Sevrin Daniels is the co-founder of Seattle’s The New Blank, which produces and directs still and motion shoots for commercials, promos and social media, working with talent and celebrities, with or without VFX. “Depending on the need, we can capture still and motion images for all media at one shoot making production budgets as efficient as possible,” says Daniels, who also serves as the company’s executive creative director
The New Blank has developed entertainment branding, show packages, key art and marketing for networks and production companies such as ABC, NBC, Fox Syfy, PBS, MTV and more. According to Daniels, they have designed, shot and finished commercials for AT&T, Microsoft, Shopify, Amazon, Converse, Verizon and others.
We caught up with Daniels to discuss his Behind The Title, or Titles, to be more accurate…
Amazon
What’s your role at The New Blank?
It depends on the day, sometimes the hour. The title on LinkedIn and my business card reads executive creative director, but how I spend my time varies based on the needs of our business, clients and team. Some days it’s all presentations and pitches, and other days it’s a tabletop shoot. Every day, it’s about kerning.
Got it, but what’s your typical day like?
There are no typical days when part of your job is running a business. However, there are a few things that do happen every day. Every morning, Eric (CD), Andrew (EP) and I (or Bobby, my business partner) go over every project in the house, look at the state of every deliverable and determine the path for the rest of the crew that day. At the end of each day, I make sure all is on course. The jelly in that doughnut changes minute to minute.
Can you talk about a few projects that represent The New Blank and/or the kind of creative work the studio provides?
There are so many aspects to enjoy. Usually, it’s the client’s involvement that makes a project a great experience, but man we can geek out on anything, to be honest. We love our ABC jobs; every job we have done with Brooks Running has been a joy. These clients just come ready to explore with so much enthusiasm for design.
Sevrin Daniels
I love seeing the crew immersed in the process. We did a cool little project for Amazon a while back, all about the joy that kids get from playing with the boxes. Amazon printed a spaceship console on the inside flap of a box, and we created a 360 video that kids could access from a QR code. It was an immersive journey through a cardboard universe featuring a dinosaur planet, space whales and cows jumping over moons. Watching the design team crack that nut was satisfying; sharing that with my kids was just magic.
Which designers/creatives do you look at today and think they’re crushing it across any industry?
It was cool seeing Beeple get rich doing uncompromising subversive design and art. Who would have thought that was possible?
Occasionally, you can be caught strumming a guitar waiting for Zoom participants to join a meeting. What kind of guitar and what’s your playing experience? What are a few of your most heavily played songs on Spotify?
I always like to be the first person in a meeting, and I always have a guitar next to me. I find that playing an instrument pulls me entirely out of my 12-hour-a-day digital life. Playing for a few minutes before a call resets my brain. Actually, whenever I stall, I pick it up for a few minutes to break out of it. Sometimes just picking the thing up can do the trick.
As far as Spotify songs, that’s a tricky question. Without a doubt, my most played song is “Our Lips Are Sealed” by The Go-Gos, but that’s because my five-year-old is just obsessed. There is something about her dancing around her bedroom to The Go-Gos that makes life worth living. As for me, I’m on a St. Vincent kick, she is just a killer.
We put together Spotify playlists that we send out to clients usually once a quarter and they contain a slice of what we’re listening to in the office. It’s lovely because it’s just all over the place.
Do you see a correlation between the creativity of making music and design process of branding, animation and/or motionography? If so, what? If not, what are the differences?
If you are creative, your medium is really just what you’re comfortable with. Art and design have always come naturally, and I had been provided the tools to make it since kindergarten. Music came much later, probably too late.
What’s a valuable lesson (or two) that you’ve learned running a business for the 14-plus years that your younger self would have benefited from knowing back in the day?
If you love what you’re doing, be very certain that a business is what you want. Be very aware that once you build that business larger than yourself, you will spend less and less time in the design seat and more and more time just keeping up with the day to day. Those spreadsheets don’t just create and analyze themselves.
Do you remember an early design project either at school or work? What was it, where did you struggle, how did it turn out?
Oh yes! I was designing a magazine layout for the band Garbage. I was so obsessed … music, design, tabloid-size pages. Oh man, did I feel like I had landed in clover.
The drummer Butch Vig had produced Nirvana’s Nevermind a few years prior, and Shirley Manson was just such a rock star. So that was a real treat to sink your teeth into as a young designer.
I always struggle to get off the ground with things I’m excited about. In this case, I knew these guys would be reading and judging. I can imagine that I massaged that layout for days after it should have been out of the oven. Sorry, I don’t have a copy with which to embarrass myself.
Do you have a secret to remaining creative while doing the “business stuff” required of a co-owner?
I don’t have a secret, and if I did, I probably wouldn’t share it. But I do know that you have to find creativity where you can. As a skater, I have always looked at the world as a skate park; I see transitions in lawns and handrails as rollercoasters. As a designer, I always see design in everything, intentional and unintentional. Oh, and revel in the creativity of the folks you nurture. If you love what they do, they will welcome your critiques.
What sort of things have your team enacted to keep employees and clients happy through the pandemic?
For our employees, we just try to stay in close contact and make sure they have what they need. For clients, Zoom happy hours with creative cocktails.
What pandemic-required changes do you think might be here to stay, and how will they affect The New Blank?
Zoom is here forever; we all know it. We hate it. We love it. It’s like American cheese.
I don’t know how it will affect us more than it has. We were up on remote working before the pandemic, but right now the rest of the world has come up the highway with us. It certainly makes being an entertainment-focused company based out of Seattle seem far less silly.
Daniels’ daughters rocking out
What advice would you give a young motion designer, animator or director early in their career about creativity, design and running a business?
Build a team with people you love, people who inspire you. Study people you admire. Listen to the ideas of everyone, from your creative director to your office manager. Stay small until you can’t stand it. Don’t get big offices, and be very certain that being a businessperson is really what you want.
You’re a father. Do you see your kids picking up aspects of design or might their art skills remain limited to drawing stick figures like most of us?
My wife Lindsay Daniels is an Emmy Award-winning designer and director, so it’s safe to say that the kids are immersed.
It comes out in interesting ways. My oldest (9) will sit and dream about trees, paint a picture and write a poem. My youngest (5) is obsessed with painting, collaging, papier-mache and abstract rainbows.
If you could wave a magic wand and implement a change to address any pain point across the entire industry, what would that be?
Rising talent costs and shrinking budgets. It’s crazy that in a moment when corporate industry is at its most profitable, budgets for what we do are half what they were 40 years ago.
