Front and Center

WE GOT MOUTHWASH STUDIO IN THE HOUSE! We are thrilled to welcome Strategy Director & Partner Alex Tan and Creative Director & Partner Abraham Campillo to the program! Mouthwash is a design studio centered on new ideas and defining experiences, partnering with this generation’s leading brands and innovators to influence culture. Their approach challenges industry standards, adopts new technologies, and strives for a lasting positive impact. Over time, their work has naturally led them towards industry leaders across art, architecture, fashion, sustainability, technology, and beyond. They’ve worked with brands like Apple, Bonnie Clyde, Fender, Google, Lululemon, Nike, The North Face, OpenAI, Rimowa, Seed, and the Utah Jazz to name a few. They recently opened an all-day café in Los Angeles: Café Tondo. They also write Findings, a newsletter on the influences and trends that are quietly shaping our culture. And they make a successful magazine: Mouthwash Magazine, an exhibition in print for contemporary culture, art, and photography. Mouthwash is a creative powerhouse, a studio started by friends who met on Instagram and just liked working together, and they haven’t looked back since, and they never will. Enjoy!

This week on Front and Center… Alex and Kevin bring the heat. They talk about Hyrox athlete Joanna Wietrzyk, Sydney Sweeney’s new Novig campaign, Jessica Hische’s Muse logo controversy, Trump ‘rebranding’ AI, the new foldable iPhone, the Streetfighter popcorn bucket, big Capri Sun, the rotisserie chicken bag, the Betty Crocker slice of cake bag, Merriam-Webster’s new words, Buzzball x Poptarts, and more!

This week we are (were) live from Montreal! Our first-ever live podcast, here for your ears. In this episode, we close out a stacked day of incredible creatives speaking at Forum, the Annual Design Assembly in Montreal. Andrea Trabucco introduces us before we talk about the hot, delicious, yet unschmeared bagels we had and how much we like the city so far. We then bring out Ariane Leblanc, co-founder of Martha, and Bryan-K. Lamonde, co-founder and Creative Director of Principal Studio, to discuss Montreal, its design scene, and what makes it exceptionally good; working in two languages, being a good lover, our guilty pleasures, chaos, and more!

This week we have Arthur Foliard on the pod! Arthur is the Executive Creative Director at Koto New York, where he leads a team and shapes brands through bold ideas, clear systems, and distinct visual worlds.
Though we do not talk about Instagram (we recorded this in May), Arthur describes the deliberate slow build of Koto New York into what it is today: a branding powerhouse (my words, not his). He tells us about their work for Bolt, Lyft, Tripadvisor, and Amazon. Their work is alive and distinct on a massive scale. They work on some of the biggest and best projects in the industry, and it is impressive what they’re able to do.
Welcome Arthur!

Alex and Kevin are back from California, and due to a scheduling (production) error, the fellas recorded a quick one just a few hours ago! Better late than never! Anyway, they talk about Instagram's new wordmark, Good Good x Callaway, Liquid Death x Garage Beer, JIF, and more!