Design Process by Missy Shana

DEsign ProcesS

A book on Design Process by Missy Shana Adviser Jen Eby Dept. Head Sebastien de Castell External Adviser Dougal Muir Created at Vancouver Film School 42O Homer Street Vancouver BC

Table of Contents

Preface

Contributors

Patrick Smith

Dossier

Jeff Harrison

Rethink

Susan Mavor

Metaform

Matt Warburton

Emdoubleyu

Marian Bantjes

Matthew Clark

Subplot

Color Quotes

Pantomonium

Wil Arndt

Mod7

Carter Gilchrist

Fire450

Sally Douglas

Kaldor

Matt SamyciaWood

Industrial Brand

Todd Smith

Thank You

Draw your process

Process Diagrams

Special

Aftermath

Contact

Aftermath

Preface

Is there a difference between design and art? Nobody knows for sure, what we do know is that we would be lost without them. We all love watching movies. We all surf our lives away on the internet. And we all prefer one brand over another. But if you’re not involved in the process, then you don’t really know how any of these things came to exist. What steps were performed to bring these things to life? Well, it all falls back on a process; a series of actions to achieve a final result. Even though some of us may claim to be very anti-process—naturally we all follow one, even though we may be unaware of it. This book is a quest to de-mystify the uncharted exploration of design process. There are 13 designers featured in this book. Each designer was asked about their process and their clients in 3 different streams of design; Communication, Interactive, & Motion. I asked each designer a similar set of questions and had them to draw their process in 60 seconds or less. These interviews were conducted in person to catch the interviewees off guard, this way they didn’t have time to over think their answers. The tone and language of each interview is easygoing and straightforward. Some answers were long and some were short. Just because these people are professionals doesn’t mean everything they’ve said is right and should be set in stone. Everyone has a different process and everyone has their own opinion, they are all different. That’s life — variety is the spice.

Contributors & More

The Contributors. . . on how they got into design. Marian Bantjes...

Jeff Harrison...

Wil Arndt...

Susan Mavor...

Sally Douglas...

I fell into it by accident by taking a job at a publishing company 25 years ago, which taught me typesetting & typography, which turned into design...

I worked at Karacters, a branch off DDB. Meanwhile three of my coworkers went off and started up Rethink. I was looking for something different so I came here and Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve been with Rethink for 5 years.

I started out in architecture and there were a lot of similarities between architecture and communication design, but I liked a lot of what communication design had to offer, so I made the switch there.

I studied theatre design before I did graphic design. I really enjoyed designing for the stage creating sets and costumes, but there wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t a lot of work in that. I thought there would be more opportunities in graphic design. I think it really stemmed out of the fact that I loved to make stuff.

I worked in London in Advertising and marketing. Then moved to Canada on a tourist visa. I loved Vancouver and I applied to art school and was accepted into 4 year program. I specialized in design, and earned a BA in design. Then went on to work for Palmer Jarvis, now DDB Canada and alsoworked for Hoy Jacobsen, a small design studio. Then I opened Kaldor.

Typographer & Designer

Associate Creative Director

Creative Director & Principle

Creative Director & President

Marian Bantjes www.bantjes.com

Rethink

Mod7 www.mod7.com

Metaform www.metaform.com

Kaldor www.kaldor.com

rethinkcommunications.com

Matt SamyciaWood...

Carter Gilchrist...

Matthew Clark...

Todd Smith...

I’m dyslexic and academic subjects weren’t the friendliest. I did well at school but it wasn’t easy and I didn’t really enjoy academic subjects. So at school I did art, which was illustration, painting and sculpture, which I wasn’t particularly good at, but I was still better at it than other stuff. There was this course called CDT and it was kind of like product design, which I loved. Then I went to a foundation course, it was a year where you basically do a different art or design discipline each week, it really opens you up from what your experience was at school. I loved photography and graphic design, I liked the problem solving aspect of it rather than just creating pretty art.

I got into design and websites about 10 years ago from a love of snowboarding—it started with a desire to showcase pictures and movies, and grew into designing and printing t-shirts and hoodies—and then my first paying client a couple years after that. Several clients and thousands of (minimally paid) hours later, after learning as much as I felt possible isolated from any real professional guidance, I chose VFS’s Interactive Media program as the next step. That was the beginning of a new city and network of extremely talented people that I have loved working with over the last 5 years.

I always say I tripped and fell into it. After high school I enrolled in pre-med at U.B.C. but despite top grades even my parents thought I was crazy to ignore my creative talent. So, I changed to a bachelor’s degree in fine arts. And to pay my way, I dropped by a Zippy Print to copy my resume to see if I could get some work in the “graphic arts” while I went to school. I got a job right there at the Zippy Print. That introduction and subsequent meetings with professionals had be running my own small business doing logos, t-shirts and architectural renderings for five years before I joined DDB Canada’s design division. So, I never went to design school, and had the worst portfolio out there, but I still made it somehow.

from GDUSA Jan '07

When I was 14, I attended my brothers graduation from a graphic design program, I saw some flash animations and a few identities, and at the time I thought it was pretty interesting. I started asking my brother about design and he filled me in and gave me prep courses in the software. By graduation year of high school I was reading “Designing Type,” and writing modules for Photoshop, Illustrator, and Flash. I was also very interested in 3D animation. I was accepted into the U of A Mechanical Engineering program in Edmonton, because I was convinced that was a good career (confused). At the last minute I switched to VFS and moved to Vancouver and from that point on my life changed. I volunteered everywhere I could and soaked in information from everyone. I still haven’t figured out the why... I’m pretty Attention Deficit, so I just keep moving on to the next thing when I get bored.

Brand Director

Concept Designer, UI Developer & Partner

Creative Director & Principle

Motion Designer & Photographer

Industrial Brand www.industrialbrand.com

Fire450 www.cartergilchrist.com

Subplot www.subplot.com

Thank You www.thankyou.dk

Matt Warburton...

Tiz Beretta...

Ben Garfinkel...

Patrick Smith...

It was a roundabout route, I was supposed to go into forestry but I had always been good at art, typography and illustration. I had a teacher in high school who said I should check out some of the graphic design programs in college. I used to do a lot of silk screening for concerts and stuff to make money, so when I went into Durham College in Oshawa, the guy that I met actually taught silk screening, so I was a shoein. It actually worked out because in my third year, the same instructor set up a placement program for us students and I got placed at one of the top typesetting firms in Toronto (Typsettra) and I just loved it. This was all pre-computer so we were doing hand lettering, typositor headline setting, and mechanical modifications (outlines, italics and stuff). So it was a roundabout way of getting into it, I certainly didn’t plan on getting into it but it worked.

When I was a kid I always wanted to be an architect, I think I just wanted to build stuff, I was always a Lego and Play-Doh nut. I really wanted to go to Emily Carr after high school and I applied and didn’t get in. I also applied to Alberta college of art and got in but I didn’t want to go there, the programs were different, I heard it was more illustration based school and I didn’t want to be an illustrator. So I gave myself one year to work out my portfolio and apply again, and Igot in the next year. I was always interested in motion graphics and I leaned towards it. One of my instructors was working for CBC and she kind of took me under her wing and was like my mentor. I started working there right away.

I’ve always been a visual person. Throughout my youth I was really into photography and graphic type projects, and design. When I went to university I decided I wanted to focus my formal training on Business, but I did an Art History minor as well, I always knew I wanted to do something more creative than just a pure business type of job. After university I ended up in advertising, but I actually wanted to do more than just manage the creative process - I wanted to be a part of it more than just an account person. So I left and started working on a portfolio of creative that never ended up seeing the light of day from the perspective of any future employer, and it started to become the calling card for this business Industrial Brand.

My mother was a fine artist, and as long as I can remember I was lucky enough to be dragged along to art class. And I I kept hearing my style of art was always more graphic. I had a family friend who was a graphic designer so I got to see what they did, and it sort of tied in with what I wanted to do, and from there on I wanted to be in design or do art as a business. So I went to school in Australia and during that time I did some internships, to see if I wanted to be in design or advertising, and that’s when I decided design was what I wanted to do.

Graphic Designer

Art Director & Principle

Creative Director

Design Director

Emdoubleyu www.emdoubleyu.com

Beretta Designs www.berettadesigns.com

Industrial Brand www.industrialbrand.com

dossier creative inc. www.dossiercreative.com

{ PAT R I CK SMITH}

What is your company name? dossier creative

How many people are there in your company? 17

Can you please guide me through your process from initial proposal to completion:

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Let’s say we’ve been signed on to do a particular project; first things first would be to get a brief, or sometimes that’s rarer than you think, so we have to find out what is the actual problem we’re hired to solve. Then research on the particular company is the best way to go. Let’s say we’re doing a branding process, we need to find out about the company; what is their personality, how do people view the company, the best place to analyze where you want to go is where you’re already at. So once that’s been nailed down, the next process is to work out if this brand right now was a person where could it go, what is it’s personality, who are we trying to talk to, and if that’s different from where we are right now why is that. So it’s starting to put a bit shape to the company, however only through words. Then we’ll look at it visually—not unlike a mood board you’d come across when an architect is going to do your house, what’s the feel and the tone, the tangible elements that will help you shape this brand.

Be it we think the color should be around amber or orange, let’s just say, well it doesn’t box you in to necessarily being exactly orange. But you start to get a palette and a feel, and get everyone aligned to that thinking. So once the frame work and strategic goals are sorted out then a proper brief can be established and then we know who were talking to, and who we want to target. It’s then briefed into design, and the job could be done by me or one of our designers, and it’s my role to work on it and shepherd it. Once we have a brief, let’s just say we are doing an identity and let’s say it’s for FedEx; well there are different areas where a designer can play within, so if we choose to go with dependable, movement and traditional, that’s look and feel, so you'd work the brand options within those corridors and at the end you'd have 3 directions that are more identifiable within the theme. It works out well because the client can see 3 or 4 options that are very different, and we can be a little more focused when were designing.

As a designer everyone knows if you’re not careful a great idea could filter through 3 or 4 ideas.

@ 7

What do you mean by more focused?

So what I mean by more focused is, you know when you have a blank piece of paper in front of you, and say I’m thinking of ‘heritage’ for Fed Ex which is the wrong strategy but let’s just say it works; all that I have to worry about is just sitting within that heritage field, and if I think of something with ‘movement’ or something that doesn’t fit, then I can put that aside and that can be another corridor. This way it’s bite size pieces and it allows you to have design variety, so if an idea comes up doesn’t suit the theme you are working in, then it’s put aside into and made into another theme. As a designer everyone knows if you’re not careful a great idea could filter through 3 or 4 ideas. But overall concept must always come back to that strategic direction that was set up before this that everyone’s bought in on, so if heritage is your area of play then that is tying back to that original document, that we’ve helped create and that the clients signed off on. Once that stage is done we have about 3 or 4 directions, internally its reviewed in a few different ways. Depending on the project its reviewed sometimes as a whole, sometimes with just with the creative directors. And it’s funny how often this isn’t done but we also like to go back to the brief to compare where we’re going right now, and what the deliverables are, and make sure we achieving everything that we set out to achieve. Because sometimes you’re so involved in a job you think you’re meeting all the criteria, and then you look at the brief and suddenly realize you’re not actually hitting all these other points.

We also keep an eye on what’s out there, for instance we might not have noticed the competitors are using red and here we are using red, unless that’s strategic to where we want to be, we don’t want to be doing that.

So once we have direction, the first round of creative is where you walk it through with the clients, this could be done a various ways, but it’s always good to apply the particular brand in context. As we go through the presentation we always bring them back to the strategy, we make sure everything we’ve done is aligned and ties back to the strategy.

{

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Then we’ll go through a process of presenting what they like and don’t like and making alterations, there’s normally three rounds of that. The way

we work is the design is briefed into implementation, their people are working on it, but then it’s a constant back and forth of design department and implementation to get it through the door, because when you put real content in you get different shapes to the leading, you get different sizing, and you find you are faced with alot of other new restraints. This is where the difference between a productions person and implementation person comes in, because when reality sets in sometimes other problems will arise. So implementation will work with a designer and offer their expertise, like if we’re talking within printing techniques or substrate limitations, they will bring their experience into the mix. In implementation everyone has design training, so they also have a real design aesthetic. The way we work is everything is always up for grabs and suggestions, if a problem arises implementation will work out a few ways of things we could change, or offer design suggestions and directions, instead of just throwing it back the designer to figure out. Ultimately it is up to the designers to make the design decision of what they want to go ahead with, so it’s a real team atmosphere.

Once it’s eventually signed off, the business cards and brand standards and everything else is all being designed. Then it goes to implementation, where it is sometimes being quoted on, and reality comes in; this is where we start to deal with real content, precise dimensions, and hiring contractors if we need to illustrate something or do photography.

Meanwhile through this whole process the administration side of the company, who are really the eyes and ears of the client, are chasing information, presenting the client with different stages of the creative or implementation work, and hoping to get an extra insight into the client’s company. They’re doing the proposals, and the quoting, and acting as a liaison. You could say they are the glue between the client and the design company, so it can be a tough roll because they’re on our side but they’re also the voice of the client inside the company. We’re definitely a team and there’s no segmented parts, like I can’t jump in on that area because that’s not my role, there’s always someone that owns a particular deliverable or role but there’s no reason why you can’t bring expertise to the team. There’s a real criss cross of interaction between, and I think you’ll find that’s what design firms have traditionally maintained. 13

What is the most stressful time in the design process?

The most stressful I would guess is the collision of time and money, that can sometimes be at the beginning of the project where it’s due in two weeks but we don’t have any money to buy photography, or the quotes come in and its $2000 dollars a unit and it has to be $200. Those sort of things tend to be a little bit stressful. But generally there’s a thing that my boss showed me when I was studying, and you can have two of these; it can be quality, timely/quick, and cheap/cost (see fig. 14) Now more often than not, think of yourself buying a jacket or a company hiring a design firm, everyone wants all three, 95% of the time you can’t have all three, because we live in a world where things need to get done and people need to make money. So more often it’s getting the best balance as you possibly can, and when you can’t get that balance, is when it’s a stressful situation. Internally it is stressful when I can’t deliver to a standard that I have and hold as a designer; especially here our standards exceed those of most clients. Standard can be sometimes be different from the brief, as long as the brief is hit and the deliverables are met the client is generally happy, but as a design studio we are always trying to exceed our own standards and when we feel we can’t hit that standard, for whatever reasons like time or money or cost, that is where the frustration comes in.

Timely/Quick

Quality

Cheap/Cost

14 16

What is your favorite part?

Through the creative process there’s a couple of spikes, firstly is hitting that great idea, that light bulb when you go “oh that is it” and you know you’ve solved that issue or problem — that’s the front end side of it. There are many other bits of the process I like, but another spike would be when the particular deliverable is met, that is generally hardest because there are so many different things you are trying to hit on the table. I’ve always heard that is the hardest one, through the time in being in the industry. Almost every designer will look at something they’ve done and say if only I could have done that, but that drives you to do better and excel at other projects. 17

And If you get to a point where you couldn’t fix it anymore, then what’s to drive you to research, to try a little harder, and dig a little deeper to be more creative?

** * * *** *

* * * *

It’s almost a good thing that’s almost impossible to achieve, because when you get close to that point, and you get that ooh ahh moment, it’s great.

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What is the name of your company? Metaform How many people in your company? 4 altogether What is your title? Principle What is your role? Well because we’re really small everybody wears a lot of hats, so I’d say I do Art Direction, I’m the creative director, I do design, and I even do production sometimes too. Do you have a formal process? No I think it’s really evolved over time and it’s often influenced by the people we work with. Can you describe your typical process? It definitely depends on the project, it’s not something that’s carved in stone.The first part of it is really doing as much research as we can about the particular topic, or the competition if there is a competition, or figuring out the general sort of milieu of whatever it is were operating. We usually try to do a lot of imagery and try to do as much brainstorming as we can, we don’t do a whole lot of word lists but we'll do some word association if it’s required, especially if we have to come up with a tagline if we’re doing an identity. One of the more fun things we’ve done recently is if we have to come up with a visual approach to something, we assign it to two or three people in the office and almost have a race to see how many different things you can make in 2 hours, and then pin them up. So there would be 25 different things pinned up on the wall around one idea, you could combine images, or typefaces, or anything that might convey the idea. You get lots of the really bad ideas out right away, and sometimes you come up with some weird ones that might be interesting. I think that’s one of the better ways we’ve figured out how to work with a lot of people altogether. Usually from there we sit down and refine it.

What happens after you refine it? It’s so general so it really depends. We’ll look at different types of type treatments, and try a whole million varieties of those, or if there’s a grid involved like if it’s for a magazine we’ll experiment looking at different types of grids. Then refine what works best. We’ll usually come up with three options that we like to present, then show them to the client and see which one works best for them. We don’t show anything that we don’t think we can really go with, because the client always picks the one that you don’t want them to pick if you put one in there just for the sake of having more. Sometimes we have one we like better and we might fight for it a little bit, but usually they know their business pretty well too. And then we'll make some changes if they want, or push it further for example if it’s a logo, how are we able to apply it upon a whole bunch of different applications. What part of the process do you find most stressful? When you don’t exactly know what the answer is but you need to know, and there’s usually a deadline associated with that, and you have to kind of trust yourself that you’ve come up with good things in the past, and you’ll come up with good things again. It’s hard when you’re stressed, there’s a temptation to try to jump to what the answer is, and not explore ideas a little bit wider. How do you know when it’s the right idea, and when it’s time to stop? I think you know which ideas are stronger, and usually it’s a matter of time and money. There are usually budgets associated with things, so in order to actually have a business you have to know when to stop at a certain point and usually there’s a deadline as well. But you can tell when things are good.

MATT WARBURTON

EMDOUBLEYU So you wanted to go into forestry but instead you chose design school, and that was it?

Yeah that was it, no regrets. I did typesetting for a few years then got a job as a production artist at a corporate design firm (Gottschalk + Ash) and they were one of the first firms in Toronto to get Apple computers in ’86. So we got a Mac Plus computer in the office and it was great because now I could do everything I used to do by hand or paste-up, on the computer and I became pretty adept on it. Were there any negative side effects from the computer?

No, not for me. I came into it from a paste-up background so we’d have to order out for type, it would get typeset and then we would basically get strips of type-on photographic paper and PMTs (photo-mechanical transfers) and then we would have to wax it, glue, and assemble it on a big drafting board. It was all very old school, almost nothing was done in-house with the computer. But I was able to take all that knowledge of my hands-on skills and basically start doing that on the computer, and to this very day I still build files that way. I still think of how I did my lettering and my typesetting on the typositor, I still do that kind of stuff in Illustrator; like adjusting the type spacing and the kerning, or how I put together a Quark file and how I make my layers in Illustrator or Photoshop. I’m still thinking of the film overlays you would do on a paste-up board. So for me it was just a natural progression. How many people are in your company?

Two people, myself and my wife Lynn; her background is PR and writing, so it’s a pretty good team, we have a completely different skill set.

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It’s teaching definitely, there are very few clients out there that understand the process, they don’t teach it in business school unfortunately. Certainly over the years when you have a relationship with a client and you do a piece for them every year they get used to the process. Then there isn’t so much research up front, you’re already in their headspace and you understand their clients; you understand the look, feel, their brand and their personality, and then it’s just a matter of what we decide to do with this campaign and this promotional piece.

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How do you keep your clients coming back?

All of the above, listening to them and making sure that they know we have a vested interest in the success of what we produce for them.

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I’ve got a portfolio, I’ve won awards, I don’t really care about that; any designer that walks in and says we’ll do award winning work for you, I would be suspect from the very outset. It’s not about that, if you do good work it should win awards; it shouldn’t be if you do award winning work the client will like it. Because I’ve also seen a lot of stuff in awards shows that quite often you look at and say the client had nothing to do with that, you’ve just done a piece that you know would win an award in the Lotus (competitive advertising awards show) or other design awards. I’ve entered stuff in award shows that I know the clients were absolutely nuts about, the client’s customers were going nuts about it, yet the supposed expert judges in the award show ignored it completely. So then it’s like who are we trying to satisfy here, are we trying to satisfy award shows and judges, and our peers, or are we trying to satisfy our clients, which doesn’t mean you can’t push them and challenge them, but that’s always tricky. We have a standing joke when talking with a CEO of a company, we’ll say “what is your wife’s favourite colour, because we want to know that upfront before we do your identity”, just to make fun of the fact that it really doesn’t matter what your wife’s favourite colour is, or your husband’s. They’re not your client, it might be important to know your customers or your audience’s favourite colour, but the fact that your wife's favorite color is green is irrelevant to this project. But when you put it out there in a funny kind of sarcastic manner, they kind of realize, oh yeah that’s how we have to approach this. We’re not picking wallpaper, we’re creating something that’s going to represent our company and sell or increase product, or whatever the goal is. How important is it to keep doing personal projects?

I don’t do them. Because I don’t look at this as art, it’s not personal self expression. For fun stuff I’ll design a logo for my son’s hockey team. We do have some fun clients, like bike shops and that’s fun for me; I guess that’s where you get to let loose a little bit, even though it’s still focused on what their clients are all about - they have to move product and sell bikes. That’s probably the most fun stuff, plus I do a lot of work for the GDC (Society of Graphic Designers of Canada) and that’s an opportunity to do the kind of work that’s mostly focused to designers, so it can be more ‘design-ey’ A lot of the time the stuff you’re doing for the design community is more about looking cool and less about substance. I mean there should still be some substance there, none of the GDC chapters should be doing sub-standard work, but there’s always an opportunity when you’re doing work for the GDC to have a little bit of fun. Now, when I have spare time I go for a bike ride, snowboard, or play hockey.

39 40

How many people are there in your company?

one

What is your title?

The one

Do you have a formal process?

No I don't have a formal process. What is the most stressful time in the design process?

When things get rejected and I develop hostility for the project/client. What keeps your inpiration? What do you do to keep your mind refreshed when working on a project?

Usually this is not a problem. The work is the stimulant.

Please guide me through your design process from initial proposal to completion of the project

I really hate to tell you this but I often have an idea immediately on hearing about the project. If not, it comes soon after. First I usually do a sketch in pencil and send it to them, which they accept, change, or reject. If they reject it, I start over and do another one for a different idea. If they reject that I make them fire me and take a kill fee. When the sketch is accepted, I go straight to final, or near final artwork, depending on the medium. I will usually send a version to the client before it's set in stone; they may make minor changes. Then I finish it up to the last detail and deliver it. There are variations on this. Sometimes I don't provide a sketch, but may provide something closer to final because a sketch won't show it properly. Sorry, this is very dull. I don't do many exploratory sketches, I do one (unless it's not working, in which case Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll try again). I don't generally give the client options, I give them one. I don't do research, I don't do market surveys, I don't look at their existing work, past work or competitorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s work. My "process" is very simple and hardly a process at all. How do you come up with the idea?

I don't know. It's like magic. I usually pops into my head, often first thing in the morning. I do a lot of sitting around thinking; I do a lot of work in my head. What is the best thing a client could do to get the best results out of your process?

Tell me to do anything I want. How do you choose your clients?

It depends on how they approach me; whether they'll let me do what I want, or if what they want is interesting to me: a good idea, or something I haven't tried. I avoid clients who give me too much direction; especially those who provide me with pictures. I absolutely will not work for someone who shows me someone else's work and asks me to make it like that.

So why Pink?

I guess it’s a reaction against “agency”; we both came from big agencies and pink is not a color agencies usually go for. We liked it, if hot pink scares clients then we know they weren’t the kind of clients we would want to work with.

Do you have a formal process?

Yeah for sure. I mean, I wouldn’t say we have one definitive process that fits every job - you have to be flexible, some jobs warrant a long detailed process. I just finished a job for Okanagan Spring Brewery and anything that’s a 20 year brand you can’t be doing a short process on, and it was a very deep process. A year process is very typical, I used to do all the Clearly Canadian products and that was at least a year from the idea to the day it hits the shelves. Or we'll do something smaller, like a brand new tea company and the process is shorter, like 5 months, and it’s more about the client making decisions based on entrepreneurial thinking. The first step in any process we tend to call discovery, and discovery is literally about going outside and getting information and bringing it inside.

The first step is

Discovery

For an entrepreneurial company we take a look at what brands are out there, who they are and what is their position, like a snapshot. It’s not a huge exercise; it’s doing what we call visual and verbal audits. The deeper level would be something like a beer brand where you want to find out current trends, how is their current share, how do consumers rate their beer ads, messaging. In that case you might do consumer focus groups or big quantitative research, which is 400-500 people doing surveys on different factors of the brand. We don’t personally do that, we work with a reputable research firm that does that and we’re along for the ride.

Another thing we do is we will go out with the companies’ clients and ask them what they think and gather all that information. At the same time, we get a brief from the client and this is the stage is where you’re trying to get smart. The 2nd phase is

Plan

Now that we have all the information what do we do with it? That involves doing workshops with our clients. Given all the information we’ve gathered what are all the fundamentals of who they are as a brand. Sometimes they already know this information, but more times than not they don’t, and it takes all this information in workshops to narrow it down. Sometimes it’s 50 ideas and we have to narrow it down to one, but it never really gets down to one, what you’d like is to really get it down to one MAJOR idea with other secondary attributes. It’s something that everyone in all the departments (in clients’ company) has to agree upon or we’ll write a proper brief and when everyone agrees on it then we start. At the end of all this you feel very smart, you’ve gone inside, you’ve gone outside and now it’s time to start designing.

Sometimes it’s 50 ideas and we have to narrow it down to one...

The 3rd phase is

Create

All of our projects follow pretty much the same pattern whether it be short or long, it’s always a pure concept development stage. We believe in real concepts and concepts that precede design. Our first concept session is just sketches, no computer it’s simply “what’s the idea”, it’s all hand done. Usually in a presentation we will have a name of a concept and maybe a mood board to say directionally where this style might go if we go with this concept. It’s somewhere between 3-5 concepts and all of them are usually different. Each concept expresses the brand strategy but in different ways, they are completely separate stand alone ideas, so if they were to say go ahead on this concept, there are still 10 different ways to go with that one idea. Then you start getting into your first design layouts which are very explorative, at the same time you’re also getting approvals from the clients. You start thinking more and more about style and execution because now the concept is solid. Usually we can quote a job all the way through in stages 2 and 3. We typically have to say to a client, here’s the firm costs in stage one and then in the second round we give them some ballparks on what this or that might cost if we go in that direction, then in the later round you can tell them “okay now we know where we’re going, this is what it’s going to cost”. That stage gets you to pretty much finishing the works.

We believe in real concepts and concepts that precede design

Actually, Matt says that clients sign with them because of their process. Okanagan Springs Brewery chose Subplot over the company they usually go with because they liked their process and thought it was going to give them exactly what they were looking for. I guess it worked, new packaging is available NOW.

Pantomonium Color related quotes from selected interviews

PANTONE 185 C

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PANTONE 364 C

I guess it’s a reaction against “agency”; we both came from big agencies and pink is not a color agencies usually go for.

Be it we think the color should be around amber or orange, well it doesn’t box you in to necessarily be exactly orange.

The fact that your wife’s favorite color is green is irrelevant to this project.

PANTONE 185 C

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PANTONE 356 C

Before you know it the client is saying, “well I don’t like that shade of red...”

It's like a client saying, I don’t like the logo because it's orange. The only way to answer that is to go back to the brief.

Ok, well our target audience is women aged 20-40 and I want it blue and country and western.

PANTONE 186 C

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PANTONE 354 C

We all have this visual vocabulary which is engraved in us, like red means stop.

And say, well you may not like orange but the target marklet will respond to orange, and it will allow us to do A, B, and C.

Other kind of information would be something like don’t use blue, because let’s say we we’re doing something in the medical field.

PANTONE 187 C

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PANTONE 660 C

We might not have noticed the competitors are using red, and here we are using red, unless that’s strategic to where we want to be, we don’t want to be doing that.

We’ve actually had this happen once when the client said, “Well I had an orange carpet in my house in the 70’s and I hated it”.

Blue is a really common, conservative color, and maybe we’ve had a discussion with the client where they’ve said they'd really like to explore something other than blue to differentiate themselves.

It’s not like it’s this secret sauce, everyone has a way to approach it.

What is your title within the company? Creative Director and Principle. How many people are there in your company? 5 full and 2 part-time. Do you have a formal process? Yeah I guess we do, a lot of it depends on the kind of project it is. We do motion graphics, print and lots of interactive stuff, but generally there’s a few steps we go through that are similar across them all. It’s not like it’s this secret sauce, everyone has a way to approach it. We’ll start out with client meetings and researching, and we’ll try to understand what the need is. A lot of clients will come to us and say they need a website, and through that process and research we may find out that is not what they actually need, so there’s this initial exploratory process.Then we’ll go into a formal documentation that captures what the process is about. From there we’ll move into 3 simultaneous streams. If it’s a website or interactive piece, we’ll go into information architecture, capturing flow, function and how information is organized. While that’s happening, we’ll also do art direction exploration and look at what appropriate styles fit the visual design. While the rest of the design is going on we’ll also do prototyping. The prototyping might be technology based or just testing concepts, to get the creative juices going. Those 3 things are happening all at once and towards the end we try to follow up to more solid directions and start to file into a direction. Then we’ll make blue prints, which is basically taking all that stuff and compiling it into sort of what the screens for their site might look like.

“wow, that’s genius where did that come from?”

What’s your personal process for coming up with the initial idea? It depends. I’ve sort of lately shifted because we’ve grown a little bit, so a lot of times we’ll get together as a team and set aside an hour or two to brainstorm. I find if you go for more than an hour it kind of drifts into nonsense. A lot of times just discussing and bouncing ideas off other people lead to more ideas that are just unexpected, I think teamwork really plays a huge part in that. Sometimes you want to come prepared with some initial thoughts to get it kicked off, but alot of times that starts going into new directions. I also find there’s a payoff when you do a bit of research, looking into the aspects of the project, whether it’s the audience or history, you sort of immerse yourself for a little bit in that and outside of that, your sub consciousness starts to work by itself, and it pays off later on. Ideas pop up and you may go “wow, that’s genius where did that come from?”, but it actually came from that prep work that you did, and I find that if I don’t do that prep work it’s hard to come up with stuff that’s meaningful or interesting. What could a client could do to get the best results out of your process? It’s a bit of a balancing act. It’s partly letting us be the experts of what we are experts in and letting us do our thing. You don’t question a plumber when he tells you that you need to change the pipes but alot of the time designers are questioned and second guessed (paraphrased from Jason Fried of 37signals).

It’s a little of that and conversely, it’s always good to have them step up in their area of expertise and us recognizing that we don’t know as much about their business as they do. We try to sort of foster a collaborative relationship that way, so it’s built on respect but also learning insights from each other, knowing we each have something to bring and it’s not just a solitary thing. Sometimes that can lead to a longer process because there’s more of a dialogue happening between you and the client, you’re communicating back and forth and you’re waiting for each other and sometimes it takes a little longer, but it usually comes up with richer projects. How do you choose your clients/projects? We usually choose projects based on stuff that interests us as a group, that’s one aspect the other aspect is if a client has historically been a pain in the ass and we know that will hurt the project, we will make sure to steer away from that. So it is definitely the balance of the right kind of client and project. Sometimes we’ll just take on a project to keep a client happy, even if it’s not the most awesome project we’ll acknowledge the relationship and know that that’s more important than the work in that case, and obviously we’ll also look at how busy we are.

We each have something to bring, it’s not just a solitary thing

You dont have to find anything else

How important is it to keep doing personal projects, without clients? I think on a personal level it’s always important to keep your craft polished and explore your passions, ideally you’re doing that at work but we all know that’s not always the case. So if you need to have that outlet, it’s good to have.If you get to the point where you’re not getting any of that at work, then its maybe time to question the type of work you’re doing and re-evaluate that. But each person approaches it differently. I used to do a lot more personal project stuff, but lately the time is not there anymore, so I would say do it while you can because it’s kind of going to get harder to do that sort of thing. Hopefully you can move into a position where that passion is kind of there in the work that you do, and you don’t have to find anything else.

CARTER GILCHRIST

What is your company name? Fire450 What is your title: Partner / Concept Design / UI Development How many people are there in your company: 3 Do you have a formal process? My process varies depending on the size of project and team that I’m working with. In an ideal situation—if you define the “process” as the entire trip from inception to implementation and launch— it would start with a blue sky brainstorm with as many ideas as possible, with smart people; people who know how to give good feedback and initiate good ideas, and they don’t necessarily have to be on the project, it’s like a big creative orgy. Then refine those ideas into the good ones, and then have tighter knit brainstorms with people that are just in on the project. Then we refine those refined ideas into features or into the core idea, the direction or vision for this project. Once you have this feature set, then it’s about prioritizing and delegating work, and it becomes more of an individual process once you know what you’re doing. Then I’ll do a lot of research, exploratory research, walking around taking pictures, looking at things and seeing how other people have come close to these ideas, and seeing what has been done; what was successful and what’s not, to have a sort of place to innovate the idea into something new, because you can’t innovate from nothing. Once I have a good clear idea of where I want to take things, then it’s just about doing it, prototyping if need be or just sketching it out. Then generally there’s a lot of “waste” time that happens, sitting there and not doing anything, playing guitar, and listening to music... usually it’s night time when things start rolling, and then the big sort of surge of newness will come, ideas through inspiration and then it all funnels out into whatever it is, development, Photoshop, designing... It’s hard to be ‘on’ all the time, but you need to be ready to run with it when you are.

That’s one way that I usually end up working, although it’s definitely more like that with pure creative design. With development or IA (Information Architecture) features it’s a little easier jump right into the problem solving, since there are more definitive beginnings and endings. What is the most stressful time in the design process? The final 20% of anything, getting it right, crunch time. Because you have 20% of your time left, and usually the last 20% is the hardest part to make right, the first 80% is just the broader strokes.

What is the smartest thing a client could say or do to get the best results out of the process? When they understand the separation of telling you where they are right now, and telling you where they would like to be, knowing what those two things are and that they are different. If they don’t know where they would like to be then that’s ok too, as long as they admit to that, as opposed to trying to say something that they think is a good idea, like they see a cool website and they think it’s a good idea for their company as well. Or they should at least have an understanding that they don’t know what the next level is, and as a designer you come in and create that path for them.

I AM SICK OF DOING PROJECTS THAT ARE GOING TO BE USED BY DUMB PEOPLE LIKE MIDDLE AMERICA, BECAUSE AT THE END OF THE DAY IF THE SOLUTION TO YOUR PROBLEM IS MAKING YOUR BUTTON BIGGER, AND THATS ALL YOU NEED BECAUSE THATS ALL THE USERS NEED, THEN ITS NOT REALLY WORTH IT

The worst thing a client can do is pretend that they know all the intermediate steps and they just use you as a resource to accomplish those tasks, even though they might not. Being able to separate what their end goal is and what they want. Someone who can say “here’s where I am and here’s where I’d like to be, how can you get me there?” A lot of the time you are designing to their blind spots though, so they have to be open to learning a new perspective and re-adjusting what they “think” they need. It’s also good if they’re open to learning about everything your doing, I mean process and how that works, open to understanding the difference between themselves as a user and the actual “end user” that you are designing for, and knowing why self referential design is the worst kind of design, that’s a really big thing actually, to be able to remove themselves from the project even though they’re paying for it. Something they should be comfortable with is that they’re paying you, so they’re trusting your skills to get the job done.

You worked inhouse for a big company (Riptown Media) how did you like that? The things I liked about working with a bigger company was there was more people, more minds, and more things were possible, and because I worked in-house there were no budgets, and no timelines, and projects were seldom met on time. The problem with that is there was no way to keep resources from being used on the wrong project or to say when a project was useless it should be killed whereas other projects were killed that shouldn’t have been. And also stakeholders, it’s like being in bed with these stakeholders, you get alot of scope creep, it’s just not as much separation as being with a client where you have all these limitations in one package and then you have to accomplish it. Having an in house client means that end goal was always getting moved around. That’s why it was a double edged sword because working in-house, for me at least has meant no time line and no budgets. You could say the good thing about that is that there is more freedom to try new things and the whole blue sky thing, there’s alot of opportunity to put out new ideas, and no time line means that there’s alot of time to refine new projects and spend way more time than necessary doing stuff like user testing, things that alot of agencies have to skip out on because they don’t have the time or money to do. When you have the time and you have the money to do all the pieces of the process that you want do, that’s the good thing. The bad thing, the part that made me want to go back to doing real projects, was this lack of accountability. Not having to connect the project with time and money means its open ended, and could change at any moment and it always does, because there’s nothing counting on it.

The best design always comes out of having specific limitations, and having your boundaries set—and that’s what two of those biggest boundaries are; time and money, and when those things don’t matter there’s nothing that steers or forces the project, because there’s nothing holding them to finish what they started. It doesn’t always have to do with time and money, it also has to do with shitty leadership, and people who can’t see the bigger picture and can only see 6 months ahead of today, rather than 5 years from now. But with a client, they want you to accomplish something and they give you a deposit so you can go to work. You have a contract and project charter so you are both accountable to each other which makes for much more finite results.

ITS LIKE YOURE JUST ALLOWED TO BE IN THE STAGE OF HOW CAN WE MAKE THIS THE BEST EVER BECAUSE THERE COMES A POINT WHERE YOURE NOT ALLOWED TO BE THERE ANYMORE

Sally Douglas â&#x20AC;˘

67 Company: Kaldor Title: Creative director and President How many people are in your company? Nine of us Do you have a formal process? Absolutely of course, but a process for what, because there are many different kinds of projects that we do. Branding is a big part of what we do but it’s not everything we do.

Could you talk about your process when it comes to branding?

Usually the branding projects we get involved with are for very large organizations. Whether it’s a university or a public or private company, we are hired because the company is either establishing a new brand or wants to adjust the focus of the existing brand. Our work is purely strategic; no designers are involved in the first phase which is understanding and articulating our client’s business goals, reviewing a business plan, and developing the marketing objectives and the strategies that they need to put in place to achieve these business goals. Who are they?, what is it they’re trying to sell? Who are they selling to? and why should those people be buying this product or service? The first phase of work is to articulate the brand strategy. Once that is approved we start the design process and depending as you can imagine on the strategy, we may be designing anything from an identity, to a website, to signage, to an ad campaign.

It’s my personal belief that if we don’t feel good about what we're persuading them to do or buy then we're in

trouble.

We have an extremely formal design process as well, from concept development to articulating that concept into design, and then an approval from our clients to take it to final product. The design process and the brand process are very different. The brand process is essentially a marketing process. The design process is bringing that brand story to life, making sure the creative is appropriate, strategic, conceptual and provocative. Our point of difference I think in Vancouver certainly is that whatever projects we take on, we talk strategically with our clients before we get into the creative process. We do a lot of work with for example with UBC, we do a lot of work with a lot of different faculties at UBC, but we’ve been hired for a number of years to work with recruitment. In the past our deliverable has been a view book, a 70 page book to help perspective students decide whether UBC is the right school for them or not. Prior to designing that view book, our work involved research and marketing strategy around what kind of students they want to attract, where they live, what other universities they are considering and why should they choose UBC. As with any project, and this is something that sets us apart from other studios, we do that marketing work first, we believe it’s the only way to create design that’s going to be appropriate and that’s going to solve a business problem, rather than something that just looks cool and groovy. Are you involved with one part more than another ? (Design vs. Strategy)

Do you ever try to teach clients about process?

Personally I’m involved in both halves, because there needs to be continuity across the marketing strategy and the implementation of that strategy into design. The whole point of the way we do things is to first learn about the business side of things and apply that to the creative, so the creative answers those specific questions. The creative is directed to a specific target market to tell them a particular thing and presumably have them perform some particular action at the end, it’s all tied together.

We have a very transparent way of working. Once a client has worked with us they see exactly the process they are going through, every step of the way. And we tend to keep clients for a long time, so when they come back after the first project they know what the routine is.

I think as designers we have a huge amount of responsibility on our shoulders; we are

persuading manipulating and

people to make a particular decision they might not have considered before

How do you choose clients and projects?

We choose our clients very carefully. We are very clear on the fact that we are working on our clients’ behalf to sell either a product or a service, whether that’s a charity that’s looking for donations, a university that wants to attract the right students, or an art gallery that wants people to go to a show, we are a part of the sales process. I think as designers we have a huge amount of responsibility on our shoulders, we are persuading and manipulating people to make a particular decision that they might not have considered before, so it’s my personal belief that if we don’t feel good about what were persuading them to do or buy then we're in trouble.We choose our clients extremely carefully and would not consider for a second working for somebody in whose business we didn’t believe. How do you come up with the concept, and how many do you present?

It depends on the project but we usually present one concept, and that’s because our process is so rigorous and we believe when we’ve done our homework right it’s not necessary to present three different concepts. Sometimes if we have come up with a couple of concepts and we think they’re both great and valid, then we’ll share them both with our clients, but that’s the exception. How do you know when to stop coming up with ideas?

You know. You know when you haven’t got it for sure, and then you know when you’ve got it, and then usually if you don’t think you’ve got it then you definitely don’t have it. You definitely know, because u have that eureka moment and usually the design is original, it’s appropriate, it answers the business goals, and it’s usually provocative in some way. If you don’t feel entirely excited about presenting it to the client you probably haven’t got it. So you feel excited every time you present?

Yeah, because we usually feel pretty good about the work we're presenting. If I don’t feel completely comfortable going into a presentation, then the best thing is to cancel the presentation and go back to the drawing board until we all feel comfortable with what we are going to present.

Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve been working together as a team for a while, so all the stupid ideas that everybody would think of come up first, and then after a while you start getting to

the good stuff.

Do you have a process for coming up with the concept?

Depending on the scale of the project we usually brainstorm as a group, and we’ve figured out the marketing component so that gets shared with the team, and everyone knows what it is we are trying to achieve. And brainstorming only works when there is complete trust and freedom around the table, so the team has to feel comfortable saying stupid things, rude things, lame things and funny things. We’ve been working together as a team for a while so all the stupid ideas that everybody would think of come up first, and then after a while you start getting to the good stuff. How important do you think it is to do personal projects?

I think it is very important. I paint which is my personal work, and we have an art director here who’s in a band. I think it’s important to live and be open to whatever it is that turns you on, whether that’s design or art, or music, or mountain biking, it doesn’t matter. I think we all refuel our batteries in many different ways, personally for me its painting. Will you draw your process for me in under 60 seconds?

Well I would say our process is extremely left brain, our work is always process driven, it’s not a random process, it’s been worked on and improved over a number of years so it would be a very boring drawing, I don’t think it makes sense for us to draw our process which is as I say is very meticulous and not random at all, and we set ourselves apart from other design studios in that that we are, in my opinion extremely conceptually driven. The only time you come up with a good concept is if you understand the marketing. If you have that nailed, concept is easy because you don’t waste your time coming up with in-appropriate things for the wrong target market.

•

Some other people are really hands on and they come and say “here is a design that I’ve done, I think it’s great, and I want something just like that”. We then evaluate whether that type of person just wants what they’ve done and don’t have the skill set or the computer skills to make it look pretty. We are not renderers, we are not desktop publishers, hire a cheaper company that is going to do that. We are strategists and we are creatives, so they can come to us with an example of what they like, and we'll ask them what it is about the piece that they particularly attracts them. And what we often do, which is huge in your career if no one’s ever told you, is if a client tells you “yeah I like this”, give them what they want, and then give them a second option. It’s our job as designers to understand what it is about this that they like, you may think its goddamn awful, but when you ask them they might say “Well I like big type” and you ask them why is that important for you, and they say “because it really gives punch and emphasis”, ok so now you know one thing they’re looking for is for the title to have emphasis on the page, and you know as a designer there’s more than one way of doing that. But if you go to a meeting and the client doesn’t see what they asked for, and you’re presenting the ‘better‘ idea, all they’re wondering is where the hell is what I asked for. So you present what they asked for, and you present the better solution, but again yours is based on strategy and process.

We are not renderers, we are not desktop publishers, hire a cheaper company that is going to do that. We are strategists and we are creatives.

Some clients are like that, they kind of know what they want but are open to it being done another way, and 85% of the time they’ll pick the one you designed because they’re still getting what they want, but they just didn’t know how to express it. So it’s part of our process to really get into the heads of the clients, and meet their expectations and find out what it is they need, because most of the time they don’t know. What is the most stressful part of the process or frustrating

part?

There isn’t any area that I don’t particularly like, the only thing that I do find frustrating is less to do with the process and more to do with the client; If you’ve done a good job of getting a client to tell you what they want, and you present the concept to them, and they’ve suddenly changed their mind, and they start to go “Well yeah that’s what I asked for, but I’m thinking no, I just don’t really like it”And you say ok well that’s valid, and you ask them for some feedback about what’s wrong with it, and they don’t really have anything to tell you except that they just don’t like it, and you don’t really have anywhere to go now. We had a client last week that didn’t like what we had present ed and he gave brilliant feedback of what he didn’t like about it, and how it wasn’t relating to what was initially created as far as the brand. And although disappointing that we hadn’t nailed it, it was good because we had somewhere to go, and we had his feedback, so when we came back to present the new design we were confident that we had hit everyone of his points that he told us. Whereas if the client goes “well I don’t know it’s just not really resonating…” You’re just guessin g, and it leaves the field of being strategic and goes into who the hell knows where.

If a client tells you “yeah I like this” give them what they want, and then give them a second option.

TODD SMITH FROM THANK YOU

Todd Smith 2008

How many people are in your company?

10; 3 Partners, 1 Project Manager, 1 Creative Director, 2 Motion Designers, 2 3D whizâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s, and 1 Illustrator. We also have 3 freelance 3D wizards upstairs, and a sound designer who comes in on occasion. What is your title?

Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m a Motion Designer and Photographer. Do you have a formal process?

I did before I moved to Denmark. Living and working here has made me very anti-process, in a sense there is process, but it is more serendipitous, more rapid fire, more collaborative. Please guide me through your process

I try to keep my process down to a few steps, from initial client briefing I always jump into a brainstorm session and flush out the project framework, then I sketch some quick boards and submit for client review, I often pitch the concepts I work on.

Next we go into production, which is where it gets confusing. At Thank You we don’t treat boards literally, they are really just a hook that we want to expand upon at all costs. We go through rapid prototyping (which is usually the bulk of the project timeframe) and are constantly talking, client review, production, client review, finishing, client review, mastering... delivery. What is the most stressful point in the design process for you?

Final delivery, no matter how well prepared you are, a client will always change specs at the last minute. I hate going back and forth, taking 5 steps where only one is necessary. What is your favorite part?

Conceptual and final delivery (I mean, I like all of the stages), these stages really open up the client discussion and I love getting clients excited about a project. The dynamic really opens up when people are comfortable with both you and your ideation process. I assume I like these stages best because they have the most magic, it’s the “Taa-daa” moment. How do you come up with the initial idea for a concept?

Most times a client comes with a problem or a pre-existing idea, often agencies come to us with rough boards. Initial concepts are a collaborative process that can best be broken into research/experimentation/inspiration. I’m very method. I keep a sketchbook everywhere, I always have a notebook on me, and I have zillions of sticky notes on my dashboard. Sometimes you have great ideas that you have to shuffle into your internal machine for when the time is right. I’m only now developing ideas I came up with two years ago. Personally, the most useful area for conceptualization is reference and pre-existing inspiration (whether you’ve looked at work you admire or you jotted notes down in a sketch book).

In a sense there is process, but it's more serendipitous, more rapid fire, more collaborative...

How do you know when it's 'The Idea'?

Sometimes it just comes to you, sometimes you have to call it like it is and move on. I think this is something you will always be learning how to do better. Sketching can only take you so far if you don’t have a great idea... sometimes you just have to go for a beer, go watch a movie, or sleep on it. I think it’s an internal sense that you come to terms with. What is the best thing a client could do to get the best results out of your process?

The best thing a client could do is be completely honest about their needs. Far too often clients/agencies/whatever are too caught up in looking the part and skip over the “being real” part. I think projects drift astray when pride or misdirection is involved. I’m a fan of straight up negotiations, the best situation is when your client is comfortable enough to say, “My god, that is amazing,” or “That is total shit,” when you get an honest bearing on their needs, production is slippery-smooth. It’s less restrictive creatively as well. How do you choose your clients or projects?

I don’t choose my clients at Thank You, but as a freelancer, I choose to work with clients that love their product. I can’t think of anything worse than selling a product that the producers don’t even like. I choose based on sustainability, ethics, and opportunity... not to mention, sometimes you really just have to get paid. Sometimes it’s worth working on a less glamorous job with a cool client, far too often big international names think they can treat anyone like a monkey (see UPS, MTV, or NIKE, all of which we’ve worked with or pitched to in the last 6 months).

I am only now developing ideas I came up with two years ago

Todd Smith 2008

How important is it to keep doing personal projects? (for example the viral election campaign you are working on) check out www.perfectthewayweare.com

Always do personal projects, always keep exploring, keep something for yourself or you will never grow as an artist. I learned far more traveling the world and speaking to people with genuine interest than I could have ever learned in school. Collaboration is key, when you can trust someone to help you with a personal project (for free and they still deliver), you know that they are worth working with. Photography started as a personal project for me, it took me through Asia last year, and now 85% of my art direction is based on the way I see things through a lens. Keep your options open.

Process diagrams Draw your design process in 60 seconds or less

MATTHEW CLARK

TIZ BERETTA

BEN GARFINKEL

MATT WARBURTON

PATRICK SMITH

SUSAN MAVOR

WIL ARNDT

MATT SAMYCIAWOOD

Aftermath

I have learned so many things in the past two months, I won’t bother listing them all, but I will say one of the most important things I’ve discovered is that design is a relationship. It’s a relationship between your clients, your users, the product and the work itself. The process is like the fundamental building blocks of that relationship. You take all these various steps in order to get to know the client and the audience you are dealing with. And if you fully immerse yourself in that and the information and strategy you have created, then without a doubt you will have the right ingredients to deliver what they need to help them achieve their goal. By the end of it you should know your client and your product like your sister, or boyfriend or your mom. You could even compare it to a relationship with someone you love; you think about them before you go to bed (concept etc.), you do your best to get to know them (their business), and let them get to know you (your process) and you work hard to make the relationship (and the product) successful. Design is yours.