Ep. 053 – Christian Helms – The 99-Pack, a McDonald's Broom, and Taking the Joke Seriously
Om avsnittet
A 99-pack of beer sounds like a joke. It's about as tall as Shaq and weighs eighty pounds. When Christian Helms described it to his mom, she said she didn't get it.
A few months later, she called to ask if he'd seen what Austin Beerworks did.
In this episode, we talk with Christian Helms, founder and creative director of Helms Workshop in Austin, about the 99-pack, Howler Brothers, a week living with Modest Mouse's Isaac Brock, and a career built mostly on naive optimism. Underneath the stories is a bigger conversation. Why is the funniest idea in the room so often the most human one? Why do you have to understand something better than anyone before you can make it surprising? And why would he rather hire a great person than a great portfolio?
It is part design history, part Southern storytelling, and part confession from a man with two giant wind chimes and a painted bunting at his feeder.
In this episode, we talk about:
- Getting chased out of a McDonald's with a broom as a Pentagram intern, and why just being in the room while Michael Bierut presents is a master class.
- How the 99-pack actually happened including the rule he still works by: take the joke you make at the bar with the client and make it real the next day.
- Why creativity is a skill, not a gift and the Edward de Bono exercise that can turn a hospital logo into a vehicle.
- Why AI and focus groups pull you toward the same place especially when the whole point of a brand is to not look like everything else in the category.
- How years of Lyme disease finally broke his micromanaging habit and why he's hired the third-best portfolio in the stack more times than he can count.
Whether you run a studio, work in one, or just want your ideas to stop looking like everyone else's, this one's worth your time. The weird idea is usually the right one. Someone just has to be brave enough to make it real.
ABOUT THE CREATIVE
Christian Helms is the founder and creative director of Helms Workshop, a branding agency in Austin, Texas, focused on consumer goods and hospitality. The studio has built brands for Austin Beerworks, Howler Brothers, Tecovas, and plenty of the places that make Austin feel like Austin.
He grew up in small-town North Carolina, studied journalism and creative writing at UNC, went on to Portfolio Center in Atlanta, and interned at Pentagram under Michael Bierut. In Austin he fell in with the Decoder Ring crew, making music posters for the bands he was already seeing four or five nights a week.
These days he reads a lot of Southern noir, keeps boiled peanuts in the freezer, and is writing a book on branding.
Website
https://www.instagram.com/tchristianhelms
Studio Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/helms_workshop
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Brad Woodard
Brad is an illustrator and designer behind Brave the Woods, a full-service studio working with clients like PBS Kids, Ford, Target, and USPS. His bold, playful style and heart-led storytelling shine through everything from brand campaigns to children’s books.
Dustin Lee
Dustin is the founder of RetroSupply, a shop for retro-inspired brushes, textures, and digital tools used by tens of thousands of creatives from indie artists to major studios. He shares what it’s really like to run a creative business while keeping it small, weird, and intentional.
Credits
Audio/video editing: Clara Wright
Cover art: Brad Woodard
Intro animation: Seth Austin
Intro music: “Snakes and Fire” (Instrumental) by Pär Hagström
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