Eddie Opara

This transcript was generated automatically (YouTube auto-captions) and then edited for readability: names and obvious mis-hearings corrected, filler words removed, speaker labels added where the speaker is clear. Passages that could not be understood are marked [unclear]; short omitted passages are marked [...]. Timestamps are approximate. The recording is the authoritative version.

Konstantin Girst 00:00:00

Hello and welcome back to a new episode of Campus To Capital. Today, Julius and I are joined by Eddie Opara. Eddie is a partner at Pentagram, the world's largest independently owned design studio. He's also a lecturer at multiple distinguished universities and he's also an advisory board member at Canva. So, thank you so much for your time and welcome Eddie.

Eddie Opara

Thank you so much Konstantin and Julius. It's really a pleasure to be here today.

Host

Thank you so much Eddie. We're really looking forward to this.

Yeah. And let's get started. I think I would like to get started at the very, very start of things. So going back in the timeline, let's go to the start, because I read that when you were a young kid, when you used to go to church, your mom would give you like a piece of paper to do some drawings on. So I think being a creative and creating something has been deeply rooted inside you since forever, basically. But when I read that I was wondering, did you ever doubt that you would maybe not be a creative, or did you kind of always know that that would be the path that you were going to take?

Eddie Opara

That's a really good question. You know, my mom gave me the paper to shut me up at church. I was a bit [unclear] kid and very energetic

00:01:31

and, you know, back then when you're little, you don't know what a creative is. You just create. All of us do that. And that sort of inner child is within us today, right? But to be absolutely honest, it was sort of a mix between my mother saying maybe I'll become a, you know, a lawyer or a priest, or Catholic priest, or something like that, and me thinking maybe I could become an architect. I like architecture. So to a certain degree, yes. I had that sort of creative, you know, bug in me from time, and still have it today.

Host

Okay, good to know. I think we actually talked about this with our last guest. Our last guest was the chief economist from Apollo, the private equity fund. And we talked about, next to knowing what you want to do and trying to become good in that field and then kind of master your interest, that you need to have some general curiosity and kind of also be engaged with other things that other people are doing, that are happening around you. And you talked about this as well, about your time at Yale. When you were studying there, you said that you were also engaged with so many other things, as you frequently did things with people from, I don't know, from management or from music or other fields of the arts. And

00:03:01

how did this scenery of being engaged with multiple different things impact you personally?

Eddie Opara

Yeah, I think it, you know, it has impact the way I work and think today. But, you know, if we sort of step back, in principle, you know, my undergrad was very much within the center of graphic design. You could say it was very focused on the aspects of the basics, of course, and the aspects of craft. And when I moved to Yale for my masters, that opened up. I wasn't in a university setting as an undergrad. I was at an art school. And don't get me wrong, there were a multitude of outlets that I could engage with within London, from artists and different types of designers at the school and within the principles of the school. I went to the London College of Printing, now called the London College of Communications, which is part of University of the Arts London. But what a university setting does, and especially at Yale, in a very esteemed institution,

00:04:31

it allowed me to take different courses and classes in different areas that had nothing to do, you could say, had nothing to do with graphic design or visual communications at all. And that really, you know, opened up my mind, my eyes, my ears, and the dialogue that I could actually have with these types of, you know, professors and students, academics as a whole, was amazing.

And so, you know, fast forward today, I think that a designer or even a creative cannot sort of silo themselves, you know, isolate themselves in their own sort of way, creating sort of work for others and then sort of posting it out there. I think they really need to reach out and really be informed by different parts of our society through different dialogues. And I think that's one of the things about being a designer: you talk to so many different types of people, a little bit like

00:06:02

you know, being a politician without the politics, that you really invest [unclear] time, get to know them, get to define and envision what they want. And that's exceedingly important. But at the same time, there are amazing people out there that can imbue you with a lot of information that you had never thought. It's not the idea that you're just being, you know, relayed information and then you sort of create this work for them. It's not just that particular process. It's more like, I had never known that. For the life of me, I didn't know that this area existed. It is truly enlightened me in so many ways. I can now interconnect that into other work that I'm doing and processes that I, you know, can achieve, if I can talk to other people about this. And I feel as though that should be an inherent element within the learned aspects of visual communications, the visual communication area.

Host

Yeah. No, I see. [...]

00:07:32

[...] [...] [...] But maybe moving into today in terms of the timeline. You are a partner at Pentagram, and you said that Pentagram is like a group of friends that are all thinking alike, and maybe juxtaposed to being in an environment that kind of sparks your general curiosity. Where do you see the relevance of being surrounded with like-minded people?

Eddie Opara

Well, again, let me sort of step back and start at this particular point. Over 15 years ago now, well, nearly 15 years ago, I had another studio that I ran called the Map Office. And it was a sort of small boutique studio and I was lonely. I had nobody to sort of bounce ideas off. I had my designers,

00:09:02

absolutely, but from a leadership standpoint I didn't have much at all. Potentially some of my friends, some of my mentors, those types of things. But I truly wanted to align with a group that, you know, had an affinity for one another, had strong relationships with one another. And Pentagram came along and I immediately saw what, you know, Pentagram could offer me. And the importance of having a group, a family, and now I must admit I've also said that it can also work as a dysfunctional family, and sometimes I always say, think, that certain dysfunctional families actually work the best, was exceedingly important.

You know, I had run the Map Office for 5 years. I wanted to know what the next level was, where was I exponentially going. And Pentagram, and not just only creatively, but also through management, also through understanding finance, right? When you're running a small

00:10:34

business, an SMB, there are certain times that you're really lost. You're really lost, and you can actually feel quite scared, or you're just scratching your head that certain things are just not working out, and there's nothing and nobody to really bounce this off. Perhaps another SMB. You know, but to be honest, I have 22 other partners to bounce these issues off. And the minute I came into the fold, I found a clarity that I never had, you know, within the aspects of finance, within aspects of running a studio, the aspects of dealing with larger clients. This was exceedingly important.

And then just talking to the likes of my partners here about design language, about what interests them, about, you know, the work that I just released or the work that they just released, and having great conversation about that. I think these are seriously important things. And also just talking about the future of design, where we're going, and what mistakes are we making.

00:12:04

These are really important things and I'm exceedingly happy that I'm part of that.

Host

Yeah. So, as you just noted, Pentagram is known for its unique partnership model. And according to a Fast Company article from 2023, it is described as sort of a collective of equals. So I would like to know, I mean, you just told us how this reflects in sort of the strategic management decisions, but how is this structure really reflected in your day-to-day activities, so in your creative processes and decision-making?

Eddie Opara

Yeah. Let me tell you a little story first in regard to that sense of equals. So, you know, we at Pentagram are, yes, set up as a collective partnership, meaning that all partners are equal, or equal share of the company. We are owners of the company. And I was at a dinner with a former project manager of mine... father, in Montreal. I was there for some work and she felt as though it was really good for me to, you know, meet her father, and her father's in finance, and he was a

00:13:34

wonderful man and we had a fantastic dinner. And he asked me, you know, how does this work? You know, if you really think about it on paper, a system like this that you have, you know, no CEO, no COO, no CTO, no CFO system. How do you do this? Well, you all are part of this process? And I said yes. Yeah, we all have a particular say. You know, of course, we do have specific groups that focus their attention on specific areas. You know, like I deal with new business, and some of my partners deal with legal and finance, and some of them deal with communications. But it's not really the sort of C-suite structure. And he was very baffled. He just felt as though this should be impossible to exist. And I think I pleasantly said, well, it's existed for over 50 years and it's very successful. And so a lot of people sort of consider it a very sort of socialist construct, you know. And you could say that it is. It's not very much based on the capitalist structure.

00:15:05

But we are within the capitalist structure. There's a balance between those two specific things. And why not, you know? Why can't there be? But if you could ask the part of that question again, so I can...

Host

Yeah. Yeah. So I was wondering, how does this reflect in your day-to-day creative processes and decision-making?

Eddie Opara

Yeah. So I have control over my team. Nobody can tell my team what to do and how to do it, unless I have told another partner. And so that's exactly how it works throughout the whole structure of Pentagram. You know, on a day-to-day basis, I have my own methodologies. My partner Natasha Jen has her own methodologies. Paula Scher, Emily Oberman, Dominate Lipper [unclear], Angus Hyland, you name it. We all have our own methodologies that our team works through. But there is also the appreciation of other teams and how they work. So you can actually

00:16:35

sort of ask, or just observe, how that team did that, and that does happen a fair amount. Like, oh, you know what, we should instill that in our team. And so it's sort of like this quasi best practices that occurs right throughout, more so, the offices. And then sometimes it can move over from office to office, you know, from the likes of London and New York, more so than Austin and Berlin.

Host

Well, I think it's not just Pentagram that kind of, despite maybe the interesting structure of the company, is at the end of the day an engine that is results driven. It is definitely also your clients, right? And you guys are working, I mean both on the commercial and on the public side, you guys are working with the biggest clients that are looking for results, and they come to you because they know that you guys are likely to deliver great results. I mean, for our listeners, for example, your colleague Paula Scher, she made the logo for Citibank. You also did the brand identity for the public park, the High Line in Manhattan. And I mean, in these big projects, in these client-driven projects where the client wants a result, how does

00:18:05

creative autonomy fit in this structure of a project, and how is this maintained in such a client-driven project?

Eddie Opara

That's, these are all great questions. It does depend upon the project, not so much the client. Well, you could say the client as well. You know, creative autonomy is very much wrapped up in creative methodologies and creative, you know, your sort of understanding of design, of strategy, of creative output. And so there's this sensibility that you have to start off with an overarching narrative that, you know, that's created from the strategic constructs of a project. So let's say a client has come to you. They want you to build out the overarching strategy and the overarching aspects of the

00:19:35

visual design elements and the rollout, right? You're there to research. You know, you're fundamentally there right at the beginning. Let's put it that way. As a researcher, you're researching, you're observing them, you're speaking to them, you're bringing up a ton of insights, insights that they may have gathered for you, qualitative and quantitative based. And from that, you know, a good designer, good designers really start to mold the propositions, the strategic positioning, thus propositions, the messaging, the narrative behind that. And you need that narrative, right? Or people will call the story, or the narratives that work there, right? You need to develop that, and the vocabulary that goes with it, the tone of voice that is imbued in it as well. It's instilled in it. And then you just close your eyes. If you imagine this, you could just close your eyes and start imagining how this could actually

00:21:06

work, so you can actually start to communicate that on a verbal basis and then on a visual basis.

But to do that, there is still some nuances, you know, and good designers know how to do this, where you're calibrating the verbal strategic elements, attributes, values that you have garnered, you have created, you have rendered for this client, that they've really signed off on and they're getting excited about. You need to calibrate it. And that part is really important. Creating that bridge between those two sections is exceedingly important. Sometimes designers miss it, right? Because they haven't calibrated carefully enough. And through that calibration, you have a golden opportunity to start to bring in some of your, well, a lot of your skill set, of course, right? Some of your methodology within visual constructs, within visual design, right? But you've learned also from that verbal input, those narratives that are built out, to reimagine something that sometimes

00:22:36

can be exceedingly unique or exceedingly distinct. But you've got to have it. You got to have that spirit to want that, right? And not sort of play it safe, right? We're going into a world now where we have agentic instruments, right? Such as AI, that can, you know, create, you know, basically, to a certain degree, start to primarily pinpoint what you visually need from these narratives. It's not perfect, but it's starting to do it and it's going to grow. And so if you don't take, and you know there are other words for this, but if you don't take risks, right, you're going to be left with potentially a hodgepodge of things, a world of sameness that is really struggling to define the new, and the new aspects of position within a particular marketplace.

And we are curious creatures. AI is not curious. You can ask itself a question, but, you know...

I probably understand. Definitely. Yeah.

Eddie Opara

Curiosity is... but it's curiosity

00:24:06

is more than just a way of relaying, of stating something. It also provides a sense of subjectivity, of chance, not randomness, of this innate human quality and connection that we have to come up with something so out there that it really changes the paradigm. Paradigm shifts, right? And we really need that to happen now. And that's one of the reasons why I actually am excited about this, is why AI is here: to not do the things that AI tells me to. Even though I've kind of used AI to do certain things, but I'm like, well, you know what, now I can really do those things that I wanted to, even when I was a kid, that, you know, may have not aligned at that time. And that's the beauty of what we, you know, do as a living.

Host

Yeah, I think AI in the creative industry is very, very exciting, and especially because of this frequency you just described. But we will get into the technicals in a little bit. So you just described how you approach

00:25:36

projects and how you try to bridge different interests between clients and yourself. So I would like to know, how do you approach selecting clients and projects that align with your core values?

Eddie Opara

Yeah, it's all about the values. I was just asked to do some questions about ethics. And, you know, ethics are really more regards to, you know, principles that are interconnected, community, rather than an individual. So the aspects of morals is also there, if it's from an individual sort of standpoint. Values: how do I pick them? We do a fair amount of research within new business. You know, if a client has come to us, let's put it that way, and they want us to work for them, we have to do that. We have to understand who these people are. We interconnect, do the research in regards to their C-suite or their, you know, their leaders, and we really go quite deep. And we have found on, you know, few occasions that it's just not going to work, basically because we found information that is not aligning to our beliefs.

00:27:07

Was it hidden from us? It's another thing altogether. But there's that piece. There's a piece that, you know, I am slowly trying to focus more of my attention into areas of, you know, positive outcome. And when I say positive outcome, it's just my personal terminology about the way that we're looking at the world today, right? And it's not so much about, like, large corporations, even though I have and do work with large corporations. It's really seeking out companies that are doing things new, whether it be in sustainability or within governance or within aspects of education. Those things are principally important. I truly believe in the development goals, the SDG goals of the UN. And I have on occasion utilized those to move projects forward. And I get very excited about that. And I'm always concerned that there's a whole lot of designers out there that don't even know what the UN Sustainable

00:28:38

Development Goals actually are. They should really go out and look them up. And even if you're not a designer, look them up. They're fantastic. This is where we need to be moving to. When people say, you know, designers solve problems, those are problems. Massive ones.

Host

Could you maybe brush upon that? How do you contextualize the SDGs within design?

Eddie Opara

Yeah, I definitely can. So it does depend upon the client, of course, right? So we had an educational client for quite some time called Gradient Learning, who we work for, for about, oh, I would say about five, six years now, just before the pandemic. And they came to us for a total refresh. And they were rearchitecting the whole company. They weren't called Gradient Learning at the time, but, you know, moving forward, during the pandemic,

00:30:08

you know, we were just finishing off all their brand work. I think we had just finished, to be absolutely honest. The CMO, former CMO, he called me, and I was watching my eldest son play football, soccer, and it was a nice day. And he said, "Do you design games?" And I said, "Yes." I'm shaking my head in a negative way, but positive about it. I had never really designed a game before, but I'm a designer. I think I can.

And he looked at it from this point of view, actually, I would say Gradient Learning looked at this point of view. It's really fascinating issue, right? That they had studied, and others have studied, that, you know, there's a disconnect between the student and their parent, and how the kids today are really not talking to their parents about what's going on at school. That connection is really, really important. Why? It's because fundamentally, within society, we really need to be able

00:31:38

to do that. But it's also the idea that it creates really fascinating conversation that we are losing based upon the internet and social media, right? And, you know, doing research, I think the Financial Times had stated that the pandemic was actually a catalyst that sped up the decline of literacy in students, and numeracy, understanding maths, and one's language, such as English, right? And this is dive bombing right across the western world, right? Even though, you know, you could say that Scandinavians have really high scores in mathematics, and so be it. But in a sense, right across the Western world, these elements are in decline, right? And that's exceedingly problematic.

And you're probably saying, well, what's this game got to do with this? In principle, the game is there to open up one's curiosity and one's creativity, and having dialogue

00:33:08

creates more strength and aspects of knowledge, right? And it creates that tie between the parent and the student, and the student and also the teacher. The teacher can also have these games. And so we were really fascinated by this. But the fact of the matter is, if you sort of align it to the sustainable goals, education is one of those sustainable goals. And to heighten education in regards to reading and writing right across the board, right? You might think that's exceedingly basic, but, you know, we're having a massive problem at this moment in time, right? And also the Financial Times found that during the pandemic literacy actually dive bombed for adults as well. So putting those things together, we, you know, also developed this game that can activate conversation and curiosity in different areas. So those are the types of things that I sort of value from talking to clients such as that. Yeah. So, it's clients that aren't scared to ask

00:34:39

us, can you do this? And we're like, yeah, and we're going to take that risk. We're going to push this. We're going to do all the research. We're going to experiment. We're going to play. Play is very important for designers and creatives.

Host

I think this is truly amazing, because actually the problem you just described is something we discussed in three or four of the seven podcasts we already did. And it seemed like it is impossible to tackle it, but apparently there are some ways.

Eddie Opara

There are ways.

Host

So yeah, we now want to get more on the technical part of the creative industry. We just shortly talked about that agentic tools, AI, are transforming every industry, probably. So we would like to know, because, for the creative industry, you do have a very systematic approach within your design philosophy. So we would like to know, how does this interplay function? When and how are intuition and data taking over processes of your work?

Eddie Opara 00:36:11

Yeah. I think one of the things that you have to remember about data from the very beginning is that, I look at it from the point of view of, you know, collecting data, is that there's a bias. There's always a bias. You're always looking for the holes, the different holes. You're not looking for, oh look, there's a pattern, right? Of course there's a pattern. You're looking for the holes within the pattern to devise new ideas, right? So, you're not following the aspects of trend, because that's what just creates trend. It's just, right, you're not creating new.

But when it comes down to technology, I've always thought that it is definitely, like for every designer, every person, an extension of who you are as a human. And I think that, you know, I started really getting into technology in my last year of undergrad, and then when I got to Yale I really started experimenting. And I remember it was 1995. You know, I had undergrads asking me, like, can you design a website

00:37:41

or build a website? I'm like, yes, you know, okay, you know, I don't know anything about this, but I could do that. I was really taking coding classes. And I felt as though this was really amazing. I can really stretch my imagination and extend my worth in this area. And I started to work with different artists at Yale and architects on different pieces of work that, to a certain degree, some of my professors said this was really puzzling. They didn't understand what was going on. It didn't sort of align to their ideas, and I would just smile, because to me I felt as though this is the future. And I've always sort of been like that, you know.

Moving along into the working world, I moved to Cambridge, Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts area, and worked for, you could say, a startup at that time, out of MIT Media Lab and Business School, Jeet Singh and Joe Chung, who I still sort of connected to today.

00:39:12

They started a company called Art Technology Group, and within that, two of my professors also, you know, worked at that company, Chris Edwards and Robert Odigard [unclear]. And we were doing really fascinating things, and this is '97 at the time. And I remember my first project was a project called BDDP Disruption Network, and it was to build an entirely amazing sort of community system for a large ad agency at the time. And starting off research, one of the papers that we read was a paper [unclear] on social media, and this is back in '97. And we started building out, you know, this system with what is, you know, some of the backbones of what social media is based on today. And I remember we won a few awards for it. People were like, never seen anything like this before. And it really sort of heightened my feelings about technology, that this is really where I needed to be at the time.

And as I sort of moved on, I've worked again with MIT

00:40:42

architecture, in the Senseable City Lab group, who was at the time run by Carlo Ratti, who is now the chief curator of the Venice Biennale Architecture. And he had built this system that had robots making cocktails, and he wanted us to visualize how these cocktails are made on a massive screen at the back, and the cadence of the systems. And so there's always been these connections in different ways to different, you know, I wouldn't say pioneering, but sort of, you know, first-on-the-scene types of things that I've done.

And now we're in the sort of AI age, and I've said to myself, you know, there are ethical questions I have. I use AI maybe on a day-to-day basis for different things. Of course, I think some of us are using AI right now. We don't even know that we are. That's another thing that we have to remember. And I think that the importance of having technology

00:42:13

and using sort of different digital tools allows, again, allows me to be that curious kid, that tinkerer, that guy that wants to just muck about and find new ways to do different things, and then relay it to a particular client, use it in a particular project that is suitable for that area. And of late I haven't done that, but I'm gearing up to it in a massive way very, very soon. So it's really inherent in who I am and who I hire and who I've hired, you know, in the past as well.

And I think that, you know, one thing that I want to be very careful of is this understanding of where we're going. I mean, right now you could say that, you know, technology has been a tool for us. Some people still call it a tool, right? It's like this process of evolution, that it's a tool, an agent, right? Agent, it is an influencer,

00:43:43

and from an influencer it becomes a friend, and from a friend it becomes a lover, right? I think some people are actually at the lover point right now. There are stories of this, right? The lover. And from a lover it becomes a leader, and I've adjusted this over the course of time, leader, and from a leader it becomes a demigod, and from a demigod it becomes a god. So when do we as humans actually just say enough, right? We have to think about that.

Host

Yeah, definitely. I think being skeptical and knowing what the capabilities of AI are is crucial, because we do live in a data-driven economy. So at the moment there's no way, yeah, to, I don't know, move around this. So it sounds like you have rather dystopian than a utopian view on the development, also in the creative industry, right?

Eddie Opara

That is a possibility. You could say that there is a dystopic path that leads, but it doesn't need to lead that path, right? And so I think it's the, you know, how can we sort of

00:45:14

deviate from that path into something which is positive. And I think that's where the likes of this, you know, things like the sustainable goals actually come into play again, right? How can I utilize, you know, this agent at this moment in time in the useful humanity, right? It always sounds soft, but, you know, we're designers. We can really make things look and feel and function incredibly well and exciting. That's our job.

Host

I mean, talking about that actually, I think, in the perspective of how you make things look and make things appear, I mean, I guess that's what you do mainly when you're working on creating brand identities, making rebrands. And now we've talked about how projects come to life, what certain angles can be used, but that all pre-requires that it works out. But what if it actually doesn't work out? I mean, what happens, or has that ever happened actually, that a client comes to you and they have a certain perception, but that perception completely diverts from what the actual brand DNA is in your eyes? And what happens in a situation where

00:46:44

brand DNA and brand perception don't actually match up?

Eddie Opara

Yeah, that's a really good question. Like, so for me at this moment in time, that's never ever happened. No, jokes aside. Look, the way that there's misalignment is because you're not, you know, you're not checking, you're not balancing. You know, there needs to be checks and balances right across, over the course of time, when you're actually building out the foundational constructs of this brand, because that's what Pentagram really loves to do. We love to get into the foundations of that company and rebuild those elements from scratch, right? That's really the best way.

Now you're probably looking at it from, like, Eddie, have you solved the problem, right? The problem, you know, of the hypothesis that you were given, based on this project from this, let's say, corporation. And you're saying to yourself, well, I say to myself, I don't really solve problems. And you're now going to say, "What?"

00:48:14

Well, let's put it this way. We don't solve problems, but we shift paradigms. Right? Now, the reason why I say that is, a lot of people would say, "No, I'm a problem solver." It's like, no, I would say a mathematician is a problem solver. An engineer is a problem solver. Designer makes certain things function, but over the course of time there's wear and tear. Right. Right. Mathematics says no wear and tear. 1 + 1 equals 2. There's wear and tear. And what basically is occurring is that that problem, in quotes, that you have solved has broken, and you have to fix it again, and it keeps on going, and it's not your fault. It's because of outside forces, or the way the consumer has changed over the course of time, that you need to readjust the system, right? And so the fact of the matter is, your question is

00:49:44

really interesting, but I think that one has to really sort of reconsider this. I've heard this question before. And the fact of the matter is, when I design something, I would like it to last, right? And longevity. And so sometimes we sort of build in systems, I love systems, and rebuilding scenarios: what if this happens, what future event may occur, this from shifting and moving around. You can't think of all of them. But if you are a good designer, right, that you've handed it over to, right, because that's what we do. We don't overly maintain projects, right? We hand them over to the client, and the client either has an in-house group work on it or another external vendor work on that. And that guidance that you've given them has to hold together. But it can't hold together all the time, due to the fact that market forces, retention issues in

00:51:14

the company, people come and go, and also the ability of the people that have to, you know, keep it up. And so that's really, really tough.

Now, if you had a belief mechanism, a manifesto of sorts, right? It's not so much about the design, it's about this sense of belief, and it's written and it's part of who you are. Some people call it the brand DNA, right? And it's a constant thing, like Nike, that is a sense of longevity. There is a longevity there. You'll see it go up and down a little bit, but they are very constant with their articulation of what their needs are on a day-to-day basis from design. They always have that fundamentally in their back pocket. Apple's another one, right? There's, you know, the design centricity is there. It's right at the center of that particular company. And you're getting it from now the likes of IBM, hopefully that will hold, you know. And so even though IBM has always said design as being part of who they are, not necessarily correct. And so that is the important thing to do, to understand that

00:52:45

you know, I am a person that doesn't believe that I'm a designer that is there to solve problems. I'm there to build paradigm shifts. You know, problems are often redefined rather than resolved, right? So that's another thing.

And if you sort of want to go into certain things, you could also, like, you know, I'm not normally a person that talks about Steve Jobs, but what he says sort of reinforces what I'm interested in about design. You know, he said there, a man's ability as a toolmaker to fashion a tool that can amplify an inherent ability that he has, right? And that's exactly what we think we're doing. But we think we're basically fashioning a 21st century bicycle here. This is what Steve Jobs said, which can amplify an inherent intellectual ability that man has, really, to take care of a lot of drudgery, to free people to do much of the creative work. And so what I think he's basically sort of stating here is that we've already, you know, figured out the problem, right? That's it. You know,

00:54:15

we're basically fashioning a 21st century bicycle here, right? Bicycle was invented a long time ago. Problem was solved. But what we're doing is we're creating these sort of mini problems, right, to apply to. And so that's an interesting sort of area. I think if you think about it, the problem that we can't deal with is world hunger, right? We've got all this, we got AI, we got artificial coming out of wazoo, and we have to deal with world hunger, right? Principally, how are we going to do that? That's a problem.

Host

Yeah. And to believe that AI is probably, yeah, working against this, when we look at energy consumption and, you know, everything related to this. So yeah.

Eddie Opara

Yeah. I mean, you know, you've got a ton of philosophers and thinkers that have argued for a very long time, you should really look this up: do we truly solve problems? But rather, you know, they think that they would rather transform or reframe or live with them, right? And so, like, Wittgenstein said it. Thomas [unclear], the American historian, philosopher, states it. There's a gentleman called Paul

00:55:45

Feyerabend, I think. He sort of argues that problems are not solved in an objective sense but are replaced by new ways of thinking, right? So, you know, this is what I'm thinking about on a day-to-day basis.

Host

Yeah. So we now talked a lot about Pentagram and your work at Pentagram, but you're also, for example, an advisory board member at Canva, which was recently named the most valuable female-led startup on the globe, with revenues at around $3 billion US. So, and actually we play around with Canva probably every week for our podcast.

Eddie Opara

Fantastic.

Host

Our presentation decks, everything we sent out to potential guests, partners, everything is made in Canva, basically.

Yeah, it's just very convenient, very, you know, because I'm not very creative, but with Canva it's very easy for us to create something that, yeah, that looks like high quality stuff.

Yeah. And so what excites you most about helping shape a tool that makes design more accessible for everyone?

Eddie Opara

Yeah. Design always needs to be accessible for everyone.

00:57:16

Number one. And it needs to heighten our understanding of what design actually is. And it's not just from the point and the prospects of what you're sort of relaying in a presentation. And that's well true, don't get me wrong, but also within one's life, right? You know, we have our Pentagram book, Living by Design, really does go into that, right? We, you know, we talked about that we're a family, that one can actually create an organism or an ecosystem that really looks at design from the point of view that it's not just a job or profession. It's the way of living one's life. And I think that that is beautiful. And I think that the things that Canva is actually providing to everyone, it's a sense of empowerment of design.

Now there are a few sort of challenges, where you could say, if I'm a designer and

00:58:47

I look at that particular presentation, of course I'm going to sort of say, you know, you could really adjust this here and there. But, you know, we're not there to criticize. We're not there to do that. I think that it highlights and enlightens, illuminates the importance of what we do on a day-to-day basis, and I think that's fantastic. And the insights that I can provide as an advisory board member is exceedingly vital, right? And not only for everyone, but also for my professional community as well, you know, and how can help them. And there's some fantastic things that are happening now and in the future. So, I'm exceedingly, you know, grateful to be on that board.

Konstantin Girst

Definitely. I think I would encourage everybody out there to engage themselves with design. So design in general, the ability to design being more accessible to everybody, is definitely a great win for society. And now, looking at, Julius said earlier, now we covered Pentagram, let's look at Canva. I think

01:00:17

from all the things that I mentioned in the introduction, there's one thing missing, which is your occupation as a lecturer. For example, you've taught at Yale, Columbia or the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. And I would like to know, what is the best and most fun thing about teaching young and motivated people? And would you say that there is maybe anything that you recognize that young creatives get better, or maybe even worse, than past generations?

Eddie Opara

Oh, that's interesting. I get excited teaching students, or just relaying, or just being mentors to students, because of the aspects of being fresh, fresh in an area that is so large. And you want them to get excited, and you're riffing on specific things, and they're enjoying, you're enjoying their company, they're enjoying your company. You're having great insights, they're coming back with fantastic pieces. Some are struggling, but they're still on the path of

01:01:47

succeeding. That's really, really great as well. And so there's this love of that, to be young again as well, right? To have a different type of set of obstacles in their way, as they sort of pushing their way through them, is wonderful, fascinating. And also how they adopt new tools and new technologies as well is really great. You can learn a fair amount from them that you never noticed before, from, you know, different technologies, as, you know, technologies are always adjusting and changing all the time.

But I think one of the things that is sort of missing right now, there's a lot of individualism, that's great, but there's the sense of a movement. There's... everything's sort of being dumbed down to trends, and a movement is way more than just a trend. It can align to literature, to economics, to just society in general, and politics. And that's not really happening

01:03:17

at this moment in time. And I'm getting a little bit more concerned for students that are sort of coming up in the world today. I know there was another part to that question at the end, Konstantin, that you would, I think you potentially have answered that already.

Konstantin Girst

I was looking at if there's anything that young students in the arts get better or worse than past generations. I think potentially that could be within the realm of being faster and picking up new tools and new possibilities to create something, I guess, because that's also a general picture we see in society as well, right?

Eddie Opara

Yeah, there is. I think the one thing that is a little sad is getting out and researching. Don't go on the internet to find all your stuff, right? Go out there, talk to people, go to the library, go to bookshops, go to shows. It's really important. Don't be siloed. Travel. Very important for designers to travel.

Host

And what sounds really fascinating to me is that everything you do complements each other. So you said the work you do at Canva complements the

01:04:47

work you do at Pentagram, and the work you do as a lecturer probably also complements your work at Pentagram, because you engage with a lot of other people.

Eddie Opara

Yes, they all interlock. They never separated.

Host

That's very interesting. I think that's great. I'd say that's maybe one of my most favorite sentences I've heard in a couple of weeks, is: I don't solve problems, that we shift paradigms. I think that's such a, yet simple, but yet so sophisticated way of kind of highlighting what the actual work of a designer comes down to, and I think that's a very, very great lesson. So thank you very, very much for that.

Eddie Opara

It's great. You're welcome.

Host

Yeah, and I think that's a good closing note for the interesting conversation we had today. So again, also for me, thank you. Thank you so much, Eddie.

Eddie Opara

Thank you, Julius. Pleasure. Thank you, Konstantin.

Host

And to everyone out there that's listening right now, make sure to, yeah, like the episode, leave a comment, and make sure to tune in in two weeks from now. Thank you. Have a great day.

Eddie Opara

Bye guys.

Bye.