I first saw Freddie Öst speak at GAB in Glasgow with the JamHot guys. Having seen many in my time, it was my favourite design talk.
Freddie mixed useful advice, knockout work and extraordinary tales of studio life without ever taking himself seriously. In fact, the studio's whole ethos felt like a massive prank on the industry. Constantly pulling the rug out from under their clients, themselves and anyone who bought into their methods.
Freddie speaking at GAB in Glasgow
I bought the Snask book, Make Enemies and Gain Fans, afterwards and read it cover to cover. So when Freddie joined me on WiseNoise, I was pretty chuffed and a little starstruck.
Starting Snask with their own rules
Freddie and his college buddies started Snask straight after graduating. Looking back, he thinks their naivety was a strength. They saw an industry shaped by hierarchies and assumed there must be another way to work.
He compared it to football. If a 16-year-old Wayne Rooney is the best player at Everton, he gets his chance. But if you're the best graphic designer at the agency you just graduated into, you might still be on the lowest pay.
So they started their own studio and made their own rules: no misogyny, no pointless hierarchies, and fun as the mission statement from day one.
Before Snask, the group had spent three years studying in Carlisle. Their Swedish teacher told them Carlisle was close to everything. It turned out to be quite the opposite. When they applied to Glasgow School of Art, they made an application as unusual as the story deserves.
They bought a second-hand teddy bear, remade him to look mean, fitted him with a steel skeleton, speakers in his ears and a phone in his backpack. The speakers were connected to a tape recorder, which carried their message. GSA played it, but threw away the charger. The phone never worked, and they never heard back.
Years later, Freddie visited an exhibition at the school. The teachers showed him the bear, still sitting on a shelf in their office.
The dog years, and learning what work they wanted
The early years were hard. Freddie called them dog years: an identity for a Carlisle bar paid for in beer, working weekends, and taking jobs in clothing shops to earn a living.
Then came a Swedish manpower company. Someone had quoted £2,000 for an identity and website. As a joke, Freddie and the team doubled the price to £4,000, expecting the client to say no.
The client said the money would be in their account the following week.
At first, they chased work in culture and theme parks. Then they realised Sweden had very few theme parks, and culture rarely paid well. After two years, they changed direction.
Their rule now is to look for projects that offer good money or creative freedom, and, ideally, both. Bigger budgets can bring more rules and boundaries. So when the commercial work pays well, it can help fund self-initiated ideas and projects for NGOs. One kind of work makes room for the other.
Shower Beer: a product with a very clean brief
Snask had designed labels for a friend's Stockholm brewery and, in Freddie's words, got tired of being paid in beer. So they went into business together. The brewery made the beer; Snask handled the branding, design and storytelling. They split ownership 50/50.
The idea was Shower Beer: a small bottle, made for a few gulps while getting ready to go out. At 18 centilitres, it wouldn't have time to get hot in the shower. Four gulps, roughly 10% alcohol, and a screen-printed surface that was easier to grip with wet hands.
The project went viral on Christmas Eve. Freddie woke to a thousand unread emails and called Erik in a panic. The press coverage was huge.
It’s a brilliant example of design that starts with a simple, specific observation and carries it through every detail. You can see the original Shower Beer project on the Snask site.
Shower Beer was designed to be enjoyed in a few gulps while getting ready. Image: Snask
Making enemies with a point
"Coca-Cola is the most boring shit we could ever do. We want to rebrand North Korea."
For ICON magazine, Snask was invited to rebrand any brand they liked. Coca-Cola felt too obvious. They chose North Korea instead.
Designer Asta Ostrowska worked on the design. The idea became Love Korea, a speculative identity imagining the country as a free democracy. Snask wrote to the North Korean embassy, offering the whole identity for free if or when the country became one. They even had an impersonator of Kim Jong-un, living in Australia, record a video in a printed flag.
There were threats. There was also a point.
As I told Freddie, if you're not making any enemies, maybe you're not doing work that's good or exciting enough to stand for something. The project is on Snask's site.
Love Korea imagined a different future for the country. Image: Snask
Klarna's horses, violins and feeling
“Klarna never said no. We could present stupid ideas and they wouldn't stop us."
For Klarna, Snask built abstract visual worlds around the feeling of "smoothness", rather than listing product benefits or USPs. The client was already interested in that direction and gave the team room to present ideas freely, even the silly ones.
I especially love the horses and violins. There’s something human and surprising about the work. It gives me hope at a time when AI can make it tempting to settle for polished, predictable visuals. You can see some of the crafted worlds in the Klarna Smooth Scenarios case study.
Snask's Klarna work built a visual world around a feeling, not a list of product features. Image: Snask
What inspires you won't fit on Pinterest
"Love is Blind, shitty TV series... those things inspire us more than looking at visual work."
The episode's Bingo Wheel of Wisdom took us from magnesium supplements for restless legs (Freddie asked me not to ruin the placebo) to karaoke. His choices: "Bohemian Rhapsody" and "Forgot About Dre", including both rap parts.
Asked about Instagram or Pinterest, he chose neither. He uses Instagram for travel memories, but doesn't care about algorithms. Snask has never been inspired by other designers' work as much as by everyday life: bad Netflix shows, Love Is Blind, Donald Trump being an arsehole, or a Saturday night on Glasgow's Sauchiehall Street.
That mix of people, outfits, chips on the pavement and questionable decisions is hard to find on Pinterest. It’s a good reminder that inspiration isn't limited to a visual reference library. What you see, feel and react to in the world becomes part of the work too.
Work so you can live
Turn off your notifications. And if the weekend comes and you want to dress up as a sexy fairy on Sauchiehall Street, do that instead.
For the Heavy Dessert, Freddie chose burnout. Snask decided years ago that nobody should work after five or do overtime. You need a life outside work: relationships, friends, sleep, interests and the occasional pint.
Instead of living to work, flip it around. Work so you can live.
As a solo trader, I know the temptation to take the laptop home and do an extra hour after dinner. But cooking with family, watching a film, reading and listening to podcasts all feed into the work in their own way. If you think about work all the time, you risk becoming a boring person, a boring designer, and, ultimately, a less interesting prospect for clients.
Freddie's email philosophy made me laugh because it’s painfully true. If you could only receive a million emails in your lifetime, it might be worth sitting around waiting for them. But for every email you send, two come back, ait never ends it. When you die, you probably won’t want tto thinkabout how many emails you answered.
His practical tips are simple: turn off notifications, don't read email when you go to the toilet, and if the weekend comes and you want to dress up as a sexy fairy on Sauchiehall Street, do that instead.
That time I met Freddie at GAB. At least I think it was Freddie?
Get Freddie to Aberdeen!
Freddie doesn't have a Scotland visit planned, but he wants to come back. So I'm starting the ‘Get Freddie to Aberdeen’ campaign. If he finds Sauchiehall Street on a Saturday night inspiring, Union Street at the weekend’s peak will blow his mind. Bring the fairy wings!
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Thanks to Freddie for such a generous, funny and thought-provoking conversation. You can listen to more WiseNoise episodes, including this one.
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