Chris Bettig: The Way I See It

Growing up, I constantly shifted between France and America, surrounded by French parents and family and exposed to both cultures. However, I never truly felt like I fitted in. This sense of disconnection shaped my perspective as an outsider.

In France, children labelled me as ‘American’, while in the US, people saw me as ‘French’. It was very negative and isolating and pushed me toward creative endeavours like music and graffiti, activities I could engage in independently, unlike team sports.

The complex history of urban spaces – shaped by human intervention or neglect and the forces of nature – resonates with me. It is an endless cycle of inspiration.

As an adult, I find that the overwhelming majority of my friends and romantic partners have either been first generation immigrants, or people of multi-ethnic backgrounds. There's a sense of community among those who have struggled to find their place and identity.

I studied BA Fine Arts: Painting/Sculpture at the Maryland Institute College of Art. The program gave everyone a solid foundation in colour theory, layout, texture, shape, and other concepts, which enabled me to have a varied career – from painting and sculpting, to retail store design, trainer and apparel design, app design, etc.

Above: Many of Bettig's paintings are inspired by "the textures of the environment and how people and the weather affect them."

I have never felt as much of a connection with representational work as I do with abstract work. Growing up in New York City during the 1980s exposed me to street art, graffiti, advertising, and natural urban decay, as well as efforts at rejuvenation and city planning. 

The complex history of urban spaces – shaped by human intervention or neglect and the forces of nature – resonates with me and is an endless cycle of inspiration.

Environmental concerns have had a huge effect on me… the retail industry in general just leads to massive landfill waste.

Environmental concerns have had a huge effect on me. It was why I quit working in the retail field back in 2011. I spent an exciting and fulfilling decade working on developing store designs, but the retail industry in general just leads to massive landfill waste which was disheartening. 

We tried researching ways to lessen the impact, however, with a lot of construction materials, such as plywood, once it’s painted it can no longer be recycled in the US. Trying to source places that could upcycle was also a dead end as the packaging and shipping of the used materials would have been just as harmful as tossing it. 

Working for Google is actually substantially better than anything else I’ve been a part of.

I’ve also scaled back the amount of apparel I design, as again, while products get used then hopefully donated and can have a long life, in the end… it all ends up in a landfill. 

Above: Left: Futurist architect Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983) who created the concept of the geodesic dome. The Epcot Center, aka Spaceship Earth, inspired by Fuller's design.

Although it’s far from perfect working in tech, working for Google is actually substantially better than anything else I’ve been a part of. From the internal programs in place to track employee food waste, to committing to achieving net-zero emissions across all of Google operations and value chain by 2030, and LEED certified construction (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design] for many of the new buildings, this has been by far my best experience.

My Spaceship Earth Sculptures came about as an offshoot to work I’d proposed for Urban Outfitters that was never used. It was inspired from a mix of Buckminster Fuller [20th century architect, inventor and futurist] and geodesic domes like Disney’s Epcot Center as well as ceiling joist structures in older warehouse spaces we were rehabbing. 

Reaching billions of people daily with work I’ve made is unreal.

In a lot of instances I’ve built them in places that are under construction. I do site visits and earmark scrap materials that I could repurpose in addition to dumpster diving construction sites around the area. This was the case with the J Crew flagship build in Rockefeller Plaza, as well as the Adobe, Medium and American Greetings offices. I was able to grab things that were destined for a landfill and, hopefully, make something beautiful and long lasting. 

In other cases, I’ve upcycled wood furniture from thrift stores or things left on the street. For one boutique in San Francisco I incorporated on old ornate wooden bed frame the owner was replacing. 

Above and below: Urban Outfitter store designs.

Like everything in my career, landing the role of design director at Urban Outfitters was a happy accident. I was freelancing for Shepard Fairey and Dave Kinsey’s studio BLKMRKT in California but needed regular income. I applied for a retail job as a cashier UO, they looked at my resume and instead brought me in to design/build in one store, which quickly became 12 stores, and within two years, the entire company. 

At the time, (25 years ago), Urban Outfitter’s approach was dynamic branding. We had a sense of who we were, (the company had started in Philadelphia in the late 1970s), and we expressed that through materiality vs adhering strictly to a logo, typeface etc. 

We wanted to always feel fresh, and connected to what was happening on the runways as well as all the amazing subcultures in the world. Our other goal was to feel connected to the local community. The Miami Beach branch had to look and feel different to Edinburgh’s.

It’s great when you’ve completed work on physical spaces and you get to walk through them and actually experience them with all your senses.

Basically, we knew our audience, we were confident and had a point of view we wanted to express. Since we completely changed every inch of every store every four months, (with additional small changes weekly), we could take risks. It was great working there, I absolutely loved it.

It’s great when you’ve completed work on physical spaces and you get to walk through them and actually experience them with all your senses. 

I loved meeting Spike Jones and bringing the [2009 fantasy film] Where The Wilds Things Are pop up in Hollywood to life for him. The biggest challenge was most of the sets we were creating in the shop were based on CGI in the movie, but they needed to be interactive. It needed to be safe, shoppable and accessible but adhere to Spike’s vision of the universe in the film.

I like each of the different projects I’ve worked on for different reasons. Having several signature trainers was cool and something I never thought could happen. Doing work for bands is always fun. But working for Google and YouTube is also amazing when you consider the scale. Reaching billions of people daily with work I’ve made is unreal. I’ve been very lucky.

I joined Google/YouTube in 2011 due to another bit of luck. My work and studio had been featured on several blogs and someone at Google liked my approach and how varied my experiences had been. They reached out when a role opened up that they thought made sense, and 13 years later I’m still here.

The YouTube identity was developed with four desirable characteristics in mind: human; connected; expressive; story driven.

In the original Youtube logo, designed by Chad Hurley using Alternate Gothic in 2005, the type was heavily modified. For example the “u” in “You” was different then the “u” in “Tube.” 

When we started out making revisions we continued asking, “why Alternate Gothic?”. It’s a font designed in 1903, it’s condensed and hard to read on mobile devices, without grades so white text on black is different then black text on white etc. We also questioned the relevancy with who we are as a brand and who our users are. In the end we made a new font called YouTube Logo Sans which is very similar to Alternate Gothic in many ways, but has been optimised for smaller sizes and for screens. 

We also developed a display face called YouTube Sans that was developed with who we are as a company and who our users are in mind. YouTube is all about communities, inclusivity of all people and types of content.. It’s about people. So it made sense for us to develop a humanist face that has purposeful quirks, with some surprising elements. We use it throughout our products and marketing as the typographical voice of YouTube.

Above: The development of the YouTube Sans font.

The YouTube identity was developed with four desirable characteristics in mind: Human; connected; expressive; story driven. Every few years we look at our design system as a whole and try to improve upon our identity elements. We create them by looking at the mission statement/goals of the company, user feedback and trends. These are often changing, hence our need to evolve them every few years..

The YouTube Doodle (or Yoodle) highlights under-represented groups and content, and brings a little animated joy to the world. 

We only use animation in YouTube imagery when it’s appropriate for the storytelling. We do not animate for the sake of animating. It’s about a hierarchy of information. If everyone’s shouting, you can’t hear anything. If the content is moving, and the UI is moving, is that really the best experience for people? Is it accessible? Is it even warranted? Just because you could do something doesn’t mean that you should. 

It’s the largest archive of culture ever conceived with billions of hours of content uploaded and viewed across the globe.

Our illustration style changes often to reflect the YouTube communities. It’s the largest archive of culture ever conceived with billions of hours of content uploaded and viewed across the globe. We want to make sure that our design work reflects the humans that make it. 

Above: YouTube's Yoodle shown on devices.

We feel that having illustration that is hyper vectorised, for example, could feel “too perfect” and essentially cold. We want to use colour, context, style, and placement to bring a sense of warmth and humanity to our products. Having organic shapes, or hand drawn elements is one way that we believe evokes a feeling of craft and humanity to an app installed on a device in your pocket.

We search globally for diverse illustrators and animators who are either a part of the communities themselves or who’s work lends itself to the theme. 

The mission statement for the Yoodle program is: “An unexpected, joyful change to YouTube that celebrates fun, community and culture.” Through data and research about YouTube content and creators, we identify global themes and trends and create Yoodles that highlight them. Culturally diverse content is key and we’ve covered a variety of subjects like the 150th anniversary of the FA Cup, Hijabi fashion, Pride, nail art, ASMR, amigurumi, breakdancing and wood turning. 

Yoodles is in its third year, and is always improving and growing. We had less than 10 in our first year, and we are now launching over 50 a year.

We search globally for diverse illustrators and animators who are either a part of the communities themselves or who’s work lends itself to the theme.