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PODCAST

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

Mark It 2 Me is a podcast about branding, brand strategy, and the business of creative work, hosted by New York creative director Joe Baron. It"s made for the people who hire creative work (founders, marketers, creative directors, and art directors) and the designers who want to understand how those decisions actually get made.This podcast is for you if you find yourself asking questions such as:How much should branding cost, and what am I actually paying for? Do I need a full rebrand or just a

arts design

All Episodes

00:53:06

27: Getting Unstuck: Why Mindset Isn’t Enough | Ryan...

Mark It 2 Me: Podcasting about the Business of... ·

2026/10/06

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

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00:13:13

26: McLaren’s New Logo and Why Rebrand Outrage Rarely...

Mark It 2 Me: Podcasting about the Business of... ·

2026/09/29

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

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00:48:03

25: What Running a Brand for 19 Years Actually Costs...

Mark It 2 Me: Podcasting about the Business of... ·

2026/09/22

Matthew Johnson has run 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.—

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00:08:48

24: Branding vs. Marketing: Why Brand Clarity Comes...

Mark It 2 Me: Podcasting about the Business of... ·

2026/09/15

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 takeawaysFragmented marketing is a clarity problem, not a creativity problem. Effort and budget are rarely the bottleneck. Undefined identity is.A brand

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00:58:56

23: Why Other Creatives Are the Wrong Audience with...

Mark It 2 Me: Podcasting about the Business of... ·

2026/09/08

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 TakeawaysThe creative community is not the market. There are not

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00:08:03

22: How to Tell Your Brand Story (Without Making It Up)

Mark It 2 Me: Podcasting about the Business of... ·

2026/09/01

Long summaryA 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

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00:08:03

21: Beating Imposter Syndrome as a Creative...

Mark It 2 Me: Podcasting about the Business of... ·

2026/08/25

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 TAKEAWAYSIt’s a location, not a warning. Imposter syndrome

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00:09:39

20: What Should a Founder Post on Social Media? 10...

Mark It 2 Me: Podcasting about the Business of... ·

2026/08/18

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

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00:46:10

Ep. 19 Why AI will NEVER be better than average with...

Mark It 2 Me: Podcasting about the Business of... ·

2026/08/11

Key TakeawaysAI 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

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00:52:07

Ep. 18 Fake Brands, Real Money, and Bad Advice Part 1

Mark It 2 Me: Podcasting about the Business of... ·

2026/08/04

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

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00:14:35

Ep. 17 Polish is Overrated

Mark It 2 Me: Podcasting about the Business of... ·

2026/07/28

OverviewPolish 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 TakeawaysFixing typos and obvious errors is table stakes — respect for the viewer. The layers

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01:05:17

Ep. 16 How Free Content Turned Into Brand Deals

Mark It 2 Me: Podcasting about the Business of... ·

2026/07/21

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

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00:05:45

Ep. 15 The Brand Gut-Check: Refresh, Rebuild, or...

Mark It 2 Me: Podcasting about the Business of... ·

2026/07/14

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

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01:02:24

Ep. 14 Stop Posting, Start Strategizing

Mark It 2 Me: Podcasting about the Business of... ·

2026/07/07

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 TakeawaysStorytelling isn't a

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01:01:27

Ep. 13 Murals, Brand Work, and Building Authority

Mark It 2 Me: Podcasting about the Business of... ·

2026/06/23

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 countingThe Cleveland

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00:08:24

Ep. 12 Leadership Lessons Learned from Jalen Brunson

Mark It 2 Me: Podcasting about the Business of... ·

2026/06/21

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

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00:55:44

Ep. 11 What Design School Doesn’t Teach About the...

Mark It 2 Me: Podcasting about the Business of... ·

2026/06/09

Jason Frostholm is a graphic designer, educator, and former podcast host based in Mobile, Alabama. He did his undergrad at the University of South Alabama, went back for his master's during the pandemic, and spent several years teaching design full-time at a local Jesuit institution. His thesis focused on integrating business principles into design education — and it shows in how he structures his courses. He's worked in-house at an engineering firm, run a referral-based freelance practice, and

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00:53:32

Ep. 10 - Lettering, Design, & Building a Niche Career

Mark It 2 Me: Podcasting about the Business of... ·

2026/05/26

OverviewJason Carne has been doing lettering professionally for two decades. His client list reads like a mashup of a record store, a sports bar, and a spirits cabinet — and that range isn't accidental. It's the result of staying a student of lettering long after most people would've gotten comfortable. In this conversation, Jason and Joe get into how that career actually gets built: the early days doing hardcore merch, the pivot toward packaging and branding, the Stanley Cup project that came in

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01:32:41

Ep. 9 - This Brand Doesn’t Sell T-Shirts - It Sells...

Mark It 2 Me: Podcasting about the Business of... ·

2026/05/12

Anthony “Biggie” Bencomo — Owner and CSO (Chief Sandwich Officer) of Deli Fresh Threads — joins Mark It 2 Me to talk about building a concept-driven apparel brand rooted in nostalgia, packaging experience, and real-world community.From launching KnightMare Apparel at the University of Central Florida in 1997 to founding Deli Fresh Threads in 2013, Biggie shares lessons learned from nearly three decades of entrepreneurship. He breaks down how turning a sandwich into a brand universe led to restaurant

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01:06:57

Ep. 8 - The Logo Geek Strikes Back

Mark It 2 Me: Podcasting about the Business of... ·

2026/05/04

In Part 2 of this conversation, Joe Baron continues his discussion with logo designer, author, and Logo Geek founder Ian Paget.The episode picks up as Ian shares the thinking behind his book, including an overlooked intermediate step in the logo design process that helps clients better understand creative decisions. From there, the conversation expands into self-publishing, his Kickstarter experience, and the realities of using Amazon KDP.Joe and Ian also discuss design awards, industry trends, and

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27 results

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