What I Learned When I Started a Design Studio
Khoi Vinh looks back at the design studio he co-founded ten years ago and the lessons he learned in the process. These are valuable insights for any designer looking to strike out on their own, but I especially enjoyed this last bit of wisdom:
Even then, what I had already learned running that business was that saying “no,” was incredibly important, that turning down bad clients and bad projects — the ones that were outside of our expertise, outside of our budget, outside of the kind of work that would make us happy — was the only way to avoid the trap of working long and hard on miserable projects. This doesn’t just go for ‘established’ studios; due to the time, effort and opportunity cost of saying yes to bad projects, I believe it’s also a surefire way to make sure young studios never get to say yes to good projects. In the services business, sometimes “no” is the most powerful, effective and beneficial tool that you have.
“I see graphic design as a matter of solving problems; art as a matter of inventing them.”
In 1969, Charles Eames drew a diagram focusing on the design process and the overlapping interests of the designer, client, and society.
- If this area represents the interest and concern for the design office,
- and this the area of genuine interest to the client
- and this the concerns of society as a whole
- then it is in this area of overlapping interest and concern that the designer can work with conviction and enthusiasm.
Note: these area are not stated—they grow and develop as each one influences others.
Note: putting more than one client in the model builds the relationshop in a positive and constructive way.
More than forty years later and the diagram still works and represents an optimal experience for the designer-client relationship.
“My position is that a designer is—or should be—first a poet.”
I’ve been reading more poetry lately and can’t help thinking that a poet is just a designer with words.
Five things every designer should know
Robert Brunner, former industrial designer at Apple and Pentagram partner, on the five things every designer should know:
1. Perseverance. It’s hard to make great stuff. Never say die (for as long as you can).
2. Responsibility. You are driving things that will affect a lot of people, from your development partners and your clients, to the people who use the things you create. Don’t let it scare you or cause you to freeze up, but always be cognizant of the impact of your decisions.
3. How to communicate. Most designers do not know how to do this. Learn to write and speak well about your work. It will serve you for a long time and can be the difference maker.
4. Empathy. Learn how to put yourself in other’s shoes and see the situation and opportunities you’d miss from your eyes. It will make you very valuable
5. How to enjoy the journey. You have one of the best jobs in the world. It’s a long, wild ride, so have fun with it and don’t dwell too much on what went wrong. Keep your feet moving.
On the designer-client relationship
One of my all-time favorite Steve Jobs stories is his retelling of working with the designer Paul Rand:
I asked him if he would come up with a few options. And he said, ‘No, I will solve your problem for you, and you will pay me. And you don’t have to use the solution — if you want options, go talk to other people. But I’ll solve your problem for you the best way I know how, and you use it or not, that’s up to you — you’re the client — but you pay me.’
I find myself referring to this story often and I like it just as much for what it says about Paul Rand as it does Steve Jobs. You don’t often hear Rand’s side of the story, though:
Steve Jobs of NeXT is a very tough client. If he does not like something, you hand it to him and he says, “that stinks.” There is no discussion. On the other hand, I was lucky enough, I suppose, when I did the logo for him. After he saw the presentation of it, he got up - we were all at his house, sitting on the floor, you know, Hollywood style, with the fireplace going, hot as hell outside. He got up and looked at me and said, “Can I hug you.” Now that is overcoming a conflict between the client and the designer.
Make Your Kid a Writer
M. Molly Backes on how to make your kid a writer:
Let her be bored. Let her have long afternoons with absolutely nothing to do. Limit her TV-watching time and her internet-playing time and take away her cell phone. Give her a whole summer of lazy mornings and dreamy afternoons. Make sure she has a library card and a comfy corner where she can curl up with a book.
Give her a notebook and five bucks so she can pick out a great pen. Insist she spend time with the family. It’s even better if this time is spent in another state, a cabin in the woods, a cottage on the lake, far from her friends and people her own age. Give her some tedious chores to do. Make her mow the lawn, do the dishes by hand, paint the garage. Make her go on long walks with you and tell her you just want to listen to the sounds of the neighborhood.
Let her be lonely. Let her believe that no one in the world truly understands her. Give her the freedom to fall in love with the wrong person, to lose her heart, to have it smashed and abused and broken. Occasionally be too busy to listen, be distracted by other things, have your nose in a great book, be gone with your own friends. Let her have secrets
Have you ever read something and felt: “Yes, that’s right. That’s the story of my life”? That was this. I think you could replace “writer” with “artist” or “designer” or any creative job and it still works. My parents raised me well.
(via Ta-Nehisi Coates)
“I am troubled by the devaluing of the word ‘design’. I find myself now being somewhat embarrassed to be called a designer. In fact I prefer the German term, Gestalt-Ingenieur. Apple and Vitsoe are relatively lone voices treating the discipline of design seriously in all corners of their businesses. They understand that design is not simply an adjective to place in front of a product’s name to somehow artificially enhance its value. Ever fewer people appear to understand that design is a serious profession; and for our future welfare we need more companies to take that profession seriously.”
Wim Crouwel’s advice for young designers:
Keep your radar turning and pick up everything that you love. But in the same time, be very sure that you find your own way in it and not be brought off your own path by all the things that happen in the world.
I found this short film on iconic designer Michael Wolff to be endlessly inspiring.
He spends quite a of time talking about the importance of noticing, which is something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. I think it’s something inherent to designers and visual thinkers; we are constantly looking around us, often subconsciously building up an inspiration library of sorts within our heads. To notice something is to actually see it, not merely look at it. I think we could all be better off by noticing things more.
How did a British polytechnic graduate become Apple’s design genius?
Unsurprisingly, I completely devoured this profile on Apple’s Senior Vice President of Design Jonathan Ive:
Ive is not like other product designers, who too often trade in slick superficialities and press releases. Ive prefers to be engrossed in fundamentals and has very little interest in personal publicity. To him, the way a thing is made is fundamental to its character: his mind occupies a workshop, not an artist’s atelier.
With an Ive product, it is impossible to say where the engineering ends and the ‘design’ begins. It’s a continuum. He thinks and thinks about what a product should be and then worries it into existence. It’s what Ive calls ‘effort and care beyond the usual’. He has very few distractions.
Ive is a big hero of mine, and not just because he designed some of my favorite possessions. Just watching him talk for a few minutes and his endless passion is contagious. Speaking about design, his calm demeanor gets more and more excited as he goes on. I strive to have that level of passion in the work that I do.
I think this sentence incapsulates what makes Ive such a success:
His attitude to work was incredibly thorough…Whatever he did was never quite enough; he was always looking to improve the design. He was exceptionally perceptive and diligent as a student. It was never a case of just going through the motions.
But you should still go read the entire piece.
Lots of projects are finishing up this week! This is a small booklet I’ve been working on to showcase and share my manifesto. The manifesto is central to how I approach design and I wanted a printed version of it to compliment the web version.
The book features a tabbed design with each principle getting a little longer and following the same colors from the website. The first page starts with a square and as you progress through, a side is added to the shape until you get to the last page, where the circle has been replaced with a world. It’s a visual metaphor of sorts for the main ideas of the manifesto which boil down to the idea of building a better world. Notable quotes are highlighted and called out to make for an easier read if you desire.
(And, if you are interested, the manifesto is still available in poster form from the shop. I think it would look really nice in that empty area above your desk. Just sayin’…)
Hello. I’m graduating in a few months and am starting to look for full-time employment. I’m a curious and capable graphic designer interested in storytelling, information graphics, content creation, and making the world a better place to live through design. I’ve been freelancing for six years, working with established studios and my own clients across the country, as well as spending a summer in Nashville, TN interning at Inpop Records where I worked for one of Christian music’s largest labels producing work that was distributed nationwide. My work centers on promoting content, honoring craft, and building experiences, in whatever form that may take.
Feel free to look at some of the work I’ve done or read a few articles I’ve written. My philosophy of design boils down the seven principles of my manifesto, which guides everything I do.
In addition to design, I also love reading, music, movies, technology, philosophy, coffee, delicious meals, good jokes, craftsmanship, Moleskines, and LOST.
Like what you see? Take a look at my resume and shoot me an email. I’d love to talk.
(I’d love it if you could pass this on as well to anyone you know who may be looking for a full-time designer. I’ll be forever thankful for your help. This is exciting!)
“The secrets of any trade that is pursued with serious intentions are more than a series of rules and working methods based on logic and experience and applied so as to obtain the greatest possible effect with the least amount of effort. They also include a continuous process of observations, thoughts and ideas that are pushed ahead even if at the beginning they seem to have no logical basis.”
“It’s really important to be in over your head, to put yourself in a position where you’re in over your head — whether you’re a designer or just a human being. To be challenged. Because you know what? After a couple of weeks of being completely terrified, you’re on top of it, and you can do it”
