this is HOW we do it
In my role as Events Director for AIGA Colorado, I get the opportunity to do some pretty cool stuff. I’ve shuttled Louise Fili around the city, I had a private lunch with Matteo Bologna, and Michael Osborne drew hearts in the snow on my car. And last week, mostly in my official capacity, I attended the annual HOW Design Conference. Since the conference was in Denver this year, and since AIGA and F+W Media (HOW’s parent company) are launching a new initiative of mutual support, our local AIGA chapter put together a Lounge for the event, complete with activities, a display of award winners from the 50 Books/50 Covers competition, and even a computer kiosk serving as a jukebox filled with local music. Thankfully, in between all the chatting about AIGA with designers and dancing to Denver tunes, I managed to take in a few conference sessions.
The theme of this year’s conference (and maybe every year’s conference, since it was on the promotional materials for 2010’s event) was “Create. Connect. Community.” The HOW Design Conference (and, by extension the inHOWse Design Conference and Creative Freelancer Conference) give designers and other creative types an opportunity to gather in one place and form relationships beyond the typical business card exchange. I certainly connected with colleagues that I hope to keep in touch with throughout the coming year and beyond. But as I sat in the sessions and listened to speakers and attendees alike, some other common ideas emerged:
1. Serendipity: Whether you call it coincidence or simply being in the right place at the right time, situations kept presenting themselves that turned out to be more valuable and more enriching than the planners could have envisioned or intended. For example, on Monday afternoon we had scheduled a roundtable discussion of spec work with Debbie Millman, AIGA’s president. She was running late from an interview with 36 Point, and while we sat waiting a man sat down at our table and said wanted to visit the AIGA booth before rushing out to grab some food - turns out the guy was Scott Belsky, the founder and CEO of Behance and the author of Making Ideas Happen (one of my favorite books at present). So through sheer happenstance I got to meet someone in the industry I admire completely. Debbie Millman did eventually arrive, and as our spec work discussion began (admittedly with a group of people who were staunchly in the anti-spec camp), a pair of gentlemen strolled by and were convinced to join us. As it turned out, one of the gentlemen was about to launch a crowdsourcing marketplace - one of many marketplaces that depend entirely on spec work for their business model. A pedestrian conversation and some preaching to the choir turned into a thoughtful (and, at times, heated) discussion of what being a professional designer really means and the difference between crowdsourcing marketplaces and client relationships.
2. Prove Your Value: If crowdsourcing and spec work have revealed anything to designers, it’s that there are two distinct markets for design - one filled with clients who either can’t or won’t pay more then $100 or so for a logo and one filled with clients who value design and believe you get what you pay for. Clients in the former camp are looking for a product - they don’t value the process of research and discovery (or the designer’s experience) that go into creating a brand but rather see their logo as a piece of clip art to stick on a promotional pen or a window decal. They’re looking for a product - and that product has been commoditized to the point that it’s hard to make a living wage (in the US, anyway) and spend any amount of time on a project. To be successful, designers must not only refuse to work on spec or for sub-basement rates (which is only a symptom of the problem) but must work to educate and enlighten their clients and prove that their work has value beyond the visual. Provide concrete examples of how a project benefited a previous client. Show how research can inform subtle but beneficial changes in strategy and design. Become a true expert in your specialty beyond being the best at creating shaded buttons in Photoshop.
3. Use the Right Tool for the Job: Shaded buttons are great and all, but the first step of your design process shouldn’t be to open Photoshop. In session after session, speakers mentioned paper and pencil as a starting point for everything from concepting to critique. Adobe tools are all but an industry standard for most designers, but that’s gotten more than a few people into trouble as they used Flash as a website IDE rather than considering whether it was really necessary for this thing to spin into frame or that thing to be in a scripty non-standard font. When assessing a task, don’t just decide how you’re going to complete the task - decide what tools are appropriate to the completion. If you are more productive with your to-do list scrawled on an index card, don’t pay for expensive task management software you won’t use. Make sure your tools are assets, not liabilities, to your process.
4. Look Beyond Design for Inspiration: Cameron Moll said it best in his Good vs. Great Design session - looking at the work of other designers is great if your goal is simply to be influenced, to borrow someone else’s ideas. But true inspiration is earned and comes from the world around us (and its sources are different for everyone). Some people feel inspired and invigorated by travel; for others its modern art, or music, or reading poetry written by a vampire. Kit Hinrichs collects American flag memorabilia - and it informs his work. Louise Fili is in love with Italy - and it informs her work. Designers are some of the most of original thinkers in the world - why limit your sources of inspiration to the work of your peers?
Thank you to F+W Media for rolling out the red carpet for designers - I look forward to seeing everyone next year!
Posted by Julie
