University of Delaware Office of Public Relations The Messenger Vol. 5, No. 2/1996 Marketing Man of Letters Styling along Harrison Street in Wilmington, Del., R. Richard Roat Jr., Delaware '87, pilots his customized 1976 Chevy van through traffic. On the cel phone is Ed "Big Daddy" Roth, king of hot rod chic and creator of the Rat Fink character, who is concluding a major deal with Roat for a new product called Fink Fonts. Roat is creative director for the '90s-something firm, Brand Design, headquartered in a plush, glass and chrome office on the 36th floor of a downtown office building. Clients include Time- Warner, Saab, MTV and major league baseball. Or, that's how Roat might tell it. And, minus a few creative marketing touches, the story is true. Roat is creative director for the three-year-old graphic design concern, which includes partners Andrew Cruz and Allen Mercer and the subsidiary, House Industries, through which the partners create and market fonts, or typefaces. From the outset, the partners understood graphic design to be a "tough racket" and were looking for steady income to support the fledgling company. They had completed some hand lettering for other projects and knew there was a ready market for new typefaces. Basically, Roat says, they decided the font business "is cheap, we can do it and we have some good stuff." They designed and printed a card advertising such fonts as Housebroken ("great for labeling the boss' parking space"), Warehouse ("ideal for cratework, garbage cans and curb numbering"), Playhouse ("recommended for ages 3-12") and Housepaint ("appropriate for window soaping"). A mailing was directed at record companies, which, Roat says, have very busy art departments that "crank out a couple of CD jackets a week" and are constantly searching for fresh ways to letter products. As an added marketing touch, Roat, a communication graduate, says, "We cooked up this scheme to sell the fonts. We came up with a story, that this was the typography division of a large firm located on the 36th floor of a building on Harrison Street. Everyone knows there are no buildings over 20 floors in Wilmington. It got us some national attention." Rolling Stone and Ray Gun magazines ran stories on the fledgling company and, with the exposure, Roat says, the typefaces "were an instant hit." "Clients called up and said they had to have [the fonts] tomorrow. We said, 'Uh, we don't have them.' " In fact, they had created just enough letters to post the marketing flier and hurriedly had to get to work finishing off the sets of letters. The first two weeks were a panic, Roat recalls, laughing, with the partners creating the letters, then digitizing them for the computer. Roat says the eclectic clientele is attracted because "what we're putting out there is is unique, organic. It sort of has that 'look.'" The Roughhouse typeface, a scrawly design, appeared on the CD jacket for Green Day's multi-million selling album Dookie. Saab later used House Industries lettering in its "Find Your Own Road" advertising campaign, and MTV began using the fonts in its on-air titles. That led to further work for the flip side of the business, Brand Design, developing a promotion for MTV's Buzz Clips, which boosts hit videos. Aired last fall, their Buzz Clip featured music by the Foo Fighters, the Presidents of the United States of America and the Goo Goo Dolls, and had a '70s feel, with a Stingray bicycle, complete with banana seat and butterfly handlebars, as its primary icon. And, MTV wants more from Brand Design, commissioning a full promotional spot for the cable music network. Roat says the firm has been given a green light and will pitch to the network a concept that again highlights the '70s, this time moving from Stingray bicycle to fully loaded van-complete with shag carpeting and paneling. "We're really getting into it. We do stuff that looks really '70s, really automotive," Roat says. They have piles of late model hot rod magazines to provide inspiration. That, plus Cruz' fascination with the old Rat Fink models, led the partners to Ed "Big Daddy" Roth, with whom they have concluded a deal to market Fink Fonts, typefaces in the styles of '70s hot rod lettering and design. The fonts will be sold in what looks like a model box for about $150, Roat says, explaining that packaging is a big part of their marketing efforts. Their work, he said, is essentially vapor. "We sell art. If something has its own identity, people are more willing to buy it. We could put the [font] disk in a little envelope and send it out, but that's not enough for us. You have to be able to touch a product to really appreciate it.'' The House Industries products are "really good products, really interesting products," Roat says, "but if we hadn't put money in to promote them, they wouldn't have been as successful. Deep down, we're all artists. Basically, we're trying to sell our art somehow." With a growing number of fonts, packaging and marketing will grow ever more important, Roat says, to help consumers distinguish the firm's massive letter supply. For instance, House Industries is now selling two 12-font packages, one the Bad Neighborhood in a Box "urban blight" collection (typefaces include Badhouse, Housearrest, Condemnedhouse and Crackhouse) and the Scrawl collection. In the latter, artists were asked, "If you were going to scratch stuff into a picnic table or a tree in the woods, how would you do it?" The results include Lighthouse, Housetrained and Splitlevelhouse. Not only have interest, sales and the number of fonts grown, but Brand Design and House Industries have spilled out of their original, small Harrison Street room. The company has purchased an under-renovation building formerly owned by a printing concern at Fifth and Tatnall streets. The three partners have been joined by two full-time employees, and Roat says he believes the trend will continue because of the firm's creativity and marketing savvy. "A lot of the work out there is dry and boring. We try to give a little twist to things, have a little fun." When Roat is not busy with the creative side of the business, he can be found many mornings at the University, where he serves as a volunteer coach for the swim team. Roat, who was captain of the team his senior year, jokes that he leads a double life, "half laidback, creative person and half this real uptight coach." "I don't have a lot of time to do it," Roat says, "but it's kind of an obsession of mine. I enjoy working with the students." He views his work coaching as another form of marketing, in this case, convincing student-athletes of the value of getting up early every morning and doing body-numbing workouts. "I'm not teaching them how to swim, the techniques. I'm teaching them that, if they work hard enough at something, they'll be rewarded for it." One of the most difficult tasks these days, Roat says, is simply "explaining what I do. A lot of people just don't understand. Graphic designer is such a nebulous term. Sometimes, I just tell them I'm a shepherd." -Neil F. Thomas II, Delaware '76