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44: Street Artist to Vice-President of Global Design Coca-Cola // The Story of James Sommerville

Background:

James Sommerville is the Founder of KnownUnknown, the world’s first decentralized design community working with Fortune 100 brands on brand design assignments and NFTs, leveraging their utility token ($KUDOS). From 2013 to 2018, James was the VP Global Design for The Coca Cola Company, where he led the design innovation and identity programs for many billion-dollar iconic beverage brands.

Prior to joining Coca-Cola, James was co-founder of Attik, a UK startup design firm that led the digital art revolution and changed the face of design in the 1990s, inspiring thousands of designers and creatives across the world. They were also responsible for the major redesign of Coke’s brand identity in 2006 and its visual identity strategy for 2010’s FIFA World Cup. He also worked with other famous brands such as Adidas, Virgin, Heineken, and Sheraton.

 

Time-Stamped Show Notes:

  • 4:04 James talks about his book called Grab the Mic, which he describes as his story of being a confident introvert.
  • 6:00 Being an introvert during his younger years, doodling became his channel of expression.
  • 7:34 For 3 years, James was bullied in school.
  • 10:09 The doodling led to art school and eventually to street art.
  • 11:28 Chalking was the street art that James was doing in the early days. They would usually do caricatures for kids such as Disney characters.
  • 13:04 In the 80s, with a very high unemployment rate in the UK, this situation gave James the opportunity to become an entrepreneur.
  • 15:03 Being already entrepreneurial at a young age, James fixed broken skateboards and sold them for a good price. This was a pivotal and magical moment for James.
  • 17:28 James shares the story of how he got involved with the Prince of Wales’s Charities.
  • 20:02 Pitching their ideas to investors and getting rejected was a learning experience for James and helped him to build his confidence for the next pitch.
  • 23:25 After buying the Apple Mac in the 80s, James and his business partner started to print and experiment with typography. They were blown away with the results when they saw what they printed.
  • 29:22 During his cold calling stint looking for clients, James tries to be more personal by asking people for their advice.
  • 31:55 One valuable lesson that James learned in entrepreneurship involves having a strong commitment, integrity, and seeing things to the end.
  • 33:43 Learning branding and marketing from his uncle, who was the press officer for the Beatles, James decided to take his graphic design business abroad.
  • 38:25 There was mixed emotions for James when he was selling the company.
  • 42:52 James explains how he started KnownUnknown.
  • 45:53 KnownUnknown is launching their NFT platform marketplace in February.
  • 49:27 James has a few important words and advice to say to his younger self if he was given the chance to go back in time.

This Episode Brought to You By:

  • 25:38 The Man, the Myth, the Canadian Legend: Eric Gilbert-Williams. Eric put together this very podcast as a passion project to help you & others. If you’d be so kind to Subscribe & Leave a Written Review of the show, it’d really make our day! You can Subscribe & Rate our Podcast right here: From Rock Bottom to Rockin’ It..

 

Key Points from the Interview:

  • “Bear in mind this is 1977ish, punk rock was raving, people walk in boy’s bathrooms with pierce in their ears, blood everywhere, if you were to look in their eye accidentally, your head will be down the toilet and will be flushing, so that idea of that chaos that was around you and then bear in mind you’re an introvert, you’re a shy kid, you became an easy target for just pranks or deeper but more meaningful bullying target.”
  • “As an entrepreneur, he hired a 16-wheeler, he went to, of all places, Germany, he came back with 40,000 skateboards but 5% of them were broken, the wheels had come out, the ball bearings. So, I fixed them by hand in my garage and I sold them for 5 pounds each in a local post office. And for me that was a real taste of, I just did this.”

 

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