
@pidgethani
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Head of Brand @ Merciv / Helping brands understand consumers / prev. Otherlife, Pentagram
New York, NY
Joined August 2020
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I fell in love with branding and design because of @RonnieFieg. I was obsessed back in the day 😭
My conversation with @RonnieFieg, founder, CEO and creative director of Kith.
At 13, Ronnie turned down an envelope of cash at his bar mitzvah and asked for a job instead. He started the next day in a sneaker stockroom and spent the next 15 years learning every part of the business before launching Kith in 2011.
Today, Kith puts out more than 5,000 styles a year across apparel, footwear, kids and accessories, and has lines outside its stores from New York to Seoul. It has no outside investors, doesn’t wholesale and doesn’t license. Until recently, Ronnie was still the fit model for the product.
Ronnie describes himself as a world builder, and this conversation is the best explanation I’ve heard of what that means.
0:00 You can’t work backwards from money
4:43 “Keep the envelope. I want a job.”
10:25 Why the CEO is also the fit model
18:43 The childhood shoe that launched his career
20:52 The Wall Street Journal, a line down the block and a visit from Adidas
26:48 Get rid of the crap
31:09 What luxury should actually mean
32:40 Why Kith doesn’t wholesale or license
38:24 Building the opposite of an arrogant sneaker shop
40:39 The Italian crook who registered Kith’s trademark
52:02 How a $20 deli experiment became Kith Treats
55:11 Serve your customers, don’t chase new ones
59:35 Always give people more than they pay for
1:02:41 Seeing 15 years of work laid out on the floor
1:12:00 Growing up before the algorithm
1:25:46 How a padel obsession created Kith Ivy
Includes paid partnerships.
💰
Merch Intelligence Report 9/25:
- Fal & @adamho GMC Tote Bag
- @pidgethan and Merciv Jacket Sample
- Gemini Audio hoodie & hat kit
- 1X Knit Sweater & Tote
Fall looks from the techwear scene.
The @cursor_ai app literally tells me to update it every 30 seconds
Maybe not strict, but still some kickass brand guidelines
design.cash.app/
We don’t have strict brand guidelines at @CashApp
Work like this is why.
We flex the brand to fit whatever we’re building. This was for kids accounts.
Keep a few things consistent. Logo, green, type. Everything else can move.
Calling a set of tokens and styles from a website a brand system is a gross oversimplification. It also assumes 1) the website was good, 2) it’s representative of the best version of the brand, and 3) all the decisions on the website were intentional brand/design decisions, not a marketer whipping up a templated landing page.
We've been working with the top frontier labs to improve their design model capabilities. Today we're bringing that to your agents.
Introducing our first agent tool: the Brand API.
As the cost of creation goes to zero, and slop floods around us, the challenge is creating things worth existing. Agents need the right tools to craft great things.
This helps gen AI agents solve 3 problems:
- Extract: produce on-brand assets when users already have a brand
- Search: find and retrieve brands for inspiration, from our curated index
- Verify: check their own work against, see what's off brand and how to fix it
Anyone can try it for free today at tastelabs.com/api
Check out the full blog, and case study with @intelligenceco below.
Before working at startup: 8 hour day feels like 12 hours
After working at startup: 12 hour day feels like 15 minutes
As a brand/design team, success isn’t about masking anyone else’s lack of taste; it’s about raising the bar for everyone in unison and bringing them along on the journey.
AI writing dead giveaway of the day: straight vs. curly quotes.
LLMs process text as numerical tokens and therefore don’t use curly quotes. When you’re typing, curly quotes (or smart quotes) are used by default.
Tip for designers: invest in a custom domain for your portfolio, especially if you’re applying for new jobs. It signals legitimacy and is usually fairly inexpensive.
Merciv is hiring a brand designer.
It’s a role that is, naturally, extremely important and exciting to me.
We’re looking for someone who brings a strategic, systems-driven mindset where it matters, plus a proven ability to execute beyond expectations.
You should feel comfortable translating complex, technical subjects into clear, compelling, and distinct visual applications. You deeply understand the fundamentals, but are comfortable exploring new methods and approaches.
Most of all, you’re intrinsically motivated to do great work.
If that sounds like you, send me a DM or comment below.























