Latest / Energy Empire / Bonus episode: Why Is Lady Liberty Holding a Power Cable?

Transcript

Bonus episode: Why Is Lady Liberty Holding a Power Cable? · Energy Empire

0:00
Hi, I'm Jamie Nolan, a clean energy communications consultant
0:03
and this is Energy Empire. And today I'm coming to you with
0:07
my first ever solo episode and I'm interviewing Rosie Jewel,
0:11
who is a graphic designer and visual artist who actually
0:15
designed our brand for Energy Empire.
0:17
So our very cool logo featuring the Statue of Liberty.
0:21
And she is Jigger and my former colleague from the US Department
0:25
of Energy Loan Programs office, which is how we first met her.
0:29
And so today we're going to talk about kind of Rosie's approach
0:32
to design, how she got into it, what the design process looked
0:36
like for Energy Empire and what our collaborative process was,
0:41
what we were going for. And you're going to see some
0:43
really cool behind the scenes footage of her design process.
0:47
And then we're also going to discuss clean energy
0:49
communications and branding and some of the issues kind of
0:53
facing our sector in those areas and what she and I think might
0:57
make a difference and set us in a better direction.
1:00
So I hope you enjoy it and thanks for being here.
1:11
Hi, Rosie, welcome to Energy Empire.
1:14
Hi. Thank you so much for having me,
1:16
I've been so excited about this. Well, also, thank you for being
1:19
my first guest for my first solo episode.
1:22
I'm really excited. It's just me and you.
1:24
OK, so we have to start with this.
1:26
Our listeners have feelings about our logo, specifically the
1:31
fact that our power plug only has two prongs.
1:34
Like we did not know that we were going to offend so many
1:37
people. We've been getting called out of
1:39
LinkedIn and some people are telling us it's not safe.
1:42
So this tiny detail got a really outsized reaction, which tells
1:46
me branding matters more than people and energy sometimes
1:49
admit. So what was the story there with
1:51
the two prongs? I don't know if there have been
1:54
more comments since I last caught up with the controversy,
1:57
but I mean, the honest answer is just that it looks better.
2:01
I tried it both ways and I'm sorry, like call it artistic
2:05
license or whatever, but especially because this needs to
2:09
function at such a small size. It's just clearer if it's two
2:12
prongs. To go even further into this
2:13
controversy, what we really should be asking is what is
2:16
attached to the end of the power cable.
2:19
Because the Statue of Liberty is like a lightning rod, right?
2:21
She's made of copper or she's coated in copper.
2:24
She gets hit by lightning something like 600 times a year,
2:28
and it just courses, like, right over her body and then goes
2:30
straight to the ground, which is what keeps her safe.
2:33
But if she's standing out there in the rain with, like, a janky
2:36
appliance attached to this power cable, that's not going to be so
2:40
good. So I did a little drawing to
2:42
show you what the outcome of that might be.
2:44
And yeah, let's just say I don't see how that could possibly be
2:48
controversial. Sure.
2:50
I mean to me it's the toaster or something, right?
2:53
It's like they're meant to like represent a regular electrical
2:56
appliance. I think people were like well
2:59
for PV and and all of these like random references for us about
3:04
electrical safety of course, like the grounding prong and the
3:07
importance of it etcetera, etcetera.
3:10
I'm sure all of that is very important.
3:11
But most importantly, should we be worried about the electrical
3:14
safety of our brand? Are we at risk?
3:17
I think. We're fine.
3:18
I also, like, I come from the UK where we have, I think they're
3:21
considered the safest plugs in the world.
3:24
So I just want to state for the record that I do care very
3:27
deeply about electrical safety. But yeah, we don't need to be
3:30
quite so literal with the Statue of Liberty holding a plug.
3:33
Sure, it's all for fun and and it's it's art, but it's meant to
3:36
be fun and light so I love it. I love it so much.
3:39
I'm so excited to dig into how it all came to be.
3:42
But for people who don't know you, how did you end up
3:45
designing the logo for an energy podcast?
3:48
Give us the short version. Yeah.
3:50
So, well, you and I know each other because we both worked at
3:53
the Department of Energy in the loan programs office.
3:56
I was there from 2023 to early 2025.
4:01
And we both worked kind of almost directly under Jigger in
4:04
the front office in the External Affairs team.
4:07
And you were the media PR guru, obviously.
4:10
And I was one of the people who made stuff look pretty, I guess.
4:13
Let's dig into that a little bit more, our history and your
4:16
background. You're a designer from Dartmer.
4:20
Am I saying that right? Dartmer, England, Dartmoor So
4:23
much more elegant when you say with your English accent, we'll
4:26
let you do that from now on. And you ended up with the US
4:29
Department of Energy Loan Programs office, which I do not
4:32
think is an obvious career path. So kind of how did that happen?
4:36
I don't want to give you like the extremely long version of
4:38
the story, but I grew up on Dartmoor, which is if you can
4:42
kind of picture a little bit like Scotland or a little bit
4:45
like the landscape in Lord of the Rings in New Zealand, like
4:48
these gorgeous rolling hills. It's very bleak and barren in a
4:53
way, and just very dramatic and beautiful.
4:55
I had a really, really strong attachment to that landscape as
4:58
a child, was in the middle of nowhere and I was like literally
5:00
roaming the Moors on foot on horseback.
5:04
I grew up painting and Dartmoor was like an endless inspiration
5:07
to me. So just that is like some
5:09
context as to how I ended up here.
5:12
But it was definitely a securitus route.
5:13
So I studied French and Spanish literature and came out of
5:17
university thinking that I would do something in kind of human
5:20
rights and I was really interested in women's rights.
5:22
I met my husband at university and we decided to move to LA
5:25
together because he was interested in becoming a
5:27
filmmaker. And I'm going to say as well,
5:29
I'm a pretty risk averse person, which it's going to sound kind
5:33
of weird because this was one of the like big risks that I took
5:35
in my life where we just decided to move to LA sight unseen, trek
5:40
across the country from his parents place in New York.
5:43
But when we got here, the first job that I had out of college
5:45
was actually with a nonprofit urban design firm.
5:49
It's a really cool organization called KDI.
5:52
And I was the development and communications person there.
5:55
So I did mostly a lot of grant writing and a lot of bid writing
5:59
and they are based in Los Angeles and in Nairobi.
6:01
Basically their model is working with underserved communities to
6:05
Co design public infrastructure that layers environmental,
6:10
economic and social benefits. And so because of the projects
6:13
that we were doing in Nairobi in particular, flood risk is
6:16
something that comes up a lot that people have to deal with.
6:19
Like the poorest communities live in these informal
6:21
settlements alongside rivers, and they have to deal with the.
6:24
I mean, as we've just seen in the news with Nairobi, I think
6:27
several people have just died from the flooding there.
6:30
So KDI builds these public spaces with the community that
6:34
like layer flood protections and green infrastructure, along with
6:37
social and economic programming. And so that was like my first
6:40
kind of exposure to the world of climate change and climate
6:43
resilience. And coming out of that job, I
6:45
really realized this is the overarching problem.
6:48
And like the big challenge of our time is to deal with this,
6:53
this threat and this risk. So 2020 is when I left KDII
6:57
mentioned that I grew up painting and have been a sort of
7:01
artist on the side all my life. But it was something that I had
7:04
very much been oppressing in my professional life and thinking
7:07
like, from a very young age, I decided, you know, this is not a
7:11
sensible pathway to take. I should be academic.
7:13
I should pursue more stable vocations.
7:16
But I realized in 2020 that I really needed to scratch that
7:18
itch. So I had this opportunity come
7:20
up where a person that I had volunteered for suggested that I
7:25
could come and work with him just as a contractor on kind of
7:28
communications consulting. And that gave me the opportunity
7:32
to transition out of KDI and start building up a design
7:35
portfolio on the side. So I did that for a few years
7:37
and built up this design portfolio from scratch.
7:39
I taught myself design on LinkedIn and YouTube with all of
7:43
the arrogance of somebody who just like doesn't know what they
7:46
don't know. I was like, I can do this.
7:48
I'm an artistic person, right? And most of my clients in design
7:52
were in the the, the climate advocacy space.
7:55
And so towards the end of, I think 2022, I was talking with a
7:59
really good friend of mine and saying, I feel like I've spent
8:02
so long looking at the problem with climate.
8:04
And obviously it's really important, this role of
8:06
advocacy. But, you know, where are the
8:09
solutions? How can I, like, find out about
8:11
what we're actually doing to mitigate this issue?
8:13
And this person was Lucy. She was also at the loan
8:15
programs office. And she said, well, we're
8:17
looking for a designer, so why don't I put you in touch and see
8:20
where that goes? And yeah, that's how it
8:22
happened. The rest is history.
8:24
I found myself in the team with with you and yeah.
8:29
Yeah, I think I interviewed you for that job.
8:31
I did. Yes.
8:33
A lot of us spoke with you and you were so clearly a good fit
8:36
with the really strong culture we had an LPO and Jigger very
8:40
much so of course believes in external affairs and the
8:42
importance of communications and marketing and invested a lot
8:45
into growing our team so that we had all the tools that we
8:48
needed, which I think we'll talk more about the importance of
8:51
that type of work a little bit later.
8:53
But one thing from your story that really resonates with me is
8:57
kind of the influence of like a, the place that someone grows up,
9:01
because I have a very similar story.
9:04
I I grew up in the Eastern Shore of Maryland and in this region,
9:07
actually, I currently live in the DC area and grew up on the
9:11
Chesapeake Bay. And my dad was a boat mechanic
9:15
and electrician and he always worked in a boatyard.
9:18
And so we always owned one to three boats.
9:21
So we were out on the water a lot.
9:23
And so, yeah, just all my most vivid childhood memories
9:27
involved the Chesapeake Bay and kind of like the influence of
9:31
natural spaces on the values of a young person I think are
9:35
really important and kind of also led me to pursuing this as
9:39
a career. So it was fun to hear that about
9:41
your background. When people think of DOE, I do
9:45
think that what comes to mind for them is scientists or like
9:48
policy specialists, but they may not think about designers and
9:51
visual artists like yourself. And people like you play a
9:55
really important role in DO ES work.
9:56
So what was it like being a creative there?
9:59
It was great. Honestly, I think, yeah, that
10:02
might be like a strange thing to hear and and goes against the
10:06
what most people would assume. But one of the things that I
10:09
love, like you said, Jigger was really overseeing the office at
10:12
a time of expansion. And the phrase that we all kept
10:16
saying to the point where I'm most tired of hearing it now is
10:19
that we were building the plane as we fly it and we were putting
10:21
all the things together. So there was this amazing kind
10:24
of startup mentality almost. And I'm definitely a generalist.
10:29
So I love working in a small team with other like smart
10:32
generalists. And I get a real kick out of
10:34
working with people who had like total nerds about their
10:37
particular area of interest. So I got to interface with
10:42
people, you know, who were explaining like how loans are
10:45
structured to me and what is credit subsidy and got to like
10:49
understand about the, some of the technical aspects of the,
10:53
the projects that we're working with.
10:55
So I just found it a really dynamic and inspiring
10:58
environment. I definitely learned something
11:00
every day. Everyone really valued what I
11:02
did and what we had. Our other designer, Lee Farrell,
11:05
who big shout out to Lee. I should say I have an anecdote
11:08
here. So I went to a wedding a couple
11:11
of years ago and I mentioned that I was a designer at LPO to
11:14
an energy journalist. And his eyes widened and he
11:18
went, did you do the posters? Like people love those posters.
11:23
And I had to tell him, no, that was the other designer, that was
11:26
Lee. So he was incredible.
11:29
But I think people really did value what Lee and I were doing
11:32
and, and the, the importance of design and visual communication.
11:35
Overall, the most fun thing is when someone comes to you with
11:38
this, a really important point that they're trying to make, but
11:41
it's complicated and it's like there's layers to it, layers of
11:44
context and complexity. And you help them kind of strip
11:48
it down and figure out like, what is the point that we want
11:51
to make it? What is the story that we're
11:52
telling? And like how do we you know if
11:54
it's a chart, for example, on a lift off report, can we make the
11:58
heading of the chart tell you what the chart is explaining to
12:02
you so that you don't have to do the work?
12:04
What were some of your favorite and most impactful design
12:07
projects that you worked on over the years of DUE?
12:11
It was. Definitely deploy.
12:13
So I had a hand in various other bits and pieces and was kind of
12:17
a general graphic designer and you know, people would come to
12:20
me to do A1 pager or a deck, but deploy was the definitely the
12:24
thing. So it started with Kyle, our
12:28
boss, and the external affairs team saying we're gonna be
12:30
putting on this conference this year.
12:32
Maybe you wanna put together a couple of logo options to send
12:35
and you know, we'll see, see what you come up with.
12:38
I sent like 10 different ideas and started getting feedback
12:41
from this mysterious person called Susan Kish.
12:44
And then it just snowballed from there into developing the entire
12:48
brand identity for the conference, doing all of the
12:50
environmental graphics. I got to start working with
12:53
Jason Ramos, who is also still a colleague.
12:56
He's the the chief architect at Constructive, which we'll we'll
12:59
talk about later. Yeah, doing the environmental
13:01
design, doing all the promotional design, doing the
13:04
decks, doing the social media graphics.
13:07
And I think by the 2nd year with Deploy 24 where we went like
13:12
much bigger and much better. And we had the exchange and I
13:15
think we had three times the number of attendees that year,
13:18
which was just so exciting. And I really by that point was
13:23
kind of Co creative directing it with with Jason, which was just
13:26
such an incredible opportunity and and such a blast.
13:29
And I mean, we got such great feedback for Deploy 24
13:32
especially, people told us that they got so much work done.
13:36
They had like 60 meetings that it really was like the front
13:39
porch of the Department of Energy.
13:42
And this moment where people could see the full continuum of
13:47
how like all these different offices fitted together to
13:50
support projects from R&D stage all the way to deployment and
13:53
they could meet all the people on the way that that would help
13:56
them get there. And of course, the programming
13:58
was amazing. There were like, I think 130
14:01
hours of programming over the two days, lots of like really
14:05
pragmatic conversations and yeah, it was just really special
14:09
to help create the environment for that.
14:11
I think the the plenary stage in particular, like I had such a
14:14
thrill watching people filter into that dark room.
14:17
I mean, you saw Jennifer Granholm presumably giving the
14:20
closing speech and, you know, not a dry eye in the room.
14:23
It was just so powerful. And to get to see that on a
14:26
stage that I had Co designed with Jason was unbelievable.
14:31
It was awesome. It was very specific moment in
14:33
time and anybody who was there for those two years that we put
14:36
on that conference will know that it was something special.
14:39
And I love that. I mean real deal making was
14:42
happening in those two like projects got built because of
14:46
the connections that do we help to foster not just with with our
14:51
offices but also among private sector partners.
14:55
So yeah, it was really special. It was, it was such an
14:57
incredible team to be a part of. And I think one thing that is
15:02
evident of how how just just how special it was, is that we have
15:06
all continued to try to work together as much as possible.
15:11
I have, I have a client that is a former colleague.
15:14
I have many, many colleagues that I work with across my
15:18
accounts as a consultant who are former colleagues.
15:21
And I, you know, we all, I think, seek any opportunity to
15:26
work together because we built such tremendous trust amongst
15:31
ourselves during those years. And the culture was so special
15:36
and the teamwork was so special, and everyone that came into the
15:40
organization was so talented. Yeah.
15:43
And I feel really lucky to have been a part of it. 100% I
15:46
actually remember you saying at one of our all hands meetings
15:51
that among the external affairs team that there was this like
15:54
really high level of emotional safety amongst us.
15:58
And I remember that was like the exact phrase that you used.
16:00
It's something that we don't talk about enough with teamwork,
16:03
right? And how we collaborate.
16:04
Like it has to start from this basis of comfort with each other
16:08
and, and a sense of safety. And that like we can share
16:11
honestly with each other. And that, I think is like one of
16:13
the reasons why we are as, as you say, forever.
16:15
Colleagues, we really are. So when it came time to build
16:18
the brand for Energy Empire, of course you were the first person
16:21
who came to mind. You and I reconnected.
16:23
So when I first came to you with the idea, first of all, the
16:26
podcast had a different name. It was not at FirstEnergy
16:30
Empire. We had a different name, but it
16:31
was too common. So we switched over to This is
16:34
our brand. When I first approached you
16:36
about it, what did you think I was trying to make this feel
16:39
like, with the understanding that you didn't immediately love
16:42
it? I knew that you meant energy
16:45
empire in the sense of like a business empire.
16:48
And it was about something like a confident narrative, A
16:52
narrative that is optimistic that we're putting out, you
16:55
know, something that works against the doom and gloom.
16:57
And it's like we're going to build an energy empire that's
16:59
based on clean energy, that's going to change the world and
17:02
change the course of humanity. I got all that, but you have to
17:06
understand that. So I'm British American and I
17:08
have like 2 wolves inside of me. There's an American wolf.
17:11
And that was the one that understood what you meant.
17:13
And it's like, whoa, let's go. And then there's the British
17:16
wolf that was like, should, should, should we be doing that?
17:20
Like empires kind of a loaded word.
17:22
And and then Venezuela happened and then I felt like I had to
17:26
say something. But, you know, you guys know
17:29
what you're doing. You know your brand and yeah,
17:32
you, you were right. So like we can calm that British
17:35
wolf down. The American wins for today.
17:39
And it's memorable. You know it.
17:41
The alliteration works. And I, yeah, I think like
17:44
everybody knows, knows the phrase energy empire now.
17:47
It's so hats off to you. Thank you.
17:52
I appreciate that. I know you briefly referenced
17:55
the LPO posters and of course the LPO kind of the visual
17:58
language of those posters was an early reference point for us.
18:02
So what was it about that work that we wanted to carry into
18:05
this? And maybe for our listeners who
18:08
aren't familiar with that poster series, can you just kind of
18:11
explain it a little bit? Yeah.
18:13
So I think there was an original series of posters in maybe like
18:17
2009. Hopefully Lee isn't going to
18:21
message me after this and say actually it was 2011.
18:24
The LPO did this series of posters of different
18:26
technologies that that the office was funding projects in.
18:30
And then they were kind of resuscitated, I guess, when
18:32
Jigger arrived at the LPO and we did this kind of second series.
18:36
So there was like a poster showing geothermal energy.
18:39
There was an EV1, there was like a supply chains one, nuclear
18:43
one, and they were in the style of the like WPA screen printed
18:49
kind of like the national parks posters.
18:51
So like flat colors, very epic landscapes.
18:54
And you can see like energy workers often in the imagery,
18:58
they thread this needle between being really down to earth and
19:01
like really connecting with regular people, but also be
19:04
incredibly optimistic and they capture that forward-looking,
19:08
you know, very American mindset that we will recognize and love
19:11
from those vintage posters. So one of the ideas that we had
19:15
was to kind of do something similar, like a scene of some
19:18
kind where you could see energy workers or construction workers,
19:22
you know, building some kind of industrial plant or doing some
19:26
kind of clean energy project or maybe climbing a transition
19:29
pole. But we ended up deciding that
19:31
obviously, because as I said earlier, this is an artwork that
19:35
needs to work at small scales and it needs to be iconic and
19:38
memorable that doing a scene probably wasn't quite the right
19:41
direction. But we did keep the the visual
19:44
style of that, like screen printed solid colors and a kind
19:48
of vintage feel. Yes, as well as kind of the
19:52
color palette we really we yes, which was really important and I
19:55
love how bright and kind of unexpected and anti B to B clean
20:01
energy startup kind of feel, but it has I love those posters so
20:06
much. They're so meaningful to me.
20:07
People still talk about them and I know you were you told your
20:11
poster anecdote and I have to tell mine, which is I happen to
20:15
be in Ashland, VA one day for a random unrelated reason, but I.
20:20
Popped into Dominion Energy's Co working like startup incubator
20:25
space that they have there in Ashland.
20:27
Just seeking a desk for the day. And I walked in and I guess this
20:31
isn't something that people do like they have startups that are
20:34
like residents there. And I didn't realize that.
20:36
I thought it was just a Co working space.
20:38
But I walked in and kind of explained who I was and I was
20:41
like, can I just crowds here for the day and like to use your
20:44
Wi-Fi? And they were very gracious and
20:46
they set me up with an office. I walk into the office and it's
20:49
just wrapped with the LPO posters.
20:52
And yes, and this was a couple of months after we had left
20:57
after the end of the Biden administration and so many of us
21:01
had departed, including myself had left LPO at the end of the
21:04
administration. We had this very cohesive team
21:06
and we all felt very close. And there was very much so a
21:10
feeling that we were breaking up the band and we weren't ready to
21:13
go. Like it was a very sad moment
21:16
when we left the building, the Forest Hall building.
21:19
And so I was still very emotionally attached.
21:23
I still am emotionally attached to to LPO, but I was very
21:26
emotionally attached to the work that we did.
21:28
So it just was very powerful for me being completely out of
21:31
context in the most random place and just walking into this
21:34
office and like seeing the posters, I was delighted.
21:37
I texted a few people. I don't know if I texted you,
21:40
but I definitely took photos and sent them to multiple people
21:42
from our team. And that has happened in other
21:45
places too, that I have hopped on a Zoom call with someone I've
21:48
never met before, and one of our posters is framed behind them on
21:51
the wall. Happens all the time.
21:53
Yeah, they're really cool. I'm going to send this to Lee
21:55
because I really, I hope he hears this like.
21:58
Yes, shout out to Lee Farrell, who I believe is still doing
22:01
some work for that office and we like fully support him and not
22:05
and the folks that are still there.
22:07
So as we were designing the logo, one tension we kept coming
22:10
back to was that I wanted something that was symbolic and
22:13
resonant, but not too literal or too on the nose.
22:17
We also spent time trying to make this feel American and
22:21
powerful without tipping into it being cheesy, cliche, or weird
22:26
empire slash Rome energy, which is actually a direction that we
22:30
went in at one point. So what kind of felt hardest to
22:33
solve there? It's a great question That kind
22:35
of goes back to your first question of what did I think
22:38
about the name? Like, I think the word Empire
22:40
was the sticking point, and it's both the, like, the success of
22:43
the name, but also it was the thing that we had to work
22:46
hardest to get right visually. The reason why we mentioned Rome
22:49
and, like, started throwing that around as an idea was because I
22:52
think it was Simon, our producer, your producer, sorry,
22:55
who said, you know, maybe we could do something with Roman
22:58
architecture because there's all this neoclassical architecture
23:01
in DC and it speaks to kind of the connection between
23:04
government and energy. And yeah, we threw a couple of
23:08
ideas around. There was like, a plinth with
23:10
the sun on top of it that didn't have legs.
23:13
And I knew it didn't have legs, but one of my first questions
23:17
when we talked about the name was how comfortable are you with
23:20
imagery that is American like? And I threw out the idea what if
23:23
we did just spitballing like a flag with lightning bolts
23:28
instead of stars, which again was a terrible idea.
23:30
I don't know why I even threw it out there because I'm very anti
23:32
lightning bolt. Are you very?
23:35
I didn't know that. I did the branding for Deploy
23:39
action and I had this whole thing with Ana, but I was like,
23:42
please don't make me put a lightning bolt in it.
23:44
Like there are lightning bolts everywhere.
23:46
It's time to put down the lightning bolt.
23:48
We can get into that later as well.
23:49
The like the imagery generally and clean energy.
23:53
I had a sleepless night where I was thinking about all these
23:55
different American symbols because you were keen.
23:57
You were like, yeah, let's make it patriotic.
23:59
We don't want this symbolism and this imagery to be completely Co
24:03
opted. And you know, we, it belongs to
24:05
us too, right? Like we're Americans and clean
24:08
energy, like these technologies come from America.
24:11
And so we wanted to signal that. So I had this one sleepless
24:14
night where I was like making a list of all these different
24:17
symbols that we could draw on, like the American eagle, cowboy
24:22
hats, flags, stars and stripes. And each one I was just like,
24:26
Nope, Nope, that one's not going to work.
24:28
Process of elimination. And then the Statue of Liberty
24:30
just popped into my head and it felt perfect.
24:34
Like it's the perfect symbol of America because it hasn't been
24:39
Co opted by left or right. It's still something that speaks
24:43
to all of us universally. And it's something that speaks
24:46
to the like the highest ideals of America, right?
24:49
Like it's enlightenment. She's holding this torch is like
24:52
a beacon of progress and light. It was the first thing that
24:56
people saw, you know, when they arrived at Ellis Island that
25:00
welcomed them into America. It just, yeah, that felt like
25:03
the best angle to go down was a no brainer.
25:06
And also, not to get super philosophical, but she's holding
25:10
this torch, right? That's like light and heat.
25:12
It's a form of energy, and energy is the story of progress.
25:17
And that's something that's all, like, very intimately wrapped up
25:19
with the story of America. So it just felt like the perfect
25:22
kind of continuation of that. But the first idea was to have
25:26
her holding a lightning bolt. I'm nothing if not completely
25:29
inconsistent with my views because that was like kind of a
25:32
just an evolution of the torch, right?
25:34
Like she's just holding the symbol of energy more generally.
25:37
But I raised that with you guys. We had our first feedback call
25:41
and we felt like we hadn't really found anything to any
25:45
threads to pull on and we needed to kind of go back to the
25:46
drawing board. And I was like, well, what about
25:49
this one with the Statue of Liberty?
25:51
And you guys are like, yeah, we like it, but it's a bit earnest.
25:56
It's a bit too serious. So then I was like, OK, what if
25:59
she's holding up a power cable? And Simon immediately went, I
26:04
like it. It's cheeky.
26:06
Yeah. I mean, I think for me, I what I
26:09
liked about it, I do think that even from the first round, and I
26:13
know that we're going to cut into this video like some of
26:16
your early design options. I think early on, I really loved
26:21
how you had to look at it for a second to realize that it was
26:26
Lady Liberty because you just see like the very top of her
26:30
crown and her hand. But then it was so clearly
26:33
brilliant once we figured out like, oh, this is what we're
26:37
looking at here. And I think we maybe inched her
26:39
up a little bit. So you got a little bit more
26:41
crown. So it was like slightly more
26:43
clear what you were looking at. It's the perfect combination of
26:48
very American Ericana, very patriotic.
26:51
We weren't shy about the empire piece of our name.
26:55
Each word in that name is working very hard.
26:58
And I know we felt comfortable leaning into it because one of
27:01
the things that led Jigger and I through our journey as we were
27:05
frankly working on this podcast for all of last year, trying to
27:09
figure out what it would be, is that the clean energy industry
27:13
continues to act like it is this small sector without a lot of
27:19
power. And that we want to see clean
27:22
energy step into its power. And that when we think about
27:26
what we're building it, it truly is an empire.
27:28
And we really are transitioning in changing the planet for the
27:32
better. I mean, combating the biggest
27:34
global challenge that is, is facing our generation and
27:37
climate change and also building tremendous wealth on, you know,
27:42
doing something good that we need to do in order to protect
27:45
the future of this planet. So I think it's a powerful idea.
27:49
And we wanted to lead with a powerful symbol, visual symbol.
27:54
So for people who aren't designers, kind of give us like
27:57
a brief overview of what your process looks like.
28:00
Yeah. Well, you mentioned that you had
28:03
come to me originally with a different name earlier last
28:06
year. So I'd already had an
28:08
opportunity to like take on some of the background and the
28:11
context with your thinking and let that bake on the back
28:14
burner. And then I think we had our
28:16
first call about energy empire right before the the Christmas
28:20
holiday. So again, it's like the more I
28:22
work as a designer, the more I realize that it's very much
28:25
about like the overall process. If you look at it, it's like
28:28
you're digging a flower bed and you, you know, like you're
28:31
adding stuff to the soil and you're getting it all ready.
28:34
And then you have to like walk away.
28:35
And then when you come back, a seed will have magically
28:38
appeared in the flower bed and it will start growing.
28:40
But you, you have to like, have the process of walking away and
28:44
letting it just bake and develop like a Stew in the back of your
28:47
head. Because if you try and force it
28:49
and like push it forwards, you just, you start going around in
28:53
circles and you get frustrated with it.
28:55
So I came back to it like very fresh in January.
28:59
And as a first step, I with this kind of like illustrative work,
29:02
I like to come to you with just pencil drawings.
29:05
Like keep it really sketchy. You have to kind of give a
29:07
client like one problem at a time to think about South.
29:11
Instead of showing you something in full color that I've spent a
29:13
ton of time on that might not have legs, it's showing you
29:17
something kind of quick and dirty that encourages you to
29:20
like bring your imagination to it as well.
29:22
And I want you to focus on just like the idea to start with and
29:25
maybe the composition to some extent as well, but not talking
29:28
about color, not talking about fonts, just which is the idea
29:32
that we want to develop here. And then it's just iterations
29:36
from then on out, right? So we'll show you some of the
29:39
behind the scenes pictures, which I never thought would get
29:42
public viewing. So they're not great to look at,
29:45
but that's not the point, right? It's, it's about the idea
29:47
developing. So I started to introduce a bit
29:50
of color and just show you some like low res versions of what it
29:53
could look like. And we played around with
29:54
different compositions. We tried showing more of Lady
29:57
Liberty. And there's one version in
29:59
particular where you see like almost all of her body.
30:01
I think that was just getting way too serious and like
30:05
detracting from the humor of the option that we finally went
30:08
with. So it's just testing different
30:10
things. But a lot of the time I know in
30:13
in the back of my head which is the best idea and which is the
30:15
best direction. And you're showing other options
30:19
almost to just convince the client that the, the, the right
30:23
way is the right way, if that makes sense.
30:25
And also to do with due diligence and like, make sure
30:28
you've turned all the stones over.
30:29
But half of the thing with being a designer is the actual skills.
30:32
And then half of it is the process.
30:34
And like refining your own process and making the right
30:37
judgment on when to put out another option or when to put
30:41
out your professional opinion that this is the way to go.
30:44
So always learning. Awesome.
30:48
So now it's out there and it's it's, I mean, I'm really
30:52
enjoying it. I love it.
30:53
I am. My favorite color is yellow.
30:55
So I'm very happy that my yeah, I got my yellow font, my yellow
31:00
name. But what's it like now?
31:02
Seeing people engaged with the brands and having opinions about
31:05
it, including about the number of prongs on the plug, which was
31:09
one of the first criticisms we got.
31:12
I know like, calm down guys. You know, it's great.
31:17
I mean, it's always scary. Like sharing ideas are scary and
31:21
sharing finished work is scary, but it's just really exciting to
31:24
see how much it does resonate. And I think it it has achieved,
31:29
you know, the the brief that you just laid out about putting out
31:33
this positive story and helping clean energy step into its
31:36
power, but also it being a very human symbol and something that
31:40
we can all relate to as Americans in our own way.
31:43
So yeah, it's great. Well, one reason I wanted to
31:46
have you on is making this brand made me think a lot about how
31:49
stale a lot of the visual and editorial language of energy can
31:52
be. A lot of the brands can feel
31:55
visually interchangeable, so I was adamant that for our first
31:58
meeting I wanted this brands to clearly stand out, which I think
32:01
we achieved. One thing I really cared about
32:04
was making the show feel legible beyond energy insiders.
32:07
So how does visual identity help with that?
32:10
Yeah, this is a a really great question and I think the entire
32:15
industry is doing a lot of soul searching around this.
32:17
We're aware that there's a problem, and I also think that
32:20
we are beating ourselves up maybe a little more than we need
32:22
to because to some extent, I feel like there is a question of
32:27
just timing, right? The history of science is like
32:30
full of examples of ideas that didn't take flight because it
32:33
just wasn't the right time for them.
32:34
And communications has a role to play in making it the right
32:38
time. But there's also just to some
32:40
extent, we're now, you know, in this crazy, like as we speak and
32:44
record this video, an absolutely crazy geopolitical situation
32:48
where, as James was saying in your, I think most recent
32:51
episode, the clean energy has never looked so good.
32:55
And to some extent, like we're just now in this situation where
32:59
the costs are down, the Security benefits are obvious.
33:03
And it's like the moment that we've been waiting for, but I do
33:07
think there are like sort of two buckets of like issues with
33:11
communication that I see with clean energy wire.
33:12
It's like, on the one hand, it's an incredibly complicated
33:15
sector. Like I feel like I've been in
33:17
the sector now for about 3 years and I feel like I'm still
33:21
entering the learning what I don't know phase of energy and
33:26
how it all works. And, and then we add to that mix
33:28
like all of these acronyms like SMRS and VPPS and PP as, and it
33:33
just, you know, washes over most people and, and it's, it's
33:36
really hard to connect with. So I think we can work harder to
33:40
just bring it back down to earth.
33:42
And I wanted to shout out what's the T here, which is this new
33:46
series on LinkedIn by our ex colleague Zenab Mirza, who is
33:49
also LPO. And they're like a really good
33:51
example of how they'll talk about the like, lofty
33:54
complicated energy policy or whatever it is, but then they
33:58
tie it to what does it actually mean for everyday people?
34:01
And they use like pop culture references to make that
34:03
translation. So that's such a good example.
34:06
And then the second bucket is like the moralism and the doom
34:10
and gloom and like climate in general.
34:12
It's been this like issue of if you don't realize that this is a
34:16
problem and see it the way I see it, then you're a bad person.
34:20
Like, how can you not want to fight climate change?
34:23
And there's this, you know, if you've got a solar panel on your
34:25
roof, it means you're a better person.
34:27
And you know, we call it a climate crisis.
34:30
And I think to some extent there's like an appropriate
34:32
level of urgency there. But it's also any psychologist
34:36
will tell you that operating from a place of fear and
34:40
negativity is like not a good spot to be making decisions in,
34:43
right? So moving away from that
34:46
baggage, I guess at this, especially at this moment now
34:49
that we're seeing that the moral and the environmental reasons
34:52
for clean energy are obviously still important.
34:54
Like it's a no brainer. Of course we want sustainable
34:57
energy because the alternative is whatever the alternative is.
35:01
But the economic arguments now and the the energy security
35:05
arguments are so salient that I think that's what we really need
35:08
to focus in on. This is kind of like a follow on
35:10
to the same question, and I have an answer here as well, but I'm
35:13
very curious to hear what you have to say.
35:16
If you were advising the biggest clean energy companies, what
35:19
would you tell them to do or to stop doing immediately?
35:23
OK, I have two things. So one, we don't need to see any
35:27
more like bland pictures of green woods and solar panels and
35:32
wind farms and like, you know, beautiful pristine landscapes
35:36
that don't actually mean anything to the people looking
35:39
at them, right? Like if you are a utility or a
35:43
project developer like you, if you're a place based company,
35:46
then use imagery of that place. I think that's so powerful.
35:50
Like we were just talking about our own connection to the
35:52
landscape that we grew up in. And this is something that I've
35:56
been thinking about for a while and I've talked with Zenim about
35:58
as well. But I read this book a few years
36:00
ago called How to Be a Conservative by Roger Scruton,
36:03
because I wanted to like engage with, you know, a really good
36:06
argument for conservativism. And he has a whole chapter about
36:09
environmentalism and this concept of oikophilia, which is
36:13
the the word oikophilia comes from oikos, which is Greek.
36:17
It's the root word of eco, like in economy or in ecology and
36:22
Philly, obviously his love of, so it means like love of the
36:24
home. And the point he makes is like
36:28
conservatives are wycophilists and he can't like understand why
36:32
conservatives aren't the owners of environmentalism because they
36:35
should be. Like there's a whole kind of
36:37
Nexus here of wanting to protect the landscape that you grew up
36:41
in that's specific to you and your identity that I feel like
36:45
clean energy could really be tapping into.
36:47
It's like placemaking and place keeping and really drawing on
36:50
the narratives of that local people have about their
36:53
communities and, and why their landscapes are worth protecting.
36:57
So like moving away from generic imagery would be good.
37:00
And the other thing is just, and this might be a bit of a hot
37:03
take, but I think net 0 is not the most inspiring phrase and we
37:08
all know it. And I, I would love to see clean
37:12
energy just like move away from the idea of net 0.
37:15
This is my American wolf beating the the British wolf in me and
37:19
saying like net infinite clean energy is like the printing
37:24
press. It's like the steam engine.
37:26
Like this is a step change in how humans produce and power
37:31
like everything in our lives. And it's putting us onto a
37:34
trajectory where, like, there's this book Interstellar, that
37:37
says that clean energy is one of these technologies that's going
37:41
to, like, get us to the next level where we become an
37:43
interstellar civilization. And that's such an exciting
37:46
narrative. And I feel like we could really
37:48
lean into that and take Khalif out of Elon's book as well.
37:51
And just, you know, he made electric cars look really sexy,
37:55
so we should be doing that as well.
37:56
Yeah, I love it. I mean, I'm with you and moving
38:01
away from centering everything around climate change and
38:04
instead focusing on the fact that these are superior
38:07
technologies in every way. Exactly.
38:10
Are and so we do not need climate as our backstop in order
38:15
to compete. And and so I think that that's
38:20
something that in general our sector should move away from
38:23
because it can turn people away. I mean, I think for me advising
38:27
clean energy companies, the number one issue that I see and
38:31
it's what you're you, you gave an artist answer and it was so
38:35
beautiful, Rosie. And I am going to give like a
38:38
consultants answer and like an executives answer, which is that
38:42
I just think that companies dramatically under invest in
38:45
communications and marketing dramatically under invest.
38:49
We are just not spending enough or doing enough.
38:52
I can't even tell you how many companies I have engaged with
38:56
that have one mid level communicator with like 8 years
39:02
of experience doing 12 jobs. And there's no budget for visual
39:08
anything with a related to visual identity.
39:10
So when you're talking about having photography, like any
39:15
type of visual assets associated with the places where their
39:18
projects are actually built doesn't exist.
39:22
And they have one person that's doing all their social media,
39:25
their website, their branding, their media relations and all of
39:29
marketing, all of the marketing functions as well, all of their
39:32
events, everything. And then wondering why no one
39:36
has ever heard of them. It's wild.
39:38
And I think that there's just a lack of understanding of the
39:41
role of communications, which I believe should be an executive
39:44
level function and a communications experts should be
39:49
sitting in every boardroom and reporting directly to the CEO so
39:55
that we can, you know, help to mitigate risk as well as help
39:59
companies to embrace every opportunity in front of them.
40:03
And so when we are relegated to a supportive function and
40:08
dramatically under invested in, we are not going to build power
40:14
as a sector and. You know who's doing a great job
40:18
with us? Oil and gas, Oil and gas.
40:21
I wish I had the numbers, the tip of my fingers.
40:23
This is when I miss Jigger Shaw, who his brain is an encyclopedia
40:27
and he would be like, the oil and gas industry spends 50 times
40:30
more than the clean energies. It's something like that, y'all.
40:33
I'll look it up and share it later in the show notes or
40:36
something. But it's a chronic problem.
40:38
And to give a couple of examples, I've been very lucky
40:42
to be involved with some really powerful storytelling,
40:46
particularly at the time that I was at LPO and for the biggest
40:50
moments that we had as a brand. So, for example, Jigger appeared
40:56
on the Ezra Klein Show with Rob Meyer.
40:59
We did one of Scott Galloway's podcasts.
41:03
I pitched the Ezra Klein Show for three years.
41:09
Wow. I reached out.
41:11
I was turned down. Ezra Klein turned me down on
41:14
multiple occasions with multiple different ideas.
41:16
He shut the door in my face. I got very close multiple times.
41:20
But meanwhile, I had fostered a really strong relationship with
41:23
Rob Meyer. So when he had the opportunity
41:25
to guest host that podcast, he reached out to to us, Scott
41:30
Galloway. That took more than a year.
41:32
It took repeated follow-ups. Mind you, the producer did not
41:36
acknowledge any of my outreach. It took multiple very, very well
41:41
considered and thought through and deeply researched angles.
41:45
I believe it was actually my one of my colleagues, Molly
41:48
Morrissey, who ended up actually like nagging that first response
41:53
from somebody there after I was like, I've already tried three
41:55
times. We need to try something new.
41:57
Maybe you send the e-mail, who knows, Maybe they're sick of
42:00
hearing from me. It takes a long time.
42:03
And so you have to have the team that has the expertise that can
42:06
invest the amount of time that it takes to do that work and it
42:11
takes a lot. And it was, that was after
42:14
hundreds and hundreds of media hits in the trade media and
42:18
growing a media profile with four people working full time on
42:23
media relations for years. And we had a $400 billion
42:27
budget. So you would think that it would
42:29
be easy to get in those rooms, but it wasn't.
42:31
And that's what it takes. And so, you know, I think I have
42:37
a lot of times when I talk to prospective clients, their
42:40
expectations are just very unrealistic.
42:43
Like, you know, I cannot come in for 20 hours a month to support
42:46
you and, and land you something like that.
42:50
Like the it's, it's so much work, so much, you know,
42:54
thoughtful narrative building over such a long time.
42:58
And, you know, it's the same thing with visual identity.
43:00
It does take a lot of shoulder and a lot of commitment.
43:03
So I would just really like to see companies take it more
43:06
seriously and really, really invest and then see what comes
43:09
from that. Yeah 100% and and please stop
43:12
using AI to generate images of janky wind turbines with 2 1/2
43:18
blades. So every time you do that, an
43:20
Angel dies. Oh my God, I'm dying to see
43:25
that. If that is real, have.
43:26
You seen these? They're all over my LinkedIn.
43:28
Oh my God. OK, so now you're doing this
43:32
work at Constructive, which is specifically about building
43:35
alignment across the energy and climate space through strategic
43:38
convenings and network building. So does that experience kind of
43:42
inform how you see this gap in comms and branding in our
43:45
sector? Yeah.
43:47
I mean, I see it all as it's all on a continuum.
43:51
It's all like to the same end. So Constructive's mission is to
43:54
build alignment and to basically create like infrastructure for
43:58
collaboration to happen between the public and private sector or
44:02
kind of between government, industry and finance.
44:04
Like those are the big three and all the other enabling actors as
44:08
well. Like I mentioned earlier, we
44:10
were talking about psychological safety and you know what, what
44:14
kind of mindset you need to be in to like work with somebody,
44:16
especially across the aisle or whatever, you know, whether
44:20
that's politically or because they are a buyer and you're a
44:24
seller and they have like the opposite mindset to you.
44:26
So to get there, you, you need people to be in a space of, of
44:31
comfort and curiosity. And I think from my perspective,
44:35
and I know we, you have more of a media relations perspective
44:39
and I'm more of a like branding perspective, but I see my job as
44:44
kind of getting people onto that shared wavelength.
44:48
That's like a tunnel between where you are and where you want
44:50
the people to be and where they are currently.
44:54
And you're not just like building the shortest tunnel.
44:56
That's the widest tunnel. And they can see like straight
44:58
where they're going so that they get to the same place that you
45:01
are at. Like you want to build a tunnel
45:04
that is appealing. Like if you were out walking on
45:08
a trail and there's a fork in the trail, Like what makes you
45:11
choose one fork over another? It's not the one that's like the
45:14
straightest and most straightforward and like you can
45:17
see right through to the end. It's the trail that like goes
45:20
around a corner and there's like dappled light and it looks
45:23
interesting and it looks like an adventure and you want to follow
45:26
the trail and see where it goes. And so I really see my role at
45:31
constructive and our our role is a very design forward nonprofit
45:35
as creating that pathway, like architects, literally to get
45:39
them to that spot where they can then collaborate constructively
45:43
towards deploying clean energy. So we have a chief architect
45:48
who's the the four of us, we we will work together on deploy.
45:52
This is how it happened. So Susan Kish, Jonah Wagner,
45:55
Jason Ramos and I kind of talked about spending this off and
45:59
making it an independent nonprofit after the change in
46:02
administration, obviously. And Jason and I really worked
46:06
together on creating these shared experiences.
46:09
When we say, like, architects of collaboration, we don't mean,
46:12
you know, puppet masters pulling marionettes and like, telling
46:14
people how they're going to work together.
46:16
It's about getting them in a space and taking them on a
46:18
journey, telling them a story. It's all like blended together
46:24
to architect the experience. I hate using the word architect
46:28
as a verb. I.
46:28
Think it's beautiful that kind of the legacy of the deploy
46:31
conferences that we put together that we discussed earlier were
46:34
just such a special moment, not just for our team, but also for
46:37
attendees and folks in the industry.
46:39
And you all have really carried the DNA of those conferences
46:42
forward into Constructive and in the events that you're helping
46:45
to design now. So before we let you go, what
46:49
are you working on now? What's what's constructive got
46:52
coming up? We have DeVos states locked in,
46:55
so we're collaborating with the DER task force again to Co
46:58
produce DeVos this year, which as everyone knows is like the
47:02
most exciting energy event on the calendar, lots of hot takes
47:06
about distributed energy. So that's going to be September
47:09
17th to the 19th in New York City, again right before Climate
47:13
Week. So make sure you sign up for
47:16
updates for that. And then we also have a couple
47:18
of things coming up in London that we, we haven't announced
47:20
yet, but we're going to be doing a summit in May with the WRI
47:25
Polski Energy Center on meeting energy demand with, with clean
47:29
energy generation. And then we're also partnering
47:33
with Ember in June to do a summit on Electrotech, which is
47:36
super exciting. It's not just convenings and
47:39
like big large scale events. We're also developing dialogues
47:44
that kind of like continue the legacy of the deploy dialogues
47:47
and the lift off reports to some extent.
47:49
So more to come on that. But we are, we have kind of
47:52
upcoming programs that do deeper dives into specific technology
47:57
areas like clean firm power and how to scale up deployment of
48:03
those. That all sounds great otherwise.
48:07
I know you're also a very prolific visual artist and I
48:10
love it when I see your art pop up in my LinkedIn feed.
48:13
But where can people find you and follow your work?
48:17
Well, I have a website you can check out. rosiejewel.com
48:21
definitely needs an update. I'm off of Instagram because I
48:25
just can't deal with the prospect of AI stealing all of
48:29
my artwork. And you can't turn it off in
48:32
this country. There's like no way to just opt
48:35
out. If I was in the UK, I'd be able
48:37
to, but fun times. And then Constructive's website
48:42
isconstructive.org, so you can find us there and sign up for
48:44
our newsletter to hear more about the events and convenience
48:48
that we have coming up. Awesome.
48:50
Thank you Rosie so much for joining me.
48:53
It was so great to have you. And thank you for being here for
48:56
my first solo episode. It was nice to have a friend on
48:59
the other side. Such a pleasure.
49:02
The pleasure was all mine, Jamie.
49:04
Thank you for having me.