Produced and interviewed by Shelley Huang.
Introduction Chapter 1: Career Chapter 2: Birchbox Chapter 3: Communal Creative Chapter 4: Location Chapter 5: Miscellaneous
Jess Williams studied Fine Art at The University of Wisconsin-Madison where she graduated with a bachelors art degree. Jess was a former Graphic Design employee at an architecture firm, Bulter Rogers Baskett where she mainly did the digital designing work and photography work. She was a former Creative Director at Thrillist/JacksThreads where she created digital designs such as site design, emails and visual branding but left to join Birchbox over a year later. Jess was the Creative Director of Birchbox when the business had 12 employees and was at its start-up stage. She had been at Birchbox for a while; over four years until she opened her own studio, Creative Communal.
What is your favourite typeface and why? Oh great question another one. Can I give you two? Well do I really like ‘Brown’, it’s a really classic, geometric sans-serif it’s very popular at the moment that’s why I hesitate to say it but it’s a great, great font. We used it a Birchbox, we use it for clients here. We use this similar font for Communal called ‘Sofia’ but Brown is definitely my favourite. And my newest one that I’m obsessed with is ‘Haptic’, the actual letterforms are interesting, what’s cool is that they have this version of italics called rotalics where instead of the letters rotating italic-wise, they all rotate. And so it’s different we’ve been trying to find ways to use it for one of our clients. I don’t think it’ll stick for any of our current ones but we’ll find one who’d love it. You said you love the Pantone swatches – what is your favourite colour? Oh man! It’s a great question. I love – I don’t know the exact Pantone colours but I love the oranges and reds. I love the fiery coral, the idea that the slight blue/red you can get with a Pantone. Which is funny because I don’t wear any of that in my life. I don’t wear red, I don’t wear orange. I’m much more in the cool tones such as the blues and greens but something about that in design pops for me. What’s interesting about red though is that it’s really hard to print if you’re not using a Pantone. Obviously with Pantone it’ll match perfect but some people cannot afford Pantone or it’s not the right red like in your office printer and so it’s a challenging colour to get right and that’s kind of why I love it.
What got you into designing – is there a memory that you had that made you want to do design as a career? Yeah, that’s a great question. I actually started on the creative side on the writing, I was a creative writer and journalist in middle school and high school and actually started my university degree as a journalism major. I really loved the idea of just telling stories and kind of creating these narratives that brought people into a new experience but, I was the editor and chief of my high school magazine and I realised I loved doing the layouts more than anything else. So, when I started at university as a journalism major, I loved the idea of telling stories but I liked telling them visually more than verbally. So, I switched to a fine art major with anemphasis in design and I found my calling because I think for me, it’s really about creative problem solving and that’s kind of how I started. Have you always liked designing even though you did journalism? Yeah, I was always art minded. I think you know, at the time, 15/20 years ago design was less at the forefront as it is today. I was always the kid that went to art supply stores and made clay pots, I did drawings and sketches. I didn’t think you could actually create an experience and career from that and once I saw the graphic design routes, I was obsessed. Do you know what got you into designing? Such as artists or inspirations? I really do think it started with magazines – as simple as that. I always tore out – I had a lot of magazines that I would follow from art forums, communication arts – kind of the art in America. I was like obsessed – I would tear them out and put them on the wall and create collages – they were the Pinterest days. And so, for me it was bringing stories to life via print was my first inspiration.
Have you ever experienced any difficulties in being a designer? How did you overcome them? Yeah absolutely! Yeah, this is something I think you probably have encountered as you continue on with your career. It’s really hard to explain – so there are two things, One - It’s challenging to explain design and creative to someone who isn’t in that world and so the faster you figure out how to explain your work in a way that can translate to someone like marketing or someone in sales or someone on the editorial team, the more you’ll gain from each others knowledge and so that’s something that’s always helped. But the stickiest point I’ve found when designing or creatively thinking is that it’s not a light switch, it’s not “Oh! Tomorrow I’ll have the best idea ever! And I’ll design it and it’ll be perfect”, you kind of have to let it – or at least for me – you have to let it find me. Of course you can make an email, make a box design I can go to my go-to design expertise and be able to execute on that however, if you’re looking for something totally fresh and new, you’re going to fail and you’re going to have these terrible ideas and they’re all going to be outside the artboard and then finally you’ll find the one that hits but that’s something that is trusting that’ll come. I have hit that wall a few times and knowing that as long as I go for a walk or go into a museum or I try get out of my head a little bit and then all of a sudden it appears and comes to me. Do you think you’re happy in the place you are now in your design career? Very happy with it. I would never have pictured this 10 years ago when I graduated. The idea that I would find my niche here and be able to support designers and their endeavours and create a reputation for design that feels authentic and genuine; to me that is an amazing feat and I’m very happy with the adventure I’m currently in.
You’ve been a Birchbox for 4 years, how did that happen? So, I graduated from college 10 years ago and I moved to New York. I went to school in Wisconsin and then I moved to New York and joined an architecture firm in the design department. It was very corporate; I wore suits and stuff which wasn’t really my vibe. And my boyfriend at the time, now husband was in a start-up in the technology side and I would love the idea of creating new brands and experiences that just don’t exist today. And so, I left the architecture firm and joined Thrillist which was a start-up at the time in the media space, which was much smaller and now is a much larger company. And I was there as the Creative Director but also designed all the digital experiences from the site designs, emails – kind of all those editorial moments. When I was there, they acquired a company called ‘JackThreads’ that is a men’s fashion company, and that was my first experience with digital and physical design and I was hooked. And so, I had my eye on even smaller companies and loved the idea of a company led by women and reached out to the Birchbox team when they were super small; and joined when they were about 12 people, 6 years ago. I loved the idea of creating this mini brand story on your doorstep every month and so that’s how - It’s kind of a fortunate series of events. Did you ever do any freelance work outside of Birchbox? I really didn’t do a lot of freelance work at Birchbox; we were very busy but I did do freelance world when I was at the architecture firm and Thrillist, which ranged from logos and print design to site designs.
You also created the app. Did you prefer that over creating the monthly box designs? I think what is interesting about the monthly design is that you’re telling a mini sub-story every month, which is interesting and more of a ‘how to keep it fresh’ every month. Which is the beauty of creating the app is you create this foundation where people can go to as a foundation resource which doesn’t have to change every month, the pieces inside can to keep it exciting but it’s meant to be a bit more permanent even though it’s an app. I think they’re very different and hard to compare. How long do you usually have to create a monthly box and how long in advance do you have to design it? The monthly boxes, we would make them, we would start them 3 months ahead of time and we work on the design probably like 4-6 weeks and then the actual production of the box will take the other 4-6 weeks. I’m really intrigued by when brands collaborate with other designers. So, when Birchbox did a collaboration with Rifle Paper Co., was that any different to a standard monthly box design? Yeah, it is very different because your working with other artists. Because Anna Rifle was the one we wrote emails with and we got to talk to her about colours and geek out about Pantones. It was a really fun experience so it is really different in terms of that process because you’re dealing with her brand and that’s her baby, but you’re also dealing with the Birchbox brand and that’s our baby and so, how do you combine those two visualisations into something we know our customers at Birchbox would like, but also keeps the elevation and polish that Rifle Paper kind of has in their brand? So, it’s just more collaborative and also is more creative because you have another mind thinking about it.
So what did a day-to-day entail as a Creative Director at Birchbox? In the beginning, it was 12 people. I did everything. I was the Creative Director, I was the lead designer, I would illustrate, I would design emails, I would create the box designs but as the company got bigger, I was able to build a team and managed all the designers that were in-house. So, the design in-house were physical and digital so the box design moments were the print/packaging team and then the site - emails and marketing were the digital team. And then we had a third team which were the photography team because we had a studio in-house, and we got to photograph mascara and lipstick and all of that great stuff. And so, at the end of it, I was very much more like the manager - making sure that all the teams were creating their best work. I always say my number 1 role as a Creative Director is actually translation; it’s hearing the company objectives, knowing what the goals are and translating them into creativity. So how do you hear about sales numbers next year, how much we want to sell, how do we figure with those objectives creatively? So, that’s creating more exciting Instagram posts that people like more, that’s creating more exciting patterns on the box that people are really excited to sign up for. So, it’s kind of how to marry both the business and the creative together. Was it more difficult towards the end as there were more employees? Yeah, exactly, it was a little bit more – it has to scale because of that size of 300 people when you have more meetings, more structure to help the business move along but it also misses that scrappiness that I like and so when I left, I launched Communal Creative about a year and a half ago, the idea was to how to bring all that in-house creative direction design thinking, the idea that we can pop on a whiteboard, design live and design out of house for start-ups.
Is there as specific reason as to why you moved to New York? It was between here and San Francisco. I knew I wanted to move to a larger city, I’ve always loved New York and the idea of it. But it was if I moved here and it didn’t work, I’d move s omewhere else but I’ve been here ever since. What made you choose New York over San Francisco? I visited both and there was something about the energy in New York that just clicked with me more. San Francisco is beautiful and it’s lovely and it has the California vibe which I love but New York, there’s something about it that has that crazy chaotic-ness that I thrive off. Do you think living in a bigger city such as New York has helped you in your design career as opposed to Ohio? Yes, absolutely. I would 100% agree with that, I think part of it you’re just exposed to so much more. Not that’s there’s not much creativity – there’s actually an amazing industry in Columbus Ohio where I’m from but it’s less prevalent and so I’ve found that New York is my perfect hub.
How big is your team at Communal Creative? So, we are small. We are a 3 person team. But we would most likely get larger this year but we do use a lot of freelancers since there’s 3 people, we have copyrighters, UX designers and a couple others that help out like photographers, studios so it always feels bigger than we are. What is you company ethos at Communal Creative? Like who are we as our spirit? It’s an interesting question. It’s something we work on all the time because part of it is creating brands for other people, but we also are a brand and so for us, designing for ourselves our differentiator really is our partnership and how we listen to clients. We act like an in-house team and so we kind of become obsessed with the products if we’re talking about fashion design, become obsessed with the bag or whatever it is. We have a client right now that’s in the food space so we just spent yesterday morning at the grocery store looking at the competitors and then we had a whole taste test in the afternoon before designing illustrations and packaging. So that’s kind of what our spirits all about, we are just passionate about creating great design and then they give us the content to create around. How do you get clients? Do you pitch to them or do they come to you? So, when we launched, so fortunate to have many years in this space, that I emailed everyone that I knew and I was like “We’re starting this new idea, how can we help you create your design dreams?” So we started small and then as we were able to publish more work and get out there we’ve been so fortunate to have referrals from our clients and then we just have a lot of people finding us on the internet which is unique.
What do you think motivates you in designing? I am motivated – there are a few things. I love working with teams and so the team here at Communal is highly motivating, we are all creative, we care so much about creating the work we are most proud of and so that is motivational. I think that it is also I love just kind of creating stuff that don’t exist today and so going back to ‘Ollie’ dog food, there are tonnes of dog food brands, but how do we create something that looks different and feels different? Kind of jumps off the shelf or sticks in someone’s mind and so that is the constant motivator. Even if were working on a product that potentially feels boring, we can make it so not boring purely because of design. Do you ever feel nervous about presenting work to clients or other people? If so, how do you overcome that? Always. I think part of it is practice. There have been some meetings that have gone better than others and also it’s trusting your expertise that you went to school for this, that you spent so many years making this, knowing that – something that’s really been really helpful to me to is that the people in the room never really get to talk about design and this is fun for them. They are stuck with numbers or whatever they’re stuck with, whatever they’re great at and this is the first time they get to sit in a room and talk about colour or talk about logo. And although it’s our world everyday, reminding yourself that can help ease the pressure in terms of the discussion. You still want to be the expert and tell the right story and present in a way that feels really powerful for the client and knowing that this is truly unique experience for them and that can calm some of those jitters.
How many clients on average do you have on average at the same time? We normally have 3-4 clients at once, we are as I said a 3 person team so it’s just balancing that work flow that’s part of the challenge and none of those clients are at the same phase. So we never kick off at the same time, so when we kick off one we’re probably wrapping up another and on average they last 3-4 months from start to finish in terms of having that kick of meeting where we talk about their values and their missions, to their ethos like the same question you’re asking me. And then all the way through to iterations, the rounds of reviews and the final hand off. What type of design do you like creating the most? We really focus on brand identity so it’s everything from someone just raised some money and has an idea and then we bring them to live, to somebody who has just launched a couple years ago and never really able to focus on that experience, we help them refine it. There’s obviously an expertise in packaging because of Birchbox and so were able to provide that service. But really at the core, it’s about creating that brand story. I don’t know if you’ve seen on the site but there’s a company called ‘Ollie’ which is a dog company, we started with them before they had a name, they had raised some money to start a ‘natural food’ for dogs idea and then we helped them from the very beginning. What would you say was your favourite project so far? They’re all so different. That’s the beauty of having the different teams and the different projects to work on ‘Ollie’ is a great example because it was so holistic. It was the brand and the identity, it was the site design, it was the packaging system, we even helped them with their launch party so that is very top of the list but each client is very its own kind of exciting adventure.
You were really successful in both businesses as you were Creative Director at both. What made you want to open your own studio? I’m not sure the start up scene is where you are but, it’s very obvious Silicon Valley in San Francisco is the number 1 spot, but New York is hot on its heels as a close second. So we have a lot of new kind of brands in New York and entrepreneurs and founders that are really passionate about what they looking to launch. Some of my favourite memories at Birchbox were in the early stages where we were creating something we don’t know if it’s going to work, and we love this idea of designing with thoughtfulness but in fresh ways. And so, I miss having that when I left Birchbox a year and a half ago, the company is 300 people and when I joined it was 12 so it was a very different landscape. Do you think working at your own studio is more difficult than working for someone else? It has its ups and downs. Birchbox is so wonderful, the founders Hayley and Katia are so supportive and were instrumental in helping me grow and I think it allowed me the confidence to do this now. I wouldn’t have felt as capable without that experience and so it’s different. I really like the challenge of figuring things out so as a founder, I get to do that both visually but also business wise and being able to pitch our work to clients, and knowing we’re so proud of it, and by the end of the day, yes of course we care about the clients and we want them to feel great but we also want great work. And so what’s exciting is that we get to design for lots of different types of companies, and that’s something that is a little bit different and more unique than being in-house like Birchbox because you’re talking about the same products whereas, we get to balance between dog food and fashion design and light bulbs, so it keeps it fresh.
What are your inspirations in life in general? The latest one, the one at Communal, we’ve been doing this thing every month where we’ve been going to a museum – another benefit from living in New York. And so that’s been really inspirational to get out of the Pinterest and screen reviews and that to me is really inspirational. Seeing fresh colour schemes, seeing how painters from the 1950s put colours together, being inspired by those fresh pairings. So that for me has been my latest inspiration which has been great. Is that what you like doing in your spare time? Yeah, we read a lot of design blogs and we have tonnes of private Pinterest boards that have all sorts of different inspirations. My primary inspiration comes from Pinterest and in my spare time, definitely do a lot of consuming on the internet from articles and witnessing and saving different visualisations but I am a big reader. What is your favourite book so far and what are you reading right now? This is so hard. Last year, I really liked Fates and Furies, it’s this really cool blue cover. I really like when they have great covers it always helps. It’s a good one. I’m reading The People in the Trees which is good but weird, I’m not obsessed with it yet but I’m half way. Yeah, I don’t know yet but it’s good so far.
What are words you live by? Oh man! Oh I don’t know. I really just believe in - there has been some meetings or some unlikely situations I’ve been in where there’s something about the gut – it doesn’t feel like the work is right and I can’t put my finger on it and so something I trust or lean harder on is that gut feeling of pride and I always ask the designers when I show them something “Is this something you would put in your portfolio?”, “Would you put this on Pinterest?”, “Would you show this to your boyfriend/girlfriend/parent?”, “Look what I made!” because that’s what you want every single time, you want to put it out into the world and be like “I had my hands on this”, “I feel great about this” and so that’s something I try to keep on top of my mind, the moment you don’t want someone to see something that you made, means it’s not quite there. What is your favourite mini succulent? Oh man! These are really great questions. My favourite mini succulent is this one that I have on my desk. It’s in a little red planter and it’s in the shape of a heart, the actual plant is in the shape of a heart naturally. My husband sent it me last year. What is the breed of your dog? Aw, he’s a Australian Shephard but a toy size. He’s so cute. Good research. How long have you had him for? He’s almost 8, we’ve had him for 7 and a half years. I would recommend – they’re great.