Design royalty Paula Scher, Emily Oberman and Michael Bierut join this special live episode to celebrate and commemorate the 50th anniversary of the legendary, multi-disciplinary, independently owned design studio, Pentagram with a new, two-volume book, PENTAGRAM AT 50: LIVING BY DESIGN.
Debbie Millman:
On Monday, June 12th, 1972, Architect Theo Crosby, graphic designers, Alan Fletcher, Colin Forbes, and Mervyn Kurlansky, and industrial designer, Kenneth Grange founded the firm Pentagram. All five founding partners were leaders in their field with a successful practice, but they all believed that they could do better work as a group together in a larger setting. They established a really unique non-hierarchical structure that preserved the autonomy of each of the partners, while also encouraging collaboration and a sharing of resources. From the moment the partners of Pentagram opened their doors nearly 51 years ago, the firm was successful. In the five decades since, Pentagram has displayed an unprecedented and rather enviable longevity with offices now in New York, in Austin, in London, and Berlin. The partnership has renewed itself over and over over the years. Half a century later, they’re the largest independent design firm in the world, wholly owned by the 23 partners.
And today here, I’m using the term design firm very specifically as each of the partners of Pentagram have always been working designers. Pentagram actually restricts its ownership to only graphic designers or to only designers. And I think that I can confidently say that Pentagram is only bringing on as partners the most exceptional designers in the world. If I were to go back in time to 1972 and survey the design scene on this planet, the only design firm still operating at the highest levels today with the same operating principles is Pentagram. In the book that they’ve just published, surveying all of the partner’s work, every partner that has ever worked at Pentagram is featured in this book, and you can see it right here on this little side table, you would be able to see that the work has always been at the highest possible level.
Adrian Shaughnessy who helped bring this book to life poses this question in the preface, “So how does a design group retain relevancy? In truth, very few manage this beyond a decade or two before being acquired by a larger group, or as Colin Forbes noted, disappearing with the departure of the founders. For most others, it is a slow descent into irrelevancy and eventually closure.” Pentagram by contrast, a full half century after its inception is still with us, and they’re more relevant than ever before. The three partners that are here with us today, Paula Scher, Emily Oberman, and Michael Bierut are still doing some of the best work of their career. Whether it’s Paula’s global Shake Shack identity, or her city logo, Emily’s titles for Saturday Night Live, or her redesign of Amazon Prime Video, or Michael’s work for the New York Jets or Yale University, the partners of Pentagram have not only designed some of the most ubiquitous graphic design on the planet, they have literally raised the standards of all designers everywhere.
And today, for the first time ever, I’m getting goosebumps, Paula Scher, Michael Bierut, and Emily Oberman are here together on the HOW Design Live main stage to talk about a legacy 50 years long and their brand new two volume book, Pentagram: Living by Design. So please join me for this historic moment in welcoming Emily Oberman, Michael Beirut, and Paula Scher to the stage for this very special live episode of Design Matters and HOW Design Live. We have 34 minutes and seven seconds and counting down. So I’m going to just launch right in. First question, this is both for Michael and Paula. You’ve both been at Pentagram for over 30 years each. What’s kept you there so long, Paula? They’re polite that’s why. They like each other.
Michael Bierut:
When I joined in, I joined six months before Paula. So I’ve been there just a little bit longer than Paula though we both agreed at the same time to join the partnership. And when I joined and Paula joined, we were the two newest partners.
Debbie Millman:
It was 1990, I believe, right?
Michael Bierut:
91 for you Paula.
Paula Scher:
I was in April, he was in November.
Michael Bierut:
I was in November 1990. Paula was 91. This is how we’re going to waste all the time talking November 19… But just speaking for myself, I was the newest partner there. I felt very young, I felt I didn’t know anything, and we were surrounded by the five founders who you named were all still active then. Colin Forbes was running that office. I was asked to join by Woody Pirtle who was one of my heroes, and you try to keep your head low and not get in trouble. And then at about the time [inaudible 00:05:55] get a little restless, something changes. And what happened was Paula joined and was a mentor to me to a certain degree. Colin Forbes retired, and suddenly then the remaining partners had to scramble and figure out if we could run this thing without a father figure there, and Colin definitely was that. And then in the subsequent years, people like Emily joined, Eddie Opara, Natasha Jen, Matt Willey, Giorgia Lupi, Luke Hayman, Abbott Miller-
Emily Oberman:
Another way to kill a lot of-
Michael Bierut:
… just to name a bunch of people.
Emily Oberman:
Because she’s going to name a bunch.
Michael Bierut:
But so Pentagram has changed. One thing that’s documented in the book is that Pentagram has continuously changed over that period of time. It hasn’t become just more like itself, but it really does get transformed. It’s a very different firm now than it was 30 years ago. And what keeps me there, at least, is being able to partake of that reinvigoration of almost like working at someplace new without having to put my stuff in a box and carry it somewhere else.
Debbie Millman:
Paula, what about you?
Paula Scher:
What was interesting at the time, I had already had a business that I closed down and I joined Pentagram. And Michael and I were asked actually the same year by Woody, and I was scared about closing down my business. On the other hand, I was a woman in a sole practice, and I realized that if I joined this group, even though they were all men, I probably would be able to change and increase the visibility and the fees of the kind of work I was doing, which absolutely came true. And it was really interesting in the New York office because these offices have different personalities. It’s not one Pentagram fits all, and each generation has its own personality. And what happens is you go into a situation, and our situation, it was actually a crappy office. We moved to a better building when Jim Biber joined and actually found a wonderful piece of real estate that we bought.
And during that period, I felt the business really grew, the kind of work we got really grew, and the core people that joined, and after me and Michael was Jim Biber and Abbott Miller, and then ultimately Emily, and Natasha, and Eddie. And you could feel the place grow and become more powerful with each partner. And in the London office, the actual opposite was going on. As New York was growing, they had lost their older partners and they had to start over again. And now you can feel the sort of the energy in London very similar to how New York moves. So I think these things are generational and it’s interesting to watch them grow and then watch them change. They can’t stay the same, but they can always have the same values.
Debbie Millman:
Emily, you’ve been at Pentagram now for over 10 years. Last year when you won the AIGA Lifetime Achievement Medal, you talked about how you’ve had three chapters in your career, first at M&Co with Tibor and Maira Kalman, then as one of two partners with Bonnie Siegler at Number Seventeen. Before going to Pentagram, you told me your fantasy was to have your third chapter at Pentagram, and you achieved that. Why Pentagram as opposed to any other firm, or going out on your own, or staying in the partnership you had then?
Emily Oberman:
Because they asked.
Debbie Millman:
Fair enough.
Emily Oberman:
Well, I mean, there is truth to that. I mean, I sort of feel like-
Debbie Millman:
Of course.
Emily Oberman:
… if the Yankees ask you to join, you’re sort of idiot for not saying… Well, I don’t think you’re an idiot. That’s not true. I felt like I had to give it a try. At the time, Bonnie and I had decided to stop Number Seventeen.
Debbie Millman:
After 17 years which was, I guess-
Emily Oberman:
After 17 years, we realized, “Well, that was then reason we named it that.” So we had decided to stop, and I wasn’t sure about what my next chapter was. I had always been a huge, obviously, admirer of Pentagram, and they asked, and I loved the idea of this challenge, of sort of taking on this thing that I didn’t know whether I could do. I was a mother of two year old twins. My husband thought I was insane to do it, but I sort of had to do that. And I knew that by putting myself in a situation with all of these incredible talented kind people, I would be better for it, my work would be better for it. And that, like Paula said, I could suddenly be a woman with a practice.
I mean, having a studio with Bonnie where we were a woman owned business was really amazing, but I knew that I could be in a position where I could do bigger, better, stronger projects, and have a bigger voice, and that my work would get better just by osmosis by being around people whose soul drive is to make the work as good as possible would make me a better designer, a better thinker. And there’s just this, like the Zeitgeist of doing great work is just what drives the office all the time.
And I said this earlier, I remember Bonnie saying, “But why do you want to go to an office where your partners aren’t people that you chose from the beginning, that aren’t your friends?” And I said, “Because the work is amazing and the drive is amazing.” And 10 years later, they are all my friends. And the thing that drives all the partners is what makes all of us better collectively. We’re always there to help each other, whether it’s by sharing projects or supporting each other through ups and downs in the work. It’s just incredible how strong the bond is between all 23 of us.
Debbie Millman:
In your remarkable new monograph, Adrian Shaughnessy also writes that Pentagram has lasted as long as it has because of its unique partner-owned business model and a ferocious commitment to creative excellence. For many years, the sort of business model at Pentagram was this sort of mythic, secretive. It felt like a really secretive thing. I know [inaudible 00:12:34] has written about this quite a bit. Can you talk about the partner-owned business model and what that actually is and what it means?
Paula Scher:
What’s fantastic about it is that Colin Forbes designed a brilliant system, and the system is based on two principles: generosity and responsibility. The notion of responsibility matters because if you make a mess, you’re making bad things for your partners, but your partners have to be generous enough to understand that sometimes you make a mess. So there’s the balance of those two things. It has to do with money, sharing, accepting responsibility, and being part of a group. You’re not really out on your own. Yet you get to be your own person as a designer as well as share, and that these things generally work together very well. And when a person can’t adapt to the system or something is really wrong in it, it usually comes down to the business of generosity or responsibility almost in every instance. You can see it way [inaudible 00:13:44] down that way. So Colin forums had it ripe.
Michael Bierut:
And I think sort of the thing that people really can’t believe is that sometimes a client will get curious about how we’re organized, and they’ll say, they asked me, and I’m sure they may have asked you, “Are you the head of Pentagram?” I said, “No, Pentagram doesn’t have a head. There’s no CEO, there’s no managing director. Each one of the partners sort of represents the highest level of the firm. So it’s got 23 co-managers basically. And everything that’s decided is decided by consensus. Any new partner that joins has to be unanimously elected by all the partners. Even if it’s a partner joining in New York, the partners in Austin and Berlin and London have to be in unanimous agreement about it.” And, again, I think Bonnie’s question was a valid one, these people aren’t friends. And I’m not even sure-
Emily Oberman:
She didn’t mean it maliciously.
Michael Bierut:
No, and I’m not even sure the original five guys were “friends.” They were colleagues, they respected each other, they got mad at each other, they fought with each other, but they sort of had this great creative tension that was based on the idea that, “When we decide, we’ll decide these things together,” right? And I think there’s just something so counterintuitive about that, and it’s created this sort of funny, it’s not even stability, but it keeps everything in this state of tension that gives us enough energy to go forward, but enough to also kind of bind it together at the same time.
Debbie Millman:
So there’s 23 designers, all have their individual P&L with an overhead. Do you see each other’s numbers?
Paula Scher:
Yes.
Debbie Millman:
That’s terrifying.
Emily Oberman:
It’s horrible.
Michael Bierut:
It’s once a month.
Debbie Millman:
So you actually see-
Paula Scher:
Every month.
Debbie Millman:
… a ranking? So that’s what keeps you all striving. You all want to impress each other.
Emily Oberman:
Yes.
Paula Scher:
Yes, we’re scared shitless.
Debbie Millman:
This is remarkable. I hope everybody is taking notes.
Emily Oberman:
The funny thing is you’re never looking at anyone’s number and thinking why aren’t you doing better. You’re only thinking about yourself.
Debbie Millman:
Of course.
Emily Oberman:
And if someone’s numbers are lower, if it’s you, you feel terrible, but no one else is judging you for it. Everyone else is just thinking, if you ask, “How can I help you?”
Michael Bierut:
And if your numbers are good, you only look at Instagram and think, “Damn it. Why isn’t my work as good as Paula’s or Emily’s?” And so it’s like no matter what it is, that competition is so ceaseless and punishing to a certain degree. But it’s also the thing that kind of, again, keeps us moving.
Paula Scher:
Maybe the glue is that the sort of person who’s a good Pentagram partner is one who’s capable of feeling like shit on a regular basis.
Emily Oberman:
It really is.
Debbie Millman:
I see a lot of people wanting to raise their hands at this new possibility.
Michael Bierut:
It’s like a mutually abusive relationship.
Emily Oberman:
I mean, for the first seven years that I was at Pentagram, I would go home and be like, “whew, whew, whew,” every night just to sort of catch my breath from the stress and worry, but also then I would get to look at the work, not the work that I was doing that I felt was getting better, but the work… You walk through the office and you see on the computers and on the deck everybody’s work, and it’s just like, “What?” It’s very inspiring.
Debbie Millman:
So it’s interesting that you say seven years because buried in the book, I saw a line that said it takes about seven years for each of the Pentagram partners to sort of find their footing. So I have a couple of questions around that seven years. Why seven years? How do you make it through those seven years? That takes an enormous amount of resilience.
Paula Scher:
I think that seven years is some kind of lifecycle. I was sitting next to Eddie Opara for his first seven years, and he said to me, “How long is this going to take?” He didn’t feel like he got fit into the situation, he didn’t understand why things were a certain way, this way, the other way, and I would say, “It takes seven years.” And then another two years would go by, and I’d have the same conversation with him, and then one day he said, “It’s been seven years. I feel good.”
I mean, it’s something about adapting to responsibility and the expectation, and feeling the kind of support that’s really there for you in the structure because it’s not just individuals being nice to you. There’s an inherent thing within the way the business was designed to be fair. I mean, Colin, at one point, had designed a financial system that he based on figuring out who had the most milk in the refrigerator. I’m not kidding. He had told me this philosophy that that’s how the financial structure was designed. So you made sure that if somebody was using more milk, they paid a little more for the milk-
Michael Bierut:
And overhead-
Paula Scher:
… so the other ones would resent them. And that was the analogy of it, of how sort of the model works because there’s a way of calculating people’s overheads that are based on what they’re using, and what they’re doing, and the size of their team, et cetera. And that’s part of what the fairness is.
Debbie Millman:
How do you figure it out now that we have soy milk, oat milk, [inaudible 00:19:29] regular?
Michael Bierut:
Debbie, you may or may not get to this, but we’ve been there collectively… What?
Debbie Millman:
30, 60, 70 years?
Michael Bierut:
70 years collectively. But there had been partners who have joined for a year or two years.
Debbie Millman:
Peter Saville, April Greiman.
Michael Bierut:
And it wasn’t for them, and they kind of bailed out. So I’m not sure if it’s capacity for feeling shitty or it’s this weird thing where you have to be independent enough to make it work, but for some reason in spite of that, feel like you’re getting a benefit from being part of a larger group. And the people that have those two kind of contradictory urges, there just aren’t that many of them, I guess. I don’t know.
Paula Scher:
I think it’s really about something. I’ve always felt that the goal of Pentagram was to confound the expectations of being a designer that you could do really good, important is sometimes groundbreaking work and still make money, and that you could balance the financial and the qualitative in a way that the design industry is not successful at providing. And that was always the difference.
Debbie Millman:
Adrian poses a question in the book that he hopes becomes answered in the pages of the book through the work, but I do want to ask you all this question. Given your success, why don’t more design firms adopt your system? Why don’t more of you adopt the system? I mean, come on now. This is working.
Emily Oberman:
I’ve sort of always wondered that. I also just want to say another reason I joined Pentagram is I could not face the idea of figuring out how to lease a copier.
Michael Bierut:
No, it’s true. It’s funny.
Paula Scher:
That’s part of it.
Michael Bierut:
I think part of it is that it happened organically at the beginning, and then the generosity and vision of those original people back in the 70s created a structure into which everyone sort of submits themselves. And I mean, I remember we keep talking about Colin Forbes who was sort of the guy who sort of designed the whole thing in his head, and sort of was the de facto sort of first among equals of the original five guys, at least in terms of administrative work. I think people would say Alan Fletcher was the famous designer, et cetera. But Colin had really worked it out. And I remember one time he said, “I’m amazed you guys are so eager to follow the rules. They’re just rules that we made up.”
Paula Scher:
But I think this is the answer to the question in that the reason I think Pentagram lasted so long is that nobody who has been here for the longest periods of times were actually founders. The founders, first of all, there was Bob Gill, there was a business called Fletcher/Forbes/Gill, and they were going to all share equally, and they were going to follow the plan except for Bob Gill didn’t want to share equally, and he left. And then there was Crosby/Fletcher/Forbes. And then there was Crosby/Fletcher/Forbes/Grange. And then it became Pentagram because Mervyn Kurlansky was left out of the mix. And then all those guys, by the time we joined, they were already mostly gone. I think Kenneth Grange hung around. So the Pentagram kind of wasn’t working. If there hadn’t been a whole new crew, there wouldn’t be a Pentagram. That’s actually the truth.
Emily Oberman:
And it’s true. It takes a really long time for us to find a new partner because you have to have a certain kind of personality. You have to be just sort of weird enough to want to join this. Someone said this, we are like the island of misfit toys. We’re not really all normal people.
Debbie Millman:
I don’t know that that’s how I would describe you, but I’ll accept it.
Emily Oberman:
But we are a very quirky bunch. We’re not like an agency, we’re not like Wolff Olins. It’s weird to have 23 partners. It’s why we’ve never been acquired, it’s why we can’t be acquired. I don’t know. It’s a very unusual thing, and we’re all very specific individual people who are very different, but all happen to sort of believe in the same thing, believe in the same principles about the work.
Debbie Millman:
One of the hardest, most challenging positions to fill in any firm, in any agency is a senior position. And the odds of a senior person working out in an established firm are actually about as good as any new product coming to market. Given that your ownership strategy has now entered its fourth generation, how do you determine what new partners to bring in and what is that process like?
Paula Scher:
It’s getting difficult, and I think some of it has to do with the choices people are making in terms of their own careers. From my point of view, particularly with women, I see less women in independent design firms and more of them getting powerful positions in, say, advertising agencies. So that makes them not interested in Pentagram because in Pentagram, they have to run a team and manage money like a design firm. So it depends upon how you want to play in business and in work. And I’m not quite sure what made that difference. It seemed like there was more available ability of people who wanted to be independent and would’ve liked the group, maybe 10 or 15 years ago. And there’s a lot of talent around, but they seem to be employed otherwise.
Michael Bierut:
And there’s a lot of talented people who are well-placed in good positions within corporations working in house like so many people here do. And then I also have thought for a long time that there’s something kind of basic premise in 1972 was that five people could save a lot of money by sharing the same Xerox machine-
Debbie Millman:
[inaudible 00:26:09]
Michael Bierut:
… and [inaudible 00:26:09] the rent five ways. And in a day where you needed an office and needed a Xerox machine and you needed all these things. We compete with people who were students at SVA or Yale or whatever three years ago, have a virtual office where it’s just three laptops. Someone can be in Chicago, someone can be in New York, someone can be in Berlin, and they’ll submit a proposal for a project we’re submitting to as well. And we have rent to pay, we have all this stuff that we think is important to have as an office, and we’re competing with people who have no overhead, basically. And I think someone who’s sort of one of the propositions is, “Come on in. And by the way, take a look at this beautiful office, and there’s overhead associated with it and everything else.” And I think that was non-negotiable back then. Now, people have so many different options in terms of how they can work.
Paula Scher:
Not only that, there was a slew, my husband among them, of people who had designed businesses, and thought that they had big reputations, and they thought they would retire, and sell their drawing tables, and be rich into old age. And that was not too wise. And Pentagram, another thing, a Colin Forbes moment was, he set up the notion of buying shares where everybody owned the company and the company would accrue value. Yet now, somebody can start a small business, be very successful as an individual designer, and get bought out and even have more security than we have. So things change in time, and you don’t know where it shakes out. But I think the ethic about the work is really the binding thing.
Debbie Millman:
Now, given that there are 23 people weighing in on any particular candidate, how often do you fight about who should come in or is veto enough for somebody to say, “No, don’t want them”?
Michael Bierut:
It’s acknowledged as a principal that if a single partner is against someone, they can just veto it. And if they feel strongly about it, there’s no discussion. You’d have to be kind of an asshole to just do it like that. And I don’t think any of these three people are really that jerky, although-
Debbie Millman:
These three people?
Michael Bierut:
No, any of the 23 people. Well, sometimes if you think everyone else is-
Paula Scher:
Exactly.
Michael Bierut:
… that means you’re the asshole.
Emily Oberman:
You said these three-
Michael Bierut:
No, but I don’t think no one wants to be the one person to be a jerk about somebody. But in theory-
Emily Oberman:
But it has happened.
Michael Bierut:
It has happened.
Paula Scher:
It has definitely happened.
Michael Bierut:
And usually what that person is doing is having the nerve to kind of voice something that’s actually an elephant in the room, that’s a concern, that’s more widely shared, which only happens when you’re really committed to the idea of talking things through and reaching consensus. I remember someone said, “Well, maybe we should just vote on these things.” And then someone said, “Do you really want to invite someone in knowing that there were four people that voted against them and 19 people for?” It just seemed like not right. And I think that was true.
And so I think most of the things we decide about, and you can correct these numbers if you want, there are five people who really are in favor of it, five or so people who think it’s not the greatest, two people who might be sort of against it, but not going to really… What? Just nothing. I’m not talking about anyone joining. No, this isn’t about someone joining. This is about what the Christmas card should look like or something, low stake [inaudible 00:29:42]. So five people are really into it, two people are kind of against it, but decide they’re not going to waste their political capital on this one, five other people sort of-
Paula Scher:
Don’t care.
Michael Bierut:
… okay, and the other ones are like, “What are we talking? What’s-“
Emily Oberman:
And the other ones are checking their emails.
Michael Bierut:
The other ones are just checking their email waiting to talk about something more interesting.
Emily Oberman:
And then at the next meeting, they’re like, “What?”
Michael Bierut:
“Who approved this?”
Paula Scher:
“I didn’t agree with that.”
Michael Bierut:
Exactly. But it’s just like you all have families, you all go to Thanksgiving dinners and stuff. It’s not that unlike that.
Debbie Millman:
You talked about competing with the SVA student with three laptops, Pentagram works for giant corporations, startups, arts and educational institutions, entertainment properties, sports teams, publishing houses, and even candidates for president of the United States. You also do quite a lot of pro bono work. Do you still have to pitch a lot of work, or does the work just sort of come through the door?
Paula Scher:
What do you mean? Define the word pitch?
Debbie Millman:
Somebody calls up and says, “Hey, Paula, we want you to design the new Westinghouse logo. Would you be interested in coming in and showing us your thoughts or your approach or your portfolio? We’re also going to be looking at Landor & Fitch, and Wolff Olins.”
Paula Scher:
Sure. We do that all the time.
Emily Oberman:
Not the, “Show us your…” We don’t-
Debbie Millman:
You don’t do spec work.
Emily Oberman:
Yeah.
Debbie Millman:
I mean, just sort of thoughts about a project.
Paula Scher:
Yes, about showing your work. Of course. I mean, that doesn’t just slide in and you do it. And isn’t that wonderful-
Debbie Millman:
You would think that it would, right? After 50 years?
Paula Scher:
No, it doesn’t.
Michael Bierut:
No, listen.
Paula Scher:
It never did.
Michael Bierut:
I mean, correct me if I’m wrong, Paula and Emily, but people come in and sometimes they express all and admiration about Pentagram. And after about 15 minutes, they turn into whatever kind of client they’re going to be anyway. And they start being… It doesn’t matter at all.
Emily Oberman:
Nope.
Paula Scher:
No, sometimes it hurts.
Debbie Millman:
Sometimes it hurts? In what way? And what does it hurt?
Paula Scher:
“Well, you really have a lot of experience in this area, and we were very impressed with your wonderful body of work, but we think we’re going to go with another firm because we think we might get something new.”
Debbie Millman:
When the work comes in through the transom, somebody’s answering the telephone, “Hi, we have a project we’d like one of the Pentagram partners to do.” Who decides?
Paula Scher:
Work never really comes in that way, actually.
Debbie Millman:
It just comes directly to the partners?
Emily Oberman:
Tons of work comes in that way. Tons of good work doesn’t necessarily come in that way.
Paula Scher:
Okay.
Emily Oberman:
But there’s usually someone who says, “Well, what made you call?” And then depending on what they said like if they say, “It was because we saw the public theater work,” or, “Because we saw MIT,” then it would go to Paula or Michael. Or, if it’s, “Because we just saw the Prime video redesigned,” then it would go to me. There’s a filter that works that way. Or if it’s not anything, it’s sort of like, “Who needs work?” And then-
Paula Scher:
I have to say that isn’t very much of it. Most of the work is what Emily was just describing, and that’s actually specified work.
Emily Oberman:
That is still because of what you’ve done.
Paula Scher:
It’s the way it should come in.
Emily Oberman:
And sometimes I think people just call up because they kind of want to know what a Pentagram proposal would look like. And often those are people who also, “I didn’t really put together an RFP.”
Debbie Millman:
So what do you do in those situations?
Emily Oberman:
Sometimes you decline if it’s really kind of lame. Sometimes if it’s a project you really want to do, you just go for it.
Michael Bierut:
And each partner ends up being pretty much responsible for generating their own work and kind of leading the pitch meetings if we’re having conversations.
Debbie Millman:
How do you go about if you have to then, or if any of the partners have to? How do you go about looking for new work? What is your new business development process like?
Paula Scher:
Sometimes you do make something out of a job like you brought up the Westinghouse logo. The call wasn’t for redesign of the Westinghouse logo, the call was from a guy who worked inside Westinghouse who wanted a standards manual based on a font he was already using for Westinghouse that looked crummy, and he needed something to give to the licensees. And I said, “Why are you doing that? Paul Rand already designed this. Why don’t you just use his?” And they owned it. But that wasn’t the job. The job was this other job. And sometimes you just take the call, and if you have absolutely no interest in the job, you tend to get it because you have the courage to tell them exactly what they should do. And if they jump on it, then you get the project, which is sort of great.
Debbie Millman:
How often do you have that courage? I kind of get the sense, Paula, that you have it all the time.
Paula Scher:
No, I’m intimidated by things.
Debbie Millman:
Really?
Paula Scher:
Yeah, absolutely. I’m intimidated by big time competition and very complicated proposal writing. And I like it better when I can get the feeling of a client and have them begin to develop a relationship with me on the phone. If I can do that, I can do the job. But I really don’t like the sort of big agency competition thing.
Emily Oberman:
I’ve never won a paid pitch.
Debbie Millman:
You’ve never won a paid pitch.
Emily Oberman:
Even when they pay, they’re like, “This is a pitch, but we’re going to pay you.” I still can’t. I hate paid pitches.
Debbie Millman:
Why do you think that is?
Emily Oberman:
I don’t know. There’s just something about that. You know what? Every agency that you’re talking to, or every design firm that you’re talking to, I’m sure we’re all qualified. Meet the people, talk to them, get a good feeling from them, and choose someone. I can’t perform under that kind of pressure. I would rather you take that, whatever it is, $30,000 for the $10,000 that you’re paying each firm or whatever it is, take that money and put it to good use for the actual job and choose someone even if it’s not me. It just seems like a better-
Michael Bierut:
I’ve never won a paid pitch either.
Debbie Millman:
I wish I knew that. Do you know how many times I’ve turned down work because I knew that Pentagram was pitching?
Michael Bierut:
No, and I know why I’ve never won. It’s because I-
Debbie Millman:
Second guessing or whatever?
Michael Bierut:
No, you know what it is? I mean, I think I’ve heard you say this too, and it’s not that it’s pressure. I think it’s meant to fire up your competitive genes. But instead, I think, you’re asking four good firms to work on this. I’m sure one of us will come up with something. We have no real relationship. You’ve just sent everyone the same sort of donkey upon which we’re supposed to put on our blindfolds and figure out where we pin the tail. So someone’s going to come close. Maybe it’ll be me, maybe it’ll be one of these other people. It just seems so random. And I need to lay in bed thinking, “They’re counting on me to do this thing-“
Emily Oberman:
Exactly.
Michael Bierut:
“… There is no plan B, and they’re going to get mad if I don’t deliver it to them.” They already know I might lose. That’s the premise of it. So if they’ve already [inaudible 00:37:24] the idea that I’m not going to get the job, I mean, how much am I supposed to care about it? It’s not right, is it?
Emily Oberman:
But I need to feel like we’ve begun a relationship, and I can dive deep into this because I will dive deep, and I will spend the time, the resource, the brain power. That’s our superpower. And just knowing there isn’t the trust, I don’t know.
Paula Scher:
Well, I’m more cynical about it.
Michael Bierut:
Really?
Paula Scher:
Yes.
Emily Oberman:
You?
Paula Scher:
Yes, because I do paid pitches for the money, and I don’t care if I don’t win.
Michael Bierut:
Sure.
Paula Scher:
So it doesn’t matter. You make the money anyway. You just decide it’s worth your hours to get that amount of money. And then you do the paid pitch and you don’t give a damn to lose.
Emily Oberman:
Sometimes I think that going in-
Michael Bierut:
But then you get hooked up.
Emily Oberman:
… but then once I start, I care.
Paula Scher:
[inaudible 00:38:14], you cared.
Emily Oberman:
Story of my life.
Michael Bierut:
But the theme, if there is one, Debbie, is that I think having attended some of the presentations here, you sort of keep remembering that design is done by people and it’s commissioned by people, and people are in the process. It’s people all the way up and all the way down. And I think a lot of times, organizations, that’s the messy part, they try to figure out a way like, “We do this without the people and just kind of make it about a structure, or make it about a process, or make it about a plan.” And I think Pentagram is sort of just so committed to the idea, “We’re going to get people together, have them work as partners, have them work with clients, have them do the work, have them be responsible for the work, have their various opinions, cynical or not about that work, or idealistic or not, or filled with pressure or filled with relaxation about no matter what it is.” The people are the ones doing the work, and that’s where it comes from.
Debbie Millman:
We’re out of time. I have one last question for you, something that I didn’t realize until I read the book. Almost 51 years with the same logo. We were hearing about Jell-O and how long that logo had lasted, and the Pepsi logo, and we were talking about how even though nobody liked the old Pepsi logo, it still had a pretty good run. Any thoughts about ever-changing your identity?
Paula Scher:
Well, actually at the last partners meeting, we were looking at a better cut of the same logo. But I think the real reason we don’t change our logo is we never agree on anything, we’ll never have a logo. Absolutely ridiculous. You got 23 partners with typographic opinions. How would you even begin to do that?
Debbie Millman:
Well, I think it’s pretty beautiful the way it is. Paula Scher, Emily Oberman, Michael Bierut, thank you so much.