Full Transcript – Todd Radom – Wild Business Growth Podcast #202

This is the full transcript for Episode #202 of the Wild Business Growth Podcast featuring Todd Radom – Pro Sports Logo Designer, Branding All-Star. You can listen to the interview and learn more here. Please note: this transcript is not 100% accurate.

Todd Radom 0:00
Any successes are usually built upon just mountains of failures.

Max Branstetter 0:19
How you do it? Welcome back to the Wild Business Growth Podcast. This is your place to hear from a new entrepreneur every single Wednesday morning who’s turning wild ideas into wild growth. I’m your host Max Branstetter, founder and Podcast Producer at MaxPodcasting. And you can email me at To save time with your high quality podcast. This is episode 20202022. And today’s guest is Todd Radom. Todd is a designer sports branding expert writer, magician of sorts in the sports logo and branding design world and his work over the course of his three plus decade career includes the official logos for Super Bowl XXXVIII multiple multiple all star games in the MLB and NBA, the graphic identities for multiple MLB teams including the Washington Nationals, and Los Angeles Angels, and the branding and all sorts of things for ice cubes big three basketball league. In this episode, we talk how Todd got into designing sports logos and the Superbowl logo in the first place. His creative design process and how long it takes for him to actually design professional sports logos, how many iterations are involved, what it’s like working with pro sports franchises, and his favorite all time jerseys slash uniforms across major sports and why they stick out to this day. It is The Toddfather. Enjoy the show

All righty, we are here with Mr. Go to man when it comes to sports logos sports design. I know that’s the official name in Cooperstown. But Todd Radum, one of the most incredible people in the worlds of design in general, but also just absolutely amazing history in the sports design and sports logos and, and branding, etc. World. Todd, Todd Todd Todd Todd, how you doing? Thank you so much for joining today.

Todd Radom 2:26
Max. I am very excited to be with you appreciate you having me on?

Max Branstetter 2:31
Of course, of course. And so that was a wrap. How was that for you? Is that great?

Todd Radom 2:34
It was perfect. We covered everything we needed to cover. Right?

Max Branstetter 2:38
Exactly. It’s just like get one last name pronunciation right? And then we’ll call it a day. No, but this is very surreal. I’ve always been I’ve always been interested in sports Logos and uniforms, and jerseys and, and others are often the same thing. But endlessly just blown away by what comes across visually in the world of sports. And when I came across you and your background and like oh my god that, like this is someone that like I should have had in the podcast like a day one so cool. But so we’re gonna get into the sports world. But before that, you also have a history of designing lots and lots of book covers. And I’ve never spoken to anybody who designed a book cover before. So what makes a visually appealing book cover?

Todd Radom 3:21
Well, that old expression, you can’t judge a book by its cover? Not so it’s kind of true, but But anyway, yes. I almost feel like my career and book publishing was like a whole nother career because the majority of it came before I found my footing in sports design. Long story short, I graduated college way back in 1986. My only two full time jobs that I’ve ever had in my life were both in book publishing, the second of which was working at Penguin Books in New York City. In the trade, book division, just pumping out book cover after book cover after book cover part of a small but mighty team. It was really that work that catapulted me into sports design, in kind of a strange way. All told, including my own two books. I always say I have I don’t know what the number is, but I have designed over 1000 book covers in my life. But anyway, to answer your question, I think designers in particular used to I don’t know if so much the case anymore, but used to love book covers because you really have everything there. You’ve got typography you’ve got they’re like little posters, right? illustration or photography, all in kind of a defined shape and size for the most part. So I still love doing I mean I do occasionally.

Max Branstetter 4:49
So 1000 books so that you have a lot of judging by covers in your history, but that’s amazing. I never thought of it as a poster like a little poster. On the front, but but that’s what it is. And I think anybody who, who walks through a bookstore or scrolls through Amazon, like this, it’s a pretty quick intuitive difference between those that really jump out at you and stand out versus those that are like, that are just skippable or scrollable. In today’s world. So back when you like your main focus at the time was designing book covers, what are some tricks to make things eye popping, when it comes to those, those lovable little posters? Well,

Todd Radom 5:29
scale of elements and composition, really important things. And I’ll give you a couple of examples. My time working at Penguin Books, I worked on ridiculously anonymous books with authors who are long forgotten. On the other hand, I worked on books included of authors like Stephen King, to name a name, if you are working on a book cover, which, you know, Stephen King wrote the book, you have got to have his name, gigantic. And certainly back in those days, you would add a little, a little something extra, a little metallic sheen to it, perhaps, or some embossing. And then you have literary reads, which can be calmed down a little bit, you don’t need to be as aggressive at the point of purchase. And it goes without saying the point of purchase back in the old days before Amazon existed, judging a book by its cover was the result of browsing in a bookstore, one of those wonderful, you know, lazy activities that I don’t get to do as much of anymore as I used to. But the imperative to, you know, create something that’s going to look good as an avatar in this day and age, which really is what we’re talking about when you’re looking at something on Amazon, it kind of, you know, sets the tone for design writ large in a certain sense.

Max Branstetter 6:55
And speaking of days and ages, so you are a fourth generation working artists, which I mean, just like congrats to you and your, your previous generation, that that’s awesome in itself, what kind of this generation before you and generation before that, and before that, what kind of art do they do for a living?

Todd Radom 7:15
Well, it varies. I will start with my father, who I was kind of described as a creative jack of all trades. At various points in his career. He was a designer, he was a photographer, he was a copywriter, a production artist did a little illustration, so sort of cobbled together. Commercial career in the visual arts. Put it that way. I have a brother who is a photographer slash Retoucher. I have a cousin, who is a jazz drummer, his parents were his father was a draftsman slash fine artist, his mother was an actress. My grandfather really was very formative in terms of giving me a fine arts, education of sorts, he would take me to museums, he was a painter, he was an illustrator, and he did lettering at one point or another, and you go back and back and back to people I’d never met. But whatever the case, and I always say it, and I really believe it to be true. Art in some way, shape, or form runs deep in the DNA. And I’m very fortunate in the sense that I have been, everybody knows somebody who had some artistic inclination, something within them that they could not pursue. For one reason or another. It’s not the most practical of careers, regardless of what we’re talking about. But again, I come from a family where I always say that it was never necessarily certainly encouraged. But it was not discouraged. I had role models all around me. And I remember I’ll tell you a very quick story of my my late grandmother, my father’s mother, who was an artistic soul was a visual artist studied at Parsons School of Design in the 20s and 30s. I remember when I went off on my own to do my own thing, I was 26 or 27, something like that. And she said to me, do you know what you’re doing? And I said, Well, I I’m not sure. As far as going off on your own goes, she said, You remember those weekends that your grandfather would get a job, but on a Friday at four o’clock, and our weekend plans got shot to hell? I’m like, oh, yeah, I remember that. Absolutely. She said, and you know, you’re not going to get a regular paycheck necessarily. And you’re going to have to save and bah, bah, bah, bah, bah. And I said, Oh, absolutely. And I said to yes to all of these things. And Max, she literally pinched me on my cheek and said, You’re gonna do just fine. And that was a long time ago.

Max Branstetter 9:56
That said, Well, I wish I could pinch her cheek remotely. Oh my gosh, no, just No, but that that’s a very heartwarming story. I mean, you kind of die inside when you hear stories of those people that you know, just could have such creative potential, but never, you know, just like, maybe work the same job in a completely different line of work for their entire life and like, never had that creative outlet. I’m floored because your family history is like the total opposite of that. It’s like, you know what, you know, I’ll be a painter, I’ll be a jazz drummer, I’ll do that. Like there’s, there’s so many expressions of creativity, I love that that just flourishes in your in your background. So it’s, when you look at your career, I don’t think it hurts you to have so many close people in your life and creative inspirations and role models and mentors that were able to do so many things creatively. That’s I’m like, I’m ready to just like, drop this call and go paint a portrait, right?

Todd Radom 10:51
No, I’ll tell you i Another quick thing with that I have a friend of mine, who I went to college with who is an art teacher now in a public school. And there was a stretch of several years where I would go in and speak to his students. These are high school kids. And again, you know, if you take a class of 30, high school kids, and it’s an art class, the vast majority of them are there, because they have to be, but there are always a couple that would talk about the fact that yeah, my parents think I should go into accounting or something a little bit more practical. So I think about that all the time. And again, I’m I am very fortunate to have had role models all around me. And even more, I think, you know, especially at this point in my career, a creative career is never a straight line. It’s not this predetermined path that’s going to take you from A to Z. And I saw that up Golson personal so that’s a very beneficial thing.

Max Branstetter 11:55
So let’s take a straight line into the sports world as it as it always is. And you obviously like your career speaks for itself when it comes to sports design, sports, brand, sports, logos, sports, you know, fill in the blank. You mentioned there was some overlap with the book world but but how specifically like, what, what sucked you into this beautiful black hole of the sports world from a creative sense.

Todd Radom 12:19
Well, I was one of those kids. And, you know, everybody knows somebody like that. And it could even be you, Max. Oh, I was sitting there. Doodling logos on notebooks as a kid, right?

Max Branstetter 12:34
There was a lot of doodling I used to. I used to have well, my parents would draw the outline before I was age enough to draw of. Remember those little Headliners like the little figurines. I’ve got a couple in my office. Absolutely. Yeah, exactly. Like bobbleheads without bobblehead. Basically, my parents would draw the outlines of those because we had quite the collection. And I would color the and I would color those in. And then once I became old enough, they’re like, you know, you can just draw those yourself too, you know. But, yes, that plenty of sports doodling.

Todd Radom 13:06
Yeah. So I mean, it all starts there. It’s sort of, you know, this primal thing, way, way, way, way back, right. So that was me. And of course, me being the age that I am. I grew up at a time well before the internet, and I grew up at a time in the 1970s, where I always say sports design became very expressive, the 70s this very weird decade in so many respects. But if you think about what was happening in sports, you had a lot of teams that were moving, you had expansion teams, you had teams that were revisiting their old looks, and really making something new of them. You had alternative leagues to leagues like the World Hockey Association, and the World Football League and the ABA. And so there was a lot of opportunity, even in the world, where there were, you know, six TV stations, and no internet to see this, this explosion in sports, through perhaps a little bit of a different lens, as I always say, being part of an art family. And I was always doodling. And I do have here a I have a scorecard that I kept from a Yankees twins game that I went to with my dad, I was 14 years old, kept score, but at the bottom, I doodle the headwear marks the cap marks of the then 14 American League teams. And all these years later, I have replaced several of those logos. And my work has been on the uniforms of every one of those teams. So I don’t know if I necessarily believe in destiny, but interests run deep and there’s that straight line.

Max Branstetter 14:51
If you were to look at that sketch of those 14 different teams now how would you critique yourself with a pretty accurate pack them?

Todd Radom 14:57
Oh, they were pretty accurate. I had a good hand good, sharp pinned. Yeah, and you know, for sitting in the upper deck at Yankee Stadium with a with a magic marker, you know, pretty good. No drafting tools involved very spontaneous. And spontaneity is something that I think about a lot, considering the precision. That design is all about these days working in Adobe Illustrator, working with, you know, these tools that were really just unfathomable way back when.

Max Branstetter 15:25
So that was kind of early foray into the sports world or early foreshadowing into the into the sports world. When did you get your first official sports client or sports project that you actually got paid for.

Todd Radom 15:37
So we got a couple, we have an interim step here. And that is my time as a student at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. And this is in the 1980s, where creativity, and a certain amount of danger is lurking, lurking everywhere. So it was very exciting

Max Branstetter 15:57
creativity and danger is the most exciting combination I’ve ever heard of,

Todd Radom 16:01
yeah, you put those two things together. And magic happens, right? I mean, it’s true. So I did have a couple of projects, school projects that I explored the iconography of baseball, both in a graphic way. And in a fine arts way, was something that interested me then. But as I said, I graduated out of there, worked in book publishing, sports design really did not exist. At that time, I believe I was born at the right time. Because in the late 1980s, things are sort of exploding in the sports world. Again, you have more expansion teams, you have a very fashion fashion conscious and licensing, conscious approach to sports and sports design, which did not exist five or 10 years before. And there are a lot of reasons for that. I don’t want to bog this conversation down with that, but really, at that particular time, you had leagues Major League Baseball, the NBA in particular, opening up their their first creative services departments in house, they were taking a more professional approach to creativity, the NFL kind of pioneered this way back in the 60s. Back in those days, if you are a creative professional, again, before there’s an internet, you are carrying around a portfolio of your work. And when I say carrying around a portfolio, it is literally a box. And there are mounted examples of your work that are on these 10 by 15 inch black mat boards. And it was common then to cold call publishing companies, advertising agencies, people who needed this kind of design. And you would literally drop your portfolio off, you would drop your book off, and you’d call and they’d say, Well, we’re accepting drop offs. I’m paraphrasing here, Tuesday mornings anytime before 10, you could pick up after four. So I got wind of the fact that MLB was opening their first in house creative department, this was 1991 called found out when I could drop my book off, drop my portfolio off. And at the end of the day, when I picked it up, there was a note in there which said, we’d like to schedule a call for you. Here’s here’s the number. So that’s where it starts the very genesis of it. My first job for Major League Baseball was well there were two that kind of came along simultaneously. One was a logo for the Los Angeles Dodgers for their winter tour of Asia. It was worn as a sleeve patch by the club at the same time, right around the same time. I did a logo for what were then the Knoxville Blue Jays, minor league baseball team

Max Branstetter 18:52
was gonna guess that yeah, that sounds right. And

Todd Radom 18:55
they became the Knoxville Smokies. So there’s my first team, way back when and it was done by hand. It was shortly before things went computerized. So all of those hand skills, which were very valued and valuable, were brought to bear on those first couple of jobs.

Max Branstetter 19:13
We can talk for legitimately 24 hours about all the minor league team names because I think that’s some of the most interesting names, franchises you’ll come across. But the Smokies I dig it. So they they have this basic as you describe it like a casting call for the MLB for it’s almost like auditions for creatives, which is incredible. Like, did you do you have any idea when you were dropping off your portfolio there like that? How was your confidence level that the MLP would actually call you one day?

Todd Radom 19:42
I was pretty competent. At that point in time I was doing I was making a very, very good living particularly for a young designer, doing things like hand lettering, literal hand lettering, working with blue chip clients like American Express and AT&T and Simon & Schuster and Penguin Books, and just, you know, some some very high pressure, high profile stuff. You know, certainly I knew the subject matter, being a baseball fan, being a sports fan, having an understanding to whatever extent of the business side of things back then where things were going. And the appeal to reason it was centered around a couple of things. Again, working in book publishing, working on those 1000 Plus book covers, a lot of them were sportsbooks max. So I was the guy who I would get a call from, I don’t know name, name of Publisher, you know, Simon & Schuster, St. Martin’s Press, whoever it was. And they would say, you know, we’ve got a baseball book, you would be perfect for it. So I accrued this portfolio of sports book covers, which again, let’s back up to way to the beginning of the conversation, they are little posters, you can’t hide, there is no disguising quality, I think, if you’ve got a portfolio full of these things, if nothing else, so I think the confidence level was good in the sense that I was able to go in there and say, Hey, listen, you talk about whatever the talents that I bring to the table, but I’m your customer, I’m a fan, I have some understanding, and I’m willing to, I’m very happy to do the research, and to dig in and see what we’ve got. So give me a leg up.

Max Branstetter 21:28
Definitely a leg up. And then next, you know, year round in first year on its second year, you’re still in third, which is pretty crazy. But you you got some, what I’m trying to say is you got some serious momentum, according baseball analogies aside, in the baseball world and beyond, you once you started getting established with the professional sports leagues, what was your first big like, holy shit, pinch me moment? Wow, you know,

Todd Radom 21:53
say a couple of things, there is such a delay in working on these kinds of projects, and seeing them come to fruition. And it was true, then. And it’s certainly true. Now, there’s usually a, for certain things, for big big projects, there could be an 18 month lag. But my first professional, like major league sports identity that I got, was to redo the Milwaukee Brewers. So that was done in 1993. They take the field in 1994. And the oh shit moment was opening day watching TV at that time, very nascent internet, but you could find it in 1994. And it’s like, there I am, my work is on the field of play in an actual major league game, then you have the, you know, amplified stuff, which is going to riding the subway in New York City, and seeing people wearing examples of your work. It’s different from being in a bookstore and being very proud of the fact that, you know, here’s something I did it is at a point of purchase in recoil, to hell, to have something somebody actually wearing it to have that kind of interest takes it to a different kind of level. And, frankly, it a different level of scrutiny as well. You really want to sweat the details and get things right, because people do care about this stuff to the extent that they do. So that was it. And I still feel that way, by the way.

Max Branstetter 23:23
Yeah, definitely. Well, I’m glad you don’t just like do a quick scribble and then never think about it again. It’s that this stuff is seen pretty commonly on like, when you see somebody see somebody in the subway who’s wearing one of your marks, you ever have the urge to reach out and be like, Oh, that’s like, that’s a great logo, or just give them a little hint that you may have had something to do with it.

Todd Radom 23:45
Oh, no, I’m not creepy like that, necessarily. But you know, but but if there is, if I have an entry does somebody say I’m with a friend, theoretically, who has a friend, that kind of thing. And I’m cool with it. But I’ve always been of the opinion that if you’re a creative person, you kind of have to check your ego at the door. Because it’s very humbling it is. I always say that. Any success that you have as a somebody who’s, again, earned a living in a creative field for so many years. Any successes are usually built upon just mountains of failures, big failures, small failures, mostly small. But But anyway, it certainly like I said, it keeps the ego in check.

Max Branstetter 24:35
There’s failures and then there’s can be mountains of success as well. And one of your W’s I would say is the logo and branding for the Washington Nationals See what I did there. The W and the the I guess what’s it called Team identity, the overall identity for the National so you did for the nationals. You did it for the angels out in Anaheim/Los Angeles as well. A couple, you know, huge kind of steps in your career there. What was the biggest takeaway for developing this identity for these franchises? That one, I guess has been around for a while and one at the time was in the grand scheme of the MLP is is pretty new baby.

Todd Radom 25:17
So two very, very different jobs. Let’s go chronologically, the angels, then the Anaheim Angels. Now, as you note, the Los Angeles Angels

Max Branstetter 25:27
changed everything. Well, you know, yeah, there you go.

Todd Radom 25:30
Teams generally changed their visual identity for one of several defined reasons. First and foremost, you think about you want to end a period of losing, you want to get away from what you look like, for some reason, successful teams that are on a roll, don’t often change in midstream, a new owner might come in and want to impart their billionaire stink on a product, right. And that was really the case with the angels at that time, the angels were owned by Disney, they had a very quintessentially what I would call a quintessentially 1990s Looking visual identity. Sports design in the 90s, as you know, blew up in many ways. And because of several different things, including technology, we had tools available as designers that we never had before, and sometimes too much can be too much. And whatever the merits or lack thereof, the angels previous identity was a lot, there was a lot going on. They wanted to simplify things, they wanted to get back to basics. That was in 2001. Logo and uniforms were launched in 2002. And what happens to the angels in 2002, they go to their first World Series, and they win their only World Series to this point. So I take full credit for all of that. Yeah,

Max Branstetter 26:56
that’s all you I better to be lucky than the organization would probably agree as well. Yeah,

Todd Radom 27:00
that’s it. And you know, and honestly, maxtech I try it, you have to look at trends, there is no escaping that, which is really hard to do now, considering trends come and go like every five seconds. But but there was a very clearly defined trend that was adding at that particular moment. And knowing that things were going to need to get simpler. And back to basics. That was what that was all about. In the case of the Washington Nationals. This was a kind of it was literally a once in a lifetime situation for MLB. The nationals were previously the Montreal Expos, they announced a move in late September 2004. So what that meant was that a new team had to be created from scratch from a visual standpoint, by the following April. And if you back that up, and you think about how these things get deployed and made into stuff, they need to manufacture product they need to put a team on the field with a set of uniforms. There’s no question about that. But anyway, a very different imperative and a very different project because the Nationals the haste with which the Nationals identity was created. You know, it literally in the world of baseball was unprecedented in modern times. Because the last time that a team moved in MLB was 1971 when the then Washington Senators moved to Texas, and became the Texas Rangers, very, very different world back then compared to 2004. Just as 2004 is a very different world compared to 2022.

Max Branstetter 28:40
Absolutely. What’s different about creating branding and logos for a brand new franchise or one that moved versus doing like a special edition something for a brand has been around for a while.

Todd Radom 28:55
Well, I would say that some jobs are tear downs, and some jobs are renovations. So a team like the angels very good example actually getting back to basics which you’re welcome with. You’re very welcome. The the getting back to basics. I keep saying it, but that was what was needed. And that was not only stripping away a lot of visual detail, but it was getting back to a core color color is so meaningful in sports. Sports fans are tribal brand warriors, right. So if the angels are playing in this vast metropolitan area, let’s just put it that way of Los Angeles, Orange County is part of that. And you’ve got up the coast, the LA Dodgers who have been there since 1958. Wearing royal blue, to kind of get to red where the angels were no but predominantly red but very red focused at one point in time. It made a lot of sense. So kind of chipping away around the edges in a case like that was not reinventing Things wholesale. In the case of the Nationals or other moved for I mean, you know, I’ve worked on expansion teams and other sports and teams that have moved, moved and other sports, they’re really kind of creating something from nothing. And it really is an unusual opportunity, a great opportunity to instill a piece of culture into the conversation that, you know, there is no tradition. Maybe in the case of the Nationals, you want to allude back to the fact that the team is in Washington, DC. So there’s a red, white and blue, but baseball tradition in the nation’s capital. There’s this void that exists from 1971, up until 2005. So there’s no need to fill that you could start from scratch, and not saying you can do whatever you want. But you have a great opportunity to plant the seed, and watch it all grow.

Max Branstetter 30:55
In Washington, it all grow as well rolls off the tongue. It’s really cool. Thinking about, like, what would you do with the Nationals, for example. I mean, that’s what you did for a living like that was your main focus. And it sounds like something out of a video game. Like it takes me back to like when I played Backyard Baseball, my computer and you know, create a team name. And you know, the with the default ones I had, there were like humongous melon heads and all, you know, baseball stars and you know, generic stuff like that. But like being able to customize your own colors and go along with the team name like that. Like that’s something that’s really, really special. I think, not too many people have gotten to experience especially with the new team. So that’s really, really cool that you’ve done. And obviously the I mean, I think you you foreshadow the national success, since they’ve become a franchise as well. So everything you’ve touched clearly turns to gold. Speaking of gold, and in championships, I think, probably one of the pinnacle moments that you probably gets brought up every time somebody even says hello to you, but Super Bowl 38. Congrats. I know that was not exactly yesterday, or the day before a couple days before that, but it was definitely an iconic Super Bowl, and you created the logo for that which is just mind boggling. Really, really cool. Super Bowl 30. AKA, what is it XXXVIII Roman numerals go great in audio form? How did you get this gig? How does how does the Super Bowl come down knocking at your door?

Todd Radom 32:21
Well, it’s different now than it was then. Because as you know, and a certain number of your listeners certainly know, the Super Bowl logo is kind of standardized now. But once upon a time, the logo for the annual Super Bowl was changed each and every year. And it was meant to reflect a sense of locality. So in the case of XXXVIII, which is the most Roman numerals in the history of the Super Bowl to this point, so lucky me.

Max Branstetter 32:53
Well, this is this is I mean, we just doubled the length of this podcast just by saying that twice

Todd Radom 32:57
Yeah, right. Yeah. And that was not Super Bowl L. But at any rate, the game was played in Houston. So it was intended to reflect the sort of visual piece of use in past and present. But I started to work with the NFL in the late 90s. had done some smaller jobs. But to your point, the Super Bowl is the Super Bowl. It’s like this national holiday, right, we all meet up and eat and drink and no matter who is playing, somebody is watching the Super Bowl who doesn’t care about the game itself, but it is it’s part of our national culture. And we export that pretty well as well. So at that time, the NFL was calling upon kind of a staple of the individual designers to take a crack at the logo each and every year. And sort of a bake off if you want to look at it that way. And so I was in the mix in, you would get paid for what you did. And on a sliding scale upward and if you kept getting over these hurdles, you were you know, you got to the finish line if you want or the endzone. Let’s go back to cliches right max. So

Max Branstetter 34:12
nice. We get I mean it works for you get to marathon ones as well. I mean, it’s

Todd Radom 34:15
I am I’m just glomming on, I’m taking your cue and running right with it was like running, running for daylight. But anyway, passing the baton. Perfect. Yeah, exactly. So anyway, I was given the opportunity to take a crack at it. And my logo got all the way to the finish. And so, you know, the Super Bowl again, because of just the number of eyeballs attached to it, the number of things that are produced with that logo hardgoods certainly more so than that now. Now, you know, it’s a very different world. But yeah, it’s a pretty cool thing to be involved with and part of history, which is really pretty awesome.

Max Branstetter 34:55
Did it change your approach at all? As you were designing that just knowing that, hey, this is going to be viewed, and it literally was like at the time, it was the most viewed Superbowl of all time. So like, knowing that such a crazy amount of eyeballs were going to be on that thing does that impact your your work at all?

Todd Radom 35:14
All the time. I mean, and that that goes with every sports logo I do, you know, Team identities, commemorative marks, things that are one offs, whatever they might be, because the thing about sports design, which I think is very unique is the number of impressions that these things are attached to, is just enormous, but also the scalability is so varied. Knowing that things need to reduce the size of a of an avatar, right, or need to successfully expand to environmental graphics, which are slapped on the side of an arena, or a building downtown where an all star game is being held. It’s being applied to products, it’s being married up with other logos, it is embroidered, these logos are painted on grass, they are carved into ice, they are stamped into metal burned into wood, printed still in one color, they move, right you go to a stadium or an arena, and the graphics have to be applied to motion graphics. So they split apart, they set on fire, all this stuff, right? I mean, just big, small all of it. So that kind of gut test if you want to look at it that way. It’s something that I think about before I even start to execute.

Max Branstetter 36:35
With that many eyeballs. Probably the most important thing is no typos, right? Like you want to make sure you don’t spell Superbowl wrong because that would be very embarrassing. It’d be a lot of people see,

Todd Radom 36:43
so somebody has probably typed out Super Bowel, but it never made it to the logo.

Max Branstetter 36:49
That’s that’s a whole different,

Todd Radom 36:50
it’d be really bad.

Max Branstetter 36:54
That would be really bad. And that would officially make it the toilet bowl. And it would also be really bad. If I had a typo in my new newsletter Podcasting to the Max, you can sign up at MaxPodcasting.com Scroll down on the homepage, you’ll see the signup form there, enter your email, and you’ll be off to the races with behind the scenes stories from the Wild Business Growth Podcast, podcasting tips, plenty of puns as well, and hopefully not more typos, MaxPodcasting.com. Scroll down Podcasting to the Max newsletter. Now let’s get further into the queue of Q’s – questions – for Todd and find out about his Todd tastic. Fantastic, creative design process. You queue that up perfectly, because I want to get more into kind of your design process and with sports design, and you mentioned how there’s differences between sports design versus any types of design. But for you creatively, do you have any kind of key standard elements or must haves when it comes to designing a logo of any sort?

Todd Radom 38:03
No, not really. But I do think about the architecture of a logo before I dive in. And when I say architecture, it’s being mindful of the fact that again, these things need to they’re gonna they’re gonna be a lot of people with their fingers on them. And there’s always a weakest link in the chain. So you need to make these things as bulletproof as possible. So I always say that, you know, if we are, let’s say you and I are designing a team, you own a professional sports team X, and I am designing your teams. Alright, let’s

Max Branstetter 38:33
go. Yeah, the humongous all stars, let’s say

Todd Radom 38:35
we’re doing humongous all stars, this is the first conversation that I am going to have with you, as a team owner, a billionaire mogul, I’m going to say that, listen, we are going to build a structure. But the first thing that we need to do is to put down a solid foundation, a foundation that could withstand the weight of a gigantic building, or maybe a small shack, whatever that is, you can’t do it without a solid foundation. So thinking architecturally, I think it’s really instructive. And it goes beyond aesthetics because you know, pretty pictures can mean different things to different people at various times as well. Not everything holds up not everything stands the test of time. But the literal architecture of that. It’s really important to get that right.

Max Branstetter 39:27
So so your meeting with this billionaire mogul, handsome podcaster, who owns the humongous All Stars franchise. So like when you’re tasked with a new like, huge client, huge project like that. Do you have a routine for like, alright, it’s gonna take us this many weeks to do this part of the design. It’s going to take us this many weeks to expand out to this, like, is there any framework that you typically go with?

Todd Radom 39:52
So a couple of things Firstly, before we even have that conversation, I want to go in prepared and I want to go in with the equivalent of a dance Right, it could be a slide presentation, it could be if we’re zooming, which seems to be the way of the world these days, it’ll be something very tight and informative that I could share my screen. And that involves research. And that involves knowing what makes a fanbase tick or trying to get to the bottom of that. It’s about knowing where that team has been, if it is, whether it’s an expansion team or a team that wants to redo their look, whatever that might be, but kind of digging in and getting that research down, that is clearly at the front end of the job. And I really enjoy that. So that’ll that’ll be that. And then in terms of a timeframe, I mean, quite often, it’s dictated by the needs of the client or team. But if you were to say, you and I were going to redo your team, and we want to do it for the 2023 season, and you are a major league team. And here, you and I are sitting here and it is July 6, 2022, I would say to you, well, you know, the train has left the station, whatever vehicle metaphor you want to throw in there, go ahead.

Max Branstetter 41:07
The Formula 1 car is often to the next Oh, yeah,

Todd Radom 41:10
it’s it’s it’s already done several 100 laps. By and large, I think that I’m going to just spit ball these dates here. I think you want a couple of weeks to have this conversation and to have some research and know that, you know, before we we put the pencils to paper, if you want to look at it that way, we need to affirm some things we need to know, how much are they paying me? What are your needs, what is the scope of the work, that kind of thing, round one and creative, you know, these, this explosion of good stuff, you know, that should that should take three weeks, it should take three weeks for me to get that down. Clearly, if I if I have to get on a plane and you know, go to the other coast, that’s going to take some time as well. But then you have revisions, there’s always I liken it to the sausage being made, it might taste really good at the end of the process. But there’s always this mucky part in the middle. That’s not necessarily pretty, but it’s necessary to get the right results. Long story short, I personally believe that jobs that go on for longer than, let’s say four to six months, you lose momentum, you lose creativity, you lose, I don’t lose interest. But you know, you lose a certain amount of spontaneity that I think is necessary in keeping the process moving forward. At a deliberate pace.

Max Branstetter 42:36
Yes, six months does not. I don’t think it belongs in the same sentence as spontaneity.

Todd Radom 42:41
But sometimes it’s necessary. I mean, you got a lot of stakeholders in the room quite often. And, you know, listen, there are jobs that I’ve worked on that have gone on for two years doesn’t mean that it’s every day for two years. But to kind of go back and see where you’ve been at the beginning of a process, it is a thing. So six months is, you know, if it’s less than that, it’s awesome. If it’s more than that, you’re going to lose a little something.

Max Branstetter 43:09
That’s a lot of making sure that you spell Super Bowl, not super bowl, I’m imagining that Bart Simpson on the chalkboard over and over again, I will not vote. And then what about the the glorious AHA slash lightbulb moment of, ah, we got it like, I want to hear from your side and when like you’ve seen clients react to it, but start with you. What makes something jump out of the page at you and click that this is it, this is gonna be the final logo,

Todd Radom 43:38
if I see harmony and balance, and you know, it goes beyond idea if it’s a good idea. And we have achieved the goals that were laid out at the outset of the project. And I look at the thing, and I squint at it. And I you know, this is just me. And I see that the composition is great. I intrinsically know that it will stand up to all the rigors that we spoke up before expanding, contracting, translating well to all of these different mediums, then seriously, nine times out of 10. I’m like, that’s the one. That’s it. And I couldn’t articulate it better with a specific example perhaps. But but, you know, after all these years,

Max Branstetter 44:24
but we’re not going to give any examples today. Not today.

Todd Radom 44:28
We can write?

Max Branstetter 44:31
And what about on the client side? Like, what Where have you seen people basically jump out of their pants because this is this is our new team. Well, our new logo. Yeah, I

Todd Radom 44:39
mean, that will generally be the process of we’ve gone back. We’ve got four we’ve gone forth. We’ve noticed this. We’ve tried blue, instead of read, we have reduced this by 10%. You know there are a lot of small, small things, that kind of checkboxes always in this process and just part of it And so I think, you know, building assurances into this process and navigating the whole thing. If a client knows that we have successfully navigated this process together, and that we’ve gone through all of the due diligence necessary, you know, fire, fire it off, let’s go that that’s usually what the what the thing is. So it’s a lot of small steps on the client end. And for me, it’s the it’s it is more of an aha, on in terms of the client, it’s quite often staggering across the finish line, feeling exhausted, but exhilarated

Max Branstetter 45:34
yet another sports metaphor, here we are, it’s like you work in the sports world or something. On the personal side, on the mind of the athlete here, what do you do, as far as just hobbies for fun to stay creative and take your mind off things or let it wander?

Todd Radom 45:50
Wow, it’s been it’s been an interesting couple of years, to say the least for all of us. And for me, especially my big thing that I love to do more than a lot of people and that I take great inspiration from is travel. And that’s a lot of places in the world. I am one of these people that even though I travel quite a bit for work, I love the journey to the airport and the anticipation of the trip. I love being at the airport. I get there early. I people watch. I am inspired by things. And when I get to wherever I go, I love to walk. I love to walk and I love to look at signage. And I love to look at what people are wearing and what they’re pairing up in terms of headwear and footwear. Sometimes I love to look at store signs, I love to look at road signs. I was in Canada a couple of weeks ago. And you know, Canada in the United States, we are not that different. However, I noticed the vending machines are different. I noticed, wow, they’ve got phone booths here. We really don’t have phone booths in New York. But in Toronto, they still have phone booths. And on the phone booth, there are icons of Canadian coins that look different from ours. So it’s a dumb thing in certain respects. But I do enjoy traveling not just for research purposes. But for being inspired and getting out of my four walls. That’s my big thing. And, you know, beyond that I am. I’m one of these people that I always feel like, you know, those of us who love what we do for a living are sort of cursed because it could become addictive. And I do love what I do. And I’ve been doing it day in and day out for, you know, 3540 years here. I am not a person who Gulf’s. I am not a person who you know likes to tend to a garden or anything like that. I like to read I like to do what I do. But you know, it starts with travel.

Max Branstetter 47:43
And it ends with rapid fire q&a. Are you ready for us? Go?

Todd Radom 47:46
All right,

Max Branstetter 47:47
let’s get wild. So you’re waiting at the airport for three days straight. Now just what would you say today at the time of this recording, and you can’t say something you designed? What is the coolest professional jersey or uniform out there, current or old time current and you alluded to a Part B but for Part A current.

Todd Radom 48:09
I love all kinds of sports design. But at heart I am a classicist, even though I can move off that pretty clearly. So I look at certain uniforms. And I’ll give you a couple of examples that are just timeless and beautiful. And I, you know, I look at them. And I fall in love with why I look at them each and every time I do the Montreal Canadiens home jersey, red with a you know with those minimal stripes across the chest, and the logo plopped over that, that is a symbol of French Canada, there is so much cultural meaning, but it’s sort of talked about balance and harmony and aesthetics. It is something beautiful. I always say that when it comes to any kind of art form, particularly design, but I think this probably applies to acting or music or architecture or fine art. Simple, simple, simple is really hard to do. You can mask a lot of imperfections with detail. But when I look at a uniform like the Detroit Tigers, which is so just a statically stripped down, it gets me very happy. And I’m weird and I and I admit that.

Max Branstetter 49:22
Hey, I’m all for being weird and admitting it. What about all time? I mean, you steal the show, but all time and maybe this is something that we see in throwback jerseys now, but what’s your favorite all time that you haven’t listed yet?

Todd Radom 49:37
I talked to all kinds of people of varying ages, who their sensibilities when it comes to their favorites always seem to harken back to their childhood right. So people who are children of the 90s are going to be drawn to you know, the logos of their youth and as I said earlier, much earlier being a child of the 70s There are a couple of couple of uniform designs That blew my young mind. The first of which was the absolutely revolutionary usin Astros rainbow uniforms. I remember seeing those on TV when they came out in 1975. Again, often imitated, never duplicated. Some of the most astoundingly original uniforms in the history of sports are professional sports. I’ll go and they are garish. There’s no question about that. But I’ll step away from those and I’ll go with another baseball one. And I will always look at the Toronto Blue Jays original uniform set. This is 1977 up until 88 When they started to wear buttons. And I look at that and it is modern perfection.

Max Branstetter 50:45
Oh, that’s like, you could have a book name as it probably is a book called Modern perfect. I mean, you probably did did the pope the poster I could write it or you and I could we could do it. But we could do it after our first championship together with this new franchise. Exactly.

Todd Radom 50:58
And I want to bring this time but but the last thing I’ll add with the Blue Jays thing, I had the opportunity to go to a Toronto Blue Jays game with a man who created that logo just a couple of weeks ago. Tell him how much I enjoyed his creation. I’ve got something coming up soon. That I can’t talk about terms of meeting someone. But I will say that the Hartford Whalers logo is eternally stylish, simple, direct communication. And it doesn’t hurt that that is the logo of a team that no longer exists. So there’s some Mystique attached to it.

Max Branstetter 51:35
There. Oh, just just hearing the word mystique. I feel like I’m surrounded by like mist and stars and sparkles. And nicely done. Alright, what is the hardest thing in the world to draw?

Todd Radom 51:47
Hands are very difficult to draw. It’s true. You know, proportions think about like, right, I mean hands, you know, architectures still, you know, put a piece of fruit in front of you, you know, but hands are very, very difficult ears are difficult to draw.

Max Branstetter 52:02
Basically. Anybody gotta be careful. But any body part is there’s a lot of difficulties replicating

Todd Radom 52:08
Yeah, I mean hands have all these parts which move it hands are notoriously difficult draw you look at go to a museum and look at you know, look at fine art. That is not representative art. And I always say that the the assault of a portrait painter can be judged by how that person drew hands.

Max Branstetter 52:32
So what does this say about cartoonist the fact that most cartoons just have four fingers instead of five

Todd Radom 52:38
cartoons are similar to graphic design in certain respects. You have to kind of get to the essence of something and if it implies that this is a hand, maybe that’s all you need to get the job done, right?

Max Branstetter 52:51
Absolutely. All right. What is a I call them weird talents, but can be a party trick. What’s like a unique talent you have other than drawing other than observing things at the airport, that doesn’t really impact your job. It’s just, you’re pretty damn good at this.

Todd Radom 53:05
So a couple things. Trivia. I am very good at trivia. False. I’m just gonna say absolutely true. And I can also song lyrics. I can I can name a lot of songs in just a couple of notes. I wouldn’t say all but a couple of notes and I’m right on it. So you ever need me to sing karaoke with you? Or or go to trivia night at the bar? I’m all as long as you’re buying the drinks on there.

Max Branstetter 53:35
I’m not going to play the music for copyright sighs trademark reasons I was confused those but “It Was a Good Day,” your friend Ice Cube. So last question. You’ve done a lot of work for ice cube and the big three basketball league, which is super cool. And I think kind of brought new life or a new extended playing careers to a lot of so many so many beloved players over the years. What is something about Ice Cube though in your interactions with him that you think most people would be surprised by?

Todd Radom 54:03
Oh, I have. I have the answer. And we talked a little bit about it along the way. Most people don’t realize this when Ice Cube was a young man. He went to college for either a semester or a year at a college that no longer exists in Arizona. This is before NWA hits big to study architectural drafting per Ice Cube studied architectural drafting. So when he and I have a conversation as we truly often do, about now you know the scale of this or the competence you know, what if we made this bigger, or what if we use this color instead of that color? He and I are talking the same language and I saw him last time we saw each other in person was maybe it was around Memorial Day in Los Angeles and we did have a conversation about this and you know we talked about is music the same way you know like you throw One particular sampling or a beat in there or a certain word? Is it the exact same thing as sticking something impactful in terms of design in there? So the fact that you’ve studied architectural drafting, we talked about T squares and all those old days and all that stuff. That’s something that probably people don’t realize.

Max Branstetter 55:19
And it’s such a, an architecturally sound. Final answer. Thank you so much, Todd, The Toddfather, as you’ve described yourself, Toddfather, part one, part two, maybe, maybe? Or maybe not part three. Who knows? But thank you so much for making time today. And for all you do and for this is super cool. I mean, I’m a huge sports nut. But even if you’re not, I think it’s just what you’ve done in the mark, you’ve left the marks literally, pun intended, you’ve left on the world as they are amazing. So thanks again for coming on. And you can learn more about Todd at ToddRadom.com as well as any any other places you want to shout out social media or

Todd Radom 55:59
Twitter and Instagram @ToddRadom. Always on, always happening.

Max Branstetter 56:06
Perfect. Sounds like we’re signing off a radio show. Perfect. Alright, last thing FINAL THOUGHTS stages yours. It could be a quote, it could be a lion. You could rap alongside Ice Cube, whatever you want. Send us home here.

Todd Radom 56:17
You said it before, Max. I appreciate you having me on. It was a good day.

Max Branstetter 56:24
Todd cubed. Thank you so much, Todd. Coming on the podcast, sharing your story. Everything from Super Bowl logos to Ice Cube lyrics. just unbelievably cool. What do you do for a living? And thank you, listeners for tuning in to another episode. If you want to hear more wild stories like this one, make sure to follow the Wild Business Growth Podcast on your favorite podcast app and tell a friend about the podcast. After that you can start sketching your favorite pro sports alternate jerseys and maybe share them with Todd share them with The Toddfather, and maybe he’ll share him out himself who knows. You can also find us on Goodpods where there are some very, very good podcasts and podcast people in podcast recommendations. And for any help with podcast production. You can learn more at MaxPodcasting.com. And you can really, really learn more by scrolling down in the homepage and signing up for the Podcasting to the Max newsletter. Until next Todd and until next time, let your business run wild bring on the bongos.