Episode 3 Transcript | John Perry of Marq

Peter Stevenson

Thanks for joining us today on By Subject, Silicon Slopes brand and marketing podcast. I’m your host Peter Stevenson, and in this episode I had a chance to sit down with John Perry, creative director at Marq, formerly LucidPress. Welcome, John Perry.

John Perry

Thanks for having me, man. Appreciate it.

Peter Stevenson

Yeah, thanks for being out here on the By Subject podcast here at Silicon Slopes. Love to get started with your background. So tell me a little bit about how you got started in design, what that first sort of role was. Did you go to school kind of where you grew up, that kind of stuff?

John Perry

Cool. Yeah. So I would say for me, everything kind of started with my mom. My mom was a total badass. She was a single mother of three boys, and our father passed away when I was six. My older brother was eight, my younger brother was four. So she had to find a way to keep us all occupied. And for me, it was always art. Like, I totally got lost in the world of Stan Lee and Marvel comic books. And I probably filled, sketchbooks, and drawn Wolverine, Spiderman, and Gambit over 10,000 times. And that kind of translated a lot into fine arts. And then she really always pushed me into whatever I wanted to do. Nothing, like, forced on me, but there would literally be like figure drawing classes or painting classes. And she would drive me a half an hour, an hour away to get into those things because she could see it was something that I was good at, and it kept me in a good headspace. So I still remember Vividly Middle School, 8th grade, the iMac came out and my mom bought one for me. My mom was she was a school teacher, so that was a big purchase for her.

Peter Stevenson

Wow.

John Perry

And for me, I was like, man, this thing is awesome. Like Apple Computer. Bold, colorful, beautiful. And it was a way for me to take what I was doing in sketchbooks and canvases and put it into a digital medium. And that was kind of like the turning point for me when I was like, man, design is going to be the thing that I do.

Peter Stevenson

Did you pull up Adobe products and start playing around with the Adobe suite?

John Perry

Yeah, right away. So I was fortunate where, again, my mom pulled me out of middle school that I was going to in my hometown and took me to her middle school, which was basically both of them, 45 minutes, half hour outside of New York City in the suburbs. And they had a really good art department where you could do that in school. So they had like a computer lab filled with max. So I got to use the Adobe products in school, and then I had a computer at home. So I was able to work with the Adobe products right away, super early in my career.

Peter Stevenson

Amazing. And so as you sort of grew up through high school, did you go to college for graphic design?

John Perry

I did, yeah. So I basically in high school, I was pretty advanced, so I was in all honors classes and I was able to get rid of all my gen eds right away and then switch mainly into art. I did nothing but art classes junior and senior year and got into AP art classes. So I was literally taking probably six art classes, gym, and then I was like leaving school 01:00. So I ended up going to university at Buffalo and I majored in communication design, which was it was the first year they were doing that program. And it was like early stages of UX. So you basically get your base in fine arts and then you translated that to Digital User Experience website and then a mix of advertising and some of the psychology sides like color theory and art history and things like that.

Peter Stevenson

And what year was that you graduated from college?

John Perry

So this would have been 2005. 2005.

Peter Stevenson

Real great time to come out of school.

John Perry

Yes.

Peter Stevenson

So tell me about the first gig. Where did you land? Did you come out to Utah right then or did you wait a couple of years?

John Perry

So I didn’t. I worked in New York City for a couple of years. I did a couple of internships. First one was at a post production house called Nice Shoes. And New York definitely gave me the roots of everything that I have today because everything was so hard, fast paced, and really old school. Like the post production house. I was getting coffees and dinners and doing all this grunt work to be able to do a little bit of motion design. And that was like the treat, like the carrot and stick for all of us. We worked in a shipping room and we hustled, and we probably worked like 1416 hours, days. And then out of school I went to work for a guy named David Canner. So this guy played for the New York Mets and invested in Stretch Armstrong in the hit it Big and started his own toy company. So he did kids toys and then pet toys. And I came on as a packaging designer for him. And it was like trial by fire thrown in right away. I was working on probably 1015 packaging design projects a week. And on top of that I was working on like the photo side too. So anything that required photos, we would go to the meat packing district and we would set up photo shoots with photographers. We would have to staff all the talent and then turn those photos around, edit them, throw them on a package, and send them off to print. All within, I would say, three, four day turns.

Peter Stevenson

Holy moly.

John Perry

Yeah. So super quick. And spend a lot of nights, like literally until two in the morning, like sitting on the windowsill, working on these designs, stressing my mind over and over. Did that for like three years and it was great. Everything that I did at that place was a new opportunity. He allowed me to do as much as I was able to handle. And there was nothing again that was like forced on us. We could have outsourced some of those things, but he allowed us the opportunity to do that. So I was able to art direct as a very junior packaging designer, which was fun, exciting, and just opened up like another side of the creative world.

Peter Stevenson

That’s amazing. And so you did that from like five through eight around that time frame?

John Perry

Yeah.

Peter Stevenson

So the crash hits and did that job go away or did you jump to something else?

John Perry

No, I’ve been super fortunate where the economic collapses and stuff have never really affected me. I’ve always kept a steady stable of freelance work. But I came out here right after that, 2008, my girlfriend, at times younger brother was looking at aviation schools and he was going to Utah. And his mom was like, man, I’m not taking to Utah. So your sister and Perry can take you out there and chap her on this trip. So we come out here. We hit up Snowbird Park City Canyon. It was more of like a snowboard trip for us. And then we took him to Westminster and upper limit aviation. And I fell in love with it. This is like height of snowboarding videos, like Macdog movies and stuff. And I was like, Utah is the place. I’m definitely coming out here. And Melissa and Kevin are both like, you’re crazy, there’s no way. So I go back from that trip and I go into David’s office and I was like, I’m moving out to Utah. And he was like, get the F out of here. He’s like, you’re not going to Utah. And I was like, yeah, I’m putting in my notice, like, I’m going to Utah. He’s like, do you have a job? And I was like, yeah. I was like, I’m sure I’ll have a job. And he’s like, well, do you have a job right now? And I was like, no, but I’m putting in my notice. And he’s like, you’ll be back, mark my words. Like, you’re not going to Utah. People don’t leave New York to go to Utah. It’s the other way around, bud.

Peter Stevenson

Right?

John Perry

And I came back out one more time with Melissa like a week after that. In between, interviewed at a couple of places in Park City and Salt Lake. And then the week after that I packed up my jeep and drove out here. And I ended up working for DMB Associates at Glenwild. And that was like my start of my Utah career.

Peter Stevenson

Yeah. And so what was that transition like from New York to Utah? You fell in love with the place, but what did you do here? What was the thing that you loved?

John Perry

Definitely. Like the outdoors, like, panic hit when I actually got out here because I didn’t know a soul. I remember that for me was tough. I’m from like, a New York Italian family. We did Sunday dinners every single week with my grandpa, my mom. My grandpa was still around at the time. So I get out here and I moved to Pork City right off of Main Street. So it’s cold and snowy and I got a U Haul packed and it’s attached to my Jeep. And I pull up to this old ski bum shack. Don’t know a single person in town and I’m moving in. There’s like a couple of ski bumps outside, crushing beers. They’re not asking if I need any help, and I’m moving hundreds, if not thousands of pounds of things into the place. And as I finish unloading everything, like every last piece out with not a single help, the guys are like, hey, man, do you want to come by and have a drink? And I was like, asking me if I want to come in after they don’t give me any help. And I was like, yeah, you know what? I’ll come in and I hang out with these guys and they kind of took me under their wing and we went out to Main Street, got some fat kid pizza. There was a place called Sidecar at the time and I met a lot of people. Like one of my best friends, JohnnyO, meet him that night. He’s actually coming from Denver to our house for Thanksgiving. And they just took me in right away. So everything we did was like, we finished up the ski season. We’re snowboarding all the time at Snowbird. Yeah, Snowbird was open till July 4 that year and then got into golf and mountain biking. And like, for me, the whole outdoors thing was why I made the move. We were spending ungodly amounts of money driving from New York to Vermont or Hunter every weekend. And it was like crazy. Me, my older brother girlfriend, her brother, and my younger brother would travel around. We put like five, six people in a hotel room for three nights and we would do J Peak, Stowe, Killington and chase all these storms. And it was nuts. We were dumping every penny we made in the office into Snowboarding. So for me, I think subconsciously it was like, yeah, I’m going to trade that for this. And it’s like right out my door and it’s way less populated. People are friendly. There’s a lot more opportunity, and I feel like I got a solid base from being raised in New York and working in Manhattan. That set me up for good times out here.

Peter Stevenson

Yeah. So let’s get back to the work. What was designed, like, back in Eight here in Utah? What did you find? What were you seeing in the design community here?

John Perry

It was interesting. So when I was working at Glenwild, it was like a pretty formal hospitality design, so a lot of marketing collateral, and it was a strong foundation for having like, a nine to five. One of my early mentors was Damon Rogers. He was the GM there at the time, and he kind of allowed me to do anything and everything I wanted to do. So I got to focus on the website. I got to do print collateral. Social media was just becoming big for businesses, so I created all their accounts and got them started in that vein and then was able to do a lot of freelance projects on the side. Glenwild being golf club was very seasonal, so during the wintertime I was able to do freelance projects with, like, grenade gloves or park City Mountain Resort was one of my bigger clients. I used to do all their ski maps and the folded ones and ones that are printed on hill. So there was cool projects like that that were close to home for me in the snowboarding community. And what was the gorgoza pine? So it’s now Woodward.

Peter Stevenson

Oh, it’s a Woodward one?

John Perry

Yeah, that one too. I get to work on their branding and all their trail maps and stuff, too. So it’s a good portion of a lot of illustrator and InDesign work for these side projects.

Peter Stevenson

Yeah. And so we first met when you were at Creminelli. So when did you jump to Creminelli?

John Perry

So Creminelli came a couple of years after. So after Glenwald, I went to work for an entertainment producer for a little while. Okay. One of the owner of this company was a member of Glenwald, and he kind of plucked me out and took me under his wing. It was really another cool opportunity. I got to work on Mythbusters. Alton Brown’s live tour. Mannheim Steamroller. Like a lot of cool pieces. And from there I went to Stein Ericsson Lodge, and that was like, a really cool storytelling piece for me. Stein was still alive at the time, and Russ Olsen, who’s the CEO, gave me bandwidth and freedom to run with everything. So we created a lot of cool video projects, lot of photo shoots to be able to tell that story of him being an Olympian, his history with Park City and Deer Valley. And then after that, I landed at Criminally, which was awesome. I almost missed out on that one because the opportunity, when I got hit up by the recruiter, it sounded like too good to be true. They were like, hey, we can’t tell you what company this is, but your job would basically be 50% travel. Like, are you are you interested in Anthony Bourdain? Like, do you like food travel, traveling the world, traveling the country? And then they’re going through a rebrand right now. They’ve got, like, the identity piece 90% done, and they need to do a full rebrand for packaging, website and social. And I was like, that sounds amazing, and turned out to be these guys at Criminally. And I remember it was like, everything seems to always work out the way it should. Being a kid from New York and raised in the Bronx with, like, Italian meats and stuff. I go in for the interview, and Cristiano and Jared and Chris lay out, like, a big plate of charcuterie, and they probably had so many creatives come in and fake their way through it. For me, I grew up on Gabba Ghoul and all this stuff, all that stuff. I was in love right away, and I was like, it was probably the first time where I was like, if I don’t get this, I’m going to lose it. This will be one of my biggest regrets. And it worked out. Me and Cristiano hit it off right away. And Chris and the same thing. We dove in head first. We redid all of their packaging. I’m sure you remember Local, it was like very old world brown packaging, and we kind of updated everything to clear packaging for transparency and, like, a very modern look and feel. And those guys were kind of like visionaries in the space where they used 50% of their packaging on the backside for food travel photography, which everyone was like, man, you guys are crazy. You’re going to put a photo back there? Like, it should be all about brand, and you guys want recognition and all this stuff, and they just didn’t care. Chris and Christiana were so much into this food discovery idea that it showed up on packaging and everything we did. It was such a cool opportunity and experience for me.

Peter Stevenson

Yeah, the marketing piece that you guys came out with, all the food travel that you did, was such a fun thing to watch from the community to see where you guys were going and what you were doing. It was an opportunity for us here locally to get to travel with you, if you will. It was a lot of fun. What was the inspiration behind that idea?

John Perry

So for those guys, it really was food discovery at its core that was, like, the big idea that inspired everything we did. But Chris and Cristiano met during the Olympics, and Chris was exposed to Cristiano’s food in Torino and was like, this stuff is awesome. We don’t have anything like this in Utah. Have you ever thought about bringing this to the United States? And he was like, not really. This is kind of his family owned a Saluma Ficcio for, I don’t know, almost 100 years. So that was kind of just what he did. So a couple of years later, he convinced him to come here, open up shop, and they wanted to bring this idea of good food to the masses. And for them, it was, like, about Democratizing charcuterie. And it’s cool. Like, when you’re in it at the time, you don’t know that you’re doing that. And it’s funny now to see the impact that Criminally has had on almost the entire country in that space. You can’t open up TikTok or Instagram and not run into a meme about sharkuchi or GABA, ghoul, all these things that were kind of not really being done at the time, or they were only reserved for dinner parties or different types of events. And I think that piece of it, that food discovery and pushing that is what did that and, like, Democratized charcuterie for the country. Because now you see people, like, even in the splitboard community, people flip over their board and make, like, a spread now. And I’m like, yeah, it’s kind of wild, like, being a crave director at Criminally to then years later, see people doing that, making these charcuterie spreads all over the place now.

Peter Stevenson

Everywhere.

John Perry

Everywhere. Yeah. And it’s like the foodie culture was like, another piece of that. I kind of hate the term, but there’s no other way to describe it. It really was just about good food. Some of the trips were for Christiana to be inspired by flavors that he would put into salami. But the core of it was about exposing himself to new culture and immersing himself. Not just by visiting and trying the food, but like meeting the chefs and the artisans behind what was being made and then doing different. Activities in the community, whether it was a hike or a tour or snowboarding, mixing it up with locals and finding out what ignites their passion to learn more and to push him more for the work that he was doing. And I feel like food is one of those things that’s very similar to design. Like, if you’re doing it with passion and love, it shows up in the product. And I feel like for him, it tastes so much different than everything else in the market looks different, and it’s just allowed them to be super successful.

Peter Stevenson

Yeah. And from there, you went over to Backcountry, right?

John Perry

Yeah, so I went to Backcountry, which was for me, it was kind of the dream that goat was since I moved out here. It was kind of the epitome of the outdoors. And my younger brother had worked there early in his career, and it was somewhere where I always wanted to end up and stars aligned. I had done a photo shoot on the talent side the January before while I was still a criminally. And I met the creative director, and he wasn’t able to be up on Hill, so we were mixing it up on hill, and I was, like, working with the photographer to get different shots and came back and he was talking to the art director and he was like, man, these are, like, really cool perspective. I love these angles. This is great. How did you get this? And he was like, I don’t want to take credit. He was like, John actually helped us with these shots while you were unable to be on Hill. And he was like, who the f is this guy? And I end up, like, cutting it up with him a bit. And he was like, what do you do? I thought you were just an influencer or a model.

Peter Stevenson

I was like, that’s how I think of you, too.

John Perry

I laughed because I was like, yeah, I’m a full time creative director. I just do the other stuff for fun on the side. And he was like, we got to bring you on board. And Criminality is still at the height of what we were doing. We were traveling two, three times a month, and I couldn’t even think about leaving. And then the timing worked out where Pandemic hit and all the travel shutdown. We were supposed to go to Patagonia for a trip with this chef, Sarah Glover, like, dream trip, and they were still gung ho. Nobody knew what was going on yet. We were going to leave, and then the day before the flight, everything got shut down. Utah and Argentina and that got put to bed. And they called me like a month later and they were like, hey, would you consider coming on with us? And I decided to take the leap. But we had kind of done the groundwork for everything that we wanted to do at Criminally from the brand side. And all the content pieces were being put on hold, so timing couldn’t have been more perfect. And backcountry was great. We got to dive in and kind of retell the story of the founders. It’s changed hands a couple of times, so a little bit of their story and their identity had been lost. So we were able to go back in. There was a CMO. There Sarah Crockett, who was awesome. She gave us the resources to be able to do all those things. So we got to work with those founders, get their story, put it out, like on the website, social media, all of these different touch points, and then got to work. It was about 50 50 with the design team and the content teams to really change the game and start to create unique pieces of content. Some of the work that I’ve done there is probably, like, my favorite work that I’ve done in my career. We spent long, long days in the studio, but we would create dimensional lettering out of like, real blocks of ice that weighed 2000, £3000, fill the studio with fake snow. We built a river in the studio one time. We were doing all these things that people typically use photoshop for, and we definitely had the design muscle to be able to do that. But there was something about creating these pieces for an outdoor company that were super authentic that was part of that storytelling. And I had the honor to work for one of the most talented studio photographers, or photographers that I ever worked with this guy, Ben Coons. And he’s great. Yeah, you know? Yeah, he’s great. Yeah. I mean, literally the best technical photographer that I’ve worked with, and he’s become, like, one of my best friends. But cool. The talent that he possessed and the creative freedom that Sarah gave us opened up so many doors. We were shooting every single day over the weekend we were traveling, and it was just super fulfilling because the work showed up and that story started to come back because it was interesting. A lot of customers didn’t know that Backcountry was started in a garage in Hebrew with a couple of guys selling avalanche beacons. They just thought it was this massive company. It was this conglomerate, which isn’t the case. It was born in Utah and matured in Park City. So really fun work that we got to do there.

Peter Stevenson

Yeah, still one of the best direct mail pieces I ever got was one of your catalogs maybe two years ago. That first one that I think you put out, Viet, was in it. It was that one. It was one of the better direct mail pieces I’ve ever seen. Good work.

John Perry

It’s super funny. I was involved in the photo shoot for their first catalog, and the catalog initiatives were huge for them. So as I’m coming on, I’m getting hired as this new guy. I didn’t know anybody internally except for my friend JohnnyO, happened to be there, too.

Peter Stevenson

Okay.

John Perry

So the creative director asked me to come up to Sundance the week before I’m coming on there and doesn’t, like, he makes it sound like it’s an interview. So I go up there, and it turns out it’s a photo shoot. So he has me modeled for this photo shoot, and then he’s sending me pieces of the catalog asking for direction and feedback, and there’s no cover. So I’m like, yeah, this is cool. We should try this. We should dive into studio photography here. This is where we need lifestyle. So the week that I get there, a lot of people have been in backcountry for 1520 years, especially my team. So I get there, and he puts my face on the COVID of this first catalog. So all these guys are like, oh, really? And I remember Ben and this guy’s son, Kim the first day that I’m there. They had gone through transition, and I’m this new guy that none of them know. They don’t know a lot of my experience. And they’re like, man, we got to work for this guy that just put himself on the COVID of this catalog, and what are you going to bring to the table? And I was like, what an interesting way to kick off a new job. The catalog work was huge. The first year. We went from doing zero catalogs to doing six. And it was a big passion for all of us, especially the studio side. We were just able to unlock a lot of doors and showcase product in a way that other brands weren’t doing it.

Peter Stevenson

One of the things that I think has seen the throughline, as you’ve talked about your career, is such a focus on storytelling, especially about founders, and about the reason behind the brand, some of those reasons that you’re doing specific things. The realness of the catalogs. Tell me, why do you think that’s such an important part for a design, such an important part for a marketing or a brand?

John Perry

Yeah, so I think storytelling is probably the biggest thing that differentiates, like, a great brand from a good brand. And I think it shows up at every level. But I think for me, personally, what I’ve seen is it helps resonate with people. If you were to ask somebody about Boarshead, what would they be able to tell you?

Peter Stevenson

Probably I can tell you who owns it.

John Perry

Yeah, right. You wouldn’t be able to. Most people, if you ask them about criminally, they know Cristiano. They feel like they know him from seeing his food travels. And that builds community, it builds brand loyalty. And I feel like it’s the biggest game changer. People try and catch that lightning in the bottle with just good design alone, which you can sometimes. But I feel like that storytelling pushes people over the edge, and it really goes back to college for me. The psychology of what gets people hooked into brands, that’s the thing. You create this personal connection with your audience, and it’s something that lasts with them for the rest of their life. Like, even if quality falls off, sometimes, people will remain loyal to a brand. Even if design goes south for a while under new creative leadership, people are loyal to that brand, and they just know, like, it’s going to come around and you’ve got that community backing you. So I feel like from the very beginning, or if you have the opportunity to do, like, a rebrand, making sure that you tell that story about what sets you apart from the others is the most important thing you can do as a creative.

Peter Stevenson

Yeah, okay, so you mentioned rebrand, so let’s get to the big rebrand. So you jump from backcountry over to, at the time, Lucid Chart, lucid Press. Lucid Press. I always get confused which one’s which, which I think is probably part of the rebrand. So tell me, what was the reason to come over? When did you come over during that rebrand process, and what was it that inspired you to jump to a tech company from your dream job?

John Perry

Yeah, so I think for me, anytime you say rebrand, like kid in a candy shop, having the ability to have that touch point. But I did my research, and Lucid Software is a behemoth. I think they had a $4 billion valuation as all this was going on. But for me, it was the story. So I started to dive a. Little bit deeper and look into what Lucid Press was. So Lucidpress was basically built in the basement of Lucid Software, and the GM of the product was Owen Fuller. So for me, I started doing research. He’s this Owen Fuller guy. I reach out to all my Utah buddies, my buddy Craig Hammond, and this guy trapped. And of course they knew him, and they were like, man, you got to work for Owen. Owen is super connected, like visionary. It almost doesn’t matter what the product is. Like, this guy is doing stuff. So I was like, that’s a big, bold statement right there. Let me see what it’s all about. So I end up interviewing with them, and they go through everything that we’re going to work on for the rebrand, which is all dream stuff, right? We get to work on the Logo Identity Brand Guide website, and then we get to launch content. And I started talking to Lauren Hamburg, who is the head of product, and we hit it off right away. I remember the first time you usually have these 30 minutes first touch point interviews. We were on the phone for, like, an hour, and then that wasn’t enough time, and we had another hour call. And I could see she was excited about this opportunity, as excited about this opportunity as I was. And for me, I was like, okay, that’s perfect. I’ve got a marketing counterpart that is really excited about telling this story, working through this rebrand the right way, and we’re going to hit some aggressive deadlines. And then I had the opportunity to talk to Owen. And Owen was like, everything that I had built up in my mind at this point. My buddy Trevor is, like, pretty honest, and he was like, yeah, this guy is sharp. He’s connected, and he’s fired up about this thing. He’s going to make this thing into a billion dollar brand. And Owen was, like, super excited about my background, about bringing me on about this product, like, changing the landscape and owning brand Templating. And everyone was just so passionate about it that I was like, yeah, right. Like, we’ve got this story. We’ve got, like, a bunch of genius engineers in the basement of this $4 billion company creating this thing that is able to then go out on its own, and then we get to rebrand it together and take it out to the masses.

Peter Stevenson

Yeah.

John Perry

So I was like, yeah, dream opportunity. For me, it’s way different than the outdoor space, but as a creative, it’s everything that you could want, everything that you could ask for.

Peter Stevenson

Yeah. So let’s talk a little bit about the reasons that they wanted to do the rebrand. What was it that they said, okay, we need to rebrand? Why was it that they felt like a rebrand was necessary? And what were the things that they had found out about the reasons that they knew that a rebrand would address. Yeah.

John Perry

So I think for Owen, the biggest thing was probably, like, the older brother casting the shadow. Lucid is a behemoth and great brand, great products, but it was casting the shadow over us that wasn’t allowing us to shine. And we knew that we needed to come into our own and bring it out to the general public in a way that people could digest it, understand what it was a little bit more. Lucid Press wasn’t really doing it at the time. Even throughout those five years, like, things had evolved and changed the landscape and what the product was doing with Brand Templating, it didn’t really resonate. So it was all those reasons that they wanted to do this and they wanted to do it on, like, it was a one year timeline. And I came in about four or five months into that. So we had basically half a year to work through some of these things, which is not a lot.

Peter Stevenson

That’s not a long time.

John Perry

Not a long time at all.

Peter Stevenson

Okay. There were reasons there. So tell me what you found. What was that process that you went through on the rebrand? So did you do customer interviews? Did you do new positioning? Was it really just design, or was it the entire brand strategy, too?

John Perry

Yeah, so it was pretty much the entire brand strategy. Right. Like, we start at the beginning. We developed product positioning to see what the problem that we were solving for what our product actually was. That was, like, a big thing, right. Throughout the history of Lucid Press, it was kind of pitched sometime as a design solution, which it’s not. It is this brand Templating platform that allows brands of all sizes to basically scale content to be able to push it out when you don’t have big design team, but you also don’t want your accounting or your HR person becoming a designer. Yeah. So we did a lot of research to kick it off. That was like we didn’t even start to touch logo for. They started that research four or five months before I got there. We finished it up with Lauren and then we started to research the name, which a lot of people had asked about, like Marquis going back to the French term means franchise. And they really liked that. And what Owen and I connected on was all these hidden meanings and puns and things like that. Because I always think as part of that storytelling, like hiding little breadcrumbs in your work, is something that connects people to you, too. So that was something a lot of tech companies do, like Google or Prosper. They’re ambiguous names. Right. Mark can be seen as that. And whatever name we picked, people might have thought that, but for us, we had this root in French, meaning for the word brand, and we wanted to build off of that and we wanted to do it in a simple elegant way. I’m sure you’re familiar. A lot of people try and overengineer and over design things and it blows up. So we really wanted something that was clean, easily recognizable, and have a mark that we could own as part of that process. So after we established the product, the positioning, we dove into the logo work and it was cool. Like, with a smaller team, you never know what the design process was going to look like. But with Lauren, myself, Owen, and then JP, we kind of ran it like a little creative agency. And we formed like, this commission. It was the four of us just moving things along, making sure we were pushing things in the right direction. And Owen talks about it all the time, like healthy conflict, like something wasn’t moving the right direction. Call me out, me and Lauren, back and forth. We would work through it, present something until it got pushed through the way that we were all happy about it and the way that we feel like it would resonate with people. And that continued on. Wasn’t sure with it being a younger brand, if we were going to do like a three page brand guide or if we were going to get into the meat of it. And I think we ended up landing at a 50 something page brand guide. So we got into the meat of it.

Peter Stevenson

You send that over to me? I’d love to see it.

John Perry

Yeah, I’ll shoot it over to you because it’s got the piece of the story. And enter the chat. Katie Crongard comes in and she’s our head of content and she helps with as I’m sure you’re fully aware, the amount of copy that was in the brand guide. Like, yeah, I’m only one man, right? Me, Lauren, we’re spewing words onto pages and it’s okay. And the base of the soup is there. But she came in and it kind of like, unlocked another door for us overnight. And we got this amazing copy that was totally matching the personality and how we wanted to show up. So we got the help that we needed there and we dug a lot into could nerd out on this for probably 6 hours, but spent probably three weeks working on color and palettes. And we ran the gambit and without boring anybody listening to that, that’s for us. Where I feel like doing a rebrand or design is kind of like a glacier, right? What people see up top, a logo is just the tip of the iceberg. We spent weeks talking about which colors would resonate with people and how it would make them feel, how it show up in product, how it show up on the website, would it work for social media? So we did a lot of research and it was nice to add a fifth member to the team for the rebrand process because it helped to push things over the edge and kind of put the finishing touches that we needed to bring this thing to market. Now, fast forward, we probably have two months left until we’re launching. So deadlines are coming up and expectations are high. So we got the help that we needed to be able to do that.

Peter Stevenson

Tell me, I’d love to hear a little bit more about some of that brand strategy. Did you guys come out with the brand personality? What was that brand personality? What is that brand story? What is that positioning that you guys ended up with?

John Perry

Yeah, so like I said, they’ve got a couple of ways that Lucid Press was positioned in the past. So they had it for the individual user for a while, and then where the sweet spot was was really as a business solution. And I think that makes the most sense. And they leaned on me a lot to see what the creative perspective was. But our target demographic was basically creative directors, marketing leaders, CEOs, CMOS, depending on the scale of the company. And in the past it had been pitched to, they ended up getting 6 million individual users that were basically designers or marketers that were trying to use it as, like, a design tool, which it isn’t.

Peter Stevenson

Right.

John Perry

So that’s why we wanted to go back, do all this positioning work to make sure that we were targeting the right people and to make sure that we developed this brand personality that was like it basically gave creative empathy and creative trust. Like bigger brands that have a beautiful identity and logo or whatever the piece is, depending on the scale of the company. Why should we trust you? It’s kind of a heavy thing. So we wanted to make sure that we were able to develop this brand that allowed those brands to trust us and grow their brands together. So that was, like, the meat of what we went into for brand personality and positioning, to make sure that we were targeting the right people and to make sure that we had this creative trustworthy personality. And for us, it was not taking ourselves too seriously. We love, like I said, puns and humor, because I feel like for marketers and creative, it’s kind of at the root of what we do. We’re good at what we do, but we don’t take ourselves too seriously. And Katie especially, I don’t know how much of their marketing or website you’ve seen, but there’s, like, quite a bit. There’s gold in those hills. You find it in emails, social post, the bottom of landing pages. And it’s cool to see the customers notice it dropping in Albert Einstein quotes or Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch, like all these little things that get people excited about the brand. As we’re starting to tell the story and get people’s trust, it’s been cool to see that not only do the research for it, but also see that stuff come to life.

Peter Stevenson

Yeah. Okay. So you’re two months away. You’ve got a new identity, new brand. You’re starting to work on that. Tell me about the launch. I know that there was a pretty big rollout to that. What was those last two months like?

John Perry

The last two months, everything was pretty much focused on product rebrand and website rebrand. Okay, so massive undertaking, and it was cool what, like, BMoss and west and these guys and Walker did on the product side because relatively small team, but product looks beautiful. The user experience is flawless, and everything just looks clean and elegant. Like, beat those words to death, because I feel like major accomplishment, even though that wasn’t done in those two months. But throughout that time, and then the three of us and Owen worked on the website side to make sure that every touch point, every piece of copy, every page was kind of flawlessly executed alongside with the product team for the user experience, look and feel.

Peter Stevenson

Yeah. And so the product, was it more just a reskin of the brand over the top of it, or did they rethink the way that the product worked?

John Perry

So it was a little bit of a combination of both. Okay. The product had been in a good place. So there was a lot of times when you do a rebrand with product, people want a massive overhaul or some kind of big upgrade. The product wasn’t in need of that, so there wasn’t anything that was being rolled out at the time. It was pretty much a reskin and a cleanup of the existing product, which in itself is still massive undertaking. Sure. And it looks beautiful compared to I mean, the old product looked nice too, but the new product looks beautiful.

Peter Stevenson

Okay, so I first thought you guys launched Times Square in New York City. What was that sort of experience like of announcing it there? And how was it received by your customer base and by your now new customers?

John Perry

Yeah, it’s a pretty big thing, right? Launching in Times Square and being recognized by Nasdaq. For us, working on the project, we were like, there’s a big moment. Better not mess it up. But once we got that out of the way, it was a cool opportunity for us. And again, it was something we didn’t want to overthink. We didn’t want to send something out to market that was going to be too complex for people to understand. And it was kind of just a nice pat on the back. So for us, it was Nasdaq congratulating us on this rebrand. So we put out simple messaging and sent people to the website, and we did an animation of our mark bouncing down the windows. It was one of the most interesting spaces to design into because this Nasdaq billboard is on the corner of this real building that has windows placed throughout it. Okay, so Lauren and I did a lot of research and a lot of brands were trying to design around that they would put their logo up in the windows and you’re losing chunks of it. It’s almost like a 16 bit design. If you could do that, chunks of your logo were losing. And I was like, Man, I don’t want to do that. Yes, there’s a lot of real estate up there, but it’s really dead space, so how can we play into it? So, for us, it was about one third at the bottom that we could really design into and do well. So we did the Nasdaq Congratulates mark on the rebrand simple, clean messaging website at the bottom, and we had our mark bounced down the windows and kind of like, kick around like a video game until it fell into place on the queue. And people received it really well. A lot of people, especially being from New York, that saw that. Like, my friend group were super excited. They were like, man, how did you guys get up in Nasdaq? And my mom saw it and the billboard next to it was Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans for the Gray man, she was like, oh, man, like, you’re famous. That’s so cool.

Peter Stevenson

Moms are the best.

John Perry

Yeah, she’s always been ridiculous over the years, too, because I used to do Broadway stuff and the billboards would go up and some of the stuff we were presenting and some we produce from the ground up. So some of the stuff I actually designed. But if I would put together a piece for, like, Wicked, I didn’t design them. I was like, oh, everybody, look at this piece that my son designed. It’s up in Times Square and it’s wicked. I’m like, Mom, I didn’t design the wicked logo. But, yeah, she was, like over the top ecstatic about the Mark billboard being up there and then the customers, too. We got tons of emails from people just like, great billboard, awesome visibility, love the rebrand, which segues into the rebrand response because you never know how it’s going to be received, right? It’s one of the biggest things you could do. It’s always a gamble. And people were ecstatic and you kind of get burnt out towards the end. So, like, Owen, Lauren, JP, myself, Katie, we’re all burnt out. Like, we’d seen Mark everywhere, thousands of iterations of things. And to see through social media and emails, people flood in about how excited they were about the product relaunch. And the rebrand was really cool. And then for it to coincide with that, like, Nasdaq billboard and Times Square kind of picture perfect.

Peter Stevenson

Yeah, from the outside, it was really clarifying about who you were as a company and so super successful from my vantage point about what you were trying to do. It makes what Lucid, which was little ambiguity, whatever that word is. There’s a lot of ambiguity around whatever Lucid was doing. And now that Mark has its own sort of entity and its own sort of company. Now it’s a lot more clear about what you’re doing and super successful. Very good job.

John Perry

I appreciate that. Yeah, that was, like, the biggest piece, was making sure that customers, current and future customers, knew what we were what we were doing. And it was cool to hear you say that. And it was cool to hear the customers say that, because there’s people that have been with us for a long time that love the product, but the brand for them was kind of like a miss. And for us to come into our own nail that and have people be excited about it was super fulfilling for the entire team. And for us, like, being a startup, the whole company, like, everybody played a part there. Takes an army.

Peter Stevenson

Okay, so give me a little bit, a couple more questions, and then we’ll get to our favorites about the restaurants that we need to eat at. So what I’d love to hear from you is sort of as a real senior creative director here in the Valley, what are some things that young designers and people who are just getting started in the community can do to make their work better?

John Perry

Yeah, I’m super old school, and I mix it up in the social media world and try and stay current on everything. I think the biggest piece of advice I could give people is just, like, try and savor the moments you have as a designer and learn as much as you can. I think from what I’ve seen now, everybody wants to jump ahead so quick. Junior designers, designers, they want to be a creative director right off the bat. I’ve had it with direct reports over the years where someone comes out of college, they’re in a design seat for six months, and we’re checking up on goals, and they want to be a creative director by the end of the year. Right. And there’s so much beauty in the process that makes you who you are as a creative that you can’t skip that piece. Like I was talking about earlier when I went on as, like, internships and when I worked with photographers, there’s just so much that you learned throughout that process that there’s nothing you can do to skip the line. You’ve just got to, like, you’ve got to love what you do. You’ve got to be involved in the process, and you’ve got to take on as much as you can and learn from all those great people. Not everybody that I learned from was my favorite person, but everybody that I’ve worked with is somebody that I’ve learned from, and every job gives you that opportunity to learn. So for any designer man, I would just say, enjoy the time you have as a designer because you’re doing the thing you have the opportunity to create, and you’ve got the opportunity to mentor or to work alongside a lot of talented people. And to learn as much as you can. It just gives you the way I like to think about it is like a tool belt, right? When you’re fresh out of college, maybe you have two brushes in that tool belt, and then after two years, maybe you’ve got 1520 tools that you can use really well. And I think if people stop, slow down, focus on that process a little bit, it just helps you be a better creative, and it sets you up for success. You can watch and see how people manage design teams, creative departments, what works, what doesn’t work, and really just be like, a student of your craft.

Peter Stevenson

I guess my other question would be, you’re working in this space where you’re dealing as a creative director. You’re dealing a lot with marketers, and you’re putting out marketing and some really great marketing over the years. Tell me from your perspective how a marketer could utilize and what they should understand about what a creative director is trying to do. How can they make the marketing better and how do they work with that creative director better?

John Perry

Yeah. So I think for that, the way you’ve got to think about it is I can’t remember who I got this term from, but considering those people in your professional life as business partners is the best way to think about it. A lot of times, marketing is pitched against creative, creative pitched against marketing. But at the end of the day, if you’ve got a great relationship and you work together well as business partners, you can put out the best pieces. And I feel like the way I want marketers to think about creative directors is just that, like, a business partner. Like, you can’t make great creative without having a good relationship with your creative team and making sure that you’re focused on those good things. Like, one of the things that I see all the time for marketers is, like, quick turns, and they want things to pop right. They’re trying to sell something, whether it’s a product or service or harder soft goods. And you go back to a good design being rooted in storytelling, and you’ve got to educate them, right? So when I was younger in my career, it was kind of stomping my feet on the ground and just being like, this is a great design. Like, send this out into market. Like, what do you get? Dumb, dumbs. You don’t understand this. And that obviously doesn’t work right? So taking the time to teach marketers creative empathy and also having empathy for what they do too, everybody is in their role for a very valid reason. Everybody is good at what they do. And taking time to learn about your business partners, what they do, what they’re trying to accomplish, instead of just jumping into something and trying to make it look pretty, I think is the biggest thing that I love for my business partners that I’ve had over the years. Hopefully they’ve seen that with me, and it’s something that they take with them through the rest of their careers. Because I feel like when you develop that relationship, when you develop that trust, and when you’re putting brand and your common goals above everything else, you make magic. When you’re trying to butt heads and fight creative versus marketing, nothing works. Deadlines get dragged out, deadlines get missed, and oftentimes the creative just doesn’t work right. Like, it shows up. Yeah.

Peter Stevenson

There’s no vibe to it.

John Perry

Yeah. And that’s, like, one of the biggest things. It is real. It’s hard to explain because it is kind of like this esoteric idea, right. A vibe and a design or a piece of marketing collateral, but you pour blood, sweat, and tears into work, and it shows up. Like those catalogs, that, to me, makes my heart smile, because Ben and I poured blood, sweat, and tears into those catalogs. When we could have phoned it in. We could have not worked with Sarah. But we spent weeks and months working on every catalog to make sure that Sarah and Matt could give us the consumer insights that we needed to figure out what would resonate with those people, how it would show up, what image goes. All of these things that no one cares about. But you see, something is either a good design or a bad design. It is or it isn’t. And that’s that vibe, right? Something that’s soulless usually doesn’t have that vibe. And a lot of times you don’t get to hear about what the soul is that goes into the project. But, you know, and I know there’s a rich backstory behind every great design, every website, every photo, that people are so passionate that it shows up and it resonates with you for a reason.

Peter Stevenson

Yeah. If it’s good, somebody cared a lot. All right, so let’s get to restaurants. Where should somebody eat, drink, or get a coffee around this town?

John Perry

Well, you know what I’m going to say here. Pretty bird, pretty birds. Like one of my favorite spots in town, chef Viet FAM, which is your favorite space, so he’s like another one. Like, the brand work, the design that goes into all them sugar House is pretty awesome. The OG spot downtown is pretty amazing. Have you been up to the Park City location?

Peter Stevenson

I love the Park City location a lot. They’re all different. They’re all different, which I love.

John Perry

Yeah, they’ve all got that through line with the great brand work. And I know you’ve had some touch points with them. Yeah. So I’m sure that makes your heart smile. Yeah. Love him. His food is great. Everybody should try it. I know Nashville Hot Chicken has got one of those connotations where it’s like, oh, I don’t like spicy, but they make something for everybody at every spice level. And then, man, I’ve transitioned out of the coffee space have turned into, like, an at home coffee head.

Peter Stevenson

Yeah.

John Perry

Man, so many good food spots. Ostaria More.

Peter Stevenson

Is that the one over on 13th?

John Perry

Yeah, it’s over in Sugar House. Really great pasta, Italian dishes, which has a special place in my heart. Yeah.

Peter Stevenson

All right, Italian. Recommending Italian place, you know, it’s good.

John Perry

Yeah, okay, exactly.

Peter Stevenson

All right. What about Bar? Where can I find you getting a drink these days?

John Perry

Oh, man, my guy is at the Alibi. Alibi bar is one of my favorite places. The other thing that is extremely rooted in my personality and has given me the work ethic of drive is like coming up in restaurants and bars and I bartended with those guys, Jacob and Fernando at Op Rockwell when they were launching and they make amazing cocktails. Central 9th, have you been there?

Peter Stevenson

Have you been to their new space over on So?

John Perry

I haven’t been to the new spot, but Central 9th is Ben coon’s brother Noah and they are doing some fantastic stuff with food. So family, home evening, Monday nights, amazing smash burgers.

Peter Stevenson

I haven’t been there. I’ve heard that it’s good, but I.

John Perry

Haven’t been.

Peter Stevenson

Oh, you got to go?

John Perry

Okay.

John Perry

Monday night is great because you can do the burgers over at Central 9th and then you go next door and you get your cocktails at Waterwitch and there’s a couple of guys that do fantastic tiki drinks and they’re just like delicious, the depth. And I can’t remember the two guys’ names, they’re super close 

Peter Stevenson

Ben Scott, and I forget the other guy. I know Scott.

John Perry

Island time is that there? So they’ve got like a side project that they do, but the drinks show up there and they’re always doing something unique and interesting and I love it. I love both of those places. Like the breakfast sando at Central 9th, the sandwiches, like, those guys are just passionate about food and experimenting and trial and error. They really care about it. They use locally sourced, really awesome ingredients and then who doesn’t want to go get a cocktail? Got a nice savory little smash burger.

Peter Stevenson

Have you been to Nohm next? On the other side there is Nohm, the new spot. It’s the old spot. Anyway, we talked about another time. Is it bar to restaurants?

John Perry

That fish restaurant like Vietnamese or Japanese?

Peter Stevenson

Japanese.

John Perry

Yeah, I haven’t been over there.

Peter Stevenson

It’s my favorite in the city, man.

John Perry

Oh, really?

Peter Stevenson

Yeah.

John Perry

Okay.

Peter Stevenson

It’s for real. Good.

John Perry

All right, I’m going to have to get over there. Yeah.

Peter Stevenson

Well, let’s go grab a drink.

John Perry

Yeah.

Peter Stevenson

All right. So thank you so much for being here and we’ll see you out in town.

John Perry

Sounds good, man. Thanks for having me. Bye.

Peter Stevenson

By Subject is production of modern8 agency and Silicon slopes. Executive producers are Alysha Smith and Peter Stevenson. Editor and producer is Dave Mecham video production by Conor Mitchell development production by Eric Dahl production management by Shelby Sandlin original music composed by Josh Johnson website designed. By modern8. Please make sure to follow and share the show with your friends and your enemies. Thanks for joining us.