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We Built This Brand explores the origins, evolution, and impact of brands through conversations with entrepreneurs, CEOs, and marketing experts. Hosted by Chris Hill, the podcast offers insights into brand development, storytelling, and strategies for growth. Each episode provides actionable takeaways, highlighting challenges, lessons learned, and diverse career paths. With a focus on authenticity and reputation, it’s a valuable resource for anyone passionate about branding and business.
Brad: Well, what's, what's interesting is, and, and this is the part about accessibility that how we approach it from Applied is it's, it's based on the principles of universal design. And basically the principle of universal design is just because we had people with vision impairment or with low vision in mind when we're designing it, doesn't mean that it helps people who don't have low vision.
Chris: Welcome to We Built This Brand, where we pull back the curtain on the people, the ideas, and the sometimes challenging process of building something that matters. Today, I'm joined by Brad Scott, founder and principal at Applied Design, a New York-based creative agency whose work spans landmark institutions like Grand Central Terminal and the World Trade Center.
Brad and his team also created Atkinson Hyperlegible, a typeface design for the Braille Institute that broke typographic convention to help people with low vision read more easily. It went on to win a Fast Company Innovation by Design award and land in the Smithsonian's permanent collection. In this conversation, we dig into how a branding project turned into one of the most widely adopted accessibility typefaces in the world, and what it looks like to build a firm that tackles everything from transit systems to typography.
So without further ado, here's my conversation with Brad Scott at Applied Design.
Brad, welcome to We Built This Brand. It's great to have you.
Brad: Thanks, Chris, for having me.
Chris: Absolutely. Happy to do it, and glad you could make the time. Today, we're here to talk to you, um, about your time with Applied Design and everything you're doing, um, with the Atkinson Hyperlegible and Hyperlegible Next fonts.
Um, so I'm really excited to dive into that. But before we do, I'd love to start off with your backstory. How'd you get your start?
Brad: How did I get my start? Well, interestingly, I have a degree in clothing, textiles, and interiors.
Chris: Interesting. Okay.
Brad: Yeah. Yeah. I d- That's usually the response I get. People are kind of like, "How, how did you end up here?"
The way that I actually ended up here was my degree being that it was in interior design, and my program that I was studying was more focused on space planning and programming, which at the time was, you know, basically how you move people through space, right? How do you use visual cuing? How do you use materials?
How do you use room layout to basically help people, you know, move through an interior? And that was... You know, I graduated in 1996, and it was roughly when the web was starting to take off, and I basically took what I learned from interior design, from space planning and pr- programming, and started to apply that to CD-ROM and web development, and that's kinda how I crossed over into more communications, visual, and, uh, graphic design.
Chris: Okay. So, so one kind of begot the other and then led you into this design space. So where did, where did you go from there? Like, what, um, what, I guess, sparked the journey to where, to where you got to apply design? Because you're... Designing a font is not the same as, you know, textiles or even moving through spaces.
I mean, it still has a, a visual flow to it, but, um, I'm just really curious how, how did all that come about?
Brad: I started my career in, in web development when it was first taking off, which really made me interested in usability and human factors. Human factors are a huge part of what I was studying anyway, because if you think about it from the context of, like, designing chairs and designing counters and those types of things, humans factors were really critical to that.
But then as I got into user interface design, it was really interesting to start looking at how human factors played into people being able to, you know, navigate through information spaces. Um, and interestingly, it was kind of... It was very similar. People had the same problems, right? There were barriers to reaching their destination, and it became kind of a question of how do we help people along that path, and how do we help them along that journey?
So I did that for a couple years, and then at a startup that was called Clear Inc., they no longer exist, but one of the coolest places I ever worked, and, um, I kind of laughingly said I wanted to take a corporate job, and I was hired at Landor Associates. And Landor is one of the foremost agencies in brand, in brand development, and that kind of shifted me a bit.
So I got hired in as the digital... I was a design director for digital or interactive or whatever they wanted to call it at the time. Alternative media, I think even at one point is what they were calling it. And, um, that kind of put me on that trajectory of brand building, and I was very fortunate to get on some pretty high-profile projects kind of immediately in the late '90s, and that started kind of my interest in typography, graphic design, communications design, um, you know, kind of all the things that you think about when you think of traditional advertising comms and branding.
Chris: So, so you, you did a startup and then you went on to Landor. Um, I can identify with that a little bit. I spent some time doing a startup that failed and had to go back into the real world. Um, I don't know if they failed though. I shouldn't say that.
Brad: No, they were actually very successful, so yeah. Yeah, they, they took it to acquisition, so it actually merged with another agency.
Chris: Excellent. But you learned from there.
Brad: Yeah, yeah. My... The guy who ran it, his name's David Burke. He's, he's still a friend of mine, so I have to, I have to make sure I let everybody know it was successful.
Chris: That's a great name. I know another g- uh, David Burke just from my personal life. So when you say David, I'm like, "That's not a common name, David Burke."
But anyways, awesome. That's really cool. So then what motivated you to start Applied Design after having gone through the corporate world for a little while? Um, why'd you do it? Why'd you move on to your own thing?
Brad: You know, ever since I was a little kid, I always kind of hustled. I, uh, I had a paper route.
I would do, you know, ran like a lawn mowing business, things like that. So like, I think it was pretty inevitable that at some point I was gonna start a business. In fact, my college professor, it was really interesting, I was in the business school originally, and I was really struggling 'cause I was like, "I, I just, I just don't like this.
I don't, I don't like kind of finance and corporate business," you know, those types of things. And I was talking to my advisor and she's like, "Well, w- w- what do you really wanna do?" I said, "Well, I like to build things and I like to design things." And she looked at me and she said, "You know, you don't have to have a business degree to run a business."
And that was kind of like, that was the moment where I was like, "Uh, n- no kidding." It's like, you know, just to a certain... You know, being an entrepreneur is about being an entrepreneur and not necessarily understanding, you know, which months are five weeks and which ones carry over and, and, you know, accruing revenue.
So it was, it was kind of like a big moment where I was like, okay, I can go down this path of doing what- I'm pretty good at and what I enjoy, and it's not gonna close the door on potentially owning my own business. So then it kind of became a question of, like, how do you get the experience to do it, right?
And when I came out, like I said, I joined Clear Inc., then I was at, I was at WPP. You know, Landor was actually owned by Y&R and then WPP. So what was really fascinating about my journey kind of inside of Landor, I was there for 16 years. Like, I expected to only be there for a couple of years, but I kept kind of moving around.
So I, I worked in three different offices, and I went from being a designer to a strategist to a general manager. So what was really interesting in that was, like, I kept learning the whole way, right? So, like, I was learning about design, and I was, like, filling in gaps that I had specific- in- interestingly typographical gaps.
Like, my typography skills coming out of interior design were terrible. So now being at Landor, I became very kind of aware of typography. And then I was kind of starting to learn more about business strategy. And then because I became a general manager, I learned more about kind of the finance side of running an agency.
And That all kind of culminated at the same time of when we were realizing really quickly that as much as I was enjoying Landor, I really wanted to be able to provide a slightly different service to the, the clients that I was working with, which like really kind of allowed us to get a little bit more into the weeds on their, on their projects and kind of being a little bit more like, like embedded with them.
And, and that's something that kind of in a larger, larger agency structure is slightly challenging to do. Um, and so that was really the impetus for starting Applied was exactly that, was that we wanted to be able to bring really strong strategic services to a client, but we more importantly wanted to make sure that those strategies and the design and the like kind of ongoing evaluation of those programs, um, was, was being met.
That, that we were doing that for the clients and that we were able to like start making adjustments as we s- saw things that needed to be adjusted and that we could start making modifications to strategies as we saw those. And like I said, it was just, um ... It, it didn't really fit in with the larger model.
And I think probably because you need kind of a smaller client for that. Like, like those types of clients tend to be more like challenging, challenger brand clients versus like the larger Procter & Gambles and Colgates of the world and those types of places.
Chris: They definitely get to a place where ... Yeah, like you, you found a niche.
You found, you found something it sounds like that, um, was a need, and you moved into it, and I think that's always a really good, um, you know, opportunity for a new business. You find something someone else doesn't wanna do, and you go and be that resource that can do it for those people.
Brad: That's 100% correct.
I mean, what we were noticing was ... So my business partner and I, uh, Craig Dobie, he was ... So he and I were running the Verizon account. So we were the AOR for design for Verizon, so for Verizon Land and Verizon Wireless at the time. And we came off of that And we picked up a couple of, like, smaller clients.
Uh, we picked up, like, World Trade Center, and we picked up a couple others, and what we were realizing was, was exactly that, was, like, the clients needed the strategy and the design, but more importantly, they needed kind of the advocate once it was into the marketplace, right? They really needed kind of the agency to almost become like their in-house marketing or design firm to be able to then con- continue to develop the, the, the branding and also develop it as the, as the market changed, you know, as kind of perceptions changed and things like that.
So that was exactly why we even named the company Applied, right? It was about the application of the design work, not just the beginning and strategy phases of it, but the actual application of it.
Chris: Yeah. Well, when you get into smaller companies, the, the marketing leadership starts to shrink, right? Like, my small business is at a point where I'm the chief marketing officer, too.
So, you know, I'm, I'm sure you probably f- have felt that at some point along your journey as well, and, you know, it's a challenge to, to think about resourcing, you know, larger firms for quality work. Like, it can be hard, so, um, I think it's great that you moved into that space. So, so you were doing all that.
So tell me how Atkinson Hyperlegible came about. What was the, what was the, um, the genesis of that? idea.
Brad: It was an interesting project because Braille Institute came to us basically for a rebrand. Um, they were coming into their 100th anniversary, and they wanted to signal to the market that they were still there and that they were still relevant and that they were providing services that were a little bit different than what they started out with 100 years prior but were just as important.
And, um, to understand this a little bit, you know, Braille literacy was their founding mission, and Braille was incredibly expensive to produce and was not available to people broadly who, who needed to learn to, A, read Braille, and secondly, have publications that were, like, available to them. So, you know, Braille's founding by Atkinson, who, who was the founder of, of Braille, was to both increase literacy and increase the availability of, you know, books basically.
The first book they actually translated was the Bible, and it took up... Like, I'm sitting in a room right now that's probably 12 by 20, and it would fill this room, that one copy of the, of the Braille Bible. Yeah, it was pretty wild. And so through their 100 years, you know, they were advocates for people who n- who needed to learn how to read Braille.
And then eventually they were successful, and they were able to lobby and to get things put into the educational system, and there were, you know, programs that, that helped people who needed to learn it. And what started to happen was they started to shift their mission, obviously still keeping to their core, but shifting to low vision.
So what's happening with low vision right now is people are s- are, um, living longer, and that's awesome, but one of the issues is we start to lose our eyesight. Okay? So they were finding that there was an increased need for services for people who weren't necessarily totally blind but people who were rapidly losing their vision in, and in many different ways.
You know, we're talking kind of beyond, like, just blurry vision. You know? It's ... This was, like, macular degeneration and diabetic, diabetic retinopathy and, like, the, these very kind of serious things that can happen very rapidly. And a lot of the services that they provided to the people who were totally blind really helped the people with low vision.
So the goal of the rebrand was to help kind of reestablish Braille as an advocate not only for Braille literacy and total blindness but for people with low vision. And that was the brief. They were like, "Okay, how do we do that?" And, you know, we went through the typical process, you know, like you do. It's like, okay, let's do our executive interviews and do our market analysis and, you know, you start looking for areas that they can play and all those types of things.
And it became very obvious to the design team that Craig and Elliot specifically, that If we were gonna move forward with a new identity, we had to make sure that the font selection that we were choosing would be easily read by somebody with low vision. But it also had to be equally, like, aesthetically pleasing.
And, and, and that's where there really wasn't anything on the market, or there wasn't anything that we could find at the time that kind of met both criteria, right? So we very naively, kind of very quickly kind of sketched out what Atkinson Hyperlegible would look like, pitched it to the Braille Institute.
They immediately saw the value in it and completely understood it as not only something that was going to make the brand stand out, but also was a further touchpoint in their advocacy for people with low vision. Because they saw the opportunity to be able to develop this and then, you know, basically, um, license it under an open source license so that everybody could have access to this worldwide.
Chris: That is such a cool project to be a part of. I mean, just from a personal perspective, like my grandmother has low vision. Um, she's in her 90s, so kind of comes with the territory, but some of it's macular deg- generation and stuff like that. Um, so the work that you all are doing, I mean, I'm sure has an impact on her on some level, and you know, I just think that's really cool.
That's, that's a really neat thing to do. I've never designed a font before.
Brad: Neither had we. That was a first time for us, too.
Chris: So what was that process like, taking, um... Having to develop, you know, the alphabet, the, all, all that stuff? Like, I mean, you're working with the Braille Institute, so you probably had some experts on-hand to make sure y'all were doing it right.
But what was that process like, like the actual design workflows of that? Like, you don't have to get into the nitty-gritty, but I'm just really curious.
Brad: Well, it, it was interesting 'cause we were completely naive as to what it was gonna take to, um, get this thing completed to a point where it could be released, right?
It's a lot easier to get it to the point where you could use it as a designer for like a dis- like more as a decorative font, where it doesn't really have to function as a real font. But to get it to be available to be able to be downloaded from Google Fonts, for example, it had to meet certain criteria.
It had to certain, have a certain number of character counts and character pairs, and things like that. So that was like the real process, was, okay, how do, how do we actually get it to the point that it can be commercially released? Now, the actual design of it was interesting because it was really... You know, the thing about typography is it's a, th- there's a very rich and documented history around it, right?
We, we, we know what makes things easier to read. We know- What makes things difficult to read? So the, the key behind Atkinson Hyperlegible is what's called letter differentiation. Okay? So if you think about it, you know, we've all done this. Uh, y- you, you're reading something and you're like, "Is that a one?
Is that an I? Is that a lowercase... Is that an L? Is that a lowercase L?" So right there you have a numeral one, you have an I, and you have a lowercase L, and all three of those characters in some fonts almost look identical. They're almost u- unperceptively different, right? Which is, which is called harmony.
And when you design something, a lot of times typographers wanna kind of create that harmony. It's what makes Helvetica so great, right? Is that it's a very kind of rationalized font. The thing that makes Helvetica challenging to somebody with low vision is that there isn't differentiation between certain characters that often get confused, right?
So like I said, there's the one, the L, and the I. There's also an eight, the numeral eight, and B, right? So what we were looking to do was to, like, really break, like, like- Create differentiation between those, those letters so that when you scan the page, you could tell that's an I, that's a 1, that's a 0, that's an 8, that's a B.
Okay? But we wanted to do it in a way that didn't look like a ransom note, 'cause you could. I mean, if, if... I, I think, like, what, what we learned that was really interesting was, y- you know, a lot of teachers, I don't, I don't know if you have children or not, but, like, they use, they use Comic Sans. And you're like...
And I thought they used Comic Sans because it was kids, right? They actually use Comic Sans because Comic Sans has, has ver- has letter differentiation. So when kids are learning to read, it's actually easier for them to read a, a font like Comic Sans because there's, there, there's not a lot of harmony between the, the character sets, so they can literally spot those and say, "Oh, that's an 8 and that's an L and that's an I."
But now put it to corporate wor- into, like, a corporate world, you can't use Comic Sans as somebody's corporate font. Like, it just isn't gonna have the tone that it wants, right? So, so that's what we were doing. So the process was, was to, like, take these kind of, these, these known components of typography that we know enhanced legibility, develop a character set that would be differentiated, but that also looked good together and looked cool, and it didn't have a ransom note.
So that was, like, literally hand-drawing letters at that point. Like, okay, so what's the I gonna look like, right? It, it's right behind me, by the way. You can see the I, the I, the uppercase I, L, B, and 8. Those are, like, kind of the primaries. You know, what are the tails gonna look at, look like? What are the counters gonna look like?
And, and, and that was a process of just making sure that we had something that looked interesting together, but definitely they were differentiated letter forms.
Chris: That's really neat that you were doing it like that, because, I mean, I can't... Just in personal text use, like I can't tell you the number of times I've been like, "Is that a one?
Is that an L?" Like, in some fonts you don't know, and, um, I can see how someone who has reading impairment, that becomes more and more of an issue. I mean, the thing I've heard from my grandmother as she's gotten older has been, "I can't read that anymore. I can't see that the way I used to." You know, and just finding ways to make things more legible for her has been something we've had to work hard at.
B- buying her tablets so she can, you know, see the larger fonts and things like that. So that's- that's really neat, 'cause I mean, even- even as you move your head and I see the words behind you, I can see... I mean, that- that font to me, um, when w- when we're filming these things, yeah, for those, for those watching, but- but I can actually see the, um, the differentiation in that lowercase L, and I think that- that in and of itself is just awesome.
I appreciate that a lot.
Brad: So that- that- that little tail, um, is- is what differentiates it. And what's interesting is in Hyper- this- so this is Hyperlegible, this was the first version behind me. In Hyperlegible Next we actually extended, so it's called the- the cap height. So right now if you look at that, it's the L and the B are the same height.
We extended now the L is actually taller than the B, which also, like, further, like, enhances the ability to differentiate that particular letter. So, you know, so the I, the capital I isn't the same height as the capital L. So this was kind of the cool part, right? So we- we- when we launched it All of a sudden we started getting all this, like, you know, the floodgates opened and, like, people who had been kind of working on different components of this, like, in legibility, they started reaching out to us and they're like, "Hey, did you know if you open up the counter of the E even more, it's gonna increase legibility by X amount?
If you increase the cap height of certain letters, it helps to differentiate it because then it, like, helps the..." So, like, it was kind of amazing, like, like how much, like, once it was out there, people wanted to, like, start giving us, you know, suggestions on how to even make it more legible. So we, we, we did that for, we basically, you know, took about two years worth of feedback, collated that, and then used that to create, um, the next version of it.
Chris: Yeah. And that became what is now Atkinson Hyperlegible Next. Is that right?
Brad: That's correct, yes.
Chris: Yeah. And that's the new font that if you're looking for a font to use, you should probably check out.
Brad: Yeah. It's also, the other thing with that one is it's a variable font, and this gets back to the mission of Braille, was by making it a variable font, and again, releasing it for, like, unrestricted commercial use, which, which is a really big deal from, from the...
I m- I mean, it's huge. Like, people don't quite understand how big of a deal that is because, um, I mean, even people in the industry don't. Because basically what Braille has said is, "You can use this font for anything. So whether that's personal use or whether that's making money, or whether it's for, you know, m- it's a logo type, like, you can use this font and we're not gonna charge you for it."
Because typically with a commercial font, depending on the usage of the font, there's a different cost that's involved with it. Whereas Braille was like, "No, this is completely available to you to use at your discretion. We just, we always own it." You know, that was always their caveat with it. But Back to the variable component, you know, they made the decision to move far- forward with the development of the variable font so that it could be embedded in the apps.
So just like you were talking about with your grandmother, you know, we wanted to reduce the barrier to, like, Amazon using it in the Kindle and, you know, American Airlines using it in their, in their app for online because the variable font is what makes that legibility and adoption, like, really, really much more easier.
Chris: Yeah. I just... I, I love that 'cause I know, you know, being in podcasting, like, the- this industry has a very interesting edge of, like, some of what podcasting allows is for people who are visually impaired to listen to content. Conversely, people who can't hear need transcripts. So accessibility has been something I've been learning about over the years, and I'm, I'm by no means perfect at it, but I definitely think that, um, accessibility is something more people should be thinking about, you know, as they create content and things like that.
And knowing... Like, I, I didn't realize that Atkinson Hyperlegible existed on this scale. I think I've run across it just in browsing the web and stuff or, you know, picking fonts for a website or something. But now that I know that it's, you know, a, a font that's specifically for this, like, that, that helps me even think through design flow and, you know, things like that for a site.
Do you have, you know, support on your site for people that are visually impaired? Is that important to you? Well, then, then you should probably think about that font for your website or, um, you know, for, for any use. So I think that's, that's really neat. And, um, you know, typically I ask, um, you know, more about the business, like, what was that moment of validation for you?
But this is a big project, so I- I'm gonna ask it here, like, and you may have already answered it a little bit. But what was that moment of validation with this project that made you go, "We're doing something real. We're doing something impactful. This isn't just, you know, grasping at straws trying to make it right"?
Um, you know, not that you were grasping at straws, but you, you know what I mean. Like, there's always that moment of, like, is it gonna take off? Are people gonna like it, or are we just, um... You know, is this just an exercise in creating a font?
Brad: That's a great question. And, and I don't have, like, a single answer to it because I think it kind of went through phases, right?
When we first launched it, I think the thing that was most validating and we were, we, we knew that we were onto something was that we immediately received, like, positive feedback on it. Like, like, and, and, and when I say, I mean, like, it w- it was, it was amazing to get somebody writing to you to say, "Hey, did you know if you open this up, this is gonna be...
If, if you do this one thing, it's even gonna make it better." So, you know, g- receiving, like, like, people were taking the time to actually reach out and want to contribute said to us, like, there's something here. I think the other thing was, was, you know, just getting, like, p- just people being excited to have it.
Like, we were, you know, the Braille Institute was receiving emails, and we were receiving emails. Kind of similar to your story, like, my, my grandmother has low vision. This is what's going on. I hacked k- the Kindle, literally. I hacked the Kindle to put this on her Kindle, and she is reading better now. She's enjoying reading again, right?
And, and it's, it's like that's kind of remarkable is when you hear somebody say she's enjoying reading again Right? That, that means that you're, you're, you, you've put ... You, you've made somebody's life just a little bit better, right? Like, like, like, I love to read, I can't read, and now all of a sudden I can again, without as, you know, without as much hindrance.
So we started to get that kind of stuff, right? That was, that was pretty cool. It kind of was a, I wouldn't call it a slow burn, but it wasn't a real fast burn either. So for the first year, it, it, it kind of kept gaining momentum, and then all of a sudden it started getting picked up by corporate websites.
So all of a sudden it was like, it was in, um, Blue Origin, it was like one of their options for... I mean, I guess if you want to go to the moon, you could, you know, you could choose Atkinson Hyperlegible. That was kind of cool. But for me, the, the biggest one was it ended up in Canva. Like it was one of the standard fonts that was inside of Canva.
And we were like, "Whoa, this is gonna, this is pretty cool now." I, I mean, it's always cool, but you're kind of like, "Wow, Canva, like Canva picked this up." And then Google Fonts picked it up, and then that like kind of unlocked a lot of the distribution. So that, so that was kind of like a year-ish in, and then we started seeing academic institutions picking it up.
So we saw the UC pro- you know, the UC school starting to do, and then we started seeing like government sites picking it up as part of their initiatives for accessibility. And then, you know, ultimately, like we started seeing like it's being served, you know, 40 million times a week now off of, uh, Google Fonts.
And, you know, you start seeing that kind of stuff and you're like, "Oh, that, that's, that's, that's pretty interesting. It's starting to really gain momentum." So that was... You know, th- that's kind of how we knew that like people were finding it and were using it and were appreciating it, and it was kind of wild actually.
It's, it's like... But it didn't happen all at once. It took, it took a little bit of time. And then ultimately, I think as a designer, what was phenomenal was when we got the call from the Smithsonian to put it into the permanent collection of the Smithsonian. And I was like, that was just kind of mind-blowing.
We thought it was... We didn't even think, we didn't think it was real. It was funny, Elliot Scott, who was the creative director on the project, he called, called me and he's like, "I just got this email. It looks like it's from the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian, but I'm not sure that it's real." And, you know, of course we're like, "There's no way it's real."
And we, we looked into it, and sure enough it was. And, and, and they, you know, they had reached out to let us know that they were gonna be putting it for it to go into the permanent collection at the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian, and then ultimately. So it's hard not to brag about it, but it's pretty cool. It was, it was like for, for me as a designer, I was like, wow, like this really caught the attention of like...
Enough that it's actually being archived in perpetuity, which I thought was pretty cool.
Chris: Just to be able to say that something you've contributed to gotten to the Smithsonian That's amazing. I mean, that's really cool. I didn't... I don't think I realized it had been there yet, but that's, that's awesome. So, so, so you got to the point where, where this is now in the Smithsonian, and you've made an update.
Now you've got Hyperlegible Next. So, um, what's the big, what's, what's the big improvement with Next? Why is it the next version?
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Brad: Again, another really good question. And I think the thing that's really important about the development of Hyper Atkinson Legible is about making people's lives better. Okay? And the first version did it at kind of a very, like, I would say, kind of basic typographic level, right? You could get the thing to work.
You could use it in, in Word and things like that, or you could use it for your print pieces, or teachers could use it in their classroom materials. But there were some, just some inconsistencies in the original cut that kind of made it a little bit difficult to implement it inside of apps, right? So inside of, you know, handheld device applications and things like that.
And we knew that that was like, we had to engineer those out to be able to get the adoption into, like, things like the Kindle and things like the iPhone and Android phones and things like that. So that was really the genesis for it, was to, like, kinda iron out the issues that were preventing it from being kinda broadly adopted in the digital world.
So that's why we decided to move forward with a variable font. The benefit of moving forward with a variable font is it also very rapidly allows you to develop other weights of that font. So when it was originally released, there was just basically two weights. There was regular and bold and an italics version And with, uh, Next it basically allows us to have multiple weights that are available for the distribution.
So people could have a thinner one and even a thicker one, but that were all being algorithmically adapted to the screen so that they, so that the legibility remained the same. Because what the... Doing a variable font allowed us to do was like, like not... If it went super bold, like you know when you just hit bold in Word, it just kinda makes everything bigger, right?
It just, it just kinda fills in, it fills in the counters, for example, right? So with a variable font, what we were able to do is when you use the bolder version, we were able to tell the, you know, the machine or the device, "Don't fill this in." Like, 'cause that's one of the le- legibility components, right?
Like, that's what makes this particular character more legible. So now as a variable font, we weren't leaving it up to the computer necessarily. We were leaving it, you know, we were telling it, "Okay, this is how you need to render this thing." So that's, that's very, that's a lot of technical stuff, but the, the net effect of that is it just makes it easier for app developers to use the font, make sure that it's consistent, and ultimately get to the people that, you know, need it.
So, so that was it. And then the other thing that we did was we also developed a monospaced version. So monospaced is like, if you look at it, it looks like machine code kind of. It's not, you know, it's like there's, there's spacing in between it. Um, and the reason why that was important was that w- that allowed people who code, right, so people who are writing code for computers and stuff, to actually have a version that they could use to continue to be able to do what they do f- as a vocation.
Plus it looked cool. What was, what was interesting about the monospace font though, was the very first application of it was actually, um, for a cosmetics brand That is all about accessibility, and they actually used it in their packaging to increase legibility. Plus, and they thought it looked pretty cool.
So that's, that's how it ended up with that.
Chris: By, by the way, you mentioned Blue Origin earlier, and you're like, "I don't know why you would want that," but, like, think about being in space. Like, if the temperature changes and you have to put a helmet on, all of a sudden your vision is impaired. So maybe that's why it's there.
It's one of those, like, fallbacks they can use if they start, you know, being in a low vision situation.
Brad: Well, what's, what's interesting is, and, and this is the part about accessibility that, you know, we, how we approach it from Applied is it's, it's, it's based on the principles of universal design, right?
And basically, the principle of universal design is just because we had people with vision impairment or with low vision in mind when we're designing it doesn't mean that it helps people who don't have low vision, right? A- and this is where I think, you know, this is the shift that, that I wanna see with accessibility, um, is that people think of them as being bifurcated, and they're not.
It's like if you take an approach of universal design, which is, like, that... Atkinson Hyperlegible is a high-legibility font. So in instrumentation, it's gonna benefit people with 20/20 vision, it's gonna benefit people who have low vision, right? Because that's what it's designed to do. It's designed to, like, be able to be seen, be scanned, be read very quickly.
So think about it in car instrumentation, obviously, you know, space instrumentation. Think about it in way finding, things like that, where you're, like, kind of quickly scanning and having to see something or you're checking an indicator on your dashboard or whatever it happens to be. The principle of universal design is this will help you.
It'll help you no matter where you are on that spectrum of vision loss, either at zero or having had a lot of it. And I think that that's kind of what makes Atkinson Hyperlegible a little bit different, is that it, it proves that it can serve an accessibility function without having to necessarily compromise the, kind of the look, tone, feel of it.
Chris: And I mean, that's, that's what makes it so interesting and helps it, I think, stand out, is just that, that, that intense legibility to it. If that makes any sense. Like, it really, um, you know, even as I'm, I'm looking, like I've got a, a copy of the font open here to my right, and I can see that, you know, it just...
it looks easy to read. Like, it just... Yeah, I think it's great. Well, that, that's really neat on the hyper- hyperlegible next piece. Tell me a little bit more about, um, Applied Design and kind of where you all see, see things going for you. I mean, how have things been since the Braille project and kind of where, what do you envision as kind of your future now?
Are you gonna do more in the accessibility space, or is there a path there? What are you, where are you all at with that?
Brad: I'm gonna answer that by, like, just saying, like, our client base, it, it's, it is something that, that is very important to our client base. So we do a lot of work within healthcare and healthcare providers.
We do a lot of work with transit authorities, so the MTA, the Port Authority. And then we do a lot also with, um, retail real estate. So those are like, you know, think of malls, things like that. And then a lot of what we also do is we work with challenger brands for our CPG clients, but all of our CPG clients tend to have a really interesting accessibility component to it.
So I mean, I, I think the short answer is By virtue of the type of clients that we have, this is an issue that it's, it's, it's not something they're just exploring, it's something that's integral to their businesses. So we, we have to kind of continue to understand how, you know, things like Atkinson Hyperlegible Next help the people that they're serving, but also like, to your point, how any content that we're developing or any space that we're developing meets ADA standards and generally is just kind of has humanity in it, right?
Like, that's where it goes back to this idea of universal design, which is like, yeah, you can meet the ADA standards, but you can also like say, "You know what? By doing this, we're also gonna just kind of make things better for everybody." And we're just lucky because our client base, those are things that are very important to them, right?
In healthcare, and like I said, we, we primarily work with providers, so those are hospitals and those types of things. They need to make sure that that patient can... That they can eliminate all the distractions they can possibly eliminate to get a better outcome for that patient, right? You don't want them stressed out, and that could be from trying to fill out a form to trying to navigate through the hallway, right?
Because what it comes down to is every little component contributes to that person's successful outcome, whatever it happens to be. And the same goes for, you know, the work that we do with like Rand Central and that. It's like, yeah, we have to aesthetically make sure that it's gonna work the way it needs to work, but we also, when it comes down to it, we have to like make sure that people can navigate through spaces and, and elu- you know, eliminate anything that's gonna get in the way of doing that.
Chris: I, I think, I think it's wise to come at it from, um, a perspective of, hey, we're baking this into what we do, um, so that it also helps everyone else, I think, you know, um, versus, versus just thinking about what's the coolest way we can do this and, you know, making it look as neat as possible, but without having put that through the filter of how does this help everybody else?
Brad: They're not mutually exclusive, right? I mean, I mean, they're not. And I think, you know, that's our core mission is to like let people know that. Like, like they can... It can be both. And that's the job of a commercial designer, right? Like, like that's our job. Our job as commercial designers is to be able to meet the criteria of what the client needs or what the audience that we're trying to reach needs, or the people that we're trying to reach, right?
Like, like That's, that's what commercial design's all about.
Chris: Yeah. That's, that's awesome. So thinking towards the future, what's top of mind for you in the industry right now as it evolves?
Brad: Besides just making sure what's being produced is the best possible thing that can be produced for w- for, for what needs to happen, right?
So, like, besides just having, like, high standards in design and high standards in people being able to use it, you know, the obvious things like, like how do we integrate AI into our tool set? Where does it fit in our business? How do we use it? You know, we're huge proponents of AI, we have been for a long time, but we're big proponents of it as a tool, right?
Not as just a, a rip-o-matic kind of thing. And making sure that our people are up to speed on how those things work. Like, like, those are super critical to us right now. And I would say the other thing that, that we're really keen on is making sure that we retain a multi-generational workforce. Um, because what we've noticed is you get a huge amount of knowledge from every group of people who are available to work, right?
So, like, whether it be somebody straight out of college or somebody who's potentially retired who's coming back into the workforce because, you know, they're bored and can't believe they're retired. So, like we w- you know, one of the, our big things right now is, like, how do we not lose the knowledge that preceded us, and how do we develop the talent that's just entering in?
And I think more than ever, it's critical because of AI, right? Because AI has, in a lot of ways, eliminated what a lot of the junior people would do. What we need to do is make sure that they're still learning kind of the core tenets of what needs to happen to be able to use these new tools. And in my opinion, the only way to do that is to make sure that you have people across varying, you know, experience levels and generations to kind of help- define what's an entry-level job gonna look like.
So those are the types of things that, that we're thinking about.
Chris: An entry-level job with three years of experience and, you know, a master's degree. I'm just kidding. But that's, that, that's what I, I remember go- coming out of college, that was always the challenge that I had was, um, people would... You'd apply for a job and they'd be like, "Must have at least this many years experience."
Like entry-level and learning, learning a trade, learning to get into some of these industries, um, you know, sometimes that pathway doesn't exist for a lot of people, or they don't know how to make that work. Part of what I like about We Built This Brand and what we're doing here is, um, you know, you shared even at the beginning, like you started out in textiles and moved into what you're doing today.
And, you know, I think that, um, a lot of people need to hear that, especially the younger generation and stuff. And intergenerationally, I think that, um, that's, that's great as well. I mean, um, I really like that approach because, you know, we're seeing in the tech world right now, we have some clients that do podcasts in tech, um, so we hear them talk about what's happening in the industry a lot.
And the one thing we hear is a lot of the middle management and the, um, the middle, the middlemen, the people kind of that are, um, you know, just becoming senior engineers and things like that are getting fired for AI. And then what happens is you have outages like Amazon had, I think earlier this year or late last year, and Amazon ended up having to ultimately admit, "Yeah, we didn't have the experienced staff on hand to handle that issue.
We had a bunch of newbies that we hired cheap, and we had a bunch of... And we have very few at the top or in the middle that could have caught that." And I think that, um, it's important not to lose sight of that inside of technology devol- evolving and all that, so.
Brad: I mean, a lot of what we do is it's like It's the experience and the know-how of how, how you get these things to come to life, right?
It's like... A- and this is the applied side of it, right? So this is my, obviously my stump, right? But you can develop a corporate strate- a brand strategy, you can develop a, you know, a visual identity and everything that goes along with it, but you have to have knowledge of how to apply it, and you have to have, like...
It's, it's, it's like you, you know, there's things that, that people that came ahead of me saw that, like, I don't wanna get blindsided by, right? Because, like, like, it still exists. Like, like, that experience is, like, so valuable, and I think, like, what's happening is, is that, you know, we're, we're mistakingly... We...
Look, we're huge proponents of AI, so, like, I am... And, and we use AI, and I have AI training for everybody, and we've spent a lot of money on, you know, outside consultants to come in and help our people, you know, develop agents and all that stuff. But the reason why we do that is to get rid of the repetitive tasks, not to...
So that we can use the knowledge, right? Like, like, what we're trying to do is we're trying to unlock the experience that people have and trying to eliminate all of the distractions that allows that person to use that specialized knowledge that they have or that broad knowledge of brand building to, to, to be able to, like, spend time on that, right?
That's the goal of it. And then, so it's like we need to make sure that that transfer's happening because if we don't, then we're just kind of losing things that, that we know to be true. And, and, and I think that that's a little bit shortsighted. It's like these things have to exist together, right? Like, it's no different than when Photoshop first came on the scene in 1995 or whenever it was, right?
It's like, you know, it's, it's a new tool. We've gotta figure out how to do it. It's gonna rapidly help us to production But along the way, there's gonna be schlock, and we know that, and we have to figure out a way to engineer out the schlock.
Chris: That's a good way to put it. I like it. Well, that's, that's great, and I, I definitely think that's, um, like I said, I think it's a good approach.
Tell me, um, as we wrap up, I always like to ask this question at the end, um, which is, you know, what is the brand you most admire? I mean, we're talking about the Braille Institute and some of that. Um, but, like, is there a brand that in your personal life or, you know, as you've looked over the years that you would say, "This is a brand I really aspire to be like," or, um, a brand that I just admire?
Brad: I knew you were gonna ask that question. It, it is, it is honestly kind of the hardest question to answer. So, and the reason why is it's like, it's like in the context of what, right? Like, so it's, it... And, and depending on the day and the time. You know, have you ever heard the h- have you ever heard the, the joke, it's like, "What's your favorite beer?"
The one in my hand, right? The one in my hand. Which one do I like? The one in my hand. So-
Chris: It's been my mantra for years, but anyways, continue
Brad: You know, I, I, I mean, I mean, I mean, that's, that's that question. I, I think Look, I'll, I'll give, I'll give a shout-out to my clients. Like, I love my clients' brands, and I love the courage that they have in what they do, okay?
And, and I'm very proud to be a small part of what they do. Because I think the brand is about, like, the company and the overall mission, right? It's, it's like one component of that is, is the branding. I mean, when it comes down to it, you have to have an amazing, sustainable business and company and group of people to make things happen, and it just so happens I get to help articulate it, you know?
That, that's what the branding component does. With that said, you know, I look at things that, like, make me go, "Man, I w- I wish I was on that team," right? And, you know, it's, it's like... And, and so when I start to look at brands and I evaluate them, the ones that, like, stand out to me are kind of like, they go across categories, right?
Like, I think this is gonna sound like a really silly one, but I'm absolutely enamored with the ThinkPad brand, okay? And I'll tell you why. They've unapologetically been ThinkPad for th- 20 to 30 years, and they're still as relevant today as the day they first launched, right? And what really cracks me up is they still have the red nub on the keyboard.
The, the one thing that, like, everybody was like, "This is the dumbest thing in the world," they still have it on there, and people still like it. And I think it goes to their culture of kind of perseverance, right? They spun out of IBM. They lost IBM. They became Lenovo. But they somehow kinda didn't lose their course.
They may have steered a little bit off, but I, I really find it, like, fascinating that they've been kind of, been able to maintain kind of their core, right? In a world that's, like, enamored with Apple, right? It's like, it's kinda like the perfect antithesis of, of what Apple does. So like, is it my favorite brand?
I don't know. But I think it's pretty cool. I think it's fun. I, I, I, like, I look at it and I say, "They know who they are and they got guts," which is pretty, pretty amazing, right? So it's pretty wild. But I'm also a big skier and, and, um, and I ski on the East Coast, which is a gnarly place to ski
Chris: Bless you.
Brad: Yeah, it's, you know, it's, it's, it's fun, but it's rough.
Chris: At least you're in the Northeast. You're not in the South like I am.
Brad: That's true. That's true. At least I'm ... Yeah, I get to go into New England to go skiing. But there's this, like, amazing brand called J Skis that has just been blowing me away, and it's been blowing me away because they just m- they just seem to be on top of everything.
Like, you just, you just look at what they're doing from, like, an e-commerce perspective. I mean, they're a direct-to-consumer brand. You look at what they're doing from an e-commerce perspective. You look at the way that they've defined their brand. You look at the way that they're running their operations.
They're based in Vermont. They're based in Burlington. Like, you just ... It's, it's like any corporate brand should look at that and say, "Wow, that's, you know, that's how you do it." Is it 100%, like, what I would want to be? No. But I'm just really kind of blown away by the fact that they, that they're so dialed in and so small.
Chris: It's always great when you have a small brand like that that can provide that boutique experience to the people that really love and admire what they do. I do fly fishing, so very familiar with, like, the need to support small businesses, local businesses, and then some of the brands that surround that industry are very user-centric.
And I always love a good brand like that, so.
Brad: Well, it's funny, 'cause I was gonna mention The Drake. So I don't know if you're familiar with The Drake or not, but-
Chris: No. Tell me more ...
Brad: so look it up. It's, um, they're, it's a magazine. It's a fly fishing magazine and kind of an outdoor adventure travel magazine.
It's pretty cool.
Chris: Drake Fly. Okay. Yeah, I'm, I'm definitely gonna check that out. That's awesome. So you do fly fishing too?
Brad: I dapple. I would not call myself a fly fisherman. My business partner is. I am not. I go out in the river and slip on rocks and Catch trees, so
Chris: Understand. Better to catch them in the streams than skiing, though.
Brad: That's true. That's true. Although, that's what I love about J skis. It's about skiing in the trees, right? Like, it's, uh... Yeah, that- that's what we do. We, we like to, we like to ski in the trees.
Chris: Well, very cool. Well, Brad, thank you so much for coming on today. Where can people find more about you? Where can they find more about Apply Design, and even the Atkinson Hyperlegible and Hyperlegible Next fonts?
Brad: Oh, absolutely. So you can visit our website. It's helloapply.com, so www.helloapply.com. For Atkinson Hyperlegible, you can go to the Braille Institute s- site, and there's a option to select free font, and it will, and it will take you to be able to download it. Or you can go to Google Fonts and download it from Google Fonts.
So the benefit of going to Google Fonts is that you can embed it in your website and it'll be served, um, natively through the Google infrastructure.
Chris: Awesome. Well, thank you so much for being on the podcast.
Brad: Yeah, thanks for having me, Chris. This was great.
Chris: Absolutely. I enjoyed it.
Brad: Yep. I did too. Thank you.
Chris: Thanks for checking out this episode of We Built This Brand. Don't forget to like, follow, and subscribe on your player of choice. You can also keep up with the podcast on our website at webuiltthisbrand.com. If you liked this episode, please give the podcast a five-star review, and make sure to tell all your friends about it so we can continue to build this brand.