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[April 21, 2008 ]
O.K. what's the deal with your name, "13THFLOOR?"
Dave - We were asked to come up with some names for a new division of EA and 13THFLOOR was our favorite and one of the names they didn't use. So many people are freaked by the number "13." Try to find a 13th floor in a hotel in Vegas. The 12th floor jumps to the 14th floor- guess what, doesn't matter what you call it, it's still the 13thfloor, right? Inane superstition. We've always dug the similarity of our "13THFLOOR" not really existing as a traditional "Agency," but back then we were just a couple of guys working out of their garages in 2 separate parts of the state.
Wait- you guys have never worked together in the same office?
Your lifestyles and personalities are a big part of your branding, on your website in your advertising and promotion- why is that important to you? Dave - In a big way! Our roots are surf and the action sports industry. We love to surf, skate, snowboard, mountain bike & bmx, open track, game it up- online and on the court. If we're not sketching or squeezing a mouse, we're on a board or a bike! Life is too short not to have fun. Why can't work be all about play? We love what we do because it really is what we do, you know, and who we hang out with. Eric - Our friends are hardcore skaters, surfers, bike riders, and musicians. Some of them are owners or are running these companies, so we have a direct pipeline to their brands and what they hear is going on in the shops and on the streets. It's important for potential clients to know we live it and are around it. Dave - We know these markets and our clients see this. They have confidence in our experience in these areas. You can't fake the cool that's fundamental to this demographic. You can look like a kook real fast if you don't know what's what. Eric- also we both are still 13 year olds at heart. Sometimes I think we both get along better with the kids than people our own age.
Why would some one choose 13THFLOOR ? Eric - We have our own style and way of approaching a project. We don't look around to see what the trend is and find a way to exploit it. We are aware of what is going on and what is working but we have a deep knowledge of branding strategy and the ability to qualify the logic behind what were doing. We can interpret a trend into our own look and feel, which gives our client an original solution instead of following along. Dave - Because they want something genuinely different. We do have a definite "look." We've had clients looking through a mag with us and say. "That's a 13THFLOOR" when they see something that's standout different. I believe the energy in our lives is translated into our work. Steve Harwell from Smashmouth was looking at a page of a bunch of logos we'd done and said, " Look at this, I want something like all of this, it's like it's all alive, it's all moving around on the page." I've always remembered this as summing up our style. Eric and I also have so much experience in a real cross section of design projects. This diversity really gives us the ability to approach each job from a broader more knowledgeable perspective, from a bigger picture. And no clip art!! Were all about Kustom. If we need flames, a skull, wings, texture or whatever we draw it ourselves. Eric- Designers and companies have gotten lazy. Dave - Yeah they have. So many designs look so similar or so generic. Not unique to the brand. By creating our kustom fonts, lettering, and images we help a brand gain equity over their competitors. Their competitors should say " what the $#@&, why didn't our agency do that for us."
Who have some of your clients been? Dave - We like to call them victims, people and companies infected by 13THFLOOR. Mattel, Hot Wheels, Mountain Dew, Pepsi, 20th Century Fox, Warner Bros, EA, Hasbro, TBWA Chiat Day. Eric- And also, Oakley, Giro, The Simpsons, Family Guy, Nike, Converse, MTV, Infinity Broadcasting, TL Partnership, JWT Team Detroit.
You have agencies as clients?
Dave - They call on us when they have a hard time designing for the markets we know so well. 99% of the time it's on a Friday and the call start with " Hi, We tried to do it ourselves but we can't, do you have time and, by the way, we need it Monday". It's classic.
Eric - We can't tell you how many times we have gotten a call saying " This is what we've done but we know it's not that cool. Can you help us?"
What are your favorite type of projects?
Hot Wheels is a good example. We were initially asked to freshen up their existing International Style Guide assets: logos, icons, patterns etc...
Due to the success of that work and strong growth seen by Mattel we were brought in to participate in the kickoff meeting and brainstorm the direction for the next guide.
Dave - What was really cool was it was like starting a whole company. We created all the assets necessary to make any product needed by Hot Wheels and their licensees worldwide. From themes for the collections, identities and color palettes. An entire family of artwork consisting of logos, icons, kustom designed type for logos, patterns and designing the products. We designed apparel, shoes, watches and did the callouts for manufacturing techniques as well as design the layout and production of the actual guides that contained this library of art that we created.
So you obviously do more than logos?
Eric - For Spot Bikes & Pro-Tec we acted as their entire art department. Oh and a phone keypad design for Frog Design.
Do just the 2 of you do all this work?
Dave - Some of these guys are full time in the action sports industries and moonlight for us and others are designers and artists who prefer the freedom of freelancing because they are hard-core riders.
I've noticed a lot of flames and skulls in your work.
Dave - We looooove flames and skulls. Rat Fink Rules. All of what Eric said and then some. Big Daddy was my hero, always will be. Racing graphics were and are VERY inspirational in our work. All about the speed and power and stoke that goes with it. When I was in high school, I airbrushed flames on my friends' hot rods. That was so much fun, but so freakin' scary to paint on their nice paint! Painted my first real bike metal flake purple and slapped skull stickers on. I always had to customize everything I owned. Still do! Skulls are always cool. They represent so much in so many different ways. We like to draw skulls in a lot of different styles, but not the evil satanic stuff. As a friend put it, we go to the brink of the abyss, but we don't fall in. Skulls may come in and out of fashion, but to us, they're never really out if you know what I mean.
What do you consider your best work?
Eric: What's cool is I've met people who've actually had our "burning 13" logo tattooed on them. As far as best work, I gotta say the work for Hot Wheels. I'm proud of the fact that we were able to capture the brands essence and move it so far forward from where it had been while creating a new form of equity out of their licensing program. Pro-Tec, Spot Bikes, The Simpsons & Family Guy and all of the work for FOX TV are also on the top of my list.
Any memorable work experiences? Dave - I got to work with Shaq on a game packaging project. So insane. EA had a new fighting game brewing starring Shaq and the art director there knew I was a black belt in Karate, so the next thing I know I'm in Hollywood trading punches on camera with Shaquille O'Neal. Turns out they needed a martial arts advisor for production on the game. Wild ride! Eric -When I got to work with Director Nick Egan on a few projects. For me Nick is such a big influence in both his work and way of working with the people around him. When he asked me to be part design of the Sex Pistols reunion, John Taylor of Duran Duran's solo album, Brian Setzer, INXS and Cheap Trick I was very flattered and giddy. After being such a big fan of all of them growing up I never thought I'd get to work on a project for them. I never got to meet Mr. Rotten but he must have liked the work we did or I think he would have said something! Every time I watch The Simpsons or Family Guy I'm pretty stoked to know we are a small part of that also. C'mon how cool is it that we basically got paid to watch those shows!
What's next for 13THFLOOR?
Dave - We have been yelled at for not making fonts. So many of our projects are all about custom lettering that it really is kind of ridiculous that we don't create some complete fonts of our own. We both love designing letterforms and are always a stoked to see a well-designed and innovative font. We're fully committed to making this a reality in '08. We'd be honored to have other designers dig our fonts enough to buy them! There are a lot of really incredible fonts coming onto the market now, and we hope you'll be stoked on what we'll be dropping soon.
Eric - What he said. There have been so many times that we've looked for a font that we just can't find, so that's going to be the fonts we'll create. We want to create fonts that have a strong look and emotion, as if they were kustom designed.
Any last words?
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