Ep. 122: Design Advocate Jessie McGuire
Branding & design strategist Jessie McGuire was born in El Salvador and adopted by a “wholehearted feminist” single mother. She grew up exploring her creativity and getting encouragement to go to art school. After a few degrees and a slew of work experience she’s now the managing director of ThoughtMatter, where she’s fostering a culture of work worth doing, building a justifiable case for creativity and spreading the gospel of curiosity, thoughtfulness and generosity. And redesigning the constitution, nbd.
Read the full transcript here.
Jessie McGuire: I am determined to prove that good work can be valued and can actually help organizations move forward to make a bigger impact.
Amy Devers: Hi everyone, I’m Amy Devers and this is Clever. Today I’m talking to Jessie McGuire. Jessie is a brand builder, design advocate and the managing director at ThoughtMatter, a branding and design agency committed to artful innovative design for clients that are driving change across diverse sectors from arts and culture to health and economic development. She’s worked on initiatives and supported socially progressive causes such as March for Our Lives, Girls Right Now, and the Joyful Heart Foundation and she has spearheaded projects and campaigns like the production and free distribution of posters for the 2017 Womens March, the redesign of the unabridged US Constitution for modern readers and For the People, a documentary series highlighting US citizens who are creatively exercising their constitutional rights during this defining year for democracy. I just want to say that that docuseries is very well done and super interesting and relevant in this moment. There are 6 episodes right now and you can view them at forthepeopleproject.org so head there just as you finish listening. Here’s Jessie.
JM: My name is Jessie McGuire. I am in New York City, I live in Brooklyn. I am currently the managing director at a branding and design studio called ThoughtMatter. At ThoughtMatter we’re about, we’re about five years old and I’ve been with our founder, we’re founder led, I’ve been with our founder for about four years. And over the past four years having different conversations with him about what is branding, what is design, what is branding and design as we move into the third decade of the 21st century. We’re constantly having conversations about what does the industry look like today and what does it need?
Why start a branding and design studio right now and one of the things that we always talk about is what does it mean to do purpose driven work? What does it mean to do work that we believe in? What does it mean to use creativity for something that’s larger than ourselves? We started talking about this concept of work worth doing and for me, over the last couple of years, helping to define what is work worth doing, is why I wake up every day. Is why I come to the studio every day and why I really have thought critically about how you build a studio of creative individuals rallying around work worth doing.
AD: I am so excited to get more into that in granular detail. But before we get all the way up to ThoughtMatter.We’ve got to understand how Jessie McGuire got to be Jessie McGuire.
JM: Sure, so before Jessie McGuire was Jessie McGuire I was Jessie Rozetnick (laughs) and I grew up Upstate New York in a city called Schenectady, outside of Albany. I grew up with a single mother. She was a public school teacher for 40 years, raised me to believe that I could do anything that I put my mind to, with a little bit of gumption. The bigger piece of my biography if you will, that I have learned later in life is a large piece of who I am, but I feel like I never talked about, is the fact that I was adopted.
So I was born in El Salvador, which is in Central America. Growing up in upstate New York, nobody ever knew what El Salvador was. It was never hidden from me, my mother always talked about it, but it was a very foreign sounding country that we never really talked about. What I think is interesting right now and fortunate and unfortunate, the current administration, a lot of people now know El Salvador. It was one of the, we’ll call it the OG shithouse countries, or shithole countries (laughs) that Trump talked about three years ago.
And it was fascinating because so many people were like, Jessie, aren’t you from El Salvador, like what is this, why is it in the news? And it’s actually made me think more critically about the fact that I was born in El Salvador, in the 80s at the time the country was going through a civil war. In many ways my mother didn’t choose El Salvador, I’d say El Salvador chose her. She was in her late 30s, and she knew she wanted children, but she wasn’t married. And she wanted to pursue adoption and I guess this was probably the late 70s, early 80s and there were not many countries that would adopt to single parents. It was very much religious based adoption agencies and so they didn’t believe that single women should adopt, like single parent households. When my mother really pursued it and said I will not give up hope because I know that I can be an amazing mother and I know that there’s children out there who need homes, there were three countries that were willing to adopt to single parents and El Salvador being one of them.
And it took my mom about two years to actually get me. I came over when I was 20 months old and she again, was determined to raise me and again, talk about the fact that I was chosen and that she wanted the world for me. But that’s been -
AD: Wow!
JM: Like I said, later in my life that I’ve realized how much that shaped who I am. And I don’t think it’s the fact that I was adopted is what shaped me. I think it’s the fact that my mother constantly talked about it and the fact that she was a single mom. I always like to say to her that she is the most wholehearted feminist that I know and she kind of likes that, the label ‘feminist’ and kind of doesn’t, it depends on the day! (Laughs) But really showed me that you know, women can do anything when they put their minds to it.
AD: I love that your mom is a wholehearted feminist, that’s such a wonderful story. What is your connection to El Salvador now?
JM: When I was 16 my mom very much wanted to make sure that I went back to the country and if I had any questions and gave me the option to look for any family and anything I wanted to do. This is before, I feel like now everyone talks about 23andMe and all these different services. So this was literally like, let’s get a plane ticket and go search the country. So I was able to do that for a few weeks when I was 16 and it was amazing.
I actually didn’t pursue looking for any family or connections. I just wanted to understand more about the country. We went to, I think four different cities and it was amazing. For me, I’ve always been interested in meeting people who are from the country, who actually have a cultural connection to the country. Whenever I find out somebody is from El Salvador I want to know more about their experience and what they know about the country. For many years I never, there wasn’t much of a conversation, but I now have two kids. I have a two year old and a six year old and it’s interesting, especially what comes out of the six year olds mouth because he very much is like, mommy, you’re adopted and you’re from this country called El Salvador, why aren’t we going there and how can I know more about it? So it has forced me to talk about it.
And then as I was saying before, it’s now so much in the Zeitgeist because people are talking about El Salvador, both positively and very negatively. You’re seeing all these conversations about how there’s caravans of gangs and you know, the country is so poor and they’re just trying to send their criminals to the United States. It has forced me to think more about it and I feel like over the next few years I probably will do more exploring on my own as to what that means for both me and my children.
AD: But that trip to El Salvador when you were 16 must have been, I don’t know, it must have been kind of a big deal? Was it, did it shape you in a meaningful way and what else was going on in your American life at that time?
JM: It really did. At that time, I was in high school and I wasn’t actually quite sure what I wanted to pursue and what I wanted to do. I knew, my mother always said I was gonna go to college but I didn’t know in what capacity. And I loved art, I was always a part of the art classes in my high school, but I never thought like, oh, I could definitely pursue that. And I remember saying to my mother; my art teacher said I should think about what I should do and art –
And she was like, absolutely, she’s like, you should be looking at art schools and you should be thinking about what you want to do, which was actually the complete opposite conversation that most of the students in my art classes were having with their parents.
AD: Hmm-mm, hmm-mm!
JM: When I was in, I think it was my junior year, and there was a boy who was one year older than me and he was super talented and he was always drawing and everyone always talked about how I really needed to get to know him because he was going to apply to RISD and at the time it was like RISD was the best, best art school that there was.
And so I actually got to know him and he would show me his portfolio and how he was gonna apply to RISD and he’d always tell me that his parents were not necessarily like into the arts, but they were like he was. And so we would talk about art school all the time. Turns out he actually is one of the co-founders of Airbnb (laughter), so I was like, well I probably should have kept in touch with that guy! I forgot his name right now.
AD: Is it Brian Chesky or Joe Gebbia?
JM: Yes, Brian Chesky, yes, it was Brian Chesky. So Brian and I would always have these conversations about art school and what it could do and we would talk about student loans and why people would pursue the arts and that it wasn’t really a career and yeah, which I think is funny cause he’s now (laughter) co-founder of Airbnb.
AD: He sort of blew that starving artist myth out of the water didn’t he?
JM: Oh, 100%, but what I think is interesting because again, a lot of parents, like my friends said, or the parents would say, you wouldn’t wanna pursue the arts. I think they even, we talk about liberal arts degrees and it was like, you know, you shouldn’t pursue that, you want to do engineering, you want to do -
AD: Yeah, doctor, lawyer, engineering, yes.
JM: Yeah, but my mom, no, my mom very much was like, you’re gonna go to art school and this is gonna be great. And my art teacher at the time kept saying I should apply for a two year college. So that’s actually how I found out about Pratt, where I ended up going. They had a two year college in Upstate New York and he kept saying, do the two year college and see if it’s worth it.
And my mother was like no, you’re going for the four year degree and you’re going down to Brooklyn and so I applied to actually SVA, Pratt, RISD, MICA and my mother took me to all the open houses and the portfolio reviews. And really was like, this is what you’re going to do. And when I got into SVA I was over the moon, I was ready to go. I feel like my mom got me blankets and embroidered backpacks and I was ready for SVA.
(Laughs) But it was the summer before I was ready to go, my mom was like, okay, we have to go down and talk to their financial aid because something is off and this, that and the other thing. And when we got to the financial aid office they’re like, we can’t offer you this merit scholarship, whatever it may be. And I was crushed and my mom is like, we’re getting in a cab and we’re going to Brooklyn and we’re going to see what Pratt can offer us.
And I remember just crying all the way to Pratt and when we got there, I think there was a merit scholarship and some other things that my mother got us from a parent plus loan. And so she was like, you’re going to Pratt. And I remember saying there’s absolutely no way, I’m not going to Pratt, I thought I was going to SVA, blah-blah. But it turned out to be the best decision that I absolutely made. Fast forward into my resume, I did end up going to SVA, which always makes me happy. But my undergraduate was at Pratt and I got to experience the Pratt campus in Brooklyn and that’s where I met my husband.
AD: Oh man, that was fortuitous then!
JM: Yes! (Laughs) Very fortuitous.
AD: I love your mom; she’s such a hero of this story (laughs)!
JM: She’s a badass!
AD: Yeah (laughs), okay, so advertising design is what you studied at Pratt, right and did you feel connected to this? Was this sort of a practical compromise or where was your heart at this time?
JM: When I started at Pratt and both at SVA, I had applied to be a painting major. So I was going in as a painting major and at Pratt they have a foundation year, so I was with a lot of the folks that were going to be in the fine arts department, doing drawing and light color design and all the different foundational classes. And actually it was the first semester we all had to meet with some sort of counsellor or something that talked about, okay, here’s what will happen in the next three years if you’re a fine arts major.
And they told me that I was going to have a studio by myself and it was gonna be a studio that I had for like the next three years at Pratt. And I was like, I remember being like, I’m sorry, I’m gonna be by myself? and they’re like, it’s gonna be great, as a fine arts major you’ll have access to all the materials and you’ll have this space that it could be… Whatever the buildings were, North Hall or whatever. But it’ll be secluded and so as I mentioned before, I’m an only child and my biggest fear is to be by myself (laughs).
I love being around people, having conversations and I remember going back and saying, I can’t be a painter, I can’t have a studio by myself, what are my other options? And so the woman I talked to was like, actually, you could go into industrial design and learn about making products. And at the time everyone was obsessed with sneaker design. So I was like, you can make sneakers and I was like, I’m not really into sneakers.
But then they were like, well, there’s advertising, which is, I mean you’re not really making anything, you’re talking about it and I was like, yes, sign me up (laughter). I joined the COMD department after my freshman year and that was definitely the best decision I made because it allowed me to think about creativity in a different way. It helped me realize that, again, I love to talk about what is creativity, what does it do, how does it impact business, how does it impact the way that we look at things. And when I started in the COMD that’s actually where I met my husband, so it was my sophomore year. He was a junior and he was a painting major -
AD: Aha!
JM: And I was like, wow, what does it feel like to be in a studio all by yourself? (Laughs) He was like, it’s amazing. So I actually got, I feel like I got to live through him for his two years at Pratt of what it meant, what it was like to be a painting major. And it was good that I didn’t go into the painting (laughter) angle. And him and I would have all kinds of furious debates about like, what is real creativity? Is it fine art and pursuing work that is reflective of who you are?
He defines creativity as acting on impulse and it’s all about him and then I would talk about design and what creativity was and what it meant to use creativity with a set of parameters. And I felt like that was the real sense of creativity, so.
AD: I sort of think of creativity as something that everybody is born with, it’s sort of like a built in Swiss army knife in your pocket. And then it’s how you use it that is a matter of expression or artistry or whatever. But creativity is the way you think about how you’re gonna use it. The way you plan on using it, your intention essentially.
JM: Yeah.
AD: To create something that doesn’t exist and to take it from zero to becoming something, you’ve got to figure out how you’re gonna use this Swiss army knife in your pocket to make that happen. And expression is really important too, that’s how we wrangle the ineffable but design parameters are also how we help solve complex challenges.
JM: Yes.
AD: Creativity is my favorite subject in the world.
JM: Me too! (Laughter) I actually, last night, my husband’s name is Mike, Mike and I were putting the kids down and whatever and then all of a sudden we got into this whole big conversation about creativity, obviously I was talking about this podcast and we had this philosophical conversation of like what is creativity? We both looked at each other and we’re like, yeah, this is what we live for.
AD: So, it sounds like Pratt was a really monumental and wonderful experience and then you got some work experience and then went back to SVA?
JM: So the last story though that I’ll say at Pratt, which did help really shape who I was when I graduated was when I was a freshman, both knowing that I couldn’t be a fine arts major and I needed to be around people. I was also very interested in all the clubs that were happening at Pratt. So there was all kinds of different affinity clubs and as I mentioned before, I more recently have thought about what my visible identity, cultural identity is. But there were so many people who said, you should go and join the Hispanic Cultural Club, you should join these things, but I didn’t identify that that would make sense.
I don’t speak Spanish and I didn’t really, I didn’t have much to say about being from El Salvador at the time, but I still felt like there was a group out there for me. And I was talking to this woman who was a part of what they called, the National Sorority Interest Group. And I was like, what is a National Sorority Interest Group? And they’re like, well, there are sororities and fraternities on Pratt’s campus, but there is no National Sorority. There was a National Fraternity, but there’s no National Sorority.
So they’re like, we’re actually forming a group to interview all these sororities to see who makes sense to come to Pratt and how we could actually found a chapter. And I was like, that sounds great. I don’t know why I thought this was great, but I was like, this sounds great, I definitely want to be a part of it.
We spent my freshman year, into the summer, interviewing all these national sororities and my sophomore year we chose, and they chose us, Theta Phi Alpha and Theta Phi Alpha is a national organization that was founded in Michigan. And they were excited to have their first arts chapter. They were like, what does it mean to be an artist? And at the time we had a woman from the Bronx, Puerto Rican and Dominican.
We had a woman who was from the Caribbean, we had me who no one had any clue how to define me. We had women who were from the south, and we were just like this grouping of like 10 people who had such diverse perspectives and at the time it wasn’t like, how do we really foster this diversity. We were more just like, how do we foster a community of women that can raise other women up and support each other through this weird art school experience.
And how do we learn leadership skills and how do we actually talk to each other? I learned Robert’s Rules of Order, I learned, again, how to be part of even a larger group on Pratt’s campus and that really helped defined my, those next three years because our charter was initiated in 2002 and I graduated in 2005. And when I graduated I realized that I love being a part of something bigger than myself and I love talking about it. Like I love talking about what it means to found something.
What it means to keep something, what it means to inspire people, what it means to really think through where something could go. And so when I graduated I was like, I want to do more of that. I want to do more of bringing people together but I’m also a creative individual and I want to put out work into the world, so how can I combine those two things?
And I decided to go to London (laughs), I don’t know, I thought it would be cool to go abroad and I applied to Boston University. They had, I think it was a master’s in mass communications and it was a three semester graduate program and one of the semesters was going abroad to London, but it was at the end of the year. And I wrote to, whoever, at BU when I got in and I said, can I actually do London first? I feel like I quoted why that made sense and I was coming out of a leadership role at Pratt.
And so they allowed me to do that. So I spent 16 weeks in London working in different advertising agencies there. And I realized this is what I want to do. I want to talk about design. Then reality hit and I came back to Brooklyn, I guess at the time, and I worked for Steve Madden and they were, at the time it was shoes. And Steve Madden actually had just gone to jail (laughs). Yeah, so Steve Madden, if you’ve watched Wolf of Wall Street, had some practices that were not right with embezzling money.
AD: Oh?
JM: This is around 2006, so this is back, embezzling money and businesses, that was the big conversation. So I started working there and so Steve Madden was a cool company, they had all those women with the big heads and the cool shoes and it was kind of fun. But when I started the company was kind of in shambles because he had just gone to jail, they didn’t know what it meant. He was the founder; he was the face of it.
And I learned quickly the fashion industry and how design, graphic design is perceived in that industry and it wasn’t quite what I wanted. So then I moved on to a small advertising agency, it was somebody who had left, he was a creative director. Had left a big agency to start his own and I ended up being like his right hand person. I helped him with anything and we sat in a small, like a WeWork. It wasn’t a thing back then, but it was just all these little studios of people kind of like starting out.
It was in Union Square and I quickly learned, again, that I don’t like to be alone. So it was just him and I and we had some freelancers, but I didn’t have a community of people and I was like, I need to find my people. So then I got a job at a design studio up in Connecticut. I moved up to Yonkers and I was in this really cool design studio. There was about 10 of us and it was just all designers.
We had two founders who, so at this point I was like 26, who I thought were so much older and wiser. It turns out they were like in their early to mid-30s. Now I’m like, what? (Laughs) But there was no strategy or accounts or account directors, it was just a whole bunch of young people, young designers just pumping work out. And I was there for about three and a half years. And that was really pivotal in just, I actually didn’t really get to talk about design, I just had to do it. And I realized I needed that, like I kept being like, I’m gonna keep talking about inspiring people and getting everyone to love design. But I actually just needed the experience to do design.
AD: I love hearing all of those plot points on your map because it sounds like you got a tour through the fashion industry and found that maybe it wasn’t driving a kind of purpose that you felt aligned with.
JM: Yes.
AD: Then you worked with that founder and found that it was too individual, there wasn’t enough community for you. And then you went to the third place, the studio in Connecticut and you got the practice of just pumping out work. Like the very sort of rigorous, like here’s how you execute on a deadline and here’s how you get in a rhythm of developing ideas really fast, getting your vernacular down, short hand and pumping out work, which is a very helpful skill to have.
JM: Yes.
AD: But more than anything, it also sounds like you learned a lot about what you do and don’t want.
JM: Yes, absolutely. So when I was at that design studio, I feel like just getting the experience of, right, here’s your project, you have a deadline, you just got to hit it. Was just again, it was an important experience for me to say, well what is, like as a creative individual, again, for me, like creativity and design, when you go into design it’s now, okay, here’s a set of parameters, how do you solve this challenge creatively but within these set of parameters.
I feel like it forced me to become nimble enough and know what is important as a culture and an environment and what helps fuel my own creativity, because there’s very easy burn out. We would be there, because again, we were a bunch of young designers just sitting in like, I always call it like a pit, but we were all sitting there. And we’d be there until nine, ten, 11:00 at night and you’d realize you can’t keep doing that over and over again.
So it’s like how do you sustain your own inputs to be able to output all that creativity, which has definitely shaped how I think about where I am now at ThoughtMatter and how to foster a culture that allows for people to refuel but then also feel like they’re doing something that’s bigger than themselves and that they’re doing work that has purpose.
AD: Yeah, so work that has purpose and fostering a culture seem like maybe your two main tent poles, would you say?
JM: Yeah, yeah.
AD: So, you’ve got all this experience that helped you define those for yourself. You go back to school at SVA and at this point are you driven because you kind of have this very defined direction?
JM: So, the design studio was up in Connecticut, in South Norwalk, Connecticut. So I drove every day from Yonkers to South Norwalk, so it was probably about an hour and then I’d take the Merritt Parkway that sometimes if there’s an accident you would be there for like three hours. And so I actually talked to my mother, that’s probably like my big thing, both going there and coming back, we’d just talk on the phone.
But then I realized I needed something else to do. These were early, early days of podcasts. 2007, I don’t know, anyway, it was early days of podcasts. Now everybody is podcast, podcast, podcast, but I learned about Debbie Millman’s Design Matters podcast and that was in the early years of her doing that podcast. It’s now in its 15th year and I listened to her podcast religiously.
And I would listen to them over and over again and at the time Debbie would open her podcast with a creative essay that aligned with the person she was interviewing. And I remember dissecting those creative essays and being like, this is so interesting. Here is this woman who is in the design field, I imagine she was doing important things, redesigning Burger King and all these different things that she was doing. But I was like, here she has a job, like her job doing graphic design, but she is so fascinated and interested about what makes creative people tick.
And I was like, this is, everything, here’s what I wanna be doing, how can I get to know her? And it just so happened, I also read Ad Week and Ad Age and all these publications religiously. And there was an ad for a new master’s program called Master’s in Branding and it was the School of Visual Arts and it was going to be chaired by Debbie Millman. And I remember going home to Mike at the time, we were dating, we weren’t married yet and I was like, this is what I need to do with my life.
I need to join this master’s program, it’s at SVA, which I’ve always dreamed about going to and like this is it. I remember he was like, so you don’t know anything about it, it doesn’t have alumni, most people say when you go into a master’s program you want to be, you do it for the network. And I was like, it doesn’t matter, this is what I want to do.
I spent probably six months putting together an application that I was proving; I was trying to prove to this mysterious, wonderful Debbie Millman that I understood branding so that I could get into a program to learn about branding.
AD: Hmm-mm, it’s a little cart before the horse (laughs)
JM: I know, oh my god, 100%, like I remember the research I did, I researched all the professors that they said were gonna be in the program. In many ways, I feel like I took the program before I even took the program, but I was determined. And then I got in, yay, Michael told me that he was nervous the day that the envelope came from SVA in the mail because he was like, this is either the end of our relationship (laughs) or the beginning of something amazing.
So I went sight unseen. I hadn’t even gone to the open house because I don’t know, for, I think -
AD: Cause you were just stalking Debbie Millman (laughter).
JM: Oh, I was 100% stalking Deb, a thousand percent! I signed all these big checks so I could go and I got myself big student loans, yeah and I was like, this is it. So the first day when I go, it was like a reception for the new students and I completely fangirl Debbie Millman, completely embarrassed myself. I was like asking her all these like random inside questions about Design Matters.
There was this guy named Gregory who would call in and I was obsessed with who Gregory was (laughs) and she just looked at me like, oh god. But it was good, it completely changed my life. It was nine months; this is before we had kids. We always joked that it’s the longest nine months in anybody’s life going through a really intense graduate program.
Then I had kids and I was like, well yeah, I guess, I guess that was intense (laughs). Yeah, it was unbelievable. I mean one of the things that now; Debbie is a wonderful mentor and is somebody that I talk to. But I remember saying to her, actually just recently, what were they thinking? Because it was the first year and she said, oh, you guys were 100% the guinea pigs. We didn’t know what we didn’t know and they’d never, the faculty, founding faculty had never done a program like this before.
And so it’s incredible to see what they’ve done with it over the past 10 years.
AD: Yeah and so you feel some sort of pride at being one of the initial class, because in many ways, obviously they knew what they were doing, but they maybe hadn’t run the program before. And you had done your research and you knew you wanted to study with Debbie Millman, so you were kind of all in for that anyway. In many ways you guys made that program together because your feedback, I’m sure, helped them shape it.
JM: I think I was, in many ways, built to be in that first year because I was open to what are we doing and how are we doing it. Oh, we’re gonna write a book today, let’s definitely write, that sounds great Debbie, how can we all help you write this branding bible? Whereas what I think is funny in the first couple of years after I had graduated, there’d be potential students that would wanna talk to alumni.
And so the program would send out notes, like Jessie, can you talk to this person who wants to apply and I remember, I would get on the calls with these young people who were like, I wanna go into this program, like how did you know you wanted to do it? What was the network like? How did you know you were gonna get job, like they’d ask me all these questions. And I’d be like, there was no answers to any of that.
I just did it because I knew it’s exactly where I was meant to be and I knew I wanted to learn about branding and what the capacity for the practice of branding could be. And I feel like now they don’t send anybody my way because I’m like, I don’t have anything, if you’re asking that many questions, you probably shouldn’t go (laughs).
AD: Well, they need some sort of guarantee but the thing about creativity is you kind of have to make your own guarantee.
JM: Yes.
AD: Nobody is gonna hand it to you, you’ve got to design it and then work your way there towards it.
JM: Absolutely!
AD: So tell me about ThoughtMatter now, as the managing director and you’ve been with the founder, you said, four plus years and you’re doing work worth doing and fostering a culture and building a community, all things that have your name written all over them.
JM: As I said before, I feel like, I’m at ThoughtMatter with a mix of opportunity, luck and passion.
AD: Oh, that’s beautiful!
JM: For me, everything that I’ve, probably from when I was a little girl with my mom telling me, you can do anything you want to do, all the way up through, I worked with some larger consumer packaged goods companies that I feel like was always my dream, like to apply design thinking to these large conglomerates. And all the things in between, I feel like all of those experiences and all of those opportunities have led me here to ThoughtMatter. To be able to apply what, again, what does a branding and design studio look like in the third decade of the 21st century. I like to talk that I do not play the lottery because I always say that I’ve already won the lottery (laughs). I feel like I continually win the lottery. I don’t know, I have gotten the chance to get to know our founder, Tom Jaffe and he is incredible in the amount of trust that he has put in what I think a branding and design studio should look like. He’s put a tremendous amount of trust in what I think the industry needs. He’s put a tremendous amount of trust in where I think a design studio can sort of push the envelope and challenge what it means to be a creative. And it’s been, like I say, incredible. It’s been a journey. He hates it when I use the word ‘journey,’ so I threw that in there! (Laughs) But it really started when I first got the job at ThoughtMatter, the creative director at the time was actually looking for a strategy director and he and I met for coffee and he was like, we’re looking for someone who has consumer packaged goods experience that can help us hit the ground running. Doing strategy with the likes of Colgate, Palmolive, Procter & Gamble, Kimberly Clark, Unilever and I had actually worked with many of them in my last, past roles. And so I was like, I am built for this, but I want to be a consultant, so like let’s do it for six months.
I did learn though that I’m a horrible interviewee because I didn’t ask enough questions because I was like, yeah, sign me up, let’s go, I quit my job, ready to hit the ground running. I got to ThoughtMatter and I was like, okay, so what’s our first project and they’re like, well we don’t know? I said, what do you mean you don’t know? And they were like, well, can you help us get jobs with Procter & Gamble and Kimberly Clark and Colgate, Palmolive and I was like, I’m sorry, what?
And I remember being like, well if you don’t have the clients currently in house, why are you pursuing that work? And the creative director at the time was like, well that’s what branding is, you should go and talk with Tom, go have dinner with him cause that’s what he’s, he wants to build this branding studio. So I did just that. I was like, let’s go dinner.
Got to meet, or know Tom and he was like, well, I’ve in many ways, taken on this branding and design studio. His late wife had had a studio for about 15 years and she passed away and he actually got involved in the studio to kind of help those that were part of the studio find new opportunities. But he found himself really enjoying coming to a design studio every day.
His background is in investigative journalism and he’s an art collector and is always kind of surrounded himself with creativity. And I think he realized that, wait a second, I’m now with these creative directors and these writers and these strategists and I wanna continue to move this forward. And so he rebranded to ThoughtMatter. So he had been doing that for about a year. So when him and I had that dinner, I was like, okay, this sounds amazing.
Like I’m so excited that you are finding this fourth career, you’re interested in branding and design, but again, why do you want to pursue work with these large conglomerates? Is there a particular reason? And he was like, well, that’s what brands are? Brands are, and he rattled off probably what you see in the grocery store. And I said, okay, well, what about this group of creative individuals that you’ve assembled. Like why do you want them to apply it to these particular, what you’re considering brands.
And he’s like, what else is there? And so we started talking about some of his personal interests, he again, is an art collector and he is a huge advocate of art in schools and education, in understanding the role of museums today and understanding the role of cultural institutions are. That was in his private life; those are the things that he was interested in.
And I was like, well that’s what we should be doing. Like that’s where we should be putting all of our energies and efforts because these are the areas that nobody wants to talk about how branding can help further those missions. Everyone thinks that branding is this dirty word because of these large, in many ways, consumer packaged goods companies using ‘marketing’ and branding. No one is saying, okay, how do we think about branding for a non-profit?
Everyone is always like, oh, well, non-profits don’t want to make any money and that couldn’t be further from the truth because these organizations need to make money in order to further the work that they’re doing. So why not apply the principles of marketing, of branding, of design and actually help these organizations realize that they could be doing even more.
And so I remember Tom being like, that’s great, but can you build a business around that? And I was like, yes! And then I went home to Mike, my husband and I was like, so I told him we could definitely build a business around non-profits and cultural institutions and education and fine artists and what do you think? And he was like, what? Why would you say that (laughs)? How are you going to make money?
I’m determined to, and this is what drives me today, I am determined to prove that good work can be valued and can actually help foster and move organizations forward to make a larger impact. And that is making, that is showing the value of that work, that is making money, that’s bringing money in, that’s fundraising. I mean money can’t be this like bad word around the value of design for these organizations.
AD: Oh, I agree 100% and I think that, even non-profits need a certain sort of economic viability and their currency is in impact and if you can design in a way that helps them have more impact, then all of their fundraising efforts and everything that drives what they’re doing gets greased up and lubricated with ease because they’re able to demonstrate the impact.
JM: Yes!
AD: And so it’s incredibly important and money is not a dirty word but it’s weird marketing sort of can be a dirty word. If it’s used just to sell more product to people who don’t need that product -
JM: Right.
AD: Then it can be kind of evil. But if it’s used to help educate people on causes or missions or access to certain things that they might not even know they have access to, that might benefit them, it can be an incredibly powerful tool.
JM: Absolutely and I think there needs to be more conversations, again, around, cause I feel like creative individuals, whether you’re a graphic designer or you consider yourself a writer or a strategist or you are understanding the components, of branding, the tenants of branding, when you take those skills and that thinking for organizations that need, they need to figure out how do you get more people to understand what it is that they’re offering, to be able to give more money.
To be able to understand what, again, that impact is. I just think it’s important and working in, again, consumer packaged goods, I feel like that’s the OG branding. There’s the mantra of sell more things to more people for more money more often and that’s just the way, you know, brands have operated because they want to be able to do more. But I think if you took that same thinking, cause again, it can sound kind of, I don’t know if evil is the right word, but it can seem kind of selfish or very opportunistic.
But if you take that same thinking and you apply it to organizations that really do do need to get more people to buy into it, to be able to give back and to do things more often, you can actually make an impact and actually start to help an organization realize their full potential.
AD: I’m totally with you and I wonder, okay, so your husband comes from the painting department of Pratt and I know you come from branding and advertising and communications design, but designing for impact, it seems to me like that might be such a crafty cocktail of design parameters and design thinking, plus a fair amount of like, just humanity -
JM: Yes!
AD: And sensitivity and empathy and things that are the essence of expression in what we might think of as fine art. But I’m wondering what your take on it is? What does design for impact look like and feel like to you?
JM: That is something that I think about every day. I feel like, and I try to inspire everybody here at ThoughtMatter, about 20 people, every day to think about what does it mean to design with impact. What does it mean to think about again, art as this, as Mike would say, as acting on impulse, but thinking about design that has parameters and then thinking about branding, which is about manufacturing meaning. It’s like how do you take all of that and start to say what is important to just that overall creativity and what it means in the world.
AD: Maybe you could talk us through your process with some of the major projects you’ve worked on so that we’re illustrating this in sort of real terms because I know you’ve worked on some really fascinating things, like the redesign of the US Constitution, which holy moly -
JM: Yeah, absolutely. I think that, and the Constitution is a perfect project that combines, again, this idea of what is art, acting on impulse, what is design, designing with a set of parameters and what is branding, which is creating meaning. We had an all studio, hands on deck around, right after the election. Tom told us, we are studio full of, I hate the word ‘millennials,’ but we are a studio mostly of millennials. We’ve rebranded to ‘milleniaires’ (laughter) and he was like, you young people need to stop complaining and realize that you have so much power.
You guys are smart, you’re always thinking about new ideas, like how do you apply that to making a difference to what you’re all complaining about. Stop putting the New York Times and start thinking about what you can do. And so we had an all studio conversation to say how do we engage in the conversation that’s happening right now politically. And somebody had said, and this was 2017, the president keeps talking about the Constitution, but everyone keeps saying he hasn’t read it.
And so I was having a conversation with Mike and I was telling him about this and he was like, well, has anyone in your studio read it? And I was like, hmm, good question Mike (laughs). So I went, came back to the studio the next day and on Amazon ordered, I don’t know, probably 15 versions of the Constitution, brought them in. I was like, has anyone read this? And of course, as a group of designers everyone was like, well, this one is ugly, this one you can’t read, this one is too small, this one is like, what kind of type are they using?
This one is in Comic Sans, you know, there’s all these like design nuanced conversations that were like shitting all over these 15 Constitutions that we got off Amazon. And I was like, yeah, well that’s what we’re gonna do. We need to redesign this. Like if we are questioning, or if everybody is questioning whether or not our president has read the Constitution, like, and we can’t even say that we’ve read it, like there’s nothing inspiring.
How do we make this more accessible? If we’re talking about designs ability to make things accessible and make things inclusive and make things desirable, why don’t we actually just redesign this? And so Tom was like, that is so crazy that I love it, let’s do it. So then we were like, okay, now what?
So a few of us at our account team were like, we need to fund it, I guess, how do we get people excited about it? So somebody I went to Pratt with was teaching a course at Pratt around Kickstarter. So I invited him in and I was like, can you just tell us about Kickstarter, what is this, how do we get money? And his first comment to us was that most people assume that Kickstarter it’s a crowdfunding tool, everyone focuses on funding. But a very important aspect of crowdfunding is the crowd part of it. Is that you get people to understand what you’re doing, the product you’re making, why you’re putting it out there. And so we used our design process that we do with our clients, thinking through how we could create a campaign to redesign the Constitution.
And so we started probably in the spring time and we said we’re gonna launch the Kickstarter on July 4th and we’re gonna run it through the summer and that our goal is to print our redesigned Constitutions by the anniversary of the, I think it’s the signing of the Constitution in September. And it seemed like, let’s do it. And it was great.
We had so much interest and so many people were fascinated and we were like, okay, well, who is this really for and we realized like once we were able to get the money to print it, that we wanted to give it to young people. We felt that people, students especially, I think it’s juniors, they go through the civics education in the public school system. We were like, okay, if they’re learning about our own, like civics and they’re having these conversations, they probably are looking at those really awful Constitutions we’ve got on Amazon.
So let’s send them. So we partnered with a non-profit called Constitutional Services Project, ConSource for short, that works in schools to further civic education. And we were able to print and donate 3,000 copies of our Constitution and they helped distribute it across the country. And it kind of took off from there because then we were like, well, we don’t wanna stop, what else can we do?
And it turned into a poster show we did at the Cooper Union. It turned into a travelling show that we did with a couple of private schools. It turned into you know, did we do another Kickstarter? No, we just kept going and we’ve had big companies approach us to say, can we take on this Constitution? I actually was a little bit of the, you know, I had to do a little time out because I was like well; we are not the Constitution design agency.
So we need to figure out what makes sense for us. We did this, like how can we now take the same thinking and do it with more clients and how can we, again, take that same thinking and designing for impact and think about what the next evolution of the project is. So that was in 2017 and it was amazing. And that to me was a perfect example, again, of bringing people together, saying okay, how do we use our collective agency and our collective thinking to apply these solutions to getting people to engage.
And again, we want it to be a non-partisan activity. We didn’t touch the text of the Constitution, we’re like, we’re not gonna get into the Supreme Court ruling and we’re not gonna get into what opinions based on the text of the Constitution. We took the Constitution text as is and just designed it so that people would want to pick it up and open it and look at it and talk about it.
AD: Hmm-mm, to make it more inviting, more accessible and to remind people that this is the document that belongs to you. Like this is what governs our country and this country is yours. And so this needs to be accessible to you and you need to feel like it’s approachable.
JM: Yes, exactly and so we were, again inspired. I think we talked to a Constitutional law expert cause again, as designers you’re like; I wanna do like stakeholder interviews with as many people as possible and really understand what this is. And somebody we spoke to said, the most important lesson that they teach in their classes, I think they at NYU Law School, is that the Constitution is a living, breathing document and unless you use it, you lose it.
And we were like, oh my, that’s like so profound, like right, if you don’t understand that this was written for us, and we as individuals are not engaging in dialogue around it and questioning our local representatives and government and thinking about the larger conversations, then yeah, you will lose those Constitutional rights.
I mean we’re seeing that now, unfortunately with this administration in some of the policies they have. There are individuals who don’t realize what their Constitutional rights are and they’re starting to lose them.
AD: I wanted to ask you before we move on, how do you measure impact? Like clearly this got a lot of great feedback and it sort of snowballed, but were you able to in any way gauge how much more engagement you were able to create with the Constitution?
JM: We talk about this a lot and I don’t have a good succinct answer of how you measure impact. But I feel like, as a studio, what we talk about impact is how do you get more people to do more things (laughs), more often, that feel like they understand what their role could be in it. And I feel like when we look at the 2017, we called it For The People Project, when we look at what we were able to accomplish, we were able to inspire this non-profit that’s already doing work, this Constitutional Sources Project, ConSource for short, already doing work in the civic engagement space, but we got them to now think about design’s roles in the work that they’re doing.
And they actually collaborate with us for a poster show at the Cooper Union and as a non-profit organization, they never would have thought to do something like that, that really engages artists and graphic designers to think about this civic education across this country. And so I feel like we measured the impact of this non-profit, now saw, and they continue to see opportunities that creativity can help further their mission.
I feel like we touched 10 graphic designers in the industry, so we had Milton Glaser, we had Edel Rodriguez, we had Seymour Chwast, we had Jessica Hische, we had all these luminaries in the design world. When we emailed them and said, hey, we want to do a poster show, we want you to design a poster interpreting one of the amendments, would you wanna participate? They all said yes and they all said, we wanna to be able to use our craft and we wanna be able to use our platform and we wanna be able to contribute to a show like this.
And again, that impacted each of those individual designers and the studio and myself are now very close, I will say friends, friends with Edel Rodriguez and like learning about the work that he’s doing and putting out there as a Cuban American illustrator. And he’s always saying, you know, that project you guys did with the Constitution, it always sticks with me, that’s so important that I should be talking about what it means to have freedom of speech.
And what it means to my work and so that to me is another aspect of just, again, impact of people that we asked to be a part of it and they’re continuing to think about it. I think we also talk about the impact it made that we were able to donate 3,000 Constitutions, a thousand of them went to Staten Island, which is, my mom is actually from Staten Island.
And we talk a lot about the 5th borough that everyone kinds of forgets and it is a very historically Republican leaning borough and we sat, we went into the borough presidents office there and talked to their deputy borough president who was like, this isn’t some like Liberal design conversation you’re having? And we’re like, no, here’s this Constitution and we made it more, just accessible.
And he was like great, I wanna put you in touch with our, I don’t know what the, the head of education on Staten Island and she was so excited to take on this Constitution and have them throughout the schools, Staten Island. And again, that to me is a big impact that here we are talking about what again, I know it’s sort of cliché to say design kind of sits in its own little Liberal bubble and we’re always just thinking about what that looks like.
But we really sort of bridged that gap of saying, no, this is, design can serve a purpose to get people to have and engage in a conversation and it’s not about one party or the other. So that to me is impact. So I feel like looking at all the different aspects and people that we touched and how they took on talking about the work that we were doing is important. And again I know, people always want like these big statistics, but -
AD: No, it can’t be measured in statistics, but you did a good job of illustrating that not only were people touched, but people who are in positions to touch other people were touched. So there’s exponential power there.
JM: Ooh, I like that!
AD: Also, you carved paths that needed to be carved, so that other people can walk them. Now there is a set path and it’s easy to see. You demonstrated the value of design to people who sort of needed to know that they could harness that for their own purposes. And you built bridges, like that’s (laughs), all of that is such powerful stuff man.
JM: Yeah, I like how you summarized that (laughter).
AD: So I have to ask you personally, on your own existential level, you said you don’t play the lottery cause you already won it, but you’re doing really heavy work. I mean it’s very important work and I feel goosebumps because I can feel how fulfilling it is for you. I guess I wanna know, are there days where you just feel flattened?
JM: Hmm -
AD: Because things seem too daunting or disheartening and if so, what do you do for yourself, personally, to get your hope and optimism back?
JM: I think that’s a great question. It’s something that I don’t think, like I don’t constantly think about, but I do know that, I always try to ask people, what could I be doing better, what do you think of me as a leader? I’m always fascinated by all those questions. I always want to sign up for leadership assessments and learn more. And whenever I’ve done that, I mean again, it’s always great to get constructive feedback.
But I feel like over the course of my career, I always am told that my optimistic nature always continues to inspire. And there are times, obviously, like when someone is too optimistic you’re like okay, settle down. But I had to sort of sit down with myself recently and say, okay, if people always say you are constantly trying to inspire, you always have energy, you’re always optimistic, you’re always upbeat, I actually had to sit and say, is that actually true?
And if it is true, why is that? Why don’t I ever sit here and be like, I have no hope, there’s no way forward. I was talking to, I have a really wonderful business consultant that is amazing. Her and I always go back and forth and she was like well, in many ways your whole story is about being surrounded by hope. So it seems like you just draw from that.
And I was like wait, time out; let’s unpack that, what does that mean? And I think that that is really true. I feel like I have seen hope sort of on both ends of a spectrum. That I have, as I mentioned I was adopted, I had a biological mother who very much said I have hope for the future for this young person I’m bringing into the world and she put me up for adoption. I want to imagine that again, she hoped a better life for me and then on the other end of the spectrum I have my mom who never gave up hope that she could have a child and be able to nurture that child and teach them and help them become a really wonderful person.
And she tells me these stories now, again, she’s in her mid-70s and I feel like she wants to talk about what, you know, what she went through. And I guess for me, I always said to myself, here I have these two women that bookend what’s happening in my life and they never gave up hope, like why would I give up hope. And you said before, I don’t play the lottery because I did win the lottery, but I feel like I constantly seek how to show and give back to the universe that I’ve been given these wonderful gifts.
And these two women who believed in me in different ways. Like how do I now pay that forward? How do I think about what my role is and again, I’m not designing every day but I can inspire designers every day to think about what they can give back and what they could put out into the world and what they can contribute and in our own small way make a big difference.
AD: I love it! I’m getting drunk off your optimism and it feels really good (laughter).
JM: I feel like, why am I so optimistic (laughs) and actually Mike always says to me, he’s like, you do realize that most people can’t operate all the time at your level, like you need to, like right.
AD: But it seems like that’s why you’re in a great position, because as the team leader, as fostering a culture like you’re the person people look to when their optimism is flagging.
JM: Yeah.
AD: Cause they need to believe in something, that you already believe in.
JM: Yeah and I think it helps that again I don’t, I don’t like to be alone. I like to talk to people all the time (laughter) and that’s really where I get a lot of my energy is also from just people. And again, hearing their stories and what are they thinking and what do they want. I feel like most people who know me know they shouldn’t stay out with me after three drinks because I end up like, what do you wanna do in five to 10 years? What do you think you want to pursue (laughs).
Like what is this life dream and I have a really wonderful client services director who would be like, okay, you young designers going out with Jessie, operate at your own risk because she will start asking you what it is and how you want to change the world.
AD: Well, so let me ask you that question. What is the big goal? Do you have an illustrated vivid picture in your head of how you wanna change the world?
JM: Early on, I don’t remember when, but I heard a design leader once say that they exist to build a justifiable case for creativity in the world and it’s always stuck with me because I’m like, man, yeah, that’s what we, as creative individuals, people who went to art school, people who probably have a lot of student loans out of art school (laughs), what are we trying to do? And again, you try to get a job or whatever, in industrial design, fashion, communication, design, advertising, painting, galleries, like all the different roles that are traditionally meant for someone who has a fine arts education.
But are we all really trying to do and I really think that there is this really important question about like, why is creativity so important in the world and how do you build that justifiable case, whether it be in business, through design thinking or whether it be through fine arts, through galleries and what’s being shown or whether it’s through graphic design and what’s being out into the world and how people are interacting with it.
But it’s so important, I feel like it’s even more important than ever. Like we are now the arts and creativity and free thinking and intuition and these really big concepts are being questioned right? It’s like, well, what is the quantifiable measure of design or what does it mean to be creating in America today. I just feel that we all should be trying to push the boundaries and challenging what it means to be creative because this is how we all start to see and absorb the world.
And I feel like, now I’m going to go off on a soap box, but anyway, I forgot what the original… (Laughter).
AD: I was asking about your big goal but I’m listening and I’m like, yes, because creativity is, exercising your creativity is participating in the evolution of humanity. If we don’t, if there was no creativity, there would be no change or growth.
JM: Absolutely.
AD: Everything would stay the same, so if you don’t exercise your creativity, you’re letting other people exercise theirs and you’re just at the whim. But the only way these complex challenges are going to get thought about thoughtfully is if we engage creatively (laughs).
JM: Yes, absolutely. You had sent a question I thought was interesting and you had asked, how do you serve as better mentors in the industry. And again, building on this idea that creativity is so important and again, building a justifiable case for creativity and fostering a culture of creativity and really encouraging people to understand their capacity for creativity. I really think that what I would love to see more of in this industry and especially the design and branding industry is generosity.
It’s how do you become more generous with your ideas. How do you put those ideas out there, again, that are selfless, that help to, again, promote how to take on, especially these large challenges we’re starting to see. I mean think about climate change, immigration, just civic engagement and participation and the things that we’re doing. How do we as individuals be more generous with those ideas to help solve those issues as opposed to it being ego driven or as opposed to it being, like I need to be the most creative person that there is to prove my worth. It’s like, it’s not about you, it’s about what your ideas do to move people forward.
AD: Absolutely and even so much of the design culture by sort of necessity is shrouded in secrecy until the project or a campaign or product is launched. The creative community is even sort of cut off from each other because they can’t legally talk about their projects openly -
JM: Right.
AD: I don’t know how to change that, but I do think generosity is one of the keys.
JM: Yeah and I just think, again, seeing more of it and I will give credit to our founder, Tom, I mean he didn’t grow up and he didn’t work in the graphic design industry or the branding industry. In many ways he always considers himself an outlier but of all the different people I’ve met, and I have been, again, tremendously lucky and have had so many opportunities to meet amazing talented, wonderful designers in the industry and practitioners and people who do this for a living.
And they all, again, are incredible and have shaped who I am. But I actually have found somebody like Tom who doesn’t know what he doesn’t know and he doesn’t sort of buy into like, oh, this is how it’s done or this is how, you know, historically we should be thinking about design. He brings a freshness to what creative individuals can contribute to both themselves, their own personal pursuits, a company and industry and in society at large.
And for me it’s been so refreshing working with him because there’s times where I’m like, what about this, what about this and he’ll always say, well, is that just because you’ve been conditioned to think that way, because that’s what the industry thinks that we should be doing? Or is it truly moving our ability to be creative and impact the world forward. And I’m always like, yeah -
AD: Whoa!
JM: Let me go back and think about it.
AD: That’s amazing! (Laughs)
JM: And he is so generous in that way because he is like, well, you know, think about what that means for somebody else. Yeah, I just think that we need more of that. At ThoughtMatter we’re always talking about the values that drive us and Tom and I together put them in place. The first one is curiosity and I think curiosity is creativity. The second is thoughtfulness, ThoughtMatter, but putting a level of thinking and thoughtfulness to what you do.
And the third is generosity and we always constantly ask ourselves that. We constantly ask ourselves okay, are we doing this for ourselves or are we doing this to be able to give back? And it’s something that is a part of our work and it’s also a part of how we put the staff together. How do we be generous in our diversity of perspectives, and for me those three things are so important and I know you asked me probably seven questions ago about what I hope to see for myself.
And I really hope to continue to build an agency around those three values and to really see where it takes us as we move into, we’re about to move into a hot political season -
AD: Hmm-mm.
JM: As well as, again, what’s going to happen in this third decade of the 21st century and what is the role of creativity and what are the roles of designers and where do we have the most potential for impact.
AD: Wow! Well, I am cheering you on from over here. Let me tell you!
JM: Whoo-hoo.
AD: Do you have a new project, do you wanna let our listeners know about that will be out soon or that is out that they can look up?
JM: Yeah, so For The People Project has now become, For The People. We dropped the word ‘project,’ which again, like as strategists and designers you’re always like, how do we put this in a framework. But we had a big conversation about; in 2017 it was very much about what are the rules and how do we understand them so that made sense. We were like, let’s take the Constitution and redesign it. I feel like as we move into, now that we’re in 2020 and we’re seeing everything that’s heating up in this political season, I feel like everyone is just trying to throw the rule book out.
So we’re like, okay, well now how do we engage, how do we, if our whole purpose back in 2017 was how to help make this document accessible, what does it mean now? So much has happened in the last three years and so we started thinking about how if the Constitution, if you don’t use it, you lose it and a lot of what makes the Constitution the Constitution is the interpretation of the Constitution.
We said how do we build on that? And so we have created a project called For The People, a docuseries. We are interviewing 10 creative interpreters, people who in their own practice as creatives are interpreting what’s happening and we are talking to them about the Constitution. How has the Constitution impacted their work? How do they think about the role of their own rights as creatives to continue their work.
And we wanna, hopefully, engage a larger conversation around people’s own personal participation in their own rights. Because a lot of times, if you read the Constitution, it is actually very dry, there’s all these words, it’s all legalese and any time people talk about Supreme Court rulings it’s always sort of shrouded in these big words and if you’re not a lawyer or somebody who is engaged in that, you feel like, it has nothing to do with me.
AD: Hmm-mm.
JM: But it has everything to do with you, so we wanted to create this docu series so people could watch these three minute videos of these creative interpreters talking about the Constitution and so people could feel like, yeah, you know what, this does impact my daily life and this does inspire me to feel like I can talk about what this means for me.
So we started with Edel Rodriguez, so as I mentioned, he’s become a friend of the firm. And we interviewed him and it’s up on forthepeopleproject.org and he talks about what it means to be Cuban American, what it means to be an illustrator, what it means freedom of speech and really thinking about how he as an interpreter, as an illustrator, is impacted. And then we had a second episode with an individual named Mark Cross who has a tattoo parlour, I don’t know if that’s the right word, in Williamsburg and is part of an arts collective called Muddguts, you know, and he’s talking about what the Constitution means in his work within communities. He questions the purpose of the Constitution, which is just as important. And a third episode with someone in the culinary arts and again, food couldn’t be more political and we’re talking about how they are thinking about their role as you know, literal taste makers in a kitchen.
So we will do 10 and we want to get more people, again, thinking about what their role is and how they can interpret the Constitution and how they can feel that they’re empowered to have these conversations. And you can be a chef, you can be a tattoo artist, you could be an illustrator, you also could be a legal scholar, but either way, you all have the important goal to engage in this very large experiment called democracy.
AD: Wow and that’s at forthepeopleproject.org.
JM: Yes.
AD: Where else can people look to find you on social media on the web and ThoughtMatter?
JM: We’re ThoughtMatter on Instagram, Twitter we’re like all kinds of vowels are dropped because we didn’t get ThoughtMatter, @ThoughtMttr. So yes, definitely find us on Instagram and as for me, again, I am on Instagram, I’m on Facebook, but I feel like all I do is post pictures about my kids.
AD: Okay (laughs). Thank you so much Jessie for sharing your story, your personal mission, all of your thoughts about creativity. I’m so happy to have found a fellow champion of creativity in the world. Not that we’re unique, but (laughs) fight the fight right?
JM: Yes!
AD: It’s been really wonderful talking to you, thank you so much.
JM: Thank you.
AD: Hey, thanks for listening everyone! To see images of Jessie’s work and read the show notes, click the link in the details of this episode on your podcast app, or go to Cleverpodcast.com where you can also sign up for our newsletter. Subscribe to Clever on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. And if you feel inclined, and you like what you hear, rate and review, it really does help us out. We also love chatting with you on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, you can find us at Clever Podcast and you can find me at Amy Devers. Clever is produced by 2VDE Media with editing by Rich Stroffolino, and music by El Ten Eleven. Clever is proudly distributed by Design Milk.
What is your earliest memory?
When I was little, two questions always had me break out in cold sweats: “where are you from?” and “what is your earliest memory?” Not much changes as you get older, I suppose.
Coming to America. 1985.
Cheers to Mommy Dee. Dolores Ryszetnyk 2019.
At 20 months old, I was adopted from El Salvador. I always imagined myself as a toddler in a cardboard box floating over to the United States. My mother assures me that, in fact, I took an American Airlines flight from El Salvador to Miami, where she met me for the first time.
I'll leave it to my mother to tell me about my earliest memories!
How do you feel about democratic design?
Eye roll. Good intentions.
For me democratic design means responsible design. It means realizing the responsibility designers have in making, creating, and designing ideas for more than just our industry.
In a think piece I recently wrote for Advertising Week’s AW360 titled, Design is Rotting Inside. We’re Part of the Problem, I said, “Because of the powerful tools we have on hand – photography, type, packaging, advertising, messaging, tone of voice, positioning – it’s the creator’s responsibility to shape not only how the brand is perceived but what people choose to believe and buy into.”
Democratic design starts with the designers. We must continue to question power – how it's distributed, maintained and questioned within our industry.
What’s the best advice that you’ve ever gotten?
My mother was a single working mother in the 80’s raising an only child. Her best advice: NEVER SETTLE.
When I was around 8 years old, I remember going to Sears with my mom to buy a washing machine. Armed with her consumer reports, she began methodically comparing units. No one came over to help us. When she finally found a sales rep to assist us, she was told to come back with her husband, who would surely help her make “their” purchase. My mother raised her teacher's voice and pointedly told the sales rep that she was in fact making the purchase and would like to speak to the manager immediately. I was mortified.
That day, my mother taught me to never settle – by not letting anyone's perception of who she should be slow her down.
How do you record your ideas?
I was introduced to bullet journaling by my close friend, Darcy-Tell, who graduated from Pratt Institute with me but majored in illustration. I was always jealous of her doodling abilities.
Today, Darcy and I don't practice design all that much (they took our Creative Suite away a while ago), but we do both spend our days supporting creatives. Last year, I was sitting with Darcy in her office when I discovered her amazing notebook full of doodles and lists. She told me it was her bullet journal. I proceeded to learn everything I could about bullet journaling and successfully completed a bullet journal in 2019 – filled with notes, doodles and creative sketches. It even inspired me to look into Suitcase so that I can expand my font choices this year.
What’s your current favorite tool or material to work with?
Pens. I love pens.
However, revisiting this question in 2020, I think this will be the year of cooking. I’ve dusted off my old cookbooks, re-subscribed to NYTimes Cooking and I’m finally using the high-end pots we got in 2009 for our wedding.
What book is on your nightstand?
I have a 2-year-old and a 6-year-old, so my nightstand has empty cups, bottles and toys but no room for books, sadly. I recently realized I’d need to get into audiobooks for me to actually get any “reading” done.
ThoughtMatter Studio 2020.
I'm currently halfway through Becoming by Michelle Obama, who turns out to be a much better reader than I am.
Why is authenticity in design important?
For artists, designers and creatives in general, their voice is all they have.
Authenticity (yet another word that induces eye rolls, sorry) for designers is to build on each of our lived experiences. If we, as designers, wish to be a force for good, we need to recommit every day to figuring out what that means.
Favorite restaurant in your city?
Gottino Enoteca e Salumeria in the West Village is a small Italian wine bar that our founder Tom turned me onto. It's an amazing little place to get lost in, so every time I go I end up staying for hours, no matter who I'm with.
What might we find on your desk right now?
A tiny light-up bullhorn, a Wonder Woman sword letter opener and a Sonos speaker.
Who do you look up to and why?
I’m fortunate to have met many of my greatest design heroes and I continue to have amazing mentors. But the older I get, the more I realize it's less about looking up to someone and more about looking across the table.
Every Monday and Friday I get to sit around a table with 20+ amazing individuals at ThoughtMatter and my heart swells with respect and awe. I look to them not only for inspiration, but to push me to be better than I was the week before.
What’s your favorite project that you’ve done and why?
ThoughtMatter For The People Project redesigned, U.S. Constitution. 2017.
For the People Project. In 2017, we (ThoughtMatter) redesigned the US Constitution. We started For the People Project with the desire to make the Constitution more accessible, especially for young people. We recognized the opportunity to use design as a tool to inspire more people to engage with this formative document without altering or editorializing the text itself. Through crowdfunding, we raised more than $20,000 to print over 3,000 copies of our redesigned Constitution and partnered with nonprofit Constitutional Sources Project (ConSource) to distribute the copies to school classrooms in more than 50 cities across 20-plus states around the country. Building on that initial effort, in 2017 we also curated a show at the Cooper Union of original posters created by leading graphic designers that visually interpret the first ten amendments in the Bill of Rights, as well as the Constitution’s Preamble.
The team and I continue to look for opportunities to work with people and organizations that challenge staid and static views of the Constitution and its place in contemporary society. Check out the latest and current iteration of our project, a 10-part docuseries featuring creative interpretations of the Constitution, coming from some of our country's most creative people: https://www.forthepeopleproject.org
What are the last five songs you listened to?
Notorious B.I.G: Juicy (2005 Remaster)
Lizzo: Truth Hurts
Beyonce: Formation
Billie Elish: Everything I Wanted
Frozen 2: Into the Unknown
Where can our listeners find you on the web and on social media?
For ThoughtMatter check out:
Twitter: @ThoughtMttr
IG: @thoughtmatter
If you are interested in pics of kiddos:
Twitter: @jessiemcguire
IG: @jessiejmcguire
Clever is produced by 2VDE Media. Thanks to Rich Stroffolino for editing this episode.
Music in this episode courtesy of El Ten Eleven—hear more on Bandcamp.
Shoutout to Jenny Rask for designing the Clever logo.
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