Mark It 2 Me: Podcasting about the Business of Creative Work

AI made average free, which means great just got more expensive. In this solo episode, Joe Baron covers what he'd stand his ground on when it comes to AI, and what AI still can't do for your brand. From Coca-Cola's AI holiday ads to an apparel choice that flopped at Harley-Davidson, this one is about judgment, distinctiveness and knowing your customer: the parts of branding no prompt can hand you.

In this episode

• Why Coca-Cola's AI holiday ads started a conversation about the tool, not the feeling
• What you're really paying for when you hire a brand designer instead of prompting a logo
• How the Studio Ghibli trend shows what happens when everyone uses the same tools
• Why Google's AI summaries make being searched by name the SEO that still works
• What Liquid Death and a Harley-Davidson hoodie teach about knowing your customer
• How Airbnb's founders found their answer away from the dashboard
• When Joe leaves AI out of his own process on purpose

Chapters

• 00:00 Cold/Open Intro
• 00:48 AI made average free
• 01:24 Coca-Cola's AI holiday ads
• 02:18 AI logo vs. a brand designer
• 03:00 Content nobody asked for
• 03:48 Same tools, same brand
• 05:35 Forgettable brands aren’t searched
• 06:04 Chegg vs Google Lawsuit
• 06:49 Focus on people not prompts
• 07:36 The Harley-Davidson lesson
• 08:18 What analytics can't show you
• 08:59 When do you not use AI
• 09:53 Practicing with Storyteller Tactics
• 10:27 What AI didn't change

Notable quotes

• "If your logo, your copy, your feed, your images could come out of anybody's prompt, it isn't yours. It's rented."
• "Making it stops being the skill. Knowing what's worth making is the skill."
• "If you stopped posting for a month, would anybody message you asking where you went?"
• "The best SEO strategy left is being a brand people search by name. That's not a marketing problem. That's a brand problem."
• "Anybody could be seen now. But being remembered is the job."

Mentioned in this episode

• Ep. 19, "Why AI will NEVER be better than average" with Rocky Roark
• Pew Research Center: Google users and AI summaries
• Storyteller Tactics by Pip Decks

Credit

Inspired by Daniel Murray's The Marketing Millennials newsletter.

Work with Joe

If your brand is starting to look like everybody else's feed, let's have a conversation:

• Branded Baron: https://brandedbaron.com
• Mark It 2 Me: https://markit2me.com
• Instagram, Threads, YouTube: @brandedbaron

Until next time, I appreciate you for listening. Stay Creative.

Jason Craig has been making things professionally for close to thirty years, and for the last seven of those he has done it entirely on his own in Augusta, Georgia. His work spans logos, illustration, murals and minor league baseball identities — which turned out to be the problem. Clients knew one version of him. So he printed a book, mailed it to a hundred people who already had his number, and waited. This conversation is about what came back, and about the parts of running a design business nobody says out loud: what to include in the first invoice, when to hand over more than you were asked for, and why we treat our own pricing like a state secret.

EPISODE SPONSOR: Onigiri, simple invoicing for freelance designers and small studios. Clients pay by card from a link, and Onigiri takes no cut.

Free graphic design invoice template (no signup):

https://onigiri.one/invoice-templates/graphic-design-invoice-template

30% off the first year of PRO with code BARON30.

CHAPTERS
00:00 Cold open & Intro
01:14 Why make a portfolio book
05:18 Sixty-four pages, landscape, the size of a phone
06:50 The two jobs the book brought back
08:15 Jackie M’s Rebranding Was Not Quite As Expected
09:50 Giving more than the brief without giving it away
12:18 Logo that won best of show
14:05 Being easy to work with
14:35 Why applications belong in the first invoice
16:42 Sponsor: Onigiri
18:35 Diving Deep into Branded Murals
21:04 Nobody takes a picture in front of a logo
21:34 Designing for Minor League Baseball teams
25:19 The Augusta Rams, the Azaleas and the Pink hat
32:15 Why he’d rather work for one person a hundred times
34:13 The Arts in the Park poster that started it
38:22 Talent is overrated and raise your baseline
40:50 Designers NEED to talk about pricing
48:13 The experiential side of hiring a person
51:28 Chicken bones, spider rings and the Merch logic
1:00:28 Rapid fire Questions
1:10:36 Thanks to Onigiri

Notable Quotes
"I’ve never had anybody take a picture in front of a logo that I designed."

"Your average work, like what you show up and do every day, that’s who you are. It’s not your peaks or your valleys."

Guest Info - Jason Craig

Website - https://jasonthe29th.com/
Instagram - @jasonthe29th
LinkedIn - Jason Craig

Host - Joe Baron
Website - https://www.brandedbaron.com/
Social Media - @brandedbaron

Podcast Info
Website - https://markit2me.com/
Newsletter for more info not included in the episode and to stay up to date - SIGN UP HERE
Instagram - @mark_it_2_me_podcast

A design Francisco Reyes Jr. made out of boredom got away from him. The American flag, redrawn as a circus tent. It sat in his head for months, he drew it in an afternoon, and now it is on Etsy under other people’s names.

That is where part two starts, and it turns into the clearest account of how a creative career actually compounds that I have had on this show.

The LA Galaxy passed on him because his lettering read as cholo. That no led to LAFC, which led to the Kings, which led to Manchester City, which led to the Seattle Sounders — every one of them because somebody saw the last.

He walks through how a Chargers and Pepsi fee became the number he has negotiated from ever since, how donating shirt money put him in the room with CHIRLA, why the fastest way to not get a collaboration is to ask for one, and the part his parents played — the same people who signed him up for art school and then told him at 25 to go learn welding.

It ends on why he refused to print a t-shirt for two years, and what happened to his work once big-box retail started writing the brief.

CHAPTERS
0:00 Cold open
0:34 Intro, and Part 1 Recap
01:57 Why the work feels dark right now
04:44 The flag art everyone is stealing
07:51 Where the circus flag art idea came from
10:19 Collaborating with the Seattle Sounders
10:39 Post your work you never know who’s looking
11:51 The Sports Team that said No
13:03 Clippers, Chargers, LAFC, Kings, Man City
15:41 That’s my new baseline
16:40 Pricing a poster versus a collection
17:29 Designing CHIRLA’s 40th anniversary
19:58 Immigrant parents and permission to make art
24:14 How much does it pay
25:09 From band dad to wearing every hat
26:50 What makes a collaboration worth doing
28:54 The fastest way to not get a collab
31:16 Why he runs the collab contest
32:11 Joe's Art Submission
33:09 Hiring creatives and getting out of their way
36:20 Logo fixes and design influencers
40:02 Quark, five undos, and the old days
41:26 Don’t burn the spot analogy
42:20 Don't start a brand selling T-shirts
43:08 What retailers do to your brand
46:10 Next week Preview on Mark It 2 Me

GUEST INFO*
Francisco Reyes Jr. is a Los Angeles artist and designer working as Never Made. After eleven years at Shepard Fairey's Studio Number One he went independent, and now splits his time between Never Made and his design agency, Design Bedroom.

Website - https://nevermade.com/
Peace & Unity Tee as seen on Joe
https://nevermade.com/collections/shirts/products/peace-unity-tee-1

https://www.instagram.com/nevermade

*Host*
Joe Baron
Website https://www.brandedbaron.com/

If your brand still looks like everyone else in your category, that is usually a sourcing problem before it is a design problem.
Start with the free Brand Refresh Checklist: https://www.brandedbaron.com/rebrand-checklist

Buy the Branded Baron sticker pack - https://www.brandedbaron.com/store/branded-baron-sticker-pack

Every episode of Mark It 2 Me: https://markit2me.com/

Francisco Reyes Jr. aka Never Made has a problem with design influencers and it is that the shortcut skips the part where you build a point of view.

He would know what the long way looks like as he's spent 11 years inside Shepard Fairey's Studio Number One, most of it he was pen-tooling references building a strong vector art library. Before that, four months of unpaid interning.

In Part 1 of this conversation we get into the case for gatekeeping, why nobody digs for references anymore, and what being in the room with someone great teaches you that no tutorial can. Plus, the 1000 fan theory, and why he tells every major brand exactly where he stands before he signs anything.

It ends with a stranger at demanding to know why his print said her anger was a gift.

In this episode

• The case for gatekeeping, and why the shortcut hurt the people taking it
• How Pinterest flattened everyone's references into the same board
• What four months of unpaid interning taught
• Pen-tooling elements from archives to build Shepard Fairey's library
• Why he will not sell a client his own color palette, and how that turned into collaborations
• The fork between calling yourself a designer and calling yourself an artist
• Bobby Hundreds' thousand-fan theory
• What he told students afraid of losing clients
• Why he discloses his politics before signing, and what brands keep saying back

Notable Quotes
"A million followers does not equate sales."
"Art's not supposed to tell you what to feel."
"To protect your brand, I'm just letting you know that this is my brand. And they're just like, that's why we want you."

GUEST INFO
Francisco Reyes Jr. is a Los Angeles artist and designer working as Never Made. After eleven years at Shepard Fairey's Studio Number One he went independent, and now splits his time between Never Made and his design agency, Design Bedroom.

Website - https://nevermade.com/
Peace & Unity Tee as seen on Joe
https://nevermade.com/collections/shirts/products/peace-unity-tee-1

https://www.instagram.com/nevermade

Host
Joe Baron
Website https://www.brandedbaron.com/
If your brand still looks like everyone else in your category, that is usually a sourcing problem before it is a design problem.

Start with the free Brand Refresh Checklist: https://www.brandedbaron.com/rebrand-checklist

Every episode of Mark It 2 Me: https://markit2me.com/

Part two is next. Sign up for the newsletter to know when it drops.

Chapters
00:00 Cold open
00:47 Intro
01:38 The beef with design influencers
03:41 Bring back gatekeeping
06:27 Flea markets, Playboys, and crate digging
07:10 What Pinterest and AI did to inspiration
10:42 Advice for the 22-year-old creative director
11:17 Why nobody wants to intern
15:20 The pen tool, and eleven years next to Shepard Fairey
20:05 Why the colors are not for sale
20:51 Artist or graphic designer
21:45 Making work nobody asked for
24:36 The thousand true fans theory
26:27 Where the protest work comes from
29:45 Some Designers are vanilla
31:42 Telling clients who you are before they hire you
33:17 Do institutions want creatives to fail
34:26 When to explain your work and when to shut up
37:13 Your anger is a gift

Most business books tell you to fix your head. Guest Ryan Roghaar printed out a revenue goal, stuck it on his office wall, and read it every morning for a year. He ended the year exactly where he started and that's when he figured out belief was never the thing getting him into the room.

Back on Mark It 2 Me for the first time since Episode 2, the author of The Lid and co-host of Eggs! The Podcast breaks down the two halves of what stops people who are already good at what they do: the internal story you carry about who you are, and the structural piece almost nobody talks about (the information, the exposure, and the working model for how the next level actually runs.)

He walks through the Threshold Loop, the six-step pattern that quietly returns you to where you started, and he is the example in most of it: a subscription model nobody asked for, version two of a product nobody bought version one of, a website refined instead of a sales call made. He also names the Social Lid (the people who love you and are still wildly accurate about who you used to be) and the Proof Move, the one action that gets you out.

Key takeaways

• Belief does not get you in the room. A year of reading his goal off the wall changed nothing. Sales calls, conferences, and asking would have.
• The lid has two halves, and most advice only treats one. Mindset is the half on every bookshelf. The other half is the map you do not have and the room you have never been in.
• Substitution feels like progress. The most dangerous step in the Threshold Loop is real, useful work done in place of the uncomfortable work that would actually move you.
• The Social Lid is well-intentioned. The people closest to you are not working against you. They are describing who you used to be — and pitching that version of you.
• The way out is the Proof Move. One action this week that the current version of you would not normally take. Thirty letters to thirty agencies. One yes.

Guest Info - Ryan Roghaar
Ryan Roghaar spent two decades running the creative and brand-strategy firm R2 and has co-hosted Eggs! The Podcast for nearly 500 long-form conversations with founders, artists, and builders. He is the founder of RŌG Health, a commercial-readiness and decision-support firm for medtech and medical-device companies, and publishes The Path, a weekly business newsletter. His book, The Lid: The Invisible Barrier Between Here and What's Next, came out of a pattern he kept hearing in those conversations — capable people stalling right after things start working.

https://thelidbook.com Find more info on Ryan's book and download the free first chapter.
https://ryanroghaar.com
https://eggsthepodcast.com - Ryan's Podcast
https://thepathweekly.com - Ryan's newsletter
https://roghealth.com - Ryan's consultancy agency
https://linkedin.com/in/ryanroghaar - Ryan's LinkedIn

Host Info - Joe Baron
https://www.brandedbaron.com/ - Joe Baron creative agency site

Mark It 2 Me Website
https://markit2me.com/ - Catch up on past episodes or sign up to the newsletter for more info not included in the episodes.

McLaren changed its logo and the internet reacted like the company was going under. The criticism is fair — but a new logo almost never hurts a brand, unless it erases the thing people recognize you by. In this solo episode, Joe breaks down what McLaren changed and kept, answers a skeptic’s “how?” with five reasons, reveals the line Gap and Cracker Barrel crossed, and shares four lessons for smaller businesses.

Key takeaways

• Loud isn’t right — outrage doesn’t measure damage.
• Needing to explain a logo isn’t a failure. It’s the job.
• A logo change hurts when it erases what people recognize you by.
• The product is what people are loyal to — see New Coke.
• Don’t rebrand because you’re bored.

00:00 McLaren’s new logo and the internet’s reaction
00:50 When does a rebrand actually hurt a brand?
01:02 The rebrand outrage cycle: Jaguar and Cracker Barrel
01:43 Why designers complain the loudest
02:14 Why the McLaren critics have a point
02:51 What McLaren changed and what it kept
03:47 Needing to explain a logo isn’t a failure
04:23 Does a logo need to show what you do?
04:38 Telling the story: Ep. 11 and McLaren’s homepage film
05:40 Does the new logo hurt McLaren?
05:53 Answering “how?”: five reasons it won’t
07:03 Nobody outside the room knows the brief
08:41 When a logo change actually hurts
09:06 The line: Gap, Cracker Barrel and New Coke
10:39 What small businesses should take from this
11:10 Four lessons: product, story, consistency, positioning
12:24 Don’t rebrand because you’re bored
12:40 Honor the past + the Brand Gut-Check

Notable quotes

“The noise is loud, but the loud isn’t the same as being right.”
“Needing to explain a logo isn’t a failure. It’s the job.”
“A logo change hurts when it erases what people recognize you by. Evolving is fine. Erasing it isn’t.”

Brand Refresh Checklist - https://www.brandedbaron.com/rebrand-checklist
Episodes to check
Episode 15 - The Brand Gut-Check
Episode 11 with Jason Frostholm

Mark It 2 Me website — https://markit2me.com/

Instagram — https://www.instagram.com/mark_it_2_me_podcast

HOST - Joe Baron

Branded Baron — https://www.brandedbaron.com/

Follow on Instagram — https://www.instagram.com/brandedbaron/

Follow on YouTube — https://www.youtube.com/brandedbaron

Matthew Johnson has run http://Seventh.Ink by himself for nineteen years. Four years ago he moved his inventory into a warehouse. This spring he moved it back out. He breaks down why, what in-person sales actually look like right now, and how a monthly Patreon series became the only deadline on his calendar that cannot slip.

Key takeaways

— Scaling up is only a good decision if you are willing to reverse it. The warehouse solved a real problem in year fifteen and created a different one by year nineteen.

— A subscription is a deadline before it is a revenue stream. The monthly pin and patch series is the only thing that cannot slip, so everything else organizes around it.

— Quality is the through line, not the theme. Customers arrive for one series and stay for the blanks and the ink — some of them buying a yellow shirt they swore they would never own.

— Convention sales came in at roughly half of last year across his entire vendor network. If your numbers are down, it is worth knowing it is not just you.

— Make the call before the math makes it for you. Wait too long and it does not shrink, it implodes.

Chapters

00:00Cold Open

00:10Intro

01:26Haunted Collection 17

03:08Portfolio Book Archive

04:58Bringing back old graphics without killing sales

07:19Releasing Halloween in August

09:21The four releases a year

12:19The monthly pin and patch series

13:27Designing for fans vs everyone

16:20Promoting a Patreon page

18:24Magic the Gathering, Lord of the Rings, and more Fantasy

20:04Why pins and patches

23:01DTG vs Screen printing

24:59Color separation and why it matters

28:56Art books, collectibles, and an idea worth stealing

33:35The Warehouse - Having it then Giving it up

37:14The Call with Johnny Cupcakes

38:14Make the call before it makes itself

39:39The Dip in Sales - The economy and convention truth

41:54Wholesale, Retail, and a Brick and Mortar Store

43:09Rapid Fire Questions

47:40The Wrap up

Guest bio

Matthew Johnson is the artist and designer behind Seventh Ink, a one-man art and clothing brand he has run since 2007. A graduate of the Art Institutes International Minnesota, he is a graphic designer and web developer by trade and still freelances under Seventhfury Studios. Seventh Ink spans apparel, enamel pins, patches, prints, and original art, with an annual Haunted Collection now in its seventeenth year. He works out of Tampa, Florida.

Links - https://seventhink.com/

http://patreon.com/seventhink

http://instagram.com/seventh.ink

Host - Joe Baron

https://brandedbaron.com/

Social media- @brandedbaron

Show Website

https://markit2me.com/

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/mark_it_2_me_podcast

Most companies think they have a marketing problem. What they actually have is a brand clarity problem — and it shows up as fragmented messaging, shifting visuals, and campaigns that never compound. This episode breaks down why brand identity is a decision-making system, not a visual project, and what it costs when it's treated as the latter.

Key takeaways

• Fragmented marketing is a clarity problem, not a creativity problem. Effort and budget are rarely the bottleneck. Undefined identity is.
• A brand identity's real job is speed, not consistency. It answers questions before they become meetings and makes creative decisions directional instead of subjective.
• Weak identity has four measurable costs: slower internal decisions, higher long-term creative spend, inconsistent customer perception, and trend chasing.
• Redesigning every 18–24 months isn't evolution, it's resetting — and each reset costs you accumulated equity on top of the invoice.
• Identity is a filter. New campaign, new partnership, new visual direction: does it build equity or reset it?

00:00 The Clarity Problem

00:11 Intro

00:38 Doing Everything Right, Still Fragmented

02:18 Systems That Scale Across Channels

03:03 What Consistency Actually Does

03:49 What Weak Brand Identity Costs

05:27 Brand Identity as an Operational Asset

07:04 Four Practical Principles

08:19 Brand First, Marketing Second

About the Host

Joe Baron is the Creative Director and Founder of Branded Baron, a New York branding and creative agency working with founders and business owners on brand strategy, visual identity, and content systems.

*Links:*http://brandedbaron.com · http://MarkIt2Me.com ·

Follow on Social Media - @brandedbaron · @mark_it_2_me_podcast

*Download the PDF*

• Brand refresh checklist — http://brandedbaron.com/rebrand-checklist

• Episode 15 — Do You Need a Rebrand or Refresh? The Brand Gut-Check
Visit the site to grab your prompt pdf - https://www.brandedbaron.com/what-a-founder-shares

The Power of Core Graphics Article - Click here

Jimmy Bryant spent years trying to earn the approval of other designers before he figured out they were never going to be his customers. Now Atomicchild is in hundreds of retailers, he sells art on products for a living, and he just shut down a profitable airport store because it was eating his life. We get into stickers, markets, manufacturing, and what success actually looks like when you stop letting other people define it.

Key Takeaways

• The creative community is not the market. There are not enough creatives to support all the creatives, and the people who buy art on products are not the people critiquing kerning.
• Do not optimize before you validate. Ignore margins, minimums, and wholesale math until you know whether anyone wants the thing at all.
• Stickers are the cheapest market research that exists. Under a dollar to make, six dollars to sell, and they tell you what to build next.
• Apparel is the trap. A maxed four thousand dollar credit card and ten sales was his own first lesson.
• Markets are a real economy. People are earning six figures at them without posting anything online.
• Scale is a choice. He built the warehouse and the team, decided it was not the life he wanted, and dismantled it on purpose.

00:00 Cold open

00:28 Intro

01:38 What an Atomicchild shirt says about you

03:23 They create products, we create art

05:29 Keith Haring vs. Atomic Child

08:54 Graduating into a market with no doors

10:13 Five hundred cold emails a month

11:47 Watching them make his fee in two seconds

12:59 Why the client list stops mattering

13:43 Nalgene and Times Square

15:22 You are not designing for other designers

16:15 Stop trying to appease other creatives

17:22 Conventions versus the internet

19:25 I'm a commercial artist. I make art to sell.

21:42 Why you start with stickers

22:25 Two thousand dollars in stickers in a weekend

23:24 Listening at markets, and why apparel is a trap

24:45 What a booth actually costs

26:53 How he decides what to make

27:54 The bag line he never planned

30:32 Evergreen designs over drops

34:06 Finding your niche festival

35:22 Physical products in an AI world

37:16 Getting your work stolen

39:55 Trademarks and the cost of enforcing them

40:30 Has running a company made him a better artist

44:05 Scaling up, then scaling all the way back

46:15 Is the money worth your time

47:35 Sometimes success is survival

47:52 Five sources of income

52:27 Rapid fire Questions

LINKS

GUEST - Jimmy Bryant

• http://atomicchild.com
• Store: 179 North College Avenue, Fort Collins, Colorado — Thursday through Sunday
• Instagram - @atomicchildesign
• Tik Tok: @atomicchild

HOST - Joe Baron

• https://www.brandedbaron.com/
• Social Media - @brandedbaron
•
• https://markit2me.com/
• Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/mark_it_2_me_podcast

Long summary

A ginger ale label sent Joe down a rabbit hole. Hal’s New York names a real person on the front of every bottle — and then describes him with five adjectives that would fit half of Queens. Hard-working. Straight-talking. Life-loving. Nothing you could picture, repeat, or remember.

That is not a soda problem. It is the most common branding problem there is, and the founders who have it usually believe their brand story is finished. In this solo episode, Joe makes the case that the failure is almost never a missing story — it is a real one, flattened into description. He lays out the three things a usable story needs, why specificity feels risky and costs you anyway, why comparing your life to someone else’s finished marketing guarantees you lose, and the three questions that pull the real version out. Plus the overcorrection to avoid: invented heritage always reads smooth, and real stories never do.

Key takeaways

• Adjectives describe. Details convince. If a customer can’t picture it, it isn’t doing any work.
• Specificity feels like a risk, so founders sand it down to include everybody — and land on nobody.
• A usable story needs three things: a specific person doing a specific thing, a reason to exist that isn’t market opportunity, and something a customer can repeat in one sentence.
• "My story isn’t interesting" is a comparison error. You’re measuring your actual life against somebody else’s finished marketing.
• Invented heritage reads smooth. Real stories have a weird detail nobody would have made up.

00:00 Who Is Hal?

01:02 Intro

02:01 The One Line That Gives It Away

03:15 Why Founders Sand It Down

03:42 The Three-Part Test

04:16 Why This, Why You, Why Then

04:47 "My Story Isn’t Interesting"

05:38 Three Questions to Find Yours

06:06 Don’t Invent Heritage

07:31 Go Put It Where People Can See It

HOST BIO & LINKS

Joe Baron is the Creative Director and Founder of Branded Baron, a branding and creative agency in New York, and the host of Mark It 2 Me — a show about the business of creative work: how people build a brand, make a living doing it, and what it actually costs to get there.

* Free download — The Brand Refresh Checklist:http://brandedbaron.com/rebrand-checklist

Companion — The Brand Gut-Check (Episode 15) https://youtu.be/m2Q8CQPgyvg?si=2FPBGA-fP7i535Ev

* Web:http://brandedbaron.com · http://markit2me.com

* Social media: https://www.instagram.com/brandedbaron/https://www.instagram.com/mark_it_2_me_podcast

Affiliated Links
Every creative needs to hydrate while working.
Salty Water Electrolyte Drink - https://amzn.to/49jq4Q0

Join More Creative Academy - Receive mentorship from Michael Janda and connect with fellow creatives
https://www.skool.com/mca/about?ref=c88a1577acbe4b459b82a7cfd8a814ee

The voice asking “what if this goes wrong” isn’t protecting you — it’s rehearsing failure, and it ends up in the work you ship. In this solo episode, Joe Baron traces the question that shuts it down back to an 8th-grade production of The Music Man, and makes the case that letting fear make your decisions is the only wrong answer. Sometimes the smart move is to swing. Sometimes it’s to leave a good thing alone. The discipline is the same.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• It’s a location, not a warning. Imposter syndrome shows up when the work matters, not when you’re unqualified.
• The negative default has a bill. It feels like preparation, but it lowers confidence, narrows creative thinking, and kills your willingness to swing big.
• This isn’t optimism. Hope is not a strategy. You look at the evidence, then decide — and you already know where the answer is.
• Sometimes the answer is don’t. Rebranding out of boredom torches equity. Leaving a good brand alone is the same discipline as swinging big.
• Mindset ships. A brand built defensively looks defensive. Your brand doesn’t need to be new — it needs to be true.

00:00 Cold intro

00:23 Main introduction

01:11 The Music Man — trouble with a capital T

02:20 Preparation vs. doom-scrolling worst-case scenarios

03:26 Pitching the safe idea

04:16 You’re not alone in the room

05:27 When your brand stops telling the truth

06:39 Don’t rebrand because you’re bored

07:37 Responding to the voice: what if it goes right?

HOST BIO & LINKS

Joe Baron is the Creative Director and Founder of Branded Baron, a branding and creative agency in New York, and the host of Mark It 2 Me — a show about the business of creative work: how people build a brand, make a living doing it, and what it actually costs to get there.

• Free download — The Brand Refresh Checklist: http://brandedbaron.com/rebrand-checklist
• Companion — The Brand Gut-Check (Episode 15)
• Web: http://brandedbaron.com · http://markit2me.com
• Social media: @brandedbaron@mark_it_2_me_podcast

Founder-led content is the cheapest brand asset in the building, and most owners either flinch on it or borrow a format they never thought through. In this solo episode, Joe Baron uses one very public bite — and the week of executive one-upmanship that followed it — to draw the line between showing up and being worth following. Committing is the price of entry. Saying something only you could say is the return. From there he lays out the three questions to run any trend through before it becomes an HR conversation, then gives the full list of ten prompts he originally wrote for a coffee shop owner: one post each, ten weeks of content, nothing theoretical. The close makes the actual argument — this is a branding problem, not a content problem. If nobody ever speaks for the company, the voice is a guess, and the market fills that gap with whatever it decides you are.

Key Takeaways

• Half-commitment reads like a lie, even when you're telling the truth. If the concept is the founder eats the burger, the founder eats the burger.
• Committing is the price of entry. Saying something only you could say is the return.
• Same clip, different letterhead. A joke that's fine on a personal account is a meeting with HR on a company account.
• Trends are a delivery system. They work when they're carrying something you already believe and fail when they're standing in for having something to say.
• Reasoning beats achievement. A finished piece of work proves you got it right once. Showing how you think proves you can do it again.
• A founder on camera is already paid for. It doesn't need a media buy and it can't be copied, because nobody else is you.

About the Host

Joe Baron is the Creative Director and Founder of Branded Baron, a New York branding and creative agency working with founders and business owners on brand strategy, visual identity, and content systems.

Links: http://brandedbaron.com · http://MarkIt2Me.com ·

Follow on Social Media - @brandedbaron · @mark_it_2_me_podcast

Download the PDF

Visit the site to grab your prompt pdf - https://www.brandedbaron.com/what-a-founder-shares

Key Takeaways

• AI has a ceiling, & it is not a temporary one. Rocky's argument is that a system trained on existing work returns the average of existing work. Better models make average arrive faster. They do not make it above average.
• Using AI and designing with AI are different activities. He runs a dedicated machine for it hours a day, for admin, transcription, strategy, and structure. He will not use it to design, and he will not sell a client a logo they cannot own.
• The honest version of AI in a workflow keeps a person in it.
• Subscription design products are mostly production, not partnership.
• Set-it-and-forget-it is how you become replaceable. Without conversation, a client sees a queue instead of a partner. His longest retainer is coming up on four years, and it exists because of the relationship, not the dashboard.
• Seniority costs you the thing that got you here. Admin, content, and family crowd out personal work. His fix is small and unglamorous. doodle on the days the client work is light.

Overview

Part 2 picks up where the Creative South conversation left off, with stickers, which turns out to be the door into Rocky's other company. Slap Stickers became Slaptastic, ran a subscription model years before subscription models were everywhere, hit four hundred subscribers, never paid anybody including him, and sold in 2018. He gave half the proceeds to his mother and used the rest to clear the credit card debt the business had generated.

From there it goes to the thing most senior creatives will not say out loud, which is that the further you get in a career the harder it becomes to make anything for yourself. Rocky's answer when asked if he has found time for personal work is two words: short answer, no.

Then the AI segment, and it is the most specific one we have run on this show. Rocky uses AI for hours a day. He has a dedicated machine for it. He built a system for a client that generates on-brand decks to eighty percent before a designer finishes them. He also refuses to use it for design, will not sell an AI-generated logo, and argues that the ceiling is permanent — that a model trained on what already exists can only ever return the average of what already exists, and average is a losing position for anyone trying to raise money or win a category.

Plus rapid fire: three books, a fifteen-hundred-movie server, and the client from hell who ghosted for three months and then threatened legal action.

• 00:00 Cold Open
• 00:25 Introduction
• 00:58 Part 1 Recap and a Glimpse of Part 2
• 01:50 Slap Stickers becomes Slaptastic
• 03:32 Labor of Love, Subscription Model, and Getting Paid
• 05:06 Selling the company
• 06:10 The Challenges of Subscription Models
• 08:10 Burnout and hitting goals nobody sees
• 10:03 The harder it gets to create for YOU
• 12:22 Joe's Trading Card Project
• 16:49 The Role of AI in Design
• 17:15 AI doesn't make design worse, it makes bad design faster
• 17:41 What Rocky actually uses AI for and the Claude Machine
• 20:57— The Role of Designers in AI-Driven Workflows
• 25:44 Brand Consistency in the Age of AI
• 26:31 Using AI as a Content Creation Tool
• 31:23 Can't stand AI Designers
• 32:08 You cannot copyright AI work
• 33:52 AI Designer FAIL story
• 35:25 The Future of Craftsmanship in Design
• 36:21 The AI Film at the Cannes Film Festival
• 37:06 Verifying Podcast Guest Email
• 37:54 Rapid Fire Questions
• 44:57 Closing Notes

Rocky Roark is the founder and design director of Blue Cyclops, an Atlanta-based brand studio named after the imaginary friend he created when he was a kid. He is a brand designer who also builds resources for solo creatives who were never taught the business side of the industry.

In Part 1, Joe and Rocky break down various topics. The 30 day brand challenge he ran in public. Bird Rock Brewing Company, a fake brewery he built that has since generated somewhere between a quarter and half a million dollars of real work and two full-time jobs. What is the worst advice right now, & what Rocky actually charges. The LinkedIn system he uses to stay present without turning into the guy who DMs everyone asking for work. And how a designer with crippling social anxiety built a referral network by treating conferences like a pilgrimage.

Connect with Us

Rocky Roark
Blue Cyclops — http://bluecyclops.co

• Bird Rock Brewing Co. case study — http://bluecyclops.co/case-studies/bird-rock-brewing-co
• YouTube — http://youtube.com/@rockyRoark
• LinkedIn — http://linkedin.com/in/rockyroark
• Instagram — http://instagram.com/rockyroark

Joe Baron - Host

Branded Baron - https://www.brandedbaron.com/

• Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/brandedbaron
• Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/brandedbaron/

Mark It 2 Me

• Website - https://markit2me.com/
• Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/mark_it_2_me_podcast

• 00:00 — Cold Open
• 00:25 — Intro
• 01:22 — Bob the Blue Cyclops
• 02:51 — The 30-Day Brand Challenge
• 04:42 — Navigating Feedback and Creative Fatigue
• 06:15 — The Fake Brand that Made Money
• 07:34 — The Importance of Side Projects in Creative Work
• 09:45 — Mercenaries, Not Freelancers
• 11:20 — You Are a Partner, Not a Cog
• 14:00 — Pivoting in Design Careers
• 16:33 — The Worst Advice in Design Right Now
• 17:26 — The $10,000 Logo Myth
• 20:04 — Understanding Value and Pricing in Design Work
• 23:08 — Losing 60% of Revenue in 30 Days
• 24:37 — AI Coach
• 25:39 — The Power of Presence and Engagement
• 27:28 — Build Genuine Relationships
• 30:00 — Social Anxiety in Networking
• 34:25 — How to Actually Start the Conversation on LinkedIn
• 36:18 — Freelancers Refer Freelancers
• 38:44 — Trade Shows & Crypto
• 40:56 — The Value of Being an Industry Outsider
• 44:01 — Creative South: Build Community Through Conferences
• 50:17 — The Evolution of Creative Conferences

Overview

Polish is overrated. In this solo, Joe unpacks the moment every creative knows and never admits — the work is done at version three, but you keep grinding to version ten anyway. That extra polish isn’t for your audience. It’s for you. Drawing on Seth Godin’s The Practice and two of his own past guests, Joe makes the case for what actually builds a brand: clarity, humanity, and showing up again.

Key Takeaways

• Fixing typos and obvious errors is table stakes — respect for the viewer. The layers of polish after that are usually for you, not them.
• Polish reads as “made for an audience.” Nobody thinks they’re an audience. Everyone thinks they’re a person — and a thing made for everybody isn’t talking to anybody.
• Failure is the practice, not the interruption to it. Polishing is trying to be right the first time, which is the one thing creative work never lets you do.
• It was never polished versus raw. It was: does it feel made for a person, and are you going to show up again next week? Perfect is a one-time performance. Consistent is a relationship.
• Polish still has a job — clarity. Kill the typos, clean the edits, then stop. The versions after that are comfort, not craft.

Episode 9 - Biggie Bencomo of Deli Fresh Threads

Episode 14 - Mariah MacInnes, the Content Queen

Chapters

00:00 -The Moment the Work Is Actually Done

00:28 - Intro

00:57 - Saying It Out Loud

01:38 - The Trap: Polish as the Price of Admission

03:09 - The Practice by

05:51 - We Live in the Frontier: Mastery and Starting Over

06:11 - Failure Is the Practice

07:14 - Nintendo’s Journey

07:47 - The Messy Desk

09:13 - FaceTime Beats Broadcast

10:50 - Consistency Is the Trust Engine

11:55 - Trust Is Built Through Consistency, Not Polish

12:20 - Polish Has a Job

12:30 - Trust Your Gut and Ship Your Work

13:30 - What a Brand Really Is

13:45 - Show the Real, Imperfect Moments to Connect

14:17 - Upcoming Guest and Closing Thoughts

Follow Us

Joe Baron

https://www.brandedbaron.com/

All social media @brandedbaron

https://markit2me.com/

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/mark_it_2_me_podcast

Anderson Bluu returns to Mark It 2 Me for a conversation that covers more ground than most guests manage in a first appearance. We get into the creator economy in real, operational terms: how content has replaced the billboard, what “invisible hours” mean for building a loyal audience, and why the brands that reach out to Anderson usually do it because of a video he posted years earlier without expecting anything from it.

Anderson breaks down his new YouTube channel (built specifically for the beginning digital artist) and why he started it in secret, without telling anyone. We dig into his Adobe Fresco partnership, what it looks like when a brand that size shows up in your inbox, and the debate we promised in episode one: Fresco vs. Procreate vs. Illustrator.

On the business side: how Anderson tests new art prints at Comic Cons the way a comedian road-tests jokes, why limited edition beats open edition for urgency, and where sports art is heading.

Key Takeaways

• Content is today’s billboard. The device in your pocket reaches more of the right people for free.
• “Invisible hours” build the most loyal fans. Someone can spend twenty hours with your content before you ever speak. By the time they reach out, they’re already bought in.
• Brand deals come from content you made for free. Adobe and Posca both reached out because of videos Anderson posted with no expectation attached.
• Packaging beats quality. 1 video got a thousand views while the repackaged version got 10 million.

Timestamped Chapters

• 0:00 — Cold open montage/Intro
• 1:09 — The new YouTube channel: starting from zero & in secret
• 3:26 — “You’re in the content business”
• 4:47 — What content does for a small business: the plumber and evergreen content
• 7:27 — Invisible hours: the fans you don’t know you have
• 9:44 — Building an audience without negativity or clickbait
• 10:10 — Start in secret, find a coach, learn the packaging
• 15:58 — Why today’s billboard is your phone
• 17:25 — Graphic designer or illustrator?
• 23:40 — How the Adobe Fresco partnership happened
• 26:00 — Brands really do watch
• 28:25 — User generated content and what brands actually want
• 30:30 — Where brand collaborations are heading
• 32:30 — Is the creator economy oversaturated?
• 36:25 — Super fans are real
• 40:19 — Be Yoda, not the hero
• 41:37 — Newsletters are the most profitable way to scale content
• 50:08 — Rapid fire Questions
• 51:47 — Biggest client red flag
• 55:31 — Limited edition vs. open edition
• 1:03:22 — Five years from now: what future Anderson thanks present Anderson for
• 1:04:15 — Where to find Anderson

Find Anderson:

• Instagram: @anderson_bluu
• YouTube: Anderson Bluu / Anderson Bluu Art
• Shop: http://bluudreams.com

Find the show:

• http://MarkIt2Me.com
• Instagram: @mark_it_2_me_podcast

Find Joe:

• http://brandedbaron.com — branding, marketing campaigns, illustration
• Newsletter: sign up at http://brandedbaron.com
• Instagram / Threads / YouTube: @brandedbaron

Most people rebrand because they're bored — the worst reason there is. In this solo episode, Joe gives you the gut-check he runs before touching anyone's brand: six signs, scored honestly, so you stop guessing about whether it's time. Then the line most owners cross — an intentional refresh vs. blowing up equity you spent years building.

In this episode

• The one job every brand has — and how to tell when it's failing

• The six signs: storytelling, positioning, consistency, logo, age, and color

• How to score yourself: hold steady, drifting, or rebuild

• Refresh vs. reinvention — Gap, Tropicana, Dunkin, and the chameleon rule

Chapters

00:00 Intro
01:05 Your brand has one job
01:10 Sign 1 — Storytelling
01:25 Sign 2 — Positioning
01:35 Sign 3 — Consistency
01:45 Sign 4 — Logo
02:03 Sign 5 — Outdated design
02:48 Sign 6 — Color
03:55 How to Tally your score
04:37 Confusing Refresh and rebuild (Gap, Tropicana, Dunkin)
05:26 Next Steps

Notable quotes

"A brand has one job. Match the business."

"Relics belong in museums, but only if they have value."

Links & CTA

Score yourself with the free Brand Refresh Checklist: GET THE BRAND CHECKLIST

Want a real read on your brand? Let's have a conversation: https://www.brandedbaron.com/contact

Read — Your Brand Needs to Evolve and Adapt: https://www.brandedbaron.com/blog/2025/6/25/your-brand-needs-to-evolve

Mark It 2 Me website - https://markit2me.com/

Instagram account - https://www.instagram.com/mark_it_2_me_podcast

Branded Baron Website - https://www.brandedbaron.com/

Follow on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/brandedbaron/

Follow on Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/brandedbaron

Mariah MacInnes journalist turned content strategist, host of 300+ episodes, came on to talk about what most businesses get wrong before they ever hit post. The conversation covered the foundations of a real content strategy, how storytelling and selling can coexist without feeling forced, why she takes a TikTok-first approach even for clients who hate TikTok, and what consistency actually means when we throw the word "authenticity" around like it solves problems.

Key Takeaways

• Storytelling isn't a trend. It's the oldest way humans have shared information
• The content marketing funnel still exists: awareness, consideration, conversion and stories map to all three depending on their intent
• Target audience → business goals → platform selection — in that order. Not the other way around
• TikTok-first strategy: what works on TikTok usually works on Instagram. The reverse is not true
• Build an email list.
• 12-month calendar with seasonal activations lets you plan ahead

Timestamps / Chapters

• 00:00 — Intro
• 01:05 — Mariah's background: journalism, PR, internal comms
• 03:51 — Is storytelling a buzzword or a real shift?
• 08:27 — How to balance storytelling with selling without it feeling forced
• 13:55 — Know your brand. Know your platform. Not everything translates.
• 14:22 — Where to start when building a content strategy (audience → goals → platforms)
• 19:46 — Repurposing, amplification, and when to actually expand channels
• 25:38 - The Power of relatability and storytelling in virality
31:56 - Authenticity versus consistency
38:25 - Common content mistakes and strategic pitfalls
• 42:20 — Virality: when it works, when it doesn't, and what to actually focus on
• 49:56 — YouTube: discovery tool or hosting platform?
• 52:47 — Why businesses still chase trends (and what to do instead)
• 53:57 — Does timing still matter for posting?
• 56:10 — Rapid fire Questions

CONNECT WITH US

MARIAH MACINNES - a.k.a. Content Queen Mariah is a content marketer and strategist based in Australia. She approaches marketing with a storytelling-first lens, focused on organic strategies that build real audience connection without relying on trends or paid traffic.

She hosts The Content Queen Podcast, works with clients across industries on full content strategy and execution.

• Website: http://contentqueenmariah.com
• Social: @contentqueenmariah
• Podcast: The Content Queen Podcast

JOE BARON - Founder of the New York creative design agency Branded Baron and the host of Mark It 2 Me.

• Website: brandedbaron.com
• Social: @brandedbaron

MARK IT 2 ME -

• Website: https://markit2me.com/
• Social: https://www.instagram.com/mark_it_2_me_podcast

Host Joe Baron sits down with Cleveland muralist and illustrator Lisa Quine for a conversation about how she built a mural business that actually works and what she's doing now to get back to the creative work that fills her up. From landing the Cleveland Guardians to writing a book to designing a Phantom of the Opera cover, Lisa's career has never followed a straight line. That's kind of the point.

What we cover:

• How Lisa went from chalkboards and lettering to 150+ murals and counting
• The Cleveland Guardians mural trilogy — and how Progressive Insurance got involved
• Why she invested nearly five figures in SEO and how it's paying off
• Her approach to presenting one concept (and why it works)
• Balancing commercial work with the creative identity underneath it
• What makes a truly great art director or creative director to work with
• The solo art show coming in November — A to Z, every letter a chapter
• Rapid fire Questions: favorite books, paint markers, and more!

Timestamps / Chapters

• 0:00 — Intro
• 1:52 — Lisa's reaction to the intro
• 2:13 — The Third Cleveland Guardians mural
• 5:25 — Balancing two brands in one mural
• 8:18 — Painting a Cleveland Guardians mural than T-shirt
• 9:05 — Throwing out the first pitch. Twice.
• 11:31 — From chalkboards to murals: how it happened
• 13:25 — Outdoor vs. office murals
• 15:18 — How Lisa actually gets work
• 19:04 — Staying current without chasing trends
• 24:21 — Presenting one concept vs. multiple directions
• 27:19 — What clients are like when they've never worked with a mural artist
• 30:50 — What makes a great art director to work with
• 33:47 — What people don't expect about painting murals
• 38:04 — Smart business cards
• 40:34 — Big Magic, ideas, and the cost of not executing
• 43:26 — The Dreamy Castles deck of cards (still in progress)
• 47:32 — Lisa Quine, published author of Vintage Hand Lettering
• 51:44 — Designing the cover of Our Strange Duet for Andrew Lloyd Webber's team
• 55:09 — ABC Around CLE: painting letters with Posca markers on canvas
• 57:30 — Speaking at conferences and building authority (or not)
• 1:01:15 — The November solo show: A to Z, the full story
• 1:04:06 — Craft but Struggling
• 1:06:11 — Rapid Fire

Follow Us

Lisa Quine is a Cleveland-based muralist, illustrator, and author known for bringing strategy, joy, and bold design to blank spaces. Named Best Artist in Cleveland in 2024, she's completed over 150 murals across the US and internationally, collaborated with brands including the Cleveland Guardians, Cleveland Cavaliers, DoorDash, Meta, Mercedes-Benz, and the Holiday Inn, and authored Vintage Hand Lettering.

• Website: http://lisaquine.com
• Instagram: @lisaquine
• LinkedIn: Lisa Quine
• TikTok: @lisaquine

Joe Baron - Creative Director of the design and marketing New York boutique agency Branded Baron and host of Mark It 2 Me
• Website: https://www.brandedbaron.com/

• Instagram: @brandedbaron

Mark It 2 Me Website

https://markit2me.com/

In this episode, Joe Baron speaks directly to the listener and breaks down eight lessons gathered from Jalen Brunson's postseason, covering how confidence is built, what pressure is really telling you, why sacrifice is the strategy, and the 0-0 mindset that carried the Knicks to a championship. These lessons were there when Jalen Brunson walked into his post-game interview especially after Game 4 in the biggest comeback in NBA Finals history. It wasn't about basketball. It was a leadership philosophy.

Whether you're managing a team, running a creative business, or just trying to grow your career these principles apply. Brunson demonstrated every single one of them under the highest pressure possible. Here's what you can take from it.

Topics covered:

— Confidence comes from work ethic, not the moment

— Pressure as a signal, not just a feeling

— How the best leaders think about worst-case outcomes

— Chasing wins over accolades

— Sacrifice as a leadership strategy

— Work ethic across roles and titles

— Why doubters don't deserve your energy

— The 0-0 mindset and what it looks like professionally

Chapters

0:00 — Intro — A Leadership Manual, Not a Basketball Story

0:33 — Who Is Joe Baron / Branded Baron + Mark It 2 Me

1:13 — Setting the Scene

2:12 — Lesson 1: Confidence Comes From Your Work Ethic

2:35 — Lesson 2: Pressure Means You Stopped Preparing

3:03 — Lesson 3: Think About the Worst Outcome — Then Move On

3:32 — Lesson 4: Stop Chasing Accolades. Chase Wins.

4:00 — Lesson 5: Sacrifice for Your People Pays Off

4:52 — Lesson 6: Your Work Ethic Doesn't Change With Your Role

5:17 — Lesson 7: The Doubters Don't Deserve a Response

5:53 — Lesson 8: You Never Know What's Possible If You Keep Working

6:46 — The 0-0 Mindset

7:29 — Branded Baron Insight + Outro

CONNECT WITH US:

Connect with Joe Baron:

http://BrandedBaron.com

Sign Up to the Newsletter:

https://eepurl.com/iT2gyY

Mark It 2 Me Website:
https://markit2me.com/

Key Takeaways

• Confidence is the byproduct of preparation

• Pressure that paralyzes you is almost always a preparation problem.

• The best leaders absorb friction, pass the credit, and take the blame. That's the job.

• The 0-0 mindset means resetting after every win and every loss and only the next task exists.

• Most creative careers stall not from lack of talent but from a premature stop. Keep chipping away.