>> Hola. Gracias. [ Foreign ] And now I'm going to start to speak in my Neanderthal English, so please stay calm.
I'm going to try to do my best. My name is Sebastián, and I work at Anagrama. It's a designer firm from Mexico, and this is some of our work just to give you an example that I am not totaly stupid.
So we worked this for Rhianna. The new logo for Armani. Other little projects that I love, et cetera.
Architecture. We're a team of almost 40 people and we work for clients all around the world from Croatia to Columbia, Brazil; a lot of different places. We started this six years ago and it was in Monterrey.
Monterrey is not Mexico City and Mexico, it's a super centralized country so it's the only important city, Mexico City, and we are not from there. We are from the most irrelevant point in the fucking planet. What happens in Monterrey really, really stays in Monterrey.
I should recommend to change that Las Vegas thing because nothing . . .
whatever. Sorry guys. I'm trying to do my best.
So Monterrey is to Mexico City what Marcé is to Paris. Monterrey is not a tourist destination. There is no Mexican magic in it.
This is not Monterrey. This is not Monterrey. Not Monterrey.
Not Monterrey. Not Monterrey. Definitely not Monterrey.
Monterrey is an industrial city. Tasteless, boring, gray, et cetera. This is Monterrey.
It's horrible. This is Monterrey as well, but it also is this. So we have this municipality that is like the richest municipality in Latin America or whatever that means.
And so, we live in this clash of two different worlds. Like between the slums and this . .
. Monacco thing or whatever. This is our office.
Pretty cool. Hipster office or whatever, and this is outside our office. And well, I don't have an amazing curriculum compared to everybody else.
I was a problem child with ADD. I was the worst at high school. Awful grades in college.
King of absences. Fired from a design job in ten days. And also, I am not that passionate about design.
Sorry guys. [ Applause ] But it was super hard to choose a major because I was only 17, and I had these options at the time like film, industrial, architecture, everything, and so, I picked graphic design because it was the easiest to get in. So there was no physics, no need to relocate, and it looked like a safer career option compared to music for example.
It's been 13 years since I decided to study graphic design, and I still can't decide what to do with my life. This conference is going to be called "Going Very Fast to Nowhere" and it's going to be fast because I only have 20 minutes, so it's going to be hard for me. It's going to be like a mix of the Fresh Prince with a Neanderthal or something.
It's going to be hard. So this lecture is for some people who don't feel particularly passionate about anything and don't have any particular talent. It's also for people who are disorganized, chaotic, and sloppy.
But this lecture is for people who want to do as many things as possible because . . .
yolo. I really believe in this. We only have one chance to do everything so this is the one that we have.
And so, I'm going to talk about my personal projects, my side business, and obviously Anagrama my studio and how I make things move forward. This is not a review of my progress in life at the moment. So I have my main business that is Anagrama, my side businesses, and personal projects.
Some of these projects are in thier initial stages. Some other are advanced and some other are up and running. And I'm not the leader of each one of them but I'm happy to be on board.
Sometimes I am just seated in the backseat. I think that working with creatives is amazing. I think that some creatives like me are not motors.
We are like turbo chargers, and I believe as a turbo charger that I am or whatever, I need to be connected to a real engine that thinks. On my own I can do nothing but when I connect to real adults or people with actual skills, is when the magic happens. As a turbo charger, I realized that I had to stay connected to motors.
Yes, I have to do this; and yes, collaborating with creatives is an amazing thing. Everybody talks about it but I really prefer -- I love the idea that somebody else on Earth loves to open the fucking Excel, and I prefer that. I prefer to collaborate with people with totally different talents that do the things that I don't want to do.
And one of the talents that I have is that I really -- that I know that I really need help; a lot of help actually. So Anagrama began the day I found someone to put order into my chaos. It was Gustavo who is an industrial engineer.
This is the coolest photo that I found of Gustavo. And at that time I needed someone to code the websites for my freelance clients, and the more I worked with him, the more I realized how important his skills were and it wasn't about coding. I found out that the fucking money was important.
So this guy really understands how the money works and he is like -- it's amazing having an adult working inside the studio and he takes control of all of those things; legal and stuff. So I invited him to open Anagrama. I knew I was a good designer but I wasn't the best.
And so, I called Mike. Mike, in my opinion, amazing photo of Mike as well. Mike is probably my favorite living designer.
It's amazing. He's very obsessive, very detail-oriented, and these are some examples of the work that we have made together. This is one is called Amado.
Amado is a bakery boutique at the Hyatt Hotel in Mexico City, and it's inspired by the modernist architecture style of Luis Barragan. He's an amazing Mexican architect. This is the kind of thing that he was doing.
And so, we love his vibrant palette and also we like a lot of the palette from Mexican textiles; like this one. And also mixed with this kind of 80's pop culture patterns like this one. And so we ended up mixing these three concepts together and this was the result of it.
People in Mexico believe that Mexico is the owner of colors. So if it has a lot of colors, people say, "Oh, this is super Mexican. " [ Laughter ] And so, we use that.
So this is called Sofia. This is another project. It's a residential and corporate building in San Pedro, the municipality that I live in inside Monterrey.
And so, it's the richest, as I told you. And so, this is "Surrender" the building that is already there. Our task was to communicate luxury and sophistication, and we were very tired of this super simple, modern kind of design, and so we choose to pick more fashion brand style.
It's important to say that we made this a long time ago. I don't know; like four years maybe? I don't know.
And so, we look at the municipality coat of arms. It's horrible. It just looks like drawing of the lion, it's totally wrong.
And so, we choose some things inside of this coat of arms that we liked. We really put an effort in it. So also we developed a custom typeface based on Eric Gill's typefaces.
He's an amazing designer. And also we referenced old texts and diplomas, and I know that, right now, it's a little bit overused, but at that time it was the newest thing ever. So we mixed these three ideas and the result was this.
Like a clash between modern and old stuff. We made this type face and it looks super beautiful with this kind of old diploma kind of things. Everything is on the website.
So you can -- more stuff. I love this one. Well, I don't have that much time.
So "Bermellon". It sells extremely hot candies. It's obviously ridiculous everywhere else in the world, but in Mexico people love it.
They look like this. I'm not a part of that . .
. people. I mean, I don't like them.
Not the Mexicans. The candies. I like Mexicans.
[ Laughter ] And so, as with any other project, we started looking for references in blogs, books, magazines, whatever, everything, and we choose some kind of type faces that we liked and then we looked for similar Mexican products that were obviously awful, and our goal was to transform this cheap product to a high quality delicacy. But we really got stuck on the project because it was super hard for us to mix those worlds and we were out on a break smoking in that street that I showed you; probably there is a picture, and then a street vendor passes by. This is a common thing in Mexico.
And then we have this amazing idea. So we take the colors, because Mexico is the country of colors, and then we decided to use them. This is like the outside of our office, and there's a lot of like revolutionary kind of graffiti in Mexico in general.
And so, we mixed these three concepts like the revolutionary graffiti with the European typeface with this colors that are like super acid colors, and the result is this. So it looks like sleek and beautiful and everything, but at the same time it looks like it's going to be sour and probably hot as well. So this thin line between the Favelas and "Pseudo Monaco"; The two Monterrey's or whatever or Mexico.
This office -- inside this office, outside, helped us build our own approach to projects. I know that it sounds esoteric, but this clash helps us to reboot ideas and just getting outside of the project and enter inside of this pretentious kind of brand that we need to develop involved around this kind of weird scenario that we live in. I believe that it works for us, and Mexico obviously is going to keep providing us with those constant clashes forever.
So after a couple of projects, we got to chance to do an interior design project, and we invited Roberto to collaborate with us. Amazing photo of Roberto as well. And so, he's a great architect and a friend of mine since childhood, and he's now a partner at the office.
And so, we developed some projects that involve architecture and this is one of them. It's called Conarte. It's a space to promote reading in children.
Avoiding the traditional, horrible, library concept; like this. And so we really wanted to avoid that because I was a problem child and for me that was like my -- this was horrible. So we took Monterrey's topography.
This is probably the only beautiful thing about Monterrey. We have amazing mountains and we found inspiration as well in the skate parks. And the building that where the library is in, it's an architectural landmark.
It's like a super old factory that needed to be untouched, so we had to work with that restriction and at the same time, play with it. So this is the sum of the variables that we picked and this is the result. So we made the super futuristic kind of a thing clashing with the old building, and it's totally reversible.
If somebody one day says, "Okay. Let's throw this away," the building is intact and so the kids can go around and pick books or whatever. There's a little theater.
So a few months ago, Anagrama got a new partner. She's Dany. Amazing picture.
And she's very graceful but she is also a sergeant. So she's in direct contact with the whole staff in the studio and is in charge of hiring the best people that we can get. Thanks to these amazing partners, Anagrama works like a tight ship, and working for brands, on brands for clients is amazing but sometimes I would love to be more involved in the project than only just the logo or other things.
So it's regularly limited, obviously, because of just the project scope so there are limits for input. And so, I started to look for opportunities to get more involved in other things that I was interested in and so this is our -- some of our side businesses. It just -- I'm going to say only two because of the time.
Some of these projects are in collaboration with Anagrama partners; some others are not. I love this one. This is a cliché because I'm a Mexican with a taqueria; a taco place, but I really like this thing.
Not every city in Mexico has a good taco joint and my hometown is one of those cities. So we were worn out with the super branding everything, that we make, and so we decided to reverse our approach. Probably that's why this project will never be in our website because it sells the opposite thing that we sell.
So we use inspiration that lacks creativity and like the worst possible places on Earth to look for it. In Mexico, the most delicious taquerias out of the world have the worst branding. It's like a rule.
And we really wanted to be very, very, very, very true to those values; about being amazing. Not being ugly. Well, it was the price to pay to get "real" or whatever.
So, instead of having an amazing concept and elaborate and trendy, we chose the opposite, and we decided to follow the traditional taqueria and also it was a good moment because all this horrible thing that is called "norm-core" that everybody loves except me, is happening, like this. And so, it's like the post-hipster thing or whatever. So we picked this super stupid taco design with this kind of norm-core aesthetic and we just -- this is an amazing thing.
I got involved in the actual recipe of these tacos and I really enjoyed that because I am a . . .
foodie, I'm a fat. And I really love food. I can probably speak more about tacos than design but -- [ Laughter ] So I got involved in the design of this.
I always was jealous about America and it's not because of the economy and all the amazing things that you guys have. It's because burgers have French fries and tacos don't have French fries. It's just fucking tacos.
And so, we "designed" or whatever, it's pretentious to say "designed". But hey, we are in a design congress. So we designed these potatoes.
They are like deep fried. They are like French fries but they don't look like them. So they look very good with the tacos and obviously they taste amazing.
And so, these are the mix of the things and probably this is the ugliest logo that I have ever made in my life, but I love it. I fucking love it. [ Laughter ] Yes, it's horrible.
[ Applause ] I just went to India and it was a little hard to present this logo there. [ Laughter ] It's horrible. Yes, it is.
I love it. And the more I see it, the more I love it. [ Laughter ] It's like when you're in school and you get this classroom with not hot chicks at all but at the end of the semester or period or whatever, you kind of fall in love with one of them very deeply.
It's the same thing. So, it expresses the character of poorly educated taquero, obviously. It's just a huge accident that sells.
The typeface is sloppy. It's the worst thing on Earth and I love it. I feel relieved.
So, the slogan of this thing is "Higiene, Calidad, Servicio" which means hygiene, quality, and service. Super stupid. [ Laughter ] But, when you see this and if you are Mexican, your taco radar starts to blip like, "Oh, probably this place .
. . is going to be a good place.
" So this is probably the worst design of the whole congress. There's nothing in here. But I love it.
I love it. I love it because its about the depth. It's not about just the look.
It's about making perfect things and in a more cultural connective way that in my opinion, sometimes design is just superficial and this was an amazing moment for me to make a little celebration about probably the best thing on Earth, that are tacos, and so this is it. I have four minutes. It's going to be a tough one.
This is a chocolate project called Manos de Cacao, Hands of Cacao. So, we're going to make chocolate bars from scratch from every corner of the world. And so, this is an amazing project because it's sustainable, socially responsible, delicious, creative.
Everything that I am not, probably, this project is. Because the bean origin is always changing, the packaging is going to change as well. And so, it's going to work like a canvass.
It's going to be amazing. Just believe me. And so, it's going to look like this.
I'm going to go fast because I need to finish. So yes, it's going to be beautiful and sustainable and everything. And so, these are just a couple of personal projects.
They look even more -- they are not yet happening but I believe that they are important to put here just to give an example of how these things start and how they became real. So this is called Nurse. It's a working title, but it's a fashion brand that I want to do.
It's inspired by simplicity but simplicity is a little bit tricky because it can be very dangerous if you over "simple" the brand because it could become brandless and if it's brandless than fast fashion can replace it in a second. So, the visual concept is based on language. On everyone's language, like the language of the different parts of the world.
So we blended it in a unique alphabet. I believe that it speaks about the moment we are living in and the world that I want to have. A world more connected, more mixed.
This is on the work. I don't love it yet but this is how it starts and later on, it's going to be beautiful, et cetera. So the beautiful thing about this is that we can use it as a typeface and on paragraphs and stuff, and we can also use it as a huge pattern thing on clothing.
We can do almost whatever we want with them. Yes, it looks -- so, this project, for example, is in a very, very initial phase. I have nothing.
Just this idea. And obviously it can get super tacky with huge logos so everybody can use it as a symbol of power or whatever. Just like the big brands.
So this project is still in a very, very early phase. I'm still looking for the right thing to make it happen. Like every other project, I really need help.
I cannot do it on my own obviously. And so, this is the last one, and there's nothing to show you. Just, it's going to happen.
I'm going to film a movie next year. This is real, and I'm super happy with it. It's probably the biggest project that I have now.
It's going to be a death metal teenager love movie. And so, I love it because I'm using the same, like, design process or something to do it, and I'm also using amazing people that are 10,000 times better than me to make it happen. So we have funded this via Mexican government because we earned a scholarship or something.
I don't know how to say it. Like a prize. That works.
So, it's going to happen, and the conclusions of all these things is you don't need to choose what to do with your life. You can do whatever if you are teamed up with the right people, and here's what I look for. So, I look for energy.
It's amazing the people -- when you find people motivated they help you being motivated. Never, never, never drag anyone or try to push them. If they aren't into the project, just leave them.
Diversity. Like I said, partnering with your best creative friend is not the best idea if neither of you knows about business. Most of the time, it's amazing to have actual adults taking care of the serious things.
Share. Sometimes letting someone else to be the leader, it's better for the project. Some of us are turbo chargers.
Not motors. Some of us. Principles.
Different talents but the same values believing the same kind of things. So everybody is pushing in the same direction. Skills.
Respect the expertise. If that guy only knows one thing but he's a genius doing it, I really, really respect that, and I believe that he deserves a share of it just because he's like Mozart. And trust.
This is a tricky one in my culture but it's the most basic value in any human relationship. Without trust, it's impossible to share a project. And I still don't know what to do with my life, and I still don't have a direction.
These were my options when I was 17, and I am doing everything right now. But I know that with the right people, I will have more fun and get there sooner. Going fast to nowhere.
Thank you very much. [ Applause ] >> You've been busy for a self-described lazy person. I also don't buy that, "You don't care about design," because you care about it so much.
>> Yes. >> Let's pick this apart. What do you mean when you think you're not passionate about design?
>> I don't buy the idea of the character of me being this designer that wants to be the designer and post on Facebook about how designer how he is and push memes about being a designer. I love Metallica more than Helvetica, you know? [ Laughter ] >> That's totally fair.
>> But I love Helvetica as well. The thing is that I am not that passionate about anything in particular. I love a lot of different stuff.
>> I mean very clearly, you love a lot of different stuff. How is it possible that you sort of put together this life for yourself where you get so many options? Are you ever worried about not doing one thing, the way you wanted to do it, because you wanted to do 27 things at once?
>> Yes, I am doing nothing in the perfect way but I am doing a lot of things quite good. That's the way I do it. >> I firmly believe that.
If you try to go for perfection, you'll never get anything done. You'll never be satisfied. >> And also I believe that I don't really choose.
It's how I am wired. Like, there are these kind of designers that are amazing working alone and I am not like that. I am the opposite.
And so, I need amazing designers to do things and if I take care of it by myself, the results are not going to be that amazing, as well. I mean my partners, at Anagrama, amazingly skilled, for example, or the movie or everything. >> And do you always generate these ideas and bring them to your partners or your partners sort of bring them to you?
How do the ideas sort of function? Like who brought up the taqueria to begin with? >> Probably I can take credit for it.
I'm a cheerleader . . .
in a leather jacket, but that's my thing. Just cheerleading things and finding amazing people to work with. >> That's amazing.
Thank you so much. Sebastián Padilla. >> Thank you.
