Latest / The Starfish Storytellers / Episode 7: Visual Wizardry in Graphic Design Storytelling with Jeff Surette

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Episode 7: Visual Wizardry in Graphic Design Storytelling with Jeff Surette · The Starfish Storytellers

0:00
Welcome to the Starfish Storytellers, the podcast that makes a difference one story
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at a time by bringing storytelling to life.
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I had been working at an ad agency up here in Massachusetts, small agency, nothing too
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crazy and became good friends with one of the account executives and public relations
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men.
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After a while he left the agency, I left the agency, we kind of went our separate ways,
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but we stayed friends.
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He called me up and said, I'm going to get married.
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He was living in California at the time.
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He said, I want you to come out, be my best man.
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He's okay, that's great.
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So I left from Boston, he was in Philadelphia at the time.
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So we left sort of at the same time planning to meet up when we landed in San Jose.
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But there was a delay on my end.
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So I got there a little late.
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He waited.
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He said, something's come up, we can't just go to my house.
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I have to go into the office and we have a meeting with my ad agency.
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They're presenting a couple of concepts.
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So I said, okay, you know, whatever you need to do, why don't you come along?
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He said, and just sit down in the meeting.
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You don't have to do anything, you don't have to say anything.
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So off we went.
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We went to his office.
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This company at the time was making small computer chips that computer companies would
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put into their laptops to enable it to have better sound.
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So we sat down in the meeting.
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The agency presented this ad that they like, their top pick.
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And if you can picture a two page magazine spread, left side headline copy, right side
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full page photo.
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The photo was of a laptop with a picture on the screen of a woman, think Casablanca, Ingrid
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Bergman in Casablanca with the hat and the suit.
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All right.
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Can you picture it?
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The headline said, talk to me, baby.
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And my friend said, you can't really say baby.
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It's just not, it's kind of women aren't going to like that.
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And a lot of these engineers, they're women, you can't really do that.
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So the agency people started saying, well, what about like talk to me, sweetie, talk to
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me, honey.
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And my friend saying, no, that's not going to work.
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That's kind of the same thing.
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So after back and forth like that a little bit, my friend turned to me because I was
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sitting at the end of the table, just minding my business.
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And he said to me, what do you think?
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I said, put a picture of a baby on the screen.
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And everybody went, yeah, we could do that.
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Yeah, we could do that.
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That works.
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And that was, that was the answer.
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Eventually the ad came out and they expanded it just a little bit instead of just a picture
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of the laptop with the baby.
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They had a father cradling the laptop with the picture of the baby, which was great.
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And that concept went on, that ad went on to win an award at Electronics Advertising
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and Marketing.
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I can't remember the name of it exactly.
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It was a long time ago, but I have the award here in the box somewhere.
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But that was kind of an interesting story.
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We were just out of nowhere.
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It just happens.
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Sometimes it just happens that way visually.
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You know, it's like they were approaching it from the words perspective, the copy perspective,
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whereas mine instantly went to visual.
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Hello.
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My name is Liana Henry and welcome to the Starfish Storytellers.
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I'm the CEO of the Black Dog Group, a MarCom and project management firm headquartered
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on the East Coast of the US in Quake colonial Bedford, Massachusetts.
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I'm your host and passionate about storytelling.
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And I'm actually on a mission to raise up the next generation of storytellers.
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We've named ourselves the Starfish Storytellers after the Starfish Story.
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The moral of the Starfish Story is based on the power of one.
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No matter how big the challenge, each action we take makes a difference and has an impact.
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One step, one starfish and one story at a time.
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Every episode, we welcome a new storyteller who will share their story meant to inspire
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and connect with you.
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Then we'll break it down and offer tips for any listeners who are ready to tell their
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own stories.
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So thanks for tuning in.
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Now let's get started.
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Today's episode is about storytelling through the visual wizardry of graphic design.
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And with me today is award winning graphic designer, visual wizard and my friend, Jeff
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Soret.
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Jeff has worked in ad agencies and design studios as well as having his own successful
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graphic design studio.
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He's now enjoying his retirement from sunny Florida after having wrapped up his role as
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a graphic designer for the secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
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Welcome to the show, Jeff.
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Thank you.
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So we just heard your story of how people coming into a room, an agency can look at
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something from a completely different perspective.
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The marketers, the wordsmiths versus the visual storytellers.
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You said that it just came to you or I think the minute you saw it, you sort of knew that
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that was the direction it should go in.
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I think it, yeah, I pretty much knew as soon as my friend said, we can't really use the
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word baby.
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I just instantly started thinking, well, how can we get around that?
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I'll just change the picture again, coming from a visual perspective and a visual history.
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That's my solution wasn't to change the words, but change the image so that it worked with
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the words.
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That's one of the things I found over the course of my career that frustrated me a little
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bit was working when I'm working on something like that with a writer who might be a little
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lazy who says, well, you just do the design and I'll write the words to fit.
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It just doesn't work that way.
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It has to be at least a collaboration working at the same time.
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At least for me, I would really need to understand the words, understand what we're trying to
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do.
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I would have to read it and analyze it, study it and let the visuals come from that.
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That's the way I approach this.
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Leave the words, adapt the visual so that it works with the words.
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Who doesn't love babies, right?
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That's the thing.
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I put together a few questions I wanted to ask you.
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One of the things that we were going to talk about is how visual storytelling evokes emotion.
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Just thinking about how you just told that story, you think about the emotion that it
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evoked when it was the Casablanca model versus the infant.
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Two completely emotions where one was uncomfortable and sensitive and the other one was endearing.
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Of course, why wouldn't you?
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I think also from a marketing standpoint, it seems like whoever the buyers were, I think
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they would be drawn in to the picture with the baby and the man holding the laptop in
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a completely different way.
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Absolutely, which is I think was the light bulb moment with the people from the agency
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in the meeting.
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They said, well, yeah, that would be much better.
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It was like a win-win.
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They actually got to keep their words.
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Absolutely.
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That's good.
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Did you want to introduce yourself further, do a better job than I did?
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You pretty much covered it.
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Yeah.
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We've talked a little bit about the power of visual stories.
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I had read that graphic design has a profound influence in the realm of visual storytelling.
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It conveys messages, it captivates audiences, and it evokes emotions, which is what we just
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said.
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It's a powerful medium for creating impactful visual narratives.
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Going back to your experience, I don't know when the last time you updated your website
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was, but it says you've been a graphic designer for 20 years, which I'm sure it's been longer
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than that.
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How long have you been a graphic designer and how did you get started?
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Did you go to school for this?
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Were you self-taught?
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Why did you choose it?
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I did go to school in high school, junior and senior year.
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There really wasn't much that interested me like math or English.
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I scraped my way by, but the only thing I really liked was art.
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I did pretty well at it.
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I said, well, I'll go to art school and see where that goes.
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I originally was going to look at illustration because drawing, painting, I didn't even really
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know much about graphic design.
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Once I got into that, I decided that, yeah, this is where I want to go.
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I think a little bit easier for me to make a living at graphic design than it would be
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at illustration.
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So I went through that whole thing and graduated and not too long after was hired by a small
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design studio, one person in Wakefield, Massachusetts.
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It just took off from there.
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They merged eventually with a small ad agency that didn't have an art department.
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They did a lot of work with them.
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Finally, they said, well, let's make this official and become partners.
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So I stayed with them, worked there for a few years.
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Then there was a partner's divorce and they broke up.
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I went off to work at another design studio, another ad agency up in Salem, Massachusetts
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for a while.
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So I bounced back and forth, but I'm pretty much doing the same thing is design work and
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art direction.
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And yeah, it has been more than 20 years, closer to 40, but never regretted it for a
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minute.
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It's something I've always loved and enjoyed.
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So it was fun.
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And even now, the only downside is even now I'm looking at magazine ads or TV ads or signage
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on the road or something and I'm saying, boy, that letter spacing just doesn't look right.
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Why did they pick that color?
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That doesn't look right.
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So it's kind of the curse that I'm living with now.
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In the same way.
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It's like every ad on the TV, I'm like, that's some good writing.
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I don't know what the message is there.
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Like why would they say that?
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Exactly.
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And there we are approaching it from two different ways.
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I'm looking at the visual part of it.
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You're looking at the words.
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Yes.
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Yes.
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Yes.
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Although I have to say like some visual, I mean, I can see...
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I am a self-taught graphic designer.
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I certainly don't have the same skills you have, but I do a fair amount of graphic design
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for a lot of my clients.
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And I read somewhere that a graphic designer had said, if you're going to do graphic design,
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it's not just about looking at art.
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It's like looking at nature.
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It's like looking at everything around you.
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Like how do things fit together?
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How do colors work together?
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It's really about not just like signage and things like that, but how shadows fall.
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I think that's just all part of the things that you know how to do when you're an artist.
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Yeah, I would agree with that.
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And from a design standpoint, also, as I was saying before, the words, the story, the copy
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that you're working with, it all has to flow together with that as well.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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We've had the pleasure of working together.
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You were my art director for the Bill Rika Green Magazine.
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And I know that I would send you files, folders full of words, documents full of text.
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And it was basically on you to create the story that was going to jump off the page.
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And I got a lot of letters to the editor, just people loving what they were seeing,
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loving what they were reading.
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So we can talk about that, or we can just in general, because you've done so much layout
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for so many different companies.
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What is your process for creating layouts and making those stories come to life?
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I think about even just some of the spreads that you did for the green, it was like how
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you knew how to position things and make them lay out in a way that had flow.
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Again, a lot comes down to reading what the story is and working with the visuals that
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I was either given.
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Sometimes the writer will have something in mind and he will say, here's a photo I think
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works great with this.
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And sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't.
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But it would be a matter of just taking that and putting it together in a way that reflects
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what the copy, what the story is about.
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Maybe it's an article on mountain climbing and you've got all these images.
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Well, maybe you take the text and flow it through the images to make it kind of reflect
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a climb or a decline as it were.
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So for me, that was always the most important part was making sure that the pieces work
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together to reflect the story.
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I think from a design standpoint, we're really, especially in a situation like that with the
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green, we are the designers, it's important to supplement the text as opposed to taking
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over and make it all about the visual.
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Just kind of reinforce what the article is and what you're trying to say.
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So yeah, the way I come up with it is just kind of read and pay attention to what's being
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said and enhance it.
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You've called yourself a visual wizard.
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What does that mean?
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I think it kind of goes with what you're saying, but what is visual wizardry?
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When I initially came up with that for my business, I was doing a lot of Photoshop work.
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So I couldn't really say Photoshop wizard because of copyright issues.
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So I expanded a little bit and that was that part of the business.
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Initially it was art direction, graphic design, art direction, and visual wizardry.
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Because many times, like I said, people would just want me to see this person, we fired
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him, take him out of the photo, things like that.
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So that's where that came from.
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I remember one of your images was a hand on a mouse pad.
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It must've been one of the ads in the paper or something.
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And it was just the hand, like it has an it or whatever.
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And I recently had to do postcards for a tech company and I needed to have the finger pointing
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to the screen, but it had to have the image of the software on the screen.
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And it was multiple layers to get that to happen.
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And I remember doing it thinking like, yeah, what would Jeff do?
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So you told us a story about when you were first in the ad agency.
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I know you had your studio for a while and then you went off to the Massachusetts State
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House.
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How long were you there with them?
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At the state?
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Yeah.
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I worked for the secretary for a little over 10 years.
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And you said that you were working for the secretary of state and then all the departments
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under him.
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What were some of the departments you were designing for and what were some of the designs
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that you were working on?
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There was the typical divisions, the elections division, the corporations division, that
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were those were maybe the more less interesting divisions, let's say, because there's a lot
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of forms, a lot of things for people to fill out.
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And of course, dealing with the public, you're dealing with the entire range of people who
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have maybe a little only a little bit of schooling or maybe a lot of schooling.
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So that has to work for everybody.
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And I mean everybody.
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Then there were the more interesting divisions such as the Massachusetts Archives, the Commonwealth
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Museum, the Massachusetts Historical Commission.
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There there was some real opportunities to do some interesting work, which gets back
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into the storytelling because many times I'm doing exhibits for the museum, the Commonwealth
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Museum, which is like Massachusetts History Museum.
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And we would do there is a permanent exhibit and then there is a kind of a floating exhibit
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upstairs and they would want an exhibit there.
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And it consisted of a dozen to 15 panels with graphics and images and text.
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Those were fun because you're doing two or three of those a year.
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You got to make them look a little different.
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They can't look like the last one.
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And you want to make the graphics, again, tell the story or at least enhance the story
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of what's being written.
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So that was a lot of fun working with that and working with the archives.
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Fascinating just many times they'll have seminars and things and they will present historical
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documents, actual documents that they have in the vaults.
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When I first started there, I was given a tour of the vault and the executive director
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walked over to like a flat file drawer, opened it up and he took this piece of plastic like
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you'd see in a notebook, all right, this paper inside, hands it to me.
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He says, what do you think of this?
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And I looked down and I said, does that say George Washington?
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It was some order with George Washington's signature on it.
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Wow.
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Yeah, that's worth about a half a million dollars.
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So I very carefully handed it back to him and said thank you.
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So we got to do quite a bit of work with historical documents and I learned a lot and we got a
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new appreciation for history there, reading all that.
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And it was very interesting.
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For the parks of the museum, many times they would present me with images to go with what
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they're saying because they've done the research, they know where to look for these things.
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But there would be times when there would be something just screaming for an image.
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There was one I remember specifically they talked about importing rum and things like
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that but there was no visual.
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So I went scouring the internet, the stock photos to find some kind of a barrel or something
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that would kind of evoke that feeling.
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And fortunately I was able to find something and just kind of silhouette it, cut it out
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of the background and just drop it in so the text kind of wrapped around it so you know
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where it went.
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And it just makes reading a little more interesting without a big block of copy, just make it
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a little more interesting to move around.
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Did you used to do a lot of layering with...
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Like I have these visions of historical museums that I've been in that had colonial type
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artwork.
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A lot of visual of pieces of the constitution, snapshots of pieces of the constitution or
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old illustrations from history books of people from the day.
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In their period clothing.
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And I mean, did you do a lot of that?
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Did you use a lot of that?
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Yes.
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Again, just to make it a little more interesting, a little softer, a lot of times you want to
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have something let's say in a whole background behind the whole piece.
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We did a series of boards celebrating women's suffrage and I found a photo of women demonstrating,
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holding signs, we want to vote, things like that, which I scaled back and made into a...
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Instead of a softer photo, made it into more of an image that used a dot pattern, like
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a half tone pattern, but a really pronounced one.
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So it kind of gave a look of something old and put that screen that way back in the background
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over all the...
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Behind all the images, other images that we were using.
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But yeah, that was definitely a lot of layering of older documents, images of the constitution,
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the Declaration of Independence.
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Yeah, I worked a lot with that.
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Which there is an original on display, the original Massachusetts copy of the Declaration
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of Independence on display at the Commonwealth Museum.
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Wow.
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Yeah, it's a neat place.
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That is so cool.
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It's great.
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Good to know.
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Yeah.
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So we can go visit.
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So you talked when we were talking about... you gave an example of the mountain climber
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and the copy and how you might design that imagery.
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Visual storytelling does a really good job of creating those memorable experiences for
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people who are consuming a story.
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As a graphic designer, you were talking about showing the copy a little love too, not just
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making it graphics.
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Are there elements that you really favor that you think are most effective to capture the
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audience's attention or do you just use them all?
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Do you tend to lean into a lot into typography?
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Is it all about the layout?
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Is it all about the imagery?
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I don't know, what do you think matters the most?
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I think it's a combination of all of it really.
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And again, it depends on the message, what you're trying to say, what you're trying to
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sell.
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It really would depend.
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Typography, yeah, I think is important more than a lot of people do these days, I think.
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But yeah, I think it's really a combination of everything.
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What was your opinion about the word blobs?
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Have you seen those?
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Like somebody who takes the word marketing and then they have all these little words
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all the way around it, like copy and this and that.
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Those were very popular for a while.
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Yeah, and they didn't really mean much to me from a graphic designer standpoint.
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And as you can see, they're really not too popular anymore.
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They're not too popular anymore.
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It was something, I guess maybe I was a little sheltered, I really didn't understand.
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I kind of get what they're saying.
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The bigger things are the more important things, but it didn't really mean much to me.
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It felt like sometimes when you'd go through sort of the stock image sites, they were just
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sort of like filler photos or whatever.
26:17
Yeah, exactly.
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Yeah.
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I always like to ask our guests for advice for our audience.
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And so is there anything that you, if there's somebody out there who wants to be a graphic
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designer, and they're not really sure how to get started or they would love some advice,
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what advice would you pass on?
26:44
What are some sort of your words of wisdom?
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I would say probably get some training because I don't think I'd be where I was without going
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to art school and really getting a foundation under me.
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And look at things.
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Look at packaging design, look at magazine ads, because a lot of times the stuff that's
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out there is going to be good.
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Not all the time, but once you start looking at that stuff and really recognizing, you'll
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be able to recognize what's good and what isn't, what works and what doesn't.
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I mean, you're looking at being a visual communicator.
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Look at things, learn from looking at things.
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And don't, I think another thing too is where I was saying what I was saying about the visual
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kind of complimenting and enhancing the text and the message.
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Don't try to make it all about the visuals.
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They really have to work together.
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Don't have an article on this and you do this beautiful artwork that has nothing to do with
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it.
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It just doesn't make sense and doesn't work.
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At least that's the way I've always felt from a more of a commercial standpoint.
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Have you seen a lot of that?
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Have you seen- A fair amount, yeah.
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And it always, I don't want to say it bothers me, but it's like, why?
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It's pretty, but it doesn't really help the message at all.
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Right.
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It's almost jarring in a way.
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Yeah, it can be.
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It can be, because it's like, what do I look at?
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Why doesn't it go together?
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If you're doing an article on artwork or something like that, that it would work, yeah, that's
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fine.
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If you're doing an ad for peanut butter and you've got purple flowers, it just doesn't
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make sense.
28:51
Right.
28:52
Right.
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Right.
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Now that makes sense.
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I guess my advice would be to look at things and learn kind of on your own why things work
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together or why things don't.
29:07
For sure.
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Well, that's all the time we have for today.
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I want to thank you very, very much for being our guest.
29:15
Well, thank you for asking.
29:17
I'm flattered.
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You are such a talented visual storyteller.
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And I think of you often as I'm working in the wee hours of the morning.
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I do remember some of those days with the green.
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On projects.
29:35
And my office with you putting all the papers around, okay, this on this page, this goes
29:39
over here, this goes here.
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And I'm thinking, my God, it's midnight, slow down.
29:44
Yeah.
29:45
Yeah.
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But I try to think about what is the story we're trying to tell here.
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Because I've definitely had clients who, they do that.
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They just basically say, here's a document, find some imagery that has this in it and
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let's make it magical.
30:10
And that's challenging.
30:11
And it is.
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I was going to say sometimes that's hard to do, but it can be done.
30:18
Yeah.
30:19
I do depend on rounds of revision though.
30:22
Yes.
30:23
Yeah.
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And to our listeners, whether you hear us locally from the BTV studios in Bedford, Massachusetts,
30:30
or across the globe on such podcast channels as Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or Amazon Prime,
30:36
thank you for listening.
30:37
We hope you enjoyed this episode and we'll see you next time.
30:41
Happy storytelling.
30:42
Thanks.