Welcome to the Startup CPG podcast. I'm your host, Jesse Freytag.

Mind the gap. You may know the famous London Underground warning, but do you know anyone who

minds the font? Enter Kirk Vizola. Kirk is an active member of our startup CPG community,

with a heart for sharing his expertise and helping

people navigate the complex world of packaging and branding. He has a no bullshit approach to life

and client work. With over 20 years of design expertise working with some of the largest brands in

the world, he now operates his own agency, mind the font, making his caliber of work available to

brands of all sizes. Listen in as Kirk shares about

why he started his own agency, tips for approaching a packaging project, and how to build a great

long-term relationship with a designer. Hi, Kirk, how are you today? Hey, great, how are you? Doing awesome.

So excited to have you here today. Thank you so much for joining. Absolutely. Thanks for having me on.

It's pretty cool. I'm happy with the startup CPG family and I'm glad you're today. Thank you so much for joining. Absolutely. Thanks for having me on. It's pretty cool. I'm happy with the startup CPG fam's dealing, and I'm glad you're jumping on board and taking care of this whole podcast shit. It's awesome. I would love if you could start off by telling us about Mind the font and your work. Absolutely. Well, Mind the Fonts and agency I've formed. I mean, I've been doing graphic design for a long time. And I just formed an agency because I was tired of the bullshit corporate stance of needing

to be at work and having to have ass in the seat and not having my ideas listened to.

And I really felt like my ideas and my creativity was being handcuffed, for lack of a better term,

from working with through project managers and in different fields of where

I was working before in the corporate structure, just wasn't loving it. And I knew that I needed

to get out just because it was wearing out my soul. And I figured I've been doing this for a while.

I have enough skill and I have enough people that I know that can get me work. I'm just going to start on my own.

And in 2019, March, I started on my own.

And had I known that COVID was going to hit the next year, I just would have stuck it out

at that terrible job and started during the time we're all able to work from home.

Being able to work from home, I've been doing this for over 20 years, and I never worked in an office until about 10 years ago. Before then, it was all, you know, like I started on this fucking I Omega Zip drives and shit. You know, I don't know if people listening, look up I Omega, letter I Omega zip drives. And it's just he fat ass floppy disk, 10 and 20 megabytes.

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