Designing for Outliers: How Otherness Wins Category-Resistant Clients

In this episode, Joel Derksen, founder of the agency Otherness, joins the Authority Builder Podcast to share his journey from freelancer to agency owner, operating between the Netherlands and the US. Joel discusses the evolution of Otherness, its focus on brand design, and why the agency thrives at the intersection of categories—where brands defy traditional industry boundaries.

Key topics include:
- The importance of strategy and creative partnership in brand building
- How Otherness helps clients embrace their authentic identity, often challenging category norms
- Case studies, including a semi-private jet service and a family-owned pie brand, illustrating how deep discovery and client self-awareness lead to standout branding
- The value of working with open-minded clients who trust the creative process
- Practical advice for freelancers transitioning to agency ownership, with an emphasis on financial discipline and automation

Joel’s insights offer a compelling look at how agencies can unlock client potential and create brands that truly stand apart.

Transcript

Audio Only - All Participants: 0:34

Today I'm joined by Joel Derksen of Otherness, and I'm super proud to call him a client and very happy to have him on the Authority Builder Podcast today to talk about his experience of building Otherness, the agency that he runs out of the Netherlands and the us. Is that correct, Joel? I didn't get that wrong. It is not Canada, is it? No, not Canada. It probably should be, but, well, thank you so much for coming on. It's lovely to have you and talk to you formally on here. Thank you so much for having me. So, tell us a bit about other nurse and where you are and how you've got to this point. What is the potted history of Joel and, and the agency? Oh my gosh. Long winding, complicated. I think the shorter direction to it is that I've always been a bit of a freelancer, even when I worked full-time in studios in Toronto and in Munich and a bunch of places, I've always been a freelancer. and that really started to get more serious when I moved to London. where I was both trying to work with agencies, but really realized that, you know, I wanna be hired for a perspective and not necessarily a time slot. Yeah. and that was really the big, pivot point where I said, okay, well now I really have no choice. and I really have to kind of start making an agency. Yeah. Yeah. And why did that feel like it was the important thing? I'm curious about that because I've been in agencies where they're frustrated that they're not getting a bigger slice of the marketing budget pie, so to speak, and they're like, let, we need to get strategy in there. I'm sick of ad agencies like coming up with a strategy and then getting us to do execution around brand and pack design. It should be led from the brand. So it's interesting that I see you thought you needed to be moved from freelancer to agency in order to to do that. But I see agencies, big agencies struggle with that as well. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think that's industry-wide challenge, right? Mm-hmm. Um, everyone wants what they call that seat at the table, right? Mm-hmm. and even when I was working at ideo, we had the same discussion. How do we get a better or the right seat at a table? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Absolutely. Kind of it's turtles all the way down, as they say. And, and a bit of a rollercoaster as well, because I feel like the, uh, the agency or the creative's perception of what they should be doing, what they're entitled to is either super, super high or super, super low depending on how they feel they're doing at any particular moment. Like, perception of ourselves and what we bring to the table isn't always super objective. But after, you know. Well over a decade of working in the industry and working on some of the most exciting brands like you have and also globally, and having those testimonials and results in your back pocket, you can come to it and say, well, yes, I do deserve to be having more of an impact on this earlier stage, on the strategy, on the thinking behind it, rather than just on execution. Yeah. Yeah. I mean. Strategy is very much a mindset, you know, it's very easy to put up a shingle, but I think as a creative, you can work both ways, right? Mm-hmm. that your hands can inform your ideas and your head can also inform your ideas. so that puts you at a very unique position to step into strategy or. I would say pair with a strategist. Like, don't go in by yourself. Because a really good strategy and a really good strategist can change a very say, like midline project into something absolutely incredible. Absolutely. So tell me more about, how otherness manifested, like what it looks like, what services you offer and who you predominantly work with. Absolutely. So, otherness is really focused on, Primarily brand design. We don't do campaigns and things like that very much or really at all. we really focus on branding, building out the brand world, and then equipping clients for success, within that brand world that. Ultimately means we also end up doing a lot of execution. You know, pulling things into packaging design, things like that. Packaging is kind of a second vertical. helping with website, helping with that first art direction, things like that. But our main focus is brand and where we really focus are on what we call the White House brands, and typically brands that find themselves at the intersections of categories. Hmm. We talked about this before and you described it as where categories grind together, which I loved. I had this idea of a dance floor where all the brands are just like hanging out, but also like a collision point. And so tell me more about why you think the most interesting work is happening, where two industries blur, where they come into, that interplay. Absolutely. And first credit to Han Ulrich Obrist, who's the curator of the Serpentine for that idea, I have to give him credit for it because he talks about the intersections of two categories, like the intersection of sculpture and painting, where those two are trying to define each other as the most interesting place to be. So what, what, why, why do you think the most interesting work is happening where the, those industries blur? Like what, what is it about the way that they interact that makes it more interesting for you to play in that area?'cause these are the kind of projects that you deliberately seek out, right? Yeah, absolutely. I think I seek them out, because they play like naturally to my strengths and my curiosities, but I think because they require, the client to be a little bit more open-minded than usual, and that myself as a designer or the creative team has to be. Way more queued into the semiotics of the situation and the category cues. Yeah. Yeah, that's, yeah, absolutely. That makes a lot of sense. I think it's not lazy design, right? It's where you are. I hate the words out of the box, but you're being forced to think differently and I'll just borrow from Apple. Instead, you're being forced to think differently and you are, you can't just bring the. The templated way to address a brand to the table. Like it's not a, I I'm not saying that that's what all agencies do. I think people who are listening into this are very much, you know, original and or try their hardest to, be doing something new and different at all times. But we do know there are those brands where it feels like you're looking at, there are categories where you're looking at. Cookie cutter brands all over the place and where two industries, I mean, my experience of working with you and, and learning about the clients that, that you've worked on, I mean, there's one that really comes to mind. I know it's not during your time at Otherness, but I dunno if you wanna talk about Arrow, um, a bit more. But this kind of idea of it, it can be category defying, which allows you then to, to do something completely different. And then imagining Imagineering what that thing might look like is. it is almost like an additional piece of work and you're doing it because this is where you get your kicks. It's not just about making the money. Right. So do you tell us a bit more about that particular project? Yeah, absolutely. I think arrow's a very interesting one. and I think it really captures that sense of two industries grinding together, or two cultural. moments. So with Arrow, first, you know, they're like what's called a semi-private jet service, which was a completely new concept at the time. Very small jets, 16 seats only. Somewhere that is between booking a private jet wholesale and a first class ticket. but through strategy and through working with the Arrow team, you know, what we really got to understand is that it's really about cultural cache and being with your people. and what's interesting about that is that being with your people took on like, this is an American brand, it's a Californian brand, so it really couldn't play to the classic signals of luxury. That we get. you know, when you think of like a Dior or a Chanel or something like that, you really had to look at what does a almost novo rich, boho or Bohemian Silicon Valley rich look like? and so in that sense, we had, we kind of. Worked with a brand that had a lot of Helvetica, it had a lot of white space. It was very much, anchored in a history of, an American mid-century, a kind of like a golden era, right? You think of the rise of Boeing and you know, the pan PanAm, you got it. but then you have to slice that with, again, this incredibly demanding clientele. so. You almost have to oscillate and mix ingredients. You have to say, okay, we're eight parts contemporary Silicon Valley, and we're two parts luxury here. Mm-hmm. And in some instances, oh, we're 90% luxury and we're 10% Silicon Valley. Right. you have to mix the signals together and that requires you to know both sides very, very well. And when you described, like, how would you describe the two industries that Aero falls under? Oh man. I think you said, did you say hospitality and travel or was it Yeah, I would say hospitality because, you know, they started to outfit their own lounges. That's probably a project that's ongoing for them. and the lounges are very much like a member's club, you know. and then you have direct data access. And it's interesting'cause you're paying for a flight, right? But when you talk about the concept of being with your people, being with your crew, actually most of it is around the time spent waiting around. Even if it is private, there is still waiting and immigration and things like that to do. So actually the lounges. A bigger, like a, just as much, or if, if not a bigger, it's part of the experience of the brand than being actually in flight. And perhaps the more sociable part, the more being with your people part. which, yeah. It's so interesting, isn't it? Like, I, I mean, I know probably like, you could look at this on two levels. You think, well, yes, all this is obvious. It's a, you know, it's hospitality, it's a flight, it's whatever. But it's not, it's like the, the not being willing to look at something. You know, to not call it a spade and to do something, like, to reimagine it, to, to look at the experience differently and overall and, and yeah, and to embrace that and to, to enjoy that experience and not just. Just do the surface level job, which to me, this is interesting because I think like there's lots of design, there'll be lots of designers out there who are like, well, yeah, that's, that's the dream, right? You push the brief until you can do the really fun conceptual stuff and hope that it gets through to finalization. That's the goal, rather than having it knocked on the head by the client. And I think a big part of this, you, you described the client before and them having them being willing to do things differently. but I know there'll be times where. A big part of your job and the strategies you work with will be around helping clients to see their own potential and grow their, their, their goal, their idea and around that. So you, I mean. To me, that's what a good creative partner is, right? It's somebody who could look at it objectively and say, well, yeah, but also you are missing a trick if you don't make it this, this, and this, and if we just push it here, here, and here you are opening the playing field for yourself rather than closing it in. Can you talk a bit about that experience? Like what, what does that look like? How does that, how has that shown up for you? Like. Have you experienced that and, and what makes the kind of client who's able to kind of push it beyond or is willing to listen to that conversation? Yeah. Well, I think listening's a bit of a two-way street, right? that ultimately you are there to support the client as best as you're able. and part of your job, I think as a creative or a business owner is also trying to find the people who. You gel with, right? Like pipeline selection and vetting the client is also a really big part of that. Mm. And then obviously then once you have the chemistry, it gets a little bit easier. so I think one thing that really comes to mind is, again, if we think of some of those favorite projects that have transcended categories a little bit, A lot of our clients will come to us feeling like they haven't been heard or seen. And because we work with such good strategists and because we really try and demand a lot of rigor in the kind of, investigation and discovery phases, we can come up with some different directions. Mm-hmm. So, one very salient example I think is, that I worked with, an excellent strategist out in Toronto is a, like a frozen pie brand out there. and, for about. They're a family owned brand and they had like an apple picking orchard, and there's like, you know, like a petting zoo and all these types of things. and they really wanted to grow this brand. They were just doing white labels. They weren't really known for anything. You know, their, their frozen pies were probably in fridges across Canada, but no one knew the name. Mm-hmm. And, They had worked with agencies and strategists for like 20 years. This is a multi-generational family business. and everyone had come back to them going, oh, well, you know, you're about wholesomeness and like, you know, whole butter and you know, mom's pantry. Right. It's this very motherly type of approach to things. Yeah. but that wasn't them. Fundamentally, that was not the culture of this family, and it wasn't the culture of this business. They were schemers in the nice, I say this with the nicest smile ever, they're pranksters, right? they're always playing practical jokes on one another. Very loving family, right? But they kind of liked to tell tall tales and pull people's legs and stuff like this, and that was never in the brand. And so they were being forced into this very like provenance, wholesome, you know, super pure matronly way of doing things. And, the strategist that I worked with said, no, no, no, this is all wrong. You've got this all wrong. Who you are is the grandpa who loves to tell tall tales and can also make an amazing apple pie and flapjacks on the weekends and things like this. You think big fish, think rural doll, right? Yes. Like, oh, you're pulling my way grandpa. Like that type of. Thing. I can see the typeface when you're saying it. I'm not actually seeing this brand, by the way. Yeah. But I'm I see gingham when I'm thinking about the matriarchal kind of brand that I'm seeing a, I dunno, a weird seventies, lava lamp in orange kind of typeface when I'm seeing the grand. And I dunno why, it's not informed by anything, but it's so interesting that I can visually see it when you're saying it out loud. Yeah. so. That's what we did. We said, look, all of these things about wholesomeness and love are true, but it's coming from the wrong point of view. it's coming from the grandpa who's a little indulgent, right? Mm-hmm. And kind of like mm-hmm. Under the table when he shouldn't. so we built the brand around that and we gave it the platform once upon a farm. Mm-hmm. And it was our job then. what we did is we started taking, you know, we made clouds out of whipped cream and we turned their upside down pineapple cakes into the sun, right? So anytime that you visit the website, you get the weather report on the farm, but it's all. Generated based off of food photography. Right. And we got an illustrator in to help have ducks swim in the lava cape, chocolate and things like this. And. You know, after being told for like 20 years of your business that who you are naturally is not right, not what the market wants to hear, not good enough, you know, obviously. They weren't doing a lot of marketing. They weren't Yeah. Anything.'cause it didn't feel good and it didn't Yeah. Fit right. Yeah. And then to have someone come in and say, no, no, no, you've been right and fine all along. No one's just interpreted this correctly. Yeah, so imagine how that must feel for a client. You know, when someone's been kind of pushed down a road for so many years to be like, This is exactly where you need to be. I wasn't in the room myself, but I was told like some of that family like definitely had some tears in their eyes when they got to see like that website for the first time and kind of potential packaging, like all of it, right? Because we just gave them permission finally to do everything they wanted to do and have it make market sense. Now they're just on a complete tear. You know, they're yeah, banded in store shelves across the country. They've totally retrofit the farm. They're hosting weddings there. They've got, you know, like I think the whole thing has kind of just exploded. So. Yeah, I mean, so they're able to see their own potential and there's some words that came up when we had a chat a few weeks ago about this. It was like the brand design and the strategist, the team behind it. You are almost playing the role of mirror, like therapist and holding up the mirror and allowing them to see themselves the first time and be that person and then translator into. Visual world and co-conspirator in this case as well, because it's not serious. And it's not like here is what thou shalt do because these are the 10 commandments of brand design. This is what the category Qs are. And how dare you go off of the page. I love the, it doesn't seem to matter whether it's in your personal life or your business life. If you are. Coming to something with authenticity and something that feels real and natural to you and you don't have to force it. It's so much easier. Everything just flows. Like you actually do the marketing and more clients come, like, I would say that's, you know, just facilitating the ability to feel confident enough to go do their own promotion. Is is, I'm not saying it's more important than the brand design. The brand design facilitated that, but it's the one thing leads to another, right? And you see it in people's personal lives. You see it in their businesses as well. And I love this idea of the right creative partner, the right creative team. I keep thinking of that phrase, like greater than the sum of our parts. You know, unlock something on a level above. What it could be, just because someone's curious and cares, Yeah. Which, you know, it has its other problems, doesn't it? I see that in agencies and businesses where they will die on that cross and be a martyr and, not make any money from it because they're so determined to, to be in that role. But, um, yeah, I love that the pie story rather. I love the project. It's, I need to go actually check out the website. Yeah. Um, but tell me more about, like, I know in that case you were working with a strategist. How do your. Clients come in right now into otherness, and I know we've spoken about you are somebody who works really hard on their network, and a lot of your work has come through individual relationships. Do you want to talk about how that's kind of evolved from being a freelancer to a sort out studio and and also global? Because you're originally from Canada, right? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's always a work in progress, right? So we're very much at that inflection point where, you know, jumping out of the network is, is where we are. but I've been fortunate enough to know, just by virtue of having traveled a bunch of places and met a bunch of people, you know, working. In Toronto in a capacity, and you know, in Munich and things like this, you build a network and then that network gets more senior and gets more access to budget and things like this. And they do tend to kind of come back at a certain point, right? Yeah. Especially if you help'em out here or there, you know, as they're on their growth path. So, right now, a lot. Is through referral and is through network. Mm-hmm. alumni networks, for example, of previous agencies that I've worked with. yeah. But right now we're very much at that transition point where we are focusing more and more and dialing in on, okay, who exactly is that right client and how do we focus in on the industries that we really want to serve better? Yeah, which is part of our working together and understanding more about who that is, testing different theories, growing the pool of people. So thinking about your, the other projects that you've worked on, Joel, can you give any examples of where any other examples of where you've gone beyond category Qs I, I think when I, I'm looking through your work, at, at the nurse Joel, like, one of the things that strikes me is how. How different some of the, the creative looks from what you would expect from a typical industry. So we talk about Blair Clawson, which I'm not gonna be able to pronounce so beautifully in your, Canadian accent as you do. do you wanna tell me a bit more about that project? Because this, when I, when I see the, the stationary and the, company literature, it, I, I think. Beautiful editorial art director of magazine. I do not think law firm like how like it is. Beautiful. But can you tell me more about the meaning behind it and also how you got the client on board with that, because it is quite category defying. Yeah. Well, getting the client on board was actually the easiest part. and. Mostly, I kind of lucked out a little bit, I'll say with this client. So, Blair, Charlie Clawson works in a very rarefied atmosphere, in the legal field and in their profession. they work specifically and only with labor law and advocating for a labor law inside of trade unions or in front of the Supreme Court of Canada. Those are the only two things that they do. So, when you're in that type of rarefied space. There's probably only six firms that are doing that and everyone knows one another, and you're usually on one side of the bench or the other. so, that sets up the field to make a very strong difference, right? A strong and differentiated perspective. and the second part of it is really that. Blair Charlie Clawson have an long history of incredibly progressive, like groundbreaking wins in the Supreme Court, like building up the Ontario human rights and labor tribunals, things like this. so they take an incredibly progressive mindset. And in that sense, you know, I worked mostly with Leanne Chaley and, she's very happy to kind of wear a little bit of the black sheep of the legal field, kind of mantle. she's not concerned with, you know, she's like, we are above professional. We've got the decades of experience. but she's also a professional quilter. Like she's in books, so she has this incredible visual sense and sensitivity to color and things like this already. So you combine this like incredibly progressive interpretation of the law that's argued successfully in a rarefied field with someone who's artistic in their off hours and not particularly concerned with the rest of the legal field. It, it creates this very specific rarefied instance where you can actually just listen to their story and interpret it. and so the interpretation was that they're bringing in a new partner, which is clawson. And, having interviewed then all of the partners and looked at all the competitors and things like this, really the goal was to layer up. Different facets of meaning. so in the logo for example, you know, working with that theme of the equal sign and just really running that, again, very bold and, very proud, right? To say like, this is about equality and it's about their practice being very sensitive to both sides of the table and not looking. They're looking to, They're very attuned to the politics of situations and things like this and not to antagonize other sides, and those are some things that they're known for in the field. Mm-hmm. so we basically just really spent a lot of time wearing up meaning and making every single element count. so from typography that was really focused around, things like key workers' movements, you know, say, in, 1930s Germany, that's where Futura comes in, like union. Type of typefaces, or, in, when you argue in front of the Supreme Court, you need to set things in very specific typeface. So he weed on, on a interpretation of Kalon, which was like 1766 English, things like that, that we were wearing up. Levels of layering meaning on top of itself. VTC Martin being run as basically headline font again about the civil rights movement. and, and the repetition of threes, right? Yeah. I'm guessing as intentional and a, and a reference back to the three partners in the business. Exactly. And then ultimately saying, Hey, like, we're not gonna do stock photography at all. we hired a collage artist who works with the New York Times and basically gave her some themes and said, Hey, go forth. Here are the themes, here are the colors. So, and again, all of that was really empowered by the client, but also the clients, let's say polite disinterest in playing to the commercial field and the commercial semiotics of the law practice. I think we, another project that we've spoken about before, is a longer term partner of, otherness where you've had, you've worked on a couple of projects with this person now, and they're both direct consumer brands, fly dog and, and this kind of concept of somebody, a client who is, is busy doing their thing, they respect. And maybe don't fully understand design, but they understand the power it has and they allow you to do your thing, rather than get too deeply involved and to great effect as well. Because as you've just described, you know, a rarefied No. How did you describe it, polite, disinterest in what the rest of the industry thinks, willing to do something different. The words black sheep come back to mind again. so. Though some of the, the projects that we've discussed of, of otherness seem quite, you know, they're, they're lofty and they're perhaps perceived as luxury brands or maybe serious brands. And the legal firm is not something to be sniffed at, but they're also kind of brands that are available on Amazon, who have the ability to stand up. Head and shoulders above the rest of the field because they, that client has had the, what's the word? The, the gumption to realize that brand design, when done correctly, is the thing that will allow you to stand apart and win over consumer trust. So do, do you think there's any commonalities between these kind of clients, like how they behave, like how you. Identify them. is it that kind of self-awareness where they are about caring less and doing more, and which is a big outage of mine. And, this kind of concept of like, the thing that I'm hearing is this kind of concept of. understanding when to stay in your lane and do your own thing and allow other people to do their thing. So having a true partner. Yeah, I think that's, that's like the current million dollar question over here. Right. but I think the big thing that I zone in on is that the clients that kind of work best with us, and work best in this way, are the ones that have done the hard work to understand themselves. Mm-hmm. You know, and whether that means, hey, like I'm very in tune with my customers, or I'm very in tune with this category and I'm obsessed over it, and I really need, like, I really understand where to go because I'm the customer myself. Or it can be that exact opposite to say like, Hey, like, we need. A lot of strategy work because we're so focused on operational excellence and product excellence. Right. but either way they've again done that hard work to say like, no, we understand where we are. but I think also, it takes a certain mindset to understand maybe that they are at an inflection point where, like, what I often end up telling a lot of clients in. These situations, you know, when you're in consumer goods or in luxury, maybe less luxury, but more in the D two C space is what might be a strategically appropriate, might not exist yet on a Pinterest board. Like, you know, if you spent four years looking, then it doesn't exist. And that's a bit hard I think, for some people to comprehend. I mean, what's the Henry Ford quote? If I'd have asked people what they wanted, they'd have said A faster horse. You know, you can't think your way to innovation or something that looks different and stands out. and this often requires. Trust in a partnership at a stage where maybe you don't have that much, you haven't spent that much time with that person to develop that know, like, and trust relationship. Is there anything you do that really deepens that level of partnership sooner? I mean, I really do try and spend a lot of upfront time on researching the category. Right. traditionally I've found that a very strong insights presentation and a really strong competitor audit, and a really good read of the semiotics and the attitudinal trends and things like this can go a really long way to building trust, but also setting up the argument that like, Hey, between A and B, your answer isn't here. Right? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Demonstrating that, yeah, understanding the field is hard, isn't it? I think as, as designers and service providers and consultants more generally, who work across multiple disciplines, there's a, it could be a pressure to no. Something about every kind of business out there, but there's a limit to how much you can absorb and still bring your A game to actually doing your job, which is cutting through that and, and creating something different, right? Mm-hmm. Um, I think that is, that's. You say it simply, and it sounds really, sounds really easy, but I think that's the complicated thing, is knowing how much to engage, how much knowledge to take on from each, each niche, that you are not overwhelmed and you are not going to be constrained to expectations. I mean, I know you're doing it for quite the opposite reason, but there's a, there's a. I find I, I think that I've seen creatives have a challenge with this, have, absorbed so much stuff that they feel the pressure to go down a route that is more expected. instead of having confidence in their ability to, I always think of creative people as like mustard, like cut through like a palate cleanse or like zabi, like you're able to see everything and then cut a pathway through it and do something different when you do it right. And it's easy to say, but it's really hard to do. Like it's, yeah, it's testament to your experience. I think that, that you're able to do that. Is there anything else you wanna share about, for the people who are listening in and thinking, I too wanna make the shift from freelancer to agency owner, and I wanna do it with knowledge about why I am doing it and what I'm trying to achieve, that you'd like them to take away. Very less aspirational, very tactical finances. Get your finances in order, really watch your profit margin. really build out success around that. Automate as much as possible. because I am personally of the belief that the financial freedom and ability to pivot. Pays off and that you can say no to other things. That's the, that's, that's the idea. Buy you the freedom to choose. Exactly. Mm-hmm. It's the best thing about money. Right. Ideally eating. yeah, fair enough. And the, iced coffee with yuzu syrup, which I'm, very jealous about. That's on the desk right now. okay. Joel, thank you so much for taking the time to be with us today. Continues to be a pleasure to work with you and, and see what is coming otherness as way. And, yeah, thanks for sharing your experience. Thank you for having me.