Happily had the opportunity to attend the Design Thinkers conference today: I went to 2 sessions by guys who did work at Nike. (Eh, don’t ask for names…I focused on the work not the Artist).

One designer went on to work with big time companies like Starbucks and Lego and yet you can still hear the utter awe in his voice from what Nike demanded. That’s Fresh. That’s How You Do It.

That dude worked on a variety of Nike stuff…the other designer-guy worked on the Write The Future football ads. Write The Future and the Jordan brand line: Become Legendary are just crisp lines that hit hard. I dunno how Nike continues to shine year after year. It’s not even out their work anymore…like how long did it take em to develop the process that cranks out that work?! They must have a demanding efficient process that instantly weeds out crap while adamantly refusing to settle for Good Enough. I just don’t have the capacity to fully understand.

Oh and this is crazy.

This guy Robert Wong…works at Google Labs, rolls with Larry and what’s his face, the other guy, he’s been behind some of the interactive Google logo things, he’s come up with some other cool Google stuff. Blah, blah, blah. Fine, typical nerd tale, right?

The punchline is Robert is from Scarborough! My jaw hit the ground. Whats? He went to Sir John A McDonald, same high school as my sister. How did Scarborough end up at Google?!

Over the last few years I’ve met maybe about 15 or 20 Google people all super nice, super creative, super bright people. I dunno where half of them came from but it wasn’t my hood. I’ve met and hung out with talented folks from Yahoo and Apple and Microsoft all those fancy pants companies…all the same. For the most part just really pleasant Americans.

That the billionaire founders of Google hang out with somebody from Scarborough is utterly bizarre.

For a while now I’ve wanted to create short YouTube video profiles of all these cool Scarborough people: entertainers, athletes, this Google guy. One Day! Dreams Spark Plans.

Oh and the reason I went to the conference is Chip Kidd. Yes Guy! That guy is the Nike of book covers! So good. DC finally smarted up and he’s working on a Batman book! Finally. It’s not out until next year but he brought a whole bunch of pages, wow. If the storyline holds up, this will be a good Batman book: Death By Design. Look for it next year.

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Also published on Medium.