I was working, I just won't say the name, this company, when we would have these photo shoots, I would essentially be doing all the selects. So I'd sometimes be going through 500 photos and like picking the top 100. And then from there, I would edit them like crazy. Because some of them uh like it you'd shoot darker, especially with certain products, because you need the product to look lighter, and then you have to edit, edit it so it looks all normal and like all bright at the same time. Yeah. It's all it's a big process. You did the editing. I would do the photo editing.

SPEAKER_05 21:09

I think I've had my new editor.

SPEAKER_03 21:11

I'm tired. I I got really good at it. And I don't know how that happened, but I did get really good at it. I should show you guys some of the before and afters of some of these photos. It's like insane, especially when you're working with jewelry. So then I would edit the photos. I would share that content with if I was working with a social media manager, which for a while I wasn't. Then you do. Yeah. Until we brought someone on and then she was great.

SPEAKER_05 21:43

Quinn, what do you think about this? Quinny, I like it.

SPEAKER_03 21:45

I went a little bit crazy. I'm not now, I swear, I'm not.

SPEAKER_02 21:51

Yeah, I would edit all the photos.

SPEAKER_03 21:53

And then I would roll it out to everything else, which would be resizing them for like meta campaigns, Google campaigns, and then doing any of the print stuff that would be needed with those photos too, putting them up on the website, and then creating homepage banners after that for those campaigns. Then helping or creating the social rollout with all of those too. And I do think sometimes with if you put it into not the wrong hands, but someone who doesn't understand maybe the impact photos will have on their brand, adding like any type of text or anything that's not really fitting can destroy that integrity. But it's hard to explain that to people who don't know.

SPEAKER_05 22:46

A lot of the conversations we have going into a new photo shoot, new project or campaign with a client, it's getting a better idea of like how they're using the photos.

SPEAKER_01 22:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 22:58

And so if they plan on using the photos for like social posts and announcements and graphics and stories, there's some sort of what's the word? Like you have a better idea of how to frame something or how you want it to look whether that's more like white space where they can put text. Yeah. Or how just how you position the photo.

SPEAKER_03 23:19

And like what text what and you know what maybe this is what you guys should do and I can give you examples. I will when I'm working with brands by myself, I will leave them with a brand book which has all these rules in it like exactly what you're saying like the way that the images should look what copy is good and not good and what it should look like. And you pass that off to them and hope for the best.

SPEAKER_04 23:48

Yeah we just added a third team member to open media I'm like this is great information.

SPEAKER_05 23:54

Because honestly I've tried that before but I've never gotten it to the point where I liked it.

SPEAKER_01 24:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 24:00

I want it to be at a point where I feel comfortable and confident that it's easy to understand.

SPEAKER_01 24:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 24:07

And but it's also like in their face being like if you don't do this like everything we talked about will go down the drain.

SPEAKER_03 24:15

Yeah exactly. Exactly that's why these brand books are so helpful because it's literally just it's foolproof. Like you if they have any questions at all, it's just in there and they're like this text would look really cool. It's like a ha weird Halloween text and they can flip through this book and then on page 50 it's please for the love of God don't put Halloween text over top of this image or your business will fail. And you can be pretty blunt with it.

SPEAKER_00 24:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 24:43

I feel like that's I think important is being very blunt and direct with people that like you can easily mess up this like photo. Yeah you can like you reduce the quality of the photo significantly when you do text or anything BS.

SPEAKER_05 25:02

The difference though when it comes to like social posts you can get away with some of that stuff. But if that thing is going on a massive billboard or a bus or like print advertising up. No and you have to be so specific with what you want to say to get that point across because if it's on a billboard obviously so many people are driving past it. You want the message to be super clear.

SPEAKER_03 25:26

Yeah. And that's where like the marketing side I suppose comes which is a whole other are you self-taught in marketing then? Yeah. Mostly just from like this last job that I had because I worked with the head of marketing quite closely and we were both newer to it was a bit of a learning curve but it's a it's similar to everything else and it's like very trend based. Now it wasn't always but there's certain things that you can and can't do and it really affects the way that people process and ads.

SPEAKER_05 26:01

Do you think less is more yeah I do.

SPEAKER_03 26:05

I do think yeah I think if it's just really simple I also think like our brains have evolved to need it to be really clear and really simple. So I just think yeah the less less is better. You don't overwhelm it. Most successful campaigns when you actually look at it it's usually one slogan of some sort and then one like hero image that like is the most impactful and then that's it.

SPEAKER_05 26:39

What makes I know it's defin different metrics but in your eyes what makes a good campaign successful?

SPEAKER_03 26:46

I think when you have people maybe talking about it and it like to in a sense goes viral but I guess I'm trying to think of even before we cared about things going viral what made campaigns so successful and I think it's just like word of mouth and having people recognize it or having a whole new demographic of people looking at it. Yeah. Which to me feels like more success but then obviously like brands are measuring it in a different way and it's more measured based on the amount of sales or income that they're making from whatever the I'm trying to think back to my advertising class at Conestoga.

SPEAKER_05 27:29

I guess for the ones that I see now they try to pull more emotion out of it.

SPEAKER_01 27:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 27:34

And the ones we learned about in school there's one by McDonald's the golden arches do you know the Yeah. Yeah so they did that campaign. Oh I think this was like early 2000s. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 27:50

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 27:51

But off the highway they'd have these golden arches on billboards and it's basically each part of the M is where the next McDonald's is and so like the next exit was McDonald's or going left the left exit is the next McDonald's.

SPEAKER_03 28:08

Oh interesting so visually it I think it was follow the golden arches and that's their slogan isn't it used to be at one point I don't know what there is now. Obviously we know like subways and I'm not saying obviously we I know what subways is off the top of my head. But what is subways? Eat fresh oh yeah duh hello I should know I go there so often I love subway I'm loving it.

SPEAKER_05 28:37

Pizza no isn't that McDonald's yes what are some other ones Nike do it don't be lazy and I'm gonna Google this actually because I'm very interested in this yeah because now it's like going back to like the original mechanics of what actually builds a campaign.

SPEAKER_03 28:52

Yeah. Because I'm trying to think of like even modern day like any it's interesting that like it's mostly like food like companies that need a slogan. But you think of any brand there's no slogans attached to it.

SPEAKER_04 29:07

It's all like visual based I remember in school I think it was a part of like my I forget what program it was but we used to have to make slogans for like different businesses and stuff. And that's and I feel like that's not a thing anymore.

SPEAKER_03 29:25

Yeah now that we're talking about it I can't recall like a modern day slogan now.

SPEAKER_05 29:31

There's one that popped up actually from a jewelry brand what is it? Brand is from a diamond is forever or is that the brand?

SPEAKER_03 29:38

Is oh what is that is that Peoples?

SPEAKER_05 29:41

Might be peoples. Yeah. But they're it looks like a catalog but it's one like you said hero image of just the ring and the slogan is how can you make two months salary last forever.

SPEAKER_03 29:53

See a genius. And like you can do that for campaigns. Campaigns for retail obviously is super important to have a good tagline of sorts. But like the brand itself there's actually this one's a good one.

SPEAKER_05 30:08

It's Febrize but the can of Febrize with a block of moldy cheese in the middle and the small text in the cutout where the cheese cut out it says bad order makes 84% harder to remember our memories.

SPEAKER_04 30:25

So spray your Febrize it makes sense because when something smells bad you fixate on it.

SPEAKER_05 30:33

Yeah especially if you can't figure out what it is Febrize going to or even talk about Old Spice and their campaigns around the man your man could smell yeah I guess yeah those ones too but it's interesting.

SPEAKER_03 30:46

Okay now I'm just like thinking of all these other brands not that these aren't significant brands are obviously like very well known but like again high-end like technically luxury or like quiet luxury brands don't have that.

SPEAKER_04 31:03

No.

SPEAKER_03 31:04

Unless it's like for a specific campaign like Valentine's Day or something like that. But either way it's so funny.

SPEAKER_05 31:13

Yeah that's so cool.

SPEAKER_03 31:16

Anyone want to get Subway kinda I can smell it from here.

SPEAKER_05 31:22

Stay fresh. I'm hungry cool okay one question I did have that when we were talking about the kind of the plan that goes into building out a new campaign or pitch or proposal. I guess this is a two-parter how do you build that pitch out? How do you go about pitching it? Yeah because I think that is very much so what we do a lot of and what other photographers are doing a a lot of for sure and there are a lot of right and wrong ways of doing it and definitely point of contact too finding the right person to reach out to. Yeah. And not I guess one thing that I learned throughout the last couple years was like not being technical about it. And just like pitching that that final outcome.

SPEAKER_03 32:13

Yeah okay I see what you're saying. Which is I I definitely agree with that. And I was having this conversation with someone the other day essentially when I'm doing a pitch deck whether I'm working with an agency or if this is just like a solo endeavor on my own you create this like document or a deck that is basically all-encompassing that like shows the process of everything like starting from mood board and then showing exactly how it will look in the end so that someone whoever is looking at it has like the full picture so that like just for an example since we were talking about fast food let's say it was for like new packaging for fast food in that deck you would show like how you would start out with the mood boards, drawings, color palette, fonts, and then from there you would do a bunch of mock-ups so that they can see exactly what it will look like and then from there they can approve, disapprove or have their questions but at least if they see the whole thing come to life then they should I don't know like that's usually like the best approach to it.

SPEAKER_04 33:25

Yeah I remember you doing that in college I remember the there was so many like little pieces to building like a deck or just like a proposal in general for a project that you did. Yeah I remember I used to love sit we had used to have this huge dining room table. Unnecessarily big unnecessarily we're a family of five it fit 20. It was like the length of our entire it was so stupid but anyways but it was perfect for these types of things because I remember just sitting there watching Quinny like you like one you had to print stuff out and cut it and put it onto like a board and draw all of this out. And yeah sorry but it was so fascinating to watch just like how Quinn's brain worked it was like an example and then I was like and then it turned into this huge thing and it was just it was amazed how I think that's what people don't understand is that there's so much more that goes into these things. And like we even talk about this with it's not with like photo and video it's not just Matt clicking a button there's so much more behind it. And I think that's what is you lose the appreciation for it because people just see the end product and they're like wow that's amazing whatever. But you don't see the amount of work and effort that goes into it especially with like graphic design and photography. Like you're thinking like Matt you're thinking about the end product but also the little elements that are going into each photo and then Quinny with your design it's like it comes down to the smallest thing to turn into the biggest outcome.

SPEAKER_03 35:15

Yeah exactly because you're you're actually just starting from nothing.

SPEAKER_05 35:19

Yeah yeah in like during the shoot you might think of something that would play so well in the sort story that you need to take the next extra 10-15 minutes to get that extra shot. Yeah I know I always beg for that and they're like no please we always say like we plan out our shoot days pretty down to that like minute in couple like 10-15 minute batches of time. But I always like to leave some room at the end or at the beginning for some creative freedom.

SPEAKER_01 35:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 35:53

Because I always say once we're like in the thick of it and shooting yeah the client is also gonna have so many new ideas.

SPEAKER_01 36:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 36:01

And so it allows us to have some time away from what we said we were gonna do. Yeah and get some extra stuff for if we need to.

SPEAKER_03 36:08

Yeah we try to do that too but sometimes it gets out of control.

SPEAKER_05 36:13

I remember as you were saying that it's off topic I was in elementary school and it was one night I was doing it was art class and I had a design come up with a design of it was for waste management and so I'd create like a like a diagram of what went in and what didn't go in like that and I left it to last minute obviously like I always do and my sister the funny thing my sister had the exact same like different project due the day after as well. Yeah and she left it to last minute as well and so I think for the entire night me and my my my dad and my mom were like helping us both of us and I think my dad was so mad at my sister because it was just a huge project. But we ended up yeah I love last minute we ended up like cutting out I'm pretty sure we cut out like a portion of our recycling bin sticking it on like the Bristol board and then actually taking or we were drawing garbage on it. And I remember I was I was actually super proud of it. I didn't do anything my dad did it in the entire thing. I brought it into school that next day and like my teacher met me wanted me to show every single teacher in the school and a principal of my design because it was so good.

SPEAKER_03 37:32

Your design quotation a grown man who went to graphic design school did it.

SPEAKER_04 37:38

This was like grade three yeah impressive we like we used to always go above and beyond for our projects I was always for yourself because I don't think that I did no but no mom didn't oh I did mom did I think she instilled her time to try oh yeah she loved arts and crafts yeah we loved a scrapbook style project like Kim was always just up all night with us John was sleeping John was like I couldn't be bothered no don't do this again to me it's like okay it's one o'clock in the morning yeah that's I remember I first got introduced to it to like Adobe in grade nine in Comtech.

SPEAKER_05 38:23

That's crazy.

SPEAKER_03 38:24

And I didn't know what that was until I was 21.

SPEAKER_05 38:27

I remember like playing around with like fast motion picture and like making a movie out of these I remember I made a movie like a 30 second movie from of these SpongeBob characters playing basketball it was so cool and it took me like months to do two months we love it took so long shout out or like m making movie posters was really fun to do. He's a DJ and he worked closely with a graphic designer like the stuff he creates is pretty cool. Yeah they're fun but yeah my other question this is the second part this is the second part you have experience like looking for photographers and finding the right one for that specific project what goes into picking the right photographer and team and what do you look for what kind of questions do you ask?

SPEAKER_03 39:22

Yeah it's hard to say it's different obviously every single time and it depends on the style of campaign. There would be one photographer that we would use that was like way better in studio and then there was another one that we would use that was better at shooting the actual jewelry like if it was not on a person and then there was someone else that we would use for like lifestyle and it's basically just based on word of mouth and their portfolio and what kind of range they have. If there was someone that we would be able to use that was all-encompassing incredible but that's like asking for a graphic designer who can also do 3D animation and like video editing and so it's not really always realistic. But yeah we would just look at like my job would be to like create the mood board first and then from there we would choose what type of style of photography we would need and then I would do my research or ask around because I have a lot of people that also work in kind of the same creative field as I do and use them as reference points and just talking about other people who are also in the same industry and then it's basically just like referrals. Yeah. And who you know who can create what you have in your head.

SPEAKER_05 40:49

Is price a big factor?

SPEAKER_03 40:52

Depends it depends on the brand that you're working with sometimes yes and then sometimes no like for if we're doing like just hypothetically if it was like a holiday campaign like for Christmas time our budget's gonna be a lot bigger. But if this is just like a small like two to four week run campaign we're gonna we're gonna have a cheaper option available to us so that we're not blowing the yearly budget. That's that makes sense.

SPEAKER_04 41:23

Yeah so you find that the quality of those obviously they are a little bit different when you go to the like more budget friendly yeah. Is that something that you're like the brands have been like weary of I'm sure that is like a part of it.

SPEAKER_03 41:40

I do find that a lot of brands now just have a specific person on retainer. Yeah. So I don't know if that also impacts their budget and pricing and things like that because I don't really know how the breakdown really works from the photographer's side. So it really depends but yeah obviously there's been times too when we've just not had budget and like I'm shooting stuff on my iPhone 12 and then just like editing it like crazy to make it look your somewhat cohesive iPhone 10 that you had for so many years. Yeah I had the 8 the 8 was the best camera ever there's like still product photos on their website that was shot on that iPhone it's crazy.

SPEAKER_05 42:31

That's funny yeah that's funny that just makes me think of the different brands that I see to this day that really all of their stuff is just iPhone shot.

SPEAKER_03 42:42

Yeah but it works because that's how they build their brand then also Apple came out with that crazy campaign that was like shot on an iPhone.

SPEAKER_05 42:51

Yeah and people are like well then I can shoot anything on an iPhone think about now their iPhones were brought up in space and so now back to space.

SPEAKER_03 43:02

Now it's gonna be shot on an iPhone instead of the moon true how does it I don't know I don't understand how they would get that up there but okay a lot of safety I watched a video on it yesterday not explode no NASA did their own research to make sure it was safe enough for astronauts to bring it up I mean that's like the least of NASA's worries is to dissect whether an iPhone can get to space.

SPEAKER_04 43:26

What's next for you? I know we touched on at the beginning but what's on deck? Such a good question.

SPEAKER_03 43:34

There's a lot of like little things potentially in the work I'm gonna knock on wood because nothing is solid yet but there's a lot of potential projects on the go that I'm really excited about and that I think will be better suited for me. I'm just excited to be freelance and to have some freedom again and autonomy over my work. Yeah. So that's That's what's next. And a little bit more family time and being home and sleeping better. And not working every day, maybe, or maybe I will work 24 hours a day. I don't know.

SPEAKER_05 44:12

But on the work you enjoy.

SPEAKER_03 44:14

But on work that I enjoy, so it's worth it. What's another couple years off my life? Who cares?

SPEAKER_04 44:20

Okay, super sweet 100. If you ever want to connect with Gwen, that's where you can find her.

SPEAKER_03 44:27

I do good work sometimes.

SPEAKER_04 44:28

Where else can people like connect with you?

SPEAKER_03 44:31

Such a great question. My website is still under construction. But once that's available, you can just message me through there for anything that you might need. Sweet. Not anything. We're gonna set those healthy boundaries now. Yeah, not anything, please, for the love of God. Any of your design needs, have a bet. Lovely.

SPEAKER_05 44:53

Thanks for coming on. Thank you, Clay. This was super insightful for me. And a lot of the photographers and videographers and content creators that listen.

SPEAKER_02 45:04

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 45:05

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 45:06

You're welcome. Thank you for having me. Ciao. Bye.