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by Kirsty Hair
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3 DEEP An interview with Brett Phillips, by Kirsty Hair 3 Deep is a branding and communication agency, who create extraordinary brands for extraordinary people. Their relationship to branding, design and communication started more than 15 years ago and ever since, they have been creating value and building demand for their clients. Their commitment to what they promise is evidenced in their continual investment in three defining areas of the business: Strategic and creative process, their work with the vanguard, and living and
participating in the markets on which they focus. They have worked for brands such as Madonna for Louis Vuitton, The Australian Ballet, Toni Maticevski, John Wardle Architects and Harrolds. Here I spoke to Brett Phillips, the Founder and CEO of 3 Deep, to find out more about the working process behind one of the most innovative and creative businesses in the world, and to ask his opinions on what it means to design for the high end today.
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How would you describe the work produced at 3 Deep? Compelling. Where did the name come from? It came from humble roots. 3 young designers sitting 3 Deep at a small desk in a residential apartment in Richmond. How many people work in the studio? At present there are 13 creative souls. How do you work? Do you prefer to make things with your hands, take photographs or manipulate imagery on screen? We work in whatever manner is appropriate for a project. Some projects call for a hands on artisanal approach and others a more mechanical and digitised process. It really depends on what
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we are looking to achieve and what the objectives of the project are. Some polar examples are probably the following two projects. The Laminex stand is a great ‘hands on’ example where we hand wove 12 meters of timber whereas the Harrolds process is almost entirely digital. What makes 3 Deep unique? Our people. What recent trends have you noticed within design for the luxury sector? Perhaps that creatives are finally understanding that luxury is no longer about status, wealth or exclusivity and more about how people choose to define their experience of the world. We see luxury now as a term used to describe a nexus that connects us to the most engaging, innovative and vanguard people and experiences of our time.
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How do you start a project? With approval on the budget! On a more serious note, our process through a project can be summarised as follows; 1. Establish objectives 2. Establish brand strategy 3. Undertake design development 4. Implementation 5. Management & consultation What excites you at the moment? The launch of our new site and the strategic change in the direction of our business. It is opening doors that have previously been locked. What studios or designers do you admire? Anyone who contributes to the discourse on creativity and design and invents new models for communication. The mediocre or average is of no interest to me.
What’s happening now in design? Is there anything you love or hate? I love new approaches to old problems. I hate designers not willing to challenge their clients How do you balance the creative and the commercial side of the job? They go hand in hand. If the commercial landscape for a project isn’t right then you will never be able to produce great outcomes. Each defines the other. What inspires you and keeps you focused? Paying the bills keeps us focused! :) Many things inspire us or influence us day to day. Our staff, our approach, the possibilities and the opportunities of any given project. The partnerships that we establish and the experience of working with amazing people. There are so many challenges, so many complexities to design that I don’t know
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‘‘ We create extraordinary brands for extraordinary people.’’ how one couldn’t be inspired. Having a number of businesses also affords us the opportunity to engage with a vast amount of art, architecture, fashion and image making from all around the world. We are also very fortunate to be able to collaborate with talented people in contemporary dance, poetry, art, music and fashion, this is very inspiring. How important is being environmentally conscious when creating high end design? I think its important when creating any kind of design. People often view it as something that they should be thinking about in addition to the creative process, we see it as something to always address as part of our creative process. You have a pretty amazing set of clients. How do attract new clients? We attract clients by being involved and
interested in what they do and who they are. Our work is not simply done at a distance and removed from our clients. We immerse ourselves in the culture of fashion, performing arts, etc. We subscribe, we contribute, we attend, we make, we participate and we learn. Do you have any last words of wisdom for a graduating creative? Think long and hard about what has come before you, what your contribution is going to be and if you have the energy and passion to make one. If you don’t have a clear understanding of where you want to be ten years and how you can move design forward then perhaps consider something else. The time will fly and you need to be prepared to stand up and be counted, anything less is just a waste of your time.
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WORDS ARE PICTURES An interview with Craig Ward, by Kirsty Hair
At thirty years old, Craig Ward is currently enjoying his third life. The first was spent growing up in a retirement village in the North East of England, while the second took him to London, where he worked as an art director and designer at a handful of advertising agencies. His third life finds him in New York where he lives with his wife and cat, consulting and creating pioneering, award winning typography and art direction for a diverse range of clients from fashion to advertising and editorial. A contributor to several industry journals and former ADC Young Gun, Craig’s work has been shown, awarded and documented globally in countless books, publications and exhibitions. Here I spoke to Craig Ward, to find out more his working process, his fascination with type as image, and how he sees high end design today. How would you describe the work produced at Words are Pictures? Experimental but always relevant typographic solutions for design and art direction across the advertising, fashion, editorial and publishing industries. Punchy right? How do you start a project? I give myself time to think and sit down somewhere with a sketchbook. I’ll read and reread the type I have to work with and sometimes visual treatments come to mind immediately, sometimes not. I like to try and really get the meaning and the emotion from a piece of text through as opposed to thinking of some tricksy
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treatment. If it ends up requiring a ton of photography or collaborating with a scientist or whatever then cool but I don’t seek out solutions like that intentionally. After that I’ll return to the client with some first thoughts and the project evolves organically from there. How do you work? Do you prefer to make things with your hands, take photographs or manipulate imagery on screen? As much as I can I try and do for real. There’s nothing you can’t render or create with CGI these days but I just find that work boring and unsatisfying. This love of the handmade comes from my time working with letterpress - which is all I used to do. If a project hasn’t seen your hands you can’t really claim to have ‘created’ anything I don’t think. What studios or designers do you admire? I’m kind of moving away from the design scene, not intentionally but just because of the work that’s come my way. I have a lot of respect for studios that do just good, clean, well executed design work but they all kind of merge into one for me unless I really get to thinking about them. By and large I like people who don’t follow trends but I’m more drawn to image-makers like Tom Darracott, Jonathan Zawada, Nick Knight, Carl Burgess and Jo Ratcliffe amongst others for their ability to come up with solutions I would never have dreamed of. What’s happening now in design? Is there anything you love or hate? There’s a ton of old fashioned shit which I hate. Calligraphic, ribbon typography, pastel colours… it’s all so twee and 1950’s, really not relevant to anything today but it’s everywhere. I like that there’s a lot of small studios popping up here and there. I feel like that’s the new model; working with people on a project by project basis which works for me as that’s how I like to run things. What recent trends have you noticed within design for the luxury sector? I couldn’t say, I try not to pay attention to trends. I think people just respond to what they’re spoon fed by blogs and such. It’s really important that you curate your own inspiration streams. If you just look at what other people are doing you’ll never get anywhere.
A lot of design within the luxury and fashion sectors is photography based with minimal, legible type to let imagery of the product speak for itself, which I think is a way of playing safe. You seem to like pushing the boundaries and putting more emphasis on the type. How do you recognise when something is working and when you have taken things too far, whilst designing for the high end? I don’t stop until I’m told to. I think, there’s always a point at which you realise that this is no longer communicating but I think my tolerance for that is higher than other people’s. I have no problem with making people work for information. I think if you engage people in the right way, present them with information in an ‘appropriate visual manner’ (Vignelli), then they’ll want to read it and do the work required. What excites you at the moment? Spare time! I quit my full time job last year to start the studio as my sole focus and it’s going great but, I’ve been so used to juggling two jobs effectively for the last 7 years that I’ve forgotten what it’s like to have spare time. It’s great to be in New York and be able to explore again and I’m looking forward to a 2 week, 1100 mile, 3 state road trip out West in a couple of weeks time. Work-wise I’m working on my first music video which I’m shooting over 4 days next week in Philadelphia. Massively excited to be working with Jason Tozer again and I don’t think we can fail to create something beautiful with what we’ve been working with... How do you balance the creative and the commercial side of the job? I don’t, I’m really bad at focussing on anything and am always ignoring paying briefs for some stupid experiment but both are equally important. Right now I’m keeping it about 60% commercial, 40% personal. One really informs the other. Without my experimental stuff I wouldn’t keep getting hired and without getting hired I couldn’t afford to do the experimental stuff. Was there any kind of inspiration or focus that led you to your current working style? I was weened on the work of Carson, Sagmeister, Tomato and Vaughn Oliver who, in the 1990’s we’re doing things I’d never seen with type.
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Tearing it up, showing you the insides, messing it up… and, arguably they went to far but it was the zeitgeist. We were all angry and listening to Nirvana and The Smashing Pumpkins back then so it worked for the time. I mentioned earlier a great quote by Massimo Vingelli - that ‘Graphic design is the communication of information in an appropriate visual manner’. That’s something that underpins all my work; I want the energy and excitement and viscerally of the 1990’s design style but I want it to be relevant too, so I never do things for the sake of it. What inspires you and keeps you focused? See above; I’m pretty bad at staying focussed which is why I like to have 2 or 3 projects on at a time so I can flit between them. I think I may have Attention Deficit Disorder. I’m inspired just by being proud of what I create. I don’t seek out
awards anymore or public approval for my work but it does seem to attract attention which is a sign I’m doing something right I suppose. Dying and getting old motivates me. Seriously. I hate the idea of standing still or the thought of getting to a point in my life where I can’t create something and wishing I’d done it when I was younger, so I try and realise every idea I have. How important is being environmentally conscious when creating high end design? It is important at all levels, especially ones that the public takes notice of. I’m pretty good and run basically a paperless office; I don’t even have a printer so it’s annoying when I need to use one but I’ll find a way around it. Do you have any last words of wisdom for a graduating creative? Hah, don’t listen to me! I’m here by accident!
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