Video: Brad Frost – We Are Here

In October 2024 I met Brad Frost in Antwerp. He and I had a longer night chatting about all things life over a few beers. We have a steady connection chatting online and I know Brad for many years. In fact, he premiered his idea of Atomic Design at the 2013 edition of beyond tellerrand in Düsseldorf and we met countless times since then more or less all around the world.

While we were chatting in Antwerp, I asked him if he would not be interested in doing a different kind of talk and speak about how his work had influenced his life, being such a massive part in his and his family’s life. I explained what Josh Brewer did 10 years after speaking at the same beyond tellerrand, where Brad had been a speaker.

Sure enough Brad already had similar ideas and we played a bit of idea and concept ping pong during that night, which involved ideas of underlaying his talk with music, as music is a big part in his life and so on. Good fun chatting and we both were excited about that.

Some time passed and when I contacted him to chat about Berlin in more detail, he explained what he had in mind with something like “What about, if I give a talk without saying a single word? Instead, I’ll take the audience through moments of my life, set to music, building towards a big finale where the whole room joins in.”

I am honest: it was different than what I expected, even though we discussed that it should be “different”.

I think Brad could feel that from my reaction which was something like ”Errhmmmm … ok.”,when he replied ”It’s going to be epic. Trust me, Marc.”

That’s what I did. And that is part of me running the event. I trusted Tobi in 2013 with his idea of “Audio-Sketchnotes”. I always trust the artists I ask for t-shirt designs, event designs, opening titles (like Gavin with his live titles) and anything else. I guess part of the “beyond tellerrand” idea is exactly this. To be open for new and other things, not giving a briefing, but trusting the creating person.

The reaction to Brad’s and Ian’s performance onsite was split. I guess some people might have expected a little more practical output from the Brad Frost. Some people in the audience have been totally in tears and I think it lies in the nature of such a different way of presenting something very personal that you will never match everybody’s taste. I mean no talk actually ever does that.

I think that all this has been very brave of Brad. Not only was it a lot of work (Brad has written about the whole project and process in detail on his blog), but also could have totally bombed. It did not and provoked some wonderful reaction.

In times of shitty AI slob flooding most of the internet it means even more, if someone creates something like this. With his hands. With passion. With soul. Something that wasn’t perfect, but which shouldn’t be. Something that means so much to someone, which it did to Brad.

I can only say thanks to Brad for trusting me, my event and especially the audience my events attract, that this would be the right place for being vulnerable, showing something so private and presenting that in the way he did.

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More information about Brad Frost his beyond tellerrand profile page.

A detailed blog post about the presentation, what it involved and how it all started can be found on Brad’s blog.

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