January 20, 2021No Comments

The best online portfolios of 2020

Semplice has become known for drawing the most talented creatives from around the world. And with the Best Portfolios of the Year award, the best of the best are put on spotlight.

Hundreds of portfolios are submitted every year.

The Semplice team handpicks two portfolios each week to feature in the Semplice Showcase.

Only 12 of those portfolios are selected each year for the Best Portfolios of the Year award.

These are the best Semplice portfolios of 2020

Congratulations to those selected, and to all runner ups.

Who will create the best portfolios of 2021? We can’t wait to find out.

January 12, 2021No Comments

The opportunity you’ve been waiting for

Smart companies hire people who are passionate about what they do and determined to work there. 

These people might not come along on the company’s timeline. They may not have an open position or a defined role on the team. But when that person comes along, they know better than to pass them up. They make the space. They create a role.

And so, the best question when job searching is not “are you hiring?” 

The question is: “Do you want to hire me?”

Mikael Cho, co-founder and CEO of Unsplash, put it nicely: “I love people who apply when we aren’t hiring. It signals conviction and people who don’t need permission to get started,” he wrote on Twitter. “Don’t wait for permission to apply to places you want to work. Every company I know will make room for someone great, even if they aren’t hiring.”

This couldn’t be more true for the creative industry. It’s like falling in love. You may say you’re not looking for it. You may turn down countless suitors, saying you don’t want anything serious. But when the right person comes along, it just happens. You weren’t looking for it. But you found it.

The majority of people I currently work with came through my internal network or random encounters. Hiring these people was as much an opportunity for me as it was for them.

If you want to work with a specific company, don’t wait for the door to open. Open it yourself. Make yourself the best person for the job, then go after it.

January 8, 2021No Comments

Why you feel uncertain about everything you make

Ask one person you trust for their opinion and you’ll get qualified feedback you can take into consideration for improvement.

Ask two people for their opinion and you may get conflicting feedback that prompts you to dig deeper and form your own conclusion.

Ask three people for their opinion and you may see a trend that confirms or invalidates a theory, swaying you in one direction or the other.

Ask four people their opinion and you have yourself a focus group, whose feedback can support your decisions or make you doubt them.

Ask five people, ten people, 20 people for their opinion and you will get answers across the board, sending you in every possible direction.

Ask enough people for their opinion and you’ll receive whatever answer you’re looking for – plus plenty more you didn’t want to hear. The feedback cancels itself out.

Getting others’ opinion can be valuable, until it’s not. So we must choose carefully when and how we get it. And realize that ultimately, our own opinion is what makes our work original.

January 6, 2021No Comments

The best design portfolios of December 2020

Once a week, we select two portfolios created with Semplice to feature in our Best Of  Showcase.  Here we've collected our favorites from the month of December.

With 2020 finally over, I think we can all release a collective sigh of relief.  As the year has wrapped up, we're continuing to welcome creative folks to the Semplice family as they take on the new year with a fresh online portfolio.

Browse the best portfolios of the month below to see fresh new work and get inspired for your own site. And if you've created your own portfolio with Semplice, be sure to submit it to our Showcase here. We might feature your site next.

 

To see more great design portfolios, visit the Semplice showcase. I'll be back next month with more of our monthly favorites!

Header image by Mathieu Clauss

January 4, 2021No Comments

How to future-proof your creative career

The world is changing fast, and the creative industry is no exception. The idea that robots might steal our jobs was laughable at one point. It’s feeling more possible by the day. That’s not to mention the growing competition from regular human beings. So how do we maintain our edge?

While artificial intelligence is still a long way off from being creatively coherent, it’s close enough to make us feel uneasy about the future. And in the meantime, the internet is lowering barriers to the creative industries. These days, you can’t turn around without bumping into another UX designer. Every week, we’re required to learn some hot new tool. In the tech and creative fields, the thirty-something folks are beginning to feel like old-timers. 

The creative industry already looks different since you entered it, and the pandemic has only accelerated the rate of change. Whether that’s a blessing or a curse is up to you.

You could see it as more people flooding in, saturating the field, snatching up your job options and making you irrelevant. Or you could reach for the same opportunities you fear others are taking from you. 

How do we stay relevant?
How do we stay valuable?
How do we stay on top of our field when the ground is shifting beneath us?

We continue learning and growing.

After interviewing some of the most admirable creative people we know here on DESK, we’ve begun to see a pattern. Those who rise to the top have something in common: They never consider themselves too good to be taught. They never stop pushing themselves to be better. They are forever curious, endlessly excited to learn something new or add to their skills. 

And this is where the perceived threat becomes a gift. The internet and advances in technology mean we don’t have to go back to school and get a four-year degree. We can learn and build on our skillset on our own time. Whether it’s taking a short course, following a YouTube tutorial or making a personal study of a skill you want to master, you can maintain your creative edge by continuing to sharpen it.

The New School, a creative university based in New York City, calls it Continuing and Professional Education.

Continuing and Professional Education at The New School is now offering online courses for creative professionals to grow their skills or pick up new ones. If you're interested in learning within a guided environment, registration is now open for courses starting in Spring 21:

Putting Sustainability into Practice (Fashion Sustainability Certificate)

The environmental crisis can no longer be ignored, and that's ringing true in the fashion industry. Things needs to change. Much of the 20th-century fashion system is outdated, destructive and quickly becoming irrelevant. This class is geared toward people in the fashion industry, at any level. Within the course, you use your business, project or idea as a case study or "tester" to contribute change within the current fashion industry. You will finish the course with an actionable project that can be a portfolio piece or plan ready to be implemented.

Become a more sustainable fashion designer  →

Lighting Fundamentals and Technologies (Interior Lighting Design Certificate)

This course is an introduction to the world of lighting design. It covers the fundamentals of lighting, including developing a basic understanding of light and human vision, lighting measurement and color. You'll leave having a working vocabulary of lighting terms and a knowledge base of lighting technologies and their characteristics. (Which applies to everyone from lighting designers to 3D designers).

Learn the fundamentals of interior lighting design →

 

Design Futures 101 (Futures Studies and Speculative Design Certificate)

In this course, you'll get an intro to the academic field of futures studies and design futures. The course will also touch on approaches such as discursive design, speculative design, critical design, strategic foresight and design fiction.

Get a better understanding of design futures →

 

"There's no 'finishing,' there's only moving forward."

For those interested in design courses: The New School's Parsons School of Design is ranked #1 in the United States. And since most certificate courses are 100% online, you don't have to be located in the U.S. to take them. They have what they call non-degree "adult courses," for those looking to pick up a new skill without pursuing a full degree, as well as certificate programs for professionals looking to advance in their careers.

The beauty of this approach: you don't have to commit to four years of study or work toward a far-off university degree. There's no "finishing," there's only moving forward.

Whether you decide to take a course or not, you can keep pushing yourself on your own time. Start with just 10 minutes a day. Recreate a piece of art in the style you’ve been wanting to try. Watch a YouTube video while you make your morning coffee. Ask a friend if they’ll spend one hour with you on Zoom showing you how to use a specific tool.

Instead of telling yourself you’re too old, or out of the loop, or too behind to catch up, take one little step. After a little while taking those small steps, you’ll look back and see you’re much further ahead than you thought you’d be.

December 21, 2020No Comments

Designer & maker Ana Kraš on not taking yourself too seriously

Ana Kraš doesn’t like to overthink things. The Serbian designer, photographer and maker isn’t too concerned with how others receive her work. Yet it's been well received all the same.

Kraš’ lamp designs for Hay, her collaborations with fashion designer Maryam Nassir Zadeh and Danish brand Ganni, her photography and effortless style have earned her the title “It Girl” more than once. She models for fashion brands one day and then photographs Copenhagen Fashion Week the next. 

But it’s not titles or recognition Kraš is after. She just wants to keep playing.

“It might sound strange, but my work always felt so personal to me,” says Kraš. “It always feels like it exists for me to play with it, not for others to see it.”

Kraš was born in Belgrade, where she graduated from the University of Applied Arts. Since then, she’s worked for herself as a furniture designer, model, photographer, set designer and artist, among other things. It’s not necessarily by intention – Kraš has said before that she wishes she’d had the opportunity to do internships – but rather that she’s followed her curiosity and ideas and they lead her here. It’s a strategy, or non-strategy, that has defined her career.

“I'm very responsible and maybe even too serious in some ways, but when it comes to curiosity and play, I'm somehow almost the same as when I was a kid,” Kraš says. “It's just how I am naturally. I'm not trying to maintain this approach to life.”

Her photography, much of which she shares in a stream-of-consciousness style on Instagram, often seem raw and unedited, shot from a bike or across a dinner table. The Bonbon lamps she designed and creates for Hay, while requiring hours of detailed handiwork, vary in color and pattern depending on what strikes her in the moment.

"Being concerned about people's opinion makes no sense because there will always be different and opposing opinions. So it becomes useless to even think about it."

Kraš says rather than trying to control her work, she simply follows her instinct. When she does get stuck, it’s because she can be indecisive. She may like dozens of variations of an idea, and can get lost in subtle details like color.

“Then I try to remind myself that there's no perfect choice ever, and that each choice is just a reflection of that moment and will lead to something that comes next,” Kraš explains. “I like to look at projects as a part of a bigger conversation that's an ongoing practice. So each project is sort of like a sentence. And it leads to the next sentence. And it builds up to a story. So not all sentences are so crucial, and there can be some average or even bad ones. But they can still build up a good story. That takes some pressure off.”

Kraš’ advice for relaxing and not overcomplicating your work? Pursue what comes naturally.

“I think confidence comes with a feeling that you're being natural, a feeling of being yourself. With my work I feel like one, it's a part of me. When I have to do things that don't feel natural about, I don't feel confident at all,” she says. “I think it's important to do things that are natural to you, and then you feel like you're playing on stable ground, in your yard.”

December 17, 2020No Comments

The best of 2020

Considering how unpredictable this year has been, it’s amusing that several of our top articles of 2020 are predictions. 

Our industry will never be the same, and that’s exciting. I won’t try to make any guesses about the future now, but I am optimistic. Some of the most beautiful movements in history came after a time of crisis. I can only hope this year inspires more creativity, more beauty, more ideas we've never seen before.

In the meantime, we will reflect on familiar ones: Skeuomorphism. Typefaces. UX design. Portfolio building. Of the 161 articles we published in 2020, these are the most-read:

1. The Kawaiization of product design

Claymation-style 3D hands imply our design tool is our friend. Circles and squiggles say our form-creation app is here to party. Muted colors and soft, rounded shapes signal safety. It is approachable. It is charming. It’s Kawaii.

Read article

2. Skeuomorphism is making a comeback

Something is missing in these modern UIs. They're clean. They're streamlined. They're optimized for productivity and speed. But they’ve lost their soul. Our apps and interfaces have all started look the same and feel the same. Even the icons blend together on our screens. People feed off visual stimuli, and the visual world online has become less and less stimulating with each year. And so we’re gravitating toward something new.

Read article

3. The best totally free webfonts and typefaces

Beautiful typefaces are usually an investment, but that doesn't mean you can't find affordable ones. Here we curated our top 12 picks, along with a few honorable mentions.

Read article

4. Art deco will be the visual language of 2021

Every trend is an answer to the movement preceding it, and minimalism has just about had its run. We are emotional and sentimental beings; we survive on self-expression. We will forever return to what has colored society since humans first walked the earth: art. 

We have yet to see how this plays out but can only hope it’s true for the coming year.

Read article

5. The most underrated page on your portfolio

There’s a page I don’t see on portfolios as often as I’d like. When I do, it feels like a treat. I go through all the other pages on the site first. I scan the homepage, usually click straight to the About page, followed by a few case studies. Finally, dessert: The Playground page.

Read article

6. How to write UX copy that makes your product a joy to use

Good UX copy is like a good speaker. It makes its users feel lighter, encouraged and capable. So to write UX copy that moves your users, similar principles apply.

Read article

7. The Carbonmade onboarding UX explained

A great onboarding experience can increase your conversion rate, engagement and brand recognition while lowering the barrier of entry – meaning, how fast someone can start using your product the way it's mean to be used. It's one of the most crucial elements of your entire product experience.

Read article

8. 5 gorgeous portfolios from creative directors

If you're a branding or identity designer, you typically have an obsession with detail. You are, naturally, an expert in typography. You've learned how to distill a story to its most powerful parts and present it in a compelling way.  So it's no wonder branding portfolios are some of the best out there.

Read article

9. Senior portfolios vs. junior portfolios

Does your portfolio change depending on your seniority? Of course, we know the work will evolve. But does the way you present it change too? Should it? Here are our thoughts on the subject.

Read article →

10. How to write concisely

The three hallmarks of good UX copy: Clear, concise and useful. Here we will discuss how to write concisely. We will keep it short.

Read article

Thank you to everyone who read DESK this year. Like most of you, I'd guess, we look forward to what 2021 brings.

December 9, 2020No Comments

The designer’s gift guide to watches

If you’ve been following me online, you know I love watches. I’m a designer, and watches are essentially what design is about. 

Watches are the perfect marriage of functional and beautiful. A watch is first and foremost a tool, but it can also become an intimate part of someone's life. Watches carry memories, and often the watch becomes a symbol for the experiences or people we cherish. A watch can be a new beginning or a window to the past life of someone else.

Because they are so personal, gifting a watch can be challenging – and navigating the world of watches even more so. But one thing is for sure: If you give someone a watch, you’re going to be with them every minute of the day, on their wrist. It’s a powerful gift.

In this short guide, I’d like to share some ideas for those considering a watch for their designer friend or family member. Most are fairly unisex, but you can decide for yourself no matter what the listing says. Also: These are not sponsored or affiliate recommendations. They're what I know to be good as a designer who appreciates watches and the art of watchmaking.

The beauty of watches is that you can get one for as little as $5 or as much as $500 – and way beyond. But in this article, we’re going to focus more on the affordable and in-between options. If you’re already thinking about gifting someone a Rolex or Patek Philipp, chances are you don’t need to read this article.

Let’s start:

Nr.1 — A classic: the Braun

Dieter Rams has been an icon in the design industry for decades now. His product designs have not only inspired a generation of industrial designers, but graphic designers as well.

This classic Braun Analogue is an affordable piece of design at roughly $130. It’s a quartz watch, so while it may not be as impressive on the inside (compared to a mechanically powered watch), it’s functional, accurate and simple. Exactly what your designer friend or significant other may value. 

Shop the Braun →

Nr.2 — The Numbers Watch by MoMA

Nothing says “I’m a graphic designer” more than a bold but minimalistic watch dial. If your friend is a graphic designer, they may already be aware of this watch. It was designed by Copenhague-based watch company LARSEN & ERIKSEN in collaboration with Mads Jakob Poulsen, who is a dear friend of mine.

Similar to the Braun watch with a quartz movement inside, this watch is $200 and simple, both on the inside and the outside. And one thing is guaranteed: people will comment on your watch when you’re wearing it. It’s a conversation piece. 

The watch comes in multiple versions, see images at this link:

Shop The Numbers watch → 

Nr.3 — The Casio G-Shock

You can’t go wrong with a Casio, and the G-Shock is a classic. Casio is famous for its hard plastic pieces, but this design offers a bit more. The G-Shock feels more premium (and it is, at $500), with metal cases in a range of nice colors. If your designer friend also loves the outdoors, this is the perfect gift for them. It’s practically indestructible. Get it in either black, silver or in a more fancy gold. 

Shop the Casio G-Shock → 

Nr.4 — The Mondaine SBB Swiss Railways watch

Still under $500, we have another graphic design- inspired piece: The Swiss Railways edition of the Mondaine SBB. The simplicity and ingenuity of Swiss design is celebrated by designers everywhere, and this watch encapsulates that. It was designed by Hans Hilfiker, a Swiss engineer and designer for the Federal Swiss Railways. It’s another iconic piece that your designer friend would wear proudly.

Shop The Mondaine SSB Swiss Railway →

Nr. 5 — The Braun Prestige Digital

Keeping with the digital watches for a second, next up is the Braun Digital at about $300. It’s a design statement, right on your wrist. If you’re a designer meeting other designers, they'll notice it immediately. As soon as they see the name Braun, they’ll know this watch is special.

Shop The Braun Prestige Digital →

Nr.6 — The Uniform M40 PreciDrive, a minimalist watch

For the more distinguished designer, there’s Uniform Wares. Still within the $500 price range, you’ll get elegant design and beautiful craftsmanship. While the watch is still powered by a quartz movement on the inside, you wouldn’t be able to tell from the outside. It’s simple and refined. If your friend is a minimalist, this is the watch for them.

Shop The Uniform →

Nr.7 — The Hamilton Field

Now, moving away from digital and quartz movements and entering mechanical engineering, we’re in the world of gears and screws. The Hamilton is iconic, beloved by even the most hardcore watch collectors who own watches 100x the price.

Inspired by military watches, the Hamilton is a more rugged piece but also beautifully designed with its bold hour markers and the 24h military time. Simple, functional and Swiss-made, this watch is pure graphic design. Nothing more and nothing less than it needs to be. Also, you can swap out the nato strap with something else and give the watch a completely different look. Get it at just over $500.

Shop The Hamilton →

Nr.8 — The Junghans

Next is the Junghans, at around $1,300. With an automatic and self-winding movement, it’s even more refined, more German, more elegant. Bonus points for your designer friend: This one's inspired by the famous Bauhaus design movement. Works for both for design meetings and date night. It’s the perfect watch for every day.

Shop The Junghans →

Nr.9 — The Nomos Tangente

We’re leveling up! This watch, also Bauhaus-inspired, is for a special friend or family member with refined taste. Quartz won’t do at this point. If you’re looking in this price range for this person, it has to be a proper Swiss automatic movement in a German design. Welcome to the Nomos Tangente, perhaps one of the most beloved, more “accessible” watches (priced at $1,900, they get much more expensive than this). High-quality materials and craftsmanship meet some of the finest and minimalistic dial designs in the watch world.

Shop The Nomos Tangente →

 

Nr. 10 — The Tudor Pelagos

If you’re buying this $5,000 watch, your friend is a special one. So special in fact, you’re ready to scratch the surface of high-end watchmaking. That said, you’re not about to dive too deep into the world of Rolex & Co.

The Tudor Pelagos is a beautiful, classic steel sports watch. It’s the perfect all-rounder. And the best part is, you can dress it up and down as much as you like. Works as nicely for diving in the ocean as it does on your wrist wearing a suit (your friend is the James Bond type, right?). The Pelagos is a watch lover’s watch. As an alternative, you may also like the Tudor Blackbay. 

Shop The Tudor Pegagos →

Nr.11 — The Omega Speedmaster, for the friend you really really like

You don’t just want to give your friend a nice watch, you want to give them a piece of history. A watch they will have FOREVER and most likely pass down to their children or grandchildren. 

The Omega Speedmaster Moonwatch is iconic. And compared to other high-end watches with history and craftsmanship, it's somewhat "affordable" at $5,000 – which is all relative, I realize.

The Speedmaster was the first watch on the moon, worn by astronauts. That alone makes it one of the most unique gifts you can give someone. But this watch is also beautifully designed for someone with taste. It’s a watch people notice, whether they appreciate watches or not. And if they appreciate watches, they’ll know exactly what watch this is as soon as they see it. 

Shop The Omega Speedmaster → 

December 8, 2020No Comments

A typographer and designer’s guide to elegance

Every piece of Ayaka B. Ito's portfolio is considered. No subhead is overlooked, no hover state left to chance. Every color complements its individual project. Every piece of text is carefully kerned.

It's the best representation of how the New York based-designer and illustrator works: with diligence and attention to detail, owning every element of everything she does. So much so, she'll often create her own typefaces for projects, just to ensure originality and full control over the piece.

In this way, a decided elegance emerges in her work, no matter the client or project. And while much of that comes down to taste, style and expertise, we learn in this interview that for Ito, it's also thanks to endless studying and practice.

I think many of us associate “elegance” with softness, refinement or even traditional femininity. But I think work that is edgy, bold or dark can be elegant too. How do you define elegance? 

I agree! Elegance can be represented through any means, and it doesn't have to be associated with femininity or softness. The design can be big and bold or full of glitter — to me, creating something "elegant" is about carving out a beautiful space for the design to live in and allowing it to feel effortlessly elevated.

You’ve shaped your identity through your elegant projects and typefaces. It’d be easy to call this your “style” but I think it goes deeper than that – to the clients you choose and turn down, the projects you accept and your attention to detail, for example. Would you say this has happened naturally for you?

Looking back, I've always enjoyed making intricate and detailed crafts growing up, whether it was origami, sewing, drawing, or making jewelry with tiny beads. I grew up as a single child, so I spent most of my time working on long craft projects that helped me develop immense patience and improve my attention to detail.

In terms of my "style," it's something I've actively worked on over the years. I don't think I've ever imagined myself becoming a graphic or type designer with my current repertoire of projects, to be honest. 

Whatever I enjoy and am passionate about, I've made it my habit to learn everything about the subject matter. One day I'll be obsessed with traditional Disney animation drawings, and another day, I'm enamored by 30s Japanese lettering. I save every cent I can to allow myself to buy every book about typography, fashion, and arts that help build my foundation.

I also enjoy surrounding myself with people that inspire and push me. I cherish and curate every object we have in our home. Surrounding myself with as many things as possible that are meaningful, I believe, has taken shape into the body of work I currently have.

And this is the same with my career path. Whatever it took, I pursued working at two fantastic design studios in NYC — RoAndCo and NR2154 — where I had the opportunity to work with many high-end fashion, art and lifestyle clients that have also shaped my style of work. 

It has taken 15 years since I left Japan to shape these things, and I'm eternally grateful for every person I've met that has helped build my path. 

What role does typography play in your work? It seems to be a dominant one in the projects I’ve seen lately. You even go the extra difficult path of creating your own typefaces for clients. Why? 

I always hope to go the extra mile of creating something truly unique for every client. Let's say for a book project, I love designing not just the book cover and layout but also the typeface with which I set the content. My dream projects have been those where I can make everything you see on a page as original as possible.

Just as much as my handwriting or yours will be naturally different from anyone else's, I've learned that if I hand-draw logomarks or make lettering and typefaces, it helps me create something original naturally.

With an increasing number of graphic designers in the industry and design services becoming readily available, creating custom type has become my way of pursuing my own authenticity.

"I always go overboard for every project, finding insurmountable references and making tons of internal explorations."

What decisions go into your choice of a specific typeface for a project? Obviously some of it just “feels right” but are there any choices, conscious or subconscious, that you consider?

Whether I create a new typeface for a project or find the perfect existing one from another foundry, I always start by asking myself the following questions: 

  • What purpose should the typeface serve? Is it for headlines only or also body copy?
  • What medium will it be used on, digital or print?
  • Who are the client and the audience?
  • What concept or aesthetic am I trying to achieve?

Every typeface is designed for a specific purpose, so it's essential to pair the project with the right typeface from a practical perspective.

That all said, at the end of my exploration, I usually make my final decision based on intuition. If I love the typeface, I know I can get my clients excited about it.

The perfect typeface also will depend on the copy that you're writing. I wish I were a better copywriter, honestly. I can't stress enough how important good writing is. Good writing elevates the typeface and visa-versa.

I’ve worked with you before and I know you not only create gorgeous work, but you’re incredibly fast. Of course, a lot of this comes down to expertise and years of practicing your craft. But that truth aside: How do you achieve greatness on a deadline?

Oh boy, flattered you think so! Quite frankly, I always go overboard for every project, finding insurmountable references to making tons of internal explorations.

After years of consistently doing so, you start to build a repertoire of ways to explore ideas quickly, and eventually, you become more efficient with your process.

I wish I could keep my explorations to 2-3 ideas internally for every branding project. I think it comes from a fear of missing out. I need to exhaust every idea in my head to know that what I'm presenting to my clients is the best one.

I’d say for most traditional designers, typeface design feels like one of the most “inaccessible” areas of design. The expertise and level of craft aren’t something you learn in design school. How did you get into typeface design?

I understand! I never learned type design or even touched calligraphy in school. I studied new media design & imaging at Rochester Institute of Technology. It was truly an amazing experience where they taught you skills from 3D, animation, Flash, and Actionscript 2.0 (yup), but never traditional graphic design.

At my first job at Big Spaceship, I had great mentors Dan Mall and Jarrod Riddle, who had a deep understanding of type, which inspired me to learn more. I started by taking after-work typography courses at the School of Visual Arts in New York. Without knowing much, the class I took was a 10-week session with the legendary Ed Benguiat to learn how to kern… Helvetica. It was so hard and so intense, but so incredibly helpful. I took his class twice.

Thanks to NYC having fantastic resources, I also took many calligraphy classes at the Society of Scribes. I wanted to start from the basics, learn how to draw type, and understand the history of Latin alphabets. Hands down, my favorite class was learning Spencerian Script with Michael Sull! 

I started learning more about customizing type digitally through working on many logomarks at RoAndCo in 2012. When I was at NR2154, I was lucky to have great mentors again, Jacob Wildschiødtz and Elina Asanti who helped elevate my taste. We always pushed every project to build on bespoke visual elements. I made custom lettering and type design for books and magazines. After working on Free, a Japanese fashion magazine with a four-year run, I wanted to learn more about designing typefaces, because the font we used for the body copy was the only element on the page that I didn’t have full control over.

I took two months off from work to pursue Type@Cooper’s Condensed program to dip my toes in the typeface-making world. The program gives you an introduction to calligraphy, history, drawing letters and essential font creating skills, but I also learned that five weeks was just not enough. Luckily there was a spot open for the one-year extended program, so I continued studying while working full-time at NR2154.

I've been lucky to have projects where I could immediately include custom typefaces, so that's how I started making type design more of a focus in my work.

Currently, I'm also studying how to draw Japanese characters and creating a Japanese typeface. Due to COVID, I can't travel back to Japan, and the Japanese postal services suspended international shipping, so it isn't easy finding resources! It gets my blood boiling with excitement, knowing that there's an infinite amount of knowledge and skill to acquire. 

For those interested in getting into type design, here are a few of my favorite resources to start from:

Books:

Some of my favorite online resources for starting to learn about type:

Final question: Why did you choose Semplice for your portfolio?

Because it allowed me to experiment and implement exactly what I had in mind!

December 4, 2020No Comments

Behind the scenes of video game design, featuring Headland

Video game design is still a young enough practice to feel mysterious and discoverable.  That's even more true for mobile games. Going behind the scenes of Headland, a new action-adventure game for mobile, we learn the field of game design is one designers are creating as they go.

Northplay, a Denmark-based game design studio, is currently putting the finishing touches on Headland with intentions to launch this December – after working on it for more than three years. As we learn in this interview with Michael Flarup, founder and designer at Northplay, it's been a long and winding journey. Here Flarup shows us how Headland came to be, and what he's learned about game design along the way.

Hey Michael, congrats on the official reveal of Headland! Can you tell us a bit about the game? What inspired this world and story?

Thanks for having me, it’s always exciting to share something we’ve been working on for so long. Headland is the product of a long and arduous creative process. A lot of different people have touched it throughout its production cycle with the core drivers today being Christian Laumark and Julian Abela, who work for me at Northplay. It’s their art and systems knowledge that are really making it all come together.

We’re calling it an action-adventure game, but really it sits at the intersection between a lot of different genres with both a narrative arc and action RPG elements, like combat and item upgrades.

It’s a story about a young boy, Nor, who has his imagination core shattered by a powerful force. You team up with your robot friends to find the fragments and fight to regain your limitless creativity.

"The price of not following in someone else’s footsteps is a high chance of getting lost and not having anyone to look to for guidance."

Tell us about the touch aspect of Headland. What makes this new or different for mobile?

What players will hopefully find is that this is a very different type of mobile game. It’s ambitious and it goes against the grain of the platform in many aspects.

At the heart of that experience lies the enormous amount of work we’ve spent rethinking how a game like this should be controlled. Action RPG’s on touch have historically had a lot of heavy-handed UI with on-screen buttons, digital D-pads and menus. They often feel like mini PC ports converted for fingers.

We threw all of our assumptions out the window and tried to build controls entirely around touch. You swipe and tap your way through combat, you hit in-game interaction points and you tap through dialogue. At every interaction, we’ve asked ourselves what the best way of doing this on touch would be, and tried to build that solution. The result is a lot of small and big innovations that all come together to create a very accessible and fast-paced experience. It really just feels like it was built for the devices we carry in our pockets.

Releasing a narrative, premium game on mobile that you can complete in 2020 is by itself also a rare thing. The game isn’t built around microtransactions and there are no retention mechanics. The game is free to download with the first 20 minutes playable, and the rest of the game unlocked through a single purchase. It’s a game with an ending. In a mobile game landscape of hyper-casual quick-fixes, we wanted to make an experience we wanted to play that felt more like the games we bought and cared for when we were kids.

In a Patreon announcement, you said, “Pursuing this vision has led us through some challenging designs, life-questioning obstacles and several reboots.” What were the challenges and life-questioning obstacles? What about the game made it so challenging?

It’s exciting to make something new. Something that’s different from what everyone else is doing. You get to ask hard questions and reimagine. You get to take ideas apart and look at the components. But new needlessly comes at the expense of familiarity. The price of not following in someone else’s footsteps is a high chance of getting lost and not having anyone to look to for guidance.

Game design has a lot of that and Headland in particular has faced a long history of setbacks and reboots. It originally started as a Viking action game called Norse (some of its roots still visible in the game today). The original intention was making an action and exploration game for touch that really peeled back all the inherent complexities of that genre, with gameplay that was fast-paced, accessible and fun. The controls came into its own in those early days and largely made it intact into the game today.

But it wasn’t without challenges.

We spent a lot of time building the tech to make swiping feel just right in the game. Believe it or not, that’s something humans have a fine-tuned sense of. We built auto-aim that made you seamlessly hit the right targets around you. We then built combat around these new paradigms of touch. Creating and rigorously testing dynamics that played to its strengths and limitations.

Standing still and tapping wasn’t fun. Evading and repositioning worked great. So we designed encounters that force the player to think about placement. Enemies with attack markers and slow-moving projectiles. Granular life systems that are not too punitive as to dissuade players to take chances. Carefully balanced difficulty and progression that wouldn’t turn a broader demographic away but above all, the right feel to it all.

We went to great lengths to avoid cumbersome UI and designed in-world interaction points for things like opening portals, purchasing and upgrading. You even buy the game from a physical in-world Northplay store by hitting an interaction point. We built as much of the UI as we could into the game world itself to make it all more seamless.

"Game design is such a multidimensional activity that large chunks of the discipline remain unknown territory, even after having shipped many games."

The story was another major challenge that’s echoed through the many different phases the game has been through.

Sometime after the Viking phase of this game (which was originally envisioned as more of a rogue-like game), I started yearning for a more linear progression. Not only because we were struggling with randomly generated content (rogue-likes are hard) but also because I had a long-standing desire to leave players with a feeling after having completed the game. I wanted to tell a meaningful story with an emotional payoff. I wanted the game to be more than a finely tuned combat and loot machine. I wanted it to have heart.

I saw the narrative angle as something that would help us with the blueprint of the scope itself AND give it that much-needed soul I was yearning for. How hard could narrative game design be, right?

Well pretty freaking hard in the best of circumstances. Game design is such a multidimensional activity that large chunks of the discipline remain unknown territory, even after having shipped many games. This might seem surprising, but you’d be amazed at how many such blindspots are clearly visible in big commercial projects made by large teams. I see them now more than I did five years ago.

Narrative design was foreign land to us and here’s why we struggled: We, as a studio, are obsessed with how something plays. When we make games, we iterate fast on prototypes. It’s all about mechanics and game-feel from the start. That’s something I’m chasing as a game designer, and that passion turns into products that in turn attract people and foster a culture of improvisational and iterative design. It’s a very visceral and rewarding way to create an entertainment product. It creates games that feel great; they’re literally built through play and constantly tested and tweaked. It’s the Darwinism of game design.

It’s also absolutely impossible to plan, and narrative design requires planning. It requires you to have a pretty good idea of what you want to say and where you want to end up. It’s the difference between improv comedy and putting on a classical theatre play.

It’s easy to spot my mistake now, at the end of this road. I thought a strong narrative would help galvanize a much-needed structure for the game, but what I was really doing was introducing the antithesis of how we’ve historically made our best work. I have later seen many others make the same mistake, walking into the narrative woods never to emerge with a finished game.

Luckily we got help from award-winning game author Morten Brunbjerg, who helped us frame the theme of what we wanted to say. A story about the loss of limitless imagination we all experience growing up and how you can only really hope to regain fragments of it as an adult if you fight really hard. It’s something that resonated really well with our profession.

From this framework our world builder and artist, Christian Laumark was able to apply another of his many talents: writing witty and creative dialogue. It took many long Slack calls, revisions and rewrites during the pandemic lockdown before our cast of quirky characters started to come together on the page.

Ultimately the story also had to be told in a way that worked with the many systems we had built. It had to align with our core designs built around game-feel. It had to merge our improv comedy with that classical play. It hasn’t been without compromise, but I’m very proud of the result.

Headland has no microtransactions, ads or retention mechanics. Can you share the reasoning and philosophy behind this? What sacrifices did you have to make in choosing this path?

Whether or not this is a smart move really remains to be seen, but after having watched the mobile gaming landscape degenerate into hyper-casual, metrics-driven dopamine slot-machines, I didn’t feel like adding to that development.

From a game design perspective, I’ve always been drawn to the accessibility of mobile. From a financial perspective, I’ve always been drawn to the distribution of mobile. Those two things helped us get our start with millions of players enjoying our games.

Our claim to fame on the App Store has been games like "Conduct THIS!" and "Fly THIS!" Which were once described to me by a mobile publisher as ‘Dinosaurs’ because we didn’t have the right metrics to support user acquisition. Maybe they’re right. Here I am, making another dinosaur and it might very well be the last one.

Can you take us behind the scenes of a specific level or section of the game?

Absolutely. I sat down with Christian Laumark, who has designed and built most of the game, and put together a little behind the scenes walkthrough.

We usually start by sketching out the concept of the level, to imagine what it's going to look like, and make changes if the design isn't holding up. It's a good way to ensure that you don't waste time trying to realize an impossible idea.

Then we proceed to tiling out the terrain of the level with landscape blocks, which can easily be fitted together into all sorts of different terrain. We then decorate the level with, grass, trees, rocks –  known in game development as "dressing."

After layout is complete, we design all the battle encounters to fit the difficulty of the level and provide a satisfying progression.

In the end, we set up the functionality of the level. What is going to happen where and when — all the conversations with the characters, scripted encounters, and other special things that are happening in that level. We use a custom cinematic system we built for this exact purpose, so it's easy for the level designer to do all of this without having to write any code.

After the level has been all set up, we test it to make sure it's working as intended, and it's fun to play. Most levels have to fit into some larger progression in the game, so there’s also a few logistics to think about when it’s slotted into the overall arc of the story. We do a range of tests at the office with external testers who come in to play through parts of the game while we scribble down notes. Sometimes, feedback from those sessions leads us to make changes to specific levels where our ideas might not have translated into gameplay as well as we thought.

How much does a traditional background in design come into play as a game designer? What are the skills and knowledge that transfer over? Did you feel like you had to learn a lot entering this world?

I’ve always been interested in making games, and games have in turn influenced my visual design career a lot. When I was 10 I’d sit next to my friend a few houses over and make games in this old engine called Klick’n’Play. I was a geek and a gamer growing up in the nineties.

My career eventually turned to graphic design but I never forgot games and I never stopped playing— and while I’ve done a lot of work in the startup and app space, I think a lot of the visual design that I’ve produced over the years have a certain video-game quality. Icons have been a big passion of mine and I tell myself that you can see that in my work.

To be honest, I think quite a few different industries have skill-overlaps that are useful in the game design process. Game design is this multifaceted and expansive discipline that has more inroads than most other areas I have ever worked in. It makes the games industry a wonderfully diverse place filled with people from all sorts of backgrounds.

The traditional designer mindset can be both a blessing and a curse when you start designing games. On one hand, I feel like a big part of our jobs as designers is to design with empathy. To put ourselves in the user's place and try to create the best experience from that vantage point. I also think the best designers infuse those experiences with opinion, style and joy.

"The wonderful thing about game design is that literally anyone can start doing it right now."

Most designers also have a very keen sense of product. They’re working at the intersection between vision and reality. They’re used to translating between big ideas and small practicalities. Being empathetic toward users and being fluent in the language of products helps make strong game designers that understand what their players are looking for and how to give it to them.

On the other hand, designers are used to working in a world of rules. Whether it’s print or screen, website or app, poster or icon. A big part of being a good designer is knowing what’s possible and how to do it in the best way under a certain set of restrictions. That thinking can get you in trouble in game design. While there’s obviously a rich history of how to do things in games, it’s a lot less restricted and some of the best thinking comes from not relying on rules. The traditional designer will have to unlearn years of finding "the right way" to do something and will have to contend with the fact that there are many ways to achieve a result, and that those results are a lot more subjective.

Aesthetics is another area where I feel like more traditional designers can bring a lot to the table. Game design, with its depth, breadth and endless possibilities, can seem scary. One thing you can rely on is your taste in visual style. You can bring that taste to any medium and it’ll be an asset. Making something look good is a much bigger and more acceptable part of making games, and so while you might not at first have a good grip on how to create the right game-loop, you can sure as hell make it look nice.

In Headland I’ve been doing art direction but also simple things like color-grading and tweaking the post-processing stack to make it look just like I wanted. I have also worked on VFX in the game, which has been a new frontier for me. You might find that the tools are different, but your taste is very much applicable.

Say we’re interested in becoming a game designer. Where do you recommend we begin? What one piece of advice would you give us, based your own experience?

Game design is incredibly hard to learn in a vacuum. You can’t digest a lot of books or just watch a lot of YouTube videos (but those things can help you later on). Like a lot of other things in life, you have to go do it. And the wonderful thing about game design is that literally anyone can start doing it right now.

Remember when you were playing as a kid and you’d make up all sorts of rules for the fantasy playing out in front of you? That’s a form of unorganized game design.

As adults we might have a hard time channeling that if we don’t have a very special purpose in mind. So to get started with game design, you really want to design a game— preferably one that someone else can play. Designing games for yourself is incredibly hard and thinking about an audience is helpful.

"The key to game design is remembering how to play."

Games come in all shapes and sizes and if you can’t program or you’re not feeling like jumping in with a game engine, you can still make physical games. A simple board or card game is a really good place to start. Heck, throw dice in front of you and decide on a winning and losing condition and you’ve just made your first game. Playable game.

Game Jams have also traditionally been a great learning experience and once the world reopens, you’ll probably find a jam near you or you could join one of the many online ones that happen every year. Essentially you’ll make a game in a set amount of time, like 48 hours. At these events you’ll quickly see that most people have something to contribute to the game design process — even if they’re not seasoned game developers. Most people there don’t know how to code, many don’t know how to design but everyone remembers how to play.

The key to game design is remembering how to play.

Do you have an official launch date planned? When should we expect to see Headland available for download?

Headland will be out mid-December, come hell or high water. You can preorder Headland for iOS and Android here.

December 1, 2020No Comments

The best design portfolios of November 2020

Once a week, we select two portfolios created with Semplice to feature in our Best Of  Showcase.  Here we've collected our favorites from the past month.

Once again we're here to keep you inspired and motivated. That's why we're excited to bring you some fresh picks from our Semplice showcase. In November, we featured websites from design studios, illustrators, art directors, designers, more illustrators, and oh yeah — did we mention illustrators?

Browse the best portfolios of the month below to see fresh new work and get inspired for your own site. And if you've created your own portfolio with Semplice, be sure to submit it to our Showcase here. We might feature your site next.

 

To see more great design portfolios, visit the Semplice showcase. I'll be back next month with more of our monthly favorites!

Header image by Mathieu Clauss

November 27, 2020No Comments

The writing tool I didn’t know I needed

When I first started using mymind (already the pun potential is dangerous for a writer), I didn’t really use it. I dropped in a few screenshots for ad inspiration and forgot about them. 

A week or so later, someone complimented my writing in Slack. I screenshotted it and, afraid I’d swipe something so precious to my trash with all my other screenshots, stashed it away in mymind too. 

Then someone sent me a quote from Jerry Seinfield about how he proudly micromanaged the writing of Seinfeld. It resonated, so I highlighted the passage and saved it to mymind. 

Piece by piece, I found myself collecting the stuff that feeds my real mind – the inspiration, the validation, the motivation – into this external mind. A tweet thread about writing good headlines. A passage I enjoyed from a book. An article I appreciated online.

"After passively collecting for weeks, mymind has become a resource and home base for my work. It’s my own personal search engine." 

Before, I'd stash this stuff in various places depending on what felt “closer” at the time: usually Google Drive, my desktop or Pinterest. I still felt torn between those familiar tools and this new one, but with every click of the “Add to my mymind” button in my browser, it became more natural. 

*You should know, at this point, that I work with the team that creates mymind, so this is a biased review. But I've done my best to share my experience here, rather than persuade you one way or another.*

Soon I was taking notes in mymind. While I’d previously flounder about in a meeting, debating between Evernote, a Google Doc or TextEdit (and ultimately just emailing myself), I now have mymind open in a tab where I jot down my notes and hit Save. When I brainstorm with my team about a new article, I just copy and paste the conversation from Slack straight into mymind.

After passively collecting for weeks, mymind has become a resource and home base for my work. When I’m working on an article, I search a keyword to find my notes or research. When I’m brainstorming an ad, I search “inspo” or “ads” and instantly create a moodmoard. It's far beyond a writer's traditional swipe file. It’s my own personal search engine.

Eventually, I hope to use mymind for the actual writing, not just the inspiration. I happen to know mymind has new features in the works to make that process more natural and seamless. While I like the idea of something clean, focused and less scattered than my current tools and process, I don't have any expectations. So far, mymind seems to know what I need better than I do.

November 24, 2020No Comments

Design in Greece 🇬🇷 featuring The Birthdays Design

Our latest addition to the Design Around the World series welcomes The Birthdays Design, an art direction and graphic design studio based in Athens.

Through this series, we've learned much of our understanding of other design communities is based on outdated and generalized information. While what we can read on Wikipedia may be technically accurate, it doesn't account for the complexities and nuances of a culture, place or people.

Likewise, one conversation about a design community cannot summarize or define it. But it does open the door for more learning, and more connections.

It'd be safe to guess many people's perception of Greece is based on its ancient art and philosophy, modern travel photography, and Greek letters appropriated by everything from college fraternities to yogurt companies. As we learned in this interview, those perceptions are so strong, they do affect Greek design to this day. But there's a lot more to it than that. We scratch the surface here with Konstantina Yiannakopoulou and George Strouzas, founders of The Birthdays Design studio.

Hey, Konstantina and George! Tell us a little about yourself. How many people are on your team and why did you decide to open a studio together? What kind of work do you do?

Our office consists of the two of us, and we host two internships per year. We met during our studies at a college of visual communication, and what brought us in contact then was our interest in music, the design of vinyls, concert posters and design history. This interest in music influenced the name of our office, a tribute to Nick Cave's first band, "The Birthday Party." Now that we are 35 and we do not consider ourselves so punk, we also use the abbreviation "Studio TBD."

Before our studies in graphic design, we both had different focuses, one studying public administration at university and the other computer network systems. We have been working together since 2013 while working in other agencies and companies, and we officially started the studio in 2017, when we decided to dedicate ourselves completely to it.

We don't consider ourselves as having a particular visual style, and our aesthetics might be described as a combination of two sides of the same coin. Our work is characterized by diversity, as we try to challenge ourselves by learning from each project or person something new. We seek to think within the given content and context, not separating design from its environment or restricting its existence in mere selling terms. To let it out there to play its part, as part of the wider environment in which it belongs, is unavoidable. We always like to have this in mind while designing.

An important part of our free time is related to research projects. Most recently, we completed a two-year research project within the Vakalo design school here in Athens. Other research projects focus on font design and case studies, such as TBD Armin. TBD Armin is a study but also a form of typographic experimentation taught by Armin Hofmann at the Basel School in Switzerland. We are very happy that this study has become really popular these days. It's like so many people from different parts of the world paying the same tribute to Mr. Hofmann. It's amazing what an educative technique can do after so many years!

Is there energy in the local design community in Athens? Do many platforms and events where you can connect with other designers?

Athens has an interesting and vivid graphic design scene. However its publicity is quite limited to platforms or events, if we think of other cities abroad.

It would be unfair not to mention, perhaps, the most established event for design, Design Athens, which hosts designers from Greece and abroad, as well as EBGE, the Greek Graphic Design and Illustration Awards, which is accompanied by a ceremony. Other important meeting points, where the community is exposed to sectoral issues, is the International Conference of Typography and Visual Communication, and Digitized, a digital design conference with notable speakers from the global scene.

"A 'Greekness' in design exists from the moment the Greek letters are placed, which is a blessing and a curse."

Athens is famous for its ancient arts, culture and learning. But I’m less familiar with the modern arts and design coming from Athens or Greece overall. How would you describe the design you see from Greek designers today? Is it influenced by your culture, history, or environment in any way?

The connection of the Greek designer with the past and the environment is possible in places that are not purely obvious and immediately explainable, as we believe that it happens to any designer anywhere in the world. This transmitter-receiver relationship certainly exists, but it involves a timeless complexity and is difficult to summarize in specific stylistic features, since design is a meeting point of many such material and immaterial stimuli of the past and present.

Regarding the influence you mention, a "Greekness" in design exists from the moment the Greek letters are placed, which is a blessing and a curse. A blessing because it automatically testifies its origin, filled with its diverse and rich features, and a curse because it needs special, careful management to avoid leading to clichés or caricatures – unless, of course, that is the goal. We have come across many such examples even today, such as tourist items for sale that imitate the archaic capital font, which in many cases further limit this dimension of typography rather than evolving it.

This is an example on the edge, and the Greek design scene is by no means limited to this. On the contrary, precisely because there is a particularity in the use of Greek letters due to their special physiognomic characteristics, it has led designers to a more open, non-unilateral and confident design dimension, avoiding key visual summaries or general conclusions. A summarized word is flexibility, which we believe is the result of a deeper understanding of the past, that has nowadays created its own stigma in the current design scene.

It seems that Greece is still recovering from the economic crisis, and COVID on top hasn’t helped. How has this affected the creative industry? What kind of jobs are available for designers in Athens right now?

The COVID crisis is coming as a cherry on top, after the country's many years of economic crisis. It has affected all sectors, including the creative sector, and we expect a deep downturn in the economy as we are directly connected to the market. Designers will have to find once again ways to adapt and rearrange the services we offer, tending more to digital experiences since many services related to natural spaces, museums, exhibitions, events or even retail branding seem to be reducing.

Obviously, this greatly affects jobs. Graphic designers at the moment are called to offer a wide range of skills because there are no longer clear boundaries in new jobs, since specialization is not required. We meet this a lot in the existing job listings.

What does good design mean to you?

In our view, good design is timeless design.

It is a difficult task because "timelessness," as a meaning, is applied to something ephemeral, which is most of the subjects of our work as designers. So it becomes philosophically incompatible with the very nature of the work. But that makes it something revolutionary, even utopian. It lives in the now, it is a child of its time, but it wants to live in the past as well as in the future.

Nevertheless, good design is not only related to the designer, but also to society in general. We must recognize its role in important social issues, and accept responsibility on our part.

I know it varies from client to client but generally speaking, do clients in Greece appreciate good design and understand what it takes?

We are happy to meet people who understand the value of design and can enter into a productive collaboration, who are deeply interested in their subject and therefore in the designer. But of course, there are those who are unable to appreciate or understand the interim procedure (which is what actually leads to design results) and we don’t expect that from the early beginning of a collaboration.

Perhaps this misguided approach is not necessarily related to them, but to a more general perception or misunderstanding that has been established around the industry. In general, however, there are notable clients in Greece who appreciate and trust the collaboration with the designers, and many times they have seemed to exceed expectations. But the effort of designers never stops. Nothing is self-evident.

I read that Greece hired a chief creative officer for the country, to work on the country’s “narrative” and apply design thinking to issues the country is facing. What do you think about this? Do you think good design can impact your country’s society and solve larger issues Greece faces?

It is a positive thing that our government has hired a professional to build this narrative. It is very unjust the way Greece has been promoted in the past.

We ourselves hope for something coordinated, methodical and effective in terms of highlighting a modern and integrated image of the country to the outside world.

Obviously, tourism is an industry that should thrive and emerge in the best ways, as it has direct effects on the economy. But the COVID era has shown that even these established foundations are shaken. The country can no longer rely solely on tourism, and it cannot be a panacea for a better tomorrow either. It is necessary of course, but not the only necessary.

Greece's problems are much deeper, and it requires first an acknowledgment of mistakes and omissions, and then a collective and coordinated effort to create an important framework. In this context, design thinking is applied not superficially, but in substantial structures and with constructive cooperation within these structures.

"We do not consider a cultural identity something static, but the opposite. It is constantly evolving, yet influenced."

Globalization, especially American influence, is on the minds of many designers. Some feel it’s homogenizing design and contributing to a loss of a country’s cultural and visual identity. What’s your take? Has globalization affected Greek design in any noticeable way, either positively or negatively?

As we noted before, we do not believe there is a loss of cultural or visual identity of a place due to our influences, for the simple reason that the use of our letters brings us back to reality.

Even if you have been dramatically affected by something, it reminds you of where you are.

For example, we design covers for Greek publishing houses and sometimes, through design exploration, "West world" influence can make sense, while other times it can be a caricature. We have researched book covers of the past – and mention this application because it is the most massive medium of typographic expression in Greece, along with road signs – and these examples are of incredible interest. Even if those covers were then influenced by something else, we are influenced by them today, and that is what ultimately creates cultural continuity – but not in the context of a nostalgic mood or of preserving a tradition.

Another example from publishing houses: Some have to adopt the same covers as those of abroad (i.e. the original version) by adjusting the Greek title. And indeed the visual result, the tone of it, is completely different and sometimes disappointing, because Greek letters (even the actual translation of the original title), carry their own autonomous, expressive entity and need another handling.

So we do not consider a cultural identity something static, but the opposite. It is constantly evolving, yet influenced.

As the way of speaking and writing has changed, so has the way we process and perceive images. Realizing where you are (that is, that we are part of a global scene, in which you automatically influence and get influenced) leads to design maturity rather than dry imitation.

What is the quality of design education in Greece? Do good design schools exist locally, or do most people study elsewhere?

In Greece there are not so many institutions or schools where you can learn graphic design and visual communication. But each of the existing ones has its own legacy, identity and approach.

In the past, students increasingly studied abroad because they went to countries with a longer tradition in graphic design, such as England or the Netherlands. We believe that this has changed due to the growing popularity of design, but also due to the cost of studies.

The BA programs are also generally not much different from those abroad, and the importance lies in how a student with a personal interest in the subject will respond. If there was something we would like to see in Greece's design education, it would be research and the theoretical background of studies. And the interaction with other disciplines, such as investigative journalism or social sciences or humanities. 

What impact does your social media presence have on getting new clients and self-promotion in general? What works best for you?

Social media for us is just another way of showcasing our work, and we must admit is really time-consuming! As for the clients, they often visit only media accounts and not websites at the time being. It’s nice because we stay updated and can easily interact with people from all over the world. And since we don’t get lost in the formality of emails, this is getting more interactive and leading us to more collaborations.

In your opinion, what are 5-10 design studios from Greece that everyone should know?

It is extremely difficult to choose, five, 10 or even 20 design studios because we will definitely leave out designers who do a fantastic job. So we would like to focus on some people who offer something different but relevant to our industry.

1. Tind Extraordinaire  - The work of Manolis Angelakis, a master screen-printer who has greatly helped to popularize silk screen printing as a significant printing medium.

2. Greek Fonts Society - Initiated by T. Katsoulidis & G. Matthiopoulos, an important documentation of historic evolution of Greek typography.

3. Blaqk - The amazing artist duo of G. Paragrigoriou & C. Tzaferos, that master forms of calligraphy and geometry, in collaborative compositions, applied on all kinds of surfaces.

4. Duende Fine Bindings – The work of G. Evangelidis, a bookbinder who is devoted to keeping the materiality of books alive!

5. The Athens Zine Bibliotheque - Run by P. Theofilatou & T. Papaioannou, a library collecting zines of independent publishers, artists and more. 

And now to our last question: How can all designers and design communities do a better job of communicating with each other? How can we become more engaged with the Greek design community? Are there any blogs or specific magazines we can follow?

All designers and design communities can do a better job of communicating with each other by simply communicating with each other. Through events, discussions, exhibitions, workshops etc., and by highlighting the important matters of each period.

You can become more engaged with the Greek design community by going directly to the source – to the designers themselves, since there is no strong publication material behind us.

On a digital platform, you can visit, +design, a blog for news related to the Greek scene. An important source also is the archive of visual communication, which is probably the first organized design archive in Greece, selected and curated by Dimitris Legakis. And the Greek Fonts Society, which is an important, detailed documentation of the historic evolution of Greek typography.

Finally, we would like to announce a new engagement of ours in collaboration with Miltos Bottis: the Logo Archive Greece. It just started and will function as an archival material of logos in Greece, focused on the decades 1960-1990 and early 2000. It is part of the International Logo Archive, with designers and researchers working hard to create the respective archive of each country. This arose from the need to trace and then disseminate the design heritage of Greek design scene, which contains examples that are difficult to trace or collect in an organized and accessible archive. You can follow it here.

November 19, 2020No Comments

A bold new studio called Shy

I'm still not quite over the awe of the internet. To think you can decide to create a new business or pursue a new career and establish a presence for it online the next day? It's magic.

When we first saw the Shy Studio website launched with Semplice, we were immediately fans. Come to find out, it's the new venture of our longtime Semplice family member, Misha Shyukin.

Shy Studio is an independent motion graphics studio focused on artistic exploration, 3D motion and still life videos. The studio already has clients like Jimmy Choo, Nike and Adidas in its portfolio, along with dozens of detailed, otherworldly self-initiated projects.

Once we realized Shyukin was behind Shy, we had to know about the vision of the studio, the philosophy behind its experimental approach and what it was like opening a new business in the middle of a pandemic.

"I still spent around a month at home with a 2-year-old typing on my keyboard and breaking Wacom pens."

Congratulations on the opening of Shy Studio! Can you tell us what inspired the studio and how it came to be? How many people are on your team and what is the vision for Shy Studio? 

Thank you! I've been thinking about the transition from freelance artist to studio for quite a while. While it's exciting, it was equally terrifying for me to be honest. I started by hiring a 3D artist part-time to help me out with ongoing projects, to see how it will work, who then became the first employee in early 2020. It's just the two of us at the moment, and we expand a little bit with other freelancers if there's a project that we can't handle by ourselves. 

The vision is to have a place where I would enjoy working myself as an employee, and having a nice balance between commercial projects and self-initiated experimental work, where we can try out new techniques without the pressure of a commercial project.

How was it launching a new studio in the midst of a pandemic? Based on projects like “Quarantine,” it seems like Shy came to life during this time.

We're very fortunate that not much changed for us during Covid-19. Our workflow is 100% digital and we don't have many local clients, so we're very familiar with Zoom and Slack. And since we're just two people, we didn't even have to close down the studio. 

However, I still spent around a month at home with a 2-year-old typing on my keyboard and breaking Wacom pens. We used "Quarantine" as one of those self-initiated experimental projects that I was mentioning earlier and at the same time, it was an opportunity to define our visual look a bit clearer for ourselves.

What is your philosophy behind the experimental work? How do you find clients like Jimmy Choo that trust you and support experimentation? 

The experimental aspect of our work is certainly something I actively am trying to push into every project. Over the years I spent freelancing, it turned out to be the approach that works best for me personally, and gives me and my clients the best results. Of course, we do work with briefs and guidelines as well, which you cannot avoid with larger, more established clients.

Can you tell us about any projects you’re working on right now? Any sneak peeks for the DESK audience?

We recently published a project called “Artificial Bloom," a collection of various digital flowers and plants we made over the duration of two months, whenever we had a little bit of downtime in between projects.

I quite enjoy the workflow, where we slowly work through a specific topic and publish little bits of the project as we go along. I can see us doing a new variation of that soon. 

What made you choose Semplice for your website and personal portfolio?

It was a quick decision to also use it for the studio website. The main thing for me was that Semplice just lets you design and layout your site, move things around, drag and drop images, without having to dive into the more technical aspects of web design. As well as the animation elements which can be triggered with various scroll and mouse movements, very cool stuff! The customer support is also super friendly and helpful.  

 

November 18, 2020No Comments

Running a design studio where design is underappreciated

In April 2021, it will be five years since we started Dá Design Studio. Hurray! The dream was to build a design studio that was much better than what was available in the country – a design studio that put Nigerian design on the map of global conversations.

We wanted to build a studio that thrived on creating work that could compete anywhere in the world. Have we nailed that dream? We think we’re still on our way there, but we’ve come a long way from just a dream. What started with two founders has grown into a vibrant team and has impacted designers in and out of Nigeria. We’ve checked some awesome things off our to-do list, and we’re very optimistic about our future.

Nigeria is a recovering nation or developing, one if you may. We have a rich history of arts and culture, but we haven’t translated that into a strong design culture, at least not in the contemporary sense of what design is. We have many problems that give the illusion that design is a luxury.

That said, the world is changing rapidly. There’s more competition. Tools and educational resources are much more accessible, so these days, there are many stubborn Nigerians (ourselves included), doing amazing work in product design, brand identity design, etc. – choosing to defy the odds to create a culture and career around design.

Defying the odds is chaotic. When you add running a business in a place like Nigeria, plus selling a service people don’t fully understand or appreciate, plus the persistent mission to create great work, you set the game at probably the highest difficulty. The point is, we’ve had to make a ton of mistakes, we’ve had to be inventive and for that, each win has been beyond rewarding.

So, for anyone who’s curious, or anyone (masochists) who would love to try this sport, we’re sharing with you our top dos and don’ts. Here we go!

Do dream

Have a clear dream even before you’re sure of what goals will get you there. The dream will keep you grounded and unify your team, even when things are difficult.

Do amazing work

This one sounds cliché to say, but it’s by far the most important thing on our list. Amazing is relative, but if amazing is the uncompromisable goal, you will impress someone regardless. This sort of developing space has its cons, but it definitely has its pros. Consistently doing good work in such a young space makes it easier for you to get noticed, in comparison to places where design already has an established presence. People we've never dreamed we'd work with have been watching and reaching out to us for collaborations.

With the gift of the internet, think of good work like something that stinks (in a good way). People will smell it whether they want to or not. This is especially helpful because not only does it force those around you to pay attention, it expands your audience beyond your immediate environment where design is underappreciated.

Do solve problems

We know you’re probably thinking “Duh! We’re designers, we should solve problems, that’s the whole point of design.” We agree, but think of it this way: Go out of your way to find problems to solve, especially problems that are unique to you and your client’s environment. Be obsessive about finding these contextual problems and their solutions. There’s no better way to end the myth of design being a luxury than revealing its purest form: problems solved.

People see value in solutions that matter to them. We’ve had clients tell us we made them fall in love with design and truly mean it.

"People value and show off what they have to pay well for. You don’t need to be underpaid to get exposure."

Don’t joke with your money and value

When you’re doing design in this sort of space, you have to bring out your inner Mr. Krabs. Money is an issue, because people are more likely to pay for what they truly appreciate or need, not what they think is a luxury. So for the little you can get, especially in the beginning, be very intentional about how much your work costs and how you manage your money. You will find yourself doing a lot of the don’ts in this article if you don’t have money or you undercharge.

You really don’t need all the money, you just need a structure around the money you have. Budget everything. Don’t be shy to ask for your money or to charge well; if you do good work, clients will come. Besides, people value and show off what they have to pay well for. You don’t need to be underpaid to get exposure. Cheap clients typically refer you to more cheap clients. A smaller, well-paying market is actually bigger than a large market that won’t pay or won’t pay well.

To be fair, money isn’t everything. So the occasional “pro bono” or small fee isn’t a bad idea, but you have to be clear about the value you’re getting. Even if it isn’t monetary. In an environment where your line of work isn’t yet fully understood or appreciated, working without getting value is a bad habit and leads to low designer-self esteem.

If it’s exposure you want out of the engagement, outline what that means in clear terms. Meaning: How many referrals are you getting exactly? How many promotional posts? Do you appear on the client’s public sponsors list? Is that meaningful for your business? In what way is it meaningful?

This applies for all the work you do. Clearly define the value you’re getting. Monetary or not.

Do carve a niché

Carve a niche that’s tailored to your dream. You may be tempted to spread yourself thin and do everything remotely design-related you can find, just so your customer base is bigger and you can make more money to sustain your studio. (Whispers: “It’s a trap.”)

In our experience, when you have a niche, you build a reputation faster. People see and respect you as a specialist and people are far more likely to think of you when they need exactly what you offer. It’s like, how you’re more likely to be scared to pop your back if a spine surgeon told you not to, than if a general practitioner told you the same thing.

Plus, doing a singular thing over a period of time makes you a badass at that thing. This increases trust, as opposed to being good, but not excellent at many things, or doing what everyone else is doing.

To be fair, this particular ‘do’ is mostly our personal opinion. If doing multiple things is important to you, that’s OK too. We just think expanding from a successful niche is even better than starting out wide in a tough space.

"It’s funny how people come to you because you’re good, then make demands that make it harder for you to deliver your best."

Don’t compromise on your standards

It’s funny how people come to you because you’re good, then make demands that make it harder for you to deliver your best. Choose confidence and pride in yourself, even when you don’t have it.

It’s your duty to pace the engagement and paint a picture that reminds you and the client why you’re collaborating. It’s easy to get sucked into the culture vortex of not giving design the effort and credit it deserves. In the short term, compromising your standards may bring more money, more clients and make it easier to scale your business and team. And that's OK. But for us, we think if you’re crazy enough to come this far, you might as well focus on truly making an impact.

A good way to avoid money-related compromises is working toward at least one long-term-retainer arrangement with a client with whom you have a good relationship. No matter how small the money is, it’s a positive engagement, and at least you won’t die of hunger.

Do get excited about briefs over big names

Good design can come from a lot of different types of briefs, but great design only comes from good briefs.

Good briefs bring out the best in us and our selling point is being our best. Sometimes big names are distracted by the size of their names, so they may not put enough effort into their briefs. Getting too excited about your client’s status may make you shift your boundaries in ways that harm your work, studio and process.

Also, a lot of them in Nigeria for instance, are very familiar with the underappreciation status quo, and may knowingly or unknowingly force you into it. Bigger companies also have longer processes for sorting out payment, resolving any dispute and giving feedback. All of which may not be the most efficient or beneficial for your growing studio.

Don’t get us wrong – working with established clients with strong reputations does a lot of good for a designer, their reputation and most likely their pocket. But it’s far from everything. We’ve created rewarding work for our larger clients. But some of our most rewarding work, the work that has gotten the right attention, has also been from our smaller, growing clients.

"In a difficult environment, there’s no way a design studio is a sprint project. It's a marathon."

Don’t work for bad clients.

Please, not everyone is your client and yes, there are bad clients. Protect your energy and your dream.

Clients who have no intentions of shifting from the current state of things for the better, who show no interest in seeing the value in your work or any design work for that matter, are not good clients. Having short periods of financial dryness is better than always bringing in revenue that doesn’t allow you to get closer to the dream of your studio, or challenge your team in a positive way.

In a difficult environment, there’s no way a design studio is a sprint project. It's a marathon. So think long-term when choosing clients. Bad clients only bring unsatisfying work and more bad clients. It's also OK to fire your client.

Don’t take contracts and documents for granted.

Be careful what you sign or don’t sign. If people don’t even understand design, they may unintentionally or intentionally try to put you in agreements and situations that don’t favor you at all. Read everything twice and have an affordable lawyer read it twice. Document everything you agree with your client no matter how small. In some cases, even an email will do. You don’t want to ever feel forced to continue with a bad client or to compromise your standards because you signed something bad, or forgot to document something you all agreed on.

Don’t lie to yourself.

There’s always something you can do better. Find it and even if you can’t do it better now, set a plan to do it better in future.

Because the environment is tough, it's easy to blame it for everything and never look inward. If you think all your clients are bad, you probably have a lot of issues to work out yourself. If you’re honest with yourself, you are more likely to push your work further, learn and look at things from your client’s perspective too.

"Encourage those in your community who share your dream."

Do cherish good clients

Good clients allow a positive work environment, give helpful feedback and they keep you hopeful. Don’t take them for granted.

Good clients bring good clients. A lot of times, good clients take it upon themselves to be ambassadors for your work. They value your work, and they usually come back with more business. Especially if you’re a small studio that doesn’t have the time or resources for proper marketing, referrals are your saving grace.

Find out what makes them happy with you and your work. Support them. Try to connect to and genuinely care about their goals and business. It’s very fulfilling.

Do collaborate

It’s hard, but it’s easier when you have a support system. Encourage those in your community who share your dream, and if there are projects that you can’t handle by yourself, seek to collaborate. The work gets better, you feel inspired by others and you don’t stay stuck in your own head. As a studio, we don’t totally have this on lockdown, but we’re working at it.

Don’t be dismissive of what exists

We know everything we’ve said seems somewhat contrary to this last 'don’t.' It isn’t.

What exists in your environment is your opportunity to have a unique position, especially in the larger global conversation. That design is underappreciated here doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist here at all, and because it isn’t as good as it can be, doesn’t mean it has nothing to offer. At the very least it offers lessons on what you shouldn't do, and at the very best it offers a whole world of context and authenticity.

Do know when to compromise

Not everything on this list is absolutely set in stone all the time. That’s not the way life works, we think. Sometimes, we trust our instincts and objectivity to make compromises. The big questions for us are:

1. “Is the compromise worth the reward?"

2. "How much does this reward matter long term?”

Finally, do have fun

The situation is hard. There are enough challenges as it is, challenges will always be there. Don’t burn out for burning out sake. Don’t romanticize hard work just for the sake of it. Breathe. If you have team members, enjoy having them on this journey with you, laugh, play, eat good food, be optimistic, relax when you can and enjoy yourself. It is also important to note that everyone agrees Dami is the funnier and sweeter partner. Thanks for reading. xo

November 13, 2020No Comments

When your portfolio is a brand in itself

We've said that a portfolio should be curated. This brings the picture of you are and what you want into clear view.  Few portfolios accomplish this better than The Locals.

The Locals was created by Søren Jepsen, a Danish fashion and lifestyle photographer based in Germany. Upon first landing on the site, you might assume it's a fashion publication. It is in fact Jepsen's collection of street photography, curated separately from his other work and branded with its own name. 

Jepsen has accomplished something smart yet simple here. In creating a narrative around his photography, he's made it stick in your mind. He's focused the spotlight on the work he's presumably proud of, and elevated it to its own brand. The Locals website aligns beautifully with our philosophy around portfolios, and just so happens to be built on Semplice.

Here we talk to Søren about the thought behind the website, how the pandemic has affected his work and what he sees ahead for the fashion industry.

Søren Jepsen, founder of The Locals – thelocals.dk

Hey Søren, can you tell us about yourself and what you do? How did you get into fashion photography? 

I started out with my own street style blog about 13 years ago, documenting the style of regular people on the streets of Copenhagen, my hometown. Today, I still shoot street style, but I also do a lot of editorials, campaigns and travel photography.

Tell us about The Locals. What is it and how did it come to be?

The Locals is my home on the internet. It’s where my street style photography lives. I also have a portfolio site that showcases all aspects of my work but on The Locals, I only present my latest street style pictures.

It grew out of my first blog, which was called Copenhagen Street Style. After a few years, I felt that that name limited the scope of my work, as street style photography became more mainstream a decade ago, and I branched out to different cities and events.

Today, I travel to all of the big fashion weeks and shoot most of my pictures there. The Locals is linked to a custom archive, where my clients can find all of my pictures from previous seasons and sort them by trend, person, fabric color, etc.

The Locals website feels so branded and curated, I thought it was a publication at first. This is such a smart way to position yourself, especially if you have a very specific interest and line of work. Did you do this intentionally from the start? How has it worked out for you?

Yes, it was very intentional to build it that way. I have a giant archive of thousands of pictures but felt that they needed heavy curation. It is very important to me that there is a red line in everything I do and that my work is presented in a visually pleasing way. That not only makes me stand out among my competition, but also lets the people looking at my work get the full experience that I intended.

I also love to change it up. If someone is looking for something specific, I direct them to my archive.

How has the pandemic affected your work? I know most fashion weeks were canceled or moved online. Do you see this impacting the fashion and/or fashion photography world in any permanent way – besides masks becoming the new accessory?

The pandemic had a massive impact on my work. I used to travel almost non-stop. I just looked it up: in 2019, I took 24 different trips to more than a dozen different countries. This year, I have mostly been at home since I returned from Paris fashion week in early March. There were a few short trips during the summer, but generally, work is very sparse. It is quite scary. Most fashion weeks have been cancelled, and travel restrictions and quarantine requirements make it very hard to plan anything. 

At the moment, I have no idea if and when things will be picking up again. I am sure that fashion weeks will continue to take place and be back once a vaccine is available. But I also think that the public might be looking for new ways of covering these events. People start to pause and question this all-out consumerism and the constant travel.

You’ve been doing fashion photography for more than a decade, and I see you catalog trends and your own OOTDs as well. What do you predict for the next decade of fashion? What trends do you hope or believe will come back? 

I’m sure we will continue to see a revival of some specific trends, as we always do. But that doesn’t really interest me. What I do hope is that we can take this forced break and this general reckoning with the status quo that we have seen at the Black Lives Matter protests in the summer to question the industry itself. I am hoping for a slowing down and for far more inclusive representation of marginalized groups, be it color of skin, gender or size.

One of Søren's OOTDs, featured on his site

Last question: Why did you choose Semplice for your portfolio?

Because it’s the best.  I have built my own websites for more than a decade and Semplice is far and away my favorite service. It doesn’t require a lot of programming skills to achieve beautiful and well-designed results. On top, it’s very fast and very easy to adapt to different screen sizes, which is just so important these days.

I am not the only one who likes it, by the way. I get a lot of positive feedback about my websites from people, and Apple even featured another one of my Semplice websites in a keynote.

November 10, 2020No Comments

The other worlds of Ash Thorp

Entering Ash Thorp’s world is like stepping into a kid’s comic book. There are robots and fast cars. Jiu Jitsu and outer space. Monster and machines.

Thorp has made a career of stuff as a motion, VFX and digital designer and director. Working on video games like "Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare," and films like "Ghost in the Shell" and "Assassin’s Creed," he’s become known for his ability to build transportive, futuristic worlds.

As it turns out, it’s a craft he’s been pursuing since childhood.

“I grew up in very humble surroundings, so I would use my imagination and mind to escape from reality quite often,” says Thorp. “The things that interested me growing up still influence me heavily today. I feel that I am continually trying to please my inner child when I create.”

One of Thorp's illustrations for "L'INTRUS BEYOND BATMAN."

As a self-proclaimed forever student, Thorp is constantly striving to hone that skill. How do you stir emotion in a viewer? What makes a character believable? How does light influence the tone of a scene? What makes for a real, immersive world? Lately, he's been studying films to find those answers.

"At the end of the day, my main goal is to convey emotion through all my art."

“I don't proclaim to be an expert on the requirements for what makes a film worthy to watch, but I do know what draws me to the films that I love, and that is always a great story,” says Thorp.

Thorp tries to break down how scenes in films work, searching for how and why they invoke emotion in a person. For him, it starts with knowing the subject matter to the point of authenticity. Making a believable world, he explains, requires knowing what motivates the characters to do the things they do and why.

Scenes from "Lost Boy," a sci-fi film Thorp designed and co-directed.

“I am continually experimenting and studying as I progress as an artist,” he says. “At the end of the day, my main goal is to convey emotion through all my art.”

Before creating his recent series of paintings for friend Vitaly Bulgarov's game, “Mortal Shell,” he first studied hours of gameplay and immersed himself in the game lore. He then pulled references of films and moments that he felt connected tonally with the game.

One of Thorp's recent paintings for the game "Mortal Shell."

He also studied Roger Deakins’ DOP work on "1917" and "Skyfall," particularly the end scenes at night. Since "Mortal Shell" is placed in a fantasy realm with no artificial lighting, Thorp looked for clever tricks Roger may have used to illuminate his cast during the night shoots.

A scene from the 2012 film, "Skyfall," which Thorp referenced while creating his paintings for "Mortal Shell."

Another film he paid close attention to was Francis Ford Coppola's “Dracula.”

"It's lit so incredibly well and has some very poetic visual moments," says Thorp.

After diving deep into those films, he focused on gaining a better understanding of the subject matter to figure out the best way to extract emotion.

“One method is to focus on the characters’ ambitions, and then create from that viewpoint,” he explains. “For example, if they are emotionally torn, I may choose to light the character in a high contrast form to reflect both their light and dark sides.”

Another recent painting for "Mortal Shell."

Thorp is currently teaching himself to use 3DS Max and Vray, after years of using C4D and Octane/Redshift for his work. He’s also working on his directing skills, and says he is learning to find patience with the process.

How he sees it? Every new tool or skill he learns unlocks a new list of opportunities.

“I am always trying to view the world as a student,” says Thorp. “I don’t ever want to settle on what I know or am comfortable with now, but I’d rather focus ahead on what I want to learn and who I want to become."

November 10, 2020No Comments

The art of making information beautiful

Bureau Oberhaeuser is a Hamburg-based studio focused on information and interface design. They've been doing UX/UI since 2011, long before most UX designers today entered the field. But the studio doesn't limit themselves by this popular term.

Bureau Oberhaeuser takes complex data and distills it into infographics, interfaces and digital experiences that make sense. While most digital designers today are focused on usability, Bureau Oberhaeuser believes UX design should also be beautiful.

The studio has been using our portfolio tool, Semplice, for their website since the beginning. So we finally decided to sit down with founder Martin Oberhäuser to understand what they do, how to present complex work in a compelling way, and what role beauty plays in UX and UI design.

Martin Oberhäuser, founder of Bureau Oberhaeuser

Bureau Oberhaeuser focuses on information and interface design. Can you tell us what that means, and how it differs from traditional UX/UI design?

We have a background in classic graphic and information design and creating print infographics, but we took this approach and transferred it to the digital age. In my mind, the thinking behind creating a good infographic and creating a great UI/UX design is very similar. In both cases, you really have to understand the problem you’re trying to solve and find unique visual ways to communicate your message in an understandable way.

In order to do that you have to dive really deep into the information you’re trying to communicate and become an expert on the topic you're dealing with. Only when you really understand the problem, can you simplify the information, narrow it down to the essentials and eventually communicate it back to others.

I don’t think the information design we’re doing differs that much from traditional UI/UX design. It's just a very complex version of UI/UX design with data and information as the main driver behind many of our design decisions.

You create concepts, which we don’t often see from established design studios. What motivates you to create and share these, when you’re certainly already booked with paid work?

The answer is pretty simple: for the fun of it. That's one of the main motivations, but it's not the only reason. These concepts often start because me or someone else in my team is frustrated with the available solutions to a certain problem or case. If we see a design solution anywhere in the digital world, that we believe isn’t satisfying and could be done better, we’ll just go out and do it.

One of my favorite quotes from James Murphy summarizes this approach pretty nicely: “The best way to complain is to make things”. (Fun side fact: I first heard this quote from Tobias van Schneider in Greece where we were both speaking at the same conference.)

Many of our self-initiated projects, which later became actual products, started off as a concept.

"Turning data into a visualization can really change the viewer's perspective. It’s almost like translating text into another language."

We see ourselves not only as designers but as creative entrepreneurs, and working on a self-initiated project (even if it's only a concept) is the first step of creating a new digital product. Obviously bringing a concept to life is much more complicated and time-consuming than just posting a case study on our website. But it's a first test to see how our concepts resonate with our audience and if it's worth pursuing.

Those concepts also get the attention of potential clients. If we don’t have a case study in our portfolio that deals with a certain topic, it’s very unlikely that clients will approach us with a similar challenge. You can also learn a lot by working on a project without any client involvement. You don’t have a briefing, a budget, a deadline or any of those things, so you have to learn to manage yourself. And this can only help your own project and your client projects to get better and more efficient in the future.

As designers, we’re taught to present everything in its most simple, beautiful form – but sometimes that tendency can lead us to misrepresent information and data. Our own biases can also get in the way, whether consciously or subconsciously. How do you avoid this with your work?

We have a saying in Germany that translates to “don’t trust a statistic you haven’t faked yourself." So this really is a big challenge, especially when you’re dealing with a lot of raw data, the way we do.

Turning data into a visualization can really change the viewer's perspective. It’s almost like translating text into another language. You have to read between the lines, interpret sayings, find different words, simplify certain phrases and while doing that, there is always a chance for misinterpretation. The good news is that raw data per se is unbiased and if you stick to the rules of “form follows function,” you’re less likely to distort this data. Whenever you ditch data or information in favor of a more beautiful layout you’re getting in dangerous territory.

Same is true for ignoring certain data points or simplifying data that doesn’t fit your narrative. I guess it comes down to a certain discipline to stick to the rules and make yourself aware of the responsibility you have as a storyteller. Creating an infographic can be similar to a journalists work; you are reporting about a topic and telling a story. So you should always try to stick to the same rules that apply to reliable journalism. A good way to do this is to involve as many people as possible, to double-check your work and make sure you’re not missing anything or mislead anyone.

Other than that I think it also comes down to experience. You learn from your mistakes and after creating hundreds of data visualizations, you get more cautious and are therefore less likely to remake those mistakes.

You’re working with complex problems every day. Do you ever get stuck or overwhelmed while trying to solve and visualize these projects? Any practical advice for designers for getting unstuck, avoiding overthink and simplifying complexities?

Again it comes down to experience. The more complex problems you dealt with in the past, the more likely you are to find good solutions for similar challenges in future projects. The problems that occur while visualizing data often have similar characteristics, so you get a good sense for what kind of visualization works for what kind of data. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t get stuck every now and then. The best way to avoid that though is to work with a great team.

If you have great creative people surrounding you like I do, you can always reach out and get a fresh perspective to help you get unstuck. My only other advice would be to question your layouts frequently and try to be very honest with yourself. Questions like “Does this visualization really help the viewer to understand the problem any better, or is it just visually pleasing?” or “Is the color of this button really sticking out and easy to find for the user, or do I just like the subtle color?” can really help yourself to be more aware of your designs and eventually get to a more satisfying solution.

I know it can be difficult for more “technical” designers to tell the story of their work in their portfolio in a beautiful, compelling way. How do you go about it, and what do you recommend for others in a similar field? How do we explain our process without boring our readers to tears?

I actually disagree with that. I think technical designers have a great repertoire of material that is worth showing. You just have to combine it in a logical and compelling way to tell your story.

To me, visualizing the thought process and highlighting why your design has a positive impact on the user experience is a much more compelling story, compared to just showing visually attractive artwork. It often just needs a few small tweaks to make your work look more exciting. That means putting a little more time into presenting your work and creating additional graphics or mockups to make your case more appealing. This extra work in my experience pays off in a big way.

The trick is to tease the viewer with some beautiful graphics, just enough so he’s pulled deeper into your case and starts to really read your case. You can’t scare the viewer away by starting with 30 lines of comprehensive text and then follow with a small image. People are visually driven, whether you’re presenting a redesign for tax filing software or artwork for a music album. But if you just present visually attractive work with no deeper story behind it, the viewer loses interest fast.

You’ve been with Semplice since the very beginning. Why did you choose Semplice for your site and continue using it all these years?

When we started using Semplice, we were just looking for a fast and easy way to set up our portfolio without the need to code. But what really made us stay on board over time was the ability to combine those great fundamentals that Semplice offers with some unique elements that we’ve coded ourselves. This way our website never looked like it was using one of those templates you can nowadays find everywhere.

And as time emerges we don’t even need to code these unique elements anymore, because Semplice got better and better and allowed us to create these components straight in the browser using the Semplice editor.

I’m very impressed by how Semplice managed to constantly improve their product over time. Looking at some other competitors it's actually shocking how little they evolved over the years in comparison. It's also great to know that the product we’re using was created by a small creative team that has a very similar mindset to ours.

November 4, 2020No Comments

UX copy sells

When you write, you’re selling something: A story. A belief system. A product. 

UX writing is no different.

Your marketing copy sells your product. Your UX writing continues selling it.

Good UX copy affirms our decision to buy your product. It makes it enjoyable and satisfying to use, ensuring we keep using and paying for it. We then become walking advertisements every time we tweet about your product or recommend it to a friend.

And so, the same writing principles you'd apply to advertising or marketing can be valuable here.

Don’t stand in our way.

How do you sell a puppy? 

Not by talking about how cute, playful or loving it is. You just put it into the customer’s hands, stand back and it sells itself. 

A good car salesperson knows when their customer’s ready to buy. They don’t pitch harder at this point, reminding them how beautiful a car is, or how cool they’ll look driving it, or what a great deal this is. They let the customer take it for a spin. They give you as much time as you need to circle the car, sit in it and imagine yourself cruising down the highway with the top down.

A good retail employee knows following you around the store will just scare you away. Instead, they make their presence known. If you have a question, they're ready to answer it. If you need another size, they'll fetch it. When you emerge from the dressing room, they tell you how great you look. When you check out, they say you made a good choice. A smart retail employee knows you're already in the store with your wallet. So they let you shop.

The best products sell themselves too. If someone’s reading your UX copy, that means they’ve already heard your pitch and chosen your product. Now put it in our hands and let us take it from there. Be there if we need you to point us in the right direction. Validate us when we complete a step or make the right decision. Then step back again.

On some occasions, more copy is required to help us understand or appreciate your product. In some cultures, people trust you more when you have more to say. But in most cases, less is better. If you feel like you need to write paragraphs of copy to explain your product, your product may be too complicated. Or you might be trying too hard.  

We’re already here. We’re sitting in the car. Let us put the top down and take it for a spin.

Speak to us, not about us.

As Vonnegut said, “Write to please one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.”

We are just one person using your product at any given time. Talk to us, not the room. With that in mind:

This: “The cart is empty”

Becomes this: “Your cart is empty.”

 

This: “Duplicate song on playlist”

Becomes this: “You already added that song.”

 

This: “Authorization access denied”

Becomes this: “Ask your admin for access.”


This: “Network connection lost”

Becomes this: “Check your wifi connection.”

We should feel like we’re having a conversation with you as we use your product. Which brings us to our next point.

Write like a person, not a robot.

The most loved products feel human. So talk like one:

Don’t be afraid of contractions. We’re used to reading and speaking that way. An error message that reads “You’re not logged in” feels more natural than “You are not logged in.”

Cut the ten-dollar words. Usually, the word that first comes to mind is the right word to use. If you’re looking up synonyms, you’re overthinking it.  You wouldn’t say “Please check your inbox for authentication purposes.” You would say “Check your email for the login link.” 

Have a voice. Read through your text messages from your mother, your significant other, your best friend, your boss. They all write differently. They choose different words. They use punctuation differently. You can hear how they sound in your head, based on their unique voice. Your product should have a unique voice too. We talk about how to find your brand voice and apply it to your UX writing here.

When in doubt, read your writing out loud. Does it feel natural to say? Or does it sound stiff and awkward?

Write like you talk. It's not only easier to understand, it's more warm and personal. It's human.

Write for an international audience

Your sentence may feel natural to you, but does it to someone who speaks German as a first language?

Will that 80s American film reference make sense to someone who lives in Singapore?

Will that expression translate to something offensive in Japanese?

Will that sentence fit on a button when written in Mandarin?

Write your UX copy assuming it will be translated. Whether you have an international audience or not, it will make you a better writer. 

We have people using Semplice.com across the world, and it forces us to write without leaning on puns, references, slang or cliches. We use simple words, not fancy synonyms. We strive to be plain, not poetic. We do the same for our international audience here on DESK.

Read anything by Ernest Hemingway or John Steinbeck and you’ll see simple writing is powerful writing. When you’re not hiding behind stuffy vocabulary, every word rings clear.

Avoid cliches and hyperbole

The only brands who can say they’re “the best” are those that have an award or research to back it up. Otherwise, you’re not saying much at all.

The same goes for cliches like “unleash your creativity” and “optimize your workflow.” We’ve heard it all before. It doesn’t tell us anything useful or different.

The same goes for adverbs. Words like “effortlessly” and “seamlessly” require too much effort to write and are not seamless to read.

The same goes for adjectives. Cut phrases like “award-winning” and “life changing” and you’ll save room, and say more.

Same goes for "faster," "better," "bigger," "smaller," and “more."

These claims and phrases got old and died about 20 years ago. At best, we read right over them. At worst, they make us cringe. And when it comes to UX copy, they just take up precious space.

“Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words? He thinks I don’t know the ten-dollar words. I know them all right. But there are older and simpler and better words, and those are the ones I use.” Ernest Hemingway

Keep your sentences short.

Read this sentence from Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea":

“Every day is a new day. It is better to be lucky. But I would rather be exact. Then when luck comes you are ready.”

Now read this sentence from Henry James’ “The Golden Bowl”: 

“She had got up with these last words; she stood there before him with that particular suggestion in her aspect to which even the long habit of their life together had not closed his sense, kept sharp, year after year, by the collation of types and signs, the comparison of fine object with fine object, of one degree of finish, of one form of the exquisite with another–the appearance of some slight, slim draped “antique” of Vatican or Capitoline halls, late and refined, rare as a note and immortal as a link, set in motion by the miraculous infusion of a modern impulse and yet, for all the sudden freedom of folds and footsteps forsaken after centuries by their pedestal, keeping still the quality, the perfect felicity, of the statue; the blurred, absent eyes, the smoothed, elegant, nameless head, the impersonal flit of a creature lost in an alien age and passing as an image in worn relief round and round a precious vase.”

Did you actually read that last one? Or did you get turned around and lost halfway through? Me too. 

There are times for long sentences, especially in narrative-based writing, where you’re taking the reader on a journey, creating a rhythm and flow. But for UX writing, shorter is better. Use more periods. Use fewer commas.

It’s not about you. It’s about us.

We’re not interested in how hard you worked on your product. Or how advanced the technology is. Or how smart or fast or efficient the system is. We’re interested in what that means for us. How it makes our lives better, makes us look better, makes thing easier or otherwise benefits us.

You could talk about the better camera lens. Or you could talk about the sharper, higher quality photos we can take.

You could explain the layers of security in your highly encrypted checkout. Or you could tell us our information will be safe.

You could say you’ve been awarded for your fast delivery times. Or you could say we’ll receive our food in an hour, guaranteed.

Make it scannable

Want us to read your copy?

Then let us skim it.

We talk more about this here.

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Read more from our UX copywriting series:

→ Content or design first?
→ Best practices for UX copywriting
→ We don't want to read your UX writing
My best products are a joke
→ Writing UX copy for buttons and links
→ Making your product a joy to use
→ What is UX copy?

October 30, 2020No Comments

Monthly portfolio inspiration of October 2020

Once a week, we select two portfolios created with Semplice to feature in our Best Of  Showcase.  Here we've harvested* the best of the best from the month of October.

With summer over and the year winding down, this is the perfect time to finish your portfolio. It's been impressive to see incredible portfolios sent our way this month, from photographers and industrial designers to 3D design studios. Here are my latest favorites to keep you inspired.

*We make no apologies for dad jokes

If you've created your own portfolio with Semplice, be sure to submit it to our Showcase here. We might feature your site next.

 

5 STYLE

FOREAL

kaeptive

SHY STUDIO

Fabio Santaniello Bruun

Goran Krstic

The Locals

Emilios Farrington-Arnas

 

To see more great design portfolios, visit the Semplice showcase. I'll be back next month with more of our monthly favorites!

Header image by The Locals

October 27, 2020No Comments

We don’t want to read your UX writing

Both ad writers and UX copywriters share the same challenge: They are writing for an audience that doesn’t read.

Some might read your headline, if you’re lucky. They will only read your body copy if they’re sitting on the toilet or stuck on a train. They will avoid your digital banner ad at all costs. Humans famously have short attention spans. The internet’s only made it worse. 

According to a Nielsen Norman Group study, people are likely to read just 20% of the words on an average web page on an average visit.

We don’t read.

We scan.

It may seem even more difficult for UX writers, considering our copy is stuffed into boxes and underneath buttons and grayed out in form fields. But modern reading behavior is actually our advantage. While scanning, our eyes go straight to the headlines, buttons, bulleted lists and help text that allow us to complete our task in the most efficient way possible. Otherwise known as the UX copy.

Our goal as UX writers is not to captivate our readers. It’s to help people accomplish their goal. It’s a compliment to your product if someone can complete their tasks without paying much attention to your UX copy. (We say UX should be intuitive, don’t we?) With that in mind, we can take what we know about modern reading patterns to make our copy better. 

Lead with the conclusion

Journalists are taught to start their news articles with a “lede.” The lede summarizes the entire article in just a sentence or two, explaining the who, what, when, where and why of the story. It’s visualized as an inverted pyramid, beginning with the most newsworthy info. 

The idea here: Get to the point. Write an article that doesn’t require us to read the whole article. Do the same for your UX copy.

People often read in an F-shaped pattern online, starting with the content at the top left of your page and making their way down. Naturally, this means the copy at the top of your page gets the most attention. So lead with your main message on every page. You might just find, while prioritizing your content, that you don’t need the less important content at all.

This applies not just to your paragraphs and visual hierarchy, but to individual sentences. When we write passive, poorly structured sentences, our message gets buried. More on writing strong, active sentences here.

Write headlines that answer questions

The same rule applies to your headlines. Ideally, we can get answers and understand your main message by scanning the headline alone.

Say you have an issue with your coffee grinder and reach for the instruction manual. You likely won't read the entire manual, but rather skip ahead to the troubleshooting section that most closely describes your issue, scanning headlines like "Unclogging your grinder" and "Replacing the on/off switch." Your UX writing doesn't necessarily have to be this dry, but you can use the same approach. Include the benefit or the answer in your headline, or at least point us there.

We often feel pressure to be “clever” with our writing. This leads to puns, poetic lines and marketing speak that makes for useless headlines.

Consider an app that offers one day delivery for pet food.

You could write a headline that says: “Delivery times that make your tail wag” 

Or it could say this: “Pet food, delivered tomorrow.”

The latter answers the question before we even ask it: How soon can I get my pet food? The former doesn’t say much at all, but does make you gag a little.

Let it be a relief that you don’t need to write cute or clever headlines (although that doesn't mean you can't be funny or creative at appropriate times). You need to write headlines that work.

“On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar.” David Ogilvy

Don’t waste words

Knowing we don’t have our user’s attention for long, and not much of their attention at that, we have to choose our words carefully. 

Writing concisely is hard. As Blaise Pascal wrote, “I have only made this letter longer because I have not had the time to make it shorter." 

To that end:

– Remove buzzwords and promotional language. Adjectives like “cutting edge” or “revolutionizing” are useless, meaningless fluff. Plus, they’re cringey and played out. So are adverbs like “seamlessly” and “fully” and “very.” So are filler words and phrases like "of course" and "in order to." Cut them and your sentence gets tighter and stronger.

– Write your sentence, then write it again, but shorter. Keep rewriting until your sentence is at least half the length it originally was. 

– Don’t try so hard to impress. You could say “Increase your profitability” or you could just say “Make more money.” You could say "Suggested from your recent activity" or  "You might like this." While your exact wording depends on your product's voice, the most simple option should always win.

NN Group did a fascinating study around concise copy and usability, comparing different versions of the same paragraph. Some used promotional language, others used bullet points and tighter copy. The final, improved paragraph was 124% more usable than the original.

We talk more about writing concise UX copy here

Break your copy into short paragraphs and bite-sized segments

The only person reading long paragraphs is your high school English teacher, and she probably doesn’t enjoy it. 

– A good rule: Each paragraph should focus on just one idea. Only tell us what we need to know now, and reveal the rest later when it’s relevant (otherwise known as progressive disclosure).

– Use headlines to guide us through the page. 

– If you have a list or several points to make, bullet them out. 

Buttons and links should describe the action we're taking

If we’re trying to accomplish a task in your product, assume our eyes are jumping straight to your links and buttons.

We could land on a button that says “Learn More”

Or a button that says “See pricing”

If we haven’t read a single piece of content on this screen, which button is most useful?

Read more on writing for buttons and links.

Know when copy isn't the solution

Every additional second we spend, scrolling, clicking and searching increases the interaction cost (the sum of mental and physical effort) required to use your product. Your goal is to keep the interaction cost as low as possible.

Sometimes, especially when we're skimming a page, an icon does that better than a line of text.

Sometimes, the copy doesn't need to be improved. The design does.

Other times, the screen simply needs to be better optimized for the device we're reading on.

Know your user,  think about where they are in the process, what they need to do next and what gets them there as quickly as possible.

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If you’re just joining our UX copywriting series, catch up here:

My best products are a joke
→ Best practices for UX copywriting
→ Content or design first?
→ Writing UX copy for buttons and links
→ Making your product a joy to use
→ What is UX copy?

October 23, 2020No Comments

The easiest and cheapest form of writing

Too often, I feel fired up about a subject and think: I’m going to do something about this. I sit down to write and find, 10 minutes later, hundreds of words on the page with barely a line break. 

I’ve done it, I think. I really cracked the case on this one. 

I come back later and realize what I wrote reads like a fever dream: Wild, baseless claims. Tenuous or nonexistent threads of thought. Rambling ideas that lead nowhere. 

Or maybe the writing’s fine. Maybe I’ve really driven my point home, illuminated the issue, but offered zero solution. I’ve essentially just complained, thrown a wet blanket on my readers and walked away. 

Criticism is easy. It’s not hard to see flaws, point out oversights, call someone out, find errors, denounce trends or dismiss the value of something. Any idiot can do it – just look at Twitter. It’s not so easy to rant and provide coherent, thoughtful reasoning for your criticism. It’s even more difficult to offer a solution.

Rants have their place, and I take pleasure in writing them when it seems fitting. But when I do so, I try to ask myself these questions to see if I’m actually offering any value to the people who may read it. 

Am I qualified to criticize this?

A food critic makes a career of understanding the nuances of flavor or the history of regional cuisine. They’ve studied the subject intensively, maybe even practiced it, and exposed themselves to the best and the worst in order to provide an educated opinion. They are qualified to criticize, and they provide a service to their readers in doing so. 

If you’ve experienced the thing you’re ranting about first-hand or have some sort of authority in the space, perhaps your rant is warranted. Maybe you can offer constructive criticism that stirs your community to action.

Or maybe not. As a designer, I may feel qualified to critique another designer’s work, or some design trend, or some product that doesn’t live up to my standards. That doesn’t necessarily mean I should. Read on. 

Am I offering any kind of solution?

If I’m fed up enough with something to go on a tirade about it, it’s likely I feel (rather self-righteously) that I have a better idea for how to do it. After all, if I don’t see the potential for things to be better, why am I so upset about it?

If I’m going to complain about something, I aim to propose a better way. Otherwise, I’m just annoying.

"I wrote mostly positive reviews. I don't write about places that don't interest me." Jonathan Gold

Have I done my research? 

If I make an impassioned stand about something, only for someone else to immediately point out the obvious holes in my argument, it’s going to be pretty embarrassing. It also discredits any authority or trust I might have had before.

It’s assumed you didn’t contribute to the system you’re ranting about, or work on the project you’re criticizing, or attend the meeting where a decision was made. Which means you don’t have context. It’s possible the thing that makes no sense to you only seems senseless because you don’t have all the information. Before you complain about it, find all the information you can. Only then can you reason your stance thoughtfully and productively.

Is my opinion adding anything new or helpful?

Nothing is more tired than Twitter pile-ons in which designers criticize some brand’s new logo or redesign. For one, what is your critique going to do? It’s already done. Second, you’re one of 1,000 other people saying the same thing. That can be useful to enact change, but there are plenty more important causes to pile onto than some company’s logo. 

Think about what result you expect from this rant. Are you offering a new perspective or shedding light on the subject? Or are you just going to fire people up for no useful reason?

Am I just being mean, spiteful or negative for no reason?

Negativity is the last thing we need more of in the world. If you’re just writing out of pure anger or spite, or just because you can, or because it feels good to hate on someone from behind the protection of your laptop screen, reconsider.

October 21, 2020No Comments

The myth of “creative freedom”

If you’ve ever done freelance work, you’ve experienced it. When briefing you on the project, the client seems open and relaxed. “We trust you,” they say, “go wild.” 

You dive into the project excited. Finally, you have full creative freedom, a client who gets it. You do the work, confident in your direction and taking every creative liberty you were offered. 

Then you deliver your work and the client hates it.

What happened?
Were you misaligned on the direction?
Did the client change their minds?
Did you just miss the mark?

While all of the above may be true to an extent, it's likely not that simple.

"Constraints are necessary for creative work. Without them, nothing happens."

Full creative freedom doesn't exist.

If you haven’t defined in clear terms what the client needs or wants, you’ll be taking shots in the dark with your work and hoping something hits the mark. Usually it won’t, because the client has nothing to judge it against besides their current mood and subjective taste.

Always start a project with some sort of discovery and briefing. And, whenever possible, write your own briefs – even if the client has already provided one. This allows you to define the terms of the project in your own words, and make sure your understanding of the project aligns with your client’s. It’s also an opportunity to set a tone and energize your client at the beginning, affirming their choice to bring you on board.

The client may say you have full freedom on this project, but you don’t. More likely, they aren't communicating or aware of what those limitations are. So you can help define them, and you should charge for this process. Include a discovery phase in your estimates so you get paid for it, the client knows to prepare for it and it’s accounted for in your timeline. 

Once you’ve defined the measures of success clearly, you can find creative freedom within them. And you’ll have something to point back to when you present your work. Since you’ve set the objectives and limitations beforehand, you can better justify your decisions, find a clear solution or bill them for a new one. The client may disagree with your solution, but they can’t disagree with the terms you agreed upon together. 

Constraints are necessary for creative work. Without them, nothing happens. Our minds spiral into dozens of directions and we eventually despair. Full “creative freedom” doesn’t exist unless you’re doing a personal art project – and even then, constraints are usually helpful. 

Ask questions early and often

If you’re unclear about anything, even a seemingly small detail, ask. Don’t soften or bury your question with phrases like “Just to confirm” or “I was wondering if you could clarify” or “just making sure." Don’t worry about sounding amateur. Just ask the question. 

When you ask simple, immediate questions, you get clear, helpful answers. Every question you ask reduces the chance of misunderstandings down the road.

"Never assume you and your client are on the same page."

Break up the process

If you sense you and your client might be misaligned, or it’s happened in the past, then you may need to break up your process. Don’t disappear for two weeks while you go into design mode. Add more phases to your process to keep your client in the loop and keep you headed in the right direction.

Build a workshop into your discovery phase. Add more layers of review and approval. Schedule a weekly, 20-minute check-in call. These are your tools to close the gap between you and your client. You won’t always need them, but if it seems like you do, you should use them.

Communicate every step of the way

Never assume you and your client are on the same page. Take notes, send follow up emails and reiterate takeaways at the end of your phone calls. This is not to make a legal case out of your project (although if your client relationship is to that point, read this). It’s to make sure you’re on the same page and agreed on the deliverables. 

Every time you share a brief update about where you are and where you’re headed, it will make your client feel more involved and invested in the final result. The more involved your client, the more they’ll feel they did the work, and the more they’ll like the final result. Make them feel like your work is their own, and you’ll be more likely to succeed.

Keep your communication clear and concise. Nobody wants to receive a long email recalling a meeting verbatim. If you overwhelm your client with long, “let me know your thoughts” emails, you likely won’t get a reply. Most people will ignore those emails and eventually grow impatient as you pester them or stall the project waiting for an answer.

Keep it short and snappy, and give your client an easy way out. Let them pick between two options or set them up to give you a one-word answer: yes or no. If you have multiple questions, don’t send them all at once. If you must send more than one question or action item at a time, number the list so they can reply in an orderly manner. 

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Designers must also be project managers, even if you already have one on your team, and especially if you're working alone. If a client says "the sky is the limit," it's your job to bring that limit back down to earth. It may seem appealing at first, but a loose, poorly defined project won't do you any favors. To feel free within a design project, you need boundaries.

October 15, 2020No Comments

Establishing your identity as a designer

We like to say designers are not artists. It is not our goal, so we've been told, to express ourselves. Our goals are our clients’ goals. Our style is the brand we’re designing for. And yet, we are expected to have a point of view. To stand out and make a name for ourselves.

Early in our career, it's a confusing conflict. We don't have much work to show yet that sets us apart from countless other designers. And we probably don't have the luxury of choosing projects and clients that align with who we are. Yet we feel an existential drive to be unique, find our style and become known for something.

So how do we establish our creative voice and identity while doing work for others? How do we offer our perspective within the constraints of a brief? How do we meet modern design expectations in our own way, without settling for a trend or style that might box us in?

Or, when we’re working within established systems and best practices anyway, does it really matter?

We asked a few established, independent designers for their take.

"Our point of view and the willingness to express it as designers will be the most important asset when robots take over our industry."

First, how does style play into it?

Voice and identity and style tend to get wrapped up in the same conversation. While they are inextricably linked, there is a distinction. Think about it in terms of writing:

A writer's voice is their unique perspective, their way of seeing and filtering the world.

A writer's style is the technical choices they make (specific language, words and turns of phrase) which may change depending on the piece they're writing.

Their identity is how they fit into the world. It's how they are perceived as a writer, where voice and style coalesce.

A writer may choose a specific style again and again, and become known for it. Or they may write a range of novels over their lifetime in varying styles. No matter what style they write in, their same voice will come through. Their voice is their point of view. Their style is how it's expressed. Their identity is the result.

The same is true for designers. Our style preference may change over the course of our career, and from one project to the next. There's nothing wrong with that. It's our voice that will, hopefully, come through loud and clear no matter the style. And that's how we make a name for ourselves.

So how do we find that voice?

Pranjal Kaila, who goes by the moniker "ajeeb," primarily creates visual identities and brand strategies. Image from ajeeb.in, made with Semplice.

Trust your instincts 

For our voice to emerge, we have to listen to it ourselves first. As we work and learn, those instincts will get louder. And the more we trust them, they get stronger. They may even guide us in an opposite direction from what we or our clients expect.

“Usually when clients approach me they tend to have a certain expectation in mind or are looking for something similar to what I had already done. But I don't let that drive my creative process,” says Pranjal Kaila, an independent interdisciplinary artist & designer based in Gurgaon, India. “I approach projects from a tactical standpoint and make decisions based on my intuition."

Your intuition is formed, in part, by your education and experience. But it also comes from who you are. The more you trust your gut, the more you begin navigating the world on your own terms. Eventually, that defines the work you do.

Work toward the project goals. Follow the brief. But also follow your instincts and see where they lead you.

Libby Connolly creates thoughtful identities & branded content, including beautiful typography design. Image from libbyconnolly.com, made with Semplice.

Play to your strengths

For Libby Connolly, an independent designer and art director based in Portland, Maine, establishing her identity means catering to her strengths and unique eye for design. 

"A lot of my work is type-driven and usually layered with varying elements and fine detail," Connolly says. “This is my personal style, however, those stylistic preferences can take many different forms.”

If you also have a love of detail, or color, or words, embrace it. Whether you're working on a product UX or on branding projects, we will see that love for detail or color come through. We'll begin to know you by it.

When possible, choose projects that fit those strengths. For many of us, it's a luxury to turn down work that doesn't feel like a natural fit for us. But anytime we can proactively and intentionally seek those projects, our shape as a designer comes clearer into view.

“That is why a client hires a creative person – to bring the style and voice to the project," says Tracy Doyle, an NYC-based creative director and brand consultant. "If you are starting out and receive a brief where the client is asking for a specific style that doesn't feel inherently right for you, perhaps it isn't a good fit. I understand that saying no takes courage, especially in a tough economic climate, but sometimes it is the wisest decision you can make.”  

Tracy Doyle is a creative director and brand consultant working with clients like CHANEL, Tiffany & Co. and Gucci. Image from tracydoyle.com, made with Semplice.

"Having a distinct identity is the very essence of any creative medium, and design should be no different."

Absorb everything 

“Be a sponge,” says Connolly. “Browse design blogs and just look at other work, a lot of it. Take note of what you gravitate towards and why. Then try it out on your next passion project. This is what will ultimately become your own unique eye for design. Just absorb as much as you can. I still practice this exercise to this very day.” 

Doyle seconds that. 

“Ingest everything — especially when you are starting out. Visit museums; dissect typography; binge-watch cinematic gems; read voraciously; attend performances and study how movement, sounds, set, and costume all come together to create a performance."

While design handbooks and tutorials may be handy in the moment, won't find yourself there. It's the greater world that teaches you, inspires you and shapes your unique perspective.

"Different mediums all contribute to your creative capacity to produce ideas and form your point of view, but they also teach you how different types of work can evoke an emotional response," says Doyle. "That becomes a powerful tool when considering what you want the audience to feel when engaging with your own work.” 

Don't discount self-expression

We may say art and design have different goals, but design is still an artistic practice. No matter how hard we preach otherwise, our designs are a visual expression of who we are.

“Design should be approached like any creative medium,” says Doyle. “A Fellini film looks, sounds, and feels remarkably different than a film by Agnès Varda; a painting by Modigliani is distinctly unique from, say, a Rothko or Alex Katz. Having a distinct identity is the very essence of any creative medium, and design should be no different. In part, this is about differentiating yourself from others, but it is also about your own sense of expression.”

Kaila agrees.

“Unlike economics and science, design problems can have more than one right answer,” Kaila says. When every brief is broken down into formulas and processes, your creative voice is what will make a design solution unique. Our point of view and the willingness to express it as designers will be the most important asset when robots take over our industry.”

We don't just "find" our identity. We can shape it.

We talk about "finding" our identity, as if it's already out there and we just have to stumble upon it. But we have more control than that implies. Just like you'd craft an identity for a client, you create one for yourself.

“Creating a distinct creative identity for me means putting my best foot forward in attracting like-minded creatives and clients,” says  Connolly. “For example, if I wanted to appeal more to tech companies, I’d portray myself much differently."

A client or company has countless options when selecting a designer for a project. It’s not your years of experience or your mastery of specific tools that make you their perfect choice. It’s the clients you choose and the work you create. It's your attitude, your voice, your process, how you describe yourself. It's who you are aligning with who they are. 

The place where all of it comes together? Your portfolio.

It's here we see the picture of you develop – a story you tell through your website design, your case studies, your bio, even your typography choices. It's where we see your style and hear your voice without the filter of your client or the medium. It's where you tell us who you are on your own terms.

Celebrate the continuous process

Our interests and tastes will change over time. And that shapes the work we do. Even the most recognized designers don’t have it pinned down – or even define themselves by that unsatisfied state. It’s what motivates them to learn, experiment and evolve.

“Trying to find your own identity is hard,” says Kaila. “I think I am still in the process of discovering it."

Cover image by Pranjal Kaila.

October 15, 2020No Comments

Why your unconventional design resume gives you an advantage

The design industry is a fairly accessible place to build your career. By this, I mean you don’t have to go to art school to become a successful designer.

My introduction to design began with reading many DESK articles about UX design and finally enrolling in a four-month UX bootcamp.

I think about design bootcamps the same way I think about online dating. When dating apps first came out, some found it embarrassing to admit they used those apps. There was a stigma around “resorting” to online dating. Likewise, I used to be embarrassed about the fact that I was a graduate of a UX bootcamp – maybe because it exposed the fact that I didn’t “start” my career until my mid-20s. But these days, everyone seems to be a graduate of an accelerated program, and online dating seems to be the most common way young adults meet.

I now realize how valuable it is to embrace your background in our industry. In fact, I believe those who first worked outside of design have their own unique advantages over art school graduates.

Your non-design work experience is relevant

A friend of mine worked in the service industry for a decade before switching over to design. In interviews, he used to skip over that period because he thought it was irrelevant, but soon came to realize that it was exactly that experience that set him apart from other candidates.

His time as a server gave him the important skill of conversing with people and making them feel comfortable. In design, 80% of the work is presenting and persuading, and the other 20% is the actual pixel pushing. This soft skill he cultivated over 10 years working in the restaurant suddenly became something he would highlight during his interviews, instead of skipping over.

I have a similar story: Before design, I worked in customer support. It’s not a glamorous job; every day I had to talk with customers and hear why they’re feeling frustrated, confused or angry with a product or service. As a product designer, I’m an advocate for the user, and my time as a support specialist, albeit unknowingly, helped prepare me for this career. I use the communication skills I picked up in customer support every day in my design career when working with teammates, collaborating with product partners and presenting to stakeholders.

Even when I got my first design internship with House of van Schneider, I spent a portion of my time working as part of Semplice’s support team, which helped me learn the product quickly while interacting on a daily basis with our users.

We all pick up soft skills in our jobs like time management, critical thinking and the ability to collaborate. These skills are transferable from job to job, and we should view them as the hidden gems that have the potential to differentiate us from others.

Leverage your interests as inspiration

As designers, we’re called to be creative with our solutions, and one way we can do this is by drawing from our personal interests and hobbies — even if those experiences don’t seem immediately relevant to the task at hand.

For example, if you like to collect sneakers as a hobby, that online sneaker shop you browse every day might have an excellent purchase flow that inspires a design solution for your current project. Or you might get inspiration from a particular sneaker colorway when deciding on a color palette for that brand guideline.

It takes practice to recognize and remember these details, interactions and patterns as inspiration, but those ideas are the ones that bring real value to projects. In my experience, creativity stems from taking an idea or piece of knowledge and repurposing it in a new way, almost like recycling an idea.

Your personal perspective is valuable

I saw a tweet today that read, “If you’re only hiring people who think like you, you’re creating an army of robots.” It’s important, especially during these times, to have diversity in your workplace. One reason why a diverse team is more effective is it brings more unique perspectives to the table.

I’ll take an example from a past project of mine where my team was designing a product page for a car model. We were discussing what content to highlight and were going around in circles about what was more important – the number of seats, the in-car technology, the color options?

My teammate made the point that when he was looking for a new car, the first thing he checked for was how much cargo space the car had and if it’d be able to fit his children’s strollers. This colleague was one of few on our design team who actually fit the target demographic we were designing for, and his perspective allowed us to design for a common use case we hadn’t considered. Ultimately, his perspective led to a better experience for our user.

Thankfully accessibility considerations are becoming more of the norm, but it’s still easy for us to prioritize visual aesthetics over visual impairments. Several of my colleagues have some degree of color blindness, and while there are plug-ins and other tools we can use to check accessibility, it’s always useful to get their eyes on a design.

We would be doing ourselves a disservice by ignoring or diminishing the different experiences and circumstances that brought us to where we are today. The more we embrace our backgrounds, the better designers we can be, and the more inclusive we can make our industry.

October 9, 2020No Comments

Custom, minimalistic motorcycles handmade in Austria

On DESK, we always enjoy exploring creativity beyond the UX or brand design we're typically surrounded by.

It's here, not within our own field, that we find inspiration. And that's how we discovered Vagabund, a custom motorcycle shop based in Graz, Austria (which happens to be my hometown).

We decided to talk to Paul Brauchart, one half of the two-man Vagabund team, about building a brand that's more than "just a motorcycle shop," and just what "form follows function" means for beautiful, minimalistic bike designs.

Vagabund’s tagline is “We‘re not reinventing the wheel, but we‘re rethinking it.” How are you rethinking it? What are some of the dreams or requests you (and your customers) have that traditional motorcycles or the existing market weren’t fulfilling?

To us, Vagabund is more than just a motorcycle garage. This is where we started five years ago but now we’re growing into a larger brand that is seeking to diversify. We are getting some awesome companies that want to collaborate with us and we’re very excited for what the future holds.

When it comes to designing the bikes, we usually try to get rid of all the unnecessary stuff and integrate everything as minimalistically as possible. We’re currently working on a fantastic motorcycle which includes a ton of handmade aluminium bodywork. Our main goal for the future is producing motorcycles that are artistic pieces, yet still totally functional and street legal.

Do you mostly modify existing builds or are you designing and building some bikes from scratch?

Normally we work with pre-existing bikes as EU regulations can be problematic. For us it's not worth building a whole brand new suspension, frame or engine. However, once the bikes are stripped to their bare skeleton we recreate all the other parts from scratch.

I suspect people who do what you do have made a life of tinkering, making, following their curiosity. How do you get into motorcycle design? Did you do some sort of design or engineering before this, or did you just find yourself here?

I studied information design and Philipp Rabl, my partner, studied mechanical engineering. We both grew up constantly around motorcycles and were always building things. I met Philipp while we were both studying and working as test drivers.

What is Vagabund’s design philosophy? I’ve seen “simplicity” and “form follows function” mentioned in your marketing, but motorcycles seem anything but simple and your motorcycle designs are beautifully detailed.

Thank you, that’s kind! Simplicity is definitely what we strive for. While motorcycles are complex, we're trying to design as simply as possible and still maintain functionality and legality. It’s a huge challenge designing around existing bikes, we need to watch legislation and still try to achieve our minimalist aims. This is a challenge we love; it's not good enough if it looks nice, it´s still a vehicle which must be roadworthy.

Can you give us a behind the scenes look at your work? How many people are on your team, who does what and how does a typical customization process go? How do we work with you as a customer to get our dream Vagabund bike?

We are a two-man-show; I mainly do the design, marketing, graphics and conceptual stuff. And Phillip mainly does the engineering elements like CAD, welding, electronics and the mechanical stuff. However, we work closely together and our work often overlaps; I’m always in the workshop and Philip often designs too.

Typically when new customers contact us they have seen a previous Vagabund motorcycle that they admire, and we use this as a basis to craft them their own original piece. We try to create a whole experience around our customers getting a Vagabund motorcycle.

A big part of riding a motorcycle for many people, at least in the United States, is the culture and community. What is the community like in Austria? Do you aim to influence or change it in any specific ways?

I do think that the “community” feeling is much bigger in the States, and we aren't as much into this motorcycle scene. But there is a big motorcycle culture here, especially since we have fun roads to drive on through the countryside.

We aim to bring back some value to the field of custom motorcycles, and therefore mostly build limited stuff. We’ve chosen the longer path but a consistent one. We are trying to build a brand that develops cool products, and if we can influence the community in any way it would be awesome.

In the States (at least in the cities), bicycle sales have surged during the pandemic, and it looks like motorcycle sales are booming too. How has the pandemic affected your work, either positively or negatively?

We’ve been very fortunate during the pandemic and thankfully haven’t been affected too badly. We’ve managed it well and are grateful that our customers are still with us.

You’re already shipping worldwide. Where do you go from here? What’s the roadmap for Vagabund? 

VagaMOON 😀

Jokes aside, we’ve also got some really exciting projects outside of the motorcycle realm. We’ve had our own clothing for a while now, and are currently collaborating with other companies on some cars, bicycles and other cool things.

We’re now thankfully reaching a stage where other companies would like to identify with our brand and image, and that's really crazy because we just started building motorcycles in a small parental basement workshop around five years ago. We definitely won't limit ourselves in what we're doing and creating.

Photography by Stefan Leitner

October 8, 2020No Comments

How to create a UX writing portfolio

It may seem like UX writing is in a perpetual grey area. Like a lot of design disciplines, the field is having an identity crisis.

Trying to get a UX writer position is difficult because not many people know what it is, how to approach it or what skills even translate to UX copywriting.

When looking for positions in UX writing, you may come across titles such as:

  • Content Designer
  • UX Content Strategist
  • User Experience Copywriter
  • Product Writer
  • Content Writer

There are tons of overlapping skills in all these positions. Some might have varying degrees of product or marketing tasks, but all of them mean the same thing: You’re going to be writing research-backed, retention-focused microcopy.

Titles tend to trap you in a box. I have a background in content, but because I have worked so closely with products, I have tasks that translate to UX writing. It doesn’t matter your title; as long as you’ve written for products and/or about products in notifications, emails and onboarding, you can be a UX copywriter. 

Creating a portfolio to reflect your UX writing capabilities is one of the most frustrating things about the discipline. However, as soon as you know what the hiring manager is looking for, it becomes a whole lot easier. 

UX writing leaders are looking for three main things: That you have experience on a design team, familiarity with design systems and an understanding of the end-to-end UX design process. 

State your place on the design team

Hiring managers want to know how you fit in with the design team. The design team can also mean product team, tech team, creative team etc. — essentially, a team focused on the user journey.

It’s important to mention who you worked with, reported to and managed in your portfolio, as the hiring manager wants to know you can communicate with designers and have knowledge of the design workflow. They want to know if you can speak the lingo, have an understanding of UX and know how to work on a product.

If you’ve worked for a large company, your role is probably more concrete and easier to define. If you’ve worked for a startup —like me — defining your place in your team’s workflow might be more difficult. 

In my portfolio, I clarified like this:

“I worked with a multidisciplinary design team, under the CTO who served as art director and project manager. I wore many hats and UX wrote for the new website and app, defined the brand voice, and helped the front-end and back-end designers optimize behavioral flow through scriptwriting and user research.”

There are many ways to go about showing off your role in a design team, but for most hiring managers, this is a must-have.

"The hiring manager wants to know you can come in and begin communicating with the design team right away."

Learn the design system lingo

In a lot of job descriptions I’ve seen, the company wants you to have experience with design systems. Don’t worry, you most likely have the experience. 

Different design teams have different lingo. Working for several startups and often working alone when freelancing, I learned I did know a lot of the design team vernacular, I just wasn’t exposed to it the same way as UX writers in large companies. 

Learn the lingo and use the same terms in your portfolio. One of the ways I did this was by reaching out to UX designers and writers at large companies and walking through the job descriptions. They simplified the terms and helped me apply it when walking through my portfolio. 

The hiring manager wants to know you can come in and begin communicating with the design team right away. 

For example, here is a job description for a UX content strategist role at Zendesk:

There are tons of words in here which can be confusing to someone who has never been exposed to them, such as “navigational nomenclature”, “audits”, “standard methodologies”, “taxonomies”, etc.

If you have a background in content, chances are you have experience with these terms. Regardless, don’t be afraid of these words. When I construct my portfolio, I like to break down these words, simplify them and apply my experience to them. 

"Navigational nomenclature" essentially means using consistent words to navigate a user to an action in a navbar or CTA.

"Auditing" means doing usability analysis such as A/B testing, gathering user feedback or using analytics.

"Taxonomies" refers to information architecture. Do you have experience structuring product content for maximum accessibility?

In your portfolio, you should be using the same design lingo you see in job descriptions. However, do not force it. Hiring managers just want to see you’re familiar with the terms, but use them organically and sparingly. 

"The hero takes a journey, meets an obstacle and finally, triumphs. In this story, your user is the hero."

Define, in detail, your work in the end-to-end process 

The best way to define your place in the end-to-end design process is by creating a story of the user successfully completing an experience. Focus on how someone discovers the product, how someone onboards and the first use of the product. Include specific details around how you impacted this process with your writing.

Typical places UX writers have impact are:

  • Onboarding
  • Action flows
  • Buttons
  • Error messages
  • Notifications
  • In-app purchase flow

If you have any experience in these areas, you’ll want to share it in detail. 

Here is an example of how I did this in my portfolio:

The user journey is a big part of the end-to-end design process. The hiring manager wants to know you have a holistic understanding of the product development process from validation (user research) to building solutions (UX/UI) to validating solutions (analytics).

It's the classic story structure we learn about in school. The hero takes a journey, meets an obstacle and finally, triumphs. In this story, your user is the hero. So share their journey in your case studies: With a problem, goal and results – ideally, a success story. Here's how UX writer Tamara Hilmes introduces her case studies:

This serves as an outline for her case study, and she dives into the details from there.

Here’s another example of a more direct way to share your impact:

The writer shared what the copy looked like before and after they worked on it. This can be a useful approach, but most hiring managers will be looking for your thought process behind these decisions as well.

Create a narrative with your portfolio

The portfolio isn’t just a window into your experience. It’s also a glimpse into your personality. 

While this may not be a deal-breaker, the hiring manager also wants to understand your overall character and see if you have an eye for design and UX.

You can see an example here, where the writer lays out their approach and brings their voice into play:

Creating a UX writing portfolio is extremely challenging compared to visual creatives. While designers can convey their personality and style through images, the place to show yours is in stories around your experience. 

Share the context of your company, the context of your role, why you made the decisions you didand what you would’ve done differently. This shows your overall understanding of your work and conveys your style and personality.

October 5, 2020No Comments

Behind the scenes of book cover design

Creating book covers is a dream design job. Many of us have it on our bucket list. Few of us find ourselves designing book covers full-time.

Janet Hansen is one of those special few who designs book jackets for a living. In almost a decade in the industry, she's designed for a range of clients and publishing houses, including The New Yorker, the New York Times, Penguin Press, Vanity Fair, New Directions and Farrar Straus & Giroux. She currently works as an associate art director at Alfred A. Knopf in Manhattan, while freelancing everything from rebrand projects to New York Times illustrations on the side.

In this interview, Hansen takes us behind the scenes of her work. We learn just how much freedom a cover designer actually has, the standard process and strategy when designing a book cover, and a lot more.

 

Some of us imagine a jacket designer collaborating closely with the author on the cover, finding a way to capture the essence of the book in one beautiful image – only after reading it and pondering its themes, symbols and characters deeply on their own. I'm sure it’s not (always) quite as romantic as that. How does it typically go for you?

While I do enjoy reading and visually analyzing a manuscript, it’s true that I sometimes am not able to, due to deadlines and abundance of projects. There’s also a surprising number of people involved in the cover approval process: publishers, agents, editors, sales — so it is not likely for me to be in direct contact with the author without many others involved. 

It’s also important to remember too that while writing is an art form, ultimately a book is a product and its cover is an advertisement. My job is to find a balance between capturing the essence of the book while also making it “commercial” enough to entice retailers into marketing it and readers into buying it.

Artwork by Daniel Bjugård

Like any design work, I imagine there are publishers who just “get it” and give you full creative freedom, and others who don’t. Is that accurate, or are you typically given freedom to explore whatever direction you choose?

I’m lucky enough to work with people who allow a good amount of creative freedom. I will admit though, due to years of working with a group, I sometimes habitually steer my design into approaches I know will gain a more mass appeal. It’s important to break out of that habit though, and to test what a book cover could be even if it means more recurring rejection.

There are of course instances where an editor or author requests a very specific approach. I find that in these cases it’s sort of like shooting yourself in the foot.

Photograph by Jouke Bos

I am curious how far your final drafts usually are from your first ones. Can you walk us through the journey of a specific jacket design, from concept to final design? 

Here's one that I think has changed in an interesting way…

Here was my first sketch for “The Slaughterman’s Daughter” (out in February 2021).

While the feedback was fairly positive, there was pushback on the idea being primarily a playing card. Also was pushback on the script type. I was initially concerned about removing the look of the playing card, but after trying it I realized it still worked well (and maybe even was better?!).

What I found out when I changed the type though, is that it wasn’t really complimenting the illustration in the way that the handwritten script was — it was a much weaker cover.

I begged for permission to hire an illustrator to rework this quite amateur illustration. And with Kelly Blair and John Gall’s blessing I was able to hire the very talented Jon Kutt at High Road Design, who elevated my wonky sketch into a beautiful work.

I presented this one to our Pantheon team and there was concern again about the type (womp womp!). So I went with the more book cover friendly typeface that complimented the subject matter well. Final approved sketch below.

Through experiences like this, have you learned any specific ways to not only pitch your designs, but fight for them? Any tips for designers who also face the possibility of design by committee?

I actually don’t do much of the talking! I tend to just listen. I don’t rule out criticism or suggestions until I have thoughtfully considered them. It’s also important to speak up if you feel strongly about why a design does or does not work — and to back up your opinion with facts and examples.

Where the magic happens. Janet's WFH desk.

What are a few of your favorite published covers we can find on bookshelves (or online)?

I’m really excited about Hiroko Oyamada’s new novel ‘The Hole’ that is coming out this October. And an old jacket of mine I never cringe at is ‘Voices in the Night’ by Steven Millhauser. 

When it comes to the design I do, we have systems and best practices in place that guide the work. Are there any kind of best practices for designing book covers?

Reading the manuscript is step one for me. If I don’t have the time, I at least read several chapters. I highlight recurring themes or any visuals that I think could represent the book well, then create a grid of these themes and try to think of ways to visually represent them all. I usually will narrow my ideas down to three different concepts, and then focus solely on those.

It seems like a practice in restraint. Any insights you can share with us for narrowing your focus and creating your own restraints with the playing field seems wide open?

While I think of visuals that capture the essence of the book, it also needs to work well with its title. I try to steer clear of imagery that is used often on covers, and instead go with something that is visually interesting to me personally.

I usually find my inspiration outside of book cover design, in fine art or film. If the concept is one I have not seen on a book cover, and it is abstract enough that it could be interpreted in more than one way, I think that is a good thing. 

Are there any specific trends you notice happening right now in cover design? 

Anything with large and legible type seems to be of trend, because of the concern of how a cover will read online at a thumbnail size. The problem with this trend is it does not necessarily look as nice on its printed counterpart.

"While writing is an art form, ultimately a book is a product and its cover is an advertisement."

Do you sometimes have to make an effort to design for the book, rather than leaving “your personal mark?” Or do you consider yourself having a recognizable strength or style when it comes to your jacket designs?

I’m less interested in leaving my mark than I am in making something that I think is refreshing to see in a sea of book covers. I don’t always succeed in that goal, but it’s something to aim towards. And of course, I have certain tendencies, like leaning towards simplicity or design that is stripped down and clean!

I’d imagine it’s beneficial that you enjoy and resonate with the story you’re designing – but do you ever struggle with getting TOO close to a story you love, to the point where it clouds your perspective for the design? 

There are times I have loved the book so much that it clouded my perspective as a designer to feel the need to market or “commercialize” it. If I don’t enjoy a manuscript, those are the covers I find the most difficult to get approved. A connection is missing.

Has the evolution of the book business – namely, our short attention spans, the rise of short-form, ephemeral content, book sales sadly moving mostly online to behemoths like Amazon, etc. – affected your work in any noticeable way?

My career began around the time Amazon and e-books came to rise, so I have always been working alongside this evolution. I try not to let this change how I design, but it’s sort of inevitable I guess. I still am a strong believer that the quality of the printed book should come first.

Despite everything happening online now, we are still (thanks to Instagram) more visual than ever. And we all know you can’t judge a book by its cover, but we also know we’ve all noticed and purchased books based on the cover alone. Do you think, in this current age, a cover is still a valuable sales tool? 

A good cover is a signifier that the process of putting this book out in the world has been thoughtful. It lets you know that the people putting it together care about it. And if a cover is good, people are more likely to share it on their social media. There’s so many more outlets for advertising in that way. 

Are there any book covers someone else designed that you wish you’d designed yourself? What are they and why do you love them?

When I saw ‘Notes from a Fog’ by Ben Marcus (designed by Jamie Keenan for Granta Books), I had to pick my jaw up from the floor. It’s like nothing I have seen before. The reversed type, that photograph — just painfully brilliant, unexpected and deadpan hilarious. 

Another brilliant design is Na Kim’s jacket for ‘Tegan and Sara’s ‘High School.’ The handwriting in combination with the mirror effect gives off perfect high school vibes while somehow feeling like highbrow book art. I couldn’t imagine a better solution for this jacket.

Most book cover designers I know love reading. Do you? If so, what are a few books you’d recommend to us (either ones you enjoyed recently, or all-time favorites)? 

While I love to read, my reading for pleasure has gone out the window since the pandemic! It’s since been replaced with reading for work and reading how to raise a baby properly. Two books I’ve enjoyed thoroughly for work recently are ‘Whereabouts’ by Jhumpa Lahiri and ‘Speak, Okinawa’ by Elizabeth Mika Brina.

Photograph by Guy Henderieckx

Rendered by Justin Metz

 

 

October 1, 2020No Comments

How to learn UX copywriting? Understand iconography.

This is an excerpt from our upcoming UX Writing book, exploring how we (as designers and copywriters) can write copy that helps people use and love our products. Sign up for book updates here

Understanding where and when copy is necessary is just as important as knowing how to write it. 

Sometimes, a message can be relayed through the design without content. Other times, a simple icon is more effective than a line of text. And in other cases, an icon should be used WITH copy to convey the message. 

If you’re just now joining this series, this is as good a time as any to talk about cognitive load. Humans, like computers, only have a certain amount of processing power and memory in our brains. When we interact with a product, we are using those resources to make sense of the system. The less cognitive load (ie. mental effort) your product requires from the people using it, the better. The higher the cognitive load, the more work your user has to put in to complete a task. 

The goal, obviously, is to make things as easy as possible for our user. That means helping them complete their task correctly, as quickly as possible, with as little strain on their brain as possible. Which leaves us with questions: What do people recognize and understand faster? Icons or copy? What if it’s both? What if it’s neither? 

While much of it depends on the context – where a person currently is in your experience, what they already know, what they don’t know, what device they’re using and so forth – we can establish a few general rules around that help us know when to use what. Let’s start with icons. 

When to use icons

An icon is most often used for repetitive actions: Visiting your profile, searching, favoriting an item. If we’re going to interact with a UI element within your product – for example, adjusting the volume – we’ll likely see an icon next to it that identifies the element. 

Icons are meant to simplify a message or idea, making it easy to understand at a glance. They allow us to scan and intuitively navigate through a product through symbols we recognize. They save space for designers and copywriters, especially on mobile. 

And, importantly, icons can transcend language. It’s one of the main reasons you’ll use one. While copy requires carefully choosing your verbiage and dealing with the complexities of multi-language support, an icon requires no translation. 

But very few icons can achieve these goals on their own. 

An icon should be understood without thinking. And we can’t assume people across cultures, languages, age and capabilities will understand the same symbols we do. If your icon makes them pause for even a couple seconds, it’s not doing its job.

As Nielsen Norman Group puts it, “Icons are, by definition, a visual representation of an object, action, or idea. If that object, action, or idea is not immediately clear to users, the icon is reduced to mere eye candy — confusing, frustrating, eye candy — and to visual noise that hinders people from completing a task.”

While we could get into UX design 101 here, we’re more focused on icons in relation to copy. So here’s an easy rule: 

Use a label with your icons. 

Perhaps a few exceptions exist, like a hamburger icon or a magnifying glass, but even these can be misconstrued depending on the context. A magnifying glass could mean “search” or “zoom.” A hamburger menu may be standard to you, but not necessarily to your grandmother. A clock, which seems like a pretty obvious symbol, could mean “current time” or “browsing history.” 

More technical people than me would call icons paired with labels a “cognitive affordance.” The label helps us understand how the icon should be used.

All icons and no copy, and your product is as frightening to use as an Ikea manual. There are entire websites dedicated to translating Ikea manuals, which notoriously lack instructional copy and require you to decipher complicated visuals.

Pull a screen from any of your favorite apps and remove all the copy. You’ll likely be left with something akin to hieroglyphics, at best. 

Take the Spotify app, for example. Here we’ve removed the labels they include with their icons in the dock.

Most of us understand the first two icons at a glance. The icon on the far right, however, is open to interpretation. We’d have to stop for a beat and think, or even click to confirm what it is: A Library icon. While this is the main “problem” icon, Spotify chooses to label all of them.

The other icons on this screen are intuitive because of the context. A play button is one of those few universal symbols that can afford to stand on its own, especially given the fact that this is a music app. Placed within a search bar and next to the help text that reads “Artists, songs, or podcasts,” we know the magnifying glass means “Search.” The microphone icon is debatable – Spotify assumes we understand voice functions based on our previous habits. Some of us may still need to click the icon to find out.

Labeling your icons also primes your user, teaching them the language of your product. If Spotify first introduces the Library icon with a label, they could potentially use that icon without a label later to save space – only because they taught us earlier what it means. 

This goes both ways. If you’re using an icon with copy in one place, but we’re never going to see that icon again past this first screen, why use an icon with a label? Just use the copy on its own without the icon and save the space. Which brings us here:  

When to use copy

Knowing when to use copy over icons depends on the context and the complexity of the message. If you’re struggling for even a few seconds about how to represent a concept, action or message with an icon, don’t use an icon. If you had to stretch to represent it visually, the chances are high we won’t understand your visual.

However, that doesn’t mean you need to write paragraphs of text. The more concise your UX copy, the better. Progressive disclosure makes that possible – tell us only what we need to know now, and explain the rest later when it becomes relevant. This is what allows us to intuitively use your product: progressive disclosure, priming and building on learned behaviors.

When words are paired with design, they almost achieve icon status. (Words are visual symbols just like icons, aren’t they? They’re just shaped differently.)

You won’t even read the “Next” button during an onboarding experience because it’s within a button, possibly even paired with an arrow icon, within the contained onboarding experience. Plus, you’ve clicked through these things hundreds of times. You’ve got the muscle memory.

If you’ve decided you want to purchase a dress online, you’re not reading the text that says “Add to bag.” Because of its placement below or next to the product image, along with the size and prominence of that text, you click the link without thinking.

When it comes to UX, copy is the silent hero. Yes, UX copy should still be creative. You should still take every opportunity to infuse your brand voice into your UX. If your UX copy makes people laugh, it can transform your entire product. But speaking strictly about the user experience: You know your copy is successful when we don’t think too much about it at all. 

Deciding between icons and copy: A non-comprehensive checklist

Summing up what we’ve reviewed here, this checklist by no means covers all scenarios. But it may help as you form mental models around writing UX copy.

Use an icon if:

– You can immediately think of an icon that visualizes the message, concept or action. 

– Your users are going to complete this action repetitively, or see this message throughout the system.

– You’re identifying a core UI element within your product (such as volume control)

Use copy if: 

_ You're using an icon. (Include a label for your icon, with a few exceptions.)

– This is the only time your user will complete this action, see this message or learn this concept within your product experience.

– You can’t immediately think of an icon. If you’re straining to visualize it, we’ll struggle to understand it.

___

Read more from our UX copywriting series:

My best products are a joke
→ Best practices for UX copywriting
→ Content or design first?
→ Writing UX copy for buttons and links
→ Making your product a joy to use
→ What is UX copy?

October 1, 2020No Comments

Monthly portfolio inspiration of September 2020

Once a week, we select two portfolios created with Semplice to feature in our Best Of  Showcase.  Here we've collected September's finest.

It seems to be the season to launch your portfolio. We've seen some incredible new sites this month, and they keep rolling in. Here are some of our favorites to keep you inspired.

If you've created your own portfolio with Semplice, be sure to submit it to our Showcase here. We might feature your site next.

 

Andre Suzuki

Max Amoto

Sascha Yeryomin

Lukas Halota

Maximilian Inzinger

JC Dela Cuesta

New Presence

Grand Matter

Silvana Yaneva

Matija Gabrilo

 

To see more great design portfolios, visit the Semplice showcase. I'll be back next month with more of our monthly favorites!

Header image by Bryce Wymer of Grand Matter

September 22, 2020No Comments

Design in Lebanon 🇱🇧 featuring Studio Safar

In our latest Design Around the World series interview, we are exploring a complex and dynamic design community: Lebanon.

Lebanon has been on the global radar since August of this year, after an explosion in Beirut killed at least 200 people, injured thousands of others and caused $10–15 billion in property damage. The catastrophe comes on top of the pandemic and an already-collapsing economy, and unrest continues in the city. (Read the news if you need to catch up.)

We're thankful Studio Safar made time to talk with us in the midst of all of this – the team is still orienting themselves after their office was destroyed in the blast. Here Hatem Imam, Studio Safar co-founder and creative director, speaks candidly about the situation in Beirut, the danger of reducing a city to a slogan, why women are championing the design scene in Lebanon and the renaissance of the Arabic letterform. Let's get into it.

Maya Moumné and Hatem Imam, Studio Safar co-founders, recently featured in Esquire Italia. Photography: Myriam Boulos

First, tell us a little about yourself. How many people are on your team and why did you decide to create an agency together? What kind of work do you do?

Studio Safar is a design and art direction agency. The team includes co-founders and creative directors Maya Moumné and myself (Hatem Imam), both graphic designers by trade; senior graphic designer Lynne Zakhour; designers Giorgia Labaki and Rana Tawil; business and studio manager Ali Abdallah; and copywriter/editor Sharon Grosso. 

The idea of the creating studio came about after I received a rejection letter for a full-time university teaching job. Looking back, I guess there wasn’t an existing structure that I felt I wanted to belong to, so based on Maya’s suggestion, we started one of our own. Most of our work is centered on the cultural sector and its orbit. The name Safar—Arabic for travel— evokes our interest in crossing cultural and linguistic barriers. In terms of scope of work, we do everything a graphic design and art direction agency does, in addition to publishing our own design and visual culture bi-annual magazine. 

Lebanon sits right between the Mediterranean and the Middle East, making it a passageway between the European and Arab world. And I know Beirut is known for its cosmopolitan vibe, at once historic and modern. How would you describe the design you see coming from Beirut today? Is it influenced by your culture/history/environment in any way?

We grew up being taught this narrative of Lebanon, but honestly, what city in the world is not a "melting pot," and a "rich mix," and, and? The danger of reducing a country or a city to these broad slogans is that it washes over every nuance, specificity or relevance. It generates work that resorts to facile representations that are not well-founded. I see this a lot with students and try to remedy it with research. Thoughtful design work coming from Beirut is rare, but when done right, it can open our eyes to the historic development of the practice, the origin of design conventions and influences, and at best help us learn from these references and innovate for today’s needs. 

Have you found a community of like-minded creatives in Beirut, or platforms and events where you can connect with other designers? 

We work with a network of creative people from a wide array of fields and backgrounds including film, literature, music, illustration, fashion and photography. Definitely our work producing Journal Safar, our magazine about graphic design and visual culture, has helped to broaden and strengthen this network. The fifth and latest issue, Migrations, for example, put the illustrations of fashion designer and illustrator Cynthia Merhej next to Myriam Boulos’ photography next to the musings of artists Sophia al-Maria and Yumna Marwan and the film stills of Elia Suleiman. 

That being said, our networks and communities are very far from “like-minded.” Not only do the individuals and collectives we work with in Beirut have a wide variety of different skill sets, but their backgrounds, opinions, styles and values all vary greatly too.  

Globalization, especially American influence, is on the minds of many designers outside the West right now. Some feel it’s homogenizing design and contributing to a loss of a country’s cultural / visual identity. What’s your take? Has globalization affected Lebanese design in any noticeable way, either positively or negatively?

American and European design history and thinking have definitely shaped our understanding of the field in Lebanon; you can see this vividly in academia. I think a more accurate term for it is colonialism rather than globalization. It starts with language and extends to all fields of cultural production, from fashion to architecture and of course design. 

Of course, it is a double-edged sword: On one hand, there is something exciting and new about the assemblage of influences and references. On the other hand, there is definitely a partial erasure of local conventions. One of our missions is to shift the attention of the design narrative from its fixation on the global north, and to look inwards and backward in history. However, we insist on not doing this purely nostalgically nor nationalistically.  

Sustainable design is increasingly a conversation in the design community. I know Beirut has struggled with this in the past with the 2015 waste crisis, for example. Is environmentally conscious design an interest for designers in Beirut right now? 

Environmentally conscious design is certainly an interest for designers in Beirut, as it is for designers everywhere. 

For us, environmentally-conscious or sustainable design definitely doesn’t preclude the importance of print. Print is a really significant part of our work, particularly our work publishing Safar. When carrying out a print project, sustainability for us means designing something that will remain relevant, beautiful and special for a long time — something that people will treasure and hold on to. It also means printing an appropriate number of copies for a given audience (this, of course, takes some time and experience to estimate accurately).

We encourage our clients to also take the sustainability of their projects into consideration. Even if a project has no print or physical product and is fully online, we strive to create identities that are carefully thought-out and designed and, as a result, will endure for a long time.

Studio Safar's cover design for Riposte Magazine and Slowfactory

In a paper written on Lebanese design 10 years ago, I read “A Lebanese school of graphic design is yet unheard of.” A lot can change in a decade. What’s the quality of design education now, in your opinion?

In fact, the first “Graphic Design” program was launched at the American University of Beirut (AUB) by Leila Musfy in 1992. I put graphic design in quotes because design was taught and practiced before that date in Lebanon, but was never assigned as a university degree as such before. Print houses, ad agencies, book and magazine publishers, poster makers, calligraphers and illustrators all took part in design making predating AUB’s program. The first printing press in the Middle East is located in a monastery in the Valley of the Saints in the mountains of north Lebanon since 1585. Today there are tens of design schools all over the country that can be divided roughly to American and French programs as well as in the Lebanese (public) University. 

I read that women dominate the graphic design scene in Lebanon, but their work is valued more abroad than at home. Do you see this to be true? If so, why?

It is a fact that there is a predominance of women in the field in Lebanon, but unfortunately, this is partly due to regressive societal misconceptions that consider design — and most liberal arts — as almost leisurely pastimes rather than “serious” careers. At AUB where I teach, both graphic design and architecture are under one school, and the numbers say it all: while in architecture you would have a roughly balanced gender ratio, in graphic design you can have 10% or fewer male students per year. 

On the bright side, women are indeed championing the scene and proving the importance of graphic design in cultural production. Perhaps this is resonating more abroad than at home at the moment, but this is slowly but surely changing.

I know Beirut’s economy was struggling already, and now with the pandemic and the explosion on top, it’s hurting more than ever. How has this affected your work? What kind of jobs are available for designers in Beirut right now? 

Previously, most of our clients were based in Lebanon, but as the economy has gotten worse and worse — with banks illegally restricting withdrawals and the exchange rate of the Lebanese Pound (LBP) plummeting against the value of the dollar — and now with the massive devastation of the August 4th explosion, most people simply don’t have the means to fund such projects. On top of that, and especially after the explosion, a significant portion of the population is trying to leave the country to find better work or educational opportunities abroad. That being said, a good chunk of our work comes from outside of Lebanon now.

The Studio Safar offices after the explosion in Beirut.

I’ve always understood it’s incredibly difficult to create Arabic typefaces (and it seems globalization has affected this as well), but I’ve been seeing headlines lately announcing some really beautiful new Arabic types, along with a lot of experimentation around Arabic scripts. Are you seeing more effort and care put into Arabic typography lately? 

There has been a new wave of amazing Arabic type designers in the past ten years or so. Kristyan Sarkis, Khajag Apelian, Wael Morcos and Lara Captan are just a few names of Lebanese designers we love. 

The Khatt foundation established by Huda Smitshuijzen AbiFarès in 2004 in Amsterdam played an important role in this renaissance of the Arabic letterform. This has impacted our work tremendously. When I graduated in 2000, our selection of usable, well-drawn and bug-free fonts was limited to a handful, most of which were straightforward versions of classical calligraphic scripts. Today there are a lot more options for a designer for any usage from the most pragmatic (legible signage for a hospital), to the most expressive (experimental music festival poster). We look forward to more.

Thanks to the internet and now the pandemic, many designers are working for clients overseas remotely. How is it for you? Do you work mostly with local or overseas clients, or is it a mix?

With the ongoing pandemic and the economic collapse in Lebanon, we do a lot of work for overseas clients now. Fortunately, the technology (Zoom, Slack, Google Drive, etc.) readily available to us today makes working internationally pretty simple and straightforward. We definitely do miss the immediacy of real-life meetings, especially at the onset of any project, where people’s body language can be one of the most telling communication signals.

What impact does your social media presence have on getting new clients and self-promotion in general? What works best for you?

Social media is a great tool with which to promote and share our work on one hand, but more importantly to share our values with our audience. A lot of clients have found out about us and our work through our social media pages — namely, Instagram. We also use our Journal Safar page to share regional design history material and documentation as well as accurate and relevant information about current events and issues in Lebanon.

Social media is also an incredibly powerful tool for us here in Lebanon specifically. The banks in Lebanon have imposed informal capital controls, meaning that people here can no longer withdraw their funds in USD, and they can only withdraw a limited amount in the Lebanese Pound (which has, in the last year, lost around 70% of its value). 

When trying to print the most recent issue of Safar, we needed to pay for the printing in London, but the bank was restricting our access to our money. We posted about it on Instagram, and although we don’t have a massive following, the post received enough attention that the bank called us, apologized and found a “loophole” for us. They also asked us to remove the post. We didn’t because what they are doing is wrong and illegal. 

I know it varies from client to client but generally speaking, do clients in Lebanon appreciate good design and understand what it takes?

Before accepting any project, we always have an in-depth conversation with the potential client in order for both parties to determine if their work and project fit well with the ethos and work process of our studio. A lot of our work depends on mutual trust between us and the client, rather than their knowing or understanding ‘good’ versus ‘bad’ design — of course, not everyone has that background, nor are these notions objective truths. In addition to trust, we try to listen closely to our clients and to make sure that our design work responds clearly and logically to the needs and problems that they present to us.

In your opinion, what are 5-10 design studios from Beirut/Lebanon that everyone should know?

These are not all design studios but rather some Beirut-based creatives whose work we respect and support:

Mind the Gap

Studio Kawakeb

Mohamad Abdouni (art direction, film making, publishing)

The Council for Visual Affairs (communication and animation)

Public Works (critical design thinking and urban planning)

Ghaith and Jad (architecture)

Paul Kaloustian Architects

Far Architects

Fabraca Studios (product design)

David/Nicolas (interior design)

Super Yaya (fashion)

Renaissance Renaissance by Cynthia Merhej (fashion and illustration)

__

Read more from our Design Around the World series to learn about design in Egypt, Indonesia, Taiwan, Nigeria, Pakistan and much more.

September 18, 2020No Comments

No more boring apps

In 1970, artist John Baldessari took his entire life's work of landscape paintings, lit it ablaze, and watched decades of work burn to ash.

He followed with a long film of him repeating a statement that hit the art world: 

"I will not make any more boring art. I will not make any more boring art…" 

Baldessari then went on to produce some of the 20th century's seminal visual and conceptual art that has influenced entire new generations of artists.

Product design sits at this same moment today.

I've been in this field for a bit. I've worked for some big companies and founded a couple companies of my own (FiftyThree, Short of the Week). I've watched apps grow from a side hobby to big business. I've watched product design evolve from a small, nameless circle of misfits to one of the largest creative fields today. Every day, millions of new dollars are invested and hundreds of new apps are launched. The world is becoming a better place one convenience at a time. 

Apps have become an intimate part of our everyday lives. We wake up with them, eat with them, pee with them and go to bed with them. Software has eaten the world; some are ready to hail this as the golden age of design.

And it's time to burn it all.

The world of apps – once an exciting canvas for creative exploration – has become repetitive, predictable and… boring.

Seriously, I can't tell one app from the next.

There was that one hot app from a couple weeks ago that everyone was raving about, but I don't remember it anymore. Just this week, there was a new email app, a new metrics dashboard and a new bookmarking app. They are all destined to disappear into a sea of apps following the same formula — designed with the same boring templates, built with the same boring frameworks, promoted on the same boring landing page design with that same boring tone of voice. What we get are apps with generic, completely forgettable design promising to change our life by making some small part of it easier. Product design has become formulaic and the apps we make entirely uninspired.

I used to think it was just me. Then I started to notice something. I've started asking my product design friends where they find inspiration and I hear a lot about great architecture, graphic design, photography, video games, film and art. But no one mentions any apps. Seems odd, don't you think?

You can try it yourself with a slightly different question. Ask a product designer to name a few of their design heroes. You're likely to hear names like Dieter Rams, Paula Scher, Vignelli and Buckminster Fuller. What you won't hear are the names of anyone designing any software.

Sure, we're a young discipline, but so are video games. And you won't find a game designer who can't rattle off names like Miyamoto (Nintendo), Hideo Kojima (Metal Gear Solid),  Arnt Jenson (Playdead) as well as a dozen titles that deeply shaped their childhood.

Something is off. This isn't an issue you'll find in other design fields like industrial design, fashion or architecture. Despite being one of the largest practicing creative fields today, product design seems to be missing out on something fundamental that exists in every other design field.

A couple years ago, I was ready to walk away from it all. 

I watched many of my friends leave design to reconnect with the world. Usually, that meant going out into nature for a long hike or to build a cabin.

I grew up in Alaska, so… I moved out to Seattle and started building furniture.

Woodworking is brutal. It's painfully slow to learn and very unforgiving. But the sheer act of jumping blindly into a new creative field as a novice really opened up my eyes. You'd be surprised how quickly designing a simple bench will lead you into existential questions about the nature of "sitting.”

Ever wonder…

Why there are so many chair designs?

I did. You'd think after thousands of years and millions of iterations, we'd have solved the problem of sitting. And yet, every year a new, amazing chair is unveiled that would put a new iPhone iteration to shame.

It turns out, there isn't one chair for everyone. There are many chairs for different people in different situations. There are lounge chairs, task chairs, benches, stools, poufs — all serving a unique purpose. If I were to go looking for a new lounge chair, I could buy a La-Z-Boy, an Eames lounge chair or Saarinen's womb chair. A chair solves a simple need with a diversity of viewpoints.

How is it that our apps, which tackle issues that are infinitely more complex than sitting– issues like human connection – offer so much less depth and diversity?

It’s all about growth.

To understand product design, you need to understand the tech industry.

The underlying appeal in software as a business is scale. With zero marginal costs, you can build your product just once and put it in the hands of billions. The goal is scale and the strategy is growth. But this strategy of endless growth cuts against one of the fundamental principles in design. 

"If you're small, it's to your advantage to be weird. You can build apps that the big tech companies never could."

Let's look at beer.

In the U.S. beer industry, the most popular beers by sales are domestic beers which are typically extremely light lagers. They can be made cheaply, quickly and are optimized to be as "drinkable" as possible (interestingly, it's a market dominated by two players). Then, there's a craft beer market where smaller brewers explore new flavors targeted toward regional customers.

The world of apps today is entirely domestic beers. Every app is designed to appeal to everyone. Which is another way of saying they're designed so as to not offend anyone.

Now, it's easy to understand why the big tech companies pursue scale. But what boils my mind, is that every small startup has seemingly set the same strategic goal for itself. First, offering some slightly more convenient solution to an ever more-minor problem, and then, with funding secured, attempt to apply that problem to the entire world. We've given up on "flavor" in pursuit of "drinkable."

When you design something to work for everyone, you make it special for no one.

But it doesn't have to be this way.

The strategy of scale is stunting the product design field. I've watched it corrupt teams as design values that were once "delight" slowly morph into "perform," even if not explicitly stated. I suspect, deep down, many of us know this, but simply can't find a way to square it.

As important as knowing what your product is, is knowing what it is not. And that starts with recognizing that your business is not the same as Apple or Google. Stop playing their game.

The big domestic beer makers draw their inspiration from the microbreweries. There are styles and flavors that a small brewer can explore that a massive industrial brewer never could. The big clothing brands are inspired by independent fashion designers. Blockbuster directors find inspiration in indie and short films. If you're small, it's to your advantage to be weird. You can build apps that the big tech companies never could.

In the world of chairs, you're not going to build a cheaper chair than Ikea. Why not build something they couldn't, like a more interesting one?

For me, this thinking begins to answer the question of what is missing in the product design field. It opens up the medium of software as a platform for something bigger than solving problems.

Why do furniture designers keep designing new chairs? We know it's not to solve the problem of "sitting." The chair is simply the medium. The true goal is something bigger: to inspire, to broaden our understanding of what's possible, or express something unique about what it means to be alive today.

Imagine if our everyday apps embraced this? What might we see? I get goosebumps just thinking about it.

We miss the point. We're supposed to be dancing.

Perhaps it's part of maturing, but I'm at a point in my life where I don't want more. I want better.

When I use your app, I don't want to see your company's KPI. I want to see your point of view. The world should know that you made it. People should feel your passion vibrating off the screen.

I want us to collectively raise the bar for what we expect from our digital experiences. Life isn't just a series of problems to be solved but moments to be lived. As we find ourselves spending more and more of our time in the digital world (especially now), we should expect that world to inspire, surprise and dare I say, even challenge us. We are lucky to be versed in a creative field where we can dream up magical things that can touch the lives of billions. Like other design fields, we should see the work of product design as not just a business optimizer but a powerful vehicle for expressing ideas that can push culture forward.

I know there are many designers out there with something to say. If where you work won't let you say it, leave when you can afford to, and find someplace that will. And if you can't find someplace that will, start it yourself.

That's what I did.

I left a perfectly comfortable job to start ANDY WORKS to rethink the role of design in our digital lives — starting with something as small as an app. The larger hope is to uncover an alternative way that products, and even businesses, can be built. Join me?

I will not make any more boring apps.

I will not make any more boring apps.

I will not make any more boring apps.

I will not make any more boring apps.

I will not make any more boring apps.

I will not make any more boring apps.

September 17, 2020No Comments

My best products are a joke

This is an excerpt from our upcoming UX Writing book, exploring how we (as designers and copywriters) can write copy that helps people use and love our products. Sign up for book updates here

Humor has been used to sell products since the early days of advertising. But rarely do you see it used effectively within the product itself. And it’s a missed opportunity.

When done right, humor can change your entire product experience. When done really well, your user will screenshot and share your UX copy, meaning your product markets itself.

But being funny, assuming you don't have a natural gift for it, is a challenge. A key ingredient to a laugh is the appearance of effortlessness. Ironically, effortlessness can take effort. 

Looking at the golden age of advertising in the 60s compared to now, it seems humor has changed. Before, it was nuanced. A good joke in a print ad made you feel smarter, like an insider, further cementing your alignment with the brand. These ads still hold up and are referenced and revered by copywriters everywhere. It’s called the golden age for a reason. 

Ads have evolved since then (with some exceptions, like The Economist's sharp print and billboard campaigns). What was once a full-length print ad is now a two-sentence Instagram caption. What was once a paragraph is now a pun. What was once subtle is now on the nose. 

But it’s not humor that has changed. The context has. And that’s the first important lesson to writing funny copy.

It’s all about context.

Context is the time we live in.

It’s the language we speak.

It’s our culture, the current state of the world, our politics, our age. 

For your product, it’s also the type of tool you’re writing for, what your user just did, what they’re doing now, what’s coming next and how they feel at that specific moment. 

Humor must be designed. A funny confirmation message might be delightful the first time someone sees it, but if they’re seeing it every time they complete an action, it gets old fast. What may seem funny in isolation, while writing your microcopy, will not be funny if it confuses your user or hits them at a point in the process when they don’t want to laugh – they just want to accomplish the task at hand.

Finding opportunities for humor in your product UX

You don’t have to crack a joke on every screen of your product, and you shouldn’t. It’d be exhausting for you and everyone using it. But you can infuse humor throughout your product in the right places. These are good places to do so:

  • Loading screens
  • Empty states
  • 404 pages
  • Confirmation messaging
  • Help text
  • Placeholder text

Let’s look at a few brands that do this well.

Not for the first time in this series, we arrive at Mailchimp.

The Mailchimp monkey character is instantly recognized by marketers everywhere, because they use humorous copy and imagery to relate to their audience. 

Consider the image above. This is the screen you see when you’re about to hit send on an email campaign, blasting your email out to hundreds or thousands of subscribers. Mailchimp recognizes the equal parts terror and pride that comes with launching. Those drips of sweat rolling off the monkey’s hand as it hovers above the GO button says everything. And right below the “Send Now” button is a tiny caption: “This is your moment of glory.” 

Mailchimp recognizes your fear and simultaneously celebrates your accomplishment. The image has been screenshotted and shared countless times, because it resonates. On this screen, you can see designers and copywriters working together as a team.

Note that Mailchimp isn’t laugh-out-loud, roll-on the-floor hilarious. You’re not going to tell your wife about that Mailchimp joke when she arrives home from work. What Mailchimp succeeds to do is use humor to make their product fun to use. And that’s saying a lot, considering Mailchimp is an email platform.

I will once again point to my own product, Semplice.com, as an example. One of the biggest challenges people face when building their online portfolio is getting started in the first place. It’s a daunting task, one designers notoriously put on the back burner. So after you’ve first set up Semplice (a portfolio-building tool) and the hype is still high, we want to give you that little push you need to move forward. And your dashboard is empty, awaiting your creations, so why not?

We could have left this page empty or wrote “You have no projects to show” – and we did, for a time. But after we added this playful little jab, our users started screen-shotting and sharing this page on Twitter. It spoke to them in their moment of hesitancy and hopefully motivated them to move forward. As a bonus for us, their screenshots gave Semplice some free advertising.

Here's another example from a weather app I made called Authentic Weather. Authentic Weather was like any other weather app, with one distinction: its sense of humor. We took every opportunity in the app UX to make people smile, down to the button text.

Authentic Weather gained a cult following not for its superior weather service, but for its sense of humor.

Techniques for using humor

How you use humor depends on your product and your voice (read more about finding your band voice here), but this is a good place to start.

1. Know your user and the context

Comedians are funny because they meet us where we are. They take an everyday moment and make us see it differently. At their most funny, it feels as though they have reached into our brain and named something we’ve felt before. They get us. At their least funny, they read the room wrong and make an ill-timed joke that falls flat. Crickets.

It’s that buzzy word “empathy” we love to throw around as designers, actually being applied. Recognizing how a person may be feeling while using your product allows you to meet them there.

Are they trying to access important account information? Then don’t get in their way with a useless joke – they just want their user ID.

Is this a point in the process where people typically give up and drop off? Then it may be the perfect place to drop a lighthearted word of encouragement.

Are a significant portion of your users speaking another language? Make sure your joke translates to that language, or it will be lost on them. Many of our users at Semplice.com speak English as a second language, and it’s forced us to sharpen our writing and crystallize our humor to its most simple and clear form. Which is to say, it’s made our writing better.

Think about where we are and how we feel at this specific screen. How can you meet us there?

2. Lean into a misconception, stereotype, challenge, fear or negative aspect of your product experience. 

Which is to say, know your product.

It’s the same approach those beautiful ads from the 60s took: Self awareness. Making yourself the butt end of your own joke. Acknowledging what we're all thinking and flipping the script. Making us feel like we're all on the inside.

Look for those little moments where you can show self awareness. It begins with using your own tool, understanding how others use it and how it – or the task they are using it for – is perceived.

3. Don’t try too hard.

If you feel like you’re forcing it, don’t. Forced humor is never funny. It’s perplexing, distancing and worse: annoying. And an annoying product is a dead man walking.

Which brings us to our next point.

4. Don’t be clever at the expense of clarity.

Read anything about writing UX copy and you will find this advice, repeated again and again. If your message is lost in your joke, re-write your joke. If it’s still unclear, kill the joke entirely. It’s always better to be clear than funny, especially when it comes to UX copy. 

5. Strive for consistency 

If you make a punny dad joke on one screen and use deadpan sarcasm on the next, your users are going to be confused at best and offended at worst. 

Start by knowing your brand voice. Is your brand the type to make lighthearted jokes or use dark humor? Are you offbeat and clever or silly and charming? Whatever it is, be that consistently. Once we learn your language, your jokes have a place to land.

___

For more about writing UX copy:

→ Best practices for UX copywriting
→ Content or design first?
→ Writing UX copy for buttons and links
→ Making your product a joy to use
→ How to write concisely

September 15, 2020No Comments

The slow creep of mediocrity

Open the app. Scroll. See a baby photo, a selfie paired with a poem, somebody’s dinner. 

Keep scrolling.

See a meme. Hit like. Type LOL, face muscles unmoving.

Continue to scroll: Past a latte, an ad campaign, a polished photo shoot. Past more stolen memes and recycled jokes and sponsored posts.

Like. Scroll. Comment. Like. Scroll.

As the eyes glaze over, the program runs on autopilot. The thumb persists in its mission, a movement memorized in the muscles, mechanical.

Not long ago, it was the job of human brains. But brains required more: An original idea, a twist, a punchline, a strategy, a journey, a hero. The program humans previously ran on – powered by emotion and imagination and taste and individuality – is now antiquated, rendered obsolete by The Algorithm. 

Corporations have saved billions on advertising. Why produce a high-quality video with a unique idea when a meme will do? Why labor over an ad campaign when they can retweet an influencer? Why spend 150 hours on a project when 15 minutes is plenty? 

Why put effort into the work when it will be buried in an instant?

Like. Scroll. Comment. Like. Scroll.

In the new world, this is all that’s required. No ad campaigns that double as high art. No hours spent kicking ideas around as a team, waiting for that magical aha moment. No late nights editing, putting the finishing touches on a project six months in the making. Hard work and deep thought are unnecessary when “good enough” will do just as well.

Humans adapted quickly, without question, to this new world. The automated program runs smoothly. The Algorithm takes care of the rest.

September 10, 2020No Comments

A counterintuitive way to get noticed

The typical marketing strategy goes like this: Promote yourself and what you offer. 

That may be a product, content or your own personal brand. Tell people about it and why it solves a problem for them, then repeat. 

An alternative strategy, especially for those just starting out, is this: Promote others’ work to get noticed.

Share work from those you admire, who align with your product. Be the champion of your users. Allow others to take the stage on your own platform.

Jack Butcher built his business on this strategy. He started Visualize Value, a creative source of wisdom and motivation, by posting visual quotes from people he admires on Twitter. His page slowly grew, and his business did with it.

“In retrospect, this idea could be called ‘reverse influence,’” said Butcher in an article reflecting on his business journey. “If you want a shot at more exposure: Make other people look good. Give yourself the job of a remote, unpaid design intern for anyone you admire.”

In doing so, you cast your net wider. 

Share your platform with someone who has a large following of their own and they may retweet you, reaching a whole new audience of like-minded people. 

Promote someone who faithfully uses your product, and they will be all the more loyal – the makings of a brand advocate. 

Become a resource of quality, curated content, content that naturally ties back to what you do, and your product or offering will fit seamlessly into that conversation, when the time is right.

September 8, 2020No Comments

Designing the future of mass transportation

You can't help but believe in Arrival when you see its philosophy for sustainable transportation. The UK-based company is set to redefine what electric vehicles mean to cities, and hopefully accelerate the future of this important industry.

Arrival designs human-centered solutions for public transport, including electric vehicles that cost the same as fossil fuel equivalents. Everything in the Arrival "ecosystem" is built in the company's micro-factories using a modular system, making production more efficient and fueling local economies at the same time.

But what first draws you to Arrival (at least, as a designer) is the beautiful, futuristic vehicle design. In most cities, mass transportation is not exactly a pleasant or preferred experience. With Arrival's bus designs, they've re-thought every detail of this dinosaur system, from the driver's space to seat design to touchless interactions.

Here I talk to Jeremy Offer, chief design officer at Arrival, about Arrival's design approach and the company's vision for the future of public transport.

Jeremy Offer, CDO at Arrival

Beauty is an important part of function. After reading about the design of Arrival’s products, I take it you agree. Why?

Allowing the function of a product to inform the aesthetics is a big part of our design philosophy. We strip away all adornments and unnecessary detail to allow the function of the product to clearly speak to the user through the language of its form.

It seems like Arrival’s new bus designs were prepared for a post-pandemic world already – or you just moved incredibly fast to adapt. Which was it?

Creating a sense of calm through the use of space, color, materials and light was at the heart of the brief we set ourselves when starting the project. Using sound and smell is also important to create a sense of wellbeing. These are all techniques used in the hospitality industry for a while now (think of the welcoming feel of a well-designed hotel lobby, or your favorite coffee shop), but unheard of in public transport. 

The modular nature of the design means we can adapt quickly – for example, to create alternative seating layouts, providing more personal space for passengers.

Touch-free interactions were also part of the challenge we set ourselves; capacitive proximity sensors on our bell-push, for example, means no one needs to physically touch it.

"The beauty of starting with a blank sheet of paper means we have no legacy."

Having a connected digital product to allow remote activation of certain features also helps us avoid unnecessary touch-points.

The simple, unobstructed nature of the interior means it’s easier to keep clean. All of our seating cantilevers from the wall, which not only gives the interior a visual lightness, but makes it easier for cleaning crews to operate quickly and efficiently.

The things that will help our passengers feel motivated to travel on public transport again, are the very same things we were striving for from the outset.

A big part of Arrival’s approach is its microfactories, allowing you to build efficiently with a modular system, customize vehicles for the market and support regional economies. This is so simple and makes so much sense – why does it feel so revolutionary?

The beauty of starting with a blank sheet of paper means we have no legacy. Vehicles have been produced on linear production lines that are only ever set up to make one thing – cars run on fossil fuels – since Henry Ford’s era. Using a micro-factory model that requires less space and capital investment means we can build vehicles local to each market, and to the volumes required for any specific model. We have the flexibility to manufacture many different variants of body on the same platform. The same micro-factory cell can produce a van one day and a different vehicle the next. By using our proprietary components, materials and manufacturing methods, we can raise the quality of our products, while reducing costs. 

We sat down at the formation of Arrival and asked ourselves fundamental questions: How should a vehicle be manufactured in the 21st century? What should the body be made from? How can we become more vertically integrated and less reliant on tier-one suppliers? How can we design for rapidly changing technology? All of these have led us to create a complete paradigm shift for the industry in the way a vehicle is conceived, designed and manufactured.

"Most of the roadblocks until now have been these long-held beliefs that there is only one way to design, engineer and build a vehicle."

Public transportation hasn’t changed much over the years. Many efforts (with exceptions) to overhaul public transport in the States are slowly killed through politics, budget cuts and technical limitations. Were you met with any regulations and roadblocks at the beginning of Arrival? What about now?

Pretty much all of the companies and transport authorities we speak to are super excited about what we are doing and are willing us to succeed. I think everyone is now on the same page, especially in the wake of Covid… things need to change. Whether it's the air pollution in the cities we live in or the broken service and infrastructure of the public transport systems we currently use, there has to be a better way.

Public transport and buses in particular, sometimes feel like they are only one step removed from the horse and cart: noisy, smelly and dirty. A beautifully designed, clean, electric future is what we are offering. I may be naive, but why would anyone object to that? We are having some promising conversations with cities and see real potential in building infrastructure solutions and seamless mobility services for local communities across the world.

America as a whole, compared to the UK and Europe, is a car culture – not a public transit one. Do you plan to expand to the U.S., and if so, how do you plan on tackling a system so deeply engraved in our culture?

We are already working with a number of partners, including UPS, which are headquartered in the U.S. It’s an important market for us, and we’re currently looking at a few sites for our first micro-factories.

America sure does love its cars, but we’re excited about the huge potential market in the U.S. for commercial vehicles – for example, the U.S. electric bus market is projected to reach $71.9 billion by 2024. More and more states are also committing to sustainable transport options; California recently mandated that all EV trucks sold must be zero-emission by 2045. Last year, we welcomed long-time GM exec Mike Abelson to lead our U.S. team and he’s doing a fantastic job at scoping out our potential growth there.

Public transit is the perfect example of the “we’ve always done it that way” phenomenon, in which outdated, unnecessary conventions and systems are carried down simply for tradition’s sake, or because nobody questions them.

When assessing traditional bus designs (or any other vehicles) did you discover a lot of confusing or unnecessary design decisions that no longer made sense? And on the other hand, were there any traditional design choices that still DO make sense, where there’s a legitimate reason for “always doing it that way?”

You’re right, we were often faced with the same responses to what we are doing: “It can’t be done” or “That’s not how you design a vehicle” etc etc. It may surprise you, but a lot of the dissent came from some of our own engineers in the first year or so. These were people so entrenched in the industry that they couldn’t think laterally about new ways of creating vehicles and systems. Most of the roadblocks until now have been these long-held beliefs that there is only one way to design, engineer and build a vehicle.   

The people that stayed around and have thrived at Arrival are the people who were frustrated by the red-tape and politics of traditional automotive.

We are a technology company at our heart, not an automotive company. We employ talent with a very wide set of differing skills, both from within the automotive sector and beyond – for example, we have over 400 software engineers working on our proprietary end-to-end technology solutions. This enables a cross-fertilization of ideas and allows different patterns for creating products, services and systems to emerge.

We have given our employees the space to think differently and to not feel afraid of failure. I’m proud to say that there are a lot of designers working throughout the company, not just in design. There is something of the questioning nature of a design-trained mind that is particularly suited to our culture.

Right now you’re focused on commercial vehicles. What about personal vehicles? Do you see the low-cost and high efficiency of Arrival’s system eventually translating to that arena?

As you say, we’re currently focused on commercial vehicles – and that’s because we see the most opportunity in this market, particularly with the recent growth of ecommerce. Traditionally, this has been an underserved market that’s dominated by legacy manufacturers. We’re lucky enough to have already signed significant supply agreements with UPS and other partners, so are confident in the unique appeal of our products.

We currently see more consistent demand in the commercial segment than the overall consumer EV market, but our model means we can scale quickly and flexibly to reach new markets. We have a fairly unique blend of industrial designers from some of the world's best consultancies, coupled with automotive designers from more traditional OEM backgrounds, so the design team is well versed in designing technology with the consumer’s end experience in mind. We are well-positioned to design and manufacture personal vehicles in the future.

"Until the industry adopts a ground-up design philosophy to represent the new technology, we will always have one foot in the past."

One limitation I see in our current mass-produced EVs is charging. When buying an electric vehicle you have to purchase/install an expensive charging station, potentially wait hours to charge, hope you’ll find charging stations where you need them on a road trip and, in many cases, have a membership/app for that specific station. The same is true for public transit. To adopt EVs as a city, you need to buy into an entire electric system, not just the vehicles themselves. And a system of charging stations – not to mention the electricity to power a fleet of buses – is expensive.

This is just one example of how our efforts for sustainability and efficiency can only go so far when the larger population isn’t participating.

Public transit is a huge step, but EVs still needs to be more convenient, more affordable, more appealing for everyone. How do you think we get there? And how soon?

Charging infrastructure has been part of the discussions we’re having with national and regional authorities, as well as organizations and customers. One of the reasons that public transport and the logistics industry have been a focus for us, is that they operate in a closed circle. By that, I mean vehicles generally operate the same routes and return to base, to a controlled environment, where the vehicles can be charged, cleaned and maintained before going out the next day. Their mileage is generally known, so doesn't tax the current range limitations, and new legislation adopted by many cities now means that fleets are required to become electric if they want to continue operating.

Costs to operate EV-powered transportation networks will become dramatically cheaper, cleaner and more efficient than their fossil fuel alternatives. Think of the time lost to servicing a fleet of diesel buses!

We need to re-evaluate the manufacturing systems, design and user experience. Most EVs you can buy today still share the same design and manufacturing methods as their diesel and petrol counterparts, I suspect mainly because they are essentially the same vehicles with the engines removed and electric drive-trains shoehorned in. Until the industry adopts a ground-up design philosophy to represent the new technology, we will always have one foot in the past and will never achieve cost parity with existing ICE (internal combustion engine) vehicles.

How soon depends on the speed with which companies – used to producing what are fast-becoming obsolete products – can pivot to a new way of thinking and creating.

Arrival also plans to tackle ride-sharing. What will that look like?

A big part of what we do is software. This is the enabler of fully connected, joined up eco-systems. The hardware we produce is the gateway to these software-enabled services. This is particularly relevant in an end-to-end service like ride-sharing where the user experience is paramount. Connecting hardware platforms with software-enabled services seamlessly is at the heart of a successful ridesharing service.

What is the roadmap (pun intended) for Arrival vehicles and public transit rolling out? How many Arrival vehicles are already on the road and what can we expect in the next five years?

Over the last two years, we’ve been working with the likes of Royal Mail, UPS and DHL to validate our technologies. We are truly vertically integrated having developed all of the layers – from software to production platforms – in house, which is no small feat!

We are now in a position where the pieces are in place, we’ve built up manufacturing capabilities, we have a product that everyone is incredibly excited about, and a strong order book from established companies. We’re confident that we can meet our current production targets over the next five years, and are also in conversations around some public transit opportunities. I don’t have many more details to share on upcoming product announcements at the moment, but stay tuned!

September 8, 2020No Comments

How to make a career change into a creative field

It couldn’t be a better time for a career change. 

The current state of the world presents many challenges, but also opportunities.

We are more online than ever. Companies are changing how they operate, some hiring remotely for the first time. With no commute in our schedules, many of us have gained time back in our days to pursue new interests. 

If you’ve been thinking about switching careers to a creative field, now might be your moment.

Of course, it can be hard to know where to start. Do you quit your current job to focus on your new creative pursuit? How do you get a job when you have zero experience in the field? Can you be an intern past your early 20s?

While the answer depends on you, your situation and the specific line of work you want to get into, it doesn’t need to be as complicated or intimidating as it seems. 

If you can, explore your new interest from the safety of your current job

With most creative fields, you can easily dabble before making the full jump. By reading online, trying tutorials, testing out tools and playing around, you can gauge whether this is a passing phase or lasting interest worth investing in. 

In doing so, you’ll have a safety net to fall back on as you determine which way to go next. You’ll buy yourself time to make a sound decision before making the leap.

Do you lose track of time late at night while creating design experiments or tinkering with 3D tools? Do you find yourself winding down by doodling on Procreate? That’s a good sign this is the right direction for you.

Of course, you may not have the luxury to do this outside a full-time job. But if you have a couple free hours in the week, it’s worth researching and experimenting in your field of interest while you still have a paying job. 

Don’t default to what’s trendy – see where your curiosity leads you

It’s tempting to choose a direction that seems the most lucrative or popular, but that doesn’t mean it’s the right decision for you.

Always start with curiosity. 

What are you always reading about online? What ideas and dream side projects do you find yourself returning to again and again? What do you do in your free time, not because you have to, but because you want to? It may not directly translate to your new creative career, but it can be a helpful place to start.

By following your interests and seeing where they lead you, you may uncover where your natural talent lies, and what you’d genuinely enjoy doing eight hours a day. And that’s worth a lot more than a job that only pays well.

Talk to those in the field you admire

Ask your friends in the industry about their experience. Reach out to professors or experts in the field. Learn about the industry you’re entering and make as many connections as possible. 

This can be as simple as a Twitter DM or a cold email to someone whose skills or career path you admire. Just be thoughtful of their time and get to the point – vague emails simply asking for “advice” or to “pick your brain” are a waste of both your time and theirs, and likely won’t get a reply.

Reach out to friends of friends and ask for their honest feedback on your beginner work, or their opinion on the courses or type of work you’re interested in doing. That 30-minute Zoom call could clear up any imposter syndrome you may be feeling, give you the boost of confidence or reassurance you need, or even lead to your next job down the road.

The beauty of the world today: Everything is online

Most of us don't have the option to just drop everything and enroll full-time in school. And you don't have to. You can learn on your own schedule, from wherever you are.

Open Campus at The New School is bringing their entire fall lineup online for the first time. Their courses are designed for the working professional, and with non-credit and credit options available, you can take just one course or pursue a certificate. 

If you're curious, here are some of their online courses starting October 12:

Graphic Design 1

Build your visual communication skills with an introduction to graphic design and experiment with creating powerful, effective imagery.

Introduction to Web and Mobile

Learn to create engaging websites and mobile apps using HTML, CSS and SEO principles.

Information Design for Infographics and Visual Storytelling

Bring ordinary numbers and complex data to life using research, typography, design hierarchy and more.

Storytelling for Time-Based Design

Be one of the first to pursue this innovative field of creating high-impact motion graphics. This course is part of the brand new Motion Design certificate at Open Campus.

AutoCAD 1

Start your interior and architectural design career by learning the industry’s go-to software: AutoCAD. This course is the first in the brand new Interior and Architectural Design Software certificate at Open Campus. 

Just start creating

In the creative industry, it always pays to continually learn new tools, best practices, processes and trends. But education, research and inspiration can also be a clever disguise for procrastination

If you’re always talking about this creative thing you want to do, reading books about it, looking into courses, doing online tutorials, asking friends and tweeting about it, when are you actually creating?

Just begin. Whether that means sitting down in front of your computer and finally signing up for a course, or creating your portfolio to start your freelance business on the side, there’s no better way to do what you want to do, than simply doing it.

September 7, 2020No Comments

DESK is 4: The best of the year, and what’s next

In honor of DESK’s fourth birthday, we’re sharing the top articles of the last year, and our goals for the next one.

Every year when the DESK birthday rolls around, we say “didn’t we just celebrate this a few months ago?” And while the sudden awareness of passed time will shake any human, there’s something great about it too. Because it means up to that point, you were blissfully unaware of it. You were focused on living in it – thinking and doing and being and working.

And this year, our little DESK team did a whole lot of that:

For the first time, we brought on guest writers who explored topics like therapy through design, the art of pricing freelance projects and the concept of designing your life. (If you’re curious about writing for DESK, read our submission guidelines here.)

We continued our partnerships for the second year, working with Adobe to write more useful 3D design tutorials, with Nike to introduce its digital design team, with Instacart to help designers get a job at this rapidly growing company. And we have more partnerships lined up, coming soon. (Want to be one of them? Read here.)

We did interviews with great minds and talents, including this one with Gerald Ghislain about the romance of perfume design, and this one about the beauty of imperfection with Italian sculptor, Massimiliano Pelletti, another featuring the dazzling, immersive art exhibits by teamLab, and several insightful interviews in our Design Around the World series.

We started writing a book about writing – specifically, UX copywriting. Read the series with excerpts from the book so far.

We’ve been working hard on making the DESK website and newsletter an even better experience for you, and for us behind the scenes. More on that soon.

And we published 222 articles. Here are a few of our readers’ favorites from the last year:

1. The Kawaiization of product design

The word "Kawaii” is a prominent part of Japanese culture. In English, it most closely translates to "cute.” In the last year or two, I’ve noticed Kawaii being used as a function in design. And it’s quite fascinating to unpack its benefits and potential repercussions.

Read the article →

 

2. A love letter to my website

This is a declaration of love for personal websites, written from years of thinking on the subject, reviewing thousands of portfolios, building websites for friends and bookmarking those of strangers. It’s a subject I’m so passionate about, I built my business on it. And recently, it’s become a matter of principle.

This one seemed to resonate with people, even more than we expected.

Read the article →

3. Skeuomorphism is making a comeback

Love it or hate it, Skeuomorphism has returned. Here we dive into the circular nature of trends and where they come from.

Read the article →

4. Your first 3D design tutorial with Adobe Dimension

We’re always happy to see a partner article in our top-read list, because it means the partners we’re choosing resonate with you. This beginner’s 3D design tutorial certainly did this year.

Read the article →

5. The best totally free web fonts & typefaces

Beautiful typefaces are usually an investment, but that doesn't mean you can't find affordable ones. Here we curated 12 lovely typefaces that are completely free to download and use for your projects.

Read the article →

6. Art deco will be the visual language of 2021

Every trend is an answer to the movement preceding it, and minimalism has just about had its run. We are emotional and sentimental beings; we survive on self-expression. We will forever return to what has colored society since humans first walked the earth: art. 

Read the article →

7. My new secret company

Last year, I announced a new venture: Joining Carbonmade.com as partner and co-CEO. We’ve come a long way since this announcement, but it’s still a nice introduction to Carbonmade if you’re curious about using it for your portfolio.

Read the article →

8. The books that changed your life

It started with a tweet asking for books that changed your life or had a massive impact on the way you think. It became a list of 76 books that were mentioned again and again. I’ve read several of these, added many to my queue and revisit this list anytime I need a new read.

Read the article →

9. How to write UX copy that makes your product a joy to use

As part of our UX copywriting series, we show how copywriting can make a product people love using. 

Read the article →

10. The future is here: Our 2020 design trend predictions

It’s interesting to look back on this largely satirical piece and see which “predictions” proved to be accurate. 

Read the article →

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What happens from here? As always, we want to make DESK even better. And that means writing better: More essays and articles that feel relevant and resonate with you. More thoughtful, honest insights on design that challenge you and us. More celebration of talent, more opening of doors that are typically closed, more curiosity. We want to focus on quality over quantity this year, instead of contributing more noise to your day. We want more guest writers that bring fresh perspectives to DESK, more partners whose products excite us, more interviews that open our minds and challenge our preconceived notions.

We want to do a whole lot more of the stuff that makes us look back a year from now and say “It’s already been another year?” Because, as they say, time flies when you’re having fun.

September 3, 2020No Comments

Want to be a guest writer on DESK?

We occasionally invite guest writers to share their perspectives on DESK. If you're interested in contributing an article, please read the following before reaching out to us.

Since its inception in 2016, DESK has sought to challenge and motivate the creative community.

We aim to make sense of design through everything else – art, fashion, culture, psychology, productivity philosophy, music, technology.

Finding outside perspectives and challenging our own way of thinking is inherent to DESK's philosophy. That's where you come in.

How to write for DESK

Before submitting your idea, please read this article detailing DESK's core values. We also ask that you read a few of our other essays and articles before submitting your idea, to ensure they're a good fit for our audience.

The DESK voice

If we invite you to write for DESK, we look forward to you sharing your own unique voice with our readers. However, we do expect it to align with our magazine's ovarching style. You can read about the DESK voice right here.

Interested in promoting your product?

If you'd like to share your product with the DESK audience or include backlinks to your own content, please read about our paid partnership offerings. We do not include backlinks outside of a considered paid partnership that fits our readers' interests.

How to submit your pitch

Please send an email to editorial@vanschneider.com with the article headline and a brief outline summary, including the main points and takeaways, for our editorial team to review.

September 3, 2020No Comments

The DESK voice

While several different people write for DESK in their own unique voices, we've established a distinct voice we filter all our writing through. It is:

Curious

We don’t know everything, and that’s exciting. We probe and pose questions rather than stating absolute truths. We challenge mainstream thinking without taking an authoritative or patronizing tone. We share our opinion confidently, understanding we may very well be wrong.

Candid

We state things as they are, without hyperbole or sensationalism. We are not afraid to get personal or address topics others might dance around. We don’t write for clicks or share disingenuous praise for payment.

Unassuming & accessible

English is a second language for many of our readers, which requires we sharpen our message and write in the clearest way possible. Plus, we just don’t like fluff and bullshit. We are plain-spoken. We avoid colloquialisms. We don’t try to impress with our intellect or use fancy synonyms when a more simple word would do.

While we want to inspire and write beautifully, we never do so at the expense of clarity.

Optimistic

We may get satirical but we are not cynical. We seek to challenge the creative community to think deeper and do better, not to shame them. We don’t take ourselves too seriously and look for any chance we get to make our readers smile. The language we use is motivating, hopeful and sincere.

Interested in writing an essay, article or tutorial for DESK? Start here.

September 2, 2020No Comments

The most valuable designer

You could have one or ten years of experience.

You could have dozens of awards and an abundance of praise from the press.

You could nail the brief on the first take, no revisions needed.

You could have a way with clients, the ability to sell or smooth over with charm and grace.

You could approach every project strategically, with the user in mind.

You could be a jack of all trades, willing to switch between design and video and 3D and coding and illustration and writing and photography.

But the most prized designers, and the most rare, are not defined by these traits.

The most valuable designers are those who do what they said they were going to do, when they said they were going to do it.

September 1, 2020No Comments

The glue to your product UX: Consistent microcopy

Good UX copy is consistent. That requires making decisions about your brand voice, perspective, style and strategy from the beginning, and sticking with it.

– If your voice is technical or academic, and you throw a joke into an error message at random, it may feel jarring and confusing for your users. If you have a personal, casual voice and then shift to dry, legal language without warning, they’re going to feel wary. Establishing your voice, and maintaining it throughout your microcopy, builds trust and strengthens your brand.

– Go to any product and try to change your preferences. Does the option say “My preferences” or “Your preferences” or just “Preferences?” Any of them work. All of them were a decision by the copywriter. And those decisions change the way your product feels, whether the user is aware of it or not. It also allows people to use your product intuitively and reduces cognitive load. If you start switching it up mid-sentence (ie. “Check your return status under My Account” ) or between different parts of your product experience (calling it “My Account” in one place, and “Profile” in another), it’s going to make things disjointed and confusing. Does your product speak in third or first person? Decide now based on your voice, and keep it that way.

– Use your terms and names consistently. If you call it “scheduling” in one part of your product and “booking” in another, you’ll create uncertainty, which puts that important conversion at risk. Don’t use a synonym in an attempt to be creative or avoid repeating yourself. Use the same word you use everywhere else.

– Remember to make your copy consistent with the platform your user’s on. If they’re using it on desktop, it’s “click.” If they’re on mobile, it’s “tap.”

– Do you write your headlines in sentence form? Do you capitalize the first letter of each word? Do you use subheads or no subheads? Our brains get accustomed to these patterns and while we might not notice your product’s formatting or style, we will notice when it changes abruptly. And it will slow us down.

– Do you phrase your calls-to-action as questions or commands? When you open Netflix, it asks “Who’s watching?” This is a decidedly personal and casual approach, where it could have just as easily read “Select account.” If someone’s walking through your UX accustomed to answering questions, you may through them off with a command in the next step. 

The best way to stay consistent: Creating a style guide for your team. Include your voice documentation and examples, whether you speak in first or third person, how you format the main elements (headlines, buttons, error message, etc.), and the universal terms for your main features. Educate your team – your engineers, your designers, your copywriters, anyone who may touch the copy – and review your product as a whole to ensure consistency.

While this may seem creatively limiting at first, it will actually improve your writing. "Switching things up" is not the same as creativity. Once we have clear, sharp sentences, we can more effectively have fun with them.

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This is an excerpt from our upcoming UX Writing book, exploring how we (as designers and copywriters) can write copy that helps people use and love our products. Sign up for book updates here.

Read more from the series:

Writing UX copy for buttons and links

Best practices for UX copywriting

How to write UX copy that makes your product a joy to use

August 31, 2020No Comments

Monthly portfolio inspiration of August 2020

Once a week, we select two portfolios created with Semplice to feature in our Best Of  Showcase.  Here we've collected our favorites from the month of August.

It's hard to believe we're reaching the end of summer, and soon enough, the end of the year. If updating your portfolio was on your list this year, there's no better time than now to do it. We hope this month's portfolio picks motivate you as they did us.

Browse the best portfolios of the month below to see fresh new work and get inspired for your own site. And if you've created your own portfolio with Semplice, be sure to submit it to our Showcase here. We might feature your site next.

 

Strictua

Ajeeb

Julius Hirtzberger

Bureau Oberhaeuser

Jordan Metcalf

Bastien Allard

Tom Robin

Camilo Hidalgo

 

To see more great design portfolios, visit the Semplice showcase. I'll be back next month with more of our monthly favorites!

Header image by Jordan Metcalf

August 26, 2020No Comments

Welcome to The Startup

This is it. After two weeks spent poring over your welcome packet, studying the internal Wikipedia, jotting down countless ideas and agonizing over your first-day outfit, you’re here. 

Your new startup job.

A motivational mural is the first to greet you when you step off the elevator, demanding you fail harder. House music pumps through unseen speakers. The office smells like disinfectant and cologne, an amalgamation of scents at once comforting and intimidating, like walking by a luxury retail store. 

A startlingly young-looking person asks you to sign in on the iPad mounted on the desk. In return, you receive your company branded hoodie. It’s official. 

As you make your way through the open office, you pass a heated ping pong match and meeting rooms titled “Beyonce,” and “The World.” You wonder what brave, disruptive ideas your new team is discussing behind the transparent glass. You can almost taste the energy, a flavor not unlike free KIND bars and organic coconut water.

You picture yourself breezing into that room, scribbling a product-defining idea on the chalkboard wall and punctuating it with a joke, bathing in admiration of your colleagues. Soon, you tell yourself.

And soon comes soon enough. After finding your desk and mentally reviewing the company’s core values (#1: Have fun!), you enter your first meeting with your design lead, along with an army of UX and design researchers. You’ve got a fresh grid notebook ready. Cold brew coffee (from the in-house tap) in one hand, pen in the other. 

The designers are discussing their weekends. The designers. You’re one of them now, part of the team. The room settles and the agile coach starts reading through the weekly update. KPIs are down. A lot rides on the upcoming release, which has been delayed for two quarters already. The team begins mapping out the upcoming sprint. You straighten in your seat, realizing this is your chance to make a first impression.

You raise your hand, immediately feeling like a school child. “I was thinking,” you venture, all eyes turning toward you, “we could probably increase conversions if we get their address on the second onboarding screen instead of the first.”

You’ve been using this product since its first release, and you’re brimming with ideas for improvement. In fact, you’ve wondered how the team has overlooked these low-hanging fruits, they’re so obvious to you. It’s why you decided to apply for this job in the first place; you could make a real difference here. 

“Yes,” replies the lead designer. “We’ve tried that already.”

You nod your head and scratch through the idea in your notebook. 

Undeterred, you jump in a few minutes later: “Have you ever considered combining these two steps? The second seems redundant.”

“Yes, we’ve considered it,” says one of the UX researchers with an almost imperceptible edge to her voice. 

You share two more ideas by the end of the meeting that are quickly shot down. 

It goes like this, meeting after meeting, day after day, your eager pitches (practiced late the night before on your roommate) meeting short, painful deaths the moment they enter the meeting room. 

“Nice idea, but it’d require too much time and budget.” 

“That’s not in our Q3 strategy, unfortunately.” 

“Good thinking, maybe we’ll consider it next year for V2.” 

“We don’t have the resources.”

“That’s too risky right now.”

“We’ve already tried that.”

Was it only three months ago you arrived to work an hour early every day, nearly saluting the word “hustle” painted in calligraphy on the lobby wall? 

Now you trudge into meetings with the others, five minutes late. You take your seat as far from the front as possible, where you can feign participation and avoid attention from the aggressive agile coaches. 

Was it so recently you attended every happy hour and Lunch & Learn, ready to connect with your team and soak up any wisdom they had to offer? Now you duck out early, eager to see any face but the ones you see every day for 10+ hours. 

Even the KIND bars now taste like desperation.

In this morning’s meeting, you take your usual spot and proceed to tune out, eyes zeroed into your laptop screen, until you hear an unfamiliar voice from the front of the meeting table. The hopeful tone is jarring in the solemn room.

“I was thinking, if we removed that step it would streamline the flow considerably,” says the person connected to the raised hand.

It’s the new designer.

“We’ve already tried that,” you say without lifting your eyes from your screen.

 

August 24, 2020No Comments

Design in Egypt 🇪🇬 featuring Nora Aly

Our latest interview in the Design Around the World series continues our journey through Egypt, this time with Cairo-based freelance designer, Nora Aly.

In our last interview with Engy Aly, we learned that the visual culture in Egypt is complex, layered and sometimes confusing. We talked about the quality of design education in Egypt, the jarring commerciality of advertising and more.

Here we continue the conversation with Nora Aly, discussing the visual extremes in Egyptian advertising, the jobs available to designers in Egypt and why the design scene in Egypt is dominated by women.

Hey Nora, tell us a little about yourself. How did you get into design and what kind of work do you do? 

I am a 31-year-old designer born and raised in Cairo. I studied graphic design in the faculty of Applied Sciences and Arts in the German University in Cairo. 

My story with design  – more specifically typography – started really early when I was around 6-7 years old, before even recognizing that this means anything. I was always interested in both Arabic and Latin calligraphy. I remember I used to really enjoy my calligraphy classes a lot. Whenever I had a pen and paper in hand, I used to write my name and some of my family and friends’ names in different experimental styles. I was also known in school by my good handwriting, especially in Arabic, a skill that I believe I inherited from my mother. I used to observe her when she wrote anything and try to imitate her handwriting. 

In high school, I worked on my first Arabic lettering as a tattoo design for a close friend of mine, and she inked it on her leg. However, I was not aware at all that these skills could be developed further and turn out to be something more than a hobby. All I knew at the time was that I am generally interested in art and crafts, and it felt right back then to join a faculty related to that interest. It was more like a gut feeling decision rather than a conscious one, which should be a constant reminder to always follow this invisible voice 🙂

Fast forward five years, I graduated and joined Kairo, one of the rising agencies in Cairo that focuses on advertising and branding. I worked there for five years, in which I learned a lot and gained a lot of experience professionally and personally. Three years ago, I left Kairo to explore a new flexible, independent lifestyle. I am currently working as a freelancer on various commercial and culture-related projects. I get a lot of branding projects, but I try as much as possible to select the ones that are dealing more with Arabic typography/lettering which, I believe, is my main focus and it is also what I enjoy the most. 

In parallel to the freelance work, I am working on my Master’s project which investigates the dying Nubian language (a language only spoken by a special ethnic group located in southern Egypt). This language is expected to die within 50-100 years because of many accumulative social and political occurrences. The language is not recognized by the country and the Nubian mothers stopped passing the language to their children, favoring the Arabic language instead due to the constant pressures that they face as an indigenous ethnic group in a dominating Arabic speaking society. In this project, I am working on a design solution that attempts to help the mothers to reclaim the value of their vernacular, in order to pass down the language to the younger generations and preserve one of the oldest languages in Africa.

Cairo is diverse and multi-layered, with many groups, politics and sub-cultures intersecting. Have you found a community of likeminded creatives there, or platforms and events where you can connect with other designers? 

Being surrounded in university by creatives from different backgrounds, but sharing more or less the same interests and passion, helped in creating a great community that kept on getting bigger by the time. It doesn’t stop here – social media is also playing an important role in widening this network now. It helps to get exposed to a lot of younger, up-and-coming designers, and stay in touch with the fellow creatives that I already knew.

As for the platforms and events in Egypt, I believe we have been seeing a significant rise during the past couple of years. I try to attend these events as much as I can to keep myself updated and connected, especially after quitting the agency life. I feel the need more now than before to meet people and exchange knowledge since I spend most of my time working alone.

In our conversation with Engy, she mentioned the diversity of Egypt's visual culture is shrinking as commercial advertisements take over and speak in a jarring, elitist visual language. How do you see it? How would you describe the current design coming from Cairo?

We have a very diverse, strange, multi-layered visual culture that says a lot about Cairo and its people.

If you are walking in Cairo’s streets, you’ll be overwhelmed with the amount of visuals that you’ll encounter from the excessive amount of billboards, the colorful and overly designed pick-up trucks, to the hand-painted advertisements and the old small shops’ nostalgic signages. 

I would like to make a small comparison that can give you a glimpse of the extremes we have in Egypt. If you look at the design of the majority of commercials on billboards, for example, and compare it to the hand-painted advertisements that are widely spread in less privileged neighborhoods, you can clearly see how the billboard designs are too western in how they communicate, mostly in English, and seek a certain impression that is not really influenced by Egypt or its culture whatsoever. 

While the hand-painted on walls advertisements are completely the opposite because they communicate using only beautifully made Arabic lettering, trying to be striking with very vivid colors to catch people’s attention in the streets.

In between those two extremes, there are designers that always try to produce work that is influenced by Cairo and its visual culture and heritage. Most of the culture-related projects give room for this to come to life.

If you are interested to know more about Egypt’s visual culture, I recommend that you check the following books:

“Khatt” by Noha Zayed and Basma Hamdy and published by SAQI Books.

“Absolute Egypt” by Raghda Moataz and published by Khatt books.

I’ve read that the arts and entertainment industries don’t get much recognition in Egypt, that these aren’t considered as important as other jobs. Do you see this to be true for designers?

Yes, I remember when I was an undergrad, students of other faculties like engineering and pharmacy used to make fun of what we do as designers and belittle our studies. However, I see this is changing with time. People are more aware now with design and its value, especially with the growing scene of entrepreneurship in Egypt. 

Of course, there are still people who don't understand the role of design and underestimate the designer's efforts. I meet some of them as clients, but I believe it is our responsibility to explain to them how design and visual communication can affect their businesses.

Engy described education in Egypt as somewhat limited, although slowly changing. It sounds like you had a positive experience studying at the German University in Cairo. How would you describe the quality of design education in Egypt? 

Before the German University introduced the faculty of Applied Sciences and Arts in 2006, as well as the graphic design department in AUC in 2011, design education was very limited in Egypt. Now, it is growing and getting more attention. However, this does not eliminate the amount of designers who were completely self-taught as well, thanks to the internet.

I know many international companies are headquartered in Cairo. What kind of jobs are available for designers within Egypt right now? 

Jobs for designers, in my opinion, are limited to advertising agencies. Yes, we do have some international companies headquartered in Cairo but the type of work is too commercial, to the extent that it is enough to kill any creative’s soul. 

It is very difficult to find a designer who is satisfied with the quality of work that they produce in an advertising agency, especially in the big/international ones. I believe that the kind of clients that afford to pay big agencies always tend to be on the safe side when it comes to their visual appearance, so the work produced becomes very boring and not challenging enough. On the other hand, startups and small/cultural businesses that can’t afford the fees of a big agency are the ones who most likely are ready to take more risks and experiment with their aesthetics, so they most likely go to freelancers or small studios.

I see that Cairo has a gap in the varieties of jobs that should be available for graphic designers. Currently, the available jobs are in agencies or teaching whether in AUC or GUC.

"A lot of the women designers I know have the best work ethic and drive, and that's why I think the scene here has so many powerful women."

Thanks to the internet (and now with the pandemic on top), many designers are working for clients overseas remotely. How is it for you? Do you work mostly with local or overseas clients, or is it a mix?

I work mostly with local clients but I had the chance to work with some overseas. I worked on several projects in Saudi Arabia, London and New York.

What impact does your social media presence have on getting new clients and self-promotion in general? What works best for you?

I used to get my clients through word of mouth mostly but within the past few years, social media started to have a great impact as well. Behance works best for me. I got a lot of clients through Behance, although I am not really good with updating my portfolio. I unfortunately get dragged with the daily routine and I forget to post about my work, but definitely the more present I am, the more clients I get, and this applies on Instagram too.

What does good design mean to you, and how do you see it impacting your country’s society as a whole?  For example, I know women’s rights are a big challenge in Cairo/Egypt (like most places in the world). Does design have a place in that conversation?

There is still a lot of “gender-shaming” in choosing specific professions for all genders. Some men might not gravitate to art and design due to wrong gender-conforming ideologies, making it a little more dominated by women here. A lot of the women designers I know have the best work ethic and drive, and that's why I think the scene here has so many powerful women. However, I think that the Egyptian design field (not the advertising field, to be clear) is pretty dominated by whoever works the hardest and creates with passion, regardless of gender.

Design is very subjective if you are going to judge it visually. To objectively judge a good design, in my opinion, it has to serve its purpose conceptually and aesthetically. Sometimes, we fall into the trap of making something that looks interesting visually, but is not necessarily relevant. This defies the whole purpose.

I am personally still exploring if design can have a real impact on a society through my Master’s project. Once I am done I’ll make up my mind regarding this point 🙂 However, I have always had high hopes in which design can make wonders, but I have to try it myself to see whether it is a myth or it can turn out to be true.

Sustainable design is increasingly a conversation in the design community. I know Cairo struggles with air and water pollution, due to the high density of people. Is environmentally conscious design an interest for designers in Cairo right now? 

Yes, it is. I was asked by two clients before while working on packaging briefs to come up with designs that are applicable to environmental friendly materials. It is more happening in product and fashion design though. We have a lot of young Egyptian brands like “Upfuse,” “Reform Studio” and Kojakm, who is a fashion designer who created a dress made out of recycled plastic bags.

In your opinion, what are 5-10 design studios from Cairo/Egypt that everyone should know?

Obviously I can’t skip Engy Aly. She was my first TA in college and my favorite too.

Sarah Mossallam who I used to work with a lot in Kairo, and we collaborated more than once after we both left the agency. She is a great illustrator too.

Ahmad Hammoud who I collaborated with as well on many projects. He is one of my favorite designers.

Christine Adel who designs children's games and owns a brand called “Zagazoo”

Moe el Hosseiny

Maram El Refaei

Omar Mobarak

Archief Cairo

Cairopolitan

Kief Type Foundry

HeheType

__

Follow Nora's work on Behance and Instagram. And if you're just now jumping into our Design Around the World series, catch up on our interviews with studios and designers from India, Jordan, Thailand, Serbia, Armenia and many more.

August 21, 2020No Comments

In search of something slightly better

Our life is an endless feed of opportunities. In search of them, we swipe by them.

We swipe right to find love. We match, and keep swiping. Something slightly better might be just another swipe away.

We save articles and books for later. We never come back to them. A new headline catches our attention first.

We continue swiping, in search of something new and fresh. Something to entertain and surprise us. Only we're not sure what, because as soon as we get it, we realize that wasn't it. There must be something better around the corner, just one more swipe away.

And because there is always more at our fingertips, we keep swiping.

August 20, 2020No Comments

How to design a case study page (tutorial)

As creative people, we know that presentation means everything. Yet when it comes to presenting our own work, we tend to sell ourselves short.

Case studies are our chance to put our work in its best light. But too often, we drop a half a dozen images on the page and call it done. So while we've talked a lot about writing portfolio case studies, now we're diving into how to present the work visually.

For this tutorial, we'll be using Semplice to lay out a visual project case study and show just how easy it is to present our work – rather than leaving our visitors to form their own conclusions.

Get inspired

First, it's helpful to view case studies of other designers you admire to see how they explain their projects. Observe how they visually walk you through their project story, what elements or devices they use, how their projects flow, what makes you want to keep reading, where you find yourself losing interest.

You'll ultimately do things your own way, of course, but seeing what works and what doesn't will guide that, and motivate you. Here are a few case studies we've enjoyed lately from our Semplice Showcase, for example (click image to view case study):

 

What we'll be making

Now let's start creating our case study page. I'll be making mine using my own work, for a fictional design studio.

I've made a demo using Semplice, our own portfolio tool. Semplice is centered around creating custom case studies for your unique projects, so you can design everything from your nav to your footer to complement each unique project.

VIEW THE LIVE DEMO

The case study example page we will be recreating

Getting started

To begin, let's head on over to the Projects area to create our first project. Projects in Semplice serve as your case studies. They automatically connect with the Portfolio Grid module, so you can display them on your homepage or Work page.

Creating the Cover

Now that we've set up our Project, let's add a Cover section. In Semplice, Cover sections are like hero sections, and are typically used with large headlines or full-width imagery for maximum visual impact.

For our purposes, we will use a nice, large image to introduce the page and set the stage. Go to the Cover tab from up top, and from the pop-up editor select "Cover (full-width)" from the dropdown.

Creating the introduction section

This section will serve to introduce the project and include necessary details like year of completion and credits.

First, let's add a text module with some larger text to serve as the project overview. Just add a simple sentence or two to briefly summarize the project. We will go in further detail below.

Next, let's add some of the smaller details such as credits. You can place Text modules stacked in rows to create both the subheadings and text lists for these areas. Once we have our text styled the way we want it, we can duplicate the column to quickly recreate our layout. If needed, we can also use spacer columns to offset the columns and create white space.

Now, below our overview, we'll go more in-depth about the project and explain our involvement. A simple text module and image module side-by-side will do the trick. If you need tips for writing the copy in your case study, read this article.

Adding detail images

Next, let's create a section where we can add images that support our case study. Think of your case study like a spread in a magazine, and put images alongside relevant copy, to make the reading experience highly visual and easy to scan.

For this section, I'll make some of the images "bleed" to the edge of the screen. This will add break up the visual flow of the page nicely. To do this, go to the section options and set the gutters to "off."

Setting our section to be full-width with no gutters.

I will also use spacer columns once again to offset the image columns and create some interesting variations in the layout.

Adding a spacer column to create white space

I've also placed text modules beneath each image for a caption, so we can give context to each image and allow those who want to scan (let's be honest, most readers) to understand our project story at a glance.

Adding a full-width image section

Now we'll add some full-width images to break up our page between paragraphs. For our full-width image section, simply place an image module on the page. In the image options, set the image size to "grid width" and in the section options, set the width to "full-width" with gutters removed.

Before/After comparison

Now for the fun part. To visually explain our process and help readers appreciate the work that went into our project, we'll use the Before/After module to display our final result. In this case, we will show a behind-the-scenes view of our prototype in the 3D rendering program, sliding to reveal the final outcome. You can do the same with a UX prototype next to your final screen design, for example.

Adding image galleries

If you have lots of images for your project, or a collection of similar images, you can also add image galleries to your page.

Let's place some offset galleries onto the page. We will also use this section to talk about the final results of our project and how it was successful.

Wrapping up

To wrap up the case study, we'll give a little shoutout to our team.

We'll also make sure the Next/Previous feature is enabled. This is a feature in Semplice that allows viewers to quickly jump between projects at the bottom of a case study to continue browsing.

Thank you

We created everything here with the Studio edition of Semplice, which gives you all the latest Semplice features. No matter what tool you use to create your case study, we hope this tutorial inspired you to create thoughtful, unique case studies to tell your project stories. We can't wait to see what you make!

August 19, 2020No Comments

Honoring the life and work of book cover designer, Adalis Martinez

If you read modern fiction, you’ve probably seen one of Adalis Martinez’s book cover designs, or have one your shelf.

Martinez designed covers for bestselling books like Michael Chabon’s “Moonglow” and Lauren Groff’s “Fates and Furies,” among many others. 

While planning an interview with Martinez, we were saddened to learn she recently passed away. Those who knew her describe her as adventurous, generous and hardworking. Even to those of us who didn't know her personally, it's clear she loved what she did.

As readers, we form emotional connections to covers. They can draw us to a book we wouldn’t otherwise read, bring a story to life in a single image and become imprinted on our minds. 

As designers, creating a cover is a dream opportunity. A chance to design something that is printed, held in the hands of countless others, interwoven through pop culture, displayed proudly on a bookshelf or table, wrapped lovingly as a gift. Something that lasts. 

And Adalis Martinez's work will.

August 17, 2020No Comments

UX designers automated by AI? When will it happen?

A few weeks ago, I posted a tweet, based on another tweet. It wasn't *that* controversial, but enough to get the attention of a couple UX designers (frankly, UX designers are easy to bait). Think of this as an extension of my tweet.

In the tweet I quoted, you can see a person building a little tool based on the GPT-3 AI model (never heard of GPT-3? Start here), which then proceeds to automatically "design" an Instagram looking-app based on his "natural language" description.

Let's not fool ourselves. It's a quick experiment. A proof of concept, nothing more. This plugin alone could hardly replace anything or anyone. But we have to look a bit further than that. AI is still progressing, but it is happening fast enough for us to ask some serious questions.

A big one being: Can AI replace the work of a UX designer?

When I talk to other UX designers about the subject (I'm one myself, just not so religiously attached to the title) I'm met with unwavering confidence that nobody will ever replace their profession.

But I wouldn't be so sure about it. If I can guess, about 80% of what UX designers do today will be automated in the coming 5-10 years. Some designers will be able to adapt just fine, and some will struggle. It's the same thing in most industries, whether we like it or not. We chose the race against technology.

Let’s look at some of the arguments posed in these conversations:

"UX designers can't be automated because the work is creative by nature, and only humans can do it."

Let's be honest here for a second. Yes, this is true for *some* design, but the majority of work that is put out these days is mediocre at best. And I'm not trying to be negative here. Mediocre is what's being asked for.

For example: The majority of apps you see these days work pretty much like any other app. They're all based on Apple's or Google's "Human Interface Guidelines.” They all follow the same best practice UX flows. They all follow the same UI patterns and UX paradigms.

Both UX and UI designers have been working hard to standardize not only patterns and systems, but also libraries and guidelines. In a way, we've been automating ourselves out of our jobs for the last couple years already. It's why you can take a 3-month online course and become a certified UX designer. There's barely any other profession *that* easy to enter.

Giving all these pieces to an AI and letting it figure out the rest seems to be a trivial exercise. There's no question about it.

Of course, true creativity for an AI might be some time away. But true creativity isn't really what's needed for the *majority* of apps or websites these days, at least by the look of it. Most look and work the same anyway. Who are we kidding?

"Yes, but UX design is so much more. It's about user research, empathy and data – only humans can analyze it in a meaningful or effective way."

This is the argument I find the most entertaining because, if there is *anything* that can beat humans with research, pattern recognition and analyzing data, then it is most definitely a machine.

In fact, I'd even argue that an AI can know *a lot* more about human nature than we know about ourselves. If you think about it, we’ve taken this for granted since the advent of computers. Most of our design decisions these days are data-driven. They're rarely "human" driven (although I am still very much a believer in that). But the tech industry has made it a habit to drive every single decision on hard data.

If the data says to do it this way, we do it this way. I would even argue, at most large companies, UX designers do nothing else but designing A/B tests. Throw them against the machine, let the machine decide, and then implement it. UX designers have become glorified servants of the data.

But you know who could design even more A/B tests, and do so even faster and more efficiently? Artificial Intelligence.

"OK Tobias, why are you trying to ruin UX designers?"

I'm not. Nor am I trying to ruin part of my own profession. But I have to look beyond the pretense and be honest with myself. I like to ask questions and see where the answers lead me.

We still don't know exactly what tools we will build to leverage AI in a way that can become "dangerous" for us. Right now, AI is just a thing. It's a playground that can do a lot of things, but nothing really well. But give it five to 10 years and things will look quite different.

I don't expect to have the same job I have now in five years. Things will change, most likely in a direction I least expected. Asking myself uncomfortable questions prepares me to some degree. I expect nothing and everything. I do expect uncertainty.

But what I ask myself is: 

Are we doing ourselves a disservice by settling for mediocre design, just because it seems to "work better?"

Do we really benefit by automating our craft with systems, best practices and guidelines?

If all of our work is only focused on "improving the metrics,” then how could we possibly compete with an AI?

I don't know, but we will find out.

P.S. On a slightly different note, here's a little snippet from a chat I had with the GPT-3 AI. I found it interesting and quite beautiful, in a way. It even made a typo, cute.

August 13, 2020No Comments

The age-old truth social media is missing

Social media has always taught us the more followers we have, the better. The size of our audience defines our perceived importance.

Our platforms and their algorithms have trained us, even cornered us, into this way of thinking. Our measure of success is our continual growth. An unfollow means failure.

And so we've forgotten what is timelessly true: That quality can be more valuable than quantity.

You measure the health of an email list not by how many people are subscribed, but by how many of those people actually open your emails, read them and click through. And social media is no different.

I'd rather have 1,000 engaged followers than 10,000 who ignore, mute or scroll past my writing, even though they're still technically "following" me. That little number at the top of my profile means nothing if my posts fall on deaf ears.

Brands are starting to figure this out, experimenting with "micro-influencers" who have a higher impact on marketing partnerships and sponsored content than those with 3x their followers.

Meanwhile, we individually agonize over our ratio of following to followers, and give our attention to those with a large audience who have nothing meaningful to say to us.

Picture 500 people in a room. It's a laughably small number on social media. But a live audience of 500? It'd be pretty cramped in that room. And what if those 500 people were people who believed in what you do and say, who cared enough to share it with others, who proudly made their association with you known? What if those 500 people had a small but engaged audience of their own, who felt the same way about them as they do about you?

Give just a few people something to believe in, write something that resonates with them, activate them, and they'll be more powerful than ten times that many.

August 11, 2020No Comments

You could plan your life, or you could design it

The human-centered design process — from empathy and research to rapid prototyping, iteration and so forth — often helps us to bring meaning, joy and discovery into other people's worlds. But what if this same design mindset could be used to design ourselves and our lives? 

What if we perceived our own abilities, lives, and careers as opportunities for discovery, rapid prototyping and iteration? In other words, what happens when we are the product?

This phenomenon originated at the Stanford d.school, where students across majors scramble each year to enroll in a course called Designing Your Life. The curriculum’s core frameworks have now been disseminated through a best-selling book and bundle of online resources to equip students, mid-career professionals and elders alike with the tools to reimagine their lives through a design lens. 

Take a moment to try one of the Designing Your Life exercises right now, using this worksheet

The idea is this: Instead of envisioning your life as a linear route from Point A to Point B, imagine three disparate paths forward, each addressing a unique set of questions you might have about your future life and career. Title each path like a story, and rank your resources, enthusiasm, confidence and coherence in moving forward. You might be surprised by the unique directions you explore when you give yourself permission to dream a little longer.

This exercise is only scratching the surface. Like other “self-help” approaches, designing your life is a process that requires deep self-reflection, personal awareness, time and courage. And like other design processes, it’s one that involves frequent iteration.

When the methodologies first sunk in for me during my freshman year at Stanford, I couldn’t help but think, “I wish I had learned this back in middle school.”

Growing up in the heart of Silicon Valley, I attended a competitive all-girls school for seven years that championed the motto, “Women Learning, Women Leading.” Being surrounded by high-achieving peers plus teachers with high expectations turned out to be a double-edged sword. My 13-year-old self was ambitious, inspired and motivated… to be perfect.

"I remember once literally wrapping my report card into a gift box to give my parents for Christmas, hearing repeatedly that this was all they wanted."

I was trained to see the world as right and wrong, yes and no, A+ and A-. I would hand-write my essays first in pencil and then over in pen, dutifully erasing the pencil marks from underneath to make my homework as neat as possible. I would raise my hand in class to repeat exactly what the textbook said. I once literally wrapped my report card into a gift box to give my parents for Christmas, hearing repeatedly that this was all they wanted.

Most of all, I remember spending hours with my back curled over a spiral-bound notebook, my right hand vigorously racing across the pages. Through adolescence, I would fill dozens of journals with written reflections on my feelings, relationships and “plans for the future.”

Katie and her Girl Possible team on the road.

Planning our lives is a perfectionist’s dream but the antithesis of designing our lives. Unlike planning events, meetings or meals —which are quite useful exercises with direct, tangible benefits — planning our lives can be futile at best and destructive at worst. The process confines our dreams to the little we know, locking doors before we consider they might exist in the first place.

What color, texture and magic the world opens up to us when we stop having a plan and start exercising a mindset for constantly learning, pivoting and immersing in every moment.

Here are two more exercises you might explore to further apply a design mindset to your life:

1. Lean into your discomfort zone.

a. Draw three concentric circles on a piece of paper, like a target. The innermost circle is your comfort zone. As you move farther from the bullseye, you get farther outside your comfort zone. Everything outside the circle or by the edges of the paper are activities you need the most courage to do.

b. Starting from the center and extending to the outermost ring, write down five to 10 activities in each area that you want to do but might need a little extra nudge to make happen.

c. Finally, compare your comfort zone map with a partner. Did you flag skydiving as “level-three scary,” only to find that it’s squarely within your partner’s innermost comfort zone? Maybe they could show you the ropes. See if there are also activities where the opposite is true and your partner can lean on you in return.

2. Challenge your assumptions and hypotheses.

a. As with any design project, start with what (you think) you know. What are your assumptions about the type of work or environment that makes you feel happy, fulfilled or grounded? What are your hypotheses about the type of industry, role, or company where you belong?

b. Design a low-risk experiment where you can test these assumptions. Are you curious about what it would be like to work at an early-stage startup? Set up a few “lunch and learns” (similar to design research interviews) with people employed at seed-stage companies you admire. Do you fear that you might hate working in sales but recognize a small part of you that wonders, “What if?” Draw analogous inspiration by making calls to boost voter registration or to support a political candidate. Catalog the things you hear, learn and feel along the way.

c. Synthesize your learnings and insights, and keep going.

When I first learned this way of thinking, learning and doing, it flipped my worldview and set me free. I was determined to help bring this mindset to more people — especially youth who might be struggling with the same pressures that had held me back when I was their age.

A few colleagues and I co-founded Girl Possible, a 501(c)3 nonprofit geared towards empowering middle-school girls to become leaders of social change through design thinking. We raised $35,000 on Kickstarter to spend 14 weeks driving across the US in an RV, teaching design thinking and leadership workshops to 1,500 girls across 32 states. Since then, we’ve evolved our curriculum into a series of teaching toolkits, a summer program and more.

Girl Possible helps middle school girls uncover their individual leadership abilities, think critically, articulate their ideas and connect with others to tackle real issues in their communities. Photo credit: Austin Meyer

In our workshops, we address the million-dollar question that every student has been asked: “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

A writer? Doctor? Lawyer? Musician? This question suggests that at some point, we suddenly “grow up” and become a single entity that already exists in the world and has a name. It assumes our journey to be finite, our path linear, and our destiny meant to be predetermined.

At Girl Possible, we flip this question and ask girls instead, “What kind of change do you want to create in the world, and how can you take the first step towards achieving that dream today?” In other words, we ask girls to stop planning their lives and start designing them.

Katie leading a Girl Possible camp session. Photo credit: Austin Meyer

Most recently, I co-founded Period Futures to help spark curiosity and conversation on the future of periods. Inspired by the same design mindset and question of “What if?”, our team regularly releases design provocations intended to push the boundaries on what’s possible, equitable and culturally-acceptable in menstrual health.

For example, what if “leak-free” apparel were no longer the exception, but the norm? Imagine a world where “100% period-friendly” was a universal standard or formal certification for clothing manufacturing that you could expect to see clearly marked on the tags of underwear, shorts, skirts, pants, dresses and suits across major brands and suppliers.

Or, what if middle schools were visited by a traveling “maker-space on wheels” where students could build their own custom period product? Envision 11- and 12-year-olds gaining hands-on learning experiences on the menstrual cycle as they 3D-print their own menstrual cup or disc, or sew their own washable pad.

Katie also co-founded Period Futures, which sparks curiosity and conversation around the future of periods. Illustration by Roshi Rouzbehani

If you had asked me a year ago, I would have categorized “talking about periods” squarely within my discomfort zone—let alone launching an organization focused on igniting more conversations in this space. Now, it’s difficult for me to imagine a more fascinating or meaningful sector to explore. Designing around the future of periods has unlocked new ideas for me around what my own future might hold, too.

We are all living, breathing prototypes, constantly growing, evolving and transforming in beautiful ways. Forget perfect plans, narrow paths, and what we should say when we raise our hand and voice. Through designing our lives, we can unlock futures we might have never thought possible.

August 11, 2020No Comments

Can a utility brand be an emotional brand?

An emotional tech product is a lifestyle product. It doesn’t necessarily solve a problem. It’s there for entertainment. It’s not a product that people need, it’s a product they choose. Think Netflix, TikTok or Instagram.

A utility product is a service. It exists simply to fill a need, improve a process or connect one thing to another. It’s meant to be used, not necessarily enjoyed. You want to be in and out, quickly. Examples: Google Docs, your banking app, your weather app.

More and more lately, the lines between the two are blurring. Utility apps are marketing themselves the way emotional apps do. They are appealing to our personal values and emotions rather than simply offering solutions to a problem. They are attempting to build a community around their product. They promise their product is more than just the service they provide. It’s a lifestyle.

Take the 2017 Dropbox redesign, for example.

The new Dropbox logo was released with lines like “Making the everyday more extra­or­dinary” and “unlocking creativity.” Vibrant ads started popping up around Brooklyn, joining the likes of whiskey and Adidas billboards, with headlines like “the world needs your dreamy energy.” 

The redesign was a departure from the tech company look; it was aesthetically pleasing. It felt fresh and modern, which is essential as times and styles change. But while Dropbox has expanded into creation tools like “Paper,” I still consider it a utility product. At the end of the day, most of us simply use Dropbox to store and organize files. I don’t *love* Dropbox, but I use it. And that’s okay. We don’t want it or need it to be more than that. 

Or consider the Mailchimp redesign from 2018. While many creative folks use Mailchimp, it is ultimately a tool for creating emails and marketing campaigns. It’s a means to an end, not the end itself. It’s the medium, not the message. Yet the new brand uses whimsical illustrations and “artful scenes” to present its offering. Again, we see a utility product marketing itself as an emotional product.

Of course, it makes sense that a brand would play on emotions to sell their product. It’s not sneaky or misleading. A brand wants to connect with people, and people are emotional beings. 

When you set out to buy a hammer, you’re not necessarily looking for a community, or a hammer “that’s more than a hammer.” You just need to nail something, and this is the tool to do it. You would likely choose the first solid-looking, affordable hammer you set eyes on.

But what if you learned that your grandfather swore by a specific hammer that hangs in his toolshed to this day? Or that this hammer has been used for over a century by the proud working class? What if I said this specific hammer enables creativity? That it’s the centerpiece of a sculptor’s or artist’s profession? I could go so far as to say this hammer allows art and creativity to exist. So do email clients and online file storage. 

But let’s look at the other side. Two companies that are non-emotional, utility tech products and own it: Slack and Basecamp. These companies also use playful imagery, but their message is straightforward. Slack is where work happens. Basecamp solves the fundamental problems of growing businesses. Both of these brands offer a tool, and that tool does their job well. That’s it.

Maybe it’s enough for a product to be functional. 

Last year or so, Slack redesigned its logo. Naturally, the design community was is an uproar. They Tweeted about the logo and Slacked the Slack logo to each other on Slack asking for everyone’s opinion and the only one I had was: Why does it matter? 

People use Slack because it’s faster and easier. I like the logo and I generally enjoy the way Slack works, but I don’t love it like I love my favorite sweater. If something comes along that’s better, I will use that. It’s a utility. Nothing more, nothing less.

Slack is not Nike. The app’s design is pleasing and modern, but I don’t choose Slack because it inspires me or aligns with my values. And that’s OK. I understand that some people feel differently or have a more emotional connection to Slack, but I’d guess that most use Slack because their company uses it, and because it just works. 

Yes, brands exist that offer both emotion and utility. Apple is an obvious example. Apple was at the forefront of this marketing approach, and they’ve always done it well. Apple products were never just computers or smartphones, they were tools that enable creativity. Before Apple entered the mainstream, it focused heavily on the creative class. Everyone knew that if they want to be taken seriously as a designer or filmmaker, they better use an Apple product. Apple computers are a tool that became a lifestyle, even a cult. So it is possible for a product to successfully do both.

Maybe it’s companies like Apple that have inspired this wave of emotional marketing for utility products. Or maybe, perhaps through social media, we as consumers are signaling that this is what we want from a product. Or maybe the agencies for these brands are pushing trendy strategies like content marketing as a one-size-fits-all marketing plan. 

The approach can clearly work. But as more and more brands get on board, I start to question it. Does every utility brand need to market themselves as a lifestyle brand to succeed now? Or is it enough to simply provide a great product that solves a problem? Utility brands can have personality, but is it accurate to market a time-tracking app or note-taking tool like a Coca Cola commercial? Do I now need to politically align with my note-taking app? Does my hammer need to encourage freedom and creativity? Or can it just be a hammer? 

In this quest to connect with consumers on an emotional level, are we sacrificing clarity and honesty? Will it all start to feel contrived, confusing and trite?

Perhaps tech companies need to be more realistic about who they are as a brand and what they actually offer to consumers. Maybe, as utility brands, they should be more focused on delivering value through functionality, utility, privacy and discretion, rather than promoting lifestyle values. 

Maybe a good tool doesn’t need to inspire. Maybe a tool that works well, speaks for itself.

August 10, 2020No Comments

How to make a great work page for your portfolio: A Semplice tutorial

Your Work page (often your homepage), is your first impression. It tells the story of your work when you're not there to do it. And with Semplice, there are many ways to tell that story.

From our Advanced Portfolio Grids to the traditional Portfolio Grid to manually building your page, Semplice allows you to create essentially anything you design, without templates.

Here are just a few recent examples we've enjoyed lately from the Semplice Showcase:

Yu Rong

Instead of using your standard thumbnail format, Yu opts to use mockups and devices overlaid on top of large, marquee typography. It makes for a fun scrolling experience as you scroll and immediately shows how Yu Rong thinks outside-the-box.

Ayaka Ito

Ayaka uses the Advanced Portfolio Grid feature (comes with Semplice Studio) to showcase her work. She makes every element her own, using beautiful type, custom hover effects and colors that complement each thumbnail.

Studio MPLS

Studio MPLS uses a more traditional approach to the portfolio grid, but makes heavy use of the thumbnail hover effect. This effect gives you a visual preview of each project on hover, adding to the visual excitement and encouraging a click.

Leandro Assis

Like Yu Rong's site, Leandro makes use of a fixed background image with overlaid portfolio grid items. The design highlights Leandro's personality and creates a joyful scrolling experience.

Tracy Doyle

For her portfolio, Tracy used a minimalist approach. Instead of relying on visuals, she uses a simple text grid that puts emphasis on the high-profile clients she's worked with.

 

What we'll be creating

For this tutorial, I'll show you how you can quickly and easily create a compelling work page using Semplice. We'll explore a variety of four different approaches to the work page design, giving you just a sample of different options and layouts you can use to show off your work.

I've created fake studio called PLY® Studio featuring some of my own personal work. This is what we will use to build out our Work page.

We will use a fake studio to create our portfolio site. Work samples by Jon Vio.

Getting started

First, we need to create some projects that will appear on our Work page. If you're just starting out with Semplice, here is a help guide for creating your first project.

With our projects created, let's open up a fresh page in Semplice. Name the page "Work" or something similar.

1. The standard grid

The standard grid of thumbnails, what we call the Portfolio Grid in Semplice, is a tried and true way to show off your work in a clean and simple way:

VIEW THE LIVE DEMO

The Portfolio Grid consists of a masonry-style, 12-column grid comprised of your project thumbnails. Each project thumbnail can be given a custom column width. There are a variety of options to customize your Portfolio Grid width, including adding a thumbnail hover effect, live project filtering, and more.

Let's go ahead and place the Portfolio Grid on our page:

You'll notice right away the Portfolio Grid is populated with our projects. If you don't see your projects right away, make sure they are PUBLISHED and not set to DRAFT.

Let's now adjust our project thumbnail widths to evenly space out our thumbnails and create a nicely aligned grid. I've set my first project to 12 columns, which will give us a full-width effect. To get the two-column format, we'll set the next two projects to have column widths of 6. For the smaller images, we can set these to display three rows across by setting each column width to 4.

PRO TIP: You can quickly adjust individual project settings by hovering over the thumbnail from the Portfolio Grid and clicking the edit settings icon.

Let's also display our project title and category underneath each project thumbnail. To do this, set "Title & Type Visibility" to show both the project title and category.

2. Text Grid

Another interesting way to display your work is in a Text Grid. The Text Grid is a layout preset included with the Advanced Portfolio Grid as part of Semplice Studio edition. To learn more about the Advanced Portfolio Grid, read this guide.

VIEW THE LIVE DEMO

To create our Text Grid, we'll drag & drop an Advanced Portfolio Grid (APG) module onto our page. You then have the option to choose which pages or projects you want included in your APG grid, so let's go ahead and add them.

After adding our projects, go to "Change Grid Preset" and set the preset to Text Grid. Once done, you'll notice the APG has automatically populated our projects in a vertical text list.

I'll keep the Title direction option to the default Vertical setting and style the grid accordingly. To get the cool mouse hover effect, set the Mouseover effect to "Original (Stick to Mouse)." I've also enabled the Title Mask effect. Note: this effect will only work if the Title direction is set to Vertical.

3. Overlay Grid

This is a popular style right now for Work pages: Overlaying your project thumbnails on a fixed background image or text:

VIEW THE LIVE DEMO →

For this portfolio effect, we will place a standard Portfolio Grid on our page. Next, we will need to create images of all of our thumbnails as PNG files with transparency. The transparency will allow the background to show through while the scrolling through the Portfolio Grid.

With our transparent PNG thumbnails set, let's now add a fixed background to sit behind our Portfolio Grid. Go to the Look & Feel tab from the editor and set a background image. Adjust the size and placement to your liking. Finally, under the Background Attachment option set the background image to be fixed.

Alternatively, you can also use our hack guide to create a fixed section that will sit behind your portfolio grid. Just be sure that the section where you placed your Portfolio Grid has a higher Z-index value (located under Section Styling) than your fixed section. Otherwise, the Portfolio Grid will not sit on top of your fixed section.

4. Split Grid

Another interesting way to showcase your work is to use the Advanced Portfolio Grid module and create a two-column fullscreen grid. This grid is really great for putting the focus on your work and simplifying your presentation.

VIEW THE LIVE DEMO →

Once again we will use the Advanced Portfolio Grid for this effect, and choose the Horizontal Fullscreen layout preset. Place a new APG grid on your page. The default layout preset will already be on the Horizontal Fullscreen option, so no need to select it.

Also, I recommend setting all of your images to the same dimensions for best results.

Next, let's set the" Images Per Row" to 2, and the image size to "Cover." I've also opted to hide the Project title and category.

Lastly, we can add a nice Mouseover effect for our thumbnails. I've opted for a nice zoom effect.

That's it!

It's really that easy to get a variety of different ways to display your projects with Semplice. Of course, these are just a sampling of different layouts and effects. It's really up to your imagination. We hope you enjoyed this tutorial!

August 7, 2020No Comments

Inspiring portfolios from freelance designers

As a freelance designer, you are your own brand. So it's always interesting to see how independent designers position themselves through their portfolio.

It's the thoughtful project curation, the strong About page bios, the clear sense of personality, that makes a freelancer's portfolio unique. At least, that's the case for these freelancers' portfolios – all made with Semplice.com.

Libby Connolly

Visiting Libby Connolly’s portfolio, there’s no question where her focus lies: Brand identity. While her projects also involve typography, web design and art direction, she’s curated her work purposefully to make her own brand crystal clear.

SEE PORTFOLIO

 

Lebassis

Lebassis’ portfolio couldn’t be more joyful. His personality comes through in every project, button and animation. We get a real sense of who he is, which can be just as important as the work itself. 

SEE PORTFOLIO

 

Nelson Balaban

I always enjoy portfolios that are clean and simple, yet still stylized. Nelson Balaban’s portfolio is a perfect example. From the unique typeface to the sleek hover effects to the snappy page transitions, he creates a distinct vibe without distracting from the work.

SEE PORTFOLIO

 

Tracy Doyle

Tracy Doyle’s portfolio is classy, as you might expect for someone whose clients include Chanel, Tiffany & Co and Gucci. The homepage leads confidently with only text, listing her clients in a large, elegant typeface.

SEE PORTFOLIO

 

Kristoffer Brady

I’m a big fan of Kristoffer Brady’s work, and it’s represented beautifully in an almost analog design on his homepage. His case studies are straightforward and personal, which makes me actually want to read them. 

SEE PORTFOLIO

 

Ayaka Ito

The attention to detail in Ayaka Ito’s portfolio is astounding. Every project, down to the color of her hover effects, is thoughtfully, even lovingly made. Which seems to be the case for everything she creates.

SEE PORTFOLIO

___

For more portfolio tips and inspiration, browse our Portfolio Project series.

Cover image from Libby Connolly's portfolio, made with Semplice.

August 6, 2020No Comments

An ancient, long-forgotten trick for doing good work

In this industry, we live and breathe productivity. We tap our forearms and inject articles about optimization and efficiency into our veins. We are rabid for hacks, tips, shortcuts, templates, tutorials that allow us to accomplish as much as possible, in as little time as possible. We praise the people who consistently ship new work.

We are conditioned this way. Rewarded for coming in under hours, under budget, ahead of the timeline. We are taught to create workflows and follow standards that allow us to function like Ford factories. 

And all the time, we wonder: Are we doing good work? Can it be better? Are we proud of what we’re creating?

No matter the industry, we want the job to be done fast. Production increases, profit margin improves, money flows. 

But the secret to truly great work – work that lasts, that is noticed, work that makes a difference – is taking the time it requires.

“Sometimes magic is just someone spending more time on something than anyone else might reasonably expect.” Raymond Joseph Teller

I pride myself on the ability to work fast and work well. But when I look back on some of my best work, the projects that changed my career, it wasn’t the work I knocked out under budget. It was the work I spent laborious, painstaking hours on.

Sometimes, the secret to great work is simply time. 

Time you didn’t scope for. 

Time the client may not have budgeted.

Time that doesn’t necessarily make you the most productive, efficient designer in the business, but does make you a better one.

August 5, 2020No Comments

Six years of Semplice

Six years ago, two German designers had an idea. One based in Munich and the other in New York City. And because an idea wasn’t enough for us, we got to work.

Months later, we pressed the launch button. Semplice.com was officially live, ready for business.

That day, our first customer purchased Semplice. He was from France.

Six years later and five versions of Semplice, we’re still here. Still independent. Still doing what we love.

But it’s not just two people anymore, it’s an entire team, spread around the globe. What started as a remote company is to this day a remote company.

“Build with pride” has been our slogan from day one. And while we hope this stands true for every website built with Semplice, today it is even more true for Semplice as a company. 

We’re proud to be able to build Semplice for you, and with you.

On to the next six years!

August 4, 2020No Comments

The best advice is not where you’re looking for it

Tons of advice is shared on the internet every day, yet the best advice is not usually found there.

The pervasiveness of self-help literature proves there is a market for advice. People are eager to know how to do things in the smartest and most efficient way possible, with as few regrets as possible. Makes sense. We only have so long to get it right and humans are, by nature, terribly insecure.

Yet we often waste time seeking advice in the wrong places. We read articles and books that only skim the surface or repeat oversimplified truths we already know. We take a stranger’s contextless Tweet to heart. We search for deeper meaning in Instagram captions. 

While we can still benefit from that approach (clichés and platitudes are perpetuated for a reason), we gain more when we dig deeper:

1. The best advice is usually kept in small circles and not shared broadly. 

Easily accessible advice is likely information you already know. That doesn't mean it's bad advice. But if you're looking for something that changes your perspective or expands your worldview, you'll need to work harder to unlock it.

This type of advice is found within small circles, where trust is established, honesty is assumed and the floor is open. It's here the people with the experience and wisdom you seek feel safe to share it.

2. The best advice is so simple we don't understand its significance yet.

The most spectacular advice is often dressed in plain clothes. At the time, it seems too simple or insignificant to get our attention.  It's the things our parents said to us over and over again, yet we only understand it 30 years later.

3. The best advice is so offensive to you, you don't want to believe it.

The best advice is insulting, uncomfortable and often offensive to our existing belief system. This makes us prone to ignore advice that could benefit us, and it also reinforces point #1.

The best advice remains unshared and limited to small circles of trust. The potential consequences of sharing them widely keeps the best advice within smaller circles.

August 3, 2020No Comments

For ONE magazine, print is far from dead

We've been talking about the death of print for so long now, the conversation itself long dead. While its true media has moved mostly online, print has persisted. That's especially true for the fashion industry.

We first started following the story of ONE, a fashion photography magazine, in 2017. At the time, founder Nicole Gavrilles had been running the magazine singlehandedly for seven years as a print-on-demand publication (meaning issues are only printed, in low quality, as they are ordered). Now she's celebrating the 10th anniversary of her "side project" with some significant changes in direction and process. A big one: Going full print.

We caught up with Nicole to talk about the challenges and opportunities of embracing print in the fashion industry, how she manages to get all her shit done between her full-time job, and what lies ahead for the new ONE magazine.

Nicole Gavrilles, founder of ONE magazine

It’s been three years since we last talked on DESK. What’s happening with ONE now? I hear rumors your printing process is changing and a redesign is coming. Tell us more.

Yes! A lot has evolved since the last time we talked. I continued my process of running the magazine on my own, but I came across more challenges along the way. Most of the challenges were around adding more written content or not having budgets to supply photographers with when shooting editorials for ONE. This always came back to the question I had to keep asking myself: How can I take on more work when I’m the only person running the magazine?

This year marks 10 years the magazine has been up and running. I’ve reflected on this milestone at the end of last year and the beginning of this year while also asking myself, what next and do I have it in me to keep going? A stylist I’ve worked with on a few past covers shared some interest in learning more about my process with running the magazine. After meeting up and us connecting so well, she and another photographer joined to help reshape the magazine’s next chapter.

We’ve been changing the process completely – from digital, to social and print. With our new mission statement for a better tomorrow; a cleaner, greener, more inclusive future. We’re now a womenswear fashion editorial magazine dedicated to sustainable and ethical production. This includes featuring only sustainable fashion and beauty brands as well as shifting our entire printing approach to be fully sustainable. With this new mission comes a new brand voice and aesthetic – something I’ve always wanted to take the magazine visually, and now have the moment to do so.

Print is, of course, a whole different game than digital. The costs increase, the planning process changes, the room for error is much smaller. Do you plan to finance the print version via something like Kickstarter, or will there be ads in this new version? And why do this now and not five years ago? 

Print is a whole different game field. But now, communicating you’re printing the magazine, people take you more seriously. I wish there was an easier way but in the fashion world, this is what it takes. I always knew one day if I was going to take the next step, I had to work with a printer. We will have ads throughout the magazine which will finance a huge portion of the magazine. Any remaining balance, I’m planning to finance. And we’re splitting the costs of providing budgets to certain photographers to shoot stories for us.

Five years ago, I wasn’t mentally or financially capable of making this huge step. Also, the magazine wasn’t at the place I wanted it to be in 2015. I knew I needed people to help advance the magazine to where we’re at now, but that wasn’t available for me back then. Everything happens for a reason, and having two people help shift and grow the magazine now, was the right timing.

"We’re not just any other fashion editorial magazine anymore. We’re carving a niche path into the fashion industry that’s been lacking a much-deserved spotlight."

We’ve said print is dying for the last 10 years at least. But I think it’s only made publications like yours even more special, almost an art form. A printed mag now is a gift to an industry and a treasure for readers. Are you concerned at all about the reach/power of print, or do you see it the same way as I do? 

I’ve definitely seen an interesting shift in some independent fashion publications in the past year or two. If presented and curated like a timeless art piece, it becomes more valuable to a follower and hopefully, becomes part of their collection.

We’ve received so much positive feedback and excitement about our new mission. I think that’s what makes our publication unique. We’ll be touching upon environmental issues within the fashion industry, on how designers and creators are rising above with innovative sustainable solutions. More people have shown interest in contributing because there’s a positive message attached to our new presence. We’re not just any other fashion editorial magazine anymore. We’re carving a niche path into the fashion industry that’s been lacking a much-deserved spotlight.

Before, you were doing every part of the planning and production process: Researching trends, planning issues and themes, selecting talent, coordinating and directing photoshoots, planning and editing stories. How is it working now that you have a small team of three?

It was definitely a handful, haha. Thankfully with having two editors now, we’ve divided up the work so each has their focus and checklist of items. A lot of the bones from the years of work I’ve put into the magazine were there, but we had to go in and refresh a lot of key areas such as the website, Instagram and media kit. But we also had to create some new organizational methods to track our progress on the stories for print and online, finances, etc. A lot of the day-to-day communication with contributors and running the Instagram are off my plate, since my editors handle that now. 

To be honest, we’re taking everything day by day. Since this is our first time working on a printed and distributed issue, we’re learning things as we go, connecting to people providing more insight and knowledge into the business/marketing side of the magazine and working on solidifying an LLC at the moment. This process is definitely an experiment and once we get through launching this issue, we’ll have our process in a better place for the next one.

Ten years is a long time to work on the same side project. How have you managed to keep it fresh over the years? Did you ever hit points where you felt you had to shake things up, or has it been a steady evolution all along?

Ten years is indeed a long time to work on the same side project.

Looking through the past 19 issues, a lot of them definitely feel dated and more relevant during the time they were released. It took me a long time to get the editorial design and photography aesthetic to where I wanted it to be. I wanted to shake things up every issue but I was always faced with, how much time do I have to get this out?

Most of the time, I didn’t have the time to update the editorial design, so it stayed as-is for years and it always bothered me. 

I would say the moment I finally sat down and redesigned the magazine was Issue No.16, which was released September 2018. Around that time, I quit my full-time job at a design agency where I spent over six years of my career, and then joined Squarespace as a product designer. In between jobs, which was 2.5 weeks, I spent the entire time redesigning the magazine. As much as I would have wanted to spend that time doing something else, it was my chance to make that visual upgrade I was yearning to work on.

"For the fashion industry, true print is still considered the most important. 'If it’s not in print, we’re going to pass.'"

I always enjoy reading earlier essays I’ve written here on DESK, because I can see clearly how my writing and my mind has changed and grown over the years. Looking back on your catalog of work, do you see any issues or articles that mark a change in how you work or how you think?

I think my previous issue, No.17, was where I could see things coming together more seamlessly. When I reworked my process two years ago, I outlined the areas that caused a lot of stress and redefined a new process to alleviate that stress from occurring. I became way more on top of things, starting earlier on checking off tasks by process of elimination, instead of leaving a lot of tasks towards the end. It helped streamline my process to work faster and more effectively.

How have you seen the magazine itself evolve, aside from its format? Has its style or voice developed in any noticeable way?

The style has evolved immensely. It evolved in the direction I wanted it to. It took a bit of time to get it there but I’m very happy with where we’re taking it now. The voice of a publication’s brand is an interesting piece and when working on this rebrand, we noticed the magazine doesn’t have a voice. Because the magazine was primarily imagery with either 1-2 articles, there was no place for it. The magazine stood as a platform for emerging fashion and photography talent, but I never had the time to establish its voice. Now with the rebrand, we have a clear voice and mission statement moving forward, where a true community can finally be built.

You’ve had a close eye on the fashion industry over the last decade, which seems to move on its own timeline – incredibly fast yet sometimes circular. How has fashion, or even just fashion photography, changed since you first started publishing in 2010?

What’s interesting is, the fashion industry hasn’t changed too much but fashion photography has. 

Within both, social media has changed everything. It’s the main platform you use to find emerging photographers, stylists, models. It’s the main platform to create and develop connections, and it’s the main platform that gives everyone access to “who's who” and “who knows who.” 

For the fashion industry, true print is still considered the most important. “If it’s not in print, we’re going to pass.” 

The process of making things happen is truly about who you know, and that still hasn’t changed within the fashion industry. For years I was able to run and produce issues without having to jump hoops just to be noticed, mostly because I didn’t care if people knew of me or not. The magazine spoke for itself over the years and it spread naturally by word of mouth. I was in no rush either; I just let things happen and come my way, and went from there.

In our last interview, we talked about the demands of work/life/side project, and how you were making an effort to balance your schedule and make time for yourself outside of work. What’s your view on that these days?

Well, it's an interesting time these days with being in quarantine in Brooklyn for the past four months. I’ve had a more difficult time during quarantine with a balance between work and life. 

Once the lockdown went into place in New York City, my work for my full-time job tripled. I’m in back to back meetings filling up my days with barely any time to get any work done. This has pushed me to work after hours to get actual work, done plus also being spread thin across multiple projects. I think I’ve been burnt out for the past few months? Haha, I don’t even know anymore. 

I’m being honest when I say this time hasn’t been easy for me. But it hasn’t been easy for anyone these days. I’m trying to do what I can by staying active, cooking, seeing friends and any other simple thing that provides some relaxation, like laying out in Prospect Park catching up on a good read.

You’ve reached out to so many people and coordinated so many projects online at this point, I imagine you are a master at the cold email, or just remote project management in general. Any practical tips for reaching out to people you don’t know, managing “creative types” online and getting shit done?

It’s always trial and error, figuring out what works and what doesn’t. First define the process that works best for you and once proven successful a few times, write down and stick to your process (reuse and improve on as you go). 

Setting myself goals is how I get shit done. If I set up a personal goal to have all images and content sent to me by X date, then that’ll give me a few weeks to construct the issue and release it by X date. Once you’ve got that down, it becomes a mental memory at that point.

For reaching out to people you don’t know, you’d be surprised how receptive people are if you add context in your approach. If you make your message seem more approachable to this person you’re cold-emailing, it’ll show that you care and spent time formatting this email for them. Adding touches of thought, research, care and a bit of your personality is a key to cold emailing / Instagram DM success.

In my experience, side projects always lead to more side projects, new opportunities and new relationships. What was the most unexpected thing to come from your work with ONE?

I think the most unexpected thing was one of my professors asking me to come visit and give a talk about my design career and how the magazine came to life. In early February of this year, I flew down to my alma mater, Ringling College of Art and Design, and did just that. It was a really special moment for me to connect with my professors and the place that gave me a platform to discover my passion and grow my skills in design. 

I think I’ve learned so much throughout these past 10 years that I now enjoy helping and encouraging people to discover and grow their passions.

Is there anything else you’ve been wanting to do with the mag that’s still on the horizon? For example, I’m curious if you’ve ever considered (or already done) paid partnerships with fashion brands or designers to feature their clothing lines and fund the magazine. 

You’re always one step ahead of me, Tobias! Yes, we are going to be working on expanding our online social presence, and paid partnerships is one of the main areas we’re going to tackle after the launch of this issue and in 2021.

You started ONE out of a desire to champion your friends and spotlight their work. Is that still your main goal today? What’s motivated you to continue doing this for the past 10 years? What makes it rewarding?

With our new mission, it’s still in our DNA, however, we are primarily focusing on providing a spotlight for sustainable and ethical brands moving forward. We will continue to collaborate and highlight work from emerging brands, but our new area of focus will make us stand out within the world of numerous fashion editorial publications. 

I’m more motivated and passionate about this new chapter because we’ve established a purpose and meaning to the magazine that was lacking before. I’m very passionate about environmentalism and climate change. And now that we’ve established this new mission, I believe our new vision can truly make a difference by helping creatives and educating viewers about sustainability within fashion. We’re also planning to donate all proceeds to an environmental organization/non-profit.

What advice do you have for those of us who dream of doing a similar side project (essentially a second job) we’re passionate about, but feeling unsure where to begin or how to manage it all (the finances, time, resources, energy, etc)?

Start small. It’s easier to grow a business/hobby/side-project when you take baby steps. Putting all your eggs in one basket all at the beginning could be super risky. Think of it as launching a new product – you want to test how your users interact with it first, then keep iterating and slowly expanding from there. This will help with discovering your process and how it works best for you, the resources and tools you'll need and the amount of time you'll dedicate per week.

What are a few of your favorite features in ONE from the last decade?

Most recently, we interviewed and photographed the recent collection of handmade organic materials by designer Signe Rødbro of Signe.  She took her production to Turkey where she opened Moon Tekstil, a sustainable and ethical factory in Izmir that offers fair wages, transportation, lunch and a comfortable, happy place to work for its employees.

Beginning of this year, I loved this story by Martina Keenan. Her effortless style captures such visually captivating moments.

I will forever cherish this stunning cover story for Issue No.13 by Manolo Campion, featuring Claudia Li.

Issue No.18 of ONE magazine,  featuring the rebrand and ONE's new mission dedicated to sustainable and ethical production,  will be out this fall. Follow @one_magazine for news and, of course, always-beautiful fashion photography.

July 30, 2020No Comments

Monthly portfolio inspiration of July 2020

Once a week, we select two portfolios created with Semplice to feature in our Best Of  Showcase.  Here we've collected our favorites from the month of July.

With summer in full swing, designers are more often than not busy with work and finding time between busy schedules to work on their portfolios. Still, we're amazed each week at seeing the creative talent of those who choose to use Semplice to build the portfolio site of their dreams. Here are some of my favorite picks from the month of July.

Browse the best portfolios of the month below to see fresh new work and get inspired for your own site. And if you've created your own portfolio with Semplice, be sure to submit it to our Showcase here. We might feature your site next.

 

Hansraj Dochaniya

Kristoffer Brady

Michael Schmidt

Patrick Corrigan

Libby Connolly

Pedro Pinto

Studio MPLS

Raúl Gil

Alexine Beltran

 

To see more great design portfolios, visit the Semplice showcase. I'll be back next month with more of our monthly favorites!

Header image by Tracy Doyle

July 29, 2020No Comments

The top 10 DESK portfolio articles of all time

We talk a lot about portfolio building on DESK. We’ve always been interested in helping creative people do their best work and share it in the most compelling way possible – so they can get more work that makes them proud. 

Good work feeds your portfolio, and a great portfolio leads to more good work. The two fuel each other, and that’s what we’ve always found exciting. 

In our effort to motivate and inspire the creative community, we share everything we know about creating a portfolio. Between Semplice, our more advanced portfolio tool, and Carbonmade, for anyone who wants a beautiful online portfolio, we’ve learned a lot and see fresh, new portfolios every day.

We review analytics every month to see what our readers find most useful, so we thought it may be helpful to share those insights with you now and then. These are the most-read portfolio articles on DESK of all time, in order. 

1. How to write project case studies for your portfolio

Writing case studies might be the most dreaded part of building a design portfolio. You already did all the work – now you have to sit down and EXPLAIN it all? But case studies are the heart and soul of your portfolio. They’re your chance to put your work in its best light and tell the story the way you intended it to be told.

Read article →

 

2. The most important page on your portfolio

And if there is one thing we’ve learned, it's that a single page on your portfolio always gets the most views. And funnily enough, it's not your most popular project.

Read article →

 

3. How to make a portfolio when your work can’t be shared

An online portfolio is critical to a designer's success. But what do we do when we work on a confidential project where we’ve signed a non-disclosure agreement? Or what if we worked on something that hasn’t launched yet, but we really love the project and want it on our portfolio now? Or what if the nature of our design work doesn’t really make sense for a visual portfolio?

Read article →

 

4. What leading companies never want to see in your portfolio 

 

Through our How to Get a Job at X series, we've talked with creative directors and recruiters from companies like Nike, Spotify, Pentagram, Disney, Shopify and BBDO. These people see dozens of design portfolios a day and might make their decision about a candidate within seconds of landing on their page. So we asked them for the secret to a successful portfolio – one that gets us a job at their company.

Read article →

5. How to make a portfolio as a UX designer

 

No matter what type of design you do, an online portfolio is a must. In most cases, companies and clients simply won’t consider you for a job without one. While a UX designer may believe their work doesn’t translate well to a visual platform, a portfolio is even more important for UX work.

Read article →

6. Avoid these 5 things when building your portfolio 

 

For some reason, when creating our design portfolio, everything we praise about good design seems to be forgotten as we work in perfect isolation. 

Read article →

7. How to build a design portfolio as a student

 

Building a portfolio as a student or young designer is a catch-22: A portfolio is all about showing your design experience, but to have experience you first need a job. Here we share how to build a portfolio when you’re just starting out.

Read article →

8. 15 ways to quickly refresh your portfolio

The only thing worse than not having a design portfolio is having one that’s poorly made or out of date. Here are some quick tips to refresh your portfolio and start getting more of the work you want to do.

Read article →

9. How to create a one-page portfolio with Semplice

A tutorial for designers or studios that want to create an elegant and interactive one-page portfolio or landing page using Semplice.

Read article →

10. Wild idea: work on your portfolio while you have a job

Read article →

We’ve written a lot more than this. Visit our Portfolio Project series to learn how to write your portfolio bio, how to photograph your work for your portfolio and other tips for presenting your work online.

 

July 27, 2020No Comments

How to land a design job at Instacart

The pandemic has, in many ways, accelerated the future we knew was coming soon enough. Those companies that were already positioned toward the future were among the few that thrived, despite economic shutdown. Instacart is one of them.

When most of the country was forced to stay in place, Instacart was uniquely positioned to help – and has continued to adapt and meet the needs of its customers in a changing environment. As the New York Times put it regarding shopping trends during the pandemic, "In grocery delivery, there is Instacart, and then everyone else."

Now Instacart is in high-growth mode, and they're looking for designers to help lead the way. We talked with Himani Amoli, design manager, and Ryan Scott Tandy (RST), design director at Instacart, about what they're looking for in designers for their team.

Hey Himani and RST, thanks for doing this with us. Let’s dive right in.

Instacart is growing fast, and I imagine you need designers for several areas of your product and/or marketing. What kind of design opportunities exist right now and where do we fit into the bigger picture of your team?

RST: Design at Instacart covers a wide range of experiences; from designing for the customer placing their first order, to the Instacart Shopper making a delivery, to brands managing their ad campaigns, or even grocery retailers building on our platform. Design plays an important role, taking something that is inherently quite complex and making it simple.

Partnering with product management and engineering teams, our product design and brand design teams are actively working on the next evolution of this essential service.

Himani: We are hiring across the board for brand and product design. Looking for product designers, researchers, and also design leaders to help grow and manage the teams! 

Say we decide to reach out with a cold email. What kind of message gets a reply? Any secrets for us? Or should we just fill out the application form?

RST: We are a people-based business so tell us your story. What brought you to design? What inspires you? Where are you looking to take your design career next? 

I love hearing about how people personally use the product. What brings them delight or surprise. What role does food play in your life? Even potential areas of improvement.

It’s always great to highlight areas of expertise that clearly align with the work we’re doing (ecommerce, marketplaces, ad platforms, enterprise).

Himani: Something that highlights how the work you’ve done is relevant for the role that we’re trying to hire for. Better yet, tell us how Instacart’s mission fits into what you’re passionate or excited about. And link us to your work that you think we need to see. 

If you’ve worked with someone who works at Instacart, opt to come in through that route, especially if they can speak to your work or share how awesome of a teammate you are!

The majority of our applicants are sourced by our recruiting team. They work with the hiring managers to understand the skillset of the designer, so the most important thing you can do is make yourself discoverable online. Link your portfolio to your LinkedIn/Dribbble. If there isn’t any work under NDA, don’t hide your work behind a password

"Portfolios are the best way for you to tell the story of your career. In the absence of that, a story is unfortunately created for you, either by the recruiter or the hiring manager."

How important is a complete portfolio? Can we get away with not having a portfolio when interviewing at Instacart?

RST: It’s critical to have your portfolio up to date and polished. It’s your best opportunity to highlight your creative process, output and achievements across your career.

Portfolios that clearly demonstrate results through strategic design work are great, but ones that also showcase these projects in a beautiful way, even better! (A good mix of systems thinking and visual design).

Himani: Portfolios are the best way for you to tell the story of your career. In the absence of that, a story is unfortunately created for you, either by the recruiter or the hiring manager. Portfolios also help us understand how you tackle problems. 

Your portfolio doesn’t need to have all the work you’ve ever done but 1-2 case studies of work that you’re proud of, showing how you process problems. 

A portfolio also helps us visualize you in that role, and helps us figure out how to cater our recruiting process to you based on your skills, interests and background. 

"A prototype is worth a thousand mocks. Show me how the thing you build works and you stand out immediately!"

What do you wish you saw more in portfolios from Instacart job applicants? 

RST: More products in motion, less static states. Portfolios that show prototypes (or videos of their products in action) tell a much better story of how something works or how it’s used.

I love it when designers share insight behind small details. Why a particular interaction was chosen or breaking down the thinking behind an icon set. Anything that shows commitment to craft, polish or quality.

Show us how data and research informed the work. Answering, why was this the best solution?

Himani: When we’re reviewing candidates, we’re trying to get a quick overview of their work so we can decide where to schedule a portfolio walkthrough or not. When looking at their online portfolios, we’re spending a few minutes on each and making a call, so be methodical about what you have on your online portfolio – remember you won't be there to voice over the work, so it has to tell a story on its own.

  • Your portfolio should highlight your best work. You only have 1-2 in-depth case studies to stand out so make sure you pick your best work, the stuff you’re most proud of.
  • For the case studies, don’t bury the lede; show the final polished product first, then you can follow up with the problem statement and how you arrived at the solution. Every time I land on a case study that doesn’t do this, the first thing I do is scroll all the way down to see the finished designs. No need for a grand reveal in the end. Get me hooked from the beginning. 
  • For any additional work you want to share, it's OK to just show the final polished mocks. Hiring managers will likely make a call on bringing you in based on the 1-2 case studies we already talked about above.
  • A prototype is worth a thousand mocks. Show me how the thing you build works and you stand out immediately!
  • Finally, tighten up the visual design for your portfolio. We want to know that you have a high bar for craft and the UI of your portfolio will be a signal towards that, not just the work you shipped.

Say I make the first pass and get invited to an interview. Can you describe the interview process as briefly as possible?

RST: Like a lot of companies these days, we’re conducting our interviews fully remotely over Zoom, and the entire process lasts about half a day.

We start the day with a portfolio presentation where it’s the candidate’s opportunity to shine and tell their story. After that, the day is broken up into one-on-one sessions with members of the team and hiring manager.

We make sure to carve out time in each session for discussion and for any questions the candidate may have.

How the interview process at Instacart might look for you

  • Remote portfolio screening

    Here you'll meet with a senior designer or a hiring manager to share 1-2 projects that you’re most proud of.

  • A full “onsite” meeting

    In pandemic times, this means more remote interviews.

  • Another portfolio presentation

    This time, you'll present to a larger group of people including other designers, the hiring manager and some cross-functional partners like researchers, engineers or product managers.

  • One-on-one sessions

    Here you'll meet with a designer to do a deep dive on your work. You’ll also chat with the hiring manager, a product manager and a few more designers. One of those sessions will also be a design exercise.


PRO TIPS  For Instacart, your past work is the strongest indicator of your abilities as a designer. Spend time preparing your portfolio and perfecting your presentation. Instacart also wants to know that you're interested in them – ask questions about the company, the team or the culture.

Do you have a favorite story of an application that really stuck with you? Something that stood out and got passed around between your team?

Himani: We interviewed a candidate remotely after shelter in place, and she anticipated the animations in her Figma presentation might not work well during the portfolio presentation on Zoom. So she shared the Figma link of her presentation with everyone and asked us to follow along in Observation mode, which was awesome! It showed me her creative problem-solving skills because she anticipated a user problem and preemptively solved it. 

You’re in high-growth mode, which is no joke. On your blog, your head of design says he’s looking for designers who are open and resilient, with critical thinking skills. Any other qualities or skills that allow someone to thrive on your presumably fast-paced team?

Himani: I’ve seen people glamorize working at a growth-stage startup and not really understanding what it means for their day-to-day. But some things that aren’t everyone’s cup of tea:

  • You have to be able to handle a fast-paced environment with a lot of ambiguity. 
  • You have to be able to operate in a nimble way, be open to feedback on your work and able to switch gears quickly.
  • Processes break when teams continue to grow, so you have to be able to handle changes and operate in an environment that doesn’t have all the structure in place. 

But there are a lot of upsides as well:

  • There’s still a lot of company building left in this stage, so you’ll get to define processes and culture for the team.
  • And most importantly, you have the opportunity to take on large projects that make an impact.

Would you hire someone who’s a cultural add over someone who has more industry experience and hard skills?

RST: Given you’ll be working with someone on a daily basis, I believe soft skills to be critically important. We see “culture-builders” as a requirement as much as technical skills or domain expertise.

Himani: We believe you need both at Instacart. Great craft is essential, but we care about many other soft skills as well. When interviewing we look for a signal on visual design, interaction design and product thinking, along with how this person communicates and collaborates with others. 

Self-awareness is also very important, along with a growth mindset. Humility is also such an important trait to look out for. 

Portfolio tips for your Instacart interview

  • Share prototypes over static images.

    Showing how your final product works will count for a lot to the Instacart team. Instead of the standard device mockup, Use Figma or a similar tool to create a prototype they can interact with.

  • Show a love for detail.

    "I love it when designers share insight behind small details," says RST. "Why a particular interaction was chosen or breaking down the thinking behind an icon set." Use your case studies to show you sweat the small stuff, which ultimately means you care deeply about what you do.

  • Include only your best work.

    Instacart spends only a few minutes reviewing you portfolio before making a call. Prioritize your best projects (ideally launched projects), and be sure to highlight your attention to both user needs and business goals.

     

  • Evaluate and refresh your portfolio design.

    "We want to know that you have a high bar for craft and the UI of your portfolio will be a signal towards that, not just the work you shipped," Himani explains. If you haven't updated your portfolio design recently, now's the time to make sure it feels fresh and modern.

  • Show the research, data and thinking behind your decisions.

    In your case studies, show what informed your designs and why you approached your project the way you did. Give Instacart a glimpse of how your mind works.

  • Think through your portfolio presentation.

    You'll spend the majority of your interviews at Instacart reviewing your past work. Walk through your portfolio beforehand and perfect the timing of your presentation, so you're not ad libbing on the call.

     

 Your product design job description includes: “You are a generalist who can drive the design process end to end.” What secondary skills do you look for in a designer, besides common soft skills? For example: Do you prefer writing ability over coding skills? Photography skills over coding?

RST: An eye for good taste, prototyping, working with data, partnering with research, creating excellent documentation and presentation skills. 

Himani: Prototyping skills are a superpower that designers should use as often as possible. They can help bring ideas to life and also help get everyone on the same page.  

Strong writing skills can be such a valuable tool for designers. Both in their work and also when documenting design decisions.  

Strong storytelling and presentation skills can help designers convince others of their vision and rally people behind an idea. How you communicate about and present your work is an extremely important part of being a designer.

Finally, a high bar for craft quality.

As we all know well, the nature of work has changed drastically over the last few months. Are you open to remote hires for your team, or do we need to be on-site in SF?

As a company, we’re still figuring out how open or not we are to remote working. We’re continuing to hire in the Bay Area, as well as Toronto, but beyond that we’re considering US- or Canada-based remote candidates by exception only, and only at very senior levels.

Diversity and inclusion are more relevant than ever, and I see Instacart is part of that conversation online. How does this fit into your hiring process and current team?

RST: This is something we are taking very seriously. As a growth stage company, things move fast and we’re hiring quickly, but the design leadership team is taking a moment to stop and make sure we’re being deliberate about our hiring practices, especially when it comes to diversity. Everybody buys groceries, and it's our job to ensure that the people designing our brand and products reflect the communities we serve.

We know diversity is a critical ingredient of successful teams, especially a team that will design the next evolution of a product that’s universally needed.

We work hard to find candidates from a wide variety of backgrounds and handpick our interview panels to be as inclusive as possible.

Areas we, as an industry, need to invest more in: highschool and college education, internship programs, coaching and career development programs.

Himani: In 2020, we started using Textio, an AI writing platform that detects and flags unconscious bias in writing via job descriptions, job postings and email outreach – the design team is piloting the tool.

We are focused on building more diverse pipelines and a more inclusive hiring culture. We have 5 active ERGs that partner with us to celebrate cultural heritage months company-wide, with a full-month of programming dedicated to each. The design team is an active partner in developing, designing and helping to bring these cultural heritage months to life with multiple touchpoints across the employee experience.

How do you think Instacart is different when hiring new talent compared to other companies?

RST: At Instacart, you’ll have a very special opportunity to both work on an important product, and at a critical time of company growth.

Designers at Instacart will have a tremendous amount of ownership and the chance to help build a company.

Himani: I’m not sure if this is different compared to other companies but some of the things we care about:

  • An entrepreneurial spirit with a bias for shipping
  • People who are self-starters and don’t feel the need to wait for someone to tell them what to work on next.
  • Ownership over their work. This helps people have a high bar for quality and motivates them to get everyone else on the same page as them.
  • Comfort in dealing with ambiguous problems 

Any parting advice for us? Something we forgot to ask that a potential candidate should know?

RST: Always do your homework. Know who you’re presenting to, be sharp on the timing of your presentations, and come with a set of thoughtful questions that will spark conversation.

Himani: Don’t shy away from showing us who you are! Let your personality shine. Let us know who you are beyond your work. Also: 

  • Make yourself discoverable online. Let us find you! 
  • We believe good design comes at the intersection of user needs and business goals, so when choosing projects to present, prioritize projects that highlight that. 
  • During portfolio review, always opt for showing projects that launched. Seeing concept work is nice, but showing work that made an impact for the users and the business is best. 
  • I’ve seen designers come underprepared to portfolio presentations and just scroll through their website, and it never goes well. Overprepare for your portfolio presentations! Work on your timing and come prepared to walk us through your story.

Since I’ve seen this question answered from multiple members of the Instacart team, I have to ask you now: What’s always in your cart?

RST: Doughnuts, always doughnuts!

Himani: These days, bananas. I’m making and consuming too much banana bread thanks to shelter in place. 

July 21, 2020No Comments

The art of pricing freelance projects

You’re a freelance designer. Your core capabilities are solid, you navigate software well, you have a good eye. You produce results for people across multiple mediums. Your skills have been honed and your work is your art. But you feel that you don’t get paid what you’re worth.

I get it. As a freelancer in any field, knowing what to charge is tricky.

The good news is, by making pricing a topic of priority, you can use it to help better portray your true value to people.

Alongside the art of design, seek to understand the art of pricing to get paid what you’re worth.

The problem

The problem with pricing freelance work is that there are an often overwhelming number of ways to do it:

  • Hourly billing
  • Daily billing
  • Fixed pricing
  • Value-based pricing 
  • Retainers

You’ll likely have heard of them all. Perhaps you’ve had experience with applying one or two of them. But which one’s the best? Which pricing strategy should you use when billing your client for work? Herein lies another problem.

The methodology to use will depend on multiple factors:

  • What the work is
  • How long it might take
  • What your position is
  • Who your client is
  • How much you need the job

There’s too much variability to declare a singular route as the winner for every freelancer and every project. These issues highlight pricing as an art form as opposed to an exact science.

Pricing is personal.

"Attributing yourself to one pricing method across the board isn’t always the best approach to getting deals over the line."

The fallacy

One person will tell you “hourly billing should generally be avoided” and another that “retainers are a great way to secure recurring revenue,” without clarifying or expanding on it.

While I agree with these statements, you can’t blindly apply this knowledge to every engagement that comes your way. This brings to the forefront why freelancers find pricing so difficult: there’s no one-size-fits-all solution. The idea that you can apply one pricing strategy to every freelance project in an attempt to maximize profit, for the length of your career, is, in my experience, impractical.

I don’t doubt that some people choose one pricing methodology, stick to it and are incredibly successful. There are always exceptions. But this isn’t always realistic, especially when starting out. I know I couldn’t afford to be so selective with my first client. It was only once I raised my value that I could start to exert more of my pricing preferences.

Even as a new freelancer, there are still certain pricing methodologies that suit certain projects. Attributing yourself to one pricing method across the board isn’t always the best approach to getting deals over the line.

There’s more to it than that.

Pricing is fluid.

"Price mirrors risk. Because you present as the least risky option, you can charge a premium for your work."

The reality

Value is the true constant that informs price. I’m not just talking about value-based pricing. Whatever pricing strategy you use, it should be based on value.

What do people perceive your value to be? In over a decade of freelancing, this question has informed many of the prices I’ve given.

I mentioned earlier that pricing is personal. This couldn’t be truer when giving and receiving prices for freelance work. When you present yourself as a jack-of-all-trades designer offering branding, web design, print design, UX, UI and illustration, is it really perceivable to a prospect that you can produce high-value work in all of these fields?

When you position yourself like this as a freelancer, you’re often seen as a commodity service provider as opposed to a specialist service producer. And the latter is commonly seen as someone who can provide greater value.

So because pricing is personal, you need differentiators that increase your value:

  • A specialism in service
  • A highly individual style
  • Credibility within your wider industry
  • Excellent soft-skills
  • An attractive personality

If you’re the stand-out freelancer, you become the safe bet in the eyes of clients searching for services. Price mirrors risk. Because you present as the least risky option, you can charge a premium for your work.

When a client can’t see the difference between your service and someone else’s, your chances of charging a premium for individuality are low.

When you’re the obvious choice, your value is high and so are your chances of getting paid in line with this. Your perceived value forms the basis of the art of pricing your freelance services.

From here, choose the most appropriate strategy for the task at hand and your current circumstances.

Are you looking to get your foot in the door? Be aware that your choice of terms may be limited.

You might want to avoid hourly billing, but are you in a position to blanketly reject that right now? Your play here would be to get an initial agreement, prove yourself to be indispensable and renegotiate to more preferential terms soon after.

Do you want to stick to fix-priced projects only? There’s always a client who comes along with an iterative project that they can’t fix the scope for.

Paid discovery can work to solve this, but when you can get started quickly and achieve a top-end day rate as an alternative, does it make sense to skip the engagement if they don’t go for that?

The reality of pricing is that there’s more than the price at play. It will benefit you as a freelancer to:

  • Understand a range of pricing strategies
  • Gauge the value of your service to people individually
  • Take an honest overview of your current circumstances

These all make up a part of the art. 

Pricing has layers.

"It’s more important to get started than to never start based on terms."

The Solution

How does a freelance designer solve the pricing matrix? Start with the methodologies:

 

Hourly Billing

When you bill by the hour, you’re punished for getting quicker. There is no incentive to do things efficiently as doing so directly reduces the amount of money you’ll earn.

Hourly billing also comes with additional paperwork in the form of estimates and hour logging. Which, quite frankly, isn’t always the best use of your time.

If you want to use efficiency as a tool to maximize your earning potential as a freelancer, hourly billing is generally not the way to go. Directly tying a unit of your time to a price caps your earning potential. There are only so many hours available in the day.

But it’d be naive of me to say that there aren’t outliers in this scenario. You might command an uncommonly huge hourly rate and only wish to work four hours per day, for instance.

Equally, it’s important to consider your current position in the market. Hourly billing might be a way to get a chance. It’s more important to get started than to never start based on terms.

If you do use hourly billing to gain a foothold, have the goal to stop using it as soon as you can. Make yourself indispensable to your current hourly client and build an audience of other people willing to hire you. This will give you the leverage to move toward more preferred methods of pricing projects.

"If results are being delivered, does it really matter exactly how many hours and minutes are logged each day?"

Daily Billing

Freelancers can approach daily billing in two different ways. I’ve found one to be more effective, in terms of getting paid what you’re worth, than the other.

It’s common to assume that when you give a price for a day’s work, that equates to 7/8 hours of your time. Clients will then assume that your day rate / hours worked = your hourly rate, and you’re no better off than when you started billing hourly. In fact, you’re worse off because a day rate is typically given at a lower price than if you were to bill the same amount of hours individually. As with hourly billing, daily billing in this guise shares all the downsides.

The alternative is to price a day as a day, and not a number of guaranteed hours. Providing you’re clear with your collaborator, this is how you unlock more autonomy. If you want to work an hour less one day and an extra hour the following day, for example, then you can.

The point here is that if results are being delivered, does it really matter exactly how many hours and minutes are logged each day?

In either fashion, you’re still tying a unit of your time to a price, which comes with its negatives. But it can work well. Especially in instances where the day rate is high and the work you’re doing is particularly difficult to scope.

Fixed-Pricing

In my experience pricing freelance work, fixed-price terms are nearly always the best. When you give a fixed-price for a piece of work, you know exactly what you’ll get paid and your client knows exactly what they’ll pay for it. There’s a level of safety in a fixed-price for both parties.

However, you need a watertight scope.

Scope creep is frustrating and costly for a freelancer. Make sure that whenever you give a fixed-price for a body of work, it is clearly briefed and agreed upon by both parties. Be clear that any work outside of this comes at an additional cost. 

Another rule to follow when working to a fixed price is to get a deposit. You can’t be fully sure that you have someone’s commitment to a project unless money has exchanged hands.

The key benefit to fixed-pricing is the converse of hourly billing: you are directly rewarded for efficiency. The better you get at performing your skill, the quicker you’ll get. And the quicker you’ll get, the more you’ll get paid in less time. The paramount thing here is to always retain quality, thus preserving your perceived value.

Value-Based Pricing

Value-based pricing is similar to fixed-pricing in its delivery; it’s a set price for a set body of work.

However, there’s one big difference: The figure that you present is wholly based on the value of the business outcomes of the project. The price that you give is usually a percentage, which can be justified as fair based on quantifiable metrics.

Here’s a short and simplified example:

Your client's average lead value = $500

You estimate that your work will get them 100 leads in year 1. That's $50,000 of value.

You give a price for your work based on a % of that figure.

If you can show the value, you can justify the price.

Although this differs from country to country, the problem with value-based pricing is that it’s often a tough sell. Because it can be a tough sell, the effort involved to do the research can often be quite costly.

The key to using value-based pricing is to gauge, on a per-client basis, how presenting a proposal with this method will go down. It takes much research to uncover the information that you need, and if you’re doing a lot of leg work for a client who won’t receive a value-based proposal well, it’s wasted time and energy.

Value-based pricing is more well-received when presenting to prospects who have significantly more money than they have time. If you’re speaking with someone who does not see the value in hiring you as an individual, other than another service provider, a value-based price will often fall flat.

Retainers

When you work well with a client and they’re happy with the results you’re providing, a typical route forward is to bump up your level of involvement. Retainer agreements, in this scenario, provide a level of safety for both the client and freelancer. It’s guaranteed work for the client and guaranteed income for the freelancer.

But naturally, there are pros and cons to retainers too.

With the uptick in guaranteed work, often comes with the expectation of a reduced rate. This has always felt wrong to me as it assumes that you have a problem selling your services. When you reduce your rate in this instance, you reduce your perceived value to the client.

A major benefit, on the other hand, is that you can sell a chunk of your availability and spread out your involvement throughout the month, which allows you more day to day flexibility.

Ultimately, for the long term growth of your freelancing business, place a priority on those retainers that give your availability to deliver knowledge, not direct labor. Direct labor is often linked back to time, and as with hourly billing, your earnings ceiling becomes limited.

When you deliver knowledge through a strategy engagement for instance, there is no limit on what the value you add to the project is worth.

Look to study all of these pricing methodologies, and create a list of preferences that suit the work that you do and your current position. Form a short-term approach that helps you arrive at your long-term, ideal pricing strategy. Charging by the day initially may lead you to a high-value ongoing strategic retainer, for instance.

Apply methods where appropriate. 

"Giving a price without researching your prospect is a sure-fire way to give the wrong one."

No matter which methodology you choose, use value to price

You don’t have to use value-based pricing to take value into consideration when giving a price for work.

Understand your value metrics:

  • Individuality
  • Credibility
  • Availability
  • Risk reduction
  • Results provision 
  • Price itself

Take time to understand what your overall value is compared to others in your field. Look into the worth of the results your services create on a client-by-client basis. Before giving any price, ask yourself this question:

“How much am I worth to this project?”

Knowing your worth better informs price.

Research your prospect

Giving a price without researching your prospect is a sure-fire way to give the wrong one.

You need to know who you’re potentially going to be working with: Can they afford your services? How large of a business do they have? Have they worked with freelancers before? Do they want to work with you specifically or do they just want the job done?

Know your client to guide your price.

Acknowledge your current position 

How’s your cash flow?

Are you just starting out?    

Are you a few years in?

Have you been a designer for a very long time?

Are you new to your industry or do people know of your work? What’s the current demand for people who offer your service? Be aware of where you are to help you make the right offers.

In conclusion

Pricing can form a barrier to entry for many budding freelancers. It’s a skill in itself that designers who are looking to go it alone must learn. No one can tell you it’s easy.

What I can tell you is that it becomes easier with research, practice and time. Each book you read, article you absorb, mentor you speak with and project you offer on, brings you closer to becoming better at pricing your work.

There’s no magic formula that will help you decipher pricing forever. Nonetheless, you can give yourself the best chance of getting paid what you’re worth through a focus on value. 

Pricing can’t always be solved by science alone.

Pricing is an art.

You can learn more on this topic from Tom in his book, "Pricing Freelance Projects."

July 21, 2020No Comments

Mastering the art of 3D lighting with Adobe Dimension

As we venture further into the world of 3D design, from abstract 3D art to 3D typography to creating geometric structures, we've arrived at a crucial point: lighting our 3D scene.

The difference between your standard 3D graphic and an image so cinematic and realistic, you wonder if it's a still from a movie, often comes down to lighting.

It's the glow from a streetlight. The reflection of light on water. The difference between direct overhead light and infused light from a window. The nuanced beauty of light that we experience every day, that takes effort and attention to perfect in 3D.

A cinematic 3D scene created using Adobe Dimension

Consider the fact that, when making an animated movie, it's usually someone's full-time job to focus only on lighting. Light is the essence of how we see and visually experience the world. The right lighting can set a mood, influence perception and evoke emotion. It's why it's impossible to leave lighting for last when setting up a 3D scene. Rather, your entire scene is centered around it.

Since our goal with 3D is to reflect the real world, some of the same principles we use for photography apply to 3D. Like photography, the right lighting as well as a keen awareness of your subject and composition are important. It all plays together to make a striking, believable image that resonates.

With this article, we'll share examples of various lighting techniques and give you general principles you can use in your own compositions. We will show you how you can get dramatically different results just from changing the placement of your light sources, and how you'll significantly improve the quality of your 3D work with purposeful, detailed lighting.

Setting the scene

First, let's take a look at a series of images that I created using Adobe Dimension. If you're not familiar already from our other articles, Dimension is Adobe's 3D scene design tool paving the way for designers and traditional graphic designers into the 3D world. (If you're just hearing about it or stepping into 3D for the first time, start with this beginner's tutorial.) Dimension offers default lighting set-ups for your 3D work, but today we'll be focused on manual methods to create your own lighting.

Being super inspired by the recent SpaceX launch, I wanted to create a simple scene with some sci-fi and space themes. Here is the result:

We'll use this image to examine the different types of lighting and how you apply them in 3D. Later, I'll show you how I achieved specific lighting effects for this image in Adobe Dimension.

The different types of lighting techniques

Just like the real world, there are many different types of lighting techniques that can create various effects. Placing a single light source in your scene, for example, results in dramatic shadows. Using only direct sunlight looks very different than soft, indoor light setup. Depending on the mood and feel you want from your image, you may have to experiment and find what lighting setup works best for your scene. So let's start with your main types.

Three-point lighting

A basic example of a three-point light system. From left to right: the key light, the rim light, and the fill light.

This is arguably the most important and commonly used lighting technique.

As the name implies, this technique uses three light sources to illuminate your scene: key, rim and fill. Each of these light sources play a unique role in lighting your scene.  Your key light is the primary light source that will illuminate your subject. The rim light illuminates the back of your subject, creating depth and allowing us to understand the shapes of the objects in your scene. Lastly, fill light is meant to eliminate harsh shadows in your scene and add some even lighting.

Placing a sphere is an easy way to view reflections in relation to our scene

Humans use light to understand objects and shapes with our natural eye, and three-point lighting gives us a full point of reference. This lighting technique is seen in every medium, including film, photography, product photography, event lighting and television.

 

Soft lighting

An example of a soft light setup. Note that the lights are placed far away from the subject, and are larger in size comparatively.

Soft lighting, as the name applies, means light is being distributed evenly throughout your scene. Harsh shadows are removed, creating a result that feels soft and balanced. This kind of lighting is commonly seen with product shots, or with traditional portrait photography. You can see in this scene it has changed our original image to feel much more calm.

To achieve soft lighting in your scene, simply place large light sources in your scene that are a good distance from your subject. The larger the lights, and the farther away from your subject they are, the softer your shadows will be. The default studio environment light when starting with Dimension is a form of soft lighting.

 

Single-light source

As the name implies, this technique uses just one light source. Single-light sources are typically used to create dramatic lighting, since having only one light means harsher shadows and areas where light is not illuminating your object. This creates a sense of drama and mystery.

This technique is used often in cinema as a tool to center your focus and set a mood. Use it to your advantage to create interesting moods, or where your subject does not clearly have to be defined. It's a simple method, but when used right can be the perfect lighting trick up your sleeve.

Direct sunlight

Sunlight is one of the easiest ways to light your scene. Note the harshness of the shadows due to the size and brightness of the light.

As the name implies, this lighting technique relies on a single light source: the sun. Direct sunlight is great when you want to replicate a natural outdoor scene. Using sunlight as your main light source will naturally result in harsher shadows, since sunlight is incredibly bright and the appearance of the sun is very small in relation to us on earth.

Using sunlight to light your scene is very popular for architectural lighting. Most 3D programs, including Adobe Dimension, include the ability to add a sun to your scene. These programs also typically aim to replicate the real effects of light from the sun based on it's positioning in the sky. For example, lowering the position of your sun will typically result in a "sunset" effect where light is much warmer and shadows are hugely elongated.

When using sunlight as a light source, I highly recommend using it alongside image-based (HDRI) lighting environment to get real-world reflections. This is because the sun exists within an “environment” or sky, and to get realistic results you will want to simulate both a sun and real-world environment.

More on environment lighting below.

Backlight

Backlight pertains to placing your primary light source behind your subject matter. As with the single-light source technique, this method will also produce dramatic results. It also adds a sense of mystery as it obscures the details and shapes of your primary subject.

This type of lighting is typically seen in film and in promotional sports photography. Though this lighting technique is one of the more rarer ones used, it's a great one to have in your back pocket if you're going for a cinematic vibe.

Environment or image-based lighting

Environmental lighting generates light based an existing image, typically in the form of an HDRI (high dynamic range) image.

HDRI is a 32-bit image (meaning it contains huge amounts more of data) that stores a range of exposures, which is impossible to do with an 8-bit image. An 8-bit has pixel color values ranging from 0-1, whereas 32-bit can go as high as 100 (in case of the sunlight). This will differentiate a white object in the HDRI, for example, from a white LIGHT source. HDRI images can provide an incredibly rich source of light to your scene that replicates what we see with our naked eye.

Environment lighting is great if you want to quickly generate a simulated real-world lighting environment. Adobe Dimension includes these in the format of lighting presets, though you can use your own HDRI maps as well. The largest drawback to using environment lighting is you lose the ability to control the placement of your light sources, since the lighting is based on an image with predetermined light positioning.

An example of an HDRI image:

And now with that image applied to our scene:

In Dimension, HDRI maps can be applied under the Environment lighting options.

Different types of light objects within 3D programs

There are various different light objects you can use to light your scene in any given 3D program. Some use different names for the same type of light tools or objects, but it's helpful to know the difference between each.

Directional lights

A directional light object is one that emits light in a single direction, much like the sun. Typically, the light direction can be adjusting in the program as well as the edge softness.

Point light

A point light will emit light in all directions from a single, small point. Light will be cast evenly, despite the direction the point light is rotated. These type of light objects are typically used for things such as light bulbs or candles.

Area light

An area light emits light that is confined within a single object, such as a rectangle or sphere. An area light object will simulate an effect very similar to real-world lighting objects, such as fluorescent lamps or lighting studio equipment. In Adobe Dimension, you can recreate the effect by applying a Glow material to an object. You can then even add texture to the light by placing an alpha mask into the Opacity slot.

Sun

We've talked above about using sunlight to light your scene. To achieve natural sunlight, you will need to use a sun object in your 3D program of choice. Typically, you can adjust the sun positioning, angle, brightness, and cloudiness.

Breaking down our 3D scene

Now that we've covered the basics of 3D lighting techniques and light objects, let's break down what I did to I achieve the results from our sci-fi inspired renders.

For this simple setup, the lighting is based on a three-point lighting technique. There is a large "key" light illuminating our subject. This is lighting the majority of our spaceman, along with creating the largest reflection in the helmet.

Next, I've added a large, soft fill light with a red tint set directly behind the camera to fill in the harsh shadows. I then also created a rim light to illuminate the back of our astronaut.


Additionally, I've also added some environment (HDRI) lighting to create some reflections in my scene for added realism. The environment lighting will create some additional reflections on our astronaut's visor and suit. Oftentimes, I will combine environment lighting with standard lights. This allows me to still have control over my main light sources, but get those real-world reflections from the environment map.

You can toggle on environment lighting in Dimension with a single click, and choose from a variety of presets.

Finally, I've added a highly reflective material to the visor of our astronaut, as well as applied some darker plastic materials for the suit. I've also applied some normal maps to all of my objects for added texture, more on normal maps below.

Here is an interactive embed of our scene, for further analysis:

Pro 3D lighting tips

Use clay first

I'm not talking about literal clay. Rather, remove all the materials from your models when setting up your lighting. This will allow you to view the lighting without the distraction of reflections or color. Later, when you are happy with your lighting setup, you can apply your materials to your objects.

Removing materials allows us to see our lighting clearly, without distraction.

Composition is key

The placement of your lights is very important. It's also important to place your objects in a way that will allow you to easily light and manage your scenes. For example, if you want a particular subject in your scene to stand out, you'll need to light them properly and place them in such a way that will naturally lead our eye. Try placing your subjects in areas that are most well-lit, ensuring not to make areas of secondary areas brighter than your subject area. For areas you want to be less distracting, try reducing the light.

Toggle lights one at a time

To get the best idea for where your lights need to be placed, try turning off all of your light sources and only keeping one on at a single time. This will help you understand where you need to make your adjustments to your light placements without the distraction of other light sources.

Be mindful of reflections

The materials you use in a scene can have a big impact on how your lighting reacts. Since some materials absorb light differently, such as metal as opposed to a fine cloth, you'll need to be intentional with your material choices. If you want a lot of reflections in your scene, consider using a lot of materials that are metal or contain a high amount of "roughness" or reflection. Sometimes, adding more reflective material to your scene can increase visual interest simply because of the light bouncing around and off of your reflective surfaces.

Sometimes it also helps to add objects to your scene that will bounce light and add additional reflections. An example of this is adding a floor object in your scene, or setting a "glow" value to objects you've strategically placed in your scene.

Use materials with normal (bump) maps

Another way to add realism and use lighting to its full potential is to create materials that have "normal maps." Normal maps, also referred to as bump maps, contain height information in the form of bitmaps that simulate textures or imperfections on the surface of your object, based on the way that light is hitting your objects. Since all real-world objects contain some sort of imperfections, they are incredibly useful for creating realistic scenes.

An example of a normal map.

Here is a before and after of the same exact shot, with and without the normal map above being applied:

Adobe Stock has some fantastic materials that come pre-made and optimized for Adobe Dimension, with normal map information already included. I highly recommend using materials with bump maps applied over simply using the defaults of whatever 3D program you are using. You can also generate normal maps from images or textures in Photoshop as well. Personally, I find normal maps work best when scaled down, thus increasing the amount of tiled patterns and heightening realism.

Angles matter

Don't place lights directly in front of your subject. Avoid placing your lights in symmetrical positions from one another.  Instead, always tilt them at off-angles or 45-degree angles in relation to your subject. By doing this, you'll avoid "washing out" your objects and allow for more shadows to play in your scene.

The larger the light, the softer the shadows

The larger your light source, the more light will diminish shadows and create a softbox for your subjects. In contrast, using smaller light sources means harsher and more direct shadows. If you are finding your shadows too harsh in your scene, simply enlarge them.

Add color

You don't have to use straight up white light for your scenes. Sometimes, you can bring interest just by adding a color tint to your lights to give it a different feel or that cinematic touch. In most programs, including Dimension, you can change the color of the light source.

Experiment!

Sometimes to get that "perfect" shot you may need to simply play with the lights in your scene. Each object and composition is different, so sometimes you may have to play with your light placements and colors to get the perfect look you want. Don't be afraid to move things around or break the rules.

Note: special thanks to Raoul Marks, Angelo Ferretti, and IUPUI University for the 3D models featured in this article.

July 17, 2020No Comments

Working for enterprises vs. startups: A designer’s playbook

Since 2018, I've been chronicling my journey as a designer, beginning with my design internship here at House of van Schneider. Now, after nearly two years working in an agency, I've grown more confident as a product designer and directly seen the impact I can make on a project. Interestingly, that impact is much different depending on the client.

If you are a designer, you’re most likely working in-house, for a startup, in an agency or as a freelancer. And for those of you just starting your design career, you might be wondering what the differences are between these work environments as you decide where you want to work.

Many designers want to work for an agency at the beginning of their career because it exposes them to a wide range of projects and industries. Here I’ll detail some of my thoughts on the spectrum of work you'll do in this role – and how your impact differs depending on whether your client's an enterprise (a larger, established company) or startup company.

Established processes vs. creating new processes

No matter where you work or who you're working with, you'll quickly learn the agency life revolves around process. It's the regular meetings, specific communication practices with the client and defined timelines that keep the machine moving and the work flowing.

Enterprise: If your client is a larger, more mature company, it will likely already have its own processes in place. For example, one enterprise project I worked on had already defined a thorough process for conducting user testing. The product designer would prepare a prototype and complete a research specification template for the UX researcher, who would conduct user interviews on a specific platform, summarize their findings in a deck, and present the deck to the product designer and team.

Startups: A startup, depending on its stage, might not have a process in place. Recently I worked on a project where we were the first designers to touch the product. In cases like this, it’s important to bring our best practices to the project to help shape it, so we can do the best work possible and provide guidance for the client.

Rigid vs. fluid roadmap

Product roadmaps are a high-level strategic document to help align teams, stakeholders and priorities. Depending on your client, you may be following a structured roadmap or navigating your way through one that's more loosely defined.

Enterprise: Within an enterprise, the product roadmap may be established by management or product owners, and product designers might have little to no influence on shaping the roadmap. Because many teams touch a product, there will be interdependencies; this makes it critical for all teams to adhere to the timeline prescribed in the roadmap. Practically, this means there may be strict deadlines to meet so your work isn’t a blocker for other teams.

Startups: Startups have fewer and smaller teams, or perhaps there isn’t even differentiation between teams within the company. As a result, the roadmap might be more fluid, with the opportunity for a designer at any level to have an influence on the roadmap or timeline. However, because the roadmap is fluid in nature, it may change frequently depending on budget, shifting priorities or investor opinions. So don’t get upset if you spend a month designing a specific feature, only for it to be deprioritized.

Slow and steady vs. busy bee

Businesses are just like school projects; the more people on a team, the longer it takes to get things done.

Enterprise: At bigger businesses, there are more opinions, competing priorities, the usual company politics and processes. This results in a slower pace than that of a startup. Remember, with enterprises, any proposed changes to a product have to be greenlit by the teams it might impact. 

Startups: Startups are able to be more agile because of their size, but this can be a double-edged sword. In cases where a start-up has a short runway, there can be immense pressure on the employees to increase their output so the company doesn't fail. 

User data and feedback

Enterprise: Enterprises are usually of a certain maturity level; they’ve been around the block a few times and have history within their industry. These companies should have data on their user demographics and understand how they use the product. Even better, they have a user research team to handle user testing and data aggregation. Having data to work from is incredibly valuable. It eliminates the guesswork, saving the company time and money.

Startups: On the other hand, a startup in an early stage, without a product on the market, will have no data on their users, what they want or how they will use the product. In fact, they may still be searching to see if there is a product-market fit. For design, it’s difficult to work with a lack of data. Of course, there are general design principles and UX patterns you can follow, but without quantitative data, there will also be a significant amount of guesswork involved. Don’t be surprised if you find yourself having to double back on work once user feedback starts flowing in.

Why work with an enterprise?

The most valuable thing I learned while working with enterprises is how to communicate and collaborate cross-functionally within an organization. This might not be explicitly stated on a job listing, but you can be sure every company will look closely for these soft skills when deciding whether to hire you. It will help you become a designer who others enjoy working with, which can propel your career even more than your technical skills. Through my enterprise clients, I also learned how to cater my design presentations to a wide range of audiences (you won't present to a product manager or engineer the same way you do to another designer).

With an enterprise client, your design work has the potential to make a huge impact. If you help redesign a landing page for a company that operates in multiple countries, your work will be seen by hundreds of thousands of people. That’s exciting, and something to be proud of. Just keep in mind that while the potential is great, it will be a large mountain to climb.

Why work with a startup?

Startups test your grit and design competence. You likely won’t have access to the design support you’d find at an enterprise, but you will have an opportunity to take the lead and bring your expertise to the table. Given the high stakes for a fledgling business, you'll likely feel more skin in the game and personal satisfaction from its success. Plus, you’ll have more of what all designers covet – creative freedom. 

Your work for a startup can contribute to its success or failure, which can be thrilling (you may be the only designer on the project, so anything user-facing was created by you!). But due to the fast-paced nature of startups, there’s a chance it could be easily overhauled in a short time frame. 

___

These are of course generalizations based on my personal experience working with these types of companies as an agency designer. It’s completely possible that an enterprise might have no design processes in place, or that a startup doesn’t need much from your design team. Whatever project you work on, take the challenges in stride, and try to capitalize on the unique opportunities you have in your situation. 

July 16, 2020No Comments

Keep this to yourself

You know that one time you stumbled upon that ice cream shop, tucked away on a path you'd just happened to take on a whim? It was the smell that lured you in. That intoxicating scent of sugar and butter that transported you to childhood with a single whiff: waffle cones, made from scratch. You wandered inside, the scene warm and inviting.

For once, you knew exactly what flavor you wanted. The nostalgic decor, the kind face behind the counter, the swirls of creamy color beneath the glass, told you anything you choose can't be wrong; this place seemed to exist solely for your pleasure, conjured up from your own imagination. You floated outside in a reverie, one generously-scooped cone in hand, realizing you'd just experienced something rare and special.

Your first thought? Tell everyone you know about it.

Your second thought? Keep it all to yourself.

It is curious that we enjoy being the first to discover something good and share it with others. Perhaps because it further establishes what we'd like to believe: that we have excellent taste, a singular talent for spotting diamonds in the rough, an eye for quality. Yet at the same time, we have a tendency to hoard our treasures. We are greedy, selfish. We know good things are easily "ruined" once they become popular. So we are torn between the desire to proclaim (and thus claim) our find, and the instinct to squirrel it away.

That ice cream shop, the acorn dropped serendipitously at our feet and stashed deep in the hole of a tree, is the product I want to build.

Something a person feels they are the first to discover. Something they appreciate so much they want to keep it to themselves. A product they inevitably recommend to their closest friends, because despite how much they want to, it's just too good to keep to themselves. (Which is imperative here, lest the company quickly go out of business).

There's a beauty to this intimate word-of-mouth growth strategy. People who discover your product hold it so dearly, they'll whisper it only to those they know will value their recommendation (those most likely to use, appreciate and love your product). And those people will, in turn, do the same.

What follows is a beautiful chain of quality recommendations. People who align so deeply with your product, they ensure the value and existence of it.

The growth of your audience might be slower this way, but it will be far more qualitative – and that much better for the next person who discovers for the first time.

July 15, 2020No Comments

The threatening but beautiful democratization of design

Designers notoriously don’t know what they want. On one hand, we want everyone to understand, appreciate and practice design. On the other, we’re masters in gatekeeping and protecting our trade.

Over the past ten years, design, as an industry and a craft, has gained the recognition it has always been asking for.

Graphic designers have leveled up from "digital artisans" to leaders of successful tech companies. Design, with a capital D, is about more than how it looks, but how it works.

Companies like Apple put Design on the map by embedding it deeply into their product and marketing strategy. "Designing" a business and product experience was once the differentiator. Now it’s expected.

As more companies adopted this approach, the design industry struggled with its newfound attention.

Design-driven became a hip keyword. It was plastered all over our Keynote presentations, meetings and marketing slogans. But it didn't mean anything. Designers vyed for a seat at the table, but didn’t know what to do when we got it. When we finally had the spotlight on us, we forgot our lines, froze on stage.

Over time, though, we got better. We learned to speak the language of business. We infiltrated the largest companies and started many of our own. We navigated the politics and found that seat at the table – at the head of the table, no less.

In our new world, we have both Design, as a philosophy, and design, the execution. We're both thinkers and creators. Design thinking brought a thoughtful process into every aspect of a business, while design as the craft supported it with the technical implementation.

We finally got what we wanted: The democratization of design. But it hasn't quite looked the way we imagined it to.

The democratization of design came in two phases:

1. Design thinking became the new standard. Today, good design is the expectation. We no longer argue the benefits of design, because they’re a given. Many companies might not understand exactly what design is, or what exactly they need, but they still rush to bring designers to the table as early as possible.

2. The demand for design as a service has grown more than ever. Perhaps this came from a deeper understanding of "design thinking,” or simply because we raised our base standard for aesthetics.

"When we can get someone on Fiverr to design our branding for a hundred bucks, why pay thousands of dollars for an expert to spend five weeks doing it?"

Design is now everywhere. We design systems to make design more approachable and affordable for non-designers. We’ve standardized the “craft” of design with new systems, and a new creative class was born on the groundwork we've been laying for years. We’ve worked to educate everyone in our company, from the engineers, the office manager to the salesperson, to become designers themselves. (Because the whole thing with "design thinking" is that it’s supposed to be everybody's business, right?) Both Design and design are now embraced by everyone – not just designers.

But this is where it gets tricky. Because when everyone's a designer, who's a designer?

Our modern design tools signal this new reality:

Canva is one of the largest graphic design platforms, yet most traditional graphic designers haven't heard about it.

Fiverr (perhaps the truest form of design's democratization) is one of the largest creative market places in existence, but anyone with respect for design doesn't approve of it.

Figma is a free design tool in the browser that enables everyone on every computer in any country to start designing, all barriers removed.

Design Pickle (a regrettable name) is similar to Fiverr but helps you find more dedicated designers at a low monthly cost. It's another way of making design more approachable, more affordable for those who may have considered it a luxury before.

Carbonmade (my own company) is a portfolio platform that makes it dead easy for any creative person to design their own website. It's for people who enjoy and appreciate design, but aren't necessarily designers themselves.

And it’s here we see how the democratization of design is a double-edged sword.

The more people with access to design, the more opportunities for everyone. Yet if everybody has access to design, we're making ourselves obsolete as designers. And while the bar has been raised for good design, we’ve simultaneously lowered the value of it.

When we can get someone on Fiverr to design our branding for a hundred bucks, why pay thousands of dollars for an expert to spend five weeks doing it? Why invest the time, money and effort in becoming the best at your craft?

Yet herein lies the beauty as well.

Before we had a 1,000 companies that wanted design, and only 100 who could afford it. Now we have 1 million companies that want design, and 800,000 who can afford it. And there are hordes of designers who want the job.

As we've found a seat at the table, the table has grown. There's still room for everyone; the client who hires on Fiverr or uses Canva isn't going to hire you anyway. And that Fiverr project is their entry point to design. Ultimately they will level up and hire you, but they never would have done it without getting a taste of it somewhere else first.

The democratization of design is threatening only to those who stand still. But it is beautiful for the rest of us who keep pushing forward.

July 13, 2020No Comments

The welcome death of agency speak

By now we should all know phrases like “holistic 360° approach” are tired in this industry. It seems we’ve recycled these agency terms enough, they’ve finally deteriorated. Yet even as old buzzwords die, two new ones pop up like weeds to replace them.

Burned out on the well-intended “storytelling,” we now choose to say “narrative.” And we’ve found new words like “solution” and “enterprise” and “sustainable” and “operationalize” and “bottom line.” Perhaps these terms meant something at some point, but now they don’t say much at all. 

It’s not clear why our industry takes empty words and phrases and runs them to the ground, but I suspect it’s an endless feedback loop. We use these terms while speaking with our clients, and in turn, our clients start talking this way too. They send their RFPs saying they’re looking for scalable solutions that leverage all channels and distribute their content across all mediums to reach a targeted audience and drive conversions, so we promise we’ll do exactly that. We win the business, we’re validated, nobody knows what the hell anybody just said but now we got paid to do it. 

Sometimes it works. We spread some dollars across the standard channels, have a few meetings and get some results that sound impressive in a report at least. And then we turn around and do it all again. Most of the time though, we distract ourselves and our clients with smoke and mirrors to the extent that nobody really knows what’s good or bad, successful or not successful, real or bullshit anymore. It all looks the same.

Imagine if we started talking like normal human beings with our team and our clients. If someone had the nerve to say: “Honestly, what the hell do the clicks on these banner ad even mean? Are people buying and loving your product because of these ads? If not, let’s do something different.”

What if a creative director said to a client: “I don’t have a strategy. I just think it would be fucking cool.”

Picture the heads that would positively spin on shoulders if we admitted, in a stakeholder meeting, “We tanked this quarter. We did a shitty, shitty job. But we have better ideas now.”

Yet we persist in creating the illusion of expertise, intellect and, notably, culture.

These agency marketing ploys have, somehow, managed to hang around for almost a decade:

“We are not just a digital agency. We are family.” 

“We are more than a branding studio. We are storytellers.”

“We’re just a bunch of kids who have no idea what we’re doing. Failure! We celebrate it. We also love dance parties.”

The “hip agency” angle feels like a button some kid pushed on an animatronic baby doll so many times it’s short-circuiting. “Me want ping pong! Me want beer keg!” it proclaims in a robotic voice, legs and arms gyrating mechanically in a dark hallway, reaching for nothing.

I’m all for teamwork, failure and dance parties. Currently, though, it seems like a yawn-worthy tactic to lure new hires. In 2020, trade “beer keg” with “diversity” and “ping pong” with “inclusive” – admirable values, but usually a half-hearted facade in reality.

Of course, some agencies live up to their own hype. The rest though, bury their blandness under ten-dollar words and performative, half-baked blog posts. Get the job and you’ll quickly learn it’s a hair-on-fire, back-stabbing, soul-sucking place to spend the precious 8 hours of your few remaining days.

Here are some fundamental values that will never be tired in this industry or elsewhere:

Honesty - By this I don’t mean simply listing “transparency” as a core value on your website. I mean creating a culture that actually lives up to the smiling faces on your Team page.  I mean having straightforward, no-bullshit conversations between team members and with clients. Every time.

Clarity - Clarity comes naturally with honesty. When you’re not trying so hard to impress, things become a lot more simple. Eliminate the buzzwords and you’ll find yourself saying something both you and your client understand and believe in. It makes everything a whole lot easier. 

Humor - Granted, there are some agencies out there that lean a BIT too heavily on puns. But humor, when done right, is timeless. 

As designers, we perpetuate the cycle just as much as anyone. We love boasting about our design systems and waxing poetic about our workflows. We’re so busy one-upping each other about who’s the most accessible, the most empathetic, it’s a wonder we get any work done.

It may just be human nature, our survival instincts evolving to the modern age. But I feel confident, with just a little effort, we can still do better.

July 10, 2020No Comments

Designing the future of clothing, where extreme functionality & creativity meet

In every good story, the hero takes a journey. In my world, it's the designers turned product founders. The startups grown into multi-million dollar businesses. Or, in this case, the extreme adventurers now designing the future of clothing.

I was first drawn to Vollebak simply for its style. It's the kind of clothing I'd wear every day, although I'm not exactly its target audience.

Steve and Nick Tidball, founders of Vollebak, create high tech clothing meant to withstand the most extreme of circumstances. Before starting the company, the twin brothers competed in ultramarathons through the Namibian desert, the Amazon jungle, the Alps. And they still adventure now, which inspires the outerwear they create.

I talked to Steve and Nick about their unusual creative process, the possibilities of sustainable clothing design and what it looks like to run a clothing brand like a tech brand.

Nick and Steve, founders of Vollebak

"What we saw was this amazing crossover where extreme functionality and the extremes of creativity were impossible to tell apart. And that’s where we realized we should sit."

You’ve experienced your most creative moments at the point of extreme physical and psychological pressure, including a shared hallucination that sparked the idea of Vollebak. Is this a creative process you’d recommend to others?

STEVE: I guess it depends on your capacity for tolerating risk and pain! So when we’re coming up with new ideas so many of them come from being outside in nature running, riding, paddleboarding. I’m a huge fan of the concept of flow, so I deliberately harness this state to come up with most of my ideas. On a practical level that simply means doing the majority of my thinking when I’m out doing sport in nature, or immediately after finishing.

So for example, our Plant and Algae t-shirt is the result of an experience we had competing in a six-day ultramarathon through the Amazon. At the end of the race, a bunch of the runners put their kit into a pile and burnt it as it was covered in a week’s worth of blood and piss and sweat. And we wondered whether instead of burning your clothing at the end of these races, you could simply bury it - so we set out to make a piece of clothing entirely out of natural materials that could be buried in the ground and return to nature once it reached the end of its lifespan.

The Plant and Algae T Shirt, made from pulped eucalyptus and beech from sustainably managed forests, and algae grown in bioreactors.

NICK: For us, the best ideas always come from getting stuck into the reality of a situation and talking it through until you come up with something interesting. But our creative moments also happen in less pressured environments, and outside the world of adventure sport.

One of the moments that proved really influential in creating our design principles was the elBulli exhibition at the Courtauld Institute – as we never got the opportunity to visit the restaurant itself. One of the things that stood out most was a bespoke plate they had created for one of their dishes. It was entirely black and molded with a series of unique oval indentations where the various elements of the dish were intended to sit.

What we were really fascinated by was how in a different context, if you’d been told it was a plate designed for a mission into deep space you would have believed it. What we saw was this amazing crossover where extreme functionality and the extremes of creativity were impossible to tell apart. And that’s where we realized we should sit. Nearly every subsequent aesthetic decision has fallen out of that.

The Deep Sleep Cocoon, built for the first missions to Mars, strips out light like an isolation tank. You can see out, but no one can see in.

Vollebak clothing can withstand fires, water, wind, time – extremes I don’t often find myself in, but I want the clothes nonetheless. Who is this clothing made for?

STEVE: We never set out with an overly-tight target audience in mind. Instead we started out with the question “What happens if we make the world’s most advanced clothing?” The reality is that this approach has been a magnet for people interested in the future.

NICK: We obviously have extreme sports athletes, adventurers and the military. And at the same time, we have a lot of scientists, doctors and entrepreneurs – people who are actively shaping the future in their fields. This has helped us grow incredibly quickly from a brand that started with just two pieces of clothing four years ago, to one where you can kit yourself out for most adventures anywhere on Earth.

Thhe Full Metal Jacket, disease-resistant clothing built with 65% copper.

My own products are geared toward a very niche group of people within an already niche market. And I’m happy staying there rather than going for the largest reach possible. I gather you think the same way?

STEVE: Before 2020 lots of our clothing had been adopted by people who seek out risk for fun – which is definitely a relatively small subset of people.

But what’s interesting now is that we can see the world becoming increasingly unpredictable, from disasters like flooding, wildfires and full-scale pandemics. And 2020 has shown that these really significant risks are now being faced by everyone. So I think what was once relatively niche might very soon not be.

NICK: If you’d asked people six months ago “How do you dress for a life and death situation?” you’d probably have been met with a lot of confused faces. But now, whether you’re seven years old or 70, you could probably debate the relative merits of covering your nose and mouth with a makeshift cotton bandana, wearing a homemade Perspex face shield, or leaving your house in a full hazmat suit.

So as we enter a new era of disease, the Earth heats up, and people of all ages are exposed to risk, gear like our Full Metal Jacket – which is our first step toward disease-resistant clothing – has much wider potential.

As far as I know, you don’t have a background in technology or science. How do you go about brainstorming and creating this clothing? Are you collaborating with scientists as well as fashion designers?

STEVE: Before launching Vollebak, we’d worked together in advertising for 15 years helping creative direct some of the world’s biggest brands like Adidas and Airbnb. So we took our experience from there to build our own brand. From the outside, we could see an industry that was fighting wars overpricing, trends and consumer eyeballs. But we couldn’t see the same level of competition around true innovation or ideas. And our background was in ideas.

NICK: When it comes to development, quantum leaps in technology are required for a lot of our gear, and it can take up to four years to find the partners we need and evolve the technology. We work very closely with partners who are also interested in exploring what the future of materials and clothing will hold. But they can come from extremely disparate fields, all the way from academic research, to fabric mills to military psychologists.

"I don’t know if anyone has ever put a camel in a lab before. But with our method, we don’t need to."

I know your clothing is inherently more sustainable than the standard, throwaway athletic clothing, and you’ve explored environmental friendliness even further with the Plant and Algae t-shirt. But when you’re working with extremely high-tech materials, it seems like you can only take sustainability so far. Do you see a future where you can create sustainably without sacrificing quality?

STEVE: So we have to explore advanced materials and sustainability at the same time – because the future will be built around both. And they may well collide at some point down the line.

Interestingly we don’t view sustainability as an advancement. 5,000 years ago humanity already had sustainable clothing. Otzi man was dug up wearing deer skin, grass and tree bark. His clothes were made entirely out of nature and would simply return to nature when he died.

So in terms of making sustainable clothing, we have some way to go just to catch up with where we’ve already been as a species.

NICK: My feeling is that with the rise of biomaterials, and fabrics that you will be able to grow in a lab, that ultimately the most advanced materials will also become the most sustainable. We might just be looking at a 50-year timeline before we get there.

The Black Squid Jacket, a waterproof and windproof outer shell that mimics the adaptive camouflage of a squid.

You like to ship your products early to get feedback early and iterate from there. Is there ever a battle with perfectionism and doubt at this stage, or is taking that risk another adrenaline rush for you?

STEVE: A lot of the ways we operate make us more like a technology brand than a clothing brand. In tech, you can either be late or early. To be late you’d stay in the lab for the next decade until you’d perfected lightweight armor made from graphene. To be early, you’d put an experimental prototype out into the world and harness the collective testing power of early adopters to improve and iterate.

So we open up our R&D process to our customers and to the outdoors, in order to accelerate their innovation and discovery. By taking these materials out of the research labs and into the field, we see our gear tested in the extreme scenarios for which they’re designed, and in some of the most remote parts of the world. And we’re comfortable with the process because it leads to excellent discoveries. For example, if we hadn’t released early, we might not have discovered that our Graphene Jacket could be used as a life-saving solar panel, or that you could strap it to a camel’s belly to absorb heat.

I don’t know if anyone has ever put a camel in a lab before. But with our method, we don’t need to!

NICK: Even for our first iterations, the process of building our gear is an exercise in no-expense-spared craftsmanship. While your idea is important, your execution is everything. A good idea executed badly is almost worthless. So we will only ever put something out into the world that people can see has had time, attention and love poured into it. While we come up with new ideas every day, very few are ever launched, and every piece takes between one and five years to make.

Adventurer Nikita Gushchin used the Graphene Jacket as a life-saving heat source when lost in the Nepalese mountains overnight.

You’re both into extremes when it comes to the outdoors, pushing your body and just general adventure. I sense it’s either all or nothing for most things you do. Does this apply to other places in your life/work?

STEVE: I would definitely agree that we don’t half do things. So even when I was told I had about 30 minutes left to live if I didn’t stop running an ultramarathon across the Namibian desert, I took about 5 hours out, then rejoined the race. Now I’m well aware that’s not normal decision making! And I suspect we do a lot of that in normal life too.

NICK: We definitely commit when we decide to do something. But we look at everything pretty simply, which is: When you’re 80 and you’re looking back at what you did, are you going to remember it? And are you going to be proud you did it? If the answer is no to either of those questions then you probably shouldn’t be doing it.

The 100 Year Hoodie, a waterproof, fireproof, windproof hoodie.

I’ve found once you’re running a company based on what you love, you eventually find it harder to make time for doing what you love. How do you run a business and also make time for the adventure/life experiences that fuel it?

STEVE: Nick and I are very hands-on. Having spent 15 years as a copywriter I write every word we put out. I can’t ever imagine leaving this to someone else. But as ideas are at the center of our business, we try and spend as much time as possible doing the stuff that generates those concepts. So we always find time to run, ride, surf, ski, climb, kayak, paddleboard.

NICK: There’s a saying about how you should meditate for 20 minutes a day, unless you’re too busy, in which case you should meditate for an hour. That’s what we do with sport. The more we know we have to get done, the more sport we’ll do as it keeps our brains wired.

I know Vollebak has been compared to Tesla, and I’m a big fan of Tesla myself – but despite how advanced and futuristic its cars may be, they still look like... cars. Do you envision, or see a need for, a piece of clothing that might not even look like clothing? Or something so futuristic we can’t yet understand or see the need for it?

NICK: My gut is that Elon is only just getting started. Typically the things people like that are putting out into the world, are five years behind the stuff they’re thinking about in their heads. We’re the same.

STEVE: I think over the next decade and beyond our fundamental understanding of what clothing is, and what it is there to do, will shift. I think we will look back and laugh at how basic it is today. It won’t make sense that it just sat there on your skin doing nothing other than keeping you warm!

"I think I’ll just continue to be most excited about whatever it is I come up with that morning."

You built a product you wanted to use yourself. I’ve found that’s the best way to begin. What do you want or need now that doesn’t exist yet, whether that’s clothing, tech or something else?

STEVE: I would quite like to be able to clone myself to double my output. Or at least create a digital version of my mind so it can be working on problems while I’m sleeping.

NICK: I think I’d like a Boston Dynamics robot to ride around London. And a few pet ones for my children to ride.

The 100 Year Pants, built to withstand fire, nature, water and time.

Any new pieces coming out from Vollebak we should know about, or pieces you’re dreaming to create but haven’t yet?

STEVE: We’ll continue to look at intelligent clothing from two angles. We have to build the base conditions – looking at advanced conductive fabric like graphene and copper. And at the same time we’re working on "the intelligence" itself – so what it is that we want to gather and why.

NICK: I think I’ll just continue to be most excited about whatever it is I come up with that morning. Most of the time I don’t know what that’s going to be until it just appears. The only real limit we face is, can that thing be physically built today? Is the technology ready? Because it’s always far easier to simply think of something than it is to build it. But that’s the fun – marrying those two worlds.

July 6, 2020No Comments

Writing UX copy for buttons and links

This is an excerpt from our upcoming UX Writing book, exploring how we (as designers and copywriters) can write copy that helps people use and love our products. Sign up for book updates here

It’s widely known at this point that people don’t read, they scan. That makes your button and link text, in some cases, even more important than your body copy.

We have been trained to look for the Next button, click the Accept button or tap “Next” instead of reading introductory text. Our eyes go straight to the CTAs.

So your link or button copy serves two purposes: To set the user’s expectations and propel them forward. Meaning, one or two words can make or break your product experience.

First, the difference between buttons and links:

Buttons are generally used for the most important actions we take on your site or within your product. Think: clicking “Buy Now,” adding an item to our cart, completing a purchase.

You will also likely use buttons rather than links when guiding your user through a series of steps to complete a task, i.e. a “Next” button in a survey.

Links are typically used within body text as a soft CTA. You’d include a link within an article to link to other content. While buttons signal an important action, links encourage browsing.

Your copy may change slightly depending on whether you’re writing for a link or button.

Button copy should match the action

Your button should always clearly describe what action the user takes when they click it.

When they’re moving to the next step: “Continue”
When they’re completing payment: “Complete payment”
When they’re signing up: “Sign Up”

You get the idea. If someone is surprised by the result after clicking a button, it’s your copy’s fault.

That said, subtle differences in word choice can have an impact

A friend of mine working on an adventure resort website was tasked with increasing online conversions for trip estimates. After years using “Request pricing” for the button text, they A/B tested it with the text, “Get a quote.” The second option won by a landslide. Their theory: The word “pricing” seemed like a harder commitment. Getting a quote, on the other hand, felt less intimidating. They changed the button text and conversions skyrocketed.

Both “Request pricing” and “Get a quote” describe the action. They are both technically correct, in terms of best practice. But the second variation got more clicks.

If you’re focused on a specific conversion, it’s worth testing different copy for your CTA. You’ll never know if “Sign up” or “Create an account” (both of which say the same thing) perform better for your audience until you try both.

Just be careful to not get too clever. “Join us” is vague, and potentially confusing, compared to the straightforward “Sign up.”

Link copy can be more ambiguous

Since we’re not usually committing to anything or changing our experience in any significant way when clicking a link, the stakes are lower. You have more room here, both in length and tone, to be playful and exercise your brand voice.

However, descriptive, clear copy usually wins here too.

Your link could read simply, “Download the guide” or it could say more descriptively, “Download the quick start guide for easy set-up.” If I were scanning, I’d know immediately what the latter leads me to. Otherwise, I might have to read the surrounding text for context first.

Beware the “Learn More” trap

The classic “Learn More” button text is a cop-out I’m guilty of using myself (on this blog, even) with both links and buttons. Sometimes, it does the job. Most of the time, though, we can do better.

Take our Studio edition page for Semplice.com, for example. Most features link to their own sub-page, and we could have easily slapped “Learn More” or "Buy Now" on these buttons like we do elsewhere. Instead, we use the buttons almost as supporting text for body copy. Buttons like:

See all Grids
View Demos
Get Studio
See How it Works

Every button aims to play off the body copy above it. We’re not getting poetic or using puns, mind you. The text is still plain and clear, describing the action and setting expectations. Yet we’re using the buttons to build on the story and push the user forward.

Buttons & help text: The perfect pairing

Think about how your user feels and what they know or don’t know when clicking your button. Are they about to spend their money? Are they sharing their personal information? Are they wondering how much longer this will take?

The copy preceding your button should answer any questions they may have, but in some cases, help text can validate their decision, alleviate any concerns and give that final push they need to click.

With a short sentence beneath your button, you can assure them their payment is secure, their information won’t be shared, or that they’re about to make a great decision.

Airbnb knows its users are making a relatively big commitment when booking a place to stay. They understand you may be weighing options before you book. So, assuming the user may hesitate over that “Reserve” button, they assure you beneath that you won’t be charged yet.

Experian knows its customers worry that checking their credit score hurts their credit, so they explain with their button help text that it doesn't. The New Yorker knows you've been burned by subscriptions in the past, so they write "cancel anytime" below their subscribe button. It's here, with your buttons, that empathy (a word designers love to throw around) comes into practice. By thinking about how your user may feel when deciding whether to click your button, you can write copy that ensures they do.

This is another place your voice can come into play. Just make sure your message clarifies and supports, rather than distracting or adding complexity.

__

For more about writing microcopy:

→ Best practices for UX copywriting
Content or design first?
How to write marketing copy that isn't cringey
Finding your brand voice
How to write UX copy that makes your product a joy to use
How to write concisely

July 1, 2020No Comments

Monthly portfolio inspiration of June 2020

Once a week, we select two portfolios created with Semplice to feature in our Best Of  Showcase.  Here we've collected our favorites from the month of June.

It's been an inspiring month for sure. We've seen creative studios, art directors, illustrators and more all using Semplice to build the portfolio site of their dreams.

We're exciting to bring you yet another treasure trove of hand-picked portfolios. Enjoy!

Browse the best portfolios of the month below to see fresh new work and get inspired for your own site. And if you've created your own portfolio with Semplice, be sure to submit it to our Showcase here. We might feature your site next.

 

Ayaka Ito

Lebassis

Adi Constantin

Panoply

Yu Rong

KORRELAT

Dos Decadatres

 

To see more great design portfolios, visit the Semplice showcase. I'll be back next month with more of our monthly favorites!

Header image by Panoply

June 29, 2020No Comments

My new social platform of choice

I never thought I’d say this, but lately I’ve been enjoying LinkedIn.

Designers have historically scoffed at LinkedIn. I steered clear of it for the same reason I avoid conferences and networking events: I figured anyone there was the stuffy corporate type, trading business cards and buzzwords in ill-fitting suits.

And maybe that was true for a time. But recently, it’s changed.

Just look at the comments sections on LinkedIn posts, where most conversations take place. Compared to every other social network, I see fewer pile-ons or one-upping. I see less posturing and performing. A refreshing absence of long, rabid rants. Zero trolls or bots. It is, somehow, pure.

With exceptions, LinkedIn is starting to feel like Twitter did ten years ago. People aren’t trying so hard. They seem less jaded, more positive. They’re surprisingly engaged.

In 2020, LinkedIn has become the most wholesome social network.

In the early days of Twitter, we didn’t take ourselves so seriously. We were curious, we tried to be funny, and we didn’t worry so much about how we’d be perceived. We just shared what was on our minds, however trivial it may have been.

Scroll deep to someone’s timeline from say, 2009, and you’ll find one-liners like, “Just made some bomb tacos.” Now we’ve gotta have a punchline and get 30k retweets, or we’ve failed. We’d better make our stance known on political issues, or we’re doing it wrong. If I see two people on Twitter today having a positive, genuine one-on-one conversation, it feels almost embarrassing. Twitter’s not the place for sincerity. It’s a place to loudly state your opinion or promote your brand.

LinkedIn today has the innocence I miss from the early days of social media. Perhaps it’s because the platform is still fairly limited. It’s not as easy to jump into a conversation you have no place jumping into. Most of us are “connected” with a relatively small circle of people within a fairly closed-in network. I don’t sense an overreaching algorithm fucking with my sense of time and reality, or intrusive ads disrupting my feed.

Which is not to say it’s perfect. The UI is dismal, and I completely ignore notifications and “recent” posts, which read like spam whether they are or not. I often post my articles and peace out, engaging only when someone chooses to engage with me. Yet I keep coming back.

Maybe we’re all looking for an escape from the negativity of Twitter and the mindlessness of Instagram. Maybe LinkedIn HQ will catch on and learn how to take advantage of its users’ information, maximize engagement and become another platform we hate ourselves for using. Maybe the trolls will discover this little hidden gem and destroy it. We’ll see, and probably soon.

Until then, I look forward to connecting with you.

June 23, 2020No Comments

Design in Egypt 🇪🇬 featuring Engy Aly

Our latest addition to the Design Around the World series takes us somewhere we've wanted to explore for a while now: Egypt.

I found no shortage of talent when researching designers and studios in Egypt. Engy Aly's name came up more than once. The Cairo-based graphic designer was thankfully willing to talk with us, and so we did: About the overwhelming commerciality of visual culture in Cairo, about the quality of design education, using social media as a Cairene woman and more.

Hey Engy, thanks for doing this with us. First, tell us a little about yourself. How did you get into design and what kind of work do you do? 

Thank you for inviting me to do this interview! Well, I’m 37, born and raised in Cairo. I live and work in my home and studio in Heliopolis, north-east of the city. I don’t separate much between life and work so I work in the main living space of the apartment – close to the coffee and the kitchen! 

Growing up I’ve always had an interest in visual culture. My parents both studied art and work in architecture and interior design; they have a small studio together. I grew up surrounded by drafting tables, architecture tools, airbrushes and Letraset sheets, a tool I am still especially fond of and work with frequently in my independent project, Life Diagrams. My mum also worked with stained glass for some time. Working with our hands is something we both enjoy a lot.

I first studied graphic design in Cairo, in the early noughties (the early 2000s) at a then newly established design program. After graduation, I mostly worked in "fileclub," an influential and one of the few experimental design studios that existed in Cairo at the time. Sadly they closed around 2009, which is coincidentally also the year I started to work independently. Seven years ago, I felt the need to get out of the city and to go back to school, so I went for an MFA (now MDES) at the Basel School of Design in Basel, a city rich in art and design institutions and museums. 

Most of the projects I work on are related to arts and culture, although sometimes I also do some branding work. The past three years I have primarily focused on artist books and publications, partially because more and more artists are interested in using books as a medium. I also love teaching because it is a constant and mutual process of learning and unlearning. I’ve taught different classes at the American University in Cairo as well as sitting on various student thesis presentations and juries in other institutions. Finally, recognizing the pressing need for establishing platforms where a discourse around design can be expressed, I have also started initiating and organizing curatorial design projects. 

Engy in her studio

Cairo is considered the center of Egypt’s culture and politics. Have you found a community of likeminded creatives there? Do many platforms and events exist in Cairo / Egypt overall that connect you with other designers?

Cairo is the center of the “battlefield,” true! The city is composed of many different groups and subcultures with different, sometimes intersecting, interests. I can’t say I have a large network of fellow designers that I talk to on a regular basis, but I do have a local circle of “creatives” (I’m not so fond of this word) – artists, writers, designers, makers and educators that I am close to. Unfortunately I don’t spend as much time as I would like to with many of them, because I’m a bit of a house potato. 

Platforms are slowly but surely developing. Some might be too commercial for my taste and sadly a couple of the new platforms are completely male-dominated. There is a lack of independent, free-form, non-institutional, experimental constellations which is why I initiated ‘Sporadic Schooling,’ a long term program of happenings that has unfortunately been put on hold because of the pandemic. ‘Sporadic Schooling’ is a pedagogical tool that focuses on developing new models of knowledge production and sharing, by inviting top practitioners in the fields of design, critical theory and museum practice to develop open formats informed by their experiences and perspectives. I look forward to picking it up again when things are more stable.

"Real estate billboards constantly suggest that you are not supposed to feel you are in Cairo anymore. You are now in Paris, in Beverly Hills, on a Greek island."

Mini visual identity for ‘Photomarathon 2019’, Alexandria 15.11. Collaboration with the Luca Schenardi – lucaschenardi.ch

Egyptians are considered the originators of “visual communication design,” from hieroglyphics to the invention of paper to the first use of grids. And I’ve heard the streets of Cairo are vibrant with posters mixed with hand-painted lettering, murals, tiles and colors.

How would you describe the design you see coming from Egypt today? Is it influenced by your culture/history/environment in any way?

Actually the vibrancy and diversity of public visual culture, as well as the sheer quantity of non-commercial visual material, have shrunk significantly over the past few years. It’s not that easy to hang posters on the street anymore. Most institutions are veering toward online posts for announcements of events, since the virtual space offers more safety. This, for me, has also changed my emotional connection to the city. My essay, "The Gradual Disappearance," which I wrote as an introduction to the publication "Delusions and Errors," (2017) discusses this issue. 

A large portion of the city’s visual production is commercial advertisement, mostly for real estate developments on the outskirts of the city, and most of these are, frankly, hideous! These advertisements try to speak in a visual language that is intentionally elitist and projects an idealized image of a certain lifestyle as a selling point. Real estate billboards constantly suggest that you are not supposed to feel you are in Cairo anymore. You are now in Paris, in Beverly Hills, on a Greek island. I find this meeting between a perverse concept and the use of a generic visual material grotesque. These are the visuals one actually sees on a daily basis driving around. But on the other hand, there are many designers who do marvelous work, whether in the cultural sector (which is the sector more open to experimentation), the independent scene, or even some entrepreneurial projects that rely on branding, both online and in print.  

A large portion of the visual production is influenced by Western design, I think because material, tutorials and other resources are more abundant and accessible. But a lot of new local projects are based on cultural research and are trying to connect more with local material and the surrounding environment. 

Vector Walla Raster, 2017

Cairo is home to Al-Azhar University, the world's second-oldest institution of higher learning, and has the largest number of schools and universities in Egypt. What is the quality of design education like in Egypt? Do most designers seek a formal degree, or are many self-taught?

I have to say I do not find the history of Al-Azhar to be relevant to this topic.

Design education here is still somewhat limited but is developing quite rapidly, although I think not fast enough to accommodate the rising number of design enthusiasts.

Both public and private design programs exist, but they offer a different perspective on design education. Although some of these programs are a bit conservative in their educational approach, many of the students find their own way and their own paths to self-development. Many good designers are self-taught or have come to design from a different career. I have only worked in the private universities, so I’m not that well informed with what the public ones currently offer. But a conversation between both sectors is much needed. 

AN ANTHOLOGY OF PUBLISHED & UNPUBLISHED WRITINGS BY HASSAN KHAN. With Annotations by the Author 1993 to 2018. Ed. by Philippe Pirotte. Text by Hassan Khan & Philippe Pirotte. London 2019. 17 x 24 cm. 288 Pages.

Thanks to the internet (and now with the pandemic on top), many designers are working for clients overseas remotely. How is it for you? Do you work mostly with local or overseas clients, or is it a mix?

I have mostly been working with a constellation of people from different places and backgrounds – for example a typical project could involve an Egyptian artist, a German museum, an Italian publisher and a Swiss printer all together. So we work in a diverse team that is located in at least two countries, two time zones. It’s great, though it means I work a lot of weekends. Between the local weekend and the European weekend, I end up working all the time! But I enjoy this open and rich connection. The challenge is usually production; I cannot always fly to see the work getting printed and I miss that somehow, being present for the production. But it ultimately works out. I’ve also done some work in the U.S. and a lot of work for Cairo-based individuals and institutions. 

Engy's workspace

What impact does your social media presence have on getting new clients and self-promotion in general? What works best for you?

I’m not sure. As a Cairene female, you encounter constant harassment both in daily life and virtually, so I've decided to keep my main Instagram account private – to avoid attracting a lot of trolls.

Most of the work I get is based on clients coming across my work in person and being interested. I do not depend on my online presence, and maybe that’s why my website has been a work in progress for over ten years now (facepalm)!

"Our society is complex, layered and diverse, and real transformation has to be driven by changes in the whole structure."

A piece from Engy's "Life Diagrams" series titled "The long and utterly nonsensical wait for the world to change."

What does good design mean to you, and how do you see it impacting your country’s society as a whole?  For example, I’ve read women’s rights are a big challenge in Cairo/Egypt (like many places in the world). Does design have a place in that conversation?

I don’t believe good or bad design can have an actually large impact on the country. Our society is complex, layered and diverse, and real transformation has to be driven by changes in the whole structure. 

Women are quite present in design education, and I am quite happy with that. The TYPE Lab for example is a project initiated by women educators and hosts and highlights the role of women in type design and typography. There is a strong female presence in academia.

Visual for Sporadic Schooling: Experimental Type Design Workshop, 2020

Sustainable design is increasingly a conversation in the design community. I know Cairo struggles with air and water pollution, due to the high density of people. Is environmentally conscious design an interest for designers in Cairo right now? 

Yes, it is. But primarily in product design rather than in printed media. 

Publication design, Noor Abu Arafeh: Rumors Began Sometime Ago, 2018

In your opinion, who are some of the top design studios or designers from Cairo/Egypt we should know about?

I am not comfortable making a list of "top" designers. I would rather make a non-comprehensive list, in no particular order, of interesting visual practitioners that are part of my scene. Here are some of the people whose work I enjoy a lot:

Nora Aly
Ahmed Hammoud (sometimes Nora and Hammoud work collaboratively)
Salma Shamel
Ramses Wissa Wassef produces amazing scenic tapestry that you could stare at for hours
Nelly El Sharkawy
Mostafa Youssef
Walid Taher

And platforms like:

AUC Type Lab
Cairobserver
100 BAP
The Archilogue 

Some of the students that I have previously taught produce very admirable and bold work, including: Tasneem Tawheed, Salma El Kafrawy and many, many more.

__

Thanks so much for keeping it real with us, Engy! We learned a lot through this conversation and will be following to see how the visual culture, education and design continues to evolve in Egypt.

June 23, 2020No Comments

Skeuomorphism is making a comeback

I've said it many times over the last few years. But today with even more certainty, I'll say it again: skeuomorphism is coming back.

For the reader who isn't deep into the design industry’s nonsensical terms, a quick summary:

Skeuomorphism is a term used in UI design to describe interface objects that mimic their real-world counterparts, complete with hyperrealistic shading and depth. A well-known example is the recycling bin icon used for discarding files. 

The antithesis of skeuomorphism is “flat design,” which has reigned for the last few years. It’s exactly what it seems: Minimalistic, one-dimensional flat shapes meant to be clean and simple.

Both skeuomorphism and flat design have been the center of many heated arguments within the digital design community. If you're not part of this exclusive club, you have to understand that the noise is coming largely from a small group of people with firmly held religious design beliefs. According to them, there is only *one* way to design something. And you'll find those people on both sides of the argument.

But why do I believe skeuomorphism is coming back?

It's how trend circles work

We're humans and we get bored easily. Seeing one thing too long, we want the other back again. Look at fashion: Ripped jeans are in high demand one year and out of style the next. Our trends and taste constantly change, but they move in a circle. This is true for digital design, for fashion, architecture and even food.

Digital design is still young, but we’re starting to see the trends repeating themselves. The internet started out mostly flat. That was due to the technical limitations of computers at the time, and limited capability for imagination. The bare essentials were designed by engineers out of necessity, not because they had a grand visual vision.

Everything was new, so we needed an easy way to assign meaning and help people navigate this unfamiliar territory. And Skeuomorphism was born. 

First, we borrowed symbolism from the real world to explain virtual actions. Deleting something meant adding it to the trash bin. Saving something meant clicking on the little floppy disc. To take a note, I click on the icon that looks like an analog notepad.

From there, we started getting more creative. We went to painstaking lengths to make those symbols and the surrounding UI appear “real.” Digital artists took pride in using textures and lightning to create some of the most inspiring icons and UIs I've ever seen. What followed was leather-bound note-taking apps and calendars apps that simulated a ripped paper effect when you canceled an event.

The UI felt busy, yes. But it also felt warm, friendly, human. We simply had more pixels to attach our emotions to.  As you flicked through the carefully crafted paper turn animations in apps like Paper from 53, you felt creatively stirred. The UI was more than just how it works, it was how it made you feel.

But then, everything changed.

A shift in trends usually happens for two reasons:

  1. We become tired of what we’ve been doing. We start looking for something that feels fresh and new. Multiple movements compete for attention, and eventually a new style creeps in and becomes the norm.
  2. A more influential body makes the decision for us. Most designers are not trendsetters, they're followers. So if Apple or another influential platform decides *this* is the new style going forward, most of us will just follow.

Flat design took over as we became increasingly bored and overwhelmed by the hyper-realistic skeuomorphic world we’d locked ourselves into.

That and, flat design is *much* easier to get into. The hard skills you needed to enter the world of skeuomorphism were high. Flat design required less effort and way fewer software skills, both for designers and engineers. It was the beginning of "The UX designer who doesn't design” era.

Flat design also made more sense. A couple decades into "the internet," we didn’t need skeuomorphic symbolism to help us understand how software works. It simply wasn't necessary anymore. As we optimized our software, we also optimized our way of working with it. We streamlined our workflow, got rid of the clutter and continued to simplify.

For Apple, flat design was a way to enforce simple rules throughout their ecosystem. Apple loves to keep things consistent. Every design decision a developer makes with their app reflects either positively or negatively on the overall experience of the iPhone. It is in Apple's interest to make every app look and work as closely as their own, both from a visual and a UX perspective. If this is a good or bad thing for the diversity of design, I'll let you be the judge of that.

Flat design served as some sort of reset for Apple and their platform. What was once a colorful and messy garden of glossy icons and textures, a playground of user interactions, became a clean, streamlined system.

Fast forward a couple of years, to today.

We've learned and we've grown. Even our grandmothers know how to use an iPad. We've established standardized frameworks and default interactions. We've optimized our systems so much, we can build an app over a weekend. 

But something is missing in these modern UIs. They're clean. They're streamlined. They're optimized for productivity and speed. But they’ve lost their soul. Our apps and interfaces have all started look the same and feel the same. Even the icons blend together on our screens. People feed off visual stimuli, and the visual world online has become less and less stimulating with each year. And so we’re gravitating toward something new.

Today we're slowly moving toward skeuomorphism again because it gives us that emotional feeling we're longing for. As Diana Vreeland said beautifully: "The eye has to travel.” Babies love to play with visual, vibrant objects because it fully engages their brains. Grown-ups aren't much different.

Today we're looking for a stronger, emotional connection with our software again. After all, we're sitting in front of a screen almost our entire day. If it's not fun, what's the point?

Skeuomorphism shouldn't be treated as a religion. It's simply a tool in a box full of many more. Tools we employ to create digital experiences that people LOVE to use. And if that means picking one over the other, why not? There's a function in beauty, and skeuomorphism is just a part of this function.

Looking at what Apple presented yesterday at WWDC (for reference, the year is 2020) we can see that even Apple is finding its way back to where it came from. Is it good? We don't know yet, but it's a start of something new. The momentum is there.

And I’ll see you again in a couple years, to repeat this cycle all over again.

___

Related articles:

The Kawaiization of product design
→ Should I follow design trends?
→ The dilemma of form follows function

June 22, 2020No Comments

6 gorgeous portfolios from branding & identity designers

If you're a branding or identity designer, you typically have an obsession with detail. You are, naturally, an expert in typography. You've learned how to distill a story to its most powerful parts and present it in a compelling way.  So it's no wonder branding portfolios are some of the best out there.

I'm biased, but I believe Semplice, my portfolio tool, is perfectly suited to branding studios and designers. Custom case studies are the core of Semplice, allowing you to design beautiful pages for each unique project. Customize background colors, style your navigation to match the work, add custom reveal animations to introduce the brand. It's made to help you tell each unique project story the way you want to tell it. Here are just a few of my favorite branding portfolios that demonstrate that well.

Charlie Jennings

Instead of having a single Work page like most portfolios, Charlie Jennings separates his projects into two categories: Design and Direction. In doing so, he makes his navigation part of his positioning. We immediately know his main areas of focus before we even read his intro.

View portfolio →

Mackey Saturday

Mackey Saturday is the inimitable identity designer behind the Instagram, Oculus and (importantly) Semplice logos, among many others. His website reflects his unwavering dedication to simplicity and timelessness.

View portfolio →

Verena Michelitsch

Scan her portfolio and you'll see Verena Michelitsch works with some of the most optimistic, tasteful brands out there – because she helped make them that way.

View portfolio →

Magda Reyman

Magda Reyman is a freelance designer specializing in interactive design and branding. Her portfolio is decidedly simple, with a stripped-down homepage and just four selected projects. It's a move that shows confidence.

View portfolio →

Studio HMVD

If you're paying attention, you'll know this is not the first time we've featured Studio HMVD. We've enjoyed following the evolution of this branding studio over the last few years, including its latest redesign.

View portfolio →

Christina Michelitsch

Christina Michelitsch is an Austrian graphic designer & art director based in NYC. Her portfolio, similar to her work for clients like Irene Neuwirth, Romance Journal and Amur, is clean yet subtly playful.

View portfolio →

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For more portfolio inspiration, read these:

7 minimalist portfolios made with Semplice

The most underrated page on your portfolio

Should I add a blog to my portfolio?

Cover image from christinamichelitsch.com

June 19, 2020No Comments

It’s finally here: The extension for your mind

I talked before about my frustration with today’s tools. About how we’ve become complacent managing our chaos. About the disconnect between how our minds work and how our tools assume they work. All these thoughts I’ve been turning over (for years now) have finally led me and my team here: mymind.com.

Like every product we've created, we built mymind to fill a need of our own. We were tired of saving notes and inspiration across our desktop, email, camera roll, Evernote, Pinterest, bookmarks and who knows where else, only to never find it again. We’d set up one too many systems and structures in an attempt to organize ourselves, only to forget them shortly later. We felt overwhelmed by our own thoughts and ideas with nowhere safe to put them.

We found ourselves wanting something we could only call an extension of our minds. Somewhere everything could just spill over, without worrying about how it’s organized, what others think of it or how we'd find it again later. So we created it.

Introducing mymind

Currently available on an invite-only basis, mymind has already filled a need for us that other tools haven’t. Hopefully soon, it will for you too.

Sign up for the mymind waiting list

I won’t explain too much here because it’s better to just use it yourself, but you can read our manifesto to understand more about what we’re working to accomplish. You can also read our promises before you sign up, to see how seriously we take the privacy of your mind.

We are working to expand mymind every day and look forward to hearing what you think about it. If you’re waiting for your invite, you will hear from us soon. If you’re already using it, we hope it’s giving you peace of mind.

June 18, 2020No Comments

To create perfumes, you have to break the rules

My favorite type of people are the curious ones. The people who just can't get enough of life, who are always trying new things and asking questions not to better themselves, but simply to experience the world in every way they can. Gérald Ghislain is exactly that type of person.

I've always admired Histoires de Parfums, Ghislain's Paris-based "olfactive library." There's a romance to the brand that seems rare these days. And after talking with Ghislain about his work, I see now where this comes from. Lots of brands like to talk about storytelling, but Histoires de Parfums has something genuinely interesting to say. This may be my favorite interview we've ever done on DESK so without further adieu, I'll let Gerald Ghislain do the talking.

"My enlightenment doesn’t come from books but from people and from their stories."

Your interest in fragrances goes far beyond the scents themselves. Given the stories you tell with your perfumes, I imagine you are passionate about plants, about history, about culture, philosophy and a lot more. Do you consider yourself a Renaissance man?

I’ll have you know I’m not that old. Histoires de Parfums has been around for 20 years sure, but calling us Renaissance is a bit of a stretch.

Jokes aside, I see what you mean and I don’t know if I think of myself as a Renaissance man. I am just very curious and can’t rest. I need different projects, not just to be busy but to keep my mind young. I love going from an idea to another, jumping from owning a restaurant to launching a perfume line to opening a sex shop to owning a flamenco club. I just want to experience everything life has to offer and if that makes me a Renaissance man, then yes I am, but I always felt Renaissance men were kind of dull men, locked up in their towers, drinking up all the knowledge of the elders and talking to the stars. I don’t care for the knowledge of books. I mean, I love reading books but what I want to say is that the knowledge I value is that of the street." The knowledge of experience, of meetings, of traveling, of eating. You can learn a lot from just eating foreign foods.

My enlightenment doesn’t come from books but from people and from their stories. That’s why I started Histoires de Parfums, not with the scent of books but with the scent of characters, of real characters and of what they, not their books, would’ve smelt like.

"Most people think with arts that technique, mastery and rules are somewhat of a cage, when they actually allow you to be free."

The creation of scent is unfamiliar to most of our readers. What does the creative process look like for the work you do? Knowing a lot of it comes down to mastery and talent, can you distill the process for us a bit?

Hmm, I wouldn’t say a lot of it comes from talent. The issue and beauty of perfume is that it’s both an art and a craft, and the thing with arts is that talent is everything and nothing. What matters is being creative and having a clear vision of where you want to go. Mastery is something anyone can learn but real talent is using this mastery to serve your vision in a way no one has ever done before.

My perfumes always start with a vision, an image, a story. Once this is settled, then I get to designing the scent and work until the reality matches the image I had, and if I don’t do it myself, I’ll hire someone to do it better like Julien Rasquinet for Fidelis or Luca Maffei for This is not a blue bottle 1/.5.

There are so many paths in perfumery and they’re all as important, just like in any other art. In theatre, you’ll have a stage director, a writer, a scenographer, someone for the lighting. Cinema’s even more huge. And in perfumery, you’ll have perfumers of course but also evaluators, assistants and creative directors, and you can't really be one and all, the same way you can’t really write, direct and star in your own play. You can but it will be one-dimensional in that you’re stuck in your own head and vision. But once you bring someone else in, the plot thickens and unfolds.

Creating a perfume takes mastery of course, because it enables you to not find the most efficient way to go from a point A to a point B, but to actually see all the different ways you could choose. It’s like if you were to play the guitar but only knew one song. Sure you’ll sing it superbly and in different tunes and styles but in the end, it’s just one song. But if you master your instrument, you can play anything you want. Most people think with arts that technique, mastery and rules are somewhat of a cage, when they actually allow you to be completely free.

How much science is there to perfume creation? Do you need to first learn fundamentals, like certain notes pairing well or never mixing others, the same way designers learn color theory and design best practices? Or are you usually making up your own rules and following intuition?

Yes and no. Perfume isn’t much different than cooking. That’s how I fell into it. There aren’t rules to cooking; it’s a lot of trials and errors but ultimately, if someone could put pineapple on a pizza and make it work, there’s nothing a perfumer can’t do.

I always follow my ideas. They’re not always good but the point of chemistry in perfumery is that it enables you to almost magically, seamlessly blend any of two things together and make it work. Look at Irrévérent for instance, in our En Aparté collection. It’s built on a lavender and oud accord. How random is that? I always saw jasmine and oud, rose and oud, sandal and oud, vetiver and oud and I got bored and thought, “Why not lavender, it could be fun.” And after many trials and many errors, Irrévérent was born and it works out perfectly.

The history of perfumery is all about breaking the rules and glass ceilings. There are so many perfumes that are big successes today that shouldn’t have been born because they weren’t by "the book," because they overdosed this or that ingredient. Look at the first Guerlain perfumes: They were so packed with vanillin that Coty, Guerlain’s competitor, said the only thing he could come up with that much vanilla was crème brûlée. And here’s the food again.

The bottle is an important part of a perfume’s experience. How closely do you oversee the design of your bottles and packaging?

I follow the design so closely that I’m surprised I’m not in the bottles yet. I love anything that has to do with design and that is something you can really see when you come into one of our flagship stores in Paris or Milan.

Design is how art comes into your everyday life and as it turns out, perfume is an art. I can’t imagine a perfume without a bottle, or a bottle without a proper shape or color, because that’s what you’ll associate with the perfume. That’s even the first encounter you’ll have with the perfume before you spray it. And I’m a visual person. I also think in colors or shapes or textures and more often than not, ideas for perfumes came from seeing a painting or a street scene, and I’ll just go back to my design team with a broad picture and we’ll start working from there.

But my ideas are very precise, which means that I have to oversee it as closely as I can to make sure that this idea comes to life and not anything else. For instance, we just released 1/.6 as part of This is Not a Blue Bottle collection, which is our more artsy line inspired by Magritte, existentialism and Klein blue. Our point with this collection was to emphasize emotions over reason, art for the sake of art, perfume for the sake of perfume, beauty for the sake of beauty. We wanted to find a way for the customer to smell a fragrance without being influenced by anything, and we went so far as to blur the lines between perfume and design because the first perfume of the collection 1/.1 is literally a blue bottle. It has no name, no branding. It’s nothing but a blue bottle.

Why blue? Because this is a color in which you can dream. Blue can be anything you want. The sky, the sea, the eyes of a lover. It can be a summer’s sky or a winter’s one, it can be a nice provençal seashore or a colder one. Blue can be anything. The challenge was really to implement, through a creative design in tone with our identity, a way the customer would not be influenced by anything exterior to them. We just give them a perfume, a color, an energy, and the rest is up to their sensibility.

You aim to tell your stories through your perfumes, but it seems that people find their own stories within them as well. Are you disappointed or thrilled when a reviewer or consumer interprets your fragrances differently than you do?

On the contrary, I love it. That’s what I keep saying over the years, that’s the sense of our motto: “stories to be read on the skin,” meaning on YOUR skin. Once you wear them, our stories become yours. That’s the point of art. Once it’s out in the world, it no longer belongs to the artist. I love the fact that your vision is different than mine. This way it broadens the spectrum of possibilities and realities.

Perfume is intimate. My perception and memories of roses aren’t yours, the same way we could both make love to the same person and have two totally different experiences and opinions. But that’s the beauty of it, that it paints an even bigger picture than you imagined in the first place. It’s really great to see that a small idea or memory I had turned into a perfume that touched the lives of people in more ways than I could think of. That’s what brings stories into life.

You’ve mentioned before that you prefer the legend of perfumery of the early 20th century – strong perfumes with musk, leather, oak moss notes. Have you noticed trends in scent over the course of your career? I know we all have our own associations with certain times and smells, but what influences an entire generation to identify with specific notes in fragrances?

Perfumes tell much more about our society than we give them credit for, because there’s nothing more intimate than a perfume.

I mean, look at this. When WWI ended, it took down old empires, societal structures, everything we knew. At the same time, we noticed a declining trend in oriental perfumes (the Empire was no more) and floral ones (the old structures were no more) but Chanel boomed with her aldehydes that smelt modern and fit her new vision of femininity.

Then WWII came and what happened? People rushed back to floral and oriental perfumes, because they felt safe, and they kept them through the ’50s to forget the gloomy years of the war.

Then came the '60s, the sexual revolution and what happened? Back to aldehydes, green fragrances, avant-garde scents.

Then came the '70s with the first beginnings of unisex fragrances, or ones that could be read as such.

Then the '80s with their over-the-top, intoxicating, gender-stuck perfumes. And you can also see that people loved going for green fragrances when ecological disasters had happened.

So perfume is a societal and generational marker, because of how personal it is. Nowadays, the younger generation feels concerned about ecology and global warming and there’s also more freedom and fluidity about gender expression. How does that translate into perfumes? On the one hand, a boom in natural and clean fragrances that are respectful toward nature and on the other, a surge of abstract, conceptual, synthetic, unisex fragrances that tick none of the preconceived boxes or olfactory families we knew.

"I remember the smell of this place so distinctly: the flour, the yeast, the orange flower water and caramelized sugar of the brioche buns..."

Many people prefer to find their “signature scent” and wear it forever. But I imagine you change your scents like some change jewelry or outfits, depending on your mood or the occasion. Am I right?

I get that people feel like having a signature scent but to me, it’s like having a signature dish. Everyone knows you make a great boeuf bourguignon but do they really expect you to only be eating boeuf bourguignon at every meal? No, they don’t. And you wouldn’t even want to.

Look, you talked about moods so I’ll use this as an example. We have changing moods and sometimes mood swings. This is normal. Nobody expects you to only be happy or a hoot or deep or grave or depressed or whiny. You’re one and all at once. There’s a happy Gérald, a hoot Gérald, an angry-boss Gérald, a helicopter-mum Gérald, a pensive Gérald, a peaceful Gérald. They’re all different and they’re all me and that’s how you should look at signature scents.

It raises the question of for whom do you wear perfume? Do you wear it for yourself? If so, why do you care about a signature? Do you wear it for others? If so, stop caring so much about what people think and wear whichever perfume you fancy. Don’t live according to other people’s expectations of yourself. Live yourself, be yourself.

That’s why I prefer a signature “alchemy," a blend of perfumes that will somehow always smell like you. Plus it’s fun to choose your different perfume or perfumes of the day from your fragrant wardrobe and try layering them. That’s actually why I launched an on-demand bath line, so that you can mix and match your perfume with any other fragrance from our house in your body lotion or shower gel to create a real signature.

And you also have to keep in mind that perfumers seldom wear perfume because they’re covered with different mods all the time. I try so many perfumes every day that I can hardly keep count of what I am wearing. I have one on every little patch of skin and fabric I wear.

We all know from experience how smell is connected with memory. What is your strongest memory associated with smell?

I have two. When I was a child, we lived in Morocco and there was no French bakery in our neighborhood, so my mother would bake her own bread and brioche twice a week. Once all the doughs had risen, we’d go with the nanny to the public oven. It was a sort of communal hearth where everyone could come and bake their cakes, bread, pastries you name it. And I remember the smell of this place so distinctly: the flour, the yeast, the orange flower water and caramelized sugar of the brioche buns... it was a delight.

My other vivid memory also comes from my childhood. My father was a jockey so every Sunday we’d go to the racecourse and just before the race, the jockeys and horses would all come together and the air was thick with the smell of leather, horses, fresh plowed grass. I know it will sound weird, but this is one of the smells I find most comforting. That’s actually what I love most about perfume and what I was telling you about with our scent memories being unique. Some people would find this smell of horses and sweat absolutely disgusting, but I don’t.

Histoires de Parfums is about these personal stories, my personal stories with Sade, George Sand and Hemingway – but they become your stories because you can’t and won’t appreciate a smell the same way I do. All I can do is tell my story through a perfume to the best of my ability, and hope that you’ll find your own truth in it.

"Do you think Picasso, Hemingway or Verdi hired teams of marketers and copywriters to create a story around their works? No."

Let's talk more about storytelling. Thanks to the internet and social media, we all consider ourselves storytellers now. Designers use the term so often it’s started to sound trite and empty. But Histoires de Parfums seems to start with the story, rather than just trying to use it as a marketing tool.

How do we tell a meaningful story as a brand, in a way that feels genuine and not manipulative or empty?

You said it. Be genuine, not manipulative, not empty. Customers aren’t cattle. Feed them lies and they’ll notice it, especially since there are new brands coming up every week, and a lot of reviewers trying to educate the customers, and a global sense of awareness that applies to every aspect of our lives.

If you don’t have anything to stay, better stay silent. You want to tell a meaningful story? Have one. You want it to be genuine? Be it. And you don’t have to have a complicated story to be genuine. Art can just exist for the sake of it, but do you think Picasso, Hemingway or Verdi hired teams of marketers and copywriters to create a story around their works? No. They had something in their guts that needed to come out. They took their little brush or pen and expressed themselves. And that’s real. There was a Desperate Housewives episode about this, I recommend it.

So, to answer your question, I’d say the main thing would be to look at perfume as an art again, and not a craft. We don’t need art to survive – we need food, water and sleep. So we don’t need another rose perfume, but ask yourself what makes your rose perfume different? What’s in it that keeps you awake at night? Do this, just ask yourself this and you’ll have a genuine, meaningful story and if you don’t, well, drop the perfume and work on another one.

I find it interesting that perfume commercials and advertising have remained the same for years. It’s always some celebrity in a sensual scene, wind blowing through their hair while they stare off into the distance. The message seems to be: Wear this cologne, because Ryan Gosling does.

Do you think perfume companies and advertising agencies can do better? How would you do a commercial for one of your perfumes, if you had full creative freedom?

Why change a winning team? If these ads work it’s because they speak to the audience and have done so for decades, but it’s even more relevant in perfumes because perfumes are a luxury item and the most affordable one at that. And the most universal.

I mean, whether you’re Julia Roberts or a teacher in Manila or a flamenco dancer in Malaga or a firefighter in Sydney, you can somehow all wear the same perfume. You’ll never wear the same shoes as Julia Roberts, or the same jewelry. You won’t have the same house or go to the same parties or clubs on Saturday nights, but at least you know that you can smell exactly like her. And that’s not nothing. That’s why these ads work.

Could brands do better? I don’t know. If their aim is to create a sense of identification, there’s nothing better. Also, you can’t smell a perfume through a screen. You know what the Birkin bag looks like but you don’t know what the perfume smells like unless you smell it. And the only reason why someone sitting on their sofa in the middle of nowhere would want to get up and head to the nearest Macy’s to smell a perfume, is if they felt they could somehow become Ryan Gosling or Julia Roberts.

Now if I had full creative freedom, I think I’d just want to create scent experiences in different cities. Just big perfumed happenings, finding new and creative ways to tie in people’s stories with that of our perfumes. It’s not a commercial per se, but this is what I’d love to do.

"I would love to create the scent of the future. The perfume of someone who isn’t born yet."

Is there a specific story you’ve been dreaming to tell through your perfumes, that you haven’t been able to yet, whether it’s too complex or you haven’t been able to quite capture it the way you want to?

There is and this has been following me for years. I would love to create the scent of the future. The perfume of someone who isn’t born yet. To create a perfume of a generation we do not know, of words we haven’t heard yet, of cultural tropes and references we couldn’t fathom.

It’s not just about creating an abstract perfume but really finding a way to travel into the future and bring back their life lessons and insights and put them into a perfume. And it’s even more pressing that our future changes shape every week. It has never been more uncertain, so the possibilities have never been more infinite somehow. I hope I’ll find a way to capture this...

June 17, 2020No Comments

Senior portfolios vs. junior portfolios

I am always trying to understand what makes a good portfolio. What features do today’s designers need to show off their work in the best possible way? What do recruiters want to see in an online portfolio? What will portfolios look like one year from now? Five years from now? 

A question we’ve been asking ourselves lately: Does your portfolio change depending on your seniority? Of course, we know the work will evolve. But does the way you present it change too? Should it? Here are our thoughts on the subject.

As a junior designer, your work does not speak for itself. 

As designers, we are lead to believe our work should do the talking. That it should be so good it needs no further explanation. If that were true, Apple wouldn’t do Keynotes every time they released a new product. Even the best designers need to explain their work on their portfolio, or it’s just a bunch of pretty meaningless pictures. But this is especially necessary for young designers.

Your work might suck when you’re just starting out, and that’s fine. What we need to see as a company hiring you is how you think and approach your work. We need to understand how you process complex problems and find solutions. We want to see your personality, how you communicate yourself, your attitude about the world. That happens in your case studies. 

"Designers with experience know that half of excellence is simply a love for detail."

Senior designers obsess over the details.

View a successful senior designer’s portfolio and you’ll notice the beautiful typography, the perfect color choices, the sense that everything just works. It’s because designers with experience know that half of excellence is simply a love for detail.

They pay attention not only to their headline typography but also their body type.

They perfect spacing and kerning on every page, for every screen size.

They don’t overlook tiny elements and interactions like link states and favicons.

They know a simple, subtle hover effect can change the entire feel of their site.

After years designing, they know the little stuff makes all the difference.

Every image, link-state and typeface on Ayaka Ito's portfolio is beautifully considered. ayakaito.com

Junior designers share every piece of work they’ve done. Senior designers curate.

Many portfolios I’ve seen from young designers tend to feel unfocused. It makes sense. When you’re new in your career, you’re still figuring out what you’re good at and what you enjoy doing. You also haven’t done much work yet, so you’re pulling together whatever you can between school, self-initiated projects and your first paid jobs.

Senior designers, on the other hand, have learned where their skills lie and what they want to do more of in the future. They have more work to choose from, so it’s easier to curate. They have the confidence to show only their best work, not all the work they’ve ever done.

Junior designers could benefit from a senior designer mindset when it comes to choosing their projects. Even if curation narrows your projects down to two or three, it results in a stronger portfolio and a more clear picture of who you are as a designer. You can read more about creating your first portfolio here.

Henrik & Sofia feature only five of their best projects on their homepage. henrikandsofia.com

Junior designers write novel-length case studies. Senior designers write confidently. 

There’s a lesson we spend years unlearning after school: That the longer something is, the better it is. In school, we’re rewarded for more pages and extra word count instead of simply clarity and quality of thought. How strange, considering we’re also taught to be concise in Grammar 101.

I see this carry over into young designers’ portfolios. They’re taught a specific formula for a UX project, for example, and feel the need to hit each part of that formula, in exhaustive detail, to get an A+. That may please your professor, but it likely won’t impress your potential employer.

Senior designers learn how to tell a story rather than write an essay. They still walk through their projects and process, but without exhausting us. It’s a fine balance that comes with confidence and frankly, hard work. Writing a 1,000-word case study is easy. Saying the same thing in 500 words takes effort.

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Cover image from ayakaito.com

For more on building a portfolio & working as a young designer:

Creating a portfolio as a student
When you dreamed about doing what you're doing now
How to make a graphic design portfolio in 15 minutes

June 16, 2020No Comments

You could monitor your team, or you could motivate them

Given the past several months, it’s no wonder everyone’s feeling tired, distracted and unproductive. Employees and managers are doing their best to navigate uncharted waters. And those waters are choppy.

Companies, concerned about their employees’ productivity and with little experience managing remote teams, are turning to micromanagement. Technology is even being developed to monitor employees’ performance, going so far as to record screen behavior and users’ keystrokes. When I talk to friends accustomed to working in an office environment, they say they’re having more meetings than ever. When do they get their actual work done? Apparently, late at night after the Zoom calls are finally over.

I suspect the insecurity from the top is doing little to motivate employees and instead having the opposite effect. After managing a fully dispersed team for the last six or so years, I’ve learned what keeps my team’s spirits up, and unsurprisingly, it’s not surveillance technology or constant check-in meetings.

Our industry’s obsession with productivity was in question long before this year, so let me first state that this isn’t about squeezing more work from your employees. It’s about maintaining excitement about the work you’re doing together, and enabling your team to do their best.

Self-management over micro-management

If you’re constantly breathing down your employees’ necks, reminding them of their deadlines, checking their work, redoing their work and picking up after them, they will learn to lean on that. They’ll wait for you to check on a task instead of running with it on their own. They’ll look to you to make a decision instead of owning it themselves. They will do the work exactly as you tell them and nothing more.

Instead, set an expectation of personal responsibility. Make it known that you expect your team to manage themselves. Show you trust them and leave it in their hands. Of course, you are still here to support and lead. But when your team knows they are personally responsible for the success or failure of a project, they will own it more.

If you try to control every aspect of your team’s workday, they will eventually throw their hands up and let you have it. If you trust them to manage themselves, they will feel more invested in the work they do and feel ownership for the finished product.

Remember one management technique doesn’t apply to all

This is why so many creative companies today have their potential hires take a personality test during the application process. It may seem a bit hokey and pointless, and sometimes it is. But when managers understand how their individual employees think and work – what drives them, what discourages them and how they fit into a team – it makes a difference.

I don’t force my team to take a personality test, but I do pay keen attention to who they are and what they need from me as their manager. Some of them are social types. They need a sense of teamwork and camaraderie to stay motivated and feel connected to what they do. Others prefer to work silently alone. Others are right in the middle. They like to work independently but still need frequent one-on-ones to stay on track and feel excited about what they do.

There’s a balance for all types, but what may work for one person can completely demotivate the other. Learn their personality and working styles and try your best, within the context of your company and process, to make it work for them.

Recognize and celebrate even small achievements

Some people need this more than others. But everyone likes positivity and recognition of hard work, especially if they’re working behind the scenes. Aim to not only celebrate your team, but encourage them to celebrate each other.

My customer support team is always sharing positive feedback on Slack from our users. Our developer is building our product every day but doesn’t interact with our community like some of us do. A screenshot from a customer that says “Semplice is the best” can make his day and shows how his work is meaningful.

It takes little effort to screenshot an email and share it with the team, or give a shoutout in a group channel to someone who did particularly good work that day. These little gestures show your team that you’re paying attention and see value in even the small stuff they’re doing.

Challenge your team without breaking them

If someone doesn’t feel challenged, they will quickly lose motivation. But if you constantly throw them in the deep end where they feel like they’re just trying to keep their head above water, they will quickly fizzle out.

Find the balance. Give people space and support to own what they do, but challenge them along the way. They should feel like they are constantly learning and having opportunities to grow. The minute you or your team feels comfortable, you know something is wrong. If they are continually learning something new and pushing themselves, you’re on the right path.

Reward loyalty

That said, it’s easy to take those with a strong work ethic for granted. The people who, with or without validation, consistently show up, put in the hours and pay attention to the details. It’s these people you feel like you “don’t need to worry about.” They always do the work, they seem fine and you have other people you actually need to manage.

While we should expect everyone’s best work, it’s rare to find the person who is steady and self-motivated on their own. Don’t take these people for granted. If you value them, try to always give them opportunities to move forward, take on new responsibilities and feel fresh in their work.

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Read more thoughts on working remotely:

Running a remote company for the first time
The #1 key to successful remote working
How to work from home

June 15, 2020No Comments

Tutorial: Creating geometric shapes & structures using Adobe Dimension

Since beginning our journey with Adobe Dimension, we've covered everything from creating three-dimensional typographic posters to making abstract 3D art as a beginner to creating packaging and product designs with Dimension.

Although Dimension is not a modeling tool, it continues to release features that empower designers to create their own 3D compositions – without any 3D experience. The latest update includes a feature I personally couldn't be more thrilled about: customizable basic shapes.

The shapes feature opens up a whole new way to play with geometric 3D designs and tailor them to your needs. No longer bound to the simple pre-made shapes that previously came with Dimension, you can now create and tweak your own shapes to your heart's content.

But enough talk. Let's jump into this tutorial!

What we'll be creating

For this tutorial, we'll be creating a geometric sculpture using the new customizable basic shapes feature. Here is what we'll create:

Getting started

As with any creative endeavor, it's helpful to get a rough idea of what you'll be creating so you aren't wandering around aimlessly. Sketching out your idea beforehand is a great way to get a starting point. Even if your end result is wildly different, it's always helpful to have a vision at the beginning.

I've recently been inspired by the Suprematism art movement, and particularly the Arkhitekton works by Kazimir Malevich. I wanted to use the new shapes feature to create similar sculptures using simple geometric shapes.

Work by Russian artist, Kazimir Malevich

For colors, I was also inspired by the works of Piet Mondrian.

Piet Mondrian, a dutch painter from the 20th century, is known for his abstract geometric art.

An easy way to "sketch" out your own scene is to block out your sculpture with simple shapes such as squares or spheres. You can also use tried and true pen and paper as well, of course.

I'm going to start by simply dragging shapes into my scene to block out the basic structure of my composition. Yours doesn't have to be exactly like mine if you want to do your own thing here. Have fun with it.

We will then modify the height, width and depth values of our shapes to get a nice variation in geometry.

Here is the result of placing some cubes, spheres and cylinders into a simple composition:

Setting our scene and camera

Now that we've laid out the basic sketch of our structure and blocked things out, let's quickly set up our scene and camera.

First, go to the Environment tab and turn "Ground Floor" off, since we will be using our own ground floor. Using our own floor will allow us to assign a custom material to it later for a more realistic final result. To add your ground floor, simply place a plane object onto your scene and resize as needed.

For this example, I've placed a plane object to create my ground floor. I then would like to create a nice aerial, isometric camera angle for my scene. To get an isometric view, just slide the Field of View value all the way to the left to 1 in the Camera Perspective properties.

Using custom shapes

Now that I've got my simple scene blocked out, it's time to start refining the shapes and working in the finer details.  You can then start adding some more intricate shapes to fill in around the larger blocks. This will help our composition feel more intricate and visually interesting.

You can choose from a variety of shapes to manipulate and play with in Dimension. For right now, I'm using mostly spheres, cylinders and square objects with a few torus shapes.

Shapes also have a set amount of sides by default. Increasing the number of sides will increase the edge geometry of our shapes, but at the cost of slowing down our scene. It's best to limit the number of sides as much as you can, especially if you have a lot of objects in your scene. The smaller the object, the fewer sides you'll need.

Beveling our edges

An exciting new feature with the latest Dimension update is the ability to bevel the edges of your shapes. Since no real-world objects have truly sharp edges without some sort of rounded edge, the ability to even slightly round the edges of your shapes will greatly increase the realism of your objects.

Let's go ahead and add some beveling to our shapes.

Slicing shapes

In addition to adding a beveled edge, we can also slice our shapes to reduce geometry. Here, I'll create a half-cylinder shape by slicing this cylinder. Let's reduce it to 180 degrees.

Filling in the details

I've now added bevels to all my shapes, as well as half cylinders to make the scene more interesting. I've also added more shapes from the provided shape options, as well as a ladder I created myself from multiple custom cylinder shapes.

For some added visual interest, I'm also going to add some text extrusion shapes. If you haven't already, check out our previous tutorial for creating 3D typography to see how easily you can make these letters.

Setting up our lighting

Now that we've created our geometric structure, it's time to light our scene. Lighting is key to achieving great and realistic 3D results, so it's crucial we get this right.

If you have any experience with photography, you may have heard of a 3-point lighting system.

3-point lighting consists of three key elements: key, rim (backlight) and fill. Key is your main light source. Rim light serves to outline the back of your subject and create depth, and fill light serves to reduce harsh shadowing.

An example of this type of lighting system below:

Left to right: key light, rim light, fill light

Combined light sources for an evenly lit scene

Luckily, Dimension comes with a way to light your scene exactly this way, and this is what we'll be using.

To get started, go to the lighting area and create a new 3-point lighting setup. You can turn off the environment lighting now if you'd like. I also recommend keeping your materials to the defaults so you won't be distracted with the materials you have set.

The key light will illuminate the front of our object, with the backlight illuminating the outer edges. The fill light will help break up any harsh shadows and provide a nice, soft light to our scene.

PRO TIP: A good trick is to only keep one light on at a time, so you can see how each light is interacting with your scene.

You may need to play around with your lighting values and positions to get the results you want. I will often look at real-world photography as a reference and compare this to my own scene.

Here is the result once I'm happy with my light positioning:

The progression of our lighting

Applying materials

Now that we're happy with the lighting, we can start applying materials to our structure.

For the base, I've applied a polished chrome material I downloaded from Adobe Stock 3D. For the most realistic results, I recommend using materials from either Adobe Stock or Substance Source. Substance Source materials include additional texturing effects that heighten the realism of your objects. Dimension also comes ready with some rich materials, including Substance Materials, in the Starter Assets panel.

To add the material, select all of our objects at once (or the group, if grouped) and apply the material from our Adobe CC material library or by going to File > Import > Place Material on Selection.

I've now also applied multi-colored plastic materials to my objects that I found on Adobe Stock. This red plastic material is a nice base material for my original vision for this scene. I've also added a similar blue plastic material to my ground floor.

If you want to take it even further, you can add additional light reflections to your scene by adding glowing plane objects to your scene. This increases the realism as it allows you to control the size of the light source and create diffused light effects.

Render time!

Now that we've applied our materials, let's get rendering. Rendering means turning your 3D information into a finalized image. Just hit the render button under the Render tab and go!

The result of our render:


Experiment away

As with any of our tutorials, we encourage you to take things further and have fun creating your own designs based on what you've learned. Here are some other examples of what you can do just by playing around with various materials and lighting effects in the same scene:

Don't forget: If you do create something with Dimension, be sure to share your designs to Behance, selecting Adobe Dimension under “Tools Used” in the Basic Info tab. On Instagram, tag #AdobeDimension and #CreatewithDimension. This allows the Dimension team to find and promote your work.

And be sure to tag DESK on Twitter as well, if you create something cool using this tutorial. We'd love to see it!

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Read our other 3D design tutorials with Dimension:

Your first 3D design tutorial with Dimension
Creating packaging & prototypes with Adobe Dimension
A beginner's tutorial to creating 3D typography 
The unexpected addition to our creative workflow

June 12, 2020No Comments

Best practices for UX copywriting

This is an excerpt from our upcoming UX Writing book, exploring how we (as designers and copywriters) can write copy that helps people use and love our products. Sign up for book updates here

Throughout this series, we have a resounding message: UX copy doesn’t have to be dry and technical. When done well, it is as much a part of your brand as the design itself. That said, there are best practices to follow for a reason.

An artist once told me that to break the rules, you first have to master them. Look at Picasso. As chaotic and crude his paintings may seem, all misplaced features and disjointed limbs, Picasso knew how to draw the human figure perfectly. It’s only by understanding the proper technique that he could turn it on its head, quite literally, in a compelling way. He learned to do it right so he could do it wrong.

People have basic expectations when using the web. Especially given their tendency to scan rather than read, it’s important to consider those expectations when writing UX copy. It’s possible someone will only read the headline before hitting a button. Or they might read the button and nothing else. If your product doesn't work the way they expect it to, the way they intuitively navigate other products or websites, they'll move on to something else that does.

We have plenty of room for creativity when writing microcopy, but we should first understand the way it’s typically done and why.

Learn these guiding principles as you would learn to draw the human form. By observing the lines and shadows, understanding the subtle nuances and eventually mastering the rules, you can then learn to be creative within them.

1. Always tell your user what’s wrong and how to fix it.

These typical error messages do not help the user:

“Oops! Something went wrong.”
“That doesn’t look right. Please try again.”
“Error: Code 500”
"Discount code can't be applied to this order."

These are error messages that do help the user:

“The page timed out. Check your connection and try again.”
“That password doesn’t match. Need a hint?”
"Looks like the server failed. Try refreshing this page."
“You've already used this discount code. Got another?”

Always aim to explain, as succinctly as possible, what happened and how the user can resolve it. Avoid leading them down a rabbit trail of help docs if you can provide the answer straight away in your error message. You’ll save your user, and yourself, time and frustration.

2. “Front-load” your headlines & messages. Lead with the answer.

Say we need to enable a specific setting before using a feature in your app.

You could say: “This feature only works when X is enabled. Go to settings and enable X to use it.”

Or you could say: “Please enable X under Settings to use this feature.”

The first message states the obvious before finally offering a solution. The second message gets to the point and allows us to understand in seconds what we need to do.

3. Always let your user know where they are and what happens next

You should always be guiding the user and telling them exactly what to expect, each step of the way. It’s a conversation that, if done well, your user doesn’t even realize they’re having.

This conversation happens through your help text, your headlines, your CTAs, your confirmation dialogues.

Pop-up dialogue that says, “It’s not possible to recover files after deletion,” tells your user to think twice before hitting delete.

A button that reads “Review order” eases a customer’s mind in a purchase flow, assuring them they’ll have a chance to look over their details once more before making their purchase. Likewise, a button reading “Complete order” says this is it, you’re about to pay.

With good UX copy, no one should ever “accidentally” make a purchase, pay more than they expected to pay, make a permanent action without sufficient warning or proceed to a step they’re not prepared for. Think about what questions someone may have at any point in a process, and answer that question before they ask it.

4. Only relay the information your user needs, at the time they need it

Say you’re looking for a bathroom in a museum. If the sign said “Turn right, take the steps to floor three, turn left, then left again and the bathroom will be on your right,” you’d likely pee your pants before finding your way to the bathroom.

Instead, you expect to see a sign with the bathroom symbol and an arrow. You follow that sign to the next turn, where another sign awaits you. Sign by sign, you eventually arrive at your destination. The signs allowed you to navigate without thinking, which is to say, they reduce cognitive load.

Don’t overwhelm your users with paragraphs of instructional text. Relay only the most important information someone needs to know at that step in their journey, then progressively share more as it becomes relevant.

This only skims the surface, but we’ll dive deeper soon and share what this looks like in practice.

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If you're just now discovering our UX copywriting series, catch up on these articles:

How to write marketing copy that isn't cringey (relates to UX copy, too)
Content or design first?
Finding your brand voice
How to write UX copy that makes your product a joy to use
How to write concisely

June 9, 2020No Comments

The many moods of Zoe from Carbonmade

Hey, I’m Zoe. I work on carbonmade.com and if you use it for your portfolio, you’ve probably heard from me on Twitter or talked to me in support.

I'm all about helping creative people do their best work, which essentially means I get to see beautiful things all day, every day. Case in point:

I recently commissioned several artists & illustrators from Twitter to draw my portrait, and was blown away by the talent I saw. Browse the comments in this tweet to take a look yourself.

It’s fascinating to see how 10 different artists respond to the same prompt, as you’ll see in a moment. Each had a completely different style and interpretation of me that was perfect in their own way.

 Art by Eleanor Hardiman


Artwork by Lydia Hill

Artwork by Hvnnart

Artwork by Margarita Bourkova

Artwork by Samantha Swain

Artwork by Chris Owens

Artwork by Chino Carlo

Artwork by greyolle

Artwork by Barbara Samantha Lucas 

If you do some form of creative work yourself, be sure to try Carbonmade.com for your portfolio (it's free until you launch!). I hope to meet you there soon.

June 8, 2020No Comments

Fábio Sasso, founder of ABDZ, on keeping side projects “pure”

If you're a designer, there's a good chance you're familiar with Abduzeedo. The blog has been a source of design inspiration for over a decade.

A lot has changed with design and technology since 2006, when Fábio Sasso first started Abduzeedo as a personal design blog. Many publications have started and folded in that time, yet Abzueedo has remained a constant presence in the design community and continued to evolve (check out the latest redesign at abdz.do). I'd struggle to find someone more immersed in our field, who champions designers as faithfully and earnestly as Fabio.

As someone running an independent design blog myself, I have particular admiration for Fábio's dedication to this "side project." After years of reading Abdueezo and contributing to it myself a few times, I wanted to talk to Fabio about what motivates him and how he's seen the design community change over the years. Here we talk about "inspiration burnout," the identity crisis of social media and why he plans to continue publishing, whether people read or not.

Fábio Sasso, the man behind 14+ years of design inspiration.

Hey, Fábio! First, congrats on the fresh redesign and official move from Abduzeedo to ABDZ. I’ve noticed the brand and website design has consistently evolved since you started it. How many redesigns do you think you’ve done over the years?

First off, thanks so much for inviting me. I am a fan of the contributions you’ve been delivering to the design community.

Now about the Abduzeedo evolution throughout the years, I’ve been trying to redesign it every 18 months pretty much. It’s hard with all the day-to-day responsibilities of a full-time job plus a 4-year-old guy to take care of. I also do pretty much everything myself when it comes to the redesign. I design and code. I have the help of a good friend that is a software engineer to deploy it when it’s ready… So I can say that in 14 years of ABDZ, we had probably around 8-10 designs.

All the Abduzeedo homepage designs and logos from 2006-2020

I know you started ABDZ because your studio was robbed, and you decided to blog as a way to back up your files. How have your goals and your work with ABDZ changed since then? How many people contribute to it now?

The goals have changed as the blog got older. I personally never thought the blog would take off as it did, especially in the 2007-2011 time. Not that it was huge, but imagine an unknown guy from Brazil with 10 daily visitors suddenly going to 200k daily. That growth, especially when you are not prepared, is complicated. You really don’t know how much of it is just because you were at the right place at the right time (luck) or if it was because of the content.  Of course, we tend to think it’s the latter, but more and more I believe it is the former.

In the past I thought it was the content, so we started to heavily focus on articles that would result in more reach/traffic, even if that meant something that wasn’t exactly what I was excited about. In other words, it had become a job, not a passion.  A by-product of that is that you end up losing the motivation to keep doing it. The only way to change that is to shake things up, find the real reasons and forget about the numbers. That’s what I tried to do.

Today the blog is literally a place for me to publicly catalog things that I think are cool and inspiring. That’s the goal of Francois Hoang, the other contributor on the site as well. 

"Every time you add value to an exchange of information, you automatically add a huge amount of responsibilities."

ABDZ is only one of many things you do. What are you doing when you’re not running ABDZ? 

I have a full-time job at Google leading and managing the UX team responsible for Android Automotive OS. That takes most of my time. I tend to blog every day very early in the morning before work. I’ve always been an early bird and my son, thankfully, didn’t get that from me. He sleeps like a rockstar until close to 8 a.m. That gives me two hours of focus to work on the blog and other things.

A couple of weeks ago I created a little Android app for me to help me relax. I got into some breathing exercises for that and I was using the iPhone as my primary device (I constantly switch) and everything was fine. There are good apps for that platform. Then I switched back to Android and I was shocked by the lack of simple and beautiful apps there. I saw that as an opportunity for me to create my own app. I always wanted to code my own native application. As I joke at work, my dream was to be a software engineer, but my skills and logic would only create nightmares. Now I am working on the iOS version.

In my personal life side of things, my son is in the “why” phase, so my wife and I spend a considerable amount of time getting deeper in the “why” back and forth game with him.

Fábio's new Android app, "Calmaria." The word, which translates to calmness or tranquility, is often used by seaman or surfers to indicate there are no waves on the ocean. calmaria.app

I’ve noticed ABDZ has maintained its first-person, casual voice, as if it’s still a blog, despite having several writers now. Has that been an intentional choice, or does it just feel natural to you?

That was always the intention. I still call it a blog. I still treat it as a side-project and have told anyone that wanted to contribute to and think that way. I always imagined it as a medium for me and others to talk or share things as if we were doing that with a friend of ours. No formalities. Just conversation. That also makes mistakes more forgivable. Not that quality doesn’t matter, on the contrary, but remember, 100% of the blog contributors throughout the years didn't speak English as their first language. In my case, I didn’t even know English when I started it 🙂

"I feel that Instagram and Twitter became too focused on the person rather than the content shared. Now it’s just a polarized place for people to help fuel their confirmation-bias."

You don’t do partnerships, as far as I’m aware, and have only one global space for paid ads on your site. How have you sustained ABDZ over the years? Has it been more like a labor of love for the design community, or have you been able to make it profitable? 

That’s correct, we don’t do partnerships. We very rarely do sponsored content. The reason is just to keep things purely independent of any interest. I never charged for content for the same reason. Every time you add value to an exchange of information, you automatically add a huge amount of responsibilities. It goes back to the goal of being a side-project, personal. If the intent changes and I turn it into my main gig, I would definitely try to partner or scale. 

The 2020 abdz homepage

So you're not directly making money from it, and you're not too concerned with reach or numbers. Even if you were, search engines and algorithms have made it even harder and harder to get your work seen, and people would rather scan than read these days. 

What has motivated you to continue doing this for the last 14 years? What makes it rewarding?

It’s funny, I remember back in the early 2000s reading about the long-tail and how the web+social would fundamentally change things. User-generated content gave us access to an immeasurable amount of information and easy access to heroes who once would just be known by the books they wrote.

With Web 2.0 and all the services, we all could start sharing our content. That was in theory; things weren’t that simple. So very few were doing it. Abduzeedo was one of the biggest design blogs not because it was the best, but it was because it was one of the few constantly adding content.

Fast Forward to now. Everyone carries a computer in their pocket at least 10x more powerful than the laptop I used to start Abduzeedo. Sharing things is easier than mailing a letter or making a phone call. The long-tail fulfilled its prophecy, but with that there was a huge monetary impact. There’s just much more supply than demand and with that, prices go down. There’s also a shift to other things. First photography, now video. The evolution train never stops.

For me, I tried to tag along. I like to try things, so maybe I will get lucky again, maybe not. The goal is more about learning rather than making money.

"It was very hard to find anything. It was just books or expensive magazines. That is not a problem anymore. However, the insecurities are the same."

Online, your social presence was synonymous with ABDZ’s. Anything that comes from ABDZ comes from you and vice versa. I know with my own blog, I both enjoy and dislike this. I don’t always want my identity tied up with my brand or product, yet it just naturally happens for me because my work IS part of my identity. How do you feel about this? And have you made efforts lately to separate the two?

I’ve been slowly transitioning on some platforms. I feel that Instagram and Twitter became too focused on the person rather than the content shared. I will sound old, but there was a different vibe there. Different opinions were respected, if not celebrated. It was a way for you to learn new things. Now it’s just a polarized place for people to help fuel their confirmation-bias. Surprisingly, LinkedIn now reminds me of Twitter 10 years ago. So if you look at my Twitter and Instagram, they are clearly separated. On LinkedIn, I still try to link my name to the blog. It’s my baby and as a good parent, we are always proud of our babies 🙂

You’ve been extremely in-tune with the design community since at least 2006. How have you seen the community change over the years? How do conversations and culture and talent look now compared to when you first started out in design? 

My first design job was in 1998. You will probably have the biggest drop off in reading here. It’s been a long time and there's been a lot of change because of the access to information and tools. Everyone has an amazing camera on their phones, you can have all Adobe products available literally by paying just 50 bucks.

Rewind 20 years. In Brazil, it was impossible to get anything. Most people used older versions of the tools or trials if not pirated copies. I used Corel Draw because it was cheaper than Illustrator, so the companies I worked for decided that it was the right tool. Same for inspiration. It was very hard to find anything. It was just books or expensive magazines. That is not a problem anymore. However, the insecurities are the same. The first job. Am I doing the right thing? Confidence. Those things don’t change because of tools or access to information. So in that sense, I feel that the community hasn’t changed much. I still hear the debate about whether designers should learn how to code.

I cannot forget to mention just the pure quality of work. Of course, it has exponentially increased. With so much to see and compare, of course the bars are higher. The references are better and the high quality work is a by-product of that.

But we should never compare because it’s not fair. What we lacked in the past gave us the drive and the constraints to overcome that people don’t have today. It’s like comparing Lebron James with Michael Jordan, I think. 

"Projects like that, where designers take the challenge and push themselves, is one of the reasons I keep also blogging and cataloging, even if I am the only one consuming."

I’m of the belief that we as creatives can sometimes use inspiration as procrastination. Do you think there’s a “dangerous” side to inspiration, despite how necessary it is? 

I feel that there is this tendency to end up doing the same thing because it’s either trendy or because we can confirm by references that it’s good. At least that’s what I feel and experience. If you go to sites like Dribbble (which I really like) you will see that a lot of the work feels very alike. It's not a bad thing, but just a way to illustrate that we use the same “inspiration” or references even if that is not the most appropriate for the specific project or client. 

Urbano series, a Photoshop preset by Fábio.

Your Twitter bio currently reads “Have you given up on being inspired?” With so much visual stimulation online now, so many tools allowing anyone to create, so many products pushing “inspiration” for the sake of selling something, do you think we’ve become jaded or numb to inspiration?

Ha! Good catch. I just changed that. I was experimenting with some tag lines. This one, in particular, I liked because I got some tweets mentioning that they haven’t visited the site in a long time. The goal was to instigate. I wanted to highlight that people might have missed a lot of good and curated content.

Personally, I think things go in circles. We went from having little access to good content to suddenly an explosion of options (like browsing Netflix but not watching anything). To navigate that ocean of references, people will rely on curation. I am still skeptical about algorithmic curation because it will end up showing me exactly the same thing over and over. I think the idea of showing something unexpected and new is key to our evolution as designers. Otherwise, the future will be very polarized.

The evolution of a logo

How much strategy is behind your content on ABDZ? Are you creating a publishing schedule each month, or are you just writing about what you discover and what inspires you in the moment? Do most ideas and articles come to YOU at this point, or are you still brainstorming and planning them out?

Close to 0. We used to have a very detailed series of articles, with the day of the week and time for them to be posted. It worked well for a while. But with time, things will always get stale. Now we are in a totally casual mode. Perhaps in a few years, we will change that again.

You’ve been curating and sharing design inspiration for years now. What are some of the most beautiful, inspiring images or works you’ve witnessed that have stuck with you?

Oh, there were so many incredible designers and projects we featured. I still remember in the beginning when we featured James White. I love his style to this day.

Amongst the many articles and topics, one that always impressed me for its longevity and freshness of content has been the 36 Days of Type – I think they’ve been doing that for more than five years and it’s always amazing to see what people can do with the alphabet letters. Projects like that, where designers take the challenge and push themselves, is one of the reasons I keep also blogging and cataloging, even if I am the only one consuming. 

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Follow @abduzeedo on Twitter to keep up with what's happening in the creative community, and be sure to check out Fábio's portfolio to see his personal projects as well.

June 5, 2020No Comments

Showing up

If you’ve read anything on this blog, you know we’re not fans of virtue signaling and herd thinking. We don’t like empty promises, press releases or shaming. We don’t aim to capitalize on a conversation that isn’t meant to serve us.

Which is why we’ve been thinking hard about how to use our voice and this platform right now, following the brutal murder of George Floyd and compounding injustice long before it. What seems like the correct response one day, or one hour, isn’t the next. But as many have said already, the only thing we can do wrong is doing nothing at all.

And there’s a lot we can do.

Our goal with DESK has always been to amplify voices in the creative community that aren’t normally heard, and to make design more accessible to those who typically get shut out.

It’s why we started our Design Around the World series, after seeing the spotlight continually overlook designers outside San Francisco and New York. It’s why we interview people from underappreciated creative fields, to hear their perspective and see how life looks for those outside our small circle. It’s why we share advice and encouragement for young designers, after seeing how intimidating it is to enter this gated community. It’s why we aim to make it easier for designers to present themselves online and get a job.

Inclusivity has always been a priority on DESK. But the word “include” can still be passive. In our community, it usually translates to how we design our app interfaces or hire for our teams, along with the occasional Twitter spat. It doesn’t necessarily translate to an active stance against racism.

If there’s anything we’ve learned from these past few weeks, it’s that consistent effort is necessary for change. Action is not only showing up in a pivotal time, but continuing to show up. So instead of waxing poetic about our feelings, we’re going to skip ahead to the action.

We will continue to share DESK as a platform for others, to help diversify the creative community and support designers in doing their best work. This community is where we feel we can most directly and meaningfully incite change. And we’ll do more:

– We will make an effort to not only include minority voices on this blog, but more purposefully seek them out. Specifically, we will share our platform with and more regularly feature Black creatives and makers we admire.

– We will make it a priority to educate ourselves about racism and inequality, expanding what we read and who we follow, to inform more useful articles and conversations with our audience.

– We will double down on series like Design Around the World and How to Get a Job at X, making a concentrated effort to elevate and enable creatives in the minority. We are currently exploring ideas for new series or interviews to take this to the next level.

– We will listen. We remain open to the very likely possibility we are wrong, and aim to challenge the passivity and ignorance we can so comfortably fall into.

Most importantly, we will follow through on these promises. Because talking about action doesn’t mean much unless we take it.

May 30, 2020No Comments

How to write marketing copy that isn’t cringey 

Somewhere between the golden age of advertising in the 60s and now, we’ve lost something. The internet, despite its wondrous benefits, has turned advertising – a word that used to invoke pride, cunning, allure – into the exact opposite: marketing.

The medium and the volume, along with ever-increasing competition and ever-decreasing attention span, has cheapened what used to be an art. 

Companies are desperate to capture attention and will do so by whatever means possible, whether that’s a pop-up ad, a “follow-back” Instagram giveaway or a clickbait headline. 

Copywriting has suffered the most. Despite everyone becoming a self-proclaimed “storyteller” these days, we have little to say beyond “Buy now and save $45.” 

In creating and marketing my own products over the years, I’ve learned that small choices make all the difference between “sales-y” copy and copy that sells. 

Start with the most straightforward option

Cheesiness usually comes from trying too hard. We’re trying to be clever or trying to get sales or trying to sound smart and it usually results in the opposite. Take that pressure off yourself and start simple.

If you're marketing a product, the best approach is to simply lead with the benefit. Take the thing you’re writing about and distill it down to what makes it valuable. Write that down in a sentence. Refine from there.

As an example, let’s take one of our Semplice marketing pages promoting features for Studios and agencies. One benefit of Semplice, for this audience, is the ability to create landing pages quickly for campaigns. 

In that section, we could have easily used a headline like: “Made for marketing” 

It’s simple, it’s alliterative, it has a nice ring to it, right? But it’s not really telling us much about the value of this offering. 

Instead we use the headline: “Create landing pages in minutes.”

It’s not fancy or clever, but you understand the benefit immediately. This headline implies Semplice is made for marketing projects by explaining exactly how.

Avoid these worn-out phrases

Here I’ll use the fake product name, Torte, as an example.

“With Torte, everything is easier.” - Any sentence that starts out “With X product name,” followed by a benefit, sounds sales-y right from the start. We already know you’re talking about Torte. Cut the first part and lead with the benefit. 

“Buy now” - This phrase is so embedded in our brains, most of us automatically default to it when writing marketing copy. If you want to avoid sounding like an As Seen on TV product from the 90s, don’t use it. Go with Upgrade, Purchase, Add to Cart, Subscribe, Join – whatever makes sense for your product. The words “buy” and “now” make you sound like some hair-growth product sold on the Shopping Network.

“More than a cake pan” - This is a lazy way to say you’re actually selling me a cake pan. Take a walk and you’ll see “More than an X” on billboards, shop signs, posters, everywhere. Sure, your cake pan might also work well for brownies. Sure, your pool supply company might also offer decorative lawn ornaments. But telling me you’re “more than” what you are doesn’t actually tell me anything.

"For just $9.99" - Again, we left this in the As Seen on TV era. Remove the word "just" and your trust factor automatically goes up.

Your button text is more important than you think

Button text is underrated. Most of us don’t think too much about it, but it can change the whole feel of your marketing page and mean the difference between a drop-off and a new customer. It can also cheapen your product, if you’re not careful.

I’m sure someone could point to an A/B test where the phrase “Buy Now” led to more conversions, but I’d argue it’s never elevated a brand. Whenever possible, be as specific as possible with your button text. 

Instead of “See More” use “View Demos”

Rather than “Purchase” use “Choose Size”

Instead of “Buy Now” use “Add to Cart” 

Rather than “See All” use “Shop all Backpacks”

This helps you avoid sounding cheap and what’s more, it’s best UX practice. You user should always know exactly what to expect when they click a button, and “Add to Bag” accomplishes that much better than “Buy Now.” 

It’s important to understand we are not trying to be more creative or artsy with our word choice. I’m not suggesting “Explore More” instead of “Learn More” just for the sake of switching it up. I’m recommending specificity, whenever possible.

Shorter isn’t always better

We’re inclined to think the shortest option is the best option. And a lot of the times, that’s true. But when it comes to headlines, our attempts to be concise can lead to meaningless, clichéd copy.

Read these headlines and tell me what I’m offering you:

"We've got you covered."

“Go further.”

“It’s here.”

“Made for you.”

“Better than ever.”

Yes, some of this depends on the context. But we can still likely do better. 

Apple has made us believe the best headlines say nothing more than “Bigger. Better.” And it can work. But don’t feel the pressure to make short punchy headlines when a longer headline would set your product up more effectively. If you find you need a subhead for every headline to explain what the headline means, your headline is probably weak – and your reader is probably annoyed.

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For more advice on UX & marketing copywriting, read these articles:

Content or design first?
Finding your brand voice
How to write UX copy that makes your product a joy to use
How to write concisely

May 29, 2020No Comments

Monthly portfolio inspiration of May 2020

Once a week, we select two portfolios created with Semplice to feature in our Best Of  Showcase.  Here we've collected our favorites from the month of May.

This month, we've seen an influx of creatives sharing their newly created portfolio sites all over Twitter. From photographers and visual artists, creative consultants, art directors, to collage artists, it's been a real treat to see the variety of top talent creatives and designers choosing Semplice to build their portfolio sites.

Enjoy our top picks for the month.

Browse the best portfolios of the month below to see fresh new work and get inspired for your own site. And if you've created your own portfolio with Semplice, be sure to submit it to our Showcase here. We might feature your site next.

 

Oioi

Nelson Balaban

Vitor Teixeira

Charlotte Pilat

Nydia Lilian

Gianluca Folì

Nikolas Wrobel

Mavantri

 

To see more great design portfolios, visit the Semplice showcase. I'll be back next month with more of our monthly favorites!

Header image by Nydia Lilian

May 27, 2020No Comments

The universe of shared brand equity

Look at any tech or direct-to-consumer company today and you will quickly notice a visual trend: Simple, sans-serif logo. Short, punchy tagline. Clean, approachable branding.

Companies like this are popping up left and right, offering different products or services to the same demographic. While our assumption is that a brand wants to stand out, these do the opposite. 

Designers may sneer at the lack of originality, but the creators of these brands and products have discovered a fascinating approach: Why stand out if you can fit in? 

Entering the shared brand universe

There’s the obvious side effect to any trend: Everything starts looking the same. 

It’s become difficult to differentiate between today’s tech brands, they all look so similar. And I don't think it's because the creatives who work on them are unoriginal – perhaps quite the opposite.

One recipe for success is to fit into the existing space. By borrowing values and a visual story from other brands, you’re playing off established associations and perceptions in a consumer’s mind. It’s not a far leap for them to trust your brand if it looks like one they already enjoy buying.

Say a consumer purchases a mattress from Casper. Buffy looks like the same company but sells a comforter. Brooklinen the exact same but it sells bedsheets. Thus, the consumer follows the breadcrumbs between these brands for the complementary products they need. They’re familiar with the visual and messaging style, and it translates easily across a spectrum of commodities.

One consumer can be a customer of all of these brands, and these brands maximize on that potential. It works. 

If you want to be the Casper of razors, just look exactly like Casper. If your comforter company wants to reach the same consumers as Chobani, design your branding to match.

Lookalike companies are borrowing from a trusted, established aesthetic. The brand itself isn't at the center anymore. It's part of a family that’s familiar and comfortable to the consumer. It doesn’t have to work too hard to fit into our lifestyle because visually, it’s already part of it.

The risk of feeling and looking replaceable is real, but it seems to pay off.

The benefit of playing to trends

Compared to 10 years ago, the quality of design (especially UX/UI design) has improved greatly. Today we're able to execute on a simple product within days, because we’ve established conventions for everything we do. We don't have to rethink and redesign everything from scratch. Modern design systems and standards are a practical convenience; they not only save us time, they work.

Conventions are shortcuts for our minds, allowing us to execute faster. Likewise, trends are shortcuts for how we perceive the world around us. By leaning on trends, these modern brands have found a loophole to reach customers. 

We can talk about cheating or cutting corners. We can scoff at the apparent lack of innovation. But what is a visual brand if not a cue for your associations, preconceived notions, culture, upbringing, lifestyle? These brands are doing what brands are meant to do. In that light, they’re doing it well.

The question is whether the benefits outweigh the consequences.

What do we lose?

Creativity and originality are nearly synonymous. But maybe originality is an idealistic value. Maybe homogenization is a practical one. Perhaps we don’t always need to be “different” to achieve our goal. 

I struggle to find an answer to it. On one hand, I'm a creative person who values original ideas. To me, a brand is a personality that should be unique. To me, good design means making something that lasts. Something strong enough to stand on its own. 

But my ideal view of design may not be the right solution for all problems.

As designers, we can play trends and conventions to our advantage. It can be a smart and strategic decision to join the "shared brand space.” If I look at it purely from a commercial perspective, I can as easily see why the sameness is so effective. There are two sides to the coin. It’s a fight between my mind and my soul.

May 25, 2020No Comments

How to make a graphic design portfolio in 15 minutes with Carbonmade

Designers tend to put off their portfolio until it becomes a big, looming task hanging over their heads. It doesn't have to be so dramatic. With Carbonmade, you can build & launch your design portfolio in just 15 minutes.

Follow these five steps to create a personalized graphic design portfolio with Carbonmade – in a fraction of the time you've spent avoiding it.

Here's what we'll be making.

Let's get started!

Requirements

The only thing you need for this tutorial is Carbonmade, which is free to use until you launch.

Sign up for Carbonmade here and pick a starting point for your layout based on your work and style. I'm choosing the "Big Layer Style."

Step 1: Edit the intro on your homepage   

First, edit the headline and add your introduction. Don't overthink this – just tell us your name and what you do.

Step 2: Create your first case project

Now we'll create your first project. Click "Project" in the left-hand sidebar and upload a thumbnail to represent the project. Hit "Publish" under the thumbnail and it will appear on your homepage and link to your project page.

Now within the project, drag & drop your hero image onto your default "Fullscreen Cover" block. I'm deleting the text to put the focus on the full-screen image.

Next, drag the "Title & Teaser" block onto the page and type in the title and the type of project.

Now drag & drop the "Text/Embed" block onto the page and paste in your project overview. This can be just a few sentences summarizing the project and who you made it for.

Now we'll finish building out the project with the rest of our images. Alternate "Image/Video/Audio" blocks and "Text/Embed" blocks to describe your project in phases, from challenge to solution. For tips on writing case studies, read this article.

PRO TIP: Carbonmade is not limited to just JPEG or PNG images.  You can drag and drop other file types like Photoshop files or video, and Carbonmade will optimize it like magic.

Step 3: Upload your logo

Have a custom logo? Under the Design tab on the left, click "Logo & Title" and drag your logo file into the Upload section.

Step 4: Create your About page

Now we'll get personal. Go to your default About page and drag your best photo into the default “Image/Audio/Video” block. You look 🔥

Now click to edit the text and tell us a little about yourself. Where are you from? What is your main focus in design? Do you believe parallel universes exist? Show a little personality here. Make sure we remember you.

Now add the “Experience Details” block to list out your work history and any special press links, awards or speaking engagements you're proud of. You know, something your grandma can brag about.

Don't forget your contact info! To add your email address and social links, simply drag in a "Contact info" block onto the page and swap out the text.

Step 5: LAUNCH

That's it! Now it's time to launch. Simply click the GO LIVE button, add your payment info, choose a domain name and you're LIVE.

Check out our completed demo right here.

In less time it takes to pay your home loan debt in Animal Crossing, you created a beautiful, personalized portfolio to showcase your graphic design work. Now share it with everyone!

 

To see examples of other portfolios built with Carbonmade,visit this page. And you create your portfolio with this tutorial, be sure to let me know on Twitter. We want to see it!

May 22, 2020No Comments

Optimizing your portfolio for SEO

Search engines are designed to give people the most relevant, useful information. So if search engines are geared toward what people want to read, it’s a good rule for you too.

At this point, we know that stuffing a website with robotic keywords doesn’t get you anywhere. Think of what attracts you as a human to a website, and what you expect to see, and you’re considering the search engines too. That includes the following steps.

Buy your own domain name

A top-level domain name (ie. yourname.com) is going to fare much better than a generic kimmy.myportfoliotool.com in search results. Domain names are cheap. If the one you want is taken, find a variation of it that’s still simple enough to remember and type. Avoid numbers and hyphens as this only makes it more complicated.

The human-first rule applies here. According to moz.com: "Because of search engine's growing reliance on accessibility and usability as a ranking factor, the easier a domain (or URL) is to read for humans, the better it is for search engines."

My NOW page (vanschneider.com/now) is an easy way to refresh my portfolio more often.

Update your portfolio often

Review the first page of your search results and you’ll see most are from the last year. A recently updated site is given priority over an outdated one. That doesn’t mean you need to constantly be adding new content. If you don’t have a new project to add, refresh and optimize your existing case studies.

SEO aside, I try to update my portfolio every few months, whether it’s adding a new project, optimizing an existing one or tweaking the design.

Photographer Cait Oppermann optimizes her image to just a few hundred KB on her homepage (caitoppermann.com), and they're still crystal clear.

Optimize your images

I can’t stress this enough. Designers tend to upload images at outrageous sizes in an attempt to keep them sharp. This only slows down your site and hurts your performance overall. I can’t tell how you how many strange performance issues I’ve traced back to improperly sized images.

A good rule of thumb is to keep your images under 1mb. Your image will still look crisp, but your performance won’t be compromised.

Update your page titles & meta descriptions

The workings of Google’s search engine algorithms will forever be a mystery. Several years ago, headlines & meta descriptions seemed to count a lot for how you appear in search results. At the time of this writing, it seems Google looks more at the content on your page. Nevertheless, it can only help to give your pages unique titles and descriptions. Not only for SEO, but for sharing on social media.

Title your page with your name, the project name and project type. Include the client's name if it’s a recognizable one. In the meta description, describe the project in more detail, but keep it brief. About 50 characters for headlines and 150 characters for descriptions is a safe bet.

Nelson Balaban's use of a share image and a title/description make his Tweet more likely to be shared.

Add share images with unique titles & alt names

Anytime someone shares a page from your site on social media, a unique image should appear in their feed. This will get you better click-through rates. When you do add that image, take the extra 30 seconds to give it a unique, descriptive title and alt description. Do the same for any images you add to your site. The robots love to crawl it.

This homepage intro from Gemma-Lea Goodyer's portfolio (oioi.gg) is straightforward and clear without sacrificing personality.

Don’t waste your introduction

Too often I see designers attempting to wax poetic with their portfolio introductions. Saying you’re a storyteller doesn’t really tell me anything about you, your interests or what you have to offer (it’s certainly not telling a story). It’s also a wasted SEO opportunity.

You don’t have to try so hard. Start with something straightforward like “Illustrator & UX designer based in Chicago” and if you want to elevate the language a bit or elaborate from there, do it. But a straightforward headline is going to benefit you more than a poetic one, so keep it simple.

Adi Constantin's case studies include long-form captions for each photo / phase of the project. adiconstantin.com

Write scannable, thoughtful case studies

Your case studies should be easy to scan with headlines separating each phase of the project, and captions for every image. Nobody's going to read it otherwise. Plus, anything less doesn't set up your work or explain your process the way a case study should.

If there's anything we've learned from talking to 20+ of the leading design companies in our How to Get a Job at X series, it's that they want to see your process in your portfolio. Your case studies are meant for just that.

For SEO purposes, this naturally adds more important keywords to your site (the type of work you did, the company you did it for, the techniques, the tools, etc.). This doesn't necessarily make your site rank higher (an outdated concept), but rather sends more relevant people to your site – the people searching specifically for what you offer.

John Mueller from Google explains it this way: "So it’s not so much that suddenly your page ranks higher because you have those keywords there. But suddenly it’s more well Google understands my content a little bit better and therefore it can send users who are explicitly looking for my content a little bit more towards my page."

Use category subheads

Labeling your projects according to the type of work is way to work in relevant keywords without it seeming forced & unnatural. Design a simple and consistent style for categories like “identity design” or “UX design” and use them for every project.

And categories are helpful for reasons beyond just SEO. As someone seeing your work for the first time, this helps me understand your range of skills at a glance.

Tina Smith includes categories for each project in her thumbnail hovers on her homepage, a natural way to tie in important keywords. tinasmithdesign.com

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For more portfolio tips, read the other articles in our Portfolio Project series. We talk about writing case studies, avoiding common portfolio mistakes and a lot more.

May 20, 2020No Comments

7 minimalist portfolios made with Semplice

Minimalism is a loaded term these days. For a while there, we took it to such an extreme, we're starting to see a backlash. However, the true essence of minimalism is timeless, especially when it comes to portfolios.

At Semplice, we have always said that your portfolio should be first and foremost, focused on the work. When your goal is to put your work in its best light, you think about your site design differently. Rather than attempting to make it a piece of art, you think about the essentials. Minimalism doesn't always mean bare and stripped down. It means nothing more than it needs to be.

Take a look at these minimalist portfolios made with Semplice and you'll see what I mean.

Matthias Grund

Matthias Grund uses the Advanced Portfolio Grid on his homepage with simple, sans serif text. It looks spare at first, but when you hover over the text the site comes alive. The project pages lead with succinct case studies and leave plenty of room for each image to shine. It's a classy and confident site that suits Grund's work well.

SEE PORTFOLIO

Petra Sitaru

Petra Sitaru's portfolio leads with a short & sweet introduction, followed by a grid of her illustration work. The beauty of minimalism is that it makes small details more powerful, like Sitaru's typography choices, her animated project previews and her page transitions.

SEE PORTFOLIO

 

Lennert Antonissen

Lennert Antonissen's portfolio features mostly black & white photography. Knowing that, he could have added color or other elements to his site for contrast. Yet he opted for a simple white background and spacious grid. It was the right choice – scrolling through his homepage, all you think about is the movement and depth of his images.

SEE PORTFOLIO

 

Meghan Armstrong

Meghan Armstrong's portfolio is one of our favorites. It's sharp, it's clean, it's beautiful. Maybe it's the simple, two-column portfolio grid paired with the playful four-corner navigation. Maybe it's the typeface choices. Maybe it's the hover effects. Maybe it's just her fantastic work.

SEE PORTFOLIO

Simon Stoerk

Simon Stoerk forgoes any flashy visuals or animations in his portfolio, opting for a minimal black & white theme. Yet within the minimalism is personality – the custom gallery arrows that match his abstract logo, the rounded buttons. Subtle choices that are noticeable, thanks to Stoerk's site design.

SEE PORTFOLIO

 

Roberts Rurans

My favorite part of Roberts Rurans' portfolio: The level of customization. Every case study is unique, with custom backgrounds and typeface colors to complement the work. Even his thumbnail hovers are custom for each project. It makes for a delightful site experience that gives each project the spotlight it deserves.

SEE PORTFOLIO

Kasper Laigaard

Kasper Laigaard's site may be one of my favorite Semplice portfolios. It may seem simple at first, but the unexpected effects and custom transitions make it different. It goes to show that sometimes, the most "minimal" or effortless designs are those that took effort and care.

SEE PORTFOLIO

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To see more of the best portfolios made with Semplice, visit our Showcase. We handpick two new portfolios to feature each week.

Cover image from simonstoerk.com

May 19, 2020No Comments

How can we build an extension of your mind?

For the first time last week, I wrote about a new project that has consumed a large part of the last year for me.

I shared my frustration with the current landscape, how instead of mastering our tools, we’ve let our tools become our masters. Modern tools pull us in with flashy features and the promise of an easier life. Yet we spend hours managing, organizing and cleaning up the mess these tools create for us.

Our note-taking apps and hard drives have become graveyards of information. Our carefully considered systems and structures become obsolete only shortly after we put them in place. There's a disconnect between the way we like to organize ourselves and how our tools like to organize us.

Our tools tend to see the ideal version of us, which is also why we're attracted to them. They promise a better, more efficient *you.* But the assumptions our tools make about us are not who we are.

Are we failing to keep our shit in order, or are our tools failing us?

We’re only human, after all. And knowing this, I believe there is a way to leverage how our mind already works, rather than trying to change it.

Creating an extension for your mind

To create a tool that complements how your mind works, we first have to understand what that means, both philosophically and practically.

If our goal was to create a NEW mind, we'd have to change the way your mind works right now. We would fall into the same trap as every other tool, forcing you to adapt to structures and mental models that conflict with the way your brain naturally operates. Instead, we're trying to build an extension of your mind. One compatible with the way you're already thinking and working.

The reason you're constantly trying new tools or setting up new structures is because they're aspirational by nature. You can compare them to strict weight-loss diets. They seem great in the beginning, but they're abandoned soon after. They're just too much work to sustain.

The most effective diets are those that stick with you. And the diets that stick tend to be those that fit into your existing lifestyle and way of thinking. They give you power, rather than holding power over you.

It's the same with everything else in life, including our knowledge and productivity tools.

So how does our mind work?

If there is one thing we know about our brain, it's that we know very little. While we’ve made advances in neuroscience over the years, the brain is still one of the least understood parts of our body.

But let's see what we do know. To build an extension of your mind, we're interested in three fundamental questions:

1. What type of memories do we have?
2. How does the input of these memories work?
3. How are these memories accessed?

We’ll start with the first: The types of memories we have in our minds.

💭 Implicit memories

Your implicit memories are usually acquired over time and unconsciously. They can affect your thoughts and behaviors in ways you don't even notice. Riding your bike is an implicit memory; even after years of not riding your bike, you'd still know how to do it. Same with swimming or brushing your teeth.

Simply put: Implicit memories are automatic memories. They're enabled and recalled by past experiences no matter how long ago you experienced them. They last a lifetime.

💭 Explicit memories

This is what we mean when we talk about "remembering something.” An explicit memory is consciously recalled. Explicit memories can be episodic, meaning they relate to a specific experience in your life, such as a holiday or traumatic event. Or they can be semantic, meaning they relate to facts or general knowledge you've acquired for a specific purpose.

Both implicit (unconscious) and explicit (conscious) memories are usually filed under your long-term memory, which can be recalled later or added as automated functions of your behavior.

Your short-term memory or "working memory," on the other hand, is what you're currently thinking about. It’s the part of your brain that helps you remember a small amount of information for a short period of time while you juggle other cognitive processes.

Since your memories are scattered all over different parts of your brain, depending on the type of memory, we rely on strong connections between neurons to complete the picture. And those connections can be strengthened or weakened over time depending on how they’re used. If those connections weaken, we lose access to our memories or can only dredge up partial information. And our minds attempt, whether accurately or inaccurately, to fill in the rest.

Memories tend to be formed more strongly if they're related to a strong emotional experience, and if the experience involves a combination of your senses.

You have no trouble accessing a memory of coffee with a friend because it involves multiple points of access in your mind. You remember seeing your friend, seeing the interior of the coffee shop. You can remember the taste of the coffee. You remember the smell of the cake in front of you. You can hear the chatter around you and the sirens across the busy street of New York.

These are all data points in your mind. If you can access one of them, they can trigger each other so you can eventually recall the entire memory. The fewer access or trigger points a memory has, the harder it will be for you to recall it.

If our experience isn’t accompanied by strong emotions or involves multiple senses, we'll need to work even harder to commit it to memory.

This idea of memory indexing is still only a theory, but we know when it works and we know when it fails. For example: You know this feeling when you're talking with a friend and trying to recall a specific fact you learned, but you can't seem to access it?

Interestingly, you CAN recall that you learned the fact, yet you can’t bring the full memory to the surface. Meaning, you know that you know it, but you just don't know it right now. Often what that means is that our neurons aren't firing the way we want them to be.

This is where our brain fails us, and it does so often.

Say you’re trying to recall an article you saw a week ago while browsing. You remember you saw the website, but you can't seem to remember which publication it was. You do know if someone showed it to you, you'd remember it again.

It might help if a friend helped “trace your steps” or threw a bunch of triggers at you, such as a color or keywords. The more trigger points, the more neurons firing, making connections and giving you the information you know you have in your mind, but just can't access.

Today, we’ve come to terms with not knowing everything – because we know where to find it. We have Google and Wikipedia, both great collective databases with a vast universe of information and knowledge. But these collective databases are full of things that aren’t connected to our own memories, which makes it harder to find that one thing we care about.

What we don't have is an extension for our OWN mind. One that picks up where our brains stop doing the work for us. One that enables us to collect pieces of information that might seem trivial in the moment, but important a week later when we’re trying to tell a story at a dinner party.

An extension of your mind should work the exact same way as your mind already works, but better. Think of it like your own little knowledge base, but without the effort of categorizing everything. It should be a supplement. Like an enhancement drug for your brain, but without the side effects.

This extension of your mind should be as messy and intuitive as your real mind, but it should sort itself automatically when you need it to. It should be a place for the information in your brain to spill over, without the fear of losing it. It shouldn’t aim to change how your mind works, or even teach it something new. It should support your mind, without you even having to think about it.

May 18, 2020No Comments

Artist James White of Signalnoise, on owning your style

The subject of style will forever be contentious in the design and art communities. On one hand, we strive to find our style and stand out with an original voice. On the other hand, we don't want to be pigeonholed into a specific style we can't escape or grow out of.

Nobody I know has honed a style as well as James White, otherwise known as Signalnoise. James has been creating 80s-style art since 2008, and he still loves what he does as much as he did then. I've always admired James' work. For me, it captures the energy and sincerity I felt creating as a kid. And based on our conversation, it's clear James still feels that way when he draws.

Here James and I talk about the struggle of personal style, how the creative community has changed over the last decade and the infamous debate between being a jack-of-all-trades or a master.

The inimitable James White of Signalnoise

I’ve been following your work for at least a decade by now, and as far as I know you’ve been designing since the late 90s. Let’s start with a very simple question: WHY? Why do you still do what you do? Curious to hear what gets you up in the morning.

I never lost that sense of wonder that comes from creating something out of nothing. Imagination and curiosity. I’ve been drawing since the age of four, and spent countless hours of my childhood drawing my favorite comic book characters and cartoons, as well as creating my own characters. When I got into the design industry in 1998 (designing websites), I kept my creative path intact by working on my own projects during evenings and weekends. So, to answer your question directly, I still do what I do because I love it. My creative path hasn’t changed since I was four; I might have traded in my colored pencils for Photoshop, but the drive remains the same. I’ll never stop.

Your work has a very strong style, and as far as I remember I’ve never seen anything else from Signalnoise. Is this all part of a grand plan or do you think this is all just happening naturally for you?

Getting to where I am now, stylistically, has been a long road. As I said, I come from a childhood of drawing and got into the industry through web design. But there’s a 10-year period (1998 - 2008) where I was creating all manner of analog and digital art. I was machine-gunning content in a myriad of styles that hardly anyone will ever see. All that work, for better or worse, played a part in where I was at that point. I was experimenting, learning my tools, exploring and trying to find my place in the creative field. I knew I had more to say than just being a web designer, but that goal was out in the fog for a decade. It was undefined, so I just kept doing what I do: I made stuff. Comics, Flash animation, digital collage, posters, paintings, even sculpting at one point.

Arriving at the 80s style I’m known for took that amount of time to discover. In 2008, it happened very much through my late-night experimenting in Photoshop. I started playing with rainbows and lens flares which reminded me of television network IDs from when I was a kid. I started researching what, say, the NBC peacock looked like in 1984 and drew inspiration from that. Eventually, with the help of Flickr, I became known as the “80s guy,” a style that wasn’t being explored at the time and was deemed “cheesy” by many. But I was having lots of fun re-visiting styles from my childhood, so I kept doing it.

So what started very organically through experimenting became the face of my studio. It allowed me to go freelance and create art for big brands all over the world. But to say I had some grand plan in mind would be a complete lie. To this day, I’m just doing what I want to do and I’m very fortunate that it also pays the bills.

"I’ve always believed in the philosophy of never putting yourself ahead of your art. What you create should always be number one."

In talking with artist friends, it seems like some have angst around their personal style. While they are successful at what they do, they sometimes felt a bit pigeonholed. It’s like the style they crafted over the years became their own little prison they have difficulty escaping from. What are your thoughts on this feeling? Do you feel lucky to have found your personal style, or do you sometimes wish to break out?

I have my ups and downs, honestly. When I’m in the thick of creating some crazy 80s-inspired nonsense and having lots of fun doing it, I can’t think of ever working in any other style. It captures everything I want to capture: fun, enthusiasm, silliness and a bit of awesome. But I can’t lie, the thought creeps into my head every so often that maybe I have an expiration date. I’ve watched the 80s aesthetic rise with each passing year, eventually seeing it used in the likes of Marvel movies, car ads and popstar music videos. When something becomes a fad, it eventually goes away. It’s something you really have no control over. If Brittney Spears decides to make a video that looks like art I created four years ago… suddenly my art looks like Brittney’s shit, not the other way around. It’s unsettling. So in that way, yeah it could feel a bit like a prison.

But, despite the stereotypes, the aesthetic I work in isn’t just one thing. Over the years I’ve found there are plenty of stylistic areas to explore within the 80s retro style. The art I create now is different than the work I created in 2012, despite coming from the same source of inspiration. I get comfort in the idea that there’s still terrain to explore in doing what I do. I just have to stay on my toes and keep pushing myself.

I know you’ve been working in the design industry for a long time. You’ve also become a household name at design conferences around the world. What has significantly changed for the design community in the last 10-15 years, that you’ve noticed? And do you still feel the “community” is there like it used to be, or have things evolved for better or for worse?

Man, great question. Things have definitely changed a few times during my tenor in the industry, most notably is size. When I was learning graphic design and tech back in 1995 - 1998, the tools you needed to create digital art weren’t accessible to everyone – certainly not young people. Computers were expensive, as was the software. As a result, the online creative community was a lot smaller and you really had to know what sites to visit to even know what was going on. I’m talking, late 90s and early 2000s, the time of web portals and bulletin board systems.

When blogging became a thing, people could suddenly have their work featured in places that got a lot of traffic. Blogs became news sources for what creative people were doing. This was a huge time for me and my studio. My work was picked up by sites like Abduzeedo.com and Smashing Magazine, exposing my art to people all over the world and ultimately paving the way for me to go freelance.

And now we’re in the social media era. Technology is accessible to people of all ages, resulting in our creative community exponentially growing.

Now, for better or worse? That’s a tough one. On one hand, we have a much larger audience than we had in the past, and some people can make a living through the design community alone without the need of clients. So much new work is posted every day that it’s impossible to keep up, spawning new genres and tribes almost overnight. This is all great and inspiring.

But on the other hand, it’s becoming harder and harder to cut through the noise. Algorithms create a situation where we may not even see the work of your favorite artist despite you following them. When everyone’s shouting, how can anyone be heard? As I said, it’s a tough one.

I totally agree. Becoming a “design” or “artist” celebrity can happen within just days now, sometimes even hours. Platforms such as Instagram, TikTok etc. have given us the tools to become a viral sensation within a short period of time.

Do you believe this new way of “going viral” can be distracting for young artists when it happens too fast and early, or do you believe it is the best thing that can happen to a young artist?

I’ve always believed in the philosophy of never putting yourself ahead of your art. What you create should always be number one. In light of that, no, I don’t think the pursuit of going viral is a good thing.

As creative people, we should be worrying about the thing we want to create, the thing we want to say or the project we want to execute. If we do that job effectively, with a little luck, our creation will be widely shared and we might see some benefits come from that (getting commissions, for example). The PURSUIT is the creation. The RESULT is the exposure.

If the goal of an artist is to “go viral” or “become famous," they labor under ego using their work as a vehicle. We can use stuff like Instagram or TikTok to show what we’ve created, but the love should always be for the art, not the likes. So yes, I do think the idea of going viral is distracting for artists and skews what the ultimate goal of creating art should be.

But hey, I’m old school.

I’ve always operated under the mantra “do work so good they can’t ignore you,” which seems similar to your philosophy here. Yet I’ve seen artists who are incredibly good at self-promotion even though their work isn’t that great, and I’ve also seen artists who are brilliant at what they do, and their art isn’t seeing the light of day.

Assuming we’re putting our work first like you said, how does one balance creation vs. self-promotion? What’s the best use of our time, given all the possibilities out there?

It’s a tricky balance, isn’t it. I’m sure marketing types won’t agree with me, but there isn’t a perfect recipe for self-promotion that works for everyone.

I’ve always operated under the rule of being myself, and the most successful people I know do the same. When I’m catching up on posts from the people I follow, the best form of promotion I see is from those who are authentic. Creating work that comes from your heart AND being able to talk about it with your own voice isn’t easy for some, but even the effort shines through.

Taking me as an example, I try to keep my art and posts as on-brand as I can… and by “on-brand,” I mean pertaining to my nerdy interests. When I’m not creating art, I’m reading comics, playing old video games, goofing with my toys or watching old action movies. All that stuff works its way into the language and content I post about. My audience knows my work, but they also know me. That’s the balance I’ve managed to sort out for Signalnoise, and I think everyone needs to sort that out for themselves.

"In the digital realm, there’s a load of elements that can change, update, break-down… but drawing is always the same. It will forever be my escape."

You’ve consistently maintained the slightly raw feeling of hand-drawn work throughout the years. When digital tools today allow you to make your work so polished and detailed, even photorealistic, why have you chosen to keep your illustrations more flat and raw?

Drawing will always be my first love. I’ve picked up new tools and techniques over the years to digitally improve my drawings, but nothing is as fun and simple as flipping open my sketchbook and getting pencil to paper. It’s lo-fi, something I can do anywhere without the need of a wifi connection or a charge cable.

Even though I’m not known for my drawing, almost everything I do starts in the sketchbook. That’s my playground where I can rough up concepts and color quickly to see what direction I want to pursue before getting into Illustrator or Photoshop. It saves time but also results in a better product.

I think the reason I prefer to keep my drawings raw is that my process hasn’t really changed since I was a kid. I throw down pencils, get the inks lines on, then fill in my blacks. It’s the same way I drew when I was 12, and there’s a real comfort in that. In the digital realm, there’s a load of elements that can change, update, break-down… but drawing is always the same. It will forever be my escape.

You’ve worked independently for a while now. Is there any other artist you’ve dreamed of collaborating with? Who and what would the project be?

Heading back to my roots, I think Dave McKean would be my choice. His influence was very strong in my early work (1998 - 2005) and a big reason why I dove into Photoshop to the extent I did. I’d reverse engineer his works as best I could to figure out how he achieved the results he did, all the while learning the ins and outs of digital software. It could be said that I learned more about creating art from McKean than I did from any school.

I wasn’t drawn to McKean’s work because of the digital side, but because he was a mixed media artist in the truest sense. He painted, sculpted, built structures, even set things on fire to get the result he wanted. Pouring over his work in the late 1990s taught me that art (analog or digital) didn’t have to be just one thing.

Even though his influence can’t really be seen in the work I do now, I owe McKean a great debt. He was the right artist for me to be a fan of at the right time in my career. SO, what would our collaboration be? I really have no idea, but you can be damn sure I’d learn a lot from it.

Today, a jack-of-all-trades has become desirable to companies. But I know you prefer honing in on whatever you’re good at and mastering it. Let’s end the debate now: What has more lasting power today, the jack-of-all-trades or the expert?

Haha, not sure my two cents will end any debates, but I’ll give it a shot.

We have to think about who benefits from each path. Being a jack-of-all-trades is in the best interest of agencies (in most cases). Having an employee who can do a bunch of stuff gives them access to a wider group of clients. They make more money, they pay the designer, blah blah.

Mastering something you enjoy benefits the artist/designer. Embarking on a quest to figure out what kind of work you want to do, what brings you the most enjoyment, and excelling at that raises the odds of being known for a distinct creative voice. The biggest plus being that it’s something the artist loves to do.

So, there’s no right or wrong path. It depends on the artist and what they want to accomplish with the time they have. I’ve always advised younger designers to make stuff, a lot of it. Through the process of creation we discover what we enjoy, what we dislike and inevitably learn new skills along the way.

I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my career back in 2003, but my path became clearer the longer I spent in the sketchbook and on the computer, creating my own work outside of the day job.

Time. It takes time to sort out who we are and what we want to create. There’s no way around it.

May 14, 2020No Comments

Design in Serbia 🇷🇸 featuring Mirko Zarkovic

Our latest addition to the Design Around the World series is a fun one: Serbia.

I'll be honest. Before this interview, what I knew about Serbia was limited mostly to the fashion world and random stories I'd see in the news. I certainly had no grasp on the design scene there, which is why I set out to do this series in the first place.

After talking here with Mirko Zarkovic, a Serbian designer (who also happens to use Semplice.com for his portfolio), I got a taste of the delightfully weird, vibrant and unexpected voice of Serbia and Serbian design. Mirko's words here have as much style as his designs, and it made for an enlightening and entertaining look into design in Serbia.

Hey Mirko, thanks for talking with us. First, tell us a little about yourself. How did you get into design and what kind of work do you do? 

I'm a 39-year-old interdisciplinary designer from Novi Sad, Serbia. I like how the word interdisciplinary sums me up. My professional experience spans video editing, visual effects, motion graphics, CGI, web design and extended reality. It was heavily influenced by the music I used to listen to and now, the data I browse. This all flows and combines through my career, but, the most important update I go for daily is from the field of visual communications and the relevant technologies. It is a chain reaction guided by instinct, constant questioning and exploration to clear the clutter that piles up around us on every level of our lives. 

This might sound like a careless life, but It was difficult and it still is. Every project must be better than the previous and on top of that, socially and environmentally responsible.

Mirko at LOKAL, the creative space he founded in Novi Sad. Image by Marija Mandic.

I’ve heard Belgrade has become a stylish, creative city, especially when it comes to art. What is the design scene like in Novi Sad and Serbia overall? Is there energy and conversation about design happening among your community?

There’s a difference between Belgrade and Novi Sad. The mentality is different. Throughout history, Novi Sad was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire until 100 years ago, and Belgrade was part of the Ottoman Empire. This is really embedded into the culture and that’s something you can feel as soon as you step in. 

Novi Sad is going to be a European Capital of Culture for 2021, which is nice but there’s something stuck here on the educational level. There’s no link between students and the market. As a designer, it’s really up to how self-thought and mature you are to overcome this gap and aim further for international projects and collaborations.

On the other side, if you scratch the surface you’ll find many brilliant small initiatives scattered across Novi Sad that are popping up in a stealthy manner. They connect like-minded creatives and breed in content and narratives to some new and rediscovered places.   

"I see it as a small dose of Eastern European awareness, mixed with Balkan trumpet bass music while driving your German car in an Armani tight-shirt going out tonight."

Part of the web shop Mirko designed for Revolver Pullover.

I know you run LOKAL for your creative community. Can you tell us a bit more about what this is and the response you’ve seen from local designers? 

Lokal is a small creative initiative that fits into 30sqm. It’s a ground-level commercial space that sits where four small streets intersect. Rarely someone passes by into this easy-to-get-lost area called Almaški Kraj, and it’s still five minutes by foot away from the city center.

The space itself is inviting and it really takes just a click kind of initiative, and it happens. Almost without any effort. No financial plan, no clue what’s next, just pure responsibility to pull up values that are around us and combine them in order to get and feel something whole and different. When you create a wave, it triggers other waves around and then you get this creative social stimulus that results in something tangible through real human connections and creative output. That’s what matters the most.   

A film Mirko animated for ANIMANIMA, an international animation festival.

Besides LOKAL, do many platforms and events exist in Novi Sad / Serbia that connect you with other designers?

Shortlist:

Nova Iskra
PDP Creative Media Conference
DACIDA
Museum of Contemporary Art - Vojvodina
Dafed
Kulturforum

...and there are many small art initiatives that are appearing randomly. 

Part of Mirko's brand identity for PicPic Clothing.

How would you describe the design you see coming from Serbia today? Is it influenced by your culture/history/environment in any way?

I see it as a small dose of Eastern European awareness, mixed with Balkan trumpet bass music while driving your German car in an Armani tight-shirt going out tonight.

Art yes. But, design no.

"It’s really amazing how you can wrap up your portfolio and send it to someone as one-liner within a second. This way I become a part of a global environment."

An image of Mirko's past "workstation" from his About page (one of the best About pages I've seen). mirkozarkovic.com

Considering Serbia’s recent history of conflict, I’ve read that design tends to look forward rather than back. “People here abolish history. They want the new.” Do you agree and see this to be true for Serbian design?

Yes, it’s true. We have a hole in our recent history because of the civil war that happened in the 90s. But in the last 5-10 years, we are becoming aware of our design heritage that comes from the Yugoslavia era. Many institutions from around the world, like MOMA, found it valuable. Then there are Post II World War Yugoslavia monuments and Brutalist architecture from that time. I'd also like to pull up Zenitism, an avant-garde movement that happened before II World War that had a really strong statement and aesthetics. 

It’s really interesting now to see how we’re accepting our cyrilic alphabet. It’s a pity because it’s still mainly seen as something related to Eastern Orthodox Church and its ideology, but that’s something we should definitely overcome. Nowadays, since we have a strong street fashion influence coming from world known Eastern Bloc designers, I see more and more good use of cyrillics that’s mainly coming from young designers' new perspectives. Again we need this self-reflection coming from around us in order to become aware.  

Mirko, reflecting.

Some might argue the internet has homogenized design, with everyone looking outward for inspiration. How do you feel about globalization and its effect on Serbia’s design identity?

I see only good here, and I hope it will always be like this. Because in the end, it is just up to us. 

How much impact does your social media presence have on getting new clients and self-promotion in general? What works best for you?

Basically no impact at all. I rarely share my work on social media. In a way, I like to act from the backstage and send my work straight to the desired locations. It’s really amazing how you can wrap up your portfolio and send it to someone as one-liner within a second. This way I become a part of a global environment and only this way I can become relevant and bring more to the local community.

Mirko's portfolio homepage.

What is design education currently like in Serbia? Are many designers choosing to study or are most self-taught?

I’d like to mention the Department of Digital Art on Media and Communications Faculty (I hope that’s how it translates) in Belgrade as a great starting point for young creatives. 

Most designers in Serbia are self-taught. Design classes are limited to a small number of students and to be honest, I feel that in order to become a good one, you need to be self-taught and enter this world from a different background to bring something unique and multidimensional. 

On the other hand, I feel that we can’t just jump into design education without learning and practicing creative approaches for problem-solving. That’s a missing piece that is my major concern.

"In Serbia, there’s this feeling that somehow everything works. Like there is an invisible force that just works."

Behind the scenes of Mirko's PicPic Clothing project

What does good design mean to you, and how do you see it impacting your country’s society as a whole? Do you think it can solve larger issues Serbia faces?

Good design is invisible. It just works. In Serbia, there’s this feeling that somehow everything works. Like there is an invisible force that just works. 

Do Serbian clients, generally speaking, appreciate good design and understand what it takes?

Unfortunately, generally no. Aesthetics are not embedded in our DNA and the amount of visual junk around us is defines clients' expectations while completely demolishing their potential to distinguish between good and bad. Lower offers win the pitch.    

You’ve worked more than a decade in this field. How have you seen it change over the last 10 years? What do you expect or hope for your community in the next 10 years?

Design trends are morphing and recycling but we’re still stuck into our screens. We need to break this tight, two dimensional, non-tangible surface and start thinking about how to reinvent the way we are, what we do and how we relate. 

UX & UI for 3deluxe, a transdisciplinary design studio based in Wiesbaden & Hamburg, Germany.

In your opinion, what are the top 5-10 design studios from Serbia that everyone who might be not familiar with the Serbian design community should know?

Peter Gregson
Studio Autori
Lorem Ipsum
BBBrick Studio
Metaklinika
Superawesome

Many more great individuals though.

And now to our last question: How can all designers and design communities do a better job of communicating with each other? How can we become more engaged with the Serbian design community? Are there any blogs or specific magazines we can follow?

Good question. Let’s co-create something about it.

This is Badland, Eugster Belgrade, Nova Iskra, VFX Serbia.
Ivana started SCOOP magazine. She’ll hopefully push for a second release.

May 13, 2020No Comments

Behind the Carbonmade onboarding UX (a case study)

Designing an effective onboarding experience is a balancing act between solving as many potential questions or roadblocks as possible, while at the same time not overwhelming the user with too much information.

Onboarding flows might be my favorite part of a product. It's one of the most crucial elements of the entire experience.

A great onboarding experience can increase your conversion rate, engagement and brand recognition while lowering the barrier of entry – meaning, how fast someone can start using your product the way it's mean to be used.

Our usual onboarding requirements:

✅ From a technical perspective, we need to collect a minimum amount of data for operational purposes. Usually that's the email address, a username, a password or other information we need to create an account and maintain contact with the user.

✅ From a brand perspective, we can use the onboarding experience to set expectations and help the user understand what our product is all about.

✅ From a UX perspective, onboarding should guide the user through basic functionality, making them familiar with essential features or highlighting important parts of our product. Almost like a little tour – not too long but not too short.

I ultimately like to see the onboarding experience in three parts:

Part 1: Account creation - There is no way around it. It can be right at the beginning or further in the experience, but it has to happen at some point. Account creation is usually boring, but it doesn't have to be if done right.

Part 2: Core onboarding - What preferences do we need from the user to make the experience as personalized as possible from the start? What information does the user need to know upfront to have an optimal experience? The decisions here depend on your product.

Part 3: Extended onboarding - Here we make use of progressive disclosure, meaning we slowly reveal important information where the user needs it the most. The extended onboarding can be time or drip based, or it can be triggered by specific achievements or "experience levels."

While there are best practices for onboarding experiences, every product is different and benefits from different approaches. So as I walk you through our onboarding experience for my portfolio tool, carbonmade.com, keep in mind that all of our decisions here may not apply every product. It just depends on the nature of your product and what you're trying to accomplish or solve.

But before we dive into it, here's the entire onboarding in one single video:

Behind the scenes of the Carbonmade onboarding experience

Step 1️⃣ — Minimize forms and cognitive load

For Carbonmade, we decided to go with a phased approach to minimize forms and cognitive load. Meaning, we keep decisions bite-sized, so you don't have to think too hard.

The majority of people don't enjoy filling out forms. It feels like work seeing a dozen input fields all together on a page. The more forms, the more your user needs to work. And the more work your user needs to do, the higher the risk of dropping out.

So we start light. Just one simple question: What's your name?

Everyone has a name. That's easy.

 

Step 2️⃣ — Commence hyper-personalization

Following our minimal approach, we're asking another simple question: What do you do?

To make it even easier, we autocomplete up to 130 professions and support the user with placeholder text inside the field and help text below the field. (Whenever possible throughout this experience, we aim to use actionable placeholder content in place of additional UI elements.)

The majority of people will pick one of the most popular suggestions. But those who type in something more specific like "Photo Editor" are pleased to find we thought of them too.

 

Step 3️⃣ — The effort heuristic & perceived value

After you complete the first two steps (your name and your profession), we take over and start personalizing your experience based on the preferences you entered. This third phase takes you through a journey of "creating your portfolio" on the fly and preparing a couple starting point layouts created for your profession.

Here we very intentionally create suspense to make use of the effort heuristic and increase the perceived value of our product. Our goal here is to communicate that magic that is happening in the background. And we don't want to rush through it:

"When a performed action happens faster than expected, users may not appreciate the effort put into it or believe that the action happened at all." (Great article here that describes how the perceived value and perceived functionalism can be explained through the effort heuristic.)

Ultimately, personalization and custom layouts for each profession is one of our biggest features, and we want to make sure that value is highlighted and understood.

Step 4️⃣ — Unpacking the goodness

This is where the real experience starts. There's a lot to unpack in this screen but every single little detail has its purpose. Let's break it down:

Personalization in copy — We add your first name as a logo to each preset option. It's a little detail that feels special once you notice it. We are specific about the headline copy, emphasizing that this is now all about YOUR profession.

Visual identification — Each layout is personalized for your profession. If you sign up as a 3D artist, you'll see 3D work everywhere. If you sign up as a photographer, all verbiage and layout designs revolve around photography. Another small (but big) detail, and if I didn't point it out here you wouldn't even notice. But subconsciously you feel understood seeing work you can identify with on the screen.

Aspirational identification — Each layout option has a title specifically designed to align with a certain personality type, or at least one we aspire to. Instead of using quirky layout names or generic terms, we use titles you might use to describe your own work. Again, a small detail but subconsciously you'll lean into one direction, based on your personality and aspirations.

Value verbiage — We take care to make every word in this experience relays value. Once again: it's the tiny, seemingly negligible details that add up to a lot. When you hover over layout options, for example, we use the word "Customize" instead of "Select." The word "Customize" implies you have control.

The paradox of choice — To avoid overwhelming you with options, we limit your choices to four layouts. But we know making this foundational decision can still introduce a little bit of panic if you fear being locked into your choice. To avoid drop-off at this point, a friendly note appears in the lower right corner that looks like a personal message. We wait a second or two before it pops up. Our goal? Circumvent this potential barrier by telling you this is not a final decision. You'll be able to customize everything later, so you don't need to worry about making the "wrong" decision. Existential crisis averted.

Everything you see in the above screen is designed to motivate you to pick a layout and feel confident in your choice, which keeps you moving onto the next step toward conversion. It also serves as a primer for what you can expect from the Carbonmade experience moving forward.

 

Step 5️⃣ — The final step

We made it! All we need is your email address and you have an account. That's right, no password. The "magic link" login is yet another intentional decision to make this experience as effortless for you as possible. But we're not done until we're done. Here's how we get you to the finish line.

Employing the sunk cost fallacy — Here we take advantage of a very human tendency: When we've put in effort and time into something, we feel the need to see it through to the end. Otherwise, all the investment we made was for nothing. It's a nuanced psychological behavior; if we would've made this any longer, you may have dropped out. If we would've made it much shorter, there wouldn't be enough "investment" from your side to justify an account creation.

A progress bar is an example of another UI element that makes use of the sunk cost fallacy. It reminds you of the effort you've made and subconsciously prods you to keep going. "You're almost there," we're trying to say. "Why give up now?"

In Carbonmade's case, we achieve this with a simple headline: "Don't lose your progress." With goal-oriented language, we're telling you that you're almost there. You'll be able to edit your portfolio in just seconds.

Social proof —  Social proof, also known as informational social influence, is a way for us to connect with other humans by gaining insights on what they approve or disapprove of. It's used in advertising, product design or even social situations.

At a critical moment (the final step of onboarding), we use social proof to give you that final nudge to the finish line. It's at this point we choose to feature user reviews. When we see other people we respect are using a product we're about to use, we know we're joining the pack. It might also help us understand that this is not a scam (although, even scams these days know how to use psychological UX principles).

 

The last act: Extended onboarding

At this point, you already have an account. The first big part has been completed. Now, our extended onboarding comes into play to address any potential roadblocks and introduce essential functions of our product.

We didn't have extended onboarding for Carbonmade at first. We simply dropped users straight into the app. But soon we learned people were experiencing an overwhelming sense of information overload. They completed the initial onboarding, but it was too much information at once after that, so they procrastinated on building their site and ultimately dropped out.

Since then, we've added contextual tips and explicit affordance (visual cues that help you know how or when to use a feature) to progressively lead you along, rather than dumping it on you all at once.

Think of it like a video game. Instead of watching one long tutorial and attempting to memorize everything upfront, a computer game usually gives you small little tasks to complete and accomplish along the way. And before you even notice, you're playing the game and using shortcuts you didn't know before. That's progressive disclosure. It's a way of carefully designing an experience that only gives you the most necessary information at the time you need it the most.

The visual design itself can play a part here too. When you're first hopping into Carbonmade after sign-up, we fade the UI a little bit in the background as we introduce key concepts. You can't interact with the UI just yet, but it gives you a spatial sense of what you're about to see without overwhelming you.

Every product is different, but when it comes to the extended onboarding, you have to decide which two or three things your user actually needs to know, of the hundreds of things you think they need to know. Anything more than 2-3 bits of information will annoy your user and lead to drop-off.

It's important here to focus on communicating holistic concepts – that is, the foundational elements or philosophy behind how your product works – rather than narrow features or functionalities. In our case, we only need you to know this: 1. Everything revolves around blocks and 2. Everything is drag and drop. Just have some fun and try it.

 

Our onboarding experience is constantly evolving and always changing. It's a never-ending process of improving messaging and making (and changing) decisions based on the data we collect. For Carbonmade, our onboarding decisions so far have served us well – you can try it out for yourself here. I hope it will inspire you for your own designs.

May 12, 2020No Comments

Tutorial: Creating 3D typography with Adobe Dimension

You may have been browsing some of your favorite designers or artists on Instagram or Twitter, or perhaps you jumped online to find some inspiration and noticed a new trend in the design world: 3D text.

It seems that 3D design is taking the design world by storm. Designers are wishing to use the power of 3D design to complement their traditional design work, and 3D typefaces are a fun place to start.

I've seen these kinds of 3D text effects most often in the portfolios of some talented designers I admire, in most cases purely for play and experimentation.

Work from left to right: Stefan Hürlemann, Bryan Bernard, Martin Naumann, Sergio Abstracts, BestServedBold

Until recently, such effects have been limited to costly and difficult-to-use 3D programs, or the occasional Photoshop tutorial. For the average designer, including myself, this style seemed to be reserved for "the experts," those who specialized in 3D.

Not so anymore. If you weren't already aware, Dimension is Adobe's 3D design tool. We've written previous Dimension tutorials for creating 3D visuals, and today we'll be bringing you a new use of Dimension: creating 3D text.

What you need

Everything we're doing today, you can do with Adobe tools:

  • The latest version of Adobe Dimension (free with your Adobe Creative Cloud subscription, depending on your plan). This latest version will now include a variety of new features, Text Extrusion.
  • Photoshop
  • Adobe Illustrator, or your preferred 2d design tool

What we'll be doing

In this tutorial, we will be using Dimension to create a poster with 3D typography. Using the new text extrusion feature in Dimension, you'll be able to create your own 3D text and customize it with bevel effects, materials and most importantly: lighting.

For our final effect, we'll be rendering 3D text to create typographic posters like the ones below:

3D typographic posters, created using Adobe Dimension's text extrusion feature

3D text extrusion, rendered with Dimension and animated in Photoshop.

We will then use Dimension to render out layered PSD files of our 3D text that we can then effortlessly apply to our design concepts. Let's do it!

Step 1: Design your layout in 2D

I recommend designing in 2D first, so you can cement your idea and have a reference when you're designing the 3D text in Dimension. I've first created my design as a 2D typographic poster in Adobe Illustrator.

 

Step 3: Create your scene in Dimension

With the latest version of Dimension installed, go ahead and create a new scene. In the project settings, input your document dimensions. I've opted to set mine at 3000 x 2250px to get a nice, high-res image.

With your scene created, select Environment from the scene area in the top right corner and set a black background color (or whatever your artwork background color is).

In the same environment area, uncheck "Ground Plane" so we don't get any unwanted reflections or shadows from the simulated ground floor.

 

Step 4: Extruding the text

Now that our scene is set, we are ready to begin creating our 3D text extrusion. From the objects tab, drag a new Text Extrusion object onto your scene. You can now see with the default settings that our text object already has 3D dimensionality to it.

We can now select our Text object and adjust the default settings. You'll see options to input your own text, change the font, adjust the extrusion depth, set font sizings and kerning, as well as a bevel effect for added realism. In my example, I'm using a wider sans-serif typeface (Dimension's 3D Text feature will work with any font installed on your systems operating system). I've set the depth value to 2cm.

Now that we have our basic properties, we can start experimenting with the bevel options to achieve a realistic result. There are several options for the shape of your bevel. For our purposes, I will use the Round option.

Now let's adjust the bevel width and angle. You can have fun and experiment with this part more on your own later, after we've adjusted our camera and lighting.

Step 5: Adjusting the camera

Now that we've got a nice 3D text effect (see how easy that was?), let's adjust the camera and place it in a way that will give us the front-facing angle we need for our poster. Of course, you don't have to create this flat effect, but it will work well with the poster we're designing today.

Next, let's set the camera field of view to 1. This will give us a very flat, isometric feel to the text. Now rotate the camera so that your text is completely front-facing with the camera. You can use Dimension's grid lines to ensure alignment.

Now that we've got the camera setup, let's go to the bookmark tab to bookmark our camera position. This will allow us to adjust and rotate our camera, but come back to our front-facing view at any time later.

Step 6: Adding materials

Now we can apply real-world, photorealistic materials to our 3D text. In the example below, I've added a Clean Gold material to the text object.

You can of course apply different materials for different effects – play around with this to see what you personally prefer. Adobe includes a variety of options here and you can download additional materials from Adobe Stock, if needed.

Left: metal material. Right: brass material.

For our poster, I will use Silver Gold from the Substance Materials list for a nice chrome-like effect. Since this is also a Substance Material, we have additional options to adjust the reflection amount or increase scratches for added realism.

Now, in the material options, you can tweak your material's appearance. For my example, I've set my Silver Gold material settings to the following:

The roughness value determines how reflective your material will be, with a lower value resulting in a more reflective object. The rest of the material settings I've left at the default.

Step 7: Adjusting the lighting

Now that we have our camera adjusted, we can now work with the lighting in Dimension.

Lighting is one of the most nuanced and important aspects of believable and realistic results in 3D design. Thankfully, Dimension takes the headache out of this and includes several lighting presets we can use.

For our purposes, I will use image-based environment lighting. Environment lighting generates real-world lighting systems based on the light and dark values in an image. It's an incredibly easy way to achieve photorealistic results, since you are using a real photo to generate light and reflections. Adobe includes several environment lighting presets with Dimension, as well as additional ones for download from Adobe Stock.

In addition to the presets that come with Dimension, you can also use an image file of your own to generate light for your 3D scene. For this tutorial, I'm using an HDRI image from the Neon Dreams HDRI pack from TFM.

I first downloaded the image into the Environment Light option in Dimension. I can now adjust things such as lighting intensity or rotational values. Rotational values will change the position of the lights in accordance with our scene, and is crucial in some cases to achieving realistic lighting.

Sometimes it's a matter of adjusting and playing with different rotational values to get the desired result.

Now is a good time to go back to your 3D text options and experiment further. You may want to adjust the bevel amount or bevel settings to get it just how you like it. Have fun with it!

Step 8: Rendering our image

In 3D, rendering your image means taking your 3D design information and turning it into an image.

PROTIP: You can preview your final render result in the Dimension viewport with the Render Preview option:

With our camera set and our lighting adjusted perfectly, we can hit the render tab to bring our 3D artwork to life and into layer-separated PSD files. In the render options, choose Medium for your render preset ("Low" present means it is quicker but lower quality; "High" means higher quality but the rendering will take longer.) You then have the option to set the final result as a PSD file or png. I've set mine to PSD.

Then, all you have to do is hit the render button. Your 3D render may take a while depending on your machine's particular setup, but for a simple composition like this, it should be relatively quick.

Keep in mind, if you have a slower machine this will use a lot of system resources and you may experience a significant slowdown until the render is finished. If you'd rather work on other projects while your render is being processed, you can use the Cloud Rendering (Beta) option to have Adobe render the images for you.

The final result

With our render complete, here is the final result:

Final result, front-facing

You can now open up this render in Photoshop for any post-processing work you'd like to do, and your 3D text will already be on a transparent background. Dimension includes 3D information as hidden layers when you render, and you can make post-processing adjustments as needed after your render has completed.

 

Mockups created with Adobe Dimension.

Experiment further

Now you've seen how simple it is to create 3D text effects that you've always wanted. Now you can go wild with it using the exact same process.

Have fun and play around with different fonts, materials, camera angles or lighting effects to create a variety of results. Here are some different designs and experiments I've made using the same process:

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial! If you do create something with Dimension, be sure to share your designs to Behance, selecting Adobe Dimension under “Tools Used” in the Basic Info tab. On Instagram, tag #AdobeDimension and #CreatewithDimension. This allows the Dimension team to find and promote your work.

May 11, 2020No Comments

DESK partnerships

Sometimes we work with paid partners to introduce products we use and love to DESK readers.

So far, we’ve helped companies like Nike, Figma, Microsoft, Airtable and Adobe reach their goals and connect with our creative audience.

If you think your company or product would be a good fit for DESK readers, send an email to business@vanschneider.com and ask for our media kit.

We’d love to brainstorm ideas with you.

May 11, 2020No Comments

The best totally free web fonts & typefaces

Quality, free web fonts are difficult to come by these days. The best place we could think to find them: Twitter.

Beautiful typefaces are usually an investment, but that doesn't mean you can't find affordable ones. Tobias recently asked for recommendations on Twitter for completely free typefaces, and there was no shortage of options.

Here we curated our top 12 picks, along with a few honorable mentions. Thanks to those who shared their secrets!

Space Grotesk

Designed by Florian Karsten
Recommended by @eltidsgn

Florian Karsten is an independent type foundry with high-quality custom typefaces. Space Grotesk is designed as a grotesque modified version of Colophon's open-source typeface, Space Mono.

DOWNLOAD SPACE GROTESK

 

Geomanist

Designed by atipo foundry
Recommended by @chrisspowe

Atipo, founded by Raúl García del Pomar & Ismael González, is an independent type foundry and graphic design studio based in Gijón, Spain. Geomanist is a beautifully simple, geometric typeface.

DOWNLOAD GEOMANIST

 

Archia

Designed by atipo foundry

Another beautiful typeface created by atipo foundry. Archia is a square, sans-serif typeface with the charm of pure form.

DOWNLOAD ARCHIA

 

Jost*

Designed by Owen Earl
Recommended by @viachaz

Owen Earl designed Jost* as a tribute to Futura, as a functional and modern typeface for the digital era.

DOWNLOAD JOST

 

AUTHENTIC Untitled

Designed by Daniel Stettner

Daniel Stettner is a multi-disciplinary designer who created many AUTHENTIC typefaces. AUTHENTIC Untitled is a blackletter typeface with plenty of character.

DOWNLOAD AUTHENTIC

 

Bonkers

Designed by Fabian Korn

Fabian Korn is a creative director at Format Studio based in Schaffhausen, Switzerland. Bonkers is a funky, lighthearted typeface.

DOWNLOAD BONKERS

 

Miki

Designed by Kontrapunkt
Recommended by @pmrcunha

Kontrapunkt is a brand experience agency based in Denmark and Japan. Their Miki typeface is inspired by Kontrapunkt's Japanese connections, with smooth, playful curves.

DOWNLOAD MIKI

 

Inria

Designed by Black Foundry
Recommended by @benlkeith

Black Foundry is a type design company based in France. Their Inria typeface comes as both a modern serif and a humanist sans-serif.

DOWNLOAD INRIA

 

Messapia

Designed by Collletttivo

Collletttivo is a group of designers designing and distributing free open-source typefaces. Their headline-worthy Messapia type family comes with two styles: one inspired by an old 19th-century font, the other a sans-serif bold extended.

DOWNLOAD MESSAPIA

 

Emberly

Designed by Rajesh Rajput

UX designer Rajesh Rajput created this Didone-inspired typeface, which looks lovely in any weight.

DOWNLOAD EMBERLY

 

Public sans

Developed by U.S Web Design System (USWDS)

USWDS is an active open source community of government engineers, content specialists and designers. Public Sans is a strong, neutral typeface for interfaces, text and headings.

DOWNLOAD PUBLIC SANS

 

Inter

Designed by Rasmus Andersson
Recommended by @Autre_planete, @bjnortier, @ChrisLSeymour, @edumicro & more

Rasmus, a Swedish designer working at Figma, created the instantly popular Inter font family as a legible text for computer screens.

DOWNLOAD INTER

Honorable mentions

Space Mono

Designed by Colophon Foundry
Recommended by Surya Anand

Colophon Foundry is an international award-winning type foundry based in London and Los Angeles. Inspired by science fiction, the Space Mono typeface family has a geometric foundation and grotesque details.

DOWNLOAD SPACE MONO

 

IBM Plex

Designed by Mike Abbink, Bold Monday
Recommended by Scott Raney

Plex was designed as a corporate font for IBM to honor its spirit and history. It's a neutral, yet friendly Grotesque-style typeface that includes a Sans, Sans Condensed, Mono and Serif for print and digital.

DOWNLOAD IBM PLEX

 

Fengardo Neue

Designed by Velvetyne Type Foundry
Recommended by @sbkwsk

Velvetyne Type Foundry designs and distributes open source typefaces. Fengardo Neue, to quote the foundry's site, "bears the marks of uneven and restless learning." It's a legible sans with a bit of softness and charm that makes it unique.

DOWNLOAD FENGARDO NEUE

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We hope these free typefaces are helpful to your projects. I know I'll be using them for my portfolio update soon.

If you're looking for beautiful new typefaces for your collection (and don't mind paying for them) be sure to also check out Semplice's favorite type foundries and typefaces. They're worth every penny.

May 8, 2020No Comments

Games are the new platform you want to be part of

More than 12.3 million players joined Fortnite's live virtual concert with rapper Travis Scott on April 23, in which he introduced his new single and partnership with Kid Cudi. It was the largest in-game event ever.

In what participants called "a stunning and spectacular experience," we roamed the familiar worlds of Fortnite while a skyscraper-sized version of Travis Scott towered above us and teleported across surreal landscapes.

As Travis Scott shifted characters from human form to massive cyborg to spaceman, the digital world around us imploded and exploded to the beat of the song. One second I'm chasing Scott into a new rift while others dance around me, and the next we're all lifted into the air as he turns gravity on its head.

Players celebrated with custom in-game items designed for this event, and the new single, titled "THE SCOTTS," rocketed to #1 on Billboard charts. Across four replays over three days, 27.7 million unique players attended the event 45.8 million times. The video captured in Fortnite has already reached more than 24 million views and is trending in 44 countries.

My Fortnite character is an extension of myself, with powers limited by the familiar Fornite world. But suddenly that world was influenced by a higher power. Scott took godlike form and transported us across his own universe. It was the closest experience we’ve had to the tantalizing future imagined by books like "Ready Player One," "Armada" or "Ender's Game."

And it only gets better from here.

Merging worlds is the secret

Games have been creating events like these for a while now. But by opening its platform up to others, Fortnite took it somewhere new. Events organized by game publishers are typically limited to the game lore itself, meaning all elements of the experience connect to the game’s principal narrative.

An event can only go so far when limited to the game’s existing backstory. You can't fully appreciate the experience unless you're familiar with the game and you've played it long enough. It's an isolated, insular event, one that isn't crossing any borders.

The Travis Scott event with Fortnite is different. It melted two known and separate worlds together, breaking into new territory.

Fortnite players were thrilled to see the environment they call "home" temporarily turned upside down. Meanwhile, Travis Scott fans who didn't necessarily play Fortnite (yet) saw their favorite artist gain superpowers and control a new world with 12.2 million players in it. By joining forces, both Fortnite and Scott reached new yet presumably compatible audiences.

The power lies in the context

Many companies and musicians have tried to pull off an event like this. But they usually do it themselves, within their own world and on their own platform.

Scott could have developed his own technology for this event and asked people to sign up for it (artists like Björk and Gorillaz already have). He could have created a similar experience with his own proprietary technology and put millions behind broadcasting it, but it wouldn't have been the same.

Travis Scott has an audience that would have shown up. So does Coca Cola, if they chose to develop a game and let people participate in digital events. They've done it before. But this is not where the magic is.

The magic is in merging two worlds. Two worlds that are appreciated either by similar or completely different, yet compatible audiences. Leveraging and activating a new audience is the primary marketing goal for a partnership, but Fortnite’s event took it much further than this.

Open-world games like Fortnite, World of Warcraft, Second Life and Animal Crossing have amassed millions of loyal players. We can be more invested in our characters and the digital life we've created than we are in our “real life” household. Our digital worlds have become a second home, one we care for and visit to relax and meet friends.

When our familiar, cozy digital world temporarily expands, our minds and our interests do as well. Which is exactly where the possibilities lie for smart brands.

Games are the new platform

Games are more than just entertainment. They're platforms. They’re a ready stage for Travis Scott, for Coca Cola, for Tesla.

To take advantage of gaming platforms, brands need to come up with creative ideas that honor and elevate the game mechanics, the community and the existing game lore.

It's more than slapping a banner on Facebook. It's more than sponsoring a festival by putting your logo across the main stage. It’s more than creating some custom skins for a game with your logo on it. The game is our home. It’s not a race car, plastered in logos. That’s a 2005 marketing idea at the latest, and it’s time we do better.

The new era of games partnership is all about a deep integration and the merging of two existing worlds. These partnerships will benefit from a temporary, exclusive approach to make them more effective. After all, we don't want Travis Scott forever stomping around Fortnite. We eventually want our old world back, the one we know. But we'll keep our special Travis Scott items (including the physical merchandise Scott and Epic Games are still selling) as a souvenir and badge of pride, just like we’d wear a festival T-shirt. To prove we were part of something.

A player is ultimately here to play their game. So if you're able to successfully interrupt that experience and bring us somewhere special, somewhere that bends the rules of our known worlds just for the night, you've made magic. And it’s the smartest, most self-aware brands that will know how to get there.

May 7, 2020No Comments

My new secret project — an extension of your mind

The time has come. I'm ready to talk about a product I've been working on with my partner for almost a year now. I first shared this last week with my personal email list.

It's a different kind of product than you'd expect from me. It's not a portfolio tool – I think I’m good with Semplice and Carbonmade on that end. It's also not specifically related to the design industry. It's something new. Something I've wanted for a long time myself, and now we’ve built it.

I've used this product every day for the past 10 months. It's become an indispensable part of my workflow. And this is all my partner and I ever wanted: To build something we love to use ourselves.

Of course, we're not going to stop there. I want you to use it too, to see the benefits and hopefully enjoy it as much as we do.

I still have to keep you in suspense for now. So think of this as “part 1” in a series of articles I’m going to publish over the next month. I won't be able to share the name or the details of the product with you yet. But I can give you a little back story. I’ll tell you how we landed on this idea and what we felt was missing in the products currently out there. And from there, I’ll give you an opportunity to follow along as we're building and launching this new product.

"An extension of my mind"

This is what came first. Just a daydream, really, something we wished existed. Everything we built followed this mantra.

What I wanted was simple, in theory. If I see something I like, something I want to remember, I want to save it within a second. And if I'm trying to remember it later, I want to be able to find it within seconds. That’s it.

I don't want to deal with organizing things. I don't want folders. I don't want categories or structures. I don't want to think about how to make sure I’ll be able to find this later. I want something to do the job FOR ME instantly. An extension of my mind.

Of course, you might ask, aren't there already tools you can use to achieve those things?

I've tried them all. There's not a single tool you can show me that I haven't tried. Either the tools are too complicated, bloated, outdated or too specific. Without exception, I'm left with a Frankenstein model pieced together from a mix of tools that collect dust more than anything else. And talking to people around me, it seems like everyone is dealing with similar issues.

"We tend to take the path of the least resistance. When we're in the flow, we don't want to think about organization. We want to stay in the flow."

Our tools for simple tasks are broken

Our new product is born out of this frustration.

You may not be aware of it, but everyone has built their own little Frankenstein system. We can’t necessarily find anything with this system, but we feel some pleasure in managing our chaos. It's the sunk cost fallacy mixed with the illusion of productivity.

But we don't even WANT to build these rigged up systems. The majority of us aren’t interested in creating our own Wikipedia or our own knowledgebase. What we want, whether we realize it or not, is for our tools to get out of our way and simply do what we expected them to do in the first place.

We’ve got shit to do.

Our tools should help us spend LESS time managing information, not force us to adopt complex new mental models and build structures of folders, tags and categories. Software is supposed to take the work out of it, not add to it.

Our biggest challenge with modern productivity tools is that they’re asking us to build, maintain and control our own system. This all sounds and looks great in the beginning, but unless we’re a database structure genius with a love for documentation, we will be making mistakes in the initial setup of our system. And those mistakes will only waste our time instead of doing what we set out to do: save it.

At the time we’re putting our structure in place (folders, tags, categories) we’re doing it with our current knowledge of how things work. And it may function beautifully for about a week or two. We feel productive categorizing things, putting them in folders and maintaining our new system. But then a normal day takes over. Eventually, a piece of information, be it a note, an image or a bookmark, won’t fit into our existing structure. But we don’t feel like this single aberration justifies an adjustment or re-work of our entire structure, and we don’t have the time to revisit it anyway. 

Ultimately, our system falls apart. We become our lazy selves again and abandon the tools and the structure we so carefully put in place. What ensues is chaos – at least until the next time we muster up the willpower to do this all over again.

Let's look at some examples:

How are we dealing with note-taking these days?

The majority of the notes we take are "throwaway" notes. Often they're little snippets of something on our mind, something we want to remember later. The average note is no longer than a tweet and likely captured in 30 seconds or less. They're the digital equivalent of sticky notes. Some we want to stick around, some we don't. But each note usually has a clear purpose toward achieving a specific goal.

We eventually end up with a monster like Evernote where each note is a huge document with dozens of little snippets and styling options we never asked for. Other tools ask us to build entirely new mental models in order to use them, to inspire us to create our own Wikipedia. These tools cater to the information hoarder and tend to give us a sense of false productivity. They're a time sink.

When we're in the middle of creative flow, thinking about maintaining structures adds unnecessary cognitive load.

Evernote and most note-taking apps force us to stop and think in structures we don't care about. There are “notebooks” and lists of notes that all look the same on the surface. The visual cues are all the same. We can't find things at a quick glance, and often what we’re looking for is buried deep inside a note within a note within a notebook.

To avoid the forceful structure of our tools, we create a note called "Random Shit" and put individual, unrelated notes inside it. Later, when trying to recall that one piece of important information, we have to sift through all our random shit to get there. Sort of defeats the purpose, doesn’t it?

Our minds aren't built this way, so why are our tools?

I've seen people use Evernote or other note-taking apps but still avoid them in the most crucial moments. It's often faster to just write it on a post-it note and stick it on your computer. It's even easier to just send yourself a quick email (yes, we all do it). Others use the MacOSX notes app together with three other apps, depending on what "feels right in the moment.” I even write myself a Slack message sometimes because that's the fastest way to leave a note to myself, even though I'm swimming in tools that *should* be better for it.

We tend to take the path of the least resistance. When we're in the flow, we don't want to think about organization. We want to stay in the flow.

We're not using our current tools properly because they're too complex in the moment we need them the most. As a result, the tools we do end up using are not designed for this specific purpose. Ultimately, we end up losing things we wanted to remember.

We avoid our current tools because they're asking too much from us.

Which leads me to more pet peeves:

How do you bookmark websites you like? Articles? Videos on YouTube? A product on Amazon?

The process of bookmarking is completely messed up for most people. Here's what I've seen with my friends and myself.

If the website is an article, I may save it to my Pocket account to read later. Or I’ll write myself an email with the URL. Or I’ll Slack myself the URL. Whatever’s “closest” at the time. 

Even better: I’ll leave the tab open in my browser, i.e. my list of things "I want to remember for later.” Eventually my browser crashes and relieves me from the burden of things I wanted to remember (I'm aware of browser extensions that save all my open tabs into an archive I'm never going to look at again).

Or perhaps I’ll just bookmark the URL in my browser. I can put it in one of the dozen folders I have, with lists of websites I'm never going to look at again because how the hell should I find anything in there? All I see is link names, but I’m a visual person. I don't remember half of these websites or why I saved them, and I'd have to click on it to find out. Sure, I could use a more visual bookmarking tool made for that purpose. I'm sure there are enough out there. Just one more tool for one more very specific use case.

Or maybe I could just create a note in Evernote called "Links I like" and then just put lists of URLs in there. Forever to be forgotten and never even stumbled upon again because they're not visual enough for me to recognize at first glance.

We don't think in lists. We think in images. Our minds are visual by nature.

Bookmarks are strange. While the source is always just a URL, the reasons we bookmark a URL are very different. We might bookmark it because it's an article we want to read. We might bookmark it because it’s a website design we like. Or we bookmark it because it's a podcast we want to listen to, a video we want to watch or a product we want to buy. The use cases are endless, even though technically it’s always just a link. But each forces us to think differently when it comes to organization. Ultimately we end up with one tool for articles, one for visual website inspiration, one for products we want to buy and so on.

"New tools launching right now attempt to change our mind, rather than supporting it. While they may give us the illusion of control, the reality is that the tools control us."

What about visual imagery?

If you’re a designer or an art director, you know what mood boards are. We have tons of them because it's part of our inspiration and research process.

But everyone has mood boards, not just designers. Yours may be scattered across different places: Your desktop, your camera roll, your Instagram collections, your Pinterest. No matter what shape it takes, we all have a mood board somewhere.

If you see an image of a haircut you like online, you want to remember and reference it later. Or this nice chair you’re thinking about for your new apartment. Or this wedding dress you want to remember, not now, but maybe in a year or two.

Right now, you could use Pinterest for it, although it forces you to organize everything in boards and tag it. Pinterest is also public by default, so you need to make an effort to either curate for your followers or keep everything private (and I have a lot more to say about privacy soon). In reality, you only want to save this ONE image of a wedding dress. You don't want to create an entire board of wedding dresses yet. It’s overkill, and so is any tool specifically for mood boards. 

Many of us just save images or screenshots straight to our computer. We save things to our desktop because it's frictionless. Again: the path of the least resistance. I don't have to think about organization, folders, categories. I just save it, quick and dirty. And I will probably never find it again. Our desktop is the best solution we have, yet also the worst.

More often than not, we just take a screenshot on our phone to save it to the camera roll, the equivalent of the desktop on our computer. Quick, easy, painless. But again, most likely forgotten and never found again. I'm sure you've experienced the moment where you frantically browse through your camera roll trying to find an image or screenshot you saved because you wanted to show it to a friend.

What else do we save?

What about quotes or highlights I made in books I really enjoy? Do I mix them in with my notes? Create a big document? Do I need to find another tool for this?

Or this PDF white paper I found online I want to read later? Should I bookmark it? Save it? Upload it into a note?

What about my favorite memes I love to come back to and reference more often?

Is this turning into a rant?

I think you're getting my point. We have hundreds of tools, yet we're still struggling to find something when we need it the most. Our tools aren't built the way our mind is built.

New tools launching right now attempt to CHANGE our mind, rather than supporting it. They try to re-program how we think and operate, giving us more work than we had before. They’re new systems that need to be managed. While these tools may give us the illusion of control, the reality is that the tools control us.

All I want is an extension of my mind. Something where I can put things in and commit it to “my memory” as I go about my day, without any hassle. A place for my ideas and thoughts to spill over when my own mind can’t hold it all. And I want my extended mind to organize it, better than my own mind can, and make sure I find what I need again when the time comes.

It’d be designed just like our own minds, but enhanced with artificial intelligence. And this is what we've built.

Will it be great? We don't know yet, but what we do know is that we're obsessed with using it ourselves. And that's a good start.

While we focused more here on the flaws of existing tools and workflows, next I will talk about how we think it *should* be. I'm excited to share more with you soon!

May 6, 2020No Comments

Julie Kraulis’ timepiece drawings are an ode to detail

I first discovered Julie Kraulis' work at the A. Lange & Söhne boutique in New York. It was astounding.

It's something you appreciate in layers: First, you register the fact that it's a pencil drawing, not a rendering or photograph. Then, if you're a watch nerd like me, you hone in on the gears and inner workings, the mysterious details of the machine. Then you see the shading, the incredible detail where Julie captured a nick in the metal, the shadow on a dial, the slightest wear on the wristband. You consider the scale of the thing, at least three feet in height, and eventually, you find you've been standing there studying the piece for 10 minutes. At least that was my experience.

After talking with Julie about her work here, I have a whole other level of appreciation for it.

Julie signing her A. Lange & Söhne Datograph piece, which she describes as her most challenging project.

From your previous interviews, I already know where your fascination with watches came from. What I’m curious about is how it’s held your focus so sharply.

Are you a person who typically gets fixated on one thing and wants to master it, or are you always experimenting with different subjects, mediums and interests? What are some other subjects that have captured your interest over the years?

I stumbled into watches serendipitously but I feel like it was fated, in a sense. There is so much I’m drawn to; abstractly with the concept of time and our relationship to it, as well as the concrete aspects of design. A few years back, I had wanted to focus on a collection of work that would engage both my head and heart. Something to keep me curious and interested in the intellectual realm, and something to capture me on the soul level. The art of watchmaking does both.

I’ve always loved design and I’m intrigued by what makes something timeless in any form of it. I’m fascinated by objects and spaces designed decades ago that achieve cult status, continuing to capture and enthrall a following. There are principles of design and then there’s the layer of mystery as to what makes something tick. This is what keeps my focus.

I am definitely someone who focuses deeply on something, working to understand and glean as much as I can. And then, eventually, I’ll get this feeling to pivot and move on to something else. At any given time, I always have side projects on the go – a variety of creative outlets and interests separate from my ‘day work.’ I have this compulsion to always be making things and I’ve got a list of creative skills I’d like to learn, including printmaking and textiles at some point.

I feel I’ve just scraped the surface with the timepiece collection. It’s the first subject I’ve explored this deeply and I’ve got a bunch of big dreams within it to keep me inspired and hustling.

"Possibility makes me tick; I love the challenge of figuring out something I’ve not yet done."

The GMT Meteorite in progress

I know you like to work in the history and story of the watch into your drawings. How much creative freedom do you typically have in doing that for commissioned pieces? Do you often brainstorm with clients or do they trust you to run with it?

I look to weave in history and narrative elements within each piece I create and I work closely with clients to find these unique notes to emphasize. In the preliminary stages, I glean as much as I can about a timepiece through research and conversation. I let it all roll around and eventually, all of these details will distill into ideas.

Most of the time, the client is completely open to what I come up with and after proposing a few different design approaches, we’ll refine the selected one together. Up to this point, most have desired a fairly straightforward capture of the timepiece, but I’ve got plans for pieces with a deconstructed, conceptual approach.

Julie's interpretation of the Rolex Submariner

I’ve seen artists recently who do technical drawings, either with watches, sneakers or other objects. Yet your work is unique because you add your own artistic twist to these paintings that, as far as I can tell, increase the difficulty 100x fold.

While others might just try to draw a perfectly realistic and technical drawing, you go one step further and do things like the overlapping effect on the Dategraph. In the end, we’re seeing the timepiece in a completely new perspective, one we would never get from a purely technical/photorealistic drawing.

Is this something that just comes naturally to you? I’m curious how you go about marrying the unique visuals with the watch itself.

From the beginning, I knew I wanted to go beyond just a hyper-realistic approach. I wanted to capture these iconic timepieces with a different perspective, adding layers to create a bespoke piece. These added elements make the work unique and visually interesting.

I think it comes naturally but not necessarily easily! Picasso’s sentiment resonates: “I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.” Possibility makes me tick; I love the challenge of figuring out something I’ve not yet done. For each piece, I usually have a clear image in mind and then work to figure out how to translate it on the page.

You’ll often see natural elements in my drawings. Textures in the natural world have always captivated me and it’s been a super fun challenge learning out how to draw them when they suit the context of certain timepieces, like water for the Rolex Submariner or meteorite for the GMT Master II.

"We live the ever-present dance between hope and doubt. The questioning of the work is an invaluable part of creating, I think."

Julie at work on the Heuer-Monaco Movement.

I saw your work many times on Instagram before, but then one day I spotted your Datograph piece hanging on the wall at A. Lange & Söhne in New York. My friend and I kept admiring one particular part that probably only watch nerds like ourselves would obsess over – it was the pure dark grey shade of the dial itself.

While some may think this is the easiest part of the drawing, I have a feeling you can tell us the exact opposite.

Exactly right. There is a magic to graphite in real life. It’s a very lively medium – there is a shimmer and a depth. I love the idea of using one of the humblest tools around to push its boundaries and find luxury in huge, intricate work. There is also a special metamorphosis that takes place as the wood is shaved off layer by layer, transforming the tool in hand into something on a page.

As is often the case, simple is the most difficult. Pure, even planes of graphite can be the most challenging element of any drawing. Gradients on a bezel or bracelet, as well. I have to move around the piece in all different types of light to refine these areas.

The exquisite A. Lange & Söhne Datograph, which took Julie more than 400 hours to complete. I saw it in person!

Each piece you create takes hundreds of hours of work – you’ve studied the mechanics of timepieces as much as a horologist. Do you feel like you understand the inner workings in a mechanical way, beyond an artistic standpoint?

The timepiece drawings take anywhere from 250-450 hours, depending on the level of difficulty and intricacy. Over the last year, I’ve started drawing movements but I don’t have a grasp on the mechanical engineering bit just yet. I plan to take the Horological Society of New York watchmaking course to better understand a movement and what makes a watch tick. The next phase of this collection will have a conceptual focus based on the inner workings, and this is an essential course I have to take to really explore these ideas.

I had the great pleasure of visiting the A. Lange & Söhne HQ in Dresden last year. While I was touring all of the labs and workshops, I was spellbound at the watchmakers’ benches. These tiny intricately crafted pieces lay still and inanimate and by an order of expert assembly, they come alive and there’s a heartbeat. Just amazing, undeniable soul.

Julie drawing the A. Lange & Söhne Triple Split for a client. The wristband alone is just insane.

I know for many designers, if they’re looking at their own work for that long, hit a point where they question everything and suddenly want to destroy it and start over, or move on to something else entirely.

Does that ever happen to you? What do you do to keep your mind fresh and see an extremely long & detailed project through to the end?

OH, yes. This is the natural state of being for anyone in a creative field! We live the ever-present dance between hope and doubt. The questioning of the work is an invaluable part of creating, I think. It’s also necessary to find moments to see the work through fresh eyes; whether stepping away, putting it aside or seeking feedback from trusted voices. Sometimes it’s just necessary to destroy the work and begin again.

The timeline for each timepiece drawing is long and intense but because of this, I focus on small areas at a time and build slowly. There are many days where I find myself in a meditative, flow state focusing on texture and form. I almost always lack confidence in a piece until about three-quarters of the way. At that point, things start to come together.

The OMEGA Speedmaster CK2998 – the first watch worn in space.

I read you don’t own a watch yourself yet and you’re constantly discovering new ones to love.

Two questions here: 1. What classic timepiece is most your style right now? 2. What would be your ideal watch, if you could dream/draw one up and have it created by the masters?

I know, it’s crazy. I’ve never worn a watch but after spending a decent chunk of time with them, I’ve now got a bunch on my list. I have a special affinity for vintage timepieces; they have stories to tell and secrets to keep. It took me a while to settle on and find my first one: A pink gold Lange 1. I was living in Portugal earlier this year and on the day I was supposed to fly to Germany to pick it up, I had to fly home to Toronto instead due to the upheaval of the coronavirus. So, it’s currently spending life quarantined in Dresden for the next little while…

I couldn’t say what my ideal watch would be. I think that’s the beauty of collecting, to have watches that suit all sorts of moods and occasions. I can say it’d be a dream to create something with Lange, F.P. Journe and Voutilainen, to name a few.

Some favorites across the spectrum: Rolex GMT-Master II 1675 tropical dial, Omega Speedmaster Alaska Project, Lange Zeitwerk, Journe Chronometre à Resonance, Heuer Skipper, Jaeger LeCoultre Reverso.

_____

Follow Julie Kraulis' work on her website and Instagram.

 

May 5, 2020No Comments

5 beautiful portfolio websites from creative directors

A creative director's website is the perfect reference for anyone creating a portfolio: They are focused on both beauty and strategy.

To see excellent case studies, strong page design and clean details, view a creative director's portfolio. The creative directors using Semplice may be an exception, however. Semplice seems to draw the best of the best talent, as the following websites demonstrate.

Nikolas Wrobel

Nikolas Wrobel is the creator of Grand Slang, a typeface so lovely, we can't use it without dozens of people asking for its name. Wrobel's website, where he naturally uses custom self-hosted fonts, is equally elegant.

SEE PORTFOLIO

Florian Stumpe

Florian Stumpe's work has a certain optimism about it, which I've come to appreciate through his personal projects and his work with IAM ONO (website also made with Semplice). His portfolio, with video thumbnail hovers and light, editorial typography, suits him well.

SEE PORTFOLIO

Future Paris

We loved the Future Paris website the instant we laid eyes on it. The standout work paired with the Semplice Advanced Portfolio Grid in that typeface, and the four-corner navigation on top of it all? It's like catnip for our Semplice team.

SEE PORTFOLIO

Verena Michelitsch

We've mentioned Verena Michelitsch more than once on DESK, and for good reason. She continually refreshes her portfolio with new case studies and the occasional redesign which are always, unsurprisingly, good.

SEE PORTFOLIO

ALT Creative, Inc.

If you don't already know of Ash Thorp, it's time you catch up. His portfolio, with video hovers and wide-screen layouts, sets up his cinematic work well.

SEE PORTFOLIO

Marcelo Ribeiro

The scrolling experience on Marcelo Ribeiro's website makes it memorable. Images and text float into the frame and out as you make your way down the page, lending a dreamy mood to each project.

SEE PORTFOLIO

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To see more of the best online portfolios built with Semplice, visit our Semplice Showcase. You can find more of our favorite creative director portfolios on this page.

Cover image by Future Paris

May 5, 2020No Comments

Art deco will be the visual language of 2021

Who am I to say this? You're right. I can't tell for certain what will or won’t make a comeback, but I have a feeling Art Deco will. At least our own interpretation of it.

And I'm here for it if it happens.

Over the past few decades, we've gone from limited and costly technology to having mainframe computer performance on our wrists. We built so fast, we focused on the bare essentials. We celebrated function over form. We did the minimalist aesthetic to death, our phones becoming standardized aluminum rectangles, our living rooms resembling a doctor’s office. The ultimate high? A white desk with a single, potted succulent on top.

The modern designer's aspirational desk makes me feel empty inside.

Visit any restaurant or coffee shop today and it will look familiar. Walk through an airport in Singapore or Amsterdam and you could be in a New York shopping district. Our products and interfaces echo Apple’s. Our outfits are Everlane-issued uniforms. The best thing happening to the automobile industry has been Tesla, which still looks exactly how you’d expect it to – a car. Minimalism has made everything the same.

Do you prefer white or matte black? Gold or rose gold? Now that we’ve operated within this world for a while, I have to wonder: What’s next? 

Every trend is an answer to the movement preceding it, and minimalism has just about had its run. We are emotional and sentimental beings; we survive on self-expression. We will forever return to what has colored society since humans first walked the earth: art

The welcome return of Art Deco

Art Deco emerged right before World War I and found its footing in the early 1920s, as did the artists responsible for it. The style borrowed from many sources and art forms, some of them contradicting. It was bright and vivid. Ornate, geometric, luxurious. It was an ode to craftsmanship. It signaled the future.

Art Deco as seen on the exterior of architecture

The style appeared in architecture, furniture, jewelry, graphic design, fashion, automobiles, ocean liners – even products like vacuums. Art Deco was lavish, made with expensive materials and great effort. It wasn’t too concerned with cost or function. It was a celebration of beauty and creativity.

Then new industrial methods came along. So did the Great Depression. Art Deco was soon deemed indulgent and evolved into a more subdued version of itself (Streamline Moderne), which was eventually followed by modernism (Bauhaus and the likes). We continued stripping it back and stripping it back some more, bringing us to now.

We have arrived at a somewhat cold and lonely aesthetic, devoid of any sense of our identifying quality as humans: the ability to dream. 

As we rebuild the world in 2021, I believe we will be searching for the soul so starkly missing from the minimalist world of the last two decades. Perhaps we will find our own adaptation of Art Deco – something that’s streamlined and technological, maybe a bit more economical, yet at the same time celebratory. Something that recognizes the role of beauty in function.

Modern, Art Deco-inspired interior design

We’re at an interesting point in time. We spent the past couple of decades developing and iterating new technologies. We are currently experiencing, for the first time, what it means to be globally connected. Perhaps the coming years will remind us how to be more human. More ourselves again.

May 4, 2020No Comments

Month two as a design intern: Lessons in perfectionism

Two months have flown by and I've had more responsibilities added to my plate as I train to become an efficient and more creative designer.

It is both overwhelming and exciting (especially given the surrounding global crisis) but once I got into the groove with set routines and expectations, I’ve felt more empowered and have learned more about myself. I’ve also learned some foundational practices I know I’ll take with me to every design job after this one.

Perfectionism is the enemy

One of my biggest insights so far in this internship is that perfectionism is my Achilles’ heel, and it influences every area of my work. Most significantly: It slows me down.

At the beginning of my internship, I was always concerned about overstepping my boundaries and living up to my team’s high standards. Looking back now, those hesitations and concerns only did me a disservice.

I soon learned I had to shift my mindset and look at each task as an opportunity to level up as a designer. Right now during this internship, the process is the journey. Recognizing this instead of focusing on the end result removed some pressure. Once I realized this, I welcomed each new challenge with a smile on my face.

Before, I would get mentally stuck on one idea or task as I tried to perfect it. Now I know creating ten different not-so-perfectly executed versions gets me much much further, faster. It gives me and my team a place to work from, rather than sending me down a deep hole of perfectionism.

Working with this team has helped me overcome my overthinking, perfectionist nature and “just do it.” Day by day, I am becoming a more confident designer.

Organization is underrated

This may sound like a no brainer, but not everyone on your team will understand your method of personal organization. And when you’re working with a team, you need to work within a system that makes sense to everyone.

While working on a recent article for DESK, I named the files to be quick and simple with numbers and letters. I didn’t realize how unclear and vague it was until my team kept asking me where to find assets. In trying to save time with simple naming, I created more work for myself and my team.

More than anything, naming and organization should be consistent. It streamlines the process for everyone and circumvents unnecessary mistakes and wasted time.

Save everything. Everything.

Designing DESK covers has been the perfect challenge to design within a constraint. It’s taught me to experiment and be creative within the guidelines of a brand and timeline.

After experimenting with several versions, a final cover is decided to be published. My automatic Virgo mentally at this point is to delete previous versions to make the Figma file feel more clean and organized. I’ve since learned it pays to save the “rejected ideas.” You never know what might be useful as a reference or work perfectly for a future project, or whether you’ll need a certain element from one iteration. It may only be the use of typeface or a certain color combination, but it’s a springboard to work from.

No matter how crazy or far from the brief a concept is, my new motto is that it's better to be safe than sorry. Especially when any design tool or app we use now offers essentially unlimited space.

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This second month was a little lonely and scary with unexpected quarantine and social distancing, however working with the HOVS teams is a reminder how lucky I am. Lucky to have the luxury to work remotely from home and feeling productive to distract myself from the news.

In the upcoming final month, I hope to become a confident designer and proud to take on the world, making the most of my last month as a member of the HOVS team. Lastly, to constantly remind myself to be in the right mindset by being optimistic and empathic – to myself and others – because we need more of that in the world right now.

May 1, 2020No Comments

Monthly portfolio inspiration of April 2020

Once a week, we select two portfolios created with Semplice to feature in our Best Of  Showcase.  Here we've collected our favorites from the month of April.

This month, we've been blown away with the amount of talent we've come across in our showcase submissions. We're pleased to see portfolio sites from top artists, designers, photographers and design studios being built with Semplice.

We hope you find these sites as inspiring to you as they were to us.

Browse the best portfolios of the month below to see fresh new work and get inspired for your own site. And if you've created your own portfolio with Semplice, be sure to submit it to our Showcase here. We might feature your site next.

 

Andrew Footit

Gambade

Florian Stumpe

Henrik & Sofia

Hello Dave

Mary Catherine Pflug

Lennert Antonissen

Ken Bam

Stephie Müller

Zac Ong

To see more great design portfolios, visit the Semplice showcase. I'll be back next month with more of our monthly favorites!

Header image by Hello Dave

April 29, 2020No Comments

The end of net magazine and the future of print

It's the end of an era, in the truest sense of the word. net magazine, which has been a source of inspiration for the design & tech community since the early days of the web, is shutting down.

Every day now, you hear about another business closing due to the pandemic. Many of them are local institutions, beloved restaurants and cafes shutting their doors after decades in business. A print magazine, just like that cash-only deli run by the same family for generations, feels like a precious relic from days past. Print was pronounced dead long before this global crisis. But the end of net magazine, a consistent voice since 1994 (when I first fell in love with the internet), seems like the door finally slamming shut.

net magazine played a significant role in my career. Along with Computer Arts, which also printed its last issue this month, it fed my passion for all things design and tech since an early age. Years later, I was lucky enough to contribute to both magazines. So when I heard the news about net mag, I wanted to honor the publication and its editors who both celebrated and shaped the web in its more formative years. Here I talk with Oliver Lindberg, editor at net mag since 2012, about the history of the magazine and the future of print media.

"We love the tactility, touch and of course, smell of holding a print mag in our hands. It’s impossible to recreate that experience online."

Hey Oliver, thanks for talking with us. First, tell us a bit about your work and history with net magazine. You obviously love the web – how did you find yourself editing a print publication?

I kind of fell into it! My background is in magazine journalism, which is what I studied for a postgraduate diploma at Cardiff University, and then this job at .net magazine came up. I had always been interested in the web and its incredible versatility. From the beginning, I was fascinated with the web’s community aspect, its DIY mentality, and the abundance of information you could find. The web connected us, and it made it simple for anyone to have a presence online.

When I joined the magazine, it was still a bit of a fanzine for the internet, and it slowly evolved into a leading publication for web designers and developers. I was editor between 2012 and 2016, and subsequently went freelance to work as an independent editor, content strategist and conference curator/organizer. As a print title about the web, net magazine held a unique position. But because readers spent their days staring at screens, they really appreciated being able to move away from them and read about their subject matter in print.

People have said “print is dead” for at least the last 15 years. I’m curious about your opinion here given your experience with net, and as someone very focused on digital. Is there still hope for print media?

Print is certainly dead in many ways now. For net magazine, COVID-19 just accelerated what had been on the cards for a while anyway. Circulations and advertising sales in print have been declining for years, and traditional publishing houses have been struggling to adapt. With 25 years on the newsstand, net magazine had a remarkable run, but I think the era of monthly print magazines, especially niche consumer titles, is clearly over.

That’s not to say that print is dead completely. Some mainstream magazines still have very strong readerships, but commercial specialist mags just can’t compete with the amount of (mostly free) content online, whether it’s blogs, video tutorials, podcasts etc.

Mag closures are often met with a lot of sadness and fond memories. They make us remember how much a mag meant to us and – in net magazine’s case – how influential it was in shaping people’s careers. At the same time, it’s a nostalgic view. We have almost forgotten the value of magazines. If we don’t support and buy them, they are obviously going to disappear.

I’ve started to see a lot of highly independent magazines lately, some of them run by small businesses. I can’t imagine these publications are profitable though – they seem more like a labor of love. I know that’s why I order any print magazines now, simply because it feels special to receive them.

Do you think this is the future of print? More of a specialty than a practicality?

That’s exactly it. Specialist subjects lend themselves perfectly to beautifully-designed indie mags with a small print run and a less regular and demanding publishing schedule. Often printed on great paper stock, it’s still an event when the latest issue lands on your doorstep. We love the tactility, touch and of course, smell of holding a print mag in our hands. It’s impossible to recreate that experience online.

Magazines often also stand out through their art direction. The design of a feature can be a real event, and in digital we’ve been quite restricted. Only recently has CSS evolved enough – with the advent of Grid and Flexbox – to allow us to almost match the layouts that can be achieved in print.

Indie mags don’t tend to last long, though, and yes, it’s not easy to make them profitable. To understand just how much goes into making a sustainable indie print magazine, I recommend checking out this fascinating and very detailed post by Kai Brach, the publisher of Offscreen.

When every publication offers a digital version these days, what makes a print subscription, in your opinion, valuable/worth it? If you could start your own print magazine, would you do it?

The value of a print subscription lies in offering high-quality content that you can’t get anywhere else. Sure, there’s a lot of content online, but there’s a skill involved in professional editing that a lot of digital content is lacking. So much content is being published without having been reviewed by the expert eye of an editor, so it’s often littered in typos and errors. There’s also a lot to be said for the careful curation and compilation of content into one handy package. (See that last sentence for another lost art: the use of alliteration on a magazine cover to attract attention on a busy newsstand!)

I don’t know if I would start my own print magazine these days. Certainly, not as a conventional monthly. If I did it, it would be a passion project that I would pursue alongside other work that pays the bills.

"It feels more valuable because it’s less temporary, less fleeting. And who doesn’t like seeing their name in print?"

With print, there’s a deadline every other month. Ink is being put on paper and it’s permanent; you can’t retract what you said or make changes on the fly. Would you say this is the biggest challenge with print magazines, especially when it comes to the fast-moving tech industry?

Yes, that certainly caused some issues for us! It’s a challenge, and you have to be on your toes to ensure that what you’re publishing doesn’t go out of date immediately, or, worse, is factually incorrect. We therefore had our practical tutorials peer-reviewed by industry experts before going to print. It added to the workload but it made sure we were only publishing the best advice.

The fact that it’s permanent, however, is also one of the unique selling points. It feels more valuable because it’s less temporary, less fleeting. And who doesn’t like seeing their name in print? We always had contributors ask for print copies – for themselves and often for their parents as well.

Print also offers people an opportunity to slow down. Work has sped up massively over the last decade or so, especially in tech, while online content is full of SEO keywords and clickbait. When I worked on net magazine, print allowed us to focus on what matters most – the actual content, which readers could then consume at their own pace.

The biggest challenge for print magazines I’d say is the rising costs, ever-dwindling budgets and lack of advertisers still willing to invest in print. Sadly, there’s not much you can do about that.

Can you recall the days you had some projects on your desk for the .net magazine that you got really excited about? What were your favorite pieces of content to work on – and were those the same the audience appreciated most?

I’ve always been quite hands-on, and so for me, some of the most exciting projects were interviews I conducted myself. For example, I once had the pleasure of meeting Vint Cerf, one of the “fathers of the internet." At the time he was planning to take the internet to space!

What I really enjoyed about working on .net magazine was our unrivaled access and the opportunities it opened up. We made a lot of connections at events like SXSW, the Future of Web Design and later, beyond tellerrand. The mag became a real who’s who of the web design community. Over the years we featured everyone who made a name for themselves in the industry, from A like Irene Au to Z like Jeffrey Zeldman, while fostering and uncovering new talent as well. It became a badge of honor to have an article published in .net magazine. The same is true for brand extensions like the .net awards – winning titles such as Designer or Developer of the Year helped boost entire careers, and to this day some wear these titles with pride by mentioning them in their bios.

Lately, I’ve gone back to my roots, and so I contributed as a freelancer to the final issues of net magazine and interviewed such incredibly talented and passionate designers / developers as Chen Hui Jing, Charlie Gerard, and Tim Kadlec. I think what resonated most with net magazine’s audience was that they were learning from the best.

Any parting wisdom or advice for those who still want to believe in print?

If you want your favorite magazines to stick around for a bit longer, make sure you support them before it’s too late. I always thought mags like net offered incredible value – at least in the UK the cost for an issue was equivalent to less than a couple of drinks.

While the traditional newsstand may be dying, it’s really nice to see that independent and specialist titles are still flourishing. In Bath, where I live, we have a beautiful little store called Magalleria, for example, which offers a stunning selection of print mags from around the world that you can also order online. It’s worth checking out Stack as well, which delivers a different independent magazine to your door every month.

So there are plenty of reasons to still believe in print. The less common it is, the more we appreciate the analog beauty of print in a digital world.

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If you'd like to own the final issue of net magazine, it's now available in print.

April 28, 2020No Comments

Designing in quarantine

Many of us are nearly through our second month working from home during the pandemic, and if you’re like me, it’s been difficult to navigate how to be a good employee and maintain focus.

Every week, there’s something new to worry about. Are my loved ones staying safe and healthy? Will I still have a job? If so, will my salary be cut? Why is my throat suddenly itchy?

At my agency, we’ve always had a very flexible remote working policy, so we didn’t have much to worry about in terms of logistics. The biggest challenge for me was changing my daily routine and my mentality toward working. And for the company as a whole, we’ve had to learn how we can best support one another from a distance.

Can company culture exist online?

It’s awesome that we live in a time where we can connect with one another so easily across locations, but no matter how many Zoom calls and happy hours you have, it’s just not the same as sharing a physical space with your team (at least, when that’s what you’re used to). Meeting and interacting with people face to face helps us connect and empathize with each other better.

While I do miss my teammates and love seeing their faces on my screen, I don’t always love calling in to our huge Zoom calls. I don’t like being put on the spot, and in a Zoom call of 20 people, only 2-3 people can really talk at a time, as opposed to a meeting room where multiple conversations between smaller groups of people can occur simultaneously.

And of course, without being in the same room as my coworkers, I lose the ability to read any physical cues such as someone’s body language or facial expressions. This makes collaboration and presentations even harder. For example, during our regular show and tells, I can present my work and read the room – are people interested in what’s on the screen? Are they confused by what I’m saying (in which case I would elaborate or clarify)? Does it look like someone wants to ask me a question (I would then pause and allow them to speak up)?

"Company parties or the office ping pong table weren't solely responsible for our culture before, just like Zoom calls and online happy hours aren't now."

I also miss the opportunities to engage in “water cooler” conversations with my teammates as I bump into them in the kitchen or pass by their desk. Now that our interactions are limited to the digital space, it means I have to be much more intentional about keeping in touch. And I haven’t been great at this. Before, I’d happily chat with my desk neighbors or whoever happens to be eating lunch at the same time as I am, but now I’m mostly talking with the people who are working on the same project I am. It’s not hard to shoot my teammates a DM, but it feels strange for me to message them just wanting to chat without a work-related purpose.

In comparison to other workplaces, I’d say our team is tight-knit. We attend each other's birthday parties and dinner parties; some of us work out together, and others have even taken vacations together. We’re a family, and one of the reasons I love working where I do is because of the genuine culture I’ve become a part of. But the longer we’re forced to be apart, I wonder how much we’ll lose.

Company parties or the office ping pong table weren't solely responsible for our culture before, just like Zoom calls and online happy hours aren't now. What makes the culture are the people. So I've concluded I need to step up and do my part in maintaining my work relationships, beyond the scheduled events. While I might feel uncomfortable randomly messaging coworkers to ask them how their weekend was, or scheduling my own one-on-one call with them, a unique situation like the one we’re in requires changing my mentality.

How do I maintain a work/life balance during this time?

I’ll first preface this by saying I’m in a comfortable living situation; I don’t have any children and I don’t live with a Craigslist roommate (although I have in the past!). Next, I’ll say that a bulk of my sanity has been retained thanks to the expectations my company has already set for employees. Like any good relationship, there’s trust. We are trusted to get our work done and do it well, and in return, we have a lot of flexibility.

Yet after the first week of our mandated work from home schedule, I felt exhausted and sad due to the sudden shift in my daily routine, along with my growing anxiety around the unknowns of our company, economy and global health. So in the weeks to come, I set two goals for myself: creating a new daily routine and setting boundaries for myself.

"It’s much harder to 'leave work' when the area where you do all your work is just a few feet away from where you’d normally relax and unwind."

Creating a new daily routine

While I used to love waking up and eating breakfast while watching the news on TV, these days I choose to eat breakfast while reading a book or journaling. Personally, I hate watching or reading the news now – there’s just an overload of information that doesn’t seem to do me any good. Instead, I’ve found that beginning my day with some reflection and intention-setting while journaling, or consumption of some inspiring content (I’m currently reading Becoming by Michelle Obama), has done wonders for my day. If I do decide to tune into any COVID-related news, it’s usually in the form of an email newsletter I like that discusses business and finance, or a short YouTube clip from John Oliver (the humor really helps bring some lightness to the serious situation we’re in!).

I also do my best to maintain the breaks I would normally take if I were working in the office. That means an hour or so for lunch, and a few breaks in the morning and afternoon. Usually, I’ll use this time to walk my dog, which doubles as getting some fresh air and physical exercise since I’ve undoubtedly become more sedentary these past few weeks. Taking my breaks as usual also gives me some semblance of continuity from my pre-COVID life.

Setting boundaries for myself

When working remotely, we don’t have the luxury of physically “leaving work.” You know that feeling when you’ve had a hard day and finally leave the office to enjoy a nice dinner or drink out, or maybe just relax on your couch for a bit? It doesn’t seem so significant at the time, but now I really miss those moments. It’s much harder to “leave work” when the area where you do all your work is just a few feet away (or maybe in the same area for some) from where you’d normally relax and unwind. What we do physically has a strong influence on our mental states, so now that that element of physicality is gone, I need to work that much harder to make a mental switch from “work mode” to “home mode.”

While I’m no workaholic, it can be difficult to commit to “home mode” after I’ve logged off for the day. I’m probably using my computer in the evenings for one reason or another, and I’m definitely using my phone, both of which have my work email, Slack workspaces, and access to work files. When we’re stuck at home, we’re all more likely to be using our screens, and what’s one more reply to my client or one quick design fix? I’ve had to learn that adhering to the boundaries I’ve set is important for my well-being and for client expectations, even if I do slip up and give in once in a while.

I’ve also found it useful to turn on Do Not Disturb mode for Slack while working. I used to do this at the office if I was in deep flow, but now I find myself in DND mode much more often. While I enjoy seeing all the memes my coworkers are sending and catching up on our many Slack channels, it seems there’s been an increase in online noise since we’re all desperate for social interaction of any sort. It’s easy to get sucked into Slack threads, but 30 minutes later I realize I didn’t get anything done and now I’m even more stressed than before.

Likewise, I use a Chrome plugin that allows me to create blacklists during working hours. Included in my blacklist are any social media and news sites. Early on during our work from home mandate, I found myself scrolling through Twitter or Reddit under the guise of “reading news” when I was really just being unproductive.

Lastly, an important learning for me is letting go of the idea that working from home means working 24/7 because I have “nothing else to do.” I’ve felt guilty taking my regular breaks, fearing I’ll miss a Slack DM or that someone will be wondering why I’m not online, even though that has literally never happened during my time at Funsize. Now, more than ever, we need to prioritize our mental, emotional, and physical health, and for me that means knowing when to work and when to rest.

April 24, 2020No Comments

My favorite art director portfolios made with Semplice

A great portfolio requires an eye for curation and attention to detail, and nobody knows that better than an art director.

I always enjoy seeing portfolios by art directors and creative directors, because they just get it. They are masters of presentation and meticulous about typography, about consistency, about the story they are telling. It's their job, after all. And it makes for beautiful portfolios.

These are just a few great online portfolios I've seen lately from art directors who used Semplice to build their site.

Diego Gallego

Estudio Diego Gallego is an independent graphic design consultancy based in Seville. The typography and layout lends a clean, editorial look to this portfolio without being predictably minimalist. 

SEE PORTFOLIO

Tina Smith

Tina Smith is an art director and designer based in New York. When I talked about meticulous, polished art director portfolios before, this one came first to mind. 

SEE PORTFOLIO

Darcy Moore

Darcy Moore is a graphic designer and art director currently works for Apple in California. There's much to love about this site: The bold imagery on the black background, the exclusion effect in the nav, the full-screen images in the case studies. All of it artfully and tastefully done.

SEE PORTFOLIO

Elena Miska

Elena Miska is an independent designer and art director based in New York. I love the typography pairings on this site, as well as the scattered grid layout on the homepage with the unexpected hover effects. All of it adds up to be strong and elegant, right in line with Miska's personal brand.

SEE PORTFOLIO

Davy Denduyver

Davy Denduyver is a freelance graphic designer and art director based in Bruges, Belgium. This site has so much style without feeling overly done or distracting. The 3D tilt on the homepage along with the four-corner nav made this an instant favorite for our Semplice team.

SEE PORTFOLIO

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Cover image by Elena Miska

April 22, 2020No Comments

The Kawaiization of product design

Over the last year or two, I’ve noticed a certain style emerge in brand and product design.

Look at the graphic below and you'll see it. The colors are soft and muted, the shapes rounded and the typography unobtrusive. It’s what you could describe as clean. It’s approachable. It’s inoffensive. It’s almost… cute.

Zoom out and you’ll notice this particular aesthetic is everywhere.

As a designer, you can choose your response to it. Some, seeing how it’s proliferated in the tech world, may call it unoriginal. Others deem it "design for designers." There's a hint of truth in all of it. I personally think it may be the most strategic design we’ve seen lately, even at the expense of originality.

The merit of this style is one thing to consider – and there’s no shortage of criticism in our community, if you’re looking for that – but I’m more curious to know: Why is this trend happening? What prompted it? Is it backlash from a previous trend or is there a deeper psychological reason behind it? We could easily dismiss it as the latest design trend, but I think it goes deeper.

The Kawaiization of product design

The word "Kawaii” is a prominent part of Japanese culture. In English, it most closely translates to "cute.” It’s a term used for everything from clothing to food to entertainment to physical mannerisms, to describe something charming, vulnerable, childlike or loveable. As I understand Kawaii, it’s almost more of a feeling than an adjective, a word that defies complete definition.

When a baby’s face makes us smile, or we see a puppy and have an urge to squeeze it, it’s Kawaii. And that positive feeling translates to objects and experiences beyond the classically “cute.” In Japan, the effect is employed to reduce agitation surrounded construction sites. It is capitalized by airlines and Japanese police forces to soften their perception or broaden their appeal.

Kawaii is essentially fulfilling the purpose of design.

Similar to how beauty is a function, Kawaii can be seen as a function. It elicits positive emotions that encourage social interaction. There are countless experimental studies on how the effect of Kawaii promotes calm behavior and narrows your focus. It’s even theorized to have healing power.

Looking at recent trends, it seems that Kawaii has, in some form, reached the West and influenced the way we are designing our digital products. As we move away from the clean yet cold aesthetic of minimalism, we're adopting the psychological power of cuteness.

Our app designs have become soft, sweet, inoffensive. Bank interfaces use pastels, rounded corners and soft drop shadows to make mundane or unpleasant tasks more "fun.” Animojis have taken over our chats, and our productivity tools are starting to look like Animal Crossing.

We are using Kawaii to make our products more palatable and less transactional. Claymation-style 3D hands imply our design tool is our friend. Circles and squiggles say our form-creation app is here to party. The muted colors and lack of sharp corners signal safety. It is approachable. It is charming. It’s Kawaii.

What we’re seeing in product design may be minimalism evolving, or it may be a response to previous trends. Or maybe it's our way of dealing with greater societal issues. Studies have suggested that Kawaii, or fashion sub-cultures off-shooting from it, are a way of coping with social pressures and anxiety. Like putting on a mask to ease the pain of reality.

It could be just a trend, or it could be we are becoming more human, more childlike because we're tired of being grownups. Given the context of the world around us, we are searching for positivity and comfort, and that's why we add emojis to our spreadsheets.

"Havana" landing page image by Tran Mau Tri Tam.
"Specify" landing page image by Romain Briaux.

April 22, 2020No Comments

Design in Portugal 🇵🇹 featuring Koiástudio

For this addition to our Design Around the World series, we're looking at a place known quite well for its creativity and excellent design: Portugal.

When researching for this interview, we found no shortage of top-notch design studios in Portugal. But as soon as we discovered Koiástudio, we knew we had to talk with them. Look through their work and it's clear they are passionate about good design and just have fun with it, beyond the business aspect. And that's even more apparent in this conversation with Jorge Almeida, in which we talk about designing in the midst of a crisis, doing a lot with little and promoting your work through partying with friends.

Hey Jorge, thanks for taking the time. First, let’s talk about your studio. Who is the team behind Koiástudio and why did you decide to open your own design studio?

We are three people now working at Koiástudio. It’s me (Jorge Almeida) and Bruno Albuquerque, both graphic designers living in Porto and sharing our office downtown, and Diogo Bento, who is a photographer living and working in São Vicente, Cape Verde.

The studio came about in 2012 when Diogo and I, both working as independent freelancers at the time, realized we could start doing work together, even if there was an ocean between us, since we have a common background (we’ve been friends for a long time) and similar tastes. This opportunity would allow us to challenge and improve our own practices, all the while making something bigger than the sum of the parts. At the same time, we would be able to secure more work and share common projects and goals.

Later on, the opportunity arose for Bruno to join us, bringing new languages and ideas to the studio.

The three of us have been working together for three years now.

Jorge completing the office aesthetic

I read that “the Portuguese find themselves at the crossroads between tradition and modernity” while being very open to new ideas and an international/eclectic cultural influence.

How would you describe the design coming out of Portugal today and what are its biggest influences? 

We think that the relationship between culture/tradition of one’s own environment and the work of design will always exist. And it's a welcoming relationship. It exists not only for us as technicians, thinkers and creators, but also in the mind of the clients and even within the projects we work for. However, we consider that it is also a starting point from where to search for some kind of disruption and where design work can find its place.

As a matter of fact, we can give an example of our own, albeit a simple one: Working with some projects in smaller, less-cosmopolitan towns, in more conservative regions of the country, we always try to push things a little bit forward, without losing the focus and the roots within the given context. We also think that we can always add a little something new to each of these projects that we carry out.

Nowadays we all have access to what is happening around us, almost everywhere, and Portuguese designers are aware and are part of that. We can easily find influences, trends and languages that circulate everywhere. Of course, sometimes we also joke that a certain trend has arrived late to Portugal, but the truth is that Portuguese designers and other creatives belong to this global network and are obviously influenced by it, while also assuming their role as influencers.

Porto seems to have a growing creative scene. What brought this about and are you seeing this elsewhere in Portugal? What about Lisbon? 

Yes, Porto has always been a cluster for the creative industries and design has been a big part of this. Design schools and, more recently, the city council’s cultural policies have played a fundamental role. But this is also due – and we return to the tradition/culture point – to the way of being for Porto’s people and their adopted citizens, like we are. It can be characterized by the capacity to constantly renew oneself and always be in a certain state of inquietação (unrest) – like the singer-songwriter José Mário Branco has reminded us of. This makes the city seem to be always bubbling up.

Obviously, we must not forget that Lisbon is a great creative hub, an incredible city and, of course, has many good designers. In fact, some of the studios whose work we appreciate the most are located there. 

Perhaps the only thing that can be separated here (and this may be an outdated idea) is that Lisbon has always been better known by the big communication agencies, big structures, with projects that involve huge resources, while Porto has always been better known for the small creative studios. This may bring greater proximity between those who actually work on a given project and their clients. What we are seeing is that many of the great cultural venues of the city of Lisbon, such as theatres, museums and cultural spaces, are looking for or working with design studios from Porto.

It's also great to see how smaller cities, although still few, are investing in graphic design in such a visible way. And this is great for everyone and helps to bring forward the industry as a whole. We’re talking about cities like Braga, Viseu or Coimbra.

Diogo in his home office.

Do many platforms and events exist in Portugal that connect you with other designers? Is there energy and conversation about design happening among your community?

We are not very participative in that kind of events, but yes, they do exist. We cannot deny that it has become easier and easier for designers to connect and get together and, therefore, to share different ways of doing design. Speaking about Porto, several initiatives take place regularly during the year, such as the event "Bolsa de Ideias." In Matosinhos, a neighboring city, we have “Casa do Design," where exhibitions are held regularly. We now have the “Porto Design Biennale” (which started in 2019). And there are other smaller initiatives happening all over the city, in places like co-working spaces, galleries or schools.

All this always generates more discussion, energy and interaction between designers; between designers and other creative people; and between designers and individuals who don't necessarily have a creative activity, but who are nevertheless interested in these issues, which seems relevant to us. All this helps to foster a critical attitude toward the discipline of design.

From what I read, formal design education in Portugal is still relatively young – the first courses were created in 1969 and design as an academic discipline in 1975.

What is design education like in Portugal today? Do many designers attend university or are most self-taught?

Nowadays there seems to be a very comprehensive response for those who want to study design, especially at a university level, from formal graphic design to courses focused on specific areas of graphic design, or courses that embrace graphic design as a relevant discipline. Because design education is relatively recent for us, we sometimes notice some variations or uncertainties in these degrees’ programs. Although we would say that’s totally fine, given they are still finding their path or place in the design landscape.

Yes, most active Portuguese designers today have formal higher education. However, we cannot go without those who opened the way for us, who are still relevant both for us and the Portuguese design scene, and who did not have a specific design diploma. We are thinking of, in the field of graphic design, designers such as Sebastião Rodrigues (1929-1997), Victor Palla (1922-2006) or, more recently, João Machado (still active). People that continue to make perfect sense when it comes to talking about design in Portugal.

Although design education in Portugal is still finding its own way, we think that it has become more attractive and more consistent in terms of practical and theoretical approaches, making it a credible field today.

Portugal seems to have a special place in its heart for book and magazine cover design. I see Koiástudio has created some beautiful book covers itself. Where did this all begin and is it more of a specialty today, with more and more designers focusing on digital? 

Universities with more years of graphic design education continue to invest heavily in print media, and especially in the area of editorial design. We think that anyone studying in these institutions will become fascinated with the book as an object. However, as we all know, it's not exactly an easy market; there aren't many publishing houses publishing very regularly. Perhaps that's why we've also seen, and not only in Portugal, a boom of self-publishing authors and small independent publishers owned by designers.

There won't be many designers working exclusively on book covers. But yes, we do have really good and beautiful book covers in Portugal. We advise you to look for the work of Rui Silva (Alfaiataria) or Silva Designers. 

At Koiástudio, this was one of our first major interests. We find it stimulating the fact that the process of making a book cover brings an exercise of interpreting the book content, and the challenge of adding something new to the written narrative without compromising the author’s ideas. We have also a romantic idea of the book as an object that defines a certain time for us, a certain time for the public, and a certain time for us as a society.

However, today we have turned our attention to album covers. Something that has also always had a great interest for us and which we love to do. It ends up having a process similar to that of a book cover. Although in some cases, depending on the genre and the clients themselves, it becomes an even more open exercise, especially due to the nature of the content with which it relates: music and sound.

I know the financial crisis is recent in Portugal’s memory. Did that affect the design scene and your work in any specific way? Does it still?

Yes, it affected us all, directly or indirectly. Trying to bring up something good from this crisis and the severe political measures that followed: we think it brought a more interactive role of the designer as an agent in its community. We remember that people coming out of the university, having to struggle to find a decent job, became more engaged in our communities or, at least, more active. We think we're now seeing a tendency to incorporate or look at different approaches to things, that goes beyond the trends often acquired in schools. Which ends up bringing more diversity.

There seems to be more willingness to take risks in certain groups of designers, especially the younger ones. And if in many cases this goes in the direction of innocuous relativism, in many other cases it brings new ideas that are well-structured and well-founded. Of course, unfortunately, this is almost always at a very precarious or unsustainable level, but it is good to think that it is a way of dealing with things and of opening the way to the new.

Right now, in the face of a crisis that is predicted, we are already thinking about the challenges we may have to face and, as a studio, what can we bring back to us and our clients.

Bruno contemplating Koiastudio's next big idea.

In an article from years ago, someone said, “Portugal it seems that necessity truly is the mother of invention. Forced to work with limited means and resources, it seems that Portuguese designers have become frugality experts by ‘doing a lot with a little,’ being exceptionally creative and ‘doing it all, on call.’”

Is that the case today, or have you seen things evolve since then?

Yes, unfortunately, in Portugal there is often a gap between projects and existing resources. Most of the time resources are not up to the needs of a particular job or the kind of inputs we want to apply to the project. If we said earlier the discipline of design is now a credible discipline in Portugal, the truth is that it still does not have the desirable echo of what is invested in design work. We’re not only talking budget-wise, but also about what is invested in terms of trust in the designer or the time allowed to carry such projects.

Sometimes we come across projects that really interest us, but whose time for design is too limited. Often this time is also made more limited by too much bureaucracy, especially when we talk about institutional clients.

This makes us have to adapt, often overnight. We have had cases of having almost finished projects, and because of late responses from the clients, we have to come up with unforeseen, fast and cheaper production solutions. Obviously, if this would mean a poor output, the work will not go out until we and the client find a better solution.

This seems to be changing, but it will always be a slow change.

How much impact does your social media presence have on getting new clients and self-promotion in general? What works best for you?

We have to confess that we are not given much to self-promotion, either by direct contact or through the use of social networks. Obviously, we know the full potential of social networks and how showcasing work can help find new clients and projects. We are still trying to shape our individual way of being to make the most out of this. The three of us have always been very inconspicuous! In this sense, what really works for us is the network that we create through our conviviality with friends. Going out partying and being with our friends is our way of social networking. This means that a lot of our clients reach us by word of mouth, and our friends do a really good job at this. We are thankful to them.

We also put a lot of effort into doing our best all the time and establishing a close relationship with all of our clients. We believe this is key to creating a bond and a sense of trust that will encourage a long-lasting relationship with our clients.

I learned about the word “saudade” from Portuguese friends – this deep feeling of nostalgia or longing for something dear that has been lost. 

This feeling seems to be embedded in Portuguese people, tinging the world a certain color and perhaps bringing a deeper sensitivity (generally speaking) to work and life. And it's certainly a pertinent feeling to the world right now. Does “saudade” play into creative work in any way? 

"Saudade," maybe this concept exists to define a certain level of shyness and a need for close human contact. In these times when we are all closed at home, this becomes paradigmatic. 

In general, although this seems to be changing; we need a lot of human contact. Maybe this will bring greater understanding about human relationships, how people interact with each other, and consequently how individuals and communities interact with objects, images, etc. And this may interfere with our work. We try to have a poetic degree in every image that we compose or in every object that we build. And the three of us even have different ways of doing so. 

Obviously, this may not always be visible, it probably isn't, but we like to think that each of our objects/works brings forward some more poetic narrative to those who receive it and see it. 

If this may be something coming from the concept of "Saudade," we are not sure, at least on a conscious level.

"Here in Portugal, it seems there has always been a time problem!"

“Desenrascar” is another word I’ve heard, which literally translates to “unscramble” in English. As I understand it, it’s about doing things “fast and fine” and at the last minute. This seems to be the way for most designers no matter where you’re from. Is it for your team at Koiástudio?

Yeah, the famous "Desenrascar." This concept is most likely related with what we’ve mentioned earlier about finding solutions with the few resources we have and, at the same time, with the time at our disposal for each project. But yes, we Portuguese use this characteristic of doing everything in the last minute to define ourselves. We believe that this is often the designer's work routine all over. However, here in Portugal, it seems there has always been a time problem!

In our work this also happens, not because we do things at the last minute, which is not what defines us in the first place, but above all because we often have very little time to dedicate to a project – and, in many of these cases, we have to find quick solutions.

On the other hand, being already aware of this, we are always trying to find implementation mechanisms that enable us to find the technical constraints of projects early in the process. Basically, we are shaping our tools and working methods to give more relevance to the exploration/discussion of concepts and experimentation with languages, and to spend less time with technical issues.

“Responsible” design has been on the minds of designers today. Creating sustainable designs has become more of a focus. Given your packaging design, for example, is this something you consider in your work?

We would like to say that this is always a premise, but it would not be true. The truth is that sometimes it is very upsetting for us to have to abandon certain materials or techniques. If we try to use sustainable materials – and the truth is that most of our work is printed on recycled or recyclable paper – we tend to trust that the printers will do the same, e.g. in the inks they use.

Of course, it can't stop there, and often what defines the final format or materials for a particular object takes into account how long it will last. This becomes important in regards to these issues. It's different to choose the materials, or even the media, for an object that has to communicate for an unlimited period of time and the materials or media used for an ephemeral object that will last for two or three weeks, or even a month. We often see objects of very short duration with incredible finishings (expensive and unsustainable). For us, this kind of approach does not make much sense.

In your opinion, what are the top 5-10 design studios from Portugal that everyone who might be not familiar with your design community should know?

Barbara says
Ilhas Studio
Colónia
Degrau
João Faria
R2
Silva Designers
Dobra
Desisto

Finally, how can all designers and design communities do a better job of communicating with each other? How can we become more engaged with the Portuguese design community? Are there any blogs or specific magazines we can follow?

Starting from the last question, there aren't many blogs or magazines specialised in design in Portugal. However, there are two authors of special relevance dedicated to critical writing about design: Mário Moura, professor, design critic and curator, and Frederico Duarte, also professor, critic and curator.

Both also have several books dedicated to the subject.

We would also like to highlight the work being developed by ESAD-Idea, a design research center, which is currently responsible for programming the “Casa do Design” in Matosinhos and which also has a series of publications on design theory and practice.

Going now to the first question, it is our understanding that the communication between designers and the communities of designers should be less driven by styles or trends and more open to diversity. It is in the discussion of different ideas and approaches that we enrich everyone's work and, through that, the field of design.

Your interview series is an example of an interesting way to put designers in dialogue and we thank you for letting us be part of it.

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Thank you for doing this with us, Jorge! The energy and dimension in Portugal's design community is obvious, and we're excited to follow your work as well as these other fantastic studios you shared here. We look forward to seeing what Koiástudio creates next.

April 21, 2020No Comments

We’re on the expressway to the future

In the past several weeks, we have been truly *online* for the first time. We haven't experienced anything like this until now. While many of us had access to the internet before, this is the first time we are learning the significance of a new digital world.

We're moving at lightspeed toward the future. A future we predicted for the next 20 years, but not today or tomorrow. The pandemic and the threat of an economic reset has forced us to adapt to new processes, faster.

Businesses that only operated locally are setting up or improving their digital strategy. Restaurants have become remote with kitchens fully focused on delivery, whether they were equipped for it before or not. Yoga studios have discovered live streaming and have been fostering their communities online. Therapists have moved their sessions to Zoom calls instead of in-person appointments. And I wouldn't be surprised if divorce lawyers have adapted to Zoom as well.

Schools and colleges are seeing the biggest disruption. While they scramble to move their classes online, it make me wonder more than ever if we need universities in the first place. Especially in the U.S., students were already asking themselves if a $200,000 degree is worth it, compared to promising online courses and other alternatives becoming more available. We may not be there yet, but we've been questioning our outdated education system for a long time and today, the final test has arrived.

Whatever happens next will define everything for many years to come.

And in some ways, this uncertainty and the disruption of existing systems is what excites me the most. It's a time when decisions are being made, whether we want to make them or not. Old, outdated systems are being abandoned and new possibilities can see the light of day. It's the time where we build and grow, both as a society and individually.

Everything we thought the internet was going to be in the next 20 years, is now accelerated. We're on the expressway – just be sure to get your ticket.

April 17, 2020No Comments

How to cheat your way into a design job

It used to be that your resume meant everything. Where you went to school, the grades you got, the sorority or fraternity you pledged, your years of experience in the industry. While that’s still true for certain industries, it’s not for mine.

In the design industry, even high-school dropouts (like me) can still get hired and be successful as a designer. It’s not about your resume. It’s entirely about your portfolio.

You might have 10 years of experience as a designer but with a poor portfolio that doesn’t reflect it. Or you might have 2 years of experience with a terrific portfolio that gets you hired at a top company right away.

In this way, you can cheat the system. Create a compelling portfolio with excellent case studies and nobody will ever know, or care, whether you have a design degree. You’ll be ten steps ahead of the person with a master's in graphic design and five years of experience – because they either haven’t updated their portfolio, or they have and it’s not good.

Thanks to the internet, you can be working in your parents’ basement in your underwear running an “internationally recognized design studio” of one. It doesn’t matter what you look like, what age you are, where you’re located or how many jobs are on your LinkedIn page. It’s entirely about the work.

Your portfolio is the biggest investment you can make in your career. Doing your best work makes your portfolio better. Making your portfolio better leads to more great work. And the circle continues.

April 14, 2020No Comments

How to write concisely

This is an excerpt from our upcoming UX Writing book, exploring how we (as designers and copywriters) can write copy that helps people use and love our products. Sign up for book updates here

The three hallmarks of good UX copy: Clear, concise and useful. Here we will discuss how to write concisely. We will keep it short.

At this point, we’re all aware that people read about 20% of the words on a web page. If your copy’s too long, they either won’t read it or they will read it, because they have to, and get frustrated by it.

When it comes to UX copy, people shouldn't have to "read" it at all. UX copy should be understood and acted upon at a glance, without much thought or labor. When executed well within a design, it's almost telecommunication, part of a continuous movement between your product and the user. If your copy's too long, the movement becomes slow and awkward.

First, a list of cumbersome phrases and words you can nearly always cut from your UX copy:

“In order to” 

Too long: “In order to add this item to your cart, you must select a size.”
Better: “To add this item to your cart, select a size.”
Even better: “Select a size.”

“That” 

Too long: “This will overwrite the settings that you already selected.”
Better: “This will overwrite the settings you already selected.”
Even better: “This will overwrite your previous settings.” 

“Please note”

Too long: “Please note, this will change your settings globally.”
Better: “This will change your settings globally.”

“It is recommended to” or “We recommend”

If you’re stating it, we can assume you’re recommending it. Cut it and get straight to your point.

“You must”

Too long: “You must select a size first.”
Better: “Select a size.”

“There is”

Too long: “There is an issue with the server.”
Better: “The server is down.”

(The first example here is also passive voice. We’ll get to that in a minute.)

Other practices that will help you write succinct, efficient copy:

Make use of progressive disclosure

Pretend you’re playing a video game. A wizard stops you in your path and asks, “Do you want an amulet or a healing crystal?” You answer crystal. The wizard then reveals the path to the crystal. When you secure the crystal, the wizard appears again, pointing you to your next goal.

The wizard doesn’t reveal all the information upfront. He only points you to your next destination, giving you the information you need at the time you need it, nothing more. This is called progressive disclosure, and it's important to a successful user flow.

Only include the information your user needs to know right now, at this step in their journey. It will naturally help you write concisely, one sentence at a time rather than one heavy paragraph at a time.

Avoid passive voice

We’ve talked about this before, and we’ll keep hammering it in until it sticks. With a few exceptions, passive voice makes your sentences clunky and confusing. A good way to avoid passive voice: Start your sentence with a verb. 

Passive voice: “The date should be entered in a 00/00/0000 format.”
Active voice: “Use 00/00/0000 format”

See how much easier and faster that is to read? Works better visually too.

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Important: While do you want your copy to be brief and scannable, concise does not only = short. You don’t want your UX copy to sound robotic. You want it to be clean and efficient. 

For more UX copywriting tips, read our other articles from this series:

Content or design first?
Finding your brand voice
Making your product a joy to use

April 12, 2020No Comments

How to create a makeup artist portfolio in 15 minutes

As a makeup artist, you have to be the champion of your work. Your portfolio is the one place where you're not merely credited as part of a full look – the spotlight is fully on you. Thanks to Carbonmade, your portfolio can be primed and ready in just 15 minutes.

Creating a makeup artist portfolio is similar to creating a photography portfolio. Your site should complement your work and showcase it in all its crisp, beautiful detail. You can create a personalized makeup portfolio in five steps using Carbonmade — the same amount of time as a quick face (or maybe less).

Here's the final result.

Requirements

The only tool you are required for this tutorial is Carbonmade, which is free to use until you launch.

Begin by signing up for Carbonmade and pick a starting point for your layout based on your work and style. No pressure – this can be customized or changed later.

Step 1: Add an intro on your homepage   

Start by giving yourself an introduction. Drag the “Title & Teaser” block and edit the headline with your name and the subhead describing yourself and the kind of work you do.

Step 2: Add images to your gallery

Now let's add your work highlights with the “Gallery Slider” block. Drag the block onto the page, then drag & drop five or so photos of your best work from your desktop right on to the block.

Next, drag the "Gallery Grid" block on to your page. Drag and drop your curated photos from your desktop onto the block. Your body of work will be automatically optimized and fall into place within the grid to display.

Adjust the grid by simply clicking the gear ⚙️icon in that section to switch up. Change the padding, image size and more as needed.

Optional alternative to the Gallery Grid: Creating projects to categorize 

If you prefer organizing your photos into categories (ie. Editorial, Beauty, Bridal etc.), you can create Projects instead of using the Gallery Grid. Separate pages for each category will appear as a thumbnail link on your homepage.

If you're happy using the Gallery Grid to show individual images for now, meaning your photos won't click through to a case study page, delete the Projects block and skip to Step 3.

Step 3: Add your social icons

Next, let's link your social accounts. Drag the “Social Links” block and click on the gear ⚙️icon to manage links. Add them by selecting the social media networks and typing your @handles.

PRO TIP: Only link to active social accounts you want potential employers or clients to see. If you don't use Twitter regularly or haven't updated your YouTube channel recently, don't link them up.

Step 4: Upload your logo

Have a cute custom logo? Under the Design tab, drag and drop your logo under "Logo & Title" to upload.

Step 5: Update your About page

Now let's get personal. Go to your default About page and paste in your work history, client list and headshot. Name drop those clients and brands to give yourself some credibility. C'mon, brag on yourself a bit here – we give you full permission!

Finally add your Contact details, simply drag in a “Contact” block and swap out the text with your name and email.

Step 6: LAUNCH IT!

Now's the best part: Launching. Simply click the GO LIVE button, add your payment info and choose a domain name, and you're live. In less time than it takes to learn the latest TikTok dance or make another dalgona coffee, you created a beautiful, personalized portfolio to showcase your makeup work. You should be proud.

Now flaunt it – share it with everyone!

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Carbonmade is made for makeup artists. Upload a photo and it's automatically optimized and resized to fit your site perfectly. You can crop an image straight from the page instead of messing with photo editing tools. Carbonmade will even magically suggest complementary colors and effects based on your decisions as you build.

To see examples of other portfolios built with Carbonmade, visit this page. If you create your portfolio with this tutorial, let me know on Twitter. I'd love to see it.

April 9, 2020No Comments

Running a company remotely for the first time

Companies have been thrown into managing a fully remote team during the pandemic, many for the first time and without any sort of game plan. Within a typical team setting, it’s quite an adjustment – not only for those working remotely, but also those managing them. 

It’s strange to think: Just last month we wrote about how to work well from home temporarily, to show your boss it’s possible long-term. A few weeks later and aside from essential public workers, the entire workforce is still working from home and will be for at least a couple more weeks, if not months.

My company, Semplice.com, has been fully remote since my co-founder and I launched from Germany & NYC more than five years ago. And while I can’t say we have all the answers, our little team – from NYC to Munich to Austin to Berlin to Nashville to Palermo, Sicily – has been productive and profitable the whole way through. So I thought I’d share little tips that have helped me and my team along the way.

Value results over "performance"

The length of time someone’s little green light is on in Slack should not be an indication of their performance, nor should the amount of emails they send or meetings they attend. In fact, remote working should ideally reveal how much time we unnecessarily waste in meetings, stand-ups, huddles, etc. 

It shouldn’t matter what time a person clocks in or out, or whether they are working the same exact hours as you or not (some overlap is ideal, but a fully synchronized team isn’t necessary). What matters is that they get their work done. If they choose to do it at 7 a.m. or 2 a.m. doesn’t make a difference, as long as they meet their deadlines. 

Measuring your employees by the amount of time they’re online only encourages a false sense of productivity and empty measure of success. Create an environment where work gets done, not performed. 

Trust your team

This goes hand in hand with the above. If you’ve created an expectation that work gets done, no matter the time and the place, you should have no reason to virtually hover over your team and micromanage them. Set up proactive systems that keep your team accountable and allow them to work independently without you breathing down their neck.

For us, the Daily Update is our only recurring check-in (we describe this more here and I highly recommend it – we've been doing it for years). Planning calls are scheduled as needed; we rarely have status calls or “stand-ups” because we expect everyone on our team to be personally responsible without someone constantly nudging them along. 

Monitoring your team too closely is usually a sign of mistrust, and if that's the case you know something bigger is broken that you need to fix. Personal responsibility is a must here. It means the works gets done and everyone on the team has enough freedom to be their own boss.

Be willing to adapt & find a new process

Agencies especially worship “the process” and have a collective panic attack when it’s not followed. If remote working is new for your team, you can expect your process to be thrown off, and you may need to adjust it entirely moving forward. 

Be willing to adjust, to hear people out, to try new ways of doing things and have patience while doing so. Think about how many companies never considered doing remote work at all before this, and now, without any preparation, are doing it. You’ve already proven you can adapt. Keep going and you may come out better than before. 

The beauty of working remotely is that it will sort the talkers from the doers. The silver lining of getting thrown into this new challenging environment is that it will give your organization a beautiful reset and a fresh evaluation of productivity.

And don't forget: In the end, it always comes down to people. You can have as many documents with rules and processes as you want, but people are still at the core of it. Some are great at managing their time, some aren't. Some need the structure of a physical office, and for some it is destructive. Pay attention to your people, set up the right environment for them and let them fly.

Maybe most importantly: communication

We wrote a whole article on this so I won’t get too deep into it here, but a team will fall apart fast without good communication. As you well know, Slacking and joining Zoom calls all day does not equal success. In fact, I’d guess nearly half the conference calls companies are having right now are not helping people be more productive, as much as they may boost spirits and reassure nervous managers. 

The right amount and type of communication will look differently for each team and even each member of that team. So long as it’s intentional, in regards to time and purpose (read: not an empty obligation), you’re already off to a good start.

April 8, 2020No Comments

Design in Argentina 🇦🇷 featuring Twentyfive

For the latest addition to our Design Around the World series, we are going back to South America, this time to Argentina.

My associations with Argentina are based on the Argentinians I know: They are vibrant, warm, full of life. And through talking with those people I know Argentina is a beautiful yet complex place to live. What I didn't know is how that affects designers and their work.

Here we get into it with Ariel Di Lisio, founder & creative director at Twentyfive branding agency in Buenos Aires.

First, let’s talk about your studio. Who is the team behind Twentyfive and why did you decide to open your own design studio?

We are currently two people. Ana is a digital art designer and I work as a design director. We work with some people remotely – designers, illustrators, copywriters and programmers.

I always worked independently, until at one point I wanted to set up a studio to improve my work, add more quality, and therefore have more clients. Also opening your studio is a great challenge, which tests our ability in several aspects.

Ana, digital art designer at TwentyFive

Buenos Aires had a big creative/arts scene in the 1920s. Is that still the case? Is there energy and conversation about design happening among your community? What about in Argentina overall?

Argentina has a very strong creative design energy. There are many designers, therefore the design scene is very present through events, conferences, festivals.

It seems to me that all that energy is scattered; we are not very united as a community. I believe that we should be more united to enhance our work more, show ourselves better and empower ourselves.

For a long time Argentina exported many designers, mostly in the 1990s. A few years ago that happened again. Many designers decided to leave the country. That is not good for the Argentine design community, but it is good for everyone who wants to look for their future where it is better.

So, there is a strong design scene but we need to be more united as a community.

"In Argentina, unfortunately, we are used to crises. We live with it."

Do many platforms and events exist in Buenos Aires / Argentina that connect you with other designers?

There are several events, not platforms, or at least I do not know.

There is a very big design event that has been taking place for more than 15 years and that brings together more than 4,000 people. That is the biggest event and that connects many designers. Also, there are other smaller but also important.

It is important that there are events that serve to connect with other designers.

In talking with friends from Argentina, I know the current social and financial situation is on many Argentinians’ minds. How does this affect your work as designers?

In Argentina, unfortunately, we are used to crises. We live with it. There are moments of calm, and that is very good. But when the financial crisis is great, it brings problems.

It is very complex to explain what happens. At some point you could not work abroad because you could not make a bank transfer; it was not allowed (yes, that difficult and crazy). There are many issues related to the dollar that would be long to count... This is undoubtedly very damaging to our work.

In Argentina, you not only have to think of your work as such, but also live with these situations that directly or indirectly affect your work.

Argentina is wonderful, but not in these cases.

I read that Argentina’s financial struggles in the late 90s / early 2000s left most designers working for clients overseas. Is that still the case today? Do you work mostly with local clients or international clients?

Exactly. It happened in the '90s that many designers decided to go to work in other countries due to the deep crises that occurred. Today something similar is happening although the crisis is not the same.

I work with international clients, but most of my clients are local. In 2019 I launched my foundry with my partner, Aldo Arillo. He is Mexican, and we decided to build society in Mexico. That is another type of business and in this way it allows us to work with clients around the world.

"There is something that equals us all and it is the ability to think. We should make more use of it."

How would you describe the design you see coming from Argentina today? Is it influenced by your culture/history in any way?

I think that for many years, the Argentine design had a look similar to everything that was done in Latin America: a lot of color, collage, etc. Somehow you still see that although to a lesser extent; I imagine it is present in the DNA.

In my case it does not happen. My design was always related to European design, (Germany, UK, Switzerland). I imagine that is due to the strong typographic presence that exists in my work and the simplicity that I manage.

Many times they told me that I should go to work in those countries. I had the opportunity on several occasions, but I decided to stay in my country and pursue a career here.

"There was very little to look for inspiration. The inspiration was from the street, in the music and in a search of our own."

Some might argue the internet has homogenized design, with everyone looking outward (especially to the West) for inspiration. How do you feel about globalization and its effect on Argentina’s design identity?

It is true, long ago everything is within reach of a click.

I come from a culture where the internet did not exist. There is something that equals us all and it is the ability to think. We should make more use of it.

I was educated without the internet; we didn't have access to almost anything. Design and / or typography books did not reach Argentina. There was very little to look for inspiration. The inspiration was from the street, in the music and in a search of our own.

I don't watch much of what happens. I design the fonts for almost all the projects I do, I try to generate new languages. My search is to other side. I think it is good to be able to see everything that happens in the world in a very easy way, but it is simply that.

Yes, it is true that globalization transformed design a little in Argentina. You could see what was happening elsewhere and that served as inspiration for many of the new generations.

You do a lot of branding and typography work. With most big rebrands today, we see companies leaving behind the old quirky logomarks in favor of extremely simple, sans-serif text for a logo.

What’s your opinion on this trend?

That is true. I think that in some cases it was positive, but in many others it was not. The problem with following a trend is that everything looks the same. Many logos lost personality and that is not good.

Each brand has a message, and I feel that several lost it. You have to be very careful with trends. The problem with trends is that they do not last over time, and that cannot happen in a logo.

Like any trend, there is an overuse of it.

How much impact does your social media presence have on getting new clients and self-promotion in general? What works best for you?

I spend little time on social networks; there is something I still cannot understand. I don't know if it only serves to show my work or to get clients. I think it only serves to show my work and in a lower percentage to get new clients.

It is a pending task to give more importance to my presence on social networks. I don't know what is better: I am on Instagram, Behance... Facebook and Twitter I almost don't use. And my website.

But I think social networks are very good.

I read that it took many years for graphic design to become part of the university curriculum in Argentina, but there seems to be some influential design programs in schools now.

What is design education currently like in Argentina? Are many designers choosing to study or are most self-taught?

Many universities have graphic design in their study plans. That is very good. The University of Buenos Aires is where the largest number of people who choose a graphic design career meet.

Most people choose to study; I don't know many people who have made a career of being self-taught.

Also, the UBA (University of Buenos Aires) has a postgraduate degree in branding and a master in Typography. I am part of the branding postgraduate staff since four years.

What does good design mean to Twentyfive, and how do you see it impacting your country’s society as a whole? Do you think it can solve larger issues Argentina faces?

It is difficult to explain the meaning of good design. There are many projects that I see and like. At Twentyfive we try to design projects that generate impact. As I said before, we seek to generate new languages, we try to break with the established, to go further. It is a great challenge to achieve this in each project, but the search is that.

There is a lot of work time put into each project. We do tests and more tests until we are convinced that what we are going to present is the best we could do.

I'm not sure that design can solve bigger problems facing Argentina, but we can help.

Do Argentinian clients, generally speaking, appreciate good design and understand what it takes?

I always say the same thing when asked what kind of clients are looking for Twentyfive. They are clients who understand the value of design and the impact this can generate on their brands. So constant effort is satisfying.

I read that the work of Lucien Achille Mauzan in the 1920s still has a big influence on poster design in Argentina today. Is poster design still relevant in your community?

I'm not so sure that it will continue to influence poster design in Argentina.

Poster design has a presence; I like to see the city with good posters. Also, there is a great presence of murals and street art. That is seen more and more. Many designers and illustrators are working in that area.

In your opinion, what are the top 5-10 design studios from Argentina that everyone who might be not familiar with the Argentinian design community should know?

Five design studios that I like:

Six and five
Cinco
Playful
Yani & Guille
Hueso

How can all designers and design communities do a better job of communicating with each other? How can we become more engaged with the Argentinian design community? Are there any blogs or specific magazines we can follow?

I believe that everyone from their side can collaborate in making a design community. Being good professionals, helping us and respecting us. I don't know any blogs or magazines that we can follow. I think that as we said before, everything is within everyone's reach.

Let's be better and better.

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Thanks so much for taking the time to talk with us, Ariel. We'll be following TwentyFive's work (and these other incredible Argentinian design studios you shared) and look forward to seeing more from the Argentinian design community.

April 8, 2020No Comments

3 reasons to work on your portfolio right now

No, you don't have to use the quarantine as an opportunity to be productive or improve yourself. However, from what I've picked up from my friends and the creative community online, there's a lot of fear around work and our income right now. Rather than letting that panic or paralyze you, you can do whatever you can to be proactive and set yourself up for success. That begins with your portfolio.

The competition for creatives is high right now. With more designers, artists and illustrators looking for work, it's more important than ever to position yourself well online. Here's why your portfolio might be the perfect project while you're stuck at home.

1. The future is uncertain

As you’re well aware, the creative industry hasn’t been spared in this crisis. Many have been laid off from their agency jobs, are freelancers struggling to line up new projects (while competing with an increase of new freelancers) or simply don’t know what the next week or even the next few days hold for their company.

Whether you feel secure in your job and financial situation right now or not, it’s worth being prepared. And this applies outside the context of the pandemic too. We simply can’t predict what will happen with our job or our company, financial crisis or not.

Update your portfolio and you’ll remove the added stress of doing so in the middle of a job search.

2. We all need the distraction

I don’t know about you, but I need a break from the news and social media to stay sane right now. Giving myself new projects, new skills to learn (yes, I’m caring for a hungry and healthy yeast starter like everyone) and new goals has proven helpful.

Working on your portfolio on those sleepless nights or wide-open afternoons, or hopefully more-open evenings (for those with kids) might be more fulfilling than turning the same anxious thoughts over and over in your head. Or, you know, a long bath might do the trick. You decide what's best for you.

3. It’s a unique creative challenge

You don’t have access to your studio’s photography equipment right now. You can’t print anything, secure special backdrops or props, or get any in-person videos of your work for your site. This makes it fun.

Can you stage your own photoshoot for your work using natural light and the props you have at home? Can you collaborate with a friend online to build their site while they design yours? Use the constraints to your advantage and create your site with the resources available to you right now.

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The good news is that you have everything at your disposal to do this from home. Of course, I'll shamelessly recommend using Semplice.com or Carbonmade.com for your portfolios because I (naturally) believe they are the best portfolios tools on the market.

But whatever platform you decide to use, I wish you luck and hope our portfolio articles will be useful to you. As always, reach out on Twitter if you need help deciding or want specific portfolio tips. We can do this!

April 7, 2020No Comments

My favorite studio & agency portfolios built with Semplice

If you've ever worked at a studio or agency, you know internal projects always get pushed to the bottom of the list. Especially your company website.

Often, a studio's website gets neglected for years because nobody has the spare time to do the non-billable work (especially developers). Politics also get in the way, everyone having a different opinion about how to position the company or how to design the homepage, which delays timelines further. On top of it, intricate code makes it difficult for anyone to maintain content but the developer who coded it. As a result, many agency sites I see are in a sorry state design-wise, with old, outdated projects that make the company look out of touch.

This is not the case with studies and agencies that use Semplice. I had a friend whose team had been "working" on their agency site redesign for at least two years, the design dating itself by the time anyone got around to building it, before he decided to take the latest designs and build it himself in Semplice. It took him two hours.

The beauty of Semplice is that it removes roadblocks. A designer can build the foundation based on their designs or even finish the site entirely, freeing up time for developers to focus on fun customizations if needed. Anyone can use it to manage content on your team – your project managers, your copywriters, your designers. Even better, you can easily update or tweak the design at any time, removing the fear for stakeholders and allowing you to just launch, and continually improving and refreshing after. It saves literally hundreds of hours of work.

Semplice is made for studios and agencies. You can create beautiful, branded case studies and or even several portfolios or landing pages for each vertical you work in. But I've said enough about Semplice now. Let's get on to a few of my favorite studio sites made with Semplice, so you can see for yourself.

Henrik & Sofia

From the custom 3D bust in the hero, to the quirky “NEW” animations to the embedded prototypes, Henrik & Sofia’s one-page site is a delight to scroll through. It's a refreshing contrast to the cookie-cutter corporate websites we tend to see from bigger agencies.

VISIT PORTFOLIO

Studio HMVD

Studio HMVD is the Brooklyn-based branding studio of Heather-Mariah Violet Dixon. The tasteful typography and bold shade of yellow throughout this site are simple yet sophisticated choices, much like HMVD’s work.

VISIT PORTFOLIO

Blond

The Blond site has many nice, subtle touches: The sticky menu and logo animation on the homepage, the full-screen headers, hover animations and before/after sliders. The site feels as thoughtfully designed and executed as Blond's projects.

VISIT PORTFOLIO

Pleid

We love Pleid’s work at Semplice, which is quite obvious if you scroll through semplice.com and our tutorial videos. The Pleid site is simple, focused on the work. Which, when you have strong work, is all it needs to be.

VISIT PORTFOLIO

Johannes Leonardo

Johannes Leonardo is a well-respected agency here in New York, so I was happy to see they built their site with Semplice. They recently updated their homepage and refreshed the typography – easy, subtle changes that allow their site to evolve with their work.

VISIT PORTFOLIO

To see more agency sites built with Semplice, visit our handpicked Showcase and use the filter dropdown. And if you're interested in building your site with Semplice, you can see our features for studios right here, as well as our customization possibilities for developers.

Cover artwork by Johannes Leonardo

April 6, 2020No Comments

How to be helpful

This applies whether you’re working with a client, running a business, doing customer support, trying to be useful within your team or simply trying to help someone out.

“Be useful.” As I’ve said many times here, I live by this rule. It’s what inspires my product, my work and my life day-to-day. Admittedly, it can take effort. Looking out for myself and my own time comes more naturally than going out of my way for others. And despite my best intentions, the efforts I do make aren’t always as helpful as I imagine they will be.

Through it, I've learned what works and doesn't work when I'm trying to help others, no matter the context.

Get to the point.

Cut out the disclaimers, small talk, excuses, buzz words or lengthy introductions. Help as soon as possible, as clearly as possible.

Especially when it comes to emails, we tend to pad our messages with fluff. Rather than helping, this wastes your time and the receiver’s time. Just give people the answer or the assistance they need from the start.

Don’t make assumptions about the person you are helping.

Our biases blind us. We assume people are using our product a certain way, or need a specific solution, or are struggling in a way we’ve personally struggled, and we act based on those assumptions.

This only wastes time and leads to errors. Instead of assuming you know what the painpoint or solution is, ask questions. Dig around about and seek other perspectives. When it comes to your product or company, this is even more important. Every time you help someone, you learn how your product can be better. Making assumptions about your users removes that possibility.

Don’t make people do more work for your help.

Aim to make it as easy as possible for the person you’re helping:

Try to answer your own questions before you ask them.
Anticipate the other person’s questions before they ask them.
Try to go as far as possible with the information you’ve been given.
Don’t make people chase you down for the help you promised.
Deliver your help in the time period you said you would.
When possible, exceed expectations and overdeliver.

Don't avoid or bury the bad news.

People can sense bullshit, and they don’t respond well to it. It may be tempting to circle around the truth, but it will usually backfire and lead people to lose trust in you or your business.

When you make it an unwavering policy, transparency is surprisingly easy. You find yourself in a tricky situation with your back against the wall and instead of panicking and scheming, you immediately know what to do: Tell the truth. Of course, you should have tact when you do so, but don’t mistake bullshitting for tact.

A good rule: If you find yourself working and reworking your message to get it just right, you're probably bullshitting.

Talking around the negatives causes more confusion and frustration. Honesty makes you appear confident and builds trust.

Apologize when necessary. And when not necessary.

Hearing an apology from someone (sometimes, even if no one is at fault), goes a long way for the person in need. If you’re not apologizing for something you actually did, be sorry they are frustrated, sorry the information was unclear, sorry your product didn’t meet their expectations. If you actually did something wrong, acknowledge it quickly and genuinely, then and immediately offer your best solution.

Swallow your pride and strive for genuine empathy. It can make all the difference.

April 1, 2020No Comments

How to make a UX portfolio in 15 minutes with Carbonmade

If we spent half the time working on our portfolios as we do talking or thinking about working on our portfolios, we'd have launched two decades ago. The good news is, you don't have to spend all that time working on your site. You can build your UX portfolio in 15 minutes.

Follow these five steps to create a professional UX portfolio with Carbonmade – in the same amount of time it'd take you to make a cup of tea, join another Zoom call or scroll through Instagram on your toilet.

Here's the final result.

Requirements

The only tool you need for this tutorial is Carbonmade, which is free to use until you launch.

Start by signing up for Carbonmade and picking a starting point for your layout based on your work and style. Don't overthink it – this can be customized or changed later.

Step 1: Edit the intro on your homepage   

Now that we've chosen a base structure, let’s edit the homepage headline and subhead to add a little introduction. Click the ⚙️gear icon to swap out the hero background image with your own image.

Step 2: Create your first project case study

Next, click Project in the left-hand sidebar. Upload a thumbnail to represent the project, then hit "Publish" so it shows up on your homepage.

Now we'll layout the page for your new project. At the top of the page, add a title and a one-sentence description that sums up the project.

Next, we'll drag & drop the "Image/Audio/Video" Block onto the page and replace the default image with our first project image.

Now, if you have one, let's embed a prototype on the page. Just drag & drop the "Text/Embed" Block onto the page and paste the embed code into the text. (You can add prototypes from almost any design tool like Figma, InVision or Adobe XD.)

To add another project to your portfolio, repeat Step 2.

PRO TIP: When building your case studies, it helps to think of your project in phases. Start with phase 1 (like the project challenge and brainstorming), then walk us through each phase all the way through to the results.

Step 3: Upload your logo

Got your own logo? Under the Design tab, drag & drop your logo under "Logo & Title" to upload it.

Step 4: Create your About page

Now go to your About page and drag the “About intro”  block onto the page. Drag & drop your headshot into the provided space and paste in your bio. Then add the “Experience Details” block to list out your work history and any press you're proud of.  Go ahead, brag on yourself a bit. This is the place to do it!

Finally, drag & drop a Contact block onto the page and swap out the text with your name and email.

Next, we'll link up social accounts. Go to the design tab in the left-hand sidebar and under "Footer," enable "Show Project Nav" and "Show Social links." Select your favorite social media networks and type in your @handles to link them up.

Step 5: LAUNCH

That's it! Now it's time to launch. Simply click the GO LIVE button, add your payment info and choose a domain name, and you're live. In less than 15 minutes, you created a beautiful, personalized UX portfolio to showcase your UX work.

You launched your portfolio. Now share it with everyone!

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The best part about Carbonmade: You can easily update it at any time to add new projects or change the style.

Want to refresh your homepage? Simply change the Gallery Grid layout and it's instantly a new site.

Want to change the colors of your site? Under "Global Styles," in the design tab, change your global font or background.

Want to change your navigation color? Under Design, click "Site Navigation" and change the link colors and more to your liking.

To see examples of other portfolios built with Carbonmade, visit this page. If you create your portfolio with this tutorial, let me know on Twitter. We'd love to see it.

March 31, 2020No Comments

Monthly portfolio inspiration of March 2020

Once a week, we select two portfolios created with Semplice to feature in our Best Of  Showcase.  Here we've collected our favorites from the month of March.

We've been seeing lots of portfolio launches and refreshes over the last month as folks work on their personal websites from home. It's a weird and uncertain time where many designers are looking for new projects, have found themselves with more time on their hands or simply need a distraction. Whatever the case may be for you, we thought we'd send some inspiration your way.

In March, we featured websites from creative & art directors, photographers, illustrators, and graphic designers, and they are all exceptionally good.

Browse the best portfolios of the month below to see fresh new work and get inspired for your own site. And if you've created your own portfolio with Semplice, be sure to submit it to our Showcase here. We might feature your site next.

 

To see more great design portfolios, visit the Semplice showcase. I'll be back next month with more of our monthly favorites!

Header image by Future Paris

March 30, 2020No Comments

The sensory and surreal worlds of teamLab

Before our feeds were filled with Zoom screenshots and sourdough loaves, you probably saw at least one Instagram post featuring the work of teamLab. The collective has produced numerous immersive exhibits internationally,  and it's the sort of thing you can't experience without photographing. Yet photos alone can't capture what teamLab is doing.

A team of artists, programmers, engineers, CG animators, mathematicians and architects, teamLab creates art exhibits best described as transportive. Step into a teamLab exhibit and you enter a sensory and surreal world of light, color and sound. Like many immersive experiences you see now, you are encouraged to touch and explore the art. Unlike other exhibits, teamLab's art responds to you or transforms as others around you interact with it too.

And unlike many made-for-Instagram experiences we've seen lately, teamLab is not sniffing for social media exposure. They want to dissolve borders between art and people, to encourage the rediscovery of nature through technology, and bring people together through it.

Our worlds have narrowed drastically over the last couple of weeks. We are confined to our homes, limited to the entertainment within our four walls. Yet at the same time, we are more connected than ever, a truth that resonates with teamLab's belief system, as you will read shortly.

Considering most exhibitions and events have been canceled or closed indefinitely during the pandemic, a digital tour of teamLab's work is a refreshing escape. We hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

teamLab, Installation view of teamLab: Universe of Water Particles in the Tank, 2019, TANK Shanghai, Shanghai © teamLab, courtesy Pace Gallery

teamLab began as a personal project between friends 19 years ago. Tech has evolved significantly since then and your team has as well. Were there any projects way back then that you couldn’t create due to limited tech or resources?

No longer limited to physical media, digital technology has made it possible for artworks to expand physically. Since art created using digital technology can easily expand, it provides us with a greater degree of autonomy within the space. We are now able to manipulate and use much larger spaces, and viewers are able to experience the artwork more directly.

In interactive artworks that teamLab creates, because viewers’ movement or even their presence transforms the artwork, the boundaries between the work and viewers become ambiguous. Viewers become a part of the work. This changes the relationship between an artwork and an individual into a relationship between an artwork and a group of individuals. A viewer who was present five minutes ago, or how the person next to you is behaving now, suddenly becomes important. Unlike a viewer who stands in front of a conventional painting, a viewer immersed in an interactive artwork becomes more aware of other people’s presence.

Unlike a physical painting on a canvas, the non-material digital technology can liberate art from the physical. By using such digital technology, we believe art can expand the beautiful. We want to create a space where you can feel that you are connected with other people in the world.

teamLab, Installation view of teamLab Planets TOKYO, 2018, Toyosu, Tokyo © teamLab, courtesy Pace Gallery

What really makes teamLab unique is not the technological advancement, but rather the fact that teamLab has become able to do truly massive art projects simultaneously worldwide in-house at a high speed — to the extent that no one has been able to do before.

With several hundred strong specialists, teamLab has become bigger than ever, as we increased the size of our own team, our own funds, as well as the number of people who are willing to support what we want to do, because of our more widespread recognition. We develop our own systems; however, it is the advances in video equipment and technology that make it easier for us to do what we want to do. There are other media artists that use much more advanced technology than we do. What is really interesting (and often chaotic) with teamLab is that while we combine relatively new technologies, we turn our ideas into visuals and scales that no one has ever imagined and execute everything with an in-house team.

teamLab, Installation view of teamLab Borderless Shanghai, 2019, Shanghai © teamLab, courtesy Pace Gallery

Are there any ideas you have today where you’re still waiting for tech to catch up?

At times, we must develop our own systems and hardware in order to explore the ideas on the scale we hope.

For instance, in our permanent museum teamLab Borderless Shanghai in Huangpu District, Shanghai, we created a Light Sculpture space consisting of a thousand moving lights: an unprecedented amount and density. In order to achieve this amount and density, we had to develop our own original moving light. If we were to use ordinary moving lights, one thousand of them would heat up and bake our visitors. So we had to develop something to reduce the heat levels.

"What is life? What separates the 'living' from 'inanimate' cannot be defined biologically to this day."

teamLab, Installation view of MORI Building DIGITAL ART MUSEUM: teamLab Borderless, 2018, Odaiba, Tokyo © teamLab, courtesy Pace Gallery

Likewise, our upcoming permanent museum teamLab SuperNature, which is coming soon to The Venetian Macao, will feature the never-before-seen Massless Clouds Between Sculpture and Life.

A giant cloud floats between the floor and the ceiling within the confines of the space, as though transcending the concept of mass. People can immerse their bodies in this cloud, blurring the boundaries between the artwork and the body.

Even when people push through the floating cloud and break it, it naturally repairs itself like a living thing. But, as with living things, when the cloud is destroyed beyond what it can repair, it cannot mend itself, and it collapses.

teamLab, Massless Clouds Between Sculpture and Life, 2020, experimental photo of the new artwork © teamLab, courtesy Pace Gallery

What is life? What separates the “living” from “inanimate” cannot be defined biologically to this day.

That you continue to be tomorrow who you are today is against the “law of increasing entropy,” wherein tangible things collapse. Entropy (a measurement of the lack of order in a system) is being maximized in this universe, but life goes against this direction.

Physicist and 1977 winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Ilya Prigogine, observed that in the natural world, when energy is absorbed from an external source, internal entropy is generated, then released.

Living creatures take in energy from the outside in the form of food, disposing of entropy in the form of excrement, thereby preserving entropy. Life cannot exist independently, it is part of a continuity with its external surroundings.

In this artwork, self-organization is tested. Universal gravitation and centrifugal force are opposed, and the clouds rotate while floating in the space between the floor and ceiling. And, just like life, they endeavor to repair themselves.

Ultimately, teamLab is a laboratory run by a team, a place where the team experiments. So we are not afraid to try something new in our mission to explore the relationship between the self and the world and new perceptions through art.

"Although large concepts are always defined from the start, the project goal tends to remain unclear, so the whole team needs to create and think as they go along."

teamLab, Floating Resonating Lamps - One Stroke, Fire, 2019, Interactive Installation, Murano Glass, LED, Endless, Sound: Hideaki Takahashi © teamLab, courtesy Pace Gallery

teamLab is all about collaboration, and you’ve made the point before that digital work can’t be delineated – a designer cannot design an iPhone without thinking of the OS.

We talk a lot about collaboration in the creative field but it’s much harder to put into practice. Do you have any practical tips for true, harmonious collaboration within a creative team?

Our artworks are created by a team of hands-on experts through a continuous process of creation and thinking. Although large concepts are always defined from the start, the project goal tends to remain unclear, so the whole team needs to create and think as they go along. teamLab's organizational structure seems flat at first glance, but it is also extremely multidimensional, with an underlying layer that is unclear and undecided.

teamLab, Installation view of MORI Building DIGITAL ART MUSEUM: teamLab Borderless, 2018, Odaiba, Tokyo © teamLab, courtesy Pace Gallery

Once the large concept of the artwork is set, we gather specialized members related to the work and think more finely. For example, the Forest of Flowers and People: Lost, Immersed and Reborn piece, which is in teamLab Borderless in Tokyo, was created with a specialist who creates 3D CG flower model and animation, a 3D software programmer, an engineer who designs equipment such as projectors, a software programmer who localizes and integrates dozens of projectors within the space, an architect, and so on.

"In a future society, traits that only humans possess—such as creativity—will become increasingly important."

teamLab’s creativity is based on ‘multidimensionality,’ where members with different specialties create together by crossing their boundaries, as well as their ‘transferable knowledge,’ a type of knowledge that can be shared and reused. As a result, teamLab generates what we call 'collective creation', the creation of something of higher quality by a group, thus strengthening an entire team. An individual person may not be directly involved in the project but his or her shareable knowledge might be. This continuous process of creating and discovering the transferable knowledge at high-speed yields the power of the group. It is organizations like this, able to uncover vast troves of knowledge that differentiate themselves.

teamLab, Installation view of teamLab Borderless Shanghai, 2019, Shanghai © teamLab, courtesy Pace Gallery

You’ve talked before about the flawed education system that rewards us for the correct answers, rather than correct questions. As the world becomes more homogenized and the Internet tells us the “correct or “popular” way to do things (such as design), how do we remain original thinkers?

Artificial intelligence and machinery could replace much of the existing work that we know of today. In a future society, traits that only humans possess—such as creativity—will become increasingly important.

Humans are naturally collaborative and creative. However, current education emphasizes only one correct answer over all others, stifling creativity. Free thinking and behavior that is different, is suppressed. And by doing so, students become afraid of making mistakes and lose their natural creativity. Whereas in the real world we find that there are no problems that have only one correct answer. Often as not, the correct answer 10 years ago is now incorrect.

By creating new solutions that solve problems in different ways, and give people enjoyment in the process, new correct answers are born. It is creativity that allows us to overcome problems that cannot be defined as either correct or incorrect.

teamLab, Installation view of teamLab Planets TOKYO, 2018, Toyosu, Tokyo © teamLab, courtesy Pace Gallery

The present situation in education is that tests are taken by individuals and evaluated on the ability of the individual. Before we know it, individualism is forced upon us. Additionally, large numbers of people are addicted to smartphones. Their brains may be connected, but their body is isolated. As a result, opportunities for nurturing co-creative experiences are decreasing.

Humans learn about the world through interaction with others and by sharing experiences. People think with their bodies as they move through the world, and society has developed through creative activities born from collaboration. This is why co-creative experience is very important for society.

By focusing on creating change in the connections between people, as well as creating positive experiences, teamLab hopes to turn individual creative acts into co-creative activities. Hopefully, through enjoying co-creation, people will be able to find creativity in their daily life. It was from such a desire that this project was born.

teamLab, Installation view of teamLab Planets TOKYO, 2018, Toyosu, Tokyo © teamLab, courtesy Pace Gallery

“Instagrammable” art experiences are becoming more and more popular – exhibits that claim to be interactive but are really more about providing a good backdrop for your Instagram Story.

I see the positives – the artist gains more exposure and more people are visiting museums. However, it seems we often see the art through our audience’s eyes, more concerned with getting the perfect shot than actually appreciating it ourselves.

How do you see it? Can we truly be immersed and appreciate art when we’re more concerned about taking photos for our followers? Can we “dissolve the boundaries between art & people” as you’ve put it, when there’s a phone between us?

It is a natural human desire to share emotions or something that is moving and inspiring. However, the “experience” cannot be cut out.

Through smartphones or TVs, people can understand only with their heads. Knowledge may be gained, but the sense of values and perceptions ​​cannot be changed or broadened. Only through the actual, physical experience of the world or artworks can people start to recognize things differently. Even if people look at teamLab’s exhibition images on Instagram, their values ​​will not be broadened.

teamLab wants to continue creating experiences that cannot be shared just with photos or videos.

Our interest is not the technology itself, but instead, we’re trying to explore the concept of “digital" and how it can enhance art.

Sisyu + teamLab, Born from the Water, a Loving and Beautiful World, 2019, Interactive Digital Installation, Endless, Calligraphy: Sisyu, Sound: Hideaki Takahashi © teamLab, courtesy Pace Gallery

Most of Silicon Valley-originated technology is an extension of someone’s mind. Facebook, Twitter, these digital domains see the “self” as the principle. These are meant to be used personally.

What teamLab wants to do is to enhance the physical space itself by digital art. It doesn’t necessarily have to be yourself that intervenes with it. It can be other people, or a group of people that vaguely includes you. And instead of personal use, we want to make it usable by multiple people.

By digitizing the space, we can indirectly change the relationships between people inside. If the presence of others can trigger the space to change, they’d become a part of artwork. And if that change is beautiful, the presence of others can be something beautiful as well. By connecting digital technology and art, we think the presence of others can be made more positive.

Not long ago, most museums didn’t even allow photography so they could prevent copyright issues and damage to light-sensitive works. But this also allowed us to be fully present. Do you have certain exhibits where you don’t allow phones?

We allow phones in all of our exhibitions, though we prohibit the use of flash and large equipment, such as tripods or selfie sticks for most. This way, visitors can enjoy and experience the art as they choose, but they do so in a way that does not disrupt any other person’s experience.

"Living in the city, you feel as if there is a border between yourself and the world, but the world really is meant for us to be involved with."

teamLab, Installation view of teamLab Borderless Shanghai, 2019, Shanghai © teamLab, courtesy Pace Gallery

I know Yayoi Kusama’s immersive exhibits have been recreated (essentially stolen) by other artists and museums. Have you ever experienced this with teamLab’s work, or does the heavy engineering and extravagant concepts make it difficult for others to recreate?

Yes, we have experienced other organizations attempting to mimic teamLab exhibitions, and even go so far as to use teamLab images to promote their own spaces without our consent or knowledge.

On August 8, 2019, teamLab filed an Intellectual Property - Copyright lawsuit against Museum of Dream Space LLC. This case was filed in the U.S. District Courts, California Central District. We will be distributing a press release related to this topic soon, so there will be more information available shortly.

Despite these occurrences, teamLab remains unique because of the scale at which we are able to create our work.

teamLab, Installation view of MORI Building DIGITAL ART MUSEUM: teamLab Borderless, 2018, Odaiba, Tokyo © teamLab, courtesy Pace Gallery

Your work seeks to blend people with nature. Our jobs as creatives, especially designers (a large portion of the people reading this), sadly do not involve nature. Most of us are sitting inside in front of our computer screens for 8+ hours a day.

How do you reconcile this in your own work? Do you make a structured, concentrated effort to connect with nature every day, or is it more about changing your philosophy about work and the outdoors?

We want people to be involved with the world. As much as possible, we want to re-think the boundary between the world and oneself. Living in the city, you feel as if there is a border between yourself and the world, but the world really is meant for us to be involved with. It may be just a bit, but the world is something that changes due to your existence. We believe that there is a borderless, continuous relationship between us and the world.

The 500,000 square meter Mifuneyama Rakuen Park was created in 1845, during the end of the Edo period. Sitting on the borderline of the park is the famous 3,000-year-old sacred Okusu tree of Takeo Shrine. Also in the heart of the garden is another 300-year-old sacred tree. Knowing the significance of this, our forebears turned a portion of this forest into a garden, using the trees of the natural forest.

The border between the garden and the wild forest is ambiguous, and when wandering through the garden, before they know it, people will find themselves entering the woods and animal trails. Enshrined in the forest is the Inari Daimyojin deity surrounded by a collection of boulders almost supernatural in their formation. About 1,300 years ago, the famous priest Gyoki came to Mifuneyama and carved 500 Arhats. Within the forest caves, there are Buddha figures that Gyoki directly carved into the rock face that still remain today.

Lost in nature, where the boundaries between man-made garden and forest are unclear, we are able to feel like we exist in a continuous, borderless relationship between nature and humans. It is for this reason that teamLab decided to create an exhibition in this vast, labyrinthine space, so that people will become lost and immersed in the exhibition and in nature.

"We think what’s more important, at least as an artist, is to seek out and affirm an idealistic part of humanity, and present an idea of the future."

We exist as a part of an eternal continuity of life and death, a process that has been continuing for an overwhelmingly long time. It is hard for us, however, to sense this in our everyday lives, perhaps because humans cannot easily conceptualize time for periods longer than their own lives.

When exploring the forest, the shapes of the giant rocks, caves, and the forest allow us to better perceive and understand that overwhelmingly long time over which it all was formed. These forms can transcend the boundaries of our understanding of the continuity of time.

teamLab, Drawing on the Water Surface Created by the Dance of Koi and Boats – Mifuneyama Rakuen Pond, 2015, Interactive Digitized Nature, 13min 24sec, Sound: Hideaki Takahashi © teamLab, courtesy Pace Gallery

Humans have created many different artifacts by borrowing the power of nature. Not just art such as sculptures, but also huts and roads. Every artifact is made from nature. But we thought humans could create something by using nature as it is, without physical intervention. Digital art uses things like software, sensing, network, light and sound. By using these non-material digital, we can turn nature itself into art without destroying it, keeping nature alive.

teamLab, Drawing on the Water Surface Created by the Dance of Koi and Boats – Mifuneyama Rakuen Pond, 2015, Interactive Digitized Nature, 13min 24sec, Sound: Hideaki Takahashi © teamLab, courtesy Pace Gallery

We think people in the past were more conscious that we are part of nature. You can see this in Mifuneyama Rakuen where the boundary between the natural forest and the areas humans have touched is ambiguous.

In Mifuneyama Rakuen, forest, rocks and caves have formed over millions of years, and people found meaning in them over thousands of years. The huge rock that enshrines the highest-ranked Inari Daimyojin, where we’ve projected a waterfall, and the cave that houses the Five Hundred Arhats and the Three Buddha Figures are some of the examples.

teamLab, Universe of Water Particles on a Sacred Rock, 2017, Digitized Nature © teamLab, courtesy Pace Gallery

A long, fragile, and miraculous continuity that nature and humans have developed over thousands of years still remains in this place.

We feel like Mifuneyama Rakuen is a place where we can still see such a relationship between humans and nature, something that may be different from what we see in our modern lives.

teamLab, Ever Blossoming Life Rock, 2017, Digitized Nature, Sound: Hideaki Takahashi © teamLab, courtesy Pace Gallery

In a previous interview, you said, “We just find it more important to create the world than to criticize the world.” It reminded me of this quote by Viktor E. Frankl: “Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

Today, especially in the creative world, it seems that everyone is a critic. How do we shift our response toward curiosity and creation, rather than judgment?

When we look at the world through an intellectual lens, problems are overflowing. And when you see the problems that we cannot solve, you just feel hopeless. In this era, we think what’s more important, at least as an artist, is to seek out and affirm an idealistic part of humanity, and present an idea of the future.

teamLab, Ever Blossoming Life Waterfall - Deep in the Mountains of Shikoku, 2016 - 2017, Digitized Nature, Sound: Hideaki Takahashi © teamLab, courtesy Pace Gallery.

We’re not talking about a simple fiction of manga or video games, but instead, it’s an ideal fictitious world that may be realized somewhat. There are problems that cannot be solved at this very moment. But what we can do is to suggest that we may be able to create an ideal world once more by connecting the hints that can be found in the long history of humanity. As we said, we find it more important to create the world than to criticize the world.

Our intention is to change people’s standard of beauty, even if it requires a great deal of time.

At some point in history, humans saw flowers and thought “beautiful.” But we do not really understand this phenomenon of “beauty.” Evolution explains some instances: it is natural that we would perceive other humans to be “beautiful” from a reproductive standpoint. But this does not explain why humans have found flowers “beautiful.”

teamLab, Ever Blossoming Life Rock Wall - Mt. Shiun, 2020, Digitized Nature, Sound: Hideaki Takahashi © teamLab, courtesy Pace Gallery

In theory, we should have used different words for these two completely unrelated concepts, so the fact that we conceive of them in the same way is quite miraculous.

We believe that art is an act of modern people creating their own flowers and expanding the notion of “beautiful” with those flowers, just in the way that ancient human beings saw flowers as “beautiful” and expanded the idea of beauty. We do not instantly understand the reasons or meaning behind this expansion. However, through these positive expansions of “beautiful,” 30 or 50 years later, people may behave differently in a way that we cannot understand with today’s limited knowledge, allowing humanity to continue to grow and thrive.

teamLab, Installation view of MORI Building DIGITAL ART MUSEUM: teamLab Borderless, 2018, Odaiba, Tokyo © teamLab, courtesy Pace Gallery

At a minimum, our interactive installations call more attention to the actions of the viewers around you than would a traditional painting. The result is that the art gains the ability to influence the relationships between the viewers standing in front of it. And if the effect of another person’s presence on the art is beautiful, it is possible that that person’s presence itself will be seen as beautiful.

The paradigm in traditional art has been to treat the existence of other viewers as a nuisance. If you are at an exhibition with no other viewers for example, you are likely to think of yourself as extremely lucky. But in the exhibitions put together by teamLab, we encourage people to think of the presence of other viewers as a positive factor.

March 27, 2020No Comments

Down with contact forms

You see a contact form on a website and an email address next to it. Which one do you use? For me, it’s always the email address. If a contact form is the only option, I probably won’t reach out at all.

Every now and then we hear from someone asking us why Semplice doesn’t include a contact form option. While we do our best not to force any style or decision on people, we probably won’t ever include a contact form in Semplice.

Of course, it’s still easily possible with a plugin for those who really want it. But I would venture to say contact forms are, in many cases, bad practice today. This is especially true for portfolios, the main focus of Semplice.

Have you ever felt enthusiastic about filling out a contact form on a site?

You more likely wondered if the form actually worked, and if it did, whether you would ever receive a response. Even if your message does find the eyes of a human being, the poor sap shoveling out contact form inquiries probably isn’t the person you wanted to reach. They will forward your message to someone else who may or may not answer it.

When you fill out a contact form, you have little control over the formatting of your message. You can’t link anything up or break your message into paragraphs for easy reading. Your message will likely arrive in one heavy block, making you appear unprofessional and making it even less likely anyone on the receiving end wants to read it. Not only that, but your message won’t be in your outbox, so you can’t follow-up or find history later.

Most contact forms are poorly designed, usually embedded and unstyled using some outdated plugin. Even nicely designed forms feel dated and cumbersome. Using a form to make an online purchase or fill out an application is a chore – it’s why e-commerce sites are constantly optimizing their checkout flow for conversions, because people inevitably drop somewhere off along the way when forced to complete a form process.

It's simple: We fill out forms not because we want to, but because we have to.

Use a contact form on your portfolio and it will negatively impact the opportunities you receive through your site. People may not want to tell you their budget at this point. Asking “how did you hear about us?” is only going to annoy them. They almost certainly don’t want to give you their phone number, and wouldn’t expect you to call if they did. We have more reason than ever to protect our private information these days. The only forms we fill out are the tax ones, and that’s because we have to.

For portfolio purposes at least, make it as easy as possible for people to reach you.

Yes, forgoing a form means you may receive more spam and irrelevant inquiries. But if you have an efficient system, it shouldn’t make much of a difference. Use a specific email address for this purpose only. Suggest on your site what information people should include when they reach out, or just ask those questions after they do. Copy and paste the same questions straight into an email and call it done.

The only time contact forms are worthwhile is when you are trying to collect very specific information for the purpose of helping someone or completing a task. Otherwise, forms are a relic from web days past.

March 25, 2020No Comments

A data designer’s responsibility during a global crisis

If you’re like many of us, you’ve been obsessively refreshing the news and Coronavirus maps for at least a week now. Or, if you’re like me, you’re making an intentional effort to control your media intake during this anxious, confusing time.

While most of us are on the receiving end of the news, waiting to know what happens next, other designers are working carefully to disseminate it.

Presenting information in a clear, honest way is important right now. It's a fine line to walk between relaying the gravity of the situation and not contributing to more panic and chaos. The news cycle is moving faster than ever to cover the quickly spreading virus, providing an overwhelming amount of (often conflicting) information to sift through. Publications like The New York Times and The New Yorker, which typically put content behind a paywall, have provided free access to all Coronavirus updates.

As designers, we have a responsibility to visualize information in a simple, accurate and easy-to-understand way. This couldn’t be more true for designers reporting the news during this global crisis.

A simulation from the Washington Post, which illustrates the exponential effects of a disease and how it spreads, has been making its rounds over the last couple weeks. It’s been a challenge convincing people to stay inside their homes, and this visual makes it clear how one person’s actions can affect countless others. It's currently the most-viewed article – ever – on the Washington Post website.

Washington Post graphics reporter, Harry Stevens, who created the visuals, originally planned to simulate Covid-19 itself. After speaking with a professional disease modeler, he realized it would need to be more simple. The resulting simulation, which shows a sequence of moving dots that bounce about the screen, is simple yet powerful.

A frame from the "Why outbreaks spread exponentially, and how to flatten the curve," simulation, by Harry Stevens for the Washington Post.

“It is hard to strike the right balance, but for this piece I feel we hit the nail on the head,” said Stevens. “I have gotten hundreds of emails over the last few days from doctors and mathematicians, as well as everyday folks expressing gratitude for the graphics.”

Amanda Makulec, data visualization lead for the technology consulting firm, Excella, said Stevens’ graphic may be one of the best data visualizations and pieces of public health behavior change messaging she’s seen.

“The day it was published, I had at least a dozen people send me the link and many more posted it to social media,” Makulec said. “As a result, a key public health message (stay home!) was amplified quite effectively.”

When one infographic can influence public behavior and potentially saves lives, the weight of a designer’s responsibility is greater. Considering the volume of information, both now and before the pandemic, it’s easy to scan headlines or graphics and make incorrect assumptions. It’s also easy, whether intentionally or unintentionally, to mislead readers through design.

Designers are taught to present information in its most clean and aesthetically pleasing form. When it comes to data, those inclinations and good intentions can lead to mistakes.

Design can lie

In Alberto Cairo’s book, “How Charts Lie: Getting Smarter about Visual Information,” he explains how graphs can be skewed and misinterpreted.

“Charts lie in a variety of ways — displaying incomplete or inaccurate data, suggesting misleading patterns, and concealing uncertainty — or are frequently misunderstood,” Cairo writes. “To make matters worse, many of us are ill-equipped to interpret the visuals that politicians, journalists, advertisers, and even our employers present each day, enabling bad actors to easily manipulate them to promote their own agendas.”

Everything from a designer’s choice of chart, scale, color and even typeface selection affects how it’s perceived by a reader. A chart zoomed in too far or shown on the wrong scale can make a trend seem more drastic than it is in reality. The color red invokes fear or alarm and can be used to manipulate a response in readers.

Designers are inclined to simplify. We are taught to present information in its most clean and aesthetically pleasing form. When it comes to data, those inclinations and good intentions can lead to mistakes.

“The biggest mistake I see in simplifying graphics to suit easy social sharing is to underrepresent the uncertainty in the data,” Makulec said. “We remove error bars and ranges in favor of straight bar charts, or plot a line of numbers that really should have a band around it, or bury notes and issues with a low response rate to a survey in the footnotes where readers seldom notice.”

The fact that people scan, rather than read, poses a dilemma for data designers: How does one make a graphic easily and quickly digestible at a glance, while not disregarding or concealing necessary information?

On COVID-19 charts, for example, “confirmed cases” may take more space than “cases," but that modifier matters. It’s a balance between staying brief and simple without losing meaning.

A detailed chart is not necessarily a factual chart, and the most beautiful, easy-to-understand chart can still be misleading.

So how does a designer create a responsible visualization?

Naturally, it requires an understanding the data.

Stevens compares his process to any form of reporting, the difference being that with graphics reporting, one spends more time interrogating the data than interviewing sources.

When creating his simulation for the Washington Post, he first interviewed sources and read published papers on the subject. Working off an experiment he'd done previously with collision detection, he created his dots simulation. With the help of his editors, he then refined his working prototype over a week or two before it was published.

The goal and audience, as with any design, also determines how a graphics designer approaches their visual.

“I always start with who the audience is and what I want to communicate with the visualization,” said Makulec. “Balancing who will read the visual and what I want them to take away from the chart is what leads my decision process.”

From there, she sketches rough pictures or creates quick prototypes.

As both Stevens and Makulec explain, feedback is an invaluable part of the process. Seeking feedback from someone uninvolved in the design process, who can look at a prototype and say what their key takeaways are, is a gut-check for how well your visual communicates.

When asking for feedback, Makulec includes the project goals, audience and stage, as well as what type of feedback she’s looking for.

“If you’re not a subject matter expert in the topic you’re creating visualizations and writing about, ask for feedback from someone who is, in order to make sure you don’t lose technical nuances,” said Makulec.

It may seem like a straightforward enough process, but search "COVID-19" on Google and the amount of information and misinformation is formidable. A detailed chart is not necessarily a factual chart, and the most beautiful, easy-to-understand chart can still be misleading.

"We need to take responsibility for the ways data visualizations make information feel more certain to readers, and do our best to communicate both what we know and what we don’t in charts."

Data must be used to tell the truth

It's a reporter's job to present the truth. With the exception of opinion pieces, people expect news to be unbiased. Yet a designer’s personal experience or beliefs may consciously or subconsciously change how they present information, skewing the truth.

As Swedish physician and academic, Hans Rosling, wrote regarding the Ebola virus in his book, published two years ago, “Data was absolutely key. And because it will be key in the future too, when there is another outbreak somewhere, it is crucial to protect its credibility and the credibility of those who produce it. Data must be used to tell the truth, not to call to action, no matter how noble the intentions.”

And so a relentless loyalty to the data is necessary for a factual, informative graphic. That includes the data we know and the data we don’t know – and right now, there’s a lot we don’t know.

“We need to take responsibility for the ways data visualizations make information feel more certain to readers, and do our best to communicate both what we know and what we don’t in charts,” said Makulec. “Particularly in crises like a global pandemic where confusion can invite panic, and understating the gravity of the situation can invite complacency.”

The Washington Post piece may have inspired action, but it did so by presenting factual information, not a plea. The goal is not to make a decision or form a conclusion for a reader, but to inform or encourage further thought.

Stevens defines the difference in approaches as exploratory vs. explanatory.

“Generally speaking, if it is explanatory, you just want to help your reader understand a concept as clearly as you can. If it is exploratory, you are building an interface the encourages your reader to learn things themselves and find things you had not anticipated.”

The simulitis graphics were more explanatory than exploratory – although Stevens admits there can be overlap between the two.

"Collaboration, iteration and feedback are important parts of the design process at any time, but particularly when visualizing sensitive data in the midst of a global crisis."

Aside from the Washington Post simulation, Makulec points to several other examples of responsible and effective data visualization.

Lisa Charlotte Rost at Datawrapper created and continues to add to a list of ‘responsible’ charts around COVID-19. The page is transparent about why they made certain design choices, such as consistent use of color (intentionally avoiding the color red), answering individual questions rather than attempting to serve all needs, using clear reference lines and bands where the data is questionable, and clear headlines with supporting text for clarity.

John Burns-Murdoch, data journalist at the Financial Times, has been creating daily charts of COVID-19 case information, which Makulec considers another excellent example.

With these charts, the annotation layer tells you key information in the headline and includes annotations on the individual marks.

The chart also uses a log scale for the y-axis due to the exponential growth curve for COVID-19 (avoiding the hockey stick shape we’d see with a linear scale) and aligns the countries along the x-axis based on a common measure (here, number of days since 100th case) to better enable comparisons on a trajectory.

Perhaps most importantly, according to Makulec, Burns-Murdoch actively seeks input and feedback from subject matter experts and iterates over time.

“Rather than leaning back on own expertise, he looks for input,” Makulec said. “Collaboration, iteration and feedback are important parts of the design process at any time, but particularly when visualizing sensitive data in the midst of a global crisis.”

It’s human nature to let our fears and biases influence how we share and interpret information, both as designers and readers. The question is: How much responsibility falls on us as the reader, to think, read and repeat information carefully, and how much falls on the designer?

"As the world seems to clamor for ‘real-time’ updates on COVID-19, I think we need to pause and ask if that’s really the information we need as a general public."

Is the responsibility on the designer, the reader or both?

To Stevens, it’s the designer’s job to ensure information is understood correctly.

“I like to say that there’s no such thing as user error,” said Stevens. “If someone tells you your graphic isn’t working, it’s your responsibility to fix it.”

Makulec believes designers and readers have a shared responsibility. But for the reader, our responsibility extends beyond careful reading and consideration. It’s about being patient and thoughtful about the news we seek in the first place.

“As the world seems to clamor for ‘real-time’ updates on COVID-19, I think we need to pause and ask if that’s really the information we need as a general public,” Makulec said. “Somehow we’ve become accustomed to instant access to information, but what will functionally change about my behavior based on the number of U.S. cases at 10 a.m compared to 4 p.m.? Is this data actionable to me?”

Real-time information is actionable for other groups: hospitals and medical professionals in regions with increasing cases, local governments managing their own response to the disease, experts at the CDC and other global bodies who are actively responding to the crisis, Makulec explains. But the difference of a few hours isn’t going to change our decision to stay home or not. Waiting for information may also translate into better quality information.

Where designers can help

Everything that’s happening now is unprecedented. We know about disease but we’ve never, in our lifetime, seen it on this scale. The government is working off information as it unfolds in real-time. Scientists will be testing vaccines for the next several months. The rest of us, well, we watch from behind our windows and we wait.

Designers, however, can play a role in bringing clarity in a confusing time. But unless your job requires it, designing graphs may not be the most productive contribution.

“As designers, we need to be very cautious about designing charts and graphs with the case data, which has so much uncertainty and sensitivity,” said Makulec. “I’m enthusiastically sharing articles and information, but I don’t need to create any of my own charts when there are great ones already out there.”

Instead, Makulec recommends designers direct their enthusiasm and energy in two ways: By signing up to volunteer to work with a civil society organization that has subject matter expertise and a specific need, or creating charts that help us better understand all of the other things happening in the world during this time of social distancing.

If you do decide to create some visualizations with the open case data, read these ten considerations before you press publish.

Thank you to Amanda Makulec and Harry Stevens for taking the time to share their knowledge. To learn more about the role of a journalist during this crisis, watch Harry Stevens' "How to be a journalist" video.


Cover image created by the Washington Post

Books referenced:

Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About The World - And Why Things Are Better Than You Think
How Charts Lie: Getting Smarter about Visual Information

 

March 24, 2020No Comments

How to write UX copy that makes your product a joy to use

This is an excerpt from our upcoming UX Writing book, exploring how we (as designers and copywriters) can write copy that helps people use and love our products. Sign up for book updates here

Study a speaker on stage. A bad speaker passively dumps information on their audience, more concerned with hitting their Keynote bullets than connecting with the crowd. A good speaker delights and inspires their audience. At the end of their talk, people feel ready to jump out of their seat and take action. 

Good UX copy is like a good speaker. It makes its users feel lighter, encouraged and capable. So to write UX copy that moves your users, similar principles apply.

Use positive tone & language 

Naturally, the words you choose and the energy behind them provokes a different response in your reader. Positive, encouraging messages are more likely to inspire confidence than negative ones. Guilt or shame certainly has an effect on people and it can work well in advertising, but it’s rarely useful (with exceptions) in your UX copy. 

You may be familiar with “confirm shaming.” Desperate to secure leads for their newsletters, companies shame visitors for opting out. To escape the pop-up window, they have to click text that reads something like “no thanks, I prefer to stay out of the loop” or “no thanks, I don’t like great deals.”

To opt out of newsletters, visitors must click a link that inherently insults them.

This approach might be effective, but I don't know that it's ethical. It may also leave a bad taste in people's minds about your brand. Besides, there are much smarter ways to get people to do what you want than cornering them. A headline that motivates visitors to sign up may be harder to write than a shaming opt-out link, but it’s can be just as effective. 

A newsletter pop-up on Everlane.com motivates sign-ups through positive language.

People may be drawn to negativity, but they are motivated by positivity. And the goal here is to motivate. Use language that inspires action and you are more likely to get the response you want.

As an example, see the onboarding process for our portfolio system, Semplice. Onboarding by nature exists to drive people forward. It’s your first impression. Someone is using your product for the first time, and you want them to feel confident and excited about each next step. So we aim to motivate on every screen. 

Each time we ask someone to enter their information, we give them a positive little push with the help text. To keep newcomers moving forward, we encourage them to “go with their gut” when choosing their set-up. We use inclusive, action-oriented phrases like “let’s start” to make them feel like we’re in this together. 

This approach builds confidence in your user and trust in your product. You can apply it to any experience in your own product: Your headlines, your helptext, your confirmation text, your error messages.

Instead of "Form submitted," say "Success! We received your message and will write back soon."

Instead of "You forgot to enter your email address" you can say, "Please enter an email address."

Rather than "Uh oh! Something went wrong," use "Let's try that again."

Instead of "Your form contains errors," say, "Please enter a valid address."

(There's a lot more to say about writing good error messages – we'll be writing about that soon.)

Notice Mailchimp's use of phrases like "We want to help" and "Let's do it." Positive language that immediately instills confidence and trust.

This doesn't mean you need an exclamation point in every sentence, or that you need to congratulate your user every moment like they're a child. It's about infusing positivity into your messages, with the words you use and the mood your messages evoke. Your goal is to create some momentum. Positive, goal-driven language is part of your product’s combustion engine, creating movement in your product.

Affirm & build confidence

As the voice of your product, you are omniscient. At any point in time, you should know where the user is and anticipate what they will and should do next. 

Work screen by screen or step by step and think about how the user feels in that moment. Aim to affirm their decisions and build confidence with every action they take, leading them along to their goal.

With our Semplice onboarding, we build confidence from the first step by a. validating their decision to use our product and b. making them feel like they are part of something bigger. 

Later in the onboarding flow, we ask the user to tell us their profession. We know creative types well enough to understand even this simple question may trigger insecurity, so we playfully assure them it’s not a life or death decision.

Designers talk all day about intuitive design. UX copy plays a big part in that. Make them feel confident about the action they are taking with your help text, and affirm their choice after they take it with confirmation text. Like the friends and family cheering runners on at each milestone of a race, you’re there on the sidelines to help your user reach the finish line. 

Write in active voice

The way you structure your sentences changes their energy. You want your UX copy (and almost anything you write) to have forward-moving energy. That’s active voice.

Example of active voice: “She ate the pizza.”

Example of passive voice: “The pizza was eaten by her.”

Do you feel the difference? The second sentence is wordy and falls flat. The first is clear and strong.

Here’s what’s happening: Grammatically, “she” is the subject of the sentence. When the subject is doing an action (eating the pizza) it’s considered active voice. When the action is happening to the subject (eaten by her) it’s passive voice. 

Always try to make your subject (he, she, I, the girl, the dog, the wind, etc.) do the action, instead of the other way around. This will almost always make your sentences more concise too, which is good for all copy, but especially UX copy. Active voice is Grammar 101, and we’ll do a lot more of it soon.

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For more UX copywriting tips, read our other articles from this series:

Content or design first?
Finding your brand voice

March 23, 2020No Comments

Why you should work at a non-design driven company

Most designers I know, in particular those in their early career, want to work for a company already known for design.

We typically aim for the "dream" design jobs. The cushy ones, where we feel like angels from heaven doing God's work. Yet the most interesting companies, the ones where designers have the most potential, are those not yet famous for good design. It's at these companies you can have an impact as a designer and leave your personal mark.

Just 10-15 years ago, few designers dreamed about working for Google or Microsoft. These companies didn't seem to care much about design back then. At that time, everyone wanted to work for Apple or companies that not only celebrated design, but executed on it.

Most of us want to jump into a strong design culture and system. And I get it. If you're a designer, you want to be designing. You don't want to spend your time establishing a design process, pushing for a design culture and fighting against internal politics that don't value "design" the way you think they should.

But at some point, someone had to do exactly this at companies like Google and Microsoft. Ten years ago, these companies were famous for their engineering heavy culture, not their design. Now they're both one of the most sought-after companies in our industry.

Being the first designer at a company isn't going to be easy. You'll be fighting windmills and it will be tiring. But it's here you have the potential to see the effects of your work. You're not just a cog in an already established system. You're defining that system. Every conversation you have, project you lead and task you do is an opportunity. You'll also have less competition for these jobs, as other designers simply don't have these companies on their radar.

It may be a higher risk, but it can also be a higher reward. It won't be easy, but who ever said it should be?

March 20, 2020No Comments

How to make a photography portfolio in 15 minutes with Carbonmade

Like choosing the right picture frame, your photography portfolio changes the work itself. Whether you have design experience or not, it's easy to create a beautiful, personalized portfolio that puts your photos in the best light. And with Carbonmade, you can do it over your lunch break.

Follow these five steps to create a personalized photography portfolio with Carbonmade in 15 minutes.

Here's the final result.

Requirements

The only thing you need for this tutorial is Carbonmade, which is free to use until you launch.

Before we get started, sign up for Carbonmade and pick a starting point for your layout based on your work and style. Don't overthink it, this can be customized or changed later.

Step 1: Add an intro to your homepage

Now, drag the "Title & Teaser" block onto your page. Select the ⚙️gear icon to edit the text and add your intro. Just one or two sentences about your interest and background is enough – we've only got 15 minutes here, Hemingway.

Step 2: Add images to your gallery

Next, drag the "Gallery Grid" block onto your page. From here, it's as simple as dragging & dropping photos from your desktop right onto the block. Everything will resize properly and fall into place within the grid.

Want to adjust the grid? Simply click the ⚙️gear icon in that section to switch up the order, change the padding, image size and more.

Optional alternative to the Gallery Grid: Creating projects

If you want to organize your photos into categories (ie. Outdoor, Wedding, Portraits, etc.), you can create Projects instead of using the Gallery Grid. This way, you will have separate pages for each category, which will appear as a thumbnail link on your homepage.

If you're happy using the Gallery Grid to show individual images for now, meaning your photos won't click through to a case study page, delete the Projects block and skip to Step 3.

Step 3: Upload your logo

Under the Design tab, drag & drop your logo under "Logo & Title" to upload.

Step 4: Add your social icons

Next, we'll link up social accounts. Go to the design tab in the left-hand sidebar and under "Footer," turn on project nav and show social media links. Select your social media and type in your handles.

Step 5: Update your About page

Now for the fun part. Go to your default About page and paste in your work history and headshot. Add some personality here too! Tell us about your teacup poodle, your passion for dinner parties, your hip hop DJ skills. What makes you unique?

To add your Contact information, simply drag in a Contact blog and swap out the text with your name and email.

PRO TIP: Only link to active social accounts you want potential employers or clients to see. If you don't use Twitter regularly or haven't updated your Behance site recently, don't link them up.

Step 6: LAUNCH IT!

That's it! Now it's time to launch. Simply click the GO LIVE button, add your payment info and choose a domain name, and you're live. In less time than it takes to eat a soggy tuna sandwich and scroll through Twitter at your desk, you created a beautiful, personalized portfolio to showcase your photography work. You should be proud.

Now share it with everyone!

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The best part about Carbonmade: You can easily update it at any time to add new projects or change the style.

Want to refresh your homepage? Simply change the Gallery Grid layout and it's instantly a new site.

Want to change the colors of your site? Under "Global Styles," in the design tab, change your global font or background.

Want to change your navigation color? Under Design, click "Site Navigation" and change the link colors and more to your liking.
Want purple hair like mine? Sorry, trade secret.

To see examples of other portfolios built with Carbonmade, visit this page. If you create your portfolio with this tutorial, let me know on Twitter. We'd love to see it.

March 19, 2020No Comments

The new school is YouTube. The new student is autodidact.

You may already be aware that I'm self-taught. That journey, for me, started almost two decades ago. I did finish high school, but that is pretty much everything I have on paper. Since then, the world has changed.

When I started out, there weren't many resources online. People in the digital space weren't disseminating knowledge the same way they are today. I would've killed to have someone I admire either share their thoughts or let me look over their shoulder. To get a glimpse behind the scenes.

The internet, not too long ago, didn't have YouTube. No design courses existed online. All we had was a couple IRC channels and forums – and most of these were invite-only, meaning you only mingled with those on the same experience level as you. You rarely had a chance to see what the "upper class" of design is doing. If I did happen to get access to a PSD file from a "famous" designer, it could keep me up for nights just studying the layers, replicating the effects, understanding how it was done. But that  rarely happened. Being self-taught in the early days of the internet meant taking the hard road and figuring it out yourself as much as you can.

Thinking about it now in 2020, things have changed massively. A self-taught education might still not be the most common path, but it's the one of least resistance, with an abundance of resources.

"The new student doesn't have to go to college, taking on a huge debt that will follow them around for the majority of their most productive years."

In 1990, the lack of resources made it difficult to be self-taught. In 2020, the abundance of resources almost has a paralyzing effect on people. Many people aren't learning on their own because there is simply TOO MUCH information out there. They don't know where to start. And isn't this an amazing problem to have?

We have YouTube: Completely free and ready to teach you pretty much everything you want to know about every topic you can imagine. You just have to search for it.

We have online courses, blogs, Twitter and Instagram. The tools and resources available today only mean that more people can and should be autodidacts.

YouTube is the new school. The new student doesn't have to go to college, taking on a huge debt that will follow them around for the majority of their most productive years. (I have slightly different thoughts on schools in Europe, which are mostly free to attend). Honest truth: I believe the majority of people shouldn't even go to college. I'm not saying that college is categorically bad, I just don't think it's the best solution for many, depending on the subject matter.

At least at this point in the digital age, schools have a completely outdated way of teaching and preparing young people for their professional career. Especially if this career is part of the new technology movement. The internet, however, is adapting and updating at every given moment.

I believe alternative learning scenarios, not bound to the rules of traditional education, will only continue to become more powerful. And I will do my best to support it, to contribute resources I would have loved when I started out as a self-taught designer. It might not replace a school, but it's my way of contributing a tiny bit to a system that is slowly changing.

March 17, 2020No Comments

Design school vs. the real world: My first month as a design intern

It's been just over a month since I received my offer for a three-month design internship with House of van Schneider. It has been an exciting time as I learn, for the first time, to be a productive and efficient designer in a fast-paced world. It's also quite different from my experience in design and graduate school.

So far, practical skills and a willingness to learn have been key to this internship. But I've already picked up a few new philosophies and habits I know I'll take with me after these three months.

Here's what I've learned so far as I work on Semplice, Carbonmade and all things HOVS through my design internship. If you're working on your first design job or internship yourself, maybe these insights will be helpful to you.

Go as far as you can on your own first, then ask for help.

Being a newcomer and understanding what DESK represents for many designers, it was intimidating yet exciting to design one of the iconic article covers.

At first, I would spend hours on a single concept, only to finally share my work and realize it wasn’t quite on-brand with DESK’s style. At that point, I had already sunk hours into one idea and didn’t have other options to offer.

I quickly learned that by exploring many different directions at the beginning, I could give my team more to respond to and save time obsessing over a single idea. This is a big difference from design school, where students tend to be concerned about one perfect execution, even if the idea isn't necessarily strong from the start.

I was also a beginner to the Semplice platform when I started helping out with the Semplice customer support. At first, I was slow and not 100% familiar with the Semplice interface and functionality. It was tempting to ask the team for answers every time I got stuck, but I realized the best way to learn is to try solving the answers myself first. If I still can’t figure it out, only then do I ask the team for help (and I always test their theory before I respond back). Now I am now more efficient, know the answers from the top of my head and speak to the customer the way I liked to be spoken to.

My attitude throughout this internship is to be an added asset and be useful in any way possible. I realized by testing and exploring on my own, I am opening new doors to new possibilities –instead of getting stuck at one closed door and asking someone else to open it.

"It’s better to set deadlines and provide hour estimates I can meet, rather than making grand promises and setting myself and my team up for failure."

Be realistic, not idealistic

Before I’ve started my internship, I’ve always been able to plan my schedule to make sure everything is done and my assignments are submitted on time. I now know the "real world" is more fluid than that. I might have a nice to-do list planned out for the day, then get three new tasks added to my plate the next hour. Learning to manage my time in this environment took some adjustments.

My perfectionist nature made me want to accomplish everything assigned to me immediately. This translated to jumping between half-finished tasks and finishing nothing. Now I try to be realistic about my work so I can follow through.

It’s better to set deadlines and provide hour estimates I can meet, rather than making grand promises and setting myself and my team up for failure. It's better to prioritize and re-prioritize my tasks throughout the day, rather than sticking to one rigid list. Planning my day and using my time strategically this way allows me to overdeliver, rather than setting myself up to fall short.

Don’t sit around and wait for approval. Keep moving forward.

In the beginning, I felt like I was a fish out of water as I developed my new routine as part of a team. I felt scared about doing something wrong and would always be waiting for the approval for each little detail, because I was afraid of making a costly mistake. While I was waiting for feedback on my design, I would halt on the project and even wait to move on to something else until I heard back.

I eventually saw that my waiting for the approval not only slowed down operations for the team, but halted my own momentum. The time I spent waiting, I could have used to iterate and explore further, or move on to the next task. Yet I was too afraid of doing it wrong, so I did nothing instead.

I realized this habit was developed during my design school days, where we would pin the work on the wall and wait for the professor’s feedback. In this way, the professor’s feedback becomes the law. When a designer gets accustomed to being told what's right or wrong, their self-confidence dwindles and they are less willing to take risks.

It made me realize my potential was hindered by not believing in myself. I feared making mistakes, but those mistakes can be better lessons than someone giving you a grade or saying yes or no.

On to the next month

Working with the HOVS team while doing my graduate thesis does take a toll, but it is important to remind myself about the long term gain. After working with the team for one month, I felt I am slowly becoming a better designer, more efficient communicator and a faster learner. I am learning to design for an established brand and a product while still allowing my personal stamp to be embedded.

My main focus for the next month will be to become more efficient, remain open-minded and be a motivator in a team. Not everything is flowers and unicorns, but I know I have a choice of how our day will be set out. I do stress out from time to time, but I remind myself that everyone has the same amount of hours in the day. I decide how I want to spend it.

March 16, 2020No Comments

6 tips to improve your architecture portfolio

How to sufficiently capture architecture work in a portfolio? Relaying the grandeur of a building or the thought process behind a floorplan can be difficult online. Renderings only go so far without you there to explain them.

A good portfolio usually requires input beyond your main skills. To do your work justice, you need great photography, good writing, strong design. Thankfully, tools like Carbonmade take care of half of that for you. For the rest, we asked a few architects for their best advice. Here’s what they suggest when building your architecture portfolio.

Show diversity & original thinking

The jack of all trades vs. specialist debate is never-ending, but it seems that for architects: a range of skills is key.

“People want to see nice photos and diversity,” says Kendall Latham, an architect based in New York, New York. “You want to show you have proficiency in everything, but you should also show what you’re best at and enjoy the most.”

There’s nothing wrong with specialization. If you’re incredibly good in one area, you will be sought out for it. But diversity shows depth.

Part of Kendall Latham's "Glossier Flagship" project, with Gachot Studios – kendalllatham.com

“Depending on the architectural role, the employer could look first at the variety of your past experiences. If your portfolio shows different projects in different areas, automatically you become a more interesting profile,” says Silvia Verardi, an architect and interior designer from Milan, Italy.

Select a range of projects that show your strength in key areas. And beyond just different types of work, convey a diversity of thought and ideas.

“Usually, if you are an architect, you are supposed to be a creative, original, extremely flexible and out of the box minded professional (otherwise they would have been looking for an engineer!)” Verardi says. “So try to keep up with these expectations.”

"It’s not about chronology, it’s about the most important works. If you want to work in retail, there’s no point in showing a technical drawing for an engineering project."

Aim for simplicity and clarity

Make it as easy as possible for someone to learn about you and make the decision to hire you.

Remember, people scan when reading websites – and they have limited attention spans. So make it easy for them with bite-sized paragraphs and headlines they can scroll through. Include captions for your images so they can understand at a glance what they're looking at and why it’s meaningful.

“Your portfolio should have a clear, easy-to-read structure, with this key information highlighted: project title, project phase, your role, main project data, year of realization,” says Verardi.

"Miami Design District - Retail & Dining" by Silvia Verardi – silviaverardi.carbonmade.com

Carbonmade makes this process intuitive. Working from a base structure, you can simply drag & drop to rearrange blocks and lay out your page. Think about the story you’re telling about your work with your portfolio, and aim for each case study to support that story.

“Simple does not mean less creative," Verardi says. "In fact, it should not be graphically monotonous: find a theme, a color, anything that acts as a fil rouge for the portfolio that makes it attractive and at the same time that gives coherence to the whole.”

A scene from Kendall Latham's "Glossier Seattle" experiential project.

Curate for the job you want

The best portfolios are not the ones with dozens and dozens of projects. They are focused and cohesive. They paint a vivid picture of a person and what they offer. And that’s due, in part, to good judgment and restraint.

“Cater your work to show what you’re interested in,” says Latham. “It’s not about chronology, it’s about the most important works. If you want to work in retail, there’s no point in showing a technical drawing for an engineering project. Unless it’s showing technical ability, all of those things are less relevant.”

Your portfolio is not about the work you already did, but about the work you will do next. When selecting your projects, don’t just think about what looks best. Think about what you want to keep doing in the future.

“I believe the key to creating a great architecture portfolio is editing,” says Jeremiah Johnson, an architect from Minneapolis, Minnesota. “Prospective employers or clients have a finite amount of time, and while it's good to share your experience, the more projects you show the less time they will spend understanding your design thinking and process. Showing fewer projects with more depth will better illustrate your skills and emphasize your value as a designer.”

From Jeremiah Johnson's project, "prairiehouse." – jjohnson.carbonmade.com

Show credibility

“Choosing an architect isn’t an easy task, “says Yohanan Beeri, an architect from Jerusalem, Israel. “You confide in them so much without really knowing in advance.”

Unless you’re already a known and respected architect, it’s not enough to simply upload photos and share the expected rundown of your projects. Your portfolio is your opportunity to sell what you offer and build confidence in your potential client.

From Yohanan Beeri's "Jerusalem House 1" project – yohanan.carbonmade.com

One way to do that is through client reviews. Ask your favorite clients to give you a 1-2 sentence testimony you can include on your site. Add these to your About page or sprinkle them throughout your homepage to show you not only have experience, but a great reputation.

“I believe that when people are looking for an architect, they are trying to find someone who will understand their needs, someone they can rely on and trust. In my opinion, the best way is to read other client's reviews, and talk to them if possible.”

Mariana Antunes, an architect, interior and urban designer based in Porto, Portugal, agrees.

“It really depends if it's a private client or an office and what they're looking for,” Antunes says. “If it's a private client, the decision is usually based either on references… or when they can see themselves living, dining, working, etc. in one of your projects (and a great way to do that is, of course, through your portfolio).”

A scene from "3D Visualisation: House in the Countryside" by Mariana Antunes – antunes-mari.carbonmade.com

"Although they are indeed looking for highly qualified people, they are also and foremost looking for that 'something extra' the candidates can bring to the team."

Give us a glimpse of your personality

You might be up against a dozen other architects as experienced and talented as you. So what makes you stand out? Your unique point of view.

“Show your personality through your portfolio,” says Antunes.“A portfolio is like a biography, so try to find your own language and tell not only your architecture stories, but your own stories through it.”

You can do this in your case studies and on your About page. Beyond the basic details, share how you approach a challenge and find a solution. Include philosophies that inspire your work. Show how you treat your clients and what those relationships mean to you. Share what makes you different, whether that’s a love for interior design or a glass-half-full attitude about life.

"When we're talking about offices or companies I see that, although they are indeed looking for highly qualified people, they are also and foremost looking for that 'something extra' the candidates can bring to the team," says Antunes. "Maybe you are not that amazing with software and stuff, but you're really creative and bring ideas and discussions to the table every day."

"Interior Architecture: GTL Apartment" by Mariana Antunes – antunes-mari.carbonmade.com

Aim to show, rather than tell. Instead of writing, "I pay attention to the details," SHOW us that through thoughtful, detailed case studies. Rather than saying "I have a future-focused approach," show us through your process and results. You can also convey personality through the way you visually present your projects.

“If you're a good sketcher, why not build your portfolio full of sketches and diagrams?” Antunes says. “Great images and realistic renders are, without a doubt, stunning and necessary in some cases, but I strongly believe that standing out is about showing what is really unique about you.”

Create case studies that illustrate your process

Great photos are important, but they’re not enough. Without knowing the process and problem-solving that went into those images, they’re no more than a pretty picture.

Again, your case studies are crucial. Each case study should walk us through the project from challenge to solution. Think of the project in phases and briefly describe each phase, helping us appreciate how you arrived to the images we see now.

A sketch from Jeremiah Johnson's project, "The Powder Houses."

“When a client is looking to hire an architect they are looking for someone that can help solve a problem they have,” says Johnson. “The best way to illustrate an ability to solve these problems is to showcase your process, from how you understand a design problem and incorporate constraints, to how you craft a solution. When an architecture firm is looking to hire an architect, they are looking for candidates that have clarity of presentation, a broad skill set, and clear abilities to problem solve.”

After reading your case study, we should understand how you think, what involvement you had in this project (always credit your team and be clear about your role) and why this project was a success.

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The Carbonmade portfolio tool is built for architects in mind. Simply drag & drop your photos into Carbonmade and it will do most of the work for you. With smart design features and automatic optimization, you can build your architecture portfolio in less than 15 minutes.

Sign up here to get started – it's free until you launch. And browse our Carbonmade Talentpool to see more architecture portfolios made with Carbonmade. Now go do it and launch your site!

March 12, 2020No Comments

Who am I trying to impress?

I ask myself this question regularly. It's a preventative measure to help me avoid getting side-tracked.

Humans are wired to seek approval from other people. We want to feel accepted. We want to be part of the inner circle. Even if we think we're immune to it, we still fall for it. It's survival instinct.

Unfortunately, this desire to be accepted can take you on the wrong path without you even noticing.

To stay on course, I ask myself this very simple question: "Who am I trying to impress right now?"

If I like the answer, then all good. But if I don't like the answer, I need to change something.

Early in my career (and it still happens), I put so much energy into impressing certain people, for the wrong reasons. Whether it was industry leaders I wanted to accept me, peers I was trying to compete with or my own family and friends, I was always seeking external approval. I spent so much energy just chasing one or two people's acceptance, I eventually forgot why I was doing it.

The desire to impress isn't always negative. It motivates us to get better, to take care of ourselves. But asking this one question, regularly, has helped me stay on my path: Who am I trying to impress, and why?

March 11, 2020No Comments

How to work from home

Until COVID-19 is contained, more companies are closing down their offices and sending employees to work from home. You might think of this as a chance to relax and slack off a bit. Or you can turn it into an opportunity.

We recently shared how to negotiate with your boss and turn a temporary remote work situation into a long-term one. If you want to make this an ongoing thing, you’ll have to first prove it works for you and your company. It's not about performing as well as you do at the office, but doing even better. Use these next few weeks to build trust with your employer and you can be working remotely even after the virus passes.

For those of us used to a structured office environment, here’s how to work from home for the first time, and be good at it.

Resist the beckoning whispers of your bed

You want to make this feel like your ideal work environment, not a makeshift one. Working from your bed or your couch may sound nice, but it’s not going to make you more productive. It’s going to make you want a nap. Working in a coffee shop on a laptop may seem like a novelty the first couple days. It’s going to be a pain in the ass by the end of the week.

Give yourself the tools you need to do your best work. Bring home your monitor, your Wacom tablet, whatever you normally use at work and set it all up in a corner of your house. If you can, choose a dedicated room where you won’t be distracted by your partner/roommates or the TV. Close the door and get to work.

You're working from home, not a remote island

More than anything, you have to be good at communicating if you want to be good at working from home. Your team dynamic now exists online and via phone. Without smart, intentional communication, relationships and productivity will disintegrate fast.

This doesn't mean you need to be chatting all day on Slack. Ideally, your boss would know you'll get the work done no matter when you're online, and hopefully soon, they will. It does mean you need to be available for your team when they need you – and even better, to communicate before they even know they need you.

Be proactive.  Send a progress report at noon via Slack or email, letting your team know where you are with your projects. Share a few WIPS throughout the day to show your progress. If you’re going out for lunch or running an errand, let your team know beforehand and tell them when you’ll be back. You wouldn’t present your work in person without some explanation or reasoning behind it. So don’t dump it in an email or Slack message without the right details.

It's easy to make assumptions when you're on your own, and a wrong assumption can snowball fast into wasted time and a frustrated team. Overcommunicating cuts off assumptions at the quick.

Nobody is annoyed by proactive communication. They’re annoyed by coworkers they can’t reach when they need them. They're annoyed with coworkers who go off on their own and waste time making assumptions. Be a strong, proactive communicator and you've already mastered half of the remote working battle.

Beware the dangers of laundry and snacks

When you’re working from home, you’re surrounded by distracting temptations. You realize the kitchen needs to be cleaned. You really should throw in a load of laundry. You could get a head start on making dinner for once. Before you know it, it’s 6 p.m. and you’ve only logged two hours of work.

The beauty of working from home is that you can feasibly do your work and also get some chores done, take a long run or meet someone for lunch in between. But you have to manage your time and create structure around it, and you can’t leave your team hanging while you do it.

Plan your breaks strategically. Tell yourself you’ll get two hours of work done before you break to do laundry or have a snack. Aim to start your day by 9 a.m. so you can take a luxurious one-hour lunch at noon. However you structure it, stick to your plan and always give your team a heads up so they can plan around it too. This way, they’re not freaking out when you don’t respond on a deadline, and you can actually enjoy that lunch break without angry messages from your coworkers.

You're creative. Draw some lines.

It’s a funny thing. When you work from home, your family and friends tend to forget you’re still working. They see you at home on your laptop and assume you’re free to chat. They need a ride and call you to pick them up. Sometimes, you can, and that's the beauty of this set-up. But if the people in your life get too comfortable interrupting your workday, your focus and productivity will decline fast.

The best way to address this is to set boundaries from the beginning. If your partner or roommate is also at home during the day, make your headphones a sign of focus-mode. Let them know if your headphones are on, you're workin and not free to chat. Try to only check your phone on your scheduled breaks. Put yourself in a quiet room and close the door, creating the same effect as if you left for work.

And make boundaries for yourself. It’s easy to find yourself working late into the night, long past your scheduled hours, when you don’t have a full office of coworkers that empties out at 5 p.m. If you’ve been distracted all day by yourself and others, that may be necessary. But if you’re treating your remote work as a regular day, you should be able to log off like a regular day. Creating boundaries from the beginning protects you from your well-intentioned loved ones and yourself.

A patented, innovated solution we call "getting your work done."

The best way to prove yourself while working from home: By simply getting shit done. You could send a million emails over this next week or two, or keep that little green Slack light on perpetually, but it will mean nothing if you're not showing results.

You want your boss and your team to notice how well this is working during this "trial" period. Aim to do your best work, so there's no question about it. Don't just get the work done. Do it well. Overdeliver when you can. Your goal should be to surprise your boss by how productive this week was, so they're open to the idea of continuing even after COVID-19 passes.

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Not everyone is good at working from home, especially at first when you’re used to office life. You can get better at it though, and if you enjoy it and prove yourself to your employer, you can make it happen long-term.

If working remotely sounds appealing but it’s never been an option for you, these next few weeks can play to your benefit. While your boss has no option but to send you home for your safety, take advantage and show them how well it can work – for you and for your company.

March 10, 2020No Comments

How to give better design feedback

As a junior designer who struggled to find confidence in my work, I’d often ask my peers or managers for their feedback, either hoping to gain more direction, or for confirmation that I was on the right track.

Aside from mustering up the confidence to ask someone for their time and mentally preparing myself to take what I hear gracefully, asking for feedback is relatively easy.

What’s not easy is giving feedback.

When I was studying UX design, my course taught me how to conduct competitive analysis and user testing, design user flows and wireframes, and myriad topics. But there was never a heavy emphasis on how to provide good feedback, and I would argue this is one of the most important soft skills to have to be a successful designer and teammate.

Recently, I’ve been thinking about how much I appreciate those who have given me quality feedback. I’ve been on the receiving end of these fortunate relationships for a while now, and I’ve made it one of my personal goals for 2020 to get better at providing feedback. This is where I’m starting.

Ask “What feedback are you looking for?”

It took me a while to unpack why I had such a difficult time providing feedback. At times I would be so underwhelmed by my own responses to my peers that I began to question if I was really a competent designer.

I started looking at what helped me most when I was on the receiving end of feedback. One mistake I made early in my career was presenting my design and then asking, “Does anyone have any feedback?” Such a broad question makes it difficult for anyone to provide a specific response that helps drive the design forward.

So about half a year ago, I created a rule for myself: I must always specify what type of feedback I’m looking for, and ask the same of someone who wants my feedback. The goal is clarity. The more specific I can be, the better my teammates can help me, and vice versa. It’s small, but following this rule has helped me grow tremendously as a designer and has also improved my relationship with my teammates.

"By sharing my thought process rather than offering immediate solutions, I am giving someone advice they can apply again in the future."

Aim to give guidance, not answers

I attend multiple design reviews a week at my agency. When I first started, I felt scared to give feedback to my peers; what could I spot that they hadn’t already? They’re more senior than I am! But I needed to participate, so my approach would usually look something like this: Identify the part of the design I liked the least, phrase my thoughts nicely to the designer and offer a suggestion. For example, “The type in the header looks a little big. Maybe you can knock it down a little?”

This isn’t a terrible approach to giving feedback, but I soon realized I was giving prescriptive suggestions, instead of taking a step back and digging deeper to explain why I thought XYZ part of the design could be improved.

Telling someone “I don’t like the colors here,” or “This just doesn’t work” doesn’t give them useful information to extrapolate from. The only next steps from there are to ask someone else for their feedback or to take a shot in the dark with a new design.

There is a time and place for prescriptive feedback – say a tight deadline around the corner or if an element doesn’t align with the design system. But I’ve found in most cases, prescriptive feedback is less valuable than offering a nudge in the right direction and the reasoning for it. Also, people just usually don’t like being told what to do.

Instead of saying, “The type in the header looks too big” I could instead say, “The hierarchy on this page seems off. Have you considered reassessing the type sizes?” By sharing my thought process rather than offering immediate solutions, I am giving someone advice they can apply again in the future.

We all know the saying “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” That same philosophy applies here. Many of the guiding principles I use when designing have come from the good feedback I’ve received from others, and I want to pass that on the further I grow in my career.

When in doubt, refer back to the strategy

One challenging aspect of giving feedback is looking at the design objectively. Do I really think the CTA should have an outline, or do I just not like the current style?

To avoid imposing my subjective opinions on the design, I like to reference any guiding design principles written up at the start of the project.

Let’s say I’m looking at a design for a product detail page which includes an image, title, and descriptive copy. My team and I are discussing whether we should list out the features of this product below the description (Design A), or if we should hide the information behind a modal (Design B). Both options probably work, but I remember that one of our design principles is to progressively disclose information. Now, I can argue that hiding the features behind a link is more in line with our guiding principles and move forward with Design B.

Referencing the project’s strategy when providing feedback creates a neat system of checks and balances. It allows me to steer the design toward alignment with the brief while validating the design system, rather than struggling to articulate my subjective opinion in a persuasive manner.

"Sugar-coating your critique dilutes the message and deludes the designer."

Always follow up

Following up after you give feedback is important for three reasons: You stay in the loop with the how and why behind your team's design decisions (important if our work has interdependencies); it helps you become better at giving feedback; and it strengthens your team dynamic as a whole.

The follow-up allows me to see how the designer applied my feedback. Maybe they applied my feedback differently than I envisioned. In that case, there’s a chance I communicated my feedback poorly, or it was bad feedback. Or perhaps they iterated off my feedback and the design is even better than I imagined — then I learn something new! Understanding how my message was perceived allows me to improve for the next time around.

Personally, I’m still working on getting better at this. It’s easy to mark following up as a low priority task in comparison to my other to-dos, but when I do it helps build a community and culture that I want to work in.

Be intentional about positive feedback

There are times when I get so focused on how to deliver my feedback that I forget to celebrate all the work the designer has already done. The tricky part is balancing positive feedback with constructive criticism.

In an effort to spare someone’s feelings or avoid a tough conversation, we often default to the “feedback sandwich,” i.e. leading with positive feedback (to soften the blow), followed by critique, ending with more positive feedback. I try to avoid this approach because it’s rarely the most helpful or applicable.

I believe in direct and succinct communication, especially when giving feedback. Sugar-coating your critique dilutes the message and deludes the designer. Honest feedback is important for growth, and at some point, all designers need to learn how to accept feedback without taking it personally.

This is why taking little steps to build a positive team dynamic (see above) is so important. If your teammate already trusts you, difficult conversations become much easier. So celebrate their successes and give them all the clapping hand emojis when the work deserves it, and you’ll pave the way for productive feedback later when it needs improvement.

March 9, 2020No Comments

Design in Nigeria 🇳🇬 featuring Kolapo Oni

We started our Design Around the World interview series in Nigeria with Dá Design Studio. It was a defining place to begin.

We learned about the challenges of designing in a country where design is considered a luxury, and the vision two designers had for the future of Nigerian design. That was three years ago.

Recently, in catching up with Seyi from Dá Design (I had the honor of meeting him in person this year!) I learned plenty has changed since 2017. So we decided to continue the conversation, this time with Lagos-based designer & front-end developer, Kolapo Oni.

Here we talk with Kolapo about the fast-growing tech scene in Nigeria, the radically changing quality of design work and the bold, new confidence of the Lagos design community.

First, tell us a little more about yourself. What first made you interested in design and development, and how did you learn? Do you work independently?

My name is Kolapo Oni. I’m a web designer and front-end developer with a passion for interactive design, aesthetics and clean user interfaces. I love photography, and I take nice pictures which I mostly put on VSCO. I’m also interested in architecture and interior design – I have boards on Pinterest where I curate this.

I enjoy crafting beautiful and interactive experiences. This passion, coupled with the fact that I studied computer science at university, also played a part in my design and development journey. My first major experience in design started from game design and two really interesting games I designed are Pong & Fading. Fading is a minimalist 2D game where you traverse the mind of a man whose wife is dying of cancer. I started working on it while I was in university and it took quite a bit of my time as I had to do UI design and level design alongside programming. The process I worked through for Fading is pretty much how my learning process goes. It’s mostly individual learning, loads of practice and teaching myself the things I want to know.

Getting into web design, I started out designing interactive web experiences and some relevant projects I’ve worked on to date are beautiful experiences, Ose games and my 2019 Year in Review site. You can check out my portfolio website to see more interesting projects I’ve worked on. Although I freelance occasionally, I currently work full-time as a front-end developer at the digital lab of Sterling bank in Lagos, Nigeria, where we’re focused on building digital products. At the work front, a product I’ve worked on is a digital bank called Gomoney, for which I’ve had to work on the early access website, the marketing blog, a web payment portal, as well as a dashboard for viewing user transactions.

Kolapo's portfolio homepage

Africa is one of the fastest-growing tech markets in the world. How do you see that affecting your work and the creative/design scene right now? Does the growth feel tangible in any specific way at this point?

Yes, the growth is quite tangible. From Nigeria alone, these past few years have seen a drastic rise in a couple of tech companies (both old and new) and this has kind of broadened the career diversity in the tech space. Now there are more graphic designers, photographers and content writers and other creative roles in the tech space than we’d have seen like, five years ago. As a person who draws inspiration from my environment and people around me, the diversity in the tech space has made a positive impact on how I think and work.

Web design & development work for Ose Games. Duru (@durustudios on Instagram) created the 3D models.

As we understand it, getting design gigs can be more difficult in Nigeria because clients believe they will get higher quality work elsewhere.

Is this still true today, generally speaking? How is it for you, especially working independently?

Looking at 2017 till now, we have seen a positive radical change in the quality of work that Nigerian designers have been putting out, so I don’t think getting design gigs based on quality of work is more difficult for Nigerian designers. I know designers who get gigs both within and outside Nigeria. I’ve also had discussions with a few clients interested in working together based on my portfolio.

As recently as last year, I got more emails and messages from people I’ve never met, from Nigeria, Europe and the U.S. appreciating my work. So if we’re discussing quality of work, I think the global impression is positive as more than a few of us are already known for putting out dope work.

What is your opinion of the current state of graphic design in Nigeria right now? What about in Africa overall?

I can’t really say about Africa in general, but for Nigeria, particularly Lagos, the current graphic design scene is becoming bold and daring because studios like Dá Design and Niyi Okeowo have set new standards and raised the bar of expectations for graphic and visual design in Nigeria. This can be seen from a couple of outstanding works they’ve put out there.

In our interview with Dá Design Studio, Seyi said many local clients, when outsourcing their work to other countries, “fail to realize the importance of context in design, especially when designing for Nigerians.”

What makes designing for Nigerians different? What is the context a designer from South Africa, for example, might not have?

I agree that context plays an important role in design. Generally, culture and environment influence design, and certain elements like color and language hold cultural values. Language, for one, is diverse across nations and color is also an element that can have different meanings across cultures. A South African designing for Nigerians might find it difficult to convey a message a Nigerian can pass across when working with translations that deal with metaphors. Same way a Nigerian designer might struggle in the South African context.

Yaba, Lagos

Have you been able to find a network or circle of like-minded creatives in Lagos? Any local design platforms or networks that you participate in?

For me, it’s mostly casual hangouts with friends that are already in the creative space. There are also events centered around art, photography and design I’ve attended in Lagos.

Usable is also a design meet-up that is held every last Thursday of the month at CCHUB in Yaba, Lagos. It is one of the most consistent design meetups, which I’ve attended a couple of times.

In our interview with Dami and Seyi, we learned good design is still considered a luxury in Nigeria, given the country’s other more pressing problems.

Why do you think good design is important (despite or maybe because of these problems) and what does good design mean for you?

So irrespective of these problems, I think good design is important because it improves our day-to-day experience and interaction with our environment by making our lives easier. In our general daily life, we interact with hardware, spaces and digital products, so I would say industrial design, digital product design, architecture and interior design all play important roles in our lives either directly or indirectly. I  think the outcomes from these fields are crucial. If, for example, I find it hard to use a blender, navigate a site or use an app, it will inevitably make my life more difficult, but good design will cut these problems off before I even interact with them.

Lekki-Ikoyi link bridge

Though Lagos can be a beautiful city, I understand there are also certain pressing problems that still affect us daily. I think good design is very important because you honestly don’t want to make something that’s going to add to the existing level of stress and chaos.

For me, good design means intuitiveness and clear expression of function.
Good design is timeless.
Good design is great storytelling.

"I honestly believe that if you are consistently putting out good work... you will draw the right attention and eventually gain visibility."

You are all about good taste and aesthetics. Do you see other Nigerian designers with the high level of taste who want to raise the bar for good design?

What do designers in Nigeria need most right now in order to do that?

Yes, there are a couple of Nigerian designers doing great work. I’ve worked with some of them, and I have seen some beautiful work from other designers I haven’t personally interacted with.

I think staying inspired, being open-minded and always pushing the boundaries as to what’s achievable is something that’s really important in raising the bar for good design.

What impact does your social media presence have on getting new clients and self-promotion in general? What works best for you?

For me, it’s Twitter. I’ve made a couple of relevant connections and gotten gigs just talking about a site I designed and my work in general on Twitter.

I believe doing good work isn’t enough. You also have to showcase your work on platforms where you’re active or reachable. And I honestly believe that if you are consistently putting out good work, even if you don’t share all of it, you will draw the right attention and eventually gain visibility.

Also the fact that my work has been featured on web design platforms like Typewolf and thegalley.io this year has amplified my visibility. A few clients have reached out just seeing my work featured on these platforms.

In your opinion, what are the top 5-10 design studios from Nigeria that everyone who might be not familiar with the Nigerian design community should know?

Dá Design Studio (brand identity and art direction)
Niyi Okeowo (art direction & photography)
Spacefinish (interior design)
Tomi Odusanya (web design)
Joshua Oluwagbemiga (product design)
Spazio Ideale (interior design)
Dare Adekoya (product design)
Onyekachi Mbaike (product design)
Duru Azubuike (Photography & 3d design)
Feyisayo Sonubi (product design)

How can all designers and design communities do a better job of communicating with each other? How can we become more engaged with the Lagos design community? Are there any blogs or specific magazines we can follow?

Besides a few design gatherings that are held from time to time (like Usable), I think having more casual hangouts with other designers and creatives would help.

At the moment, I don’t know of any major platforms you can check about design in Lagos. However, an idea I’ve been toying with is a podcast interviewing creatives in Lagos, and designing a site to showcase great work from creatives based in Lagos. I think these will help a lot.

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Keep an eye on Nigeria and specifically Lagos – it's obvious a lot more is coming from this design community and it's happening fast. The links above are a good place to start, as well as Kolapo's website and Instagram. We look forward to seeing what another three years bring for Nigerian design.

March 8, 2020No Comments

How to ask your boss to work remotely

Let's be honest here. With the recent COVID-19 going around, your chances couldn't be better to finally make the step and start working remotely.

Perhaps your company already has offered you to work from home temporarily until things get better. So now all you have to do is shine so bright and be so good at working remotely that you just keep doing it, even when COVID-19 isn't even a thing anymore.

But virus aside, what can you do to convince your boss to work remotely?

Let’s look at the challenges of working remotely. There are always three parties involved. It's you, your boss and the team you work with. They all have to somewhat agree this is a good idea.

Usually, when the boss is against working remotely, it isn't so much that they are against it because of you, but because it would mean a significant change for the entire team. If your boss allows you to work remotely, they probably have to allow everyone to work remotely — which is why most companies either decide completely against it or open it up for everyone.

Making exceptions for just a few employees only creates bad blood, with those employees' coworkers to thinking they've been cheated.

So if your company isn't really open to working remotely, there are like many reasons why.

But let’s see what we can do about it.

Step 1: Start small and simple

You're trying to convince your boss of something that goes against their ground rules. You need to first prove yourself. Instead of asking to work fully remote, ask if you can work just Fridays from home. Just one day of the week, what can go wrong?

If you still don't get approval, negotiate even further. What else could make your boss change their mind? Could you accept a temporary pay-cut for the chance to work from wherever you want? Could you promise to work some extra time as an experiment?

Essentially, you want to give your boss such a great offer they can't decline. And remember, that offer is just temporary. Say something like "Hey, I'd love to work from home every Friday. Let’s make it an experiment for only 2 months and I will also do XYZ."

Chances are your boss will be into it.

Step 2: Overdeliver and prove yourself

Once you've been approved to work from home every Friday for two months, take it as seriously as you can. You're now trying to remove any doubt for your boss and the team you work with. Don't chill at home. Work hard, overdeliver on the work you do and be as present as you can. We've collected some remote working tips right here and here that may help.

For the next two months, your Fridays have to be completely flawless. Even one colleague who complains that you weren't answering in a timely fashion will ruin your entire deal. Your boss is waiting to say, "See, I told you, it just doesn't work." Prove them wrong. Don't treat it like "working from home" but as a chance to make an impression.

Step 3: Re-negotiate

Let's assume you've completed your 2-month trial with flying colors. There was not a single complaint and people didn't even notice that you weren't in the office (that's really what you want to aim for). Now it's time to renegotiate your deal.

Go back to your boss. Don't start by asking for something else, but rather ask for feedback. "Hey, how do you think everything is going? Anything I can improve with my remote work? We got so much done the last two months, but I want to make this even better and more efficient.” Your boss is going to love you for your proactive attitude and eagerness to get better. They may give you some feedback, but you already know they can't say much because you've been incredibly good at everything.

Now you hit them. "Hey, what do you think we do another trial for two months? I'll also work from home on Wednesdays, so it will be Wednesdays and Fridays. Monday, Tuesday and Thursday I'm still in the office, no one will even notice."

Chances are, your boss will approve. So you repeat the entire process.

Step 4: Keep re-negotiating

The beauty of this process is that the better you get at working remotely, the easier it will be to renegotiate your deal. You've already built up trust with your boss. At some point, your team will appreciate how happy and productive you are when working remotely, so they won't question your petition to work remotely more often. And at that point, once your boss sees how successful this remote working trial was (thanks to you), chances are this eventually becomes an option for the whole team.

There are usually two mistakes people make when trying to work remotely:

1. They ask for too much upfront. Keep it simple, keep it small. Make bite-sized requests and enjoy the process of convincing your boss and team.

2. They're not good at working remotely. As I explain in this article here, not everyone works well remotely. Being good at it needs to be a requirement. Otherwise you won’t be able to get approval, or you'll lose the opportunity fast if you do.

Now, good luck with working remotely! I personally believe it is the future, but I also know that not everyone even wants to work remotely. Decide for yourself if you're the person who's right for it, and if you are, I hope the advice above helps you to make it happen.

March 5, 2020No Comments

Monthly portfolio inspiration of February 2020

Once a week, we select two portfolios created with Semplice to feature in our Best Of  Showcase.  Here we've collected our favorites from the month of February.

We're only two months into 2020 and already blown away by the portfolio launches and refreshes we've seen. In February, we featured websites from creative & art directors, photographers, illustrators, graphic designers, and product development studios.

Browse the best portfolios of the month below to see fresh new work and get inspired for your own site. And if you've created your own portfolio with Semplice, be sure to submit it to our Showcase here. We might feature your site next.

 

To see more great design portfolios, visit the Semplice showcase. I'll be back next month with more of our monthly favorites!

Header image by Dan Barkle

March 3, 2020No Comments

Blurring the lines

One of Nike’s most influential design teams is tucked away in the northwest corner of Nike’s 286-acre Portland, Oregon campus. They don’t make a single physical product.

Visitors to Nike Digital Design’s office last fall were greeted with a strange sound: the distinctive buzz of a small motor. What was that noise? It was the whir of the Nike Adapt BB lacing engine — you know, those Back to the Future shoes — tightening and loosening, over and over again. The team was beta testing one of Nike’s highest-profile shoes of the past ten years, answering the question: Now that Nike created the shoes, how would people control them?

The user experience for the world’s first digitally-connected shoe couldn’t end at the aglets. After all, connected shoes have to connect to something. Enter Nike Digital Design (NDD), a team within Nike tasked to design the app that would let consumers control the lacing, customize the lights, and check the batteries of their shoes — all from a smartphone. Where the physical shoe ends and the digital experience begins, Nike Digital Design is there to seamlessly blend the two.

The NDD team includes creatives with a wide range of backgrounds— digital product design, visual design, user experience, research, motion, copy and operations. Someone looking in from the outside might associate Nike with shoes and apparel, but those physical products are just the opening salvo for a host of new digital experiences. “We’re going through an incredible transformation, from the company we were, to the company we are — a direct-to-consumer company — powered by digital,” says Josh Moore, vice president, creative director of Nike Digital Design. ”We’re building a world-class team to get after it. And this new model puts digital at the forefront.”

The digital work coming out of the studio is split between teams in Portland, New York and Shanghai. As the team grows, Digital Design is taking on a wider variety of projects. “Our work covers everything within the Nike digital portfolio, including Nike.com, the Nike App, Nike Run Club, Nike Training Club, Adapt app and SNKRS app... even the digital retail tools that support our in-store teams,” says Mariana Bukvic, senior creative director for Digital Design Studio. “Our brand is all about helping people make sport a daily habit. And digital is an amazing way to do that.”

Often a consumer’s first experience with Nike isn’t a physical product at all; it’s through the Nike App, or taking that first run using Nike Run Club, or trying to cop the latest pair on SNKRS. “It’s so much more than e-commerce,” says Moore. “It’s about creating one-to-one relationships that serve consumers.”

Digital Design’s involvement with so many different aspects of the Nike digital portfolio means that creatives work on projects of all sizes — from small iterations of a user experience to the launch of brand-new digital product offerings. “We were asked to come up with the design strategy for Nike’s first ever subscription service,” says Euny Choi, a senior designer who worked on the launch of NTC Premium. “We wouldn’t have had the chance to give so much input anywhere else. It was challenging to consider what drives subscriptions and how users would see their progress. These were things we hadn’t focused on before, but it allowed us to pour our passion for training into the experience itself.”

But the team’s input doesn’t stop at design. Nike Master Trainers recently worked through an upcoming program for NTC Premium in the same building where the design team sits. “Not only were the trainers here testing their workouts for flow, they wanted us to do the workout with them,” says Choi.

Over the course of a workday, even when the weather is a Pacific Northwestern mix of clouds and drizzle, team members roll to work on their bikes, duck out for group runs to workshop NRC features, and hit one of the five gyms on campus, free to Nike employees. “It's important to have a passion for sport, because it helps you understand the design challenges better,” says Bukvic.

But the less sporty need not panic. Not every team member can run a four-minute mile. There’s just two of them. “Every time I run, I wonder if I’ll be able to keep up, but it’s impossible to not love a culture where you can leave at lunchtime and exercise together,” says Jenny Hu, a director of operations.

Nike isn’t just uniquely situated from a business perspective. It’s in a prime location for adventure-seekers too. Road cyclists can do repeats in the West Hills of Portland; trail runners and mountain bikers can explore the miles of singletrack in Forest Park; skiers and snowboarders are about 90 minutes from Mount Hood; and surfers can reach the wild and wooly Oregon coast in the same amount of time.

Mike Wood, a senior creative director who’s been with the team since the beginning, is a fan of it all: he lives in an Airstream on Sauvie Island in order to maximize his time outdoors. “Mountains, trees and trails,” says Wood. “I love recharging over the weekend because I come back on Monday full of inspiration,” he says. “Nike Digital Design is about connecting people to sport. So it’s important to me to get out there and connect in the same ways we’re asking our consumers to.”

The city of Portland is also key to the way a lot of team members stay creatively charged. Trendy restaurants and food carts specialize in everything from Texas brisket to vegan New Haven-style pizza; the music scene is loaded with artists at the start of their careers; and the community prizes anyone driven to create art, irrespective of form. “As a creative, living and working in Portland is refreshing. We have a tight-knit design community, but without the ego or pressure,” says Alexa Martinez, a senior designer. “It's a great place to get inspired and build relationships with other talented, creative people.”

The creative freedom given to designers back on campus also translates into less work being sent to agencies in San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles as more creatives join the team from those cities. “We went from outsourcing our digital experiences to agencies and partners — to having a super-talented team that does most of it in house,” says Moore. He’s clearly proud of what the team has accomplished since it started four years ago. “At the end of the day, we’re up here connecting people to the power of sport in new ways, through digital.”

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If you're curious about working on Nike's digital products, check out Nike Digital Design jobs and be sure to connect with the Nike team on LinkedIn. Nazia Haque and Jill Hundenski would love to hear from you.

March 1, 2020No Comments

The secret to designing great products

Every time I build a new product we work on the hard parts first: The technology, the basic functionality, making sure it all works without errors. We usually postpone any detail work for later. It simply isn't a priority at that point.

For a while, we are propelled forward as we put the big pieces together. We start to see the shape of something come together and it drives us forward.

But after a few weeks of steady work, something happens. The momentum slows down and the team's motivation does with it.  What once felt big and exciting now seems stale and boring. We start noticing the glaring flaws and missing features. We begin losing confidence in the product.

Then we start cleaning up.

We take two or three days to focus on the small things, the details that seemed less important in the beginning. A hover here, a transition here, some UI fixes and labels over there. Before we were stacking the bricks without sealing them. Now we're finally filling in the spaces between, making it solid.

Now, just a few days later, the product feels real again. We didn't add any features or build anything big. It was the tiny details, the stuff that didn't seem so important at first, that made the difference.

Taking care of the details gives us new energy to carry on and solve larger problems. We could have pressed on, continued stacking bricks in an effort to stay on track with sprints and timelines. But eventually, without the mortar and grout between them, the building would have toppled – if our resolve didn't first.

Never underestimate the details. The difference in great products, or even just finished products, comes down to the small stuff.

February 25, 2020No Comments

The beautifully imperfect sculptures of Massimiliano Pelletti

For hundreds of years, the art of sculpting has sought,  in part, to immortalize humans in marble or stone. But visit any museum today and the truth is apparent: decay is inevitable.  What were once godlike figures are now busts without heads and heads without noses.

At first glance, Massimiliano Pelletti's sculptures might seem like those from long ago. They are decidedly not.

Pelletti is a sculptor living and working in Pietrasanta, Italy, a hometown he shares with Michaelangelo. His figures, made from rough, porous or unusual stones, with cracked faces and crystalline spikes jutting from their heads, not only accept the imperfection of life but highlight it.

Here we talk with Pelleti about turning problems into resources, the importance of alone time and the idea of collaborating with your own work.

You just returned from a job in southern Italy. Can you tell us what it was and what you created?

I made a project for the “MARCA” museum, in a beautiful area of Southern Italy where, in the ancient times, there was a settlement of ancient Greece, and for that reason it is called Magna Grecia. There I presented my new project in which I created a mixture of Hellenic classical art and African art.

You originally studied philosophy. Who are some philosophers or ideas that inspire your work?

There are no particular philosophers who inspired my work, but all of the philosophers that I have studied have been important and necessary for my work. All of them helped me to open my mind, and this has been the real purpose of my studies.

I know you learned marble-working techniques from your grandfather and his work is a big influence for you. What is the most important thing he taught you?

My grandfather taught me to be humble, to fill the work with poetry and to face problems by transforming them into resources. Thanks to these teachings, in my work every defect has turned into merit.

"The beauty, the balance, the poetry are things that belong to everyone or almost everyone. If you can balance them in the right way, you can reach anyone."

That describes your work well – turning defects into merit. Does the material itself often inspire your work, or do you typically begin with an idea and just see what happens?

I start with an idea, then I listen to what the material suggests to me and the final work is the result of our collaboration, what I wanted to do and what the material decided that I would do.

Classical sculptures usually have this heroic, larger-than-life quality about them, portraying a person as more noble, more strong or more beautiful than they might have been. Yet your work twists this, adding unexpected elements of imperfection or even horror.

What story are you trying to tell with this type of work?

In antiquity, classicism represented the divine perfection and also man's ambition to rise to that perfection. In my work, I simply made this ambition more earthly, closer to us, to the contemporary man, with all its defects and its fragilities.

The current design trend is minimalism. At least in the West, we are removing all ornamentation in architecture, graphic design, furniture design and more, in favor of a more sterile, “simple” aesthetic.

What is your opinion about the current minimalist trend?

Each style has its history, its period and its trends. I believe that what really matters in painting, architecture, design is to create a balance. It is in the absence of noise that the brain truly appreciates what it is in front of it. I like a lot the minimalism when it is well balanced and in fact I also use it in my works. For example, the iron bases that I make for my sculptures are very “minimal” and create a sort of contrast with my works.

Historically, sculptures like yours were created for and appreciated by the aristocracy – those who had the money, education or power to access it. How do we make this type of art more accessible to a wider audience?

I found that my work appeals to collectors of any age, from the oldest and to the youngest generations. The beauty, the balance, the poetry are things that belong to everyone or almost everyone. If you can balance them in the right way, you can reach anyone.

"Knowing how to stay alone is important for those who do creative work. It is a moment to look within yourself and find those depths to imprison within your works."

"No prophet is accepted in his home town." I rarely quote the Bible, but this line struck me recently. It can be hard to become our true selves in our hometown because everyone saw us grow up there. They have a specific image of who we are based on who we were.

What is it like working and living in the same town you grew up in?

Cultivating a credible identity in your own city is an important first step. I must say that I was lucky and good in that. The last year I made a public work for the municipality of Forte dei Marmi and it was for me the proof that I conquered my territory. I think that if you do good, you receive good.

The ancient Greek used the word “Arete” in association with excellence. Arete could be about pursuing knowledge, or about excellence of craft, about bravery or about living up to your full potential.

Today, at least in the West, we seem less concerned with Arete and more concerned about getting the job done efficiently and going home. What are your thoughts on this? Do you strive for Arete in your own work?

Yes, I strive for this because I am still convinced that beauty can help the world. Therefore I prepare my work competently, experimenting with new techniques, studying history and geology, trying to make what I do better and better.

I imagine with your type of work, you spend a lot of time alone. Do you like it this way or do your days ever get lonely?

I like being alone. I made a fireplace in my studio and when I light the fire, it is like someone was there with me.

Knowing how to stay alone is important for those who do creative work. It is a moment to look within yourself and find those depths to imprison within your works.

What sort of environment do you prefer to work in? Do you play music in your studio while you work, and if so, what music do you work best to?

I like silence, or rather I like the noise that matter makes while I work it, because from that type of noise I understand how it will behave. I have to listen to it.

I like music very much, but it is part of my free time, as many other things. To satisfy a curiosity, recently I am listening to Mayo Thompson, "Corky's Debt to His Father.”

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See more of Massimiliano Pelletti's work on his website, and be sure to follow him on Instagram.

Photography by Nicola Gnesi and the Barbara Paci Art Gallery

February 23, 2020No Comments

How to be a self-taught designer

I always described myself as a self-taught designer. It was the best term I could find; I never studied anything at university and dropped out of high school at 15 years old.

But I believe that being self-taught is a bit overrated nowadays, mostly because it just makes a good story. Being self-taught isn’t the opposite of going to university. Most students are self-taught as well, even if they learned the “official” way.

Whether you are formally educated or not, you will always learn from someone else. It may be books, mentors or YouTube. The only difference between taking a class and teaching yourself is that you learn on your own agenda. When you're self-taught, you choose your teachers and you set your own goals.

Being self-taught is rarely an active decision. You never say, “OK, I’m going to be self-taught instead of studying something." "Self-taught" is just the result in retrospect.

It usually starts with curiosity.

If you are curious about something and you are willing to learn, everything happens by itself.

An example:

As a kid, I was always interested in how electronic devices work. I would grab whatever device I could get my hands on – my Walkman (the thing before the iPod, if you remember what an iPod is), our family TV or computer – and take it apart until I had a lot of parts and screws on my table.

Then I would start to assemble it back together, trying to see if the device would still work after its surgery. Most of the time it did not. But I repeated this process again and again until it eventually worked out.

I had no goal to learn; I was just curious. But I learned a lot while doing it. The process of taking apart and assembling made me better each time. While doing so, I'd create my own little problems and then solve them. At that point, I wasn’t even creating anything new, just playing around with what’s already there.

After some time, I learned which electronic part does what, and that’s where the magic came in. Now that I understood the basics, I tried to manipulate it to create something new. My first step at being creative & creating something from scratch.

The learning process is about connecting the dots. But to connect the dots, you first have to collect them. I collected my first dots when taking random devices apart . Then I connected them again.

Everything starts with curiosity and your first step. Just listen to your instincts. My instincts told me that I should take the devices apart, see how they work and then put them back together .  No one told me that at the time. When you let yourself follow this process, everything else happens on your way.

"Self-taught is a result, not a goal. It's a verb, not an adjective."

That’s why I started as a computer scientist first. I was curious about it, then decided to be a software engineer because I wanted to learn how to program my own piece of hardware which I just built. Without it, it was just a piece of electronics.

Then I started becoming a designer because I always spent more time designing my software and making it more useful. Coding, in my case, was just the step before designing. Turned out, designing was what I was really passionate about.

After becoming a designer, I learned how important the actual content is that you design around. That led me to creating my own content & products. I’m still in the middle of it.

People often ask me for advice about being self-taught. "Any secret tips for being a self-taught designer? And books to read?" I can’t recommend books because there is no such thing as “How to be a self-taught designer for dummies." Self-taught is a result, not a goal. It's a verb, not an adjective. It's not a decision you make up-front, but the process once you’re already into it.

Today, I try to apply the concept to everything new I want to learn about. That could be photography, trying to get into audio, building a product or simply figuring out how I can fix & understand myself.

Elon Musk is a perfect example of being self-taught in his own way. Sure he has a bachelor in physics. But prior to SpaceX or Tesla, he had no experience in mechanical engineering or astrodynamics — both needed to build rockets and send them to space.

He started at the bottom. Reading books about the fundamentals, asking other people and Googling his way up. Trying to build a rocket, blowing it up a couple times and figuring out what went wrong. Then trying again. I can just picture Elon Musk sitting at home in front of his computer, punching in “How to build a rocket” into Google.

“All I have learned,
I learned from books.”
― Abraham Lincoln

If Abraham Lincoln would have written this quote in 2020, it would probably be, “All I have learned, I learned from the internet and books.”

While I can't give step-by-step advice to being self-taught, I have learned a few guidelines along the way. Whenever I've tried to learn something new or get into a new field, I've found this to be true:

1. It’s about the organic process.

This isn’t something you can force yourself into. You just start with the first thing that comes to your mind. What have you been curious about? What are you feeling drawn to right now? That's your beginning point. The rest happens on its own.

The good news is: There is nothing you can do wrong. Breaking something is actually a good exercise, just so you can fix it again. Which brings me to my next point.

2. Don’t listen to other people telling you what’s right or wrong.

If I would have listened to anyone, they would have told me to not take a fully functional TV apart and break it with my stupidity, only to spend hours trying to fix it. But for a fact, that was what helped me most.

3. Surround yourself with people who motivate you and encourage you.

Make friends with people who are “better” than you. That’s what Donny Osmond said and I think it’s partly true. But I like to replace “better” with “crazier” or “different.” It's those people who will introduce you to different perspectives and make you curious about the world, rather than getting complacent.

And find people who believe in you and make you feel good about what you do, regardless of the outcome. These personalities are rare so if you find them, keep them.

4. Always help other people.

Even if you are a beginner yourself, you can always teach and give something back to those who are trying to catch up. Magical things will happen when you do. You don’t have to be a master to help someone out.

5. Breaking the rules is probably the most important piece.

Fear kills curiosity, which is a key element here. So don't be afraid. Break the rules, do it wrong. What if you fail? Great, you're learning. What if you don’t like it? Then don’t do it, do something else. It’s that simple. The good thing about being self-taught is that you just don’t know how to do it, so you do it your way and just make it work.

__

Related reading:

My personal story of becoming a designer
University vs. self-taught
Faking it = making it

February 20, 2020No Comments

The most underrated page on your portfolio

There’s a page I don’t see on portfolios as often as I’d like. When I do, it feels like a treat. I go through all the other pages on the site first. I scan the homepage, usually click straight to the About page, followed by a few case studies. Finally, dessert: The Playground page.

A Playground page is usually a scattered grid of half-finished projects, random ideas, experiments and rejected work we don’t typically get to see in a portfolio. It’s the place where no rules apply – the work doesn’t have to fit the brief, we don’t have to explain ourselves or our process, we don’t need to curate or prune. It’s the Playground page. Anything goes.

A Play page (here's mine) tells me you love creating and experimenting outside of your paid job. It says you care about pushing yourself and thinking in new or different ways. This page can reveal a lot about a person. 

In fact, if you’re feeling directionless about your career or your interests, turn to your Play page. This is the stuff you work on into the night, with no obligations. The stuff you created purely for fun or out of curiosity or a drive to get better. Maybe there’s a clue here for you. A thread you can follow to a new skill or career entirely.

The Playground page is low pressure. If you’re feeling intimidated about sharing your work, create a Play page. It’s an exercise in shipping, in not overthinking it and just putting it out there. Anyone visiting this page is not here to judge. They’re here to have fun.

I love scrolling through a digital designer’s portfolio, all web screens and userflows, then discovering a treasure trove of 3D work on their Playground page. I am delighted when I see a 3D designer’s portfolio and find their Playground page full of paintings. This is a page of dreams and ideas, still finding their footing.

February 19, 2020No Comments

The phenomenon behind great products and their fierce fanbases

I’ve always been a devoted fan of brands like Nike, Nintendo and Disney. It’s an ice breaker that never fails when you meet someone who also happens to be a fan. I used this as a social survival mechanism long before I thought about it as a concept. Then I learned about fandom.

Fandom is essentially subcultures created by fans who share a common interest. After I took my fandom elective course at New York University (NYU), I learned why fandom serves the purpose it does for me, and how brands and companies can leverage the power of fandom for their own purpose. Fans don’t just magically come out of a vacuum. You can stoke the fire of fandom, and the techniques can be used to market yourself, and when building and marketing your own products.

Hi there! My name is Man-Ping and I am the new design intern at HOVS and soon-to-be member of the Semplice family (new portfolio coming soon). I will be helping out with DESK and sharing some food for thought throughout the next three months of my internship.

As a brief introduction, I am an interdisciplinary designer who is currently going to NYU's integrated digital media graduate program. I am doing my thesis on anime fandom, so to start I thought I’d share some fandom knowledge and why you should consider it for your product design toolkit.

Fandom in most people’s minds is nerdy activities like conventions, pilgrimages or protecting your celebrity crush on Twitter. That’s part of it, but fandom goes much deeper as a social and psychological phenomenon. As a fan, you have inside jokes and feel you are part of a tribe, while the outside world just doesn't understand. To appreciate the power of fandom, consider the fact that it’s also a verb, meaning fans going out of their way to do more than just passively appreciate a product or piece of culture. While casual viewers are satisfied just watching Game of Thrones, a fan will plan a trip to where the series was filmed in Northern Ireland and Spain. Their motivation to increase their hierarchy status within the fandom means they are actively promoting their interest and bringing it to life.

Being a fan of Michael Jordan is more than seeing his games. It's wearing his shoes, living the Air Jordan lifestyle.

Having the first original pair of Air Jordan 1’s is proof of your longevity as a fan and gives you bragging rights. But don’t be confused about spending money and being counted as a fan, because it is easy to be a consumer by spending money. Fandom is not just about loving a product or brand, but aligning our identities and beliefs with it. The difference in buying a cheap Halloween “licensed” costume vs. commissioning a custom handmade cosplay outfit is night and day. Wearing Nike gear means having a champion athlete’s mindset. Using an Apple laptop means being a creative rebel like Steve Jobs.

There's a different between Apple users and Apple fandom. If you've ever waited in a line like this, you might be part of it.

Disney is a brand with a large fanbase that maximizes their audience’s enthusiasm with a long-term strategy. It keeps up with societal changes, which started with fans collecting VHS tapes and is now a community of Disney+ subscribers, as well as a wide variety of franchises. But beyond Disney's efforts, its fanbase fuels itself. Fans want to be part of the Disney magic beyond just being a regular watcher, so they invent new activities on their own, like Disney bounding, fan-art crossovers and Disney trivia. Fans' enthusiasm and desire for bragging rights keeps them engaging with all things Disney. Collect a limited edition Disney pins or get featured on the Disneyland Instagram and you level up.

In this way, fans become Disney’s best marketing team with their authentic excitement that makes outsiders curious – all while Disney creates new outlets that support its fans' passion. By evangelizing sleeping fans into the fandom, Disney creates more magic around their brand and makes the community stronger.

Disney fandom is not just for kids.

The viral video-sharing app company, TikTok, is an interesting case study in creating a grassroots fandom. While similar apps like Vine eventually died out, TikTok expanded on the idea by encouraging TikTok sub-communities. They introduced ideas like hacks, jokes and challenges and, importantly, found a way to source the original creator. As a result, TikTok has managed to not only stay alive but build an audience that fuels its growth. It created a platform that allows users to easily consume content and be creative without fear of not being credited.

How to create a fandom around your own brand or product? Start here:

Have a good product and your fanbase will grow naturally - Nintendo initially built games for the arcade, however their gameplay and characters are beloved by the players who become lifelong fans.

Have a clear mission that will resonate with your fans - Apple’s marketing philosophy since 1977 has been based on empathy, focus and presenting its products in a beautiful way that imputed their qualities. By staying true to their mission and infusing that into their products, Apple has successfully associated itself with creativity. If you are a "creative" person, you proudly align yourself with Apple.

Keep up with the societal changes and continue to innovate - It is easy to be satisfied with success and rest on it, becoming immobile and eventually irrelevant. Disney kept innovating their product and marketing with offerings like Disney+ to satisfy their fans’ current lifestyles and interests.

Give your fans some recognition - A retweet, a like or a comment makes a fans’ day, even if it means their cooking gets roasted by Gordan Ramsey.

Learn to see and create connections  - For example, fandom-crossovers (read: partnerships) gets fans excited. When two fandoms collided between Michael Jordan and Nike to Air Jordans, it became one of the biggest footwear phenomena.

Build your fandom, but don’t try too hard - When fast-food chains attempt to copy Wendy’s salty tweets, they look lazy and ring false from the fans’ point of view. Watch and see what your audience is naturally doing and do your best to encourage it. Let your fans lead the way.

Allow fans to have an outlet outside of your base -  TikTok and Reddit are great examples of platforms that foster fans.  Grassroots fandom thrives here as people have a safe space to appreciate their passion without feeling monitored.

Maybe the most tangible and recognized form of fandom: Cosplay.

Fandom is an incredibly powerful way to build and grow your product, if you know how to harness it. The first step is understanding you don't control fandom. Your fans do. While you create a great product and foster fandom through your marketing, it's your fans that make it real. The beauty of fandom is that fans own it.

Understanding fandom requires understanding people. Fandom provides is like a survival mechanism for fans to feel a sense of belonging from the real world. It is basically human psychology in a fandom petri dish.

If you are interested in reading more on fandom, I highly recommend my fandom professor Zoe Fraade-Blanar’s book Superfandom: How Our Obsessions are Changing What We Buy and Who We Are. All the major concepts I learned from my fandom elective class are nicely packaged in there.

February 18, 2020No Comments

Should I add a blog to my portfolio?

It never fails. Every time I work with a new client and talk through the pages on their new site, they say, “Oh yes, and the blog!”

We add a blog to their site and a couple of months down the road, after content population is done and the website is just about to launch, someone clicks that tiny Blog or News link in the footer. It’s empty. "Oh right, the blog."

The client adds their first blog post or news post in a scramble and we push the site live. A few months after launch, I’m looking over the site and check the blog page. It hasn’t been updated once since launch. Oh yeah, the blog.

Blogs are great. This is a blog (we call it a magazine, thank you). I clearly support blogging and wholeheartedly support writing (read this and this and this, for example). But if you don’t have a solid plan for your blog and the resources for consistent execution, especially as an agency or studio, you should not have a blog on your site.

A blog dates your site more than design or case studies or anything else. Check the blog on any agency website and you will see: They are likely a cobwebby place filled with boring, self-promotional posts about the latest award they won or press they got. This type of content could easily be featured in a simple list on their About page, but instead they wasted their time with a blog post about it. They probably didn’t waste our time, because we probably didn’t read it.

"Share something useful or inspiring with your readers. This is a better way to promote your work than with soulless press releases, anyway."

If you’re going to have a blog for your agency or company, have a strong strategy in place and a committed team to see it through. Whatever you do, don’t make your agency blog a place to throw your press releases and links to magazine features. Make it good. Share something useful or inspiring with your readers. This is a better way to promote your work than with soulless press releases, anyway.

An example of an agency portfolio done right: Ueno’s blog. For one, they publish regularly. And they publish useful, entertaining articles relevant to their industry. Sure, many of these posts tie back to the Ueno team and promote their work, but they are framed-up as resources, answering questions and giving tips to their creative audience. And, importantly, they are not cringey SEO pieces filled with recycled advice from the internet. They are personal and sometimes even funny. Ueno has positioned themselves as an authority in the digital space through their blog, and clients see that too. As with everything in life, being useful brings positive returns.

Creating a blog for your company or product can be valuable as well. Just look at WePresent by WeTransfer. It’s one of the most beautiful and thoughtful creative publications I’ve seen in the last year or so. And it’s obvious WeTransfer puts a ton of energy and resources behind it (obviously, they have the budget to do so). I don’t know what the monetary return is for them – you likely won't know yours either, that's not how it works – but I know I personally have more awareness and respect for WeTransfer because of WePresent.

A blog can be a great way to share your agency’s culture or company’s offering and get it noticed, but only if it’s done well. And it’s rarely done well. So if you’re considering a blog for your site, first decide if it’s the best use of your time and resources. And if it is, then truly invest in it. Aim to make it as good or better as any creative or tech magazine already on the market. Get an editorial team behind it that brainstorms ideas and writes fresh pieces as any other media company would. Either make your agency blog good, or focus your energy elsewhere.

February 14, 2020No Comments

Portfolio tips from UX designers

Creating a compelling online portfolio for UX work can be tough. We can only see so many sticky notes, user journeys and device mockups before it all starts looking the same.

On top of that, case studies for UX portfolios tend to be extremely long. It makes sense, given all the research, planning and details that go into this type of work. But very few people are going to read a case study like this. More likely, they’re going to get bored.

With the amount of competition in the field of UX design today, it’s even more important to make a portfolio that stands out. So we asked some of our favorite UX designers how they did it.

Look at your portfolio from a client or recruiter’s point of view

A still from Kurt Winter's homepage – kurtwinterdesign.com (portfolio made with Semplice)

Pretend you’re a recruiter or creative director hiring a UX designer yourself. Now go search UX design portfolios and click through a dozen or so. What impressed you? What made you get bored and click to the next site?

“There was two things that I think put me in a good mindset to create an effective portfolio,” said UX designer, Kurt Winter. “One was reading the DESK How to Get a Job at X series. The other was to simply consider, “What would I like to see if I was hiring myself?”

Ironically, it’s easy to forget our audience when we’re building our own website. Your audience has likely viewed more than a dozen portfolios today. What will make yours memorable for them? What information do they need to make their decision? How can you make it as easy as possible to make that decision? Optimize your site for your users, just as you would a client project.

Our Semplice guide for hiring a UX designers may be a good place to start as you approach your site from your audience’s perspective.

Practice restraint when choosing your projects

Kasper Laigaard's homepage – kasperlaigaardstudio.com (portfolio made with Semplice)

Two questions to ask yourself when curating your projects: First, are you proud of this work? And second, would you want to do a project like this again?

If you answer “no” to either of those questions, don’t include the work in your portfolio. If that narrows your projects down to just a few, that’s fine. It’s better to show a select few of your favorite projects than a dozen just to fill space.

“It’s hard, but try to limit your cases," says Kasper Laigaard, a Danish-based designer and director. “Show the work that you want more of and make those stand out."

Share your process, but don’t make us fall asleep

A teaser for one of Isa Pinheiro's projects – isapinheiro.com (made with Semplice)

Restraint is even harder when it comes to your case studies. It’s easier to write a long, rambling case study than it is to edit yourself. But unlike school, more words doesn't get you extra points. It just makes your reader lose interest.

“Since a large number of people looking at portfolios don't have time to read extensive details about a project, I like to keep descriptions as concise as possible,” says Sage McElroy, a senior designer based in Portland.

It’s important to give us insight into your process, but keep it brief with bite-sized paragraphs that are easy to scan. Rather than walking us through every phase in deep detail, simply focus on the challenge and solution. Show us how you got between the two and why it was a success story.

“When thinking about the best way to present your work, try to focus not only on the designs, but also on the story behind each project,” says Isa Pinheiro, a designer and illustrator from Portugal. “What problems you are trying to solve and how you came up with the ideas behind each design.”

When you're done writing a case study, consider testing for estimated reading time with a tool like this. If the reading time is over two minutes, cut it down.

Be thoughtful about your visuals

“Including your process work (sketches, wireframes, anything else you do) is incredibly important,” says Liz Wells, a UX designer based in New York. “It helps me understand how you think through problems and other paths you went down before decided a direction.”

I’ll admit visuals can be hard for UX work. User flows and whiteboard notes can only be so beautiful. So how can you make it interesting?

Wells does full photoshoots for her projects, using props like pencils and flowers to stage her work – which is often wireframes and pages ripped from notebooks.

Could you style your own photoshoot for your work? Could you design your userflows to match each brand or product? Could you embed an interactive prototype on the page instead of using static images? Instead of dumping a bunch of poorly lit whiteboard snapshots from your phone onto the page, try to make it visually interesting and consistent.

Think about the user experience of your own site

The subtle motion through Kasper Laigaard's portfolio (along with his fantastic work) makes it memorable.

Your site design communicates who you are as much as the words on the page. Yes, anyone hiring you should be focused on your work. But your own website is part of that work.

A good UX designer knows the site design itself is as much a part of the experience as the userflow. Make your site experience enjoyable and memorable for your users and you will stand out from the hundreds of other UX portfolios out there.

For Kasper Laigaard, motion makes all the difference.

"You want people to remember your website,” says Laigaard. “Consider using motion to make your presence more recognizable."

For Kurt Winter, it’s animation and color. For Liz Wells, it’s beautiful typography and thoughtfully created images. For you, it may be videos or illustrated case studies. Whatever it is, make it memorable. And don’t hesitate to ask friends for their help.

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For more portfolio tips and inspiration, read these articles and guides:

How to create a UX design portfolio with Semplice
10 inspiring UX portfolios and why they work
The most important page on your portfolio
How to write case studies for your portfolio

Cover image from Isa Pinheiro's project, "Future X"

February 11, 2020No Comments

The portfolio trend I am hesitantly enjoying

I always talk about how important it is to keep your portfolio updated. And by “updated,” I don’t mean launching a redesign once every one or two years. I mean continually adding your latest projects, optimizing and refining your design for the current moment. 

An outdated portfolio does you a disservice, at its best positioning you for work you don’t necessarily want to be doing anymore and at its worst, making you look out of touch. That said, I know how easy it is to let your site fall by the wayside. 

My own portfolio is never as current as I want it to be. Ideally, I would fine-tune it every month or so. In reality, I’m adding projects and refreshing the design every few months. So when I saw the “Now page” trend happening (started by Derek Sivers), I decided to jump on the bandwagon.

See my NOW page here

A Now page serves almost like a bulletin board. While your portfolio as a whole presents the work you already did, your Now page shows what you are doing right now. I’m not diving into projects here like I do with my case studies. I’m simply sharing a brief list of what I’m focused on in this very moment. 

For me, at least so far, this has a few benefits. A big one: Because I used to give talks a lot, I hear from people often asking me to speak at their event. I’m taking a hiatus from speaking engagements right now, so I note that at the top of my NOW page. It saves those people time writing to me and myself time (and guilt) turning those people down. 

My Now page, as Sivers points out, is a good way to check my priorities. Is the work I’m doing right now something I would be proud to add to this page? Am I no longer doing what was on my list before? Should I be?

I have yet to see how long I’ll keep it up, but for now I’m liking the Now page. In any case, it’s a low commitment. I spend 5 minutes updating the page every couple weeks, and I try to have some fun with it. Sometimes that motivates me to work on the rest of my portfolio while I’m at it, which is never a bad thing.

February 10, 2020No Comments

Therapy through design

I was reading an email that detailed the 9th round of changes to a 10-second Instagram video ad when I snapped.

“I can’t do this anymore,” I said to my wife, who had heard the exact complaint every night for the past year.

“Well, let’s do something about it. I can’t listen to this anymore.”

Fair enough, I thought.

I had been running my own advertising agency for almost a year — and I was about ready to burn it all to the ground.

A creative, project management, strategy, and accounting department of one, I had ditched my cushy advertising consulting gig, which included racking up air miles and staying in the Miami Ritz four nights a week, to sit in my 450 sq ft Brooklyn apartment in my pajamas, cranking out endless changes to a video no one would ever watch.

Still, I convinced myself on a daily basis it was a trade worth making.

“You own your time.” (I didn’t.)
“You’re doing better work outside of a big corporate agency.” (I wasn’t.)
“You can travel whenever you want.” (I couldn’t.)

Pretty much everything I had thought would happen, didn’t. I started with a huge amount of momentum, but now I’d lost my ability to focus and my work ethic was abysmal. I realized that the competitive nature of many of the places I’d worked in the past had been the motivation behind much of my growth and without it, I was stagnating.

I thought about finding a job but decided I would give some self-development a shot before throwing in the entrepreneurial towel.

Some background: I grew up in the UK and hadn’t encountered, let alone considered, anything that would be classified as “self-help” as a solution to any of my problems. “It could be worse,” was the extent of my intellectual toolbox for dealing with stress. And it had done the job, until now.

So, I picked up a few books that seemed to consistently reference great thinkers of the past. Aristotle, Marcus Aurelius, Lao Tzu, Confucius, Seneca, Buddha (to name a few) and found many of the principles that had been outlined thousands of years ago had survived to this day — and were now being studied and implemented both professionally and personally by everyone from athletes and entrepreneurs, to investors and artists.

Words I’d written off as useless clichés in the past suddenly seemed to contain profound truth, giving me a new perspective on things I’d been struggling to see a way around. From short-tempered overreactions to unforeseen problems to neutral, considered responses, these books fundamentally altered the way I thought about the world — all in a couple of hundred pages written thousands of years earlier.

I’d scribbled down many of the ideas that stuck with me in an old notebook, adding visual components to some of them to represent the concept itself.

A Chinese proverb, visualized.

I settled on a simple set of rules to give myself some constraint, relying solely on monochromatic, simple visual forms to force clarity of thought. (I’d spent an immeasurable amount of time earlier in my advertising career making hundred-page pitch decks, so making the most abstract of ideas visual was something that came somewhat naturally, especially when the ideas actually made sense.)

One night I had the random idea to start a Twitter account to see if anyone else would find them interesting or useful.

Artboards from the beginning, when I was doing this more for myself than anyone else.

“Visualize Value'' was the first name that popped into my head (and the username happened to be available) and I started posting, tagging a few people whose words had inspired the content in the first place. A few retweets later and the page was growing at a decent clip. In retrospect, this idea could be called “reverse influence." If you want a shot at more exposure: Make other people look good. Give yourself the job of a remote, unpaid design intern for anyone you admire.

Words by @Naval, distilled into a simple visual.

I got into the rhythm of posting a couple of times a day, a positive feedback loop driven by an enthusiastic audience and a book full of notes.

This is not a skill that I learned overnight, nor was it a project I started with a particular concrete goal in mind. Before this, I had spent 10 years working in advertising agencies, design studios, technology startups and financial services firms. I now recognize that this idea bubbled up from a massive variety of experiences, industries and communication challenges, and was ultimately triggered by my failure to accurately predict the stress of building a business I wasn’t that interested in.

"All direction comes from doing. In my case, consistent, imperfect action led me to stumble upon an idea that hasn’t failed yet. The only plan is to keep going until it does."

The momentum came exclusively from the enjoyment I got out of the process. There was no grand strategy at play; I’d simply do the work every day and share it every day. There has not been a day I’ve not been thinking about how to improve this project since it got going a year ago. Much of it was imperfect. I look back at the work I was producing 12 months ago and wonder how it ever took off in the first place. The goal is to have that same feeling 12 months from now.

If there’s one thing I’d love for anyone inspired to start something by reading this, it’s that all direction comes from doing. In my case, consistent, imperfect action led me to stumble upon an idea that hasn’t failed yet. The only plan is to keep going until it does.

After a couple of months of consistently putting the work out there, some great opportunities came my way – offers to illustrate books written by brilliant people and requests to help complex businesses articulate their intellectual property visually. Being invited to contribute to DESK by writing this article is another great example. I’ve been an admirer of Tobias’ work for almost a decade, and there’s likely no way we would’ve connected otherwise.

The most gratifying part: The response from people who were moved enough to reach out about the effect this project had on them. From people trying to overcome chronic procrastination, imposter syndrome, anxiety and a general lack of direction, these images seemed to resonate with people at all stages of life, with vastly different backgrounds, all over the world.

Certainly more motivating than making ads.

In 2019, VV was exhibited at a gallery show in NYC. I took orders for books and posters from over 30 countries, and I’m growing a digital community around a product called the “Daily Manifest," a simple analog tool for planning your days.

The Daily Manifest, a simple tool to help ambitious, busy people get clear on their goals, and execute.

In 2020, Visualize Value will continue to design the content and tools that facilitate the change in perspective that saved me from having to go back and take a job I didn’t want.

Before this project, I’d always believed social media to be a negative place, but as they say: “A bad workman always blames his tools.”

February 6, 2020No Comments

I hated writing. Now I love it. What changed?

As a kid, I hated writing. Teachers made sure of it.

School was all about “correct” writing. It was focused on technicalities. There was little room for excitement or personal expression. The times writing didn't feel like a chore, it was used as punishment. As a kid when we misbehaved, teachers would have us handwrite a copy of the school rules.

Writing always felt like something I *had* to do, but didn't want to. As a child, many things grown-ups do don't make sense. Writing seemed as terrible as doing taxes.

This feeling continued into adulthood. I knew I wasn't a good writer. It has been drilled into me with a lasting effect.

It took me almost 20 years to fall in love with writing. Today, writing makes up a huge part of my work. And even better, writing has become something I do for fun, for relaxation. Can you imagine if I would've told this my younger self?

But what changed?

First of all, I changed. I developed my own personality and way of thinking. I now have a point of view. I didn't have this point of view when I was young, and school wasn't very much about encouraging me to have one either.

Every time I tried to write something as a child, I got called out for the mistakes I made. Words I misspelled, punctuation errors or grammar crimes I committed. And even if I didn't make any basic mistakes, teachers told us to write in a very old-fashioned literature kind of style. Long sentences, complicated words, loaded with decoration and ornamentation.

I now understand that there is no "wrong" writing, only ineffective writing. And sometimes effectiveness can be passed on for style.

Writing is a tool to communicate a message. It’s a tool that can be approached from many different angles. The technicalities of writing (the rules we made up in our language) can be bent in either direction to make it work. Sometimes, to be effective, we have to break rules in a creative way to stand out. And in other places, effective writing means making it ineffective on purpose (take corporate/legal speak for example, it’s only “effective” for those who understand it).

Hemingway’s writing was quite controversial in his time for its almost amateur-seeming simplicity. James Joyce famously wrote the longest run-on sentence at 4,391 words. William Faulkner’s writing was like a stream of consciousness, often without proper grammar or sentence structure. None of these writers wrote “correctly,” yet we consider them some of the greats.

"I can now enjoy writing while knowing that I don't have to be 'good' at it, as long as I'm effective."

Ironically, most of what school taught me about writing would be considered rather ineffective in today's times. Today we reward clear and concise writing. If you work in business, marketing, design or advertising, a clear and simple writing style is what gets you the job.

There is a lot of room for how you approach writing, and there is only one scenario in which you can consider it being "wrong.”

Writing is “wrong” when it's ineffective within the given context.

Your writing is ineffective if people either don't respond or respond differently than you anticipated. In both cases you have room for improvement, but there are rarely clear-cut rules on how to get there. Style and tone play into it, but it depends on the medium and the audience as well. It may seem right until it’s executed and proved otherwise. And that’s the fun part – seeing what hits the mark and what doesn’t, learning how to write words that resonate.

I enjoy writing now because I can see how I can have an effect on people. A well-written email can translate directly into me landing a big job. An ad I write for one of my products can translate directly into sales.

And on top, writing helps me think better. Sometimes I just do it to get my thoughts out of my brain, because I can better see them when they're on the page in front of me. I can now enjoy writing while knowing that I don't have to be "good" at it, as long as I'm effective.

What they failed to teach in school, a lesson lost beneath red markers and strict rules, is that writing is a superpower.

_____

More on writing:

Why I write
Designers can write, too
Finding your brand voice
Content or design first?

February 5, 2020No Comments

Monthly portfolio inspiration of January 2020

Once a week, we select two portfolios created with Semplice to feature in our Best Of  Showcase.  Here we've collected our favorites from the month of January.

As we've begun with a fresh start of the year, we've seen more and more top talent creatives choosing Semplice. In January, we featured websites from art directors, illustrators, graphic designers, branding studios and 3D design studios.

Browse the best portfolios of the month below to see fresh new work and get inspired for your own site. And if you've created your own portfolio with Semplice, be sure to submit it to our Showcase here. We might feature your site next.

 

To see more great design portfolios, visit the Semplice showcase. I'll be back next month with more of our monthly favorites!

Header image by Dan Barkle

January 29, 2020No Comments

Why I love running a business

If you’re interested in psychology, build a product and run a business. It is a vocation inherently about the human mind.

To create an effective product, you have to understand how your user feels and what they need (or what they don’t realize they need) and then create it for them.

To brand your business, you must know what appeals to people — what draws them in, what speaks to them without words.

To market your business, you have to tap into human emotions and not just tell a story, but make people feel part of it.

To retain your users and build loyalty, you must provide support for your product and keep people happy. And if anything is a study in human psychology, it’s customer support.

I love advertising. I love branding and design. I love getting knee-deep into customer support requests. I love writing and I love building products. All of it comes together when running my business. It is not one job but many combined, all of it working harmoniously to one end: people.

It’s the difference between studying psychology and putting it into practice.

January 28, 2020No Comments

My escape from Design Twitter is Art Twitter

I have recently discovered a beautiful land, filled with hope and magic and kindness and positivity. It is called “artists on Twitter” and if you haven’t been, you must go.

At some point, I entered Design Twitter and forgot to leave. Whether I follow them or not, my Twitter feed is filled with designers debating about the best design tools, promoting their personal brand, talking UX best practices or sharing their productivity quotes and hacks.

Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate having a community of fellow designers online. It helps me feel connected and keeps me sharp. But social media and its algorithms make it too easy to get cozy in our echo chambers, and the air gets stale in there after a while.

Thankfully, I’ve found a refreshing escape in Art Twitter. Call it a “grass is greener” scenario, but Art Twitter seems like a more lighthearted and positive place. You don’t see artists arguing about “best practices” and analyzing “the industry” on Twitter. More often, at least in my experience, they’re simply sharing beautiful things – usually their work or others’ work that inspire them.

By following more artists, the quality and tone of my Twitter experience is significantly better. So if you’re looking for a little escape from Design Twitter, I recommend starting here.

The #portfolioday hashtag

Work by Kano – on Twitter @Kan0nakan0

If you have not yet discovered the #Portfolioday hashtag, go now. It’s where people, mostly artists and illustrators, share links to their portfolio once a month or so. I first browsed the hashtag for obvious reasons (I work on Semplice.com and Carbonmade.com) and found it was so filled with beautiful images and positivity, I kept coming back. I now follow several great artists I found through #Portfolioday.

See #Portfolioday →

@paperfashion

Katie Rodgers is a painter who seems to see magic in everything. I love her art but also just the way she experiences the world around her. Little things – a tree through a window, a broken pastel or smudge of paint, a snail on a rock, become almost holy. Following @paperfashion on Twitter (and Instagram) shows a glimpse of life through an artist’s eyes.

Follow @paperfashion →

@sougwen

Artist and researcher, Sougwen Chung, collaborates with robots on her art and it is magnificent to witness. Elements like sound, light and shadow come into play as she explores AI cognition, memory and mimicry through her artworks. Follow her explorations and you’ll feel a bit smarter.

Follow Sougwen →

@loishh

A digital artist and character designer, Loish’s work is ethereal and distinctly feminine. Her characters, their luminous hair floating and twisting around them as if suspended in water, seem to be plucked from a story, leaving you to wonder what they're experiencing or thinking.

Follow @loishh →

@lucy_mcrae

Lucy McRae is, in her words, a “sci-fi artist and body architect exploring the slipperiness of where science and technology meets the body.” Her work – part art, part film, part fashion design, part science – is gorgeous and unnerving and maybe even disturbing. Just the kind of stuff I love.

Follow @lucy_mcrae →

@victormosquerar

Victor Mosquera is a modern surrealist whose satisfyingly symmetrical, transcendental work, if studied and analyzed, could very well contain a hidden message or unravel a conspiracy. Every image transports you to the worlds he's created.

Follow @victormosquerar →

@aeforiadesign

I am starting to see a theme in the artists I follow, and balance, science fiction and surrealism are part of it. Alexy Préfontaine explores these themes with 3D art. I will never tire of floating heads and orbs and supernatural scenes like these.

Préfontaine also collaborates with Victor Mosquera and Alycia Rainaud (featured here), which is always fun to see.

Follow @aeforiadesign →

@hellocolor

If you’re familiar with Semplice, you’ve probably seen Pawel Nolbert’s work before. We are huge fans of his art, and seeing the color and meticulous detail of his digital paint strokes in my feed always brightens my day.

Follow @hellocolor →

@jandersdotter

Jessica Andersdotter creates abstract digital art. The colors and amorphous, grainy shapes are like visual interpretations of dreams.

Andersdotter, like several other artists featured here, often retweets and promotes other artists she admires – something designers don’t tend to do.

Follow @jandersdotter →

@AaronCovrett

Aaron Covrett’s work is just insane. His 3D artwork is so detailed, so realistic, it’s hard to believe it’s not a photo – even after seeing the behind-the-scenes shots he shares on his Twitter. The only word I can summon when I see a new project from Aaron is, “damn.”

Follow @AaronCovrett →

What I love most about artists on Twitter: They are focused on the work. Artists seem to be on Twitter mostly to inspire and be inspired, nothing more. Scrolling through artists' tweets makes me want to create and ship my own work, which is all I could ever ask from social media. A big thank you to #portfolioday for making their work more visible and accessible.

January 22, 2020No Comments

The quiet evolution of social signaling

Signaling our social status isn’t so much about the brand names we wear anymore. It’s about the content we post and the way we interact on social media.

On the surface, we signal through the articles we share from the New Yorker, the incisive Twitter threads we write about our favorite Oscar-nominated films, the Instagram posts of that immersive art exhibit we visited last weekend. But it has become more nuanced than that.

The design of social media platforms has evolved over the years to maximize engagement. And with each design update, we socially evolve with it.

On Instagram, we see who of our friends liked the post in our feed, presumably because we are more inclined to like it if someone we respect already did. We may reserve our like if we don’t want others to see it, or purposefully like if we want to align ourselves with that content.

On Twitter, a large percentage of our timeline is tweets other people liked from accounts we don’t follow. So we thoughtfully hand out or reserve our little hearts, highly conscious of the fact that our followers will see them. We might have appreciated that stupid meme, but don’t want to broadcast that to our timeline.

Depending on how and when we tag someone in our Tweet, it has different meanings. We might tag a celebrity for a chance to get a like or retweet. We might start our Tweet with a period if we want to publicly shame them.

We have learned to use micro-interactions to our social advantage. A thumbs up carries a multitude of meanings. The lack of one even more.

How do these tiny social signals influence who we are online and offline? How do they shape our conversations, our interests, our taste? If this exchange were happening in private, would it go differently? Are we performing for our audience or being our sincere selves?

As the design of these platforms continues to evolve, so will our social behaviors. Small, seemingly insignificant updates that change how we see ourselves and present ourselves to others. The goal is engagement. The result is a micro-language and social system, one we all silently accept and cement as we tap fingers to phones.

January 21, 2020No Comments

Noah Kalina took a picture of himself every day for 20 years – and will until he dies

It started as a side project. Back in 2000, Brooklyn-based photographer, Noah Kalina, decided he would take a photo of himself every day.

Six years later, he compiled the thousands of pictures into a timelapse video and shared it on YouTube. The video promptly blew up the internet.

On January 11, 2020, two decades after he first started the project, Kalina updated the video and went viral again. The 8-minute piece, set to a somber piano score, tells a story as backgrounds change and Kalina ages in seconds, all while his eyes remain fixed on the viewer. It is intimate and unsettling in a way you can't quite put your finger on, like intruding on something you weren't meant to see.

And he plans to continue the project forever.

Here we talk with Kalina about what motivated to commit to this never-ending side project, the unexpected effects of going viral and the difference between selfies and self-portraits.

You were taking selfies long before we had the term “selfies.” Why did you decide to do this at the beginning? What sparked the idea back in January 2000?

It was a few things…

The first time I saw a digital camera I was completely enamored by it. This was 1999 and I was shooting film and walking to the photo lab to develop color film. The promise that I could skip those steps and shoot an unlimited amount of photographs was just so perfect. I already had a computer and was messing around with Photoshop (5.0). I knew I had to get a digital camera. I ended up with a Sony DCR PC100. It was actually more of a video camera (that was okay, I liked making silly videos with friends) but it shot stills (640x480!) onto a 16mb memory stick and that was good enough for me. I honestly had no idea what a megapixel even was.

I have a memory of sitting in my dorm room at college and looking at snapshots of myself in high school. I remember wondering, when did this physical change take place? It doesn’t feel like I changed that much but from 16-19, it was obviously very drastic. I looked at this new digital camera that I had, which happened to have a flip screen so I could see myself, and I was like, I am going to photograph myself, every day… forever.

Lastly and possibly most importantly, when I was 15 I saw the film Smoke written by Paul Auster and Directed by Wayne Wang. The scene where Auggie shows Paul his photo album. This is me and you right now:

Social media & smartphones have allowed us to capture the ephemeral and remember moments we would have forgotten otherwise – the mundane, day-to-day stuff we didn’t photograph before.

You’ve essentially been doing that for 20 years. Have these photos served as a diary of sorts for you? Can you remember taking most of them or do they bring specific memories to mind?

I can basically look at any shot in this project and know exactly where I was. Certain photos provide details and I can recall who I was with or what I was up to. It’s the perfect diary for me since I’ve never really enjoyed writing.

I sometimes think about the kids raised in a social media world from the start. Every move they make is documented online, from the moment their parents post their naked baby photos on Instagram. What effect do you think this will have on us, either positive or negative?

Oh man. Good luck, kids! I have no idea. The stuff my friends and I did in high school and college was super embarrassing. Do you remember JNCO jeans? I wore those. I am so happy none of that exists online. But maybe this is all so normal now it’s accepted. I have no idea. I don’t really think much about them as I am too busy trying to work out my own psychological issues.

"I think it forces people to confront their own mortality. We all know how this ultimately ends."

It seems we look back on pictures of our younger selves with more empathy than we felt in the moment the picture was taken. We have perspective with age. The flaws we saw in ourselves before seem minor now. We know how that thing we were worried about worked out in the end. Has this project changed the way you see yourself in any way over the past 20 years?

I honestly think I am mostly the same person just with a little more experience. I really thought I’d grow out of all of my insecurities but they are still there. When I look at this project I mostly am critiquing myself from a physical perspective. I don’t know what I was thinking when I cut my hair short. And some of my interior design choices have been suspect. That said, I am always trying to do the best I can!

When I look past the surface stuff and shed my insecurities I do feel proud of that guy. He’s doing what he always wanted to do.

People describe the new video as “haunting” and “stirring” and “heavy.” What do you think it is about the video that gets this response? Did you expect this reaction?

The most interesting thing about this project is when I first published the still photographs on a website (around 2002) people HATED it. Nobody understood it. I’d say 90% of the feedback was negative. I’d get emails telling me that I was a narcissistic asshole.

Once it turned into a time-lapse, the reaction completely flipped. I suppose it was easier to see what was going on. People definitely respond to the dedication. I also think it forces people to confront their own mortality. We all know how this ultimately ends.

Many creatives (especially designers, it seems) do daily challenges, for example designing a poster a day or doing one new illustration every day. Very few of us follow through past a week or so. But you did. What’s the secret to staying committed to a daily ritual or side project? And why should we?

I think it’s best to start these projects and never tell anyone. That way you can fail in private. I start way too many projects that I immediately jinx by telling people about them too early on.

Early on with “Everyday," I remember justifying this project to myself by saying it was just “practice.” I always wanted to be a photographer and I knew the best way to get better at something was to do it every day. I would take at least one photo every day, even if it was just my face. I wasn’t trying to make good photographs of myself. I never really properly lit myself or tried to flatter myself. I just clicked a shutter, but for some reason it felt like it was helping. And maybe it actually was.

I highly recommend long-term daily projects. I love when people do 365 photo projects. I think you just need to make it easy on yourself and hopefully fun. My time commitment to this project is less than a minute a day and maybe 20 minutes once a month to archive it (totally not fun).

This isn’t the first time you’ve gone viral. The benefits are obvious, but I’m guessing there are relative downsides too, trolls being the first that comes to mind (although every YouTube comment I’ve seen on your videos is uncharacteristically positive). Are there any negatives to being a viral sensation?

Going viral is a blessing and a curse. The attention is nice and flattering and I love how it brings attention to all of my work, but it’s very distracting. Even though this is the third time now, I am still up all night reading emails and comments (I know this is unhealthy but I can’t help myself).

That said, the internet has changed so much, more so from 2012 to 2020 than how it was from 2006 to 2012. There is so much “content” now, I feel like this current wave is much smaller and less intense even though the project is bigger than it has ever been.

Some might consider the selfies we all take and share today self-indulgent/absorbed or shallow. Others might argue they are a form of expression or self-actualization. What do you think?

As we know, the term “selfie” didn’t exist when I started this project. It is and will always be a “self-portrait” to me. I actually find the term “selfie” flippant. And most “selfies” are. If you’re just posting photos of yourself so people think you are cool or attractive and are searching for likes, it’s absolutely shallow and self-indulgent.

That said, I don’t want to tell anyone what they should or shouldn’t do. If taking a photo of yourself with an outstretched arm and then immediately posting it on Instagram brings you joy, go for it.

Back in 2007, you attended an exhibit titled “We’re All Photographers Now,” which illustrated how technology has made photography more accessible to everyone. It’s been more than a decade since then and that has only become more true. As a professional, how do you feel about this? Do you think it’s hurt or undercut the work of professional photographers?

I was an early digital photo/camera adopter and I started my career photographing for websites and making a living (sort of) doing it. I have no doubt the older photographers looked down at me thinking I was destroying the profession. Now I’m the older photographer looking at what the kids are doing and I’m like, these kids are destroying what I thought I destroyed!

"I think our best bet is to just keep trying to make things that interest and fulfill us. And really keep our mouths shut and let the work do the talking."

Some questioned the artistic merits of projects like this, implying the ease with which you can make them or the self-focused nature disqualifies them as art. Your project challenged that old-school notion.

When apps and technology allow us to make all kinds of things in just seconds (think: TikTok videos, Instagram stories, the 1 Second Everyday app) what, in your opinion, qualifies something we produce as “art?”

I’m not all that interested in the debate over what is and what isn’t art. Some of the people making “content” for these platforms are insanely talented. They are certainly entertaining. Performance is art. Comedy is art. Lip dubbing is… well I don’t know. But some of these people are amazing lip dubbers. The creativity is wondrous.

I think really good art is often rooted in concept and intent. But it doesn’t have to be. I know a lot of people who are incredible craftspeople who I think are incredible artists but they would never consider themselves such. A guy built a deck for me on my house last year and I was like, “Dude you’re a damn artist,” but he just dismissed the suggestion. His work took skill and craft and dedication but never in a million years would he consider himself an artist.

We all approach the concept of art differently. It’s obviously very complicated. I am just going to leave the final decision to the art historians. I think our best bet is to just keep trying to make things that interest and fulfill us. And really keep our mouths shut and let the work do the talking. Nothing ruins good art more than the artist trying to explain it.

Last question: Your hair has remained consistently fantastic over the last 20 years. What’s your secret?

I am flattered you think so since you are my beard idol. Honestly, I don’t do anything special. I shower every other day and I only shampoo my hair once or twice a month. Just like the little kid who started taking a photo of himself 20 years ago, I am still a dirtbag.

January 20, 2020No Comments

The misunderstanding of UX design

I've written about this before, either passively in older articles or scattered across Twitter in tweets with obvious subtext. But before we dig into it, let's have a look at what UX design is.

UX design has become trendy only within the past five or so years. Compared to other professions (even within the design industry), it's a very new term. Over the last 2-3 years, UX design has likely drawn more interest than any other area of design.

Everyone wants to be a UX designer and every company wants to hire one. But few know what it means and if they need a UX designer – or if they already have one. Like most trends, there is a lot of talk with little clarity.

According to Wikipedia, UX design is defined as "the process of manipulating user behavior through usability, accessibility, and desirability provided in the interaction with a product."

But how can it be that UX design and its responsibilities gained so much importance within such a short amount of time? Does it mean that previously, before we coined the term "UX design," we didn't care so much about things like usability or desirability? Have we just now discovered the magic of manipulating user behavior?

If we put our ego aside and be honest with ourselves, none of this is new to design as a whole. UX design simply rebrands certain parts of the general designer's job. This leads to two points of confusion:

1. Newcomers to the design industry are often confused about the responsibilities of UX designers. The difference between this role and other superficially created counterparts (it appears we invent a new title every other week) is unclear.

2. UX designers seem to be incredibly sensitive and protective of their field. This is likely because it's still a young term, and they feel a certain responsibility to own and advocate for it. It may also be due to friction with other, more traditional senior designers who haven't jumped on the UX train yet – even though that's what they practice.

"Design is the tool we use to influence our user or audience to believe and act on our message. Everything we do as designers seeks to manipulate our users, one way or another."

So what's the difference between a regular designer and UX designer?

In theory, there should be no difference. In reality, we've created a difference. We started breaking up the responsibilities of the designer as our industry has grown into one of the most lucrative fields to work in right now.

If you look at the definition of UX design, it is the exact same definition you could give any designer's work, regardless of their area of focus. Design at its core is communication. And communication design involves using long-established tools of graphic design and copywriting (which are deeply rooted in psychology) to manipulate user behavior.

We manipulate user behavior for a number of reasons. And yes, the word "manipulation" has a negative connotation. But in truth, all we do as designers is manipulation to some degree. Design does not exist for the sake of it, like art. We have a goal when we design: We want someone to use our app in a certain way. We want the user to buy a certain product, to feel a certain way, to vote a certain way, whatever it might be.

It's one of the reasons I believe you can't separate UX design from "visual design" or any other type of design for that matter. Design is the tool we use to influence our user or audience to believe and act on our message. Everything we do as designers seeks to manipulate our users, one way or another.

For example, we know good typography improves readability. Good typography dictates hierarchy through layout and composition, informing the user of what's important and what's not. Good typography conveys and even guides emotion through individual letterforms. In the same way color, layout, composition or writing play a role, good typography is a central part of influencing user behavior.

A designer, when tasked with developing a way-finding system for an airport, may be concerned about making it look great. But they're as much concerned about making it work. After all, a way-finding system is designed to help airport visitors get to their destination as quickly as possible. It's about manipulating the user to achieve a specific goal.

"If I am unconcerned about the user experience and purely focused on the visual aspects without relationship to how it works, I am more likely an artist than a designer."

Art is open to interpretation. Design is not. Design, by definition, must be usable, understandable and actionable. If I am unconcerned about the user experience and purely focused on the visual aspects without relationship to how it works, I am more likely an artist than a designer. And if I'm a UX designer who's blind to how the long-established tools of graphic design can influence user behavior, I might be just a bad UX designer.

Any work we do as "designers" is done intentionally to achieve a particular goal. By that definition, UX design and design overall are the same. UX designers cannot ignore the "design" part of their work. If they do, we might as well just call them user researchers.

Should an architect who designs a house be concerned about the usability of the house? Or should they just focus on making it visually pleasing? A good architect considers both. They will design a house that's visually attractive, but also practical and enjoyable for those living in it. An architect who only focuses on the blueprint and doesn't care about making the house a joy to live in, or isn't the slightest concerned about the feasibility of the construction, is likely a bad architect or closer to an artist.

The chef who cooks delicious food but fails to make it look healthy or attractive will probably not see the success of one who does it both. As we say in German, "Das auge isst mit" – which roughly translates to, "what looks good tastes good."

What does this mean for newcomers entering the field of UX design?

It means: Don't let yourself get confused by the terms and the hype.

It means: Focus on becoming a great designer, which automatically includes all responsibilities of a UX designer.

Terms and buzzwords are part of the natural progression and maturity of any industry. Sometimes, we create them to make our work feel more important (which is reasonable for a field that struggles with subjectivity), and sometimes to create a gate-keeping system to fend off outsiders and self-regulate the community. Sometimes, we don't know what we're talking about ourselves. It's natural human behavior, but it shouldn't stop you from pursuing your own clarity.

And if you've already been working in the industry as a successful designer for many years, you might as well just call yourself a UX designer. That's what clients are asking for right now, so why not? In the end, you're the same person, just with a new hat.

January 18, 2020No Comments

Why are strangers more excited about your idea than your own friends?

Have you ever noticed strangers are more receptive and excited about your ideas than your own family or friends? Maybe you feel like you have to pitch harder to your close circles than anyone else, or that your close friends don't take you seriously enough.

I'm not trying to be dramatic here. But chances are your family or close friends might not be as excited as you about your new business or art project. The closer they are to you, the more likely this rings true.

Of course, there are exceptions. If you are one, lucky you. If you're not the exception, that doesn't mean you have bad friends or a bad family.

I rarely quote from the Bible, but this is too fitting: "No prophet is accepted in his home town."

People closest to you tend to be those you've known the longest. The longer they've known you, the more they know about you. Your strengths, weaknesses and shortcomings. They've seen you grow and have formed a specific image of you in their heads. That perception is based on who you are but also on their own insecurities, which is a natural human thing to do. We all form our judgments this way.

When you suddenly become "a prophet," they may have difficulty honoring or respecting this radical change. It doesn't match up with the picture in their heads. "I've known little Timmy since he pooped his pants. He's a prophet now? That's so cute!"

For little Timmy to become Prophet Tim, he has to abandon his nest and leave town. Far away where his words and ideas will be taken seriously and he won't be little Timmy anymore.

"Eventually, we become drowned in love, unable to define ourselves and pursue our own ideas."

While you and I might not aim to be a modern prophet, the same concept applies to who we are and who we want to be. Your friends and family might support you emotionally (after all, they love you) but they may not be the first to contribute to your Kickstarter. They might think this is another fleeting hobby.

Subconsciously, this dynamic is destructive to our future self. Our family and close friends are our most important assets. We love them and we seek their approval. Yet at the same time, we know they might be held back by their own unfulfilled dreams, worries or simply just protective feelings toward us.

But while we keep seeking their approval, we're entering a destructive circle. We never feel good enough and our own insecurities grow by the day. Eventually, we become drowned in love, unable to define ourselves and pursue our own ideas.

It's the reason why people often say, "If you want a promotion, quit your job." If you started somewhere as an intern, you'll be the intern forever. Of course, there are exceptions, but there is some truth behind it.

It's the reason why some people reach their full potential once they move to a new city, away from their loved ones. Or why some musicians become wildly popular in a country that isn't their own.

Once we redefine ourselves, we may also suddenly get recognized by those we tried so hard to convince years earlier.

I suppose I'm writing this is for one reason: Don't try so hard to get your family & close friends excited about your project. They'll support you with the capacity that is available to them. Take anything you can get, but don't expect anything more. Their love might not manifest itself in being the first supporter of your new business venture, but they might be the 100th customer.

Once they recognize your new self, they'll be your biggest fan.

January 16, 2020No Comments

A simple portfolio hack

Chances are, you’re avoiding your portfolio. You probably know a friend avoiding their portfolio too.

Is your friend a photographer? They could take your headshot or pictures of your projects while you design their business cards.

Is your friend a writer? They could edit your case studies while you build their website.

Is your friend a developer? Trade them a beautiful portfolio design for a custom-coded animation for yours.

Ask your filmmaker friend to create a video of that exhibition you designed. You could design their logo.

Ask your most talented friends to contribute their skill to your site, and contribute yours in return. It’s not cheating to barter for the parts you find daunting or the areas where you lack expertise. It makes both of your sites better and most importantly, makes your sites finished.

And the work you and your friend did for each other? It’s the newest case study in your portfolio.

January 15, 2020No Comments

Designers vs. project managers

If you’ve ever worked in an agency, you’ve been on one side or the other: The creative side or the accounts/project management side. And by side, I mean both structurally and physically. Oftentimes, the two departments sit at separate ends of an office or even different floors. Unfortunately, the separation can become a mental one as well.

Like any social system where groups of people are separated, it’s easy to think of the group outside your own as “other.” This is escalated in an agency setting, where neither side may fully understand or appreciate the other’s job.

The designer becomes frustrated because the project manager is Slacking them yet again to do a last-minute task, on top of all their other looming deadlines. The project manager is frustrated because they asked the designer to do this task already, two weeks ago.

Resentments can build fast, the two groups somehow becoming opposing sides rather than two parts of the same team. The creative side decides managers are stressful and unnecessarily frantic. The accounts side decides creatives are divas who have to be “handled” or tiptoed around.

In an ideal scenario, these teams allow each other to do their best work. But if you’ve worked in any agency (perhaps with the exception of very small, 4-5 person studios), you know the ideal is not always the reality.

I can speak better to the “creative side,” so I will. As a designer, we often work more closely with project and account managers than we do with other designers. They are part of every workday and every project. And so it benefits us to work well with them for two reasons: 1. Because it will make our day-to-day more pleasant, and theirs 2. Because it will make our work better.

And here I will state a truth you might not want to hear: working better with account and project managers doesn’t only require better collaboration skills. It requires being better at project management yourself. Here’s how to do both.

1. Anticipate your project manager’s questions

You know your project manager is going to have questions for you, probably from the moment you walk in the door in the morning. It’s their job. Make it your job to anticipate what those questions may be, and answer them before your project manager has a chance to ask you.

This simple effort immediately makes you better at your own work. You start thinking ahead and noticing little details you might have overlooked before. You become a better communicator because you’re proactively reaching out instead of dodging messages and emails. You assure your team you are thinking of the full picture, so they trust you more. This, in turn, helps you sell your work internally and allow the PM/AM to become your greatest advocate to your client.

2. Communicate your progress daily, or more

Your project manager shouldn’t wonder where you are on a task at any given moment. If you’re plugging way on it and making good time, leaving them out of the loop creates unnecessary panic. If you’re behind, you can circumvent the panic by proactively communicating.

Better communication requires sending one only message at the end of each day. My team calls it the Daily Status Update, and we preach it often. Simply send an email listing what you got done (with links to WIPs, if you have them), what you plan to do tomorrow and what you’re stuck on. That’s it. (Unless you're on a tight timeline, in which case midday check-ins are always helpful.)

Your Daily Status Update should take five minutes at the end of each day and will save you countless hours of standup meetings, damage control meetings, emails and Slack messages. Daily communication lets your project manager know you’re aware of the deadline and doing your best to meet it. It allows them to give the client a heads up and spare their anxiety too (which is what usually causes PM anxiety – it’s a chain that leads back to you.) It also allows your PM to reroute you before you get started for the day, if needed, rather than interrupting your focus halfway through.

You might already get a task list each morning from your project coordinator. It doesn’t matter. Send your update anyway. It will keep you accountable and the effects will trickle down all the way to the client and back to you.

3. Overcome your aversion to “being managed”

Most designers hate the idea of being managed, especially if you’re coming from an independent position. But that’s just our egos talking. The best of the best artists, CEOs, founders, entertainers and more have managers. Why? Because it allows them to focus on what they do best.

Your project manager is by no means your assistant, but they will make your life easier if you let them. Rather than putting them on the opposing side in your head, consider them your ally. Visit their desk now and then to catch up, especially if you’re sitting on opposite sides of the office. Strive to learn how they work and think so you can find the best way to “customize” your working relationship. Find a system together that works well for both of you, even if that’s not how you do it with other project managers.

The ultimate goal is to feel like you and your project manager are a dynamic duo. You can read each other’s minds and anticipate each other’s needs. You’ve hacked the system to make both of your jobs easier and more enjoyable. You are mutually using each other to your own advantage.

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The best account/project management relationships I've had were in very small, 4-5 person studios. Why? Because everyone was wholeheartedly on the same team. They didn’t consider the other department, “other.” They weren’t sitting in different parts of the office, they were cramped in one room basically sitting in each other’s laps. They chose each other and knew they needed each other.

The best project managers I know also have something in common with the best designers I know: they are diligent and proactive. To work better with a project manager, seek to be a better project manager yourself. It will make you a better designer too.

January 10, 2020No Comments

Semplice 5 is here

When we created Semplice in 2014, we didn't call it Semplice 1. It was our first and only portfolio product. There was nothing to compare it to. Little did we know, we would soon have a strong community allowing Semplice to become better and better.

This month, we officially released Semplice 5. The team spent almost a year working on new features and we couldn’t be more proud of the final product. (Thank you to our beta testers who made it our smoothest launch ever.)

Every decision behind Semplice 5 was made to not only help you create your best portfolio, but allow you to enjoy the building experience more as well.

We added Master Blocks to help you build more efficiently, as well as 58 new Block layouts.

We created a night mode for those like ourselves who prefer late night work sessions.

We made tons of tiny refinements and streamlined the Semplice interface to make it more intuitive.

We created new transitions, new grids, new cover effects, modules and more that help you showcase your work in different, beautiful ways.

And we introduced Club, a subscription option for the hardcore Semplice supporters who prefer it. (For those who don’t, you can still pay once, just like before.)

See all the new Semplice 5 features right here

Thank you, as always, for supporting our little independent business. We didn’t know what to expect when we launched Semplice five years ago. We are grateful and happy to say it just keeps getting better.

January 6, 2020No Comments

“You’re using the wrong design tool”

Designers love to argue about design tools.

Some like to treat it as their religion, as if their design tools are the only thing that gives them meaning. Perhaps it's classic tribal behavior, similar to the Apple vs. Microsoft debate, a way to be part of a group. Only in this case, it's paralyzing our craft.

In reality, none of this matters.

The reason I'm writing this isn't to join the debate, but to help newcomers enjoy a smoother start in our walled-in design community. We're making it harder for new designers to enter by artificially complicating our own practice.

Zooming out, trying to see all this as an outsider, the design community is a big, confusing cluster fuck.

It is rather simple: The tools you use don't matter as long as you are able to complete your work. The only exception is when working with a team. Only then does your choice of tools matter, as they guarantee harmony and efficiency within your team. (This may also apply in a larger sense. If one tool has market dominance, it may be beneficial for you to know it, even if you prefer others for personal use).

Every tool comes with its own upsides and downsides, but most of them are increasingly the same. They mostly differ in workflow. But I can promise you, they all draw rectangles equally as well.

If you work on your own, pick the tool that works best for YOU. If you work in a team, pick the tool that works best for the team, and every team is different.

Most importantly: Don't let your productivity, dreams or aspirations as a designer get influenced by the software you use. They're only a tiny part of your job.

Use your tools, but don't let your tools use you.

January 2, 2020No Comments

Semplice vs. Carbonmade

After announcing last week that I'm now partner & co-CEO  at Carbonmade, I've received a lot of questions about the difference between Carbonmade and Semplice. I'd love to answer them right here.

Ultimately, both products are great at what they do (otherwise I wouldn't work on them) but they have slightly different use cases and it depends a lot on what you want to achieve with them.

As I mentioned in my original Carbonmmade announcement, I see both Semplice and Carbonmade on a spectrum. Someone might be using both, or starts with one tool and then eventually switches to the other for different reasons. But let's look at the main differences between them.

Self-hosted vs. hosted

Semplice is self-hosted and based on WordPress. This means you have full control over where your data is and what hosting provider you want to use. Of course, this freedom comes with the additional responsibility of managing this all yourself (and some do love that, I myself do).

Carbonmade is fully hosted on the Carbonmade servers and you cannot install it on your own server. This means we take care of everything for you instead of managing it on your own.

One-time payment vs. subscription

Semplice is a one-time payment product. There is no subscription required since it's license based. Semplice is like software used to be back in the days; you purchase it once and you can use it forever on your own server (or until you decide to purchase an optional update).

Carbonmade runs on a monthly or annual subscription since it also hosts all your files and your work for you.

Advanced vs. easy & fast

Semplice is an advanced site builder system. You start with a blank slate from scratch and you have thousands of options to build your website based on your own design. Semplice is loved by web professionals who want control over every single little detail and spend days, weeks or even months crafting their perfect site. Semplice is used to build many other sites as well, such as studio sites, product landing pages, magazines and much more. While Semplice is designed to be used without knowing how to code, it's ideal to know how to design a website to make it work well for you. It's basically like Photoshop in your browser, but for websites.

Carbonmade is designed to help you build yourself a portfolio as simply and as quickly as possible, in as little as 15 minutes even. There are many things you can do with it, but since it's based on pre-defined blocks you only have a limited amount of styling options available. But it's exactly those presets that make it so fast and easy because you don't need to worry about how it looks on mobile, and it doesn't overwhelm you with 1,000 styling options. Carbonmade helps you build a beautiful, personalized portfolio even if you're not a web designer and just want to show off your beautiful photography or art.

If I want something fully custom and advanced and want to go the extra mile, I use Semplice. For everything else I use Carbonmade, simply because it's so easy to create and maintain.

Access to code vs. no coding

Semplice is based on WordPress and it's also open source. You can build an entire site without knowing a single line of code but if you want to code, you CAN. Semplice supports custom CSS, custom JavaScript and custom HTML injections. On top of it, you have access to hundreds of WordPress plugins and you technically own all the files, which means you can do a lot more with Semplice beyond the features it already has. Many developers or design/dev hybrids love Semplice for that reason.

Carbonmade is designed to get you as far away as possible from any code or technicalities and focuses just on you and your portfolio. You won't be able to add custom code or change the existing source code. Just show off your work without any hassle.

So who are you and what do you want to build?

Both products are great at what they do and might serve you at different times in your career, or depending on the project. Since I personally love building custom sites and I have nothing against the technicalities of it, I use Semplice for my personal site. But when it comes to showing off my photography work for example, I want something fast and simple where I can just drag & drop my huge JPG files in and let it do the rest. That's where I use Carbonmade.

Depending on who you are, your work and where you are in your career, Semplice or Carbonmade will be the perfect fit for you.

More differences:

💛 Semplice is a system lets you build anything from scratch, for the brave.
💜 Carbonmade is based on pre-defined layout blocks, waste no time.

💛 Semplice doesn't touch your images or videos. You optimize it yourself, full control.
💜 Carbonmade optimizes all your videos and images automatically (while keeping the quality).

💛 Semplice connects to Google Analytics and has no analytics built-in.
💜 Carbonmade has basic analytics included.

💛 Semplice is great for portfolios, landing pages, one-pagers, studio websites and other types of websites.
💜 Carbonmade is specifically built for portfolios and showing off your work.

If you're deciding between the two for your site, it may also help to our 5 reasons for using Semplice along with these 5 reasons for using Carbonmade.

We hope this gives you the information you need to decide between the two for your portfolio, but feel free to reach out to @semplicelabs or @carbonmmade on Twitter if you have any questions. We're always happy to talk it through with you, as both companies have this in common: We aim to help you build the best possible site for you and your work.

January 1, 2020No Comments

Monthly portfolio inspiration of December 2019

Once a week, we select two portfolios created with Semplice to feature in our Best Of  Showcase.  Here we've collected our favorites from the month of December.

As the year has been wrapping up for 2019, we've seen more and more top talent creatives choosing Semplice. In December, we featured websites from design studios, photographers, visual designers, film directors and interaction designers. We had a couple non-portfolio sites in there too, including a photography award site.

Browse the best portfolios of the month below to see fresh new work and get inspired for your own site. And if you've created your own portfolio with Semplice, be sure to submit it to our Showcase here. We might feature your site next.

 

To see more great design portfolios, visit the Semplice showcase. I'll be back next month with more of our monthly favorites!

Header image by Geoff Levy

December 29, 2019No Comments

The best of the year

Every year, we review our top articles to help guide our writing for the year to come. Here's what you most enjoyed reading from DESK in 2019.

It’s been a big year for DESK. We launched our partnerships program. We refreshed our site design (and have more updates planned for the coming year). We started writing a book about UX copywriting. We finally launched @thedeskmagazine Twitter handle and continue shaping the voice of this magazine. 

And we published more than a hundred articles. These were your favorites.

 

1. A love letter to my website

Back in the day (not that long ago), having your own website was a point of pride. We could own our little corner of the internet and, with a little HTML & CSS magic, make it whatever we wanted it to be. Today, we simply post our work to external social media sites and design platforms where we have zero ownership – of the presentation, of our privacy, of our own work. This article is an ode to personal websites, and a call for designers to claim their corner of the internet again.

READ MORE →

 

2. What leading companies never want to see in your portfolio

We’ve interviewed dozens of the top creative companies and studios through our How to Get a Job at X series, including Pentagram, Nike, Spotify, Disney and more. And with every interview, we ask this question: “What do you want to see more in designers’ portfolios? What do you wish you never saw again?”

Here we collected their (very honest) answers. 

READ MORE →

3. Junior designers vs. senior designers

The difference between experienced designers and designers early in their career is easy to spot. If you’ve been designing for several years, you might recognize personal growth in some of these areas since you first began. And if you’re just getting started as a designer, these are a few traits to aspire to. 

READ MORE →

 

4. How to make a portfolio when your work can’t be shared

Designers often procrastinate on their portfolio not because they don’t have great work to share, but because they’re not allowed to share it. Depending on the company or nature of your work, you may have signed contracts making it difficult to talk about what you do. It’s still possible, and important, to create a portfolio anyway. Here are some ways to go about it. 

READ MORE →

 

5. The downsides of freelancing

Many designers dream about going freelance for its many touted benefits – a flexible schedule, lack of commute and ownership over the work being some of them. This article looks at the other side of the coin, the not-so-glamorous truths about living the freelance life. 

READ MORE →

 

6. My new secret company

This is a personal one, in which I reveal a product I’ve been quietly working on (one you might already be familiar with) for the better part of 2019. If you’re curious about what I’ve been up to and what I see ahead for my work in 2020, you can catch up here. 

READ MORE →

 

7. How to ask good questions in a magazine interview

If you’ve ever interviewed someone, you know it’s difficult to think of good questions. And if you’ve ever been interviewed, you’ve probably been asked the same, boring “tell me how you got to where you are today” questions over and over again, which rarely prompt scintillating answers. After being on both sides of editorial interviews for the last few years, we've learned how to write questions that make an interview enjoyable for your readers, and the person you're interviewing.

READ MORE →

 

8. Your first 3D design tutorial with Adobe Dimension

My team had almost zero experience designing in 3D before this year. Then we started playing around Adobe Dimension and were so impressed with it (and ourselves) that we reached out to Adobe asking if they wanted to partner with us on a series of tutorials. We’ve heard from dozens of people about this specific tutorial, as it helped designers do the kind of work they previously only admired from afar. 

READ MORE →

 

9. How one tool changed the way we work with clients

We just launched our partnerships program this year and have been honored to work with some of our favorite creative brands and products already. Figma, our team’s current design tool of choice, was one of the first. Here we shared how Figma has allowed us to be better at collaborating with clients and presenting our work. 

READ MORE →

 

10. How to tame a bullshitter

We’ve all known this person at work. The one who speaks Buzzword as a first language. The person who talks in circles until we agree with them just to end the conversation. The one who has the clients nodding and your teammates worshipping at their feet without actually doing much of anything. The one who infuriates and somehow intimidates us because sometimes, we wonder if they might actually be as superior as they think they are.

READ MORE →

 

As always, we aim to be useful. To not put more noise into the world but write articles that motivate you, make you curious or help you get even better at your creative work. What do you want us to write about in 2020? Who should we interview? Do you have a product you think our audience might find useful? Send a tweet to @thedeskmagazine or an email to editorial@vanschneider.com and we'll do our best to make it happen.

December 27, 2019No Comments

Beautiful portfolios built with Carbonmade in 2019

With more downtime and a new year approaching, this is the month finally work on your portfolio. To look back on what you did this year and decide what you want to work on next. So we collected a few fresh sites to inspire you, all launched this year through Carbonmade.com.

The beauty of launching your site is that it's only a starting point. You don't have to make everything perfect because you can always update it later.  You don't need every single project you've ever worked on. Just create a homepage, add a project or two and call it done. The euphoria of finally launching will give you the motivation and momentum to make it better and better.

Here are a few of my favorite Carbonmade portfolios from artists, 3D designers, concept artists and illustrators who launched their site in 2019. Will you be joining them?

Maalavidaa

Alycia Rainaud’s site, titled "Maalavidaa," feels like a journey through multiple dimensions. She uses a variation of grids and sliders to showcase her artwork, a personal project “exploring feelings and life’s complexity through daily abstractions.” Scroll through the neon strokes, bubbles and swirls into infinity, or click to open any image in a lightbox for a closer view.

Daniel Lepik

Daniel Lepik’s masterful product designs range from surreal experiments with light and texture to futuristic technology with soft curves and sharp edges. The full-screen images throughout his site pair perfectly with Carbonmade’s four-corner navigation, making each case study a polished presentation.

Jeez Vanilla

We are clearly big fans of Adriana Bellet’s work. Her editorial illustrations, made under the name Jeez Vanilla, appear throughout the Carbonmmade experience. Check out her site and her delightful About page and you’ll quickly become a fan too. If you spot her illustrations while building your Carbonmade portfolio, be sure to give her a shoutout.

Steve Teeps

Steve Teeps introduces his otherworldly work with a full-screen video reel on his homepage. His case studies take us behind the scenes, breaking down the process of his expansive AR, 3D and concept art projects.

To see more portfolios made with Carbonmade, visit our the Carbonmade Talentpool. And be sure to follow me on Twitter to keep up with the latest Carbonmade features (we're adding more all the time).

December 23, 2019No Comments

The future is here: Our 2020 design trend predictions

The year 2020 is big. We are sending a robot to Mars in 2020. In science fiction works and other media, the year 2020 is the future. If films and novels are accurate, we should either be using hovercraft or witnessing the apocalypse by next year.

In our eagerness to experience the future, we thought we’d take a look at design trends for 2020. Here’s what we see ahead.

Skeuomorphism is back, baby

Designers this far into the future are nostalgic for the good old days, back when people used things like “knobs” and “levers” and couldn’t control everything with a mono-syllabic word uttered to their virtual home assistant. Dig up those Winamp skins from your hard drive because skeuomorphism is officially in again.

Flat design is finally out

In a technologically-advanced world where humans can see in several dimensions, flat design is, well, boring as hell. Minimalism is finally dead for good – at least until 2021 when it’s back again.

"It appears gradients are back every year, and next year is no exception."

Gradients, gradients, gradients

Gradients are back in 2020. They were also back in 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016 and all of the 90s. It appears gradients are back every year, and next year is no exception. Please note that gradients should be drawn at a controversial 52° degree angle in 2020. The reasoning will surely be clear once we enter the next decade.

Two words: Stock photos

In the years leading up to 2020, startups used illustrations to market their product so heavily, we will now see a backlash. Instead, companies are promoting their products with stock photos. Considering the vast technological advancements in 2020, suited folks huddled around "water coolers" and speaking into "Bluetooth headsets" have a refreshingly human warmth about them.

"We looked into our crystal ball and saw UX design is already happening now, so it could also be a big thing in 2020."

Strong opinions about design tools

As you might have predicted yourself, designers will continue to argue about which design tools are better for drawing their rectangles. But in 2020, a new breed of designers will get ahead by opting out of the conversation and designing instead.

Every designer is a UX designer

We looked into our crystal ball and saw UX design is already happening now, so it could also be a big thing in 2020. If you're not already calling yourself a UX designer, this will change in the new year.

Storytelling

A cultural tradition dating back to 700 B.C., storytelling is all the rage is 2020. In 2020 designers will be telling stories, crafting stories and creating impactful stories because storytelling is here to stay probably forever, and especially in 2020.

Also, typefaces

Don't worry. We will still use Helvetica next year.

December 16, 2019No Comments

My new secret company

Building portfolios has been a big part of my life and career for 15+ years now, from the dozens of times I’ve re-designed my own portfolio, to the countless times I reviewed portfolios as a creative director or at events, to the company I run today.

To me, a portfolio is the centerpiece of my work as a creative. It’s where all my projects come together to tell a story. It’s a place for me to reflect on what I’ve done and decide where I want to go in the future. My portfolio is my little home online, one I can fully own and design the way I want, compared to a sea of social networks that force me into their structure.

I ultimately declared my love for design portfolios almost six years ago when co-founding Semplice.com, an advanced portfolio builder and community for like-minded designers.

Since then, helping creatives build their best portfolio has been on my mind every day. We made it our responsibility to not only build the tools, but to also dig a little deeper. We sought to understand why creatives are building a portfolio, what they aim to achieve with it and how we can help them reach their personal goals with it.

We started asking simple questions such as:

Why does someone need a portfolio?

What makes a great copywriter portfolio in comparison to a great illustrator portfolio?

How does a portfolio change over time?

Who are the people reviewing portfolios, and how can we make it easier for them to find what they are looking for?

Does seniority within a field change the way a portfolio is designed?

We quickly learned the vast differences between how creatives approach their portfolio, from art directors to UX designers to creative directors, copywriters, makeup artists, illustrators and architects. There is no one-size-fits-all solution, so we made it our mission to understand everything we could about each industry and build tools that help them reach their goals.

As a result of our learnings, we started sharing portfolio advice on thedeskmagazine.com and poured all of our knowledge into Semplice.com, making it one of the most advanced and loved portfolio systems on the current market. The Semplice community has become known for building beautiful, unique and often highly customized portfolios. Over the years, we learned that the typical Semplice member has a solid foundation for how web design works and enjoys the challenge of building from scratch.

While we kept adding more advanced features and streamlined the platform for our specific power users, we discovered there was demand from another group of creatives. In contrast to the regular Semplice member who loves to own and customize everything possible, these creatives dreamed of having a beautiful portfolio, but without the hassle of technicalities and self-hosting.

For those people, it seemed the only other option was a template. To me, they deserved more than that. So along with my team, we aimed to give them something better.

Introducing Carbonmade.com

You’re now either completely surprised or not surprised at all. But let me explain everything in detail so it makes sense.

I’m happy to announce that I’ve joined Carbonmade as partner and co-CEO, which essentially means I’m fully committed to the vision and product. Together with my partner, Jason (who co-founded Carbonmade and has worked on it since 2005), we spent the past 1.5 years quietly rebuilding the entire portfolio product from scratch. We re-branded the platform and soft-launched it just a few months ago.

It’s been a humbling (and rather sleepless) experience combining our knowledge to build this new platform, and I have to admit I’m quite proud of what we’ve done so far. And as always, this is just the beginning.

Carbonmade.com is the answer to where I left off above. It’s a fully hosted portfolio and media platform to build a personalized website, literally within minutes. It’s for those who want to get a site up as fast as possible without worrying much about technicalities, or settling for a one-size-fits-all template.

We built the new Carbonmade 4 specifically for photographers, motion designers, graphic designers, illustrators, makeup artists, architects, copywriters, concept artists – any and all creatives. There is no lengthy set-up. You just sign up within a couple seconds, drag & drop some work and when you’re ready to go live, you go live.

But before this turns into me writing how amazing Carbonmade is, you might just try it yourself. You can expect me writing about it much more in the future, consider this the intro.

So how does this new venture affect Semplice?

I’d be lying to you if I’d say it doesn’t affect Semplice, because it does. The good news is, it affects it in the best way possible as it helps us sharpen the mission for both companies even more.

Both Semplice and Carbonmade share a common vision yet differentiate themselves through mission and execution. They’re both products that live on a spectrum rather than opposing sides.

We will focus on making Semplice the most powerful and advanced portfolio platform, ensuring it’s the select tool for those who push it to the limits with customizations and unique layouts.

At the same time, we’ll make Carbonmade the most accessible and easy-to-use portfolio platform, enabling many more creatives to build a beautiful portfolio and get hired without the need to code or be technically literate.

I will personally continue to work on both products equally as I’ve done over the past 1.5 years, and I’m more than excited about what’s to come.

December 11, 2019Comments are off for this post.

Portfolios with exemplary case studies

Case studies are the heart of a portfolio. It's where you have the chance to put your work in its best light and tell the story as you intended it to be told.

My team at Semplice.com has spent a lot of time thinking about what makes a great case study. While there's no single correct way to do it, we have found what works and doesn't work. For example: Dumping images on the page or writing Dickens-length prose does not work. Writing scannable case studies in your own voice does. We've shared our best tips in this guide for writing case studies, which makes the process a lot less daunting. Now we thought we'd show you how it looks in practice.

Diego Gallego

Diego Gaellgo's case studies are a nice reference for case study length and scannability. Instead of throwing a huge paragraph of text at us, he breaks it up between relevant images. This is not only more enjoyable to read but tells us a more compelling story.

If you’re feeling stuck or intimidated by your case studies, take this approach. Start by simply captioning your images (or the images you plan to have, if you don't have photos yet). We only need a sentence or two for each phase or element of your project, anyway. This will naturally shape your story and make the writing process easier.

Noemie Le Coz

Noemie Le Coz's case studies are laid out like magazine features and read like an editorial review.

Noemie Le Coz's case studies get a lot of things right. The crisp imagery, the scannable content, the editorial layout. But what we most appreciate is how they read like a critic’s review. Take her identity project for Billie, in which she writes:

“As an inclusive, body-positive brand that supports female empowerment, the identity takes a stand with bold character, inspired by the spirit and confidence of 90's feminism.”

This is a helpful approach if you’re struggling to describe your own work to outsiders. Try writing as if you’re reviewing someone else’s project. This allows you to view your work from a distance and analyze it without overthinking.

Charlie Jennings

Charlie Jennings created a case study layout that outlines important details right from the start: The client, the team, his role, and the type of work. This provides helpful context as we begin reading and allows him to write more succinctly.

When reading your case studies, we shouldn't be left wondering what part you played in the project. Always give credit and explain your role so potential clients or employers can understand where you'd fit into their team.

Nuno Leites

We always preach that your case studies should be written in your own voice. Trying to impress with buzzwords and insider language will only distance your reader, and copy & pasting content from marketing materials comes across as stiff and lazy.

Read any of Nuno Leites’s case studies and his voice comes through loud and clear. He’s not afraid to joke around, insert snarky asides and speak in a lighthearted way about his work. While you may want to be a little less casual depending on your goals, the point is to show personality. We get a real sense of who Leites is when reading his case studies, which makes him memorable.

For more portfolio tips, read these articles. Or read this guide we created to creating case studies the Semplice way. We hope it helps you finally finish your case studies and launch your site.

December 10, 2019No Comments

Why we mute or block

I used to never mute or block anyone on social media. I always felt that I could take everything, sort through it and have a constructive conversation with anyone who comes my way. But recently, I changed my view on the subject.

I grew up during the early days of the internet, participating in chatrooms, IRC channels and the nerdiest forums you can imagine. The only people online at that time were other nerds, people different yet similar to me.

The internet in the late 90s and early 2000s felt small. Especially within gaming or design communities, you knew almost everyone in it. The community was simply based on the fact that you were online and the other person too, and that was special in itself.

In those days, there was a mutual understanding. We were a family, people who had been outcasts and enjoyed the freedom and weirdness of the internet. It felt like an escape from the pressure and norms of real-life expectations. At the same time, it could be a weirdly hostile place with trolls lurking behind every corner. The separation from "real life" gave people a sense of power. They could hide behind their anonymity and say whatever they wanted.

Yet it was manageable. The same thing that allowed trolls to exist allowed you to keep them at a distance. Your avatar was not you, your nickname wasn't you and you felt somewhat removed from it, emotionally. Trolls were not attacking YOU but your anonymous avatar. They could be easily ignored because they were faceless, and so were you. At the end of the day, I could just turn off my computer and have my real life back, my anonymous avatar sleeping until I log back in again. The internet wasn't following me around, and rarely was there anything truly personal happening there. Someone online couldn't comment on integral parts of my identity because they didn't have the information to do so.

"Now with social media so deeply connected to our minds and identities, other people have unlimited access to our subconscious. They can intrude without our clear permission."

The internet has changed drastically since then. Now millions more have access to the internet, and it isn't my fellow nerdy outcasts but people significantly different than me — some friendly and curious, and some quite the opposite.

At the same time, our real lives and online avatars merged into one. Today, I'm expected to be the same person online as I am offline. We use our real, full names online and preferably a real profile photo. Who we are online and offline is slowly becoming the same thing, at least from an emotional standpoint. I can't just simply turn off the computer to escape.

The internet is now following me around everywhere I go. (I feel particularly bad for school kids because I remember being bullied in school but at least I was at peace at home, which today is not the case anymore.) As a result, I'm constantly bombarded by signals or inputs that are completely out of my control. Inputs that challenge my emotional stability and distract me from what's important.

"Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind." Ralph Waldo Emerson

Now with social media so deeply connected to our minds and identities, other people have unlimited access to our subconscious. They can intrude without our clear permission and we're left sorting through information we didn't necessarily ask for.

I used to think that I could manage all that. That I could, through sheer willpower, sort through and withstand inputs that I had no control over. But I ultimately came to the conclusion that this is not how I approach it in real life, and for a good reason.

In our real lives, we try to surround ourselves with people who we enjoy. If there is a toxic group of people or one particular person who always drags you down, you simply avoid meeting up with that person anymore. You put them on "mute" by distancing yourself from them, or you "block" them by ending the relationship entirely. You don't want to give this permission to mess with your well-being, so you create a barrier.

What I learned over the past few years is that I need to apply the same online. I never liked muting or blocking people online because it felt as if I was punishing them or hiding from constructive input in my life. Only later I understood that this isn't about punishment, and it certainly wasn't constructive. This is about protecting my sanity in an environment that I do not have under control over, in a community of people who don't know me well enough to provide productive input. Muting or blocking people online is the equivalent of *not hanging out* with certain people offline. And that's totally fine.

I learned that it is absolutely okay to use the tools we have online to make sure we're protecting ourselves. With billions of people connected around the globe, you don't need to give everyone equal permission to your mind. Just like you would offline, you need to thoughtfully choose who you surround yourself with, what you let in and what to keep out.

December 6, 2019No Comments

How to stay motivated when you’re spread thin

With this series, I am attempting to answer questions from readers asking for design advice. I can’t promise I know the right answer, but I’ll always do my best to be honest and share the most practical information I know.

This question interestingly relates to the first one. It seems as designers, we are prone to losing motivation for a number of reasons. I know I can relate:

 

Hi Tobias,

UI & UX designer here. I have been a by-standing reader for a year now. Finally, I got the courage to write about "a problem" that has been bugging me.

The problem I am facing is how to spread my excitement and hype between multiple projects at the same time.

Once I start reading a specification, or meet a client and start to put the first lines of design on screen, I always feel this excitement and ideas / visions of what the project could become. I'm hyped to work on the project. Before finishing this project, I meet the next client. I start to lay down the first designs for the new project while still working on the first one, and my excitement kind of shifts and my mind is overwhelmed with the new project. It's like I almost don't want to work on first project anymore.

It's a cycle where the more projects I work on at the same time, the less projects I care about in the long run. Only the most recent one excites me. It always leaves me with this empty feeling inside that I could have done something better.

Have a nice weekend,
T

 

I am always working on at least 3-4 projects at the same time. Right now, among other projects, I am running Semplice and building an entirely new product at the same time. I’ll admit, the new product has consumed me at times. Ideally, I would be able to devote equal time to both projects and teams consistently. Ideally, I would be equally excited about both projects at all times. But the ideal scenario is rarely the reality.

I saw a comic somewhere depicting the typical agency project with a graph that measures excitement level. At the beginning of the project, excitement is off the charts. In the next phase, it drops a little. It spikes here and there, then plunges abysmally low before launch and spikes again right after. This is typical enough that someone decided it was worth making a comic about. It happens enough that people see this comic, laugh and share it. We’re not the only people who feel like this.

"Don’t feel guilty about the ebbs and flows. Take advantage of them."

My excitement level or interest in a project fluctuates depending on my day and my mood. If I can afford to, I follow that excitement. If I’m in a good flow with a particular project and I’m feeling inspired, I don’t question it. I run with it and don’t stop until I have to. I create my best work in this state of mind and I imagine most others do too. I might still break to answer a few emails or put in an hour or two of necessary work if I need to. I might even bounce back and forth between the two projects from hour to hour if that’s what I’m drawn to do. My point is: Don’t feel guilty about the ebbs and flows. Take advantage of them.

In fact, this is one of my best strategies to stay productive. I choose to work on many projects at the same time, adding a bit of pressure and allowing me to “procrastinate” by jumping between equally important work. If I’m feeling stuck or just unmotivated about one project, I will move on to the next one. Instead of procrastinating by checking emails or watching TV, I procrastinate by working toward other project deadlines. The constant shift in focus keeps things fresh for me, helping me avoid that burnout feeling on one particular project. And it only works if you have lots of projects to do at the same time.

If that strategy doesn’t work for you, perhaps you need to be more strategic about the projects you work on and when. Of course, we have to consider the bills and we can’t always control the timing of new projects, but with experience and some long-term planning, you can eventually make it work better for you. If you can afford it, start by seeking one larger project that will cover what two or three projects would normally make you. See if you can arrange projects and schedules so that you have a full two or three weeks to focus on a singular project, or maybe even a month. I realize we can’t always afford to be selective, but by setting expectations with our clients from the beginning, we can gain a little more control over our project schedules and arrange them in a way that makes sense for our workflow.

"Naturally, deadlines don’t change with our moods. There are times we just need to buck up and do the work. And often, once we begin, we find energy and momentum."

If you’re struggling with a particular project consistently, you may just need to get a fresh perspective. Do research and find inspiration related to the project. Schedule lunch with the client so you can hear how much they care about this project and their goals. Tell a friend what originally excited you about the project. Start at a different point than you normally would and work backward – ignore the assumption that you need to work linearly and start anywhere. It might just jumpstart your brain and get you back into the rhythm again.

Naturally, deadlines don’t change with our moods. We can’t always silo our work or we’d fall behind all the time. We can’t wait for inspiration or we may never begin. We can’t always plan our projects perfectly. There are times we just need to buck up and do the work. And often, once we begin, we find energy and momentum.

A psychologist doesn’t only take the cases that excite them – the people with multiple personalities or type of trauma that inspires medical papers – but they help their patients to the best of their ability anyway, every day. Accept that you won’t feel inspired about your work every day. Do it anyway. Do your best anyway. Sometimes we just need to get to work, and excitement will follow.

December 4, 2019No Comments

5 inspiring design studio from Malaysia 🇲🇾

In every Design Around the World interview we do, we ask designers to tell us which studios we should know about from their city or country. This question keeps our trail twisting and turning through different design communities, leading us to discover inspiration and talent outside our own little circle.

It’s refreshing to see designers eagerly share the spotlight with others. We are so focused on promoting our own work, creating our “brand” online and standing out, it’s not often we take the time to simply tell another designer we admire them, or pay them the compliment of sharing their work. Yet nearly every studio in this series doesn’t hesitate to do so.

In our conversation with LIE studio from Kuala Lumpur, they gave us a list of their favorite studios and designers from Malaysia. The Malaysian design community is relatively young and still growing but as you’ll see, there’s no shortage of talent in the country.

LIE studio

A small studio founded in 2011, LIE (Little Ideas Everyday) works across disciplines, from brand identity to book design to environmental design. If you haven’t already read our interview with the LIE founder and art director, Driv Loo, do that next.

And speaking of celebrating other designers’ work, LIE recently published their own book titled “SEARCH,” featuring interviews with 40 graphic design studios from Southeast Asia. We own a copy ourselves, and it’s a beautiful, satisfyingly analog tribute to Malaysian design.

Fictionist Studio

Founded and led by Joanne Chew, Fictionist Studio describes itself as a "multi-disciplinary creative outfit." And multi-disciplinary it is, creating abstract art one day and writing a song to promote its sock designs the next. Unbound by a specific style or service, the studio's work is unpredictable in the best sense of the word.

Suehlitan

Sueh Li is a type and graphic designer from Penang. It's fascinating to learn how the curves and lines of a typeface can tell a story, and Sueh Li’s typefaces often speak to Malaysian culture and identity. Her Rakyat typeface, for example, was designed for propaganda posters and celebrates Malaysian multilingualism, while her Kedai-Kedai typeface was inspired by vernacular signages in Malaysia.

Kawakong designworks

Kawakong is a two-person studio focused on graphic and identity design. The studio makes a distinction between “work for others” and “work for us,” sharing person experiments on their site alongside client work. The studios that push themselves outside their client work are often most interesting and memorable, and Kawakong is no exception.

Kongsi Design

Kongsi is a two-person branding studio based in Kuala Lumpur. The studio describes its personality as “quirky and dreamy” which, in browsing their projects and social media, seems perfectly fitting.

To learn more about design communities outside the go-to New York or San Francisco scenes, catch up on our Design Around the World series, featuring designers in studios from Tel Aviv to Tokyo. And if you know of studios we should have included in this list or you'd like to request a new location in the series, let us know on Twitter.

December 3, 2019No Comments

The best design portfolios of November 2019

Once a week, we select two portfolios created with Semplice to feature in our Best Of  Showcase.  Here we've collected our favorites from the past month.

We enjoy seeing the incredibly talented creatives who choose to use Semplice. In November, we featured websites from creative studios, illustrators, computational designers, interactive art directors, designers and more.

Best Semplice Portfolio Sites of November 2019

Browse the best portfolios of the month below to see fresh new work and get inspired for your own site. And if you've created your own portfolio with Semplice, be sure to submit it to our Showcase here. We might feature your site next.

 

 

 

Semplice Best Portfolio of November Studio Pala

Semplice Best Portfolio of November Bertjan Pot

To see more great design portfolios, visit the Semplice showcase. I'll be back next month with more of our monthly favorites!

Header image by Max Nolan

November 22, 2019No Comments

A dangerous approach to problem solving

The most interesting people are the ones who don’t avoid reality. The people who are honest both with themselves and with others. Who not only recognize their flaws or fears or mistakes, but openly admit them – even laugh about them.

These people have mastered something many of us have yet to learn: They have accepted their reality and then embraced it. They lean in.

An estimated 75% of people fear public speaking. Yet many do it anyway. There’s something about marching up onto that stage, greeting an audience and choosing to plunge headlong into a fear deeply embedded within us. It can feel glorious. The pushing through and coming out the other side. Instead of running from our fear, we move straight toward it.

Print ads don’t get as much attention as they used to, but now and then a few float to the top that delight readers the way advertising did in its golden days. This KFC ad by Mother is one them. KFC, in an embarrassing misstep, ran out of chicken at many of its locations. It should have been a PR nightmare, but this ad turned it around.

They not only admitted their mistake – they leaned into it. They drew attention to a negative moment many might have otherwise never known about. Now all anyone remembers is this clever, disarming ad. (See also: Volkswagen’s famous “Lemon” ads and Avis’ “we’re number 2” ad.)

South Dakota was recently in the news for its new campaign to solve a meth epidemic in the state. The tagline: “Meth. We’re on it.” Many mocked the campaign, deeming it tone-deaf. Others wondered if it was an insane oversight. Officials behind the tagline said they simply wanted to be provocative and call attention to the issue. Would we have seen this campaign otherwise? Probably not. Would those of us who don’t live there know South Dakota struggles with methamphetamine addiction? Not necessarily. Leaning into the problem, however controversial the results may be, seems to be working.  

Product companies can lean in, too. We could openly acknowledge a feeling or experience people typically have when using our product, and encourage them or motivate them in our UX copy. Instead of diminishing our shortcomings, we could say exactly what our product does well and what it doesn’t. How refreshing would that be, compared to the “all-in-one,” overpromised offerings we often see today? 

We can lean into our personal flaws or shortcomings. We can lean into areas where we feel inadequate or uncertain. We can lean into our fears, the work ones and the life ones. It’s not about accepting reality. It’s about pushing straight into it. It may not be the safe approach, but when was safe ever interesting? 

November 21, 2019No Comments

Finding your brand voice

This is an excerpt from our upcoming UX Writing book, exploring how we (as designers and copywriters) can write copy that helps people use and love our products. Sign up for book updates here

Your voice is what sets your brand or offering apart from others. It’s the combination of the language you choose (both visual and written), the tone you use and the feelings you evoke in your audience.

Just like an artist or an author, your voice comes across in everything your company puts out into the world – including your product experience itself. Through your UX copy, your voice can make your product a joy to use. And anyone who's ever worked on one knows that’s the key to a successful product.

We most often hear people talk about brand voice in the marketing department. It’s the concern of those selling our product – the people writing ads, social posts or website headlines. 

In fact, if you read any article about UX writing, it will make a point to separate UX copy from marketing copy. UX copywriting is about helping users accomplish their goal, they say. Marketing copy is about persuading someone to use your product in the first place. The chief concern of UX copy, these articles point out, is being useful, clear and concise. Based on this sentiment, you might assume your product copy isn’t the place to “be creative” with your writing and exercise your brand’s voice.

In truth, your microcopy is one of the most important places to cement your voice. It’s how people experience your brand, step by step, button by button and screen by screen. If someone is interacting with your product every day, as one might hope, they will see your UX copy again and again. Your product copy is the taste your brand leaves in their mouth. 

If marketing copy sells your product, UX copy continues selling it. So at the risk of contradicting every piece of expert advice currently out there: UX copy should not only be useful, clear and concise. It should be compelling, emotional, funny, motivating or whatever your brand voice strives to be.

Before we can write great UX copy, then, we need to know our brand voice and how to write in it. Let’s first look at how this works in practice.

How your voice sets your brand apart

Two products can look exactly alike, but their brand voice makes them different and allows them reach completely different audiences.

Take an app our company built years ago called Authentic Weather. Hundreds of weather apps exist on the market. They all essentially do the same thing: tell you the weather. Sure, some may offer a more detailed forecast or a fancier map. But when it comes down to it, the average person could get by day to day with any of these apps. The difference with Authentic Weather, and the reason it reached 1 million downloads its first month after launch, is entirely its voice.

Authentic Weather’s voice is decidedly irreverent. It throws the “F” word around like confetti. Its outlook, even on the sunniest day, is bleak. The Authentic Weather voice is funny (at least our target audience thinks it is – others might describe it as offensive). That’s what sets Authentic Weather apart from every other weather app that does exactly what it does. People don’t use Authentic Weather because it’s the most useful or accurate weather app. They use it because its voice makes it fun.

Or consider a brand people love for its voice: Mailchimp. Here, voice is executed in both writing and design throughout the product experience. You encounter Mailchimp’s voice every time you use the product, whether you’re adding emails to your list or sending off a newsletter.

Here’s how Mailchimp describes their voice: “Using offbeat humor and a conversational voice, we play with language to bring joy to [our users'] work. We prefer the subtle over the noisy, the wry over the farcical. We don't take ourselves too seriously.”

In the image above, notice how Mailchimp addresses its users personally as “you.” See how it empathizes with how the user is feeling while completing a specific action. Notice how motivating the headlines and help text are, how conversational. These are all the decisions the company made when creating its brand voice. And you feel that voice throughout the product experience because of the microcopy.  

Creating your own brand voice

Ideally, you will work with a copywriter or content strategist to define your voice before you start building your product. Your voice will influence not only the copy, but the design and product experience itself. But you can refine your voice no matter what phase you're in or who you have on your team. 

Here’s how to create a brand voice that sets you apart from every other Uber-meets-cat food app out there. 

Know your audience

To connect with your audience, you need to first understand who they are. What do they like? Where are they from? What’s important to them? What is their level of education? What kind of conversations are they having? What type of words are they using?

If your target audience is middle-class mothers in Iowa, you will likely use different language than you would for millennial men in New York.

Seek to understand where your readers are coming from. Then you can get on their level and write copy that means something to them. That might require doing a survey, researching online or simply observing the people already engaging with you. Or it might require all of the above. You don't necessarily need to pay someone to create an extensive user research report, but you should spend time getting to know the people who use your product – and those you want to use it.

Identify your adjectives

Whether content already exists for your brand or not, there are hints of your voice already out there. You’ll find it these places:

  • How your team speaks in meetings
  • How you pitch your product in an elevator
  • The internal presentations you share with your team
  • What other people say about you online

These hints may not reflect the voice you want for your product, but they’re a good starting point as you decide what you do or don’t want it to be. As you observe these little hints, start making a list of adjectives that come to mind and see if a theme emerges. 

“Honest” and “irreverent” are two adjectives I used before to describe Authentic Weather’s voice. Two of Mailchimp’s words are “plainspoken” and “genuine." What are your words? Be as specific as possible and avoid generic adjectives like “inspiring.” The more pointed your words, the easier it will be to write consistent content later. 

Maybe you imagine your brand to be a bit quirky. Write it down. Maybe your whole product pitch is about motivating people to change their lives. “Hopeful” could be a fitting adjective, in that case. Some adjectives that may or may not come to mind: Approachable, sincere, sentimental, playful, confident, straightforward, optimistic, sarcastic, intellectual. Write them all down. 

Now decide which ring most true and feel right for the voice you want to achieve. Narrow it down to a list of five or so adjectives that seem spot on. These adjectives will guide you when writing for your brand. You should filter all your work through these words.

Choose your person

If your brand was an existing person, dead or alive, who would they be? This may seem like a silly exercise, but it can be helpful when you’re actually sitting down to write. 

This is not the time for “31-year-old Jesse from London with a high power career, interested in health.” User personas are too broad for our purposes right now. This is also not meant to be someone who you personally admire. This is about your product. Find a person who evokes the qualities you have or want for your brand voice. That person may be James Dean, Michelle Obama, Huck Finn or Lady Gaga. It could be a character from a movie or a book. It could be an actress or a historical figure.

Choose your person and write down what you like about their voice. What type of language do they use? What’s their outlook on life? What sort of “air” do they have about them? What is the public opinion of them? 

This person internally represents your brand voice, at least until your voice takes its own shape and can stand confidently on its own. Nobody may ever know you are writing that sentence as though David Letterman was saying it, but it will help you write consistently through that filter. 

Put it to work

Now that you’ve defined your audience, found your adjectives and chosen your person, try it on for size. With your notes in front of you (this is your voice guideline now – always keep it nearby), try writing about your product in your new voice. Take a slide from your pitch deck and rewrite it. Pull a line from social media and filter it through your adjectives. Find some copy on your website or in your product experience and write it fresh, like your “person” might say it.

Don’t worry about perfection yet  – think about consistency. Try to make your writing sound like the same person is saying it. See if it represents your brand in the way you want it to. Tweak your voice if it doesn’t, until it does your product justice.

__

Defining and mastering your brand voice is the beginning. Applying it to your UX copy is the next step, and one that requires thought and care.

It is true that we should be mindful about how and where we exercise our voice in our UX copy. You shouldn’t crack a joke at the expense of clarity, leaving your user lost and unamused. Context is also important. If someone sees your same clever message in your app every time they use it, it will quickly lose its charm and just get annoying.

But setting out from the start with your voice in mind will help you infuse it throughout the entire product experience. 

In a coming article, we’ll talk about where and when it makes sense to exercise your brand voice within your product, and how tone and context come into play. Until then, practice your voice. It will make your product better the whole way around.

November 14, 2019No Comments

The beauty of bartering

A plane ticket to Miami with a free place to stay, a train ticket to London, ten days accommodation in New York, a sustainable clutch made from recycled leather, beautiful bracelets with rare gemstones and beads. This year, I have (re)discovered the art of bartering.

Bartering or Barter Work is trading goods or services for other goods or services, without exchanging money. The barter system has been around since the old days, when people in small villages would exchange agricultural goods or services with their neighbors so they all could provide for their simple livelihood.

First, I know that being in the position to barter could be seen as a privilege since it doesn’t pay the rent, and I understand that you should focus on making a living first. But I'd like to argue that bartering could bring many possibilities to your doorstep and enrich your life with wonderful experiences, even when you are low on cash funds. You just have to be thoughtful about how you do it. These are the rules and the philosophy I abide by when designing for trade.

"Nothing is free, and especially not your time and skills. So make sure that whatever you trade is valuable to you and also valuable to your client."

Always exchange equal value

An important one: You should never exchange your services for things like prestige or exposure. This should never be part of any contract with a client. Nothing is free, and especially not your time and skills. So make sure that whatever you trade is valuable to you and also valuable to your client. Both parties need to get something from the exchange and "pay" for it in some way or form. It is often best to calculate your hours in real cash value, so you have a ballpark figure in mind and clear terms for your trade.

Trading for invaluable experiences

Sometimes the value cannot be measured – for example, when you exchange your services for an experience or a place to stay in another country. I’ve done trades where I didn’t count the hours because I knew the experience would enrich my life in ways that don't have a cash value. This was the case when I traded my design work for free stays in New York and Miami. I likely couldn't have taken these trips this quickly as it’s so expensive to stay there, but thanks to bartering projects I was able to enjoy both cities to the fullest and at a low cost.

Trading for cost reduction

One bartering opportunity is entrepreneurs or small companies that have no big cash flow yet, but make beautiful products or offer services that you find interesting. These start-ups or small businesses are always looking to reduce costs and for them, it's much cheaper to trade one of their already-made products than to pay for your services in full.

This shouldn’t mean that your part of the deal is cheaper or less professional, so make sure the products are of good quality and/or that the person is experienced in the services they provide. Even though no money is involved, bartering should be seen as a professional business relationship and exchange.

"Not all things worth counting are countable."

Trade only with those you trust

There should always be a level of trust between the two parties when doing work for trade. I have personally only done trades with family or friends. If you want to trade with another business, I would approach it as any other project. Consider setting up a little contract so both parties are one hundred percent clear on the trade, the deadlines and the deliverables.

Be aware of The Taxman

Another reason to keep bartering between friends and family is the tax implications. I’ve done some research and it seems that both in The Netherlands (I live in Amsterdam) and in the United States, bartering goods and services is seen as taxable income.

When you trade between people close to you, however, the rules become a bit blurred. Say your friend in Miami has a problem with her website and you fix the issue. Because she is so happy, she invites you to come to Miami and offers to pay for your plane ticket. The plane ticket can be seen as a gift from her to you, which means no tax has to be paid. But if you trade with a company that offers to make you a promotional video in exchange for a website design, the costs become higher and the taxman more interested.

So keep the bartering to a few fun projects, and only do it when you are happy with the trade and know you are getting some valuable experiences from it. And don’t let your barter projects eat away your time for paid jobs. I don’t know your landlord, but I’m guessing he wouldn't be too happy with a sustainable clutch made from recycled leather. Get your rent money first!

November 12, 2019No Comments

How to write your portfolio bio

The infamous portfolio bio. A source of angst for designers, the inspiration for satire, the cause of inexplicable decisions like calling ourselves “empathy lovers” and “pixel princes.” Plenty of articles provide pointers, but few show us what a good bio looks like in practice.

We’ve said before that your About page is the most important page on your portfolio. A potential client or employer might browse dozens of portfolios with excellent work that fits their brief. It’s your About page that separates your site from the rest. This is where we learn what you offer that nobody else can – whether that’s a specific viewpoint, experience, skill or attitude.

Browse our Semplice Showcase or Carbonmade talentpool and you will see a range of About statements, from simple and straightforward bios to lengthy life stories. Everyone has a different approach depending on their work, their voice and their style. So let’s examine some of our favorite portfolio bios from our Semplice family, and you can decide which approach best fits your website.

First: It should be obvious these bios belong to others and are here for inspiration only. It won’t do you much good to rip off another designer’s About statement. Rather, pay attention to the type of language they use, the length, style and specific word choices. This will help you write a unique bio that works best for you.

The philosophical approach

Mackey Saturday takes a noteworthy approach for both his bio and his case studies. He leads with his philosophy for his work, identity design. Take a look at the one-sentence intro on his homepage:

"Designs timeless visual identities for evolving brands."

Now go to his About page and read his full-length bio (it’s only two paragraphs) beginning with this:

"The most innovative solution to a complex problem is often the simplest one. But as anyone who’s devoted their time to big ideas knows, simple and easy are two very different things. Nowhere is this more true than when designing visual identities."

Notice Saturday doesn’t start outright with information about himself. He could have said, “I’m a NYC-based identity designer with a decade of experience designing logos for brands like Instagram, Oculus and Silk.” Instead, he leads with a strong statement about his work philosophy. He’s not posturing or waxing poetic, but rather revealing his experience and unique perspective in simple terms. It’s refreshing.

The personality play

Marina Rachello’s portfolio clearly makes an impression, as it’s not the first time we’ve mentioned it here on DESK.

Her entire homepage is her About statement, and it’s a bold one. After a brief standard intro (where she’s based, where she works, what she specializes in – all good keywords to include in her intro) she shares little quirks about herself, some of which relate to work and others that don’t. Upon reading her page, we get a sense of Rachello's personality: her taste, personality and professional skills. We can immediately envision what it’s like to work with her.

Nuno Leites opts for a similar approach on his About page. His bio, in which he cracks a joke about his headshot and uses varying typefaces, is decidedly casual. If you have a sense of humor, don't be afraid to show it on your About page. Your case studies should show you are serious about your work. Your About page, then, should show a glimpse of who you are beyond it.

The polished professional

Many designers like to take the third-person approach with their portfolio bio, which is a perfectly acceptable solution. For one, this allows you to take a step back and write about your accomplishments without feeling like you’re bragging about them. It also allows others to easily copy and paste your bio for use in press, if that’s what you’re after.

Glenn Stewart does this nicely on his website. Here’s an excerpt:

“Glenn's clients have included Toyota, Google, Lexus, Ford, Huawei and Foxtel, with his work earning a reputation for its beautiful and considered aesthetic, collecting awards both locally and internationally.”

As he works under the moniker, KOZV, third-person is a fitting solution that positions him more as an established studio than an independent designer.

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Keep in mind, there is no one “right” way to build a portfolio. This is why we don’t offer templates with Semplice and Carbonmade, but rather allow you to customize your site based on your ideas. So while each of these bio approaches works, do what feels right for you, your voice and your work. The portfolios that stand out are those that don’t sound like robotic, templated resumes with tired phrases everyone uses. This is your website, not LinkedIn. So whatever you do, make your bio yours.

November 5, 2019No Comments

The art of doing

I’ve written about this so many times. Directly and indirectly, inspired not only by my own thoughts, dreams or concerns, but often those around me. A conversation with a friend that keeps repeating itself, in circles, again and again.

Why is it so hard to do the things we want to do?

Do we not want it enough?

Are we afraid of what happens if we fail?

Are we afraid of what happens if we succeed?

We can come up with myriad reasons, some valid and others perhaps not so much. Some say the start is the most crucial part of every project. Most fail before they even begin. The rest fail at the last 10% (but that’s a different story for another time).

Below are some tips and tricks I find helpful when working on my own projects, or starting up a new one.

The name is temporary

If you can’t find a name for your project, don’t worry. A name is temporary and can be changed any time. This is even more true in the early days of your project. While a good name can make a huge difference later on (those who work in branding know this), it doesn’t really matter in the beginning.

Move quick. Pick a “working title” as they do with movies. Don’t get held up because you can’t find the perfect name. Chances are you won’t find it for a while and you will just stumble upon it while working on something else.

"What problem are you trying to solve, and how can you solve it in the hackiest, most minimalistic way possible?"

You don't always need the .com

Don’t postpone your projects because you couldn’t find your perfect domain name or social media username. Focus on what’s important; you can always take care of the domain later. My own company, Semplice, started out as semplicelabs.com and only years later were we able to get the semplice.com domain. If you have a name you like, use .io or .co domains or whatever else is available and works for you in the meantime.

Don't overthink the technicalities

If you have an idea for an app, your first prototype might not need to be a fully-fledged app. Perhaps it can start out as an email list or a spreadsheet. What problem are you trying to solve, and how can you solve it in the hackiest, most minimalistic way possible?

Don't let overthinking or perfectionism kill your project before you even begin. If your idea is to create an e-commerce platform, don’t yet worry about logistics or hiring an engineering team to build out your online shop. Take the core of your idea and simply start an Instagram account or a YouTube channel.  Build an audience, test the idea, see if people like it and only then move forward. If you find you have high demand and no platform to support it, that’s a good problem and where you want to be.

"All you want in the beginning is to see some momentum."

Build light and validate fast — "The minimum love-able product"

What’s the minimum you can do to make people understand and love the idea of your project? Create a landing page, curate a small Instagram account and run a few very specific ads to drive some traffic to your product. Watch the numbers and go from there. All you want in the beginning is to see some momentum. This is not only good for your product, but also your mind. You need it to stay motivated and keep moving forward yourself.

Keep it stupid

I've been preaching this message for a long time now. “Keeping it stupid” means you’re not over-complicating your idea and finding an excuse to procrastinate. Your idea and execution should be so simple that others might think it’s stupid. That’s when you hit the sweet spot of just enough challenge to move forward, but not too much to get stuck.

Albert Einstein said, “If you can’t explain it to a six-year-old, you don’t understand it yourself.” It's a good way to keep your idea simple, for yourself and those around you, and actually launch it.

October 31, 2019No Comments

Design portfolio inspiration of October 2019

Once a week, we select two portfolios created with Semplice to feature in our Best Of  Showcase.  Here we've collected our favorites from the past month.

It's always motivating to see how creatives of all kinds use Semplice for their online portfolios. In October, we featured websites from creative studios, photographers, art directors, motion designers, illustrators and more.

Browse the best portfolios of the month below to see fresh new work and get inspired for your own site. And if you've created your own portfolio with Semplice, be sure to submit it to our Showcase here. We might feature your site next.

To see more great design portfolios, visit the Semplice showcase. I'll be back next month with more of our monthly favorites!

Header image by Lobulo Studio

October 31, 2019No Comments

The books that changed your life

Today, we can easily fill our time reading tweets, news headlines, Instagram captions and emails. With so much “content” vying for our attention, it’s a wonder anyone still writes and reads books. But it seems that we do and, believe it or not, books are still changing lives.

I enjoy reading immensely and believe it’s one way to become a better designer, whether those books are design-related or not. I’ve shared my 23 favorite books on creativity, productivity and life. I’ve also shared my way of reading books, which has allowed me to read hundreds over the last few years alone.

So in a recent search for new reading, I reached out to my favorite resource: Twitter. The tweet: “Best 3 books you’ve ever read that changed your life or had massive impact on your way of thinking?”

I've received hundreds of replies and counting – about 500+ recommendations so far. These include design books, novels, biographies, self-help books, philosophy, sci-fi, the list goes on and on. As we all know, literature doesn't have to be of motivational in nature to inspire or even change who we are. A children's book might do it. A graphic novel might do it. And that's exactly what I was after – the kind of stuff that resonated with people for whatever weird reason.

While adding a few intriguing recommendations to my list, I started noticing some of the same titles coming up again and again. So here they are, leading with the most-mentioned titles, so you can see them yourself without combing through the replies. If you’re looking for something to read, there appears to be something in here for everyone.

Disclaimer: Naturally, most of my audience works within the creative or tech industry. If someone else asked the question, they would likely get very different replies. I'd like to see what recommendations someone in science or the medical industry might receive, for example. I am also curious to know if recommendations would change if this were a private poll (more thoughts on that here). Finally, I have not read all of these books myself. These are external recommendations from several hundred random people on Twitter who may or may not share my beliefs, tastes or interests (or yours). However, considering these specific titles had an impact on many, we can venture to guess there’s something meaningful inside them.

1. "The Alchemist" by Paulo Coelho

2. "Man’s Search for Meaning" by Viktor Frankl

3. "Creativity, Inc." by Ed Catmull

4. "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" by Stephen Covey

5. "Atomic Habits: An Easy and Proven Way to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones" by James Clear

6. "The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom" by Don Miguel Ruiz

7. "The Design of Everyday Things" by Donald Norman

8. "How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie

9. "The Bible" by various authors

10. "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" by Douglas Adams

11. "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand

12. "Shoe Dog" by Phil Knight

13. "Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action" by Simon Sinek

14. "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life" by Mark Manson

15. "The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles" by Steven Pressfield

16. "The 48 Laws of Power" by Robert Greene

17. "Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World" by Cal Newport

18. "Dune" by Frank Herbert

19. "Ego Is the Enemy" by Ryan Holiday

20. "Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less" by Greg McKeown

21. "Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity" by David Allen

22. "The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses" by Eric Ries

23. "Leonardo da Vinci" by Walter Isaacson

24. "Meditations" by Marcus Aurelius

25. "Radical Candor: How to Get What You Want by Saying What You Mean" by Kim Scott

26. "Rework" by David Heinemeier Hansson and Jason Fried

27. “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” by Robert Kiyosaki

28. "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind" by Yuval Noah Harari

29. "The 4-Hour Workweek" by Tim Ferriss

30. "The Obstacle Is the Way" by Ryan Holiday

31. "Thinking, Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman

32. "Why We Sleep" by Matthew Walker

33. "Zero to One Notes on Start-Ups, or How to Build the Future" by Peter Thiel with Blake Masters

34. "12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos" by Jordan Peterson

35. "Being and Time" by Martin Heidegger

36. "Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking" by Malcolm Gladwell

37. "Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen" by Christopher McDougall

38. "Cat’s Cradle" by Kurt Vonnegut

39. "Catcher in the Rye" by J. D. Salinger

40. "Creative Confidence" by David and Tom Kelley

41. "Crime and Punishment" by Fyodor Dostoevsky

42. "East of Eden" by John Steinbeck

43. "Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844" by Karl Marx

44. "Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World — and Why Things Are Better Than You Think" by Anna Rosling Rönnlund, Hans Rosling and Ola Rosling

45. "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" by Hunter S. Thompson

46. "Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience" by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

47. "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" by J.K. Rowling

48. "How to Be a Graphic Designer without Losing Your Soul " by Adrian Shaughnessy

49. "Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion" by Robert B. Cialdini

50. "Les Misérables" by Victor Hugo

51. "Lord of the Rings" by J. R. R. Tolkien

52. "Measure What Matters: How Google, Bono, and the Gates Foundation Rock the World with OKRs" by John Doerr

53. "Metaphors We Live By" by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson

54. "Momo" by Michael Ende

55. "Outliers: The Story of Success" by Malcolm Gladwell

56. "Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative" by Austin Kleon

57. "The Autobiography of Malcolm X" by Malcolm X with ‎Alex Haley

58. "The Courage to Be Disliked" by Fumitake Koga and Ichirō Kishimi

59. "The Dark Tower" by Stephen King

60. "The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia" by Ursula K. Le Guin

61. "The God of Small Things" by Arundhati Roy

62. "The Hobbit" by J. R. R. Tolkien

63. "The Last Lecture" by Jeffrey Zaslow and Randy Pausch

64. "The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing" by Marie Kondō

65. "The Magic of Thinking Big" by David J. Schwartz

66. "The Messy Middle: Finding Your Way Through the Hardest and Most Crucial Part of Any Bold Venture" by Scott Belsky

67. "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" by Stephen Chbosky

68. "The Power of Habit" by Charles Duhigg

69. "The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment" by Eckhart Tolle

70. "The Richest Man in Babylon" by George Samuel Clason

71. "The Stranger " by Albert Camus

72. "Things Fall Apart" by Chinua Achebe

73. "Think and Grow Rich" by Ben Holden-Crowther and Napoleon Hill

74. "Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold" by C. S. Lewis

75. "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" by Robert Pirsig

76. "The Art of War" by Sun Tzu

Hope you discovered some interesting new reading material here. I know I've saved several titles on this list and will be revisiting it often. Let me know on Twitter what you would add to the list, or ask your own audience. This may be the closest I will ever get to joining a book club.

October 29, 2019No Comments

Design in Tokyo 🇯🇵 featuring Irobe Design Institute

We recently started exploring design in Japan through our Design Around the World series, starting with Nagasaki. Now we are looking at the design scene in Tokyo with Irobe Design Institute.

Given the breadth and quality of design in Japan, we knew we still had much to learn after our interview with DEJIMAGRAPH in Nagasaki. We also knew exactly who we wanted to hear from. The team at Irobe Design Institute, based in Tokyo, creates pristine brand identities, wayfinding systems, packaging design and more. They've received awards from Tokyo Art Directors Club Japan One Show Design and D&AD, to name a few. So we were thrilled when Yoshiaki Irobe himself agreed to chat with us.

Here we talk with Yoshiaki Irobe about the lack of quality design education in Japan, how one small action can trigger big change and, of course, the 2020 Summer Olympics logo.

First, let’s talk about your studio. Who is the team behind Irobe and why did you decide to open a graphic design studio?

My team is based in Nippon Design Center, Inc. (NDC). Speaking of, I’m still a member of NDC which is a long-established design company in Japan. After I joined NDC in 2003, I was in a big team which heads Kenya Hara. Eventually I got an offer for an individual from clients, which led to having my own team inside NDC. At the beginning of 2011, I was the only team member. Now we have eight designers, including myself and a project manager.

Japanese design is known the world over, but tell us a bit about design community in Tokyo specifically. Tokyo is considered the design hub in Japan – what makes it so special? And do many platforms and events exist in Tokyo that connect you with other designers?

Everything is gathering Tokyo — not only culture (including design) but also business and politics. So when you see it from outside of Japan, this makes Tokyo special.

When we take it inside of Japan, geographically Tokyo is located in the middle of the Japanese archipelago, so many cultures are crossing by each other and mixed on average. This could also be what makes Tokyo special. These days there are energetic graphic designers based in the Kansai area (the west side of the Japan center on Osaka) and Hokkaido. 

We all have an idea of Japanese design in our minds, to the point where some might stereotype it or think of cliches (minimalism being one of them). How would you generally describe the design you see coming from Tokyo and Japan today?

Speaking with the perspective of a long history, there are two contrasting aesthetic senses in Japan. One is the austere beauty represented by ISE JINGU, which has a link to minimalism. The other is the flashy beauty represented by NIKKO TOSHOGU SHRINE

I feel that there is nothing like a big “ism” or style that should be noted recently. It may seem that the individual preferences are subdivided and it could feel “weak” as the entire tendency. Looking at the last 5-10 years, especially on the economic side, the rapid growth period is over and the maturity period is reached in various ways. 

I feel that the cycle of making new things (whether it is necessary or not) has stopped, and the movement to use and modify what already exists is increasing. 

In Europe, hundreds of years of historical buildings have been renovated and used carefully. As a recent tendency of Tokyo, many buildings that do not have historical value are renovated in the same way, yet without the historical value. These kinds of approaches are increasing more and more.

Recently, I was in charge of the renovation project of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo with Jo Nagasaka, an architect. Unless it was a relatively new building completed in 1995, it was necessary to renovate only with the new sign system and furniture, without touching the design of the architecture due to ordinances. 

For a museum with a hard impression made of stone, iron and glass, a combination of materials such as cork and wood gives the space a softness. A flexible sign, and a furniture system created changes in conductors and location. In the future, I feel that the movement to devise and improve existing things will be activated, regardless of whether the product is new or old.

"Visual language is global and can easily cross a border like a verbal language, and the internet environment is pushing this further."

Globalization seems to be a big topic on designers’ minds today, specifically the concern about Western influence. How do you feel about globalization and its impact on design in Japan? Do you see designers reacting and striving for individuality in their work?

Visual language is global and can easily cross a border like a verbal language, and the internet environment is pushing this further. For example, it was hard to imagine a European designer knowing my design only half a century ago. For designs that have evolved in small communities, the range and depth of expression seem to be rapidly evolving with the environment that knowledge from around the world can be shared. 

Many designs I see from Japan, especially poster designs, combine both Japanese and Latin/Roman characters. Is this just an aesthetic choice or do most of your designs need to cater to an international audience?

Needs to target an international audience is also an opportunity. In the first place, Japanese typography is made up of a combination of three different characters: Chinese characters transmitted from China, Katakana created based on them, and Hiragana, which was originally evolved. 

Of course, there is no problem if English is included in the Japanese text. Accepting and changing such different languages is the complexity of Japanese and makes it interesting as well. It's difficult to think about design with different elements, but it's a unique point. It may be a sense that is not compatible with minimalism, but I think creation while accepting complexity is also a unique Japanese sensibility that was nurtured through everyday life.

I’ve read that Japanese typeface design can be so complex, designers often create characters just for specific headlines, rather than designing a full typeface. Is that accurate for your work? 

Unlike the alphabet, Japanese has about 3,000 characters, so it takes time to develop from scratch. In addition, even if the kanji was used on a regular basis, there are 1 to 23 strokes, so unlike the alphabet, the density of characters can be greatly uneven. Furthermore, Katakana and Hiragana, which have a small number of strokes on average, have a different line quality of the characters themselves, and the combination itself is very complicated.

From what I've read, the Tohoku earthquake of 2011 had a big impact on Japanese design, shifting the priority from style/personality to form and function. Has this impacted you and your work in any specific way?

I don't think that my design trend has changed due to the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011. If anything, because of the nuclear accident, I think I have a higher consciousness of disaster preparedness. In addition to this, I think that people are becoming more aware of sustainability and the community.

Do you see Japan moving toward more environmentally friendly designs?

At a global level, Japan may still be less aware of the ecosystem. Excessive packaging is one of the serious problems in the Japanese market. Regarding the package design that I am working on, I would like to eliminate waste as much as possible, including the cost aspect. However, on the other hand, material-rich expressions such as paper made by craftsmen should remain necessary. 

I read that Japanese designers still seek a contrast between traditional design craftsmanship and new media in their work. But it seems that Tokyo specifically is diverse and open to new ideas. Where do you stand on this? 

I want to be open to new media all the time, and also want to be open to the diversity of each project, not to stick to my own expression. On the other hand, even if it is a new method, I would like to have a natural relationship with something like the history of graphics.

What are the job opportunities available for designers in Tokyo right now?

It is difficult to answer because job opportunities are becoming increasingly diverse. In Japan, there are high expectations for inbound demand for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and the 2025 Osaka Expo, so various facilities have been newly created and renovated. There seems to be a lot of projects related to such development.

What is design education like in Tokyo? And do most designers seek a formal education?

I don't think there is a system that can define design education in Tokyo. Especially when I was a student, the curriculum is quite focused on creating. There were not many teachers who were asking the way of thinking and process. I think the current situation seems to have changed considerably, but at that time there were only a few teachers who had practiced it. To be honest, I think it was quite immature as design education. 

Related with my current team members, I think we have a variation of members who have unique experiences. In that way, rather than passively educated people, we have many members who have been actively investigating their interests, and I think it is good to have such people gathered.

What would you say are unique challenges for designers in your community right now?

Many designers, including myself, have studied mainly on print media, but we also actively propose dynamic on-screen media. Visual design is a technology that instantly conveys sensuously across languages.

Don't stick to the familiar tools in seeking how to communicate. Our team continues to challenge themselves and pursue this possibility.

Tokyo is so large and moves so fast, I imagine the design industry does too. Do agencies have the same crazy, fast-paced nature as we do in New York?

I don't know the situation in New York clearly, but I feel that the West coast is changing more rapidly with the development of technology. In Tokyo, the industry itself seems to be a slow tempo compared to the speed of the whole city. The overall trend is that rather than being renewed within each design agency, newborn teams are creating something new and pushing for change. 

Under such circumstances, Nippon Design Center (to which my team belongs) is an old company with a 60-year history, but we keep evolving with proper speed. Based on the idea of “identify and visualize the essence”, we will continue to create with the intention of being both authentic and innovative.

As the world is getting smaller with the help of the internet, working with international clients is very common. Do you actively work with international clients or focus mostly on local clients? And do businesses typically work with local designers and studios?

I am actively working with overseas clients. This is because there is a desire to expand the ability to visualize the essence of ourselves to the unknown. And I don't think it's global because it's an overseas project. On the other hand, just because it is a Japanese region, I do not think that it is not global. Companies, countries and regions are all local when viewed from the surroundings, and I think it is our role to visualize and open local attractions in an easy-to-understand manner.

Based on my research, it seems that the government doesn’t provide much support for design in Japan. Given the popularity of design there, I found that surprising. What do you personally think needs to happen in Japan for this to change?

I think that there are two specific actions to get the government to recognize the importance of design and get support.

The first is to create a national design museum. It may seem surprising, but Japan does not have it. It is a shame that the value of design is not recognized despite the fact that we have globally famous designers in fashion, architecture, products and graphics. 

The second is a change in education since childhood. In Japan, from elementary school to high school, design belongs to a sub-category that is introduced on several pages of art textbooks. I think it’s good too, teaching it as a separate subject while recognizing the commonality with paintings and sculptures. Personally, I think that design is a technique that can contribute to society and people in a different way from art. In order for people to live better in various situations, we need a lot of design power, and I think it is important to spread the benefits.

With the popularity of design in Tokyo and the number of new businesses opening every day in the city, how do you strive to stand out from the competition?

While observing the status of other companies from time to time, we are basically focused on generating the best solutions for our projects. We don't do anything to differentiate ourselves from other companies. However, I think that it is important to differentiate the design itself from the others, so we are working on design that is not possible or conceivable by others.

"Please do not hesitate to take any action based on your own thoughts. Something should change regardless of how big it is."

How much impact does your social media presence have on getting new clients and self-promotion in general? What works best for you?

I haven't analyzed the cause so I don't know, but in Japan, there is a unique saying: "if the wind blows the bucket, makers prosper." It means that one trigger can have eventual effects in unexpected ways. The important thing is that nothing will start unless you take action to make the wind of the first move. 

I believe that there are endless possibilities to connect people, including this interview (laughs). I had an independent proposal to rethink Japan's address plate even though nobody asked me, and these activities went around and led to a branding project for a national park in Japan. If there is a young person reading this article, please do not hesitate to take any action based on your own thoughts. Something should change regardless of how big it is.

I am also a believer in small actions leading to big change and have seen that to be true for myself.

Do you think good design can impact your society in a significant way or solve any issues it faces? And what does good design mean to you?

It’s a simple and difficult question. I don't want to define it strictly in my personal sense. There is also the term “optimal solution” that represents a good design, but it is the language on the side of accepting the design, not the language on the side of creating/providing the design like us. 

Personally, I think that the term “individual solution” is more appropriate because I think many projects require individual, special answers. I would be very happy if I could solve the big and small problems I faced through my skills and ideas.

In your opinion, what are the top design studios from Tokyo that everyone who should know? 

This is the hardest question to answer… There are so many interesting studios in Japan that make it difficult to choose. And there are various indicators such as uniqueness and solidity. 

From well-balanced, medium-sized design companies such as NDC, we belonging to private studios where individuality stands out, there are so many attractive studios. If we have a chance to have dinner together, let me answer this question.

How can all designers and design communities from other countries do a better job of communicating with each other? How can we become more engaged with the Japanese design community? Are there any blogs or specific magazines we can follow?

If we have a closed impression from the outside, that is what we should care for more. Some magazines have a history such as IDEA magazine, but I can't find any design journalism that I think is interesting now. If there’s anything interesting outside of Japan, please let me know.

The 2020 Summer Olympics logo has been controversial in the design community, with a non-official concept finding more favor on the internet than the official logo. What's your take on the official logo? And are you noticing lots of positive design opportunities and initiatives in Tokyo as the Olympics get closer?

As a personal opinion, I do not think that it is perfect as a design. From the viewer’s perspective, the Olympics is a highly entertaining event, so picking up such expectations well is the most important. In that way, I don’t think it responds enough.

From a more specialized point of view, I'm most concerned with the type design. The formability and concept of the emblem are great, but the type design is too reluctant. Since this is a national event, couldn't there be any form of advice or collaboration from experts with knowledge of typography? I’m disappointed, a little.

But if you give me a question of right or wrong, my answer is right. I think that it is an extremely wonderful proposal in terms of the proposal ability of the emblem. I think that there has never been a case where the commonality and difference between the Olympics and the Paralympics have been so vividly expressed. But to the extent I can now know, no positive changes or initiatives have been found so far. After the first emblem that was chosen had trouble and was withdrawn, the design feels a little timider than before because of fear of criticism.

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Yoshiaki Irobe, thank you so much for talking with us. We look forward to seeing what you and your team do next and seeing where each project, large and small, leads you from here.

Friends, check out Irobe Design Institute's work and if you know of any great design literature in Tokyo or elsewhere, share it with us and Yoshiaki Irobe. And if you're just discovering our Design Around the World series for the first time, you can catch up here.

October 29, 2019No Comments

In a digital world, analog brings something new

Today, when digital tools and online resources are making all forms of design more accessible, efficient and refined, analog methods are becoming more of an art. Yet for Warsaw-based studio Ars Thanea, handcraft is more relevant than ever.

For those who have been around long enough, Ars Thanea is something of a legend. Founded in 2007, the studio has been designing for digital long before many of us entered the industry. And while the Ars Thanea team continues to forge ahead into VR / AR / XR, live-action and beyond for their clients today, they are not afraid to go the opposite direction: back to analog.

Combining handcraft methods with digital, the studio creates internal experiments that often either lead to client work or fuel it.

The studio's recent project for the Australian indie-pop band, Sheppard, makes a solid case for the technique. The project, in which Ars Thanea designed a cover for the band's new album, "Die Young," involved a combination of 2D design, clay sculpture, photography and post-production. Inspired by a scene from the band's music video, the resulting image is full of emotion, movement and mystery.

Ars Thanea's cover design for the Sheppard album, "Die Young" was made with real clay sculptures.

To create the image, the team started with a 2D concept to visualize the scene. With the help of sculptor Cezary Kostrzewski, their vision soon materialized as real clay sculptures. The studio then worked with photographer Szymon Swietochowski to capture the live scene, and finally took it into post-production for finishing touches.

“In ‘Die Young,’ we really wanted to achieve the most realistic effect possible,” said Piotr Jaworowski, founding partner and executive creative director at Ars Thanea. “The handcrafted sculpture is imperfect, which makes it more real, more human.”

Today, 3D tools and techniques allow such incredible detail and texture, we can study an image under a magnifying glass and still feel unsure whether it’s a photo or a graphic. When you can create any visual you imagine with no more resources than a mouse and a design program or two, why do it any differently?

Well, for one, because it’s fun.

“The truth is that in most cases we are able to achieve the desired effect with both methods, but the analog gives us, above all, the opportunity to interact with a real object,” said Jaworowski. “We can touch it and we can feel it – something that seems so obvious and ordinary, yet in the digital world, it is completely inaccessible.”

Another Ars Thanea project for Sheppard. For the cover of the album, "Watching the Sky," the studio blew several dozen glass bubbles to create a real glass cloud sculpture.

Working with analog materials is also a way for the studio to experiment and grow their capabilities.

“Thanks to such artistic projects we learn a lot and test various methods and techniques, which we later use in other commercial jobs. The unexpected always happens here,” said Jaworowski. “You have to challenge yourself to get exactly what you wanted. It's much more demanding, but at the same time extremely rewarding.”

"If you don't challenge yourself to do new things and only keep on working in techniques you already know, you'll be doing the same projects all your life."

Another Ars Thanea creation, titled “MOM?!”, features a hand-sculpted cube of ice with a digitally enhanced spider inside. The blend of methods led to an image so visually surreal, it’s hard to know where digital ends and analog begins.

In this case, the creative vision began with the method itself.

“This is a perfect example of a project that was born out of… the need to experiment and to explore unknown territories,” said Jaworowski. “We really wanted to check how we would work with 3D printing and we were wondering how the physical object would be transferred to digital. Unlike the standard creative process, we first chose a method and only then came up with an object that we would show – so ‘how’ was prior to ‘what.’”

In mixing analog with digital, Ars Thanea not only pushes the boundaries of their work, but reinvents it.

“If you don't challenge yourself to do new things and only keep on working in techniques you already know, you'll be doing the same projects all your life,” Jaworowski said. “I think that there is an inner need for a quest, and maybe this is the drive of our desire to reach for something new.”

October 22, 2019No Comments

The unexpected addition to our creative workflow

In case you can't tell from our recent articles, we're big fans of the Adobe Dimension. We're constantly finding new ways to use it, for work and for pure fun. Now, paired with a couple familiar tools, we can create pretty much any 3D visual we imagine.

I first heard about Dimension when it was in early development as Project Felix. I was told I didn't need to be some fancy 3D designer with five years of experience under my belt, which turned out to be true. Right away with Dimension, I was creating the type of 3D work I had for years admired from afar. Since then, I've fully incorporated it into my workflow.

We previously shared a tutorial for using Adobe Dimension to convert 2D illustrations into 3D, which is a great place to start if you're new to 3D design. We also wrote about how to create photorealistic visuals with Dimension, from prototypes to packaging. But we haven't shared yet exactly where Dimension and other tools come into play throughout that process. While I do use Dimension on its own to create some pretty incredible stuff, the possibilities are even greater when paired up with other tools.

Where Dimension fits into our workflow

The word is still getting around about Dimension as Adobe keeps making it better and better. (I also suspect it's one of those tools you want to keep to yourself, it's so good.) So first, to clear it up for those just starting out with the tool, let's talk about what Dimension does and doesn't do.

Adobe Dimension allows you to take 3D objects and put them into beautifully lit, photorealistic three-dimensional scenes, without any technical knowledge. It allows you to assign real-world materials to your 3D objects, set your own camera angles and positions. Your 3D scene (with lighting, texture, background, angle etc.) is the most important aspect of great 3D design, so the fact that Dimension makes it so easy and accessible is huge.

Dimension is not currently a 3D modeling tool so you won't use it to make your 3D shapes, but Adobe plans to expand this in the future. In the meantime, Dimension comes shipped with an array of pre-made 3D objects you can use to create your 3D scenes. It already works in tandem with other Adobe file formats and programs, which was another plus for us.

We use Dimension tandem with Illustrator, Photoshop, Cinema4D and Figma to create quick mockups, product designs and artwork.  It also works seamlessly with InDesign and XD, so you can create rich images to insert into your brochures / page designs, your UX designs or wherever you need them. You can even bring your 3D visuals into AfterEffects and animate them (I can't wait to experiment with this), or embed 360 views on your portfolio site.

Our design team has experience with everything from illustration to UX to print design, but hadn't touched 3D design before Dimension. Now, using Dimension on its own and with other tools, our brand and our work has expanded in new directions.

Enhancing our brand and product imagery

Most often, we use Dimension for simple product rendering of Semplice products. If you're not familiar already, Semplice is a WordPress-based portfolio tool for creatives. It's a digital tool, but we like to show real-world packaging as it makes Semplice feel more tangible, like a product you can hold in your hands. With Dimension, we create beautiful 3D visuals that elevate Semplice in all of its digital spaces.

A 3D rendering of our Semplice box art, made with Adobe Dimension

3D renderingS of our Semplice box art, made with Adobe Dimension

Transforming our artwork and illustrations

Once we became more familiar with Dimension, we started experimenting further and pushing beyond the traditional 3D mockups and prototypes. Recently, we created an illustration pack for designers called Warped Universe. The pack itself includes 2D images made in Illustrator.

Our original 2D image from Warped Universe.

To show all the possibilities of Warped Universe, we tried transforming them into 3D. With this workflow, we convert the illustrations to 3D shapes with Photoshop or Cinema4D (depending on the illustration and intended effect). We then use Dimension to turn the illustrations into beautiful 3D landscapes. The flat lines become three-dimensional, with light, shadows and texture, transforming from a flat illustration into a topographic 3D map of some other world.

Semplice Supply Warped Universe abstract illustration rendered with Adobe Dimension
Semplice Supply Warped Universe abstract illustration rendered with Adobe Dimension

Semplice Supply Warped Universe abstract illustration rendered with Adobe Dimension

Integrating Dimension into your own workflow

It's easy to sync up and integrate Dimension with other tools to achieve whatever 3D image you want to create. I'm going to show you now how Dimension can fit into your own workflow, and how works in tandem with tools like Photoshop to make your images even more rich and realistic. In this example, we'll be creating some simple box artwork:

Rendered image of Semplice Studio box art using Adobe Dimension

What you will need

  • An Adobe Creative Cloud subscription to use Adobe Dimension and Photoshop

1. Setting up our artwork in Photoshop

When setting up 2D art for rendering in Dimension, we can use native Adobe formats such as PSD or AI.

I've created some flat box art in Photoshop and split my images into two separate PSDs of both front and sides. Splitting my images like this will allow me to project each flat artwork onto each side of my 3D object in Dimension.

You can then save out your artwork in native PSD format. I typically recommend saving as high-res as possible for best results.

2. Setting up our scene in Dimension

We'll now set up our scene and 3D objects in Dimension. Typically, I like to recreate a new studio environment in Dimension to house all of my objects. I've imported a simple curved 3D plan for my objects to sit on. You can download one for free here. Once you've downloaded the file, go to File > Import > 3D Model in Dimension (or use the plus sign in the left-hand menu) and import your 3D plane.

Since my box art is 70 x 97 x 21 cm in Photoshop, I will also create a box shape of the same size. This will ensure my box art matches proportionally to the 3D model.

Next, I'll size down my box and find a camera angle that works nicely for the scene.

Use the rotate (1), pan (2) or zoom (3) tools to position your camera within the scene and put your object in frame. Setting a very low Field of View value, such as 4°, will give your scene a nice isometric feel.

3. Applying our design

Now that we have our model sized to our Photoshop file's dimensions, we can now add our artwork as a graphic. I like to set a base color that's different than my artwork so I can see how my artwork is aligning. In this case, I've set the base color to red.

I can now use the 'Place Graphic on Model' option to place the PSD artwork onto my model. Once I've added my design, I can reposition the artwork to fit my 3D object. You can use the 'Scale' option to scale up your artwork and match it to our edges.

I'll go ahead and repeat these steps for the other side.

Next, we can assign some materials to our object. We will make our underlying material black, with 50% roughness to give it some nice reflective properties. Go ahead and set an equal roughness value to your graphic.

Now that we have our box artwork set up, let's choose some nice lighting for our scene. I'm going Studio Softbox 3 Point for some nice, evenly lit studio light. I like to also use the Render Preview option to see how my scene lighting is looking while I rotate my light.

4. Making changes

We now have a nice scene built out with our 3D box art. But let's say we want to swap out our artwork. With just a few clicks, we can change the art and create a new product box.

In your material options, select your graphic. In the image options, look for the 'edit' option. This will open up your artwork in whichever program you used to create it. You can then make changes to your graphics in Photoshop, save the file and presto. The artwork has automatically updated in Dimension.

Post-processing

One more fantastic thing about Dimension is you can easily make post-processing adjustments to PSD files. With every render, Dimension will generate additional layers from 3D information. These make it incredibly simple to make "on-the-fly" post-processing adjustments in Photoshop after your images have already rendered.

Adobe Dimension has allowed me to finally break into the world of 3D design. Used in tandem with tools like Photoshop, Illustrator and Cinema 4D, nothing is off-limits. Those of us who called ourselves traditional designers, illustrators or artists before can now take our work to literally another level.

If you do create something with Dimension, be sure to share your designs to Behance, selecting Adobe Dimension under “Tools Used” in the Basic Info tab. On Instagram, tag #AdobeDimension and #CreatewithDimension. This allows the Dimension team to find and promote your work!

For more 3D inspiration made with Dimension, visit the Dimension Behance gallery

October 21, 2019No Comments

You’ve seen the Carbonmade portfolio tool, but never like this

Since its inception in 2005, Carbonmade has helped more than 2 million people put their creative work on the web. Now, with the launch of Carbonmade 4, it’s coming back smarter, faster and more flexible than ever.

You might be familiar with Carbonmade from years ago. Maybe you used a Carbonmade template for your fashion portfolio, design portfolio or art portfolio. Perhaps you recall the happy unicorn face and angelic octopi pictured here:

The old Carbonmade from 2007

Well, Carbonmade 4 is not quite the tool you remember. The new Carbonmade still makes it super easy and fun to build your personalized portfolio (with zero coding knowledge),but you are no longer limited to the same old templates and options. Carbon 4 gives you a whole lot more.

Let’s start with me, Zoe.

Remember that unicorn face I was talking about earlier? Well, she’s grown up. Consider me your Carbonmade spirit guide, here to help you build the portfolio you always wanted, but without all the hassle you never wanted.

But enough about me. Let’s talk about the new Carbonmade 4.

Made for creatives

Carbonmade has always been about helping creative folks share their work online, and that’s still true. Carbonmade 4 is perfect for concept art, illustration, architecture, makeup artists, fashion design, graphic design, photography, motion design, UX design – basically, any kind of visual work. We’ve made tons of new options and tools, from image galleries to video features, with popular creative fields in mind. And we are adding more every day.

Free trial and everything included

Carbonmade is an all-in-one package, so you don’t have to worry about hosting, a domain or any other technical details. All of that comes with your subscription and happens with the click of a button.

Even better, Carbonmade is free to use until you launch. So you can try it out and even build your full portfolio without entering payment or even setting up an account. If only my hair maintenance was that easy and affordable.

Customization without coding

This is one of the best parts of the new Carbonmade website builder: No more templates.

Carbonmade 4 gives you unlimited layouts options, allowing you to mix and match, change colors, fonts, styling and just about everything else without coding. It’s all simple drag & drop. Choose a foundation based on the kind of work you do and customize to your heart’s content from there.

Easy workflows and smart design features

All of us on the Carbonmade team are designers and other creative types too, so we built the tool we would want to use ourselves.

Start setting your site up in Carbonmade and you will notice all kinds of magic happening along the way. Add an image of your project and the tool suggests complementary background colors. Drag and drop a photo onto the page and it automatically optimizes and crops it for you. You have unlimited uploads so file sizes or media types don’t matter.

Carbonmade does everything for you so your website stays fast and beautiful, and you can focus on the fun stuff.

Find new jobs and side projects

When you create your online portfolio with Carbonmade, you join our community. We’re always looking out for you (shoutout to my lovely support team in Chicago and New York!) and will even help you get discovered.

Opting in to our Talentpool puts your portfolio in relevant searches for recruiters and companies. You can change your availability at any time so people know whether you’re open for new projects. It’s like applying for a job without even trying.

If you are in need of a fresh online portfolio, I hope you'll give Carbonmade 4 a try. We are making it better every day, so send me your feedback and ideas on Twitter @carbonmade too. Or just say hello and tell me about the weird dream you had last night.

October 17, 2019No Comments

Addicted to inspiration

The internet has given us access to an unlimited amount of inspiration.  New articles, books, tweets and podcasts are published every day. At this point, it's unclear whether this is helping or hurting us.

Want to start a new company? At least 1,000 entrepreneur podcasts are waiting for you. Stuck with your life in general? Millions of self-help articles are a click away.

Inspiration is important. It's a source of motivation, a reason to wake up in the morning and pursue a productive life. But sometimes, we let inspiration be the end in itself.

We just need to take one more online course before starting our own business. We just need to read one more article. Inspiration can become a way to procrastinate, and it's a nice way to do it too. Getting inspired feels rewarding in itself. It seems to trigger the happy chemicals in our brain almost as much as doing the thing we wanted to do.

“Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration—the rest of us just get up and go to work.”  Stephen King

In the early days of the internet, inspirational content was less readily available online. I found inspiration and fed it by creating, building and designing myself. Today I can get lost for hours and hours just reading, looking at pretty pictures or watching advice videos.

With this never-ending stream of inspiration and motivational content, we need to learn where to draw the line. When will we listen to enough startup advice podcasts to finally execute our own dream? When will we have all the advice we need to just go for it? That's for us to decide for ourselves, but we can only hope it's sooner rather than later.

October 17, 2019No Comments

How to create your first design portfolio

If you're just starting out as a designer, the best place to begin is with a portfolio. You may not have much work to show yet, but don't let that discourage you. Your portfolio isn't about the work you've already done, but the work you want to do next. 

If you recently graduated from design school, you probably created a portfolio for one of your classes. But chances are you did the minimum required to get credit, added a few class projects, turned it in and haven’t touched it since. We can do better than that.

Here are a few ways to make a standout portfolio as a brand new designer.

State clearly what you want to do

Until your work speaks for you, you can’t afford to be vague or artistic with your website content. Just write a straightforward introduction about who you are and what you offer. Add this to the top of your homepage and on your About page. If you are looking for internships or a job, say “currently open for new opportunities” or “currently seeking a product design position in New York City.” Leave no question for your website visitors about what you’re after.

Curate for the job you want

It’s tempting to put every piece you’ve ever created in your portfolio just to make it seem full, but that will only do you a disservice. It won’t tell a cohesive story about who you are, what you offer or what you want. As I said at the beginning, your portfolio is not about what you already did. It’s about what you want to do in the future. 

If you want to get a UX design job, don’t add a bunch of poster projects or package designs to your portfolio. It’s fine to show a range of work, especially if it’s work that makes you proud, but if you’re seeking a digital design job and you’re showing mostly print work, your viewers will be confused. 

Don’t worry if you only have two or so projects at this point. That’s expected when you’re new to the industry. And a spare portfolio is better than a portfolio filled with mediocre, disjointed work that doesn’t fit your goals.

Add your design experiments 

Until you have client work to share, you need to show your potential somehow. Design experiments are the perfect way to do that. These not only help you hone your skills and learn new tools, but they reveal something about your attitude and motivation. 

I am always impressed when I see designers pushing themselves to get better on their own time. Design a prototype or a single screen for a fake app. Challenge yourself to create posters along a specific theme. Try to create something inspired by a piece of art or another designer you admire. You can add your experiments to a Playground page on your site, or link us to your Dribbble page where we can browse through them. Just be sure to give credit and ask permission where it’s due, and make it clear that these are not client projects.

While I’m all for experiments, I recommend against doing too many unsolicited redesigns. These only call attention to your inexperience, especially when it’s the easy go-to brands like Nike or Ikea. Find a unique angle, make something of your own and prove you can think originally.

Share how you think and approach your work

Before you have the experience and seasoned skills to show, companies are taking a risk hiring you. They hire you based on your potential and hope it pays off as you grow. So help them see your potential and envision you on their team.

I can’t stress the importance of case studies enough here. Write thoughtful, brief case studies for your projects that explain why you approached the work you did, what your process was and how it all turned out. Include details, but don’t write ten paragraphs about your UX research and empathy map. Just tell us the challenge, how you approached and what the outcome was. 

Most importantly: Don’t try to impress with flowery language and "insider" language. Write professionally, but conversationally. Show some personality. And have a writer friend read and edit your writing – big opportunities are lost to small typos every day. 

Create a memorable About page

As we all come to find out, being a nice person who people enjoy working with is just as important as actual skill. And when you don’t have much experience or skill yet, it counts even more. 

For that reason, your About page is the most important page on your site. It’s not about being a “culture fit,” but rather showing that you will add something special to the team. Aside from the expected details (name, email, social links), try to do something different and unexpected with your About page – whether that’s cracking a joke or sharing a self-portrait you illustrated of you with your pet gerbil, Frankie. Briefly share your professional and personal interests (product design, gerbils) and what job you are looking for. Add your loveliest, most professional, high-quality photo of yourself.

Give recruiters, who go through dozens of portfolios a day, a reason to remember yours. 

Add your side projects 

The best advice I can give to new designers: Don’t let ego get in the way when you are trying to get your foot in the door. Look for opportunities in small places, like side projects. 

Whether you’re creating a brand for your sister’s jewelry company or doing a small project for a non-profit organization, side projects are stepping stones to bigger projects and can even lead to a full-time job. 

Take on as many side projects as you can afford, and add those to your portfolio. Side projects show your drive and your interests, and prove you’re a motivated designer who enjoys what they do enough to do it off the clock.

Don’t use a template

Nothing reveals your inexperience more than using a bland, fill-in-the-blank template for your site. It’s so easy to create a personalized website these days, a template makes it clear you didn’t try too hard and don’t care very much.

If you need a tool for your portfolio, I recommend trying out Carbonmade. Carbonmade 4 is incredibly easy to use, with lots of customization options. You start with a base layout and can customize it fully in just a couple hours with drag and drop.

Find examples of beautiful portfolio sites made with Carbonmade right here. And for portfolio building tips, design inspiration and more, keep reading here.

P.S. The cover image for this article uses the "Unsolicited redesign" symbol from the Design Language symbol pack.

October 16, 2019No Comments

How to get a job in the saturated field of UX design

UX design is so popular right now, the field is flooded with both new talent and seasoned designers changing their title to get a job. 

With more competition every day, it’s becoming difficult to secure a UX design role. At the same time, companies are still learning how to hire UX designers and what it means for their business. 

Given these challenges, it’s more important than ever to have a great portfolio that sets you up for success. But that’s only the beginning. Whether you’re new to the field or an experienced UX designer, here’s how I recommend positioning yourself to stand out and get a UX design job.

I have seen so many portfolios that lead with “empathetic designer crafting meaningful experiences,” it’s hard to remember who is who.

Show, don’t tell 

The word “empathy” is thrown around so much in the design industry, especially within UX design conversations, it’s beginning to feel trite. I have seen so many portfolios that lead with “empathetic designer crafting meaningful experiences,” it’s hard to remember who is who. At this point, you will be noticed for thoughtful, original writing that shows you understand UX beyond the buzzwords.

Make it clear you are empathetic through your portfolio case studies, rather than spelling it out. Instead of saying you craft meaningful experiences, explain how a specific project impacted a client in a positive way. Rather than saying you care about inclusive design, show us how you approached your UX work with inclusivity and accessibility in mind.

Disclaimer: Empathy is indeed relevant to design or really any job, so feel free to mention these terms in your portfolio – especially because companies have been trained through the industry to look for these buzzwords. Just don’t lean on them. 

Lead with your UX projects, but don’t deny your past

Considering how many people are tacking “UX” onto their capabilities list, you can make an impression by simply proving you have real-world experience. 

If you specialize in UX design and have served in that role on a project, you are already one step ahead of many other designers. Curate your portfolio to show your best UX design projects so companies and recruiters know you’re not just another designer taking advantage of a trend. 

However, your other design experience is still relevant here. If you have worked as an interactive designer, product designer or something similar in the past, feel free to include a couple of those projects to show your depth of experience. But aim for every project to make your case stronger, pointing back to why you’re the best UX designer for the job.

To be clear, most designers are not wrong to add UX design to their offerings. For a long time, user experience was part of any interactive design job. Given the fact that UX design as a field is not only relatively new but encompasses a wide variety of skills (strategy, design, content, etc.), it’s fair to say many “traditional” designers can meet the job description. That’s why showing genuine passion and a specialized focused in user experience will help you stand out. 

"As designers, we tend to focus on the visuals. But content is just as important, especially for UX designers."

Communication above all

Strong communication skills may be the most important requirement for a UX design job. You not only have to make abstract concepts tangible for your team and your client, you also touch many points of a project. In this role, you collaborate with developers, strategists, designers, copywriters, project managers and more. In some cases, the UX designer even writes UX copy. Any good design director or recruiter interviewing you will look for this skill. 

Show you’re a strong communicator from the beginning of your relationship with a company. Write concise, professional emails when you reach out. Speak clearly and with intention on the phone and in an interview. Create compelling case studies that tell the story of your work without rambling and wasting your reader’s time. And most importantly, proofread everything. Ask a friend to read your writing and point out typos or areas of improvement. As designers, we tend to focus on the visuals. But content is just as important, especially for UX designers.

"The surest way to land the job you want: Strive to be the best at what you do."

Deepen your understanding of design

It’s easy to say, but it’s the surest way to land the job you want: Strive to be the best at what you do. 

With a saturated field comes a range of talent. That naturally leads to undercutting, which lowers the overall quality of the work being produced in that field. If you want to rise above all this mess, you have to be great at what you do.

Knowing UX fundamentals is a given. Thanks to the accessibility of digital fields like ours, we can attend a three-month UX design course and become certified UX designers. That means many UX designers today (with plenty of exceptions) have a shallow understanding of design as a whole. So what makes you stand out? A deeper, sharper grasp of our field. 

Beyond growing in UX design and all that comes with it (strategy, research, etc.), seek a deeper understanding of graphic design. Learn what defines good typography. Learn the function of layout and composition. Immerse yourself in media and culture that refines your taste (beauty is function, no matter who says otherwise). Aim to get better at copywriting, too. Combined with some common sense, research and curiosity, you'll be in high demand.

For more tips for creating a great UX portfolio and hiring a UX designer, read the UX designer hiring guide from Semplice.

October 16, 2019No Comments

The only barrier between you and your freelance career

The answer: your own anxiety. A freelancing career has never been more attainable. Yet many who aspire to it still find it daunting. So we asked successful freelancers how they went about it, and what they recommend for those who want to strike out on their own.

Working for yourself comes with risks, so it’s reasonable that anyone with a cozy full-time job would hesitate to make the jump. In fact, if you didn’t have any reservations about going freelance, that would be cause for concern. We’ve written about the downsides of this often glorified career path before, which includes an unpredictable schedule and equally unpredictable income. It's not always the work-from-bed dream it's cracked up to be.

For some, however, the benefits of freelancing far outweigh the challenges. If you feel like it might be the right fit for you, here's a good place to begin.

"A chat I had with my friend about his own experience gave me the confidence to make the jump, and since then I’ve never looked back."

Start freelancing on the side

Providing you didn't sign a contract that says otherwise, you can start taking on freelance gigs right now. As you become more comfortable managing your own clients and work, you can ease in a bit more. Eventually, you will build up your client base (and your confidence) enough to make the transition to full-time freelance. 

This approach allows you to buy your time and save up money as a cushion, so you don’t have to panic while finding your footing as a freelancer. You can also use this time to build up your portfolio. Most importantly, it allows you to test the waters while keeping your full-time job as a safety net. Before you’ve fully committed to it, you can see if you enjoy managing clients and projects on your own. 

That’s how Jordan Gilroy, a freelance digital designer, went about it. Gilroy worked at an agency for seven years before deciding it was time for something new. 

“I’d always done freelance work on the side but never thought about it as a full-time option, mainly because of the business side of things," said Gilroy. “[A] chat I had with my friend about his own experience gave me the confidence to make the jump, and since then I’ve never looked back.”

Gilroy started with a retainer client, working just a couple days a week to keep himself a to keep himself afloat. He spent the rest of the week marketing himself through self-initiated projects. Eventually, he was able to fill his week with client work.

“It wasn’t long before I found myself in a much stronger position than I ever was working in an agency,” Gilroy said.

By planning your move strategically, you remove a considerable amount of anxiety and uncertainty from the situation. You’ve bought yourself a few months to try it out and see what happens. If you work hard and find the freelance life is suited to you, those first few months will lead to more. 

Embrace the risk

Slow and easy is one way to go about it. Or, you can just dive right into the full-time freelance deep end. That’s what animator and illustrator Simone Tufvesson did.

“When I graduated a year ago, I didn’t feel that any of the jobs in Copenhagen lived up to what I dreamed of,” said Tufvesson. “I love the whole process of making animations. I like managing my own projects and completing a project from start to finish. So just before graduating, a client contacted me on Instagram, asking if I could produce an animated explainer video for them. And after that, it just felt natural to start my freelance full-time career.”

Freelancing is decidedly riskier than working full-time for a company so you may never feel it’s the perfect moment. Planning ahead helps but at some point, you just have to embrace the risk, stop "protecting the cake" and go for it.  

“Just do it,” says Tufvesson. “Be visible. Contact studios and potential clients. Promote your projects on social media, and if you haven’t done any client work yet, show your badass personal projects.” 

Take every opportunity to promote yourself

Marketing yourself and your work will always be important as a freelancer, but especially at the beginning. Once you start building up your network and doing more projects, happy clients will hopefully help you spread the word. Until then, you are solely responsible for getting your name out there. 

Every new project you do, whether it’s client work or a personal project, is another opportunity to promote yourself. Post it across your networks and send a quick personal email to anyone who might be remotely interested. This is a great way to build and maintain your professional relationships as well. Sending a friendly email is the beginning of a conversation that may eventually lead to your dream freelance project. 

Your website is not only your first impression, it’s your main place of business as a freelancer. It’s the neon “OPEN” sign on the front of your office building.

Gilroy used this strategy at the beginning and still does when he has downtime between client projects. 

“I’m fortunate to be busy most days of the year, but whenever I hit a quiet patch I always create a self-initiated project,” says Gilroy. “You need to stay on your toes and keep being active on social media so that when there is a drought, you’ll be at the forefront of people’s minds.”

Social networks are a great place to promote your work, and I know plenty of freelancers who have found opportunities via Instagram or Twitter. But all of it should constantly point back to the same place: your portfolio.

A personal site (insert shameless Semplice.com plug here) should be the first item on your list when starting out as a freelancer. People make jokes about the one-person team behind “award-winning studio” portfolio headlines, but it’s a strategy that works. Your website is not only your first impression, it’s your main place of business as a freelancer. It’s the neon  “OPEN” sign on the front of your office building. Whether your position yourself as an independent designer or “creative studio” is up to you, but a personal site is non-negotiable.

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This is only the beginning. A successful freelance career requires discipline, time management, and a knack for business, among other skills. But at the beginning, all it takes is a little self-confidence. You don’t need a degree, a special certification or permission from your peers to call yourself a freelancer. You just need to do it. 

For more freelancing tips and insights, catch up on our You & the Freelance Life series.

October 8, 2019No Comments

Creating packaging and prototypes with Adobe Dimension

Presentation is the key to success as a designer. The most outstanding designs fall flat if not presented well. It's why we build Semplice.com, to help designers present themselves and their work better. And now, it's why we're using Adobe Dimension.

If you're not familiar, Dimension is set to change the way designers use 3D forever. It's made 3D design accessible to those who may not have access to expensive 3D programs or technical knowledge to use them. (We already shared our beginner's 3D design tutorial using Dimension, and it's been awesome seeing what people are making with zero previous 3D experience.) The best part is, Dimension is included with an Adobe Creative Cloud subscription.

With Dimension, you can take a design, whether it's a logo or an abstract illustration, and put it into context for your audience. We've used it to mock up our product packaging, to prototype quick examples for a project, to visualize abstract concepts – basically, to bring any 2D work into 3D space and make it feel real. With Dimension, we can breathe 3D life into our designs.

Adobe Dimension, Semplice 3D renderings

3D hot sauce bottles we designed and created in Dimension to use in a Semplice.com demo.

A 3D rendering created of our Semplice product packaging, created in Dimension.

Our packaging and prototyping workflow with Dimension

It's surprisingly easy to get started with Dimension. It comes with lighting presets, 3D objects and realistic real-world materials you can use to quickly bring your work into beautiful 3D space. To show you my typical workflow for 3D prototyping and package design, I've created an example scene with packaging for a non-existent coffee company. So instead of presenting the logo and packaging design to this company on a flat page, I can mock it up as it's intended to appear: on the curved shape of a can.

Here is the flat artwork we will be applying to our 3D objects:

2D flat artwork to be used in Adobe Dimension packaging design example

Here is the final scene, which we'll now re-create together:

3D renderings of packaging design using Adobe Dimension

What you will need

1. Setting up our scene

When creating a 3D visual, I first place flat planes at right angles to create a floor and walls for my scene. You can use the 'Plane' model from the Models panel to add flat planes. I then arrange all of my objects within this space. In this case, I used the 'Beverage Can' model Dimension provides.

From there, I added cylinders and coffee beans for additional visual interest.

If you are looking for 3D assets to use in your scene, Dimension provides lots of options in the Starter Assets Panel on the left. You can find more Dimension-ready assets, both free and paid, on the Adobe Stock 3D website. Websites like CGTrader or TurboSquid also offer free 3D assets.

2. Setting the camera view

Now that I've placed all my objects, I'm going to set up my camera view. Dimension uses real-world camera attributes, and if you're familiar with basic photography principles you'll know that visual placement is crucial to a well-balanced visual scene.

Use the rotate (1), pan (2) or zoom (3) tools to position your camera within the scene and put your object in frame. You can use the Field of View to either reduce or increase camera perception and simulate lens distortion. For this scene, I've set my camera Field of View to 5 for a very isometric-like result.

3. Assigning materials

With my camera set up, I then assign materials to my objects. For my walls and structural objects, I've set a colored matte material. The matte material will serve to absorb excess light and reduce reflections in our scene. I've then set my floor to a ceramic tile material, and assigned custom colors to my tile in the material options. My cylinders have been set to plastic, with 35% roughness. Roughness just means how specular or reflective your object will be, so setting a roughness value of 35% will provide some glossiness to our object.

I've assigned my cans a metal material with a 30% roughness value. This metal material will serve as the base material for our cans, with our design being overlaid on top to allow the metal to show through. You could also easily use a vector graphic made in Illustrator.

4. Adding our designs

Now that we have assigned a metal material to our cans to serve as the base material, let's add a design to our cans. We will lay our artwork on top of the base material, and use transparency to allow the base metal material to show through.

We'll do this by adding our design as a graphic in our materials editor. I've created my flat packaging work in Photoshop and then saved them as transparent PNGs. The transparent areas of the PNG is where our underlying metal material will show through.

I will now add the PNGs as a graphic to my can. In the material options, look for the 'Add Graphic to Model' option. You can then use the graphic scale tools to scale the PNG on the 3D object, along with your cursor to re-arrange the placement of the graphic on the can. Lastly, I've set my graphic to have a roughness of 20%.

5. Setting our lighting

Great! We've built out our scene. Now comes one of the most important steps: our lighting. Lighting is key to creating photorealistic and visually pleasing results, and thankfully Dimension takes the legwork out of this step with its lighting presets.

You can choose from a variety of lighting presets depending on the mood and style you want. In Dimension, you'll first choose either image-based environment lighting or sunlight and adjust to your liking from there. For a nice studio look with soft shadows and even lighting, I chose Studio Light Pillars Dark A. I then used the rotate tool to change the direction of my lighting.

And here is the render. We have some very soft shadows and even light:

We can achieve a more naturally lit scene by choosing sunlight as the light source. This is our same scene, with environment lighting turned off and sunlight (with a height value of 45 and cloudiness set to 38%, and colorize set to white) as the light source:

3D renderings of packaging design using Adobe Dimension for Van Schneider blog

6. Experiment!

Now that we've set up our basic scene, this is where the real fun comes in. You can tweak and experiment with various lighting techniques, object materials and camera angles to get a variety of images and moods.

For example, you can adjust the camera angles of your scene to get varying results. Here is a simple front-facing shot of our scene, with the camera Field of View set to 30 and 'sunlight' for the lighting. This is the equivalent of using a 30mm camera lens:

3D renderings of packaging design using Adobe Dimension

You can also turn on Depth of Field in the Camera options to achieve some nice focusing effects for those closeup shots:

In this example, I've set my Depth of Field to 56 with my Field of View at 12:

You can also drastically change the feel and mood of your scene with lighting. Here is an example where I've set the environment to Studio Color Stage A, with some soft sunlight colorized to orange:

Here is another example where I've used sunlight as the light source, with a low height value for some intense shadows and moodiness:

3D renderings of packaging design using Adobe Dimension

Lastly, playing around with the materials can also dramatically change the look of your scene. Here is one example where I've set the floor to valencia marble, and the cylinders to brass. You'll notice it's already given our scene different look and feel. You can find even more rich materials on Adobe Stock.

3D renderings of packaging design using Adobe Dimension

We can go even crazier and set all of our structural materials to metal:

3D renderings of packaging design using Adobe Dimension

Final thoughts

When you compare a flat logo design with seeing a logo on a 3D object, the value of Dimension is obvious. Whether you're creating a brand identity, a simple mockup or detailed prototype, Dimension elevates your work and makes it more tangible.

I highly recommend checking out their support articles to get the basics on how to use the program. And if you haven't already tried out our 3D illustration tutorial, do that next. Start playing and creating with Dimension and it will quickly become an indispensable part of your design toolbox.

If you do create something with Dimension, be sure to share your designs to Behance, selecting Adobe Dimension under “Tools Used” in the Basic Info tab. On Instagram, tag #AdobeDimension and #CreatewithDimension. This allows the Dimension team to find and promote your work.

For more 3D design inspiration, visit the Dimension Behance gallery

October 7, 2019No Comments

Inspiring design portfolios from September 2019

Once a week, we select two portfolios created with Semplice to feature in our Best Of  Showcase.  Here we've collected our favorites from the past month.

It's always motivating to see how creatives of all kinds use Semplice for their online portfolios. In September, we featured websites from art directors, 3D illustrators, designers, interactive, motion designers, industrial designers and more.

Browse the best portfolios of the month below to see fresh new work and get inspired for your own site. And if you've created your own portfolio with Semplice, be sure to submit it to our Showcase here. We might feature your site next.

 

To see more great design portfolios, visit the Semplice showcase. I'll be back next month with more of our monthly favorites!

Header image by Barnaby Ward

October 3, 2019No Comments

iPhone 11 “TSA” Wallpaper

Little iPhone wallpaper for your new iPhone 11 PRO (regular size). I admit I just did this really quick (don't judge) so I can have it for my own phone. Feel free to use it for your own and hope you enjoy it.

You can download it right here.

Preview below.

Enjoy!
Tobias

October 3, 2019No Comments

How to be the designer you want to work with

Over the past year, I’ve worked with a variety of designers, engineers, PMs and managers. Throughout that time, I’ve noticed that those I enjoy working with the most share similar qualities.

These people are good at what they do, inspire those around them and come through when I’m in a tough spot. Through observing them, I learned that just having hard skills is only part of the equation to being a good teammate. As I strive to be a better designer, teammate and employee, I adhere to these principles I’ve picked up from my inspiring coworkers.

"I love that I can go into work every day without feeling I need to prove I belong there."

Communicate openly, frequently and succinctly

When I hear couples share their secret to a long, happy relationship, they always seem to say that the key is communication. It’s a similar situation here.

I’ve found being open and vocal with my teammates helps us understand how we can support one another, prevents us from unnecessary work overlap and contributes to a culture of trust. What this communication looks like will vary from team to team, but for us it’s posting daily YTBs (an abbreviated daily standup covering what each person did yesterday, what we will do today, and any blockers we have) in Slack, having the design lead delegate tasks to the designers, and being respectful and friendly with one another. 

Open communication and mutual respect allow us to give and ask for help without fear of judgment. I’ve grown to see the value of workplaces that create these “safe spaces” for their employees to be vulnerable, and how it correlates with my level of enjoyment of working at a company. I love that I can go into work every day without feeling I need to prove I belong there.

When it comes to communicating with the client, never underestimate the power of clarity. Because we rely so heavily on our phones and computers to stay in touch, we are surrounded by noise. Notifications are missed, messages are read but not responded to, and auto-correct fails us. To avoid confusion and cut through that noise, communicate directly, succinctly and with intention.

Pleasantries can be distracting and unnecessary when talking business with the client. They are just as busy as I am, and I try to respect that by sending quick and direct messages. For example, instead of saying:

“Hey X! I took a look at the requirements you provided and mocked up these designs. I was wondering if you could take a look at these designs and let me know your feedback or any thoughts you have? There’s no rush, just get back to me when you’re available.”

I could say instead:

“Hi X, these designs are ready for your review. My recommendation is on the left because of its increased legibility and clear hierarchy.”

The client doesn’t need to be reminded in every message of how polite and nice I am. They know that already. Not to mention, they are paying for the time I spend writing this email, so they can appreciate efficiency more than anyone. My job is to make it easy for them to help me without having to sift through fluff.

"The pitfall of weekly or bi-weekly design reviews is that designers may assume those meetings are the only times they should be sharing their work, causing them to be radio silent the rest of the week."

Share work often

Having regular design meetings is not only critical in ensuring open communication, but also to share progress and confirm everyone is on track to meet project goals.

However, the pitfall of weekly or bi-weekly design reviews is that designers may assume those meetings are the only times they should be sharing their work, causing them to be radio silent the rest of the week. Meetings can, ironically, make room for passivity. And that’s dangerous for several reasons. 

First, if I’m waiting until my Thursday Design Review meeting to share my work, I’m probably not communicating enough (see previous section). Second, I have to compete with everyone else’s agendas in the meeting. If we don’t get a chance to talk about mine, progress on my work may be stalled until the next meeting. Third, if I’m not actively working to ensure my designs align with the most updated requirements and goals, I might go too far in the wrong direction before someone tells me otherwise. This wastes my time, wastes my team’s time, and compromises the project timeline and the budget.

This is an area that’s especially intimidating to me (send screenshots of my WIP designs to the entire Slack channel? What if I get roasted?!), but in sharing my work more often, I’m becoming more confident in myself. Taking a proactive approach – whether it’s sending screenshots through Slack or bringing my computer over to a teammate’s desk – opens the door for better communication and collaboration. It’s a way to make sure my work aligns with the team's flow and efforts.

Be adaptable and flexible

In my relatively short design career so far, I've already learned a designer’s attitude and mindset play a large part in their success or failure.

In a perfect world, I would only need to learn one design tool (which would also happen to be the preferred tool for project management and handoff) that only gets better with each update so I could use it forever until the end of existence. In reality, designers juggle multiple tools while remembering the different hotkeys for each software, making sure everyone has the correct permission level, checking that files sync up across devices and platforms, deciding on the best handoff tool, and remembering what platform we’re supposed to leave our notes on (do I leave this comment in Figma, JIRA, or Slack?).

Collaboration with big teams can come with difficulties, such as the decision to switch design tools mid-project (yes, this happened to me), and I’ve found the key to overcoming these hurdles is to have a positive attitude, embrace the challenge and be flexible. Sometimes, no matter how much I love Figma, I’m going to have to suck it up and use Sketch. 

Adaptability and flexibility also come into play when balancing client and internal feedback. A large part of design is about problem solving and presentation; how can I use my design expertise to show the client my design is the best solution for the problem at hand? 

For example, I might present a design that is beautiful and functional, clearly improving the user experience. The client might come back saying the design can’t be implemented because of budget limitations, time constraints, or simply because they didn’t like it. What now? Do we count ten paces and draw our pistols? That’d probably be more fun, but no.

I have to remind myself that the client and I are one team. As a designer, I advocate for the user, and the best clients will try to understand and trust my perspective. But I also need to remember the client knows their business and their audience best. Some questions I like to keep in mind here are:

What are the business goals?

What are the specific project goals?

What’s best for the user?

Stepping into the client’s shoes allows us to work more smoothly together. Compromises will always have to be made, but as long as the client and I can view the problem from a shared perspective, we’ll have a better foundation to create a successful product.

"No smart person will write me off as being dumb if I’m asking a question for the benefit of the team."

Understand everyone’s role on the team

Depending on the team and the project, designers are often assigned a specific part of the product or flow. This way, we can work in parallel and meet project goals sooner. While this seems straightforward, I’ve found it challenging at times to understand who owns what part of the product and how my work fits into the larger picture, especially when working with a large design team spread across three time zones and two countries.

Working to receive that clarity is like making sure your machine is well-oiled before starting it up. This should ideally be established at the beginning of the project’s engagement, usually by management. However, there may be unexpected staff changes, revisions to the client agreement, etc. Speaking purely from a product designer’s point of view, I prescribe to the mindset that if I have a question about the team structure – or anything else fundamental to the project – I just ask it.

Here’s a question I asked my team past week: "Who can I reach out to about the engineering capabilities of this design?"

By surfacing these questions early on, I can avoid working off of an ever-growing stack of assumptions. I’ve had to get over my personal insecurity of sounding  “dumb” by “asking a stupid question,” and it’s worth it. No smart person will write me off as being dumb if I’m asking a question for the benefit of the team.

With a clear understanding of everyone’s role in the project, I’m able to reach out to the correct person for any questions I have or resources I need. This eliminates the need to chase down the person who is in charge of the checkout flow or trying to figure out who can direct me to the most updated design library.

Clarity also facilitates better teamwork and allows me to anticipate the needs of my teammates. If I know another designer’s work will overlap with mine, I can be proactive in working together with them. It can be tempting and easy for designers to work in silos (I know how much we all like our heads-down time), but working to foster a culture of collaboration leads to a better product and a more effective team. 

The list goes on, but these are the observations that have been most useful to my growth as a designer and teammate. Hopefully, no matter where you are in your career, they are a nice reminder for you as well.

A bit of a personal update: Last time I wrote for this blog, I had just accepted a full-time position as an associate product designer at Funsize. I’m happy to report that I’ve been promoted to product designer, thanks to some amazing opportunities and great coworkers who have helped me grow along the way. When I think about the past jobs I’ve had, the ones I liked most were because I got to work with awesome people. In pursuing the qualities and habits I’ve shared here, I’m trying to be that person for my team.

October 1, 2019No Comments

Design in Nagasaki 🇯🇵 featuring DEJIMAGRAPH

With this long-awaited addition to our Design Around the World series, meet DEJIMAGRAPH, a planning and design studio based in Nagasaki.

Somehow, this is our first look into the vibrant design community in Japan. Perhaps it's because good design is in such abundance in Japan, we barely knew where to start. Then we discovered DEJIMAGRAPH, a tiny team of four focused on branding, packaging design and planning, and were instantly drawn to their work. Working exclusively with local clients in the small city of Nagasaki, the team has a unique perspective on design in Japan.

Here we talked with Yuko Maltino Murakawa and Junichi Hayama about design in Nagasaki, how the city's complex history influences that design, and the balance between preserving tradition and challenging it.

First, let’s talk about your studio. Who is the team behind Dejimagraph and why did you decide to open a graphic design studio?

DEJIMAGRAPH Inc. is a small office with three designers and a copywriter who also works as a planner. 

We offer various advertising work, package designs and product planning, as well as product branding. We support our clients’ projects from the planning stage to the end, communicating product values through reasonable and heartwarming designs. We believe that great designs provide comfort and happiness for both our clients and their customers. 

Tell us about the design community in Japan and specifically, Nagasaki. Do many platforms and events exist in Nagasaki that help you connect with other designers?

Although there are some large organizations of designers and creators in Japan, we have a chance to get together only once a year or so. On the other hand, designers in closer areas can meet more often. I am glad that we can see each other quite easily because of the physical distance. 

Speaking of Nagasaki, there are not many events or platforms for designers to gather in one place. In the Kyushu area, however, there is a group called Kyushu Art Directors Club, and they hold K-ADC AWARD once every three years as well as different types of events. In Nagasaki, designers usually meet and connect with each other individually. 

We all have an idea of Japanese design in our minds, to the point where some might stereotype it or think of cliches (minimalism being one of them). How would you describe the design you see coming from Nagasaki and Japan today? 

Not only in Japan, but also anywhere in the world, logo design and typography are becoming more and more minimal and simple due to the web. One good example is that decisions are made depending on whether the design is easier to be applied as an icon on smartphones. 

In Japan, the design trend varies in each region. For example, design in Nagasaki is greatly influenced by Western culture and Chinese culture. It is because Nagasaki was once the only port open to overseas trading ships during the Edo period. Unique patterns developed in Nagasaki which were inspired by the national flags that foreign ships were flying. These have been firmly established as well as red and yellow colors often seen in Chinese culture. We often get comments from designers from outside of Nagasaki such as, “I see a lot of colors in Nagasaki” or “things are so colorful here.”

These days, in Japan, branding and design that emphasize distinctive features of the locality seems to be in trend.

See these unique patterns, for example.

"Inspiration always comes from the clients, and the idea of preserving our individuality is not the top priority here."

Globalization seems to be a big topic on designers’ minds today, specifically the concern about Western influence.  How do you feel about globalization and its impact on design in Japan? Do you see designers reacting and striving individuality in their work?

Actually, we have never thought about globalization as we do our job. What we always have in mind is to value the design created through communication with our clients, rather than the design we want. Inspiration always comes from the clients, and the idea of preserving our individuality is not the top priority here.  

Many designs I see from Japan, especially poster designs, combine both Japanese and Latin/Roman characters. Is this just an aesthetic choice or do most of your designs need to cater to an international audience?

I guess it is similar to when Westerners use Kanji (Chinese characters) and Katakana in design. Latin/Roman figures are so simple and beautiful that they are often used in design as an aesthetic choice. (Most younger generations now can read simple English words, so sometimes English words are adopted as a title.) But I know on some occasions, Roman characters are used just to ensure the message is understandable for foreigners.

In Nagasaki, there are a lot of inbound visitors, so it is sometimes necessary to use these characters. Still, it is my impression that they are used for an aesthetic purpose in general.   

I’ve read that Japanese typeface design can be so complex, designers often create characters just for specific headlines, rather than designing a full typeface. Is that accurate for your work? 

We often make fonts when we believe existing ones cannot express our intentions. Japanese people deal with a great number of characters: numbers, Roman characters, Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji. Kanji conveys not only the sounds, but also the meanings (ideographs). 

It is probably in the nature of Japanese people to see emotional overtones and special meanings carried in each character. Maybe that’s why we are particular about small details in the shapes of each character. We feel those details show emotion and atmosphere. And that makes us want to create unique fonts. Whenever we create new fonts, we are always careful to make them legible and easy to read in order to deliver the message without fail – not just appeal visually as a part of a design.   

In our design community in the States, we still struggle with collaboration between content and design. Design usually comes first, resulting in placeholder copy, and teams don’t have a clear process for true collaboration. 

Murakawa, as a copywriter and planner, how is it for you? Is content valued and understood in your community, or do you struggle to fight for copy’s role in a project?

Here is how we go about it:

First of all, we define what the creative works are for in the project. 

Share it with everyone on the team.

Share the goals with the clients.

Choose the best possible means to achieve the goals. 

We and our clients want to have the best outcome, so we all simply have to look in the same direction.  

In Dejimagraph, planning and copy are prioritized. We believe that it is a natural flow in working with clients. I take part in a project as a creative director, so I usually set a definite policy before our designers start their job, including the ideas and concepts that the designers must follow. Our designers do not design completely freely on their own discretion. 

I usually explain to our team the importance of copy as well. If the designers can do the designs as they like without considering the whole, the goals of the clients’ business will not be achieved.

We are not artists. The source of our creativity is our clients. Our clients have a set of clear goals in their business. And our job is to play the creative part in order for our clients to achieve their goals.

It is not “design first,” but it is more likely to be “client first” or “business first.” We sort out and re-form the concepts of our clients’ services and products so that the values of the products and services can be easily understood.  We first describe the direction of creative works using words and share them with our clients. Designs can be understood so differently between individuals, so words help everyone to have less misunderstandings.

Creating a logo design is one of the major works that we deal with, but words always proceed.

Copy and words are essential in design, and of course, vice versa. 

I read that the Tohoku earthquake of 2011 had a big impact on Japanese design, shifting the priority from style/personality to form and function. Has this impacted you and your work in any specific way?

After the earthquake, many people shifted their attention from designing for business to designing for society, creating design that can solve social problems.  

Japan is the only nation that was the victim of atomic bombs. Nagasaki is one of two locations where the bombs were dropped. There is an education program in Nagasaki in which people here can learn the importance of peace and the misery of atomic bombs from a young age. With this background, our designers have been conscious of designs that convey those messages. In this respect, we can say that design to serve society and to solve problems has been a focus since long ago. 

Japan also seems to be moving toward more environmentally friendly designs. Do you see this to be true in packaging / branding design like you do?

It’s true. Nowadays, more clients are interested in employing packaging materials that are free of plastic. Besides, from a cost perspective, we try to make a proposal that can avoid excessive packaging.

I read that Japanese designers still seek a contrast between traditional design craftsmanship and new media in their work. Where do you stand on this? Do you consciously seek to work traditional methods into your design or strive for newness?

I'm sure there are aesthetic qualities that can be seen only in handwritten letters and letterpress printing. Since Nagasaki is the place where the letterpress printing method was introduced, we actively adopt those methods if the feeling matches the project scope. The analog feeling and uneven qualities created by such analog methods are very attractive.  

It looks like most or all of the designers on your team have a bachelor’s or even a master’s degree in design. What is design education like in Japan? And do most designers seek a formal education?

Hayama graduated from a design course in high school, but many people who now work as a  designer majored in unrelated fields in school. Graduates of art universities and vocational schools may have had more opportunities to think about design while they were in school and it sure is an advantage for them. Yet, I don’t think the majors in school really matter. 

In Dejimagraph, we value enthusiasm and devotion in design rather than a person's major and expertise. I know some people who purchased a Mac on their own and design as they like while studying engineering or literature in school. We would love to work with people like them. 

What would you say are unique challenges for designers in your community right now?

1. Local governments have been striving to provide information about their unique services in a simple way for local residents by employing design.

2. We see that businesses and local governments are now acting throughout the nation to establish a hub that leads to the revitalization of local communities. There are now more local governments that adopt and utilize design for the purpose of promoting and encouraging more people to settle in depopulated areas.  

Based on my research, I understood that the government doesn’t provide much support for design in Japan. But it sounds like it's slowly becoming more aware of its value. What still needs to happen? 

We need to abolish bureaucracy-led speculative works. Spec works and unpaid competitions have been spreading because the emphasis is placed heavily on fairness. I don’t think the bureaucracy will realize the importance and the value of design in such an environment. The system of such spec works itself needs to be redeveloped. 

Design competitions organized by local governments are often run by members who do not know much about design. All the necessary steps to hold the competition including the drawing of the competition outline, screening process, selection of judges and so on, should be led by experts in the field. To do so, design associations and organizations should be involved more actively.  

As the world is getting smaller with the help of the internet, working with international clients is very common. Do you actively work with international clients or focus mostly on local clients? And do businesses typically work with local designers and studios?

We would love to work with clients overseas. In fact, we sometimes receive offers and requests from overseas. However, we haven’t taken a step forward yet due to the complexity of contracts and differences in business rules and ethics. In order to do business with overseas clients from now on, we definitely need to receive legal support. So, adjusting and enhancing the environment is the first thing we need to do now.

How much impact does your social media presence have on getting new clients and self-promotion in general? What works best for you?

It does have an impact on getting new clients as well as recruiting designers, etc. But the one that has the greatest impact, which we use the least, is probably Pinterest. It looks like people often go to Pinterest to seek good design. 

A still from DEJIMAGRAPH's video for the Japanese noodle, somen, made in Minamishimabara.

What does good design mean to Dejimagraph, and how do you see it impacting your country’s society as a whole? Do you think it can solve larger issues it faces?

Good design is design that brings our clients advantages. 

Design that discovers people who empathize with our clients.

We believe that design can solve a lot of major issues in our society. We believe in design.

In your opinion, what are the top 5-10 design studios from Nagasaki/Japan that everyone who should know? 

TERASHIMA DESIGN

AKAONI DESIGN

commune

studiowonder

How can all designers and design communities from other countries do a better job of communicating with each other? How can we become more engaged with the Japanese design community? Are there any blogs or specific magazines we can follow?

I think it would be interesting if there were opportunities for not only the designers, but also the clients to socialize and communicate with each other. Clients share a common basis in terms of having found the value of design in the first place, and they decided to request a designer to do work. So, I think they will see eye to eye with each other. 

This does not really help our creative works (lol), but there are many articles written here by people who work in the creative field. I can feel refreshed reading those articles. Refreshing your mind sometimes is important. 

__

Murakawa Marino and Junichi Hayama, thank you for your time and thoughts. It's clear there is nowhere quite like Nagasaki, and we're thankful to gain some insight and context for the great design we see coming from the city. We talk a lot about design on this blog, but not enough about how design and content work together. It's refreshing to hear from a studio that puts equal emphasis on both, and learn how that informs your work. We will be following along and can't wait to see more.

September 25, 2019No Comments

Introducing the new Twitch identity system by COLLINS

The popular live streaming platform, Twitch, has unveiled a new logo and identity system.

A graceful evolution of its existing logo, the new mark maintains the quirky, pixelated shape and colors reminiscent of 90s-era internet, with refinements that more accurately represent Twitch as a global brand.

COLLINS, the design agency behind recent rebrands like Mailchimp and Dropbox, created the new identity with an intention to honor the heritage of the Twitch brand. The result, in a time when many companies are abandoning their legacies in favor of simple, minimalist marks, shows confidence.

Since its inception in 2011 as Justin.tv, the platform has virtually taken over the internet. By February 2014, it was the fourth-largest source of peak internet traffic in the United States (right after Netflix, Google, and Apple). Now, four years after the company was rebranded as Twitch Interactive and acquired by Amazon, 1.3 million people are on the service at any given time.

“We're honored to have partnered with Twitch's leaders and creative teams to build a cohesive system that anticipates the needs of their growing global community, while embracing the spirit of their mission that has made them so successful over the last decade,” says Tom Wilder, creative director at COLLINS who led the rebrand.

Despite the large-scale success, Twitch has managed to hold onto that small community spirit over the years. The platform, a place where the weirdest of the weird are welcome, has always evoked inclusivity – a stance that many brands today often force. With the new Twitch identity, that message comes through stronger than ever.

The outdoor campaign nods to what are clearly inside jokes (albeit ones that 1.3 million people are in on) putting Twitch broadcasters and their content on spotlight. Along with a spectrum of playful brand colors and the familiar blinky Glitch character, the new Twitch still feels like an old pal, one that simply came into itself.

The new system aims to better support Twitch creators, advertisers, and partners because, as the positioning statement puts it, Twitch is your biggest fan.

“Our solution began with honoring the heritage that Twitch didn’t see themselves as the hero; they're the support. The Mercy of Overwatch if you will,” says Wilder. “They buff you up, shower you with enhancements, and have your back from start to finish. Most of all, they believe in your potential.”

The COLLINS team approached the project with color in mind. Aside from the now more colorful and versatile logo, streamers can select their own custom accent color that serves as a highlight on their own channels and in directories.

“Twitch is well known for its beloved purple palette,” says Wilder. “We aimed to build on this recognition by layering a flexible system of vibrant hues to showcase the expanding diversity of talent and audiences that are joining the platform.”

From there, the team focused on amplifying the unique qualities of the Twitch wordmark, designing a custom typeface, adding the graphic language of emotes and icons, as well as a photography style visualizing a "level up" approach for Twitch creators. This extends across a new product design language, tone of voice and brand architecture.

It’s refreshing to see a brand today not only embrace its history, quirks and all, but lean into it. In the sea of cookie-cutter sans-serif logos that is 2019, the new Twitch identity reminds us that modern brands can still have personality.

 

The team behind the project:

Dashiell Alison
Topher Burns
Alison Pincus
Emily Morris
Leo Porto
Jump Jirakaweekul
Tomas Markevicius
Scott Fogel
Thomas Wilder
Brian Collins
Byron Phillipson, ECD Twitch
Sam Johnson, Creative Director Twitch
Alexis Gallisá, Sr. Director of Design Twitch
Twitch Creative Team

September 23, 2019No Comments

Your first 3D design tutorial with Adobe Dimension

For many creative folks, 3D design is still considered a final frontier. In our minds, it's a landscape marked with steep learning curves, expensive software and overwhelming interfaces. Little known to most of us, Adobe has been quietly changing that story.

In recent years, more designers are seeking to break into 3D design and more clients are asking for it. Yet for many of us, it still seems daunting and inaccessible. Only designers who have dedicated years of their life to the trade can master the complex tools and techniques required for it, or so we tell ourselves. Until a couple months ago, I'd see an artistic or hyperrealistic 3D image in someone's portfolio and couldn't fathom how they even began to create something like it.

With Adobe Dimension, Adobe has removed the barriers (real or imagined) between designers and 3D design. Originally created for 3D mockups and brand visualizations, Dimension has evolved into a powerful 3D rendering tool that allows you to create rich 3D visuals. What's more, it's easy.

Our team at Semplice.com recently released Warped Universe, a collection of abstract illustrations creatives to for their work. This was our first deep dive into Dimension. We began experimenting with Dimension's rendering tools and Photoshop's built-in 3D features to see how we could take these illustrations out of the two-dimensional world and into the dimensional space. We were both impressed and excited with the results, and so was our audience. Designers wrote us asking how we turned the flat illustrations into 3D, and we were thrilled to realize we could easily teach them.

In this tutorial, we will show step-by-step how to take your own designs and finally break into the wonderful world of 3D design.

What we're making

With this easy 3D design tutorial (including a video option, if you prefer it) we will create an abstract 3D illustration using Adobe Photoshop and Dimension. We'll use Photoshop to create our basic 3D shapes, then switch over to Dimension to setup our 3D scene, create beautiful, realistic lighting, apply real-world materials and finally render out our 3D visuals.

While this tutorial walks you through creating a specific visual, the technique and steps can be applied to any design. Once you get a feel for Dimension by following these steps, I encourage you to experiment on your own and see what else you can create.

Here's the image we'll be making today, rendered out to show different angles and perspectives.

3D abstract tutorial illustration created with Adobe Dimension and Photoshop

 

What you will need

Optional video tutorial

If you prefer following along visually rather than following the steps below, watch this video tutorial. It goes through the exact same steps with the same result.

Step 1: Creating our shapes in Photoshop

We'll start by taking flat artwork and converting it into 3D objects. We will then bring these 3D objects into Dimension (in the future, you can expect Adobe to bring some of the native 3D creation functionality into Dimension itself). For simplicity's sake, we will convert flat circular shapes into 3D objects, but you are free to introduce more complex designs.

OK, let's do it already.

First, create a new document in Photoshop. Set it to 2000 x 2000 pixels with the background set to black.

Now let's create our circular shapes. With the Ellipse tool in Shape mode, start laying out some circles on your canvas. Be sure your Shape options are set to 'Combine Shapes', so all your shapes are created in one layer.

When laying out your circles, add both large and small circles. This will create a nice variation in your shape later.

Pro tip: It also helps to have your shape set to 'Circle' instead of 'Unconstrained' in the Path Options.

Your circles should look something similar to this:

Step 2: Extruding the Shapes

Now we will take our two-dimensional shapes and magically transform them into 3D. From the 3D menu up top in Photoshop, choose the 'New 3D Extrusion from Selected Layer' option. You should now see all your circles change into cylinder shapes.

Caution: avoid circles that are too small, or too closely spaced together. If your shapes are too complex, you will get an error message during the extrusion process.

Pro tip: You can use the camera tools in the lower-left corner of your screen to orbit the 3D canvas and get a better view of your object.

Next, with your scene selected, look for the Deform options under the 3D Properties window. (If you don't see this option, you probably selected the 3D mesh layer is selected and not your scene.) We will use these options to create, bend and twist our cylinders into abstract objects.

These are the options I've set below to create our abstract shape, but feel free to play around with these settings to create your own unique shapes and effects.

Here is the result these exact settings will give you:

Don't fret if yours doesn't look exactly like mine. If you used different extrusion depths, twists or tapers in the previous step, you will see your own unique shape.

Now, let's give our tube shapes a nice rounded cap. Still under Properties, simply go to the cap options and set a cap. Here is what I've used to create a nice beveled edge.

And here is the latest result with our new cap settings:

Optional: Optimizing our 3D object

As an optional step, you can use a free tool called MeshLab to improve the geometry and clean up any jagged edges in your 3D mesh. Use the subdivision tools to add additional geometry, smooth out your edges and do some general cleanup. You can view their documentation for more information on how to use the tool.

Step 3: Exporting our 3D shape

Hurray! We've got an awesome looking 3D shape already. But we're not done yet. Now we need to export our 3D object so we can bring it to life in Adobe Dimension.

To export your object from Photoshop, go 3D > Export 3D Layer and choose 'Wavefront OBJ' from the 3D File Format option. You can leave all the options set to the default.

 

Step 4: Setting up our scene in Dimension

Next, let's set up a nice little studio scene for our happy little objects to live in (thanks, Bob Ross!)

Open Dimension and go to File > New. Set your document to 1,920 x 1080 pixels with 300 DPI.

First, we'll add a nice curved plane. You can download one for free here. Once you've downloaded the file, go to File > Import > 3D Model in Dimension (or use the plus sign in the left-hand menu) and import your 3D plane.

With the curved plane selected, set the position X, Y and Z values to 0 if it isn't already.

Step 5: Importing our 3D abstract artwork

Next, import your 3D object by following the same steps as above.

With the 3D model selected, use the Move, Rotate and Scale tools to put the object in the middle of your curved plane and move it into position.

Use the rotate (1), pan (2) or zoom (3) tools to position your camera within the scene and put your object in frame.

Pro tip: For an even faster method, hit the (F) key to zoom the camera to your object's current position.

Now let's add a few more elements for fun. If you are looking for 3D assets to use in your scene, Dimension provides an array of options in the Starter Assets Panel on the left. You can also find additional assets, both free and paid, created to work perfectly in Dimension on the Adobe Stock 3D website.

From the Models panel, let's add some spheres surrounding our abstract tubes. Looking pretty cool, right?

Step 6: Setting our materials

Now we can start having fun with our object materials. This is where our 3D design starts coming alive.

From the materials panel, select the Plastic material. Now set a color of your choosing with the roughness set to 50%. Setting the roughness to 50% will give our object a nice sheen without too many reflections.

Now go ahead and apply materials to the rest of your scene. You can also find more high-quality materials to use on Adobe Stock.

Pro tip: You can apply the same material to several objects by selecting all of your objects and applying a material.

Step 7: Creating our lighting

The difference between an obvious graphic and a photorealistic 3D image comes down to lighting. Adobe Dimension's lighting presets makes it simple to create lighting that reflects off your object in a realistic way.

Dimension uses image-based lighting, so you can either upload your own image or use one of their own lighting presets. For our purposes, let's choose 'Studio Light Pillars Dark A.'

Next, you can play with the rotation values to get a lighting effect that looks best to you for your scene. Lighting is key to great 3D imagery, and finding nice contrast with your shapes may take some tweaking.

Pro Tip #1: It helps to use the render preview to see how your scene is looking in real-time.

Pro Tip #2: More lighting options can be found on Adobe Stock 3D.

Step 8: Setting our camera

Now we can use the camera tools to get some interesting angles and depth with our illustration. This will also add some depth of field for a more dynamic image. Just play around with settings like Field of View, Focus and Rotation to see what you like.

PRO TIP: You can use the bookmark tool to save different camera views within your scene.

You can also use the focus option in the Camera settings to add some depth of field to your view.

Step 9: Rendering our scene

We're almost done! Now we just have to render our scene.  I recommend using the Low option in Dimension to get an idea for how your scene looks, and then using an option like Medium or High when you're happy with the results. I chose PSD as my output type.

Pro Tip: You can also export via a weblink to share 360-degree views with stakeholders or embed on your portfolio.

And here is the result of our render. Take a close look at those reflects, the shadows, the textures and shapes. You made that from mere circles just minutes ago!

And now, after some post-processing adjustments in Photoshop (because what designer ever knows when to stop):

Adobe Dimension tutorial abstract 3D visuals

Experiment even further

Now that you've learned the basic principles for creating 3D objects in Photoshop and rendering your objects in Dimension, you can use these same principles to experiment further with more complex designs.

As I mentioned at the beginning of our tutorial, we've been doing this with our Warped Universe illustration pack. For example, here's a 2D image from Warped Universe:

 

Here's a 3D topographic shape I made with that illustration using Photoshop and Dimension:

For this one, I used the "3D extrusion from depth map" option in Photoshop. Depth maps create 3D geometric based on the light and dark values of an image. The lighter the area of the image, the higher or more intensified the 3D extrusion effect will be.

So I simply took that flat illustration above and generated some clouds on top. I then darkened and blurred the imagery.

Now here's the result in Photoshop after converting the flat image to a 3D extrusion depth map:

And here it is in Dimension:

You can also use the depth map option with the 'sphere' preset to render your flat images to spherical objects. Below is the result of a Warped Universe illustration I converted to an abstract spherical object:

You can experiment with various light presets and materials to give it different textures and styles, basically turning it into a completely different image:

Adobe Dimension tutorial abstract 3D visual

Now that you know the basics, how you use and experiment with them is really up to you. Take one of your own flat illustrations or designs and walk it through the steps, see what it turns into. This opens up endless possibilities for your work and hopefully soon, your career.

As Bob Ross also said, "There's nothing wrong with having a tree as a friend." Oops, wrong quote. He said: "Talent is a pursued interest. Anything that you're willing to practice, you can do.” Thankfully, with Adobe Dimension, this interest is now easier to pursue.

If you do create something with Dimension, be sure to share your designs to Behance, selecting Adobe Dimension under “Tools Used” in the Basic Info tab. On Instagram, tag #AdobeDimension and #CreatewithDimension. This allows the Dimension team to find and promote your work!

For more 3D inspiration made with Dimension, visit the Dimension Behance gallery

__

Read our other 3D design tutorials with Dimension:

Creating packaging & prototypes with Adobe Dimension
A beginner's tutorial to creating 3D typography 
The unexpected addition to our creative workflow

September 19, 2019No Comments

The biggest mistakes designers make when applying for a job

Through our How to Get a Job at X series, we talk to leading companies about how to get a job on their design team. In every interview, we ask them to share their pet peeves – the biggest mistakes they see designers make during the hiring process. And while most of it seems like common sense, we continue hearing about the same simple mistakes.

In looking at the collective responses from companies like BBDO, Nike, Airbnb, Microsoft and Pentagram, we've learned what companies today want in a designer for their team. We’ve learned what they don’t want to see in your portfolio. Now we’re sharing the potentially make-or-break missteps designers make in their interviews and job applications, so you can avoid them during your next job search.

"I will only be more interested in you if you show genuine interest in us."

1. Failing to ask questions

“Not asking us any questions is a huge red flag,” says Maureen Edmonds from Red Antler. "Curiosity is critical to our process and is something we look for in candidates for every single role at Red Antler. The interview process is about you getting to know us just as much as us getting to know you.”

Everything you read online will suggest preparing questions for your interview. Having a few questions in mind is helpful, so you have something to fall back on. But your practiced questions may feel stiff or forced if the conversation doesn’t naturally lead there, or the other person might answer them before you get a chance to ask.

The better way to ask smart questions is to be mentally present in your conversation with the hiring manager. When your nerves are high and you’re focused on trying to impress, your focus shifts inward. You’re so intent on surviving the conversation, you forget to actually have one. Remembering to listen and mentally process the conversation helps in two ways: It calms your nerves, as you focus on what’s being said rather than what you’re doing wrong, and it helps you ask thoughtful questions. You pick up on details and cues you wouldn't notice when you're too busy practicing your rehearsed lines and questions. Asking related questions within context makes you appear sharp and aware, qualities every company wants in their hire.

But don’t worry too much about asking the wrong questions. Just ask what comes to mind. Companies simply want to know you are curious and care about the position you are interviewing for.

“Ask, ask, ask,” says Simon Mogren from BBDO. “There are really no stupid questions and I will only be more interested in you if you show genuine interest in us.”

2. Lazy mistakes & lack of attention to detail

This is a big one. Many companies pointed out sloppy mistakes that could have been avoided with a little more care or a simple proofread. Some of these little mistakes can be redeemed later. Others ruin your chances before the interview process even begins. Here are the most common ones to watch out for:

Forgetting basic details and requirements

“We often ask our applicants to submit a cover letter, their CV and a link to their portfolio, but the number of people that forget at least one of those items is staggering," says Laura Cetina from Microsoft. "Perhaps a stellar CV and portfolio can make up for a missing cover letter, but the broader point is an important one: by not paying attention to the details, you are not demonstrating real interest in the job.”

I've seen the same issue when hiring for my team. It seems obvious to include your name, your contact information and all the pieces listed in the job posting. But designers often forget – even on their own portfolio.

“Once, we got a CV with no name and incorrect contact details," says George Cave from KISKA. "We loved the portfolio, but couldn’t reach the applicant!”

Copy & paste mistakes

“The biggest turnoff is when you can tell an application has been sent around to a bunch of places," say Helen Rice and Josh Nissenboim from Fuzzco. "Maybe they leave some other company’s name at the top or they talk about some project we didn’t do. Or if it’s just really generic.”

No matter how well-crafted your cover letter or email is, people can tell when it's a template. Take the few extra minutes to personalize your message to the company and position. Insert a few specific details that make it clear this email is directed specifically to them, and I promise you will receive more positive responses.

And if you don't have the time to do that, at least make sure you don't copy and paste the wrong names.

“It’s super basic, but you’d be surprised how often it’s happened. When job seekers are reaching out to multiple studios, it’s easy to cut and paste an email message," says Maureen from Red Antler. "I don’t recommend this approach, but if you do this, quadruple check to make sure you’re addressing the correct person or company!”

Timing mixups

“For Skype interviews, time zone confusion can happen," says Mel Cheng from KISKA. "Better be safe than sorry. Double-check yours before making a final appointment!”

That goes for interviews, too. If you miss an interview or show up late, you won't always get a second chance.

Applying for the wrong position

“Believe it or not, we’ve had a few fashion designers applying for our design positions, simply because it mentions the word ‘retail,'" say Elyse Viotto and Kevin Clark from Shopify. "It’s surprising how little research some people do when applying for jobs these days.”

When we are deep into a job search, sending out multiple emails and application forms a day, it becomes easier to make these mistakes. In an attempt to move fast and cast our net wide, we do ourselves a disservice. Most of these little mistakes can be easily avoided with an extra hour or two of your time.

Take the time to research the company and position you're applying for. Take the time to read through your application and communication. However, don’t let your fear of messing up discourage you from taking the risk and hitting that send button. I may be a little more lax than some of these companies, but I’m willing to overlook a little typo if I see promise in you and your work. Be conscious and thorough, but don’t let perfectionism get in your way. Just do your best, and maybe ask a friend to proofread.

3. Being passive or unprepared

The people who seem unprepared or uninterested in the job are the first to be cut. That’s no surprise. If you don’t care enough about this specific company or position to at least research it beforehand, what can you expect?

“Being passive or uninformed isn’t a good look,” says Simon Endres from Red Antler. “We’re not like other companies in the way we operate. We work with many new businesses and directly with their founders who have a specific expectation about money and time. They’re all gunning for launch on a limited budget. We’ve built our whole offering around this dynamic. We want designers who like that we work with startups, and who like building things from scratch. Things move quickly with purpose around here – it’s not for the faint-hearted.”

Ideally, we apply for companies we are highly interested in and familiar with, that align with our values. But we don’t always have that luxury. Sometimes we just have to put out a line and see who bites. However, to the people on the other end, it’s immediately obvious when you don’t know or care much about what they do. If a job posting looks interesting to you but you’re not familiar with the company, or vice versa, it’s always worth doing your research first.

“I sometimes see designers applying for a job at Lyft because they think it’s a cool company (which it is, don’t get me wrong), without really considering the level of drive you need to have to thrive in this team and to tackle the challenges we’re rallying around,” says Audrey Liu from Lyft. “Lyft is a high-growth startup and, as most of us know, that’s no joke. There are tons of ups and downs, so if you aren’t deeply committed to creating huge impact in the world, you simply will not survive.”

"I am reviewing you just as much as your work and design thinking. It’s important to relax and present yourself as genuinely as you can."

4. Stiffening up & failing to show personality

On the other hand, we can be so focused on preparing and showing our interest in the company, we forget the company is interested in who we are too.

“What I see a lot is that nerves or whatever keeps people from showing their real personality,” says Aaron Stump from InVision. “Just be genuine, be yourself. I am reviewing you just as much as your work and design thinking. It’s important to relax and present yourself as genuinely as you can.”

The fact that our personality is under examination can be nerve-wracking. But don’t let that keep you from showing personality at all. As Daniel Myer from BMW suggests, remember you were invited to this interview for a reason. The company sees something in you, so trust that and focus on being yourself.

“I’ve observed designers be too tense or nervous, and it drowns out their personality and creativity,” says Daniel. “You’ve made it this far, so you’ve done a whole lot of things right! Breathe, smile and share your previous design work with confidence.”

If you’ve done your research and thoughtfully prepared for your interview, rest in the confidence that gives you. You’ve put in the work and that’s the best you can do. Now, focus on being genuine and making a connection with the person you’re talking to. As Brian Collins from COLLINS puts it:

“[Applicants] assume we’re only interested in the work they’ve made or their resume,” says Brian. “That’s part of it, for sure. But we want to know what they’re reading, the ideas they’re excited about.”

"So many people promise to make us baked goods if we hire them. Why??"

5. Trying too hard

Showing personality is good, but as with everything, there’s a fine balance. As designers we feel pressure to be creative and unique when applying for a job. Sometimes that works, but it can be risky. Take it too far and you sacrifice professionalism.

“It’s also annoying when people say a bunch of silly stuff and expect us to take them seriously," say Helen and Josh from Fuzzco. "So many people promise to make us baked goods if we hire them. Why?? We just want people to be themselves.”

Companies don’t need grand gestures or wacky stunts to capture their attention. Unless you’re confident it’s the right move and you can execute it well, don’t go to crazy lengths. The person hiring you wants to know who you are, and that can be accomplished in a sincere email or conversation. Let that remove some of the pressure.

“Talking about how you’re ‘hacking your dreams while dreaming up hacks’ or something similar doesn’t tell me who you are and why you’re the right person for the job,” says Laura from Microsoft. “Keep it simple.”

That goes for your work as well. With all eyes on us, we can become defensive about our work or go overboard trying to sell ourselves. Don't worry about proving anything. Just be honest and confident about what you have to offer.

“I’ve seen many people, especially juniors, selling their work way too hard,” says Maitê Albuquerque from Mother. “Trying to make me see how good the job they did is right. I believe that the work speaks way more than any justification. Let your work talk.”

6. Too much ego

No matter how experienced you are, remember the person interviewing you is an expert in their field and their business. If you're an expert too, it will be obvious without much effort from you. In any case, it’s safer to err on the side of humility.

“Egos,” says Flywheel's Andrew Trew of her pet peeves. “It doesn't matter if you're a greenhorn college grad or a creative director with decades of experience, it's incredibly important to be open to advice and suggestions on your work.”

I would venture to say I see more misplaced ego from young designers than from those who have the chops to back it up. If your work hasn't yet been rejected, if your job hasn't been made redundant, if you haven't been turned down for a job you thought you were perfectly qualified for – all of which comes with experience – it’s easy to think you’re the most gifted, deserving designer you know. And a little bit of that confidence is healthy. But too much and you end up missing out. That goes for your interview, the position you apply for and the salary you expect.

“I think, as someone just coming out of school, go after a job you’ll enjoy doing and work your way up,” says Tom Huveners from Bobbi Brown. “Don’t turn down jobs because they don’t pay enough right away. Work hard and you’ll get there.”

Most of these tips apply to any industry. In any job interview, it’s important to remember the person interviewing you wants you to succeed. They need to fill the position and they reached out to you for a reason. Providing you care enough to put in the work and pay attention to the details, you will do just fine.

September 17, 2019No Comments

A love letter to my website

This is a declaration of love for personal websites, written from years of thinking on the subject, reviewing thousands of portfolios, building websites for friends and bookmarking those of strangers. It’s a subject I’m so passionate about, I built my business on it. And recently, it’s become a matter of principle.

Not long ago, the web was still the future. It was a big deal for companies to have their own site, much less individuals. Technology evolved. We picked up a few HTML and CSS tricks, discovered the wonders of Flash. We started spinning up our own sites, complete with guest books and visitors counters.

In those days, our website was our home. An extension of ourselves. Every day we visited our page, tweaked it a bit here, adjusted something there, stood back and admired it. Our site was a little corner of the internet we could own.

Fast forward to now and a website almost feels old fashioned. Our social profiles are all-consuming. Curating our Instagram page is our second job. We almost feel an obligation to share our work there, in addition to our personal lives. Our little corner of the internet? It now collects cobwebs.

"Our site was a little corner of the internet we could own."

In contrast to our personal websites, we don't own our social platforms. They own us. On top of eating our time, our emotions and our focus, they are demanding our privacy. Whether we realized it or not, we signed away our rights when we signed up for these platforms. We not only give giant tech companies our personal data – we allow them to use, sell and share our content in whatever way they wish. Soon, we will see the repercussions of freely giving away our data and our work. When it comes to creativity and self-expression, the loss is already apparent.

On social media, we are at the mercy of the platform. It crops our images the way it wants to. It puts our posts in the same, uniform grids. We are yet another profile contained in a platform with a million others, pushed around by the changing tides of a company's whims. Algorithms determine where our posts show up in people’s feeds and in what order, how someone swipes through our photos, where we can and can’t post a link. The company decides whether we're in violation of privacy laws for sharing content we created ourselves. It can ban or shut us down without notice or explanation. On social media, we are not in control.

As designers, we already forfeit a degree of creative control outside of social media. At our day jobs, we usually don’t have a say in the final product. Directors take over. Politics and process force their way in. Clients leave their fingerprints on the work or reject it entirely. If our work does see the light of day, and there's no guarantee, the execution is not always how we imagined it. Work is not the place for personal expression and full creative freedom. It's the place to follow the creative brief and solve the problem presented to us. So what's left to call our own?

Our personal website.

We control the layout of our website. We can create a page that reflects our taste, our personality, our style.

We control the narrative, too. It's here we can finally show our work the way it’s intended to be shown. We get to tell the story exactly as we wrote it, with context the audience or user doesn’t typically have. It’s our chance to own our work and put it in its best light.

We decide the way our website functions. We can influence how people interact with our work. We can guide our visitors through our content in the way that most makes sense. We can lead them straight to our contact info.

We choose whether our work stays alive on the internet. As long as we keep our hosting active, our site remains online. Compare that to social media platforms that go public one day and bankrupt the next, shutting down their app and your content along with it.

"Having my own website says I care about what I do beyond clocking in and out and cashing a paycheck."

At the risk of sounding religious about this, and maybe I am, our personal websites are our temples. They remain the one space on the internet where we decide how we are introduced to friends, potential employees and strangers. It’s a place where we can express, on our terms, who we are and what we offer.

As a working professional, it feels empowering to have my own website. Just seeing my personal domain name and my email address that ends in it gives me this little boost of confidence. Scrolling through my work and making small adjustments makes me feel like I’m deciding my future. Considering the percentage of opportunities I get through my portfolio, that feeling is accurate.

Having my own website says I care about what I do beyond clocking in and out and cashing a paycheck. It shows I’m proud of what I create. If my taste or my work or the industry evolves, I have the power to reflect that on my portfolio. If I launch a new project, my first thought is to put it on my homepage. With this blog, I can write articles that connect directly back to me and my website. Social media is a nice way to extend the reach, but it all points back to vanschneider.com. It’s the one link I give to people inquiring about me and my work, rather some www.designplatform.com/vanchneider08247 URL or social media handle I don’t own. My site is the little place I’ve carved out for myself on the world wide web. It’s mine.

Call me old fashioned, call me nostalgic, call this a self-serving attempt to convince you to use Semplice.com. All of those accusations are at least partially accurate. But the real truth is that as long as we’re putting our work in someone else’s hands, we forfeit our ownership over it. When we create a personal website, we own it – at least to the extent that the internet, beautiful in its amorphous existence, can be owned.

September 12, 2019No Comments

The makings of a great designer

I’ve talked to dozens of companies about what they look for in a designer. While we have seen trends in their answers, many of them also conflict with each other. I agree with some and disagree with others. So now, I’d like to share what I personally consider when hiring a designer for my team.

I’ve probably covered this to some extent in my other articles, like this one describing junior vs. senior designers. Or this one, where I ponder the designer hiring gap. But here it is in one place, both the reasonable expectations (at least, what I consider reasonable) and the potentially unreasonable ones (I have unrealistically high standards, even for myself). This is the designer I always search for and the designer I strive to be.

Natural talent over hard skills

Of course, I expect my designers to know the basic principles of design and be comfortable using the standard tools of our trade. But I don’t care whether you’re university taught or self-taught, or whether you've mastered the latest design technology. Rather, I look for natural talent and the potential to grow. 

I have hired interns who had little more experience than a three-month boot camp course. I've hired seasoned designers who were not so great at interactive design, but who learned and grew in that area after joining our team. It depends on the position or project I'm hiring for but when reviewing your portfolio, I'm likely not looking at your list of hard skills. I'm looking at how I see you in the next few months or years. When I'm hiring a designer, I'm investing in that designer. Rather than perfection, I'd rather see potential. 

The ability to fill in the gaps 

A good designer is one who can work with as little information and guidance as possible.

This is a big one for me. Many designers can do exactly what they’re told. Few can work from just one or two sentence-direction.  It's not so much about having experience or being able to "read my mind." It's more about having the confidence and drive to just begin without needing step-by-step instructions. Call it confidence, call it drive. Whatever it is, I don't want to start delegating a design task and think, “Nah, it will take less time to just do it myself than to explain it.” I want to know my designer can run with it. 

Good taste

Another obvious one, but not always easy to find. There are plenty of designers out there who can map a user flow or build a landing page, but not all of them have an instinct for good design. This is a quality you can hone as you read, travel, observe other designers, watch films, experience fashion, go to museums (more on this in a moment).

Some people naturally have good taste. Others acquire good taste over many years of sharpening their senses. You may think taste is subjective, and it certainly is in some cases. But we also know there's a universal understanding of good taste. It's hard to pinpoint but we know when it's present, and we feel it when it's absent.

Curiosity about the world beyond design

Maybe this is true for every industry, but it seems that designers tend to stay within their safe little design bubble. They may be well-read on the latest design news, but they’re not curious about the world outside it. Curiosity makes us better designers. When we soak in more of the world around us, we are more inspired and informed to create. I want a designer who has hobbies, who reads books, who asks unexpected questions. They’re the designers who create amazing work. 

Proactivity and a sense of responsibility

I don’t want to chase my designers down to get their tasks done. I don’t want to tell them what to do next. I don’t want to remind them to answer that email or design for that edge case. I want a designer who’s always thinking one step ahead, who cares about the work and wants to ship the damn thing, not sit on it. 

Consistency

We all have our good and bad days. We all do work we know could be better. That’s fine. I don’t want a designer who’s always perfect. I just want a designer who shows up.

I’d venture to say consistent dedication counts more than output, at least to a certain extent. We can improve the output with good feedback and mentorship. It’s much more difficult to work with a designer who’s unpredictable, who might be “into it” one day and apathetic the next. 

Honestly, I’ve seen this quality most often in extremely junior designers (think interns) and extremely senior ones. As a junior designer, you are eager to impress and haven’t been jaded by your career yet. At this point, you’re just grateful to have a job, so you do your best to keep it. And as a senior designer, you’re consistent because you’re just good at what you do. You’ve been in it long enough to know an apathetic attitude will get you nowhere. Everyone else in between is more likely to be disillusioned, cocky and inconsistent. 

Thoroughness and attention to detail

I want a designer who doesn’t leave loose ends. Few things bother me more than seeing a design without a necessary active state, or only one of many required use cases. I dislike seeing typos, even in mockups. I don’t appreciate when files are exported and organized incorrectly and thus impossible for anyone else to find and use. I look for designers who are good at the details. 

A sense of humor

Last but certainly not least, I look for designers who don’t take their work or themselves too seriously. The difference between a successful project and an unsuccessful one, or a thriving business and a failed one, or simply a good and bad day, are often the people you work with. I want to work with designers who are ready to laugh or crack a joke. I don’t expect you to be a standup comedian. I just want to work with people who have fun with their work and their life.

_

Again, I realize what I'm describing here is the ideal on their best day. I am not this designer every day and I don't expect my team to be flawless either. It's a journey that continues as long as we continue working. The making of a great designer lasts the lifetime of their career, and the best designers know they can always be better.

September 9, 2019No Comments

The UX designer hiring guide

The comprehensive guide to hiring a UX designer and getting a UX design job, brought to you by Semplice.

Skip ahead to the guide here →

User experience design is one of the most popular jobs right now. New UX designers are entering the field every day and seasoned designers from all backgrounds are shifting their focus to the field. Companies are making room on their team for new UX design positions. And with all of this comes questions:

How do I stand out as a UX designer? 

How do I know if my company needs a UX designer?

How do I hire a UX designer for my team? 

And for some of us: What exactly is UX design?

As a team who has been designing digital products and user experiences since before was a name for it, we thought we could shed some light on the subject for recruiters, hiring managers and designers.

Read our guide to hiring a user experience designer

Given the nature of digital, UX design is an ever-evolving term that might mean something different to different people. So we did our research, considered our own experience, talked to other designers and tried to define UX design in the best way we know how. In this guide, we share the typical responsibilities of a UX designer, what skills UX designers should have, what questions you should ask (and be prepared to answer) in a UX design interview, and how to make a great online UX portfolio that gets you hired (with some of our favorite UX design portfolio examples).

We hope the guide is useful to you, whether you’re looking to hire a UX designer for your company, trying to get a job as a UX designer, working on your personal UX site – or your feed is flooded with #uxdesign tweets and you want to issue a formal complaint.

P.S. The header image above is made with the "UX design" symbol from Design Language. Get the full symbol pack here.

September 6, 2019No Comments

How to write for DESK

In honor of our third year, we are sharing the principles that guide our writing on DESK.

This blog began as a place to process and share my personal thoughts and ideas. As I shared in this early article, writing is a meditative act for me. I write to find clarity, to learn and, as Tim Ferris put it, to get ideas rather than express them

As a result, my personal growth is evident through DESK. For one, my writing skills have improved significantly. Looking back on my first few articles, I can see immense growth through the simple practice of writing consistently each week. My thinking has also evolved as I researched and formed my thoughts around new ideas and topics for each article.

As a reflection of that growth, the blog reached beyond design to philosophy, to psychology, to VR, to photography, to freelancing, to productivity, to new creative communities. (What is design, anyway, without the greater context of the world?) We launched new series, we brought on a few guest writers, we started publishing more often. 

Just this year, after careful consideration and planning, we opened DESK up to sponsors. Through partnerships, we shared our team’s transition to Figma as our main design tool of choice. We shared how Airtable has become an extension of our brains. We talked with the design team at Microsoft about their work and the future of Microsoft design. We are currently working on some exciting new partnerships we can’t wait to share with you in the coming weeks.

Just this week, we refreshed and optimized the blog design. For the most part, I’m still pleased with the original design and believe it’s held up well over the years. But these latest updates (if you read DESK regularly, you will notice them) are already helping us tell better, more compelling stories. We will continue tweaking the styling and optimizing the site to keep it running nicely for you.

With the help of my editor, we’ve also continued shaping the voice of DESK.

From the beginning, I wanted this blog to be the antidote to your typical design publication. We avoid industry bullshit and buzzwords at all costs. We strive to write as simply and clearly as possible. We aim to be straight with our readers and cut out the fluff. It’s these simple principles that guide each article we write, influenced in part by my team’s style and values. We don’t always hit the mark, but we try.

So today, we will share the core values that guide every post on DESK, some innate since the beginning, others we constantly work toward. This is in part a mission statement as we enter our fourth year, in part a style guide of sorts we can hold ourselves to. May it also serve as an introduction for you, the kind you see at the beginning of a book, giving you insight into who the author is and a deeper appreciation for what you’re reading. 

1. Say it straight

While we want to inspire and write beautifully, we never do so at the expense of clarity. Don’t substitute a fancy synonym just for the sake of it, when a more simple word would do the job just as well. Don’t write a thousand words when 200 is enough. Speak in natural terms people understand.

Simple and straightforward is the hallmark of all the work I do. With writing, I didn’t have much choice at the beginning since it’s my second language. But I believe that’s what people appreciated most about my humble, typo-filled newsletter at the beginning. It felt real and personal. I will always try to keep it simple, even when simplicity requires more work.

"One of the really bad things you can do to your writing is to dress up the vocabulary, looking for long words because you're maybe a little bit ashamed of your short ones. This is like dressing up your household pet in evening clothes." Stephen King

2. Don’t take yourself too seriously

Ego is the killer of curiosity. When we try to impress or think ourselves smarter than we are, we stop learning and our writing suffers. If we fear what other people will say about what we write, or lament the fact that it’s all been done before, or worry we are doing it wrong, we would never write anything. Don’t try so hard. We don’t need to be intellectual “thought leaders.” Just write what you know, research what you don’t and edit later.

3. Be honest

Do right by our readers. Never intentionally mislead them, confuse them or take advantage of them. 

We debated for a while before finally opening our blog to partners. We never wanted to feel pressured to say something we don’t believe or promote a product we couldn’t stand behind. When we finally did launch our partnership program, we did so with firm rules in place. We make it clear anytime we use an affiliate link or get paid for what we write. We will never try to sell our readers on something just to make a buck for ourselves. We will always tell the truth about what we know in the best way we know how. 

4. Don’t sensationalize

We don’t write clickbaity headlines, even if that means fewer clicks. We don’t exaggerate the truth. We try to avoid unnecessary adjectives. The world has enough sensationalism. Tell it like it is.

Writing comes with responsibility. It's too easy these days to scan a headline and misinterpret the truth. It's too easy to retweet a post without even reading it. Before we publish anything, we do our research. We not only try to back up what we say, we try to prove ourselves wrong. While a majority of our content is opinion-based, we owe it to our readers to explore both sides of the story and seek hard facts.

What's next for DESK

We will be inviting more guests to write for the blog, so if these values align with your own and you think you may have an interesting or useful story to tell on DESK, let us know.

We will always be a blog written by designers for designers. This is not a team of marketers pushing out content purely based on trends and SEO. We are in the field designing with you.

We will continue working with select partners to introduce useful products or stories – that we believe in and stand behind – to our readers. If you think your product or offering would be a good fit for our audience, send us an email to business@vanschneider.com and let's talk.

We will continue exploring new design communities with our Design Around the World series and talking with the companies we admire through our How to Get a Job at X series. We have a new series or two in the works as well, coming soon.

We plan to publish more, and more regularly. If you have ideas or want to hear from us about a specific subject, send a tweet to @vanschneider.

And we will do our best to write simply, with honesty and clarity, about what we know.

Thank you to Lizzy, my editor (editor's note: please insert "beautiful and talented"), to Lu, for helping design this blog, to Stefan, for building it, and to our guest writers Nika and Terri, for taking the time to share their perspective with us. Most importantly: Thank YOU, our readers, for supporting DESK for the last three years and hopefully more to come.

September 2, 2019No Comments

When your target audience is yourself

It's easier to build something for your target audience if you're in it.

The idea here is simple. Scratch your own itch. Building something you want to use yourself is easier than building something you can’t relate to. If you have a personal interest in the result, if you plan to be the biggest fan of what you're creating, that investment will inform a product you couldn't build otherwise.

You don’t need research to know where the hole in the market is, what the challenge is or what the audience wants. You don't have to find the market. You create it.

Research is still helpful to reveal blind spots and biases, but that’s beside the point. No matter how much research you do, the product you build for someone else will not be the same as the one you build for yourself. 

Everyone has an idea for an app these days. Everyone fancies themselves an undiscovered genius. Building a great product requires more than the idea – it requires strategy, luck, timing, talent, connections, money.

But if you want to create something that solves your own problem, something you plan to love and use yourself, you already have a head start. 

September 2, 2019No Comments

How to make a non-design portfolio

We talk about design portfolios a lot on this blog. But occasionally, we hear from people in need of a portfolio who are not designers: Writers, managers, strategists, and more who have great work, but don’t know how exactly to share it.

Compared to copywriters, for example, designers have it easy. When your work is highly visual, you can just add your images to a page in an artful way, write some captions, a few case studies and call it done. It takes more thinking to create a text-heavy portfolio that’s still engaging. 

While it depends on your specific line of work, your projects and your goals, these tips will help you create an online portfolio that presents your work in the best possible way.

Avoid an image-heavy starting point

Trying to force non-visual work into an image-heavy template will leave you with a mangled site that shows how much you strained to make it. I’ve seen many an unfortunate portfolio like this. Most of them have random stock images on the page, disjointed and pixelated, in no way reflecting the creator or their work. Unless you have great images for your projects, try to avoid image-heavy templates or layouts for your site.

Do use all the resources available to you

If nice images do exist for your project, even if you didn’t create them yourself, by all means use them. For example, say you did the research for an app your company built. It’s perfectly OK to use images from that app to showcase your work. Even designers do this by using an app design with typefaces someone else created or photos someone else took. There’s no reason why a copywriter or account manager can’t do the same. Providing you include proper credit and make it clear what role you played in the project, those are your images too.

Or say you worked on the strategy for an athletic brand. You could use a standard marketing image from the company (someone lacing up their shoes, perhaps) as your preview image for that project. Feel free to use whatever marketing material gets the point across, so long as you focus the message on what you contributed.

If you think about it, the portfolios of a photographer, make-up artist, hairstylist and perhaps set designer are all the same. They all work together to create one image. In the end, this image is the collaborative result of all of these people, even though they all did something different to help achieve it.

Be careful about stock images

If you don’t have images for your work, you might be tempted to find a photo of someone scratching away with a pencil, clicking a mouse or shuffling papers on a desk to represent a project or message on your site. Don’t do it. That dates your portfolio to somewhere around Blackberries and Bluetooth headsets. Stock photos almost always look out of touch, unnatural and worst of all, boring. It’s better to have no images at all than an old-school stock image. 

The one exception is Unsplash images, which are generally beautiful and more tasteful than your standard stock photography (and free, too). A thoughtfully chosen Unsplash image here and there can be a great solution if you don’t have images available for your work. Just don’t over-use them or use an image just because it looks pretty. Try to choose images that best represent the project or the idea.

Keep it simple & focus on the success story

Focus your site on what your visitors want to know and the story you have to tell.

Writers: What if your homepage was just a simple list with your best headlines in big, bold type? A strong headline already tells us what we want to know about you: That you can write powerfully, with control. That you can distill a message to its core and move people with your words (in this case, by making us click through to the next page to read more). Instead of trying to sell us with a long-winded piece of prose, do what you do best. Tell us the story.

Researchers and strategists: What if your homepage was just a list of questions – the challenge you were presented with or the problem you were seeking to solve? This immediately conveys what kind of work you do while creating intrigue. You can expand later with your full case studies, which should still be simple and straightforward. If we read about your project and your process and it feels simple to us, despite however complex it may be, that tells us a lot about how you think, communicate and solve problems at work.

Account and project managers: What if your homepage was simply your client’s names, with one sentence beneath explaining your most impressive feat for that client? Think about what your visitors want to see and zero in on that. They probably want to know how many clients you managed, the type of clients and projects, and your success stories. So focus on the key stats with your homepage (“grew the Snickerdoodle account from $1 million annual budget to $3 million”) and give us the other bullet points (as briefly as possible) in your case study.

Whatever kind of work you do, think about the most important story you have to tell. Tell that story from your point of view, in the most straightforward way possible, and leave out the rest. When you keep it simple, your entire website – from your homepage to your case studies to your page layouts – will be all the more powerful.

Bonus tips: If you can avoid it, don’t use a template for your site. A personalized site sells your work much better than a template. This is exactly why Carbonmade exists. It allows you to start with a base and fully personalize your site from there, instead of forcing your work into a template. It’s made for more than design portfolios – I’ve seen everyone from copywriters to makeup artists to managers use it. If you're feeling more adventurous and technically savvy, you might also appreciate Semplice.

August 28, 2019No Comments

Design portfolio inspiration of August 2019

Once a week, we select two portfolios created with Semplice to feature in our Best Of  Showcase.  Here we've collected our favorites from the past month.

It's always motivating to see how creatives of all kinds use Semplice for their online portfolios. In August, we featured websites from illustrators, design studios, creative directors, art directors, 3D designers and more.

Semplice best portfolios of August 2019 portfolio

Browse the best portfolios of the month below to see fresh new work and get inspired for your own site. And if you've created your own portfolio with Semplice, be sure to submit it to our Showcase here. We might feature your site next.

 

To see more great design portfolios, visit the Semplice showcase. I'll be back next month with more of our monthly favorites!

Header image by Julien Lozingue

August 21, 2019No Comments

7 beautiful portfolio refreshes from 2019

As thrilling as it is to finally launch your portfolio, the truth is that it’s never “finished.” As you continue evolving in your work and your career, your portfolio should evolve with you. Otherwise, it’s not doing you any favors.

The good news is that if you are constantly refining your portfolio, the daunting “portfolio redesign” doesn’t need to happen that often. It’s just a matter of adding a new project every few months and refreshing the design now and then. Providing you’re not stuck with a dated or confining template (this is where I recommend Semplice.com), you can make small updates along the way that keep your portfolio modern and current. 

We are always delighted to see and share portfolio refreshes for that reason. In our Semplice Showcase, we handpick two new portfolios each week made with Semplice. Some are new launches, some are complete redesigns, some are simply impressive refreshes with beautiful new work.

Here are a few of our favorites – sites we’ve featured more than once just because they keep getting better and better.

 

Elena Miska

Elena Miska’s portfolio has always had a premium feel, but her recent refresh still managed to pleasantly surprise us. The vintage-inspired hover effects on her projects, the way her logo animates on scroll, the beautiful new case studies. This was a significant redesign and even more impressive – made with Semplice 3, our older product. 

 

Gyor Moore

Previously featuring a standard grid, Gyor Moore's updated homepage now feels light and effortless. Images and videos float on the page as you scroll, the page background color changing on hover to match the work. Click to any project page and the loading time is blazing fast. We recognize some of these projects from before, but now they feel fresh and new again.

 

Mindt Studio

We always keep an eye on the MINDT studio site as it seems Sarah, its founder, continually breathes new life into it. The new split panels on the homepage and elegant typography refinements lend an editorial vibe to this design-slash-yoga studio.

 

Marina Rachello

We’re long-time fans of Marina Rachello for the personality and playfulness she infuses throughout her portfolio, and her recent site refresh is no exception. Marina’s previous portfolio focused on typography and color and this one does too, feeling on-brand yet like nothing we’ve seen before on Semplice.

 

Kasper Laigaard

Kasper’s recent site refresh quickly became one of our favorite portfolios on Semplice. Masterful in its use of white space, hover effects and transitions, this site does Kasper’s top-notch work justice. 

 

Jean-Lou Renoux

Jean-Lou Renoux used the Semplice Advanced Portfolio Grid feature for his recent site refresh, leading with bold typography and rollover effects to showcase his work. It’s the perfect contrast with the full-screen covers that follow on his case study pages.

 

Raúl Gil

Raúl Gil's current portfolio isn’t a huge departure from his old one. He simply refreshed his homepage layout and added several new projects and characters to his site, a subtle but significant evolution. Raúl’s site has always been a popular one, but when he shared his recent updates on Twitter, the tweet blew up and brought attention to his work all over again. 

 

We share our favorite new portfolios on the Semplice Showcase every week, so check back for new launches and redesigns. And if you've submitted or were featured before and recently updated your site, submit it again. Every update you make or project you add to your portfolio is a chance to promote your work all over again.

August 11, 2019No Comments

How to fire a client

Over the years, I’ve learned ways to spot a bad client from a distance. Most of it comes down to trusting my gut and recognizing red flags, so I can avoid taking on that client from the beginning.

Even if I am working with a difficult client, I will try to see that project through, do my very best and make a note to not work with them again in the future.

But no matter your intuition or experience, there will inevitably be times when you misjudge, or the client relationship goes sour for one reason or another, and it becomes more productive to end the relationship than continue. Thankfully, that has happened only once or twice over the course of my career. Those one or two times I had to make the tough decision to cut ties with the client. And it’s not easy.

Here’s what I’ve learned to do in those moments, when the healthiest solution is to end a client relationship. Naturally, every situation is unique and this might not fully apply to yours, but it’s helpful to keep in mind.

 

Have an honest conversation first

Give your client a chance to make things right, if it’s possible. Perhaps they weren’t aware of the problems or they didn’t understand how much it affects you. Give them the benefit of the doubt and be transparent about the situation as early as you can.

This doesn’t have to be a pointing-fingers, emotional confrontation. Simply be honest, respectful and most importantly: offer solutions. If after your conversation things don’t change, you are more validated in your decision and they shouldn’t be surprised about it.

 

See them through to a reasonable hand-off point

Leaving a client high and dry in the middle of a project makes you as bad as they presumably are. They will be left with loose ends, many of which they don’t even know about. And they’ll bring those loose ends to another designer who will then struggle even more than you did, and that’s just bad karma. 

Providing the situation isn't extreme, do your best to leave them in a good place before bailing on them. Unless, of course, the client has refused to pay you according to the terms you agreed on, in which case you are fully entitled to halt all work.

 

Try to find the client a new designer 

Connecting a client to a new designer and briefing that designer is your parting gift to your client and yourself. It will remove a lot of panic from the situation for them and likely make the breakup go a bit more smoothly.

But be careful about this. You don’t want to curse someone else with a bad client. If you are going to pass off a client to someone else, be completely honest with them first about your struggles. If that person knows what they’re getting into, it’s fine. They may have the right skills, experience or perspective to bring the project to the finish line. Every project is about personal relationships and it's absolutely OK if we're not all fully compatible.

 

Get everything in writing

Even if the relationship is ending on a positive note, you need to watch your back. I can promise you will hear from the client months from now about something you did or didn’t do, some file they are missing or some contract clause you missed. Or they will just have endless questions for you about meetings long past which you may not remember and won’t want to deal with. 

Draw up a friendly termination agreement that outlines what you did and did not deliver from the scope of work, what the agreed final payment is, that you are not responsible for their project or files after hand-off, and the like. If the relationship is ending on a bad note, you must consider running this contract by a lawyer. Bitter clients can come back to bite you. 

On that note, be thoughtful about what you say to your client in writing – at any point in the project. Stick to your scope and don’t over-promise at any point in the project, because you can be sure an angry client will be digging up old emails to prove their point.

Be kind and patient 

No matter how heated the client may become, stay patient and level-headed. Speak in a calm voice on the phone and show respect in emails. Like any break-up, your client may feel abandoned and hurt, and reflecting their tone won’t help anything. If the conversation gets heated, do your best to bring it back to a reasonable place. Be professional and your client will be more likely to do the same.

– 

Again, this advice is only for the extreme, and hopefully rare, situations. For the most part, I’ve had the pleasure of working with smart, friendly clients. And even with the trickier ones, I remember I’ve signed a contract and I promised this client my very best. It’s only when the client or the project won’t allow you to give your best, when the relationship becomes toxic and unproductive, that this should even be considered. Here’s hoping these tips help if it does.

August 5, 2019No Comments

5 years of building with pride

A while back, I read that 90% of all startups fail within the first five years. That’s a scary prospect as a business owner, knowing your own company has a 10% chance or less of surviving.

But this week, against all odds, Semplice hit the five-year mark. I’m incredibly proud of our team and beyond thankful to the community for their support for the past five years. We wouldn’t be here today without you.

It started in 2011, the dream to build a portfolio system we would personally want to use. A tool made for designers, by designers. Finally, after a couple years of development in solitude with my co-founder, we launched Semplice in 2014. Here are some fun facts:

 

Semplice is bootstrapped and independent

Semplice has been self-financed since the very beginning and has been profitable since the beginning. We are proud of that. We have never taken on investments and have remained independent over the years, despite plenty of temptation to do otherwise.

Being independent means we get to build a product we love using ourselves, a product we can stand behind. Semplice is guided by our vision and the feedback of our community, rather than the roadmap of stakeholders. We’re not too concerned with scale just for the sake of scale. We’re driven by building the best possible product, by having fun and by making sure our numbers look healthy relative to the size of our company.

 

Our team is entirely remote

From the start, we wanted the Semplice team to be remote. My founding partner and I started the company with an ocean between us, in Munich and New York. Today our team hails from Munich, Berlin, New York, Italy, Ukraine and Nashville.

Working remotely is a significant advantage yet also our biggest challenge. Coordinating an online team across time zones, especially on a bootstrapped budget, is challenging and can be frustrating at times. Would we do it again? Absolutely. The freedom each member of our team enjoys is worth it. While we depend on each other for certain tasks, it doesn’t matter where or when you work as long as you get the work done. If you prefer to work at night, you can do that. If you prefer to work during the day while chilling at a pool, that’s cool too. Pun intended.

We’ve been fortunate to hire strong, self-motivated people at Semplice, people who manage their own time and make their own work.

 

We’re almost all designers

We’re building a product that is for designers, so we figured it only makes sense if it’s by designers as well. Almost everyone on our team comes from a traditional design background, even if design isn’t the main contribution they make at Semplice. Design is part of our DNA and we make every decision through the lens. Design is our passion, and if you’ve seen our products you can tell.

 

We’re in it deeper than just our product

While Semplice is our core product, we’re in this whole thing for so much more.

We share a great number of articles on DESK about creativity and portfolio building. We love to champion our community and spread the word about others with our Showcase. We enjoy sharing our  resources, such as our favorite type foundries and typefaces. We believe in the power of case studies and help designers tell stronger stories that get them hired. We aim to motivate and encourage creatives so they can stop procrastinating, stop overthinking and finally launch their site. And we’re creating more products on the side to help you be even more productive.

Everything we do is about enabling designers and contributing to our community.

 

But let’s get real for a moment

Working on Semplice has been a challenge, not just because of the technicalities of building our product and finding our market, but also running a small business for the past 5+ years.

Semplice is in the same market as many large competitors who often have millions of dollars in funding, dozens if not hundreds more employees, as well as aggressive (and I'd argue, sometimes questionable) marketing strategies. Keeping our ground can be stressful and I admit we’ve had our low points quite a few times.

Every customer complaint and every refund is something you take personally as a small business, and you have to learn to deal with them in a manner that doesn’t completely ruin you or your team. And as a founder, you’re not just responsible for building and growing the product, but also managing and motivating the team.

My biggest learning in the past five years has been to take care of myself, as it affects everything further down the line. As a CEO or founder, you need to “put your mask on first before helping others.” It’s only then you can take care of your team, your product and your customers. It seems so simple yet it took me so long to learn, and I’m still working on it. 

 

Where are we going?

All I know is that we’re going, and I hope we will for many more years. Our goal is to continue to build a healthy business and create products we and other people love to use. Semplice is about building with pride, and that applies to us and the people who use our tool.

We love our community and we’re the biggest fans of those who use Semplice and do something beautiful with it. We find great satisfaction in building tools that enable others to build something they’re proud of themselves.

Every day I look at our Showcase and I’m in awe; I still can’t believe we somehow convinced all these talented people to use our product. It motivates me to keep making Semplice better and better. For another five years, and hopefully more.

August 1, 2019No Comments

The look of an unprofessional designer

When was the last time you saw someone using a Hotmail or Yahoo address? For me, it was yesterday. And the day before that.

The following may seem like common sense, but it doesn’t appear that way based on the dozens of portfolios I see every day. For some reason, many designers still operate in the past when it comes to their online presence.

As a designer, presentation is everything. We are expected to have good taste and a certain level of awareness – and that’s reflected most in the small things. Aside from solving problems, an employer or client hires us to make them look better and more professional. So shouldn't we lead by example? If you’re seeking a job or looking to establish yourself as a designer, these small details can make or break you. 

A non-existent or outdated portfolio

I get it. Everyone is on Instagram, and it's easier to just upload your work there or some other gallery-based social platform. But having your own website is a matter of pride. It shows you care about what you create beyond just slapping it onto your social networks. As a client and an employer, I hire those who put in that extra effort.

Think of yourself like any other business. Would you trust another business if they didn't have a website? Probably not.

Of course, I still recommend adding your work to Instagram and any other design-related communities to increase your exposure. But it's your website that makes the real difference. Your portfolio is your home base, where you can present your work in the best possible light.

If you do have a portfolio but it hasn't been updated in months or even years, it's almost as bad as not having one at all. Based on a recent (informal) poll we did, it seems that 80% of people completely neglect their portfolio unless they are actively seeking a job. Whether or not you are looking for a job, your portfolio should include your latest work and show you have a pulse on contemporary design. We feel suspicious if our local dentist or insurance company has an outdated website. Imagine how much worse it is when trying to find a designer – someone who typically builds those websites.

It might not feel like a priority to update your site when you already have a full-time job. But those who do are the ones that get ahead, who have opportunities land in their lap without even looking for them.

To get a beautiful, personalized portfolio up quickly, I recommend using Carbon. If you're a bit further along in your career and want to build something slightly more advanced, try out Semplice.

An old-school email address

Unless you’re known for your artistic irony, using a Hotmail or Yahoo address (or let’s be honest, even an iCloud address) makes you seem out of the loop. It may be unfair, but it’s true. Plenty of other modern platforms exist and they’re all free. Create an email address there. Preferably something straightforward, like your name. 

Even better, get a top-level domain (see below) and use it to create your own name@yourname.com email address. An email address on your own domain is the easiest way to position yourself as a serious, established designer.

Using a free website domain

Free domain names that come with your platform or host (something like cynthia.randomcompanyname) come across as cheap and sketchy. Plus, they are more difficult for your potential employer or client to remember. Most top-level domains are typically around $4 - $10 a year. It’s worth spending a few bucks each year to own a personalized domain. 

Buy your own URL and keep it clean and simple. It's the best investment you can make when it comes to your brand as a designer.

A poor quality profile picture

Again, with exception to intentional style choices, your profile picture should not look like it was taken on an old Nokia phone. If you don’t have a professional-looking photo of you, ask a creative friend to take one. You don’t have to pay for headshots, but you should have a polished picture that represents you well online.

That goes for your portfolio, your socials, your LinkedIn. Because as much as we’d like to think some of that should be personal, potential clients or employers will find it. And given how easy it is to take high-quality photos with just a smartphone these days, there’s no excuse to have a low-quality one.

Empty social networks

Aside from adding a good profile photo there, consider the content you have on your social channels. If you are linking to these sites from your portfolio, they should be regularly and thoughtfully updated.

Don’t link to a Twitter page that includes two tweets, both of which are complaints to United Airlines. Don’t link to your Instagram if it’s not representing you and your taste the way you want to be represented. Don’t hook up your Dribbble account if all your posts there are outdated, or promote your LinkedIn if the only job you've listed there is designing your college newspaper.

We all have great intentions of polishing up our social platforms but until we do, we shouldn’t be promoting them professionally. In fact, if you aren't actively using your socials in a way that represents you well, consider making them private. As I mentioned, potential clients or employers will find them whether we link to them or not. Often, your portfolio and your social networks are your first impression, whether you're aware of it or not. Google yourself and see what comes up. Are you proud of the results?

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Read on for more career advice and portfolio tips. Or check out these Carbonmade portfolio examples and the handpicked Semplice Showcase for portfolio inspiration.

July 31, 2019No Comments

Design portfolio inspiration of July 2019

Once a week, we select two portfolios created with Semplice to feature in our Best Of  Showcase.  Here we've collected our favorites from the past month.

It's always motivating to see how creatives of all kinds use Semplice for their online portfolios. In July, we featured websites from branding studios, visual artists, art directors, product designers, photographers and more.

Browse the best portfolios of the month below to see fresh new work and get inspired for your own site. And if you've created your own portfolio with Semplice, be sure to submit it to our Showcase here. We might feature your site next.

To see more great design portfolios, visit the Semplice showcase. I'll be back next month with more of our monthly favorites!

Header image by Meghan Armstrong

July 28, 2019No Comments

Where design school got it wrong

I notoriously did not go to university. So when designers ask if I think self-taught or school is better, I can’t give a fair answer.

Of course, design school can be extremely valuable. It’s here you learn the principles and build the foundation. You have all the resources you need and experts dedicated to helping you grow. And if nothing else, you have the luxury to experiment and learn within the most ideal circumstances.

However, those circumstances don’t always reflect the real world. You learn the best-case scenario in school, often without realistic boundaries. You are taught following a specific, curated program of philosophies and guidelines. So when you do enter life outside university, you can’t expect everything to be precisely how your professor said it would be.

So I asked several designers, most of whom graduated from design school within the last five years or so, what most surprised them about entering the workforce after their studies. In what ways, if any, did design school fail to prepare them for the "real world?" What were the expectations vs. reality?

While these are personal experiences and naturally don’t apply to everyone, they highlight misconceptions I’ve heard from many other designers as well.

"Outside of school, time is truly money, and there isn't much to spare."

Misconception 1: Time

“The idea of time – time to explore and time to experiment,” says Cori Corinne, an independent, multidisciplinary designer and 2015 graduate. “In school, you can really dive into a project conceptually and bring forth a deep narrative with every piece of design. Outside of school, time is truly money, and there isn't much to spare.”

As a self-taught designer, this is a lesson I had to learn early on. When you’re getting paid hourly, your time suddenly becomes a lot more meaningful. You can’t always afford to explore every angle, look under every rock and perfectly polish the story behind your concept. You’d never meet deadlines or make money that way. So you learn to use your time wisely, become more efficient and be smart with the time you do have.

A piece from Cori Corinne's "Mental Divide" exhibit.

“Clients are detached from the creative process so the time put into the narrative isn't as important,” Cori says. “So as a designer, you do learn how to work quickly, but you become accustomed to quick tricks. I think as I grow in my creative process I'm working to always challenge myself to not fall into what's easy, but it's hard when you feel tight on time.”  

Quick trick to beat time as a designer: clone yourself. (A shot from Cori's portfolio homepage.)

Misconception 2: You should pursue excellence in one skill

"The push to specialize,” says Aaron Covrett, a freelance 3D artist who graduated in 2019. “For years, I was told that dedication and commitment to a single path equal success. Fortunately, this couldn’t be further from the truth.”

I couldn’t agree with this more. The ideal designer today has diverse skills, whether those secondary skills are 3D design, coding, videography, illustration, writing, the list goes on. And that’s what many companies seek in a designer. In most interviews I did with companies in our How to Get a Job at X series, creative directors or recruiters said they want the “hybrid” designer, the designer that can help see a project through from beginning to end. That doesn’t mean we need to be excellent at everything.

“Don’t get me wrong; distributing tasks and playing to strengths is vital,” Aaron explains. “But if you’re curious about something on the fringe, get your hands dirty. Being multifaceted offers a new and challenging perspective, and more importantly, keeps things fresh."

I call it being a jack of all trades, master of some. It’s useful to have a couple strong skills, especially when you’re just starting out. But continually building on that knowledge and learning new skills can only make you better.

For not specializing, Aaron Covrett is pretty incredible at 3D art and design.


Misconception 3: There’s a “right” way to design

“One thing that was stressed at school was following specific rules in order to create ‘beautiful work,’” says Matt Vlach, an interdisciplinary graphic designer and recent graduate. “While guidelines and rules are in place based on a long history before me, I've found that the most important part of a project is the experimentation of form through research-driven play.”

If we all stuck to the rules and guidelines we learned at the beginning, nothing new or inspiring or innovative would exist. But by laying the guidelines first, we can more effectively experiment and stray from them.

This image from Matt Vlach's "Geisel Display" typeface project reads, "You might defend the notion that truth is concrete."

In a conversation I had with Malika Favre, an artist for the New Yorker and many other publications, she voiced a similar sentiment. Put simply: Learn to follow the rules well so you can break them later. If you look at Picasso’s work, noses where ears should be and vice versa, you might not know he was a master of the human form. Long before he created his famous cubist works, he learned how to draw the human figure precisely. From there, he created works that are so distinctly unique, so far from the rules, anyone today will recognize “a Picasso.”

“Long story short,” says Matt, “the most important part of designing in the industry versus school is that being yourself in your work – solving problems for clients the way you would – makes you an individual that people will seek out, because only you are you.”

"Probably one of my biggest misconceptions was to think that being a freelance designer meant doing design from 9–5."

Part of Georg Schober's branding work for NEJIRU agency

Misconception 4: It’s all about design

“I was really surprised by how much time I would spend in meetings or on the phone doing project management,” says Georg Schober, a graphic designer and art director who graduated in from university last year. “Probably one of my biggest misconceptions was to think that being a freelance designer meant doing design from 9–5.”

Most designers, whether they work in a standard agency setting or as a freelancer, probably spend at least 50% of their time on everything but design. Meetings, calls, answering emails, chasing clients for invoices, timesheets, checking in with your team. All of it is a necessary and regular part of a designer’s job. It may seem exhausting some days, but it’s reality. No designers I know, no matter how successful they are,  have the luxury of simply creating all day long. The better you get at project management, time management and communication, the better off you will be.

Anthony Morell's "Music is Minimalist" book

Misconception 5: There is one path to success

“The design industry doesn’t care about degrees,” says Anthony Morell. “I didn’t finish school, my portfolio is my degree. So I wasn’t aware of the scope of the design industry. Advertising agency, freelance, small studio, digital agency, corporate agency without creative life, but a big salary… it’s all very scary! So I had to figure out exactly the job I really wanted.” 

I can attest to the fact that your work speaks more than a degree, both as a designer and an employer. You may have also seen news announcing Google, Apple and other huge corporations are no longer requiring degrees for their employees. 

And as Anthony suggests above, there are plenty more paths beyond just university vs. self-taught. You can work on a team, you can work independently, you can do both at the same time. You can set out to make a “name” for yourself or you can work quietly, just as successfully, without anyone knowing your name.

When you first enter the design industry, you may observe other designers and assume their path is the only right way to do it. You will eventually learn, as you find your own way, that it’s not.

July 22, 2019No Comments

Why you should keep your portfolio updated – especially if you have a job

I recently ran a poll on Twitter asking what people did with their portfolio once they got a job. The results were both surprising and not surprising.

The question: “After you finish your portfolio, do you keep it updated even though you have a fulltime job? Or do you forget about it, and only update when job searching again?”

The results: Of the 1,026 people who responded, 68% of people said they keep their portfolio online while they have a job, but don’t update it. Of the remaining 32%, 11% said they take their portfolio offline completely and only 21% said they actively keep it updated.

Meaning, 80% of people completely neglect their portfolio when they have a full-time job.

Based on my own experience as a designer over the last decade or so, it seems obvious why it’s important to keep your portfolio updated. But at the same time, I know how easy it is to put off when you have the security and comfort of a full-time job. Here is why it’s worth spending the time to keep your portfolio fresh, even if you don’t plan on job hunting anytime soon.

1. It shows you care about your work 

Letting your portfolio fall by the wayside is the equivalent of dressing up for your interview and wearing sweatpants once you’ve secured the job. It says you don’t care much about your work beyond the paycheck. Keeping your portfolio updated, on the other hand, shows that you consider yourself a designer, not just someone with a design job.

And people will notice: your employer, potential clients, recruiters, fellow employees, other designers. A portfolio gives you an identity outside of your team at work. It says that you care enough to refine your skills, think about what you create and share it proudly with others.

2. You don’t know what opportunities you might be missing

You may be perfectly satisfied with your position right now, but you don’t know what you might be missing by failing to update your portfolio. It may be a side project that fuels you at your current job, a collaboration with another creative, a freelance gig that teaches you a new skill or a new job entirely. 

If you’ve forgotten about your portfolio, on the other hand, a recruiter or a client may land on your page, see it’s outdated and move on. Or you may not have that one recent project online that demonstrates exactly the skills and style your dream company was looking for. All without you ever knowing you were on their radar. 

They say what you don’t know can’t hurt you, but you also don't know how it could have helped you. Keeping your portfolio current with your latest work and skills is an easy (an even rather passive) way to keep your options and opportunities open.

3. Reviewing and reflecting on your work motivates you to get better

We always say you should put your best work in your portfolio, the work that makes you most proud. Curating your portfolio this way requires you to reflect on it.

When you continually do this at your current job, you are forced to step back now and then and consider the work you’ve done and are doing. Does it make you proud? Are you happy with the direction you’re heading in your creative career? 

If you are pleased with the work you’ve been doing, it motivates to keep at it and outdo yourself. If you realize a lot of your work doesn’t make you proud, you can reset and refocus on the work you want to be doing.

4. A little thing called SEO

If you keep your portfolio online and continue to update it, it’s more likely Google will crawl and index it. Nobody fully understands the mysteries of Google’s algorithm, but search any term and you will see Google gives you the most current yet established results it can find. 

Your ranking will impact if and how you show up when clients or magazines look for local designers. So if they search “animator in New York” or “3D designer in Amsterdam,” your updated portfolio will be more likely to show up than your coworker Ralph’s, who hasn’t updated his site since 2009. 

5. An outdated portfolio (or lack of a portfolio) just looks bad

Put simply: Having an old, outdated portfolio is in poor taste. Either you have some clunky website online that doesn’t accurately reflect the modern design you do, or you hide it because you know it’s outdated, and then it looks like you don’t have a portfolio at all. Considering how easy it is to have a website these days, and the importance of the web itself in our industry, both of these options don’t reflect well on you.

Don’t assume just because you have a job nobody is searching for your portfolio. It’s likely a potential client will search the creative team before deciding to work with your studio (believe me, they do). If you’re not concerned about how your old portfolio makes you come across, consider how it affects your team. 

6. You can’t predict the future

You may be happy at your job right now, but circumstances can change fast. An agency loses a client and employees abruptly get laid off. Your partner gets a great job offer and you need to move to a different city and find a new job for yourself – in a month. You see your dream job posted online and decide to apply.

Keeping your portfolio updated is a gift to your future self. No matter whether the circumstances are positive or negative, within your control or not, you will be thankful your website is already fresh and ready to go when you need it. The alternative is scrambling to get something online as fast as you can, which is not only stressful but rarely gives you great results.

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I know I have a personal interest in this narrative, given I work on a portfolio-building tool. But whether you use my product or not, I urge you to make your portfolio a priority. It may sound cheesy, but investing in your site is investing in your success as a designer. In an increasingly online world where you might never even meet your employer or client face-to-face, your portfolio is the first impression you give to others. A portfolio with old projects and a dated design is not a great first impression. 

For those just getting started in their career who want something simple and easy for their online portfolio, I highly recommend Carbonmade, which just re-launched with the new Carbonmade 4. You can update your portfolio in less than an hour with Carbonmade, and it's incredibly easy to use. If you're a bit further along in your career and want something more advanced, try Semplice. Semplice offers a lot more power and flexibility to create a custom portfolio in a simple and beautiful way.

Whatever you decide to use for your site, just do it! Update your portfolio anytime you launch a new project. Make your site something that evolves with you in your career, and I promise you'll be better off for it.

July 18, 2019No Comments

What is UX copy?

Once upon a time, designers were just designers. We didn’t have web designers, type designers, product designers, infographic designers – and we certainly didn’t have UX designers. Designers weren’t too concerned with differentiating themselves. They just designed. 

With the evolution of technology came new breeds of designers with new specialties: 3D designers, app designers, UX and UI designers. Today, a traditional graphic designer may not know the ins and outs of UX design and vice versa. But no matter a designer’s specialty or title, they build on the same foundation. They follow the same core principles of color, balance, shape. 

The principles of writing UX copy don’t stray that far from any other types of writing. Sure, some different best practices apply. You have to work within different limitations. Your audience and their expectations may be unique. But when it comes down to it, the main key to writing good UX copy is knowing how to write good copy.

Of course, there are certain goals we seek to accomplish when writing for a website or a digital product. So let’s first back up and define what UX writing means today.

What is UX writing?

UX copy (or as some like to call it, “microcopy”) is messaging that guides a user through a product experience, whether that’s a website, app, platform interface, database or CMS.  It’s the buttons, headlines, captions, hints, help text, error messages, form field placeholders  – the bits and pieces of text that tell us where we are in a process and what we should do next. The term microcopy is, in fact, dated. UX copy isn't micro. It's essential.

Written well, and someone will intuitively use your product or website without even thinking about the microcopy. Written really well, and your user might smile and share a screenshot of it with their friends. Our goal in this series, whenever possible, is to write UX copy really well.

As every article ever written on the subject will tell you, good microcopy is clear, concise and most importantly, useful:

Clear - UX copy should be simple and easy to understand at a glance.

Concise - UX copy gets to the point as quickly as possible.

Useful -  UX copy helps people accomplish a task, reach the “aha!” moment and successfully use your product as it’s intended to be used.

If you know your copy is useful, it is likely as clear and concise as needs to be. If it’s clear and concise, that doesn’t necessarily mean its useful. 

Put simply, microcopy is the content people see while using your product. The length, tone and style of that content depends entirely on the brand, the product, the context and the task at hand. 

How does UX copywriting differ from other copywriting?

The main difference: Where other types of writing may seek to inspire, create intrigue or stir an emotion, UX copy’s main goal is to help. It cannot usually afford implied meaning, mystery or other complexities. If your microcopy makes someone laugh or stop and think as a side effect, that’s great. But your main goal is to help someone understand your product, use it the way it’s meant to be used and have the best possible experience doing so. 

That said, UX copy isn’t all that different from advertising copywriting. An official UX copywriter will tell you otherwise, but think about it:

Advertising copy sells something – a product, an idea or a belief system.

UX copywriting sells the product in a more nuanced way. In providing an enjoyable experience for a person and helping them understand the product, the microcopy solidifies the relationship between the brand and that person. It makes them want to keep using it and share it with others. It continues selling the product long after it’s been sold.

Looking at most tech products from the last ten years, you might assume UX writing cannot be creative. When we think of system messages, we think of sentences like “Error: Can’t find object.” Nobody said our products had to sound like robots, but given the rushed nature of these projects, the limited space and the fact that the developer is often the one writing the copy right before launch, that became the norm. UX copy can in fact be creative, and constraints like limited space make the creative challenge all the more satisfying.

Who is supposed to write UX copy?

We are slowly starting to see UX copywriters pop up the way UX designers have, and it’s nice to have someone on your team dedicated to the job. But you don’t need to be a UX copywriter to write good UX copy. Your standard copywriter can do it. Designers can do it too. They should.

As we’ll discuss at length soon, creating a great user flow with effective copy is a team effort. And great copy works in tandem with the design to accomplish its goal. 

The truth is that, in a fast-paced industry, anyone on the team might be composing the UX copy as they work to meet a deadline. Which is precisely why we can all benefit from learning how to write good microcopy, whether we are a writer, designer, engineer or strategist.

It’s our hope that this series inspires you to do so, helping you learn to not only write and recognize great UX copy, but also make your products more fun to use. If you haven't already, you can read our first article in the series right here. And more is coming soon!

July 11, 2019No Comments

How to create a UX design portfolio with Semplice

No matter what type of design you do, an online portfolio is a must. While the nature of UX design work might seem more difficult to showcase visually, a portfolio is even more necessary for UX designers.

Given the popularity of this field, UX designers need to stand out in a sea of competition online. What's more, companies are still learning what UX design means for business, so it's up to you to show how you are vital to theirs.

Semplice, our WordPress-based portfolio tool, is made specifically for designers and creative types. Using Semplice, you can create a unique website in no time at all, without coding knowledge.

We've shared examples of great UX portfolios built with Semplice. Now I'm going to show you how you can quickly and easily build your own beautiful UX design portfolio site, step by step.

This will be the final result.

Here is the project page we will be building out.

This is just a simple site based on my own design. Of course, it's up to you how you'd like to design your own site (Semplice is not a template – you have full control over the design) but this tutorial should help you understand the basic steps and main features.

 

Step 1: Getting started with Semplice

To begin, you'll need to have a working install of WordPress along with Semplice. You can purchase Semplice here.

 

Step 2: Creating & categorizing your projects

I first recommend adding all of the projects you intend to include on your site. We're not going to worry about laying out all the project pages just yet. For now, we will just add the projects into the backend. This helps you think about how your work will be organized and displayed throughout your site.

To add a project, go to the Projects page in Semplice and click 'Add New Project.' Let's also add a thumbnail image for each project. The thumbnail will be relevant when we create our Portfolio Grid later.

Creating the project

Pro tip: You can set a different image that appears when someone hovers over your project thumbnail. Just enable the 'Thumbnail Hover' option in your project settings.

If you have work beyond UX design, such as product design or art direction, you can create separate categories for each type of work you've done. This way, a potential employer or client can see your diverse skills and interests.

To set categories for each of your projects, simply assign the category within your individual project settings.

Setting the project category

 

Step 3: Creating your homepage

The homepage design

Now let's create the homepage. To create the front page of your site, go to the Pages area of Semplice. (If you're curious about the difference between Pages and Projects in Semplice, check out this guide from the Semplice helpdesk.)

First, we'll create a nice, bold headline as a Cover section. A cover section allows you to use a full-screen visual on your page. You can choose to set a background image or video for your Cover section.

With your Cover section created, now add your first headline text block and align the text in your section options.

Now that your headline section is complete, place a Portfolio Grid on the page. This will house all of your projects.

Placing the portfolio grid

Now adjust the settings for your grid as needed. I've set both my horizontal and vertical gutter values to 30. I set my first two projects to have a column width of 6, and my last project to have a column width of 12. You can set a custom column width value for each project in your individual project settings.

Setting the column widths

 

Step 4: Building your first project page

With your homepage grid created, let's now build out one of your project pages. First, we'll create a Cover section, just like we did on the homepage. Same as before, we'll set a full-width background image.

Protip: you can enable the 'parallax' effect in your Cover options to add some scroll movement to your Cover section

Next, we'll create our project details area by placing several text columns in rows. We'll use spacer columns to add white space.

Now, let's make our case study page more visually appealing. We'll do this by creating a 50/50 split image section to help break up our page and add some more bold visuals.

To do this, place both a spacer column and an image side-by-side. Now add some padding around the image. Next, place a background image on the spacer column and set the size to Cover. Now go to your section options and set a background color on the section. Finally, go to your section options and set the section width to full-width with the gutters removed, and the section height to fullscreen.

Creating our 50/50 split section

Next, I'll embed an InVision prototype I created onto my page. To do this, just place a Code module onto the page. Code modules in Semplice accept any kind of raw code, such as Javascript or iframes. You can simply paste in a mobile prototype embed code from InVision into the Code module.

Placing the code module

Next, I added some device screens showing a glimpse of my product user flow. I placed three images in side-by-side columns, and added a text column beneath each image to serve as a caption.

 

Step 5: Creating your About page

As you've probably heard us say before, your About page is the most important page on your site. It not only highlights your work history and experience for a potential employer, but it's also a great place to share your personality.

You can create your About page as a regular page in Semplice.

First, I placed an image next to a text column on this About page to serve as an introduction. Next, I placed text columns in rows to talk about work experience and achievements. I used spacer columns to offset my text columns.

Step 6: Editing the navigation

Once your About page is finished, you can add it to your menu system. Just go to Customize > Navigations in Semplice, and under 'Menu,'  look for the 'Add Menu Items' option. To learn more about how to customize your navigation bar, read this article.

Adding the menu item

 

Step 8: Adding your contact information

Of course, you want to make it as easy as possible for people to contact you. So let's add contact info as a custom footer appearing on all pages.

Go to customize > footer and create a new footer.

Adding the footer

Now add your contact information. I'd recommend writing out your email address rather than adding a link or a form. Most people will simply want to copy and paste your info straight into their preferred email platform.

Next, in your page and project settings, set this custom footer to show everywhere.

Wrapping things up

Now you can add some final touches to your site, such as thumbnail image hovers in your project settings, or perhaps a nice page transition.

Boom! You now have a beautiful new portfolio site that required no coding and was fun to make. Winner winner, chicken dinner.

To see some of our other Semplice features for UX designers, check out this page.  For more portfolio tips and inspiration, browse this section on the blog. You can also find lots of step-by-step Semplice guides and hacks on our helpdesk. And if you have a request for a guide or a tutorial on DESK, send us a tweet @semplicelabs. We'll do our best to write it for you.

July 5, 2019No Comments

Content or design first?

This is the first in our new UX Writing series on the blog, exploring how we – as designers or copywriters – can write better, smarter, more effective copy for our digital products.

The age-old question: Should design or content come first?

Despite all the talk of teamwork in our industry, creative departments still work mostly in isolation. We may gather for a grand strategy meeting at the beginning of a project or schedule weekly standup meetings to check items off a list. We might swing by someone’s desk to answer a question or give feedback on a specific problem. This doesn’t necessarily amount to collaboration.

We all know designers and copywriters should not work in silos. We know design and copy should inform each other, rather than one being retrofitted to the other. This is especially true for UX writing, which must work in tandem with design to do its job well. Effective collaboration between design and content, however, is easier said than done.

Despite our best efforts, content always seems to come last. We mock up designs with Lorem Ipsum. We build pages with placeholders, the same headline copy & pasted for every section. Sometimes we go so far as to do QA on a site with filler copy.

It’s only later we realize the layout doesn’t quite work. The section breaks when the real headline is in place. The final content from the copywriter is much longer than the space we allotted for it. The page and the message feels disjointed. So we make revisions, passing it back and forth between teams. Each time we get new content from the copywriter, we plug it in and hit send, having mentally checked out of this project at the design handoff weeks ago.

The project finally launches. The team does a post mortem and finds the design and content phases blew way past their budget. We see the final site and cringe. This doesn’t look as nice as the pretty Lorem Ipsum-filled pages we designed. User testing reveals a problematic experience: people are confused about what they need to do and how they need to do it. The copywriter throws their hands up. They were just filling in the blanks they were given. Everyone shakes their head and moves onto the next project.

Of course, this is a hyperbolic example. But if you’ve worked on even a few team projects as a creative, it's a familiar story.

Let’s get one thing out of the way right now: If it comes down to one or the other, copy should come first. It’s almost always helpful as a designer to work with real content. Not only is it easier than blindly mocking up a meaningless layout, but it gives context for the goals and story we need to tell.

But in a perfect world, a designer and copywriter should be working closely on a project together, from strategy to concept to final product. Of course, in the typical fast-paced environment of our industry, it’s difficult to make that a standard part of the process. So how do we start giving content, specifically UX copy, its proper place in a web project? How do we stop talking about collaboration and actually do it?

 

1. Stop using placeholder copy

From the beginning, real copy should be included in the design. But as we all know, it's not realistic to have final content at the start of every project. This means designers must play a role in copy creation.

Designers are communicators, and the content is as much a part of our work as the visuals. If you don’t have content provided for you, write the copy to the best of your ability based on the goal of the project. It doesn’t have to be perfect. This just gives your copywriter a point to work from. It more properly accounts for the correct space for content in your layout. It makes your intended UX more clear to your audience, be that your creative team or your client. It sets the project up for success the whole way around.

 

2. Share every design draft with your copywriter

Whether or not copy has been provided, the copywriter should see the designs as early as possible (assuming you have one on the team). This allows you to refine the story together, rather than rushing it at the beginning or end of the project.

Collaboration is as easy as sharing the link to your Figma file with your copywriter as you work on it. If a writer sees your first draft, they can say, “This headline would work perfectly with that image” or “The introduction won’t be nearly that long. Let’s do this instead.” It saves you and the client from getting hooked on a design that won’t work. And it allows the copywriter to write content that actually fits the design.

“Writing is designing with words. Designing is writing without them.” - Robert Hoekman Jr.

3. Respect your deadlines

We start every project with bright eyes and hard deadlines, then quickly let them slide. Yes, some of it is outside our control. But if we’re striving for collaboration, we must give ourselves time for it. If you don’t meet your design deadline, it sets other team members or project phases behind. This can result in rushed copy (whether you are writing it or someone else is) that doesn’t do its job well. Respecting deadlines leaves more room for creative, strategic thinking between teams.

4. Don’t depend on the copywriter to fix design problems

We’ve all done it: brushed off a design problem saying it will be fixed when content is in place. The reality is that even good copy can’t fix bad design. Bringing real content into the picture from the start will help avoid these issues. But even then, we have to recognize and admit when the root of the problem is its design. If you or your copywriter find yourself working too hard on the content for a specific part of your project, it’s a sign there’s likely something wrong with the design. There are times when the copy has to do the heavy lifting, but more often the two should work naturally together.

5. Leave ego out of it

Especially in an agency setting, we tend to take the defense, blaming the other team for whatever is wrong at any given time. This is not collaboration, and it doesn’t result in effective design. The best way to avoid ego getting in the way is to seek an objective audience. Together with your copywriter, run your work by a couple members on your team who aren’t working directly on the project. They may validate a pain point you were questioning, or notice something you overlooked altogether.

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The truth is that no matter how admirable a team’s intentions, we will not always be working closely together on every project. There will inevitably be times when we are filling in the blanks. It’s not ideal, but it’s fine. It’s this fast and loose nature of web design that we enjoy anyway, right? Besides, all is not lost.

The beauty and curse of digital is that nothing is ever finished. This means that while the designs may appear final, may be approved, may seem polished and pixel-perfect, they can still be changed if there’s a better way. It’s possible, no matter how much your creative director, client or developer says otherwise. When we’re writing UX copy (whether we're the designer or an official copywriter), it’s our job to not only consider the design but also see beyond it. 

Just because that headline fits the design perfectly doesn’t mean it’s the perfect headline. Just because it's approved doesn't mean it can't be changed. This may seem obvious now, but when we’re working against a deadline or working with an existing design, it's easy to forget. We can become so focused on what's in front of us, on getting the job done, that we forget to do what’s right for the experience. Writing a longer headline may mess up that design a bit. It’s going to piss off your designer, whether that’s you or someone else. But if it’s the right copy, it will be worth it. Good copy makes good designs better. Bad copy, copy meant just to fit boxes and fill spaces, only makes for a pretty mockup.

July 2, 2019No Comments

Design portfolio inspiration of June 2019

Once a week, we select two portfolios created with Semplice to feature in our Best Of  Showcase.  Here we've collected our favorites from the past month.

It's always motivating to see how creatives of all kinds use Semplice for their online portfolios. In June, we featured websites from visual designers, branding studios, design directors, product designers and more.

Browse the best portfolios of the month below to see fresh new work and get inspired for your own site. And if you've created your own portfolio with Semplice, be sure to submit it to our Showcase here. We might feature your site next.

To see more great design portfolios, visit the Semplice showcase. I'll be back next month with more of our monthly favorites!

Header image by Joel Watkins

June 28, 2019No Comments

The writer’s secret for designers

For writers, first drafts are celebrated. In theory, they present opportunity and promise with none of the pressure. They say a wastepaper basket is a writer’s best friend.

Writers are encouraged to bang out the first draft, throw it away and make the next one better. It’s part of the process. A place where judgment is reserved, where even constructive criticism is not welcome, where the fragile first steps of an idea are respected.

Design, like any other creative practice, also starts with a first draft. But it is not held in such a reverent light. Design as a profession is increasingly a non-isolated activity. A first draft is often confined by a wireframe. It involves creative directors standing over shoulders. It’s made with business goals in mind. For product designers, design decisions are based on data analytics or user research. There are best practices and trends and design patterns and systems to consider. Technical restrictions apply. Generally speaking, the first draft is defined in some way for a designer from the beginning.

The writer’s approach would benefit designers, especially young designers. Early in their career, a designer will frantically create their first draft and turn it in immediately. The goal in their eyes is completion, following the rules they learned in school, checking the item off their to-do list. Instead of exploring and trying as many drafts and angles as possible without the fear of being wrong, they do what they believe is expected of them.

When a young designer shares their first draft, senior designers are tempted to turn it into a teaching moment: This isn’t working because X. Try something more along this angle. A writer rarely receives feedback this early. It would kill their creative process.

Of course, writers have restrictions too, depending on the type of work they do. And the solitary nature of writing is inherently different than the more collaborative nature of today’s design. But to writers as a whole (at least to my understanding), first drafts are considered a sacred space. A writer may explore dozens of different approaches, adding something here, cutting something there, restructuring and researching until the semblance of a story appears. Then it grows, potentially becoming something else entirely from draft to draft.

Instead of approaching your first draft with outside forces, deadlines and fear in mind, make a safe space for it. Tell yourself this is only the start. That it’s OK if it’s imperfect, even flat out bad. Protect your first draft and keep it for yourself. Let your idea stand on its wobbly legs and watch where it leads you – before anyone else takes the leash and points it in another direction.

And instead of giving immediate direction to a young designer, or to any designer, give them this space to explore their first draft. Instead of pointing out what they did wrong or where they should go, our first response should be, “Thank you. Keep exploring. I can’t wait to see more.”

June 27, 2019No Comments

The skills companies want in a designer today

Through our How to Get a Job at X series, we’ve talked to 20+ companies about what they look for in a designer (and more interviews are coming). Now, comparing answers between each interview, we are beginning to see trends.

Of course, it all depends on the company, the person we’re talking to and the position they’re filling. The insights here certainly don't apply to every company, and no magic formula exists for getting a design job. But since we continue to receive some of the same answers, a clearer picture of "today's ideal designer" is coming into view. 

I’ve written about what companies never want to see in your portfolio. Now we’re looking at it from the other side. At first glance, these skills may seem expected for any position. But the companies we've interviewed here helpfully describe how they translate to a designer. I find their feedback fascinating and valuable, especially if you’re looking to work at any of these companies.

 

A hard skill beyond just design 

“We expect everyone to have a second secret ‘superpower,’ so to speak. Hybrids. We love to hire great people who are also remarkable at something else—it could be coding or writing, but it could just as easily be cooking, science fiction, scuba diving, biking, singing, painting, Taekwondo...anything. I believe those collisions expand us.” - Brian Collins from COLLINS

“We have designers with great editorial skills, others that are great at motion graphics and 3D. I would love to find a designer who is great at coding as much as a designer who is great with music. I think creativity comes from mixing skills.” - Maitê Albuquerque from Mother

“I love working with people who have hybrid talents. I would say everyone in our team now is doing multiple types of work: code, design, UX, 3D, editing, creative tech.” - Simon Mogren from BBDO

 

Customer service experience

“The design department at MailChimp has a variety of designers, including web and mobile product designers, brand designers and product marketing designers. If I had to pick a single thread between them all, customer and brand experience is huge.

Doesn’t matter what type of design you’re responsible for, your contribution is part of a singular experience from the perspective of our more than 15 million users. Designers have to understand how their work contributes to that experience and collaborate with other designers to ensure their designs are consistent and on-brand.” - Todd Dominey from Mailchimp

 

Curiosity

“The main thing is... that you are curious about many different things, and that you are willing and able to keep growing and experimenting. It’s up to you to choose in what order you want to keep adding those skills.” - Haraldur Thorleifsson from Ueno

"People who think about the design beyond just the design team."

Strategic thinking

“I can’t overstate the importance of strategic thinking. We could see the most beautiful portfolio of design work, but if we connect with the person and they aren’t able to articulate the purpose behind their design decisions, it’s not going to be a fit for the type of work we’re doing. Likewise, we seek strategists who are passionate about and fluent in design, and client directors who understand how design and strategy come together to drive success for our clients.” - Maureen Edmonds from Red Antler

“Designers who are considerate of all of the aspects of an experience, including the writing, the illustrations and animations are also really great.” - Audrey Liu from Lyft

“People who think about the design beyond just the design team — how it can tie in with business goals, how to design in a way that can scale.” - Luisa Mancera from InVision

 

Commitment

“As a hiring manager, I personally look for an ability to stick with a design project through multiple iterations, not get stuck or frustrated, and come out on the other side with a design that has evolved into something new and wonderful.” - Steven Boone from Disney

 

Most importantly: Strong communication & writing skills

“Most designers on my team eventually manage their own projects and may serve as the main point of contact with clients and other collaborators. So I look for people who can talk about their work, who can listen when other people are talking, and who like to take as much responsibility as possible.” - Michael Bierut from Pentagram

“While it might be considered a common skill, designers who can explain the decisions behind their work — written and verbally — and take egoless feedback is a big plus for us.” - Jared Granger from InVision

If we had to pick one secondary skill for designers it would be writing. Knowing how to code is a close second, but a designer who can write? Ooh wee. In design, the message comes first... A great designer should be strong with many forms of communication because in the end, design is communication, whether it’s visual, written, or spoken.” - Stephanie Liverani, Luke Chesser and Mikael Cho from Unsplash

"Good writing can save bad design but not the other way around. You can make your designs sing if you know how to write well." - Unsplash

“Designers must communicate well. We work on a lot of projects and are very hands-on in the design process. We want to have a dialogue about the work along the way; we want our designers to want to engage about the work.” - Helen Rice and Josh Nissenboim from Fuzzco

“It’s important that all designers can communicate their ideas and rationale, collaborate with others, and navigate ambiguity proactively.” - Katie Dill, previously at Airbnb

"We really value designers who can synthesize their thought process via writing since it’s so core to our culture of collaboration." - Laura Cetina at Microsoft

“...storytelling can take you anywhere – designers who have a viewpoint, present their thoughts clearly, creatively and concisely stand out at Disney.” - Steven Boone from Disney

“One of the specific skills I look for are writing skills. It helps ensure that your thinking is clear.” - Stanley Wood from Spotify

“Communication skills are very important: how you communicate in your team and with your partners, and how you communicate your ideas. The concept of storytelling runs through everything.” - Shine Thomas from Nike

 

Passion for your work

“It might sound silly, but you can really tell who sees this as more than just a paycheck. Those who go the extra mile in their applications really stand out. There hasn’t been a formula developed for a perfect hire. We just look for genuinely nice, passionate and talented people.” - Ryan LeRoux and Oliver Brooks from MetaLab

For more tips on getting jobs at companies like Microsoft, Electronic Arts, Pentagram and more, catch up on our How to Get a Job at X series. And if you want to see a specific company in the series, tag me (@vanschneider) and the company on Twitter. We'll do our best to make it happen.

Cover image features the Lyft design team, from our interview with Lyft.

June 19, 2019No Comments

5 beautifully customized portfolios made with Semplice

Semplice is our portfolio system that allows designers to build a custom online portfolio without coding knowledge or templates. If you do have coding knowledge though, even a little bit, Semplice gets even better.

For developers, the Semplice CMS is a perfect base to build on. Its extensive features allow you to create a layout with simple drag and drop, but you have full access to the code if you want to take it further. This saves dev teams countless hours they could better put toward more exciting customizations.

Semplice is powered by WordPress, meaning you have all the plugins and documentation you could ever need at your disposal. But you don’t have to interact with WordPress at all while creating the site (I know some programmers resist the WordPress interface, I get it). Semplice has its own interface, making the building process much more pleasant and creating an incredibly easy experience for content managers after the site launches. Put simply, it’s the best of all worlds.

Here are just a few of our favorite websites that customized Semplice with a bit of HTML & CSS.

Blond

Blond, an industrial design studio, worked with our Semplice X team to add some thoughtful customizations to their site. That sticky menu on the bottom left is custom-made and so are the cursor and About page animations. But our favorite parts are the image modules for their product case studies. The Before/After module allows you to move a slider between two images to compare. And with the 360-degree module, you can move your cursor around over the image to see it from every angle. These modules were built straight into the Semplice admin, so they’re easy to update.

Felix Faire

Felix Faire is a computational designer and coder focused on interactive applications and prototypes – so of course, he created a mesmerizing, custom animation for his homepage. Move your mouse over the grid of dots and it dances, fitting his “Music. Code. Design” headline perfectly.

Nathan Smith

With Semplice, you can set motion effects on images to make them change on scroll, click, hover and more. But Nathan took it one step further with a custom layered scrolling experience on his homepage, project previews appearing over his bio with a nice rollover effect.

Kasper Laigaard

Semplice has fairly extensive page transition options built into the interface, but Kasper Laigaard had a more advanced transition in mind. He’s not a coder though, so he reached out to Semplice X for help. We built the transition to match his designs: A black square that comes up from the corner and zips to the side to reveal the next page. Click any page on his site to try it out.

Fernanda Sousa

We can’t help but love Fernanda’s cheerful homepage animation and we’ve featured it more than once before. Scroll down the page and the colorful blob slides down with you, bouncing and morphing and changing colors to match each featured project. Unclear whether she’s using a plugin or her own custom code for this animation, but either way it’s delightful.

 

To learn more about Semplice's features for developers (and designers who code) check out this page. And even if you have just a little coding experience, you can make use of our Semplice hacks. These are little snippets we've saved to create interesting effects and extend default Semplice features. Just place them in a code module within Semplice and you're done. Hope it helps!

June 17, 2019No Comments

The first tool we haven’t adapted to – because it adapts to us

As a small remote team working across creative disciplines, we depend on our tools to collaborate and get our work done.  At some point, though, we began working for our tools instead of using tools that worked for us.

Most tech tools were made to solve specific problems through specific workflows. But we are a team of designers, developers, copywriters, project managers and marketing managers with our own unique processes. Using list-based platforms to build our products felt confining. Using Google sheets for our content calendars was tedious and left room for error. Classic project management tools were either too complex or too limiting. Nothing quite fit.

Eventually, our work was spread across different platforms and began to feel chaotic. Still, we didn't pinpoint an exact problem. We just kept trying more tools to fix whatever roadblock we ran across at a given time.

We decided to try Airtable when searching for a new content management tool for this blog. We understood Airtable was something like a spreadsheet but more flexible, which sounded promising. Otherwise, we had no expectations.

Then we started playing around with it. We experimented with templates. We tried out different features, watched a few videos, tinkered around. We quickly realized we could manipulate Airtable to be whatever we needed it to be. We thought hey, maybe we could use it for our revenue tracking too – and what about our product pitches? Soon enough, we were moving project after project into Airtable.

Today, we use Airtable for our content management. We use it to track our product sprints. We track our revenue in Airtable. We use Airtable for project management, product pitches and brainstorming. At this point, Airtable isn't just another tool forcing our workflow. It's become a natural extension of it.

"Most project management tools want you to adapt to a certain flow. Airtable adapts to you."

Managing our products and projects

Every team is unique, which is why it's so hard to find the perfect project management tool. Airtable feels like a big step in the right direction. Since it's customized around your data, you can mold it to whatever you want it to be. It almost feels like building your own app.

Right now, we're using it to manage our building and beta testing for a new product. We started by creating a simple form in Airtable. We customized the form to fit our brand, adding our logo and colors, then sent it off to our beta users.

Every time someone submits the form, their submission automatically becomes a "record" (essentially, a row) in Airtable. This is where Airtable and other spreadsheet platforms part ways.

In Airtable, we can change how our data is presented depending on the task. No matter how we view the content, we are still working off that same set of data. Our team works on different screens, switching between views and updating content within those views, and it updates the original information in real-time.

Once we receive submissions through our form, we first sort each record into different categories: Fix Now, Not Fixing or Phase II. Airtable's dropdown fields to make the sorting process easy, but the Kanban view is even better. Switching to the Kanban view, we simply drag and drop the feedback to one of the category buckets. Then as we work, we switch to another Kanban view where we drag and drop each record to a different status: Backlog, Fixed or In Progress. Switching between Kanban views allow us to move fast and see what’s left to do at a glance – but those who don't work well in a Kanban format don't have to. They can simply switch to another view.

We had a similar process when launching our new Semplice.com helpdesk recently, a task we'd been avoiding for too long. We had been using our old platform for several years – this meant combing through thousands of outdated articles and buried forum topics in order to migrate them or recreate them on the new platform. It was a daunting task and would have been pure madness, had we not used Airtable to manage it.

 

 

To start, we had to collect all the old resources and decide what to do with them. Working in real-time within Airtable, we went through each resource and noted whether to update, recreate or remove it. Then we used Airtable's grouping, filtering and sorting features to organize our views and make sense of the information.

Using the Filter, each person could change their personal views and hide articles that didn't apply to them – for example, filtering out a specific category, assignee or everything with the "remove" status. Grouping helped to visually assess the assignments and task lists, while Sorting allowed us to reorganize data in any order we wanted. Between grouping, filtering and sorting, everyone on the team could find a view that worked for them or drill down on the data as needed.

Once we had our final list and action items, we jumped to the Kanban view where we could drag and drop tasks based on the status. This would automatically update the content in the regular table view. Unlike a list-based project management tool, we could work fast and efficiently in Airtable. And unlike a classic spreadsheet, everything felt clean and visual.

The beauty of Airtable – especially when it comes to project management – is that we can make it our own. Most project management tools want you to adapt to a certain flow. Airtable adapts to you.

Building a CRM system

We just launched our sponsorship program here on the blog, which naturally involves new relationships and ongoing communication. All of it immediately went into Airtable. The base is a simple spreadsheet copy & pasted from an old Google Sheets doc (you can also import .CSVs), but it is so much easier to keep it updated and organized now.

This is where Airtable's "linked records" comes into play. With this option, you can essentially connect one spreadsheet to another spreadsheet so two sets of completely separate data relate. For example, we have a list of companies in one table and a list of contacts in another table. When we link the two, each dynamically connects with the other. So if a contact’s email address changes in one table, it will change under the Companies list as well.

We then use a "single-select" (or dropdown) field to quickly update the status of the project, either in the Kanban view or spreadsheet view.

While plenty of CRM systems exist out there, Airtable is perfect for the growing nature of our sponsorship program. Everything is organized and structured as it would be in a spreadsheet, but we can easily update it with a simple click or drag & drop. Unlike other CRM tools, we can create a system that works and scales for us.

"A simple spreadsheet becomes more dynamic and flexible once it’s in Airtable."

Managing our social & content calendar

My editor and I also use Airtable to plan content for this blog.  Before, we would manually update our spreadsheet, painstakingly color-coding different categories, copy/pasting or reorganizing as we planned and published new articles. It did the job, but we had to work for it. Additionally, as visual people, we often got distracted perfecting the spreadsheet "styling" so it was more pleasing to use.

Again, a simple spreadsheet becomes more dynamic and flexible once it’s in Airtable. Since the interface is streamlined and interactive, we are no longer compelled to "design" our spreadsheet but can instead focus on the task at hand.

We begin by brainstorming and adding a list of article topics to our table. We then categorize the topics by theme (portfolio tips, productivity, news, etc.) using a multiple-select dropdown field. We have a single-select dropdown field for the article status (in progress, edited, in review, published) and a date field (with a handy date-picker) for the publish date. Once each article is scheduled, we can jump over to the Calendar view to get a visual overview of the coming month.

Like everything else with Airtable, this translates to time spent doing the work rather than managing it.

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As passionate as we are about Airtable already, we have only scratched the surface. For example, we just recently tried using Airtable's Chart and Summary Blocks for our Semplice X work, allowing us to see a visual summary of our revenue. Blocks are a library of apps that extend the capabilities of Airtable, allowing you to add charts, send email notifications or create visual dashboards. Browsing Blocks, templates and the various use-cases in the Airtable "Universe," the possibilities seem endless.

Airtable is as simple or complex as we want it to be. But no matter how far we take it, it begins with a spreadsheet. This is now our natural first step when starting a new project. How we use it from there is up to us.

June 17, 2019No Comments

How to get a job at Bobbi Brown

Bobbi Brown Cosmetics, as you might guess, creates beauty products for women. The company was founded almost 30 years ago and remains a popular, respected cosmetics brand today.

The Bobbi Brown design team operates here in New York as a part of Estée Lauder Companies. And as we learned in this interview with Tom, design director at Bobbi Brown, designing for a beauty brand can be quite different than other design work. Details like skin tone become more important. Photography skills come into play. As with any industry, the focus and the canvas changes.

So we asked Tom what it takes to get a job on his team, designing for the modern, polished brand that is Bobbi Brown.

Hey Tom, let’s get right to it. First, can you please tell us a little about yourself and what you do at Bobbi Brown?

Hi, Tobias! I’m a creative, originally from Belgium. I oversee a small team at Bobbi Brown that puts their focus on the digital output for the brand. This includes global and regional online campaigns and everything e-commerce related.

Tom, and sticky notes

Looking at your current design team, how many of them came through internal referrals or headhunting, and how many came through the traditional application process?

I came onboard through a referral and I’d say the majority of our creative team did as well.

Say we decide to reach out with a cold email. What kind of message gets a reply? Any secrets for us?

Send it early in the morning! I come into work and the first thing I do is catch up on emails.

Keep it short and straightforward. We get tons of emails every day, so another one on top shouldn’t be too long. Introduce yourself in a couple of lines (in case you got my email address from someone and I don’t know you), state your intent and include a link to your work or a PDF.  A resume is nice to have as well so we know who you are without Googling you right away.

If we like what we see, we will probably reach out directly to you, or have HR reach out to set up an interview. If we don’t like what we see we try to get back to you as well, but unfortunately we can’t get back to everyone.

How important is a complete portfolio? Can I get away with not having a portfolio when interviewing at Bobbi Brown?

I think some kind of online presence is a huge plus, especially if you want a job with a focus on digital.

However, I do understand that keeping a portfolio current can be very time consuming – time that a lot of us don’t have. So  I don’t mind if people send an email, or walk into an interview with a PDF that shows four or five good projects.

Tell us one thing you never want to see again on a portfolio. Anything you wish you saw more?

I wish I saw credits! Very few projects are completed by just one person, and I notice a lot of people don’t give credit in their portfolio. This makes it harder to understand what exactly your role was for each project. Giving credit to the team you have worked with on each project you decide to show helps us understand who reported into you, who you reported to and how big the team was.

I don’t think I have ever seen something that I never want to see again in a portfolio.

Besides having a portfolio, do you like the idea of designers being invested in other interests? For example, being active bloggers or otherwise outspoken in their community?

As long as it doesn’t interfere with the job, sure. If you work for a company you indirectly become an ambassador or spokesperson for it. Whatever you say or do will reflect on your employer, so think about what you say and do in public, and what you might want to keep private.

Say I make the first pass and get invited to an interview. Can you describe the interview process as briefly as possible?

I don’t like giving design exercises. I do try to have you meet with as many people as possible so you get a good feel for the people who work here, and I can get feedback from these people to see if you’d be a good cultural add.

Timeframes can be from a week to a couple months, depending on your situation. For example: Do you need to give notice to your employer? That adds some time to the process/timeline. Do you need a visa? If so, the company would ideally work with attorneys to get that sorted, but that takes time as well. Do you need to relocate? Do you need to interview with people who were not available during your first interview?

So I guess it varies from one candidate to another and what their situation is.

"As long as you are willing to learn, I don’t mind what your background is. We are all learning new things every day and no one has the right answer all the time."

What are the secondary skills you look for in a designer, besides common soft skills? For example: Do you prefer writing ability over coding skills? Photography skills over coding?

Photography skills can come in handy – especially the technical side of it, how to set up light and such.

Knowing photographers and their styles is a nice plus as well so you can pull swipe quicker and easier during the concepting phase of a project. We shoot a lot and having a good basic knowledge of photographers, set designers, stylists, etc. is always good.

Coding/programming, not as much. Estée Lauder has a centralized dev / production team that handles that side of the business, but if you happen to know your way around certain programming languages it won’t hurt either as you’ll be able to prototype or figure out stuff quicker with developers.

Writing skills can always come in handy, especially for concepting and formulating your ideas in decks that will be presented to creative, marketing teams and senior leadership.

You had experience designing for fashion before joining Bobbi Brown. Is design experience in fashion/beauty or retail required for the job, or are you open to designers from any background?

For me personally, the switch from fashion to beauty was and still is quite hard. The focus shifts completely, the gradation in skin tones and shades of products become very important.

“Beauty” is defined differently from fashion. Your canvas becomes smaller as you need to close in on the face all the time. With fashion, you are pulled out more and literally have more space to work with.

But, as long as you are willing to learn, I don’t really mind what your background is. In the end, we are all learning new things every day and no one has the right answer all the time. Everyone on the creative team has a listening ear, is open for ideas, suggestions and collaboration.

Would you hire someone who is a cultural add over someone who has more industry experience and hard skills?

No.

"I think, as someone just coming out of school, go after a job you’ll enjoy doing and work your way up."

What are the biggest mistakes you see designers make when applying for a job at Bobbi Brown? Are there any specific things that keep bothering you? Please complain to us! (:

Not specifically to Bobbi Brown, but kids these days ask Silicon Valley salaries straight out of school, with zero work experience.

I have a hard time understanding it. I partially blame the schools who tell the kids it's OK to ask for it, and the companies in Silicon Valley that do actually pay those salaries. Maybe my mindset is biased because I came to New York on a mid five-figure salary. I don’t know.

When I came to New York I thought I was a good designer already, but I was wrong in so many ways. Not only did I not have any idea how a company works, but I didn’t have any idea how to work with other people and express my ideas and opinions to them.

I think, as someone just coming out of school, go after a job you’ll enjoy doing and work your way up. Don’t turn down jobs because they don’t pay enough right away. Work hard and you’ll get there.

Behind the scenes of a Bobbi Brown shoot

Do we need to live in New York to apply for a job, or do you hire remote employees as well?

We are fortunate enough to be able to relocate people. We are part of Estée Lauder Companies so depending on your level and location, Estée Lauder Companies & Bobbi Brown will try to get the right candidate to join.

How do you think Bobbi Brown is different when hiring new talent compared to other companies?

When I interviewed, I had six different conversations in one day with people from the creative, operations and online teams. I had never done six interviews in a day before. Everything was very casual and because the people were so open, I was able to get a good feel right away on how the dynamic between teams are.

It is then up to you to decide if you want to join that dynamic, to mold your position / role and push with everyone in the right direction.

Thanks so much, Tom! Any parting advice for us – something we forgot to ask that a potential candidate should know?

Thank you so much for taking the time to do this! Some last advice from me is to be confident and ask questions during interviews. Try to walk out of the interview with all the info you need to make up your mind. Have a nice overview of benefits, vacation days, whether remote work available? What is the pet policy in the office?

Thank you, Tom! Your tips here are valuable not only for those applying to Bobbi Brown, but for anyone (especially young designers) looking for a design job.

Readers, if you are interested in working on the Bobbi Brown design team, keep this advice in mind:

1. Try to make an inside connection

Most of Bobbi Brown's design hires came from a referral. Try to make a connection with someone online or find a friend of a friend to make an introduction for you. It will count for a lot.

2. Show a willingness to learn

In your portfolio and in your interviews. You don't need a specific design background to work at Bobbi Brown, but they want to see an eagerness to learn – without an ego.

3. Be prepared for several interviews

The interview process can last anywhere from a week to a couple months, and you will meet several people on the team during that process. If you have another job or are traveling from outside the city, it's something to keep in mind.

 

For more interviews with companies like Spotify, Pentagram, Airbnb, Microsoft and more, catch up on our How to Get a Job at X series right here. And if you want to see a specific company in the series, tag me and the company on Twitter to let us know (:

June 13, 2019No Comments

How to photograph your work for your portfolio

As anyone who's ever created a portfolio knows, designing the site itself is the easiest part. Collecting, creating and organizing the content is the biggest hurdle and I'd venture to guess, the reason why most of us procrastinate on our portfolio. Capturing images is a big part of that.

After all the effort we put into the work, photographing it seems like a whole other project. And, well, it is. The way you present your work often showcases your skill as much as the work itself. Whether you're a skilled photographer or not, you don't have to settle for the standard shots everyone else includes on their portfolio. To stand out and do your work justice, you need to photograph it in a thoughtful way.

We asked some of our favorite designers from our Semplice Showcase how they go about photographing their print, branding, packaging, product design and identity work. And while there's no right or wrong way to do it, their tips and tricks will help.

Storyboard first

Just as you would for a client shoot, consider storyboarding and even creating a shot list before photographing your work. Having a plan ensures your images feel cohesive and helps you avoid wasting time aimlessly snapping pictures.

An image from Marton Borzak's "Touch Screen Remote" project, featured on martonborzak.com

“Before every shoot, I sit down, look for inspiration and figure out what I’d like to focus on when showing a particular project,” says Marton Borzak, a multidisciplinary designer/art director based in Copenhagen. “It helps me to create a little storyboard. I draw small sketches about different compositions and look at the order of images before taking any pictures, so I can see how the flow of the images could create a nice rhythm. This keeps me focused and on-task during the shoot.”

Don’t default to the standard “portfolio shots” – create a mood

“Give a bit of a feeling for the brand and the overall tonality by experimenting with sets and moods that help convey the overall vibe of your book or magazine or printed collateral,” says Verena Michelitsch, an independent designer and art director in New York.

Verena Michelitsch's images for her Gossamer project fit the brand and set a distinct mood.

While it's tempting to simply find an interesting backdrop or do the typical overhead shot, challenge yourself to experiment and think about what best conveys the brand or product – rather than only what looks cool.

Art direction by Verena Michelitsch, photography by Caroline Fayette and Marina Melentieva

“Nowadays you see a lot of similar compositions out there – colored backgrounds, pieces arranged in a grid,” Verena says. “I am guilty of doing or having done that. Personally, I think I just got tired of the sameness in how graphic design work is shown these days, so I try to break out of it and find photography inspiration in places other than graphic design portfolios.”

Be intentional with backgrounds and props

Your photo is a chance to quite literally put your work and the product in the best light. Rather than simply capturing a still-life picture, think about how you can add to the story.

Christina Michelitsch gives context to her creative for NIKE SB by photographing it in-store.

“Contextualize. Photographing your work means you can add another creative layer to it that underpins what it is about,” says Christina Michelitsch, a New York-based art director and designer. “Experiment and choose your set purposefully. Figure out what materials, colors, props and lighting complement your project best and what helps tell the story of your work.”

Luxurious fabric and moody lighting elevate Christina Michelitsch's work for Dina & Omar.

As Heather-Mariah Dixon of Studio HMVD explains, contrast and scale help tell that story.

“Rather than just photographing your work on white, consider using objects, textures and backgrounds to give your designs context and a sense of scale,” Heather suggests.

Heather-Mariah Dixon uses texture and props to give her work scale and context. Image from studiohmvd.com

Would we better understand the product if we saw it in someone’s palm? Would a textured background add a nice contrast or distract? Should we see the work on a table or in the wild?

“We love sourcing props from fabric stores, eBay and antique shops to bring nuance and life to our work, and then painting or modifying them to make sure they suit the scene. Designing a compelling set to tell the story of your project extends the world that you've worked hard to create.”

Improvise and work with what you've got

You don’t need a studio-quality camera, perfect lighting or expansive set to bring your work to life.

"Be ready to improvise," Seyi Olusanya of Dá Design Studio explains. "We don't focus so much on having the best camera or gear. It's always better to prioritize photography that is extra consistent with the idea, theme, and mood of the project.” 

Rather than focusing on fancy gear and studio sets, Dá Design Studio aims to convey the idea behind their work.

Perhaps you take a standard shot and enhance it with illustrations or animation later. Maybe a snap from your phone fits the mood or nature of the product better than a highly-produced image.

“When photography is more focused on enunciating the ideas behind the project, it makes the entire presentation far more effective.”

Use natural light to your advantage

Considering so many portfolios feature perfectly polished images with calculated studio lighting, an image shot in natural light can feel refreshing and authentic.

Alex Reece of studiorollmo.com works with the sun to showcase his projects

“When you’re starting out it can be pricey to get someone to shoot for you, and equipment can be expensive. Your new best mate, natural light, is here to make everything better,” says Alex Reece of Studio Rollmo. “An overcast day will give you accurate color and nice, even light. Set up next to your biggest window and with some time and photoshop you’ll get the good results – even with relatively cheap cameras.”

Light and shadows play off Studio HMVD's work for "The Beauty Scholar" – studiohmvd.com

 Heather-Mariah Dixon seconds this advice.

“We started shooting our portfolio pieces on our building's roof before renting and eventually investing in photography equipment. Oftentimes the sun gave us interesting and unexpected results.”

For more inspiration, visit the Semplice Showcase or browse our other portfolio tips on the blog.

June 10, 2019No Comments

On avoiding overthink

Overthinking is a negative tendency. It’s implicit in the word “over,” too much. The problem is knowing what the "normal" amount of thinking should be. If it's possible to think too much, what’s the right amount? How do we know when we’ve hit it? When do we stop?

We’ve all seen the effect of overthinking. When we’ve wrestled with a project, turned it over and over in our head and reworked it a million different ways. We finally present our work and the bruises are evident to everyone. Somehow, it reeks of “overthink.” It’s been forced and it shows.

The line between think and overthink is easy to cross, but I’ve found a few ways to avoid it.

Method over madness

When you’re first approaching a problem, it’s tempting to just throw things at the wall and see what sticks. This can be beneficial in the beginning of a brainstorm, when you want to start light and loosen up. But sooner rather than later, I prefer to put some structure around my thinking. In the same way I’d wireframe a page before designing it, I step back and make a plan for before diving in.

Say, for example, I’m writing an ad. While I may try just free-thinking for a few minutes, putting down whatever pops in my mind, I’ll quickly move on to a more methodical approach. First, I’ll list out the benefits of the product. Then I’ll brainstorm around each benefit, trying different angles for each. I’ll explore each of those angles as far as I can go, refining and narrowing ideas down before trying another approach.

Of course, your brain can take you all kinds of directions. Let it do so. Inspiration usually strikes when you’re not forcing it. It’d be impossible to trace the path that led me to some of my best ideas. But it helps to give my brain a place to start, and a way to lead it back when it gets lost.

Don’t let one idea lead you down a dark alley

Sometimes we hit on some idea and become fixated on it, determined to make it work. We chase this idea down, throwing all our mental energy against it only to find in the end: it just won’t work. We’re left alone at a dead end, feeling tired and discouraged.

Stop before you get to this point. Instead, approach the idea, shake its hand, maybe ask it a few questions. If you’re not feeling the spark, let it walk away. Maybe later you’ll meet again and things will come more naturally. But if you find yourself trying too hard from the start, it’s probably not the right idea. I found myself in that position with this entire metaphor. I’ve followed it too far already so we’ll stop here.

Follow the flow and keep moving forward

If you’re starting to feel stuck on a task, drop it and move on to something else. Go focus on an entirely different project for a few hours. Keep your mind moving forward, even if it’s in a different direction.

This is my favorite way to procrastinate – and it usually helps rather than setting me behind. I will always have more tasks on my to-do list, so I just lay one down and pick up the next. In the end, it’s more productive than beating my head against the wall, wasting time and energy. Let yourself move freely between your work and your ideas may come more freely as well.

Many creatives will tell you their best ideas came once they thought on the subject and then switched gears. Often, your subconscious works out the kinks on its own and the right idea hits when you’re in the shower or watching a movie or doing some other completely unrelated task. I couldn’t cite any science behind it, but I’ve found it to be true for myself.

Walk someone else through it

When in doubt, consult a trusted friend or coworker. Walk them through your work or your idea, step by step. You may find they are completely confused and can’t even grasp it. Or they may spot the problem immediately and say, “but why don’t you just do this?” which will infuriate you and also free you. But just the act of explaining your work out loud can reveal its flaws or help you see it differently.

__

Finally, I'd venture to guess anyone who struggles with overthinking also has a streak of perfectionism. When you let go of the obsession with "getting it right" and let yourself accept the possibility of failure, you find everything in life comes a whole lot easier.

June 6, 2019No Comments

When people rip you off

Recently, my team stumbled upon a paid theme that quite blatantly stole the Semplice.com homepage design. It’s not the first time I've seen a website or page design that looked eerily similar to something we've designed in the past. We were a bit puzzled by it and sent a friendly note to find out why, but we ultimately laughed about it in Slack and moved on.

A week later, we shared a new page featuring our favorite type foundries and typefaces. While the response was overwhelmingly positive, I did see a comment that made me think. “This is like a blogger posting about hidden gems,” it said with a sad face emoji. The implication: By sharing the resources we use for our work, we were making them accessible to others who might follow suit. We were making it easier for people to rip us off.

It’s a natural tendency for humans to protect what they find precious. I suppose it stems from survival instinct. We lean into this instinct with Semplice as we’ve found that people share it with their closest friends like a secret family recipe, something they don’t want too many others to know about. Semplice is “designers’ best kept secret.”

With travel blogging specifically, this makes more sense. In the article, “Loved to Death: How Instagram Is Destroying Our Natural Wonders,” The Ringer describes how our obsession with geotagging has led to overrun parks, endangered wildlife and people falling off cliffs in an effort to capture the perfect selfie. Thus, protecting “hidden gems” can legitimately benefit nature and protect humans and animals.

"If we are confident in our work, we are generous with our resources."

Hoarding our knowledge or resources as designers does no such thing. We may feel like we own an Illustrator trick, a specific typeface or even a certain style. We do everything we can to keep it to ourselves, thinking this gives us an advantage or makes us original. We believe copycats cheapen our work and hurt our business. When someone rips us off, we feel threatened.

As much as I understand and relate to this mindset, I believe it is detrimental to our community, to ourselves and the evolution of design itself. Open source software exists to propel innovation. Why doesn’t design work the same way?

I am not condoning plagiarism. Finding inspiration in someone’s work is one thing – stealing it is wrong. And a company stealing an individual artist’s work and reselling it is even worse. But the resources, tricks or knowledge we use to make our work? Give it away. Tell everyone you know.

Our advantage lies in our unique perspective and identity. If we are confident in our work, we are generous with our resources. We don’t fear someone ripping us off. We see that as a challenge to do something different. An opportunity to do the next thing worth copying.

June 4, 2019No Comments

Design portfolio inspiration of May 2019

Once a week, we select two portfolios created with Semplice to feature in our Best Of  Showcase.  Here we've collected our favorites from the past month.

It's always motivating to see how creatives of all kinds use Semplice for their online portfolios. In May, we featured websites from design directors, art directors, design studios, interaction designers, illustrators, multi-disciplinary designers and more.

Browse the best portfolios of the month below to see fresh new work and get inspired for your own site. And if you've created your own portfolio with Semplice, be sure to submit it to our Showcase here. We might feature your site next.

 

To see more great design portfolios, visit the Semplice showcase. I'll be back next month with more of our monthly favorites!

Header image by Matthias Grund.

June 3, 2019No Comments

How to get a job at Microsoft

It's an exciting time to be a designer at Microsoft. This is not the same company it was ten years ago.

Most of us have some association with Microsoft: Our first family computer. The Xbox in our living room. Microsoft Paint and Clippy, the friendly Office assistant tragically ahead of its time.

Microsoft has been creating powerful products and systems for the world since 1975. Yet the company isn't waxing nostalgia or reflecting on its long and storied past. It's focused on the future – the products, values and innovations that help people and make the world better. And it starts with design.

Within the last few years, Microsoft has made a decided shift toward collaboration and openness among its design teams. The Windows, Office and Surface teams work closely together and share their work with an "internal open source" mindset. The Fluent Design System is integral to this effort, driving consistency across product designs through a shared visual language.

Talk to anyone on the design team at Microsoft and this fresh, invigorating energy is immediately clear. We had the pleasure of talking to five of them.

The design opportunities at Microsoft right now are many and diverse, but where does one even begin? What is Microsoft looking for in a designer? What kind of work would we be doing? We asked members across Microsoft's design team to find out.

Erin Woo
Product Designer
Role: Works on Outlook, designing features for  iOS/Android apps.Homebase: The Microsoft New York office

Tiffany Chen
UX Designer

Role: Works across design strategy, systems design, UX design, inclusive design, accessibility, persona spectrums and coherent notifications systems for Microsoft and Microsoft 365

Homebase: Microsoft HQ in Redmond, WA

Laura Cetina
Senior sourcing manager
Role: Leads the recruiting and sourcing efforts for design at MicrosoftHomebase: Microsoft HQ in Redmond, WA

Ismael “Izzy” Beltran
Visual & UX Designer
Role: Part of Microsoft's Mixed Reality at Work team, working across UX design and visual design for emerging tech products dealing with computer vision and IoTHomebase: Microsoft HQ in Redmond, WA

David Phillips
Product Designer
Role: Focused on the Messaging effort and running the Microsoft Design communityHomebase: The Microsoft campus in Bellevue, WA

First, tell us: How did you get your original job at Microsoft? Where did it all begin and what did the hiring process look like for you?

Tiffany: I was actually a UX design intern at Microsoft in 2017! My path to getting that internship was quite bizarre, though.

Up until joining Microsoft, I had virtually no experience in design. My previous two summers involved a business operations internship at a startup and an HCI research internship at Adobe’s Creative Technologies Lab, both of which had drastically different responsibilities and skillsets. I think I became interested in design by osmosis from sitting so close to the designers at Adobe.

Once I realized I might be interested in design, it was a lot of online reading, self-teaching, and pushing myself to create design projects in my free time. I used my development skills to pull together a portfolio of all the individual projects I’d done, and started shooting in the dark by applying to design internships at companies. Microsoft decided to take a chance on me.

From there, I did the three month UX design internship at Microsoft, loved it, and received an offer to return as a full-time designer after I graduated from Brown.

"The recruiter reached out and said the interview would occur in a week. Guess what I did: worked on my portfolio for that entire week!"

David: Technically, it began in grad school when I became good friends with Cindy Wong. We were frenemies 'cause we kept applying to the same internships. Cut to five years later, I was still working in New York as a design technologist when Cindy Wong from grad school sent me an email: “Hey, send me your resume and portfolio! There’s an opening at Bing!” I had a quick chat with her manager and I was flown out within two weeks for a full-day interview. I had been doing front-end development full time and I wanted to return to more design work, so I made sure my portfolio showed all my side projects and prototyping work. When I got the good news, I had to ask them to delay it for 2 months(!) so my wife and I could present our new graphic novel at New York ComicCon. I left NYC that Sunday and started at Microsoft 8 a.m. the next day. Cindy is the best frenemy ever.

Izzy: My first job at Microsoft was a really short contract for an incubation team for Windows Phone (that was a thing once). It was a great team and taught me a lot. I spent about 4.5 years jumping from contract to contract and doing some freelance in between. I worked for teams like Xbox, Microsoft Teams, accessibility tooling and Inclusive Design. I took the contracting path because I wanted to try out different projects and get a better scope of what type of work I wanted to do. It wasn’t until my last contract at Inclusive Design that I found my purpose. My managers at Microsoft taught me that my voice matters and my individuality is very valuable. This is really powerful when you are of color in the tech world.

I was at the tail end of my six-month break from my last contract when Sogol Malekzadeh from Microsoft messaged me to send her my resume and portfolio. A few days after I talked with my (now) design lead, Juliette Weiss. The project sounded amazing and after the call, I was told Microsoft's recruiter would get back to me. The recruiter reached out and said the interview would occur in a week. Guess what I did: worked on my portfolio for that entire week! The interview process started at 8:30 a.m. and went all the way through to about 4 p.m. Believe it or not, I don’t think I was speaking full sentences towards the end. I think I slept for about 15 hours when I got home that day. A few weeks later, I got an email that they were extending an offer and the rest is history.  

Looking at your current design team, how many of them came through internal referrals vs. headhunting vs. the traditional application process?

Tiffany: A surprising number of us went through Microsoft’s internship program.

Erin: The product design team has historically relied on referrals, but we’re working on evolving our recruiting practices to search a bit more broadly. For example, we’ve done active outreach via Twitter, Dribbble and by cold-emailing design talent, and are currently brainstorming ways we can host more events or talks within our local design communities (especially here in New York!). 

Laura:  Roughly ⅓  internal referrals, ⅓ headhunting (sourcing finding talent) and ⅓ traditional application process. When applying for a role, it is always best to leverage your network and have folks on the inside refer you to a role.  It helps get you noticed and it never hurts to have someone vouch for your skills and experience. The team that I manage spends all of their time on outreach efforts for passive talent. We look at the current needs of the organization and then proactively reach out to folks who we think might be a great fit. We focus on building long term relationships with great talent. While you might not be looking today, we might have a perfect role for you tomorrow.

Microsoft has made huge changes to its design philosophy and system in recent years, and I imagine this opens up more opportunities for designers and design hires. What kind of design opportunities exist right now and where do we fit into the bigger picture of your team?

Tiffany: There are SO MANY opportunities. We have UX designers, visual designers, motion designers, interaction designers, hardware / industrial designers, developer-designer hybrids, videographers and more. We’re all working in vastly different areas, whether those are horizontal, strategic efforts, vertical product teams, incubation teams, etc. I will say that the vast majority of opportunities sit within product teams as UX and/or interaction designers.

What you might be working on as a designer at Microsoft

  • Industrial design products and new form factors

  • Designing for emerging tech in mixed reality and gaming

  • Solving design ethics questions for next-gen AI products

  • Creating products and features for the modern workplace

  • Designing data visualization products for enterprise customers

  • Connecting and simplifying complex systems, platforms and experiences

David: One of the incredible things about Microsoft is the diversity of design teams tackling different problems in different ways. Some teams are very tactical, while others are exploring the future 3-5 years in the future with goals to never ship anything!

Izzy: I have seen a huge diversity shift within the last five years of me being here. I am part of a group called HOLA here at Microsoft. It's composed of Latinx individuals that work from Microsoft. Being able to speak in Spanish and connect with other professionals in the industry is a really good feeling. Also seeing leadership with similar backgrounds empowers me and pushes me to do more.   

Say we decide to reach out with a cold email. What kind of message gets a reply? Any secrets for us?

Erin: Keep it simple, link to your work and don’t be afraid to be confident in sharing what makes you a great designer if you’re applying for an opening on our team.

Tiffany: I’m pretty cool with getting emails and LinkedIn messages. I’m normally better able to help someone when their intention is simply to learn more about Microsoft Design, the different teams, my personal experiences, etc. Unless it’s someone whose work I’m already familiar with in some capacity, I don’t tend to put in personal referrals. That said, I always reply!

Laura: When reaching out to me, please share your work and let me know how I can help you. Clear and concise communication is best.

David: If you reach out, please link to your work and link to the specific role you see on our Careers page. We tend to be extremely busy so if you make it easy to take action on, that helps a ton.

Izzy: Keep it short and sweet. If you are reaching out to a stranger, make sure you value their time and be prepared with what you are looking to get out of the conversation. If you don’t know, then be clear about it and say you are looking for advice in career path or something that aligns with their experience. I usually always reply and try to help out where I can since I remember being in their position.  

How important is a complete portfolio? Can we get away with not having a portfolio when interviewing at Microsoft?

Tiffany: As someone who didn’t have a portfolio at the beginning of their design recruiting process, I think it’s super important – if not absolutely necessary – to have a portfolio that showcases at least 3-4 of your projects. It doesn’t have to be a website if you’re not comfortable with a website; it can be a PDF, a slide deck, etc.

I personally have never seen someone interview at Microsoft without a portfolio. Part of the design interview process itself is a portfolio review, so I think it’d be pretty hard to articulate your thoughts and projects to your interviewers without some form of a portfolio.

Erin: We want to see examples of your work, so if your portfolio showcases beautiful and polished design solutions, that’s great! But if we ask you to join us for an interview, we want to hear more about how you got there. Can you articulate the problem or design brief clearly? How explorative were you early on in the project? What constraints or guidelines did you have to work with or against? And if you were collaborating with others, what was the working relationship like? These are the details that help us better understand how you’d fit or contribute in making our team better. And if you’re applying for a role on the mobile team, we definitely want to see mobile work.

Laura: A portfolio of your work is absolutely required if you are looking for a design role. Every part of your portfolio represents your work, so it is important to organize and talk about the projects in a very organized manner. In addition to showing great work, you also want to make sure that you talk about the process. We are looking for folks who are equally strong designers, communicators, strategists and problem solvers.  I also highly recommend working on projects that truly interest you. If you want to work in service design, find projects that align with that type of work.

Izzy: It is very important to have a portfolio! You would need to be pretty charming to pull it off without one.

Joking aside, a portfolio is a way to be able to talk about and show your process and guide someone through your way of thinking. If the design is not what you wanted, then talk about that. Talk about what you could have done differently or your learnings. People in the industry know about constraints and the reality of design.

The portfolio I used was made in PowerPoint and I got a job. In the end, use what you feel best gives the message you want to say. Make it work for the audience you are targeting and if you are sending your portfolio ahead of time, make sure you don’t send the full presentation. Send a teaser of it and show the wow stuff during the interview. You don’t want to bore people with something they have already seen before.

Tell us one thing you never want to see again on a portfolio.

Erin: This is a major pet peeve of mine, but I have an aversion to bar graphs that are meant to illustrate your proficiency in certain tools or skill-sets. If I see that on your resumé or portfolio, I am immediately turned off.

Tiffany: Please no pictures of murals of colorful post-its on a board.

Laura:  Please leave your selfie off your portfolio.  

David: Low res images aren’t great and stock graphics aren’t great.  Pro tip: Have a local copy of your site ready to go if your internet connection becomes wonky. Prototypes or personal projects... really, anything that shows us your passion for solving problems is always good.

Izzy: Club photos, typos and what I call "the Behance effect." The latter means just having pretty photos with no blurb explaining the context. I want to know what was done and how you got to the execution of the idea. That is far more meaningful than a bunch of images I will just glaze over.

"We take the growth mindset seriously and I’ve seen coworkers up to CVPs call out their mistakes."

Microsoft has been around for ages and has a deep history, which brings benefits and challenges. One of the downsides being that some people might have an outdated perception of design at Microsoft, inaccurately assuming the design team operates more traditionally or hasn’t changed over the years.

What’s the reality vs. the perception about designing at Microsoft?

Erin: The most common misconception is that we’re required to use Windows machines. Surprise: a lot of designers in Microsoft use Macbooks! Not only do we need certain tools that are Mac-only (e.g. Sketch), but a lot of designers are focused on the Mac-versions of their product.  

We may have the perception of being a more antiquated tech company, but the reality is that it’s super exciting to be at Microsoft right now. The Verge recently wrote an article about our culture of open design – product teams are sharing and collaborating more and we’re simplifying processes as much as possible. Every design team within the company has the opportunity to define this shift. For example, we on the Outlook mobile team devote time every quarter to having week-long design sprints. It gives us a break from our normal feature work and lets us dream up innovative ideas and solutions for our apps. The best part: we get to invite designers from other teams join in on the fun.

Tiffany: My old expectations, which I assume might be shared by other people who don’t know much about Microsoft design: cubicles, homogenous people who work in silos, collared shirts every day, very 90s vibe, overly corporate and enterprise-driven.

My current reality at Microsoft: open office, diverse teams (with regards to identity, discipline and work style) which collaborate horizontally and vertically, people who dress how they want, a very modern vibe, and designers who interact with real customers and think about the consumer-space increasingly often.

Moreover, I’ve also been super impressed by Microsoft’s values; tech is increasingly under fire for selling data, designing and working unethically, and cultivating toxic cultures. It’s amazing to work at a company that has so many historical successes that are not predominantly built on the monetization of your digital identity.

David: A lot of folks are shocked to learn I work on a Mac and use modern tools. To be clear, every team is free to use the best tool for the job, whether that be Sketch, Figma, XD, Abstract, Principle, Framer, Flinto, ProtoPie, etc. Design’s seat at the table grows every year.

People who don’t follow every iota of Microsoft news think of the older eras and values, so I would echo Tiffany’s comments: we take the growth mindset seriously and I’ve seen coworkers up to CVPs call out their mistakes and openly discuss how to improve life both internally and for our customers.

I know Microsoft is very aware of its greater place in the world today, valuing open source, collaboration and empathy among other principles. How does this translate to your ideal hire? Do you value certain qualities in your designers and do you like the idea of designers being invested in other interests?

Tiffany: We’re making huge moves towards diversity and inclusion. I guess that means as a designer at Microsoft, it’s important to be self-aware and appreciative of the privileges you have in designing experiences at such a large level of scale and impact. It also means that we expect people to be receptive to feedback, respective of different attitudes, and to grow from those experiences. It’s a growth mindset.

David: We definitely have designers that are invested in other interests – everything from farming, theatre, punk music, hiking. Getting to work with people from all walks of life with a diversity of can only make Microsoft better.

In my experience, someone who people enjoy working with can go further than even the most talented designer. How much do personality and values (what some might call “culture add”) weigh compared to industry experience and hard skills when you consider a designer for your team?

Tiffany: I’d argue that personality, values, and being a cultural add are equally as important as industry experience and hard skills. When you’re spending more time with your teammates than you are with your family, it becomes pretty obvious that the people on your team can make or break your work experience on a day-to-day basis. Work can be challenging and stressful at times, but I’m a huge proponent of not having team culture be a reason to feel emotionally burdened.

David: We tend to look for good people over rockstar designers. We luck out more often and get good people that are also rockstar designers! Empathy, humility and openness to collaboration, people who are willing to jump into unknown territory and give it their best – that’s the person who you want to work with.

How the interview process at Microsoft might look for you

  • One phone screen with a recruiter

    This is the opportunity for you to highlight all of your skills/experience/preferences, etc.

  • Phone interview with a hiring manager

    If Microsoft is interested in your background, they will schedule a phone interview with a hiring manager. This is your opportunity to ask questions about the role and also highlight your skills and experience as it relates to that specific team or role.

  • On-site interview with designers & hiring manager

    This usually includes a portfolio review plus 1:1 interviews. This is your chance to not only showcase your skills and experience, but how you communicate, problem solve and approach design strategy. Each round gets progressively longer. Be patient, and know that if you've made it on site, Microsoft is interested.


PRO TIP:  Be prepared to take a few curve balls - the full-day interview is both fun and exhausting. "In my first interview, I was asked why I chose a specific color blue and had to qualify it for 15 minutes," said David. "Once I did a design exercise for an hour and a half. But every team is different. The main items we look for is how well do you take feedback and whether we think someone would be a great collaborator."

 

What secondary skills do you look for in a designer, besides common soft skills? For example: Do you prefer writing ability over coding skills? Photography skills over coding?

Erin: The Outlook mobile team tracks all our feature work with Github, where we post designs and get feedback from product managers and engineers. We really value designers who can synthesize their thought process via writing since it’s so core to our culture of collaboration. Having any other sort of creative passions definitely gets our attention since Microsoft strongly encourages we always find time for continued learning and education. The company provides a lot of resources to make sure we’re able to pursue the interests that aren’t a part of our normal day-to-day work.

Tiffany: I imagine it depends largely on what position you’re applying for and the needs of the team you’re interviewing with. For example, there are design-developer hybrid roles that assign huge value to someone who is interdisciplinary in both UX and CS. On the other hand, photography skills could be great on teams that do more branding work.

I personally get excited when I hear about designers who are also programmers since I find that that helps them better understand and communicate with developers at Microsoft. But that’s just a personal penchant and it’s completely unnecessary to be able to code as a designer. You just have to understand what tools you have in your own toolbox and work with what you’ve got!

David: Having a superpower always helps. If you’re great at telling a story, if you have a development or creative coding background, if you are great with data or data viz, if you work with After Effects or audio... really, anything that helps with conveying the user experience or clarifying the problem for the team. Many of my coworkers started in a totally different career and bring those skills over to the design world.

What are the biggest mistakes you see designers make when applying for a job at Microsoft? Are there any specific things that keep bothering you? Please complain to us! (:

 

Laura: I'll take this one for the team:

1. An application missing information or very pertinent content.

We often ask our applicants to submit a cover letter, their CV and a link to their portfolio, but the number of people that forget at least one of those items is staggering. Perhaps a stellar CV and portfolio can make up for a missing cover letter, but the broader point is an important one: by not paying attention to the details, you are not demonstrating real interest in the job.

2. A cover letter that doesn’t say anything of real value.

Talking about how you’re “hacking your dreams while dreaming up hacks” or something similar doesn’t tell me who you are and why you’re the right person for the job. Keep it simple.

3. Your resume is more than two pages long.

For many of our design roles, we are looking for folks who can take complex problems and simplify.  Your resume is the first step in showcasing your ability to present information into an easy-to-read format.

4. Your cover letter talks about yourself in the third person.

5. Your resume doesn’t say anything about what you did in each position.

Avoid the temptation to simply list a handful of the standard "I was a designer" tasks (“designed web pages, designed emails, designed marketing materials”). I want to know what you accomplished, what your greatest achievements were, what you are most proud of from your time with each company. And make it relevant! If you’re applying for a job with our office product group, play up the most relevant experience from your previous roles and background the parts that are not relevant.

 

How to prepare your portfolio for a Microsoft interview

  • Mention side projects.

    Mention why you decided to start the project, what you learned and what you would do differently. "This is especially great if it is a project in an area that you are truly passionate about," says Laura.

  • Think of your portfolio as an example of how you approach design.

    "If you have the time and inclination, a unique portfolio site can really stand out," Laura says. "Treat it like any other UX project and put your user (i.e. the recruiter) at the center. What do they need to be able to find information quickly and easily? How much information do they need to make an informed decision? Are you highlighting the skills and work most relevant to the work you want to do?"

  • Update your portfolio.

    Make sure your portfolio represents your best, most recent work. If you have pieces from a decade ago, they may appear dated.

     

  • For a product design position, include your prototypes.

    "Prototypes are a big plus for us," Erin says. "Not only can they help us understand any sort of complex flows you’ve designed, but they show us that you consider how transitions between screens can influence the experience."

  • Describe your work, your contribution, process and what you learned.

    For your case studies, have a business purpose in mind and to tie the work back to how it helped the business.

  • Focus on thoughtful, concise presentation.

    "It doesn’t have to be packed with a lot of fluff or buzzwords," says Erin. "The more concise, the better."

     

 

When I search for Microsoft design jobs, most are in Washington at Microsoft headquarters. Do we need to be in Washington if we want to design for Microsoft or do you hire remotely? What about international hires?

Erin: While we do have a lot of designers based in our WA headquarters, the Outlook design team is distributed across a few cities: San Francisco, Vancouver, New York and Bangalore in India. And we’re not the only team within Microsoft that's remote-friendly; it’s becoming increasingly obvious that by expanding our pool geographically, we can truly recruit diversely.

Tiffany: No! You don’t need to be in Washington! I think Redmond campus probably feels the liveliest given it’s the largest central campus in North America, but you can absolutely be a designer at Microsoft in non-Washington offices.

Izzy: I don’t think you need to be in the Northwest to get hired. I have met people who work for Microsoft and live in New York. I’m also connected to a few Latinx employees in Chicago.

Laura: While we have offices around the country, more than 85% of the design opportunities are based in our headquarters in Redmond. We hire folks from all over the country and many of them re-locate to the beautiful Pacific Northwest. It is home to a thriving economy but is also surrounded by nature (mountains, water, lakes wilderness, etc.), has quality education on all fronts and has a diversity of culture that is world class.  

David: We also have offices in Prague and London. So I think you’re good. I know we have a principal design manager in Boston and another in North Carolina. It’s not too surprising; we build Skype and Microsoft Teams that are geared toward remote working so they are the proof in the pudding, so to speak.

"I don’t know anyone who has the notion of vesting in three years and moving on. Everyone I know hopes to work at Microsoft for as long as they can."

How do you think Microsoft is different when hiring new talent compared to other companies?

Tiffany: It’s interesting comparing my experiences interviewing at Microsoft with my experiences interviewing at other large tech companies. While I didn’t realize it in the moment, many of my then-Microsoft-interviewers were partner-level and principal-level individuals in the design space. The fact that people higher-up the food chain took recruiting so seriously is something that I hadn’t experienced elsewhere. It really makes you feel like Microsoft cares a ton about who they’re hiring and bringing onto the team.

Izzy:  It’s very different but in a good way! In my personal experience, I had colleagues and principal-level designers giving recommendations to the hiring managers. During the portfolio review process of the interview, I had adjacent team leads sit in and take part. A month into my role, I ran into one of the leads and he not only called me out by name but remembered my presentation. This makes me feel good about the place I work and also keeps me coming back every day with a smile.

Laura: I lead the Pivotal Design Sourcing efforts and we partner with all the design teams across Microsoft to find the best possible talent. We are able to talk to candidates and find out their true passions and align them to roles where they will thrive. Microsoft has so many different products that we have a lot of options for candidates/employees to find roles that align with their passions and interests.

David: From my understanding, people tend to stay at Microsoft longer than other tech companies. I don’t know anyone who has the notion of vesting in three years and moving on. Everyone I know hopes to work at Microsoft for as long as they can. I think that has shifted our mindset to look for good people.

___

Microsoft team! Thank you so much for doing this interview with us. This is by far the most personal conversation we've had in the series, which says a lot about who you are and what kind of company Microsoft is.

Readers, if you're interested in joining the Microsoft team as a designer, here are a few key takeaways:

1. Be detailed and specific

When reaching out or working on your cover letter and resume, state clearly what you want, your experience (including what you did specifically in your position) and why you believe you're the right fit for the job. The same goes for your portfolio. Think about what Microsoft needs to know to consider you for their team. Be precise and concise.

2. Be patient and prepared

You will have several interviews and an interview might last a full day. During the interview, be prepared to answer questions about the design decisions you make, and show a willingness to receive feedback and collaborate.

3. Just go for it

The designers at Microsoft are some of the most open and friendly people I've talked with in this series. It's clear Microsoft sees potential, values individuality and seeks diversity. And plenty of opportunities exist on the design Microsoft team no matter what kind of work you do. Update your portfolio (re-read Microsoft's tips above first) and show Microsoft why you belong on their team.

 

May 29, 2019No Comments

Overdeliver

With every project I do, I aim to overdeliver. I built my career on this attitude. I try to take every step of the project, down to the smallest details, above and beyond what’s expected. In an industry defined by billable hours and budgets, some might say it's a dangerous approach. For me, it’s the only way to work.

No matter the size of the project or the open-mindedness of the client, it’s possible to exceed expectations. The question is: How do you take a project as far as it can go while still protecting yourself? How do you go above and beyond with limited budget? How do you overdeliver on a tight timeline?

By creating smart estimates.

The client needs to understand what goes into your work to understand what’s going above and beyond. This does not mean you should "underpromise and overdeliver." Just be straightforward and honest with your client from the start. Detail your process in your estimate. Be realistic about the time you need when scoping hours. Include time for explorations. Make it crystal clear how many reviews and revisions are built into each phase.

By setting clear expectations for yourself and your client, it’s easier to exceed them.

By learning to be efficient.

If you use your time wisely, overdelivering does not need to translate to over budget. Learn to prioritize. Know when to take a break. It may be easier to do an excellent job after you step away and come back with fresh eyes. It might be better to spend those three hours building that feature rather than organizing assets from your client. Learn to be efficient with the time you have so you can spend it well.

By not over-committing.

Many of us can’t afford to turn down work. But we can still be wise about our time and our mental energy. Can you schedule a project differently so it starts after this one wraps up? Can you sit that meeting out or move it to a different day? Can you aim to score one big project that takes the place of two? Can you delegate that part of the project to someone else? Protect your time and your energy. Give yourself the space and the clarity to give the project your best.

By weighing the risk vs. reward.

What could you do if you had an hour more on this part of the project? Would you try out another idea you’ve had on your mind? Would you perfect the one you already created? If that hour would make a significant difference on the project, use the damn hour. Depending on your situation, you can even ask the client to pay for it. Whether you do or not, tell them you spent it.

When I can afford it, I put in that extra hour or two because I know that time will take this project from good to brilliant. Brilliant projects bring more brilliant projects, and that extra hour pays for itself a hundred times over. Consider those extra couple hours, if you’re in a position to take them, as an investment.

__

Of course, exceptions exist. Overdelivery within a negative client relationship often brings negative returns. The client who:

doesn't recognize boundaries...

doesn't respect you and your work...

fails to appreciate overdelivery and always demands more...

... is a waste of your time. Save your time and effort for the clients who give you room for it. Then go above and beyond.

May 28, 2019No Comments

Beautiful portfolio homepages

Your portfolio homepage is often your first impression – long before you have an interview, before you send a cover letter or give a strong handshake, before a company even contacts you.

Someone lands on your portfolio, scans it quickly and if they like what they see, they dig in. If they don’t, they likely exit before viewing a single case study.

While I’m of the belief that your portfolio should not be a piece of art, I always enjoy seeing those homepages that go a step beyond your standard hero image + text bio. Some show a grid of their work, some have a nice animation, some are understated and others over the top. Here are just a few of my recent favorites, all made with Semplice.

Christina Michelitsch

The stark contrast in the header. The lovely hover effects in the grid below. The little customizations like the slider arrows and “back to top” arrow. All of it together makes Christina Michelitsch’s homepage visually compelling.

 

Felix Faire

A mesmerizing grid of dots swells and rolls on Felix Faire’s homepage, morphing or scattering as you mouse over it. The animation sets Felix’ work (focused on sound, code and design) up perfectly.

 

Perfect Strangers Magazine

The Perfect Strangers site is for a magazine, not a portfolio, but I enjoy it so much I had to include it. Made by Foreign Policy Group (who we once interviewed here on the blog) this homepage is quirky and confident and unexpected.

 

Cori Corinne

Cori Corinne’s homepage is just fun, with roughly photoshopped images of her face multiplying on page load. It’s an intriguing and memorable experience, which is all you could want for your portfolio homepage.

 

Studio HMVD

Maybe it’s that striking yellow, maybe it’s the nice choice of typefaces or maybe it’s the combination of the two together. Whatever it is, Studio HMVD’s homepage (including the great work below this header) sticks in my mind and has appeared more than once in our portfolio features.

 

Kurt Winter

Apparently, I’m a sucker for animated graphics on welcome pages. The gentle movement of the graphics as well as the tasteful colors and typefaces on Kurt's homepage are a welcome contrast to most UX portfolios I see, which typically focus on text, screens and devices.

 

Matteo Giuseppe Pani

Matteo’s homepage is beautiful simply because of his work. The best portfolios are the ones that focus on the work itself, and this one can’t help but do so. That perfect blue typeface on black and the crisp grid below are just bonuses.

For more inspiring portfolios, visit our Semplice Showcase or read our other portfolio articles on the blog.  

Cover image by Matteo Giuseppe Pani

May 14, 2019No Comments

5 inspiring design studios from Mexico

Mexico's design talent is not news to anyone. Mexico City was named a World Design Capital in 2018, one of only six cities to receive the title.  And it's no wonder.

When our exploration of design around the world led us to Mexico with the studio Anagrama, we discovered a wellspring of incredible design studios – especially branding studios. Most of them are located in Mexico City but do work with companies worldwide.

These are just a few of the Mexico-based studios we admire and follow. From Futura's colorful illustrations to Panamá Studio's monochromatic lines and shapes, each has a distinct voice and has made a name for itself far beyond Mexico.

 

Futura

Based in Mexico City, Futura has shaped brands from Austin, Texas to Iceland. Their work ranges from beautiful packaging to polished interior designs to playful illustrations.

 

Monumento

Everything Monumento does is just spot on. Each piece of branding they create is like artwork that could stand on its own.

 

Panamá Studio

Lines, shapes and shadows play a big role in the work from Panamá Studio, a multi-disciplinary notably NOT based in Panamá. Much like its contradictory name, the studio's designs hold an air of mystery.

 

Anagrama

If you don’t know Anagrama, I don’t know where you’ve been. We interviewed the Anagrama team for our Design Around the World series, but I have been following their work for much longer.

Catch up on our Design Around the World series, featuring interviews with studios from Pakistan to the Philippines. Or continue browsing beautiful work from these studios:

5 inspiring design studios in Singapore

Our 5 favorite design studios from Malaysia

5 inspiring design studios from South Korea

May 9, 2019No Comments

A new designer’s observation of agency life

I am fairly new at design. After several years working in customer service and other various industries, I decided to pursue a new career. That began with an internship at House of van Schneider, much of which I documented here on the blog. And I haven’t stopped since.

The last week of my internship, I accepted a contracted position as a junior designer at a unique and forward-thinking design agency here in Austin. Now, six months later, I am officially an associate product designer. I have experienced a lot of firsts over the last year and working at a design agency was a big one. I haven’t stopped learning since my internship and I certainly don’t expect to. In that spirit, here are a few insights from my first six months into agency life.

Understanding lingo and asking questions

I have found that one of the more difficult aspects of starting a job in a new industry is getting accustomed to industry-specific lingo. There are many ways to say the same thing when it comes to product design. For example, some people might call the little window that pops up when you click a link a “modal” while others might call it a “pop-over” or a “pop-up.” Now let’s look at the software we use to create designs: What one software calls a symbol, another calls a component. An “artboard” in one software is called a  “document,” “page,” or “frame” in other software. And we haven’t even gotten to the general industry terminology yet. Words such as “ship,” “backlog,” “kanban,” and “standup” are thrown around on a daily basis. For someone who doesn’t come from a design background, all of this can be very overwhelming.

I wish I was given a little handbook on my first day defining all the industry jargon, but of course nobody is. I was thrown into a sea of unfamiliar words and processes. In these situations, I believe in the importance of asking questions and that it is always better to be open, honest, curious, and communicative.

My first day at work, I asked my design director and the CEO what a “standup” was. It’s been six months since that first day and it sounds like such a silly question to me now, but I’m glad I got clarification on day one so I wasn’t left wondering and hoping the definition I had created from context clues was correct.

"I soon realized that formal presentations aren’t the only times I’m actually presenting my work."

Your design is only as good as your presentation

Tobias once told me that your presentation of a design is half the battle. When I first heard that, it was difficult for me to apply that to my work; I didn’t give many formal presentations during bootcamp or my internship. So I just kept that tip neatly stored away in the back of my mind. I soon realized that formal presentations aren’t the only times I’m actually presenting my work.

Often, I am presenting on a much more casual basis to my peers, my design lead, and to designers, engineers and project managers on the client’s side. Presentations aren’t limited to long slide decks; they include times when I’m sharing a small design update with my team during an internal 15-minute standup, or when I’m showing the work I did over the past week in response to a project manager’s request.

Any time I’m sharing my work with someone, I’m giving a presentation. At these times, it’s important to go into the meeting with intention. If I’m presenting work to a client with the intention of shipping my design, I need to be able to defend my design decisions no matter how big or small they are. Explaining why I made my decisions is crucial to building trust and a healthy relationship with the client. Although we work as a team with developers, project managers, etc. to create a product, they look to me as an expert in the field of design.

When presenting a design internally, I need to be clear on my position on the design and where I’m looking for feedback. This approach gives me practice presenting (in a casual, less-judgmental setting), helps me develop a rapport with my teammates and teaches me how to take constructive feedback.

"I’m never going to have everything laid out nicely and neatly for me exactly as I’d like."

Learning on the fly and adapting

The digital design industry, or more broadly the tech industry, is relatively new and is evolving rapidly. With all the new design software, news, trends, gossip, etc. that circulate the design community every day, it’s just impossible for anyone – no matter how experienced – to be on top of everything design. I worked very hard to change careers this past year and one attribute I can credit my relative “success” to is the ability and willingness to learn things on the fly.

When joining a new project, there will always be something new to learn and adjust to. Some of these variables may include how the design and development teams work together, what the client’s preferred method of communication is, internal and external management styles, and relationships working with different teammates. The list goes on, but the point is that I’m never going to have everything laid out nicely and neatly for me exactly as I’d like. Having the expectation that I need to “understand everything” before I start working can be seriously detrimental to the project health and my own growth as a designer.

Learning on the fly is a normal (and for me, very fun) part of the process! I’m of the mindset that the best way to grow is to dive straight into the work, make mistakes and learn. People I work with will respect me as long as they see the effort I put into my work, but if I let my fear dictate my approach to work, I rob myself of that opportunity.

Pushing back and problem-solving

I love being a designer, two reasons being that my job lends me more creative freedom than many others and, at its core, design is about problem-solving. At my previous non-design jobs, the work dynamic was as follows: boss or client tells me to do something and I do it. There usually wasn’t room for discussion, questioning or pushback. Luckily, I’ve found that this largely isn’t the case in design.

The majority of my tasks or requests come from a PM, and I have to remind myself that a PM is not a designer. People speak in ideas, so if a PM tells me I need to add some helper text on the screen, that might be his way of expressing that this design needs to be more clear or intuitive. As a designer, my job is to uncover the deeper problem underlying this ask. My job isn’t just to take the request as a prescriptive task, but rather to find the best solution to the problem behind the request.

By not assuming constraints and seeking to problem-solve, I am pushing the project design forward and advocating for the product and its users. I have learned that, in many cases, product “requirements” are in fact flexible and subject to change – as long as you make a good case for your design and know how to present it.

__

I hope some of these learnings can help some new designers out there, or even serve as a nice reminder for the seasoned designers reading this. I feel so lucky that I can share my experience here and am looking forward to what all I’ll learn over the next few months as an official associate product designer!

 

May 8, 2019No Comments

5 underrated Semplice features

With every update we make to Semplice, our portfolio system for designers, we aim to live up to our name. In Italian, Semplice means simple. Since the beginning, our goal has been to create a powerful tool that is simple and beautiful, easy to use. Yet in a sense, Semplice can be as simple or technical as you want it to be.

Some people use Semplice to make a quick page and launch it fast. Others dig in further. The more you play around with the tool, the more possibility you discover. Semplice is as simple as we know how to make it, but it’s powerful.

For those who enjoy digging in, these are some of the hidden gems of Semplice. The features you don’t have to use to create your portfolio, but can make it even better.

 

The motion feature

Lots of people add the standard fade-in or hover animations to their pages, but you can do so much more with the Semplice motion feature. Create a parallax effect where layers slide behind or in front of either elements. Fade out certain elements on scroll. Set an image to come in from the side on click.

In fact, the biggest challenge with this feature is using restraint. Too much animation and your portfolio feels chaotic. Subtle animation in the right place enhances your portfolio significantly.

To set an animation, click the element you want to add motion to. In the editor pop-up, navigate to the "Motion" tab and choose from On Click, On Scroll, On Hover or On Mouseover. Now adjust the settings and preview your changes straight within the content editor until you're happy with the result.

These guides from our Semplice knowledge base will help:

Creating a hover animation

Creating an on-click animation

Adding and adjusting ScrollReveal effects

 

Customizing page & color scheme

Each case study on verenamichelitsch.com is customized to fit the work.

Often, the portfolios that stand out are those with a little extra attention to detail. Beautiful, thoughtful case studies are the core of Semplice, so we have some nice little features that allow you to customize your case studies from top to bottom.

Instead of using the same template for every project, you can adjust the navigation, background colors – even the “back to top” arrow in the bottom right corner – on a page-by-page basis to complement the work.

Related Semplice guide: Using your page branding options

 

Portfolio grid hover video

Video thumbnail hovers tease Ash Thorp's work on altcinc.com

To the delight of the filmmakers and animators who use Semplice, we finally released a thumbnail hover feature this year. This is the perfect way to tease video projects in your portfolio grid, giving people a glimpse of an enticing scene on your homepage.

You also have the option to use a GIF for your project thumbnails, which creates a more playful effect.

 

Custom social share image

There’s nothing more anti-climactic than seeing an “I just launched my website” post that shows placeholder text and imagery in the link preview – or no preview at all. Not only does this look unpolished, but it’s not going to get you a click. It’s common knowledge at this point that tweets with images receive 150% more retweets than tweets without images.

It’s easy to customize your share image and page title/description in Semplice. Just go to your project or page settings and navigate to the SEO & Share tab. Then click straight into the title or description to edit the text. Upload an image sized for Facebook and Twitter and you’re done.

Related Semplice guide: Setting your social share image

 

Custom loading bar

christinamichelitsch.com features a blue loading bar that fits perfectly with the site look & feel.

Another small but lovely detail: Changing the color of your site loading bar. Choose a color that fits your site scheme and style.

With these features, you can elevate your site experience and give your work the presentation it deserves. For more Semplice pro tips and tutorials, visit our shiny new helpdesk. We're adding new guides and hacks all time.

Cover image from verenamichelitsch.com

May 2, 2019No Comments

Take this advice

I don’t know if it’s this way in every industry, but it seems designers are quick to seek advice.

It might be our nature as creatives to crave validation and guidance. Insecurity tends to come hand in hand with sensitivity, a required ingredient for creativity.

While I share many opinions about design, career and productivity on this blog, it’s my hope they are not seen as advice (unless a reader requested it directly). Real advice requires an understanding of the person, their circumstances and the context of their lives. Any advice given without that information is reckless.

Reading about other people’s perspective is valuable. We find comfort in knowing our experience is universal or expand our worldview learning about someone else’s experience. An article might inspire or validate us, but that doesn’t mean we should apply it directly to our lives.

People tend to state their beliefs and values as truth. But what’s true for one person is not true for everyone. Instead of taking someone’s thoughts as advice, take it for what it is: one opinion.

Even advice from our dearest loved ones should be taken into consideration only. Other people, no matter how well they know us, are influenced by loads of bias and self-interest. If we blindly followed the advice of everyone who offered it, especially everyone on the internet, we would be running in circles of contradiction.

April 30, 2019No Comments

Design portfolio inspiration of April 2019

Once a week, we select two portfolios created with Semplice to feature in our Best Of  Showcase.  Here we've collected our favorites from the past month.

It's always motivating to see how creatives of all kinds use Semplice for their online portfolios. In April, we featured websites from photographers, graphic designers, digital designers and design studios.

Browse the best portfolios of the month below to see fresh new work and get inspired for your own site. And if you've created your own portfolio with Semplice, be sure to submit it to our Showcase here. We might feature your site next.

 

To see more great design portfolios, visit the Semplice showcase. I'll be back next month with more of our monthly favorites!

Header image by Christina Michelitsch.

April 29, 2019No Comments

When our ideas hold us back

In the creative industry, ideas are encouraged. We are told, “there are no bad ideas.” Ideas are the foundation of our work. Yet sometimes, our ideas are the reason our projects fail.

When we first begin a project, we want to build the product of our dreams. We are so excited about the potential, about all the problems we could solve and features we could include. We set out to build a monster and we either overcommit, taking on more than we can handle, or we become too daunted to begin in the first place.

Start simple. Launch simple. This is how our original idea becomes a tangible product. It’s all the other ideas that get in the way. The “what if we did this” or “it would really be better if we added this” ideas that over-complicate the project and keep it from launching. Starting simple keeps the project moving forward. You start at one place, build iteratively and eventually, all those other ideas come together as well.

I am currently working on a new product. The potential is so great, we are constantly inspired with new ideas and tempted to make it bigger and bigger. We have to make the decision – again and again, every day – to keep it simple. We table ideas all the time or reject them entirely.

While it may seem like this limits the project, it expands it. Every time you ship something new or improve your product, it's a new chance to promote it. Starting simple translates to a confident, solid launch that only gets better and better.

April 24, 2019No Comments

Sitzfleisch

In German, we have a word that, like many German words, doesn’t quite translate to English. It’s “sitzfleisch.” Put it in Google and it translates to “sitting meat” meaning literally, your butt.

The closest we can get to understandable English is the word “endurance.” But as sitzfleisch is more than that. If you have sitzfleisch, it means you have the ability to sit and be productive for long periods of time. So in German, it’s a positive word. To have sitzfleisch is to have staying power. Stamina. In the tech world today, sitzfleisch is scarce.

Job hopping is the norm in this industry. So much so, that if someone sees on your resume that you’ve worked more than five years at one agency, for example, it’s slightly suspect. On top of that, Millennials are considered “The job-hopping generation.” According to Gallup, 21% of millennials reported changing jobs within the past year – more than 3x non-millennials. Gallup estimates that millennial turnover costs the U.S. economy $30.5 billion annually. And 60% of millennials say they are open to a different job opportunity.

Now consider how distracted those same people are at work. It’s not news that we lack focus in the modern age. Our phones, our Apple watches, news headlines, social feeds. All of it amounts to distracted workers. Millennials have also been called “the multi-tasking generation,” but in reality it’s everyone. In one recent study, nearly 70% of workers (Millennials and Gen Z folks) admit they feel distracted when they're on the job, with 16% saying that they're almost always distracted.

All that to say, the average worker today is not-so-likely to have sitzfleisch. I can personally attest to the number of distractions pulling me from my focus and productivity. At any given moment, I’m having five different conversations on Slack while fielding an onslaught of emails and trying, between it all, to move a box three pixels to the left.

Our world today does not seem conducive to sitzfleisch. Maybe we are evolving, learning to work more efficiently in short bursts of focused productivity. Perhaps we are missing out on opportunities and growth that come with commitment and endurance. Maybe what separates the greats from the rest of us is more subtle than talent, more nuanced than skill. Could be, it’s just sitzfleisch.

April 22, 2019No Comments

Design-led or drunk on design?

Today’s hot design debate: Should businesses be design-led?

Not too long ago, this was gospel. A wave of Silicon Valley businesses and their protege embraced the idea that design thinking was the way of the future. Designers rejoiced as their rightful role in companies was recognized. Finally, people respected what design had to offer. At last, designers were leading the way.

Today, the conversation has evolved. Perhaps designers should take a “supporting role” rather than the lead. Maybe it’s more about teamwork than design-led. But don’t go so far as to say “design is not that important.” That’s treason.

Should companies center their business model around design? For more than a few years, we’ve been circling around this topic with no real conclusion or actionable result. Of course this is what we’re talking about. We’re designers.

We designers love to talk about ourselves. We’ve recycled the same ideas and hot-button “issues” for at least as long as I’ve been in the industry. Conversations around important matters will and must continue until change happens (think: global warming), but our design conversations seem more fueled by ego than need.

As designers, our role is to think creatively. To present unexpected ideas and thoughtful solutions to problems. Many of the debates we are having today are not unexpected, creative or thoughtful. The uproar around design’s place in a company is simply our all-too-human effort to feel important.

I believe in the power of design. I’ve seen it transform businesses, products and people. But there’s a lot more to a successful company than design. And there’s a lot more to great design than design itself.

April 18, 2019No Comments

The loneliness of freelancing

Generally speaking, humans fear being alone. It’s natural for us to seek community and companionship. With it comes safety, comfort. It’s how we survive as a species.

This has evolved with the modern age. At least in the United States, where I live and work, independence is a virtue. Working alone is becoming more and more popular. In our personal lives, steady partnerships are on the decline. It seems we are moving away from the “tribe” mindset of our ancestors. Or maybe we just go about it differently.

Even as we seek solitude in the physical space, we immerse ourselves in our online communities. Social media, however ephemeral, makes us feel less alone. We still surround ourselves with fellow humans, but we do it in different ways. We join Slack groups within our industry. We substitute person-to-person contact with likes and retweets. Online relationships are not better or worse than “real” ones, but it’s doubtful we can be fulfilled entirely by them.

Perhaps the quality of alone time has decreased with the rise of the internet and technology. Maybe we have forgotten how to make the most of that time. Whatever the case, it is clear that time alone can result in existential angst. Freelancing brings this into sharp relief.

Take, for example, this question I received from a reader:

"As a freelancer I sometimes feel alone and even if I like to create, often I feel a void, as if I had no goal or long-term vision. I do not know if you have already overcome that but maybe you have some ways to deal with this situation."

When we work on our own, we have no one to guide us, motivate us, validate our decisions, bounce ideas off of, complain to, relate to. This is the choice we make when we decide to freelance rather than work with a team. It’s a challenge, but it is also an opportunity.

In a team setting, we can become dependent and passive. Some of us tend to hide within a team and lose motivation. Even with people to guide the vision, we can still feel lost. Coworkers frustrate us, leaders fail us. The truth is that, whether we work in a team or not, we are solely responsible for our own success and failure. We alone must determine our vision.

But community and mentorship are still important, and freelancing doesn't mean we can't have it. It means we have to be more diligent, even aggressive, about seeking that out. Some of my best mentors are people who don’t know I exist. They are the authors of the books I read. They are fashion designers, philosophers, musicians, artists that inspire me. By following their work and learning what they have to say, I better understand where I fit in and where I want to go.

Having a community is important, whether you’re a social person or not. Sharing work and inspiration, giving feedback, a little friendly competition keeps us motivated. You don’t have to work in an office or even attend networking events to form your community. You can share your work with a couple creative friends on Slack. You could work in a co-working space alongside others and soak up the creative energy in the room.

As a freelancer, it’s easy to find yourself in survival mode. When you have many projects and deadlines to fulfill, you work soul-sapping hours to keep your head above water. When you have gaps in projects and new clients, you go in panic mode trying to find work and pay the bills. The unpredictable nature of freelancing doesn’t leave much room for reflection and planning for your future. You are more concerned with the day-to-day. So you have to consider your growth part of your work. Meeting up with a fellow creative for coffee is part of your job. Taking a couple hours to read a book or learn a new tool is part of your job. Doing a refreshing side project is part of your job. It’s these seemingly self-indulgent "tasks" that bring meaning to your life and to your work.

Freelancing is, unfortunately, lonely by nature. For that reason and others, it’s not the right fit for everyone. That’s OK. You don’t have to freelance just because it’s the popular thing to do right now. Or you could try freelancing part-time. You could lend your talents to an agency for two days a week. You could work part-time at an office. Companies are becoming more flexible and open to non-traditional schedules and contracts like this. Switch it up, see how it feels.

Or maybe, instead of looking for ways to fill the “void,” you can lean into it. With any other job, it’s easy to fill that space with meetings, gossip, happy hours and mandatory webinars. That may temporarily distract you, but that doesn’t mean it’s the best way to fill the empty space. Instead of focusing on the negative feelings that come to the surface – the fear that you’re doing wrong, that you don’t have a long-term vision – follow the positive feelings. If you feel an impulse to paint, take a 30-minute break and paint. If you’re excited about the work you did for a particular project, share it with everyone you know. If you want to pick up a book, pick it up and catch up on work later at night. Freelancing leaves it all up to you, which can either be scary or liberating.

April 11, 2019No Comments

A word on empathy

Empathy: The educated designer’s word of choice. The solution to most design problems. The title of every design conference breakout session. This word is used so often in the design community, it is beginning to lose its meaning.

To designers, empathy translates to understanding your audience and their needs. We create empathy maps. We are taught to listen, observe and care. What are people saying, doing, thinking, feeling? With all the best intentions, we aim to see the users on the other side of our design. We try not to call them “users.”

Design thinking is, without question, valuable. Yet the process is defined by reaction. Empathize with your audience. Define a point of view based on their needs. Ideate solutions to those needs. Create prototypes based on those solutions. Test the ideas and refine based on those results.

We are so determined to empathize with our audience, we are overlooking a key truth to design: That our job isn’t only to listen and observe our users’ feelings and needs. It’s to shape them.

Empathic design, in which we observe the consumer and attempt to understand them, is considered an alternative to market research, in which we survey the consumer and conduct focus groups. The truth is that these approaches are similar in more ways than we’d like to admit. Both involve standing back and asking the consumer to tell us what's right. Both rely on the consumer reacting to whatever is in front of them. Keyword: react. On its own, empathy makes us passive designers.

“We are so busy measuring public opinion, we forget we can mold it. We are so busy listening to statistics that we forget we can create them.” Bill Bernbach

This is not to say empathy isn't important. By questioning our own assumptions and biases, we gain perspective. But empathy shouldn't solely define our work. Our personal point of view will come into play no matter how hard we try to set it aside. And it should. Creativity is the sum of all parts.

To a writer, empathy is a given. It’s what makes writing, writing. Without empathy, a writer’s work is soul-less, meaningless, unrelatable drivel. The same is true for artists – for any profession, really. Yet designers chase you down on the street, grab you by the collar, stare in your eyes while foaming out the mouth, desperate to spread the truth about empathy as if we’re the first to discover it. As if it wasn’t an obvious requirement for our work from the very beginning.

The key to user-centered design is that we are designing for human beings. Human beings who may think, feel and behave differently than we expect them to. While considering the needs of people is a nice start to better design, we are forgetting an important part of our job: Understanding the world they live in.

We are so zoomed into our consumers, observing them as if they are a new species from another planet, we fail to see the bigger picture. The culture, politics, philosophy, environment, TV shows, books, movies, art, fashion – the world at large. We will not understand what people need and want by simply observing them. We have to experience their world for ourselves. It's only then we can change it.

Empathy is defined as “the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.” We cannot understand the feelings of another without having experienced similar feelings ourselves. Without a perspective of our own, empathy doesn't mean much at all. And our designs won't either.

April 9, 2019No Comments

4 inspiring product design portfolios made with Semplice

Being a product designer myself, I’m always curious to see how others share their work online – and how they qualify product design, for that matter.

“Product design” can translate to many different skills and lines of work these days. One might design physical products, like a bike, or digital products, like an app. Or both.

Different types of product design will be presented differently online. While it makes sense to embed an app prototype in one portfolio, super crisp product photography is necessary for another. I’ve seen a wide spectrum of approaches from our Semplice family. Here are just a few of my favorite examples from the Semplice Showcase.

 

José Gasparian

Jose’s portfolio is smooth and clean, but not without personality. Instead of a standard portfolio grid, he chooses to feature each project with a large preview image in a single column. His bold typography choices, though, are my favorite part.

 

Viggo Blomqvist

Industrial design makes for fantastic portfolio case studies, and Viggo’s portfolio proves that. The sketches, prototypes, renderings – the story coming together piece by piece to reveal a tangible, physical final product. It’s all very satisfying to read.

Viggo uses a nice mix of images, GIFs and videos to walk us through his work. Even better, he makes it easy to scan. Succinct case studies and large captions make it clear what Viggo has to offer at a glance.

 

Johannes Martin

When designing a portfolio, there’s a fine line between creating a memorable website but not distracting from the work. Johannes’ portfolio strikes the perfect balance. From his cover video to his thumbnail hovers, every element feels distinctly him.  I only wish he shared a bit more about each project in his case studies, so we could get a better understanding of his role and design process.

 

Jean-Lou Renoux

Who doesn’t enjoy a nice typography-heavy portfolio? The strong typography on Jean-Lou’s homepage contrasts beautifully with the visual case studies within. Each project includes a unique, full-screen video header with a mix of images and videos beneath. With Semplice, it’s easy to simply duplicate each project to use as a base template, then customize from there.


For more portfolio inspiration and tips, read our other portfolio articles on the blog. Or visit the Semplice Showcase, which features the best of the best websites made with Semplice.

Header image by Viggo Blomqvist.

April 7, 2019No Comments

How one tool changed the way we work with clients

Sharing work with a client is an art. A creative team can craft a pitch or presentation for days, building a deck, running through the lines, preparing the big reveal. The way we present our designs can mean the difference between a win and a loss, a success or a failure.  

Sharing our work presents an added challenge when we aren’t doing it in person. Unless we carefully prepare and communicate our designs, the work is left open to assumption and misinterpretation. And despite our efforts, designers still receive marked-up PDFs from clients or scanned-in feedback written on printed designs.

This was true for my team until a few months ago, when we started using Figma.

Given the established design tools we had used for years and the various alternatives we’d already moved past, we were cautiously optimistic when we decided to give Figma a try. It quickly proved itself. Among many other benefits, Figma has streamlined our presentation process and improved my team’s relationship with our clients. In the most simple ways, it solves issues designers have been struggling with for too long – client collaboration being an important one.

These are just a few ways Figma has transformed how we share our work and communicate with clients.

"As designers, we sweat over every detail of our design only to drop it at the bottom of an email."

The magic Figma link

Figma is web-based, an idea which may seem suspect to anyone who has been operating with the standard designer software up to this point in their career. Yet it’s this approach that makes Figma invaluable.

Before, we would either export and upload our work to a different tool or send it as an email attachment. Not only did this leave room for confusion, it was also time-consuming and annoying. On top of that, sharing files this way felt unprofessional. As designers, we sweat over every detail of our design only to drop it at the bottom of an email or share it through some clunky, branded prototyping platform. Presenting our work this way just felt anti-climactic.

Now, sharing work with a client is as simple as copy and pasting a link from Figma. When a client views a Figma link, they’re not blindly navigating a shared folder or trying to interpret an attachment. They’re joining our design board itself. They click the link and view the latest work straight from their browser, without logging in or creating an account.

Click a Figma link and land straight within the latest designs.

 

When we’re ready to present the work, our clients can view it in real-time. Our cursors move on the screen as we present. We can walk them through each detail of our designs without an in-person meeting or screen share, rearranging elements or illustrating an example live. They simply jump in the link to follow along.

This allows us to present our design as it's intended to be viewed, avoiding confusion and setting the work up for success. Rather than receiving a stale file, our clients can easily access the living, breathing designs when we're ready to share them.

(Side note: If we do want to export a design or image, it’s insanely easy. Going back to other tools with their multi-step export process and countless, complex options now seems archaic.)

The client can also comment directly on the designs. This eliminates PDF sticky notes, bullet-point feedback without context and unnecessary review calls that waste time. The only downside is that the client needs to create a free login (which takes just a few seconds) to leave a comment. However, this creates a sense of ownership and collaboration that didn’t exist before, due to the siloed nature of other tools.

Contextual client comments. A thing of beauty.

Building interactive decks & prototypes

Up to this point, Keynote has been the best option for creating client presentations. While the limited design capabilities can be helpful in some cases, it’s certainly not the sensible option for more intricately designed decks. Keynote also comes with the pain of exporting and managing versions. I’ve never seen a team build a deck with just one or two drafts.

Versions are irrelevant with Figma. Everything lives in one place and everyone can work on a deck together in real-time.

No more files titled "presentation_final_v3_FINAL.key"

The designer, the writer, the new business person – the whole team can work side-by-side without swapping files back and forth or worrying about version control. It all happens in the same place, whether we're using the Figma app or working straight from the browser.

Instead of designing a standard presentation in which someone passively clicks from slide to slide, we can make our decks more interactive with Figma. We now build prototypes straight into our deck, allowing us to better tell a story without jumping back and forth between windows.

We add buttons into decks that make it feel like using an app. We create an experience that excites people about the product or idea we are pitching to them.  The old way of presenting decks – clicking external links, minimizing and switching between windows, revealing the back-end of the presentation as we struggled to find our place – is now laughable.

SEE AN EXAMPLE DECK (Magic Figma Link)

VIEW THE DESIGN FILE 

Put simply, Figma helps us better share and sell our work. We are more efficient, more professional, more confident. The most outstanding design won't go far unless it's communicated well. In allowing us to better communicate our designs, Figma has made us better designers.

April 4, 2019No Comments

Design in Jordan 🇯🇴 featuring Turbo

With this latest interview in our Design Around the World series, meet Turbo, an independent design studio and creative space in Amman, Jordan.

Throughout this series, we've learned that much of our personal experience as designers is universal. Other designers must work to educate their clients. Other design communities debate the role of design in business. Other design communities are embracing the "new breed" of hybrid designers that fill multiple needs in a company.

But a young design community, fresh-eyed and still finding its footing in the world, has its own unique challenges and opportunities. So is the case for Amman, Jordan's capital. Here we talk with Turbo founders Mothanna and Saeed about Amman's burgeoning design scene, the creative space they carved out in the middle of it and their efforts to push boundaries in their community.

First, let's talk about your studio. Who is the team behind Turbo and why did you decide to open a graphic design studio?

Both Mothanna Hussein and I founded Turbo together and we continue to be the sole team behind its creations. We are both graphic designers who have been working in the design field for the past 13 years. The decision to establish Turbo was fueled by two reasons:

First, we have both had enough of working in companies where we could not make final decisions or push the boundaries regarding graphic design and general design trends with clients. In addition, there is a general lack of smaller design studios producing well-thought out, wholesome design.

Second, we fell in love with our space when we found it, although it was technically a dump that hadn't been used since the eighties. We felt that once renovated, it could go beyond a typical design studio and give us space to combine work and play.

 

Tell us a bit about the design community in Amman. I read the city is very open and creative, and many young people seek to live there. Yet it seems like the design scene is still fairly new. What are the advantages and disadvantages of living in a city with a young design scene?

The design scene is still young but quite promising. That said, there are some great designers who have been around for quite some time. In recent years, the rise of Instagram and other social media platforms has brought lots of different talent, both old and new, into the limelight.

An advantage is probably that the scene still has a way to go to reach a certain level of saturation and experimentation, so it is fertile ground. Then again, sometimes a certain level of competition is necessary to push everyone forward and evolve — which as things stand right now, is still lacking.

Turbo clearly contributes to that evolution. You participate in Amman Design Week (now in its second year) and host design events and exhibitions yourself in the Turbo space.

Are others out there making an effort to build the community? Do other events and platforms exist in Jordan that help you connect with other designers?

Social media is where one would get to know about other designers, illustrators and makers. As far as events go, from general exhibitions and performances, we get to meet other people in the creative scene. But then again, the scene is quite small and everyone knows each other. Amman is where most activity is when it comes to the arts and design scene.

We heard a lot of “risky,” and “silly” and “why?”

In an interview with The New York Times, Mothanna mentioned, “Everyone was against the idea of Turbo.” Why were people against the idea of your studio? Have opinions and perspectives changed since then?

The area where the studio is located, which is one of the oldest streets in the capital, and the conditions that we found it in were the major reasons behind other people’s skepticism. We heard a lot of “risky,” and “silly” and “why?” Many of those naysayers have since changed their minds, especially once we were done fixing up the space and started hosting different exhibitions, print sales and general pop-ups.

What are the job opportunities available for designers in Jordan right now?

Although more and more dedicated graphic design studios are getting established, a lot of designers have opted-out of working in offices and have been freelancing. Or they freelance on the side of a more corporate job, since big advertising agencies are a place where many designers would start their careers in Jordan.

It is still difficult for smaller studios to sustain stability in a small-ish market where well-paying clients usually choose to work with big advertising agencies.

 How would you describe the design coming out of Amman and Jordan overall right now? Does your culture or environment influence your design in any specific way?

It does, and probably subconsciously. The design coming out of Amman is quite good but again, worthwhile and well-executed design, or even design with a more experimental edge, is still being produced by a small number of individuals and studios for smaller events and clients.

What is design education like in Jordan? Do most designers seek a formal education within the country or overseas? Or do you see many successful designers who are self-taught as well?

Yes, most designers will seek formal education whether here in Jordan or overseas. Graphic design courses have been improving in the past couple of years judging by the grad shows we attend at times. With that said, there are also some with no formal education who are self-taught. Saeed, for example.

What would you say are unique challenges for designers in your community right now?

For many, especially with the current economic situation, design becomes a luxury of sorts. In addition, good graphic design is still undervalued and not fully understood. In many instances, this leads a client to go with a design studio or designer solely based on their price offer.

There is also a fundamental problem which might not be specific to Amman or Jordan. It’s a combination of design being a visual field where personal taste will always come into play (“I like blue”), and the lack of professional trust and understanding when it comes to the client/designer relationship. One does not often argue with a doctor over a diagnosis.

"The day you stop pushing boundaries, whether yours or the client's, is the day you should quit."

We've heard from others in the series who said design is considered a luxury in their country. While that may not be the case generally in the West, uneducated clients can definitely have an impact on our work.

How do you deal with these challenges and how can designers work to change them? In the meantime, are you forced to compromise in any specific ways?

It is a challenge, but we believe that part of our work as designers is to inform and educate the client about the design process and what happens behind the scenes. Either in presentation form or an actual meeting, we would try to explain why and how we reached a certain approach, or why we have opted for one approach and not another.

We think it is of the utmost importance for designers to try and push the expectations of their clients. Work produced with the goal of simply pleasing the client comes out quite bland and lacks character. The day you stop pushing boundaries, whether yours or the client's, is the day you should quit.

In regards to compromise, the compromise is usually in the pricing. Choosing the safer option would make our lives quite easier in many instances, but even when we try, we cannot get ourselves to do it. At the end of the day, the project will come out under our studio's name.

As the world is getting smaller with the help of the internet, working with international clients is very common. Do you work with mostly international or local clients, or is it a mix? And do businesses work with local designers or seek agencies outside the country?

It is a mix of both, and yes, most local businesses work with local designers and studios.

 

Being located in a part of the world where conflict and unrest often make international headlines, do you notice any stigma or frustrating stereotypes when connecting with clients or others outside the Middle East?

Not so much stigma as a bad local economic situation, which eventually will play a part in the amount of work one gets.

Economy certainly plays a large part. I know Jordan presents other challenges as well, like water scarcity and a lack of other resources.

What would you say these are unique topics on the mind of designers in Jordan today? For example, is environmentally friendly design a common discussion?

Yes, it is. Seeing what the past two Amman Design Weeks had on display, environmentally friendly design and using design and technology to raise awareness have been a point of focus, from interactive displays and installations to recyclable packaging and materials.

With that said, we as a country have many more problems and needs to attend to before environmentally friendly design becomes a priority.

"In Jordan, word of mouth is king."

How much impact does your social media presence have on getting new clients and self-promotion in general?

For us, social media attracts an international clientele. In Jordan, word of mouth is king.

What does good design mean to Turbo?

Good design is honest, communicative, and pushes boundaries and expectations.

In your opinion, what are the top 5-10 design studios from Jordan that everyone who might be not familiar with Jordan’s design community should know?

Both of us still do our solo projects, so you can check out some personal work here:

And here are some local designers:

How can all designers and design communities from other countries do a better job of communicating with each other? How can we become more engaged with the Jordan design community? Are there any blogs or specific magazines we can follow?

Not sure how that can be achieved, although it would be quite nice. In regards to Amman, Amman Design Week would be a good place to start, seeing it combines and showcases design from many design fields, whether it's graphic, product, furniture or installation design.

Daftar Asfar (Yellow Notebook) was a project where different artists, designers or illustrators from the region would pass one notebook around, and two different people would complete each other’s work on a single spread of the notebook.

In addition to that, the 100 Best Arabic Posters exhibition/competition is a good place to get to know designers from the region.

A mural in your space reads “Yes Yes.” What does it mean?

There is no meaning behind it. It was a spur of the moment thing that a friend of ours came up with and was conceived and produced in the span of an hour. The calligraphy itself was produced by master calligrapher Hassan Kanaan who we work with often. It is funny – when sitting in the studio, you keep hearing passers-by read it aloud.

__

 

Thank you for sharing your experience with us, Mothanna and Saeed. I admire what you're doing in Amman and hope to check it out the studio in person someday. In the meantime, I'll be following your work and reading up on the other resources you shared. Readers, be sure to check out Turbo's site and follow along with their work on Instagram.

April 1, 2019No Comments

Red flags to watch for with potential clients

After managing many client relationships over the years, I’ve learned the most important rule when considering a new client is to trust your gut. If I have a bad gut feeling about a client, it proves to be accurate later in the relationship.

And with this, I’ve learned to recognize the signs of a bad client, so when I’m questioning that gut feeling I have concrete evidence to back it up. I’ve written about what makes a good client. Now we’re looking at the client/designer relationship from another perspective. Of course, you can’t always know when a client is going to be bad or good. But these red flags help you avoid a potentially negative, expensive and/or draining client relationship.

 

Red Flag 1: The client is unorganized

This one is easy to spot from the start. The client misses or reschedules meetings more than once even before the project has started. They continue to send new information in bits and pieces long after your briefing. They overlook emails, forcing you to re-state an answer you already provided.

If you sense a client is unorganized before a project has even begun, you can be certain they will be during the project. And their lack of organization and efficiency will affect the budget, the timeline, the scope and your sanity.

 

Red Flag 2: The client talks shit about their previous designer

When a client complains about a previous designer or agency they worked with, be wary. It may be true their previous designer failed them, but it's equally possible the client was the reason for that toxic relationship. And if they are complaining about their previous relationship to you, their new designer, it's a clear indicator of their professionalism and maturity.

 

Red Flag 3: The client is a poor communicator

If you constantly have to translate your client’s messages back to them “just to confirm” you’re understanding correctly, it’s going to be a problem. One miscommunication can lead to hours of rework later and even if it doesn’t, it’s still a major waste of time.

Signs of a poor communicator:

– They send multiple emails back to back when it could have easily been summed up in one.

– You consistently need to ask follow-up questions to clarify their feedback.

– Your notes always seem to conflict with new information they provide to you.

If you seem to be on the same page with the majority of your other clients, but something just feels off with this one, it’s probably their communication style. All relationships rely on healthy communication. When it comes to work relationships, poor communication costs money.

 

Red Flag 4: The client tries to do your job for you

We’ve all worked with the “designer client.” The one who took a design class or two about a decade ago or “dabbles” in design. Or maybe they have plenty of design experience, it’s just not their current job title. An educated client is a better client, but a client that oversteps is not.

If your client is sending you their own mockups or even re-working your designs, you will quickly feel frustrated. Of course, they might send you a sketch to illustrate a point or idea from their team, which is perfectly normal. This isn’t about your client giving you feedback you don’t want to hear. A client has every right to shoot down your design or request a specific change to it. It’s more about role definition and trust.

A good client has enough work on their plate and realizes they hired you for a reason. They recognize their role is to set you up with all the information and resources you need to do your job well. Trying to do your job for you shows a lack of respect and trust, which is one of the most important qualities in a healthy client relationship.

 

Red Flag 5: They fail to appoint one point of contact

If you’re getting emails from the marketing services director, the president, the intern, the assistant director and more, it’s a bad sign. A well-functioning company doesn’t have several cooks in every kitchen. They’ve streamlined their process and they trust the people they put in place to implement it.

When you don’t know who to contact or you have to cc a dozen people on every email, your client is doing something wrong. Wires will be crossed, feet will be stepped on, approvals will be delayed, email threads will grow miles long. When you start a project, require one point of contact from your client. If they can’t do this, reconsider the project.

Note: There may be occasional exceptions to this rule. For example, I’ve worked with startups who have 2-5 people on their team, so of course they’re all deeply involved in every aspect of getting their company off the ground. As long as those clients respect you and have a streamlined way of communicating with you, it might be just fine.

 

Red Flag 6: The client has an unexpectedly small budget

First, let me be clear: I’ve worked with many great clients with small budgets, and will continue to in the future. We may choose to do small-budget projects for a number of valid reasons (we love the company, we need the money, we’re building up our portfolio, etc.).

But generally speaking, I carefully consider these types of projects if I can afford to. For one, they are going to want a lot more than their budget can get them. Two, that small budget may be significant to them, and they will be very insistent and highly involved about how and when and why and where you spend it. I am especially wary if the budget is much less than they lead me to believe it was.

Again, not all small-budget clients are bad. It’s just one factor in considering a new client relationship.

 

Red Flag 7: The client doesn’t seem willing to take risks

This one goes both ways. A client might not consider a potentially rewarding risk unless you are good at presenting it to them. Some designers have learned how to gently, or not so gently, push the client across boundaries and do something unexpected. However, even the best designers can’t convince some clients to do anything other than what’s safe. I do my best to avoid those clients.

If a client comes to you asking for a design just like one they saw elsewhere, or they want you to continue a campaign they’ve been running for the last five years – exactly as they’ve been running it – consider how much you would enjoy and benefit from working with this client. There’s no shame in taking on the “safe” projects to pay the bills, but work with too many of these clients and your portfolio will show it.

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Now, there are exceptions to every one of these rules, which is why I first and foremost trust my gut. You will learn what feels right and wrong for you. You will be burned more than once. I still get burned now and then. I still make my own mistakes all the time. No client or designer is perfect, but we can learn from the burns and remember them for next time.  

March 31, 2019No Comments

Wild idea: Work on your portfolio while you have a job

I realize my love of portfolio building may be the exception. For many people, working on a portfolio is associated with dread (unless they’re using Semplice, of course). They know they need to do it, yet they always push it down their priority list. A portfolio is always hanging over a designer's head.

Thus, most designers don’t touch their portfolio unless they have to. If they already have the security of a full-time job, they feel they can safely brush it off until later. The task of building or updating a portfolio is usually done in a rush between jobs. When a designer quits or knows they're about to. That’s when their portfolio finally becomes a priority.

But working on a portfolio is best done when you already have a job. Here’s why.

It reminds you what you want to do

It’s easy to get caught up in the day to day and let months or years pass before realizing you’re not where you want to be. At that point, you’re far down a path going the wrong direction.

Working on your portfolio reminds you to take a step back and decide whether you are pleased with the work you’re doing right now. If you realize you have no projects you are proud to put in your portfolio, you can change that. You can request to start working on a new client or different kind of project. You can focus on getting a new freelance gig that excites you. You can decide to work harder and do a better job with the projects or clients you already have.

If you start building your portfolio and realize you are indeed proud of the work you are doing, it’s energizing. Reflecting on the work you did and the ways you’ve grown will fuel the work you do next. Building your portfolio will build your momentum.

Working on your portfolio presents an opportunity to affirm the path you’re on or realize it’s time to take a new one.

You have access to the resources you need

Unless you are meticulous about saving and organizing your work, it’s easy to leave files on your office server or have them wiped from the company laptop on your last day. When you’re still at your company, it’s all available to you.

Providing you’re allowed to share the work you created, you can collect the materials and publish them while they’re still fresh. It’s much easier than texting old coworkers, asking them to comb the company server and send you some important file you left behind.

Once you leave the company, it becomes much more difficult to access the work you created. So do it now.

It promotes your company & your work

Let’s assume you love your job or the projects you are working on. In that case, a current portfolio can better serve its purpose: It will bring you more of the work you enjoy doing. If you work on your own product or start-up, it will also promote your business in an organic way.

I can’t tell you how many people say they discovered Semplice after landing on my portfolio. My website analytics back this up. This could lead to a purchase, a magazine feature or a new partnership opportunity. I’m not looking to work on anything other than Semplice right now but by keeping my portfolio updated while I do it, I’m opening myself up to opportunities I wouldn’t know about otherwise.

Less stress

An obvious one: When you’re in between jobs, the pressure is on. You’re networking, reaching out, meeting for coffee. You don’t want to be scrambling to put together a portfolio on top of it. Instead of starting from scratch or overhauling your portfolio during this time, you should only need to optimize or curate your portfolio for specific jobs. If your portfolio is prepared when you leave or lose your job, you already have a head start on the next one. Building it before the job search is a gift to your future self.

Putting off your portfolio until you’re job searching is like working on your “beach body” one week before vacation: Stressful and not likely to produce the best results. Take advantage of the time and security you have now and use it to build your portfolio.

March 29, 2019No Comments

The best design portfolios of March 2019

Once a week, we select two portfolios created with Semplice to feature in our Best Of  Showcase.  Here we've collected our favorites from the past month.

It's always motivating to see how creatives of all kinds use Semplice for their online portfolios. In March, we featured websites from artists, graphic designers, illustrators and web designers.

Browse the best portfolios of the month below to see fresh new work and get inspired for your own site. And if you've created your own portfolio with Semplice, be sure to submit it to our Showcase here. We might feature your site next.

 

To see more great design portfolios, visit the Semplice showcase. I'll be back next month with more of our monthly favorites!

Header image by Charlie Jennings

March 22, 2019No Comments

The problem with free

The software and app market has evolved immensely within the last 30 years. Think about it: Consumer software barely existed just 20 years ago. At that time, it was mostly large enterprise software or companies focused on developing software for professionals.

Generally, it was understood that software costs money. The average consumer software was not affordable; a single license to install on your computer might cost hundreds or thousands of dollars.

The tech industry grew, backed by billions of dollars in funding. Then in 2008, Apple introduced the app store. Paid apps spawned in the app store, but many others were free. From the beginning, this was the understanding for the average consumer. Apps are either free or you can get them at a low price – just under or over a dollar.

The rules were established. The more companies realized an initial free product brought opportunities for massive reach, the more we engraved the idea in our minds that software should be free. Of course, this direction was lead by massive software companies who made their money elsewhere. They could afford to give away free products.

Just look at most products by Google, Facebook or Apple. Any app or software product that comes out of the tech industry today is typically free. And it makes sense. If you launch something like Snapchat or Instagram, you’re a high growth company. Meaning you focus on scaling first and worry about the money aspect later. Maybe you never worry about it. If you can afford to give away your software then sure, why not?

Here the issue silently creeps in. If most apps or software is free, it changes our expectations for software in general. We use Facebook, Google, Snapchat and Instagram and have never paid a single dollar for them. And if we do agree to pay a few dollars for software or an app, we expect free updates forever. Unless you're Facebook, Google or the equivalent, it's nearly impossible to sustain a business based on that expectation.

What's more, this model cheapens the inherent value of your product. In any other context, free means cheap or disposable: Free samples, swag, pamphlets or advice are given and treated lightly. The less we invest in what we own, the less meaning and value it holds. Yet curiously, when it comes to software, we still have high expectations for free products. We've been taught to expect it. So we require more support, time and money, draining a company further. Free products draw low-quality customers.

So what about the smaller, independent software companies? It would seem as obvious as building a product and charging money for it, but consumers' minds have been conditioned to get software for free. The only way to charge for what you offer is to target large-scale enterprise clients, or find a niche and market your software toward small businesses and professionals.

It's sad and disappointing that, despite the infinite possibility of the internet and technology, few independent software companies exist today and few are able to survive long-term. Even more upsetting how difficult it is for newcomers to enter the market. Many small companies start with big ambitions only to be acquired by larger corporations who then turn it into a free product. They can't afford to run on their own.

The seemingly simple answer for anyone entering the software market today: Build something of value and charge for your software or app as soon as you can. You will not only be able to stay alive and keep working on your product, but you also help reverse the notion that software is supposed to be free. Charge for your product from the beginning, or as early as possible. The longer you wait until you move your product to a paid pricing structure, the harder it will be for you to convince your users of the value of your product.

Or perhaps free is the future. A future where the majority of apps and software we use are owned by six large corporations who give it away for free because they can financially support themselves in other ways – through advertising or data-selling, for example.

Maybe we are moving toward a time where digital becomes free. Free software, free content, free entertainment. But ultimately,  the consumer will be paying. We will pay with our privacy, with the loss of independent software companies, with the loss of innovation and options. The question is what we're willing to pay.

March 21, 2019No Comments

The day you became a better designer

This blog rarely addresses subjects such as "How to solve UX problem XYZ" or "How to set up a perfect grid" for a reason. While these are valid topics and plenty of other platforms publish articles about them, they have no place here.

Ask any designer you admire for advice and they won't tell you to follow design blogs or read design magazines. They won't tell you to read a book about design process either. They won't point you to the latest trends in web design or a list of keyboard shortcuts.

Great designers know that nobody has it all figured out. They know tools and techniques matter, but they don’t make us better designers.

Becoming a better designer means becoming a more informed human. Every designer, from advertising designers to product designers, deals with a different set of problems. Regardless of the problems they are trying to solve, every designer caters to humans.

The day we become better designers is the day we start looking outside the design industry for inspiration. It's the day we start reading books about philosophy, psychology, art or science. It's when we stop hanging out with only designers and start making more friends in other industries. When we start a new design job and ask to sit next to someone from a different department.

"All this creative potential and we've only created a bubble."

Humans have a tendency called confirmation bias. We interpret the world in a way that validates our existing beliefs. This means we tend to agree with people who agree with us. We hang out with people who see the world similarly and make us feel comfortable. Designers are especially prone to confirmation bias. We are proud to hold strong opinions and therefore strive for internal consistency by seeking confirmation from our peers.

The result is an insular community existing in perfect isolation. We visit conferences attended and lead by only designers. We read magazines and books from and for designers. We hang out with other designers. All this creative potential and we've only created a bubble.

Our view narrows as we limit our field. By restricting our friend circle to others who think just like us, we fail to challenge ideas or beliefs contradictory to our own. While it makes us feel comfortable and protected, it can also be an inspirational trap.

As creative people, shouldn't we be the ones most curious and open about the world? Shouldn’t we be the ones connecting the dots that others might not be able to connect? How can we do so without experiencing and understanding the world beyond our industry? By immersing ourselves in different perspectives, we draw a much richer and more balanced picture. We can collect the dots and connect them. This enhances our work.

"Talent is developed in solitude, character in the rush of the world." Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Consider the artists and designers who create covers for publications like The New Yorker or Bloomberg Business Review. They are great not because of their craft, but because they immerse themselves in current events and culture. They are informed in fields outside their expertise. Design as a craft just provides them with the tools and framework to make sense of that information. The poignancy of those covers is not a result of simple research before each project. It's part of who these designers are. They are as much communicators as they are designers.

As Walt Whitman said, "Be curious, not judgmental." Endless curiosity is one of the most important traits of a great designer.  Spending time with non-designers allows you to avoid meaningless feedback loops, group-think and monocultures. Surrounding yourself with people who challenge your beliefs, who disagree with you and offer new perspectives, helps you grow. Becoming a more well-rounded person makes you a more effective designer.

Of course, spend time with designers too. Read the design magazines and books if you are so inclined. Tutorials and other design resources can be useful to the task at hand. But don't stop there. Look beyond the design community, the top trends, the tips and tricks, the tools and process. All the design blog posts in the world won't make you a better designer, despite what the headline may promise. Experiencing the world itself will.

March 12, 2019No Comments

Less quality, less motivation

I often receive emails from other creatives looking for career advice. I suppose it’s due to my habit of sharing strong opinions all over the internet. Or maybe it’s because I’m not afraid to get a little vulnerable online as well, especially in my private newsletter.

Whatever the reason, I can’t answer every email with as much detail and thought as I’d like or my day would be consumed with writing emails.

Yet there are times when someone asks a particularly pertinent question that might later inspire an article on this blog. While I would usually speak broadly about it, I thought I would try something new and start answering a few emails more directly here. This seemed like a good place to start:

 

Tobias -

I’m head of design / cd for a consumer-product focused on AR. As our team sprints to hit deadlines, I’m observing corners being cut and the product quality decreasing. After designing the experience, it’s hard to not want to control all assets of the app. I’d love to learn new tools and tricks to help with quality but I just don’t have the capacity. Observing the loss in quality makes me lose interest in the project entirely. Any recommendations on how to see through this or pave a positive pathway?

P.S. Having a lead role requires a strong level of emotional intelligence, so I don’t freak out on the team - but honestly, a part of me is losing it inside.

 

When I worked at a large tech company, I learned to accept a lot was out of my control. I could spend weeks on a design only to see it carried away on waves of politics and process. I might not see the final result until months later. Sometimes, I never saw the result at all. It would be researched and re-designed by committee until it became something else entirely or died a silent death before launch. This wasn’t always the case, of course. But when you work in a large company with hundreds of employees, it’s just part of the game. You can see yourself as having zero control or you could see it as contributing to a larger whole. It all depends on the day, your communication skills, politics and often just pure persistence and stamina. 

No matter the company or your position in it, however, it's still possible to influence the team and final result. As the head of design / creative director, you have more control than others. But even an intern can change the course of the project.

We can apply the Broken Window theory in this scenario. If the quality of work is low or there are many "broken windows," it will lead to more broken windows and in turn, loss of motivation. Quality will continue to decline despite good intentions. So many cracks and missing pieces exist already –  what's a few more? The only way to break this cycle is to start fixing the windows. You can't necessarily do this in a day. But by slowly improving quality, piece by piece, momentum will increase and motivation will follow.

Start small and keep it simple as you fix the broken windows. Schedule half a day with your developer to go through the product and clean up the UX or fix bugs. A lot of work can get done with four hours of dedicated time between two people. When you're finished, schedule another half day to tackle another list. A half day at a time, you will clean up the product and see the potential that excited you at the beginning of the project.

Now that I work on my own product, I feel more control over the end result. However, I still face deadlines and see cut corners, and I still work with a team who is responsible for their own work. Most days, I feel proud of what we do. Other days, I know we could do better. On those days, I can choose between throwing my hands up and admitting defeat, or I can encourage my team to start fixing the broken windows.

I also choose my battles. Every element of every project will not be perfect. It’s better to accept that than waste energy lamenting every imperfection you will inevitably find and letting that defeat you. Instead, use your energy on the most important aspects of the project that are within your control. The beauty of working in the digital space, as I do, is that we can almost always improve on the product after launch. It sounds like that may be the case for your line of work too. Even if it’s not, you can learn from the project and bring it up to your team before starting the next one. No matter your position in the company, role on the team, knowledge or expertise, you can also strive to be useful. It’s better than standing by or resigning to the feeling of helplessness.  

If you are constantly feeling uninspired or unmotivated about the work your company is producing, perhaps you need to reevaluate what you want and where you want to be. Despite the occasional exceptions or disappointments, I respect and trust my team immensely. Feeling proud of our work is of utmost importance to me. If the work consistently fell short to the point where it became a pattern, or if I looked at all the projects we produced with a sense of disappointment, I would know something is wrong. I would evaluate my part in the problem and solution, have the honest conversations I need to have, consider the ways I could better support my team or find a new one.

March 7, 2019No Comments

From freelance to full-time

With the popularity of freelancing, it’s easy to assume most of us want to escape our 9 to 5s and live the flexible freelance life. For some though, it’s the other way around.

Maybe you started out freelance and you’re ready to commit to an agency. Perhaps a client offered you an opportunity you can’t pass up. Freelancing and remote working is not for everyone. Some try it and realize they miss the structure and predictability of a full-time job, that the downsides outweigh the benefits.

We’ve written about starting out as a freelancer, but what if you’re considering a full-time contract for the first time? Here are a few things to consider. 

 

Signing a full-time contract

When you’re freelancing, you have more control over nearly everything: the terms of your work, your schedule, your rates and timelines. When you go full-time, you’re agreeing to sign on to your company’s way of doing things. That has its pros and cons. For example, you will finally have real holidays where you are paid to take time off. On the downside, you have less flexibility as to when those days off will be. And that’s just the small stuff. It’s all positives and negatives you have to weigh for yourself, but be sure to cover all your bases in those early discussions with your potential employer. Some important questions to ask:

Do I get to share my work in my portfolio?

Many agencies will not allow you to share the work you create for them. If you’re working with bigger corporate clients at your new gig, they may even have you sign a non-disclosure agreement. This means you can’t publish or mention the work you’re doing for them until it launches – and sometimes not even then. You can still manage to build a portfolio in this scenario but it’s harder. Ask about this before signing your contract. It's easy to forget and sign a standard contract with NDAs attached, effectively locking your work away.

Can I still freelance on the side?

Once you accept a full-time contract, you can be certain some client is going to appear in your inbox within a few months offering you an enticing side project. Whether or not you plan to continue your freelance work, make sure your employer is OK with the possibility. Some companies will include non-competes in your contract, meaning you can’t work with any businesses that would potentially compete with their work.

What are the company’s paid holidays, and how many vacation days do I get a year? When does that take full effect?

With many companies, you need to work a certain number of days before earning your time off.

Naturally, you’ll want to know about health insurance, benefits like your 401k and the other standard full-time perks as well. You might even have a bonus structure at your new place of work. Imagine that.

 

Negotiating a flex position

Just because you don’t want freelance anymore doesn’t mean you need to work in an office full-time. The internet has changed the nature of office work; we are no longer forced to choose between the office or home. Many people are working remotely a few days of the week, working flexible hours, freelancing part-time or doing longer in-house contracts.

Now is your chance to negotiate a flex position, if you want one. Assuming the client is eager to hire you, take the opportunity to discuss your options. If you enjoy working from home with a non-traditional schedule, you could negotiate a remote position. Or you might ask to work just a couple days of the week remotely. Companies are becoming more open to scenarios like this now. Just ask or pitch your idea and see what’s possible.

In any case, it would be wise to wait at least a few months before taking on freelance work or side projects again. You have a lot to adapt to already, and you don’t want your employer questioning your commitment to the new job. The 9-5 structure might seem to open up hours of free time compared to freelance, but be cautious until you get comfortable with the new gig. It’s one thing to manage your own fully booked schedule. It’s another to have someone else manage one part of it, then try to manage the rest in between.

 

Setting expectations

Some important questions to ask yourself as you enter the full-time workforce:

What salary do I need in reality?

When you’re freelancing, you have an inflated sense of your earnings. You may be used to making a higher amount for your work, but 30% or more of that is going to taxes and overhead. Just as you did for your freelance rates, reevaluate what you’re worth now that you’re negotiating a salary. Take into consideration your rank in the company hierarchy, the lifestyle you’ve grown accustomed to and the industry/local averages. Calculate what you would need to make the minimum you took home (after expenses) as a freelancer. That's your starting point.

Where do I fit into the company structure?

If you have the opportunity for an honest conversation with your potential creative director, try to understand how you will fit into the team and what role you’ll be expected to play. As a freelancer, you’ve become accustomed to doing it all and being the direct client contact. You may be relieved to pass this responsibility to someone else, or you might be someone who prefers to run point. Depending on the company structure and your position, it’s possible you will never even meet the client. You might create the work and hand it off to another team member to present it. How do you feel about this? 

Am I ready to sacrifice some control?

One of the most challenging aspects of working with a team is relinquishing control. You may have to answer to a creative director now. Your work might not make the cut for the pitch. And if it does, the client might kill it on sight. Your opinion may not be valued as much as it was when you were a consultant, at least not immediately. You will receive assignments you don’t enjoy. Some of them might be “below you.”

You’re a team player now. You’re not looking out for just yourself anymore and you might not be highest in the pecking order. If you are choosing to try a full-time position, do yourself a favor and embrace it. You will enjoy work more when you’re not trying to make it what it’s not. Your team will enjoy you more, too. 

March 1, 2019No Comments

The best design portfolios of February 2019

Once a week, we select two portfolios created with Semplice to feature in our Best Of  Showcase.  Here we've collected our favorites from the past month.

It's always motivating to see how creatives of all kinds use Semplice for their online portfolios. In February, we featured websites from creative directors, designers, artists, film directors, product designers and interactive art directors.

Browse the best portfolios of the month below to see fresh new work and get inspired for your own site. And if you've created your own portfolio with Semplice, be sure to submit it to our Showcase here. We might feature your site next.

 

To see more great design portfolios, visit the Semplice showcase. I'll be back next month with more of our monthly favorites!

Header image by Ash Thorp

February 26, 2019No Comments

How to tame a bullshitter

We’ve all known this person at work. The one who speaks Buzzword as a first language. The person who talks in circles until we agree with them just to end the conversation. The one who has the clients nodding and your teammates worshipping at their feet without actually doing much of anything.

The one who infuriates and somehow intimidates us because sometimes, we wonder if they might actually be as superior as they think they are.

If you don’t know this person, it’s possible you are that person. If you do know this person, you’re likely annoyed by how much they consume your thoughts. But as long as companies exist, so will the bullshitter. So it’s time we learned how to handle them.

Look beyond the bullshit

I’ve read that most “mean” people aren’t actually mean at their core. They’re anxious. A bullshitter isn’t necessarily mean, but I suspect the same rule applies here. Someone who feels the need to boast or speak in impressive terms is overcompensating for anxiety. A person who is confident in their knowledge doesn’t feel the need to prove anything, but someone who’s unsure and insecure doesn’t have that privilege. Recognizing this gives me more empathy and patience for a bullshitter. We all have our anxieties. This is how they are dealing with theirs.

Rephrase and repeat it back

When a bullshitter rattles off some unintelligible line you can’t begin to understand, repeat it back to them. Allow them to hear how their words sound coming from someone else. Don’t do this in a mocking way. Simply restate the sentence to clarify it, or if you can’t make sense of any of it, try your best guess in your own words.

Never make assumptions for fear of looking stupid. Don’t let a person talk you in circles. Instead, keep the communication open and moving forward. In contrast to the bullshitter, become the person in the office known for being straightforward and honest.

Find perspective

The bullshitter may want you to believe they have a leg up but chances are if you smell bullshit, others do too. Even if they’ve got everyone fooled and the boss eating out of their hand, observe the bullshitter and you will see confusion and chaos usually follow them. People may try to play their game, but it’s a complicated one with no real rules.  

That doesn’t mean you should start a whisper campaign against this person, but remembering this truth can give you peace and perspective.

Learn from them

You have to give some credit to the bullshitter. They are so self-assured, or at least appear to be, that it often plays in their favor. People are drawn to confidence and tend to trust it – even when there’s nothing to back it up.

As creative people, we need to have some level of blind confidence in ourselves and our work. The competition is so great and the standard so high, we would give in to imposter syndrome and comparison otherwise. Blind confidence allows us to get out of bed in the morning and create. To take on challenges we might not even be qualified to do. To learn how to do them.

Take a tip from the bullshitter and lean into that blind confidence just a little bit. You can still be self-aware and humble as you do so. But a little bit of foolish faith in yourself is healthy.

Ask the simple question we all want to ask

When in doubt, simply ask the bullshitter: What do you mean?

It’s unlikely this person hears that question often and it may stop them in their tracks. Most of us pretend we understand even when we don’t, which only causes miscommunication and problems later. Gently and kindly ask the person to explain themselves. Simple as that.

For the most part, we can't control how other people behave at work. We can control the way we respond to them. Instead of fuming and internalizing, remember that the bullshitter, as much as they'd like you to believe otherwise, is a flawed person like the rest of us.

February 22, 2019No Comments

Common portfolio mistakes you might be overlooking

Thanks to Semplice, I see new portfolios every day that inspire me. I also see lots of portfolios with great potential that could be improved with a bit more attention to detail.

I’ve already written about the main traps to avoid when building your portfolio. Now we’re getting into the details, the tiny things that could make a big difference.

And yes, I know this might sound nitpicky. Some of this is just a matter of personal opinion and style, so keep that in mind and just do what feels right to you.

Overanimation

If something moves or changes every time we interact with your site, it’s possible you need to tone your it down a little. Your animations should make your portfolio feel elegant and alive, but it should not distract from your actual work. I notice over-animation the most with hover effects. If I’m just trying to scroll through your projects and images disappear or move drastically every time I mouse over them, it is more a distraction from your work than anything else.

Of course, this all depends on your goals and your personal style, but I lean on the side of subtle animation over anything flashy. Exercise restraint. Let your work be the focus.

Scattered content

At this point, most of us know that we can find your contact information in the footer or on your About page. If you have an About page AND a contact page, you’re forcing me to stop and think to choose between the two. Consider how you would design a client’s website to convert. Make it as easy as possible for your viewer to navigate your portfolio and reach out to you.

Images & videos too large for web

Sounds obvious, but you’d be surprised how many times I’ve seen poorly optimized websites made by skilled designers. They want pixel-perfect images and upload files at insanely high sizes. This affects more than just your loading time. It can mess with your animations, transitions, basically everything. But people won’t even get that far because they’ll exit a site that takes more than two seconds to load.

Resize and save out your images for web. Plenty of plugins exist that allow you to do this in batches. You can still share perfectly crisp images while keeping the file size low.

Missing social share images & SEO titles

It’s always a bit of a bummer to find a great portfolio and go to share it only to realize there’s no share image. Even worse, some standard placeholder image and text appears. Almost every social platform revolves around imagery. Tweets with images receive 150% more retweets than tweets without images. If you want people to share your site and you want people to click it, add unique share images for each of your main pages. Update the title and description of your pages as well. This is not only good for SEO, but ensures your portfolio doesn’t look like some unfinished template site.

In Semplice, you can update the share image and title/description in-line. You don’t have to mess around with code or dig into WordPress. Just click the title and type. This makes it super easy to optimize your pages for search and add images that best represent your work.

Forgetting your favicon

Yes, that tiny little image at the top of our browser when we visit your page. Upload one. Make it cute. It’s these tiny little things that say a lot about your work ethic and attention to detail when a potential client is viewing your portfolio. Show that you care about doing excellent work for your clients by doing excellent work for yourself.

Neglecting your mobile view

Again: Sounds simple, often overlooked. We all know about designing for mobile, but it’s the easiest thing to skip when you’re working on desktop and just ready to launch the damn thing – especially when you’re working on your own site. I know. I’ve done it myself.

With Semplice 4, we tried to make it as easy and fun as possible to test your mobile breakpoints in real time. That way you’re not jumping between devices to test every page, you’re just testing it all from your desktop using the content editor.

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Your portfolio is what speaks for you when you're not in the room. You never know what opportunities you might be missing because someone got fed up with using it your site or couldn't load it in the first place.

I'm all for shipping early, but I also believe a portfolio should be continually updated and optimized after launch. Pay attention to the small details and make an effort to keep your site tuned-up. After all, your portfolio could get you that next great project you'll feature in your portfolio.

Cover image from iam-ono.studio, made with Semplice

February 19, 2019No Comments

Introducing: DESK Partnerships

If you've been reading here for a while, you know that DESK marked its two year anniversary just a couple months ago. What began as a weekly email newsletter eventually turned into a full-blown blog (the one you're reading right now) with a regular publishing schedule.

Our goal with DESK has been a simple one: write from and for creatives. When looking at the majority of design blogs these days, they're usually written by marketers who don't work in the design industry. After reading one more article about "The Top Design Trends for XXX" by someone who doesn't even practice design, we decided to write our own. By designers and for designers.

Over the past two years, we've been quietly trying to form our own voice and point of view. We've stayed away from guest posts and turned down sponsored articles. We wanted to make sure we knew who we were before we collaborated with other companies or writers. While this meant DESK would be completely self-funded without advertising (other than our own product ads), we felt it was essential for us to "find ourselves" before taking a step forward.

But today is the day. We're opening up DESK and introducing our new partnerships program.

 

Be the monthly sponsor of DESK

We're opening up a slot for monthly sponsors of DESK. If you look at the right top side of the blog homepage, you will now see a little banner. A banner that could be yours. If you would like to become a monthly sponsor and share your company, product or message with a creative audience, this is it. The only banner on the homepage, just you and us.

 

 

If you want more information about what else is included in this package, please reach out to business@vanschneider.com and we'll send you our sponsorship deck.

 

Sponsor a series

A little over a year ago we introduced SERIES to DESK. As you might guess, series are collections of articles following a theme we find compelling. Current series include "Design Around the World," the "Freelance Life" series, "How to Get a Job at X" as well as our "How to Move to New York." Each series now has a little logo at the top, which can be yours. If you decide to sponsor a series, you will be front and center as we share new series articles with the design community each month.

If you're curious about this option, please contact business@vanschneider.com and we'll send you our sponsorship deck.

 

 

Let us write about you or your product

In addition, we're opening up DESK to a select few who would like to work with us on articles in partnership. This could be one article or a series of articles. We can write them for you and about your product (or a related theme), or they can be written in partnership with you. Whatever it may be, we're open to it as long as we know our readers will find these articles useful.

For us, sponsored articles shouldn't feel like advertising. They should feel like genuinely useful and relevant articles that fit within the framework of DESK and meet the level of quality our readers expect. But to be fully transparent to our readers and give your brand the spotlight it deserves, each article will bear a badge at the top with your name and a link to your site. This will indicate whether an article is sponsored content, partnership content or a paid review. In any case, we will not publish press releases. Our DESK editors will work with you to create the perfect articles for our readers that promote your brand in a transparent way.

 

 

We're excited about this new step and curious where this will take DESK in the future. If you're interested in any of these sponsorship packages, please do reach out to business@vanschneider.com and we can develop a personalized plan for you. We hope this evolution will help us grow DESK and not only make it more sustainable, but also open it up to different voices and content we weren't able to share with you before.

And as always, thank you SO MUCH to everyone who's reading and supporting our independent writing. We'll continue to stay true to our original goal: writing useful articles by and for creatives.

Tobias &  your DESK team

February 18, 2019No Comments

The key to successful remote working

No big secret here: It’s communication. But despite how simple the answer may be, it’s not easy for everyone to do well.

Assuming you’re already skilled in your line of work, it’s the only other thing you need to do well. Time management is important, sure. But even those who are excellent at managing their time will fail if they are not good communicators. Here are a few communication methods I've picked up over the years that help me and my remote team do our work better.

State your assumptions

If you’re unsure, state what you think you’re supposed to do. If you’re pretty certain, state what you plan to do. If you’re positive you understood, state what you are going to do.

The point here is, don't leave anything up to chance. Your assumption may be totally wrong and when you're working alone, it's easy to follow an assumption too far before someone stops you. Assess the situation and state your next steps. If you’re wrong, you will be set straight. If you’re right, you will assure the client or your boss that you’re all over it.

Asking questions like, "What are the requirements? What do I need to do?” are only meant to buy time and put the responsibility back on the other person. Stating your assumptions keeps the project moving forward.  You are making sure everyone is on the same page and giving the other person something to REACT to, rather than asking them to do something for you.

With this approach, you will spend less time chasing people down, dealing with miscommunication and redoing work. Just put it all on the table.

Cut out the big talk

The beauty of remote working: You save so much time when you’re always not sitting in conference rooms listening to people bullshit and throw buzzwords around. Embrace this gift and keep it out of your online conversations too. It takes a long time to type “360-degree holistic storytelling-based approach” on Slack. So don’t. Your work and team will be better for it.

Be awkwardly honest

When you’re working remotely you don’t have the luxury of reading body language, hearing tone or seeing expressions. That leaves a lot to your imagination, and sometimes your mind can get carried away. You might inject some deep meaning into a Slack message that was meant to be a joke. Or you might misread an email and assume it’s a harsh reprimand when it’s really a friendly reminder.

Rather than over-analyzing things and spiraling, talk it out. You don’t need to get whiny or beg for validation, but you might say, “Hey, we haven’t checked in lately and I’m feeling disconnected. Are you feeling positive about this project? Anything we should discuss?” or “I’ve been spinning my wheels on this all day and rather than drive myself crazy, I thought I’d ask your opinion.”

It may feel a little awkward at first, but you'll soon establish an expectation of honesty between you and your coworkers. And you will feel a lot better when you’re not distracted wondering what everyone is thinking 10,000 miles away.

Share your WIPs

Without a creative director or teammate walking behind your computer or stopping by your desk to check in, you can easily get sucked into a project without sharing your progress. You may end up slaving away on something that wouldn’t have worked from the start, or getting stuck on a roadblock someone could have easily cleared up for you. Meanwhile, your team or client is growing anxious wondering what you’re up to.

Share your works in progress. Important: Your goal is not necessarily to get feedback yet. It’s simply to state here’s where I am, here’s what I’m doing, here’s where it’s going. It’s as simple as sharing a screenshot or dropping a link in a Slack message. This removes anxiety for your team. They don’t need to micromanage you, they learn to trust that you are working even when you’re not “active” or talking, and they know the status of a project at a glance.

Most creative directors or managers know what to expect from a WIP – they’re not going to jump in and say “Why is the kerning not fixed here?” or “Why are you putting that box there?” It’s in progress, it’s not time for that yet. They will likely glance your WIP, nod and get back to whatever they were doing before. Or they may give you a tip and point you in a different direction if it’s necessary. Or they may not look at all. The point is staying connected and providing peace of mind.

Know when a phone call vs. email is needed

You may disagree with me here as I’m not a social person and could easily do away with phone calls altogether, but I’d say 99% of the time, any issue or conversation can be resolved via email. In fact, I think email is often the best place to resolve a problem because there’s no beating around the bush, awkward pauses or multiple voices talking over each other. You have time to craft your message and leave no room for question. Here are the rare times I believe a phone call is necessary:

1. When you or someone else is upset - This is NOT the time for an email, because anything you write in anger will be immortalized in writing. And past the glorious 3-second window Gmail’s “Undo” button provides, there’s no taking an email back. It can be saved or even forwarded to someone else. And I don’t know about you, but I often regret the things I write in anger – and very often, they come back to bite me. On top of that, it’s easy to let tension and resentment build via written communication. Getting on the phone and hearing the other person’s voice, with no email to hide behind, reminds you to be polite and respectful. It also reminds you we’re all people trying our best.

 

2. At the beginning of a relationship - Obviously, a personal connection can be made via phone that’s very different than email.

 

3. To keep social people sane - If your teammate is someone who needs social interaction and validation, a simple phone call can work wonders for their productivity and mental state. As I mentioned, I am not this person. However, I make an effort to have phone calls with the people on my team who are. It also makes a remote job feel more real/tangible when you occasionally hear a person’s voice who is invested in your work.

 

4. On a highly collaborative project - If you find you are saying the same thing to different people or passing messages along a chain of people all the time, you’ll likely save a lot of time and annoyance by setting up a quick phone call. Make it short and have a structure in place for this call. This doesn’t even have to be a recurring call, which can become routine and end up wasting time. Set up status calls only as you need them. Then instead of sending the same Slack message to different people all day, you can actually get to work.

 

Over-communicate

Almost no one, especially clients, will be annoyed with over-communication. Especially if you’re not asking anything of them. When in doubt, send a one-sentence email update. It shouldn’t take time out of your day or feel like a hassle. Over-communicating should be naturally integrated into your workflow.

I preach the daily check-in email every chance I get. Each day, my team sends me an email with three bulleted lists: What I Did Today, What I’m Doing Tomorrow and What I’m Stuck On. This keeps me informed as their manager and helps them stay on task and accountable each day. It takes them less than 5 minutes. It makes a world of difference.

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For more tips on remote working, read How to Manage Your Time as a Remote Worker. Or this article about How to Not Suck at Remote Working. Hope it helps!

February 12, 2019No Comments

You only have to start

Many designers, both early and far into their career, do daily challenges. Most notably the “poster a day” projects and “daily UX challenge.” These exercises have become so popular that some, naturally, have begun to criticize it for a number of stupid reasons.

I see many benefits in daily challenges, some of which are establishing routine, refining skills, learning to produce faster and more efficiently and of course, providing a creative outlet. But the one downside is the pressure of committing to finish something daily. If you miss one day, you feel like a failure, and the fear of failing discourages many of us from starting in the first place. That’s why I suggest taking a slightly different approach.

Instead of committing to finish something every day, commit to starting it.

Knowing you don’t have to finish anything removes the pressure and allows you to create freely. You only have to begin. That could mean you brainstorm themes or gather inspiration. It could mean you set up the structure or sketch a first draft. It could mean 5 minutes of work or 40 minutes. You still have to commit to something every day, but you are only committing to put pencil to paper and make some sort of start. That’s it.

The beauty of this approach is that once you begin, you likely won’t stop at just a few paint strokes or pixels. Once you get past the hurdle of beginning and into create mode, you will almost always go a little further. You might even finish, but you don’t have to. And ideas come easier because they don't have to be award-winning or life-changing. If they're not, you will always have a fresh start tomorrow. So go ahead and waste your ideas. You don’t have to know where this will go or if it will work. That’s for another day. 

On that future day, you will already have a base to work from. It’s much easier to create once you have a starting point. But even if you do finish a project you started before, you will still begin a new one. Every day. Just a beginning.

I recently read an article in which the author describes how she achieved a goal of doing 1,000 push-ups a day. She had a similar approach which she called her “minimum commitment.” She knew she wanted to work out every day, but she was also aware life gets in the way. So she told herself that, at a minimum, she needed to do one push-up a day.

"I started by reframing my minimum commitment as something that could give me a consistent sense of competence," she writes. "All I had to do every day was one push-up, one bodyweight squat, and one crunch in 30 seconds. (This almost always led to doing more.)"

By changing the way she thought about her exercise routine, she set a goal she could actually achieve. And that led to her eventually completing her goal of 1,000 push-ups.

I don’t even recommend setting a minimum time or progress to your daily challenge. If you have some integrity about your work, your conscience won’t let you just drop a line on a page and call that “starting.” Setting a minimum can create the same anxiety as committing to finish. You only have to start.

With side projects especially, you don’t even have to know where to start. You can begin anywhere. But this can apply to work projects as well. We often put off ideas or tasks on our to-do list because we feel we “don’t know where to begin.” The truth is that there is always a step you can take, no matter how clueless you may feel. Once you start, even by doing something as simple as research, the block is lifted and you can more easily move forward. We all know those tasks we procrastinated on for days, only to finally begin and realize it was much easier than we imagined. Just take the first step and see what happens. It’s better than doing nothing at all.

At the end of this experiment, you may have dozens of starts filed away. This is a goldmine of potential that can fuel your creative work. Maybe you’ll actually finish those beginnings. Or maybe you won’t. In any case, you’ll start something new tomorrow.

February 7, 2019No Comments

What makes a good client

We’ve all worked with bad clients. Hopefully, we’ve all also worked with good ones. The difference is drastic.

The most important factor in a healthy work environment is your relationships, both with your team and with your clients. But what may seem like a great client relationship at the rosy beginning of a project can quickly and easily turn into a bad one. So it’s important to know how to spot a truly good client (or perhaps I should say "ideal client," as even good clients aren't perfect). And how, as a client, to recognize a good designer. Relationships go two ways and both the client and designer are responsible for a positive one. Here’s what I’ve found to be the key factors on both sides.

 

Trust & respect

First and foremost, a client should trust the designer. If that’s not the case, the relationship will crumble no matter what other positive factors are in place. I’m not saying a client should blindly follow without the designer earning that trust. If the designer hasn’t earned it (through their reputation, their work and their communication you’ve seen so far) and that trust doesn’t exist, the client should find another designer and save everyone time and heartache.

Respect goes hand in hand with trust. When a client trusts and respects their team, everything else falls naturally into place. Communication is smooth and straightforward. Timelines are manageable. Payments are made on time. Feedback is sent on time. Anxiety levels are low.

Respect and trust are different than simply that thinking you, as a designer, are cool. If a client’s hiring you just because they want to be pals, be wary. The fascination on their end will fade. Trust and respect should still be there when it does.

Designers: If you can afford it, choose clients that believe in you and seem to respect the work you do. Then fulfill those expectations.

 

Taste

Designers, you can’t expect all your clients meet your taste standards. They haven’t been educated in design. That’s why they hired you. But occasionally, you will have a client who just gets it. Who may not be able to create their vision themselves, but has the instinct. Find those clients and hold them tight.

In every other case in between, it is up to you to educate your client and elevate their taste. Share your knowledge freely and with passion. Explain the decisions you made and why you made them. Share inspiration often. You hear this all the time because it makes a difference. Educated clients are good clients. When those clients have good taste, even better.

"I have learned that you can't have good advertising without a good client, that you can't keep a good client without good advertising, and no client will ever buy better advertising than he understands or has an appetite for." Leo Burnett

 

A sense of humor

A designer or client that takes things too seriously is a drag on every project. You know, that frenzied person running around like the building’s on fire, storming out of meetings in a huff, emailing the whole team every 10 minutes with the president cc’d, starting every email with “per our conversation,” overcomplicating even the smallest things.

A good client cracks jokes in their emails. They have grace for mistakes. They remember a website launch is not the same thing as a heart transplant.

The same goes for the designer. Be the fun one the clients miss in meetings when you’re not there. Be the one that lightens the mood on radio-silent conference calls. Don’t be annoying, just evoke positivity and chill. Your client picks up on your vibe when you enter the meeting room. Set a good one.

 

Integrity & transparency

A good client/designer relationship is built on transparency. It may be a buzzword agencies list in their core values, but when actually followed through on both sides, the whole game changes. Budgets aren’t overblown because the client is straight up with you from the beginning, and you’re honest with them about how you’re pacing. Nobody’s surprised because expectations are clearly set the whole way. Nobody’s pointing fingers because there is room for mistakes and everyone is on the same team. When something goes wrong and that moment of panic arises, instant relief follows because you remember the answer is as simple as being honest. It’s freeing.

Tell-tale signs your client, or potential client, isn’t an honest one: They withhold information and release it when the timing’s convenient. They refuse to share their budget and demand to see your proposal first. They inflate the urgency and set unrealistic timelines. If I sense a client is going to be shady, I won’t work with them. (Which may be a luxury in some cases, I realize.)

Signs your designer or agency is dishonest: They write crazy-long emails to explain why they missed a deadline. They seem to know the answer to every question you ask (no one knows everything, no matter how skilled or experienced they are – at least not before consulting another team member). They promise in their proposal that they can accomplish every goal you set in the timeframe you set (any designer who is honest with you and themselves doesn’t overpromise).

When the designer/client relationship is straightforward and honest on both sides, trust and respect follow. And with those qualities in a relationship, even disaster projects are pleasant.

 

Organized & streamlined

A good client is responsive.

They designate one main point of contact for their designer and allow that person to run the relationship from start to finish.

They write one email with condensed follow-up, rather than looping in every other member of their team and assuming their designer will field feedback.

A good client sends organized folders of assets and doesn’t expect to you spend their budget hunting down photos.

They know when an email will do rather than a meeting.

They send coherent feedback rather than expecting their designer to ask clarifying follow-up questions.

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Of course, even the best clients or designers have bad days. But if a client or designer fails on more than one of these standards consistently, I’d start looking for a new one.

February 4, 2019No Comments

The downsides of freelancing

You can find plenty of positive things online about being your own boss, and we all know someone who says going freelance was the best decision they've ever made. With this article, we want to give you a more realistic view of this often glorified way of living.

Most of us know freelancing comes with the obvious not-so-fun stuff like an unstable income, invoice hunting and finding clients. Here we'll get into the challenges that may be less obvious, but are still important to keep in mind when deciding to work for yourself.

 

Waiting and patience

When you decide to venture out on your own, you are probably super excited to start working. You set up your website, you have your pitch deck ready, you've been emailing potential clients, maybe you already sent out some proposals. You are all set and ready to go. But freelancing involves a lot of waiting around. Waiting for emails, waiting for feedback, waiting for a green light on a project, waiting for the copy or images to be collected, waiting for that invoice to be paid.

Setting up and running your own practice takes a lot of patience.

When I first moved to Amsterdam, I gave myself a 3-month "trial period" to figure out if I could find work and if I wanted to stay. This sounded then like a good amount of time, but it goes by much quicker than you think. I only started to contact people when I arrived and looking back now, I probably should’ve started much earlier. Building a network is a slow process, so you have to start before you quit your job.

When you want to start working for yourself, it’s important to be proactive from the beginning. It will take some time before you can pick the fruits of your efforts. You will need to have patience and give yourself some time (6 months to a year) to get your business fully up and running.

 

Personal Growth

Working for yourself involves a steep learning curve in the beginning. You are going for it alone and you need to manage a lot yourself. You might need to do your own photography, your own website, your own presentations. You will need to learn new software and skill sets. While it might be frustrating, you will make big steps forward at the beginning. The most important thing is that you continue improving yourself and working on your skills. Because after a few years, you might start to get comfortable with the way you do things, and this can be very damaging to your business.

I once worked with a designer at an agency who had been freelancing for over 10 years which, at that point, made him more senior than me. But because of the way he worked with the different Adobe programs, he wasn’t asked to come back the next week. The way he worked was just not up to date or to the standards of that agency and the industry.

So even though you are working for yourself most of the time, make sure you keep interacting with other creatives, sharing your different ways of working and keeping that learning curve going upwards.

 

Lack of mentorship

Having a mentor can be hugely beneficial for your career, no matter what stage you are in. A mentor can give you advice, guidance or can help you push your skill set to that next level. When I started working full-time in an advertising agency in London, I experienced how amazing it is to have highly talented people as your senior. I learned so much from them in a short amount of time, just by observing how they approach creative briefs or find design solutions by asking the right questions.

Now as a freelancer, it can be a bit trickier to find a good mentor. You usually work alone or you are hired for only a short amount of time at a company. You might find it awkward to ask another professional for help or advice. Or if you are a bit stubborn, you might think you don’t need other people's guidance and that you can figure it all out yourself. And I’m sure you can, but I would still recommend finding a mentor if you can. You don’t even have to limit yourself to one person or someone within your own industry or country. I’ve been lucky enough to do freelance projects with people who are more senior than me and from different disciplines and backgrounds, from whom I’ve learned a great deal. When you come across such people, don’t be scared to ask them to mentor you.  Most people will feel flattered and will be happy to share their knowledge with you.

"Being a freelancer can give people the idea that you are 'free' most of the time or that you are 'not really' working all day."

The illusion of 24/7 availability

One of the downsides of today’s instant messaging culture is that your clients now also have access to you 24/7. It sometimes seems that people think you sit at home waiting for them to give you work. So there will be a lot of "quick jobs" that needed to be done yesterday. In the past when clients texted or Whatsapped me, I would feel pressure to reply to them straight away or work on their request that very minute, even if it was a weekend or I had a night off. This is obviously not a healthy way of working and can be disruptive to your personal time or worse, get in the way of other clients' work. So a while ago I set some boundaries with my clients and asked people to email me (or switch to Slack) for any work-related questions, just to keep a distance between work and personal communications.

Besides your clients, your family and friends can also (unintentionally) demand 24/7 access. Being a freelancer can give people the idea that you are "free" most of the time or that you are "not really" working all day. This means that you get asked more often to help with a move, family obligations or other things that people with a full-time job can’t easily do. This is usually not a problem because one of the main reasons people to go freelance is to live a more flexible life. But even with your family and friends, you may have to set some boundaries.

 

Living contract to contract

Depending on the kind of work you do, most freelancers don’t own their work after handing it over to the client. Most freelancers provide a service and it is difficult to build up long-term value from your work. Yes, you do gain knowledge, maybe you get some repeated jobs from your client, and over time you will hopefully be able to charge more money. But in the end you are still working contract to contract, job after job.

There are ways of changing this around by being more entrepreneurial. I haven’t look into this myself yet, but I know some designers work for start-ups and get paid in shares or equity. You can also license your work or sell the rights for only a short amount of time. Some designers make products or prints that they can sell on platforms like Society6 or Threadless. In this way, you can create a (small) passive income and keep ownership of your work as well.

"I always recommend doing projects on the side to keep your portfolio up-to-date with new, modern work."

Non-disclosure agreements

When you work most of the time as a contractor for other agencies, you will probably have to sign a lot of non-disclosure agreements (NDAs). This basically means that you have no ownership of your work and are not allowed to share any visuals, knowledge or information about the projects you work on. This usually happens when you work for big global brands through international advertising agencies. Sometimes they allow you to put the work you did in your portfolio when a project is live, but more often than not this won't happen, or you are not there when the project is finalized.

This makes it difficult to have a fresh portfolio and if you are not careful, your portfolio will be quickly outdated. For example, one of the latest projects in my portfolio is a campaign for Dr. Martens I worked on in 2016! Obviously, I’ve worked with other clients and companies after that, but most things didn’t make it into my portfolio, didn’t get signed off or never went live. So if you are a contractor, I always recommend doing projects on the side to keep your portfolio up-to-date with new, modern work.

 

Protecting Yourself

One of the things most creative freelancers are pretty bad at is protecting themselves with contracts. Some may think it is not necessary to write up such a contract as we trust our clients, or we think we might scare them off when presenting them with one. Most of us probably think it is a lot of work to set up as well. I must admit that I’ve also never worked with a contract and that I don’t have any other form of terms and conditions for clients to sign. And just like any other freelancer, I have walked into projects that were badly managed, where I put way too much work in, and I’ve had clients that just didn’t want to pay after completion.

 

The Upsides of Freelancing

If we haven’t scared you off with the downsides of freelancing, then you might be ready to make the jump. We have plenty more to share about the benefits of freelancing and how to do it right, from finding clients, managing your finances and working with a recruiting agency. It's all here in our Freelance Life series.

February 1, 2019No Comments

Design in Indonesia 🇮🇩 featuring Sciencewerk

With this latest interview in our Design Around the World series, meet Sciencewerk, a "micro" design studio based in Surabaya, Indonesia.

When we set out to do this series, we expected to learn about design communities that do or see things differently than we do in the West. To understand how their different cultures, processes, environments or influences compare to our own. And we have. But it's equally enlightening when we see our similarities. This was the case while talking with Sciencewerk.

Here we talk with Danis Sie, Sciencewerk founder and design director, about the misconceived value of design in their country, the relatable designer hiring gap and how to stand out in the "jungle" that is Indonesia.

First, let’s talk about your studio. Who is the team behind Sciencewerk and why did you decide to open a graphic design studio?

At first, I was working overseas for some years. I felt stuck in the rat race and took a few month’s break to finally go back to my hometown in Surabaya.

I founded the studio in 2011 in hope of contributing something to our local design and art scene. It’s a compact studio mainly made up of two divisions, design and illustration. Our Surabaya studio is run by me and Evelina Kristanti. Design is lead by Natasha Ng, and illustration by Yosephine Azalia and Steven Renaldo. Our partners Devina Sugono and Erin Harsono, who are based in Jakarta, lead events, copywriting, interior, content and production.

A glimpse into the Sciencewerk office

Can you tell us more about your design and art scene? I read that design is relatively young in Indonesia. Are there many designers and independent studios like yours, and do many platforms or events exist that help you connect with other designers?

There is a design organization based in Indonesia, ADGI (Asosiasi Desain Grafis Indonesia). There is also the government-based organization BEKRAF that was established in 2015 to focus on the Indonesian creative economy. Some creative spaces exist, mostly in Jakarta, that host design-related events such as Dia Lo Gue.

We are a new player in the industry. What I can see is that design business is still heavily-centered in Jakarta, but independent studios outside Jakarta are starting to grow as the demand rises in other cities such as Surabaya (here), Bandung, Malang, Jogjakarta, Bali, etc.

Part of Sciencewerk's identity for Out of The Blue!, a bistro in west Surabaya

Indonesia is a diverse blend of Arabic, Chinese, Malay and European influences. How is this reflected in the design coming out of Indonesia today? Aside from work for clients that follows a brief, do you notice a specific design aesthetic or identity?

I think we are all still struggling to define what Indonesian Design is in the context of graphic design. Most design work here is heavily influenced by other countries and cultures. We have more than 300 local cultures that make it even more complex and difficult to define. Each Indonesian designer is also influenced by their individual experience be it their culture, heritage or where they studied design. Maybe that diversity is part of our identity.

"Nowadays, most companies set expectations very high while new graduates overestimate what their skills are worth."

What are the job opportunities available for designers in Indonesia right now?

The demand is always for the Jack of all Trades designer, of course. Illustration, new media and digital designers are on the rise. The Indonesian market is very big. Creative-based businesses are appearing and there are actually many opportunities for anyone who dares go beyond their comfort zone.

What I find funny here is that there are thousands of design graduates every year, but friends from agencies and studios are having a hard time finding the right candidates. There might be many factors like design skill, taste and resumes involved but in my observation, there is one underlying problem. Nowadays, most companies set expectations very high while new graduates overestimate what their skills are worth. It’s good to be confident, but we must regularly do a reality check by thinking outward, not inward.

Aside from the mismatched expectations, what would you say are unique challenges for designers in your community right now?

Design value. In Surabaya, some people are still thinking that design is free, so they just pay for the print and they get free design. This practice is rather toxic, undervaluing the design industry especially for next-generation Indonesian designers. So today, we try to educate our clients and people about how design can bring value and profit to their business. Every time we meet a potential client, we still have to explain what we do in the simplest way.

Ningyo the Fishman, a proposed concept for a local rice wine product.

As the world is getting smaller with the help of the internet, working with international clients is very common. Do you work with many clients outside of Indonesia or mostly local clients? And do businesses in Indonesia seek to work with local studios?

At the moment, the majority of our clients are local clients. The international ones are those that are expanding their business to Indonesia. Businesses here are starting to consider working with studios regionally. But with the internet, they can work with anyone in other cities too.

How much impact does your social media presence have on getting new clients and self-promotion in general? What works best for you?

It’s good but still a lot less efficient than personal recommendations and networking. What works best for us is still recommendations.

Identity work for Threelogy, a coffee shop in Surabaya

I read that graphic design in Indonesia originated with politics and propaganda. Do you believe design still has the power to influence the political or social landscape in Indonesia today? For example, I know Indonesia has experienced devastating natural disasters this year. Can design play any part in helping or recovering from issues like this?

Of course graphic design has the power to influence. It subconsciously influences people to act, to buy or to do something. It can solve problems or add problems indirectly.

In the context of political issues in Indonesia, graphic design can add more problems. For example, when creatives are paid to spread political propaganda not knowing whether it’s a fact or a hoax, promoting a candidate that may be a corrupt leader. And so much more. In the context of social issues, I think graphic design is still far away from really helping. It may help but indirectly through awareness.

"Indonesia is like a jungle. There are so many animals and you just need to be a different kind of animal in the jungle."

What does good design mean to you at Sciencewerk? 

Good design makes people happy, think, remember and act.

Good design is relative. Here we can’t force certain principles of good design on all clients and projects. The design industry in Indonesia is like a jungle. Sometimes you will meet someone who appreciates good design, but many others don’t. There are so many animals and you just need to be a different kind of animal in the jungle. This will attract a flock of animals who understand your uniqueness.

"The Last Supper"

In your opinion, what are the top design studios from Indonesia that everyone who might be not familiar with the Indonesia design community should know?

ThinkingRoom

Leboye

Artnivora

Nusae

Table Six

To name a few

Last question: How can all designers and design communities from other countries do a better job of communicating with each other? How can we become more engaged with Indonesia’s design community? Are there any blogs or specific magazines we can follow?

You should start at DGI.OR.ID.

_

Thank you for your time and honesty, Danis. It's fascinating to see that some of the same issues we struggle with here in the States (the disconnect between companies and designers, for example) are present in other countries as well. We learned a lot talking with you and look forward to seeing how design evolves in Indonesia.

Friends, check out the inspiration Danis shared with us here, and be sure to visit Sciencewerk's site to see what they're doing in Surabaya and beyond.

January 31, 2019No Comments

Design portfolio inspiration of January 2019

Once a week, we select two portfolios created with Semplice to feature in our Best Of  Showcase.  Here we've collected our favorites from the past month.

I always enjoy seeing the different ways people use Semplice for their online portfolios. In January, we featured websites from industrial design studios, illustrators, 3D artists, digital designers and even a wedding stationery studio.

Browse the best portfolios of the month below to see fresh new work and get inspired for your own site. And if you've created your own portfolio with Semplice, be sure to submit it to our Showcase here. We might feature your site next.

To see more great design portfolios, visit the Semplice showcase. I'll be back next month with more of our monthly favorites!

Header image by Rolando Luther.

January 30, 2019No Comments

How to ask good questions (for a magazine interview)

Asking good questions is hard. In most interviews I’ve done and read, I tend to hear a lot of the same questions. It seems that people either don’t research their guest before interviewing them, or they do light research and repeat what we all know in an effort to prove they did light research.

Both approaches result in a boring experience for the person being interviewed and a boring read for the audience. It’s why (among other reasons), even though someone asking to interview you is a great honor, many people who are often interviewed come to dread it.

I’m no pro at interviewing people, but between my NTMY podcast and the ongoing interview series we do on this blog, I’ve learned what separates forgettable interviews from memorable ones.

"Get as much context as you can and then think about what you still want to know."

Research the hell out of your guest

We spend a couple hours (at least) researching our guests, their work, industry, history, culture, clients, Tweets, etc. before we interview them. We find and read all the interviews they’ve already done. We read what Wikipedia has to say.  We read whatever they’ve written themselves. We do everything short of stalking them at their local grocery store. 

When beginning to write your questions, write down every question you have about your guest.  As you research, eliminate the questions you find answers to. Get as much information as you can and then think about what you still want to know. This is what helps you ask great questions. It also helps you avoid questions they’ve already been asked. Eliminating those questions is your goal because 1. Your audience can or has already read about it elsewhere 2. Your guest has already said all they can say about it (unless of course, the story has developed since those interviews). 

With almost every interview I’ve done, I’m asked a question I could easily answer by linking to another interview or article I wrote. I can see why this happens – people know you have an opinion on that subject so they want you to speak about it on their platform, whether or not you’ve already said it before. But even if you do want to discuss a topic someone often speaks about, try to find a fresh angle. Your guest and audience will thank you for it.

Think about the answers you want to receive

When preparing your questions, think about what you want your reader to say. This doesn’t mean you should write leading questions that back them into a corner. It means you should set your guest up to give you the best, most sparkling answer possible. Here are the questions to strike from your list immediately:

Question to avoid: “What’s your story? How did get where you are today?”

Why: Do you really want a paragraphs-long autobiography from your guest? Does your guest want to spend the time summing up their whole life’s journey for this interview? Does your audience want to read it? No. Asking for someone’s life story is like asking them to recount their “crazy” dream from last night. You’ll be bored and regret it immediately. Besides, the goal of your interview is to reveal their story. Not for them to tell their same-old version of it.

 

Question to avoid: “If you had to do/be/choose/go [insert whatever here], which/who/where would it be?”

Why: This type of question is lazy and results in a one-word, hollow response. Who cares what color your guest would be if they had to be a color? Who cares what they’d do if they had to choose between a tank full of sharks and room full of spiders? This rarely reveals anything meaningful about a person.

 

Question to avoid: “You’ve mentioned X in the past. Can you please expand on that?”

Why: Asking your guest to “expand” on something they said in another interview isn’t really asking a question. It results in your guest simply rephrasing the thing they’ve already said. Besides, there’s likely something specific that sparked your interest in that topic in the first place. Ask a question about that. Be more specific.

With every question you ask, you should be thinking about the answers you want to receive and the story you want to tell with this interview. What side of this person do you want to explore? What's the angle? Starting here will help you shape a cohesive narrative around the interview, rather than asking random, unrelated questions simply for the sake of asking them.

"Avoid questions that feel insidery or complex. They spend all day talking about that shit, and your audience won’t understand it anyway."

Make it fun for your guest, not just your audience

Make this the best interview they’ve ever done. The more positive experience your guest has, the more they will open up and give you great answers. Plus, you may be giving them exposure but this interview is also a favor to you. Be considerate by keeping the following in mind:

Remember your goal isn’t to impress the person you’re interviewing.

Be straightforward and ask your question in simple, conversational language. Avoid questions that feel insidery or complex. They spend all day talking about that shit, and your audience won’t understand it anyway. Give them a break from it. Make your conversation a refreshing escape from their everyday.

Be straightforward. Don’t talk around your question.

Don’t make your guest have to guess what you might be getting at or ask you to repeat the question.

Refine and condense your questions.

Long interviews are fine if the questions are all killer. Long interviews with filler questions and redundancies are not only a waste of everyone’s precious time (your guest, your editor, you), but will also flip the “off” switch for your guest and your reader. Your guest will get tired and your audience will tune out.

When preparing for your interview, ask yourself: What kind of questions would you want to answer?

Experiment with in-person and offline formats

Of course, one format can't apply to all interviews and shouldn’t. Sometimes, a live interview is necessary to capture the scene, the emotions or the immediate, unedited reaction from a person. A live interview also makes for more natural conversation and allows for easier follow-up questions. Other times, a written interview provokes better, more thoughtful answers because the person has more time to think in an environment that makes them at ease. 

For most of our magazine's interviews, we usually have our guests answer our questions via email. One reason being, many of our guests speak English as a second language so this gives them to formulate their thoughts and say what they really want to say, rather than putting the pressure on in-person. Plus, it allows them to answer on their own time, which makes busy people more likely to agree to the interview in the first place. Again, it depends on your goals and the format of your platform. 

Be willing to go off-script

It’s easy to write up your questions, have your guest fill in the blanks and call it done. This is one downside to a written interview format – any follow-up questions are more inconvenient and don’t flow naturally in a conversation. But no matter the format, it’s worth asking those follow-ups. Your interviewee may mention something as an aside that could open up a whole new direction for the interview. Let it go there. You might hear something in their answer that piques your interest. Try digging a little deeper. If you are doing the interview via email, this is as easy as shooting a quick note or making a comment on a shared doc.

It’s tempting to plow through your script, whether you’re nervous in person or you just want to get the job done. But if you pause to absorb your guest’s answers and take time to ask the follow-ups, you may discover much more about the person or subject than you would otherwise. Don’t feel obligated to stick to a template.

There’s much more to learn depending on the type of interview you're conducting. A TV host may give you different advice than a news journalist. A blog writer will take a different approach than a podcast host. But generally, I’ve found these rules lead to better questions and as a result, better interviews.

January 23, 2019No Comments

5 inspiring videography portfolios made with Semplice

With a video or film portfolio, setting the right tone is important. Much like a movie trailer, your portfolio introduces your work and gives people a sense of what they're about to watch.

A good portfolio gets them to press play and watch to the end.

Semplice, my portfolio system for creatives, allows filmmakers or editors to not only display their high-quality videos, but also easily design a site that sets them up in the best way possible.

I always enjoy seeing what creatives (who are not necessarily designers) do with Semplice. Here are just a few of my favorites.

 

Yumpic

Yumpic is the work of Lena, a food videographer based in Ukraine. Her website is as delicious as the food films she creates, bright and clean with lovely illustrations and animated GIFs throughout.

 

Jon Jacobson

Multimedia artist Jon Jacobson creates imagery that makes you both curious and uncomfortable — which is, in my humble opinion, the best effect art can have. He makes use of a video cover slider on his homepage with a simple portfolio grid beneath. Each case study is packed with videos and images that pull you deeper into his work.

 

Recess Films

Recess Films is a production company located in LA and NYC. They use the Semplice categories feature to create individual portfolios within their site for each of their directors, showcasing the studio’s diverse talent and work.

 

Jonathan Wing

NYC-based creative Jonathan Wing edits videos for some of the most glamorous brands of our time. His work is featured in a tight portfolio grid on his homepage with playful thumbnail hover effects. Each case study leads with a full-screen image introducing the project.

 

Vení Studio

Vení Studio is the work of Madrid-based creatives, Fran Asensio and Gabriela Ovando. I most appreciate the simple yet confident typography choices throughout their portfolio. This site also makes use of the Semplice category feature to filter project types.

To see more of the best portfolios made with Semplice, visit our Semplice Showcase.

Cover image from Jonathan Wing's portfolio

January 18, 2019No Comments

The designer & company disconnect

Most companies I talk to are desperately looking to hire good designers. Most designers I talk to are desperately looking for work. Somewhere, there’s a breakdown happening.

Recently, I read that 82% of executives of Fortune 500 companies believe they don't recruit highly talented people. At the same time, 73% of workers are disengaged and thinking of getting another job.

I have a few theories about why this is happening, at least as it relates to the creative industry.

 

Too-high expectations from companies

These days, companies want the “unicorn designer” with design skills, coding skills, video skills, photography skills, etc. The reality is that many designers are highly skilled in one area and proficient in the rest. That doesn’t mean they can’t do it all. It’s becoming easier and more natural to grow these secondary skills. But it's likely they don't do everything as well as their main skill.

In the end, while they try to acquire new skills and fill every role as an all-star designer, they have fewer opportunities to shine in what they do best.

 

"Great talent is scarce"

I may be guilty of having unrealistic expectations myself. Or maybe these expectations are fair, but as a McKinsey&Company study suggests, we're at a shortage of highly talented people.

When hiring a designer, I look for a balance of hard skills + taste + strategic thinking. Most designers check one or two requirements but lack the third. The designer may have the hard skills to take a project from start to finish, but lack strategic and holistic thinking — meaning they’re only good at what they do when they’re told exactly what to do. Other designers may be able to think strategically but aren’t able to execute on it, making them worthless for a company that needs a hands-on team.

Perhaps we are indeed holding designers to an unrealistic standard, asking one person to fulfill many requirements. Or maybe those designers exist, there just aren't many of them out there. And the ones that do exist are part of the 27% who are happily employed.

 

“Do what you love” mentality

These days, we are led to believe the perfect job exists. You know, the one where we love our work so much we “don’t work a day in our life.” The one that makes us spring out of bed each morning, throw open the windows and sing like a character in a musical.

I’m all for doing work that I enjoy, but I think we as employees have the wrong understanding of what this means. I also see companies making promises to fulfill these expectations when they're trying to recruit a designer. So when it turns out that the job we dreamed about doesn't constantly excite us at every turn, we lose motivation and feel disengaged.

I love my job and there are some days I feel ecstatic about it, but those days are few and far between. Other days, I’m just doing the work. And yes, it feels like work. Work that fulfills me, but work nonetheless.

If the “do what you love” doctrine is taken to an extreme, we’re all losing. We may start to dread our perfectly fine job and believe the grass is always greener on the other side. It’s a matter of expectations, once again.

 

Too much process, too little bravery

Some companies are so bogged down with process, the room for creativity is slim. Thus, designers don’t have the opportunity to flex their creative strength and companies don’t see the best possible work. The result is disappointed companies and stifled, bitter employees.

Process used to be a tool we used to get better at creative work. To make the work we’re meant to do more efficient. Process is a means to an end. But at some point, process became something companies not only treated as a religion, but also an asset they could sell to clients. When process is the end-goal itself, it unsurprisingly leads to frustration.

 

Companies don’t know what they need or want

Example: Most companies now think they need a UX designer but some barely understand what a UX designer does. Meanwhile, most designers are calling themselves UX designers now because it’s what gets them the job. So a company hires what seems right, the designer applies for what seems right and both are clueless about what is actually needed. 

In some cases, a  recruiter may be copy & pasting job descriptions without understanding what they are asking for or how that position fits into their company.  All scenarios result in unhappy companies and unhappy designers.

 

Designers have skills but lack professional capabilities

In our How to Get a Job at X series, the most-wanted secondary skill (skill besides design) BY FAR is communication. It's possible designers are talented, they’re just not communicating their designs and themselves well. A designer could do the best work but if they aren’t able to present it well or sell it to stakeholders (the team, clients, etc.), their work becomes useless. 

This means a company may hire an outstanding designer purely judging from their portfolio, only to discover that nothing gets done.

As I mentioned, these are all just theories. The problem may be deeper or more complex than this, or a combination of these issues. In any case, I still see these problems to be true within our industry. Fixing them requires better education on every side, a leveling of our expectations and a simple effort to do better.

January 9, 2019No Comments

Junior designers vs. senior designers

The difference between a designer early in their career and a more experienced designer are easy to spot. Here we outline the key differences.*

*It should be noted that some young designers have been known to exhibit behaviors of senior designers. And on rare occasions, you may see a senior designer in the wild behaving like a young designer. Scientists cannot confirm why this phenomenon exists.

 

One asks when the deadline is.

The other knows the answer is "ASAP,” so instead they propose their own timeline.

Of course, every project is different. But those with experience know that most often the deadline "was yesterday." The designer has the power and ideally knowledge to propose a realistic deadline based on the briefing, and an informed discussion can be taken from there.

 

One designs exactly what they’re told.

The other knows what they’re told is just one idea, and explores beyond it.

If you're working with a mentor, creative director or even just the client, feedback should always be taken as general direction unless noted otherwise. After all, you're the professional being paid to understand this project. You are likely the one who has the knowledge to find the perfect solution to the problem.

In some cases, it makes sense to do exactly what you've been told. But in many other cases, the person who gives you feedback is only thinking out loud and wants to encourage you to keep thinking about the problem. When in doubt, do what you've been told and propose your own (hopefully better) solution as an option.

 

One turns in their first or second draft.

The other does as many drafts and explorations as possible within the time allotted, then shares their favorite options.

The biggest difference you notice between junior and senior designers is that junior designers usually come back with something to show way too fast. If you're not yet experienced, whatever you do fast is most likely not that good. So in order to do something good, you need to spend a decent amount of time on it.

For some senior designers, their experience allows them to design both fast and well. My advice to junior designers is usually to clarify when something has to be finished and then take time to do many different drafts, form your own opinion and present the best. Don't do one draft at a time and bother your mentor every 30 minutes for feedback. Find the balance.

 

One uses Lorem Ipsum.

The other writes their own copy to the best of their knowledge and ability.

Lorem Ipsum (or any form of placeholder copy) is for lazy designers. In most cases, especially UX design, the copy you write is as much part of the design as anything else. In some cases, the copy IS the design.

It's OK if you're not a perfect copywriter. Just write the copy to the best of your ability before handing it off. Even if that's not part of your official job description. Even if you already have a professional copywriter on the project. This will help you think through your design beyond the concept and see how it actually works in execution. It helps you better sell your work. It helps the copywriter because you've hopefully allotted proper space and structure for the message. It improves the quality of your project all the way around.

 

One sends their design saying “let me know what you think.”

The other explains what we’re looking at and why they made the decisions they did.

This is a simple one. When it comes to sending work to a client, they need to see your rationale or they may jump to unproductive conclusions. And if you want feedback from a mentor or manager, you need to be specific about it. Every mentor is different, but chances are your boss is busy. If you want great feedback, you need to explain yourself, present your work and mention specific things you want to improve. Avoid sending a design without commentary and leaving everything up for chance.

 

One asks for help.

The other asks for help by proposing a solution.

If you approach your mentor, don't just state the problem. Share your thoughts on the situation and offer a potential solution. Sometimes it's OK to be completely stuck and ask for help, but it's likely you have a solution in mind that you're just unsure about. Even if it's wrong, your idea gives them something to respond to. And if it's right, you've shown initiative and saved time for everyone.

 

One completes a task and moves on to the next one.

The other completes a task and sees it through to execution.

Perhaps this is less about being junior or senior and more about being a good or great designer. Don't just focus on the individual tasks at hand, but try to see one step ahead. Are there any states you need to design? Edge cases you can be proactive about? Can you already contact the developer and see if they need help? The best designers are often not only those who just design but those who also help produce and communicate.

 

One waits for directions.

The other chooses a direction based on the information they’ve already been given.

Being self-sufficient and self-motivated is one of the important traits of a great senior designer. Even if direction is lacking, they're not just sitting around. They take initiative and do the work based on their best guess. Never just wait around for decisions to be made. Use what you have and do the best work based on that. A start is better than nothing at all.

 

One blames their manager, mentor or client for their struggles.

The other keeps working.

I've already shared my thoughts about this one in detail. I get many emails weekly from junior designers or designers new to the industry. One of their main complaints is that they're not learning enough at their current company or they're doing boring work. It always surprises me to hear these things from someone who just started out.

Of course, a good mentor or manager can make a difference, but they are not responsible for your success. A good manager or mentor is a luxury some may have, but others don't. Those who are great at what they do take their destiny into their own hands and make the best out of every situation.

January 4, 2019No Comments

What leading companies never want to see In your portfolio

Through our How to Get a Job at X series, we've talked with creative directors and recruiters from companies like Nike, Spotify, Pentagram, Disney, Shopify and BBDO. These people see dozens of design portfolios a day and might make their decision about a candidate within seconds of landing on their page. So we asked them for the secret to a successful portfolio – one that gets us a job at their company.

Given my work with Semplice, I have my own opinions about online portfolios. I know what makes me want to keep browsing and what makes me exit immediately. And while many companies echoed my opinions, others felt differently.

In more than 20 interviews, we asked each person these two questions: After seeing countless design portfolios in their career, what do they never want to see on a portfolio again? What do they want to see more?

Consider this your portfolio’s new year resolutions.

 

Less of This

Process Diagrams

“I have seen way too many design process diagrams. They’re all the same. I want to understand your process, so I can be sure you’re thinking about users and giving yourself room to develop creative ideas. But four bubbles, a few arrows and a bunch of words is just fluff.” - Katie Dill, previously at Airbnb

“Dull representations of process are challenging for me. Usually this is pages of descriptive text accompanied by flow charts. This could be the most fascinating work, but I don’t have the time to get into it.” - Mel Cheng from KISKA

"Swiss design templates. It’s crazy how people are copying what is meant just to inspire."

 

Trendy and Generic Designs

“We don’t want work that simply copies everything else. Our clients come to us to help them meaningfully resonate and differentiate. That means that we need to be on the bleeding edge of what is relevant, inspiring and thought-provoking.” - Karin Soukup from COLLINS

“Here a list of design cliches that turn me off right away:

  • Clean, fashion-y websites
  • Hipster logos with crossed arrows
  • Swiss design templates. It’s crazy how people are copying what is meant just to inspire.
  • Anything in Millennium Pink! Please, there are an infinite amount of other possible colors!”

- Maitê Albuquerque from Mother

“Generic writing and visuals. C’mon, this is your portfolio, the most important thing in your arsenal as a designer. If a portfolio looks and feels just like every other one, it’s hard for me to think that you’ll create a great product no matter how much you say you ‘handcraft websites.’” - Stephanie Liverani, Mikael Cho and Luke Chesser from Unsplash

 

Unsolicited Redesigns

“While this type of exercise certainly has its value, it’s not something I would encourage designers to put in their portfolio. Unsolicited redesigns lack real-world constraints, which doesn't allow us to assess your product design skills.” - Elyse Viotto and Kevin Clark from Shopify

 

"Edgy" or Complicated Design

“Don’t make me think. Convoluted portfolio designs that try to be edgy by challenging the way you interact and navigate with them can be a fun design exercise – but when your users are people who want to find out as much about your skills in as little time as possible, it misses the mark. Clear and readable wins the day.” - Erik Ortman from Electronic Arts

“We’re product designers so don’t get too flashy with your portfolio website. The focus should be on the work you’ve done in its purest form, not the packaging around it. I’ve gotten links to some pretty ‘unique’ websites where I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to view the individual projects. If I don’t know where to find your resume and clear examples of your work in that initial few seconds of landing on your site, then I’m probably bouncing.” - James Cabrera, Refinery29

“Things that make it hard to see your work, like: “Website coming soon,” passwords for everything, really old content, links you cannot open.” - Shine Thomas from Nike

“I have an aversion to designers doing their own logo for their portfolios. Better to spend your time focusing on showing your work, not how you can combine the letters of your name in a monogram. I find it distracting.” - Simon Endres from Red Antler

"Pick your favorite pieces. It doesn’t need to be for the most famous or biggest clients as long as you are proud of it."

 

Outdated & non-curated portfolios

“I don’t want to see every piece of work that you have ever done. Pick your favorite pieces. It doesn’t need to be for the most famous or biggest clients as long as you are proud of it and want to talk about it.” - Simon Mogren and Bart Mol from BBDO

“Magazine cover designs. I see this often with emerging creatives, as it was likely one of the pieces they worked on for a design course. They don’t really relate to the needs most companies are trying to fulfill, and often the designs look cluttered and poorly laid out.” - Andrea Trew from Flywheel

 

More of this

Good Writing

“We wish we would see more designers who write. Writing is great because it helps people understand your thinking. And your thinking is what ultimately shapes your work.” - Stephanie Liverani, Mikael Cho and Luke Chesser from Unsplash

"Our job will always change, so we need to know that you have the capacity to adapt."

 

Personal Projects

“If you’re just starting out as a designer, a good alternative to unsolicited redesigns are personal projects. These self-initiated projects are a great way to build up your design and product skills, while also putting something out into the world for people to use.” - Elyse Viotto and Kevin Clark from Shopify

“I would like to see more personal projects in portfolios. The work that you did in the best of conditions and with full artistic freedom.” - Simon Mogren and Bart Mol from BBDO

“I want to see more personal projects, some experiments you did in design. People need to show more about how they think and see the world. Our job will always change, so we need to know that you have the capacity to adapt and find elegant solutions to the most diverse problems.” - Maitê Albuquerque from Mother

 

Intrigue

“I like to see people who present their work with care and intelligence. The best portfolios are ones that are comprehensive enough that you get a sense what’s going on, but sufficiently open-ended so you are intrigued by what you see.” - Michael Bierut from Pentagram

 

Thoughtful Case Studies

“I’d prefer to see the process through the work. Show me how you’ve gone from insight, to concept, to solution, to impact with a real project example.” - Katie Dill, previously at Airbnb

"I always enjoy seeing a bit of storytelling in a presentation. It’s such an important skill for designers and is a tool for sharing work broadly across teams and functions. Telling the story of your work — how it all relates, why it’s important — matters." - Audrey Liu from Lyft

“Seeing more work presented in case study format would be so helpful. Major bonus points for an animated prototype/flow. There are more than enough tools out there to add motion to your work (Principle, Framer, Flinto, etc.)”- Ryan Le Roux and Oliver Brooks from MetaLab

"Trying to come off incredibly senior when you’re actually quite junior could end up hurting you."

 

Honesty

“Positioning yourself properly in terms of skill and experience. Trying to come off incredibly senior when you’re actually quite junior could end up hurting you. Be honest about the work you’ve done, what you’ve learned, and the things you’re interested in learning more about.” - Ryan Le Roux and Oliver Brooks from MetaLab

“They should briefly describe the work and the particular role they played. We get a little nervous when someone’s portfolio includes a lot of team projects. We want to clearly understand someone’s strengths and weaknesses before we hire them.” - Helen Rice and Josh Nissenboim from Fuzzco

“I wish more portfolio websites included little descriptions of what the designer’s role was in a specific project, or even pointed out some specific problems or personal thoughts about aspects of their designs. Too many portfolios now are just vanity shots and client name-dropping without actually communicating what was done. To me, the way you communicate what you’ve done is just as important as the work itself.” - James Cabrera from Refinery29

 

Consistency

“We want to see work that is consistently good. The best portfolios take a well-rounded and curated approach to showing work.” - Helen Rice and Josh Nissenboim from Fuzzco

"I think it’s perfectly OK to start with a joke, or something that tells me that this person has a unique perspective."

 

Personality & Humor

“I’d love people to share more of themselves: What made an impression on you recently? What objects do you own that you love or hate? What are you reading?” - Stanley Wood from Spotify

“I wish more portfolios had personality. I think it’s perfectly OK to start with a joke, or something that tells me that this person has a unique perspective. On a good/bad day I look at maybe 20-30 portfolios. Most of the time for maybe five seconds before I decide if it’s worth exploring further. So my first recommendation would be to make sure you grab the audience straight away. Show me something great and/or unexpected. Ideally both.” - Haraldur Thorleifsson from Ueno

 

Real-world applications

“From a product design perspective, I also prefer seeing work that is technically feasible, as it demonstrates awareness and respect for the engineering side of the equation.” - Todd Dominey from Mailchimp

"A portfolio isn’t just a documentation of all the work you’ve produced to date; it should be adapted with time."

 

Current design & curated projects

“I wish all applicants would update their portfolios at least once a year. Nothing stands still in our industry, so if you are looking for a new position you must be able to demonstrate that you are current in your design thinking and skills.” - Steven Boone from Disney

“Simple, curated books with one or two of your greatest projects are the best. If you are posting your work, it should be at a quality level you are proud of.” - Shine Thomas from Nike

“A portfolio isn’t just a documentation of all the work you’ve produced to date; it should be adapted with time. It needs curating bespoke to the prospective client to ensure relevancy both in terms of content and aesthetic, to demonstrate your understanding of the business.” - Michael Stephens from Virgin Atlantic

 

Breadth of skill

“I cannot reiterate this enough — I like seeing variety. Seeing your personal projects, work in progress or experiments demonstrates to me that you’re willing to explore new territory beyond making a polished case study. I love seeing your process, sketches and writing/notes that show me how you go about making the work.” - Simon Endres and Maureen Edmonds from Red Antler

"There is definite value in a portfolio that’s diverse and showcases a wider range of design thinking and skill. Showing your ability to think outside a given set of lines and emerge with something new and innovative helps further set you apart. Show your most creative stuff (the projects where you had more freedom to have fun with it) and your most challenging stuff, (the projects with the most restrictive guidelines). Both have a story to tell." - Daniel Myer from BMW

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For tips on writing case studies, building a portfolio as a young designer, creating UX portfolios and more, check out our other portfolio articles. And be sure to read the full interviews in our How to Get a Job at X series for inside advice from some of my favorite companies.

January 2, 2019No Comments

Design portfolio inspiration of December 2018

Once a week, we handpick two portfolios created with Semplice to feature in our Best Of  Showcase.  Now we've collected our favorites from the past month, all in one place. The last Showcase roundup of 2018.

I'm always inspired by the different ways people use Semplice for their portfolios. In December, we featured portfolios and websites from art & motion directors, product designers, photographers, interaction designers, filmmakers and more.

Browse the best portfolios of the month below to get inspired for your own site and meet new creatives. And if you've created your own portfolio with Semplice, be sure to submit it to our Showcase here. We might just feature your site next.

For more design portfolio inspiration, visit the Semplice showcase. I'll be back next month with more of our monthly favorites!

P.S. Header image by Pleid.

December 27, 2018No Comments

The Top DESK Articles of 2018

Yes, another roundup article for you to read this year. I love these not because they highlight our best work, but because they tell us what you most enjoy reading so we can write more of it in the coming year. And apparently, we should write a lot more about portfolios.

With this blog I aim to challenge and inspire the creative community. But looking back on the past year, I'm happy to see that DESK is also used as a resource.

I care a lot about helping designers do and share their work in the best possible way. It’s the foundation of my business. So as we tallied up our top articles and saw nearly 100% of them are about portfolios and growing as a designer, we made a note of it.

I love writing about everything from psychology to productivity and will continue to do so, but in 2019 we’re putting renewed energy toward the theme many of us have in common: design.

1. The Truth About Design Titles

The writing I personally enjoy most is the kind that makes me smile or laugh. So I’m happy to see this article hold strong at #1 this year. It’s a silly little piece I wrote poking fun at the very serious design titles we give ourselves. Glad to see we can all still laugh at ourselves.

Read the article →

 

2. How to Write Portfolio Case Studies

Semplice, my portfolio system for designers, is built around creating beautiful project pages to showcase your work. In this article I shared some tips on how to write project case studies that people actually want to read.

Read the article →

 

3. How to Make a UX Design Portfolio

Truthfully, most UX design portfolios I see make me tired. UX designers can’t just lean on beautiful images for their portfolio. They have to tell a story. And it’s a story that involves a lot of thinking, planning and small details. With the popularity of UX design right now, it’s even more important to stand out with your portfolio. This article explains how to do so without making your reader fall asleep on their keyboard.

Read the article →

 

4. Design in China ?? featuring A Black Cover Design

Fun fact: Readers from China make up 15% of our audience, second on the list after the United States. But it wasn’t only our Chinese readers who appreciated this interview with A Black Cover Design studio. That’s why we love our Design Around the World series. It’s opening the door between design communities and connecting us to creatives outside our own little bubble.

This interview with ABCD is one of my favorites in the series. Guang Yu and Nod Young didn’t hesitate to say what they think and we learned a lot from their candid answers. Plus, ABCD’s work is just fantastic.

Read the article → 

 

5. How to Quickly Refresh Your Design Portfolio

Updating your portfolio doesn’t have to be this big, daunting task you always push to the bottom of your to-do list. Especially if you’re using Semplice, you can do these small things to keep your portfolio fresh whenever you have a few free minutes.

Read the article →

 

6. How to Get a Job at KISKA

This is one of the most unusual interviews in our How to Get a Job at X series, so I was surprised to see it at the top of the list. In contrast to the standard design studio or tech company, KISKA designs products like motorcycles, sporting goods and prosthetics. Their work is beautiful and their team is incredibly talented – I know I’d want to work there.

Read the article →

 

7. Should I Follow Design Trends?

We published this one at the beginning of the year in response to people asking me to predict design trends for 2018. I feel the same way about trends now as I did then. Read to find out.

Read the article →

 

8. How to Get a Job at InVision

No surprise here. InVision has been one of the top tools in our industry, and the InVision team is small and fully remote. Sounds like a pretty ideal gig to me.

Read the article →

 

9. How to Build a Design Portfolio as a Student

Making a portfolio when you’re young or new in your career can be difficult. You don’t have much work to show yet, but you need a solid portfolio to get the work in the first place. Here we share a few tips for building up your design portfolio and setting yourself up for success from the start.

Read the article →

 

10. How to Make a Portfolio When Your Work Can’t Be Shared

I hear from designers now and then who say it’s impossible for them to create a portfolio, since most of their work is under an NDA, hasn’t launched yet or doesn’t work well in the typical visual format. I agree it’s difficult to make a portfolio in this case, but it’s still possible. In this article, I collected a few tips and examples from designers who made it work.

Read the article →

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Here’s to another year of challenging ourselves and helping each other do better. And for me, more writing. If you’d like me to write about a specific topic, please do send me a tweet about it. 

December 21, 2018No Comments

No regrets

Much of our lives are defined by regret. The one who got away. The job opportunity we missed. The words we never said.

A certain amount of regret can be healthy. It reminds us what’s important. It teaches us to be proactive, assertive, honest, kinder, present. But regret is also toxic. Fixating on the past can cause us to make choices out of fear or obligation. It can destroy the present.

In chaos theory, there’s a concept called the Butterfly Effect. It essentially means one small change can have large effects later. The name comes from Edward Lorenz’s example of a butterfly’s flapping wings influencing the formation and path of a tornado. While the butterfly is just a metaphor, Lorenz’s experimentation methods are still used today for daily weather forecasts.

In a less scientific sense, we’ve experienced the Butterfly Effect in our own lives. If we only hadn’t left our bag at home. If only we hadn’t changed our route on the way to work. If only we hadn’t asked our friend for that favor. Our actions have consequences, which makes it easy to wonder what would have happened if we’d done things differently.

By looking at the events in our lives through the lens of the Butterfly Effect, we can lift some of the burden of regret. If every small decision or action we make can change the course of events forever, there’s no way to make a wrong decision.

If you hadn’t gone out to dinner in the city that night you wouldn’t have been in that car accident. But if you’re considering cause and effect, you can’t stop there. If you hadn’t met that girl at work, you wouldn’t have moved to the city in the first place. And if you hadn’t accepted that job, you never would have met the girl. If every small decision has a non-linear consequence, there’s no one to blame for the result. And there are many decisions along the way (the girl, the new job) that you wouldn’t necessarily want to change. So what’s left to regret?

Of course, there are times we can’t dismiss regret and shouldn’t. Regretting something we’ve done wrong (or failed to do) shapes us into better people. But no matter the situation, regret doesn’t change the decisions we’ve already made. It can only, hopefully, help us make better ones moving forward. Even then, we have little control over many events in our lives. All we can do is try our best right now.

December 20, 2018No Comments

5 inspiring photography portfolios built with Semplice

With a photography portfolio, it’s important your page design doesn’t distract a viewer from the images themselves. Instead, your portfolio should work the same way a picture frame does: Complementing your photographs and presenting them in the best way possible without getting in the way.

With Semplice, we aim to make it easy for photographers to accomplish this. You can design pages and case studies to fit the work, rather than using a stifling template. Built-in features like full-screen images, gallery sliders and customizable grids put the focus on your work.

Here are just a few examples from talented photographers using Semplice.

Sabine Metz

Instead of the popular “random” grid with unequally spaced images, Netherlands-based photographer Sabine Metz opts for a classic grid on her homepage. It gives her portfolio a strong editorial feel that’s fitting for her work. She also uses the Semplice project panel feature below each case study to tease her other projects.

 

Cait Oppermann

Cait Oppermann is a New York- based photographer. I most appreciate how every case study in her portfolio is subtly customized for the project. Each leads with a split-screen header with different background and type colors specific to the brand.

 

Nolwen Cifuentes

Nolwen Cifuentes is a photographer based in Los Angeles, CA. Her portfolio is simple and streamlined, with two project categories and an info page. Each image can be opened in a custom-made lightbox for closer viewing.

 

Julius Hirtzberger

In contrast with most photography portfolios I’ve seen, Vienna-based Julius Hirtzberger pairs his images with distinctive typography. He also makes use of the Semplice Instagram module, keeping his portfolio current with a live feed of his posts.

 

Jonathan Wing

Jonathan Wing, a videographer and photographer working in New York, features his photography work on a single page. Compared to the tight grid of videos on his homepage, the whitespace and haphazard grid on this page are unexpected and refreshing.

To see some of the best Semplice tools for photography portfolios, check out this page. You can also browse the Semplice Showcase to see more beautiful sites built with Semplice.

Article header image by Cait Oppermann

December 14, 2018No Comments

The struggle for simplicity

In all the work I do, I strive for the most simple solution. I mean, the name of my business literally translates to “simple.” But simplicity is ironically one of the most difficult things to do well. Usually, the more effortless something appears, the more effort it took.

Throughout my relatively short career, I’ve found these ingredients to be key for simplicity. Some of them more difficult to attain than others.

A deep understanding of the subject

We naturally overcomplicate things we don’t understand. Usually, if I can’t explain the problem easily to someone, I’m not going to find an easy solution. So first, I do my research and try to become an expert on the subject.

I learn the ins and outs of the business or challenge, ask every question I can think of (even the ones that may seem dumb) and try to wrap my mind around it. Sometimes this means I have to read additional books on a topic, watch a documentary or go to some industry-specific events.

Once I know I can verbally explain it to someone else in a simple way, I’m ready to find a simple solution.

Confidence

This is less about an attitude and more about trusting your gut. We often land on a simple idea somewhere along the way but we don’t trust it. We think surely, it can’t be this easy. Sometimes, it is.

Boundaries

A maxim you’ve already heard, but worth repeating: creativity needs constraints. A brief that says “do whatever you want” is a curse. Most of our brains need to work within some kind of lines or we spiral out of control. Setting boundaries also forces you to keep things simple. It strips out the unnecessary and focuses your mind on only the essentials.

Boundaries can be based on time, a set of features or even financials. The best projects are often those that happened through limited financial resources and a very limited amount of time.

Skill

It's easy to observe the finished product and overlook the skill it took to make it happen.

How many times have you seen a piece of work and thought, “I could have done that.Sometimes, that’s true – the difference is that you could have done it, but the other person actually did it. In other cases, the most seemingly simple work is made by people who have practiced for years at their profession.

Perspective

We all know that person who breezes by the conference room, looks at our mad scribbles on the wall and says “but why don’t you just do this?” They have distance from the subject, an aerial perspective which lets them spot that one flower in a field of weeds.

If you find something becoming too complicated, step away from it for a while. When we’re too deep in it or too close to a project, we lose that perspective.

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Naturally, most of these things go hand in hand with experience. The more you work, the more skilled you become. The more skilled you are, the more you can trust your instincts. You learn to set boundaries for yourself and can more easily sense when you need to step away or find perspective. But no matter how long you've been working, simple is usually preceded by chaos. It takes a conscious effort to stay simple. The result is always worth it.

Article image from Dieter Rams' "Less But Better"

December 10, 2018No Comments

How to write a cold email

When reaching out to a company, whether you’re seeking a job, introducing your product or pursuing some other opportunity, a personal connection is always best. If you can get introduced by a friend of a friend, you will be 100x more likely to receive a response (a stat I made up, but I promise it's true).

Even if you don’t have a friend on the inside, you can make one by interacting with them in a personal way on other platforms. Follow and engage with their work. Have a casual conversation on Twitter. The internet makes almost anyone accessible to you.

But there are times when you just don’t have that inside connection and a cold email is your best option. It will take more work, but sending that email can still pay off.

In almost 20 interviews (and counting) with top companies and studios in our How to Get a Job at X interview series, we ask this question: “Say we decide to reach out directly and send a cold email. What kind of message gets a reply? Any secrets for us?”

And we got a lot of useful advice. Their suggestions speak to contacting a company while job hunting, but can apply to anyone trying to network via email. Here are the highlights.

Be personal, not formal

“I love when people share their personal stories,” says Maitê Albuquerque, creative director at Mother LA. “To be honest, hyper-professional emails get lost in the sea of other emails and portfolios we receive.”

I couldn’t agree with this more. Any email that seems copy/pasted or filled with buzzwords automatically goes in my “no” pile. I may still respond, but you probably won’t get the response you were hoping for.

The team at Unsplash agrees.

“We can’t speak for all companies, but emails that make us feel something are ones that sound like they were written to a friend,” says Unsplash. “Words that sound like they were written by a human, not a machine. Everyone making anything today is in the business of creating a connection. An impersonal subject line or words like ‘Dear Hiring Manager’ signal not only laziness but a lack of understanding for what connects.”

Have a point of view

“The [emails] that really stick out are the ones from folks that have put a little effort into it and show a POV,” says Katie Dill, previously director of experience design at Airbnb. “For example, I am always impressed by those who took it upon themselves to redesign an aspect of Airbnb to show us their skills, ideas and interests. We’ve seen a lot of great work this way and we’re always happy to talk to someone with that kind of passion and hustle.”

Or as Elyse Viotto and Kevin Clark, design leads at Shopify, put it:

“Do you want any job or do you want a job at Shopify? I know you’re probably applying to many companies, but can you tell us why you’d like to work here?" Elyse and Kevin say in our Shopify interview. "Do you have your own online store? Do you use our product? Did you take a stab at building a theme with Slate? What is your opinion on Polaris or the latest articles our UX team published?”

Show you have a point of view by expressing your curiosity and motivation. Share why you want to work with or for not just any company, but THAT company.

“Some things are better to save for an interview rather than putting your whole life story in the introduction email.”

Let your work speak for itself

“Let your work do the talking,” says Erik Ortman, lead UI/UX designer at Electronic Arts. “It is at the end of the day an extremely competitive marketplace for designers wanting to work in games, and there is really nothing that can beat high-quality work. If you can manage to convey a true passion for design and games through both your work and your words, that is the secret sauce.”

Simon Mogren, head of design at BBDO, echoed this advice.

“Some things are better to save for an interview rather than putting your whole life story in the introduction email. Let your work speak for itself so you can speak about yourself in person.”

Of course, you will want to share what makes you (or your product) the right choice. My advice: Do so in the least sales-y way possible, and follow the other tips here by keeping it short and personal. If your readers even sniff a sales pitch, they will run.

Be concise but sincere

Getting to the point quickly is the most important and consistent advice we’ve received in these interviews. Be clear about what you want, right from the start.

“I’ve seen many people, especially juniors, approach me in elaborate ways, from personalized goodie bags to hand-drawn record sleeves,” says Bart Mol, VP creative director at BBDO. “To me, this is the equivalent to a well-practiced pick-up line: meaningless the moment you look one step further. Just show me the real person I should hire as concisely and convincingly as possible, no bells needed.”  

James Cabrera, senior product designer at Refinery29, agrees.

“Keep it short and sincere,” says James. “We like to find people who are truly passionate about our mission, already know a lot of the little details about our brand, have a genuine curiosity for our business and are always full of positive energy. Keep it conversational, yet pointed.”

Dan Sormaz from Spotify sums it up nicely:

"It’s really about showing why you’re the best person for a specific role in the quickest possible way.”

Keep emailing until you get a response

“I am always open to people staying engaged with me, but there are a lot of emails and people to respond to all the time,” says Shine Thomas in our interview with Nike. “Sometimes, it’s hard to respond to everyone at the speed you desire… but keep emailing until you get a response.”

I understand we don’t want to be annoying, but as someone who receives a lot of cold emails, I know this approach can pay off. Instead of sending a passive “Hi, did you get my last email?” message, just copy and paste the same message you sent before with an optimized intro or subject line. Read more tips for emailing busy people and getting a reply right here.

Be humble and have a sense of humor

There’s a difference between sharing your accomplishments in an effort to make an impression, and just sounding like an asshole. You need to sell yourself (or your product, etc.), but you can do so in a humble way. Carefully phrase your wording to show your passion and appreciation without flat-out bragging. 

“The best cold job emails convey that the person is smart and humble, that they have a sense of humor, excitement about Fuzzco and an understanding that we work hard,” says Helen and Josh in our interview with Fuzzco. “They should talk about something interesting the person is doing that helps us get to know them and shows they are passionate, curious people.”

Just send it

You may be surprised by how many people, especially in the design industry, want to help you out if they have the time. Take Michael Bierut, partner at Pentagram. If there’s anyone in the design industry who receives too many emails and has zero time to respond to them, I would imagine it’s him. But his answer surprised us.

“I reply to every message I get,” says Michael. “Even the ones with misspellings.”

Andrea Trew, art director at Flywheel, also makes it a point to respond to cold emails from creatives.

“As a rule of thumb, I love to help other creatives to achieve their goals, even if it means just setting aside some time to chat and give them pointers on their portfolio,” says Andrea in our interview. “Asking for advice and an opportunity to meet in person (even just 30 minutes for coffee!) is always welcome.”

As does Luisa Mancera, brand designer at Invision.

“A few friends of friends have reached out to me who are curious about what it’s like to work remotely. I’ll usually talk with them,” says Luisa. “I’ve also had a few people looking for career advice and I’ll try and talk with them as well. If people reach out with specific questions I’m generally happy to answer — I usually give them my phone number and ask them to give me a call.”

Michael Stevens, head of creative and design at Virgin Atlantic, sums it up nicely:

“My advice? Go on, be brave and just do it."

There's a lot more career advice where this came from. Catch up How to Get a Job at X series to read the full interviews with Pentagram, BBDO, Flywheel, Nike and lots more.

December 4, 2018No Comments

How to create a one-page portfolio with Semplice

A tutorial for designers or studios that want to create an elegant and interactive one-page portfolio or landing page using Semplice.

Today we’d like to walk through the steps of creating a one-page site using WordPress-based Semplice as the tool. This will be the final result.

Whether you want to showcase your work, create a landing page for a client or build a simple product site, Semplice makes it easy – and fast – to create a beautiful one-pager. Let's begin.

Part 1: Setting up the basics

First, you need to configure your site in Semplice and set up your grid. Decide what grid width and padding you’d like for your site. You can always change this later and your layouts will automatically adjust.

Find your grid settings under the Customize section in Semplice.

Next, add any custom fonts you want to use for your site design. Upload your fonts through WordPress and then navigate to Customize > Webfonts in Semplice to retrieve font paths, install your fonts and add them to your stylesheet. Find a full guide for webfont set-up here.

Semplice allows you to use your own webfonts or self-hosted fonts and set site-wide stylesheets.

Part 2: Creating the page layout

Now you can start creating your page layout. Our goal in this case was to lead with a clean yet immersive header. For a full-screen header image, click Cover in the menu, choose “Visible,” and upload an image or video. For the sake of this portfolio, we used an image and added text introducing the photographer.

Add a full-screen cover with a background image or video.

Now create your desired layout by adding images, galleries and text to the page. Your layout can be mocked up in Photoshop of Sketch, for example, or designed straight within Semplice. All elements can be easily laid out within a live view using drag and drop. We went for a minimalistic design in this example, making use of whitespace and a random grid design. All images were added directly from Unsplash.

Select from thousands of free Unsplash images directly from Semplice.

To increase padding, margins, font size or other elements, just click the element and drag your mouse up or down over the related style or setting. All adjustments will appear in the live content editor as you make them.

All adjustments can be made in the Semplice content editor with a simple click or drag & drop.

Here you can resize elements according to the grid you set in Part 1. Multiple alignment options and drag & drop spacer columns make it easy to adjust every element to your liking.

Adjust your image on your grid by clicking into the section.

All elements can be easily justified and aligned to match your design exactly.

Changing justification and alignment

Finally, the create a custom footer with your main calls-to-action. Here we added an e-newsletter sign-up integrating directly with MailChimp.

With Semplice, you have complete control over the style and content in your footer.

Part 3: Refinements and animations

Now that the page layout is done, add some interactive motions and effects that bring it to life. Using the Motion feature, we added a subtle opacity and zoom effect to the Cover.

You can preview your animation live straight from the Semplice content editor.

You can then make each element appear smoothly as the page moves. To accomplish this effect, select the element, click into the Motions tab and choose “On Scroll” for the Event. From there, adjust the movement, speed and duration of your effect.

Set your animations to trigger on scroll, click, load or hover.

Next, make each image feel interactive with hover effects. Select the column, click into the Motions tab and choose “on Mouseover” this time for the Event. Here we set the easing to Linear and the duration to 400 milliseconds. Every image also opens in a lightbox for a closer view.

For the About Me section, we added a simple color animation, making the section background color deepen slightly on scroll. All animations and effects are added directly within Semplice without coding.

Subtle animations like this make your site feel alive and interactive.

Part 4: Optimizing for mobile

Now that the layout and custom animations are in place, optimize your page for each responsive breakpoint. By clicking the mobile icon in the top right menu, you can select each standard breakpoint and test all standard screen sizes from your desktop. Refine each view individually, adjusting text size, rearranging elements and even hiding entire sections as needed.

Click the mobile icon at the top of your dashboard to refine headlines and content for every breakpoint.

And we're done! Check out the live one-pager right here to see how it all fits together. I hope this tutorial was useful and you now have a solid understanding of how to put together a quick landing page in Semplice.

For more portfolio inspiration, visit the Semplice Showcase, or read our other portfolio tips on the blog.

November 29, 2018No Comments

Design portfolio inspiration of November 2018

Once a week, we handpick two portfolios created with Semplice to feature in our Best Of  Showcase.  Now we've collected our favorites from the past month, all in one place.

I'm always inspired by the different ways people use Semplice for their portfolios. Sometimes, we see a fantastic site and only realize later it's built with Semplice – it's truly designers' best kept secret. In November, we featured portfolios and websites from UX/UI designers, design studios, art directors, graphic designers and more.

Take a look at this month's top design portfolios below to get inspired for your own site and meet new designers. And if you've created your own portfolio with Semplice, be sure to submit it to our Showcase here. We might just feature your site next.

For more design portfolio inspiration, visit the Semplice showcase. I'll be back next month with more of our monthly favorites!

P.S. Header image by Poulsen Projects

November 27, 2018No Comments

Design in Taiwan 🇹🇼 featuring HOUTH

Our explorations of design communities around the world have led us everywhere from Brazil to South Africa to Pakistan to China. Now we're looking at design in Taiwan with the lovely team at HOUTH.

HOUTH, a creative studio based in Taipei, is the work of co-founders Ho Wan Chun and Huang Chi Teng. They describe themselves as designers who "appreciate simple, pure things and interpret this hilarious world through a unique perspective." In a time when we as designers take ourselves and our buzzwords very seriously, I appreciate HOUTH's lighthearted outlook.

Here Ho and Hans tell us about the creative landscape in high-tech Taiwan, the country's "mix and match" philosophy and why we should be talking less about globalization and more about good design.

Hey Hans and Ho, excited to have you in the series. First, let’s talk about your studio. Who is the team behind HOUTH and why did you decide to open a graphic design studio?

Ho Wan Chun: Both of us are co-founders of HOUTH. I have been working as a designer in design studios and creative companies for over five years. Everything was uncertain during that time, and opening my own design studio was always only a dream for me. Luckily, I got the chance to visit some cities in Germany in 2014. That was my first time to Europe. What I saw completely changed my mind, especially in Berlin. After the trip, I decided to open my own studio with Hans (Huang Chi Teng).   

Huang Chi Teng: Before we started HOUTH, I had been working in different fields like publishing, marketing, event planning, project management etc., but I always liked to read design/creative-related news. When Ho mention opening a studio with me during my mid-thirties, I knew I needed to do this or the rest of my life would probably be the same.

Ho Wan Chun: Because I love design and he loves photography, we think it’s a good and fresh mix to combine design and photography as a creative design studio.

Hans & Ho

Taipei was named World Design Capital in 2016. It seems like for Taiwan overall though, design is still growing. Can you tell us a bit about your design community? Is there a strong design presence beyond Taipei and do many platforms or events exist that help you connect with other designers?

Ho Wan Chun: Young designers are emerging all over Taiwan’s design community. In this information-overloaded age, young people can find design references from the internet easily. More and more designers are willing to do voluntary design proposals to get their opportunities or simply hope to make society or life better. Designers pay close attention to social design than before. It’s good for social development, but also more competitive to run a design business.

Huang Chi Teng: Except for some design joint exhibitions, there are not so many platforms or regular events for designers to hang out or connect with each other.

HOUTH's bottle and packaging design for GQ Taiwan

What are the job opportunities available for designers in Taiwan right now?

Ho Wan Chun: Compared to 10 years ago, the design opportunities now are bigger, better and more flexible. There are so many creative forms to express design from traditional graphic/layout design to product/packaging design to art installation to live events/performances and even interactive experiences and exhibitions.

Huang Chi Teng: More and more people are starting to appreciate design and understand how design can change the game. They would love to put more effort and money into the design field, and create more design-related job opportunities.

Taiwan is the 22nd-largest economy in the world, and its tech industry plays a key role in the global economy. How has this affected the design community? Are many designers working in the tech space?

Ho Wan Chun: We have the most advanced copyrights, skills and technology in the tech industry, but the main business model is still OEM, and other countries which provide cheaper rent and salaries will replace Taiwan sooner or later. It’s time for tech industry owners in Taiwan to seriously think about the next move, and we suggest putting more efforts on “Design Thinking” to change the business model from OEM to ODM.

Huang Chi Teng: Of course, there are many people work in the tech space, like programmers, web/UI designers, product designers, 3D modeling/rendering, AR/VR designers etc., and also some outsourcing projects from the tech industry, like logo, packaging and website design.

The sunny HOUTH office in Taipei

Taiwan has quite a complex culture given its history of colonization. How would you describe the design you see coming from Taiwan today? Do you notice a certain style or formative influences, or is it influenced by your culture in any way?

Ho Wan Chun: Mix and match is the way we describe design here! We have to deal with the conditions and limitations we have and solve the problems with the design method we propose. Taiwan is a small island but at the same time, she shows the possibilities of richness.  

Huang Chi Teng: The charming feature of Taiwan is the people’s warm hospitality, and this not only affects the design but the whole lifestyle.

Explore the Wild/YLD – HOUTH's branding for a beer collaboration between Taiwanese Taihu Brewing and Japanese Yo-Ho Brewing

It seems like designers in many countries today are concerned about globalization/commercialization and its impact on their country’s design and culture. How do you see it for Taiwan?

Huang Chi Teng: Instead of arguing globalization or distinctive local culture, we should be asking more about “What is good design?” Instead of talking about the distinctive culture, we should dig more into what’s behind the local culture. How does it work with visual/design language? How can we make it better, more connected and sustainable?   

"There are many design trends that pop up and disappear just like a flash in the pan."

Taiwan is one of the most highly educated countries in the world. What is design education like in the country, from your experience?

Ho Wan Chun: I went to art school and then majored in visual communication design in college. During that time, I learned art history, background knowledge and skills mostly from books. The education direction is more focused on building stable and good techniques or skills. We spend a lot of time refining skills, but don’t care enough about creative thinking or design concept.

But art education has changed. Teachers are teaching students more creatively and in a more fun way, like having workshops or work with exhibition planning. These fresh, active and diverse ways will inspire creative imagination in students.

Part of HOUTH's work for Nativeye, a creative production company based in Tokyo and Kanazawa

What would you say are unique challenges for designers in your community right now?

Ho Wan Chun: First of all, the market in Taiwan is small and competitive, and people prefer to follow the trend. That means you will probably see many similar design styles or work during certain times.

Huang Chi Teng: Because of society’s fast consumption, there are many design trends that pop up and disappear just like a flash in the pan.

As the world is getting smaller with the help of the internet, working with international clients is very common. And of course, Taiwan already has a strong presence in the international marketplace. How is it for you?

Do you work with many international clients – and do businesses seek to work with local studios or international?

Huang Chi Teng: Except for the mostly local clients, we also have clients from Hong Kong, Japan, China. We also receive many inquiries from around the world.

International corporations or big companies here still prefer to work with international designers and studios, only because of the analyzed numbers and data. But there are more business and organizations start to support local designers and studios.

Ho Wan Chun and Huang Chi Teng doing the open floor plan right

How much impact does your social media presence have on getting new clients and self-promotion in general? What works best for you?

Ho Wan Chun: Social networks like Facebook and Instagram works for us as a way of information sharing and self-promotion.

Huang Chi Teng: Design platforms like Behance do sometimes help us get new work and clients.

What does good design mean to you at HOUTH, and how do you see its role in your society? Do you think it can solve larger issues it faces?

Ho Wan Chun: Good design not only solves the problem, but also stands the test of time and makes it sustainable.  

Good design is changing our society now. Take the Aestheticell textbook redesign project, for example. This project invites designers to redesign textbooks for elementary school students, not only visually but also functionally. The Big Issue Taiwan helps the homeless to make their living easier. The TFT (Teach for Taiwan) focuses on rural education in Taiwan. There are many young companies or organizations dedicating themselves to improving Taiwan’s culture and life through social design.

Product photography for Danzo studio

Do clients in Taiwan appreciate good design and understand what it takes?

Huang Chi Teng: We are very lucky! All the clients we’ve met understand the possibilities of the creativity. At the same time, they are willing to take the bold, unique and creative direction we suggest.

In your opinion, what are the top design studios from Taiwan that everyone should know?

Ho Wan Chun and Huang Chi Teng:

Wang zhi hong

Aaron Nieh

Timonium Lake (Ho Chia Hsing)

Lin Xiao Yi

Onion Design Associates

HOUTH animated the JJ and Jason Mraz "I am alive" music video

Last question: How can all designers and design communities from other countries do a better job of communicating with each other? How can we become more engaged with Taiwan’s design community? Are there any blogs or specific magazines we can follow?

Ho Wan Chun and Huang Chi Teng:

We still don’t know how, but we hope there will be a system to support designers and help them become more engaged in the international design community in the future.

Social networking is probably the best way to engage with the Taiwanese design community, but most of the content is probably written in Mandarin. It’s a pity that we still don’t have a blog or magazine that helps us (especially graphic designers) build a design community that can connect internationally.

Thank you so much for sharing us your time and thoughts with us, Ho Wan Chun and Huang Chi Teng. I agree that designers could benefit profoundly from being more connected across countries and languages, and I hope we keep getting closer to that.

In the meantime, be sure to follow HOUTH's work and read our other interviews with design communities around the world – the talent, inspiration and information out there is endless.

November 9, 2018No Comments

How to Land a Job at COLLINS

COLLINS creates strategies, builds brands and launches campaigns for some of the most recognized brands of our time. You've likely seen their work for Coca-Cola, Airbnb, Spotify, Ogilvy and recently, Mailchimp.

What I love about the studio is that, despite its prestige and Brian Collins' personal legacy in the industry, COLLINS still feels "small" and accessible – even to young designers just entering the field. And that seems to be intentional. In this interview, Brian Collins and Karin Soukup talk about encouraging and enabling designers to do great work, what they look for in a new hire and how we might get a job working on their design team.

Hey Brian and Karin, thanks so much for taking the time to talk with us. Let's get right to it: Looking at your current creative team, how many of them came through internal referrals or headhunting, and how many came through the traditional application process?

Brian: None of our current employees were identified through headhunters. About 15% came through our traditional application process. The majority of the talent at COLLINS is sourced by creative leadership and our director of talent, Yocasta Lachapelle. Many are former graduate students from the class I teach at the School of Visual Arts MFA program.

COLLINS' brand reimagination and redesign for Mailchimp

Say we decide to reach out with a cold email. What kind of message gets a reply? Any secrets for us? Or should we just fill out the job form?

Brian: No tricks. No gimmicks are necessary – unless you love tricks and gimmicks and are really good at them. Send us whatever is right for explaining what you think you might add, what new, unique value you might bring here.

Look, design is not about what we do. Design, for us, is about what we encourage and enable others to do. For us, it’s about building tools, environments and communications that help other people make meaningful things possible. Design should enable people to do whatever they need or want to do with their time. Time itself is the most valuable asset anyone has. Money, objects – you can get all of that back. Time is irreplaceable. So, we work to fill and inform the time people give us with clarity, understanding, support or joy.

The way I see it, it’s a moral transaction. Did that client get your very best in that transaction? Did their customers get the finest you can do? Did you give them the best you had? Or did you fizzle out, or give up when it got difficult?   

We go all in. Everyone here goes all in. We’re kind of...relentless.

On the other hand, we also just like playing around with words, building models, filming, coding, drawing or making images and stuff move around on the screen until we land on something we love and go – STOP, STOP! THAT’S IT!

Not to get too precious about it.

Spotify brand redesign and identity system

How important is a complete portfolio? Can I get away with not having a portfolio when interviewing at Collins?

Karin: Even if you’re young and have a limited portfolio, the work within it should demonstrate great care and attention to detail in everything you do. This is table-stakes.

Tell us one thing you never want to see again on a portfolio. Anything you wish you saw more?

Karin: We don’t want work that simply copies everything else. Our clients come to us to help them meaningfully resonate and differentiate. That means that we need to be on the bleeding edge of what is relevant, inspiring and thought-provoking. So we look for designers who are experimenting with form, tools, aesthetic sensibilities, frameworks,  ideas, new ways of collaborating – and who are always asking “why” with a lens of optimism.

vitaminwater brand redesign and interaction system design by COLLINS

I heard that when someone sends their portfolio to Brian, he sends book recommendations in response. Besides being well-read, do you like the idea of designers being invested in other interests? For example being active bloggers or otherwise outspoken in their community?

Karin: COLLINS prides itself in solving unique brand challenges with appropriately unique answers. We don't want to be known for having a “style.” To keep ourselves fresh, we are constantly looking to history and the emerging fringes of culture to inspire what’s possible – and making sure that we can translate these ideas into stories that bring breadth and dimensionality and relevance to a brand. This includes hiring folks with a variety of interests that influence their work (and our work) in unique ways.

Part of COLLINS' exhibition design and advertising campaign for the 'Inflatables' exhibit at San Francisco's Exploratorium museum

Say I make the first pass and get invited to an interview. Can you describe the interview process as briefly as possible?

Brian:

Round 1: Informational meeting with the director of talent

Round 2: Meeting with creative directors

Round 3: Meeting with designers and strategy lead

Final Round: Meet with me. But if they’ve made it that far, it’s pretty much done. I trust my colleagues.

"We expect everyone to have a second secret 'superpower,' so to speak. Hybrids."

What are the secondary skills you look for in a designer, besides common soft skills? For example, do you prefer coding skills over photography skills? Writing skills over coding?

Brian: We don’t look for particular secondary skills, but we expect everyone to have a second secret “superpower,” so to speak. Hybrids. We love to hire great people who are also remarkable at something else—it could be coding or writing, but it could just as easily be cooking, science fiction, scuba diving, biking, singing, painting, Taekwondo...anything. I believe those collisions expand us.

We also search for an ineffable quality. People who have or seek a greater sense of purpose and understanding of how design can help them achieve something bigger than themselves. I’ve always liked this thought from Friedrich Nietzsche: “He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.”

I think everyone here has that.

The Dropbox brand redesign and marketing campaign, which I've personally seen around NYC

Would you hire someone who is a cultural fit over someone who has more industry experience and hard skills?

Brian: No. We look for people who make a new cultural contribution, not a “cultural fit.” What a pernicious, horrible question – “do you fit?”

It’s not about finding people who are exactly like us or share a certain narrow personality trait. It's more about finding those rare people who are great at what they do, who will contribute something brand new, something different to the creative spirit of our company. And that we’ll be able to accommodate their unique way of doing it. By that I mean we support introverts, ambiverts and extroverts, anyone to be themselves. We get stronger by adding difference.

E pluribus unum. Or as Mr. Spock would say “infinite diversity in infinite combinations.”

I’m insane for Star Trek. Sorry.

Architecture/interior design and exhibit for the Jim Henson Exhibition at Museum of the Moving Image in New York City

Collins has been described as “the dream agency for young designers.” What qualities do you look for in a young designer? How can we best prove our potential?

Karin: I’ve outlined a number of the characteristics that we look for in prospective employees, but if I boiled those items down it would include:

  • Craft excellence
  • Imagination & experimentation
  • Passion
  • Versatility
  • Confidence, balanced with doubt

Doubt is helpful to make sure the work is meaningful and thoughtful, by questioning its intentions and considering all possibilities. It signals an open-mindedness and recognizes that there is always room to grow. Yet confidence is a valuable and necessary tool for taking creative leaps of imagination and trusting the process of design. It goes a long way, too, in helping clients to trust us, take risks together and establish momentum along the way.

"The smart, ambitious ones read. And ask for more. We hire from the readers."

The COLLINS’ offices in San Francisco at South of Market

What are the biggest mistakes you see designers make when applying for a job at Collins? Are there any specific things that keep bothering you? 

Brian: That they assume we’re only interested in the work they’ve made or their resume. That’s part of it, for sure. But we want to know what they’re reading, the ideas they’re excited about. As you noted, I’ll always recommend books to young designers who want to work here. The few who actually read them come back and we talk about the concepts in that book rather than their resume alone. That's far more insightful and useful to us when it comes to making a hire. 90% of the people I ask to read never follow through. They vanish. So it separates the players from the talkers, fast.  

The smart, ambitious ones read. And ask for more. We hire from the readers. They’re curious and self-propelled. And they never act “big.”

We need confidence. But don’t “act big” here at COLLINS.

The library at COLLINS’ office in New York’s Greenwich Village

How do you think Collins is different when hiring new talent compared to other companies?

Karin: We’re an independent company that works for ambitious clients to help them make big changes. Each person on our team has skin in the game – there’s no room for mediocrity or “dialing in” the work. So we look for passionate folks who thrive on seeing their visions made manifest. People who work hard to develop both their voice as well as their ability to get buy-in for the work. Dedication, resilience, enthusiasm and hard work are all necessary for this. Brand systems design and communications, especially, often means working with complex organizational teams. It requires us to guide clients through foundational decisions that can often be both initially challenging, but ultimately uniquely rewarding.

___

Brian and Karin, thanks so much for your time and thoughts! We're honored to have you in the series and appreciate all the honest insights into getting a job at COLLINS.

For those interested in working with Brian, Karin and the talented COLLINS team, here are the tips to remember:

Nr. 1 - Show your versatility.

Brian and Karin both mentioned this. They want the hybrids. The people with multiple interests and skills, with a secret "superpower" that adds to their team. Show your diversity in your portfolio — and be sure to tell a cohesive story when doing so. You want to present yourself as confident and multi-dimensional, not scattered and confused in your career.

Nr. 2 - If Brian recommends a book, read it. 

I love that Brian does this with people who apply at COLLINS. Whether you read the book he recommends or not shows everything about your drive and enthusiasm, your follow-through and the way you think. Plus, it's a lot more fun than the standard application process. Take advantage of it!

Nr. 3 - "Go all in."

Be confident (but humble), give it your very best and show your passion for the work they do. COLLINS simply wants to work with talented people who love what they do and will give it their all.

For an inside look at the hiring process for companies like Spotify, Pentagram, Airbnb and more, catch up on our other How to Get a Job at X interviews.

P.S. I also interviewed Brian Collins personally on the NTMY Show podcast a while back. We talked about confusing mastery with fame, making the most of small opportunities and finding perspective as a designer. Check it out for even more helpful career advice and insights.

November 8, 2018No Comments

What I’ve Learned Three Months Into My Design Internship

This is a three-month series chronicling my internship with House of van Schneider. If you haven't already, catch up and read about my first and second months.

I’m done with my design internship! It’s been a busy three months working with Tobias and the Semplice team, but I sure had a lot of fun. Reflecting on my time, I’m quite impressed with what I have accomplished and how much ground I was able to cover in three months.

My overall design skills (layout, typography, color theory, etc.) have improved, I’m comfortable using a variety of design software and I have real-world experience working on a super cool product. I know I have a lot more to learn, but this internship taught me invaluable lessons for the design career ahead of me. Here are just a few.

Get to know your team.

We all know the importance of designers and developers working well together. But it’s also valuable for designers to develop a healthy working relationship with people outside of their immediate circle — like marketing managers, copywriters and sales associates.

Working with a fully remote team spread across several time zones meant it took extra effort to create and grow my work relationships. I only really needed to communicate with 1-2 other team members on a daily basis, but I’m glad I spent the time and effort getting to know everyone and their different roles. By doing this I was able to integrate with the team faster and become a more well-rounded designer. But most importantly, it made me more cognizant of the role my work plays in the overall operation of things.

For example, I worked closely with Lizzy (the editor of this blog) who writes the majority of the copy on the Semplice website. She recently told me how much she appreciates that I write my own copy when designing pages, instead of using Lorem Ipsum or placeholder copy. Writing my own copy helps to sort out the story of the page. It shows how everything should be lining up visually and makes it easier to know how much room to allocate for final copy. If I use Lorem Ipsum, I may be limiting the potential of the final product or worse, have to redesign it later.

Being aware of my role as a designer within a company is crucial. It helps eliminate unnecessary back and forth and increases productivity. Plus it’s just a considerate, thoughtful approach to have as an employee and peer.

"I can’t count the number of times I asked silly little questions like 'Why did you choose that color?' or 'How did you create that shadow?'"

It’s all about the process – at least for now.

To me, what makes someone a good designer isn’t how much formal training they have, what big-name clients they’ve worked with or how much money they make. A good designer is someone who has a solid design process that enables them to produce creative solutions to problems.

I’ve had the opportunity to interact with senior designers and developers during my internship, and one key thing I always try to do is understand the process behind their work by asking lots of “why” and “how” questions. There’s really no better way to get insight (and inspiration!) than by asking successful professionals in the industry. If I’m not proactively trying to pick their brains, I’m not making the most of my time.

One of many graphics I created for Semplice.com during my internship. Artwork by Pawel Nolbert.

Don’t shy away from the small questions either. I can’t count the number of times I asked silly little questions like “Why did you choose that color?” or “How did you create that shadow?” It only takes a few seconds or minutes out of their day to answer my question, but their answers might propel me forward a big step.

I’m just beginning my career and paying my dues to make sure I have a solid foundation to build on for the years to come. But once I become a more mature designer and have my own process down, I'll be able to break the rules and trust my intuition more. And while the process is important, I try not to obsess over it. Design is flexible. It’s not made up of only hard and fast rules. I don’t want all the tools and processes to become a distraction from actually doing the work.

Progress is progress.

As designers (or really, whatever your profession may be) we’re often our own harshest critic. This can be a great source of motivation, but when things go awry, it’s easy to fall down a rabbit hole of insecurity. There are many times I feel as though I won’t ever reach the level of the designers I look up to, but when I take a step back (or when I’m forced to), I can see that my skills really have grown.

I recently took a look at some work I created a few months back and compared it to my more recent work. There was only a difference of a few months, but I still noticed little improvements and that’s reason enough for celebration. Even though I’m still new to this whole thing, I’ve found it essential to take that step back from my daily hustle and celebrate the progress I’ve made. Progress is progress no matter how little or big, and I deserve to be proud of myself.

One of a series of posters I've created over the past few months – a fun creative exercise to balance my everyday work.

Have fun!

Every day, I try to be a better designer than I was the day before. I do my best to stay motivated and inspired. I ask questions, I work extra hours if needed and I always put my best foot forward. But I try not to take myself or my work too seriously 100% of the time, or it can become overwhelming.

I decided to pursue a career in design because I thought I’d be good at it, it seemed interesting and it looked like fun. I try not to forget that when I get stressed out over my work. Having a positive attitude and taking time to work on personal projects helps me keep my excitement level up and also acts as a little recharge for my creativity.

I’m sad that the end of my internship is here, but I’m grateful for everything I’ve learned and the fantastic team I got to work alongside. I really hope that some of the lessons I’ve learned working here will be encouraging to other new designers out there. Keep at it, work hard and do what you can to stay inspired. I know I’ll be taking all these lessons along with me to my next position, wherever that may be. I just hope the next crew I work with is half as great as the team here. Work doesn’t really seem like work when you have good company.

November 5, 2018No Comments

The best work I’ve ever done

What's your favorite project you’ve worked on? What’s the best work you’ve ever done?

I am often asked some form of this question in interviews, and I always struggle with it. I can never think of an answer I won’t cringe about later. Not only do I feel awkward and self-indulgent answering questions like this, but I am also rarely satisfied with my own work.

I’ve worked on plenty of enjoyable projects and I’m proud of the work I do overall. I share a range of my projects and speak positively about them in my portfolio. But narrowing my career down to one “best” or “favorite” project implies that I’m totally happy with it, and I never am. It feels like I’m saying this is the most I am capable of doing. That I’ve already done the best I can do.

It seems many creatives feel dissatisfied with their own work. An overly critical eye and imposter syndrome tend to be part of the job description. But why are we most critical with ourselves?

Early on in our career, it’s the difference between our talent and our taste. Like someone who has a beautiful image in their head and can only draw a stick figure, it can be crushing to see the gap between our ideas or taste and our actual talent.

As Ira Glass puts it, “For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you.”

As a young designer, you know what good design is, but you can’t seem to create designs that live up to that standard. As you keep working hard and growing in your career, you close that “gap” and your taste and talents start to align.

Yet now that I’m more seasoned in my career, this self-critical nature still comes down to the difference between my vision and the execution. Perhaps it is perfectionism at play, a weird form of pride in itself. I can see everything I intended to do versus what I actually did. I see the things missing that I meant to include. I notice all the parts where the image in my head doesn’t match the final result.

While the viewer may notice these shortcomings, it’s more likely they don’t. After all, they don’t know exactly what I intended to do. They only see the final result. Or maybe they do notice and that’s fine too. That either helps me improve or, at this point in my career, I choose to trust my taste and talent.

Still, I don’t think I will ever be 100% satisfied with my work. To me, that means I’m being complacent. That I’m not challenging myself enough. Despite our world's obsession with it, I’m not striving for the very best. I’m only striving for better.

Instead of letting the self-doubt stifle me, I let dissatisfaction drive me to keep creating. I compete with myself to do better than the last time. I like to think my best project is my next project. This way I am motivated to see what’s ahead, rather than looking behind.

November 2, 2018No Comments

Semplice portfolio inspiration of October 2018

Once a week, we handpick two portfolios created with Semplice to feature in our Showcase.  Now we're sharing our favorites from the past month, all in one place.

I'm always inspired by the creatives who use Semplice and enjoy looking through our submissions each month. In September, we featured portfolios and websites from graphic designers, illustrators, branding studios and more.

Take a look at this month's top design portfolios below to get inspired and meet new designers. And if you've created your own portfolio with Semplice, be sure to submit it to our Showcase here.

For more design portfolio inspiration, visit the Semplice showcase. And if you've created your own portfolio with Semplice, be sure to submit it to our Showcase here. I'll be back next month with more of our monthly favorites!

P.S. Header image by Nolwen Cifuentes

October 29, 2018No Comments

What is good design?

With our Design Around the World series, we’ve interviewed designers from 18 different countries and counting. We ask a few of the same questions in each interview, to compare each designer’s different way of thinking within the context of their culture.

One of the questions we always ask is this: What does good design mean to you and why do you think it’s important?

Many answers echoed each other, affirming truths ingrained in us as designers. Others brought new perspectives to light. All of them reminded me why I believe in design and love doing what I do.

Good design connects feeling with logic

"Good design is not just a pretty design — that is a given. What's most important to us is that the story holds water and strikes an emotion with the beholder and most of all, that it makes an impact on somebody's organization and in somebody's life.” - Yah-Leng from Foreign Policy in Singapore

“We believe in design that makes people move, makes them feel, makes them happy or sad and forces them to do something. We want to find connections between logical things and the deep feeling around us.” - Studio Melli in Iran

Good design changes society

“A ‘good design’ that I identify with makes it possible for more people to improve their quality of life. Even if it is improved a little, I think it is a good design.” - Nod from A Black Cover Design in China

“Design isn’t something we really need in order to survive as a species, but good design helps us somehow put form and sense into what we see around us. I’d say design can’t really solve issues in our country by itself, but it can help in how others perceive these issues and influence them to change it.” - Plus 63 from the Philippines

“We think design is a way of movement. We have been working on not only client projects, but our own personal projects in an effort to share our voice with our society. In that way, collaboration with nonprofit organizations has meaning for us. We think our role as designers is making effective visual language that conveys their voices and ours. That makes a meaningful change for society. That is why many of our clients are nonprofit organizations and cultural institutes.” - Everyday Practice in South Korea

Good design solves a problem

“For me, good design is coming up with the best (clever and thoughtful) solution to a problem. It’s important to show that designers can contribute to the success of a small business, help a community recover from disasters and even assist in developing effective government programs.” - Dan from Plus63 in the Philippines

“Good design isn’t just about aesthetics or design according to our own preference. We reckon good design should provide a solution to a problem that could make a positive impact on a business and do good for society.” - LIE studio in Malaysia

Good design sells

“Good design… is design that excites, sells and perpetuates.

We always want to be remembered for making products and projects highly recognized, and for solving problems. Each project that leaves the studio should be a reason for pride and desire.” -  Isabela from Sweety & Co.

“Why do people always design something new? Why do manufacturers change the packaging of their product all the time? They want to be seen, to be recognized, to stand out on the shelf full of competitors. After all, they want the product to be sold. Whether it’s commercial or non-commercial, good design reflects the ideas of a brand.” - Christina from Backbone Branding in Armenia

"Humanity is complex; good design helps us enjoy our complexities when we can and brings simplicity when we can’t."

Good design is design that works

“I think good design is important because it just works. It’s really that simple. Less headache in trying to figure out what things are about.” - Seyi from Dá Design Studio in Nigeria

“Good design works. It just works! Humanity is complex; good design helps us enjoy our complexities when we can and brings simplicity when we can’t. In graphic design, good design is resolved thought made visual. Good design is clarity, purpose and appeal. Good design feels like a missing rib, it fits just right. Without good design, we’ll all need meds.” - Dami from Dá Design Studio

"Good design works around human capabilities... It’s our job to get everyone on the same page about something."

Good design communicates clearly

“Good design is important because it make our lives run more seamlessly. A piece of good communication design, for example, makes you understand a complex message in a matter of seconds. The interplay between the image, shapes and words creates something complex and occasionally unexpected. Good design works around human capabilities. It is so important, especially in the world today, when we are inundated and drowning in information, to get messages across as clearly, quickly and effectively as possible. It’s our job to get everyone on the same page about something.”  - Jean from Farmgroup in Thailand

“The beautification that design offers is obviously the cherry on top of the cake that’s communication. Good design then becomes the foundation of good communication.” - Animal in India

“Good design communicates efficiently and offers a strong differentiator for brands. These days it’s all about connecting people with products and services — not only for the product or service attributes, but for sharing a philosophy of life, a way of thinking.” - Daniela from Anagrama in Mexico

Good design changes behavior

“Good design for us is not about making things look and feel good; it should also change people’s behavior in a positive way, and we feel it is our job to continue educating our clients on this.” - Constant in Hong Kong

Good design is dynamic

“Good design is attentive, experimental, brave, honest and transparent, rooted in its context and of the moment; specific to its context but broad in its reach. It captures the essence of a subject and is flexible enough to evolve with it. It is simultaneously unique and universal.” - Dale from Hoick in South Africa

To see a lot of good design from countries like Pakistan, Nigeria, Brazil, Iran, China and more, catch up on our Design Around the World series.

October 23, 2018No Comments

Buy your time

I remember many times in my life when I felt certain it was time to make a change. As soon as the realization hit me, there was this sense of urgency to make it happen right away. I felt that if I wasn’t where I was supposed to be, I should get out quickly.

I’ve heard from many friends and readers who have been at a turning point like this as well. They dislike their job or they’re ready to make a full career change. Or they might have some plan to build something or start a business of their own. Or they have no idea what they want and they’re feeling directionless. Whatever the case, I encourage them to question that sense of urgency.

I took a lot of risks when I was younger, many of which seem foolish in retrospect. I dropped out of school and turned down the few jobs I was offered so I could pursue work I wasn’t qualified to do. Thankfully, these risks worked out. Now, while I still enjoy taking risks and think they’re important for growth, I’ll often have a backup plan in mind. But on top of that, I always try to buy myself time.

Say you have a full-time job as a designer, but you want to go freelance. With the current popularity of freelancing, it almost feels like you have to quit your job now or you’ll miss your window. My advice: Stay, at least for a little while.

Define a specific deadline and work hard until then. Learn as much as you can about design while you’re getting paid to do so. Observe your co-workers to learn how they close a sale or interact with clients. Take on side projects (if you can do so and still be a good employee) while you have the safety net of your current job, and slowly build your client base. Most importantly, save as much as you can.

How much money do you need to live? What’s the minimum amount you’d need to scrape by for say, six months? How about for a year? Calculate that, and be honest with yourself, then figure out how long it would take to make that money at your full-time job. That length of time is your deadline. It’s the hope that will get you through the next few months or years of work you may not want to be doing.

During that time, you might be working nights and weekends. You will probably live a different lifestyle while you save your six-month cushion. It may sound unpleasant, but your deadline will carry you through. It will motivate you to work even harder because you know it’s only temporary. You have your finish line in mind, and that little secret will drive you forward.

This is what I did when planning my move from Austria to New York. I even made a spreadsheet and compared cost of living between the two cities (which I share in detail in my Let’s Go to NYC book). Then I continued working, taking on design jobs with my current studio, until I had the cushion I needed. Cesar Kuriyama did this before creating the 1 Second Everyday app, which now has millions of downloads. (You can hear more about Cesar’s story here.) Illustrator Malika Favre, whose work you’ve probably seen in The New Yorker and elsewhere, uses this strategy every time she makes a big life or career transition. You can listen to our NTMY conversation about it here.

The concept seems obvious, and it is. A lot of people more strategic and serious than me would call it a given. Of course you’d calculate and save before taking a risk, right? That’s not always the case for people who feel desperate or fed up with their current situation. It’s easy to rush into something or let anxiety control your next move. Then you potentially find yourself in a more desperate situation than before, struggling to make your dream work.

The beautiful thing about this approach is that it removes that urgency and panic. You’ve bought yourself time. You have the security of what you’ve learned, a client base you can build on and savings you can live on while you’re getting your new plan off the ground. Now you don’t have to compromise or take on projects you don’t want to do. You can only focus on what you do want.

Put simply, it’s about being strategic and patient. You’re just working toward your goal within the safety of your current situation. But if you think of it as buying your time, it changes everything. You’re in control, you’ve removed the feeling of crisis and you’re making it happen for yourself. You can breathe a little easier because you’ve extended your window.

Buy yourself time and you’re technically paying for peace of mind. That’s worth a lot.

October 22, 2018No Comments

Design in China 🇨🇳 featuring A Black Cover Design

With this long-awaited Design Around the World feature, we're finally looking at design in China with A Black Cover Design.

We've had China on our list since the beginning of the series, knowing full well the vast country and its design community can't be easily summarized. Guang Yu and Nod Young, founders of the Beijing-based creative studio, were quick to enlighten us. Design in China is still relatively new and with that comes unique challenges and opportunities – including design education, finding perspective on globalization, and making an effort to challenge one's own narrowness. Let's get into it.

First, let’s talk about your studio. How did you meet and ultimately co-found A Black Cover? What made you decide to start your own studio together?

Nod: We used to work in a four-people studio called tomeetyou Graphics. About three years ago, we two started the current studio A Black Cover Design, focusing on brand design. The other two former partners also set up their own studio, focusing on life aesthetics.

Guang: We got to know each other very early. The first time I saw Nod's works was at the first “Get It Louder” exhibition, and I really appreciated it. After working together, we have more trust in each other, and we've found that our understanding of design is also very consistent.

Nod and Guang Yu on a sunny Beijing day

Tell us a bit about the Chinese design community. I know design in Shenzhen is strong, but is it beyond key communities like this? Do many platforms or events exist that help you connect with other designers and share your voice in the community?

Nod: The situation in Shenzhen is quite special. In Shenzhen, there is an organization called Shenzhen Graphic Design Association which can be joined through recommendation, voting and other links. Although this organization contains "Shenzhen" in its name, its members come from different parts of China. 

I feel that in China, graphic designers receive much attention as exhibitions and cultural exchanges are frequently organized. The graphic design community is also very big, attracting sufficient attention from society. We two are relatively self-independent in China and basically do not join any organization.

Guang: Apart from some local designers in Beijing, we don't have much contact with designers in Shenzhen and other areas. There may be only a few ones. Neither of us really likes frequent communication in the industry. The way to release one's voice is through one's works. I believe that you are interviewing us today not because an association recommended us, but because our work was displayed on a certain platform, and the impact of our work is being felt.

Nod: I think designers should communicate with the public through the normal “application” method, such as commercial sales. Either communication via associations and agencies or “internal communication” belongs to communication between designers.

The competitive landscape seems fierce in China, especially in the tech space. With competition and technology changing so rapidly, companies race to build their next app releases, for example. How does this compare to or affect the graphic design industry?

Nod: Ten years ago, no one cared about graphic design in China and the social economy would not tilt toward graphic design. In the recent decade, especially in the past five years, graphic design has received unprecedented attention for reasons such as economic development, technological innovation, increased consumer awareness among common people, and importance attached to design by companies and brands.

Guang: The previously “quiet” situation in the field of graphic design was because everyone's demand remained on a shallow level, and there was no competition between brands. At that time, everyone did not have brand awareness and did not need to maintain a visual image. Just as in a time marked by extreme material scarcity, it would be very nice to have a military coat. You would not consider what brand it was, you just needed to ensure your mere subsistence.

Now that the problem of mere subsistence has been solved, everyone can take time to pick style, texture, color, brand and design, which is a kind of satisfaction for spiritual needs. So the development of graphic design is directly correlated with the improvement in people's living standards. And be it the fierce competition in other commercial fields or graphic design being valued nowadays, it is actually a manifestation of improved living standards.

How do China’s heritage and culture influence its design style and set Chinese design apart? Do you have any examples of Chinese design style you can share with us?

Nod: The local culture of the Chinese nation basically exists in people's living habits. For example, the age distribution in China's current society is featured by a majority of middle-aged and elderly people, so their living habits will affect the overall social environment. However, these middle-aged and elderly people may not always conform to the tradition. They differ in cultural literacy, and most of them are even deficient in this respect. They have special preferences. For example, they like the bustle, red color, gorgeous clothes, etc., thereby affecting the visual reality of Chinese society. By contrast, the proportion of real traditional cultural factors is very small, especially on the application level. Most people only have a smattering understanding of these factors.

So look at the work that graphic designers are engaged in today. Take me and Guang Yu as an example. We can be counted as more of an "urban type.” From the perspective of the scope classification all across China, our style and mode can't be ranked as 5%.

A peaceful corner of the ABCD office

Guang: We don't have any special "Chinese style" to share with you but rather, being Chinese, what we are doing now is a kind of Chinese style. What I mean is in today's globalized world, we don't want to use the "Chinese style" to pursue design. The design we output is neither the Eastern nor Western style. Instead, it is a solution to the problem.

Nod: For example, today we use a Chinese-style "moire pattern.” Who is it intended for? How many people on earth will have an inner yearning for this pattern? We don't know about it ourselves, so we can't make a judgment. Another example: A dragon is a Chinese symbol known to the entire world. However, what different responses will the dragon trigger when consumers see it? I think every person and every case is different.

Speaking of globalization, I read that concern about western influence and its effect in the world today is a topic on the minds of Chinese artists and designers. Some see globalization as a threat to China's distinct cultural heritage. How do you feel about globalization and its impact on design in China?

Nod: China is indeed a very stubborn country. During the Qing dynasty, foreign envoys hoped to establish diplomatic relations with her, yet the emperor's reaction was that such relations were unnecessary. I think this was not only caused by the backwardness or isolation, but also by the Chinese people's reluctance to communicate with the outside world.

Today, it has become quite different. For example, in the Wangjing area, Beijing, you may find yourself getting in touch with the Korean culture. However, the Chinese people's psychological aspects still remain the same. For example, the way they get on with others. So in my opinion, this issue should focus on what changes "globalization" will bring to the Chinese people.

Guang: "Globalization" is a boon. Some people may think that this is a threat, which goes against my understanding. Doesn't the U.S. president always stress the China Threat Theory in his speech? It seems that there are idiots everywhere. The influence of “globalization” can have both good and bad impacts on design. It makes everyone share something in common, such as aesthetics and expression method. But at the same time, some of the individuality disappears, and life and design become monotonously the same.

Even those who don’t speak Chinese appreciate the beauty of Chinese calligraphy, and I know it was important to China’s visual culture in the past. What’s your relationship with calligraphy as designers today? Do you often use it in your work, and do you see other designers using it in effective and unique ways?

Nod: Calligraphy is not just a kind of character. It is a fine art and an image with text as its carrier. So when we appreciate calligraphy and Chinese paintings, we will feel an unrestrained feeling because it has no boundary: craze, grace, individuality and commonality can all possibly exist from the perspective of emotional expression. I can't say exactly what affect calligraphy exerts on design. It may exist as a gene does, instead of just a reference to a method.

Guang: I think calligraphy is great. Many designers will get in touch with the style or elements of calligraphy, but we won't deliberately refer to it in our work. Some designers around us would use the elements related to calligraphy for design. It can be said that calligraphy is still en vogue today, and the artistic conception of calligraphy is something I appreciate.

Nod: Take an example: The Dutong Tie (Stomach Ache Calligraphy Copybook) by Zhang Xu in the Tang Dynasty is a copybook to describe his stomach ache. It is also a kind of design to some extent because the calligraphy conveys his feelings about an incident – the way the calligrapher wields his brush, the character shape expresses the stomach ache he suffers from at the moment of writing. As is the case for many Chinese designers when doing their design. There will always be some content for emotional output, expressive of a certain situation in the image.

Posters also played a big role in the history of Chinese design, specifically in regard to propaganda. Is poster design still relevant/popular in the Chinese design community? Do you find it’s still an effective way to communicate a message?

Guang: In foreign countries, there are special environments and facilities to put up posters such as a poster column. However, it is forbidden to put up posters in the street by laws and regulations. In China, the design community likes to make posters for the sake of making them. A poster is more like a personal work. Previously, posters were one of the main ways to convey information. At present, due to the sophisticated network and widespread use of smartphones, the form of posters is no longer limited to paper printing.

Nod: "Haibao" in the Chinese language does not entirely overlap with the word "poster" in the English language. Posters in China may manifest themselves more as a banner of a website, or an image matrix composed of nine pictures clicked open in a mobile phone. These are Chinese-style posters that I can easily find. So this is very different from the way foreign posters are presented. A poster may not need to be printed and the audience it addresses may not be the same, because the event it describes may happen in a remote place, not in the vicinity. For example, today I saw a poster on my mobile phone and the event it described happened in Tianjin.

I read that most designers in China are young, so design mentors aren’t very accessible yet. Design schools are graduating thousands of designers now but qualified instructors are harder to come by. Is this accurate? What is design education like in China from your experience?

Guang: The reason why thousands of designers graduated at the same time is related to China's huge population base and to the demand for design. As for whether it is difficult to find qualified instructors, I think this is a problem arising in design education. First of all, I don't think basic education is doing well. In addition, schools are not clear about what kind of population the future graduates should serve. China's design education lags a little behind, in my opinion.

Nod: I agree with Guang Yu's view. In China, people outside the education system are indifferent to education, resulting in the shortage of educational resources. In foreign countries, education is an important topic. As in today's interview, educational issues may emerge, indicating that everyone cares much about education. If a society cares little about something, then it won’t develop.

I don't think there is something wrong with Chinese teachers. Rather, they are isolated. The reason they are isolated is not that they are doing poorly. The conditions involved are complicated. For example, Guang Yu and I don’t converse with those who teach design courses in school. They may not know us. We are designers, but who are they? This is the estrangement caused by the social system's indifference to education.

Guang: Another point is that design education in school focuses more on the form of the image, which I think is a bit worse. If students taught in this way only care about the form of the image and do not touch upon the genuine needs, then I think it will always create a contradictory situation. Everyone is airing his own view without paying attention to others' ideas – meaning, I just say my needs and you provide your design. It's difficult for us to meet each other halfway.

What are the main job opportunities available for designers in China right now? Do you find that tech companies are hiring most qualified designers, or are many designers finding jobs at design studios like yours?

Nod: I can't answer this question because I don't have a survey data in hand. As far as I know, one of my students does a poor job in design. However, he makes a good fortune by cashing in on the shares of the company after it goes to public, and can quit the design business at any time. But this is an individual case. If I were him, I would have made it, or at least tried.

Guang: I also know that after graduation, some young people go to a Party A company, where they enjoy a nice income in a stable environment. But some people choose to come to studios like ours or even set up their own studios directly. These are personal choices on which I will not comment, as they are choices based on personal values.

"I think design should serve the public, not the minority. If it is really to serve the minority, then we can pursue art at any time."

In an interview with It’s Nice That, Guang Yu categorized non-commercial Chinese design into “elite” design and “power” design – an “elite designer” being someone who’s known internationally (but not locally) and not serving society, and a “power designer” being someone who works in the public sector. Why are power aesthetics more mainstream in China, as you mentioned? Do you see one or the other being a more valuable pursuit?

Guang: Why are power aesthetics more mainstream in China? I think everyone knows that it is not necessary to answer this question. Neither "elite" nor "power" design is what I go after. Maybe we set one foot on the boat of "elite design," because we're working hard enough in design. It's not that we only know how to make designs that look beautiful and win us awards instead of serving society. On the contrary, we are noticed because we've made excellent designs that serve society.

Nod: We can talk about phenomena, pursuit, ideals, but what is the reality? It is what Guang Yu once summarized. We don't pursue "power" or "elite" at all. We just do well what falls within our capacity, this is our pursuit. I think design should serve the public, not the minority. If it is really to serve the minority, then we can pursue art at any time. Today, we choose design as our career with a purpose of improving people's living standards a little, even if only ten thousand or a hundred thousand people benefit from our designs. This is my ideal.  

What would you say are unique challenges for designers in your community right now?

Nod: One is your horizon, and the other is your understanding of the times. The former is about how big the world is in your eyes. For example, Sichuan people should not think that except Sichuan cuisines, other cuisines are rubbish. The latter is our understanding of the era in which we live, whether you are willing to follow the changes in the situation and economic development to generate new design aspirations, motives and methods. I can hardly find the above in Chinese designers. Most of them are still designing things 15 years ago and haven't changed at all, though the world has already changed.

Guang: I can't speak for designers around me. But I do think that they, including myself, are challenging their own narrowness.

Nod: We are also trying to make ourselves less narrow-minded and more open-minded. This is also a challenge for us.

It seems like the government has been supportive of the design industry in China. Have you seen this to be true and do you experience tangible effects from government interest in your work?

Nod: The government's support for the design industry is tangible. Take, for example, actions such as planning a special area as a creative park. Or providing convenient conditions for young people related to creativity and innovation when they start up their businesses, through reduction in rent and other policy support. But the government won't make a person grow. What it provides is the convenience for such growth. Whether a person can do well has nothing to do with the government. I myself haven't had direct contact with the "government" in the real sense, because I don't know who the "government" is and where the "government" is. For me, it remains to be a concrete existence.

Guang: I was once invited to design by a relevant government department, but I did not follow it through because the cost of communication was too high. I think the government's demand is not specific enough compared to that of the company. By contrast, a company has its own employees and competitive pressure, and it will tell me its demand and let me know who I am to serve. In my experience dealing with that government department, the person from the government department was always stating his personal opinions and understandings, but I didn't really care whether he liked it or not. What I cared about was which group of people would like or dislike my design. So nothing came out of it finally.

As the world is getting smaller with the help of the internet, working with international clients is very common. Do you actively seek international work or has this happened naturally for your studio? And do Chinese businesses typically work with local designers and studios?

Nod: When I first operated my own studio, I targeted overseas customers which accounted for more than 80% of my business. At that time, there were not so many domestic customers and the domestic market was in a state to be further explored. At present, China's market demand is very robust. Many companies have begun to pay attention to design and attach due importance to design, and feel that design is a part of brand competitiveness. Currently, our studio focuses more on domestic design, having no time to take care of foreign markets. Besides, I am more willing to contact Chinese customers as I understand this market as well as the psychology of customers. So naturally, I take more initiative to get in touch with domestic customers.

Guang: When local designers deal with local customers, in most cases, they are more competent than overseas designers in every aspect. So are Chinese companies. In most cases, they are willing to cooperate with local designers, and meanwhile Chinese designers are gradually maturing.

How much impact does your social media presence have on getting new clients and self-promotion in general? What works best for you?

Nod: I think social media plays a big role. Social media is not the same as “socializing.” For example, I myself have trouble with socializing. If you put me in a party, I will feel ill at ease. If you ask me to post something on social media, I will be very pleased. So social media is not simply used for socializing, but as a way for an individual or a team to output and display itself, and in turn, reap an all-around understanding of itself from the outside world.

However, we do not use it as a channel for obtaining customers. Our situation is basically to obtain new customers from old customers' recommendations. The designs we have made for our customers are seen by more people, providing a commercial model for them. I have never published my works on Weibo. I have only a few words about my works, but more opinions and ideas about phenomena and events.

What does good design mean to ABCD and how do you see it impacting your country’s society as a whole?

Nod: I think a good design is "neat,” which does not refer to the material aspect.

Guang: I thought that you would comment on “good design” from a commercial perspective. However, you said what it looks like.

Nod: It's really hard to say, as there are different angles to describe. A "good design" that I identify with makes it possible for more people to improve their quality of life. Even if it is improved a little, I think it is a good design. Ikea, Uniqlo, McDonald’s, Nike... all produce good designs through the joint effort of the designer and enterprise.

Guang: I see eye to eye with him but because I used to focus on art design, I am not weary of niche design as it has its own audience. I feel that there will be problems if all designs are purely commercial in a country. From the perspective of having a good influence on both the country and community, there should be an abundance of design in different categories. Then design will be rich and interesting.

Nod: This question is also particularly relevant to what one cares about. Who I care more about are not those who are also designers like me, but the audience. When it comes to the impact on the country, I think it definitely exists. The brands we participate in have all gained attention in the industry. The success of business means to serve the public, which is equal to serving the country.

In your opinion, what are the top design studios from China (or at least Beijing) that everyone should know?

Nod: Mei Shuzhi and 702 design.

Guang: From a commercial perspective and understanding of customers, Mei Shuzhi is a new type of designer. He is a person with a sense of service, not just focusing on personal expression. In addition, designers who specialize in a specific category include Ma Shirui, Roujiang.

Nod: UDL Studio is also quite good.

Final question: How can all designers and design communities from other countries do a better job of communicating with each other? How can we become more engaged with the Chinese design community? Are there any blogs or specific magazines we can follow?

Nod: I think "exhibition" is the best way. Two designers, like two people who practice martial arts, should stage a set of boxing techniques for the purpose of communication, instead of empty talks. Just as two masters should put on a genuine fight when exchanging blows. Similarly, works are displayed together to judge their respective value, which, I think, is the best way. In addition, we can also conduct some open dialogues on the scene.

To be frank, there is no good medium domestically that only deals with design as it is too narrow.

Guang: I think competition is also a very good way. As Nod says, works are on display so that the ideas and techniques are compared, to see what can be learned from them and what experience can be drawn on as well.

Nod: It is not difficult for foreign designers to look for opportunities here in China. Of course, they should be proficient in Chinese. But customers all over the world, including Chinese customers, prefer to choose a well-known designer. So maybe you are famous abroad. However, no one may know you domestically. In view of this, you need to establish prestige for your work in the local area and give customers a reason to choose you. In my opinion, in China, it won't happen that a company or brand does not choose you as you are a foreign designer. But its reason to choose you may not be so sufficient.

Guang: You are recommended to read Details, from which we can learn about some information and special reports on art and design.

__

Guang and Nod, thank you so much for your time! I appreciate your straightforward, no-bullshit answers – this interview has been illuminating for me.

Readers, be sure to check out ABCD's website to see more of Guang and Nod's work. And if you're just now joining the Design Around the World series, catch up right here.

October 8, 2018No Comments

When you dreamed about doing what you’re doing now

Something I’ve noticed while talking to design students is a romanticizing of the industry. When first learning design, there’s this notion that when we become designers we’ll do only beautiful, world-changing work. Then, we enter the industry and learn things aren’t exactly as we expected.

It’s understandable that young designers think this way. In school, almost everything is theoretical. We are given carefully selected assignments. We are shown the best of the best work. We learn the ideal processes and tools and scenarios. Everything exists within our university bubble, showing us the way things should or could be for a designer. We have no context aside from the small window that’s been opened for us. Plus, it’s natural to romanticize any industry before we experience it for ourselves. It’s what motivates us to pursue it in the first place.

When visiting design classes and asking what students want to do with their design career, I hear a lot of the same sentiments:

“I don’t want to do boring work that doesn’t excite me.”

“I only want to do X kind of work.”

When I talk with these designers in their first or second job, they already seem disenchanted and discouraged: The work is boring. They’re not being taught or challenged enough. The projects or clients don’t align with their passions. The culture doesn’t excite them. One year in and they’ve realized their dream job isn’t all it was cracked up to be. They’re working on some social ad for a no-name client with a small budget and zero assets and searching for a new job in a separate browser window.

Idealism can be beneficial. It can make us more ambitious and confident, convinced opportunity lies around the corner. But it can also be crushing when we realize not everything is as romantic as we imagined it to be. When I first pursued design as a career, I was ready to take on the world and do big, exciting projects for clients I believe in. I soon discovered that half of the time or more, I would not be doing this kind of work. In between all those award-winning, history-making campaigns we celebrate and read about in our textbooks is the work that pays the bills. The less sexy, maybe less award-worthy but nevertheless important work.

When we were young, we were taught the world was fair. As it turns out, it’s anything but. The truth is that it’s not our company’s job to give us non-boring work. It’s our job to make the work not boring.

It’s not just our company’s job to teach or lead us. It’s our job to ask questions and find answers.

It’s not our boss’s job to challenge us. It’s our job to seek challenging work that helps us grow, whether that’s at our day job or with a side gig.

After working for more than a decade as a designer, I can promise you this: There may never be a point when you’re consistently doing only creatively fulfilling, exciting work that perfectly aligns with your passions and values. For every one perfect project, there are 10 projects you’re doing just keep the lights on. Not only is that work a reality you will learn to accept, but it’s an opportunity. Any project, no matter how small, can change your life. It’s better to realize this early and take advantage of it.

“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” Thomas Edison

I talked to designer Brian Collins about this in an NTMY podcast episode awhile ago. He spoke of a small, seemingly boring project he was assigned as a young designer that he turned into a career-changing opportunity.

“You’re given these assignments that on the face of them look like hell, [but] you can turn them into something incredible,” he said. “I believe in almost every assignment, there’s something in it… you can make it bigger, make it more interesting, more connected and turn it into something that can be certainly more fun to work on, and in some cases, profound.”

Even then, you may still get work that’s exactly what it seems on its face: Get-the job-done, do-what-you’re-asked, no-room-for-personal-creativity kind of projects. That’s fine. That’s having a job. Even those projects are helping you grow, whether you’re learning how to be faster and more efficient, or you’re making someone else’ job easier, or you’re getting a campaign out the door.

In everything, I strive to be useful. This attitude turns sludge work into an act of service. It helps me look for the positives instead of the negatives. It makes me a better teammate. It helps me offer solutions rather than placing blame. It keeps me moving forward. It’s up to us to make our job what we want it to be. It’s also up to us to be realistic, and remember work is work. Unless you’re working for yourself, it’s very unlikely you will always do exactly what you want to be doing. Actually, you probably won’t even if you are working for yourself.

Changing these unrealistic expectations is also up to those who came before you. Senior designers and publications do young designers a disservice by only sharing the success stories and the finished products. Perhaps, if we shared more of the ups and downs and the hard work behind the scenes, we’d paint a more realistic picture of a design career to young designers.

Brian Collins agrees.

“We work really hard and all we see are these huge success stories about [how] somebody opened their design firm and now they work all over the world, and now they did these projects and they have these incredible deals with brands around the world,” says Collins. “This desire to make it look seamless is, I think, bloodless. First, it doesn’t speak to how hard those people actually worked. And two, it doesn’t account for luck. Right place at the right time.”

It seems in the design industry, especially given our social-influencer, Instagram-famous world, we can easily be distracted in our career. We seek fame vs. mastery. We mix up our priorities and get the wrong idea about what it means to have a fulfilling, successful career. Like many professions, being a designer requires hard work, talent and timing. Yet unlike some professions, we are privileged to do the kind of work we do as designers. The most unpleasant projects still ultimately amount to us sitting in a comfortable chair in front of a computer screen using our minds to create an image.

There are moments when being a designer does feel as romantic as I imagined it would be. I wouldn’t still be doing it if I didn’t love it, if there weren’t nights I stayed up designing just because I wanted to. If it wasn’t a rush to solve a problem with the perfect visual. Our job can indeed be a dream job, whether we’re working in an agency, as a freelancer, on a product or for a company. Our dream job is also a job, like any other.

October 8, 2018No Comments

What I’ve Learned Two Months Into My Design Internship

This is a three-month series chronicling my internship with House of van Schneider. You can read about my first month here.

These past two months have allowed me to flex my creative muscles, especially when it comes to visual design. The bulk of my work still consists of creating graphics and designing pages for Semplice, but I’ve also been exploring some more personal projects and playing with new software (hi, Figma!).

Now that I’m fully acclimated to working with the team and have a strong grasp on the different brand styles I work with, I’ve been refining my work process. That includes learning to think critically and have a smart approach to design.

Consistency is key

In my last blog post, I wrote about how design is all about communicating a message, and how keeping that message in the forefront of my mind helps me design better. The thing is, sometimes that message can have many layers. The difficult part is prioritizing what (and how) I want to communicate.

When I first started designing web pages, I thought as long as I checked off all the items on my list (nice layout, beautiful images, consistent typography and UI elements), the page was good to go. Sometimes I’d even finish a design, look at it and think, "Well, it’s not great, but it’s good enough and I don’t know how to make it better – I’m tapped out!" Luckily, my team is great at seeing where my weaknesses lie and always comes in clutch with just the right advice.

I’ve learned that I need to start thinking about my designs from a larger perspective. It’s important that each individual element (typography, graphics, images) looks beautiful, but it’s also important that these elements work well together – that they all live in the same world. There needs to be some type of consistency between elements in a design for everything to make sense on a micro and macro level. That means if I’m going to use sophisticated, elegant images in one part of my design, I can’t be using colorful, playful images in another part. All the images need to have a cohesive tone and feel for the overall design to work. Put simply, I learned about art direction and its role in design of all forms.

Nobody’s asking you to reinvent the wheel

When I’m told to “be creative,” and “try something new,” my mind tends to translate that to “DESIGN SOMETHING CRAZY WE’VE NEVER SEEN BEFORE!” As you can imagine, the designs I churn out from that mentality usually aren’t great. I’m still learning and training myself on how to be more creative, and most of the time the process doesn’t include reinventing the wheel. It just means experimenting a bit more and getting inspired by other designs. Since I’ve been doing a lot of work for Semplice, that might mean taking a look at some other pages on the site and grabbing ideas from there to use in my designs.

This also applies to the UX and UI work I do. Take a look at the money management apps on your phone – don’t they all look kind of similar? Now take a look at your photo editing apps. These too look similar to one another. That’s because all these apps all utilize design patterns. After all, design patterns exist because they work. It’s okay to recycle ideas and re-use elements when designing. Often, creativity just means finding a different (sometimes new) interpretation of something else.

"Sometimes I’ll spend two hours working on a graphic and all I can come up with is something that looks like it could have been made in Microsoft Paint."

Don’t be ashamed of your work

This is for all the newbies and aspiring designers out there like me. Don’t be ashamed of your work. It’s OK (and even good) to fail because that means there’s room for improvement. Sometimes I’ll spend two hours working on a graphic and all I can come up with is something that looks like it could have been made in Microsoft Paint. So what do I do when I have to submit my graphic knowing I’m going to have to rework it? I’m honest about the thought process behind my design. I explain what I was trying to achieve, why I included what I did, what I think can be improved, and ask for feedback.

I’m lucky to work with the best team who recognizes my effort and always provides great feedback to help me and my designs become better. If it’s technical skills I need help with, they’ll give me tips or a little tutorial on how to do something in Illustrator or Photoshop. Other times they’ll give me some more creative direction if I’m lacking in that aspect. The point is, the more honest and communicative I am with my team, the more they can help me, and the better the end product turns out. It’s a win-win situation for everyone.

I’ve been working on some fun projects that I can’t wait to debut in a few weeks on my portfolio. Speaking of, my portfolio’s going to get a nice new look soon too. For the last few weeks of my internship, my focuses will be maximizing the time I have with my team and continuing to get inspired so I can implement new ideas into my designs.

October 7, 2018No Comments

Design in South Africa 🇿🇦 featuring HOICK

With this latest interview in our Design Around the World series, meet HOICK, a creative agency and collective based in Cape Town, South Africa.

We were immediately drawn to Hoick and inspired by their work, a strange and delightful mix of experimental art and design. At the center of the studio is Dale Lawrence and Claire Johnson. They talked with us about why it's the perfect time to be a creative in South Africa despite the challenges that designers — especially young designers – currently face.

First, let’s talk about your studio. How did you meet and ultimately co-found HOICK? What made you decide to start your own creative agency together?

Claire: We met at design college twelve years ago. We both went on to study fine art and started freelancing together during our studies, going on to work together at a small studio after graduating. Dale set off to start Hoick and I joined him a while later.

Dale: We had a friend living in London who had approached us to start a studio whereby he would source and we would service clients. That worked well for a while, but we ended up parting ways and focusing more on the local client base we had built. Relying on a local client base was a scary prospect for us initially – South Africa’s design industry can be conservative at times and creative work is often undervalued. A lot has changed since then and many independent creative practices have flourished. We work with a range of very interesting (mostly) young businesses with great energy. It’s a good place to be.

Running our own studio allows us to make our own progress and our own mistakes. We’re able to test different modes of working to see what works for us and have the flexibility to act on new ideas. It’s hard work, but ultimately it makes a big difference to motivation to know you’re doing it on your own steam.

Hoick's dreamy office space in Cape Town

Cape Town was named World Design Capital in 2014 by the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design. Is there a strong graphic design community in South Africa beyond industrial design? Do many platforms or events exist that help you connect with other designers?

Claire: The design community generally come together for cultural and social events (gallery openings, designers’ clothing launches) rather than specific design events. The design, art and fashion industry is all quite fluid in Cape Town, and there is strong support from the Cape Town creative community.

Design- and art-orientated events like First Thursdays and Ladies, Wine and Design and some larger forums such as the Design Indaba, Business of Design, Open Design Afrika and Investec Cape Town Art Fair, bring the creative community, and those interested in design and art, together.

What are the main job opportunities available for designers in South Africa right now? And are most opportunities in places like Cape Town?

Dale: Cape Town has traditionally been thought of as the creative capital of South Africa, but I would argue that Jo’burg is a strong contender for that title now.

Most job opportunities are with digital or advertising agencies servicing corporate clients. It’s difficult for independent agencies to achieve stability enough to grow in size without seriously compromising the standard of their work, so there aren’t many job opportunities provided by studios that are producing good, critical work. It’s a bit of a problem, because younger designers often aren’t able to receive proper mentoring to get off the ground.

That said, there are many opportunities for freelance creatives to collaborate. While the only consistent members of the studio are the two of us, we draw from a large network of independent creative people depending on the needs of the project.

A few of several sculptures Hoick created for Littlegig Festival

South Africa has been called “the rainbow nation" due to the range of cultures, languages, and religions there. Does this diversity influence the design coming out of South Africa in any way? What specific influences or styles do you notice? 

Dale: I think South Africa still has a long way to go to achieve the multiculturalism and the integration of diverse tastes and aesthetics we are striving for. Slow progress in economic transformation and the Western-centric status quo have lead to many (most) not embracing each other’s points of view as sources of inspiration, rather than points of difference.

It’s a great position to be in as an artist or designer in South Africa; our attempts to create work that speaks across cultural divides will hopefully contribute to a greater understanding of each other’s cultures in the greater scheme of things, and to the realization of South Africa’s founding vision of an overarching culture built on the celebration of diverse viewpoints.

The contemporary art industry stands out as the most progressive of our industries in this regard. Artists like Athi-Patra Ruga, Zanele Muholi, Billie Zangewa and Igshaan Adams are among the most accomplished of the new generation of South African artists. They are making massive strides in the creation of an African aesthetic that is representative of the vast multiplicity of the people of Africa. There are also those, like Manthe Ribane and Dear Ribane, who are breaking the barriers between music, performance and art.

Claire at work

Speaking of art, you both have post-graduate degrees in the field of art and design. Is it common for designers to seek a formal education like this in your community? What is the quality of design education like in South Africa?

Claire: It is fairly common for designers to have diplomas or degrees in design, communication, advertising or fine art. Also, the crossover between fine art and design has become quite fluid – the two practices inform each other and strengthen the depth and scope of work.

There are some very good design colleges where one can obtain degrees and postgraduate diplomas, but as yet there are not opportunities for masters degrees in design. This is something that will hopefully come with time, but people seeking master’s or doctorate degrees in design fields have to do them in Europe or America. There is a big gap for a master’s degree in design in South Africa.

"Countless fresh and important design voices are lost as people are unable to break through into the creative field."

What are the other unique challenges for designers in your community right now?

Claire: Trust and bravery. Most South African companies are highly conservative and tend to look at what others are doing to guide decisions. Some local brands want to push the envelope (in theory) like they see some international brands doing, but are too afraid that their audiences won’t “get it” and commit. They don’t give the public enough credit. Design doesn’t need to be didactic to communicate effectively.

Another huge challenge is education. There is so much potential that is lost in the creative industry because of limited access to studies and training, and the high cost of higher education in South Africa. Countless fresh and important design voices, and their messages, are lost as people are unable to break through into the creative field.

Part of Hoick's identity for Hokey Poke, a poke bar in South Africa

Cost does seem to be a large barrier overall. I read that South Africa has the seventh-highest per capita income in Africa, yet poverty and inequality remain widespread. When talking with designers from countries in similar positions, they explained good design is considered a luxury for this reason. Is that the case in South Africa?

Dale: It is the same here. It is assumed that people with limited economic means simply require access to inexpensive goods and services. The sad result is that this becomes an excuse to offer poorly considered, cheap things that are unsatisfying and often cost more in the long run, while companies profit from their lack of concern. High levels of inequality contribute to those statistics.

With regards to communication, businesses are often scared that more unique concepts will “go over people’s heads,” which becomes another excuse to offer generic services and communicate them with generic designs that satisfy no one.

It is less that design is a luxury, but rather that many businesses in South Africa (particularly the large ones) are content not understanding their audience, because their audience often has no alternative but to use their product – so there’s no incentive for them to change.

You mentioned that when starting Hoick, you decided to work with local clients. Is that still the case?

Claire: We’ve worked with international clients on several projects, but currently most of our clients are local.

It makes a lot of sense for international clients to work with South African agencies: the cross-pollination of our different contexts and points of view makes for very exciting work, and the exchange rate is beneficial. But in our experience it only works out well if the client has made the decision to work with us based on merit and character, never when price is the main motivation.

Hoick's tapestry for Max Bagels

How much impact does your social media presence have on getting new clients and self-promotion in general? What works best for you?

Dale: We rely mostly on word-of-mouth and people finding us through projects we have done before. We find it works best when clients and collaborators are directly familiar with work we’ve done and are specifically looking for our approach.  

Claire: We use our Instagram account as a behind-the-scenes, as projects often take a while to finish and we want people to know what we are up to. It’s less a tool for getting new business than it is for keeping in touch with peers.

More from Hoick's identity for Hokey Poke

What does good design mean to HOICK, and how do you see it impacting your country’s society as a whole? Do you think it can solve larger issues it faces?

Dale: Good design is attentive, experimental, brave, honest and transparent, rooted in its context and of the moment; specific to its context but broad in its reach. It captures the essence of a subject and is flexible enough to evolve with it. It is simultaneously unique and universal.

Claire: Design has the power to communicate without words and across languages. Any tool that can help people understand each other better will be powerful and important for the future of South Africa. That is the main hurdle we as South Africans face right now, to understand and communicate better.

"Bits and Pieces" by Dale for an exhibition titled "On Second Thought"

In your opinion, what are the top design studios from South Africa that everyone who might be not familiar with the South African design community should know?

In no particular order:

Ben Johnson / Bad Paper (great book design and publisher of editioned books and art)

Jana and Koos (good crossover of design and art)

Studio H (design through the lens of food)

MAL Studio & @mal_ideas4good (graphic)

Studio Muti (illustration and animation)

Utopia (balance of NPO projects and client work)

Porky Hefer Creations (furniture)

Lukhanyo Mdingi (fashion)

Lorne (jewelry)

Dokter and Misses (furniture)

AKJP (fashion)

Ninevites (textile)

Claire and Dale clean up nicely. Photo by Jonathan Kope - jonathankope.com

And now to our final question: How can all designers and design communities from other countries do a better job of communicating with each other? How can we become more engaged with the South African design community? Are there any blogs or specific magazines we can follow?

h10and5.com

thelake.co

inter-magazine.co.za

chipsonline.co.za

nataal.com

adjective.online

___

Dale and Claire, thank you very much for your honest and eloquent answers. I'm inspired by your work and excited to learn more from South Africa's design community.

To see more of Hoick's work, check out their website right here. Be sure to also visit Claire's website and Dale's website to see their individual art, and explore the resources they shared here as well.

And until our next interview, catch up on the Design Around the World series featuring studios from Iran, Armenia, Brazil and more.

October 4, 2018No Comments

Semplice portfolio inspiration of September 2018

Once a week, we handpick two portfolios created with Semplice to feature in our Showcase.  Now we're sharing our favorites from the past month, all in one place.

I'm always inspired by the creatives who use Semplice and enjoy looking through our submissions each month. In September, we featured portfolios and websites from graphic designers, design studios, art directors, photographers and more.

Take a look at this month's top design portfolios below to get inspired and meet new designers. And if you've created your own portfolio with Semplice, be sure to submit it to our Showcase here.

For more design portfolio inspiration, visit the Semplice showcase. And if you've created your own portfolio with Semplice, be sure to submit it to our Showcase here. I'll be back next month with more of our monthly favorites!

P.S. Header image by Susanne Janssen

October 1, 2018No Comments

Provoking without fear

I’ve always believed that provoking your audience was something to strive for as a creative person. Provoking means standing out. Challenging social norms. Making a difference. But with the desire to provoke comes fear. The word “provoke” has negative connotations for a reason. To provoke is to incite a feeling, and often that feeling is anger.

Many great artists provoked society. Édouard Manet with his nude paintings, Pablo Picasso with his artistic condemnation of fascism, Jackson Pollock with his painting style itself. These artists are remembered for their controversial works of art. They upset a lot of people during their time. It’s what set them apart.

But I’m curious if Manat, Picasso and Pollock anticipated the response they received. Surely they knew their work was challenging the status quo. But did they fear their audience’s response? Did they wonder if it might harm their career or reputation, or if people might misinterpret their intentions? Did that fear ever stifle their voice and creativity?

To provoke is to stimulate or draw something forth. You can provoke laughter or outrage, positive and negative responses. But when you want to make an impact or disrupt an accepted way of doing things, a purely positive response is impossible. It contradicts the goal itself. As a creative person, doing provoking work means you will inevitably upset people. The question is whether you accept and embrace that, or let your desire for acceptance stifle you.

"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."  Friedrich Nietzsche

Tim Raue is a German chef whose unapologetic effort to provoke earned him two Michelin stars. Raue had a rough upbringing and roamed the streets of Berlin as a gang member when he was a teen. Now he’s running one of the greatest restaurants in the world from the same city. But his attitude toward food and life is one that many find abrasive.

“At the beginning of my career, I made the decision that it’s better to provoke and to overdo it than to be average,” Raue says in an episode of the Netflix series, Chef’s Table. “Sometimes I over-flavor because I want to provoke. I want to awake the people.”

His philosophy is demonstrated not only in his food but in his kitchen. Raue prides himself on being straightforward with his staff, sparing no feelings to share his own. He flings demands and curses across the kitchen, gives harsh feedback without hesitation. He’s provoking in every sense of the word.  

“His Wasabi Langoustine displays his ability to surprise you,” says food critic Julien Walther. When you eat the Langoustine the flavors are so spicy, it’s like Tim punching you in the face.”

Ursula Heinzelmann, author of “History of Food Culture in Germany,” struggles to describe Tim as a chef, dancing around words until finally admitting he can be an “arrogant bastard.” Being provocative doesn’t make you the most popular chef, she explains, but the Berlin food scene would not exist without him.

Now, there’s an obvious difference between provoking and intentionally causing harm. You can challenge or make people uncomfortable without hurling insults and being harsh. Provocation is an art, and different people approach it differently. Most choose to package it into their work or art, to provoke passively. Meaning: It’s typically not the artist that provokes, it’s their work. 

But I appreciate Raue’s blatant pursuit of provocation. He makes it resoundingly clear that he wants to create a response in people. And he does. Two Michelin stars aside, Raue is fulfilled by his work. He’s the first one to say he’s expressing himself and living out his purpose.

“Of course I want to provoke, Raue says. “It is my personality. I’m not the one who’s sitting in the corner silent.”

I believe the greatest and most effective creative minds approach their work like Tim Raue. Whether they consciously aim to provoke or not, they accept that potential response. They welcome it.

Whether I’m designing or writing, I want to do provoking work rather than sit in the corner silent. If everyone’s nodding their heads and agreeing with me, I’m not trying hard enough. And I’m certainly not being honest.

September 25, 2018No Comments

How to Get a Design Job at Red Antler

Red Antler is a branding studio based in New York that works exclusively with startups. They've helped launch and grow brands like Casper, Birchbox, Brandless and more.

I find Red Antler's type of work especially exciting, as they get to be there at the beginning with these nascent businesses, almost like a founding partner, and help introduce them to the world. We talked with Simon and Maureen about what they look for in a designer and how we might land a job working on the Red Antler design team.


Hey Simon and Maureen, let’s get right to it! First, can you please tell us a little about yourself and what you do at  Red Antler?

Simon: I’m one of the co-founders and CCO of Red Antler. I’ve been part of the creative industry for 28 years, first as a visual artist and then as a designer and design leader. I moved to New York City from New Zealand in 1999 to work on the design team at an agency, then started my own design shop called ProAm. About a decade later, I joined forces with my two co-founders, Emily Heyward and JB Osborne, to create and grow Red Antler. We’re focused on working with startups and their founders to build their businesses using strategy and design. Red Antler started with three people on a couch. Now we have a multidisciplinary team, 100-strong, in Brooklyn.

As CCO I work with our client partners to create, guide and provoke brand worlds that bring the founders’ vision to life, and then push it one step further. I lead design teams across disciplines (digital, industrial, product etc.) to make meaningful brands that people fall in love with. I also, of course, spend a great deal of my time meeting and interviewing potential candidates for design positions at Red Antler.

Maureen: And I’m Red Antler’s head of talent. I’m responsible for helping to grow and develop our incredibly talented team. I’ve always been interested in the relationship between people and work, especially in creative environments. I’ve spent most of my career working in talent development within global agency networks prior to Red Antler, and I’ve found it tremendously rewarding to be part of this team, helping foster a culture that encourages personal and professional growth while providing the opportunity to create really amazing work.

Looking at your current design team, how many of them came through internal referrals or headhunting, and how many came through the traditional application process?

Maureen: We’re always on the lookout for interesting people and do quite a bit of proactive sourcing to find them – this accounts for about  ⅓ of our current team. The other ⅔ is a mix of those who applied directly through our job postings and referrals, both from our team and our broader network in the design industry.

Say we decide to reach out with a cold email. What kind of message gets a reply? Any secrets for us?

Simon: I prefer emails or messages that are concise and professional, not overly familiar or overconfident (we’ve never met!). It’s great to hear if you’re excited about Red Antler and more importantly why you’re excited, and why you might be well suited for a role. Ultimately, it comes down to your background, if we think your work is good and if you can positively impact our culture. An amazing email isn’t going to get you the job, but it is one data point for us that shows how well and appropriately you communicate.

Maureen: I agree. Introductory messages don’t need to be overly formal or paragraphs long. You can give us a good sense of who you are, what you’re interested in and why – using your own voice within a few lines.

"Red Antler is like a 6th founder to us." - Philip Krim, co-founder and CEO of Casper

How important is a complete portfolio? Can I get away with not having a portfolio when interviewing at Red Antler?

Simon: It’s important that we see a breadth of work. We’re always looking for variety in a portfolio – how can you stretch from project to project? We’re looking for people who can bring ideas to life using the most relevant visual vocabulary.

Not having a portfolio is not an option. If you can’t back up your email intro or the conversation we have in an interview with compelling work, then we have no way to make an informed decision. I always start the interview by asking the candidate what they are most passionate about, where they want to head in their career, what are their strengths and where they want to challenge themselves. I ask what their thoughts are about branding, and how that factors in. Then we look at the work together. In an interview, I’m not looking to go through a ton of work, but instead I’ll drill into specific projects to hear about the thinking behind them and what you specifically contributed to the project.

"I cannot reiterate this enough — I like seeing variety."

Tell us one thing you never want to see again on a portfolio. Anything you wish you saw more?

Simon: I have an aversion to designers doing their own logo for their portfolios. Better to spend your time focusing on showing your work, not how you can combine the letters of your name in a monogram. I find it distracting.

The other thing I’m wary of is people showing work that was obviously created by a large team without the appropriate credit given to the rest of the group. People passing work off as their own is counterproductive. I often see the same images from a project in multiple candidate portfolios. Better to pull out the work you actually affected and make clear what your role was.

Also — and I cannot reiterate this enough — I like seeing variety. Seeing your personal projects, work in progress or experiments demonstrates to me that you’re willing to explore new territory beyond making a polished case study. I love seeing your process, sketches and writing/notes that show me how you go about making the work.

Simon at work

Besides having a portfolio, do you like the idea of designers being invested in other interests? For example being active bloggers or otherwise outspoken in their community?

Maureen: It’s definitely something we look for. To me, one of the most special things about Red Antler is that we have so many different backgrounds and interests across our team. It really informs our work.

Simon: We really encourage all of our team to get involved in things that they’re passionate about outside of work. A design practice is a demanding pursuit, both physically and intellectually, so it’s important that people are getting refueled and refreshed, inspired by things outside of the studio. There’s currently too much of a reliance on looking at other designer’s work. That’s when things start looking the same. What about art, music, neuroscience, architecture, politics, urban design, literature, mythology? If we don’t innovate and push culture forward, we’re dead in the water. Ultimately these interests will influence our work and culture in a positive way.

"Branding the Non-Brand" - Some of Red Antler's work for Brandless

Say I make the first pass and get invited to an interview. Can you describe the interview process as briefly as possible?

Maureen: We start off with a phone interview with a member of my team where we get to know your story, how you got to where you are now and what you’re excited about. We share a bit more about our team, how we work and the particular role. It helps us start to get a sense of how you think and articulate your ideas. If we think there’s alignment, we’ll arrange to have you visit our studio in Dumbo to meet with Simon and/or a few members of our design team.

Simon: If the design leaders are collectively excited about the candidate, we’ll bring them back in to meet with more of the team. If we’re looking to bring you on full time, we’ll have you come back for another conversation. I’ll show you the work we’re doing and talk about how you’d fit into the team. This is less about the work and more about making sure we have a good rapport and seeing if the conversation flows.

Maureen: Throughout these conversations, we’re digging deeper into your work and approach, and ensuring that there’s a strong fit with our values and how we work.

I saw most of your open design positions require experience with branding or at least drawing and typography. Would you hire a skilled designer who has no previous experience in brand design? For example, say I work at a big tech company for a couple years, then decide to apply at Red Antler. Would you still consider me for the position?

Simon: I’m very focused on building a diverse team with talent that introduces new skills (both hard and soft) and interests to the team. We do look for people with solid typographic skills, though. It’s certainly a skill that can be taught, but we’d much rather spend that time addressing more complex challenges like bringing a strategy to life or doing next level execution across all of the touchpoints we’re responsible for. More important than having experience in branding is being a strategic critical thinker that can also execute creative ideas in a systematic way.

This is an appropriate pose that demonstrates strategic critical thinking.

Given the work you do, we assume you want a designer who can think strategically and critically in addition to having strong design skills. What are the other secondary skills you look for in a designer, besides common soft skills?

Maureen: I can’t overstate the importance of strategic thinking. We could see the most beautiful portfolio of design work, but if we connect with the person and they aren’t able to articulate the purpose behind their design decisions, it’s not going to be a fit for the type of work we’re doing. Likewise, we seek strategists who are passionate about and fluent in design, and client directors who understand how design and strategy come together to drive success for our clients.

Simon: Maureen’s right – a strategic approach is essential for what we do. There are no hard and fast preferences beyond the usual skill requirements. It’s all about the holistic team. Usually, we’re trying to add a skill that might amplify the work with the existing team so, it’s all contextual.

I love it when someone is curious about learning how to code, just to get their head around it. I’ve also seen great success with people who jot things down just to unpack what’s in their head and communicate with others about abstract ideas.

Would you hire someone who is a cultural fit over someone who has more industry experience and hard skills?

Simon: In looking at our team now and who we’ve had in the past, I can categorically say that cultural fit is huge. No matter how skilled you are, if you can’t be a good human being and studio citizen, then it’s not going to work out. Our process is built around teams supporting each other and collaborating across every part of the company. No one person has more value than another. We’ve had a no asshole policy since we started 11 years ago and that’s not going to change.

What are the biggest mistakes you see designers make when applying for a job at Red Antler? Are there any specific things that keep bothering you? Please complain to us! (:

Maureen: Not asking us any questions is a huge red flag. Curiosity is critical to our process and is something we look for in candidates for every single role at Red Antler. The interview process is about you getting to know us just as much as us getting to know you.

Simon: Being passive or uninformed isn’t a good look. We’re not like other companies in the way we operate. We work with many new businesses and directly with their founders who have a specific expectation about money and time. They’re all gunning for launch on a limited budget. We’ve built our whole offering around this dynamic. We want designers who like that we work with startups, and who like building things from scratch. Things move quickly with purpose around here – it’s not for the faint-hearted.

Maureen: And if I could add one more: It’s super basic, but you’d be surprised how often it’s happened. When job seekers are reaching out to multiple studios, it’s easy to cut and paste an email message. I don’t recommend this approach, but if you do this, quadruple check to make sure you’re addressing the correct person or company!

Red Antler's work for Otherland, a candle company

Do you ever hire remote designers, or do we need to be located in New York to get a job at Red Antler?

Maureen: We often engage with candidates outside of New York, in fact, we have designers from all over the world, but you need to be willing to move to New York to work side by side with us.

Simon: There’s nothing like having people in the same space — being able to look at stuff together, sketch, critique, cut up and edit on the fly, pull in other skills — it’s a very organic and somewhat messy process. We’re constantly fine-tuning and evolving. Often we’re building something that hasn’t existed before which is really exciting but also really hard.

How do you think Red Antler is different when hiring new talent compared to other companies?

Maureen: What makes Red Antler special for me is that we have so many different types of thinkers under one roof. Throughout the course of a project, we may have a brand design team, an industrial designer, a digital product designer, a strategist and a writer all bringing their unique perspectives and skills to the table to help crack a particular client’s challenge or opportunity. Challenging each other and building off of one another’s work – that’s where the magic happens. We’re not just assessing the depth of your skillset and culture fit, but also whether or not you’re wired to collaborate with strategists and designers across multiple disciplines.

Maureen with the team

Simon: The designers here get to work on such meaningful projects. These are brands that are changing conversations around sustainability, fashion, farming, politics, self-care, personal finance. Not only do you get to have a hand in building that brand, but you then get to see it out in the world, challenging the status quo and resonating with so many people.

Thanks for your honest and practical advice, Simon and Maureen! For those looking to do brand design work with Red Antler, here are a few important takeaways:

1. Show your ability to think strategically 

This is a must for a design job at Red Antler. In your portfolio and in your interview, show why your work helps accomplish the client's goals. Share why you made the design decisions you did, and the impact those decisions had on the project. Demonstrate your ability to think ahead, and understand all aspects of a project and how they connect. Show that you're capable of creating more than a beautiful design, but one that has meaning and fulfills a purpose.

2. Ask questions

This should be a given for any interview, but it's easy to forget when you're nervous and focused on having all the right answers. Research Red Antler before you meet with them. Prepare a few questions beforehand, but don't be afraid of having a real, unrehearsed conversation. The more genuine curiosity you show, the better.

3. Display variety in your portfolio

Red Antler wants to see that you have a range of skills and experience. Show a breadth of work in your portfolio, including projects that relate to the specific position you want at Red Antler.

To learn how to get a job at companies like Airbnb, Electronic Arts, Fuzzco and Pentagram, catch up on our How to Get a Job at X series right here. Almost all companies are selected based on reader requests. If you want to see a specific company in the series, send me a Tweet about it.

September 22, 2018No Comments

10 tips that make designers and developers excel as a team

It takes both the creative and technical part to successfully build and ship digital projects like websites or apps.

Having worked on the design and development side in the past years, I’d like to share a few simple principles that will hopefully make you more productive as a team and prevent failure and frustration.

1. Define a common goal

At the very beginning identify, phrase and agree on a tangible goal. This can be something like "we need to sell more products" or "users need to be able to easily find information about a certain thing." When in doubt or discussion at any moment further on, ask yourself as a team "does this action bring us further toward the goal that we defined and agreed upon at the beginning?"

2. Be as soon as possible, as specific as possible

This means: Placeholder content like the infamous Lorem Ipsum is forbidden. Use real content instead of dummy or placeholder content at every stage of your project. If no copy is available, come up with a best guess. Entering real content at the very last minute can cause situations like "Oh, actually there’s not enough space for that text" or "This page looks pretty lame with real content."

“By adding Lorem Ipsum to the design you are essentially dressing your king before you know his size.”

3. Talk early, regularly and about all the details

Discuss designs and features early-on in terms of feasibility so that everyone knows what is going to be built. This way, you avoid estimations and misunderstandings that can cost you and your team valuable time. Of course, be open to changes throughout the project as you might iterate and refine, but always keep your end goal in mind.

4. Sit next to each other

Don’t let unanswered questions trick you into making assumptions. By sitting next to each other you make communication a lot easier and can make decisions on the spot. If this is not an option, make sure you check in at least once a day for a few minutes to talk about your progress via Slack. Sitting next to each other may also increase the risk of learning from each other. Which brings me to my next point.

5. Learn from each other

Try to put yourself in the situation of your counterpart to understand what challenges they are facing. As a developer, try to "see" things more like a designer to get type sizes, spacings and layouts right. Pro tip: Hand-off tools like Zeplin make it easy for developers to scan exact measurements from designs.

On the other hand, as a designer try to have at least some sort of system behind the essential elements of your designs like type sizes, paddings and spacings, so that developers can leverage these rules in their code.

6. Give dead-honest feedback

The sooner the better. Being critical and calling out things that are not ideal is not always comfortable but may help you avoid frustration afterward. In every discussion, opinions are equally valuable. Be respectful and don’t dictate, because you need both strengths to reach your goal. Also, never take work-related critique personally. See it as a way to advance in your profession.

7. Get out of your comfort zone

Try to avoid the early use of phrases like "Nah, we can’t do this because it won't work." When in doubt, find an example where that one specific feature you wanted works in reality, and investigate until you find out how it was done. Don’t be afraid to ask for outside help. Nobody is perfect. Every one of us learns something new every day.

8. Find out what workflow works for you

This might sound obvious, but it’s important that you as a team find out how you work together in the best and most efficient way. Clarify how you hand-off designs, how you annotate functionality, what time(s) during the day you regularly check-in, etc. Keep in mind that working together for the first time might come with some overhead as you still have to get to know each other‘s way of working. However, your following projects together will be way faster since you already know how you play as a team.

9. Recap and celebrate

At the end of a project or big milestone, take some time as a team to recap everything from start to end and with all honesty. For example, have a nice team lunch or dinner out and cheers over some good drinks. If things went well, awesome! If something sucked, well even better, so you can improve next time.

10. Always make time for some fun

I really mean this one. Have a good time and enjoy what you do. At the end of the day, we all spend a fair amount of our day at work, so why not make it a good time? Leave some time for fun activities like a hard-fought duel at Mario Kart 64, a game of ping pong or spamming your teammates with funny GIFs.

I hope you can use these tips to save yourself some time and improve your workflow and team spirit. Personally, these tips help me a lot to stay focused and ahead of things during critical phases of projects. I’d be glad to receive your feedback by shooting me a tweet at @skaltenegger.

Have a productive day!

September 20, 2018No Comments

How to Land a Design Job at Lyft

Since entering the transportation market in 2012, Lyft has only continued to grow. So much so, it's odd to think the startup launched just six years ago.

But Lyft remains focused on the future, with self-driving Lyft cars already on the road in some cities. It's an exciting time to be on Lyft's design team, and as we learned from this interview, it takes a lot of passion and hard work. Audrey Liu, director of product design at Lyft, answered all our questions about how to get a job working as a designer at Lyft.

Hey Audrey, let’s get right to it! First, can you please tell us a little about yourself and what you do at Lyft?

Let’s see, I’m originally from New York and have been in design for a while. I started off in consulting at SYPartners and am now a director of design at Lyft. I lead the work of several teams including our Driver Design teams, Growth, and Support and Safety — a team of about 25. In my role, I’m responsible for building the team (I do a lot of recruiting!) and providing strategic and creative direction for our products.

Looking at your current design team, how many of them came through internal referrals or headhunting, and how many came through the traditional application process (percentage-wise)?

More than 75% of our hires are actually made through referrals or were sourced by our team, but we get a ton of great candidates through our application process as well.

Say we decide to reach out with a cold email. What kind of message gets a reply? Any secrets for us?

First, I love a message that is short and sweet, but that shows a genuine interest in the problems we’re solving. Lyft’s mission is to improve people’s lives with the world’s best transportation, and we’re incredibly mission-driven as a company. Seeing an applicant’s passion stands out. Always include links to your work, and talk about what you’re interested in and where Lyft fits in with that.

How important is a complete portfolio? Can I get away with not having a portfolio when interviewing at Lyft?

Portfolios help us understand the work that you’ve done, but even more importantly, they help give us a better sense for how you approach and solve problems. So portfolios are important, but they don’t need to be an exact replica of your resume. Just show a few projects that are important to you, that highlight the types of problems you like to solve and how you go about tackling them. It’s not so much about showing the right solution, so much as it is showing us your process, so that we can figure out which problems you might be best suited to tackle with us.

"A pet peeve of mine is when there really isn’t a good reason behind the work."

Tell us one thing you never want to see again on a portfolio. Anything you wish you saw more?

I always enjoy seeing a bit of storytelling in a presentation. It’s such an important skill for designers and is a tool for sharing work broadly across teams and functions. Telling the story of your work — how it all relates, why it’s important — matters. Additionally, it’s important for designers to show that they understand the goals of their work and that those goals touch on both user and business needs. A pet peeve of mine is when there really isn’t a good reason behind the work, or the designer doesn’t show an interest in or understanding of its impact on the business or user.

As for things I don’t ever want to see again: There was/is a trend of designers showing their screens on devices at an odd angle (e.g. floating above a surface at a slight 30-degree tilt). Don’t do that. It doesn’t show your work in a meaningful way.

Besides having a portfolio, do you like the idea of designers being invested in other interests? For example being active bloggers or otherwise outspoken in their community?

Yes! Other interests or other manifestations of your passion for design are key to helping us understand who you are as a person (not just a designer), what you prioritize and where you choose to invest your time.

Product work is part of each designer’s role at Lyft, but there is much more outside of product that goes toward helping to build a strong culture inside Lyft and in the broader design community. When I learn more about a designer’s outside interests or their design-related work outside of their job, it helps me see how they can contribute to the team in other valuable ways.

Say I make the first pass and get invited to an interview. Can you describe the interview process as briefly as possible?

You will meet with about 4-5 members of the team. They could be a mix of designers, user researchers, producers and cross-functional partners. You’ll start with a presentation where you’ll be asked to share a couple of projects. Then you’ll meet with each person 1:1 to dig into different topics, and you get to use the time with each person to ask questions of your own, too. (It’s important that you get to know us as well!) One of those meetings will be a design exercise. We try to keep it fun and light, and to use our time for us to get to know one another.

Of course product design skills are essential for the work you do. What are the secondary skills you look for in a designer, besides common soft skills?

Our product experience includes both online (our apps) and offline (everything outside of the app) experiences, so we’re always looking for designers who consider problems and experiences holistically — at a service and hospitality level.

Similarly, designers who are considerate of all of the aspects of an experience, including the writing, the illustrations and animations are also really great. Beyond that, strong facilitation skills and narrative storytelling. The ability to prototype is also key, but coding isn’t necessary. All of these aren’t necessary, but demonstrate that you think about the end-to-end experience and are able to bring it to life in different ways.

Lyft has a pretty unique vibe that’s offbeat yet accessible, which we assume carries over into your office culture. Would you hire someone who is a cultural fit over someone who has more industry experience and hard skills?

We look for the total package. To be a valuable member of the team, you have to meet the mark on both soft skills and hard skills. One without the other is pointless.

"Lyft is a high-growth startup and, as most of us know, that’s no joke."

What are the biggest mistakes you see designers make when applying for a job at Lyft? Are there any specific things that keep bothering you? Please complain to us! (:

Every designer at Lyft is passionate about the problems that we’re trying to solve. Within a super diverse team, our belief in wanting to impact transportation systems at large, create access to mobility for more people, and set entirely new expectations for how we live as communities, is the throughline that unites us all. It is a passion that exists outside of pixels and it’s one that I look for, because that level of interest is also what will help us uncover new opportunities and solve problems in big ways, not just iteratively.

I sometimes see designers applying for a job at Lyft because they think it’s a cool company (which it is, don’t get me wrong), without really considering the level of drive you need to have to thrive in this team and to tackle the challenges we’re rallying around. Lyft is a high-growth startup and, as most of us know, that’s no joke. There are tons of ups and downs, so if you aren’t deeply committed to creating huge impact in the world, you simply will not survive. Come here for the right reasons. In fact, go anywhere for the right reasons.

Do you have a favorite story of an application that really stuck with you? Something that stood out and got passed around between your team?

For me, it’s not about the uniqueness of the application, it’s about the quality of the work and the thinking behind the work. Does this person care about the details and their craft? Do they demonstrate empathy and understanding for the people they’re designing for? Are they passionate about solving big problems? Those are the things we notice — especially when they’re missing.

How do you think Lyft is different when hiring new talent compared to other companies?

Other companies share this characteristic, I’m sure, but we are extremely mission-driven. Designers, product managers, engineers, marketers… everyone comes to work at Lyft because they firmly believe in our mission to change the state of transportation. They want to see a world that invests in more parks and less parking lots. So in hiring, we don’t oversell on perks, because we’re focused on finding the people we can count on to be as invested in our mission as we are. The people who will make us all better.

Any parting advice for us? Something we forgot to ask that a potential candidate should know?

Be yourself and try not to be nervous. Our goal is to find designers who will help push the team forward. That means that we like contrarian thinkers and we like diverse points of view. Don’t just tell us what you think we want to hear, tell us what you really believe.

Thanks so much, Audrey! Really appreciate your honesty and practical advice. For those interested in applying for a design job at Lyft, here are your main takeaways:

1. Show your passion for what Lyft does.

Lyft wants to know that you care about and feel invested in their mission to change transportation. Show your passion for what they do, and how your skills and the work you've done fits into that.

2. Share the reasoning and thinking behind your work.

You could have beautiful, relevant work in your portfolio, but if you're not explaining that work and the thought that went into it, it doesn't mean much. Write great case studies that show how you approached your work and why you made the decisions you did. The same goes for your interview. Before you meet with the Lyft team, review your projects and refresh yourself about the story behind them so you can speak confidently about it.

3. Do your best to make an inside connection.

More than 75% of Lyft's hires are made through referrals or were sourced by their team. If you don't have an inside connection, do everything you can to get noticed by their team.

We've interviewed companies like Disney, BMW, Fuzzco, Spotify and more. Catch up on the How to Get a Job at X series right here.

September 11, 2018No Comments

What I’ve Learned One Month Into My Design Internship

In late July, I accepted an offer for a three-month interactive design internship with House of van Schneider. Tobias was one of the first designers I started following on social media when I decided to pursue design as a career. I loved how personable he comes across on Twitter and ate up all the knowledge and resources in this blog when I was starting out.

It’s weird to go from following your role model on social media one day to working with them the next, but I’m super grateful for this opportunity and couldn’t be enjoying my time more.

As of last week, I’m nearly one-third of the way done with my internship! I’m fortunate to have a patient team guiding me through it, who seem to be available on Slack 24/7. Since I am still quite fresh in the field of design, this first month has allowed me to learn a lot of basic hard skills and soft skills.

Photoshop isn’t just for photo editing

I know, some (or most) of y’all are in disbelief that I didn’t know this before but hey, I’m new. Since I picked up graphic design mainly through watching YouTube videos and asking designer friends to show me the ropes, I had worked primarily with Illustrator and had limited knowledge of other software. Photoshop had a pretty steep learning curve for me, but it’s proven to be great for creating quick mockups and manipulating graphics. Also, a personal win is that I finally understand how to use masks in Photoshop!

Since so many tools are available to designers now and it can get quite confusing, I’m still getting familiar with programs like Sketch or Adobe XD at this point. But the beauty of Photoshop is that it's incredibly versatile without any barriers to creativity. Even if the workflow isn't always ideal for digital design, it's a good tool to let your ideas run wild.

Contrast, hierarchy, and negative space can make or break a design

One of the hardest things I’m trying to overcome is filling up space with elements because I don’t know what else to do. I've learned that every design element should have a purpose, and yes, that includes the negative space. I’m learning that adding elements to a design with no purpose in mind usually means I’m not thinking about the visual hierarchy of elements in that graphic. A lack of visual hierarchy can make a design feel crowded, chaotic and confusing for the user.

As a designer, it’s my job to guide the user and help them easily understand the main message I want to communicate. Visual hierarchy, contrast and negative space help do this, but it’s deceptively difficult. I’ve had to hammer these principles into my head every day because it’s much harder to execute than it is to simply understand the principle.

"I’ve come to realize that I was limiting my creative potential with constraints I had unknowingly given myself."

Use feedback as momentum

It’s not easy to hear that my design missed the mark or that I need to give something a second try. Sometimes it’s also hard to not take feedback personally, especially if I spent hours working on a graphic only to have to redo it. But honest feedback (from someone who actually knows what they’re talking about) is one of the best ways to quickly learn how to get better at designing.

It’s been important to remind myself that sometimes my designs are going to be shitty, but that’s OK. I’m doing this internship so I can learn and become a better designer. I’d much rather receive honest and constructive feedback than hear I got it spot on with my first try. I’m here to grow, so instead of feeling stuck or defeated when I’m told to redo a task, I do my best to take the feedback and use it as momentum to make my next iteration better.

Working within constraints is a skill – just be sure you’re not making those constraints up.

I’ve been creating a lot of graphics for Semplice which has not only been fun, but practical as it’s teaching me how to work within the brand style. For example, even if I design a visually stunning and creative graphic, I may be told to rework it if it doesn’t fit in with the rest of Semplice’s graphics. The more I work with the team, the more I understand the Semplice style and how to deliver to that style rather than my own.

However, I’ve also come to realize that I was limiting my creative potential with constraints I had unknowingly given myself. Nobody told me I couldn’t manipulate that graphic or shorten that copy. I had just assumed I wasn’t allowed to. So to foster creativity and exploration, maybe the best approach is to create first and apologize later.

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With the first month of my internship under my belt, I’m looking forward to getting faster and more efficient with my workflow, continuing to push my creative boundaries, and becoming more involved in the overall design process from conception to delivery.

September 7, 2018No Comments

Semplice portfolio inspiration of August 2018

Once a week, we handpick two portfolios created with Semplice to feature in our Showcase.  We're always amazed to see what people build with Semplice, but this month we saw some standout work.

In August, we featured portfolios and websites from video directors, artists, food videographers, designers, studios and more. This month's portfolios were especially motivating and inspiring to me, and I think you'll see why.

Jonathan Wing's portfolio beautifully showcases music videos for people like Beyoncé, Charlie Puth and Ms. Lauryn Hill. The Perfect Strangers Magazine site, built by our friends at Foreign Policy, has some great animations and lovely little touches throughout. And I could watch the videos on Sougwen Chung's site for hours. Check them out and the rest of the talented creatives featured in our Showcase this month.

For more design portfolio inspiration, visit the Semplice showcase. And if you've created your own portfolio with Semplice, be sure to submit it to our Showcase here. I'll be back next month with more of our monthly favorites!

P.S. Header image by Perfect Strangers Magazine

September 4, 2018No Comments

How to Get a Design Job at Ueno

Ueno is a full-service agency with offices in San Francisco, New York, LA and Reykjavík. Yes – Iceland. You've probably seen some of their digital work for clients like Slack, ESPN and Uber.

Ueno's work is excellent, but what I most love is their personality as an agency. Read their blog or check out their interview page and you can tell they have a sense of humor. For me, that's an important factor in choosing where to work. It's not just about the "culture," which every agency claims to have, but more about the way they view work and life. Read our interview with Haraldur, Ueno's founder, and you'll see what I mean. Here he gives us his honest advice for getting a design job at Ueno.

Tell us a little about yourself and what you do at Ueno.

Hey! My friends call me Halli but you can call me Haraldur Thorleifsson. I’m the founder of Ueno.

I’m also the CEO so that means I am responsible for a lot of different things. But luckily we have really amazing people, so I don’t do much anymore. Mostly I just take credit for everything.

The Ueno team at their company retreat

Looking at your current design team, how many of them came through internal referrals or headhunting, and how many came through the traditional application process?

Of the top of my head with no numbers to back this up, I’d say exactly 49% came from referrals and 51% came from traditional applications.

We get dozens of applications a week for our design positions so a lot of great leads come from there. And then we have people internally that know a lot of smart and kind people that we will try to snag.

Say we decide to reach out with a cold email. What kind of message gets a reply? Any secrets for us? Or should we just fill out the careers form?

Cold emails are not a great way to apply. They might get missed. The very best way to apply is through our site. You can see all open roles on www.ueno.careers

If you apply through the site, the application will be seen by all the right people and it will go through a process.

One of the four lovely Ueno offices

How important is a complete portfolio? Can I get away with not having a portfolio when interviewing at Ueno?

For a design role, you will most likely need some sort of portfolio or a very strong recommendation from someone we trust for us to have an initial interview. We are still a small company so we unfortunately can’t interview most of the people who apply, and we need to have some kind of indication that you would be a good addition to our teams.

Your portfolio can be in whatever form works for you, though. It doesn’t need to be a super fancy website. It can be a PDF or a Google doc or whatever you have that shows us some of the work you’ve done in the past.

An illustration from Ueno's slack.com redesign

Tell us one thing you never want to see again on a portfolio. Anything you wish you saw more?

I wish more portfolios had personality. I think it’s perfectly OK to start with a joke, or something that tells me that this person has a unique perspective.

On a good/bad day I look at maybe 20-30 portfolios. Most of the time for maybe five seconds before I decide if it’s worth exploring further. So my first recommendation would be to make sure you grab the audience straight away. Show me something great and/or unexpected. Ideally both.

Besides having a portfolio, do you like the idea of designers being invested in other interests? For example being active bloggers or otherwise outspoken in their community?

We have a word in Icelandic. It’s fagidjót. It basically means that someone has super deep knowledge of one thing but knows nothing about anything else.

Design is about solving problems and to be good at solving problems, you need to know a bit about a lot of different types of things.

I don’t care if people are bloggers or outspoken in their community. I do care that they are curious about the world around them. They may have chosen design as a way to express that curiosity, but it should just be one of the ways they are curious.

Say I make the first pass and get invited to an interview. Can you describe the interview process (the phases, design exercises, etc.) as briefly as possible? Most importantly – will it be as fun as your brilliant interview page? Should we dress as a hot dog?

We don’t do design exercises. I don’t think they tell you much and they are extremely uncomfortable for both the designer and the people running the interview.

We also don’t look for culture fits; we’d rather find people that can add something to our culture. People that can teach us something new about the world.

We have strong culture values that we try and gauge for, though. They are deliberately fairly open and should encourage our teams to hire different types of people — while still making sure we have a common foundation built on caring about other people, never being satisfied with good enough, etc.

Typically applicants will meet with 3-6 of our people and each one of those interviews will be based around a specific culture value. I’m most often the last person in the interview process.

However, the best way to really see if people are good to work with is to actually work with them. So when possible, we have people come in to work with us for 2-8 weeks, depending on what works for them. We obviously pay them for that time; we put them on real projects and we treat them as full members of our teams.

After that, we have a really good understanding of that person and they also understand us. And if everyone falls in love, then we get married.

So far, nobody has shown up in a hot dog suit. I’m still waiting for that to happen. I don’t want to promise anything but I absolutely promise that would lead to a guaranteed job offer.

Ueno branded the 2017 edition of ESPN’s Body Issue and designed its mobile-first online version.

What are the secondary skills you look for in a designer, besides common soft skills? For example: Do you prefer coding ability over photography skills? Writing skills over coding?

I personally don’t have a preference. The main thing is, like I mentioned above, that you are curious about many different things, and that you are willing and able to keep growing and experimenting. It’s up to you to choose in what order you want to keep adding those skills.

Ueno has a distinct personality and it’s clear culture is important to you as a company. Would you hire someone who is a cultural fit over someone who has more industry experience and hard skills?

When I started Ueno, I was only interested in the hard skills. I only wanted to hire really amazing designers and I didn’t really think that much about their personalities.

But as the company grew, I quickly realized that the culture is what will make us succeed or fail.

That does not mean that we will hire a nice person if they aren’t good designers, but we will absolutely pass on an amazing designer if they are not good to work with.

Ueno's work from an app redesign for Reuters, one of the world’s largest news organizations.

What are the biggest mistakes you see designers make when applying for a job at Ueno? Are there any specific things that keep bothering you? Please complain to us! (:

I like punks that show up on time. Meaning, I like people who have a different way of looking at the world but you can rely on where it matters.

I don’t think that answers your question, but I just wanted to say that.

Do you have a favorite story of an application that really stuck with you? Something that stood out and got passed around between your team?

If people are being guarded, I will often try to nudge them a little bit to see how they respond during interviews. So the stories that get passed around about our interviews are about me saying or doing something weird.

I don’t remember them but I’m sure they are hilarious because I can be very funny and great.

I imagine having locations in San Francisco, LA, New York and Reykjavík opens you up to a ton of design talent. Do we have to live in / move to one of those cities to get a job at Ueno, or do you hire remote designers as well? And do you ever sponsor visas for international hires?

We only hire people who are willing to work full time on location at one of our offices. Our work revolves around very close collaboration with our clients and our teams, so being on site is very important.

We have multiple people on visas that we have sponsored, but right now we are trying to limit those a bit. Partly because it is extremely expensive and complicated to manage, but more importantly because it’s an unpredictable process, and putting people through that long emotional journey with no guaranteed outcome is very hard. You can read a bit more about that here if you are interested.

 

How do you think Ueno is different when hiring new talent compared to other agencies or design studios?

We’ve tried to not hire a lot of agency people. I don’t want to recreate a typical agency. We of course have some strong people with agency backgrounds, but we don’t want that to be a requirement.

We’ve made some very adventurous hires, taken chances on people that on paper maybe didn’t make a lot of sense to hire. Some of them have turned out to be our most valuable people.

We saw Ueno is hiring a Design Lead and Senior Designer for your NYC and SF offices right now, and a Creative Director and Design Lead in Reykjavík. Any parting advice for someone who’s reading this and ready to apply? Lay it on us!

I remember agonizing about whether I was good enough to apply for places I admired when I was younger. I wanted everything to be perfect, which it never is.

Don’t wait, just do it. Worst case scenario is that nothing will happen.

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Thank so much, Haraldur! This is one of the more insightful and entertaining interviews in the series so far. Readers, if you're interested in applying for a design job at Ueno, here are some key takeaways:

1. Show some personality in your portfolio. Do something unexpected. 

Haraldur confirmed something we've voiced in about every piece of portfolio advice we've given: you have about five seconds to make an impression before he moves on to a different portfolio. That's shorter than the classic "elevator pitch." He suggests leading with a joke or writing something that grabs his attention immediately. Make those first few seconds count.

2. Expand your interests and skills. Be curious.

Ueno isn't interested in hiring a designer with knowledge in only one area. They want designers with diverse interests and a sense of curiosity about the world, who want to experiment and grow. Show Ueno that you have dimension and range. You can do this through your portfolio and in your interview.

3. Don't overthink it. Just go for it.

Ueno's not looking for the typical "agency person." They're willing to take chances on the people who, in Haraldur's words, "show up on time." If you think that might be you, apply and see what happens.

Catch up on our How to Get a Job at X series for more inside advice from top companies like Disney, Unsplash, Spotify, Pentagram and more. And if you want to hear from a specific company, let me know on Twitter.

August 27, 2018No Comments

Design in Tel Aviv featuring Studio Koniak

With our Our Design Around the World series, we've explored design communities and met designers from countries like Brazil, Nigeria, Pakistan, Singapore and more. Now, we're learning more about design in the Middle East with Studio Koniak.

Run by Nurit Koniak and partner Natasha Boguslavsky, Koniak is a branding consultancy based in Tel Aviv. The studio does everything from art direction to branding to motion graphics to packaging, with a decidedly elegant and minimalistic style.

While it's clear the tech scene is currently exploding in Tel Aviv, but we didn't know much about the design community specifically, or how political tensions in the country are affecting it. Nurit shares her perspective with us in this interview.

First, let’s talk about your studio. Who is the team behind Koniak and why did you decide to open a graphic design studio?

I founded the studio in 2005. After about six years, I needed to expand the business, so I started to develop a professional team. One of my leading designers whom I love and adore, Natasha Boguslavsky, joined me around that time and helped me build the business. Eventually, she became my partner, and together we have shaped and defined the studio’s voice over the years. We focus on brand design and image making, with special attention to consumer goods – our greatest passion.

Nurit and Natasha at work in the studio

Tell us a bit about Tel Aviv’s design community. Is there a strong design presence and do many platforms or events exist that help you connect with other designers?

Tel Aviv is an amazing design destination. The local design scene has grown tremendously over the past ten years, and there’s a real dynamic ambiance everywhere. Somehow, despite the political difficulties, there’s a real creative hub with multiple cultural influences that fuse together into something new and intriguing. Gallery openings, restaurants and pop-up shops are springing up everywhere. There are lots of design collaborations because people are always somehow connected and the help is nearby.

Technology is thriving in Tel Aviv and many large tech companies have established a presence in the area. It’s been compared to Silicon Valley with the second-largest number of startup companies in the world after the United States. How does that affect the design community? Are most job opportunities for designers in the tech scene right now?

This is a very interesting development. Despite the cultural thrive, the economic reality is so grim that people in Tel Aviv cannot imagine buying their own property or living as a family in the city. Prices have gone far beyond anyone’s reach. So it’s obvious that designers opt for higher paying jobs in the startup scene. This has become a real goal for graduates. They prefer to play in a band or design posters after their day job hours. As a result, the independent design scene lost a lot of talented designers to corporations and startups.

How would you describe the design you see coming from Tel Aviv today? Do you notice a certain style/influence or is it influenced by your culture in any way?

I think what makes the Israeli design scene so interesting is the specific fusion of American, European and Middle Eastern influences. The Israeli design heritage is very tender since the country itself is only 70 years old, but our complex relationship with the Palestinians and our neighboring countries has had an inevitable influence. Israeli culture was never about opulence and abundance, so Israeli design is quite austere and minimal but manages to remain fresh.

Take a look at some good examples such as Maskit, Muslin Brothers, Lara Roznovsky and Gur Inbar.

You live in one of the most educated countries in the world. In 2012, it ranked third in the world in the number of academic degrees per capita. What is design education like there? Do most designers seek a formal education or do you see successful designers who are self-taught as well?

Design education is big in Israel with great schools and academic programs, and of course hundreds of designers graduating every year. But the design industries here are limited in their resources, so many of the students don’t really end up in the practice. People often migrate between fields within the design world or alternatively dream of working abroad to jump-start their career locally.

What would you say are unique challenges for designers in your community right now?

Our biggest challenge would probably be keeping our voices heard. Our current government is very right-wing and recent developments have given us reason to believe freedom of expression is at risk. In basic Israeli mentality, design is considered somewhat of a luxury and is often regarded as fluff – not being taken seriously enough. It’s very frustrating over time, and one needs to be patient and understanding to sustain in the industry.

“The clients look outward only to learn that the local work is actually better.”

As the world is getting smaller with the help of the internet, working with international clients is very common. Do you actively seek international work or has this happened naturally for your studio? And do businesses typically work with local designers and studios?

We have been lucky in the studio to work with international brands as well as Israeli brands. We love the versatility in working with both. Long-distance dialogue is possible these days, but there are many advantages to being physically close to your client and having an intimate talk to make progress on a project. Ironically, we’ve had quite a few Israeli clients approach us after they were disappointed with UK based firms. The clients look outward only to learn that the local work is actually better.

How much impact does your social media presence have on getting new clients and self-promotion in general? What works best for you?

Instagram is a very interesting platform in that respect. We feel like the era we live in a transitional period in media and its usage. Social networks are big, but their full potential is yet to be discovered. It has become somewhat of a replacement to websites, but it’s still lacking a formality and technical tools that could enable it to become a real business card. It’s great for self-promotion but it still feels very limited.

What does good design mean to Koniak, and how do you see it impacting your country’s society as a whole? Do you think it can solve larger issues it faces?

We never think about the long-term effect of what we do, but we always try to aim for a signature that’s very minimalistic and timeless in style. A test for good design would be to look back at something you did ten years ago and smile. In some cases the decade’s footprint is apparent and in others, you don’t feel the time passing at all.

How can all designers and design communities from other countries do a better job of communicating with each other? How can we become more engaged with your design community? Are there any blogs or specific magazines we can follow?

We highly recommend following Telavivian Magazine, a brand we designed a few years back and remains one of the most interesting local platforms for engaging in local creation. There are other great independent publications such as Milk & Honey and A5.

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Thank so much for talking with us, Nurit! We appreciate your straightforward, honest answers and look forward to seeing how design in Tel Aviv continues to evolve.

Friends, be sure to check out Koniak's beautiful work as well as the resources Nurit shared with us. We'll be back soon with more insights into design communities around the world, and you can catch up right here in the meantime.

August 24, 2018No Comments

How to Land a Design Job at BMW

BMW needs no introduction. The company is known and respected the world over, a brand synonymous with luxury and pride.

Working on any aspect of BMW's design is a dream job, so of course we had to invite the company to this series. Daniel Myer kindly gave us all the inside advice about how to land a coveted spot on BMW's visual design team. 

Hey, Daniel! First, can you tell us a little about yourself and what you do at BMW?

I'm one of the senior UI and visual designers here at BMW. I’m part of the core U.S. design team located in Chicago. Together with our colleagues in Munich, Germany, we design the Connected Drive app for BMW and MINI.

It’s important for us to maintain the overall BMW brand language (as implemented within the vehicles “ID” onboard display), but within a unique mobile design experience. Our team is also tasked with developing, maintaining and implementing the style guide for both apps as well as giving art direction to other key markets.

I’m involved in strategy, art direction, brand and motion design. Primarily I focus my efforts on two key areas: the first is “LBS” (Location Based Services), which is anything to do with trip management or vehicle mapping. The second is vision casting concepts, and explorations around future design states of the app and experience.

Would you say the majority of designers you hire have been pre-selected and headhunted by your team, or do you get a lot of cold applications as well?

Headhunting is the most common onramp to employment here at BMW. The company is proactive in the pursuit of talented and articulate designers. Almost every designer starts as a contractor. It’s quite a long tenure before being offered an internal role. I’d encourage a designer to be patient, keep improving their craft and update their portfolio often, as well as business network sites like LinkedIn.

Say we decide to send a cold email. What kind of message gets a reply, any secrets for us? Or should we just fill out the job form?

Someone being bold, putting themselves forward and expressing an interest to work with our team is a good thing. Being proactive in general goes a long way here. Additionally, you could reach out with a message over LinkedIn. Be clear about what you want and what you are good at.

"It helps to show work that relates to BMW or another luxury vehicle brand, even if it’s purely conceptual. It will get passed around quite a bit and discussed."

How important is a complete portfolio? Can we get away with not having a portfolio when interviewing at BMW?

BMW is a global leader in the area of design. We have some amazing designers who are passionate about engineering great experiences. We tirelessly re-work every detail of the design to improve it. As part of our process, we are involved in weekly review meetings where we need to present the designs for review and overall buy-in. Thus, a designer wanting a place here needs to have strong design chops and be able to articulate the ideas behind the design clearly.

We care very much about design, the process of design and how it will work. A big part of what we do is service-design oriented. Therefore, the projects in your portfolio or book should be compelling and strategic. This is a great place to communicate how you’ve used a specific design approach to solve a problem, and make the product or service more usable and engaging.

I used previous apps and working prototypes when presenting my portfolio in an interview with BMW. It helps to show work that relates to BMW or another luxury vehicle brand, even if it’s purely conceptual. It will get passed around quite a bit and discussed. It can set you apart and help position you for an initial meeting.

Tell us one thing you never want to see again on a portfolio. 

For me, I’d say a lack of creative range. Yes, it’s useful to have a well-honed skill that is laser focused in a particular area. However, it can be rather tedious to see all the same things.

Anything you wish you saw more?

There is definite value in a portfolio that’s diverse and showcases a wider range of design thinking and skill. Showing your ability to think outside a given set of lines and emerge with something new and innovative helps further set you apart. Show your most creative stuff (the projects where you had more freedom to have fun with it) and your most challenging stuff, (the projects with the most restrictive guidelines). Both have a story to tell.

Besides having a portfolio, do you like the idea of designers being invested in other interests, for example blogging or being otherwise active in their community? How much do you value side hustles?

Being on the team is about design. However, being part of the team is about culture and comradery. BMW has a very diverse U.S. team and everyone feels welcome here. There are lots of sports and activities that further drive the team culture. It’s about designing well together as a really cool team.

Say I make the first pass and get invited to an interview. Can you describe the interview process as briefly as possible?

The process can vary based on the role. For me, I was contacted by a recruiting agency that worked directly with BMW to source senior creatives. That’s where most of the conversations happened initially between me and BMW.

The recruiter set up the interview. It took about a week. I went in and met the three design leads and several product owners as well as various development team leads. I presented my portfolio to each group. All total, the interview process lasted about 4-5 hours. I was given an offer the following week. 

What are the biggest mistakes you see designers make when applying for a job at BMW? Are there any specific things that keep bothering you? 

I’ve not seen this very often here with my BMW colleagues. They’re an especially top-notch design group. However, in other settings I’ve observed designers be too tense or nervous, and it drowns out their personality and creativity. You’ve made it this far, so you’ve done a whole lot of things right! Breathe, smile and share your previous design work with confidence. The key elements at this point are the creative conversation, as well as presenting yourself and why you would bring value to the company. We want a chance to get to know you. It’s important to get a sense of how you would fit with the rest of the team and what value you will contribute to the design effort.

Do you remember a specific application or interview that impressed you?

Not recently. However, I do recall a few of the most memorable designers I’ve worked with. One was Jon. Although he didn’t take himself too seriously, he did take his design craft seriously. He could create great visual designs and communicate the idea behind them quite well. His easy going, ebullient approach was refreshing and made buy-in easy for him. He was such a joy to work with. Although he is no longer with BMW, I think about him and his ability to bring people together often.

Another designer who left a real mark was Nicole. She was a truly gifted UX designer. Her ability to clearly communicate design ideas with a relaxed ease was also a real inspiration. In both cases, their clear and light-hearted, personable approach made it  easy to communicate and share ideas. They helped elevate the team around them in so many ways.

I couldn’t agree more. Being an enjoyable person who people like to work with can be just as important as your skill.

Do you expect candidates to be big BMW fans as well? Say you found the perfect candidate skill-wise, but they don't express a huge passion for BMW cars. Is that a problem?

No, I don’t think it’s any sort of prerequisite to working here. One of my favorite cars besides BMW is a Volvo. As employees we do get to drive the fleet of amazing BMW “test” cars (the new 8 series being my favorite) so that we may better understand the vehicle and the thinking behind the CID “central information display” design. It doesn’t take long to become a fan. Come on, it’s BMW!

Would BMW hire someone who is a culture fit over someone who has more industry experience and hard skills?

BMW Group has five core valuesResponsibility, Appreciation, Transparency, Trust and Openness. BMW from the top down is focused on an individual being a cultural fit and a team player. Obviously, you need to have a certain level of design skill and understanding.

That aside, there are many opportunities that encourage growth in your skill level. We have workshops and demos which are really fun and bring people together. Additionally, the luxury and quality of the brand, the collaborative nature and the engaging attitude of the team around you foster motivation and help elevate a designer’s skill level.

Do you take design interns? If yes, how do I get in and where do I apply?

Yes! BMW does hire design interns and usually has a lot of them on the team. UX designers, UI designers, researchers...they’re always really, really cool. I’ve enjoyed sharing with them and I’ve learned a lot from them. You can find intern postings and apply right here.

How do you think BMW is different when hiring new talent compared to other companies?

I would say it can take quite a bit longer than normal to get an internal role you want, since most everyone starts out in a contract role. It takes a lot of mental toughness to keep producing your best work at a high level while being patient in the process. Don’t misunderstand, it’s a great company to work for. I feel excited to get to do what I do.

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Thank you, Dan! It's not often we get such honest, practical advice – especially from a large company like BMW. It's much appreciated and we learned a lot. Readers, if you want to apply for a design job at BMW, here are your main takeaways:

1. Be patient and willing to do your time.

Many designers start out as contractors with BMW. If you're willing to start there to get your foot in the door and prove your value, it could lead to a full-time job later.

2. Knowing how to present yourself and your work is key.

Daniel says a big part of the job is presenting work internally to get buy-in. BMW will expect you to present your work and yourself confidently. The designers who were most successful at BMW knew how to make that seem effortless.

3. If you don't have related work to show in your portfolio, conceptual work could help.

Obviously it's ideal to show work that relates to the job you want. But if you don't have experience working on apps or for a luxury car brand, that doesn't rule you out. BMW could still see your skills through conceptual work.

For more inside advice on getting jobs at places like Nike, BBDO, Electronic Arts, Shopify and more, catch up on our other How to Get a Job at X interviews right here. Almost all companies were specifically requested by readers. If you're looking for a design job at a company not featured here yet, let me know on Twitter.

August 20, 2018No Comments

5 Inspiring Design Studios from Singapore ??

I’ve been following Singapore’s design community closely since our Design Around the World interview with Singapore-based studio, Foreign Policy. While we learned that the design community in the country is still growing, there is no shortage of creative talent and inspiration to be found.

It’d be a disservice to pin Singapore’s design down to one style, but I will say the amount of quirky, playful work I’ve seen from the country so far is certainly refreshing. Especially given the clean, minimalistic trend I see so often otherwise.

Here are just a few Singaporean studios I'm enjoying at the moment, thanks to Foreign Policy's excellent recommendations.

Kinetic

Founded in 2001 by Pann Lim, Kinetic has an eccentric yet earnest personality. This is perfectly illustrated by its website, which won the studio several awards, and subsequent video apologizing for the poor usability of its website.

 

Bravo

“If we are talking breakfast, we'll be the Everything Bagel,” states Bravo studio about their capabilities. True, as their work spans print, identity, retail, content strategy and more. My favorite project is their identity for Red Tail bar, featuring an expressive cat in a panda costume.

 

Roots

Led by Jonathan Yuen, Roots is an independent studio focused on brand identity, creative direction and graphic design. The studio has earned recognition for projects like “Unfettered ink: The Writings of Chen Chong Swee,” which demonstrate their fresh and intentional approach.

 

Do Not Design

Do Not Design is a creative consultancy focused on, well, design. More specifically, editorial design. I most appreciate the studio’s DEAR project, a zine that “collects, archives and immortalizes in print, all things fun and unique.”

 

Foreign Policy

Founded Yah-Leng Yu and Arthur WeeSheng Chin, Foreign Policy’s work is respected and admired the world over. I had the opportunity to visit the studio in Singapore to meet the team in person and interview Yah-Leng for our Design Around the World series.

“The Singapore design community is a young and vibrant one,” says Yah-Leng in our interview. “...this is absolutely the best time to be a designer in Singapore. Everyone is driven and inspired to do good work, to up the design standards and to have their own voice in each project. I think this is really heartwarming to see as the landscape was different when I first left the country compared when I came back.”

Learn more about the Singaporean design community in our interview with Yah-Leng here.

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Explore design communities in Iran, South Korea, Pakistan, the Philippines and more in our Design Around the World series.

August 17, 2018No Comments

6 beautiful 3D design portfolios made with Semplice

I always enjoy browsing the 3D portfolios in our Semplice Showcase. The work is surreal, colorful and often weird. A 3D designer can create a whole other world or replicate the world we know with incredibly realistic detail.

There are wriggling, organ-like shapes. There are lifelike faces and features. Textures you can almost feel – smoothy and shiny like plastic, course and bumpy like the shell of a bug. Light reflects and glows and glistens. Details feel so real, are so intricate, you might question whether you're looking at a design or a photo.

Semplice is perfect for highly visual work like this, with features like our full-screen cover slider and customizable image galleries that create an immersive experience. Some of my favorite 3D designers use Semplice for their online portfolio. Here are just a few.

Machineast

Machineast is an independent creative studio based in Singapore. The Machineast team, lead by directors Fizah & Ando, has collaborated with clients like Nike, UNIQLO, Microsoft, Guiness, Tiger and more. Like most humans and many animals, I’m instinctively drawn to all their shiny, iridescent works.

VIEW MACHINEAST'S PORTFOLIO

Bate

Roberto is a 3D designer from Mexico city. His designs range from hyperrealistic, like his neon-lit “Maik’s Car” project, to soft and playful like “Coffee Please!” He uses the Semplice Cover Slider feature on his homepage, allowing his work to fill the screen. The subtle hover effect on his logo is a nice touch as well.

SEE BATE'S PORTFOLIO

Elias Klingén

Elias Klingén is a freelance 3D designer and illustrator based in Stockholm. His portfolio is clean and crisp, putting the focus on his detailed designs. His "Ugly Delicious" project is the best part, the images so real and so grotesque you can't look away.

VIEW ELIAS' PORTFOLIO

Nuria Madrid

Nuria is a freelance 3D graphic designer based in Barcelona. Her work is precise yet playful, with an always-impressive use of texture and light. Nuria’s project pages lead with full-screen images that immediately draw you in. Page transitions come up from the bottom, making the site feel like one cohesive experience.

VIEW NURIA'S PORTFOLIO

Ari Weinkle

I’ve always been a fan of my friend Ari’s otherworldly work. The colors and shapes are insane, each image more transfixing than the last. Ari also used Semplice for his latest project, Glimmerings, where you can download free high-res images of his work perfectly packaged for your smartphone.

VIEW ARI'S PORTFOLIO

Vincent Schwenk

Twisting tubes, googly eyes, balloons — the visual themes in Vincent’s work could make for a special edition of Lucky Charms. With a clean background and bold thumbnail hovers, his portfolio feels confident yet effortless.

VIEW VINCENT'S PORTFOLIO

Jean-Marc Denis

Jean-Marc's 3D designs have sci-fi vibes that almost feel like they're part of a larger narrative – I'd certainly want to read a story about them. He keeps it simple with his Semplice portfolio, featuring his work with large blocks on the homepage and neat grids inside.

VIEW JEAN-MARC'S PORTFOLIO

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For more design inspiration, visit our Semplice Showcase, featuring some of the most talented creatives and studios we know.

Featured image by Ari Weinkle.

August 16, 2018No Comments

How to Get a Job at Disney

In this series we talk to people at some of the most admirable companies and studios out there, simply asking: How do we get a job on your design team? Finally, we're featuring Disney.

We've had Disney on our wish list for a long time now. I mean, we were all probably wishing on stars as children hoping we might someday work for Disney. Turns out, working on the Disney design team is an actual, real-life job you can have.

Case in point: Steven Boone. Steven leads a product design team at Disney and gave us practical, helpful advice for getting a dream design job on his team at Disney Parks and Resorts.

Hey, Steven! First, tell us a little about yourself and what you do at Disney.

I am a manager of product design for Disney Parks, Experiences & Consumer Products. Our design department is responsible for all aspects of the digital guest experience as it relates to the parks and resorts. This includes websites used for booking and managing reservations, mobile apps used at the parks and resorts, and all sorts of fun emerging digital experiences that add more magic to our guests’ Disney experience.

As a manager of product design, I oversee all aspects of design for Disney brand digital experiences, with my current focus being the Disney Cruise Line. I am also responsible for helping designers on our team develop their talents, grow in their role and accomplish their career goals.

Looking at your current design team, how many of them came through internal referrals or headhunting, and how many came through the traditional application process?

We use a variety of methods to source candidates, including general external recruiting, our internal recruiters who monitor our careers portal and candidates moving across different departments of the organization. Referrals from other cast members certainly have a positive impact on a candidate getting noticed.

This is a big company, so we don’t use any single process to bring in talent. That said, my opinion is that strong networking and trying to connect with or get advice from current cast members is one of the best paths for serious applicants. Get some 1:1 advice and maybe even start to build a relationship, all of which can go a long way in getting you a job at Disney.

Where’s the best place to start, assuming we don’t have an inside connection yet?

For Parks and Resorts Digital and most tech jobs, the place to start is our careers website, where you can link your LinkedIn profile, portfolio, and provide additional details about yourself and your career experience.

Our in-house recruiters use this profile information to start their search, so the next best step is to make sure all of your linked collateral is what you would consider ready for Disney’s review. That means your LinkedIn profile, cover letter, resume and of course, your portfolio. This is just where I would suggest starting, as every open position, department and hiring manager is different and there is no guaranteed formula for success. Disney gets an incredible number of applications, so being consistent in delivering a great impression across all your channels can make a big difference.

Mickey (left) and Steven (right), in case you couldn't tell

 

We’ve heard internships or student summer programs are a good way to get our foot in the door with Disney. Is that true if we want to work on the design team? How often does that turn into a full-time job?

Our internship programs are wonderful. For starters, our interns get a peek behind the curtain and can participate in the Disney creative culture. I have personally witnessed interns use their energy and determination to pitch fantastic guest experience ideas to our digital product and design VPs. While this may be a rare quality in an intern, it demonstrates Disney’s culture that we all aspire to deliver the best possible experience to our guests, and the best idea truly does win. To quote Ratatouille, “anyone can cook.” Interns who capitalize on this opportunity may have a great chance at a full-time career at Disney.

How important is a complete portfolio? Can we get away with not having a portfolio when interviewing at Disney?

Having an updated portfolio is key, but even more important to my team is your design process demonstrated through your portfolio. When it comes to candidates’ portfolios, we are more eager to see actual content and thought processes — the storytelling that comes out through your design — than the finessing and perfecting of that content. The idea is to get the conversation going and demonstrate your capabilities. Disney is known for its masterful art, storytelling and attention to detail, so we’d love to see your skills in these areas and beyond!

"If your current job isn’t giving you opportunities for great work, create your own opportunities."

Tell us one thing you never want to see again on a portfolio. Anything you wish you saw more?

I wish all applicants would update their portfolios at least once a year. Nothing stands still in our industry, so if you are looking for a new position you must be able to demonstrate that you are current in your design thinking and skills. You only need to show 3-5 great examples, even if you have dozens that seem worthy. Variety is wonderful, but let yourself cut that circa 2009 non-responsive website or skeuomorphic mobile app. Only show the best of the best! It is far better to show a few and tell a great story than show a lot and leave us wondering about your contribution or strengths. If your current job isn’t giving you opportunities for great work, create your own opportunities.

One thing I always want to see more of is how designers can use their skills to provide value in ways that extend beyond the medium. Especially product designers or experience designers. For example, can you highlight key insights that you helped discover, whether it be through design-thinking, visual problem-solving in collaboration with product or tech departments, or by leading a group through a customer-centered immersion? A great designer first learns how to master their medium, but then learns how being a designer makes them a leader and influencer in ways that go beyond that medium.

Besides having a portfolio, do you like the idea of designers being invested in other interests? For example being active bloggers or otherwise outspoken in their community?

Absolutely. Your ability to be seen as a leader within your organization or design community shows your passion for the craft while giving the world a glimpse into your point of view on design.

That said, blogging is not required, and my personal advice is to be sure that you are really passionate about your writing if you are going to write. If not, it could reflect negatively. If you don’t want to write, you can show passion and engagement by simply sharing great ideas on social media and participating with your local design meetups, for example.

"Remember, Disney is known for attention to detail, so you could be asked about any small detail from your work."

Say I make the first pass and get invited to an interview. Can you describe the interview process as briefly as possible?

The interview process varies based on the role that you are applying for, the hiring manager and other factors. That said, I’ll give some general ideas based on my experience with Disney.

The first step is typically vetting with our in-house recruiters. This is usually a light review of your portfolio and past experience (and yes, we do hire designers straight out of school if the role they are applying for is fitting). After that, applicants will have multiple conversations with design team members at all levels to share their experience and approach to design, and get added clarity and perspective on the role. They will also walk through their portfolio/case studies/work samples to demonstrate their capabilities, soft skills and approach.

Remember, Disney is known for attention to detail, so you could be asked about any small detail from your work. I would suggest that designers take a look through their portfolio and put some fresh thought into the design choices they made in their portfolio projects. This could help you be prepared with good answers if any one detail becomes the subject of conversation. One last recommendation: As you do this, be honest. You don’t need to have a brilliant answer for everything. Sometimes you made a choice because you had to follow standards. Answers like this are perfectly acceptable and much better than not knowing or making something up.

If you continue to move forward in the process, you will most likely visit the on-site location where you applied, to meet the team in-person and virtual conference with other offices.

What are the biggest mistakes you see designers make when applying for a job at Disney? Are there any specific things that keep bothering you? Please complain to us!

A common misstep I’ve seen in interviews is when candidates show decent design work, but without great answers about detail or a good story to tell. We want to hear your story: about your work, challenges, design decisions, partnerships, learnings, etc.

Do you remember a specific application that impressed you? Something crazy?

In my career, I have seen some creative and fun tactics from applicants. Whether it be a creative technologist’s amazingly customized GitHub page or an art director’s handmade origami with a personal message inside, crazy tactics can definitely get you noticed. That said, my personal advice is to remember that this is icing on the cake. Things like this can certainly help you be remembered, but if your portfolio and the story you tell about your work falls flat, the crazy-cool application may not be enough to move you forward in your career.

Would Disney hire someone who is a culture fit over someone who has more industry experience and hard skills?

My team and I prefer the term "culture add" over "culture fit" as our culture is not stagnant. We look for people who will grow our culture by adding something we don’t have. People who will challenge us and play a role in constantly evolving and adapting our culture to be the best it can be. We tend to hire agile, optimistic learners who have a desire to create meaningful work, with the quality and character expected of Disney, and an ability to add value in a cross-functional and team-based culture.

Disney is all about relationships, so adding great people to our culture is very important. You don’t have to resemble or fit us in any specific way, but you do have to add something distinct that grows our culture and abilities as a team.

"We need designers who can stay cool, agile, open to ideas and iteratively produce great work."

You work on a range of Disney design projects, from web to product experiences. Aside from common soft skills, what are the secondary skills you’re looking for in a designer for your team?

As a hiring manager, I personally look for an ability to stick with a design project through multiple iterations, not get stuck or frustrated, and come out on the other side with a design that has evolved into something new and wonderful.

All of our product and experience designs will go through multiple rounds of input from leadership, user tests and other channels. Designers who think their first idea is perfect and should not be changed can get easily frustrated or struggle to get the best results. This includes cross-functional collaboration, involving product and technology partners early in the process, facilitating the process and driving results together. We need designers who can stay cool, agile, open to ideas and iteratively produce great work.

Finally, storytelling can take you anywhere – designers who have a viewpoint, present their thoughts clearly, creatively and concisely stand out at Disney.

We can imagine it only helps our case if we’re “Disney people." Should we be prepared to share our favorite Disney character and/or Disney classic in our interview? (:

Of course! Disney employees tend to truly love the brand, take being a steward of this brand seriously, and maybe let ourselves get a little dorky about Disney culture once in a while. I’m not saying we wear Mickey pants to work every day, but even the coolest cucumbers here have some story about how they connect with Disney. It could be your favorite character, movie, vacation memory or even seeing your nephew rock out to Let It Go. Whatever it is, bring it!

How do you think Disney is different when hiring new talent compared to other companies?

We certainly aren’t the only brand out there that expects greatness from ourselves and from those who want join our company. I think every company that is truly committed to great experiences does so in their own unique way. That said, I think Disney is special because we are in the business of bringing happiness and magic to our guests, and that does make us look at how we grow our team in a different way. Magic isn’t easy. It takes a lot of work, patience and collaboration.

We are also an incredibly special brand in that we touch so many different industries. There are a lot of jobs out there in entertainment, theme parks, resorts, cruise lines, food and beverage, media, digital experiences, etc., but only Disney really does all of these things. This is why we work so hard to find that special mix of culture, attention to detail and talent that has that potential for magic.

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Steven! Thanks so much for giving us a peek behind the magic curtain at Disney. There's so much to learn here. For those of you dreaming about a design job at Disney, these are your main takeaways:

Nr. 1 - Storytelling is everything. This is Disney, after all.

Show how you’re capable of making some magic through storytelling. This doesn't mean you should write and rehearse some grand speech before your interview. It does mean you should be ready to have a meaningful conversation beyond the standard interview script. You should also write engaging portfolio case studies that tell a story and give depth to your work. Here are some tips for doing just that.

Nr. 2 - Demonstrate how you will add to Disney's culture.

Disney values relationships and diversity that leads to broader ideas and understanding of their guests. Showing that you can add to and build on their culture goes a long way.

Nr. 3 - Curate your portfolio and know the details.

Steven and team want to see content and ideas, more so than finesse and a perfect product. They care that your work is relevant and shows an understanding of modern design, with detail-oriented thinking in your design choices. Review your portfolio projects before your interview so you're ready to share the process and decisions behind your designs. These tips for updating and refreshing your portfolio will help as well.

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That's all for now! If you enjoyed the interview or found it helpful for an interview, please do send me a tweet to @vanschneider and let me know. And if you're just now jumping into our How to Get a Job at X series, be sure to catch up on interviews with Electronic Arts, Spotify, Nike and more.

August 13, 2018No Comments

6 Inspiring Design Studios from South Korea 🇰🇷

Our Design Around the World series explores design communities outside our own. We’ve met many talented designers through these interviews and learned a ton from them. And we continue digging deeper.

In every interview, we ask which 10 design studios everyone should know from that country. Kwon Joonho, Kim Kyung-chul and Kim Eojin from Everyday Practice in South Korea delivered.

Thanks to their recommendations, we've discovered many new studios and inspiring work from South Korea. Especially posters. So many beautiful, intricate posters. Most of these studios are based in Seoul and work across print, web and exhibition design. Here are just a few of our favorites.

studio Fnt

Studio Fnt is a graphic design studio focused on print, identities, interactive/digital media and more. Their studio uses typography, graphic elements, shapes and colors in a playful yet considered way. Their event posters are especially memorable, each print an experience in itself.



Zerolab

Zerolab is the studio of Jang Tae-hoon Kim Dong-hoon, founded in 2010. Originally an industrial design company, the designers are often working with analog materials to create exhibits and commercial products.

Jin & Park

JIN dallae & PARK woohyuk's work spans across print design, installations, performances and audio experiences. Their graphic designs are as immersive as their exhibitions. I only wish I could have witnessed experimental works like “ACT / ACT” and “Moving Present” in person.


Ordinary People

As graphic design students in 2006, Jin Kang and a few friends started a project called "We Make Posters," which eventually turned into a graphic design studio. Ordinary People, named for the John Legend song, now works across disciplines creating exhibitions, identities, album covers and more. And they still make incredible posters.


Kim garden

Founded by Yunho Lee and Kangin Kim, Kimgarden is a graphic design studio creating everything from identities to web design to print to exhibition design. Like most print work in this feature, Kimgarden’s designs are clean yet packed with crazy, quirky detail.

Everyday Practice

Of course, the list isn't complete without our friends at Everyday Practice. Everyday Practice is a multi-disciplinary studio, but they prefer to work with their hands.

"As a design studio, we are far from high tech," Kim, Kwon and Kim said in our interview. "Personally, I think the output of graphic design is beginning to look more and more similar, because nowadays everyone can access design tools such as Illustrator and Photoshop. That’s why we prefer handmade and craft-based design methods. That gives us differentiated design color from others."

Read more about the studio's work and their reflections on the South Korean design community in our interview right here.

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There's so much to learn from creatives outside our own little bubble. Check out our Design Around the World series to meet new designers and better understand design communities in Pakistan, Nigeria, Armenia, Brazil, Singapore and more.

Stay awesome,
Tobias

August 7, 2018No Comments

How to apply for a design internship

I recently decided to take on a design intern at my company (not the first time, but we don't do it that often). We received hundreds of applications and reviewed every one of them before making a decision. When we announced the position was filled, a few people asked for feedback, wondering what they could have done differently.

Of course, we simply received an overwhelming amount of interest and could sadly only choose one person. It was a tough decision, but ultimately we selected the candidate who best fulfilled the requirements of the role. However, we did see some trends and missed opportunities that may be helpful to anyone applying for a design internship.

1. Having an online portfolio immediately increases your chances

While we stated on the job description that having an online portfolio was a must (we work on a portfolio builder, after all), we still received several Dropbox links and PDFs. We reviewed them anyway because ultimately, it’s about your skills and your potential. But sharing your work this way doesn’t do you any favors, especially if we have many portfolios to review. Downloading 100MB+ PDF files and scrolling through them without any real navigation (plus the laggy Adobe Reader) isn't fun. If I have too many portfolios to review, I usually dismiss PDF portfolios entirely.

Presentation is the essence of design. You’re not expected to have a full book of work at this point, but it’s still important to present the work you do have in a polished, modern way. 

 

2. If you don’t have experience, experiment

When you’re still young in your career, it’s understandable you won’t have many projects to share yet. In the meantime, do some experiments and personal projects of your own. Until you have the experience and the work to show, help us see your potential.

We were surprised to see most designers don’t do this. I’m not suggesting you do some intensive unsolicited redesign for a company on your own time. Just design one screen for a hypothetical app. Create a logo for yourself. Make a fake landing page. These things take just a few hours and tell us everything about your potential when you don’t have much experience in the field. Put your best experiment or two in your portfolio and the rest on your Dribbble page, so we can find more if we want it. This is not only valuable for potential employers but should be a fun and helpful exercise for you too.  

 

3. Update all your design and social accounts

You can assume that anyone considering you for a job has visited every external link on your site. We did, at least. Not to find incriminating evidence, but to get a better grasp on who you are, how you interact with the design community and how you would add to our team. If you’re not active on Twitter, don’t link to it on your site. If your Dribbble page is horribly out of date, update it before you submit your application. Show us a consistent picture of who you are, or even give us a little more in your public social pages. No, your political leanings or meme choices shouldn’t influence anyone’s decision about hiring you. But culture is important to a company and we want to understand how you will add to it. Show us. 

 

4. Have a memorable About page. Show personality.

This is the first place we went when reviewing your portfolio, before even looking at your projects. Your About page gives us context and sets the tone for your whole site. It’s important to not only give us a brief overview of your experience and interests, but to show some personality too. Remember companies are looking through hundreds of applications and portfolios. Do something that stands out. If you're new to the industry, your work may not stand out yet, but your personality might. We shared some advice for creating a great About page right here.

 

5. Curate your projects  

We say it all the time. So does almost every company we’ve interviewed in our How to Get a Job at X series. Your portfolio should only feature your best work. If it’s only 3-4 projects, that’s fine. We’d rather see just a few great projects than a lot of decent ones. One underwhelming project can drag the rest of your work down and make a potential employer question your taste. 

 

6. Keep your case studies concise

Case studies are incredibly important, and we were happy to see most submitted portfolios included thorough case studies that explained the project challenges, process and outcome. However, most of them were very, very long.

Your case studies serve two purposes: To show us how you work and also how you communicate. If your case studies are long and dry, it makes us wonder if your communication style is too. And in our company at least, which is completely remote, excellent communication means everything.

Keep your case studies brief. Make them scannable. Make them beautiful. Remember your readers and think about how much attention you can personally give to even the most compelling articles you read online. If you’re struggling to edit yourself or write powerful case studies, there’s no shame in asking a friend to help you. These writing tips for designers will also be useful.

 

7. Enthusiasm counts for a lot

In our application, we left a space for you to share your experience and tell us what you want to learn from this internship. For many applications, it was this small note that caught our interest and set someone apart. We (and we imagine most companies) want to work with people who are passionate about what they do but also humble and eager to learn. Show us you want to work with us as much as we want to work with you. It will go a long way.

For more design internship advice, check out this article. Our How to Get a Job at X series will also give you valuable insights into what companies want in a designer and what you can expect during the interview process. We hope it helps!

 

// Header image George Mayerle’s Eye Test Chart (ca. 1907), via US National Library of Medicine

August 3, 2018No Comments

Semplice Turns 4 Years Old

Four years ago when we hit the launch button on Semplice, I could not have imagined I would be writing this article today. And maybe it is this very attitude that has served us well over the years. We always had dreams, but we managed our expectations carefully.

Today, we’re still an independent, profitable and completely remote company. Our team is still spread across multiple countries and even continents. It hasn’t always been easy, but I’m proud that we’ve managed to stay in business and grow our team without taking on a single dollar of outside investment. We’re completely funded by our customers, those who use and love Semplice. I see this as a sign that hopefully, we’re doing something right.

Building with Pride

Pride is powerful. The pride we speak of is a healthy sense of self-respect. It’s the feeling of pleasure or satisfaction when looking at your work and achievements. Only a considerable amount of discipline and effort can evoke that feeling. From the beginning, pride has been at the core of everything we do at Semplice.

I still remember the first conversation I had with my partner about setting our goals and expectations for our product. First and foremost we wanted to build something that made us proud, and we wanted to extend this feeling to our users. We wanted people to be proud of what they built with Semplice. We weren't creating our product to make it easier, but to challenge and inspire. We found there is no pride in selecting a template everybody else is using. So Semplice couldn’t be about templates, but should instead provide set of tools and a blank slate.

In essence that meant building a product by designers, for designers. Too many companies that build products for designers aren’t run by designers, and whatever the reason may be, we wanted to challenge that. My partner and I are both long-time designers, and 90% of our team are designers as well — even those who work in customer support. Design appreciation is at the core of everything we do. We respect the individuality of every designer.

Scale at all cost, or not?

While financial stability is important to sustain a business long term, for us the most important goal was attracting the right kind of people to use Semplice. It wasn’t so much that we wanted every designer to use it, but the designers we admire. Looking at our Best Of Showcase today, where we feature only two portfolios each week, I’m incredibly proud to say we’ve been on the right track. When in doubt about the mission of Semplice, visiting our own Showcase reminds me we’re going in the right direction.

Scaling and growing is always part of the conversation for a company. But it can easily distract you from your vision. While we've had setbacks, we’ve mostly stayed clear of these distractions and remained focused on building something that makes us proud.

The future

It's been four years already but we feel like we’ve just started, and I’m sure many business owners can relate. We’re here to stay, as long as we can and as long as you want us to stay.

While we continue to expand our tools, we’ve also recently launched Semplice X. Consider it an internal design service that helps other mid-size agencies and studios create their portfolio. As you can see, we’re pretty much all about portfolios. Now we're able to better help other design founders run their own design business with Semplice.

Thank you to EVERYONE who has supported us so far. As an independent business, it means everything to us. We’re excited to share all the new things we’ve been working on and we hope to work with you for many years to come.

August 1, 2018No Comments

Semplice design portfolio inspiration of July 2018

Every week, we handpick two portfolios created with Semplice to feature in our Showcase.  Now we're rounding up our favorite submissions of month.

I'm always inspired by the creatives who use Semplice and enjoy looking through our submissions each month. In July we saw excellent portfolios from artists, graphic design studios, branding studios, illustrators and more.

Take a look at this month's top design portfolios below to get inspired and meet new designers. And if you've created your own portfolio with Semplice, be sure to submit it to our Showcase here. You could be featured next!

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For more design portfolio inspiration, visit the Semplice showcase. I'll be back next month with more of our monthly favorites!

P.S. Header image by Matteo Giuseppe Pani.

Have a fantastic month,
Lu

July 27, 2018No Comments

Design in Malaysia 🇲🇾 featuring LIE

Our Design Around the World series explores design communities outside our own, introducing us to new creatives and perspectives. With this latest interview meet LIE, an independent graphic design studio based in Kuala Lumpur.

As soon as I discovered LIE, I knew I wanted to include them in the series. The studio's work is fresh and vibrant, and their team clearly has personality. Driv leads that team as LIE's founder and art director. Here he gives us a peek into the Malaysian design community, still young in the country with great opportunity ahead.

First, let’s talk about your studio. Who is the team behind LIE and why did you decide to open a graphic design studio?

Having stuck at work as a designer for several years in overseas, I took a long break strolling around Japan for three months. Along the journey, I met many Japanese people who dedicated their lives to their business and career. Inspired by such dedication, I decided to start a design studio in Kuala Lumpur with the hope of contributing to my hometown and the local design community. To date, LIE consists of an art director, three designers, a content writer and an intern periodically.

It seems as though industrial design is big in your country, but is there a strong graphic design community as well? What are the job opportunities for a designer in Malaysia?

The graphic design industry in Malaysia is not as mature, nor are the values of graphic design as well-recognized, as in other industries. In the past, most designers went to advertising agencies. Yet it is getting more and more exciting in the recent years, as an increasing number of amazing work and small to medium-sized design studios have been popping up. With the popularity of online platforms, talented creatives have increased exposure and opportunities to work individually.

Illumination 10, one of several beautiful music packaging projects by LIE.

Do many local design platforms or events exist yet?

There aren’t many mainstream graphic design-related events in Malaysia, but there is an increasing number of small to medium scale events and activities related to graphic design. These are initiated by designers through cross-collaboration, or organizations such as wREGA, ThinkCity, Malaysia Design Archive, Design Union and Huruf, to name a few.

I’ve read Malaysia’s colonization plays heavily into its design history, and Malaysian design in the past was influenced by its social and political climate. How would you describe Malaysian design today? Do you notice a specific style or influences?

Malaysia as a multicultural and multiracial nation has inspired and influenced local artists and designers. Nowadays though, designers are taking influences or references from everywhere. As such, it is rather difficult to define a particular style or identity as "Malaysian design." Nevertheless, with our diverse culture and the collective effort of local designers, I still look forward to seeing design here slowly take shape and lead to what we can proudly claim as Malaysian design.

"A Fruitful Mind," LIE's work for an exhibition celebrating local Malaysia fruits.

What is design education like in Malaysia? And do many designers seek a formal education or are they self-taught?

Malaysia has quite a number of institutions of higher learning with design courses. Some of these institutions focus solely on design education. Most designers still seek a formal education at local institutions or further their studies overseas.

What would you say are unique challenges for Malaysian designers right now?

There are actually a lot of talented designers out there, but we don’t have enough established companies or platforms to keep everybody together. A lot of Malaysians will have to look for jobs overseas for better pay. It might be different if the design scene in Malaysia improves and more opportunities arise that could attract talented designers back to Malaysia to progress their career.

How much impact does your social media presence have on getting new clients and self-promotion in general? What works best for you?

Since social media is more targeted to an individual and direct consumer, it is good to generate awareness but doesn’t have a significant effect on new business for us yet. The typical mediums such as our company website, Behance and word-of-mouth still work best for us.

What does good design mean to LIE, and how do you see it impacting Malaysian society as a whole?

Good design isn’t just about aesthetics or design according to our own preference. We reckon good design should provide a solution to a problem that could make a positive impact on a business and do good for society.

In general, not many people in Malaysia really understand the value of graphic design. It’s actually OK that the client doesn’t understand, so long they are open-minded and willing to work alongside the designer for a better solution. Our role is to guide them through the creative process. A good design process is a collaborative effort between client and designer, not just following the brief or vice-versa.

When more and more good design is presented, we hope that Malaysian society will get to see and appreciate the values of design, and that it eventually creates an impact.

LIE's illustration for Nike Running: Shanghai Marathon 2016

In your opinion, what are the top creative agencies or design studios from Malaysia that everyone should know?

Kawakong Designworks
Fictionist Studio
Studio MMCMM
Kongsi Design
Some Early Birds
Shine Visual Labs
Bad Design
Huruf
NoworNever
Where’s Gut

The core LIE team: Wennie, Driv and Nick.

And now to our last question: How can all designers and design communities from other countries do a better job of communicating with each other? How can we become more engaged with the Malaysian design community? Are there any blogs or magazines we can follow?

Design festivals, design conferences, collaboration and community-led talks featuring local designers and visiting artists encourage the exchange of ideas. This would certainly help.

Unfortunately, there isn’t a specific or common platform in the Malaysian design community yet, but organizations such as ThinkCity, wREGA (Graphic Design Association of Malaysia) and Malaysia Design Archive endeavor to bring the local designers and resources together to help shape the design community.

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Driv! Thank you for sharing your honest thoughts with us. We're inspired by your work and excited for the future of design in Malaysia with studios like LIE leading the way.

Friends, be sure to visit LIE's site and check out their work. And catch up on our other interviews with studios in Mexico, India, Singapore, Armenia and more.

July 26, 2018No Comments

Full time vs. freelance vs. on your own

I've recently looked back at my (still fairly short) career, trying to find a pattern in my decision-making and understand exactly what makes me happy.

As I thought about it, I noticed there are generally three categories of active jobs we can have. Luckily, I've had the opportunity to experience all three. All of them have their own benefits and challenges. All of them have taught me a lot about myself, how I prefer to work and what I want for my career.

1. Full-time

The first category is classic full-time employment. I've only worked a few years in my life as a full-time employee, but I know it's the standard for a reason.

Depending on my role as a full-time employee, I enjoy a certain amount of security. Full-time means I have a boss, or multiple people within my company to lead me. I trade my 40 hours+ a week for a monthly salary and a range of benefits.  Especially in larger companies, I may even get away with not giving 100%. Often 70% is enough to not get fired, and sometimes even 50% or less. I could get away with calling a few meetings a month and still look like an overachiever, even though I haven't contributed much.

I'm of course not saying everyone does that, but it's certainly a possibility as the structure and politics of a large organization cloud productivity. I know that I'm personally a horrible full-time employee who suffers from the Ringelmann Effect.

Generally, I've found working full-time the "easiest" when it comes to sustaining my own livelihood. I can get away with doing the bare minimum.  If I feel a bit lazy one day, I could just follow my manager's orders and that would still make me a good employee. Self-initiative may be rewarded, but it isn't necessary for survival.

I categorize full-time as a low risk, low reward kind of setup. This makes it the most popular choice, and I mean this in the most positive way.

2. Freelance, consultant or service business owner

The second category is everyone who sells chunks of their time by providing a service to clients (B2B). Meaning you may own a company with employees, or you're a solo business owner. But what defines the second category is that instead of answering to a manager or boss, you answer to your client. When you work, you bill by the hour or day. If you want to make more money, you simply bill more hours until you have none left.

I experienced this set-up when I had my own design studio. It's slightly different to working full-time. You certainly have more responsibilities, since you're overseeing the business end of things and also producing the output. Doing work results in getting paid. There's no monthly paycheck so unless you deliver, you simply won't get paid.

In this role, I'm less likely to become lazy and I can't hide in meetings. However, I may be still able to survive by doing the bare minimum. Working for clients, I usually work for a brief. If I'm extremely motivated I may try to challenge the brief and go the extra mile, but I don't have to. I may just answer the brief, do whatever was "good enough" and hopefully get paid. If I'm out of ideas, I can always do whatever the client asks me to do. Of course the work may be not that good, it may not win awards or make me proud, but it may be enough to pay the bills.

I categorize working for clients as a medium risk, medium reward kind of set-up. The more I excel at my work, the more I get out of it. However, I may get away with mediocre work.

“While you are alone you are entirely your own master.” - Leonardo da Vinci

3. Your own business & product

What defines the third category is that you own your own business and work on your own product that you sell directly to customers. Most bootstrapped or self-financed businesses fall under this category. Even funded businesses to some extent, although you could argue there may be less skin in the game.

I personally found this path to be the most difficult so far. I have no boss or manager to guide me. I have no client with a briefing or a particular problem to solve. I'm completely on my own. No one is telling me what to do, which is a beautiful and liberating thing but also scary and lonely at times.

I wake up in the morning and have to plan my own agenda for the day. I need to find my own problems to solve, and then solve them. And if I'm lucky (or good at what I do) I may be rewarded by customers purchasing my product. If I fail, most likely no one tells me what went wrong and for sure no one will tell me how to fix it.

Working on your own product I'd categorize as high risk, high reward. The more risks I take, the higher the reward may be. I have no security nets, but also no one blocking me from receiving the highest reward if I do well.

Weighing the Pros & Cons

The grass is always greener on the other side, but all of these options have their trade-offs. Here is my personal summary:

Full-time

PROs:

  1. Financial stability (at least, in theory)
  2. Benefits (healthcare, paid vacation, etc.)
  3. Stable work hours (at least in theory)
  4. Stable social circle (same people you work with every day)
  5. I can give 70% and still be fine
  6. Clear leadership, I get told what to do (in theory)
  7. Mentorship

CONs:

  1. Fear of not being in control (can get fired for little reason)
  2. Less creative freedom, always have to answer to boss
  3. Need to be social to some degree to fit into office culture
  4. Most likely bound to certain work hours and location

Freelance, consultant, studio owner

PROs:

  1. Freedom to work with whomever I want (in theory)
  2. Work from anywhere I want
  3. Work anytime I want (may depend on clients)

CONs:

  1. I get paid by the hour, and I only have 24 hours in a day.
  2. Unpredictable income. One month nothing, another month a lot.
  3. Responsible for my own benefits
  4. Lots of trial and error finding the right clients

Owning a product business (with customers)

PROs:

  1. Absolute creative freedom
  2. Work from anywhere, whenever I want
  3. More control overall

CONs:

  1. No regular salary (unless I've figured out a recurring revenue model)
  2. Responsible for my own benefits
  3. Very lonely, unless you hire some friends (co-workers)
  4. High risk, high reward (both a pro and a con)

I've learned that all three models may be the best for me depending on my phase in life. Of course it also depends on personality and skills. I know people who thrive by working in a specific role full-time or in the service business. I also know some who thrive only if they're completely on their own.

For the most part, I fall between #2 and #3. I love working for clients because I love to serve. I thrive by simply providing value to someone, even at the expense of my own creative expression.

July 19, 2018No Comments

It’s all been done before

It’s one of the main challenges I experience with writing. One moment I’m struck with an idea or a revelation, something I feel compelled to write about. The very next moment I think, well, maybe somebody’s already written about this.

I Google it and sure enough, dozens of headlines appear on the subject. Many people have already written about it from every possible angle. It’s already covered. Why should I bullshit about it, likely with a lot less authority than some of these people, when it’s already been done before?

Few things kill creativity faster than fear. In this case, it’s the fear of sounding trite or naive. The fear of being dull, derivative or worse — irrelevant.

It’s funny how every human has their own unique experiences, ideologies and voice, yet are unfailingly the same. The same stories have been told in countless ways. The same character archetypes have appeared in books, TV shows and movies since before those mediums existed. The same emotions or ideas have been expressed in every imaginable form spanning centuries. And so it will continue until the end of time.

Nothing is original. Yet with each interpretation or adaptation of the same idea, it is slightly different. That's what innovation is. It's how humanity moves forward. It may be something we’ve all seen and heard before, but now it’s been explored, reinvented and maybe even made better by someone else. It is new.

“The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.” - Einstein

I’ve written about perfectionism, about the imposter syndrome, about trusting your gut and competing with yourself. None of these articles are groundbreaking. We’ve beaten those themes to a pulp as creatives over the years, but I wrote about them anyway. They are worn topics but clichés are clichés for a reason — they are universally relatable and will be as long as human beings exist.

And I’ve heard from many readers who found these articles helpful or encouraging in some way. That may be because they personally haven’t read about it before, or it was a good reminder, or they just appreciated my perspective on the subject. Whatever the reason, they were useful to someone and that’s enough.

It’s all been done before. But it hasn’t been done by me.

The same truth applies to any form of creativity. Our writing, our designs, our music, our art. New creations and radical ideas are introduced all the time, but so are familiar ones. (This subject itself, that it's all been done before, has been done before.) They just take on a new shape. That doesn’t necessarily make them any less compelling, beautiful or valuable.

In fact, most designers, writers, artists, musicians and makers learn by copying first. Do a bit of research and you'll find some of the world's greatest inventions (Edison's light bulb, Apple computers, Ford cars) were just a better iteration of something someone else already did. My .mail email concept is a great example as well. I didn't invent the concept of an email client. I used preexisting elements and tried to make them better.

Image from "Everything is a Remix."

 

This is not to defend plagiarism. There’s an obvious difference between approaching a common angle or existing concept from your own perspective, and blatantly ripping off someone’s work. There’s also a difference between creating something because it’s trendy and creating it because it’s important to you.

As the prolific writer Maria Popova said, “creativity is simply the sum total of your mental resources, the catalog of ideas you’ve accumulated over the years by being alive and alert and attentive to the outside world.”

To create, whether it’s completely original, an homage to another idea or a reinterpretation of an old one, is enough.

July 17, 2018No Comments

Design in Mexico 🇲🇽 featuring Anagrama

With this latest interview in our Design Around the World series, we're excited to feature the awesome Anagrama studio located in Mexico City.

It's likely you're already familiar with Anagrama and their branding work. I've personally admired the studio and followed their work for a long time now. So it was an honor to talk with Daniela, creative partner at Anagrama, about the growing design community in Mexico and where it's headed next.

Hey Daniela, let's do this! First, tell us a bit about yourself and your studio. Who is the team behind Anagrama?

We're a multidisciplinary studio with work spread out into three big branches: branding, architecture and interactive. We are eight partners: Sebastian Padilla, Mike Herrera and Gustavo Muñoz. They started the company around 10 years ago. Roberto Treviño, Carolina Ortiz, Roberto Castillo, David Gutierrez and myself joined the partnership later. And there’s more. We are a team around 40 talented creative people with different roles in different areas. We are a big family!

Mexico City was named the sixth World Design Capital in 2018. It seems like Mexico overall has been receiving attention for its design lately, especially architectural design. How did this reputation come about? 

I love this fact. Mexico is a country full of culture, colors, aromas, shapes, sounds. Somehow all the diversity that surrounds us is part of our visual growth. 

I feel honored that our team is part of the current design movement in Mexico. It’s true to say that something is going on here; there is so much creativity in the air. In the city there are galleries, exhibitions, installations, social media art/design content and murals. I think this might be a response to the current hunger of creative expression.

And wait for more – we keep moving.

Part of Anagrama's branding for Maka, an environmentally-conscious water company with strong Mexican roots.

Does Mexico have a distinct design style? If so, how would you describe it and how does your country’s heritage play into it? Do you have any examples for us?

Well, I believe that a good design project should follow the brief more than its own culture or heritage. If we talk about a project where Mexicanity is part of the brand values, we have good examples in our portfolio. Amado and Maka had Mexicanity as an important message, so we did communicate it through the brand, avoiding clichés.

You work with clients around the world. Did it take any special effort to reach an international audience or did this happen naturally for your studio?

It started naturally since the beginning, but we have plans to expand to the U.S. market. Hope I can share more info about it soon! So excited.

Work for Alfredo Gonzales, a Rotterdam-based brand.

What is design education like in Mexico? I’ve read that the entire Anagrama team attended university. Is this common for designers in Mexico or are many self-taught as well?

Unfortunately there’s so much to do about design education in Mexico. Sadly, politics and corruption have affected the education system. For a lot of people in Mexico it’s a privilege to go to university. We feel grateful to say we all have degrees, but I can say too that there are talented people we have worked with who didn't have a formal education.

We don’t believe it's crucial if a person has enough interest and practice in design and creativity. That said, design education is improving as the creative industry is growing and getting stronger in Mexico.

Anagrama's Lavaderos project for Rosewood Puebla

Why do you think good design is important, and what does good design mean for you at Anagrama? Do you think it has the power to create social change in your country?

Good design communicates efficiently and offers a strong differentiator for brands. These days it’s all about connecting people with products and services — not only for the product or service attributes, but for sharing a philosophy of life, a way of thinking. We believe design and an integrated branding experience is the perfect tool to execute a well planned identity strategy.

And yes, our main goal is to upgrade Mexico’s visual culture.

Anagrama honored yet modernized traditional Mexican motifs for the rebranding of Café la Nacional, a Mexican coffee shop.

In an interview with It’s Nice That last year, Sebastian Padilla said “Many people think Mexico is cheaper, too, and that’s not a good thing for us, because our quality is so high.” 

How is your design community overcoming this perception? Is it just a matter of educating clients and continuing to put out great work? 

I can say times are changing and much has improved since then. But the truth is we keep working on to change that mindset. Hopefully we are closer now.

Anagrama's reimagined Mexican coat of arms for Cafe La Nacional.

In your opinion, what are the top creative agencies / design studios from Mexico that everyone should know?

Futura

Monumento

Panama Studio

Brands and People

And now to our last question: How can all designers and design communities from other countries do a better job of communicating with each other? How can we become more engaged with the Mexican design community? Are there any blogs or specific magazines we can follow?

Follow us, haha. Well, there are several places and platforms like Archivo Diseño y Arquitectura, Cool Hunter, Tag CDMX, Local.mx and Codigo Magazine that provide a fresh update about what is going on in Mexico.

___

Daniela, thanks so much for sharing your experience and thoughts with us. It's clear this is an exciting time for design in Mexico and we can't wait to see more from your creative community.

Friends, be sure to check out Anagrama's latest projects as well as the excellent resources Daniela shared with us. And if you're just joining us in the series, there's lots to learn from the design communities in Nigeria, India, Brazil, Pakistan and more. Catch up here.

July 13, 2018No Comments

7 beautiful illustration portfolios made with Semplice

We’ve always said Semplice is made by designers, for designers. But all kinds of creatives use Semplice to showcase their work, including illustrators.

We’ve seen tons of outstanding illustration portfolios over the years and discover new ones every day. With its customizable project pages, elegant galleries and full-screen image features, Semplice is a natural fit for an illustrator.

Semplice allows you to make your portfolio as minimal or complex as you want. Some illustrators and artists go for a simple, clean look to contrast with their colorful or detailed work. Others style their case study pages to match the branding of their individual projects. The portfolios we've chosen here show a nice range of approaches, all compelling in their own way.

Tommy Parker

Tommy's portfolio is sleek and polished, displaying his work like the pages of a magazine. Which is appropriate, considering his editorial illustrations appear in publications like GQ, The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, Wired and more. (And in our header image.)

He’s already refreshed his design once within the last year, which we love to see. Semplice makes it easy to iterate and refine as your work and career evolves.

VIEW TOMMY'S PORTFOLIO

Violeta Noy

Violeta used the Semplice gallery module to display her lovely illustrations. With simple GIFs and subtle hover states, her portfolio showcases her work nicely without standing in the way.

VIEW VIOLETA'S PORTFOLIO

Raúl Gil

Raúl is new to the Semplice family and we’re honored to have him. I especially enjoy how he used complementary background colors to present his artwork on each project page. It's a smart yet simple way to set the mood.

VIEW RAUL'S PORTFOLIO

Michela Picchi

Your portfolio is only as great as your work, and our Semplice family always inspires us with their talent. Michela is no exception. Michela's minimalist site puts her vibrant illustrations front and center, while snappy page transitions and GIFs add energy.

Michela used the Semplice Blocks feature to include a “More Projects” section at the bottom of each project, which motivates visitors to continue browsing her work.

VIEW MICHELA'S PORTFOLIO

Summerkid

Andreea Cristina’s portfolio makes use of classic Semplice features, like our full-screen cover slider. Her “What Ifs” section is my favorite part, with conceptual products featuring her cheerful illustrations.

I always share the Summerkid portfolio as an example of great external shop integration. The transition between her Shop landing page and her third-party Bookblock page is seamless.

VIEW ANDREA'S PORTFOLIO

Pawel Nolbert

If you’re familiar with Semplice, you’ve seen my friend Pawel’s work many times (you might call him our digital artist-in-residence). Pawel’s portfolio functions much like an art gallery, putting the spotlight on his brilliant digital art.

Our Semplice X team worked with him to find the best way to use Semplice for his work, and we’re pretty proud of how it turned out.

VIEW PAWEL'S PORTFOLIO

Petra Sitaru

Petra has been a part of the Semplice family for a while now, and we've enjoyed watching her work evolve. She chooses a light and airy approach with her portfolio, which serves her playful illustrations well.

VIEW PETRA'S PORTFOLIO

Build with Pride. Use Semplice.

We made Semplice to help you showcase your work in the best way possible, whether you’re an illustrator, artist or designer. It’s intuitive and easy to use, so you can build a completely custom site without coding knowledge. Check out our Best Of Showcase for more inspiring portfolios from Semplice family members across creative disciplines. Then join the Semplice family and build with pride.

Cover image by Tommy Parker.

July 11, 2018No Comments

Semplice x Flywheel

Semplice is made by designers, for designers. Since we founded Semplice four years ago, every day has been about pushing creatives forward with tools that allow them to build beautiful case studies and portfolios.

From the beginning we chose WordPress as our base platform because we wanted Semplice to be built on an open system that doesn’t not lock you in like other subscription services do. Semplice is fully self-hosted, meaning it’s your system and your data. Once you have it you can do whatever you want with it.

But finding the right hosting company can be difficult, which is why we’re happy to announce we’re partnering up with FlyWheel.

Flywheel & Semplice: Perfect Together

Flywheel is a hosting company focused entirely on WordPress sites. Their team is not only familiar with the Semplice platform as they host many Semplice portfolios already, but they also build tools specifically for the creative community.

Flywheel has always been our preferred choice of hosting. It works beautifully with Semplice and it's hands down the best hosting out there: fast, reliable and most importantly, a team that cares about what we do as creatives.

Use Flywheel hosting and we’ll do everything for you

With Flywheel we aim to make everything super easy for you. If you’re moving your hosting to Flywheel, Flywheel and Semplice will help you migrate your website. If you're just getting started with your site, we'll install Semplice and WordPress for you. You basically have to do nothing. We’ll do it all for you, so you can just jump in and start building your portfolio with Semplice.

I use Flywheel personally for this blog and wouldn’t switch if you paid me. Our developers and support team might actually consider paying you to use Flywheel, because it makes their jobs so much easier. It’s that good, we promise.

Get Flywheel right here and build something awesome with us.

July 4, 2018No Comments

Semplice design portfolio inspiration of June 2018

Every Wednesday, we handpick two online portfolios created with Semplice to feature in our Best Of  Showcase.  Now we've sharing our favorites from the past month.

In June we saw several fantastic websites from design studios, art directors, production studios, product designers, illustrators and more. I love seeing this range of creative work and I'm always inspired by our talented Semplice family members.

Fun fact: Petra Sitaru, one of our picks below, appeared once in our Showcase before. Now we're featuring her new portfolio redesign. At Semplice we believe our portfolios should always evolve along with us. Petra's portfolio is a great example of that.

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To see more of the best design portfolios out there, visit the Semplice Showcase. And if create your own portfolio with Semplice, be sure to submit it to our Showcase here. You could be featured next.

I'll be back next month with more of our favorites!

Stay awesome,

Lu

P.S. Header image by Petra Sitaru.

June 28, 2018No Comments

How to get unstuck and launch your portfolio

One of the biggest challenges we face as designers is finishing our projects. Especially with personal work like our portfolio, it seems impossible to please ourselves.

We obsess over every detail and want everything to be perfect. The moment we think we're finished and take a step back, we want to redo everything again.

Designers notoriously procrastinate on their portfolio. Even if they have amazing work and dozens of great ideas for their portfolio, they take forever to start or struggle to finish.

As with everything, ideas are cheap. Getting it done is everything. Aside from having the right tools, these simple tips will help you launch something great within a short amount of time.

Step 1: Keep it simple. Max 4–6 projects.

Often the reasons we don't get anywhere is because we fail to set boundaries and curate. For your initial launch, all you need is a few your best projects in your portfolio – even two case studies is enough to launch.

Aside from providing a useful restraint, this will help you focus on showcasing only your best work. At the same time, it helps your visitors understand what you do best without getting overwhelmed. If you think you need to prepare 10–20+ projects for your first launch, you will never get that thing live — and no one is going to look through 20 projects anyway. You’re not doing anyone any favors by including too much.

Work by Tina Smith – tinasmithdesign.com (portfolio built with Semplice)

And don’t forget, this is for your first launch. You should always be updating and improving your portfolio, so this just keeps you moving forward. Your portfolio is not what you did, but what you’re going to do next. Build your portfolio with the work you want to do in the future instead of just using it as a backlog of projects.

Action expresses priorities. — Gandhi

Step 2: Set yourself a deadline

Followed by the first exercise, give yourself a deadline of four weeks. Then launch your portfolio no matter what. Even if it’s not perfect, even if some projects are missing. You have to launch! The key is to ship fast and keep iterating on it over time to make it better. By keeping it simple as described in the first step, you will be able to make it.

Portfolio by Mach Studio, built with Semplice – mach.studio (also our featured image)

Step 3: Get inspired

Inspiration plays a big role. Get inspired and push yourself by looking at other portfolios. By looking at other portfolios you can get a sense of how other designers present their work and how you would like to position yourself. The Semplice Showcase has fantastic examples by other great designers. Each of them had every reason to procrastinate on their portfolio, but all of them finished. In the end, it all comes down to committing and getting shit done.

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The truth is that our portfolios are never finished. I think of my own website as just an iteration, constantly evolving as I do in my career. I'm always redesigning, adding new projects or refining it to set myself up for what I want to do next.

Now it’s up to you. Put on some good tunes and get it done!

P.S. Our learnings are of course from working with the amazing Semplice community. But we hope you apply all of the above to whatever tool you might end up using. 

June 13, 2018No Comments

Design in India 🇮🇳 featuring Animal

With our Design Around the World series we aim to meet new designers and explore design communities outside our own. Now we're excited to share add India to the series, featuring the lovely team at Animal.

Animal is an independent creative agency with offices in New Delhi and New York. They create beautiful work for clients like Adidas, National Geographic, One Plus and lots more. They're also champions of the Indian design community. Take Indianama, the platform they started to highlight and create dialogue around contemporary Indian design.

I talked with Kunel and Sharon, co-founders at Animal, all about life as a designer in India today, the change they see happening now and where Indian design will go in the future.

First, tell us a bit about your studio. Who is the team behind Animal and why did you decide to open a creative agency in India?

Kunel grew up in New Delhi, India. Sharon studied here and later joined advertising. Having seen the industry change over the years, we naturally felt the need to create alternatives for things that were working and avenues for those that weren’t. India is a robust, developing market that is changing at the speed of light, and the opportunity to do amazing things is vast.

There’s just so much raw material to play with.

A traditional structure (at the time we started) would have slowed us down and so we experimented by working with a new style of structure, where people with different talents could work under one roof, as opposed to the traditional agency model that is limited to art, copy, planning and management. This new kind of structure gave way to a freer approach of thinking on briefs and concepts, as well as a chance to collaborate with a wider set of talent, from India and abroad.

 

There seems to be a growing voice for design in India, for example projects like “India Design Platform” and your work with Indianama. Do you see the creative landscape shifting or evolving in a significant way – and what sparked this dialogue?

Oh, it has come of age. And yes, it’s evolving in a beautiful way.

This thing we call "the underground" has fast taken the centre-stage and at the risk of sounding like a prophet, we’d say it’s our great reckoning. We transitioned into what some pedants are calling the post-text era, smoothly. There's still a long way to go but we’re on our way, and that’s all that matters at the moment.

Part of Animal's Adidas Originals EQT project

I read you started Indianama because as a brand, India lacked a modern visual presence. It seems like design and art is very much a part of India’s history, though. Do you feel Indian design has a dated or inaccurate reputation? Why has India lacked a modern design identity to this point?

All the way up until this moment, design in India was deeply inspired by historic references to architecture and textiles from different parts of the country, truck art, matchbox art, Bollywood films and other such clichés. While they are special in their own way, we believe we’re done exploiting them for commercial application in design and somehow they are being bundled under one category that is purely kitsch.

We wanted India to surface gracefully onto the international design scene. One way of ensuring that was Indianama — retain the India you know and love, reimagine the India that you’d like to see.

There’s no word which, on its own, can define the Indian culture. One predominant aspect of the country’s identity is that of being a mix, a melting pot, of ideas and systems. That sure makes the terrain of design here a little difficult to maneuver, but that’s also what keeps us from getting comfortable.

Dated, we’ll say yes. The accuracy is what we’re here to seek.

How would you describe India’s evolving design style? Does your heritage and culture still fit into it, just in a different way? 

On the timeline of where we’re coming from and where we’re headed, we’d call it the post re-interpretation phase. We’re contemporizing our heritage and culture — giving birth to new vantage points that show different sides of India to everyone looking over — as opposed to one universal definition of India as a heritage state.

At the cusp of being exploited and enriched, some of the notable examples would include Old-Delhi based Painter Kafeel whose rich brush strokes and meticulous typography originating from the 1950s appear, with a dose of nostalgia, in advertising campaigns for the likes of Google.

Also Mira Malhotra, who has delved into the cultural significance of the saree. Her "How to Unfold a Saree" is a unique piece of graphic design. It’s a one-off mini-zine that celebrates this iconic fashion garment at the intersection of design and culture.

Hoshiyar Singh, who once started as a billboard painter 45 years ago, has been collaborating on fashion shoots and set designs with the likes of world-renowned fashion designer, Manish Arora.

Calligraphy seems to play a big role in India’s graphic design history. Is calligraphy still a common practice among modern graphic designers there?

Calligraphy in India has become a two-sided coin. If we were to see it on small town walls or sign boards of local shops, we’d nonchalantly term it as bourgeois, a style that conforms with the kitsch aesthetic of old Bollywood. As we move onto bigger brands and high-end spaces, the style is labelled artisanal.

Our languages are just as complex as they are numerous. As an ode to them, we’d love to experiment with them in a setting that’s both contemporary and functional. That’s also something we’re enthusiastically working toward.

In 2012 Kamal Nath, former Minister of Urban Development in India said, "India has already unleashed its entrepreneurial ability, now it needs to unleash its creative ability. We need design." Has the government helped advance design in the country in any tangible way? I know in the past it invested in fashion to support the textile industry, but what about graphic design?

Governments change every five years, so do the initiatives. Which is why it is becoming more and more important for the design community to look at initiatives with long-term goals. With Indianama, that is what we have envisioned.

We have the National Initiative for Design Innovation and such, so surely the government understands the need of the hour. The tangibility can, however, only be commented on after a few years of gauging the impact.

I’ve heard new design schools and courses are opening up in Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore and Pune. What is the quality of design education like in India? Did most designers at your agency study at a university or were they self-taught?

Yes, there are some great design schools in the country. But we’re in a fix because of two things: while design education is still fairly new and mainstream in terms of taste inspired from the West, the global shift in that same taste with technology has fast seeped into our Instagram feeds, creating a dichotomy of opinions — a war of sensibilities within the industry.

We get a mix of people, from those who studied at design schools like JJ School, Srishti, NIFT and NID to those who are self-taught. Some don’t even know the full spectrum of design software, but they have a great taste. Now who wouldn’t love that.

“On one hand we have the Internet that travels and progresses at the speed of light. And on the other, we have the labyrinth called India.”

Recent reports predict India will continue as the world’s fastest growing internet market. It seems like India’s design community is still catching up to this growth – is that an accurate perception? For example I read that India’s many complex scripts are being adapted into typefaces for consistency online.

On one hand we have the Internet that travels and progresses at the speed of light. And on the other, we have the labyrinth called India.

They are two disparate mammoths. It will take more than genius to get the two on the same page through design. So for now, the wise thing would be to go one step at a time.  

Our traditional typefaces, keeping in mind the uniqueness they hold, are worthy of digital preservation and commemoration. The job might sound tedious, but who’s to say that the result won’t be exquisite?

Animal's work for Google Allo

 Why do you think good design is important, and what does good design mean for you at Animal?

Good design works against the psychological violence of banality. It also transcends medium, message and time.

The beautification that design offers is obviously the cherry on top of the cake that’s communication. Good design then becomes the foundation of good communication. The aesthetics you play with should first serve the purpose at hand, be it advertising or branding.

As we’ve talked about earlier, the land we’re out to explore offers a terrain that’s not easy for a conformist to steer through. Our people are varied, so are their sensibilities. Good design, for us, is design that can educate the people en masse about its importance in everyday life.

Adidas Originals NMD, conceptualizing the never-ending journey of the urban nomad

In your opinion, does design have the power to create social or systematic change in your country, for example propelling the economy forward and/or decreasing poverty?

Design in an economy like India is also treated as a medium of marketing, a way of presentation that’s bound to get your attention. It gives us, the designers, the power to steer change through visual communication. The simplest way of doing the same is coming up with simple and effective systems of information absorption, making our people understand the values that would drive us forward.

While this helps corporations and startups that work with creative agencies like us, empowering them with great design systems, there’s a whole other side of it that is completely ignored.

At least until now.

In this year’s edition of Indianama,  our focus lies on improving the design landscape at a grassroot level. We’re going to the streets, working with the really small businesses and local shops and providing them access to quality design through collaboration with 71 designers around the world.  Once adapted on a larger scale, it could definitely help certain sectors of the economy grow.

That is the bigger picture we’re working toward, and undoubtedly the most ambitious one.

Is good design valued in India as a whole? Do your clients understand its potential and are they willing to pay for what it takes?

The ideal comparison would be that of one project with the other, rather than of clients. Largely, how receptive and appreciative they are of good design depends on what they’re offering and who they are offering it to. Many a time, we’ve worked on projects based on experimental design with brands you’d perceive as traditional. Other times, the up and the coming companies are the ones on the lookout for conventional, tried-and-tested methods. Overall, the standards that underline design in India are definitely on the rise.

I’ve read that India excels in system design, creating incredibly efficient and streamlined processes. Is that reflected in the design industry or the clients you work with?

Great system design is sometimes an effect of dire need. Our land is beautifully chaotic, which makes us work continuously toward systems and processes that are efficient, effective and sustainable.

The Dabbawalas of Mumbai are the perfect example here. That kind of functioning at that scale has been achieved, we feel, because it’s a community working toward a common good without the meddlesome bureaucracy of MNCs.  

More from Animal's work for Google

In your opinion, what are the top 5-10 creative agencies / design studios from India that everyone should know?

Quicksand

Beard Design

Codesign

The Brewhouse

Creativeland Asia

And now to our last question: How can all designers and design communities from other countries do a better job of communicating with each other? How can we become more engaged with the Indian design community? Are there any blogs or specific magazines we can follow?

There’s a lot of dialogue amongst designers and like-minded communities from around the world on platforms like Instagram and Behance. Curating some great content from an Indian perspective and relevance to culture would be websites like Platform Magazine and Homegrown. For a deep dive into the upcoming and often untold stories from the Indian sub-culture, there’s Motherland Magazine. And for a fairly new, but edgy source of the latest dialogue on the design industry in India, we’d recommend Design Fabric. To those wishing to visit some of the local design events, we say don’t miss out on Kyoorius Designyatra, an annual design conference and festival that in Goa every year.

In terms of books, there’s the award winning Dekho, by Rajesh Dahiya and India: Contemporary Design by V&A curator Divia Patel.

___

Kunel and Sharon, thanks so much for taking the time and giving us a peek into your world. It's truly exciting to see the work you're doing at Animal and Indianama, and I'll definitely be following these other studios and publications you shared as I learn more about the Indian design community.

Friends, be sure to follow Animal on Instagram to keep up with their work. And if you're just now jumping into the series, catch up with our other Design Around the World interviews right here. Until next time!

June 12, 2018No Comments

How to Get a Job at KISKA

KISKA is a design studio quite unlike any company we’ve featured in this series so far. Working across the physical and digital space, the studio designs everything from motorcycles to sporting goods to prosthetics.

As you can imagine, they need all kinds of designers with diverse skills on their team.  I'm thankful Mel and George, two of the talented people on that team, answered all my questions about how we might get a job working with them at KISKA.

First, tell us a little about yourselves and what you do at KISKA.

MEL: As connected products and services manager, I bridge the digital and physical worlds. I help clients understand and build a strategic, connected future for their products and brands. I also coordinate the digital and design teams.

When I’m not at KISKA, you’ll find me outside. Salzburg has an epic sports scene. I’m snowboarding in winter, mountain biking and hiking in spring and summer.

GEORGE: I bring interactive concepts and products to life as a creative technologist. It’s a challenging blend of product design, electronics, cloud-based services and infrastructure that I try to prototype at all levels. Sometimes quick cardboard mock-ups. Other times, prototypes that are indistinguishable from the real thing. I also work with Mel to champion digital internally at KISKA. Right now, I’m running some Arduino tinkering workshops. I spend any spare time climbing and hiking the mountains surrounding KISKA.

Looking at your current design team, how many of them came through internal referrals or headhunting, and how many came through the traditional application process?

MEL: We’re lucky because of our network and KISKA’s renown drive applications. Talented people apply to KISKA because they know who we are, and our team reflects that. Having said that, we definitely value internal referrals and headhunt for select positions.

Say we decide to send a cold email. What kind of message gets a reply, any secrets for us? Or should we just fill out the job form?

MEL: Personally, I love to receive an email that surprises or delights with something new, innovative or memorable. Something that I can’t help but reply to. I think anyone who is actively recruiting at KISKA appreciates an email that is targeted. Take the time to communicate that you know what KISKA wants. And make sure we know what you want.

GEORGE: You can do that through email or an application on the website. There is a Quick Apply function where you can submit your CV, portfolio and a short message to KISKA. I used it when I applied to KISKA. There was no open position, but the 100 words I wrote demonstrated everything Mel mentioned.

MEL: Get in touch and be yourself – by website or email. We value directness and individuality.

How important is a complete portfolio? Can we get away with not having a portfolio when interviewing at KISKA?

GEORGE: The best way to show us what you can do is by showing what you’ve done.

MEL: So, yes you need a showcase of your work. Whether it is a “traditional” portfolio, a website, showreel or client list. Whatever it is, we want to see a diversity of work across products and services. We want to see your creative thinking and how you’ve applied what you know to achieve innovative results that make an impact.

Tell us one thing you never want to see again on a portfolio. Anything you wish you saw more?

MEL: Dull representations of process are challenging for me. Usually this is pages of descriptive text accompanied by flow charts. This could be the most fascinating work, but I don’t have the time to get into it. If you’re going to show me process, be brief and then we can talk about it in the interview. A four-page portfolio with a relevant overview is MUCH better than a 20-page portfolio filled with images of post-its and process diagrams.

GEORGE: It is frustrating when I see a group project that doesn’t indicate an individual’s contribution. It doesn’t matter if you didn’t do the most exciting part. Use your slice of the project as a jumping off point to share what you learned – and how you made a difference to the final product.

Looking at your current job postings I see openings for UI and digital design positions, which seem a little more accessible than the Motorcycle Design job, for example. How much product design experience do we need to work at KISKA and how far can natural design talent and on-the-job training take us?

MEL: You’d think that UI and digital design positions would be more accessible than a motorcycle design job, but that’s not the case. KISKA works where barriers between products and services are breaking down – and reconnecting in new ways. We get loads of applicants who have a portfolio full of beautiful apps and cool web-based services, but our work is physically anchored. It’s a different approach to design, an embedded system with physical touch-points other than a keyboard and mouse.

Designers who understand this space are challenging to recruit. They are hybrids, often product or transportation designers who see the creative opportunities in either interaction or service design. In fact, most of our current team comes from some sort of physical design background.

GEORGE: You never see a UI portfolio that includes icons designed for a 10-pixel high screen that refreshes every half a second. We work with tight technical constraints: reduced color palettes, low pixel counts and refresh rates. It isn’t glamorous, but it’s our reality. If you are up to the challenge and nail it, you’ll make more of an impact than you would finessing transitions for an iPhone app.

Besides having a portfolio, do you like the idea of designers being invested in other interests, for example blogging or being otherwise active in their community? I did notice you have a lot of athletes and active people on your team.

MEL: Yes, but we’re hiring you to be on our team. Not for your pro boarding skills.

It’s true that there are a lot of athletes and outdoor enthusiasts at KISKA, but we have a lot of passions. In the end, we really just like cool people who are interesting to work and hang out with.

Say I make the first pass and get invited to an interview. Can you describe the interview process as briefly as possible?

GEORGE: In my case, it took me eight weeks to be hired by KISKA, but it can take up to 12. That’s everything from application to contract negotiation. Pretty impressive considering how personalized the process is. HR took care of everything.

MEL: If we like what we see, HR gets in touch for a first interview. You’ll speak with a team lead like me, or a senior like George. I like to start with a relaxed conversation and flow from there.

The second interview is at KISKA. You’ll spend up to half a day here touring the studio, meeting the team, and maybe meeting with the partners. If there is a task, it is set after the first or second interview. It depends on the position, the number of applicants and how you’ve demonstrated your skills and experience during interviews.

What are the biggest mistakes you see designers make when applying for a job at KISKA? Are there any specific things that keep bothering you? Please complain to us!

GEORGE: Lack of attention to detail, like when your cover letter is copy and pasted, addressing another studio. Once, we got a CV with no name and incorrect contact details. We loved the portfolio, but couldn’t reach the applicant!

MEL: For Skype interviews, time zone confusion can happen. Better be safe than sorry. Double check yours before making a final appointment!

Do you remember a specific application that impressed you? Something crazy?

GEORGE: Not off the top of my head, but there’s no question that knowing your audience impresses. Target your message and material to us. It’s quite easy to find Mel or I on LinkedIn and learn more about us. What we’ve done, what we’re into and what we do at KISKA. Take advantage of social media.

Would KISKA hire someone who is a culture fit over someone who has more industry experience and hard skills?

MEL: Not exclusively. Cultural fit is essential, but of course it’s balanced with skill and experience. On the other hand, an open mind and interest in pushing boundaries are just as valuable as hard skills. These can always be driven to new and cool places while you’re working. There’s always room for growth.

GEORGE: I think a KISKA culture fit is anyone who is adaptable with a good attitude.

You specifically mention visa expertise on your Careers page, which is awesome. Do you often make international hires? What kind of positions do you hire remotely, if any?

GEORGE: Mel and I are British. Our direct teammates are from India, Portugal, Iceland, Netherlands, Italy, Czech Republic and Germany. So yes, we hire internationally at KISKA.

How do you think KISKA is different when hiring new talent compared to other companies?

GEORGE: It can be very easy! I sent my portfolio through the website. I did a Skype interview. KISKA arranged the flight for the studio interview and tour. Then I got hired.

If you’ve got the skill and you fit in with the culture, the team will champion you. They won’t put you off by following a rigid process.

MEL: I think there is a human touch to recruitment at KISKA, which isn’t typical at other studios. After the online submission, everything is personalized. We put a lot of effort into recruiting, so we’re mindful of the effort you’ve put in. This isn’t an automated experience.

In fact, I always give feedback to someone who is not hired if they ask for it. It’s important to us that people develop and learn. Life at KISKA is always about pushing forward. So, why not transform every moment into a valuable experience?

__

George and Mel, thank you so much for doing this interview with us. It's fascinating to learn about the work you do, and your creative team seems truly unique.

Readers, if you admire KISKA's work and team as much as I do, you will be happy to hear they're hiring for some design positions at the moment. Check them out right here. And if you do apply for a job at KISKA, remember these key takeaways:

1. KISKA is looking for hybrid, adaptable designers.

The work at KISKA is highly technical, and most people who work on the design team have diverse skills as well as some kind of product / physical design experience. If that describes you, make it apparent on your portfolio and in the conversations you have with their team. Show your versatility and demonstrate your experience with curated, relevant portfolio projects.

2. The details matter.

Considering the kind of work KISKA does, it makes sense they're expecting strong attention to detail. Pay attention to the small stuff – you don't want to miss your shot because of some trivial mistake, like confusing time zones or copy and pasting irrelevant details in your application.

3. Research and target your message.

Taking time to research and make a personal, direct connection counts for a lot with the KIKSA team. Craft your message — whether that's via email or social media correspondence, your application or your portfolio — and make it clear you understand who they are and what they do. As we've learned in our other interviews, it's not necessarily about pitching yourself, but more about being thoughtful and genuine in your approach.

If you haven't already, make sure to browse KISKA's recent projects to see all the cool work they're doing. And if you're looking for a design job right now, check out our other interviews in the How to Get a Job at X series as well. More are coming soon!

June 11, 2018No Comments

How to make a portfolio when your work can’t be shared

An online portfolio is critical to a designer's success. But what do we do when we work on a confidential project where we’ve signed a non-disclosure agreement? Or what if we worked on something that hasn’t launched yet, but we really love the project and want it on our portfolio now? Or what if the nature of our design work doesn’t really make sense for a visual portfolio?

Most of us have run into one of these problems before. And while it’s tricky and sometimes more time consuming, you may still be able to feature this work in your portfolio to some extent. In my work with Semplice I’ve seen every kind of approach to solve these problems. Here’s how I’ve seen designers to get around the most common roadblocks.

When You’ve Signed a Non-Disclosure

Image from noemielecoz.com/hello, made with Semplice

Of course there is only so much you can do if you’ve legally agreed to keep your work private. Sharing confidential work without permission could get you fired and would certainly harm your reputation. But if you want to let people know you’re working on an impressive brand or specific type of project that’s still under wraps, I have seen designers make it work.

For example, take Noemie le Coz’s work for Apple. She shares the Apple logo on her homepage which even at a glance makes an impression. The logo clicks through to a short note (shown above) expressing the confidentiality of the project. Essentially you're treating your portfolio in this case like a CV. You simply mention roughly what kind of work you've done without saying anything that breaks your contract. If someone is curious to hear more, they can still contact you and you can decide from there how much you can share in private.

Pawel Nolbert does the same in his portfolio, but adds a playful and more personal description.

Image from nolbert.com, made with Semplice

Apple is not the FBI. They’re not going to be mad at Noemie and Pawel for simply saying they’ve done work for a big client, unless they’ve explicitly asked otherwise. Of course it’s not ideal and you don’t want ALL of your projects to be presented this way, but if it’s a high profile brand and it benefits you to have their name in your portfolio, try Noemie and Pawel’s approach. 

Another possible solution: Simply describing the nature of the work. Instead of sharing the project details, you could talk briefly about what type of project it was and what role you played. Just be extremely careful here to speak in general terms, and get approval before you publish.

Terri Lee describes the type of work she did for Volvo, being careful to omit any specifics about the project.

Alternatively and providing your client’s OK with it, you could create password-protected case study to share only with potential clients or employers. In any case, make sure to read your NDA thoroughly to make sure you’re not crossing any lines. Of course you could also just feature the logo or brand name in your list of Select Clients, if you want to keep it simple.

In any case, always ask your client for permission. But even if you can't show the full project, just mentioning a few of your responsibilities, including what department you've worked in, could do wonders for your portfolio.

When the Project Isn’t Live Yet

In some cases, the work isn’t necessarily confidential, it just hasn’t been finalized or launched yet. In this case, there is sadly not much you can do but ask the client for permission.

Depending on the kind of project, you may be able to publish parts of your work as a preview before the actual project goes live. But this often depends on what kind of project it is. If it's for a restaurant which isn't going to be finished for another year, your client may allow you to use the work you did for them on your portfolio. If it's for a software product, your client will most likely not want to share anything before the product launches.

Don't feel discouraged and always ask your client. Sometimes you can work out a solution, even if that just means you're allowed to post a little preview on your portfolio.

When Your Work Doesn’t Lend Itself Well to a Portfolio

Maybe you do more strategy and design research, which doesn’t exactly translate to some beautiful image gallery. But even the most incredible visuals can fall flat in a portfolio without context. Excellent case studies are important for any kind of design project, but especially for more abstract design work.

Find a creative way to show the strategy phases from concept to solution: the wireframes, the scribbles and brainstorms on the whiteboard, the post-it notes, the pages from your notebook. Put some love into the presentation and showcase any visuals you do have in a thoughtful and consistent way.

Image from lizvwells.com, also made with Semplice 🙂

Recently I wrote about creating a portfolio as a UX designer, and a lot of the same tips apply here. Briefly and in simple terms, show us your process from concept to solution — including your feelings on the final result. Help us understand the way you think by taking us through your typical workflow. 

Generally, sharing private or non-visual work comes down to a purposeful portfolio layout and/or great storytelling. Other times, it's just a matter of persistence and patience, waiting until you get more projects or the approval to share the ones you've already done.

When I started out building my portfolio, I specifically made sure that I worked on a project I could feature in my portfolio. After all, it's our job as designers to educate clients about the importance of showing the work. The earlier you can talk to a client about your intentions to share the work, the easier it will be once it's done. Don't wait until the end, make it a conversation point early on when starting the project. If you explain to your client exactly why it is important for you to showcase the work (or parts of it), most clients will understand and work on a solution with you.

In the meantime, you can find more design portfolio tips and inspiration right here. Or browse the Semplice Showcase, featuring some of the best designers and portfolios out there.

Happy building,

Tobias

June 7, 2018No Comments

How to Land Your Dream Design Job

For our How to Get a Job at X interview series, we asked directors, recruiters and designers from some of the top companies in the world how we can land a job on their design team. Almost 20 interviews in and counting, we’ve learned a lot.

We asked about the hiring process. We asked what they want to see in a designer. We asked how many interviews we can expect, what they hate to see in a portfolio or application, what they wish they saw more. We asked every little question we’ve always wondered about getting a job at companies like Spotify, Nike, Airbnb, Electronic Arts, Pentagram, Refinery29 and more. And they answered honestly. Now we’re sharing some of the most common, helpful advice we’ve received so far.

1. You must have a portfolio.

There is no way around it. To get a design job today, you need an online portfolio – unless, I suppose, your work is already very well known or you’re just plain lucky. Nearly every single company in the series so far confirmed your portfolio is the first place they look and a make or break part of their hiring process.

Build a portfolio, make it good and keep it up to date. (Semplice can help with that.) And most importantly, curate your projects. Quality over quantity couldn’t be more true for your portfolio. We’ve shared portfolio tips and inspiration right here on the blog to help you start your portfolio or improve it.

"Your portfolio is your voice when you’re not around to explain your projects." - Shopify

2. Get engaged in the community

As our Nike and Electronic Arts interviews made clear, being visible online (which includes curating a strong portfolio) can get you noticed by a company before you even know they’re looking. Be present on platforms like Dribbble and Instagram (if you find the time). Engage with other designers on Twitter. Use LinkedIn to your advantage. Get your work out there and get noticed.

3. No bullshit

Recruiters and creative directors have to weed through dozens if not hundreds of portfolios when searching for a new hire. As Erik Ortman from Electronic Arts advises, don’t make them think when viewing your portfolio. They will not have patience for long-winded introductions, cutesy diagrams or crazy and confusing animations. Show your personality but don’t waste their time.

The incredible Unsplash office in Montreal, Canada

4. Writing & communication is key

Almost every company in this series (especially Pentagram) say they want designers who know how to write well — in their emails, on their portfolios, in their work. This is important, since one poorly written email could end your job search before it even begins. Nobody’s expecting you to write the next great American novel, but they do expect you to communicate clearly and effectively. If you don’t feel confident about your communication skills, these writing tips for designers might help you out.

"I’ve reviewed quite a few portfolios in my time, and the ones that stand out show a start-to-finish process behind their projects." - Andrea from Flywheel

5. Don't pitch or try too hard to impress

As Mailchimp and Mother note, companies don’t want you to pitch them like they're a client. They simply want to understand who you are, how you think and how you’ll fit in with their team. This makes your portfolio even more important. Create great case studies that share how you approached your project, your process along the way and how you felt about the result. Rather than trying to sell yourself or your work, tell a story.

This also takes a little pressure off your interview. If you focus on showing who you are rather than trying to be the person they want you to be, the conversation will flow naturally.

The Mother team at work in their LA space

6. Broaden your skill set

I know there are all kinds of opinions about this, one of them being “jack of all trades, master of none,” but many companies in this series made it clear they are looking for multi-talented designers. Places like Metalab say they want you to be able to see a project through every phase, from start to finish. Refinery29 say they prefer designers who can also code, because the more you can do, the more you can collaborate with different teams.

That said, people still need to understand where your main skills lie and why you’re the best person for a specific role. Be careful to not water down your portfolio just to appear skilled in many areas. Instead, make it a point to explore and grow every chance you get.

“You can be versatile while maintaining a clear identity; it’s what makes you stand out.” - BBDO

7. Find the inside connection

As you might guess, referrals are a big source of hires for some companies, especially the smaller ones. If a common connection can recommend you, it counts for a lot. So use your network and try to find that friend of a friend who can make the introduction. This is why networking events, as much as I personally hate them, can be really helpful. Like Dan explains in our interview with Spotify:

“A conversation might start with an informal 'hello' from us at an event. At that point, it might not make sense to move forward into a formal interview process. A few years later, situations change, roles become available, and that person could end up applying through our Jobs page.”

However, don’t be discouraged from applying for a job just because you don’t have an inside connection. Katie Dill from Airbnb says, “Referrals are useful, but we try not to rely on this because it’s a sure way of only getting more of the same type/backgrounds. Instead, the majority of our people come from those that reached out directly or we proactively sourced.”

If you don’t know the right person, send the cold email. This guide to emailing busy people and getting a reply will help. Or try networking on Twitter. A quick conversation can turn into the right connection later.

The Pentagram office in NYC

8. No ego

If a potential employer or client senses you have a big ego or you may be difficult to work with, it’s a major turn-off. In fact, your personality often matters more than your skill. Robert and Sebastian from Edenspiekermann say, “If we have to decide between two candidates, one who’s more skilled and another who’s a better cultural fit, we’ll always lean toward cultural fit. Skills can be learned, but attitude can’t.”

You may be an incredible designer but if nobody enjoys working with you, you’re not going to get very far. 

“Kindness is so important. Working with people who have bad attitudes, big egos or are just generally condescending is the worst. Those qualities are not welcome no matter how talented someone is.” - Fuzzco

9. Research and curate for the position

As Shopify points out, you should show you’ve researched a role before you apply for it. It’s easy to get in the job-hunting mode and just send out a template email and portfolio to every company on your list. That will hurt you more than help you. Dan from Spotify echoed this as well.

“My biggest piece of advice is to make sure that you craft your application for the role you’re applying for,” Dan says. “While it’s easier to just attach a standard resume or portfolio, it’s important to really study the position you’re trying to get. How would you add value to the role? How do you uniquely meet the requirements? What’s the tone the company uses? All of this will help make your application more relevant to the person reading it.”

The Mailchimp team in their Atlanta office

10. Have patience

Especially for bigger companies like Nike, the hiring process can take a while. Interviews can be fairly involved and they will put a lot of effort into getting to know you well.  And as I’ve experienced myself, the right opportunity might not present itself right away. Sometimes you’ll have several conversations before the right job opens up for you. Have patience and be persistent.

___

I hope these insights help you out, whether you’re applying for a design job at one of these places or elsewhere. If you're behind on the series or want to find a specific company, catch up right here. Many of these companies were specifically requested from readers and more are coming, so send me a tweet @vanschneider if you would like to see a specific company on the list!

Stay awesome & keep creating,
Tobias

June 5, 2018No Comments

Semplice design portfolio inspiration of May 2018

Every Wednesday, we handpick two custom portfolios created with Semplice to feature in our Best Of  Showcase.  Now we've collected the best of the best – our favorite submissions from the past month.

In May we saw several fantastic portfolios from artists, illustrators, creative studios, 3D designers, production studios and more. I love seeing how people use different Semplice features, from the full-screen cover slider to page transitions to custom animations.

Whether you're looking to redesign your portfolio, refresh it or just get inspired for your own creative work, you'll definitely find inspiration from these standout sites. And if you've created your own portfolio with Semplice, be sure to submit it to our Showcase here. You could be featured next.


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For more design portfolio inspiration, visit the Semplice showcase. And I'll be back next month with more of our monthly favorites!

P.S. Header image by Pawel Nolbert.

Stay awesome,
Lu

May 16, 2018No Comments

10 inspiring UX portfolios and why they work

No matter what type of design you do, an online portfolio is a must. In most cases, companies and clients simply won’t consider you for a job without one. While a UX designer may believe their work doesn’t translate well to a visual platform, a portfolio is even more important for UX work.

This is where you can walk people through your process and share details you can’t fully explain in a resume or even in a conversation. A portfolio will help potential employers or clients better understand how you think and what sets you apart – at least if you do it right.

Through my work with Semplice, my portfolio system for designers, I’ve seen many examples that show even complex UX work translate beautifully in a design portfolio. Check these portfolios from some talented UX designers (all portfolios built with Semplice) to learn how to share your work in a visual and memorable way.

1. Kurt Winter

What I most enjoy about Kurt's UX portfolio: It doesn’t feel like a UX portfolio. Unfortunately, it’s too easy for UX portfolios to be overloaded with device renderings, prototypes and huge blocks of research text. Kurt still shares all the necessary details, but succeeds in making it visually engaging. Take note of his layout, icons and scannable text, all of which amount to a portfolio worth reading.

 

VIEW KURT'S PORTFOLIO

2. Liz Wells

Image from lizvwells.com

Liz Wells is our poster child for UX portfolio design. Not only is her portfolio great to look at, but she makes it easy to understand what she does and how her work fits into a successful final product. Each case study tells a story with a similar structure:

  • Brief summary at the top
  • The task at hand
  • UX challenges
  • UX solutions

This makes it easy to understand her approach from the beginning all the way through to solution. And most impressively, she includes tons of images to illustrate her process: early sketches, scribbled notes, wireframes. Many of these visuals are simply ripped from a notebook or jotted quickly on a whiteboard — visuals any UX designer has at hand at any given moment. But Liz goes above and beyond, photographing these notes just like you would a print project, with complementary backdrops and lovely little props. She follows through with images and videos of the final product, making the project come to life on the screen.

You may think you don’t have much to show of your process, especially the strategy and research phases, but even quick notes jotted down in a brainstorm can be valuable for your portfolio. Save these little pieces throughout your project and you’ll be surprised how easily the story comes together later.

VIEW LIZ'S PORTFOLIO

3. Isa Pinheiro

Image from isapinheiro.com

In contrast to Liz’s behind-the-scenes case studies, Isa Pinheiro shares polished finished products in her portfolio and explains how her work affects the end user.

Take her project for Japan’s Railway System. Isa embeds interactive prototypes into the page, so readers can experience the final product for themselves straight from her portfolio. This is a great solution if you don’t have the little bits and pieces to share from early project phases.

Isa also takes the time to add little personal touches throughout her portfolio. Check out her two unique navigation options: One is a full-screen takeover with two straightforward menu items, and the other is a visual navigation with an image for each item. Smooth scrolling and full-screen cover sliders add a visual punch to her portfolio beyond her project pages.

VIEW ISA'S PORTFOLIO

4. Oykun Yilmaz

Image from oykun.com

Oykun Yilmaz keeps his project summaries short and sweet, with a sentence introducing the client and a quick overview of the project goals. But he makes sure to include specific results with hard numbers, a great addition that many portfolio case studies sadly lack. UX work can seem abstract to people, so make it concrete by explaining how your work made a tangible impact. 

VIEW OYKUN'S PORTFOLIO

5. Naim Sheriff

Image from naimsheriff.com

With a subject that could easily seem complicated to an outside viewer, Naim Sheriff strips it all down and makes it real for readers. Take his Ideapaint case study for example, where he shares how important the Design Exploration phase is and how he  typically goes about it. He even poses the questions he asked himself during the project, like: “How do we successfully show the differences between similar products? How does the customer know how much paint to buy for their space?” Then he shares the solution he came to with his team. (Read more tips for writing great portfolio case studies here.)

This makes UX design work approachable for clients who might know they need a UX designer, but not understand all the insider terms and inner workings of the job. Aim to make it easy for anyone, even a recruiter (who might know nothing about design), understand what you do.

VIEW NAIM'S PORTFOLIO

6. Sebastián Martínez

Image from sebastian-martinez.com

Sebastián Martínez takes you straight into his work with a single-page portfolio. His case studies are short, but he does one thing many designers forget to do: He shares how he feels about the final product. “It was one of the most complete, entertaining products which I was proud to work on,” Sebastián says of his Monkop Test Cloud project. It doesn’t take much, but sharing how you feel about your work makes a difference. 

For our  “How to Get a Job at X,” series, I interview designers and recruiters from top companies, simply asking how we might get a dream job on their design team. Many of them have said that they want to know what you think about your project and the results. It brings depth to your work and gives us a window into your mind.

VIEW SEBASTIAN'S PORTFOLIO

7. Husam Elfaki

Image from husamelfaki.net

Husam Elfaki’s portfolio case studies lead with a full paragraph introducing the project, goals and results. But instead of leaving it at that and dumping a bunch of photos beneath, he breaks it down and explains each piece of the project along the way.

Don’t just put images on a page and hope your viewer can decipher what they mean – take the time to write captions or short summaries that explain your projects from beginning to end.

VIEW HUSAM'S PORTFOLIO

8. Kali and Karina

Image from kaliandkarina.com

Kali and Karina do everything, from concept to finished product. They rarely mention UX/UI, but it’s implicit in their case studies. From nicely designed user journeys, black and white sketches to full-color results, they share their projects like a story. It helps that their work is awesome on its own, too.

VIEW KALI & KARINA'S PORTFOLIO

9. Elliot Owen

Image from byelliotowen.com

Elliot Owen calls attention to specific gestures, interactions and experiences that make his projects successful. Take his British Airways case study, for example. 

He shows how small functions or features make a big difference for the project. And he uses GIFs in all the right places, not to dazzle or distract the viewer but to show exactly how his UX projects work.

VIEW ELLIOT'S PORTFOLIO

10. Veda Dsiljak

Image from vedadsiljak.com

Veda Dsiljak’s case studies almost feel like product marketing pages, they sell the work so well. Instead of simply naming his pages with the title of the product or project, he writes headlines with personality. This sets his work up nicely and creates intrigue right from the start. He ends each case study with a link to download the actual product, so readers can experience it for themselves.

VIEW VEDA'S PORTOFLIO

11. Jason Yuan

Image from jasonyuan.design

While some examples we’ve shared allow you to interact with the project on the page, Jason Yuan uses videos with mouse movement to let you visualize the experience. In this way he guides the reader through his work in the way it’s intended to be used.

Side note for young designers: Jason’s work for Apple is an unsolicited redesign but it’s so detailed and well-thought out, it feels like real client work. Unsolicited redesigns are a great way to show your skill and interests early on in your career, or if you’re looking to get into a new design path. I always recommend against doing unsolicited designs for big companies like Apple, since they already have an established established brand which makes it too easy. But in this case, Jason’s hard work paid off with features in FastCoDesign, Next Web, Mic and more.

VIEW JASON'S PORTFOLIO

Just like in your everyday work, you’ll need to be thoughtful and strategic when creating a UX design portfolio. Take time to explain your process, walk your reader through each step of your work and show how it makes an impact, and you’ll make a portfolio worth remembering. P.S. If you're looking for more portfolio inspiration, check out the Semplice Showcase.  

May 14, 2018No Comments

The “Why” Behind Shoe Design

As you probably know, shoe design is a new passion of mine. I've been totally immersing myself in it, learning how to customize shoes and now slowly even making my own patterns. In my research I found shoe designer Mike Friton's work and of course, had to talk with him.

Mike has been doing just about everything related to shoe design over the last 39 years. When he was a student at University of Oregon he started working with the legendary Bill Bowerman, founder of Nike. Mike was there at the beginning of Nike's Innovation Kitchen, the underground shoe lab at Nike headquarters. Now, after working with Bowerman for 18 years and creating some of Nike's most iconic shoes for decades, he's running his own footwear prototype studio in Portland.

I loved hearing from Mike because you can just tell he's a true maker – straight to the point, no bullshit 🙂 I hope you enjoy this interview with him as much as I did.

Hey Mike, let's get right to it. I’m a big believer that one side project or small opportunity can change your life. Was that the case for you? I read that your first job for Bill Bowerman was helping him build a stone water fountain. How did that turn into making shoes for Nike?

I was on the University of Oregon track team and quit college at the end of my junior year because I was having a difficult time with the track coach. The running community in Eugene, Oregon was very tight knit so when Bowerman found out, he gave me a call to build the water fountain. I had never talked to him before then. Of course I knew of him, the legendary retired UofO coach and co-founder of Nike.

Mike and Bill back in the day

I grew up in Eugene and often worked with my father, a stone and brick mason. Bowerman always tested people by putting them to work. He showed me the project and then left with very few words. I finished in about two days. He thought it would take longer, so I passed my first test. Then he invited me to work in his shoe lab cleaning up. He had another man working there who was very difficult to work with. I managed to handle it well so I passed the second test. Then he put me to work making shoes.

You pioneered the “foot first” approach, creating shoes that support our body’s natural movement. Is this a common approach now, or is the industry overall still focusing on layers of cushion and other methods that potentially change our natural movement?

Healthy shoes should follow our feet or natural gait. Most support features on shoes are meant to hold our feet to a platform that does not want to follow our natural movement. They are addressing HOW we fix the problem rather than asking WHY is this a problem? “How” is often an additive solution path whereas “Why” is often a subtractive solution path.

A peek into Mike's workshop

How does the Goatek shoe you created fit into this?

I don’t connect the Goatek to this directly. Goatek was inspired by a description of how a Mountain Goat’s foot works from a book called “A Beast the Color of Winter” by Douglas H. Chadwick. The most important feature is the tissue behind the nail being softer and mapping to the surface or the terrain for better traction. I feel that this is also how the soft pads on our feet and hands work — this is quite different from lugged soles that look like car tires. So in a way yes, looking more closely at nature, including our own, for answers.

“Brands create too many stories about performance and technology based on pure fiction.”

Aside from brands with their manufacturers, it seems like shoemaking is a lost art. Is that an accurate perception? Do you know of many shoe designers doing what you do, making athletic shoes on your own outside of a shoe or clothing company?

There are very few shoe makers making athletic shoes because they can’t compete with the big brands. What has really been lost is a deep understanding of the art of building athletic shoes. They are becoming more about fashion, resulting in harmful conditions for the wearer. Brands create too many stories about performance and technology based on pure fiction.

My work involves constant exploration for new methods and materials. If I can’t find what I need, I try to invent something that works. I call myself a maker, craftsman and a designer in those terms. I’m not a stylist working on a computer generating beautiful graphics. I have to work with my hands and read the concept as it develops.

You helped design the Presto, one of Nike’s most popular comfort shoes (and my personal favorite). What are the main design differences between a true athletic shoe and a comfort or fashion sneaker like the Presto?

The Presto did not start out to be a comfort or fashion shoe. It does have some performance value as a training shoe. The development name for the Presto was the “Comfy” because it was so comfortable. The inspiration for the upper was the Nike Huarache. I designed the original upper, extending the stretch material forward into the vamp. I used breathable spacer fabric in a simple three piece design (plus the lining).

An early sketch of the Nike Air Presto (image by Nike)

When we tried the upper on without the midsole/outsole it felt like a sock, which gave us the name and the idea of sizing it Small, Medium, Large. I think we ended up with nine sizes total to fit everyone. We were going to follow up in later seasons with an actual sock knit upper — we also considered designing the midsole to stretch and move so that seven or less sizes would fit everyone. Early prototypes of this met with criticism because they looked like socks.

That was 20 years ago. Now look where the market is at.

Custom Prestos for Eric Clapton (image by Nike)

You've said that Bowerman told you “make good stuff, do no harm and keep it simple.” What would you personally add to that after more than three decades of practice?

Not much. My focus today primarily is “do no harm.” The methods of athletic shoe making today can be very harmful to the wearer. My answer to this is educating new startups and designers about the problems and possible solution paths. I see the larger brands moving more toward fashion and increasing the bottom line. It’s easier to work with the next generation. They are much more open to listening and doing.

I was excited to see you worked on the Nike MAGS. I know the Innovation team had to wait a few years for battery technology to improve before they could design a functional self-tying shoe. Do you often feel like you're waiting on technology to catch up with the ideas in your head?

I primarily worked on engineering the upper pattern with the internal moving straps and cords. I eventually moved on to finding solutions that don’t require batteries and motors. I came up with a unique solution that was patented but has not been released. After leaving Nike I developed a number of hands-free closures that are mechanical, not electrical. I hope to find the right partner for these; they would have the greatest benefit to people with disabilities.

The iconic Nike Mags with "Adaptive Fit" self-tying technology (image by Nike)

I think we are a long way off in finding technology that is any better than the normal healthy shape of the foot. A lot of companies make crazy claims to sell shoes. All we really need with today’s surfaces are a little help with traction and puncture resistance.

Weaving has influenced your shoe designs in obvious ways, but I know you also experiment a lot with paper sculpture. How have your paper projects played into your shoemaking?

I look at Origami and Kirigami as mental exercise to understand how you can manipulate flat sheet goods into 3D form. You can also dramatically and predictably change the physical characteristics of material using these art forms.

Weaving and paper sculpture inspires Mike's shoe designs

What's your favorite shoe you've ever designed and why?

The last shoe project I worked on at Nike is my favorite because it was focused on helping a young man with disability. This became the Flyease. I have helped many young people with disabilities throughout my years at Nike. It was always my belief that Nike should take this work to heart. With the Flyease it has happened. Most of credit should go to Tobie Hatfield for navigating the political process at Nike.

“To be a fully developed designer you have to understand how and more importantly WHY things are made the way they are.”

What's your advice for people who want to be a shoe designer? What would be the key steps to getting started? The advice online is, as always, overwhelming.

Learn how athletic shoes are made and don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty.

Anyone can jump on a computer and make beautiful graphics with very little training. To be a fully developed designer you have to understand how and more importantly “WHY” things are made the way they are. This also means understanding how the foot moves dynamically. That’s more important than just measuring the foot statically.

You also must develop a good understand of the “last” or form the shoe is built on. It is a static shape that has to work in unison with the dynamic foot. This is the primary misalignment that causes harm today. Finally: Design the shoe to follow the foot. Don’t design a shoe the foot has to follow.

Thanks so much for doing this interview, Mike! I admire your work a lot and can't wait to see what you create next. To learn more about Mike's work and even take his classes, visit fritondesign.com.

All images of Mike and his workshop are from "The Innovator" by Cineastas Video Production.

May 10, 2018No Comments

How to get a job with Mother

I've always admired and respected Mother – the agency I mean, but also my own mother. As a brand Mother just has this refreshing personal vibe, not to mention their impressive work for clients like Nike, Nasty Gal, Sundance and more.

So I talked to Maitê Albuquerque, creative director at Mother LA, about how we can land a job working on her design team. Unsurprisingly, she was as warm and friendly as I imagine the whole Mother "family" to be, giving us lots of helpful tips and insider advice.

Hey, Maitê! First, can you please tell us a little about yourself and what you do at Mother?

I’m a just girl who had the luck to become an art director 11 years ago in the competitive Brazilian market. Since then, I was able to work in Lisbon, Chicago, New York, and LA at great companies like Ogilvy and 72andSunny. I always loved design, so I jumped between production companies and advertising agencies trying to figure out what was the best fit for me. I realized that maybe I had to start my shop, but that’s when I got lucky again. Mother was about to open an office in LA and asked me to join the startup team as a creative director.

The Mother LA office

Looking at your current design team, how many of them came through internal referrals or headhunting, and how many came through the traditional application process?

I would say that 100% of our senior designers came through referrals. In a startup, the team has to be very tight, so we try to bring people that we already know.

But when it comes to junior teams, I usually try to find them on design blogs. One of my current designers I found on Dribbble. I think if you expose your work online while you're still a young professional with a raw style, it not only shows your talent, but also your tenacity and courage.

Mother Design's work for AIGA

"Most of the time, the way you see the world and articulate your ideas is more important than a good portfolio."

Say we decide to reach out with a cold email. What kind of message gets a reply? Any secrets for us?

I love when people share their personal stories. To be honest, hyper-professional emails get lost in the sea of other emails and portfolios we receive. Most of the time, the way you see the world and articulate your ideas is more important than a good portfolio.

All the mothers.

How important is a complete portfolio? Can I get away with not having a portfolio when interviewing at Mother?

I think the quality of the work is way more important than the amount of work. If you have a rotten potato around 100 of other good ones, they will all smell bad. It’s the same with work. I would rather see less work, if it’s good, than more pieces just there to fill a page.

Tell us one thing you never want to see again on a portfolio. Anything you wish you saw more?

Here a list of design cliches that turn me off right away:

  • Clean, fashion-y websites
  • Hipster logos with crossed arrows
  • Swiss design templates. It’s crazy how people are copying what is meant just to inspire.
  • Anything in Millennium Pink! Please, there are an infinite amount of other possible colors!

I want to see more personal projects, some experiments you did in design. People need to show more about how they think and see the world. Our job will always change, so we need to know that you have the capacity to adapt and find elegant solutions to the most diverse problems.

Part of Mother's "TargetStyle, In Vogue" campaign

Besides having a portfolio, do you like the idea of designers being invested in other interests? For example being active bloggers or otherwise outspoken in their community?

Having activities outside of work is vital. We always look for people who bring knowledge that we don’t have in the building. If you only work on things that are inside our walls, it’s tough to grow creatively.

Say I make the first pass and get invited to an interview. Can you describe the interview process as briefly as possible?

Well, here at Mother, it feels like when you visit your significant other’s family for the first time. You will meet everyone! We are a family here, so we try to get a perspective from all the departments about the candidate personality. Work has already been judged and liked if you are inside this building. Now we just want to hear how you talk about your work and most importantly, about your life and ambitions.

What are the secondary skills you look for in a designer, besides common soft skills? For example, do you prefer business skills over coding skills? Video skills over coding?

I think there is space for any skill. We have designers with great editorial skills, others that are great at motion graphics and 3D. I would love to find a designer who is great at coding as much as a designer who is great with music. I think creativity comes from mixing skills.

"Experience is always great, but the ability to learn speaks volumes."

Would Mother hire someone who is a cultural fit over someone who has more industry experience and hard skills?

I would hire someone who sounds more like a learner than someone who is a know-it-all. Experience is always great, but the ability to learn speaks volumes.

Part of the Nasty Gal brand by Mother

What are the biggest mistakes you see designers make when applying for a job at Mother? Are there any specific things that keep bothering you? Please complain to us!

I’ve seen many people, especially juniors, selling their work way too hard. Trying to make me see how good the job they did is right. I believe that the work speaks way more than any justification. Let your work talk. If you need to make someone see something they can’t without your help, maybe it’s because the work is wrong or not 100% right.

I imagine having divisions in New York, London and LA opens you up to a ton of design talent. Do we have to live in one of those cities to get a job at Mother, or do you have remote designers on your team as well?

We do have talent that works remotely but usually, we do that with people who already work with us. Once you’ve worked here, we trust you and we understand the way you work, you are free as a bird.

I know Mother has accepted interns in the past. Is that a good way to get our foot in the door?

We are launching an internship program starting this summer. So send us your books 🙂

"We are not the agency that only hires the 'cool' trendy people."

How do you think Mother is different when hiring new talent compared to other agencies or design studios?

We are not the agency that only hires the “cool” trendy people. We want to be the place where people that were misunderstood or don’t fit anywhere else can find a place to be themselves. Creativity doesn’t come from being cool, but from being comfortable with your true self. That’s what we believe. We want to be the home of the creative community.

____

Maitê! Thanks so much for taking the time out of your busy schedule to talk with us. For those interested in getting a design job at Mother, here are your key takeaways:

Nr. 1 -  Don't try too hard.

Mother expects your work to speak for itself. Don't sell yourself too hard, and don't do the "trendy" thing.  Just speak to your experience, be honest and be yourself.

Nr. 2 - Make it personal.

Mother wants to understand how you think and see the world. If you're sending a cold email, skip the professional "To Whom it May Concern" talk and make it personal. On your portfolio, add side projects and personal experiments that reveal more about who you are as a designer.

Nr. 3 - Curate your portfolio and put your work out there.

Many companies in our series have said this: They don't care how many projects you share in your portfolio, they just care that they're good. Don't add projects just to fill the page – add only your best work. And especially if you're a junior designer, make sure you're present on design platforms like Dribbble. If you don't have a personal connection to someone at Mother, your work needs to be good enough to get noticed.

To learn how to get a job at other awesome companies like Shopify, Fuzzco and Unsplash, read our other How to Get a Job at X interviews.

May 7, 2018No Comments

Semplice design portfolio inspiration of April 2018

Every week, we handpick two portfolios created with Semplice to feature in our Showcase.  Now we're rounding up our favorite submissions of month.

I'm always inspired by the creatives who use Semplice and love looking through our submissions each month. In April we saw several fantastic portfolios from illustrators, 3D designers, typography studios, photographers and more.

Take a look at this month's top design portfolios below to get inspired and meet new designers. And if you've created your own portfolio with Semplice, be sure to submit it to our Showcase here. You could be featured next!

__________

For more design portfolio inspiration, visit the Semplice showcase. I'll be back next month with more of our monthly favorites!

P.S. Header image by Michela Picchi.

Have a fantastic month,
Lu

May 3, 2018No Comments

Why are our portfolios written in third person?

Timmy is a very special designer. He works on many fantastic projects and sometimes he even wins awards (but he’s very humble about that, he assures you). Timmy would describe his design style as “incredible,” and also “the most unique.” Please contact Timmy for your next design project!

So goes the typical portfolio bio. At some point, we started writing our own portfolios in third person like we’re being announced at some awards reception. I can’t pretend my own portfolio bio isn’t written that way. But lately, given how many portfolios I see on a daily basis thanks to Semplice, I’ve started wondering why. Aside from personal pronoun preference, is there a reason most of us write our bios as if someone else wrote them for us? Is one way better than the other? Does it matter at all?

I believe there are a couple reasons why we started writing in third person. For one, it’s a little easier to praise ourselves from this distance and it removes an edge of desperation from our tone. “Carol is an award-winning designer” sounds a little less boastful than “I’m an award-winning designer.” Third person allows us to step back from the equation and pretend we’re objectively stating the facts, rather than bragging.

I also suspect we believe third person sounds a bit more professional and impressive. It implies that someone else wrote the bio for us (whether or not that's true) — because when do we ever speak in that tense about ourselves in real life?

But the biggest reason this is a common approach, and maybe the most valid, is because third person makes it easy for someone to copy and paste our bio for their publication, press release or event. When someone asks for my bio one thing or another, I know I can just point them to the page one my website and be done with it. And that's why I've kept it that way.

"Third person removes the human warmth from a bio, making it feel less personal and more robotic."

But sometimes when I read bios like this, written as if they're talking about some other person they know, I can’t help but feel a little weird. Third person removes the human warmth from a bio, making it feel less personal and more robotic. At least in the context of a portfolio, it comes across like we’re trying too hard. Sometimes it even feels cliche.

While creating my portfolio, I try to remember the person who’s viewing it. They’re one human, not a skeptical judge panel or crowd at an awards dinner. So perhaps we write one bio for our portfolio and provide another in a press kit, if someone needs it. Maybe it doesn’t matter very much at all.

Whatever you do, I do recommend hiring a copywriter or asking a skilled friend to write your bio. It’s always awkward to write it yourself, and having a friend write it with your guidance will most likely make it feel more natural.

If you're working on your portfolio right now, check out these tips for writing case studies, avoiding common portfolio mistakes, crafting the perfect About page and more. I hope it helps!

April 16, 2018No Comments

How to Get a Job at Virgin Atlantic

I've been a big fan of Virgin Atlantic for a long time now.  If you've ever flown with Virgin, I'm sure you understand why.

Virgin Atlantic creates an experience for their passengers, from their excellent customer service to the mood lighting on their flights. The Virgin brand just feels cool, and I know a lot of loyal Virgin fliers agree. So naturally, I wanted to know what it's like working on the awesome Virgin brand as a designer — and how we might get a design job on his team. I reached out to Michael Stephens, the head of creative & brand at Virgin Atlantic, and he was kind enough to answer all my questions.

First, please tell us a little about yourself and what you do at Virgin Atlantic.

I joined Virgin Atlantic in January 2018 to head up the talented internal creative and design team, which sits within the wider marketing function. As a brand guardian I’ll work alongside our numerous creative agencies to develop and future proof the brand’s visual identity and tone of voice across multiple channels. I collaborate with all areas of the business on both external and internal comms, ensuring that whatever we do it feels Virgin.

Looking at your current design team, how many of them came through internal referrals or headhunting, and how many came through the traditional application process?

I’d say it’s a mix really. We’re always keen as a business to retain talent and promote within where possible but we also understand that in order to acquire new multidisciplinary skills and develop the department’s capabilities, we might need to look externally.

Say we decide to reach out with a cold email. What kind of message gets a reply? Any secrets for us?

We’re always on the lookout for new blood. We welcome applications from talented people who are passionate about what they do and massively encourage proactive behavior. My advice? Go on, be brave and just do it.

How important is a complete portfolio? Can we get away with not having a portfolio when interviewing at Virgin?

A well structured and thought-out portfolio is hugely important. It’s the first thing I look at! We’re a company that cares a lot about design and aesthetics, so fundamentally the work has to speak for itself.

"A portfolio isn’t just a documentation of all the work you’ve produced to date; it should be adapted with time."

Tell us one thing you never want to see again on a portfolio. Anything you wish you saw more?

A portfolio isn’t just a documentation of all the work you’ve produced to date; it should be adapted with time. It needs curating bespoke to the prospective client to ensure relevancy both in terms of content and aesthetic, to demonstrate your understanding of the business. It should be annotated to provide clarity where necessary but not take hours to read through — keep it visual, please.

Besides having a portfolio, do you like the idea of designers being invested in other interests? For example being active bloggers or otherwise outspoken in their community?

Totally! I want my team to have a personal opinion as well as to feel connected to and influenced by what’s going on around them in the world. Virgin has a global reputation for being a rule breaker and a rebel. As creatives I think we all need to channel a bit of that in our lives.

 

Say I make the first pass and get invited to an interview. Can you describe the interview process as briefly as possible?

We’ll normally first invite you to our head office for an informal chat. It’s a chance for you to talk through your portfolio in person, see our work environment and get a feel for whether or not we are the right cultural fit. Depending on the level of seniority we may then do behavioral assessments, design tasks or ask you to meet other team members. As a member of the creative team you’ll engage with stakeholders of all levels across the entire business. At Virgin we like to keep interviews casual though, so don’t wear a tie!

"A good portfolio should merely support a great designer in an interview. We like to engage so please don’t look and talk into your iPad."

What are the biggest mistakes you see designers make when applying for a job at Virgin? Are there any specific things that keep bothering you? Please complain to us!

Don’t rely on me to do the work; you should be in control. A good portfolio should merely support a great designer in an interview. We like to engage so please don’t look and talk into your iPad.

Do you remember a specific application that impressed you?

It’s a cliché but sometimes when I set a design task it’s not just about giving me what I want, but perhaps what I don’t want. At Virgin we like to push the boundaries so be creative — surprise and delight! Whether that’s going the extra mile with your design task and producing something physical / digital or it’s doing some more in-depth research and demonstrating in the interview your understanding of the business / industry.

Does that mean we should do something crazy to get your attention? Prototype our own Virgin app or uniform design, maybe?

I’m not sure crazy is quite what we’re looking for, but certainly outside of the ordinary and full of personality. We are essentially an internal creative agency so pitching to stakeholders is often part of the process. It’s sometimes worth showing work on a gradient of safe to radical. That way you can put the client at ease initially and then hopefully sell in your more progressive ideas.

We imagine as a designer at Virgin, you’re working on everything from marketing and digital design to the physical customer experience. What are the secondary skills Virgin looks for in a designer, besides common soft skills? What range of skills do you want to see?

You need to understand our point of difference. What makes us unique and amazing as a business? Spotting those opportunities to stand out and make us famous is a skill we can never have enough of. The creatives in my team all need to do three key things: 1. Have great ideas. 2. Produce beautiful work and 3. Tell a coherent brand story.

Would Virgin hire someone who is a cultural fit over someone who has more industry experience and hard skills?

A cultural fit is a must, and your skills certainly need to fully equip you for the job at hand. Experience however is something that could set you apart as we really like having teams from different industry backgrounds, whether it’s a magazine, a website, a store, a fashion label or an airline. I personally came from a fashion background having never worked in aviation previously. Before, I worked at i-D, Vice, Liberty and Ted Baker. There were clear brand personality links to Virgin — all the brands were British, bold, colorful, glam, eccentric, rebellious and a little bit cheeky.

One of your new job postings is design manager. Is an internship a good way to get our foot in the door with Virgin? How often do internships turn into full-time jobs?

This is the first time we’ve introduced an internship opportunity within the creative team and it’s really exciting. I know how hard it was to get that first job after university (countless applications and interviews) so I was keen to create a role that specifically targeted recent graduates. It’s only a 12 month contract but this gives the designer a great foundation to understand the business, make connections and present themselves as potentially the perfect candidate should a permanent role become available.

Virgin is headquartered in the UK and all current creative job postings are located there. Do you ever hire remote designers for your team? What about international hires?

Although we do have other offices internationally, the creative team is currently based in the UK. We do however work with several freelance artists and photographers on a global scale.

How do you think Virgin is different when hiring new talent compared to other airlines?

We’re not looking for ordinary – after all, we’re no ordinary airline.

_______

Thanks so much, Michael! We appreciate you taking the time and giving us these insights. Here are a few key takeaways:

Nr. 1 - Be bold and make an impression.

Virgin is all about creating a culture and experience. That goes for the design team too. Don't be afraid to show your personality – in fact, make it a point to do so. Whether you're trying to make a connection via email or you've scored an-person interview, be confident and show you understand the Virgin brand. Your personality might be the most important factor in getting the job.

Nr. 2 - Curate and update your portfolio.

Not only does Virgin want to see a portfolio of your work, but they expect it to be curated for their aesthetic and the position. Michael came from a fashion background so you don't necessarily need airline brand experience, but showing experience with a relevant brand or style makes a difference.

Nr. 3 - Virgin is hiring for their creative design team!

Check out these open positions Michael shared with us, including a brand new internship role:

Creative Design Manager

Senior Digital Designer

Design Intern

Content Producer

If do get a job on the Virgin design team, please let me know. I would be very happy for you and jealous of you (:

That's all for now! If you're looking for a design job, be sure to read our other How to Get a Job at X interviews with admirable companies like Nike, Spotify, Pentagram and lots more. And tweet me at @vanschneider if you have a dream design job and want to see a specific company in the series!

April 13, 2018No Comments

Exploring the Design Community Beyond SF & NYC

We originally began our Design Around the World series because frankly, we were tired of always hearing about the same studios and design circles in SF or New York. We wanted to spotlight design communities we don’t often hear about (especially those not based in the West) and see what we could learn from them. Almost a full year into the series, we’ve learned a lot.

After interviewing creatives in 11 different countries across continents, we’ve rounded up some of our favorite insights from the series so far. Thank you so much to these talented people who took time out of their busy schedules to give us a peek into their design community. It’s invaluable to us and we hope our readers have enjoyed the series as much as we have.

1. Design and art can help change society

“I’ve come to a realization that while a society needs its doctors and engineers, it also needs its poets and artists and designers for life to feel truly liveable, for a culture to remain humane and compassionate.” - Shehzil Malik, designer & illustrator from Pakistan

"I’d say design can’t really solve issues in our country by itself, but it can help in how others perceive these issues and influence them to change it." - Craig from Plus63 in the Philippines

“The nature of design is problem-solving and there are problems unique to us that good design can solve.” - Damilola from Dá Design Studio in Nigeria

Damilola and Seyi from Nigeria

 

“Good design for us is not about making things look and feel good; it should also change people’s behavior in a positive way, and we feel it is our job to continue educating our clients on this.” - Constant creative agency in Hong Kong

“Pakistan is generally a harsh place to live in a number of ways; most of the systems don't work and society is becoming increasingly intolerant. It’s getting harder every day to have meaningful conversations around social issues. This is where art can step in." - Shehzil Malik, designer & illustrator from Pakistan

"It’s easier to talk about beautiful pictures and foster empathy through an image that is honest.” - Shehzil Malik 

Shehzil Malik from Pakistan

 2. In some countries, design is still struggling to find its voice — and creativity can even be considered a luxury.

"People still think that a creative career is not a financially-viable path to take. Parents still prefer to see their children take conventional courses like nursing, medicine, law and accountancy." - Dan from Plus63 in the Philippines

“Nigeria is a hard country! Basic amenities aren’t basic so creativity appears to be a luxury. This is an illusion, but many brands are willing to buy and feed into this illusion.” - Damilola from Dá Design Studio in Nigeria

“[Design education in Vietnam is] growing and trying to find its voice. However, when it comes to design I don’t think young designers look up to the institutions to legitimize their creativity as we see in the West. Here, because of our past and the influences of technology, creatives are often time self-taught. There’s a huge reliance of intuition, self-determination and an pursuiant of passion. You might not see design that is globally groundbreaking all the time, but you can really get a sense of working best with what you got.” - Cong from Rice Creative in Vietnam

"Graphic design is relatively young in this country; we are all still finding a place to stand in the world." - Jean from Farmgroup in Thailand

Christina, Eliza and Mary from Armenia

“We live in a country with a developing design industry. We have a big share in its development… Step by step, with hard work over many years, we gained people’s trust and made them believe in quality design.” - Christina from Backbone Branding in Armenia

“Many designers have trouble communicating with their clients because a large number of clients do not understand what modern design is.” - Everyday Practice from South Korea

“I don't think we are that productive as a nation to be honest... I hope clients can understand that good design takes time, and hope that they do a lot of homework and planning so that each project can be planned ahead, so as to gain ample time for execution.” - Yah-Leng Yu from Foreign Policy in Singapore

Yah-Leng and Arthur from Singapore

3. Love of good design unites us.

“Humanity is complex; good design helps us enjoy our complexities when we can and brings simplicity when we can’t.” - Damilola from Nigeria

"Good designers here and everywhere work hard to push the boundary with their clients. Good designers here and everywhere are hungry to make a change in the client’s industry through their work...  This is what matters to Foreign Policy: to create design that makes an impact, design that matters." - Yah-Leng Yu from Foreign Policy in Singapore

“We believe in design that makes people move, makes them feel, makes them happy or sad and forces them to do something.” - Studio Melli in Iran

The Studio Melli team in Iran

4. Crises and risk lead to creativity.

“I believe it is at times of crisis that the potential for change, discovery and innovation is at its highest. In fact, I believe the creative market can thrive during times like this.” - Leo from Bonde Conference in Brazil

“As nonsense as it may seem, crises are extremely interesting for the creative industry, because it is at this time that people reinvent themselves, come up with products and seek to escape the crisis.” - Isabela from Sweety & Co. in Brazil

The Farmgroup team from Thailand

"Where there is no risk, there is no creative breakthrough." - Jean from Farmgroup in Thailand

5. Design events & platforms in many countries can sadly be as insular they are in the United States.

“I see that there is an enormous willingness of the designers to exchange experiences, but I do not see common sense. There are many micro-events of little relevance [in Brazil] and others fostered by universities, but I still see them as shallow and purposeless.” - Isabela from Sweety & Co. in Brazil

“In Korea, the term ‘hipster’ is a trendy word among designers. If you visit any design communities they talk about their favorite brand, fashion, club, etc. They may think they lead the trend of design, but if they only focus on the design community, they will lose their sense of communication… Of course we need to share information and collaborate each other, but I would hope that such a community does not serve some only to reject others.” - Everyday Practice in South Korea

The Everyday Practice team in South Korea

So much more to learn

Of course these interviews give us only the tiniest of glimpses into complex societies and design communities. We’re eager to keep learning from these designers and following their work, and we already have several new interviews lined up with others. If you're still catching up, here's the full list so far:

Design in Brazil ?? featuring Sweety & Co.

Design in Armenia ??featuring Backbone Branding

Design in Pakistan ?? featuring Shehzil Malik

Design in the Philippines ??featuring Plus63 Design

Design in Nigeria ??featuring Dá Design Studio

Design in Vietnam ?? featuring Rice Creative

Design in Thailand ??featuring Farmgroup

Design in Iran ?? featuring Studio Melli

Design in Singapore ?? featuring Foreign Policy

Design in Hong Kong ?? featuring Constant

Design in Brazil ?? featuring Bonde Conference

Design in South Korea ?? Featuring Everyday Practice

Featured "Earth Flag" image by Oskar Pernefeldt. 

April 2, 2018No Comments

Semplice portfolio inspiration of March 2018

Every week, we handpick two portfolios created with Semplice to feature in our Showcase.  Now we've selected the best of the best, the top design portfolios featured in the Showcase this month.

I love reviewing our Showcase submissions. It's fun to see how our talented members use Semplice, and their work always inspires me to better. This month is no exception.

Take a look at this month's top design portfolios below to get inspired and meet new designers. And if you've created your own portfolio with Semplice, be sure to submit it to our Showcase here. You could be featured next!

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For fresh design portfolio inspiration, visit the Semplice showcase. I'll be back next month with more of our monthly favorites!

P.S. Header image by Verena Michelitsch.

Have a fantastic month,
Lu

March 30, 2018No Comments

How to build a design portfolio as a student

Building a portfolio as a student or young designer is a catch-22: A portfolio is all about showing your design experience, but to have experience you first need a job.

Most design students take a class focused on building their portfolio before they graduate, but often this is more of an exercise you're just racing through to get credit. Then before you know it, you're out there in the "real world" and quickly realizing how crucial a strong portfolio is for getting hired.

Here’s how to build a design portfolio that gets you the job you want, whether you're a student or young designer just getting started in your career.

1. Share only your best class projects

It may be tempting to put every class assignment you've ever done in your portfolio just to fill it, but that will only make you seem green. It's better to share only one or two of your favorite class pieces, even if that makes your portfolio feel a little empty. And instead of saying “this was a class project” in your case study, treat it like a side project. Say what inspired you, share what the goal was or tell us what approach you took. If your work is good enough, it can stand on its own beyond the context of your class.

An awesome class project featured in Lucas Berghoef's portfolio.

 2. State what you want to do

Early on in your design career, your portfolio might be scattered as you gain experience, meaning it’s more difficult for your reader to understand your skills and interests. In the meantime, state your interests clearly in your introduction and About page. Your portfolio should of course be curated as much as possible around the work you want to do, but it can only help to say it too.

As a student, you're naturally a jack of all trades because your studies taught you a little bit of everything. There's of course nothing wrong with this, but a wide skillset might benefit you more later on in your career. In the meantime, recruiters are looking to fill specific roles that require specific skills. Even if you enjoy working in many different fields, try to focus on one or two in your portfolio so you're not confusing anybody. Then, as you grow as a designer, you'll either zero in on your core skills or  enjoy the freedom of keeping it broad.

3. Take on as many side projects as you can afford

When I was first starting out in design, I accepted pretty much any job that came my way. I also worked a lot on the side, doing little projects for myself or small paid gigs for someone else. Again, what sucks as a young designer (or anyone early in their career) is that it’s hard to get work without showing experience, but you can’t get experience until someone gives you work. Until they do, take matters into your own hands. One side project can change your life, so do your best even with the small things. That’s what brings the big stuff your way.

Graphic design student Jason Yuan features several personal projects in his portfolio, like this custom-designed book.

4. Be strategic with your layout

If you don’t have a lot of experience yet, you need to be even more thoughtful about how you guide your visitors through your work. Don’t use some template meant to showcase a huge grid of projects or you’ll only call attention to what’s missing. Customize your portfolio with immersive case studies that help us dive into the work you do have. Don’t fluff anything up, just think about the work you have to share and decide what layout would showcase it best.

This is literally one of the reasons I created Semplice, my WordPress-based portfolio system for designers. Every designer is different and you should be able to build a portfolio with 30 projects, or with just three. A good designer can create a compelling portfolio with just a few projects, so long as they're intentional with their design.

5. Show who you are and how you think

Before you have the experience and seasoned skills to show, companies are taking a risk hiring you. They hire you based on your potential and hope it pays off as they help you grow. So help them understand your potential and envision you on their team; show them who you are and how your brain works. You can do this with your case studies and your About page.

Write case studies for your projects that explain why you approached the work you did, what your process was and how it all turned out. Don't be afraid to share your personality here and on your About page as well — being a nice person who people enjoy working with is just as important (if not more important) than your actual skill. 

6. Embrace internships

You may feel you left your internship days behind you when you got your degree, but an internship can be the perfect way to get your foot in the door and good names on your resume. It’s also a great way to build your portfolio with work you might not otherwise get to do as an entry-level employee.

As an intern, it’s your company’s job to teach you. They might bring you into a project or meeting way above your experience level, just for the sake of exposure — and you get to put that in portfolio as a team project later. Read more about the right way to do a design internship here.

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Follow these tips and you'll soon have a solid design portfolio that boosts your career. Keep reading for more portfolio tips and career advice, and be sure to tweet me @vanschneider if you have your own tips to share.

Featured article image from Jason Yuan's portfolio. Class project image from Lucas Berghoef's portfolio. Both built with pride using Semplice.

March 27, 2018No Comments

Design in Vietnam 🇻🇳 featuring Rice Creative

With this latest interview in our Design Around the World series, we're looking at design in Vietnam with Rice Creative design studio.

Rice Creative may be located in Ho Chi Minh City, but their work is recognized and requested around the world. This diverse and multi-talented team works with big brands like Uber, Unicef and Coca-Cola but also lovely little artisan chocolate makers. I was curious to hear their perspective as a branding studio based in Vietnam with clients and team members from all over the world. And to my excitement, three members of their design team answered all my questions about it.

Tell us a bit about yourselves and your studio. How many people work at Rice and how did it all begin?

JOSHUA: It began with a leap. We felt we had to work with people doing good things. Having had enough of the advertising scene here and wanting to do more, it forced our hand to create this studio of like-minded creatives. No looking back. The team now fluctuates between 18 and 20 people.

CONG: Rice Creative is kind of an anomaly in comparison the other studios in Vietnam, but also abroad. While we operate similar to your standard design studio in that we mainly do design work, from branding to packaging to digital, we see ourselves more like a collective of people with disparate skill sets who work together really well. Because of this, one of our most important priorities is curating an amazing team. Rice not only consists of designers, we have researchers, illustrators, communication specialists and a robust production team.

Vietnam’s economy is growing fast and is predicted to become one of the world’s largest by 2025. How has that affected the creative industry and Rice Creative specifically?

JOSHUA: It is very exciting. We see so many new, thoughtful companies come through the door. We are witnessing all the established ones reinventing. What it has afforded Rice is a chance to be even more selective about our partners, and encourage ones we feel are visionary.

DAN: As well as working with new businesses, It’s really exciting to be in a position to give big companies a voice in Vietnam.

The beautiful Rice Creative studio.

What’s the quality of design education like in Vietnam?

CONG: It’s growing and trying to find its voice. However, when it comes to design I don’t think young designers look up to the institutions to legitimize their creativity as we see in the West. Here, because of our past and the influences of technology, creatives are often time self-taught. There’s a huge reliance of intuition, self-determination and an pursuiant of passion. You might not see design that is globally groundbreaking all the time, but you can really get a sense of working best with what you got.

JOSHUA: It is really nothing like more developed nations. In a way, it is starting from scratch. We find this liberating most days.

Early iterations for Eastlake, a brewery & taproom in Minneapolis.

Do you have much competition from other studios within Vietnam? What’s the design community like and how many designers are pursuing freelance vs. studio work?

CONG: The creative scene in Vietnam in many ways is going through our very own renaissance phase. It seems like everywhere you look there are things popping up left and right whether it be in the field of fashion, design, art, music, architecture or even smaller scale businesses. Part of this insurgent of creativity is partially because 70% of Vietnam’s population is under 30, with a desire to differentiate themselves from their parent’s generation and of course the interconnectedness of social media. We’re actually seeing a decline of creatives wanting to work in studios, especially more corporate agencies, and preferring to work amongst friends or starting their own practice altogether.

JOSHUA: There are others popping up in the scene all the time, and that is great. We hope for a richer and richer scene. The large advertising agencies still offer branding services and we hope they will stop, because advertising is really its own expertise.

DAN: Looking beyond just design, it’s so inspiring seeing such young people doing independent creative things for the first time ever in the country. I’ve met some boutique shop owners for example who don’t even seem to realize that they’re pioneering something here.

Illustration seems to be a popular field in Vietnam. Is that one of the most common creative career paths in your country? What kind of work are most designers getting?

JOSHUA: There is huge pool of talented illustrators in Vietnam. Image making in general is very strong here. I find a strong sense of narrative in most work here.

DAN: It’s great to know that we can take an illustrative approach to our projects with no doubt that the results are going to be fantastic. We’ve been fortunate enough to collaborate with some amazingly skilled and incredibly versatile creatives recently.

Intricate chocolate packaging illustrations for Marou in Paris.

You have clients everywhere, from Vietnam to France to the United States. How easy was it to break into the international market and was this your intention from the beginning? Are many studios doing the same?

JOSHUA: Currently we have clients from Japan, the U.S., Canada, New Zealand and Europe. It happened when we released our first works online. Suddenly we were getting international inquiries; there was something in that work that people were responding to globally. Having a very international group in our studio is crucial to our success. All of these viewpoints and different experiences challenge and benefit the work greatly.

What impact does your social media presence have on getting new clients and self-promotion in general? What works best for you?

JOSHUA: To date, we have not really marketed ourselves much. We maintain our Instagram, which we keep more personal. We hope our audience can see our culture and lifestyle there.

Most of our online exposure has come from publications sharing our projects. We have had a lot of exposure from sites like The Dieline, but it’s also been a bit tricky because we do not specialize in packaging. We are overhauling our website and it should be our strongest asset in showcasing what we are all about. Our clients are also very proud of the work we have done for them and it will be a great place for them to point people to us and show off a bit.

DAN: It’s a tool for much more than reaching out to clients. Social media is often the platform through which prospective employees are exposed to the studio too. Being able to offer someone on the other side of the world and insight into how we do things is a reminder of just fantastic social media can be.

Rice's work for uberMOTO in Vietnam.

 

Why do you think good design is important and what does good design mean for Rice Creative?

JOSHUA: Good design solves a problem. We find ourselves going well above and beyond the original brief. Good design will solve problems for years to come. Since we also choose clients that are already doing something “good,” good design for them is very likely.

DAN: The importance of design craft and visual communication is really well understood here. The implications of symbolism in ancient motifs and designs are still prevalent. You only need to take a walk down the street to recognize the level of craft that goes into everything from the metalwork in housing gates, to the details within traditional street performer costumes. It’s really inspiring.

CONG: Design can only be as good as the client. You get a good client who is just as smart, talented and passionate as you are, then 90% of the work is done.  

"The question is not whether good design is valued and celebrated; but rather how the design communities have overcome these challenges and continue to thrive even on a smaller scale."

Rice Creative has won a ton of awards from associations in other countries, but I don’t see any from Vietnam. Is good design valued and celebrated in Vietnam? Why or why not?

JOSHUA: We cast an international eye on Vietnam, on purpose. This is why we go for awards. All of them were firsts for Vietnam. We get more Vietnamese clients and more Vietnamese names in the awards. Someday Vietnam may have its own creativity award — maybe we’ll start one — but for now, at least the world is talking about Vietnam as a creative place.

CONG: I think one of the things that we understood early on about starting a design business in Vietnam is that the industry had to start from scratch from post-war years. Colonization really altered the course of this field and many others — as a result of the war many people left, certain crafts died out, there was more red tape, etc. The question is not whether good design is valued and celebrated; but rather how the design communities have overcome these challenges and continue to thrive even on a smaller scale.

Rice's work for Wallpaper* Thai edition, inspired by Vietnam's neon signs.

I’ve read that negotiation is a big part of Vietnamese culture and commerce. Is that an accurate perception and if so, is this true for the creative industry? Are companies willing to pay a fair price for creative work?

JOSHUA: We do not have much time for haggling. We’ve been able to avoid that situation because we choose the right clients that have a general appreciation for the value effective design brings. You know, you get what you pay for.

I know community and family is highly valued in Vietnam. How does that play into your workplace culture and work/life balance?

JOSHUA: We have a great culture in the office. It’s tight. I think we all wish to spend more time eating and partying together, but everyone is also seriously determined. A lot of us are pretty exhausted by the end of the day. During the day, everyone is really supportive of each other. We do have beer on tap at the office from our beer client. So now that I think about it, we do kind of hang out a lot at the studio with brews.

CONG: Of course family dynamic is a big central theme in Vietnamese culture. And in that sense, it does bleed in our work a lot. We often see ourselves as not just colleagues but friends and chosen family. It’s not unlikely to see some of us congregate to grab dinner or go out together. We actually try to make it a habit to hang out with each other outside work hours at least a few times a month.

DAN: Being one of the many people who have moved around the world to be here at Rice, I definitely feel a sense of family here. For the people like me, we are in this together. We’re learning things from each other’s backgrounds and discovering things here together. Both in and out of work. Inclusive community traditions still live strong here in Vietnam, and they do not stop at the workplace. It didn’t take long to feel at home.

The culture in Vietnam is a complex adaptation of Chinese, Japanese, French and American colonial influences. How does this influence its graphic design style and aesthetics?

CONG: I think there’s a lot of nostalgia for the traditional crafts that predates colonization; in a way a reimagination of what Vietnam would’ve been like without its particular past. But we also see an embrace and/or influences from colonial and war time. This is often because it’s the most readily accessible “visual language” we see — whether it be from leftover signage or corroded motifs on buildings. Due to our past, I think the mentality has always been about a strong DIY culture, where you have to really work with what you got. It just means a less emphasis on materiality but more on problem solving.

In my research I saw that Vietnam’s Thu Phap calligraphy involves “blowing beauty into every single character.” I love how intentional and thoughtful that sounds. Does this mindset translate in the Vietnamese design community in any way? Is beauty highly valued?

JOSHUA: It does. We certainly embrace thoughtfulness and meticulousness. Beauty is certainly highly valued. Often it’s about how that beauty was reached that makes it really resonate.

CONG: What's also really interesting is that while visual language is increasingly more valued and embraced in Vietnam, the uses of language to describe that work is just as important and in many ways can be just as beautiful.

For BRAIN mag's "strawberry red" cover theme, Rice blasted strawberry purée at a wall through a stencil.

How can all designers and design communities do a better job of communicating with each other?

CONG: The magic of Ho Chi Minh City in many ways can be experienced through “hidden hẻm.” Hẻm is a Vietnamese word for the little alleyways populated throughout the city. It’s kind of a play on hidden gems. Like these hẻm, the design communities are not centralized in one place but rather dispersed throughout, and encounters are often met in serendipitous manners. This makes communicating to the mass a bit tricky but running into each other every other moon at an art opening or design launch super rewarding.

DAN: Coming from the street culture, I think there is a real face-to-face element that lives in the creative scene. Companies have faces and thus personalities. People know and support each other as friends. There is a real ingenuity to what people are doing here; people are doing unconventional things in unexpected places. It wouldn’t be the same if these initiatives existed only online. To experience it you really have to come here and discover it for yourself.

"A Year with Thirteeen Moons" by Rice Creative

I read that Vietnam owns about 20% of the coffee market share, and is the second largest coffee producer in the world. Which leads me to one question: How many coffees have you had today? 😉

JOSHUA: I usually have one a day. One big thermos I brew every morning that lasts all day. Pour-over, Vietnamese light roasted Arabica, of course.

CONG: Two yummy cold brews!

DAN: I’m totally hooked. If Rice doesn’t keep me here, the coffee for sure will.

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Joshua, Cong and Dan — thank you! Very grateful for your thoughtful answers to my (many) questions about design in Vietnam. I feel like I have a much better understanding of the creative community there now, and I plan to keep learning. To keep up with Rice Creative's work, follow them on Instagram and visit their site. And be sure to check back for more Design Around the World features coming soon.

March 14, 2018No Comments

How to Get a Job at InVision

If you're a designer, you probably use InVision. If you don't, you probably should. The platform allows you to share your work visually, communicate and collaborate more efficiently and better manage your workflow. It basically simplifies your entire project.

As you can imagine, the team behind InVision is pretty unique in itself too. InVision is a fully distributed team, meaning everyone works remotely from all over the world. I was curious to hear how that plays into the hiring process and was lucky enough to talk with three members of the marketing design team about how we might get the chance to work with them. Meet Aaron, Luisa and Jared.

First, please tell us a little about yourself and what you do at InVision.

AARON: My name is Aaron. I’m the VP, creative director at InVision living in Escondido, CA. I’ve been at InVision for just over four years now. I was hired as the first designer to focus on brand and marketing design. Today we have seven designers on the marketing design team. My responsibilities are to lead the marketing design team in all of our branding and communication design from our core products to content identities and campaigns.

LUISA: My name is Luisa. I’m a Mexican American designer living in Oakland and working for InVision. My title is technically brand designer but I do web design for the marketing team.

JARED: Hey there, I’m Jared! I’m a senior brand designer living in Pensacola, Florida. I’ve been with InVision for about two and a half years now. I started here as a multidisciplinary designer and recently started leading the branding initiatives as a senior brand designer. I’m involved in anything from strategy, designing, art direction to helping the brand team scale as we need.

Some of the InVision team IRL at an event in San Francisco

Okay, first question we always ask: Looking at your current design team, how many of them came through internal referrals or headhunting, and how many came through the traditional application process?

AARON: All the designers we've hired came through referral or me simply searching for talented designers and reaching out to them individually. I will search places like Behance or Dribbble, or ask friends in the design community for recommendations. I find this to be the most effective way to find and hire talented designers.

A peek at InVision V7, coming soon

Say we decide to reach out with a cold email. What kind of message gets a reply? Any secrets for us?

JARED: A cold email without an open position might not land you position on the team right away. However, we’re always looking for humble and talented designers. Sometimes we don’t know how quickly we will need to scale, so it’s great to make connections early on.

LUISA: I guess it really depends on who you reach out to and with what intention. A few friends of friends have reached out to me who are curious about what it’s like to work remotely. I’ll usually talk with them. I’ve also had a few people looking for career advice and I’ll try and talk with them as well. If people reach out with specific questions I’m generally happy to answer — I usually give them my phone number and ask them to give me a call. Typing out long answers requires more effort than a phone conversation and I also like that it shows effort on their part. It’s easy to email a stranger with a bunch of questions. It’s not so easy to pick up the phone and call a stranger.

Luisa working from an painter friend's studio

How important is a complete portfolio? Can I get away with not having a portfolio when interviewing at InVision?

AARON: A portfolio is a must have. I won't consider a candidate for an interview without one. When I say “portfolio” it doesn’t have to be a fancy website either. Actually, I recommend using places like Dribbble or Behance to build your portfolio. It’s much easier for us to find you. Fill it with a variety of work, work you want to be hired to do. Showing your thinking process is important too. If you can show how you went from challenge to solution, that is a big plus to me.

JARED: When I joined, I had a portfolio that showcased the work I felt strongly about. I don’t think having a formal portfolio put together is necessary as long as you have a great representation of your work. However, a complete portfolio — one with information about your role and the challenges / goals / approach you took — can give you an upper hand in the hiring process. It’s essentially your first impression. How you communicate about and present your work is an extremely important part of being a designer. Portfolios tend to get passed around from person to person when hiring, which makes it easier on the people involved in decision making. The more you can do to make hiring you a no brainer, the better.

Both images from DesignBetter.co, an InVision project

Tell us one thing you never want to see again on a portfolio. Anything you wish you saw more?

AARON: I mentioned it above but show your process. What I want to see more of is how you arrived at that design solution. Sketches, wireframes, unused design concepts, etc. That is the work. The final design is just the end of that entire design process. Getting to see that thinking and decision making is a big differentiating factor when deciding on who to hire.

LUISA: For me it’s more about how people talk about their work. If they don’t show much process but can speak in an articulate fashion about it, that’s great. If it’s all spec work and nothing that’s ever shipped, that can be worrisome. I like it when people show some of their personality in their portfolios but it’s a balancing act — too much and someone comes off as self-centered, not enough and a portfolio can feel dry.

JARED: It really bothers me when I see a designer who doesn’t explain what their role was in a project that wasn’t executed by just themselves. Giving appropriate credit to what you did is not only the ethical thing to do, but shows a selfless demeanor — which is a must-have trait in a remote team environment.

InVision V7 – coming soon.

Besides having a portfolio, do you like the idea of designers being invested in other interests? For example being active bloggers or otherwise outspoken in their community?

JARED: For me, that’s not a make or break quality for us when hiring, although the drive to learn and push yourself is. The more our team is apt to learn (whether its inside or outside the design industry) the more our team will benefit. Everyone on our design team is encouraged to have their own voice and opinions. I believe that trait makes us a stronger team and produces a better end-product.

Jared about to get a strike at a recent Epicurrence event

Let's say I make the first pass and get invited to an interview (lucky me). Can you describe the interview process as briefly as possible? 

JARED: Our interview process generally involves a few conversations with different people from the design team who are involved with the role you’re applying for. So for example, if you were invited to interview for a brand design position, you’d more than likely talk to me, Aaron (our creative director), and another executive from our marketing team. Depending on everyone’s schedule, the number of applicants and the urgency to add another member to our team, the interview process could last anywhere between a few weeks to a month and a half.

We would start with a pretty casual conversation over a video call. We’d love to hear about your work, who you are, your goals and any questions you might have for us. Getting to know you during this time is very important to us — a cultural fit is a must since we’re a remote company. Usually during this call, we will give you a design challenge for you to complete in a reasonable timeframe (we get that people are busy with work, families and other obligations). We’ll have another conversation where you will present your work. We will have follow up call for you to present your findings. If we like what we hear and see, you’ll move forward to have at least one more conversation with an executive to make sure culturally we all feel you’ll be the right fit for us.

"You have check the ego at the door — life is too short to work with an asshole."

The real Clark from InVision!

Would InVision hire someone who is a cultural fit over someone who has more industry experience and hard skills?

AARON: The answer you are not looking for is we want both, but if I had to choose I would lean on being a culture fit. Our team is full of talented designers; we are learning from each other, pushing each other and growing constantly. So the hard skills are constantly being sharpened here. The culture fit is crucial coming into InVision. We respect each other and have a very collaborative environment. We make design decisions together here. You have to be able to check the ego at the door — life is too short to work with an asshole.

LUISA:  Part of what makes a remote company work is that people must work very well together and independently, which translates into strong hard skills and strong interpersonal skills.

Luisa hard at work in her home office

What are the biggest mistakes you see designers make when applying for a job at InVision? Are there any specific things that keep bothering you? Please complain to us!

AARON: What I see a lot is that nerves or whatever keeps people from showing their real personality. Just be genuine, be yourself. I am reviewing you just as much as your work and design thinking. It’s important to relax and present yourself as genuinely as you can.

I like to keep interviews really casual and conversational. I am looking to see if you would fit culturally into our team. As I've mentioned, it's crucial for us to get a real sense of your personality. Remember it’s just a conversation with another human being. Be confident in your work and abilities, and be confident in who you are as a person. Take a deep breath, smile and have an awesome conversation. It will go a long way.

On a current InVision design job description, it says SaaS experience is a big plus. What are the secondary skills InVision looks for in a designer, besides common soft skills?

LUISA: People who think about the design beyond just the design team — how it can tie in with business goals, how to design in a way that can scale (design systems). Probably all the same things every company is looking for beyond being good and nice.

JARED: While it might be considered a common skill, designers who can explain the decisions behind their work — written and verbally — and take egoless feedback is a big plus for us. Being remote requires a lot of communication. While over-communication is better than no communication, effective communication tops it all.

Lead product designer Scott Savarie unveiling InVision Studio

I’ve read the design team at InVision is pretty small. How often do new design positions open up?

AARON: Yes we have a smaller design team on the marketing side. Just seven of us right now. We plan to add to our team in 2018 but probably only by a couple. Having a smaller team allows us to work on lots of different things. The product design team here at InVision is much larger and has more openings more often, if you are looking for a product design job.

"There are talented designers living all over the world. We have the unique opportunity to scout talent from anywhere."

How do you think InVision is different when hiring new talent compared to other tech companies or design studios?

AARON: Our hiring is a lot different than most tech companies since we are 100% remote. We don't have to rely on designers that just live in SF or NYC. There are talented designers living all over the world. We have the unique opportunity to scout talent from anywhere. It's great for us because the talent pool is much larger and great for the designer because they don't have to move to the Bay Area to get a great design job. It’s really a win/win situation.

LUISA: Given the independent nature of remote work, it’s probably not the best place for someone very junior. It probably skews a little older and a little more experienced than your typical tech company. It’s also very laid-back and the company as a whole really cares about the quality of people’s lives – not in a gimmicky way, but in a way that really permeates the culture. People take sick days when they need to without the pressure of having to show up to an office.

Working remotely also gives people a looooot of freedom, so people are free to do their work and live their lives in a way that is unparalleled in a traditional office setting. With that freedom comes responsibility —self-discipline and self-motivation are very necessary. But basically, nice people who are good at what they do is really the winning combo.

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Aaron, Luisa & Jared - Thanks so much for these insider tips! So many great takeaways here, many of which are unique to getting a job at InVision. Let's take a look:

Nr. 1 - Nothing like any other company.

The InVision team is completely remote, so they put a lot of weight on how well you communicate and how good you are at being a remote worker. Basically your first role is being a remote worker, and your second is being a designer. That may sound stupid but it's crucial for being a good designer and a good team player. Knowing if you are good at (and happy) working remotely is therefore one of the most important things you want to clarify for yourself. We even wrote an article about this here.

Nr. 2 - Being a culture fit is extremely important.

Be yourself and don't let nerves get in the way during your interview. If you're not a right fit there's no use forcing it, so let yourself relax and show your personality. It matters a great deal to the InVision team that you get along well with the team and add positively to their culture.

Nr. 3 - Share your process.

InVision doesn't want to just see your work. They want to understand what led you to the decisions you made. When presenting your projects (in your portfolio and in person), explain your thought process and how you went from challenge to solution.

That's all for now! Please do send me and the InVision team a Tweet if you enjoyed the interview, and be sure to catch up on the other interviews in this series here.

March 9, 2018No Comments

Semplice portfolio inspiration of February 2018

Each week, we handpick two portfolios created with Semplice to feature in our Showcase. These are best of the best design portfolios, chosen from hundreds of excellent submissions.

I love looking through these portfolios each month. It's not only fun to see what designers do with Semplice, but their portfolio and design work always inspires me to better. You'll see what I mean when you browse this month's top design portfolios.

Take a look at our monthly favorites below to get motivated and meet new designers  — and if you've created your own portfolio with Semplice, be sure to submit it to our Showcase here. You could be featured next!

__________

For fresh design portfolio inspiration, visit the Semplice showcase. We share two new portfolios every Wednesday. And I'll be back next month with more of our monthly favorites!

P.S. Header image by Valentino Marazziti.

Have a fantastic month,
Lu

March 7, 2018No Comments

15 ways to quickly refresh your portfolio

This article was originally published as a guest article by me on Design Shack.

If you’re like many of designers, you’ve had every intention of updating your design portfolio — for the last two years at least. But procrastinating on your portfolio is a mistake. You never know what opportunities you could be missing out on because someone landed on your site and thinks you gave up design or died in 2014.

As the co-founder of Semplice, my portfolio system for designers, I’ve learned how crucial a portfolio is to getting new work. And the only thing worse than not having a design portfolio is having one that’s poorly made or out of date. Here are some quick tips to refresh your portfolio and start getting more of the work you want to do.

1. Trim your projects

We all know our projects can make or break our portfolio. Yet we still let the wrong projects get in the way, usually because we know how hard we worked on them and can’t bear to cut them out. Observe your project page with an objective eye and remove:

Class projects / unsolicited redesigns: Unless you’re early in your career or they’re incredibly impressive, unsolicited redesigns or old class projects only date your portfolio and make you look inexperienced. If you can afford to get them out, do it.

Old projects you’re still attached to for some reason or another: Remove your outdated projects and let your best work shine. If you still think they maybe add value to some extend, create a specific Archive page and let them sit in there.

Any projects that don’t make you proud: Even if they’re current projects. You’ve heard this before but it’s worth saying again: Your portfolio should only feature your best work, and the kind of work you want to do in the future. Filler projects aren’t doing you any favors.

2. Refresh your fonts

The wrong typography can date your portfolio more than anything. The good news is, updating your fonts is easy and makes a big difference for the look and feel of your portfolio.

Choose modern, web-friendly typefaces that best represent you and your work. I've seen many portfolios that didn't look too bad, but the typography didn't look refined or it had this old dated "early 2000's" look on them. Say bye bye to Tahoma or Verdana and pick something more refreshing.

3. Add videos and gifs

Studies show 88% of visitors stay longer on sites with video. And when recruiters or companies are likely looking through lots of portfolios to find new talent, you want to do everything you can to keep them on yours.

GIFs are a great way to incorporate video and add energy to your site with little effort or strain on loading time. The Las Coleccionistas website is a great example. Using Semplice’s full-screen background video feature, Las Coleccionistas features a quirky GIF to greet you to the site. Project images come to life as you scroll, engaging you without making you dizzy or distracting from the work.

4. Add animation & motion (but use it wisely)

Subtle hover effects, scroll reveal, page transitions. Tiny updates like this will make your portfolio feel more alive. Don’t go overboard and make your site unusable. It’s the little touches here and there that enhance the experience without getting in the way.

Take Johannes Leonardo’s website for example. Nav items flip on hover, images slightly zoom when moused over, page elements slide in on scroll. The final effect is elegant and smooth – you don’t think too much about it, but it elevates everything significantly.

5. Give your images more breathing room

Too often I see portfolios that feature their projects with tiny little thumbnails crammed on the page. We may be working with smaller and smaller screens these days, but that only means your images should be bigger.

Of course you need to be aware of file size, but you can still share nice, bold images that are optimized for web. Check out Summerkid’s portfolio, featuring a full-screen cover slider for her projects. Each image fills the screen and immerses you in herwork, inviting you to dive straight into the case study page.

6. Add one or two new projects

Refreshing your portfolio might be as simple as adding one or two new projects featuring your current work. But don’t just plug everything into a template and call it a day. Each of your projects are different and your project case studies should be too.

Semplice allows you to create fully-branded case studies, so every piece of your page matches the look and feel of your project. You can even customize the navigation on project pages to create an fully-immersive experience for your readers.

Also, don’t forget: Every new project you add gives you the opportunity to promote your whole portfolio again on your social channels. So if you have 10 new projects, launch them in phases and not all at once.

7. Update your existing projects

It’s possible you’re proud of the work but your portfolio project page is dragging it down. So update it. Maybe you need to take new photos for your print projects, or perhaps you now have results to share for a past project. Maybe you could add some nice effects to the page to give it some depth. If the work feels relevant but your project page doesn’t, take time to make them work together.

8. Perfect your mobile screens

It’s 2018 so I’m assuming your website is already responsive. But considering more than 50% of people will be visiting your site via phone or tablet, it’s worth giving extra attention to your mobile screens.

With Semplice you can fine-tune each mobile breakpoint individually from your desktop so every screen is designed with your user in mind. Make headlines bigger for small screens, hide specific content or sections entirely. Our visual content editor lets you see in real time how your changes will look live.

It’s one thing to make your website responsive (which just means people can view it on a mobile), and it’s another thing to make optimizations that intentionally guide your mobile readers through your work.

9. Streamline your navigation

The beauty of design portfolios is that we essentially have two simple goals: Share our work and get people to contact us. It doesn’t need to be much more complicated than that, and your navigation shouldn’t be either. Jacob Lindblad manages to sum it up with “Work” and “Info.” Can you simplify yours?

Do you need an About and a Contact page, or can those be condensed to one? What about that Archive menu item — are any of those old projects helping you get new work? Remember what you want your user to do (hire you) and make it as easy as possible for them to do so.

10. Remove any and all Lorem Ipsum

Placeholder text not only appears lazy, but it doesn’t make our work come to life the way real copy does. Whenever possible, include real content in your designs or at least write something more human than Lorem Ipsum. I promise it will make a difference.

11. Create a memorable About page

If there’s one thing I’ve learned after reviewing hundreds of portfolios over the years, it’s that your About page is the most important page on your portfolio. Yet for some reason it’s the most overlooked page when we’re designing our website.

Yes, your portfolio is about the work, but it’s also about you. Your employer or client wants to know who you are and how you’ll fit into their culture. They want to understand your personality and what you’ll bring to the team. Show them on your About page.

I remember most standout About pages I’ve seen, including Alina Skyson’s. Her About page is not only well-designed but shows personality. Check out her unique "10 true facts about me,” a unique yet simple approach that makes her portfolio memorable.

12. Rewrite your case studies

Many portfolio project pages I’ve seen include a sentence or two about the project at most, leaving the reader to fill in the gaps on their own. Pretty images are not enough to sell your work. I know as designers we’re used to handing off the copy to a copywriter, but I believe designers can (and should) write too.

Your case studies should explain your project from beginning to end, in your own voice. It doesn’t have to be long, but you should walk us through your process from challenge to solution. Read more advice and find examples of good portfolio case studies here.

13. Simplify your intro

Your introduction should be one or two sentences tops, telling us at a glance who you are and what you do. Forget every buzzword you’ve ever learned and instead write the way real people talk. I don’t “create custom strategic solutions with visual storytelling,” I do graphic design. Whatever kind of creative work you do, say it simply.

14. Add Flash & background music

I’m kidding! Just making sure you’re still reading.

15. Ditch the templates

As designers, we’re creative by nature. But when it comes to our portfolio, it seems like our standards go out the window and we’re OK with copy and pasting someone else’s template. If your design portfolio looks like everyone else’s, what does that say about your work?

Conclusion

Whether you’re designing your portfolio from scratch or just giving it a refresh, these tips will help your work stand out. All portfolios shown here were made with Semplice. Visit the Semplice Showcase for more inspiration and then get to work building a portfolio that makes you proud.

Featured article image by Las Coleccionistas.

March 2, 2018No Comments

Design in Singapore 🇸🇬 featuring Foreign Policy

With this latest addition to our Design Around the World series, meet Foreign Policy in Singapore.

Everything Foreign Policy creates just feels like smart humans are behind it – no tired buzzwords or dated design trends to be found. Their work has so much personality,  I knew the team behind it must be awesome. And they are. I visited the Foreign Policy studio in Singapore to meet them in person and talk with Yah-Leng, the studio's inspiring co-founder, about the design community in Singapore. And of course, I brought my camera.

Hey Yah-Leng, tell us a little bit about yourself and your studio. How did you and Arthur WeeSheng Chin decide to co-found Foreign Policy together? And what inspired the studio name?

Arthur and I both came back from New York after studying and working in the U.S. for 15 years in 2007. We wanted to build a design practice that different from the bigger international agencies that were the main players in Singapore during that time. We started with two and today we are about 12. The name Foreign Policy is really a reminder to ourselves that we should keep a more global perspective and diversity when we approach design.

Inspiration everywhere in Foreign Policy's creative space.

What is the design community in Singapore? It seems like you contribute a lot with events like LUMEN and The Swap Show. Are there other events or platforms where designers can connect with each other?

The Singapore design community is a young and vibrant one. I think I said in 2015 that this is absolutely the best time to be a designer in Singapore. Everyone is driven and inspired to do good work, to up the design standards and to have their own voice in each project. I think this is really heartwarming to see as the landscape was different when I first left the country compared when I came back. Many designers are taking initiative to organize various events and exhibitions, and working on collaborative projects with different creatives, which is absolutely awesome. It brings the designers ever closer and grows the community even more beyond the non-design community.

Foreign Policy's work for Singapore Design Week

The Foreign Policy team works across many disciplines, from branding to architecture to website design. Is it standard for studios in Singapore to be full-service this way, or are most more specialized?

It really depends on their goals and mission. Singapore is a tiny market for us; it just makes sense as we grow. Especially since we are creating brand experiences for our clients and their customers, a holistic 360 approach works best so we can cover all bases in terms of delivering a consistent brand experience.

"As with all designers in the world, designers in Singapore do not have it easy."

The kimchi burger, please.

You trained and worked in the States for quite a long time before going back to Singapore. That gives you a pretty unique perspective. How would you compare the life of a designer in Singapore to other places you’ve experienced? Do Singaporean designers and studios work or think differently in specific ways that you’ve noticed?

As with all designers in the world, designers in Singapore do not have it easy. We have to be sure we stay in touch with current affairs, be on top of current and future trends, and stay knowledgeable in various genres. We cannot only be knowledgeable about design, but every non-design subject. Every project is a new subject to be learned, a platform to harness our previous experience. Good designers here and everywhere work hard to push the boundary with their clients. Good designers here and everywhere are hungry to make a change in the client’s industry through their work.

“Proportion”, representing the ratio of men to women designers in the design industry — 85:15.

Does Singapore have recognizable design style? How does your culture and history influence the work you do today?

We do not particularly have a Singapore design style. As an island nation with a super strategic geographical location, we are a hub for trading and air travel — we were founded by the British due to our strategic port for trading in the 1800s.

We are really quite well-exposed to various cultures and influences coming through the city or going out. Especially in this day and age, many of us are super well-traveled and well-informed of what's out there outside of our little island. Our jobs, our education and air travel being so cheap and accessible, we get to see the world much more frequently. Being a former British colony, we do get influences from the British; many design students choose to further their studies in the UK. But I would say we find influences all over.

Oh, the colors!

Singapore is considered one of the most technology-ready nations as well as the city with best investment potential. How does that impact your work as product and digital designers? I’d imagine you get to work with some exciting startups and projects.

I think it's becoming to be — the past 10 years were just a lot of restaurant and cafe startups, with a lot of work coming from that sector. In the last two years and moving forward, we are seeing more tech startups in the city nation. I hope they do work with designers; it would help to jump start yet another aspect in the UX/UI and interface design side of things, as well as a larger spectrum of projects that would challenge Singapore designers.

"Either we as a nation need to learn to be better planners or we as a nation are too quick to react and demand a solution too quickly."

Singapore is also the second-most competitive nation, based on factors like economy and business innovation. That seems like a lot of pressure! As business owners, do you see or feel that spirit of productivity and competitiveness?

I don't think we are that productive as a nation to be honest, but yes — demanding clients and a super fast pace for sure. Lead time to launch is usually shorter and rushed; either we as a nation need to learn to be better planners or we as a nation are too quick to react and demand a solution too quickly. I hope clients can understand that good design takes time, and hope that they do a lot of homework and planning so that each project can be planned ahead, so as to gain ample time for execution.

Foreign Policy's work for The Space Program

Singapore is of course a small country compared to its neighbors. Do businesses typically look to work with local studios like yours within the country, or do you find yourself competing with companies outside of Singapore? And on that note, how often does Foreign Policy work with clients overseas?

I do think we have some advantages due to our strategic geographical location. And being a former British colony, our business language is English. That has helped us gain access to other countries, especially the developed western countries. With that, doing business is much easier and that helps with our overseas business development. Plus, we are pretty bilingual — Chinese being our mother tongue, it helps us bridge the gap between clients from China. Our communications barrier is zero. I would say half of our work is from outside Singapore.

Branding work by Foreign Policy

 

I’ve read that UX/UI designers as well as designers with coding ability are highly sought after in Singapore, since the market moves fast and new companies need websites. Have you seen this to be true? What are the biggest opportunities that you see for designers in Singapore right now?

Yes, and I think this is true everywhere. Singapore is a small market so you have to know many skills to do as well and be able to approach a problem from different perspectives and viewpoints. I think that is very valuable, and clients and employers hold this breed of designers in high esteem. I would like to say Singapore designers are always looking to challenge and better themselves, choosing more testing work with each new project.

Why do you think good design is important? What does good design mean for you at Foreign Policy?

Good design is not just a pretty design — that is a given. What's most important to us is that the story holds water and strikes an emotion with the beholder and most of all, that it makes an impact in somebody's organization and somebody's life. This is what matters to Foreign Policy: to create design that makes an impact, design that matters.

The Swap Show, an event Foreign Policy puts on for creative exchange.

In your opinion, what are the top 10 design studios from Singapore that everyone should know?

WORK
Kinetic
H55
Asylum
Bravo
Roots
Do Not Design
Somewhere Else
Bureau
Foreign Policy (haha)

And now to our last question: How can all designers and design communities from other countries do a better job of communicating with each other? How can we become more engaged with the Singaporean design community? Are there any blogs or specific magazines we can follow?

I think the internet and social media are pretty strong links for everyone globally. I also encourage the Singapore design community to put their work and their thoughts on these mediums. We cannot deny these are very powerful bridges to the rest of the world. Myself and my fellow design studio owner friends run a design society here in Singapore and hopefully in 2018, we can create a greater awareness of the Singapore design community to the overseas design community.

___

Yah-Leng, thank you so much for taking the time out of your travels and busy schedule to talk with us! So many great insights here and I'm excited to continue following your work and learning more about Singapore's design community. Readers, be sure to check out Foreign Policy's awesome site and follow their work on Instagram. You'll not only learn more about other design communities outside your own, but I promised you'll be inspired by Foreign Policy's unique approach to design and life.

February 26, 2018No Comments

How to write project case studies for your portfolio

Writing case studies might be the most dreaded part of building a design portfolio. After all the work and time it takes curating projects, designing pages, saving out images, etc., who wants to actually sit down and EXPLAIN it all? But next to your About page, case studies are the most important part of your portfolio.

Aside from showing your experience and skill, case studies give your potential client or employer an idea of how you work and think. Case studies are basically the whole point of building a portfolio — which is why Semplice and Carbonmade (our portfolio tools) were built around just that. Especially with more complex work such as UX design, a case study is a must to explain your work. Of course, your case study approach depends on your personal style and goals, but I generally recommend these rules when creating your project pages.

1. Write down your case studies before you do almost anything else

I know this is not as fun as designing your website but like most things in life, it helps to get the hardest task out of the way first. Near the end of the project you will just want to press that launch button, so anything you write at that time will be rushed and lazy. Or even worse, you will hit a wall and procrastinate launching the whole thing.

Write about your projects as early as you can, even if you have to adjust the copy slightly later to fit your final page layout. I usually just put all my thoughts in Evernote or a Google Doc. Think of your project in phases and start with Phase 1, which is usually the ideation or exploration phase. Write down your thoughts, and then continue to Phase 2. Don't bother with images just yet, this is just for you to help you get it all down.

If inspiration strikes otherwise, so be it. But in most cases you will thank yourself later by doing this first.

2. Keep it brief & caption everything

People are usually scanning your projects to get a general idea of your skills and the way you work. Don't write a novel, just share a short paragraph or two that makes your project interesting and relatable to your reader.

I've read research that says one of the first things people read in a newspaper are the little captions underneath the images. Think of your case study the same way. If someone scrolls through your case study and only reads the little 1-2 sentence captions, they should still understand your project. Focus on the captions first, and then fill in any lengthier content.

An image from Liz Well's portfolio. Check out lizvwells.com to see case studies done right.

3. Include the right details

It all depends on your personal style and you don’t need to literally copy/paste this format, but your case study should loosely follow this outline or provide this information:

Name of client, what they do & their location: Give your reader context and write a quick sentence about what this project or product is all about. This will show your experience and interest in specific types of clients or design work. Naming the location will also help if you want to make it clear you work with clients all over, as opposed to just your hometown.

Goal for the project: What did the client ask you to do?  What was the briefing? What was the main challenge and measure of success? Did you have a certain idea or expectation for the project when you began?

Your experience: Anything interesting to share about your process for this project? Did you take a unique angle or notice some surprising insight? Do you have some early sketches we can see? Why did you choose that approach? Ask yourself WHY WHY WHY a thousand times, and then answer those questions.

The outcome: Did you feel proud of the result? Did it exceed your expectations? Did it increase the client’s sales by 2000%? Don’t get too technical or share some crazy analytics report (and definitely do not make anything up), just include a brief sentence or two that shares how the project was successful. A case study should ideally be a success story. If it's not, tell us why the project is still valuable or meaningful (maybe the client didn't choose your favorite concept for example, but you still love the work you did) and what you learned from it.

Again, it doesn’t need to be some stiff, clinical report. Just set everything up for the reader so they can fully appreciate what went into the project and how you approach your work.

4. Give credit & explain your role

This is especially important if it was a team project. If I just see a list of names without their roles, I might be a little suspicious about what you actually did on this project. But whether or not this was a team project, it’s helpful for us to understand what role you played. This could be as simple as listing “art direction & design” beside the project summary. Forgetting this detail is crucial and can mean the difference between getting hired or not.

"We should finish reading with a sense of your personality and design process."

5. Write in your voice

You and your client might know what they mean, but acronyms and buzzwords only distance your reader. Don’t try to impress with lofty language, just share your work in your own voice and be as clear as possible. We should finish reading with a sense of your personality and design process.

Whatever you do, don’t just copy/paste words about your client’s product from their website. The shift in voice will be obvious and will only make you seem lazy.

6. Don’t image dump

I’ve seen countless portfolios that either don’t include a case study at all or just have one sentence with a bunch of photos below for the reader to sort out on their own. That doesn’t sell your work the way it deserves. (Plus no copy = bad SEO, if you care about that.)

Consider a layout that lets you include a sentence or two beside each image, so you can explain your process and give us insight into what we’re seeing. A bunch of photos on a page might look pretty, but as almost every company in our "How to Get a Job at X" series has voiced, it's not enough. Your potential employer or client needs context. We need to understand who you are, how you work and how you might contribute to our team/culture.

7. Think of each case study like a magazine feature

This goes for your content and layout. Using a similar page template for your case studies is fine, but you should at least adjust it to fit the project and look of the work.

Think of the way magazine articles are laid out. They’re designed to fully immerse you in the piece and create an experience. They include photos at specific places to illustrate a point or bring a scene to life. They use pull quotes to pique your interest or point out an especially memorable part of the story. They break up paragraphs with photos, but take care to not disrupt your reading experience.

This is why Semplice allows designers to create fully branded case studies — meaning you can design every piece of your page to fit the project’s look and feel, from the navigation down to the footer. Every project is different and your case studies should be too.

I could go on and on, but when it comes down to it, no one-size-fits-all solution works for case studies. It all depends on you, your project, style and the kind of work you do. As we say in this article about writing as a designer (good tips in there as well), just remember to write for that one person on the other side of the screen. It's one person hiring you for the job after all – and often that person is a recruiter or someone who's not necessarily a designer like you. Design your portfolio and write your case studies with your reader in mind, and you'll be one step closer to doing the work you want to do.

Read more portfolio tips here and be sure to check out the Semplice Showcase and Carbonmade talentpool for design portfolio inspiration.

Featured article image by Liz Wells

February 22, 2018No Comments

The truth about design titles

Research suggests we made up 90% of today’s design job titles within the past five years. Most likely a new design title was announced just this minute somewhere in Silicon Valley and we don't even know it yet.

With this article we’d like to shine a light at some of the most common design titles and explain what they actually mean.

Senior Designer = A designer at the age of 23 who can’t wait to retire early.

Art Director = Someone who has never opened Photoshop or any design tools in their career but gets away with it. Tends to hover around people saying, “I’m not quite feeling that color.”

UX Designer = Someone who can’t design anything visually but has all the confidence to tell others how to do it right. You can easily spot them with their overuse of hashtags. #UX #UX4LIFE

UX/UI Designer = An old school interface designer who couldn't get jobs anymore, so they added the UX to their title because that’s what gets you hired.

UI Designer = Still finishing that Winamp skin while living in their parents' basement.

Creative Director = Someone with proficient Powerpoint and Google Docs skills.

Lead Designer = Just a regular designer who works at a tech company and gets paid a little more than the other designer who isn’t a lead designer.

Full-Stack Designer = Someone who knows at least 10 design prototyping tools that all do the exact same thing.

Head of Design = Basically a Design Director below the Vice President of Design. On rare occasions the Head of Design, the Design Director and the VP of Design all meet up in a room and nothing gets done.

IA Designer = Got killed by the UX designer.

Empathy Designer = I just made this one up.

 

February 9, 2018No Comments

Ask for what you want

Often I'll hear from people, especially on Twitter, who try to pitch me on their product in a roundabout way – asking questions and making small talk before finally revealing they just want to sell me something.

First they ask what product I'm using for X, and I do my best to answer because I think they're asking for advice. Then, after more questions and back and forth, they'll say, "Hey, well maybe you should try X from this company I started, it's pretty awesome."

There are few things that upset me, but this kind of conversation does. It wastes my time and I can guarantee I won’t be looking at whatever product they're talking about, especially not after a cheesy sales technique like this. Very likely I would have checked out the product if they would have pitched it immediately, being transparent upfront, but not after wasting my time and misleading me by trying to establish a fake dialogue.

I understand why they do it. It’s a classic sales technique, although an outdated one that doesn’t work very well over Twitter. It’s unfortunate, because all the effort and usually good intentions are wasted, and the sales pitch is often forgotten in the following disappointment and anger.

If someone believes they have a tool that would make my life better, I would much rather have a real, straightforward conversation with them about it. I always appreciate the hustle of people who work on their own products or are proud of what they do and want to share it with the world, as long as they don’t spam.

It's quite simple, but a lesson I’ve only learned slowly myself over the years: Ask for what you want. Don’t waste someone's time with small talk — be straightforward and just ask for it. Will this guarantee you will get what you want? Absolutely not, but it keeps life simple and you would be surprised how often it works.

"Of course I’m not saying you should be an asshole running around demanding everything be given to you."

When I started out as a designer I always struggled with salary negotiations or asking for a promotion. I never asked the question directly, I always talked around it cryptically or didn't ask at all, hoping my hard work or skill would speak for itself. Then I would be disappointed or frustrated when nothing happened, despite the fact that I did nothing to make it happen myself. But at some point I learned to just straight out asked for what I wanted, and I can tell you it always worked. It either worked because I got the raise, or because I got a clear NO with points on I would have to improve first.

Of course I’m not saying you should be an asshole running around demanding everything be given to you. I simply mean we should state our clear intentions. Put all our cards on the table. Don’t let others speculate. That goes for making sales pitches on Twitter, sending emails, asking for raises and whatever else we're hoping to get out of the world. It almost never hurts to just ask for it.

Malika Favre, a friend of mine and super talented artist and illustrator, shared in an NTMY interview with me how this worked out for her.

“The first thing that came out of my mouth was, ‘Can I have your job?'”

At the beginning of her career, Malika had an internship at a studio. They didn’t have a full-time job for her then, so she ended up getting one somewhere else. But she still had that studio on her mind. A year later, she bumped into someone she previously worked with there during her internship, and he said he was leaving his job at the studio to go freelance.

“The first thing that came out of my mouth was, ‘Can I have your job?’” Malika says. “It just came out. And he looked at me and said, ‘Maybe?’ And the next day I had a call from the boss.”

Of course this was also a matter of being in the right place at the right time. But because Malika had already proven herself and felt confident she was qualified for the job, she skipped the polite small talk and simply asked for what she wanted. It paid off.

Don’t assume or speculate. Don’t let other people guess. And more importantly, don’t dance around the thing you actually want to talk about. Always ask for what you want, and it will make the world so much easier for you and those around you.

February 6, 2018No Comments

Semplice portfolio inspiration of January 2018

Each week, we handpick two portfolios created with Semplice to feature in our Showcase. These are best of the best design portfolios, chosen from hundreds of excellent submissions.

It's always inspiring to see other designers' portfolios, whether you're working on your own or just need a fresh perspective for your work. And this month we saw some standout submissions.

Take a look at our monthly favorites below to get motivated and meet new designers  — and if you've created your own portfolio with Semplice, be sure to submit it to our Showcase here. You could be featured next!

__________

For fresh portfolio inspiration, visit the Semplice showcase. We share two new portfolios every Wednesday. And I'll be back next month with more of our monthly favorites!

P.S. Header image by Sofia Girelli.

Have a fantastic month,
Lu

February 2, 2018No Comments

Design in Hong Kong 🇭🇰 featuring Constant

With this latest interview in our Design Around the World series, we are happy to introduce Constant, a creative agency in Hong Kong.

Constant helps brands across the world redefine themselves. With offices in both Hong Kong and Copenhagen, they have a unique perspective on their local design community — from where it all began to where it could go in the future. I got to visit the Constant studio in Hong Kong and even take a few photos of their talented team at work.

Now we're talking more with Tim and Paul, partners at Constant, about what it's like to design in one of the most insane and inspiring cities in the world.

First, tell us a bit about your studio. Who is the team behind Constant and why did you decide to open your own agency?

The team consists of brand and business strategists, art directors, designers and writers. We opened the agency to play a part in pushing Hong Kong’s design and creative industry forward, and to help brands position themselves toward the rest of the world.

You rebranded and expanded to Copenhagen in 2015. I read that it’s uncommon for Asian businesses to expand into Europe and usually works the other way around. Why is it uncommon and how was the experience for you?

In past decades, bigger American and European agencies saw the obvious monetary value in growing in China and other parts of Asia. They have been focusing on building capabilities and setting up shops here. Doing just the opposite was not very common, but with one of our co-founders being Danish, along with our existing network of talent, it was not as difficult as it sounds to build a new base outside of Hong Kong.

The Constant office in Hong Kong

In an interview, Tim Ho said your expansion followed a trend of more Asian companies wanting to go global and adapt global design thinking. What’s influencing that trend in Hong Kong and is there a specific reason for this — assuming the market in Hong Kong and wider China is already big enough?

There have been, and still are a lot of successful manufacturers across Asia. As their knowledge and technologies mature, some begin to develop their own products, designs and identities, with the vision to grow brands globally. By transforming themselves from manufacturers to brands which are independent and have full control of their product quality and developments, they are in a position to reach an international audience and compete on a global scale.

When I search for Hong Kong design, I see a lot of bright and intricate illustrations. How would you describe Hong Kong’s design style and how does your culture or history influence it?

Hong Kong design for us is very “efficient” and adaptive. Like many other cities, infrastructure and culture plays a big part in design influence. Bright and intricate illustrations may have evolved from our fast paced lifestyle and cramped cityscape, similar to the famous neon light scenes you see all around Hong Kong — many signs, symbols and designs were created to quickly grab the attention of busy and restless Hong Kongers.

"It is only natural that creativity will continue to grow and flourish in a city like this. There is inspiration, dynamism and change happening all the time."

Constant's art direction for the Calvin Klein Performance line.

There seems to be a strong design community in Hong Kong, with many events and organizations dedicated to supporting art and design. What has allowed this community to grow? Are many people actively supporting and pushing for a stronger design community in Hong Kong?

The design and creative communities in Hong Kong have certainly evolved from as recently as our parents' generation. Older generations found it hard to believe in the creative industry being a “career” for their children. It wasn’t considered lucrative or stable. But over the last decade or so, creativity now has found a voice and the art of design and branding is more widely accepted and celebrated. We have seen more design schools open in Hong Kong and the younger generations now have a greater impact and position in society as a whole (you would have seen that with the recent Umbrella movement) and with that, freedom to pursue creative interests and subsequently greater demand for resources dedicated to the arts.

A look behind the scenes at the Constant Studio in Hong Kong

The government has seen the evolution of the design industry and growing support in this area, and has invested in materials and resources which can only continue to fuel the growth and development of our already awesome city.

Hong Kong is also an extremely cosmopolitan and diverse city that sits up there with all the biggest cities in the world — it is only natural that creativity will continue to grow and flourish in a city like this. There is inspiration, dynamism and change happening all the time.

In my conversations since I’ve been here, I’ve heard that good design isn’t as valued by clients in Hong Kong just yet. Is this true? Why is good design important, and what does good design mean for you at Constant?

It may not be fair to assume good design isn’t valued by Hong Kong brands, but it’s definitely rare to be put as a priority. When high level executives are not knowledgeable in design, it is hard to expect them to properly invest in it or use design to solve business problems. Good design for us is not about making things look and feel good; it should also change people’s behavior in a positive way, and we feel it is our job to continue educating our clients on this.

Constant for District15

It seems like most agency blogs inevitably fall to the wayside because client work comes first. Not so for Constant. You’re pretty active on your blog and seem to put a lot of thought into it, covering topics from social media to veganism. Why is it important for your creative team to write?

We write to express our views, but more importantly, we write for ourselves. Whenever we work on a project, we do an extensive amount of study and research internally to educate ourselves about our subjects. It was natural for us to turn this knowledge into articles which we can share with our peers.

What impact does your social media presence have on getting new clients and self-promotion in general?

We feel the more brands know what we are thinking about or working on, the more we can be trusted as a team that’s capable of creating solutions with depth and thorough thinking behind it. That said, we haven’t been actively building a large following.

In your blog feature about Aesop, you talk about how much “sameness” there is in Asia, and how brands should believe in their unique identity instead of trying to fit the Asian context. Is this still a relevant issue? What is the Asian context and why is there so much sameness?

This was a pretty old article but an inspiring viewpoint at the time. The point here was that many brands entering Hong Kong or China tried to model themselves after some magic formula for success: a “this is how it works in Asia” style thinking. Other than creating a lot of sameness it also underestimated the global mindset and international influence of consumers in Asia, which is becoming more apparent everyday. Yes, there are things you should understand about the market, but changing your brand to fit in was not the way to go.

Constant Art Direction and Photography for Arkk

And now to our last question: How can all designers and design communities from other countries do a better job of communicating with each other? How can we become more engaged with the Hong Kong design community? Are there any blogs or specific magazines we can follow?

There are communities forming around the PMQ and it will be interesting to see what the new M+ museum brings to the city. Magazines like Obscura and Blackbird are good to follow as they present an international viewpoint but from Hong Kong.

––

Tim and Paul, thanks so much for taking the time to answer our questions and give us a peek into the Hong Kong design community. Be sure to check out Constant's work and follow them on Instagram to keep up with what they do next.

And if you're just now jumping into the series, catch up on our other Design Around the World interviews here.

January 29, 2018No Comments

4 tips to improve your design portfolio

This article was originally posted as a guest article by Tobias van Schneider on CreativeBloq.

If you’re creating a design portfolio, it’s safe to assume you know at least the foundational rules of good design. Yet when we work in isolation on our own portfolio, it’s easy to forget the common rules we would apply to any other client project. Sometimes we’re just too close to our own work, which almost blinds us.

As a designer, a portfolio is essential to your success. But at the end of the day it’s not about the portfolio – it’s about you and your work. Instead of focusing on building the perfect portfolio, focus on finding the perfect way to share the work you’ve already created. Everything else will fall into place from there.

As co-founder of Semplice, I see plenty of portfolios every day. In this article, I'll share what I've learned through my day job, and offer you my top tips for ensuring you don’t get in your own way, and instead create a portfolio that sets you up for success.

01. Make first introductions count

A simple, straightforward intro on Violeta Noy’s portfolio

A simple, straightforward intro on Violeta Noy’s portfolio

DO: Introduce yourself immediately with a quick paragraph that says who you are, where you’re located (if that matters to your work) and what kind of work you like to do. Show your personality but be straightforward, so the first glimpse at your website gives your viewer the context they need.

DON’T: Write some generic rubbish intro that says you 'craft meaningful experiences' or 'push pixels'. Aside from being overused, phrases like this don’t mean anything to anyone and won’t help your potential employer or client understand what you do.

02. Choose the right work to include

Only show the kind of work you want to be known for, like Sidney Lim

DO: Curate your portfolio to show only your best work. More importantly, pick the kind of work you want to do in the future.

DON’T: Fill your portfolio only with spec work or unsolicited designs. Of course the occasional unsolicited design can help show your skill when you don’t have the client work to prove it yet. But too many only shows that you’re good at working in isolation without any restraints, which is almost never the case on a paid project.

If you do choose to do some unsolicited work (if you’re a young designer trying to start fresh in a new field, for example) don’t do the typical Fortune 500 redesign for a company like Nike or Apple. These companies already have fantastic assets, so it’s not showing much skill to design for those brands. Choose a smaller company that you admire instead. Show what you can do when you’re working with nothing, and that will impress.

03. Make it easy and enjoyable to look through

Pawel Nolbert's portfolio site doesn’t get in the way of his vibrant work

DO: Think of your portfolio as the space in a museum. Make it clean, easy to navigate and fully focused on the work itself. Design for the end user who might be viewing hundreds of portfolios a day. Make it easy for them to learn who you are and what you can do.

DON’T: Design your portfolio like a work of art in itself. When we think of our portfolio like a personal project or creative outlet, we can overcomplicate or make it too playful – to the point where it becomes unusable for the person who has to view it.

For example, a fancy horizontal scrolling feature might seem unique and interesting to you as the designer, but no-one clicks blindly on next/prev arrows without knowing where they lead. We tend to browse portfolios in a visual way, by clicking on what interests us. Don’t make the user work to view your portfolio.

04. Create a standout About page

An informative and beautiful About page by Meryl Vedros

DO: Spend time making the perfect About page. Your About page is the most important page on your portfolio. I’ve reviewed hundreds of portfolios and always navigate here first to get context before I browse. The numbers on my own website confirm it too: The About page gets more hits than any other page on my site. Do something different and memorable here that offers a real glimpse into who you are.

DON’T: Get too cutesy and leave out the important information we need to know. Don’t forget your name (yes, I’ve seen portfolios where I couldn’t find any first or last name anywhere), a picture of you (a nice personal touch that makes a difference) and your main skills. And please, don’t forget to list your email address.

All the portfolios you see on this page were built with Semplice

January 29, 2018No Comments

Why your portfolio’s not getting you the job you want

Article originally published as a guest article on HOWDesign

Still don’t have the job you really want? The problem may be your portfolio. Tobias van Schneider, co-founder of Semplice, shares what could be wrong—and how to make it better.

You built an online portfolio for your design work. You wrote a nice cover letter and sent it off to what feels like countless companies. You followed up with friendly emails and even personalized gifts that would make you want to hire yourself on the spot.

So why don’t you have a job offer yet?

Often, the job hunt simply requires patience. But if it feels like you’ve been trying and waiting forever with zero luck, the problem may be your portfolio. Here’s what could be wrong.

You’re Not Curating Your Projects

It’s tempting to dump every project you’ve ever touched in your portfolio to make it feel full and impressive, but that only drags your better work down. Instead of filling your portfolio with fluff, choose only the projects that make you proud. Curate and let your best work shine.

When a recruiter or senior designer is reviewing dozens or even hundreds of portfolios a week, you can imagine they don’t spend much time on any one of them. The first 2-3 seconds on your page count the most. In those 2-3 seconds they will decide if they jump to the next portfolio or stay a bit longer and browse your work. Optimizing your overview and curating your projects can mean the difference between getting that closer look, or getting dismissed within seconds.

 

You’re Not Selling Yourself (in Addition to Your Work) Enough

With our portfolio, we tend to assume our work will speak for itself. But it’s not just about your work, it’s about you. Your potential employers or clients want to know who you are: How you think, what it would be like working with you, whether you work well with a team. Sometimes, that’s even more important than your experience and skill.

These are all qualities you can convey in your About page and project case studies.

Your About page is the most important page on your portfolio. Most people’s first instinct is to navigate to this page to get some idea of who you are before they browse your work. Of course you should include your name and email address on your About page, but don’t be afraid to show some personality here too. Add a photo of you at work. If you’re funny, crack a joke. Regardless of whether you’re funny, write in your voice and be yourself. Your About page should make readers feel like they’ve had a quick lunch with you. It should be brief, pleasant and memorable.

Case studies not only provide context for your projects (which is crucial), but also give the reader a glimpse into both your thought process and personality. Write brief but insightful case studies that let the reader know how you approached a project, your thought process along the way and your feelings about the final result. Sell both your work and yourself.

 

You’re Not Showing Enough Experience

Maybe you’re a young designer, or perhaps you’re just trying to break into a new area of design. In any case, it’s a given that whoever is reviewing your portfolio wants to feel confident your style and skill is the right fit for the job.

If you don’t have the right projects to show, try doing more personal side projects that will boost your portfolio. Volunteer to do design work for a nonprofit organization. Choose a company you admire and do an unsolicited redesign (but beware of too many unsolicited designs or cliches like Nike redesigns ). Ask a friend with more experience to bring you in on a relevant project. If you don’t have the right work to show yet, be willing to put in the work until you do.

 

You’re Confusing Your Visitor

Especially when you’re early in your career, chances are that your portfolio is full of experimental work or work from different disciplines. Generally there is nothing wrong with showing diverse skills, but it could be why people are passed on for the jobs they want.

Remember, our portfolio is not only about the work we’ve done, but what we want to do in the future. So if you’re hoping to land a specific job, curate for that job. Likewise if you’re trying to avoid a certain style or type of work.

If I see you have two website projects, one branding project, one film project and another analog painting project in your portfolio, I simply do not know in which category to put you. Chances are high that the company reviewing your portfolio assumes you’re too all over the place and doesn’t understand what you’re good at, or what you want to do. It’s not that your work is bad, but that your portfolio leaves too many open questions.

If you think that might be the case for you, clean up your portfolio and focus on the work you want to do in the future. If you want to do web design, get rid of everything else (unless that something else is really impressive). If that makes your portfolio feel empty, work on adding one or two more web design projects by doing side projects as mentioned above. Give those who review your portfolio the impression that you know what you want, and that you know where your skill lies.

 

Your Portfolio Needs a Refresh

It’s possible your portfolio simply needs improvement. Your website is as much a display of your skill as your actual projects, so design it with love. This is not to say your portfolio should be a work of art, but it should showcase your projects brilliantly. That means no outdated design templates, confusing navigation, broken links, sloppy writing, distracting animations or other elements that make your visitor think about anything but you and your work.

In the creative industry, a portfolio is one of the key factors in getting new work. As I’ve learned from my “ How to get a job at X” series, most companies are not even considering candidates without a portfolio. Until you have the job you want, make it your job to improve your portfolio. Look at your website from the perspective of the person you want to hire you. Make it easy for them to choose you.

January 24, 2018No Comments

How to Get a Job at Flywheel

Flywheel is a WordPress hosting and development platform built to help creatives do their best work.

I proudly host this blog on Flywheel and would recommend it to anyone. Not only is Flywheel fully focused on WordPress websites (which means they're good at it), but they're also the friendliest and most personal company in the business. I talked with Andrea, Flywheel's art director, about how we might land a dream job working on her design team.

First, please tell us a little about yourself and what you do at Flywheel.

Hey, hi, hello! I’m Andrea Trew, the art director at Flywheel. My responsibilities include overseeing all aspects of our in-house design efforts, from the tiniest piece of swag to the most complex creative campaigns. Over the past two years I’ve had the privilege of elevating the Flywheel brand through the creation of a cohesive brand and style guide — influencing everything our company does internally and externally facing. Outside the office, you can typically find me trolling vintage shops, making questionable puns or snuggling with my pug, Leela.

Looking at your current design team, how many of them came through internal referrals or headhunting, and how many came through the traditional application process?

Entering our fifth year as a company, Flywheel has a dedicated design presence within our marketing and product departments. Aside from me, we recently added an additional graphic designer to the marketing team – Bryan North, who was hired internally from our support department. As we’ve grown and continue to scale, we make deliberate efforts to nurture internal referrals, as well as maintaining a presence at career fairs and conferences. Many of our job openings can be found here.

Say we decide to reach out with a cold email. What kind of message gets a reply? Any secrets for us?

As a rule of thumb, I love to help other creatives to achieve their goals, even if it means just setting aside some time to chat and give them pointers on their portfolio. Asking for advice and an opportunity to meet in person (even just 30 minutes for coffee!) is always welcome.

Flywheel HQ in Omaha, Nebraska

How important is a complete portfolio? Can I get away with not having a portfolio when interviewing at Flywheel? And is it enough to show graphic design skills, or do you want to see that I’ve worked on technology and software before?

It’s VERY important to have a complete portfolio. To give some insight, I recently had an interview with a potential design hire who came to our meeting without a portfolio in hand. Because the key focus of being a designer is visual problem-solving, it’s necessary to bring those visuals to the interview. This lack of design representation really impacted my thoughts about using them as a design resource someday.

It’s a good idea to have designs in your portfolio that reflect the type of work the company needs. Think about their industry. Think about their target demographic. Think about what work they would have you do. If you’re applying at a tech company and don’t have examples of work in that industry, then include designs that reflect high-level critical thinking, to bridging the gap between your previous work and the work you could do for that company in the future.

Tell us one thing you never want to see again on a portfolio. Anything you wish you saw more?

Magazine cover designs. I see this often with emerging creatives, as it was likely one of the pieces they worked on for a design course. They don’t really relate to the needs most companies are trying to fulfill, and often the designs look cluttered and poorly laid out. More than anything, it’s great to see design work that takes place outside of university/college walls, such as freelance or internship work. Even conceptual work that never saw the light of day has its allure even if it’s simply the result of creative play. This shows that the potential hire can think for themselves and already has experience with creating real world work.

The Flywheel support team at work

Besides having a portfolio, do you like the idea of designers being invested in other interests? For example being active bloggers or otherwise outspoken in their community?

Absolutely! Having other interests allows for a mental break here and there, and prevents creative blocks. As much as I love designing for Flywheel, I couldn’t possibly do my best work if that’s all I did for 24 hours a day. In my free time, I get some mental rejuvenation by restoring vintage trinkets and creating brass jewelry. Both still fall under some form of creativity, but allows for a shift in the way my mind thinks about the process.

Say I make the first pass and get invited to an interview. Can you describe the interview process as briefly as possible?

There is usually a short initial phone interview, a secondary cultural interview (usually a 30-minute lunch) and a final interview with 2-3 internal stakeholders (with a design interview, it would be with myself, our head of marketing and our CEO). The last interview would be about two hours or so. We wouldn’t necessarily ask someone to do any kind of design exercise or test; we should be able to see those examples from your portfolio.

Black Flyday

What are the biggest mistakes you see designers make when applying for a job at Flywheel? Are there any specific things that keep bothering you? Please complain to us!

Egos. It doesn't matter if you're a greenhorn college grad or a creative director with decades of experience, it's incredibly important to be open to advice and suggestions on your work.  

"I’ve reviewed quite a few portfolios in my time, and the ones that stand out show a start-to-finish process behind their projects."

Do you remember a specific application that impressed you?

I’ve reviewed quite a few portfolios in my time, and the ones that stand out show a start-to-finish process behind their projects. One designer  I recently reviewed had a complete brand guide and explained the thought process behind it all with the forethought, craft and accuracy that I would love to have in a potential design hire at Flywheel.

Would Flywheel hire someone who is a cultural fit over someone who has more industry experience and hard skills?

Across the board, one of the driving forces behind the success of Flywheel is our relentless dedication to preserving our company culture and hiring talented, passionate people that share our values. It’s incredibly important for us to establish and hold tightly to the top traits we look for in a new member of the Flywheel family. We look for curiosity, empathy, optimism, passion and impressiveness. We would absolutely hire a slightly less experienced individual with those five traits over a more experienced one who seemed negative, indifferent and apathetic.

What are the secondary skills Flywheel looks for in a designer, besides common soft skills? Should we know how to code as well as design, for example?

Being a designer for a tech company doesn’t always mean you need to know how to code. Although, understanding the capabilities of code and its constraints has its benefits. Having a solid knowledge base that applies to other parts of the creative process that don’t involve design (like code, copywriting, photography, etc.) allows a designer to better serve their team and create designs that complement needs of their coworkers.

How is Flywheel different than other tech companies when hiring new talent?

We keep our hiring process as open-ended as possible, and want individuals to be able to freely write about their qualifications and feel heard throughout the entire experience. We don’t use a standard application form, we don’t ask people to re-submit all the information that’s on their resume, and we often don’t even have education requirements. We truly seek to find the best talent from whatever background they might come from.

––––

Andrea, thanks for giving us an inside look into the hiring process at Flywheel! And thanks to Kimberly Bailey for the gorgeous photos of the Flywheel space and team. Let's have a look at the key takeaways from Andrea about getting a job at Flywheel.

Nr. 1 - Your portfolio can make or break you.

Not only does Flywheel want to see a complete portfolio with work that relates to the job, they want you to explain the process behind every project. Many companies in the series have said this: Don't just share pretty pictures of your finished work. Create case studies to show how you approached the project from beginning to end. Read this article for more portfolio tips.

Nr. 2 - No ego.

Another piece of advice we've heard from many companies. Nobody wants to work with someone who has a bad attitude or isn't receptive to feedback and growth. This one's not too hard; just be a nice person (and be useful) and people will want to hire you 🙂

Nr. 3 - Ask to chat or get coffee.

Andrea is willing to go out of her way to talk with you, hear what you're looking for and give advice. Don't waste her time (get some tips for your email here) but if you're serious about getting a job at Flywheel, reach out and make the connection.

And that's a wrap! Send me and the Flywheel team a tweet if you enjoyed the interview, and find more advice here for getting a design job at top companies like Pentagram, Shopify, Spotify and more.

January 22, 2018No Comments

The Startup That Never Started: Lessons from .Mail

.Mail (I'm going to use DotMail here, for easier reading) was an email app concept I originally came up with and designed in 2010. DotMail never saw the light of the day. It never launched and it would haunt me for many years to come.

This is the full story, from where DotMail began to how it failed before it even got off the ground. Looking back, there wasn't a single reason for its failure, but many. Many lessons I've learned that I would like to share with you.

The .Mail logo

The DotMail story begins around early 2010. It was one of those ideas sleeping in my notes for a while, but I never knew what to do with it. It was just one idea one of many, roughly formulated and sitting there, waiting to happen.

Working on my design consulting business during the day I’d grown frustrated with how much time I spent wasting on email, so I was naturally looking for a fix. Over that year and the next, I spent a fair amount of time talking with friends and colleagues about their email habits, taking notes and adding them to my DotMail concept.

The more I talked about emails, the more I learned how many struggled with the way email worked (or didn’t work) at the time. I also learned that everybody had their own little hacks to make their email client work for them. At the time there wasn’t much happening in the email apps space. The most popular one (and my own favorite) besides Apple Mail, Gmail, Outlook and Thunderbird was Sparrow for Mac, launched by a small team in France in 2011. There were a few others such as Postbox, but they weren’t really solving it for me either, most of them were cluttered and feature packed with things no one needed.

The deeper I went down the email hole, the more I got fired up about DotMail. I needed to do something about it because the idea kept itching me. I was fully aware that designing a concept for an email client is one thing, but developing it and working through the technical hassles was another, and I certainly couldn’t do it myself. The idea had to be simple if I wanted to get anything done at all. So I worked through some concepts and ended up sharing my favorite one with some thoughts on my website. It was a fulfilling compromise: I could work on the fun stuff, sharing my thoughts and findings with no intention of ever building it. It was a nice little challenge for me.

One of the original concept designs for .Mail app (2011, sorry for image quality)

After much procrastination and many experiments I finally put something together I liked. I decided to publish a case study on my website that outlined the idea of the DotMail concept. You can see the original case study I published here. I remember it was around midnight that day and I didn’t think much of it; I just hit publish, shared it on Twitter and Facebook with my friends and went to bed. I felt good and was happy it was now out of my way.

The next morning I woke up to dozens of emails, tweets and Facebook comments. My little DotMail concept got shared way beyond my usual circle and I couldn’t believe it. Over the next 24 hours, hundreds of emails and more tweets rolled in not only with feedback, but with people asking me when the app was going to launch, despite me never mentioning anything about launching this app for real. It was a theoretical concept after all.

I was speechless, and quite nervous. Could I actually launch this app? What should I do with all this feedback? I never planned to work on DotMail beyond this concept, but suddenly other people were excited about it. As you can imagine, that made me excited as well.

So I did what everyone would probably do: I considered the possibility of making DotMail come to life. The pressure was on me anyway, and I could make use of the newfound exposure. Within hours that day I registered a domain and launched a little landing page with an email sign-up. For me it was more of a test to see how many people would sign up and consider using (and paying) for DotMail. It all still felt pretty unreal and rushed to me, but I wanted to measure the interest in a more meaningful way.

A quick landing page I launched within a day for .Mail

A couple days went by and thousands of people signed up to the DotMail email list. FastCompany wrote an article about it titled "A Simple Idea That Could Revolutionize Email And Save You Time." Many other online magazines and blogs showed interest and I couldn’t sit still from the anxiety mixed with excitement. Over the course of the following three months, more than 100,000 people signed up for the app. It was pretty clear. People wanted DotMail.

I sat down and tried to think about my next steps. Is this really what I want to do? Should I hire a developer and see how far we can go? After reading more into the details of email protocols and the technicalities behind it, I quickly realized I needed to look for help first, and maybe not even build this all myself.

My first thought was to reach out to the people at Sparrow. While it was a fairly basic email client, I enjoyed using Sparrow and thought there might be potential for a collaboration. I reached out to Dom, the founder, around mid 2012 and pitched him the idea of DotMail. I asked if there was any chance of working together and making parts of DotMail become reality on an already solid email client foundation. Because if you think about it, building an email client means you first have to build the foundation that any other email client already has. The majority of your effort will be spent laying the groundwork, doing the "boring" work and building the fundamentals that everyone takes for granted since many years (aka sending, drafting, receiving and displaying emails, which may sound simple, but is a nightmare in reality).

To my surprise, Dom got back to me and we connected via Skype. At the time, the Sparrow team was quite busy with the launch of their upcoming iPad app so we delayed our phone call until a bit later with a promise to stay in touch. I didn’t have high expectations, but it was worth a shot. But just two weeks later I got a short message telling me there was unfortunately no possibility of a collaboration in the future. They didn't provide any specific reasoning, but it didn't take long for me to figure out what happened. Just a day later, tech news announced that the Sparrow team got acquired by Google to work on Gmail. Sparrow, my favorite email client, was essentially dead. Google and the Sparrow team weren’t planning to continue Sparrow.

The core features of DotMail (2011, sorry for image quality) - Filtering social & promotional emails and grouping them together was one of the main ideas. Years before Gmail integrated their Promo/Social tabs.

Now that Sparrow was gone, the interest in DotMail increased. I had to do something about it and quickly started looking for a partner and developer who could join the team. As you can imagine, that wasn’t an easy task in itself. I wasn't just looking for a developer, I essentially had to find someone who was ready to commit with me as a partner. I needed someone who would invest their own time and money, who knew their way around front-end development for MacOSX, including the ins and outs of email protocols, and could build the engine. Finding all of that in one person would need a small miracle.

With all the press around the acquisition of Sparrow and my email concept, the email space finally woke up. Within months, dozens of other email client concepts popped up promising to solve your problems. Suddenly it seemed trendy to work on email clients. One of the more promising ones was called Mailbox, which was announced in early 2013 but sadly focused only on iOS. Mailbox had an interesting approach that I really liked. On top of it, Mailbox was hugely successful with its announcement and more than a million people signed up with the hope to see Mailbox launch a couple months later.

To me, Mailbox seemed like a new opportunity, especially because it was developed by a company called Orchestra which also developed a successful productivity app earlier in 2011. Orchestra had the funds and the talent to really make it happen. So as I'd done with Sparrow, I reached out to Gentry, one of the co-founders of Mailbox.

Gentry was one of the nicest people I've had the chance to meet in my career. He was open to a conversation without any promises and we exchanged a couple emails. However, the timing was unfortunate as it was exactly when Mailbox was preparing for their launch in early 2013. Gentry was busy dealing with Mailbox and getting it off the ground. I understood that talking about a Mailbox desktop client was just way too early. We promised to stay in touch while exchanging a couple more messages to see how we could eventually work together in the future.

Two months later, Mailbox got acquired by Dropbox, which planned to release a desktop version of Mailbox sometime in the near future. And while there were talks of me potentially joining the Mailbox or Dropbox team, I knew that DotMail wasn't going to happen. (Dropbox eventually shut down Mailbox in 2015, saying they were unable to “fundamentally fix email.")  I continued my search for a partner and developer, but I was thankful so far to have met so many talented people like Gentry in the process.

After almost two years I was never able to find a partner who stuck around long enough to make it work. I ended up working with three different people who eventually dropped out due to the workload and technical challenges. While we did get some prototypes off the ground, even after years of work we were still miles away from having anything close to a public alpha version.

The only comforting thing in these years was that 99% of all the other new email client concepts that got announced also never saw the light of the day. It helped to know this shit is hard and I wasn't the only one struggling with it. Secretly I was hoping that any promising new email client would get off the ground, but none of them survived, at least at the time.

In the end we failed horribly. It wasn't a matter of whether email could be fixed — that's beside the point. It came down to reasons much easier to understand in retrospect.

Underestimating the task at hand

Sadly, with every attempt at this project, we completely underestimated the technical challenges at hand. As I depended on my technical counterpart, I had to rely on their knowledge and estimates. What happened was that due to our initial excitement, most estimates were completely wrong. Ultimately, the developers I worked with slowly faded out and gave up. It was as much my fault as theirs; I failed at managing expectations and doing reality checks more often. And I don't blame them. The technology behind email is daunting and the end never seemed to be in sight.

The need for a more formal partnership

With all developers I made partners, there was a lack of commitment. Even when doing 50/50 partnerships, it was always a hit or miss. Even more so if these partnerships were with people I hadn't known or worked with before.

It’s why good hiring often takes a long time and why it is so important. If there is no existing trust, you need to trust the process of hiring and take your time. My mistake was that I did not take my time, but went with the first people who showed enough excitement to work on DotMail. As you can imagine, their excitement wore off quite quickly when the real work began. In the end I felt like I was constantly running after someone when we should have been equally committed. DotMail taught me a lot about hiring and firing, and my failure was that I didn’t do both. I didn’t hire properly and I didn’t fire fast enough. I was just wasting my time and theirs.

DotMail showed me that unless you've known someone for many years and have established trust in your relationship, you need a more formal working agreement that protects both parties — otherwise someone is getting fucked over.

My commitment was lacking as well, at least mentally.

Another reason DotMail failed was that over time, I only gave it a certain percentage of my attention. As my decision was to bootstrap DotMail and not take on external funding, I knew that both me and my partner needed to work on this in our spare time to finance it and make it work. But ultimately I never gave DotMail the attention it deserved, which leads me to my next point:

I simply didn’t love DotMail as much as I should have.

It took me a long time to understand why DotMail didn’t get the attention it deserved. I was initially fired up about the concept. I was excited to think about the challenges and I enjoyed sharing my findings with other people. Following all the exposure and feedback, I felt more of an obligation to work on DotMail, but in reality I was never truly excited about making an email client my full-time job. Sure, I loved the challenge of thinking about it here and there, but I wasn’t madly in love with the intricacies of email technology.

In the end, this lack of passion impacted everything about DotMail. It's not that I was lazy, I was still putting in hundreds of hours of work and I was determined to get it done, but I was treating it as a side project not fully worth the risk. I never considered going 100% in on DotMail and investing all my time in it. I simply had commitment issues due to a lack of love for the type of product itself. I loved DotMail, but I didn’t love the idea of working on emails for the rest of my life.

All I had was a rudimentary version running on my computer, a manifestation of false hope.

All of this wasn't apparent at first, but I later knew that if I had really loved DotMail I would have tried many more times. I would have tried even harder to find the right partner. I certainly would have taken bigger risks, especially financially.

After a couple years of failing and pushing DotMail in front of me, we never achieved anything worth shipping. I grew tired of finding new people, motivating my partners (and myself) and wasting my time on it. I had to make a decision and either shut it down, or fully commit and give it one last chance.

About two years after the initial concept, I wrote a blog post about my decision. DotMail was dead, but was it ever alive? All I had was a rudimentary version running on my computer, a manifestation of false hope.

_____

Fast forward three more years and, still unsatisfied with email clients out there but now with much more experience under my belt, I gave it one last try. A promising developer and friend of a friend reached out to me and said he could and want do it, and that he would be able to commit a couple days a week to work on it. I was pumped, but we didn’t tell anyone about it. I wanted to spare myself the disappointment of publicly failing again.

We discussed the details, made a plan and got to work. Expectations were clear: We would both work on it on the side but we would keep a strict timeline, including regular check-ins every week. We knew it may take longer to finish, but now we had structure. We took my designs from 2011 and completely redesigned and refined them. I’m sharing a couple of them right here, for the first time.

We now had fresh motivation, we had a plan, we had designs we were excited about and more importantly, I could feel the potential. We stripped down the app to its core and planned out a realistic MLP (minimum lovable product) that we could launch within 10-12 months to family and friends. Nothing fancy, just something simple that runs purely on the Gmail API.

.Mail is back. Or maybe not.

But we failed, again. The excitement wore off after a couple months. My partner lost motivation and eventually dropped out of the project. I was mad and disappointed. Not at him, but at myself. I fucked up and I hated myself for it. I should have known better after all these years.

However, it was easier this time; no one knew we had secretly started working on DotMail again, so I didn’t have to apologize to anyone but myself. It took me only one night to sleep on it and I knew what I had to do.

Fuck it. Fuck DotMail.*

*But also thank you, I’ve learned so many things from you.

___

This was my (shortened) story of DotMail, the startup that never started. DotMail is only one of many projects I worked on that never saw the light of the day. Looking at all my projects, more than 50% never make it to the final stage. Dozens more, prototypes and sometimes even almost finished products, die on my hard drive. All of them have their own story. And despite the tears and anger, they were all worth it. They’re all failures that taught me a lesson or two.

You can still see the original concept here. And the updated version here.

Thank you for reading,
Tobias

P.S. I'd like to thank everyone who ever worked with me on DotMail. Even if we did not succeed, I'm thankful for the time you invested and the trust you gave the project. Thanks to my crew at les Avignons, Matthias for helping me with the DotMail landing page, Robert, Michael, Lu, Mike, Juergen and everyone I've bored over the years with my DotMail conversations. THANK YOU!

January 19, 2018No Comments

Design in Thailand 🇹🇭 featuring Farmgroup

With this latest interview in our Design Around the World series, meet Farmgroup, a creative agency in Bangkok.

Farmgroup's work is delightfully unexpected. I was immediately drawn to their offbeat style as soon as I landed on their website. Then I toured the studio and met the team when I visited Thailand, and they exceeded my expectations. The way they think about design reminds me why I got into it in the first place. Meet Tap, Jean and Irin from Farmgroup.

First, tell us a bit about your agency. How many people work at Farmgroup and how did it all begin? And is there a good story behind the name?

TAP: There’s isn’t much story behind our name; it’s something very spontaneous. We wanted something very humble, down to earth and simple. Thailand is an agricultural country and we wanted the name to hint that we’re the ones who produce the work, not the ad agency. So farming seems to be the right name for us. It started as just a small graphic design studio. We first named it “Graphicfarm.” Then when the work caught on, we started to get bigger and bigger projects beyond just graphic design. So we became Farmgroup. The word group was added so there’s a sense of people, a multidisciplinary approach and also open room for future opportunities.

Now we are a full service design consultancy. We design everything from branding, identities, typefaces, prints, digital, events, exhibitions, installations and commercial interior spaces. We believe in integrating these various disciplines to create a complete brand experience for our clients.

We’ve been operating since 2005 and started with only three people. Now we are a team of 20.

 

The Farmgroup studio in the heart of Bangkok

Your website mentions social workers are part of your team. Can you tell us more about that? How does social work fit into the work you produce?

JEAN: When we say social worker, we mean working to improve our society with design. So much can be done in Thailand simply through better awareness of what art and design can do. To make art and design more accessible, Farmgroup annually organizes Hotel Art Fair, bringing galleries around the country under one roof for a weekend (you should come next year).

Irin & Jean

TAP: Running a design firm in a developing country doesn’t give you much freedom to pick and choose projects or clients. Most of our projects are commercial projects, but often we feel like there’s a need to feed our souls. So whenever these two worlds can overlap, it feels great. For example, the Bamboo Chandelier project we did in Chiangrai province. We got to collaborate with local craftsmen and also help them create jobs. They took off from there and are now able to take care of themselves and their villages.

We also take on many pro bono projects. There is no limit to how many we take on in a year, just as long as we can do it and it doesn’t affect the existing paid projects. Most of our team members are also independent volunteers in numerous fundraising projects. The firm also initiates our own art and culture events to support local artists and designers.

"Another Story" branding by Farmgroup

"Motion Landscape," by Farmgroup

It seems like a lot of your clients are based in Bangkok or somewhere else Thailand. Do you choose to work mostly with local clients? How common or uncommon is it for agencies to work with clients outside of Thailand?

IRIN: Tap and the partners are usually the ones who find and select the clients. When they get the projects, they ask us designers whether we would like to do them or not. I believe that the location of the clients is not something we chose consciously.

Out of all the projects I’ve done this year, only two are for clients who are based outside of Thailand. But confusingly enough, although these two projects are for international clients, the target audiences are in the end Thais. On the other hand, we have projects for clients who are Thais but are working for global international brands, or are hoping to release their new Thai product outside of Thailand. So, in the end, which projects are considered international?

With the help of technology (FaceTime, the Internet etc.), borders and distance between countries are not much of a problem. Regional economic policies, on the other hand, are larger factors. Luckily, the Association of Southeast Asia Nations Economic Community (AEC) are slowly turning the region into a single market and hopefully making the process of hiring across borders easier and more common than before.

A beautiful mess on the streets of Bangkok

What’s the design community like within Bangkok? Beyond your own events, are there opportunities for designers to connect and learn from each other?

TAP: The design industry in Thailand is young, but growing fast. New generations of designers are very active and connected. You can see that there are small talks, workshops and design markets happening almost every other week. We have also seen design firms from Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia starting to interact with the Thai design scene in the past couple of years. We’ve had a full-time junior designer from Malaysia on our team before. We’ve also received many visits from design firms in Southeast Asia.

IRIN: In terms of official larger events, this year alone we have the Bangkok International Typographic Symposium (BITS), the Type Directors Club Exhibition, the Bangkok Art Book Fair, the Wallpaper Thai Edition Design Talk and a Design Film Festival Bangkok. We also have official associations like the Thai Graphic Designers Association (ThaiGA) and the Typographic Association of Bangkok (TAB). The designers who show up to these events or associations are usually familiar faces — people we already know or have at least heard about.

A peek into the Farmgroup studio

"Graphic design is relatively young in this country; we are all still finding a place to stand in the world."

When I picture the Thai aesthetic, I think of ornate textiles, tile work and temples. Does that translate into Thailand’s graphic design style at all? How does your culture and history influence the work you do today and what are perfect examples of typical Thai design style, in your opinion?

JEAN: The ornate textiles, tile work and temples are more of a product rather than a process. Ornaments are often used when one wants to convey heritage, but I wouldn't say that this is engrained in the Thai graphic design style, which is much more contemporary.

Farmgroup, however, has a different way of work. It is less straightforward. Spontaneity and I dare say, a little bit of cheekiness comes into play. Graphic design is relatively young in this country; we are all still finding a place to stand in the world. I think one of our fortés is being crafty (in both meanings).

Designers at work.

Bangkok is one of the world’s top tourist destinations and the food scene seems to be booming right now too. Are these cultural trends affecting the design community? What kind of work are most designers in Thailand looking to do right now?

IRIN: Bangkok being one of the world’s top tourist destinations definitely has less apparent effects than the booming food scene. We do have several projects that deal with Thai-ness, but the audiences for these projects are mostly Thais or expats, not tourists. Perhaps we play with Thai-ness and borrow from our heritage in our projects purely out of the same nationalistic fever taking over the entire world. Joking.

As for food, Bangkok is completely saturated with nice cafes and restaurants with Instagram-ready interior design (or at least a corner or wall). Naturally, when we get a cafe or restaurant project, it is becoming more of a (good) challenge for us to somehow find a place in that market for it to exist. Personally, I do like working on F&B projects for I too like spending on food and exploring the new restaurants.

"For us, it is not just about creating good design, but also making the wider audience understand what good design is."

Annual report Farmgroup designed for Noble.

Why is good design important? What is good design and what does it mean to you at Farmgroup?

JEAN: Good design is important because it make our lives run more seamlessly. A piece of good communication design, for example, makes you understand a complex message in a matter of seconds. The interplay between the image, shapes and words creates something complex and occasionally unexpected. Good design works around human capabilities. It is so important, especially in the world today, when we are inundated and drowning in information, to get messages across as clearly, quickly and effectively as possible. It’s our job to get everyone on the same page about something.

TAP: Good design means everything to us. That is the reason we get up everyday to come to work. For us, it is not just about creating good design, but also making the wider audience understand what good design is. As a developing country, knowledge of design for the general public is very low, so it is our duty to stay committed to our crafts and educate others at the same time.

"Where there is no risk, there is no creative breakthrough."

You’ve won awards from both local and national organizations. Would you say Thailand as a whole appreciates and celebrates good design? Why or why not?

JEAN: Not as much as we’d like them to. The word "good" is rather subjective, because everyone aspires to have the best design they can possibly have. However, their perception of what is good very much differs to ours. We consider good design to be effective in both form and function. It should communicate a point (or a few) effectively. It may mean occasionally challenging the views of the norm. However, the general public may seek something much more comforting and familiar. The appreciation of risk is not there yet. Where there is no risk, there is no creative breakthrough.

The ultimate focus.

TAP: To be honest, we don’t really care or believe in design awards at all. But again, Thai clients seems to care about it maybe because they do not have enough knowledge in design, and an award is the only guarantee that they can hold on to when selecting a design firm. We’ve realized that in the past couple of years, so that's why we started to submit some works to local and regional design competitions.

Thailand as a whole does not appreciate good design enough to see it as an important investment. I think this is just part of being a developing country like us. Design is still undervalued and overlooked most of the time.

In your opinion, what are the top 10 design studios or designers from Thailand that everyone should know?

TAP: Oh, wow… this list is going to be very personal. But here it is, in no particular order or category:

Farmgroup (of course!)
B.U.G Studio
Pink Blue Black & Orange
Cadson Demak
Practical Design Studio
KKelvin Studio
TNOP Design
Slowmotion Design
Conscious
Ductstore the Design Guru

I just had to take this picture in the Farmgroup studio.

And now to our last question: How can all designers and design communities from other countries do a better job of communicating with each other? How can we become more engaged with Thailand’s design community? Are there any blogs or specific magazines we can follow?

JEAN: That’s a good question; I do feel that we spend much of our time within our own country. We do look at what other countries are up to, but there is not much dialogue exchanged. A conference, perhaps. What we do is when we are abroad, we visit other design studios to exchange our work and connect.

Farmgroup's Bamboo Chandelier project

TAP: Technology now give us freedom to connect, I think it’s just a matter of reaching out or not. Like Jean said about studio exchange, we are taking a company trip to Shanghai in January 2018 and we’ve reached out to a couple design firms there to see if we can visit and meet them. They are super nice and willing to give us a tour and chat with us.

So it is not difficult to connect to each other, you just have to do it.

Tap, Irin & Jean - THANK YOU. I loved hearing your unique perspectives and thoughts on the Thai design community, and I can't wait to see what you do next.

Readers, be sure to check out Farmgroup's website and follow their work on Instagram. And if you're just now jumping into the series, catch up on our other Design Around the World features here.

January 10, 2018No Comments

Design in Armenia 🇦🇲 featuring Backbone Branding

Our Design Around the World series introduces us to designers in other countries, giving us a glimpse of their unique design community and culture. For our latest interview, we're happy to introduce Backbone Branding from Armenia.

Backbone Branding is a branding studio located in Yerevan, the capital and largest city in Armenia. They are a vibrant team of young people passionate about changing design's role in their country. And they are leading the charge – the country's design community is small and only just developing. We spoke with Christina, Eliza and Mary about Armenia's artistic history and culture, how it translates to their work and how step by step, they are changing the perception of design in Armenia.

First, tell us a bit about your studio. Who is the team behind Backbone Branding and why did your founders open the studio? And we’re curious about the name — is there a story behind it?

ELIZA: Stepan Azaryan, our founder and creative director, wanted to take Armenian design to the highest level, so he opened a studio and took the responsibility for this goal. We shared the same desire and joined Backbone when there was already small team.

Backbone employs persons, not positions. This is a team of very hard-working people. We have become real friends here. Our differences help us to be a great team: We complete each other and combine our views to have a broader perspective. We never do design just for design’s sake. Instead, we use it as a tool to communicate. Functionality and results are our priorities.

As for the name “Backbone Banding," Stepan explains it this way: “We develop the brand’s backbone which supports the product’s strong position in the market.”

The Backbone Branding team looking fresh on a trip in Iran.

When I research Armenian graphic design, I notice a lot of typographical based design. Of course the rich colors and intricate detail of Armenian carpets come to mind as well. How would you describe Armenian design?

ELIZA: That’s a very good point. Typography and our letters are essential in the Armenian culture. We have been facing the problem of keeping our national and religious identity over centuries and our writing, especially the alphabet, plays a big role in that. As the first country to adopt Christianity as its official religion, we value our unique identity, especially the alphabet, as it reminds us of the challenges we have overcome. Our letters have kept us the way we are.

There are several ethnic types of the Armenian calligraphy and typography. One of them is Trchnagir (Bird writing), which combines calligraphy with the rich colors and intricate details that you mentioned, stylized as a bird. You can see many original manuscripts presented in Matenadaran, the depository of ancient manuscripts, the most appreciated museum of Yerevan and one of the few in the world.

"We value our unique identity, especially the alphabet, as it reminds us of the challenges we have overcome."

The Republic of Armenia is an independent state from 1991, but our history and culture begins thousands of years ago — it is at least four thousand years old. One of the most important stages (for design) of that history was the Middle Ages with the rise of traditional Armenian miniature art. Now this heritage plays a big role in the formation of Armenian design. One of our new projects (not yet published in our portfolio) is an Armenian restaurant, Kololak. Besides the main branding, we created a lot of artwork for the interior which features Armenia's beautiful calligraphy.

Backbone's interior design work for Kololak.

It seems like the arts are appreciated in Armenia, especially in Yerevan with its museums and art galleries. Is graphic design valued the same way in your country? Do people seek quality design and recognize its potential social impact?

CHRISTINA: We live in a country with a developing design industry. We have a big share in its development; we have helped many businessmen learn about the impact and power of design. At first very few of them would trust a local company with big projects. We showed our first clients how important design can be for a business and how we could help them solve their communication and marketing problems. Step by step, with hard work over many years, we gained people’s trust and made them believe in quality design.

ELIZA: Design has been valued in Armenia for a long time, but it wasn’t graphic design as we know it. We had and still have talented artists working passionately, but could not adapt to the requirements of today's commercial world, which is why the design often lacked commercial approach and become more artistic than creative.

Armenian calligraphy – more work for Kololak.

How does Armenia’s history, culture and art inspire or influence your own work?

CHRISTINA: The influence is huge; we grew up in an environment where everyone tells you how important your heritage is. This inspiration is very useful when the brands we develop are connected to an Armenian identity. But for the rest of the projects we try to leave behind these borders. When developing the concept for Cafe Diego, an Argentine restaurant named for soccer player Diego Armando Maradona, we sought the spirit of Argentina and found it.

In some ways the Armenian heritage is a pillar on which we build our work. But we use all the world’s materials and techniques to keep building on that pillar. The goal is to create good design, not just Armenian design.

Backbone's brand design for Cafe Diego.

 Why do you think good design is important? What does good design mean to you at Backbone Branding?

CHRISTINA: The answer may sound quite simple. Why do people always design something new? Why do manufacturers change the packaging of their product all the time? They want to be seen, to be recognized, to stand out on the shelf full of competitors. After all, they want the product to be sold. Design is becoming a primary tool in business, combining art and commerce.

Whether it’s commercial or non-commercial, good design reflects the ideas of a brand. A designer must understand the essences of the brand, its vision and goals and use them as a foundation.

Christina behind the scenes.

I’ve read a lot of international businesses operate out of Yerevan. Does Backbone Branding seek to work with international clients? Why or why not?

MARY: Backbone Branding does work with dozens of international brands, some of which you can find in our portfolio, such as the above mentioned Cafe Diego in Abu-Dhabi; MØS, a Scandinavian restaurant in Moscow; and MooGoo, a Slovenian dairy company. We’re not concentrated on the Armenian market. In fact, we love to set new goals and challenges.

We give the world our original approach as an Armenian studio, and we exchange values and ideas. Both sides benefit from this kind of cooperation.

Packaging for MØS, a Nordic restaurant in Moscow.

What impact does your social media presence have on getting new clients and self-promotion in general? What works best for you?

MARY: We actually get quite a lot of inquiries via social media. We do our best to create work that makes us proud, then, of course, we promote it through social media. That’s where people often find and share our work. It’s also our platform for keeping in touch with the world’s design community. Besides, there are clients who prefer social media messengers to email communication — in particular Facebook as it is #1 not only in the world, but here in Armenia as well. We use others as well, each for a certain purpose.

The Backbone team in action.

Do any events or organizations exist yet that connect and educate Armenian designers?

CHRISTINA: The community is just developing. There are some events a couple times a year like discussions, master classes, etc., but mostly they are one-time events, so I can’t mention anything significant. Our studio also organizes meetings and master classes to share and exchange experience with different audiences.

There are a couple of colleges and universities here in Yerevan that teach different branches of design. Also, Tumo Center of Creative Technologies operates in the capital and many regions of Armenia, providing training programs, workshops, master classes and exhibitions for teenagers interested in different creative fields.

Another shot featuring Backbone's work for MØS. 

"We just do our job as well as we can, thus people get interested. It's a chain reaction."

When I hear news about Armenia, it’s usually related to the country’s political and economic tension. I’m curious to know how the design industry fits into this story. Do you think design can make a positive social impact in your country?

ELIZA: The media mostly cover the news that have high demand from the community and/or society. Same goes for the news about design industry. When you make something with obvious impact, everyone wants to read about it. Among the latest design-related news in Armenia was the new design of Armenian dram banknotes, which was very controversial. This is a topic that touches everyone in the country. We all deal with those banknotes and have no other choice.

On the other hand, tech news, which always speaks about progress, is in demand. You may have heard about Volterman, the multi-functional smart wallet. This is an Armenian project that holds a crowdfunding record, having collected 100% of its goal on the very first day of the campaign and 2287% ($1,555,343) by the end of the 1-month-long campaign. Backbone Branding is proud to be a part of the campaign.

As for our projects, being in the news is not among our primary goals. We just do our job as well as we can, thus people get interested. It's a chain reaction.

I read that Armenian children begin thinking about their careers at a very young age, and that parents conduct a ceremony with infants to determine their future career path. Is design considered a prestigious or desired profession to Armenians? And have you wanted to be designers since you were infants? 😀

ELIZA: I’m not sure what I had picked back then, but I’ve certainly had the desire to become a designer for as long as I remember. At first I was dreaming of it without a clear idea of what design even means.

The profession is respected, though sometimes the existing stereotype of a designer is not always correct. Some might think that it’s an easy job that doesn’t require much. But then they see hard-working professionals working long days, seeking perfection and succeeding with hard tasks. They realize that design requires both talent and professionalism, and the Backbone Branding team is proud to be a good example for everyone.

CHRISTINA: Just like Eliza, I’ve been dreaming of this profession since I was a little girl. But I hardly knew anything about graphic design, instead I was dreaming of fashion design. As I grew up and chose to become a graphic designer, I’ve still had that dream. Here at Backbone, I’ve had the chance to work on many kinds of projects and even make my childhood dream a reality. This was due to the project Shabeeg, as we developed t-shirt illustrations and prints for the brand.

A lifestyle shot for Shabeeg.

And now to our last question: How can all designers and design communities from other countries do a better job of communicating with each other? How can we become more engaged with the Armenian design community?

As we mentioned, our design community is just on its way of development with small steps. There are no blogs nor magazines dedicated solely to design. A couple of portals write about advertising, sometimes publishing articles about branding as well, but they are only in Armenian.

If you want to find any information, it’s either on company websites or general news/entertainment portals. Yet, we are open to communicating with everyone who is interested. You can even visit us here. Dinner is on us – you’ll have a chance to learn about the famous Armenian hospitality :).

___

Thank you so much Eliza, Christina and Mary for making this interview happen and giving us such a meaningful look into the Armenian design community. I'm in particular in love with your recent work for Kololak and will be following your work closely in the future.

For everyone reading, please check out the Backbone Branding website and be sure to follow on Instagram. And of course as always, if you enjoyed this interview or have questions/feedback, please let me know via Twitter @vanschneider

January 9, 2018No Comments

Should I Follow Design Trends?

I’ve gotten many questions about design trends lately. Not only from readers, but also from other blogs or magazines asking me what I believe the design trends for 2018 will be.

And to get straight to my point: I don’t believe in design trends and I rarely speak about them. The problem with design trends are exactly what they are, they’re just trends. And riding any trend just means that whatever you do most likely will fade away as fast as the trend appeared.

I mean, just look at the recent articles on 99designs or even TheNextWeb. Read through the “2018 design trends” and you’ll quickly notice that there isn’t anything substantial. Gradients are coming back? Letter Stacking? DASHING DUOTONES? BRUTALISM? I can barely read through these without cringing.

Trends of course exist for a reason and knowing how to navigate them can either be beneficial or a disadvantage.

One reason to follow a design trend may be because you’re trying to fit in. It’s the primary reason clients often ask for something “trendy." They want something safe, something that looks familiar and something that won’t provoke or bother anyone. And if that’s the goal, well then follow the trend and do something that looks generic and like everybody else. In some cases it may be positive to appear “trendy” and help make a new, upcoming business look more legit to its current time. Does that mean we also created something timeless? Probably not. But timeless isn't always a requirement anyway.

On the downside, following a design trend is boring (at least for me) because you're just following the majority. There isn’t much creative thinking involved. Doing something trendy is easy and most likely not very challenging or rewarding. On top of it, whatever you design based on a trend will look and feel outdated pretty quickly. It may look fancy and trendy today, but tomorrow the company or client needs to redesign everything again. Following a trend is basically a quick fix.

Consider fashion trends. I can wear clothing thats trendy right now, and it probably makes me look cool and hip. But the moment the trend has faded I need to jump onto the next trend to keep my reputation as being trendy and cool. The longer I do this, the more I depend on trends for my identity. I completely lose my own style and voice, assuming I had one in the first place.

The only way to prevent this is by coming up with your own style and finding your voice. And that’s a pretty challenging task. Of course, the greatest possibility is that you start a trend yourself, which can be a blessing and a curse at the same time.

'There is a lot of noise out there. I don't want to follow the trend - I want to create the trend." - Iman

The best part about design trends is that you can easily spot them. You can learn about them, then you can break and remix them in your own work. If you see what everyone else is doing, you can easily take that and put it on its head. You can be brave and go in the opposite direction, or you can combine things the way YOU want to design it. And honestly, it’s hard to do this because you’re basically going against the grain. It’s risky to do something unexpected or unique that goes out of line. If you’re working on your own projects this may be easier than working for a client who demands something trendy. (Note: Not all clients are like this, but an awful lot are, for a reason.)

But the best work, the work that excites you, the work that lasts for many years, is the work created without looking at what's trendy, but looking at what’s unique and timeless in its own way. It requires confidence and trust to design something like it, but it is possible.

When looking at design trends we can take what we need, but disregard the rest. Often when working with clients the best way through is to find a compromise between making something unique and bold but also familiar and safe. The magic comes in when you manage to strike the right balance. If you’re really good at what you do (combined with a bit of luck) you can create something unique, new and even timeless.

My advice to designers is usually fairly simple:

See what's trending and dare to do the opposite. Don’t follow trends blindly just because design magazines write about them. Most importantly: Don’t care too much about trends and just do what you think is the best solution and style for the project.

P.S. The only case where following a design trend makes a little more sense is if that trend is related to some best use case that is benefiting everyone, but not related to an aesthetic or style. For example, anything related to usability or sustainability. But I don’t consider these trends, but more of a necessity.

Another example may be if you’re forced to follow a trend because you’re dependent on a platform that dictates certain aesthetics and styles. For example when designing for the iOS/Apple platform. There’s always a subtle pressure to do things a certain way, otherwise you risk the success of your product. But even here, it’s possible to push the boundaries without resorting to following the trends blindly.

Have a fantastic week,
Tobias

January 2, 2018No Comments

Semplice Portfolio Inspiration of December 2017

Every week, we handpick two portfolios created with Semplice to feature on our Showcase. These are the best of the best, chosen by yours truly from hundreds of fantastic submissions.

Looking back each month, we're inspired by the creativity and hard work our Semplice family members put into their portfolios. We hope they inspire you too, whether you're working on your portfolio or simply need a little boost.

Take a look at our monthly favorites below to get motivated and meet new designers  — and if you've created your own portfolio with Semplice, be sure to submit it to our Showcase here. You could be featured next!

 

__________

For more inspiration you can always visit the Semplice showcase, and I’m looking forward to sharing more hand-picked portfolios with you next month.

PS: Header image by Taylor Franklin.

Have a fantastic month,
Lu

December 19, 2017No Comments

My Jump from iPhone to Android: An Unsponsored Pixel2 Review

First of all, this article is NOT sponsored by Google. But if anyone from Google is reading this and wants to send me the Pixel XL, please do, because I’d love to test that phone as well.

A little over a month ago I switched to the Pixel. I’ve been on iOS and the iPhone pretty much since its inception or just shortly after. I think the iPhone 3G was my first iPhone. I never even thought about switching, not only because I was a little Apple fanboy, but also because there was just no reason. I liked the iPhone and I liked iOS. Whenever a new iPhone came out, there wasn't even a question about getting it or not getting it. Even if I couldn't afford it, I wanted it.

I briefly tried using an Android device a couple years ago but abandoned it after less than a week. Android always felt like a shitty operating system to me, not refined and just thrown together. But something is different this time.

I probably would have not switched if iOS hadn't let me down so much since the new iOS11. My iPhone was basically unusable for the last couple weeks; even after I got the iPhone8 I just wasn’t happy with it. My iPhone kept crashing, iOS kept freezing and apps behaved in a weird way. I knew these things would eventually get fixed, but it was reason enough to finally give Android a try again.

So I did, I switched to the Pixel2. The regular size, not the Pixel XL, because I like smaller phones. The iPhone5 is probably my favorite when it comes to the form factor and the Pixel2 is fairly close to it. I immediately enjoyed the Pixel2 and was surprised how far Android has come since I last tried it.

I’m still using my Pixel as of right now. I’m not sure when or if I will change back to my iPhone again. It could happen, you never know. And as I’m traveling a lot right now, I can promise you that my phone usage is way above the average, which is perfect for such a review. Keep in mind this is a casual and personal review, I'm not comparing specs or anything, there are enough tech website out there who do that.

But let me tell you about my main observations so far:

Messaging

This was my major concern. I may not be that addicted to iOS, but I’m definitely deep into Apple's ecosystem when it comes to iMessage. The good thing is, since I'm traveling I can't receive iMessages right now anyway – and I don't miss them so far. I moved most of my conversations to WhatsApp and since it also has a MacBook app, the switch happened without any problems. I'm sure there are a couple iMessages right now from friends who get sent into the void, but that's okay. Eventually after informing them that iMessage doesn't work anymore, everyone happily switches to WhatsApp. (because iPhone users are allergic to the green SMS bubbles)

Camera

The camera is a weird one. I don’t photograph that much on my phone anymore, but I have mixed feelings about it. In low light, the camera is absolutely better than the iPhone. I’m actually surprised by HOW good the Pixel camera is in low light.

Here is an example, no editing and straight from the phone. The picture was taken on the plane with very little light available.

In normal daylight I’d say the camera performs generally the same as the iPhone, but it has some weird quirks that are either bugs, or just feel different because I'm so accustomed to the iPhone camera.

For one, the colors are significantly different depending on the angle you hold your phone, which can be frustrating. If I'm trying to photograph something yellow up close, for example, it almost appears white and completely washed out. If I then tilt the camera a bit or try a slightly different angle, the color is accurate again.When it comes to color temperature, the Pixel seems to give a more blue light whereas the iPhone has a warmer feel to it.

This doesn't bother me too much since I edit the pictures anyway, but it takes some time getting used to. I like the camera because it is incredibly good from a technical perspective, but it all feels a bit unpredictable and sometimes doesn't make sense.

Here is another picture I shot with the Pixel2, no edits:

Hardware & Feel

The Pixel feels great in my hand and less slippery than the iPhone7 and 8. It also feels much lighter, at least compared to the iPhone8 with its glass back. You could argue the Pixel feels less premium because it's lighter, but I prefer it this way. I can feel the difference since I'm carrying it my pocket all the time. I personally think that the iPhoneX or iPhone8 feel too heavy for their size and form factor which makes them feel less premium and more clunky. I think there's a fine balance where weight contributes to a premium feel, but at some point it tips over and makes a phone feel clunky instead.

I appreciate the less rounded corners and the grippy hard plastic on the sides of the Pixel2. Some may not like the bezels but I really do. Today I’m way less excited about fancy hardware on phones than I was a couple years ago. Now I just want a phone that feels great in my hand and is practical to use. As long as there are no major turn offs (like the notch on the iPhone X) I’m pretty forgiving when it comes to a phone's hardware. For me there is a difference between a phone that looks great on renders (with fancy edge to edge screen) and a phone that I just love using and having in my pocket.

Oh, and of course: The Pixel has a USB-C port. Which means I can plug it straight into my MacBook without needing an adapter. I stopped carrying an extra USB-C cable because I can just charge my phone with the same cable that I use to charge my MacBook.

PS: My Apple AirPods work without any problems on my Pixel as well. So no big deal here either.

Unlock Experience

One of my absolute favorite Pixel2 features is the fingerprint unlock on the back. It’s just SO much better than where it is on the iPhone. When taking my Pixel out of my pocket with one hand, the fingerprint sensor is automatically positioned exactly where my index finger is while at the same time having a strong grip on the phone. When I unlock my iPhone with one hand using the thumb on the home button, I feel like I'm about to drop my phone.

With the Pixel2 you can also use the fingerprint scanner on the back of the phone to pull down your notifications (you just swipe down on the sensor). I use this all the time to get a quick glance at my notifications, especially since I can keep a strong grip on my phone without needing to use the touch screen at all.

The only downside to the Pixel unlock placement: If the phone is sitting face-up on your table, you can’t unlock it with your finger without taking the phone in your hand (because you need to place your index finger on the fingerprint sensor on the back). But I’m happy to trade that for having a secure grip on my phone while using it on the go. I also assume this would be an issue with the iPhoneX as you would need to move your face above the phone on the table. Same issue, different phone.

The Software

The software switch from iPhone to the Pixel fairly easy. Google even offers a cable that connects your Pixel and iPhone to transfer all the data. It didn’t work as seamlessly as I expected as some contacts didn’t get imported and my pictures sadly didn’t transfer at all. Not a huge deal, and could simply be something I did wrong.

After that, everything worked perfectly fine. The whole Android system has improved significantly since I last used it. I could easily find every single app I used on iOS in the PlayStore, which made this whole thing even easier.

I'm surprised to say the Android experience feels less clunky than iOS, overall. It feels more like a strong mini computer in my pocket rather than a mobile phone. I think I just grew tired of the limiting ways I can use iOS and I've really started to enjoy Android in that regard. Of course, the whole integration of Google services (which I use often) helps a lot. Google Now and other Google services integrate so nicely into your phone that it just becomes a joy to use. (And yes, I am aware that Google is listening to everything I say; privacy is probably one of the bigger concerns you might have when using Android. I don’t even know if there IS any privacy anymore, but that's a whole other conversation.) The Google Assistant is absolutely amazing compared to Siri (which I never liked) and I've started using it for small Google queries or things like setting my alarm or calendar reminders.

And the Global Back Button! Holy shit, this thing is so good, I don't know if I can go back to iOS without having it. Android has this back button in the lower left corner of the screen. It's always there like the iPhone home button, but  it's a back button that works across the system and across all apps. It's the best thing ever, not only because it is ALWAYS there but also because it is JUST IN THE RIGHT position! I always disliked iOS for having the back button in the top left corner, the most impractical position on a mobile phone, especially when using your phone with just one hand.

The downsides of Android are still the same as what they were a couple years ago. While the operating system feels more productive than iOS, there are many little issues and inconsistencies that bother me. It’s almost like someone worked their ass off to make a beautiful unlock screen, but spent no time designing and refining the experience for browsing photos. Pinching and swiping through the photo gallery is absolutely horrible on Android and I have no idea how they even managed to get this approved and shipped. It all feels like a prototype rather than a finished product. Android generally still lacks the refinement and consistency that iOS delivers, yet I believe Android has great potential as a future operating system for mobile.

And all of this not only applies to the operating system, but also to the majority of apps I've used so far. They're all working, but they're not as nice and refined as the ones on iOS. You can easily see how these Android apps were built as an afterthought long after the iOS version was shipped. I think this all just has to do with the fact that the majority of people who used Android in the recent years just didn't care as much about smooth UI experiences, whereas Apple has always led with quality, curation and perfection. Android is catching up, and I think it is catching up pretty well.

Another picture shot on the Pixel2, at night in low light

___

Using Android for a month now, I'm motivated to work on it myself. There is so much potential and I'm curious why Google (with their stock Android) hasn't managed to get this whole experience a bit more rounded. But as we all know, internal company politics is the answer to many of these questions.

For now I will stick with Android, although I’m open to trying new devices such as the OnePlus or any of the Samsung flagship phones. I’m not too sold on the Pixel specifically, but more sold on using Android in general. Every time I've picked up my iPhone8 in the last few weeks it felt clunky and old, like when you used an iPhone5 for a while and then picked up the iPhone 3G again.

Weirdly enough, I just feel more productive using Android. As I mentioned before, it's like a powerful mini computer in my pocket rather than just a smartphone. And for some reason, I really enjoy customizing everything to my liking. The widgets on my home screen, the Google Now screen, and of course customizing my app and unlock screens with the wide range of available launcher apps.

I'm happy to say I’m not a fanboy of either iOS or Android. There was a time where there was no question about getting the latest iPhone – I bought it immediately as soon as it came out, if I could afford it. Today I’m not as “religious” about phones as I was a couple years ago. I just want something that works.

I hope this review gave you a little bit of insight, at least from my personal experience. I'm sure there are many other, more professional reviews out there comparing specs and whatnot.

I will definitely keep you posted on how things are going.

Have a great week,
Tobias

December 13, 2017No Comments

How to manage your time as a remote worker

Recently I wrote an article titled How to Not Suck at Remote Working. One of the main rules was to know who you are, as I believe remote working is just not for everyone. However, if time management is your main issue, there’s hope.

All of us could be better at managing our day, whether we work remotely or not. Here’s what I’ve learned helps the most.

1. Track your time

This feels like second nature to many of us already, especially if you’ve worked at an agency that bills by the hour. Tracking your time not only makes it easy to invoice clients, but also gives you measurable data you can look back on later. You’ll see trends about how you work and how long you’re spending on your daily tasks, so you more accurately plan each day moving forward.

Time tracking apps like Toggl not only record your time, but give you a running timer to track your task as you go. And while it can be annoying, Toggl sends you reminders to track your time every few minutes or so, so you stay on top of it. It even tracks your idle time so you can be as accurate as possible.

An undervalued Toggl feature is the Pomodoro timer, which will let you know when you’ve been working for 25 minutes and give you a 3 minute break (you can adjust the timing in your preferences). As someone who can easily get in the zone and spend hours on a task without lifting my head, I appreciate the quick Pomodoro check-in to keep me on track.

Whether you’re billing by the hour or not, track your time to make you more aware of how you’re spending your day.

2. Build in breaks

When you’re working from home, distractions are endless. There’s the TV. Laundry. The dog. Laundry for the dog. It might seem simple to multitask and get a few things done around the house while you work, but those few minutes here and there add up, and then suddenly it’s 8 p.m. and you’ve only clocked three hours of real work for the day. Use Toggl’s Pomodoro app (I swear Toggl is not sponsoring this article), or your phone’s timer, to build those breaks into your day instead of taking them arbitrarily. Give yourself 25 or 40 or even 60 minutes of pure work, then allow yourself a few minutes of rest before focusing again.

Same goes for Twitter, checking your email, shopping for new dog clothes, and your phone – especially your phone! Giving your brain occasional breaks keeps you sane and creative, so don’t feel guilty about it. Just build structure around it so you stay productive too.

"Slack is meant to streamline our communication and workflow, but just like emails, we often let instant messages control our day."

3. Snooze Slack notifications

Sounds counterintuitive since apps like Slack are meant to streamline your communication and workflow, but just like emails, we often let instant messages control our day.

Every time a notification pops up on your screen, your focus is broken. You’ll be pulled into an unrelated conversation or another task and find yourself half-finishing everything you start. Instead of letting notifications interrupt you every few minutes, set a timer and check Slack periodically. Slack gives people the option to send urgent notifications in Snooze mode, so if it’s really important, people can still reach you.

You may be tempted to go "offline" entirely to focus on a particular task or project. This can be useful, providing you planned for it and your team knows when you won't be reachable. If disconnecting helps you be more productive, build this into your schedule and share that schedule with your team ahead of time. This not only helps them respect your focused-work time, but ensures you don't impact their tasks and deadlines.

4. Use the daily status update (if you’re working with a remote team)

I wrote more about it more here, but in short: The Daily Status update keeps your team informed about what you’re doing each day, and keeps you accountable to your checklist. At the end of the day, take five minutes to send your team an email with what you did today, what you’ll do tomorrow and where you’re stuck, in bulleted lists.

This way, you’ll set up your to do list for each day the night before. Your team will know what you’re working on and you’ll feel motivated to accomplish what you said you’ll do.

5. Reward yourself

Motivate yourself by setting time goals for each task, then giving yourself a little reward if you meet them.

Maybe you promise yourself a snack if you put in 60 minutes of hard focus. Or maybe you get to check Instagram for 5 full minutes if you get your proposal turned in my 2:00 p.m.

Use positive reinforcement to stay focused and feel positive about your workday.

6. Environment is everything

While working from your bed seems fun, it’s not great for productivity (or for your spirit).

Think about what kind of environment makes you feel focused, productive and creative. I enjoy doing admin tasks like answering emails from coffee shops, but I get my “real” creative work done in my home office. Maybe you work best in a structured coworking space, or in a messy home office, or in a bare, quiet room.

Create or seek out that environment, whether that means keeping your house clean, reorganizing your home office or budgeting to rent a coworking space.

7. Stick to a routine

What many people miss after jumping from their 9-5 job to remote work (although they may not admit this to themselves) is the predictable structure a corporate job provides.

While the flexibility of remote work is one of its most appealing benefits, most humans thrive with a routine, and routine can still exist within that flexibility.

Waking up at a consistent time, getting dressed, fixing a pot of coffee, reading the headlines and running through your to do list, breaking for lunch at noon, scheduling meetings for afternoons only — these are the little practices that keep you moving like a well oiled machine.

Define your routine more clearly and then stick to it. If something comes up or you want to switch things up, no problem. Build allowances for that in your routine. For example, maybe you leave Tuesday mornings open for last minute meetings or appointments. Or maybe on Fridays you let yourself impulsively work from the park, if you're feeling like it.

Find your routine, however structured or loose, and you'll naturally manage your time better.

At the end of the day, managing time mostly comes down to removing distractions. I tend to get tons of work done on airplanes and it's only because my phone is in airplane mode, I have a defined amount of time to mentally focus, and there are only so many other things I can physically do.

While I can't feasibly work from an airplane every day, I can follow these other practices that help me manage my time as best as I can. I hope they’ll be helpful for you too.

December 5, 2017No Comments

Semplice Portfolio Inspiration of November 2017

Every week, we handpick two portfolios created with Semplice to feature on our Showcase. These are the best of the best, chosen by yours truly from hundreds of fantastic submissions.

Looking back each month, we're inspired by the creativity and hard work our Semplice family members put into their portfolios. We hope they inspire you too, whether you're working on your portfolio or simply need a little boost.

Take a look at our monthly favorites below to get motivated and meet new designers  — and if you've created your own portfolio with Semplice, be sure to submit it to our Showcase here. You could be featured next!

 

__________

For more inspiration you can always visit the Semplice showcase, and I’m looking forward to sharing more hand-picked portfolios with you next month.

PS: Header image by Alina Skyson.

Have a fantastic month,
Lu

December 1, 2017No Comments

The Hottest Websites from the Late 90s

While most of us can’t imagine our lives without it, the internet in its more accessible form is just a few years older than Justin Bieber. The World Wide Web hasn’t been around that long, but it’s come a long way since its inception.

Web design has come a long way too, as my friend Rob Ford can tell you. Rob is the founder of FWA, which has showcased the internet’s most creative and innovative work since its infancy.

Today we’re time traveling with Rob through the FWA archives to look at the early days of web design, featuring FWA award winners from 1997-2002. These were the days when everyone was experimenting and web design felt new and exciting, like anything could happen. These were also the days of Flash, as you’ll see in a moment.

1997 - Gabocorp.com

You are about to enter a new era in website design.
This is the new standard
for all things to come.
Welcome to the new
Gabocorp.

“If anyone led you into their website today with such a slogan, they would be doomed,” says Rob. “Yet back in 1997, hitting that glowing GO button raised your heartbeat.”

Your heartbeat increases even more after pressing GO, assuming your sound is on. And you'll want to keep your sound when viewing most of these websites. Unnerving background music was sort of essential to the experience back in the day, as you might recall.

Side note: This site feels like some early version of a Prezi, and we’re OK with that.

ENTER GABOCORP.COM

1998 - EYE4U.com

 

EYE4U is one of the first amazing websites many remember. Gabocorp was slightly more underground in 1997, while EYE4U quickly hit the mainstream. With its bright colors, uplifting music and Flash intro, this site spread across forums like wildfire.

Clearly, these web designers did not have to worry about optimizing for mobile.

VIEW EYE4U.COM

1998 - NRG.BE

 

Peter Van Den Wyngaert’s NRG.be was another that inspired the early internet generation. His site opened with an epic voiceover:

“WELCOME TO NRG DOT B E”

The voice, Michel Orthier from Breakout4u.com (one of Peter’s friends), was later featured on sites like MegaCar.com and Kimble.org.

VISIT NRG.BE

1998 - Balthaser

 

“Balthaser created the most talked-about Flash intro ever,” Rob explains. “It took off at warp speed with high impact, fit-inducing images.”

This visual experience, according to Balthaser, is the company’s soul, its “essence.”

If you can keep up with the text that follows, you’ll learn Balthaser is a web design studio that makes your customers “scream for more.” Sites like these either whipped you through the experience like a careening rollercoaster ride, or used blatant navigation cues to make sure you got where you needed to go. They were not exactly intuitive, but they were fun.

It’s been almost 20 years and we’re still playing that intro on loop. We saw Balthasar’s soul. We are screaming for more and/or suffering an epileptic seizure.

VIEW BALTHASER.COM

1999 - MONO*crafts

 

Yugop was one of the original web pioneers. His horizontal scrolling and zooming menu, which was sensitive to your mouse movement, would take the web in a direction nobody ever imagined.

Now, using the nav feels like a game of Whac-a-Mole. Just haphazardly click everywhere and see what you get.

VIEW YUGOP.COM

1999 - Megacar.com

 

Kim Dotcom’s Megacar was a Mercedes Benz Brabus S58 converted in 1998 with Data Protect, a German company that specialized in data security. The website was as cutting edge as the car itself with a Flash intro, progressive interface and voiceovers / sound effects that made you think this car might actually be a spaceship.

“The website would have more longevity than the physical Megarcars, though,” says Rob.

VIEWMEGACAR.COM

2000 - Requiem for a Dream

Rob recalls when he first visited this site, seeing the “Click Here Now” banner and immediately closing the page, believing it was another poorly created website with banner advertising that promised to make you rich.

“It was weeks later when I saw the forums blowing up about the site that I went back to find it,” says Rob. “I clicked and my mind was blown.”

We’ve evolved only slightly since the days of Click Here Now banners. Now we expect more of a story to it, a headline that builds intrigue. Instead of getting rich quick, we want to know "what happens next." And then we click, still hoping our mind will be blown.

SEE REQUIEM.COM

2000 - FWA

 

This orange and yellow website had critics and fans the world over. Critics because of its shocking use of typography, later saved by Miniml pixel fonts. Fans because what’s not to love?

The newer, more readable version of Favorite Website Awards would later become known as FWA and would reach almost cult status within the Flash community. Nice one, Rob!

SEE THE ORIGINAL FWA.COM

2000 - THE PORTAL

 

This was the ultimate teaser site from Marcus Bussejahn, a 35-year-old German who made waves in a German Flash forum (FlashForum.de) with his new agency and high impact Flash style. THE PORTAL opened with a loading screen and a door handle. Once fully loaded, the site revealed two locked doors.

“This teaser was talked about for years,” says Rob.

Flash sites of this time seemed to be all about the teaser, mostly to distract from loading time. Now, what you see is what you get.

ENTER THE PORTAL

2001 - 2Advanced Studios v3 Expansions

 

2Advanced v3 Expansions would be remembered for two things: Being the most copied website ever and “the most influential Flash website of the decade.” Forums like Flashkit (with a 52-page thread about the site’s launch), Were-here and Ultrashock lit up with love and hate for this website, remembers Rob.

VISIT 2ADVANCED STUDIOS

"I clicked on a link and the hair on my neck stood on end. I had goose bumps all over."

2001 - Starbreeze

 

“In October 2001, I clicked on a link and the hair on my neck stood on end. I had goose bumps all over,” Rob says. “Starbreeze changed everything as I knew it at the time.”

The site took ages to load, which made it even better. The anticipation was immense. As the site loaded it offered a fairy to guide you around the site. At a time when some designers were just trying Flash for the first time and would get excited about moving a circle from one side of the screen to another, this website was years ahead of the game.

VISIT STARBREEZE

2002 - Who’s We Studios

 

When winners were announced in the 2002 May 1st Reboot, Rob says the Who’s We Studios Flash site stood out as the true definition of eye candy.

On the splash page you were greeted with an intriguing intro — “Do you feel lucky punk? Well, do ya?” — as their logo orb morphed into massive arsenal of weapons pointing right at you, kindly asking if you wanted to enter the broadband version of the site. When you clicked on a button that said "Who Are We," a UFO flew across the screen and produced a giant rock which read "THE BEST.” If only I had such confidence.

VISIT WHO'S WE STUDIOS

2002 - Perfect Fools

This would be the first ever incarnation of the effect that mimics turning a page in a book. It was perfectly executed, making it an instant success, and before long everyone wanted a script for the “Page Turn Effect.” One company even started to sell a book template and some believed they were the originators. For the record, says Rob, this site was the first.

SEE PERFECTFOOLS.COM

2002 - Conspiracy Games

This site’s interactive features included an “Emergency System” activation that gave the user two minutes to find a specific element on the site before it would self-destruct and boot the user out.

Conspiracy also reintroduced the concept of voiceover for areas of the site, including the navigation, where buttons would appear to organically move as the user moused over them.

"This was a huge site with lots to explore and large amounts of intelligently managed content," Rob explains.

And 3D — including a robot arm that, once activated, smashed a realistic looking hole in the screen.

VISIT CONSPIRACY GAMES

2002 - Neostream Interactive

"Neostream Interactive delivered 50,000 volts of animation heaven that shocked the world upon launch," says Rob.

The site oozed personality and character right from the splash screen as the Neostream mascot shook his finger at the user. On entering the site users were able to quite literally slap the mascot around by moving their mouse across him.

VISIT NEOSTREAM

And We’re Back

Here ends our Web Design Flashback; please exit to your right and tip your tour guides (Rob accepts PayPal).

Really though, Rob – thank you for this fun and insightful look back in time!

What I found most interesting is how boldly these websites claim their work is the future of web design. Because at the time, it was. This was the beginning, “the standard for all things to come.” When everything is new and no standards exist, creativity and confidence abounds.

In our current mobile-first era, when websites are designed in neat grids, with videos in the header and social links in the footer, it’s more rare to meet the unexpected. Progress feels more gradual and less explosive now, but perhaps we’ll know the future when we see it.

Until then, look out for “The History of Web Design,” Rob’s new book covering over a quarter of a century of web design from 1991-2017, to be published by Taschen in Spring/Summer 2018. And be sure to follow Rob on Twitter and Instagram @fwa and #TheHistoryOfWebDesign. You never know how the past might inspire you to change the future.

November 23, 2017No Comments

The Slow Decay of a Designer

Over the last couple weeks I’ve been heads down on a lot of work. Existing projects and new ones (Semplice being one of them). In general, I’ve never shied away from work that wasn’t part of my core skillset. I like working on a range of disciplines and I rarely complain when I have to do tasks “outside of my job description.” Of course, there are some tasks I enjoy more than others.

But recently, I’ve thought a lot about regaining my focus. Looking back at the last couple years and re-evaluating where I am, where I came from and where I’d like to go in the future. It’s easy to get caught up in the day to day work, even if you work for yourself, and lose sight of your goals.

There is a strange but natural progression most designers or developers experience, or anyone in the creative industry for that matter. It all starts with us becoming a designer because we love to design. We love the craft of designing, the colors, typography, layouts and even moreso the problem solving aspects of it. We fall in love with design because we simply love the act of creating something out of nothing. We stay up late moving things around for hours, sometimes even days, just to find this magical moment where everything “feels right.” On one hand we know very much what we’re doing, but sometimes we don’t. And it’s this rush of anxiety, this little gap between failure and success, that pushes us forward. It’s why we keep throwing ourselves into projects we are absolutely not prepared for.

"As we climb the corporate ladder, we find ourselves designing a little less every day."

As designers or developers we spend all this time becoming better at our craft. We spend years designing, experimenting and solving new problems. We not only get better, but we also get faster and more efficient. We start to have a more intimate relationship with our tools and typefaces, with colors and our ability to come up with unique ideas. All of our time is spent on becoming better at what we do as a creative person.

But then, everything changes. A few years later (sometimes less than 10 years) our path takes a sharp turn, even well before we reach our full potential. As we climb the corporate ladder, we find ourselves designing a little less every day. We start doing less of the things that originally made us fall in love with design and we start managing more. Some choose this path, but for many it’s the only available way to advance in our careers, make more money or be taken seriously. In most cases, there is simply no other way to level up without putting down the tools we love so much and taking on a management role.

It happens at big companies, but it also happens to those who open their own studios. The more successful you are with your own studio, the more likely you will be designing less and managing more. In the end, everyone loses. You lose because you’re not doing what got you into design in the first place. Everyone else loses because every designer who has the potential of reaching greatness is slowly vanishing.

"The question is: What are you sacrificing, and are you OK with it?"

And please don’t get me wrong — some designers want to be managers and lead a team. Managing people, inspiring other designers and helping them be their best is certainly a challenging and rewarding job. The question is: What are you sacrificing, and are you OK with it? Because ultimately, the longer it takes for you to realize that you're not a designer anymore, and the more time you spend "managing" rather than designing, the harder it will be to go back to being a designer again. You will, no matter what, lose your muscle memory and you certainly won't be on top of your profession anymore.

After thinking about this more, I started researching other industries to see how they do it. Is the natural progression of a musician at the height of their career to become a manager or producer? Do chefs hone their craft only to manage their crew?

The more I read into it, the more I became obsessed with the story of a chef. A chef spends years, maybe even decades, perfecting his or her craft. If you love the idea of becoming a chef, you most likely love food and coming up with new recipes or ways to challenge your taste buds. You take joy from being in the kitchen, working with your knives and working hard. There are no shortcuts. You eventually become so good that you’ll have your own staff or maybe your own restaurant. Yet, a chef (at least those I know), even at the height of their career, are still actively cooking in the kitchen. Experimenting with ingredients, chopping vegetables and being where the work happens.

"Today it’s just one more meeting you accept, one more task you delegate. Then one year later you find yourself in a completely different role."

It feels quite opposite to the modern designer’s experience, who at the middle of her career is lured into becoming a manager and rarely designs herself anymore. These things either happen more forcefully in a corporate environment, or they happen naturally due to the fact that you end up running your own studio and don’t find the time to design anymore. This shift happens slowly and creeps in over the years. No one asks you to stop being an individual contributor and start becoming a manager immediately. Today it’s just one more meeting you accept, one more task you delegate. Then one year later you find yourself in a completely different role. I know this not only from my own experience, but from many others who realize when it’s too late.

For me, the story of the chef is what inspires me. It helps me stay focused on what got me into design in the first place and keep doing what I enjoy doing most, which is designing and creating. Even if that means accepting pay cuts, scaling slower or taking a step back. I want to be like the chef with his own restaurant who still leaves a mess in the kitchen.

And with this, I wish you a wonderful week.

Stay awesome,
Tobias

 

November 14, 2017No Comments

Design in Brazil 🇧🇷 featuring Sweety & Co.

With this latest interview in our Design Around the World series, we're excited to introduce Sweety & Co., a branding studio based in Porto Alegre.

Sweety & Co. may be located in Brazil but you'll find their work all over, from the U.S. to the Netherlands. The Sweety team lives up to its name, owning a vibrant, emotional style that just makes you happy. Grinning cashews dive into lively pools of milk in one package design, apples and blueberries dance across the next.

Isabela Rodrigues, the studio's founder and creative director, is sweet too — but she doesn't hesitate to speak her mind in this interview.

Tell us about yourself and your studio. You have a background in digital but now focus on packaging and branding. Why did you choose this path and what made you decide to open your own studio?

I worked for a long time in the digital world, but I was always highly requested as a freelancer for branding — and my dream was to work with packaging, but I had no knowledge. I began to realize that although I had a lot of experience in the digital world, what I did best and what my portfolio showed best was branding. So I dived deeply into learning and relearning print design. And I never stopped.

I opened the studio in 2011 as “Isabela Rodrigues - Sweety Branding Studio.”

In 2015, we went through our own rebranding. It was motivated by the fact that from time to time there were misunderstandings with our brand positioning; people did not understand that I did not work alone, I had a team.

So "Sweety Branding Studio" became Sweety & Co.

Packaging for Wild Leaf, a tea company in the States.

“Incredibly, we have become better known outside Brazil than inside.”

You work with companies in many different countries. How do you form these international relationships as a studio? Is it common in Brazil to work for clients overseas?

It is not that common for design studios to provide services outside Brazil. I don't know many who work this way.

The most interesting aspect is that we captivate our clients in a very organic way; we have never done any kind of prospecting. It comes naturally from our portfolio. I also believe that we are able to charm and provide a sense of security for our customers, having worked with different cultures and methods in the past.

Incredibly, we have become better known outside Brazil than inside. Now we are balancing things around here.

Sweety's work for Ofélia, a Brazilian startup.

I picture Brazilian design as being colorful, joyful, full of life — this could certainly describe Sweety & Co’s work. How would you describe Brazil’s design style, and how does your culture and history influence it?

Brazil sells itself culturally because it is multi-ethnic, very colorful and diverse. The carnival, the tropicality and the heat influence the way Brazil is represented in the eyes of those who see it.

Our design relates a lot with the happy vibe of Brazil, although we are located in the south of Brazil that is not so influenced by this tropical heat of Rio de Janeiro and Amazonas. We certainly live with this aesthetic, but try to reinvent and transcend this style.

“Crises are extremely interesting for the creative industry, because it is at this time that people reinvent themselves…”

Brazil went from a huge growth period to a sudden economic crisis within the last decade. Yet the digital market and startup scene continues to boom. How have these ups and downs impacted your work as product designers?

As nonsense as it may seem, crises are extremely interesting for the creative industry, because it is at this time that people reinvent themselves, come up with products and seek to escape the crisis.

That's where we come in. Most of our clients are new projects, new products, people who have left their daily lives, left their jobs (or lost a job) and are ready to invest and to undertake. It's really cool to see that passion.

Work for Aura, a group of art curators in Brazil.

What job opportunities are available to designers in Brazil right now? Are most local designers seeking to work with startups?

The Brazilian market is very divided at the moment. I see lots of people venturing out, setting up their office and making it happen. I also see a lot of people leaving Brazil.

It is extremely difficult to be an entrepreneur here in Brazil. Taxes are high — not only the standard monthly taxes but also the taxes we pay to have the best equipment. If you are successful in Brazil, you are at least very good.

Tell us more about the local design community. There seem to be many events and platforms for the tech community to connect in Brazil. Is there a strong design community outside of that?

There is still much to be developed in this regard. Behance and its Behance Review event have a very interesting role in terms of dissemination and deepening in design. I see that there is an enormous willingness of the designers to exchange experiences, but I do not see common sense. There are many micro-events of little relevance and others fostered by universities, but I still see them as shallow and purposeless.

A cheerful corner of the Sweety & Co. Studio.

What’s the quality of design education like in Brazil? Do most designers seek a formal education or are they self-taught?

I'm very curious about education in Brazil. I took a technical course in industrial design and I started working very early, at age 15. I went to college at age 19, a big gap compared to those graduating high school and going straight to college.

With this I developed a "self-taught" critical eye and when I went to college, nothing impressed me. Now when I talk with students, I see a lot of discontentment with college, especially with shallow and/or old-fashioned teachers. I speak of people I have access to. I don't know all the teaching methods of all Brazilian colleges, although I know that the Rio de Janeiro Design College, ESDI, has huge cultural value.

Why is good design important? What does good design mean to Sweet & Co. and how do you see it impacting Brazilian society?

Good design for Sweety & Co. is design that excites, sells and perpetuates.

We always want to be remembered for making products and projects highly recognized, and for solving problems. Each project that leaves the studio should be a reason for pride and desire.

More vibrant packaging from the Sweety studio.

Is good design valued in Brazil as a whole?

The way people see design is changing as they begin to understand its importance. The visual references of people are also changing, adapting and improving. With this, a graphic "caution" is essential in everything. Our clients always come to us with very high expectations and complete research, wanting to create and innovate.

In your opinion, what are the top 10 designers or studios from Brazil that everyone should know?

Below are some studios and designers that I believe to be located in Brazil:

Hardcuore
Br/bauen
Leo Natsume
Valkiria
Guayabo
Luciano Pouzada
Tátil Design
Criatipos
Lud Co
Pedro Veneziano

Work for RAWCHA, located in United Kingdom.

“Design is practically a universal language."

How can designers and design communities from other countries do a better job of communicating with each other? How can we become more engaged with the Brazilian design community? Are there any blogs or magazines we can follow?

Design is practically a universal language. I believe there are not too many barriers between the international community other than language, since we are all connected.

Two great Brazilian references that have reach even abroad are Abduzeddo and Choco la Design.

Isabela, thank you for your insightful, no-nonsense thoughts in this interview! We appreciate the glimpse into your design community and look forward to seeing more.

Friends, follow Sweety & Co. on Instagram to keep up with their work, and be sure to check out the links above to get more familiar with design in Brazil.

If you're new to our Design Around the World series, you have lots of catching up to do 🙂 Start here.

November 8, 2017No Comments

How to not suck at remote working

I’ve been trying to work remotely (from home, in my case) since the moment I had my first job. I’m not sure why exactly, but I just wasn’t made for the 9 to 5 office life.

I dislike everything about working in an office. The daily commute, the empty conversations, the distractions and of course the meetings. But on top of it, my productivity never peaked when working in an office environment. I only showed up to clock my eight hours, then went home to do my “real” creative work. Often I didn’t even do anything at the office, just pretended to be busy before I could finally call it a day at 5 p.m. That was about 14 years ago and things have changed quite a bit since then.

Today, remote working seems to be more popular than ever. According to a recent survey from Gallup, 43% of employed Americans have worked remotely in some form over the past year. Other reports state that by 2020, 50% of the American workforce will be working remotely. Some because they want to, some because they have to.

And it makes sense. Working remotely, if done right, is a win/win situation for everyone involved. According to this study, given the choice of a 10% raise or the option to work remotely, 53% of all participants chose to work remotely instead of getting the 10% raise. Dropping the commute is by far one of the biggest factors of increased happiness for those who made the jump. Even if your commute is only 30 minutes it makes a huge difference; the influence it has on your overall mood and happiness is enormous. There are few things people hate more than their commute.

Other benefits of working remotely are a more flexible working schedule, and typically a lower cost for the company that employs you (they don’t need to provide office space, etc.). The positives are fairly clear for both parties, at least on the surface.

Yet, I’ve learned that while working remotely is appealing to many people, very few are good at it. Most people I’ve worked with remotely are distracted, unproductive and certainly not performing the way they should or even want to. The remote life is not easy and you have to learn how to do it right.

These are the rules to live by if you want to be a successful remote worker, at least from my perspective.

#1. Know who you are

Although some might say “remote working is the future,” I don’t believe this is a general truth. It simply doesn’t work for everyone.

For one, working remotely can be pretty lonely. Some need the daily watercooler conversations and a tangible feeling of belonging. This may exist to some extent within a remote team, but it’s inherently different. For example, your Slack chat may help replace the daily watercooler conversations, but it’s not the same as sitting down and sharing lunch with your coworkers.

Some people, given the chance to work from home, would not accomplish anything because they’re easily distracted or simply need the fixed schedule and structure of office life.

Ask yourself:

  • How much do I value social interaction throughout the day?
  • In what specific ways could I create a healthy social balance as a remote worker? Would that be enough?
  • How much do I value and depend on the structure of an office environment?

I’ve worked with people who were two completely different personalities when working remotely compared to working in an office on location. Be honest with yourself about who you are and what you need before jumping into remote work.

"There is nothing more toxic to a remote working environment than people who make assumptions."

# 2. Over-communicate

This is by far the most important practice of a successful remote worker. You have to over-communicate, almost to an extent where it feels like you’re talking to yourself out loud.

The challenge with working remotely is that you don’t really know what other people on your team are doing. You can’t just walk over and check in with them at their desk or exchange a few words over lunch. To sync up remotely means you have to schedule a call or bother them via chat, and you can’t just have meetings all day to make sure you’re caught up with everyone.

My biggest frustration when working with people remotely is when those people do not communicate — folks who don’t ask any questions, who don’t tell share they’re doing or what they have accomplished. It’s easy to fly under the radar and disappear when working offsite; you have to actively fight against it.

The most damaging are those who make assumptions — assuming that someone will do something about X or will get in touch about Y. There is nothing more toxic to a remote working environment than people who make assumptions:

“Oh, I didn’t reply to that email because I assumed you would do it.”

“I assumed you would get in touch with me if you needed something.”

“I thought you already did that.”

“I thought this wasn’t as important, so I didn’t do it.”

Remove assumptions. Over-communicate and be proactive about it. Reach out immediately and try to inform people about what you’re doing as often and as efficiently as possible. That doesn’t mean you need to schedule dozens of meetings, but a simple message in your group chat such as, “Hey team, today I’m going to work on X. Just FYI,” puts everyone on the same page and gives people the opportunity to jump in if needed.

Over-communicate everything: What you are working on, when you think it will be done, if you’re running behind and how much you’re running behind. Even if people don’t respond to your updates, you need to be consistent about it. Just because someone didn’t acknowledge your update doesn’t mean it’s worthless — quite the opposite. It means they feel informed and satisfied about your current status.

I love working with people who speak their mind as openly as possible, people who proactively reach out about everything and don’t shy away from bothering someone if they think it’s important. The worst thing that can happen when working remotely is that you work on something for an entire week, only to find out that everything you did wasn’t at all what your team was expecting you to do. Over-communication helps set expectations. And as a bonus, it helps you manage your time better, since keeping your team informed requires you to stay on top of your to-do list.

# 3. Use The Daily Status Update

Yes, the third rule also relates to communication. It’s that important.

I try to have relatively few meetings when working remotely. I don’t like calls and I think they’re time wasters for the most part. I do schedule calls with my team every other week because they boost morale, and a little bit of chatting certainly helps you build relationships with your team (some people need this more than others, and I’ll admit I’m low maintenance when it comes to social interaction). But most days, I like to be efficient and productive. After all, that’s the reason I decided to work remotely.

But there is one practice that has been incredibly effective for me: The Daily Status Update. It’s a simple email sent at whatever time you end your day. This status update follows a few rules which are as follows:

You’re not allowed to spend more than five minutes writing this update. It should be efficient, and spending more than five minutes writing a status update would defeat the purpose. By imposing this time limit, you will focus on the most important details and your status update won’t be a nightmare for others to read.

My remote team uses a set format and template for this status update, which looks like this:

What I’ve worked on today

  • Something I did
  • Something else I did
  • Another thing I did

What I will work on tomorrow

  • Something I want to do tomorrow
  • Another thing I want to do

Where I’m stuck

  • Need help with XYZ

Every day you take this template, add your bullet points and send it to your team. Since you’ll only be spending five minutes max, it’s an easy addition to your daily routine.

These three headlines work wonders for you and your team’s productivity without having any meetings whatsoever, especially when working across time zones.

By sharing what you worked on today I know what you’ve accomplished without having to ask. Seeing your “tomorrow” list lets me know that you have enough on your plate to be busy tomorrow, plus I can plan my own work around your tasks. Worst case, I can jump in and say, “Hey, I saw you want to work on this tomorrow, but can you work on this other thing instead?”

The third list in your Daily Status Update email is the most important: The list of what you’re stuck on or where you need help. If I, as your manager or colleague, see the same task under “What I will work on tomorrow” and “Where I’m stuck,” I know to jump in and help you with whatever you need so you’re not roadblocked for tomorrow. This is one reason why your status update needs to be sent every single day. If I continue to see a team member putting the same task under “Where I’m Stuck,” I know something is wrong.

P.S. I always encourage people to link their status updates to the work they’re referencing. Dropbox links, images, to-dos in Basecamp — link to it so I can easily get more context if I need it. This will save time for both of us.
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Knowing who you are, over-communicating and having a structure for how you communicate are in my experience the three main ways to become a successful remote worker. If you do these things right, everything else will follow.

Do you have your own routines or tips for remote working? Send me a tweet @vanschneider and let me know what they are. And if you’re interested in more freelance and remote working advice, check out this series.

October 31, 2017No Comments

Semplice Portfolio Inspiration of September 2017

As you might know, we launched Semplice in 2014 to build the perfect portfolio tool we always dreamed of. Since then many great designers started using Semplice and I'm always blown away to see what other designers create.

It's inspiring to see what others create and it pushes me further everyday.

With this blog post series I'd like to share the best portfolios every month, handpicked by yours truly. My hope is that these portfolios inspire you as much as they inspire me. And at the same time spreading the word about designers you might not have heard about yet.

 

__________

For more inspiration you can always visit the Semplice showcase, and I’m looking forward to sharing more hand-picked portfolios with you next month.

PS: Header article by Justin Lei.

Have a fantastic month,
Lu

October 31, 2017No Comments

Design in the Philippines 🇵🇭 featuring Plus63 Design

Our "Design Around the World" series explores design communities from all over, with a goal to learn more, meet new people and broaden our horizons. With this long-anticipated addition to the series, we talk to Plus63 Design Co. from the Philippines.

Plus63 is a branding studio located in Quezon City. Everything this small team creates seems to be made with love and care. It’s as if they finish a project and then ask themselves, “But what if we did more?” And they do a whole lot more. One step at a time, the members of Plus63 are helping change the way design is viewed and valued in their country.

Meet Dan, Bernice, Jo, Raxenne and Craig.

Tell us a bit about yourselves and your studio. Why did you decide to open a branding studio and how did you all come together?

BERNICE: Plus63 is a continuation of our journey in finding ways we can contribute to and lift up Filipino design. A decade ago, a group of friends, including Dan and Rhea, created a socially-oriented design studio focused on nonprofit organizations and development communications. After several years, we transformed into Plus63 as we realized that we wanted to create good design — design that makes a difference.

DAN: Me, Bernice and Rhea started Plus63 to continue developing our design identity and scope, and redefine how we want to run our company. Bernice was my classmate back in school at the University of the Philippines, and Rhea was one of our partners in the previous design studio. Joanna, spotted by Bernice when she was a panelist at her senior thesis defense, became our first full-time designer. At a Behance portfolio review in Manila, Raxenne’s work stood out, and later on we hired her to complement the studio’s varied design and illustration styles. Craig was a former Plus63 summer intern and now he’s our most recent hire.

We never really set out to focus on branding, we just wanted to continue working on graphic design projects. But when we started getting exciting brand identity projects, we realized how much we enjoyed it since we became part of the brand’s journey from start to finish.

The Plus63 team

“We realized that we wanted to create good design — design that makes a difference.”

I noticed that Plus63 is part of Hydra Design Group — how does that fit in?

DAN: Hydra Design Group is a creative collective that we started a year ago. Plus63 recently moved into a new office space together with Inksurge (graphic & web), The Acid House (motion & animation) and KM Design (interior & space). Our studios’ diverse and complementary skill sets allow us to work together on large-scale projects and learn from each other. We still keep our independence as Plus63, but when we need to work on projects with a much larger scope, we volt-in as Hydra.

+63 is the country code of the Philippines. Does your heritage and love for the Philippines play into your work beyond that?

JO: A lot of Filipinos are very friendly and warm in general, and we at Plus63 are also like that (or at least that’s what I’d like to think, haha). I guess those traits get carried over to the way we interact with clients. We like to get to know them better and understand where they’re coming from before we start brainstorming. Looking “Filipino” isn’t something that we aim for or choose to avoid. For us, it’s more about catering to what the client needs or suggesting something better-suited for their brand.

Plus 63's branding work for Theo & Philo, a Filipino chocolate maker.

“Filipinos have a way of taking everything that passes our way and processing it in terms of our already established culture.”

A Filipino friend of mine told me that the Filipino design community as a whole is heavily influenced by Western design and culture, partly because it’s an English-speaking country that absorbs a lot from the internet. I imagine the country’s complex history and colonization creates an identity issue as well. Is that an accurate perception? Is there a distinct Filipino design style?

BERNICE: Filipino design is a visual mishmash reflecting our culture and history. Our jeepney is a sample of typical Filipino design: a modified jeep (American) decorated with anime stickers (Japanese), spray-painted Catholic images (Spanish), zodiac signs (Chinese), decals of landscape scenery (Southeast Asian), and portraits of family. Western design is more prominent since America was the last colonizer. We speak English, our fashion and even food preference is very Western. Filipinos adapt quickly and integrate those influences the Filipino way.

CRAIG: I guess if you were to describe design nowadays, most of the time you would consider the more well known ones as “Western” in origin. I also agree with you that a lot of our sensibilities here have been influenced by Western culture through different eras of colonization. In terms of influences though, I’d say Filipinos have a way of taking everything that passes our way and processing it in terms of our already established culture. So I do agree that Western design and culture has had a large impact on how we see design, but the translation of this most often will be a balance of both Western and our own.

Brand identity for Kushikatsu Daruma, a Japanese restaurant.

The Philippines seems to have a fairly active design community, especially in Manila. Is the creative field a common career path in the Philippines? How easy or difficult is it to become a designer?

DAN: It’s an exciting time to be a designer in Manila. There’s a lot of energy in the local scene and in the community, with a growing number of design events and initiatives all over the country, as well as government recognition that design plays a significant role in helping develop the economy. That said, it’s still not a common career path in the Philippines. People still think that a creative career is not a financially-viable path to take. Parents still prefer to see their children take conventional courses like nursing, medicine, law and accountancy.

RAXENNE: When I graduated six years ago, being a designer wasn’t really the goal of most of my peers. We wanted to be art directors and work for advertising agencies. I didn’t think graphic design was a career path I could take. I think it’s because of the lack of graphic design courses here, so there’s not much exposure. All the things I know so far, I’ve learned while working. It’s different now though. You see a lot of young creatives pursuing design and illustration more.

As for getting into design studios, it’s kind of harder. We don’t really have huge design studios here. Most are small-scale so it’s difficult to get a spot unless one of their designers leave. What happens is designers freelance, or start their own studios or groups.

“Design can’t really solve issues in our country by itself, but it can help in how others perceive these issues and influence them to change it."

Brand identity for The University of the Philippines athletic program.

What does good design mean to Plus63, and how do you see it impacting Filipino society as a whole? Do you think it can solve larger issues the country faces?

CRAIG: Good design is important to me because I believe it helps in how we mature as individuals. Design isn’t something we really need in order to survive as a species, but good design helps us somehow put form and sense into what we see around us. I’d say design can’t really solve issues in our country by itself, but it can help in how others perceive these issues and influence them to change it.

DAN: For me, good design is coming up with the best (clever and thoughtful) solution to a problem. It’s important to show that designers can contribute to the success of a small business, help a community recover from disasters and even assist in developing effective government programs. At Plus63, we ultimately want to lend our skills as designers and strategists to help the design community and the country.

Branding for Recession Coffee, a pay-what-you-want shop.

To support the industry on a larger-scale, I joined a team composed of designers (led by Jowee Alviar of Team Manila, AJ Dimarucot, Angel Guerrero, Brian Tenorio, Arriane Serafico and many others) from various industries such as graphic design, furniture, fashion and media that pushed for a national design policy and what we now have as the “Philippine Design Competitiveness Act of 2013.”

In a nutshell, it states that government will support and enhance the growth and sustainability of the design industry. The studio has also worked with the Design Center of the Philippines to help local furniture companies become more competitive in the international furniture market.

To help organize our particular design community, we established the Communications Design Association of the Philippines (CDAP) with Jowee Alviar, AJ Dimarucot, Angel Guerrero and Brian Tenorio. We’re hoping that the organization can provide the support that designers need and enable the overall success of the industry.

Design can make a difference. While design alone can’t solve all the problems in a society, it still plays a significant part.

Trophy design for the Adobo Design Awards.

The policy seems like a huge win. Would you say there’s a positive shift happening around design in your community? What factors have made the country take notice and invest in design?

DAN: It has come to a point that not putting design on the economic development agenda would put the country at a greater disadvantage in the global marketplace. Now more than ever, there is a need for government to recognize design as a driver for economic growth, as well as nurture the culture of creativity and innovation. There are people in government, through their work in diverse capacities from legislation to trade and export promotion, who understood the challenges our industry faced and supported us. Leaders from various design-driven industries got together, as well as educators, and supporters in media.

Cliché as it may sound, the passage of the Philippine Design Competitiveness Act showed what people can achieve when they take the initiative and find common ground. Because of this the implementing government agency for the policy, the Design Center of the Philippines, has shifted its mandate from commercial export promotion to include the support and promotion of Filipino designers, as well as the development of Philippine-made products through design. This is also great for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) that need assistance in enhancing the quality and value of their products.

More work for The University of the Philippines.

“But of course, this is only the beginning. There is still so much to do... Fortunately, we now have something to build on.”

Since then, the Communication Designers Association of the Philippines have been meeting to understand the current landscape, who make up these communities (and the design disciplines involved), what their professional/enterprise challenges and needs are, and how we can to support one another.

This has been a long time coming, since we’ve been trying to organize representation for our own industry and at the same time tend to the realities of running our own design studios or practice. But of course, this is only the beginning. There is still so much to do in shifting the mindset of design's cultural value and its role in nation-building. Fortunately, we now have something to build on.

Branding for LIT, a bar that specializes in Japanese whisky.

What’s the quality of design education like in the Philippines? Do many designers seek a formal education or are they self-taught?

BERNICE: I think design education is improving since there are more schools, courses and better facilities created to cater to young, aspiring designers. Design education instills the fundamental foundation for specific design careers. For example, in the University of Philippines, fine arts has various academic majors such as visual communication, industrial design, painting and sculpture.

I’m not sure about the statistics of formal education vs. self taught, but I think designers do both. I took visual communication where I learned visual perception, design theories, editorial design, production methods, photography, etc. After graduation, I had to learn Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign on my own because it wasn’t really taught to us back then.

JO: I graduated from the University of the Philippines’ College of Fine Arts with a degree in visual communication. It was a broad course with only a few design subjects, but that way I got to experience a lot of things like figure drawing, marketing or electronic media. I only started to understand and actually design better when I got out of college and started working in a design studio. I think it’s the same for a lot of people. What’s great now, though, is that a lot of design studios offer practicum slots for students who are interested in graphic design.

Work for Move Philippines, a disaster preparedness program for kids.

What would you say are unique challenges for Filipino designers right now?

CRAIG: I think one of the biggest challenges Filipino designers face right now is proving to the world that we can be just as good as designers from other countries. From my experience and my friends’, somehow when you say you’re getting a Filipino designer, the first thought that comes into the client’s mind is that we work cheap. I know there are a lot of clients that don’t think this way, but there are still some who treat us like simple workers rather than partners in creating good design. It’s not so much the money that makes me worried about being a designer in this country, but more the idea that we aren’t seen on the level of designers from America or Europe.

RAXENNE: I’m not sure if this is unique here, but I agree that potential clients are still not ready to pay for good design. They are often surprised when we give our quote. It can be frustrating, but I understand. We’re a third world country and design is still a luxury, so this makes pricing difficult. There is no standard and you have to adjust your rates. I’m still getting the hang of it.

Branding for Your Local, a restaurant that serves Asian comfort food.

In your opinion, what are the top 10 designers or studios from the Philippines that everyone should know?

Inksurge
The Acid House
Team Manila
Vgrafiks
AJ Dimarucot
And A Half
Bad Idea
Serious Studio
Studio Dialogo
The Office of Culture and Design

How can all designers and design communities from other countries do a better job of communicating with each other? How can we become more engaged with the Filipino design community? Are there any blogs or specific magazines we can follow?

BERNICE: Online, there’s Behance and a site we made called plus63.net (but we need to update this). In print, we have Adobo Magazine, Bluprint and Real Living, where they annually feature emerging artists. There are also events such as those organized by Ayala Museum and Graphika Manila that create a venue for people to engage with the Filipino design community.

Plus63 team! You're an inspiration. Thanks so much for your time and thoughts. I'm excited to see what you do next for your clients and the Filipino design community.

Be sure to follow Plus63 to keep up with their work — you won't be disappointed. And if you're just learning about this interview series, catch up here.

September 27, 2017No Comments

Semplice 4 launch & Behind the Scenes

It's been a while since I've shipped something as big as what we've finished this week. (Spoiler Alert: It's about the new Semplice, and what does "finished" even mean anymore?

Over the last 1.5 years I worked on a completely new product, the new Semplice - A new tool to build websites with, even more specifically, online portfolios. Although, over the last couple years (3 years since the original launch) we learned that people use it for pretty much anything.

The new Semplice 4 is now finally live and you can see our favorite new things right here. To keep it short: It's a portfolio system (based on WordPress) that gives you the power to design your portfolio (or any website really) without knowing how to code. Semplice is great for detailed case studies and custom layouts because it's not based on templates, but lets you start with a blank canvas. For us, building with Semplice means building with pride. The result should be something you're proud of instead of just picking a template everyone uses and filling in the blanks.

The new Semplice 4 is finally live!

But let's talk a bit about the process, and some behind the scene facts I rarely share:

Personally, one of the biggest challenges over the last year has been motivation. We knew we had to re-design and re-develop everything from scratch, and we knew it's going to be a ton of work. Originally we roughly calculated 6-8 months until we could start a beta program. Oh boy, we've been soooo wrong. In the end, we clocked in 16 months of development work. As you can imagine, the frustration that builds up over such a time frame is enormous, especially after delaying our launch so many times. But we did it, and below I like to share a couple things about our process and other random bits and pieces.

1. Profitable & bootstrapped since 3 years

Semplice officially launched 3 years ago, and has since been profitable business (obviously we started working on it way before that). No investor money, all bootstrapped and self financed. We're completely independent and still pretty proud about that little fact. It all started as a tiny side project and eventually grew into what it has become today. (Fun Fact: We originally launched it just for ourselves, the first version of Semplice wasn't even meant to be shared but just to be used for our own portfolios)

As you can imagine it has been a rollercoaster ride so far, but if I could do it again I definitely would. One of the most important things I learned in the last couple years is how differently working on my own products compares to everything else I did before in my career.

If I compare to to working full-time, working in my own design studio or freelance, I'd say building my own products has been the hardest but also the most rewarding. Rewarding because everything you work on everyday is all yours, you have full freedom and you can theoretically do whatever you want, no boss or client telling you what to do.

But then at the same time, that freedom can also be one of the most frustrating things about building your own thing. Working full-time gives me the benefit of getting paid every month, even if I wasn't very productive at times. On top of it, if I don't feel super motivated myself, someone will tell me what to do (my boss or manager). Same goes for freelancing or working for clients, someone will always tell you what to do at some point, there is more structure to it to some extend. Surely, that doesn't make you a good designer or worker, but you'll still manage to get by and pay your bills even if you aren't fully invested in what you do. But working on your own products and ideas, all of these things fade away. There is no one there to motivate you, to push you, to remind you or to just give you company when you feel a little down.

With all the freedom you gain, the loneliness is right behind. But don't get me wrong, I'm hardly complaining because I love doing what I do everyday. But I believe those things are rarely being talked about. (maybe worth another weekly email?)

2. Small & remote

The Semplice team is small, and fully remote. Everyone on our team works remotely from anywhere in the world. Some of our team members are more static, and some like to travel around while working. For example, five people worked on the new Semplice, and all five worked from a different time zone. As you can imagine, that needs some serious coordinating, or some fucked up sleeping schedules for some of us (which also is and was the case).

To stay organized, we honestly use very little, but below a bit more high level information on our process, tools and how we work:

Basecamp for project management 

We love Basecamp and use it for collecting ToDos in lists. We have lists for everything, bug reporting, backlog, marketing todos and so on. Basecamp is basically as the name already suggests, our base. The only other tool we occasional use is Google Docs for documents, but we still organize and link them in Basecamp.

Daily Status Updates

As shared in one of my previous weekly emails, we use daily status updates that are categorized into "What I've done today, What I will do tomorrow, and what I need help with". These status updates helps us keep an eye on what happened 12 hour ago, and what will happen in the next 12 hours. Basically short term planning.

Slack as our virtual office & Google Hangouts for meetings

No surprise here, we use Slack for more immediate communication during the day if needed. Occasionally we jump on Google Hangouts but we do it very rarely since none of us likes talking very much and meetings even less. (I know this is an anomaly, but everyone on the Semplice team is in some way)

Toggl for time tracking

We don't bill any hours to our clients, but I still like time tracking because it gives us a good idea of how long we spent on certain tasks and therefore plan better for the future.

Teamweek for dev/design planning

I'm a very visual person and I always need to see the work on a calendar. Even though it's very hard to plan things like development work based on days or weeks, I still like to plan and visualize it, even if we move it around and change it every week. Teamweek gives you a birds eye view on your project and helps you estimate how long you may need for certain features.

With Semplice for example: I'd take the full project and divide it into smaller chunks of work, for example features, or anything that can be done in 1-3 week "sprints". Then I'd map each of these little tasks onto the Teamweek calendar, look at the big picture and see where we are going to land so I can adjust further. After we started with the project, I look at the Teamweek calendar every single week and adjust it if needed. (add or remove days)

PS: Couple tricks that help: Once I discuss these little "sprints" with the developer, I usually double the estimated days and add a little buffer. So for example, if the developer on my team tells me he needs 5 days for feature XYZ, I add at least 9 days to the calendar. 1-2 days buffer in the beginning for unexpected planning and ramping up, and 2-3 days after for unexpected issues during testing. So I basically roughly double the initial estimates, just to keep the expectations realistic. Of course, if it turns out to be done faster, I use that buffer for other features down the line. The best thing that can happen is that we would launch earlier than we planned (rarely happens, I can tell you that already).

3. Our "backwards" pricing model

From the very beginning we decided that Semplice should not run on a traditional SaaS pricing model. That means, we went against offering Semplice on a subscription model and instead offered it as a one time payment product. While that puts a lot of pressure on us, I still believe it's one of the reasons Semplice works so well in a market that is saturated by subscription only products.

With Semplice we basically decided to charge for software the way it was done back in the days. You purchase Semplice as it is, and you can use it as long as you like in the future. The same way as you purchased Photoshop for example 15 years ago. You buy it once, and use it as long as you like, until you may pay to get a newer version, which is of course optional to you. Semplice is self-hosted and therefore, if you build a website with it, you can use it as long as you want without paying us a single cent in the future.

At some times this decision turned out to be challenging as most people are used to the subscription model or have expectations of getting free updates for a lifetime. But we're still trying to make it work while considering alternative pricing models in the future that could work for both, the customer and of course us so we can survive as a company and keep building Semplice.

4. That's it!

If you're interested, you can check out the new Semplice 4 right here. Especially if you're a previous Semplice user, you will find anything you need to know right there.

And as you can imagine, the real work starts today and we have some great updates coming within the next couple months already. I'm excited to have this finally off my shoulders and I'm happy I could share this with you today via this weekly email. I'd also like to use this chance to thank the team for the effort, Mike, Amanda, Lu, Thalis, Stefan and everyone who has been involved in working on Semplice, THANK YOU, YOU ARE THE BEST! <3

Thank you so much for reading!

Yours truly,
Tobias

August 1, 2017No Comments

Semplice Portfolio Inspiration of July 2017

As you might know, we launched Semplice in 2014 to build the perfect portfolio tool we always dreamed off. Since then many great designers started using Semplice and I'm always blown away to see what other designers create.

It's inspiring to see what others create and it pushes me further everyday.

With this blog post series I'd like to share the best portfolios every month, handpicked by yours truly. My hope is that these portfolios inspire you as much as they inspire me. And at the same time spreading the word about designers you might not have heard about yet.

 

__________

For more inspiration you can always visit the Semplice showcase, and I’m looking forward to sharing more hand-picked portfolios with you next month.

PS: Header article by Marcel Lunkwitz.

Have a fantastic new month,
Lu

July 31, 2017No Comments

A little design community secret

I get a fair amount of questions from students or young designers trying to break into the design community. There seems to be this goal to seek approval from other designers. To be part of the inner circle, make more design friends and feel valued as a designer.

Generally, there is nothing wrong with this. Gaining acceptance into the group can be important and empowering. It's part of human nature, survival instinct.

But when it comes to the design community, two important things are misunderstood:

Nr.1: There is no such thing as "the design community" anymore.

Maybe there used to be "a" design community, but it was very small. Fewer people practiced design as we know it today, and most designers weren't as connected pre-internet, especially internationally. Today, the design community is still fairly small but much more scattered than the past.

Similar to many other larger communities, it now consists of little pockets of smaller design communities, formed based on the specific craft they practice or the values they agree on. Design has become more political than ever, which naturally leads to divides. But this is nothing new; we see it in every community that has grown beyond its initial size.

Because there is no single "design community" anymore, striving to be of it might be misguided or wasted energy entirely. No single source of authority exists.

"You can become the most successful designer without the design community ever hearing your name."

Nr.2: Trying hard to be recognized or accepted by any community might not be as important as we think.

When I started out as a designer, it was almost impossible for me to get into the designer club, even though (or perhaps because) it was so small at the time. At the time, I wasn't focused on my work, but more so on the approval of other designers. I just wanted to be part of the in-crowd.

I realized much later I had the wrong goal in my mind. I thought if I was accepted into the holy world of the designers, I would not only become a better designer but also a more successful one. I thought it would lead me to more projects and better job opportunities. That wasn't entirely true.

If you're an up and coming designer or starting out in any field, I wouldn't focus so much on becoming part of a specific community. Most communities, if they still exist, are guarded by gatekeepers trying to keep out anything that could potentially become a threat to their established kingdom.

It's much more productive to focus on those who need you, your craft and your wisdom. In a designer's case, those people are real clients and companies who need design services.

To design for a client, and do good work for a client, there is no need for other designers' acceptance or approval. You can become the most successful designer without the design community ever hearing your name. Eventually, they may hear about you, but not because you tried to establish yourself in the community first. Rather, because you established yourself outside, through your work.

Being part of the inner circle is overrated. Of course, it's a nice feeling. It's great to get kudos from fellow designers. But in the end, those designers are rarely the ones who give you new work or pay for your bills.

In the end, it's just you and your work that counts, nothing else.

July 13, 2017No Comments

Introducing, Unsplash X van Schneider

We travel to discover. It’s movement that makes us feel alive, and the unknown that we are drawn to from the very beginning of our lives.

Humans are restless, curious and captured by an endless obsession with exploration. It’s the departure from routine where new ideas are born or new friends are made. Sometimes, we even get lost only to find ourselves.

Our capacity to feel inspired, to be moved by beauty or filled with awe, is one of the fundamental characteristics of human life. For me, nothing inspires like travel.

I can think of few things more exciting than venturing outside with my camera strapped around my chest, ready to explore new unknown places. It’s in these moments I feel free from any attachment or responsibility. It’s just me with my camera, taking it all in.

Introducing the Urban Explorer Sweatshirt

Over the last couple months I teamed up with my friends at Unsplash to create something special. Unsplash embraces this spirit of discovery, so it only felt natural that we join forces. The Urban Explorer Sweatshirt is our first collaboration. It’s an attempt to make something for our fellow explorers and creators.

We aimed to create a piece that is high quality, yet subtle in its design. The Explorer Sweatshirt is a limited edition crew neck, made custom by hand in Canada.

We used 100% French Terry Cotton, 400gsm for a reason. It’s not only super comfortable, but French Terry Cotton is known to keep you dry and cool because of its water absorbent properties. The sweatshirt can be worn year round and works great for layering.

The print design is a subtle black foil on black cotton that reads “Fernweh & Wanderlust.” Fernweh is German and roughly translates to “The longing for distance and a strong desire to travel.” These two words describe everything we’re about.

If you’re interested in The Explorer Sweatshirt, you can purchase one here. It’s a very limited edition, so you’ll be one of just a few of us wearing it out there in the wild. And you’ll be warm.

Ships in one-of-a-kind packaging designed by us and sealed with a custom sticker, courtesy of our friends at Stickermule. Thank you so much Stickermule for the support!

____

I hope you enjoy this project I've been working on for the past 6 months. For those who like to read a bit more about the inspiration and process, here you go:

The sweatshirt was all handmade in Canada with three different vendors involved. First we designed and produced the actual sweatshirts together with one vendor, then we shipped it to the next to get on all the custom labels followed by the third vendor to finalize the black on black foil print. If that sounds a bit complicated and painful to you, you're pretty much right about that.

While designing the sweatshirt, everything we had in mind was the theme Fernweh & Wanderlust and the stories we tell after we come back from one of our journeys. The type design itself was inspired by old fable book covers and type treatments of the early Walt Disney. There is something magical about these letters, they feel clean and geometric (which fits our modern black sweater design) yet each letter has deeper character and a certain playfulness & story attached to it.

The circles in the middle simply stand for an abstract representation of movement.

Thank you
Tobias

 

 

July 12, 2017No Comments

Design in Brazil 🇧🇷 featuring Bonde Conference

Recently we started our “Design Around the World” article series on DESK. The goal is to feature design communities we might not hear that much about. So far we’ve talked with designers from Nigeria, Iran, Pakistan and South Korea. Brazil was next on our list.

Then I stumbled upon Bonde, an upcoming conference in New York dedicated to bringing attention to Brazil’s work and highlighting the Brazilian design community. I met briefly with the two organizers, Felipe and Leo, and loved hearing about their motivations and the Brazilian design community. I think you will too.

Hey, Leo and Felipe! First question: WHY are you doing Bonde? I assume it’s anything but easy to create a conference like this. What brought the idea about and what would make Bonde a success for you?

FELIPE & LEO: Thank you Tobias, it’s a pleasure to talk with you. We couldn't agree more; it’s anything but easy to create a conference like this.

LEO: It all started with the desire to connect Brazilian creatives living in NY. We wanted it to be a small gathering at first, but as more and more people showed interest in it, we realized Bonde could serve as a bigger platform — one that could not only connect Brazilian designers amongst themselves, but most importantly, connect Brazilian designers to the rest of the world.

The Bonde Website

One of our main goals with Bonde is to raise awareness of Brazil's many contributions to design, while presenting a more complete perspective on what Brazilian design could be.

“Brazil is so big and so diverse that it is impossible to explain its aesthetic like one would with Swiss, German or Japanese design.”

When you search "Brazilian design" on Google, you will probably see a lot of colors, organic shapes, ornaments and tropical-themed illustrations, which we don't think are misinterpretations of the country’s design necessarily, but there is a lot more to it that is sometimes overlooked. Brazil is so big and so diverse that it is impossible to explain its aesthetic like one would with Swiss, German or Japanese design.

Brazilian design has multiple dimensions and possibilities. That is why Frederico Duarte, one of the biggest researchers and experts in the field, will open our conference with the talk, “What If There’s No Such Thing as Brazilian Design?” We can't wait to see it!

(Brazilian design on google images)

Like you said, Brazil is massive. More than 200 million people live there and it’s the 5th largest country in the world. As I understand it, the country experienced rapid growth in the past decade making it the 8th largest economy in the world. This was followed by an economic crisis in 2014 that still continues into 2017.

How have these factors influenced the Brazilian creative industry and design community? What are the unique challenges for Brazilian designers that we don’t see anywhere else?

FELIPE: The economic growth Brazil went through in the past decade helped the creative industry in a couple of ways. With the rise in accessible technology, information and digital tools became readily available and as result, design became a mainstream profession. Besides, government-sponsored university programs such as Pro Uni and racial quotas have helped make college education more democratic in the country, including design, which was previously considered to be an elitist profession.

With the recent crisis we are facing, many of these achievements are unfortunately at stake. Studying design in Brazil is expensive, and being a designer doesn't pay well. With the uncertainty of a successful professional future, young people are pressured to pursue traditional professions.

One of the challenges we face working as designers in Brazil is the fact that creative industries are very much driven by advertising culture. That means large design jobs that should have been assigned to a design firm are repeatedly handed over to the creative departments of ad agencies (the 2014 World Cup identity is a good example of that). As a result, most large brands in Brazil have their accounts associated to a specific ad agency that handles all their communications throughout the year, with no distinction between advertising or design jobs. And while there are amazing small design studios doing great work in Brazil,  when they get the chance to work for these larger brands, it is often as a contractor to advertising agencies, meaning there is little to no direct communication between them and the final client.

Another challenge I believe is specific to working in Brazil is the fact that opening, keeping (and closing) your own business is an extremely hard process. So as an entrepreneur, a large portion of your time and energy ends up being spent on these bureaucracies, and not in developing your creative work.

“I believe it is at times of crisis that the potential for change, discovery and innovation is at its highest.”

On top of that, it sounds like most Brazilian businesses, with less confidence in the economy, decrease their budgets and tend to be more risk averse when it comes to new ventures. As creatives, we not only thrive when there is confidence in our work, but also when companies value what good design can do for them. But as you mentioned, design is often seen as an elitist field. It’s not considered the solution to a problem, but something only afforded when you’re doing well.

How do you think Brazilian designers can convince companies that design might be exactly what they need?

LEO: We wish we knew how to convince companies that design is exactly what they need, especially at times of crisis. But we know it's not that simple.

I agree that the role of design is sometimes overlooked. Especially at times of recession, it can be labeled superfluous by clients who have bigger issues to deal with. It makes sense for companies to want to take a more conservative approach and lower their risk tolerance, but I believe it is at times of crisis that the potential for change, discovery and innovation is at its highest. In fact, I believe the creative market can thrive during times like this. Adverse circumstances can serve as stimulus for change, and Brazilian creativity is in many ways an example of that. Brazil has a rich history of design innovation, especially involving challenges like environmental sustainability, social equality and diversity. I would argue that the creativity Brazilians are known for is probably results from the need to find creative ways to work with limited resources.

I remember joking when I met up with you that every creative agency in New York used to have at least one Swedish designer, mostly because Sweden is good at exporting their creative talent. But now, it seems as though every agency has at least one or more Brazilian or Latin American designers. What do you think is the reason for this change and the increase in Brazilian talent being exported around the world?

FELIPE: I think there are a couple of reasons why there is such an increase in Brazilian and Latin American talent being exported around the world. One of them is the economic recession, which we just discussed. The second one is the fact that there are many Brazilians in leadership positions at creative companies like Huge, BBDO and R/GA that end up connecting and attracting Latin talent through their networks. Others professionals have partnered to open their own business on American grounds (FLAGCX and Work&Co are two good examples) creating a bridge between Brazil and the U.S., and facilitating transfers of talent between the two countries.

You both work in New York but were born and raised in Brazil. Do you think it’s important for your origins to influence your work?

FELIPE: I think everyone's origins, life experiences and all the visual and cultural stimulus one absorbs throughout their lives (whether consciously or not) will influence their work. I feel privileged to have had the chance to experience different cultures and to bring that with me to New York. Not necessarily just because I am Brazilian, but because I come from a totally different place and my experiences can add something to the table.

LEO: I am a true believer that creative innovation is often the result of collaborations and cultural collisions between people with different points of views and different backgrounds, so in that way, yes, I think it is important that your origins influence the work you do.

Let’s talk about Bonde for a second. I noticed you have a nice lineup of Brazilian speakers, some I haven't heard about, which is exactly the reason I love so much what you’re doing. What was your criteria when you put the list of speakers together?

LEO: The main criteria for selecting our speakers was to not have a single criteria that could be applied to all the speakers. Instead, we had the desire to invite a diverse group of people that could bring different perspectives to the discussion.

(Bonde speakers)

Our final lineup is a wide range of design-practitioners, including names like Jonathas de Andrade, a fine artist who uses graphic design as a medium to discuss contemporary Brazilian subjects; Barbara Soalheiro, a writer who is challenging the design process through her new entrepreneurship; and Rimon Guimarães & Zeh Palito, a duo that spent all of last month painting murals in refugee camps in Syria.

(Jonathas de Andrade – O Museu do homem do Nordeste)

For those of us who are interested in getting to know the Brazilian design community more, are there any blogs, publications or other resources that would help us to get a better picture of Brazilian design?

LEO AND FELIPE: Unfortunately, it’s hard to find a lot of content in English, so we decided to share a list of things about Brazil that inspires us, directly or indirectly related to Brazilian design.

For Portuguese speakers or people who are willing to learn it:

  • Plana, the Brazilian version of NY Book Fair
  • Diagrama, a new design podcast in Portuguese
  • A Escola Livre (the Free School), a design education experiment.
  • NoBrasil, a Brazilian culture platform dedicated to diversity, with a focus on the country's African influence.

And if you happen to be in NYC:

(Bonde’s instagram)

____

Leo and Felipe: Thanks so much for your thoughts and insights into the Brazilian design community! I feel like I already have a deeper understanding and appreciation for Brazilian culture and design, and I know the Bonde conference will share so much more.

Everybody else: If you can be in NYC on July 22, buy tickets to Bonde, and be sure to tell your NYC friends! I promise it will be worth your time.

Thank you for reading,
Tobias

 

July 7, 2017No Comments

ONE Woman’s Secret to a Successful Side Project

Sometimes a side project turns into something much bigger. Before you know it, seven years have passed and what was once a stupid side project is now your passion. That's what happened for Nicole Gavrilles with ONE Magazine.

Nicole is a senior visual designer at Code and Theory, a digital agency in NYC. Originally from Canon, MA, she’s been living and working in the city for five years — all while single-handedly running a fashion magazine featuring work by photographers across the world. Nicole's a good friend of mine and I've always wondered how she manages to balance her full-time job with what seems like another full-time job. So I asked her. And while I've always said side projects should be stupid, Nicole's got some golden advice of her own.

Let's do it!

Hey Nicole, tell us about yourself and ONE magazine. Why did you decide to create an editorial magazine dedicated to exposing fashion photographers? What inspired the idea?

Photography has been present throughout my entire life. When my mother was young, my grandfather was fascinated by the technology and gadgets released in the 60s and 70s. He always wanted to have the newest and greatest camera and was constantly taking photos (one of my precious possessions he passed onto me was his Nikon film camera, in perfect condition). Also, my father was an auctioneer. I was constantly surrounded by antiques, artwork, artifacts, you name it.

When I was 14, my dad got me my first film camera. Photography became a passion of mine in high school and I was always seen with my camera taking photos of everything and everyone. When my interest in fashion began to evolve, it was like two roads met each other at one end. My love for photography and fashion are what led me to creating ONE.

“It all started from the pure excitement of making something for me.”

Before college, I was obsessed with Fabien Baron’s work with Interview Magazine in the mid to late 2000s. And since I was studying graphic design at Ringling College of Art and Design, marrying my three loves was the perfect potential portfolio piece. It all started from the pure excitement of making something for me. It was a way to express my love for fashion photography through design.

The first two issues were pure experiments, since it was my first try at editorial design. I featured my photography work as well as friends' work from college. That summer, while I was interning at Code and Theory, I was inspired to completely reinvent the magazine. I branded ONE, redesigned the entire editorial structure and published my third issue featuring 11 editorials (cover story photographed by me), 18 designer features, nine articles, four product feature spreads, two artist spotlights and 26 illustrators — phew. Honestly, I don’t know how I constructed all of that into one issue by myself.

But that excitement of creating something was like an addiction for me, and I couldn’t stop. I've always been a cheerleader for my friends. Everyone at Ringling was so talented and I couldn’t wait to see them go off and accomplish amazing things. And that’s how I’ve always approached my contributors to ONE. I want to showcase how amazing they are and that will always be my main goal.

You’ve been running ONE Magazine for seven years now alongside your full-time job. How do you make the time for this project? And do you still consider it a “side project” after so long?

Time management is definitely key. I mainly work on the magazine on the weeknights and usually take Friday and Saturday off, then pick back up on Sunday afternoon. It can get pretty tough when there are late nights at work. Those nights I can’t work on ONE, so the work piles up for the following night. When I’m working on the printed issue, the month leading up to the submission deadline gets a little rocky. That’s when I begin working weekends as well.

"If I’m tired from a long day at work and I don’t feel like working that night, I won’t do it."

Since I’ve been working on the magazine for so long, I’ve learned to step back more and not let it consume my downtime as much. If I’m tired from a long day at work and I don’t feel like working that night, I won’t do it. I want to make sure every time I work on the magazine, I’m in a content mental space. I never work on it if I’m stressed, tired or frustrated because I don’t want to build an association of negativity with working on ONE.

I still consider it a side project because it’s mostly me producing every inch of its presence on social media, the website and throughout each printed issue.

Aside from all the time you spend on ONE Magazine, you have the costs of your tools and your team, plus the production of printed issues. How did you fund the magazine from the start, before you sold any copies? Is the magazine self-sustaining now?

Since the reinvented third issue from 2011, I’ve been selling the magazine through magcloud.com as print on-demand. This takes the burden of shipping and costs for printing off my shoulders. Even though the printing process isn’t the highest quality, it’s been the easiest way for me to produce a printed issue of the magazine. Other than MagCloud, I have a strong digital following and presence on ISSUU. Their platform has given ONE a global audience.

The magazine was never funded. It began with emailing photographers I admired and asking to feature them. And that process hasn’t changed much other than people now are reaching out to contribute to ONE.

Tell us more about your process for releasing each issue. How long does it take from concept to completion? What are the steps?

I publish ONE Magazine biannually and I’ve got the planning process down to a system that’s worked pretty well over the years.

For the summer issues, I release the theme and submission date in January. The deadline would usually be in April/May and the final summer issue would be released in May/June. For the winter issues, I release the theme and submission date in July. The deadline would be in November and the final winter issue would be released before or after Thanksgiving.

Working at a digital agency and knowing how to produce decks for presentations has come in handy when concepting each theme. During the initial brainstorming for an upcoming issue, I research the most recent fashion week season and construct a list of recurring trends and styles. I read trend reports, group color palette patterns and establish overarching moods I feel resonate with this season’s collections.

Sometimes current events could play a role in the theme for an issue as well. For Issue No.14, The Vibrant Issue (published June 2017), I was inspired by the bright colors and patterns showcased throughout the spring/summer 2017 collections. At the same time I was constructing the theme for this issue, the Women’s March in January was days away. I wanted to encourage my contributors to produce concepts depicting how color can interpret strength. Issue No.14 is about celebrating color and liveliness through interconnectivity because today’s women are strong, diverse and independent.

After the theme PDF is constructed and the submission deadline is selected, I release the info on social media and the website. From there, I’ll receive emails from potential contributors pitching their interpretations on how they’d like to shoot an editorial based off the theme.

Once I’ve approved concepts, the photographers (I mostly work with photographers overseas) plan the shoot details with their team, check in with me from time to time, then send a preview of the un-retouched selects. If approved, they send me high-res images along with team and styling credits.

Editorials for the issues come in at different times. Once I get a couple final stories in, I like to jump right into mocking editorials in the InDesign file. I have a roster of image layouts I repurpose but organize differently for each issue. As the rest of the stories come in, I continue to layout their spreads. Once all content is in, I export the PDFs, produce and schedule each Facebook/Instagram post, export assets and copy needed for the website, publish on Magcloud and Issuu the night before, and then announce in the morning.

It seems like a lot of pressure to lead the vision and review submissions from so many talented people. Of course your design background helps with this, but how much comes down to confidence and figuring it out as you go along?

It’s all about figuring it out as you go. Everything has been trial and error. My artistic viewpoint has strengthened over the years working on the magazine. I have improved the way I conceptualize my ideas and communicate what I’m looking for by providing the right artistic direction and feedback to a contributor. But all of those improvements came with time by learning what works and what doesn’t. Nobody is perfect and I’ve definitely made mistakes over the years, but that’s the only way you’ll learn.

“It’s a daily battle, but the stress of rushing something and expecting it to be immediately perfect is not worth it.”

In your Issuu spotlight, your advice to aspiring magazine publishers is to go at your own speed, to not rush things. Can you expand on that more? What were the stages to making ONE Magazine come to life? Did you take it slow?

Over the years while running ONE Magazine, I’ve noticed how quickly people launch and publish a new magazine. And I say to myself, “Wow! That’s impressive! How do they do that?” They’re probably not doing it by themselves, which is how they can get it up and running so quickly. But I’ve enjoyed taking baby steps in developing ONE. I’m in no rush to print and stock it throughout the world (although that would be amazing, of course!). The magazine wouldn’t be where it is today if it wasn’t for the growth and development process I experienced. You can see how the visual language has evolved throughout the years, flipping through one issue to the next.

It all comes back to a work/side project/life balance. Over the past two years, I’ve noticed how more of my time has been sucked into late nights in front of my computer answering emails and preparing weekly digital features. It’s been catching up to me lately, and this year especially, I’ve been trying to construct a healthier schedule where I can enjoy time off but still get the work done.

Living in New York City doesn’t help with the whole work/life balance either. We’re workaholics and for some reason we’re OK with that. I try to tell myself every day that stress isn’t always worth it. Plus, I love my full-time job and I’m not looking to give that up anytime soon. It’s a daily battle, but the stress of rushing something and expecting it to be immediately perfect is not worth it. And I’ve noticed how my readers enjoy being part of my process and growth. They attach connections to past issues and enjoy seeing what the next issue will be.

Do you mainly use social media to promote ONE Magazine? How do you get the magazine and its content out in front of people, and which networks work best for you?

Instagram has been my main source of exposure, other than ISSUU. The audience grew immensely since I created @one_magazine in January 2014. Instagram is a pretty remarkable tool. Their business account provides me with the tools and capabilities to track each posts’ impressions, reach and engagement. Since I started the account, I’ve established a social post database where I document how I write posts and which posts get posted when. This has been helpful when I’ve taken on interns to help out with managing my social media platforms in the past.

Fashion has become one of the main pools of content saturating the Instagram universe. I think I launched the magazine on Instagram at the right moment. But it has also taken time to get the following to where it is now, and I never rushed to get the numbers up like others I know have. But as we know, Instagram isn’t a perfect place. The algorithm may sometime cause issues, but there’s not much you can do other than staying consistent to your posting ritual.

“I know it sounds cheesy, but you truly receive so much from people when you’re nice to them.”

What about gathering submissions? Do you seek out submissions or do people typically find you? How did you create your community around this publication?

In the beginning, I used to reach out to all my contributors, asking if they’d like to submit a completed story or shoot something new for the magazine. At this point, I receive numerous emails daily from photographers or stylists sharing their mood board ideas or completed submissions. I do still reach out to specific photographers, either photographers I’ve built a relationship with over the years or new photographers whose style emulates the breadth and vibrancy of ONE.

I want to be very real with my contributors or to anyone who emails a submission to me. The fashion industry is known as a “not-so-nice” atmosphere to work in, and I never want to make anyone feel like they’re being ignored or disrespected. I’ve met some of my contributors over the years and the recurring feedback I’ve received is that I respond to them, and they greatly appreciate something as simple as that. I’ve built these strong relationships with my contributors because I present them with kindness. I know it sounds cheesy, but you truly receive so much from people when you’re nice to them.

Many artists and designers now consider their personal “brand” — their social presence, their network and the work they create — a way to promote their business. Does it work that way for you? How much does ONE Magazine depend on your public persona?

I like to keep ONE Magazine and myself separate when it comes to a social presence. My personal Instagram is private and I only accept new followers if I know them. But there are other ways I like to associate myself with the magazine, such as on my website or another platform where my design work is present. I like keeping things separate and I kind of like being this mysterious “Nicole, Founder of ONE” in relation to the magazine’s social presence. It helps keep my personal life and my close friends mine, instead of letting the whole world know what I’m doing daily.

What was your biggest challenge with getting ONE Magazine off the ground? Have there been any continued challenges throughout the years?

The biggest challenge is sustaining a printed issue that’s not actually printed — at least until someone orders it. Most contributors I work with won’t shoot for me unless it’s “printed.” It’s an old-school mindset that’s still present in the fashion industry, when everything surrounding it is producing digital content. But in the end, everything featured in the printed issues ends up getting featured digitally as well.

That challenge also shifts into a sub-challenge, where the printed issue is not accessible to all readers. Anyone can can access the full issue digitally, but that’s not enough. And I get that because having the printed issue in your hands and flipping through the pages is where you can truly marvel over the beautiful editorials. I don’t work with a printer, or stock in any bookstores and magazine bodegas, mostly because I don’t have the time and money to tackle that on my own.

Running this on my own has placed more weight on my shoulders as the community and following continues to grow. But I stay true to what I can handle and continue to publish beautiful images by talented photographers. All of those big next steps have always been in my mind, and I’d love to take it there one day. But I focus on the now, my full-time job and my happiness, sustaining a comfortable balance between work and life.

A continued challenge is breaking into the fashion industry. I like the feeling of being on the “outskirts” of the industry, but when I’m looking to feature a designer or pull clothes from a designer’s collection, their team not being familiar with ONE Magazine causes them to pull away from collaborating. Again, it’s all about who you know in the fashion industry. I’ve worked closely with a fashion director for my designer features over the past couple years, and she is the reason I’ve had access to interviewing Yoshiyuki Miyamae, the creative director of Issey Miyake and Claudia Li. You have to have a connection to step into their world.

And you’d think in today’s social world, designers would be open to working with new brands. Sadly, that’s not the case. A few years ago, I reached out to an up-and-coming jewelry brand based in Paris and I was immediately turned down because they “didn’t want to participate in my first issue.” Clearly they didn’t read my email, because I was working on producing my eighth issue. Not sure how this behavior will change, but for me it came with time and by building the brand’s presence and consistent style that readers and PR companies can immediately recognize.

What are the most important lessons you’ve learned over the years while running ONE Magazine? Do you have advice for those who want to do something similar?

1. Be selective about what you choose to feature. In the beginning I was too nice and I had a difficult time telling people no. But now that I’ve honed in on keeping the style consistent, I have to be very selective and curate the right content that speaks to ONE Magazine.

2. Things come with time. Have patience. I’ve slowly grown the magazine’s following and consistently adjusted its visual appearance over the years to a point where I feel it balances nicely with the editorials within each issue.

3. Don’t take on every single thing by yourself. I still do, but not entirely. Having my fashion director help produce the designer features has been a huge weight off my shoulders and the results are truly beneficial. And finding someone to work with who speaks your language and understands your vision is very important. I was lucky enough to find that person.

And advice I would give others who are looking to start a magazine is to be yourself. Try not to do what others are doing. Focus on the core reasons why you want to create something and highlight that as the main voice of the brand.

___

Thank you so much for this interview, Nicole! I loved how much detail you shared about your process and story.

If you’ve enjoyed this article, there are three things you can do:

  1. Follow Nicole on Twitter and tell her you enjoyed this interview.
  2. Follow ONE Mag on Instagram. It’s worth it, trust me.
  3. Visit the ONE Mag website, and if you like it, tell your friends (:

 

July 4, 2017No Comments

Semplice Portfolio Inspiration of June 2017

As you might know, we launched Semplice in 2014 to build the perfect portfolio tool we always dreamed off. Since then many great designers started using Semplice and I'm always blown away to see what other designers create.

It's inspiring to see what others create and it pushes me further everyday.

With this blog post series I'd like to share the best portfolios every month, handpicked by yours truly. My hope is that these portfolios inspire you as much as they inspire me. And at the same time spreading the word about designers you might not have heard about yet.

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For more inspiration you can always visit the Semplice showcase, and I’m looking forward to sharing more hand-picked portfolios with you next month.

PS: Header article by Noemie Le Coz.

Have a fantastic new month,
Lu

July 4, 2017No Comments

How to Land a Job at Shopify

Shopify, as I'm sure you know, is an ecommerce platform. It gives you the tools you need to set up and run an online shop, and essentially helps you sell your products. I mean, you could even say Shopify helps power the entire business of ecommerce. It's a massive product, yet it feels friendly and approachable.

Their team is friendly and approachable too. Originally run by five people out of a coffeeshop in Ottawa, Canada, Shopify has grown to a team of more than 2,000 people.

Elyse and Kevin are two of them, and in this interview they're telling us how we can be part of it all.

Hey friends, let’s get right to it. Looking at your current design team, how many of them came through internal referrals or headhunting, and how many came through the traditional application process?

The majority of our hires come from reach-outs made either by our talent acquisition team or someone on the UX team itself. The results have been pretty successful, which is why we continue to devote a lot of time and effort to it. Oh, and you’ll never see one of those terrible copy-paste reach-outs from recruiters at Shopify. We personally write all of the emails we send to potential candidates.

Referrals are the second biggest source of hires for us. For example, some of our designers who graduated from design programs in Montreal help scout talents through mentorship or attend design grad shows. We also attend local meetups and conferences regularly, which is a great way for us to make connections with people in the community. (That’s how I, Elyse, was hired!)

The traditional application process doesn’t account for as many hires as the other two, but still remains an important part of our recruiting efforts. We go through every single one of the applications and review everyone’s portfolios manually. That helps ensure we never miss out on good candidates, no matter how they entered in the process.

Say we decide to reach out with a cold email. What kind of message gets a reply? Any secrets for us?

We actually do try to reply to everyone that emails us for positions, but here are a few things that give you bonus points:

  • Personality: Who are you? What are you passionate about?
  • Brevity: Can you get your point across in just a few paragraphs?
  • Purpose: Do you want any job or do you want a job at Shopify? I know you’re probably applying to many companies, but can you tell us why you’d like to work here?
  • Motivation and curiosity: Do you have your own online store? Do you use our product? Did you take a stab at building a theme with Slate? What is your opinion on Polaris or the latest articles our UX team published?

"Your portfolio is your voice when you’re not around to explain your projects."

How important is a visual and complete portfolio for you? Can I get away with not having a portfolio when interviewing at Shopify?

A formal portfolio isn’t absolutely required, but it certainly helps. Your portfolio is your voice when you’re not around to explain your projects. Imagine you and I were looking at one of your projects: What story would you tell me? What problem are you solving and what about it was challenging? Which options did you explore and how did you end up with that solution? What constraints did you face? What strategies did you use throughout the project? Who was involved? While a picture is worth a thousand words, the final result sometimes doesn’t fully reflect the depth of your work.

Having that portfolio not only helps us get familiar with your work before the interview, but also helps you get better at talking about your work. That being said, how you showcase your work is totally up to you. Tools like Semplice make it super easy for you to create your own website without any coding skills, but tools like Medium and Dribbble can also do the trick if you use them correctly. If you’d like some tips for how to build a great portfolio, this article on the Shopify blog is a great place to get started.

Tell us one thing you never want to see again on a portfolio. Anything you wish you saw more?

Unsolicited redesigns. While this type of exercise certainly has its value, it’s not something I would encourage designers to put in their portfolio. Unsolicited redesigns lack real-world constraints, which doesn't allow us to assess your product design skills. That’s not to say all unsolicited redesigns are bad, so if you really want to include one in your portfolio, make sure it’s clearly labeled as such, and that you go beyond the visuals and explain the thinking behind your decisions.

If you’re just starting out as a designer, a good alternative to unsolicited redesigns are personal projects. These self-initiated projects are a great way to build up your design and product skills, while also putting something out into the world for people to use. You’ll learn a ton from the experience of launching something and the feedback you’ll get from your users will definitely make you a better designer.

"Magic happens when you cross-pollinate ideas from opposite fields."

Besides having a portfolio, do you like the idea of designers being invested in other interests? For example being active bloggers or otherwise outspoken in their community?

Of course! Writing and publishing requires you to be thoughtful and disciplined. I appreciate designers who voice clear opinions that build their communication skills and feed into their design practice.

Being outspoken in the community is a great way of sharing your knowledge and giving back. There are tons of ways to get involved: mentor someone just coming out of school, teach someone something you just learned, volunteer at a local meetup, etc.

Advocacy and teaching is one way to level up your design craft, but you can also channel your curiosity anywhere to broaden your thinking (no need to stick to design). Magic happens when you cross-pollinate ideas from opposite fields (science and typography, data and art). As designers, it can be easy to get tunnel vision when working on the same project for a while. Find different sources of inspiration; ideas and methodologies act as new lenses for problem solving.

What are the biggest mistakes you see designers make when applying for a job at Shopify? Are there any specific things that keep bothering you? Please complain to us! (:

Applying for the wrong position because they didn't read the job posting. Believe it or not, we’ve had a few fashion designers applying for our design positions, simply because it mentions the word “retail." It’s surprising how little research some people do when applying for jobs these days.

Do you have a favorite story of an application that really stuck with you?

Someone bought Facebook ads directly targeted at Shopify employees. It was very clever and definitely caught our attention.

Say I make the first pass and get invited to an interview. Can you describe the interview process as briefly as possible?

Our interview process is tailored to the role you’re interviewing for, but it’s comprised of multiple interviews that aim to assess every aspect of a candidate. During that interview process, you’ll talk to a lot of people on the team. We do this for two reasons:

  1. It’s one of the ways we try to avoid bias in the decision-making process. By having a lot of people involved the interview process, we’re able to get a more accurate picture of who you are as a person and where you could have the biggest impact. From the candidate’s viewpoint, it also provides them with different perspectives on what it’s like to work on the team.
  2. We all want to work with inspiring people that challenge our thinking, teach us new things and have strong opinions that are weakly held. We want to make sure your future team members are excited about the idea of you joining, so we make sure that they’re part of the decision.

We have four different design-specific interview types that a candidate can go through:

  • Design Deep Dive: We ask the candidate to pick a topic that they’re passionate about and that they know really well. That can be anything: typography, design systems, perceived performance, using research in design, etc. It’s a very casual interview and resembles conversations you’d have with a friend at work.
  • Design Duet: This one is a design exercise — but don’t worry, it’s not as terrifying as it sounds. You’ll be paired with a designer from Shopify and you’re given a problem to solve on a whiteboard together. We don’t have a specific solution in mind and the other person is there to help you think through the problem. We use this exercise to get a better feel for how you work, think and communicate.
  • Design Life Story: We go through your experience chronologically (jobs you’ve had, tools you’ve used, people you’ve learned from, etc.) It allows us to get a better idea of your past experiences and see how you’ve grown over the years.
  • Portfolio Review: This is where you show some of your best work. I say some, because the goal isn’t to blaze through as many projects as you can in 60 minutes. We tend to focus on the two or three projects that have had the most impact and talk in depth about them. We want to hear about the problem you had to solve, what your process was like, the challenges you faced, what you learned from this project and what you’d do differently if you could do this project again today.

"Instead of trying to guard our culture, we embrace the fact that it is constantly evolving and getting better with each person we hire."

Would you hire someone who is a cultural fit over someone who has more industry experience and hard skills?

While experience is important, what we look for is someone who has a high potential for growth. No matter what skills a designer might have, there are qualities and attitudes that are hard to fake, like curiosity, self-awareness, a strong desire to learn and openness to feedback. The people who thrive at Shopify are able to synthesize feedback from their peers, apply findings from a project to another, and seek help from other disciplines to discover and bridge the gaps.

That being said, I’m not a huge fan of the term "culture fit." It implies that culture is a thing that should be protected and that there’s a specific mold you have to fit into, which simply isn’t true. So instead, we’ve been calling it "culture addition." It’s a subtle but important distinction. A cultural addition is someone that brings something new to the team. A new kind of experience or a different perspective that challenges your thinking. What “culture addition” is not however, is a specific personality type, a specific background or a particular set of interests. So instead of trying to guard our culture, we embrace the fact that it is constantly evolving and getting better with each person we hire.

Do we need to have ecommerce experience to get a design job at Shopify, or are you willing to teach us?

While having ecommerce experience is certainly a plus, it’s not required. In fact, neither Elyse nor I had an ecommerce background before joining Shopify. As a company, we’re not fond of the status quo, so we value people that can bring a fresh perspective. We have UX folks from very different backgrounds like architecture, literature and anthropology. The common thread is that they’re highly motivated by complex problems. That’s why we put a lot of effort into sourcing candidates from fields you wouldn’t necessarily expect, and invest time into teaching them what they need to know to be successful.

We also have a dedicated UX programs team that helps onboard new team members, creates workshops and even puts together our very own internal design conference every year. When we say we want to build for the long term, we really mean it. And that starts with giving people access to the best resources to take their career to the next level right here at Shopify.

What are the secondary skills you look for in a designer, besides common soft skills? For example, do you prefer business skills over coding skills? Video skills over coding?

What’s great is that Shopify is at a size where all of these secondary skills can be useful. We have a lot of product design projects, but we also have a studio team that produces video content. We have people who design hardware like our new card reader and even people who work on interactive installations for pop-up stores. So I don’t think it’d be right for us to point out a certain skill as more important than the others. I’d encourage people to find what they’re really passionate about and dive into that. We can never have enough smart, talented, passionate people who can teach us new things.

"We want to make every year at Shopify worth 10 years of experience elsewhere."

How do you think Shopify is different when hiring new talent compared to other tech companies or design studios?

Our hiring process is much more human than what I’ve experienced in other companies in the past. We spend a lot of time and effort truly getting to know people, and then trying to understand where and how they can make an impact here. We also make sure that people who join our team are set up for success and are placed in the best environment to grow. We want to make every year at Shopify worth 10 years of experience elsewhere. We hire smart people and we treat them as such. People are empowered to do their best work here, and you can feel that sense of ownership and care when using our products.

__________

Elyse and Kevin, thank you so much for your time and insight into the inner workings of Shopify! There's so much wisdom here. Let's unpack it.

Nr. 1 - Make a connection with someone on the Shopify team.

Referrals are the second-biggest source of hires for Shopify. So do your research and attend meetups or conferences where you might meet someone from the team. Introduce yourself and make a connection.

Nr. 2 - Avoid unsolicited redesigns in your portfolio.

Elyse and Kevin make an excellent point here. Without constraints, they can't see how you'd think through a real project or problem on the job. Instead, focus on adding side projects to your portfolio that show your skill and how you see the world. We even have this piece of advice and much more in one of our recent blog articles here. 

Nr. 3 - Be creative and stand out.

Targeting Shopify employees with Facebook ads is pretty brilliant. Think of something equally clever that shows your interest and gets their attention. Of course this is optional, but it certainly increases your chances, and it's fun!

That's all for now! If you're just jumping into the How to Get a Job at X series through this interview, catch up here. You'll find other awesome people with helpful advice about getting jobs at places like Nike, Airbnb and Unsplash.

Thanks for reading, and good luck at the interview!

Tobias

 

June 29, 2017No Comments

The Wild West of Virtual Reality Design

My fascination with VR design began sometime last year. I started researching virtual reality and even assembled my own VR setup — not only to experience VR, but try designing and developing for it.

That's when I was introduced to Timoni West's work. While looking into VR design it's impossible to miss the futuristic things Timoni is working on over at Unity Labs. For those who are new to all this, Unity is a game development platform you can use to develop your own 2D or 3D games. And of course, VR experiences.

The more I got lost in the wonderful world of virtual reality, the more I started wondering how one can have a professional career in this field. I'll admit I still don't have much practice designing or developing for VR, but even my little experiments made me curious about the future of VR and how we are going to design for it in the future.

So I thought I'd ask the master herself.

Hey Timoni, I know you lead the Immersive Authoring Tools group at Unity Labs. Simply put, you’re working on VR tools that help people design for VR inside of VR. Did I get this right?

Yes, that’s exactly what I do. But I’d broaden up the category a bit. Right now, we work primarily in VR because VR headsets are widely available and it’s easy to have a solid, immersive experience.

In contrast, the most well-known MR [mixed reality] headsets, the Hololens and Meta, are still developer kits and their tech is in some ways quite limited. Great positional tracking but a small field of view, and instead of controllers, they’ve gone the hand gesture route — which is, at the current tech level, tedious and frustrating.

But as soon as we have a solid MR headset with a wide field of view and top-notch gesture recognition, we’ll be supporting it.

“At their very best, computers allow you to manipulate reality to your liking.”

Timoni showing off the new VR editor

Virtual reality has experienced its up and downs over the last couple years — at least that’s what it feels like to me. One month everyone is talking about it, and the next month news around VR is slowing down again. What are your thoughts on the current state of VR? Should the design community take it more seriously?

I see the current generation of immersive design as laying the foundation for design patterns that will continue on in devices yet to be dreamed of. In Labs, our goal is to take the tech seriously, and seriously consider how to make best use of it — before it hits critical mass and especially before it reaches its final form.

I very much admire the work Xerox PARC did under Rob Taylor in the ‘70s and ‘80s. They didn’t know how influential the Xerox Star would be. And they surely never guessed that in 2017, the most common type of computer would be pocket-sized devices we still insist on calling “phones.” But it didn’t matter. Regardless of size, most computers today still use the GUI patterns PARC came up with: icons, folders, tapping to select.

Virtual Reality from the movie Prometheus

Regardless of how the current round of consumer VR ends up, I truly believe the future of computer-human interaction is immersive. Almost any movie with a futuristic interface can tell you that. In our dreams, computers are friendly and ubiquitous. A companion you talk to, a set of flexible interfaces that allow you to type, draw or sculpt. At their very best, computers allow you to manipulate reality to your liking.

Does immersive computing need to have a headset? Absolutely not. But in 2017, this is what we have to work with.

I’ve noticed very few of my peers in the design community are working in VR. One of the reasons may be that the barrier to entry is high and the opportunities seem rare. You either have to work at one of the big corporations that invest in VR or do it in your spare time. Something like “VR freelance designer” still seems a bit unrealistic. Do you agree? What would need to happen to change this?

This is absolutely the case and at least in the short term, I don’t see it changing. VR is niche hardware in an era where funding, success metrics and attention are all based on scale. VR has not scaled; there are not a lot of numbers out there now, but it’s likely there are less than a million high-end headsets.

That being said, there’s a bit of upside: I would absolutely hire a great freelance VR designer if they had a solid self-directed portfolio, because I know the opportunities aren’t out there. But I would likely not hire a mobile or web designer who didn’t have some company experience in the field.

The technical requirements to get started certainly are daunting. Getting a full hardware setup running can cost you a couple thousand dollars. Do you have any advice for people who want to do VR development but can’t afford a premium headset and computer to run the HTC Vive or Oculus Rift?

Here’s a industry-wide open secret: We’re desperate for good content. If you’ve downloaded Unity and done some 2D prototypes, if you’ve got mocks and a solid roadmap, everything that points to a solid vision, likely someone wants to help you out. Email HTC. Email Oculus. Email the Google Daydream team. Bug people on Twitter. Tell them about what you want to build.

If that doesn’t work, go to meet ups and join Slack channels. Ask around and see if someone will lend you hardware. Beg, borrow or steal.

“You simply can’t be militant, and that’s in an era when design militancy is very much prized at large tech companies.”

What makes a good VR designer and how do they differ from a more “traditional” interactive designer who has worked with web and mobile before? What are the key differences in thinking and technical abilities?

The largest difference is in toolset. You’ve simply got to work in 3D and there’s no way around it, unless you have a dedicated 3D modeler and animator on your team who works closely with you. This can be daunting if you’ve only worked in 2D, and will involve extra effort and learning. Most great designers I know love to learn, but if you’re a designer with 10 years or more of experience, it will require you to diverge your skill set at a point where you’d most likely be doing a deep-dive into your craft.

In terms of thinking, a lot of design, particularly in web and mobile, is all about best practices. At this stage the best VR design does not draw on existing best practices. The underlying theory is consistent — things should be simple, intuitive and easy to use — but the design patterns themselves are different. For example, scrollbars are very annoying in VR. Scrollbars! Possibly one of the most common design patterns in computer platforming history.

So you simply can’t be militant, and that’s in an era when design militancy is very much prized at large tech companies.

Right now VR seems focused on gaming. But browsing the Steam store, some of my favorite apps have been educational ones — zipping through the solar system or studying the anatomy of the human body. VR has made me interested in things I found boring and dry back in school.

What fields of interest do you think could get a little extra push with VR?

I completely agree with you. My favorite apps happen to be creation apps. Lucky for me, I get to lead a team that works on creation apps! I think education apps can fall in this category too. It’s great to see a visualization of the body or a cell, for example, but how much cooler when you can interact with it and really get your hands dirty.

In general, you can think of VR as being best for emulating experiences that are otherwise tedious, difficult or expensive. This is why apps like SoundStage are so great. Buying that much physical musical equipment is simply impossible. It takes up too much room, it’s hard to find and it’s cost-prohibitive. But in VR, you can have a giant warehouse of synths, tape decks and drum kits.

What are your top three favorite VR experiences?

I hesitate to say my top experiences now because, like movies, I feel the need to start categorizing or pointing out specific favorite elements. But I will say that stepping outside the rocket in Apollo II when it’s on the way to the moon is one of my favorite aha! moments, and one of my favorite memories in VR.

The Apollo 11 VR experience on Steam Games

“In VR, you can be anywhere! So why do I keep ending up in some boring, ordinary looking kitchen?”

When I think of VR I imagine the endless possibilities of dream worlds, things that don’t exist. Yet I’ve seen many VR experiences that are trying to replicate what we already have in real life. It almost seems like a waste of VR’s potential. Put me on a spaceship, not a virtual recreation of the city I live in.

Why do you think we tend to recreate real world experiences with VR instead of going crazy with our imagination? Is it just part of the process?

This is a pet peeve of mine. In VR, you can be anywhere! So why do I keep ending up in some boring, ordinary looking kitchen?

I think there are a few reasons for this and lack of imagination is not one of them — or at least, not the main culprit. Here’s what I think is happening.

First: Often people who are trying out VR for the first time don’t have big budgets, so they go to the asset store and download a cheap package just to test things out. This is sensible. Not knocking anybody here. I’ve done it myself.

Second, when you’re looking for a package, you might have also noticed that VR freaks people out a little. Some folks hate that they can’t see their hands. Some folks don’t like the dark or hate not having a solid floor. So starting somewhere comfortable and normal then moving on to something more interesting seems like a reasonable idea.

Combine this problem with the tenets of modern product design: “Keep it simple” and “Don’t make me think,” and “Well-designed products are intuitive.” None of these tenants, solid as they are for product design, allow for fantastic exploration. And that’s how you end up in a bunch of boring digital kitchens instead of on a beautiful green gas planet swimming in an electric storm with robotic sea dragons.

As someone who’s read a lot of sci-fi, I have already become used to the idea of fantastic digital realities. I’d encourage people to read more — get inspired! Read all 3,000 pages of Tad Williams’ Otherland. Watch every movie Gmunk ever worked on. Borrow my copy of Prosthetic Realities. Then start working on your VR experience.

Say I’m totally hooked on the idea of developing for VR but I have no idea where to begin. What should I do? Is there a simple three-step guide to VR development by Timoni West?

Why, yes.

1. Try out a lot of VR.

a. Buy a rig yourself and go to town. ($$$!)

b. Find somebody, anybody, you know that has a rig. Beg and borrow so you can try out as much as you possibly can.

2. Download Unity and Blender (free!), and grab some packages from the Asset Store. I’m a fan of Synty Studio’s stuff and it’s really fun to play with in VR.

a. If you have access to a Rift or Vive, download the experimental build of EditorVR so you can edit and build out your world right in the headset.

b. If not, you can always develop VR for your phone!

3. Learn! Check out my colleague Tony Parisi’s O’Reilly book or just download Unity’s tutorials.

Only one of Synty Studio’s many assets you can download.

When I first tried designing for VR, I noticed a completely new set of challenges. One of them is movement, especially if your space is smaller than the physical room-scale VR space. With some research I realized that each game tackles this challenge differently.

Do you think we eventually need new standards for VR, similar to swipe gestures on mobile devices that everyone understands and follows? Is VR in the wild west phase right now?

Yes, things will eventually start to standardize, but we are in a tricky, fun phase now. The controllers need to standardize more first, of course, before we can standardize UX patterns. Game console controllers and hotkeys on PCs vs Mac never quite standardized completely, but they’re close enough that it’s not a huge context shift from one platform to another.

Once controller designs come closer together, one common pattern will likely emerge from the variations that will be designed in the meantime. But this is the fun experimental part. What feels best on a Vive controller? What do the Rift controllers do best? And what works best for Daydream?

Another challenge I noticed is focus and attention. If a person in VR has the chance to freely move around and look in any direction they want, how do you design to get their attention? How do you solve this and what role do audio cues play in this scenario?

The best way to get a user’s attention is to put them in a grey, boring room where there’s absolutely nothing interesting to look at, figure out where their ear is by determining the position of the HMD, and have the audio shout “LOOK OVER HERE!” in a frantic voice that sounds like it’s coming from just over their shoulder.

Ha ha. I kid. I mean, it’ll work. They’ll look behind them. But it’s not a great experience. And in VR you can have any experience you want, so let’s talk about how to design for flexibility.

In today’s world, designers are trained to optimize for a specific task. You're competing for attention and time, so you have to get users where they want to go FAST. But the cool thing about VR is that it’s extremely opt-in — in fact, aggressively so. You have to go out of your way to be in an immersive experience. So you have some time to let the user settle in, about thirty seconds or so, where they probably won’t rip off the headset, and simply can’t get bored and check their phone or hit the back button. You can do some useful things during this time.

First, you can set the baseline. I could tell you to have your action affordances be standard things like hover outlines, movement or sound cues. But what if your world is a shimmery paradise where everything moves and everything hums? That’s fine; the point is that affordances are by nature unusual and different. So give users time to figure out the underlying structure of the world — things hum, they move and glow— and then provide the action affordance as a big, non-moving, non-humming, non-glowing thing. Or make it extra moving, glowing and humming. Up to you, but you must make it feel different.

I don’t often like to say that “design can learn from video games” because video game players generally have a wildly different motivation than product users. But in our brave new reality, where experiences are completely immersive and can take on any aesthetic they choose, we can learn from those who have made new worlds before. Like this.

How would someone working as a freelance designer get VR projects? Do you have any tips on how they could sell it to potential customers?

If you want to find VR gigs, I’d do a few things. I’d start tweeting about looking for gigs, put my information up on Unity Connect, join some AR/VR slack channels, go to meetups and do my research on what studios are getting the gigs — The Mill, MPC, Framestore, Tool, FakeLove, etc. Reach out to your favorite indie VR devs and ask them for advice. Don't be afraid to cold call; the community is still small and people are really nice.

If you want to convince your clients to do a VR experience, you should focus on those clients who want to be known as forward-thinking, future tech innovators. Also focus on clients with bigger budgets; realistically speaking, any immersive project you do will simply take quite a lot of time and effort to be any good.

In conversations, focus on what virtual reality brings to the table. Say, SpaceX: It’s expensive to build a rocket ship and impossible to have ordinary people visit it, but you can do it in VR — and heck, viewers can even ride with the rocket ship.

Say, Nike: Nike can never build a real store shaped like a giant Air Jordan 8 which, when you walk inside, has an endless galaxy of showing space and every shoe Nike ever made, but in virtual reality, they can. Again, sell your clients on what VR brings to the table: things that are impossible, expensive and fantastic.

_________

Timoni, thank you so much for this fantastic interview.

VR does feels a bit like the wild west right now, but at the same time that's the good part about it. Everything is open and everything has yet to be defined. Getting into it early means working hard but also having fun. And as there is a big need for VR designers right now, you might want to consider looking into it yourself.

If this article inspired you, make sure to follow Timoni on Twitter and tell her you enjoyed reading this. If you're new to VR in general, check out this article where I talk about assembling my own VR machine, and this article about some of my favorite VR starter experiences.

Thank you for reading,
Tobias

June 20, 2017No Comments

Design in Pakistan 🇵🇰 featuring Shehzil Malik

This interview series aims to shine light on different design communities across the world. With our fourth interview we look at design in Pakistan, featuring designer and illustrator Shehzil Malik.

Shehzil is unstoppable. Her work, a comic book explosion of color inspired by her life, Pakistan’s history and the future she’s working toward, tells a story and has a purpose. There are Pakistani superheroines. There are powerful depictions of life as a Pakistani woman. There are scenes and patterns and details that both honor and reveal Pakistani culture. Much like Shehzil’s work, there is a lot to unpack in this interview. Let’s get to it.

First, let’s talk a bit about you and your work. When did you start working as a designer and illustrator, and what motivated you to pursue it as a career?

I’ve been drawing since I was a kid, so it only made sense I’d go to art school. I chose to study design instead of fine arts because I liked the idea of design being art used for problem solving. My first job after graduating was as art director at a socially conscious clothing label. At the time it was my dream job; I got to draw for a living, create good design and fund social impact. After a year, it was again time to challenge myself, so I applied for higher education and got the Fulbright scholarship to pursue a master's degree in computer graphic design. Since returning to Pakistan, I’ve been trying to figure out what I can do as designer with a focus on social change.

Now I do a mix of collaborative graphic design jobs, create illustrations, sell art prints through my e-store and stay involved in the international human-centered design community. Every day is different and that’s what is exciting for me — there is so much to explore and learn and create! Next on my agenda is to design more products and public art projects, and become more involved in our design community through workshops and residencies.

Receiving the Fulbright Scholarship is an impressive achievement. What’s the typical path to a design career in Pakistan? Is quality design education available within Pakistan or are most designers self-taught?

I’d definitely say getting the Fulbright scholarship is not the typical way and I would encourage more art students to apply for it. Studying abroad was a life changing experience for me; it was my first time in a multicultural environment and I learned so much more than I had in the classroom. Now the Trump administration is considering cutting the funding for the Fulbright program by 47%. This is a disastrous move specifically for Pakistan, because the impact I’ve personally seen Fulbrighters make in our community is invaluable. Also, most of us can’t dream of an education abroad without financial aid.

In terms of design education in Pakistan, we have a few institutions offering degrees in our major cities and I often feel we are behind the times. There’s a strong focus on print design despite the fact that even our market is changing to demand more UX and interaction designers.

“There’s no easy formula for good design; it’s the unglamorous method of working hard, being obsessive, spending time studying the processes of the best in the field and slowly getting better.”

My advice to anyone interested in design in Pakistan, whether they have formal design training or not, is to be self-motivated and find resources online to help you. Between online tutorials, design portfolios, process work and great inspiration, the internet has been invaluable to my learning to design. It is also a good idea to look for mentors — locally or abroad. There’s no easy formula for good design; it’s the unglamorous method of working hard, being obsessive, spending time studying the processes of the best in the field and slowly getting better. Many of the best designers and illustrators I’ve met in Pakistan have been self-taught, passionate people.

Shehzil in her creative space.

Tell us a bit more about Pakistan’s design community. What are the job opportunities for a designer in Pakistan, and do platforms or events exist that help you connect with other designers?

Things have changed over these last couple of years. When I returned after my masters I had a tough time finding the right job for myself. This is also why I began to focus on my illustration practice and start an online print shop to supplement my income. It’s after searching for years that I’ve now found like-minded individuals who’d be open to creative coding and more innovative interaction design projects.

Get prints of Shehzil's illustrations at shehzil.com

Traditionally, designers become part of the advertising world or join large agencies. Now there’s a new start-up culture, and independent design and game studios are popping up. Design conferences are also beginning to emerge — we recently had our first UX Design Conference and a National Digital Design Conference is taking place in September. Times are changing and if you’re motivated and have a vision for yourself, it’s an exciting time to be a designer in Pakistan. I personally turn down many of the projects offered to me, because I like to focus on a few good projects as opposed to spreading myself thin. I hope more designers work hard and put their work online so we can spread and share these opportunities amongst one another.

“The challenge in all walks of life in Pakistan is to not fall into despondency and cynicism. If you let all the negativity get you down, you will never change things.”

read an article that said Pakistan's film scene is suffering from lack of budget, direction and confidence. It suggested there’s no faith in big ideas and the Pakistani audience. Does any of that ring true for the overarching arts and design community in Pakistan? What challenges does the Pakistani design community face right now?

I personally have little faith in big institutions in general when it comes to creating anything that is cutting edge or innovative, since they rarely take the risk of going against the tried and tested. I think young people have to let go of the notion that someone older with a big budget is going to change things. I like examples of movies like “Once,” which was made with a shoestring budget (but with a lot of heart) and became a huge success. With self-publishing, crowd funding and the internet as a distribution network, it’s the age of creating our own material.

In terms of Pakistan, I like to look at it not as a lack of opportunities, but as a time to create those opportunities for ourselves. The challenge in all walks of life in Pakistan is to not fall into despondency and cynicism. If you let all the negativity get you down, you will never change things. It all comes down to being stubbornly optimistic — write that book you wanted to read, make that movie, draw that graphic novel, start that design company. This is the incipient stage of design in Pakistan and we have to work consistently and well to define what good design looks like in our local context. You could suck at first but a few years down the line, you could become our Pixar, Disney, Apple, Ideo or Pentagram.

“I’ve come to a realization that while a society needs its doctors and engineers, it also needs its poets and artists and designers for life to feel truly liveable, for a culture to remain humane and compassionate.”

"Walk III" from Shehzil's "Women in Public Spaces" series.

In a country fraught with social and political angst, it seems as though good design could be disregarded as unessential or excessive. Is good design is valued in Pakistan? Why do you personally think good design is important?

This is a question I’ve struggled with over the years and the answer changes depending on the day you ask. However, I’ve come to a realization that while a society needs its doctors and engineers, it also needs its poets and artists and designers for life to feel truly liveable, for a culture to remain humane and compassionate. Pakistan has been struggling with huge issues for years now. Tragedy strikes, we react and life resumes.

We’ve always had beautiful design in terms of our historic architecture, pottery, textile, craft and jewelry, and a rich visual language of kitsch from our cinema hoardings, street posters and signage. Graphic design, and especially good design as it is recognized internationally, is new to Pakistan. But with the rise of globalization and people increasingly interacting online, companies are beginning to realize that they need to invest in design to communicate effectively. A country may have security threats but business and economic activity continues, and good design is slowly being seen as good business. Not just in Pakistan — the whole world is changing and becoming more intolerant — but I think you can always find beauty and humanity if you look for it. I think designers need to consider the role they play in bringing this side of humanity to light.

“I’m amazed at how often our very specific stories have a universality to them.”

Much of your art focuses on issues like women’s rights, and it’s clear you consider design a tool for social change. How have you seen design positively impact society in Pakistan?

I think you can use any field as a tool for social change if it is the intention or motivation of those involved. If you look at projects in human-centered design in Pakistan, there are many efforts being made. I have friends who work on innovations in education, clean energy, child immunization, maternal health and water sanitation. Part of their process is assessing the impact their projects have on the community. I hope more people discover how designers and engineers can work together to make these positive interventions.

I personally lean toward taking on design projects that have social impact, like making an online store for women artisans or helping brand social ventures. This impact is easier to measure; I’ve seen an increase in sales by putting the handicraft of the women of Behbud online and how documenting the journey of a social venture on sustainable food can create a new source of income for everyone involved.

I also think of illustration as a form of storytelling with transformative power. A lot of my art works as a catharsis to my experiences — they are literally notes I write to myself that I post online. I’m amazed at how often our very specific stories have a universality to them, from the difficulty of navigating public spaces as a woman, to questioning perceptions of beauty, to the struggle between tradition and modernity when you’re searching for identity.

"I am Now Socially Acceptable" illustration by Shehzil Malik

Pakistan is generally a harsh place to live in a number of ways; most of the systems don't work and society is becoming increasingly intolerant. It’s getting harder every day to have meaningful conversations around social issues. This is where art can step in. It’s easier to talk about beautiful pictures and foster empathy through an image that is honest. A public art project I’ve been a part of addressing intolerance and extremism was a transformative experience for me. I can only hope it helped others in our community feel a sense of hope as a counter-narrative to the extremism around us. I am hoping to work on similar projects in the future. It simply needs more planning before tackling an issue this sensitive.

As the world is getting smaller with the help of the internet, many designers are working for clients overseas remotely. How is it for you? Do you work mostly with Pakistani clients or internationally as well? And do Pakistani businesses typically use local designers?

I think many of the most talented designers in Pakistan choose to work freelance and with overseas clients. It pays better and their work is accepted for what it is. The downside to this is that we locally don’t see great design, nor do we hear about or recognize great designers. Businesses here typically use local designers since it’s much, much cheaper than finding a designer abroad. I personally choose a project based on how exciting it is, be it local or overseas. If it’s cool and has something to do with female empowerment, technology or storytelling, I’m in! If I don’t find such a project, I make one up for myself. A lot of my work has been either passion projects or a collaboration that’s come about by my approaching a company I admire. An example of this is a Pakistani feminist fashion line I’ve designed with a local clothing retailer that will hit stores this summer. I’m very excited!

Shehzil in her natural habitat.

How much impact does your social media presence have on getting new clients and self-promotion in general? What works best for you?

Turns out, social media has made all the difference in how I work. I’ve had a website up for years, but it’s only recently that I made a Facebook page for myself, and it really changed how my work was seen and acknowledged. After I left my stable advertising job, almost all my projects have come by word of mouth or by reaching out to someone cool I found online.

I use my Facebook page as a showcase of what I’m up to professionally, and my Instagram as a more personal archive of my art, places I’ve seen and design motifs I’ve come across. I often use Instagram as a visual diary to take inspiration from. I don’t have a strategy behind how I post; I do what comes naturally to me. I feel that if the work speaks to you, people will organically share it and publications will write about it. Let’s see how well this strategy works in the future!

When I look up “Pakistani design,” I see Mehndi tattoos and Pakistani fashion in all its incredible, ornate detail. But I unfortunately know little of Pakistani graphic design. Does Pakistan have a distinct design style?

That’s a very good summation of what design in Pakistan feels like to an insider also! We are heavily involved in fashion design. Many women run small boutiques from their homes, and we have a very sophisticated fashion design industry with a huge market for it locally and overseas. The graphic design field in comparison is nascent, tiny. I think this has to do with our priorities as a people. Pakistanis in general are obsessed with weddings and fashion, and are willing to pay for it. People follow the money when it comes to choosing a career path. Graphic design is often seen as something with no tangible raw materials and it’s often a struggle to convince a client to pay well.

In terms of a Pakistani design style, it’s hard to say. Most designers end up playing it safe and derivative, quickly copying something they’ve seen online. Copyright laws are non-existent and many designers are not accustomed to creating anything from scratch — may it be taking an original photograph, working on typography or drawing an illustration. This is something we must work on because there’s a plethora of indigenous art, architecture and craft to take inspiration from and make into something new, beautiful and functional. The closest we have come to this is customizing our very distinct painting style on trucks (“truck art,” as it’s locally called) but in my opinion we need to continue to find new hybrids in our visual language.

“I try to question the fixed ideas we have about our own identity and challenge the stereotypes associated with being from this part of the world.”

How does Pakistan’s culture and history influence your work?

I am committed to contributing to a Pakistani visual language that is both modern and rooted in culture, so I often take pictures of our flora and fauna, textiles and patterns to use in my work. I often juxtapose aesthetics and symbolism from both the East and West to show our interconnectedness — how our shared experiences are at the heart of our humanity.

My illustrations can take inspiration from the traditional Indian Miniature painting and Western comic books, and depict historic figures like Mughal kings, women warriors, Hindu gods or contemporary characters. I often use background patterns from the architecture and craft I find in my travels around Pakistan. This is part of my personal mission to to take ownership of where I’m from. I try to question the fixed ideas we have about our own identity and challenge the stereotypes associated with being from this part of the world.

In your opinion, what are the top 10 designers or studios from Pakistan that everyone should know?

The design scene in Pakistan is pretty scattered, and the difficulty I’ve had collecting names has made me realize the need for more design studios and blogs (this may be the push I needed to start my own!). I’m just listing a bunch of things that stand out.

Cool initiatives:

  • Patari: Our version of Spotify. The largest repository of Pakistani songs built and designed in Pakistan. Check out the Patari website or find it on Facebook.
  • Citizen’s Archive Pakistan: “The Citizens Archive of Pakistan (CAP) is a non-profit organization dedicated to our cultural and historic preservation, mostly through the tradition of oral storytelling, emphasizing the importance of such narratives in a dialogue on national identity.”
  • Mazaar Bazaar: This is the definitive book on Pakistani visual culture by Saima Zaidi.
  • Makistan: Our first maker space that wants to teach everyone to be creative and code for fun.
  • Zer Zabar Paesh: A platform for arts and humanities in Pakistan.
  • Quaid Say Baatain: An animated show aimed at teaching empathy to young children through conversations with the founder of our nation.

Cool people & studios:

While we have many internationally recognized fine artists from Pakistan, designers and illustrators are only now emerging. The following are individuals making their mark.

Mazaar Bazaar book by Saima Zaidi

Last question: How can all designers and design communities from other countries do a better job of communicating with each other? How can we become more engaged with the Pakistan design community? Are there any blogs or specific magazines we can follow?

You reaching out, asking questions and bringing to light our design community is one fantastic way of starting this engagement, because I think we often feel invisible living in Pakistan. Highlighting what we do, the steps we are taking and following our progress on social media would be amazing. Being open to acting as a mentor or speaker at one of our new conferences, talking to design students, becoming friends with us (dinner’s on us!) — all interactions would be tremendous! We as a community would love every opportunity you can send our way.

Ways to reach the Pakistani design community:

Connect with this Facebook group on UX design.
Learn more about the 1st National Digital Design Conference.

____

Thank you so much Shehzil for this absolutely wonderful interview. Please keep doing what you do!

For everyone reading here, please make sure to follow Shehzil on Instagram (it's worth it) and check out her work on her website right here. Oh, and if you enjoyed this article, please say hi to Shehzil on Twitter.

If you're interested in more insights into design communities around the world, check out our recent features:

Design in ?? Nigeria
Design in ??South Korea
Design in ?? Iran

Thank you for reading,
Tobias

June 17, 2017No Comments

Behind the scenes of the Westworld UI

In late 2016 it happened. HBO released the TV series Westworld and invited us into the wonderful world of a technologically advanced amusement park, filled with android hosts ready to give us everything we’ve ever dreamed of.

As HBO unveiled episode after episode each Sunday, I was glued to my TV as millions of others did the same. Westworld went on to to rank as one of the most-watched first season series on HBO ever. No surprise, if you ask me.

But besides the show's stunning cinematography and title sequence, I became obsessed with its graphical details. Specifically the futuristic graphic user interface elements (GUI) you can find throughout its fictional world. As a designer of current products and interfaces, I draw a fair amount of inspiration from futuristic interfaces like these.

After digging a little deeper I found one of the designers, Chris Kieffer, who not only worked on Westworld, but other movies like Passengers, Interstellar, G.I. Joe and many others you’ve probably heard about.

Luckily Chris agreed to an interview, giving us the full tour on how it is to design user interfaces for TV and film.

Let’s go!

Tell us how you found yourself designing user interfaces for some of the most popular sci-fi films and shows out there. Did you picture yourself working in film when you first got into design?

I’ve always wanted to work on films. I didn't plan on doing UI’s for films, though I have always been fascinated by them. I used to see UI’s when I would go to the movies and always wonder how those "computers" did that. I would try remaking some of the ones that I really liked. I didn't think that would help me later on when I started to actually work for movies, but it did.

The opportunity to work on Westworld, Passengers and Interstellar were all somewhat connected. I had worked with crew from all three on previous projects. Sometimes it’s the producer, director, production designer, art director or props. It makes it easier to get on a specific film when you have those connections.

An interface Chris designed for "Passengers."

What’s your background?

My background is a mix of a lot of things. I started out in print design, working at a t-shirt shop while I was in high school. I didn't do any computer design at the time. The shop was old school, which I liked. A lot of other places used Corel Draw and Quark for screen printing designs, which I didn't know. At this place I would actually draw every shirt design, then photograph it and make the transparencies, then with a blade hand-cut the amber for all the color separations. It was very detailed work and made me appreciate fonts, because I had to do them all by hand.

While in college I went from shop to shop doing shirt designs, and I was getting a lot more into Photoshop and Illustrator. I studied graphic design and visual communications, and realized I loved the fact that I could take all my designs and bring them to life with animation.

“I took a chance and I have been here since.”

After college I started working at a company doing a lot of print and packaging work, all the while doing motion graphics work on the side. I had moved up to managing the art department when I got a call to go to another company. I went in for an interview and it went well. On the way home I got a call from Warner Bros. to work on a film. Right after that, the company that just interviewed me said I could have the job if I started immediately. The Warner Bros. job was only a guarantee of one week of employment on a film, that’s it. I had to make a decision: take the new "guaranteed" job which paid a lot more than my previous job, or take the one week at Warner Bros. working on a feature film and hope for more. I took the one week — I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to actually work on a movie! I took a chance and I have been here since, going on 11 years now.

What's the process like working on interfaces for movies or films? How many people do you work with to complete an interface from concept to visual design to animation?

Every project is different, but I’ll give you a somewhat normal setup. Early on in the project, we get a call to come in and meet with production and discuss what they need, break down the script, develop a budget, etc.

Once all those things are done and set up, we start the design process. Preferably we would start early in production and have time to really get into the design and mechanics of everything, but that rarely ever happens. Honestly, it’s usually around 2-3 weeks before we start shooting. So first we would start designing the UI's look, style, color palette, functionality, etc. in those first few days.

Then we usually have a meeting to go over everything with the director, production designer and art director. Based on that meeting we continue to refine and make whatever changes are needed. We also discuss the hero elements that will need to happen. Hero is a term we use to describe something in a script that is specific to the story and called out to happen on a screen, hologram, monitor, etc. This is something specific that will have to be ready and worked out to be shot in camera.

Then we usually start breaking down the graphics in different sections. Usually myself and a few others will continue designing and animating graphics, some on hero and others building background screens or elements. Others will be programming how we will actually make it work and interact on set, while also prepping the gear and necessary equipment.

Then a few more meetings until we start to shoot. By then we have a pretty decent library of graphical UI elements for that film. While we are shooting a particular set we are working on the next set and the graphics for it, along with making changes on the fly if needed. This goes on until we finish shooting and finally wrap.

In post production we would normally do the graphics we couldn't shoot on set and knew would be replaced in post. That wasn't the case on Passengers, for example. On that project we came up with some concepts for post, but it was all handed off to MPC [Moving Picture Company] I believe. That’s pretty common too. I may work on a project in post that someone else did all the onset playback graphics for, and vice versa.

“The actor or actress just made random gestures on a tablet or hologram; now I have to reverse engineer how the UI could work based on those movements.”

Interfaces Chris worked on for "Westworld."

Tell us a little more about the post process. I'd assume seeing the UI in context, mapped to its proper surface, changes quite a lot for you.

Sometimes we can't pre-build a working graphic for something because it will strictly have to be done later in VFX. For example, the tri-fold tablets in Westworld were always going to be done in post. We tried a few options for some of the background ones that would be live in camera for interactive lighting, using tablets roughly the same size or EL Paper on the tri-folded tablets.

What made it a lot easier is pre-designing what they were going to look like and how they were going to function before we shot them. So on the day of shooting, I would go over how the UI works on the tablet with the actor before the scene and sometimes during. That made it much easier in post to match their movements and make the UI have some consistency.

Too often I get called into VFX to create an FUI (fantasy user interface) for something that has already been shot and cut together. The actor or actress just made random gestures on a tablet or hologram; now I have to reverse engineer how the UI could work based on those movements and gestures.

How is it different working on futuristic interfaces vs. real life products? For example, do you try to approach a UI for Westworld as realistically as you can? How real does it have to be?

I have worked on many different styles of UI's, everything from old CRT vector graphics to futuristic ones. They all have their own level of difficulties. Some films need the technology to look as if it was real in that time. Like making a bunch of older screens from the ‘70s - ‘80s to match what they actually looked like back then. Some need to look like they're from that time, but it’s a pseudo reality so it has to conform to that as well. There are some scenarios where they want it set in a distant, but not too far future. So we would design what we think it could be and what technology could be like for that specific film or show.

“There have been times when something is just thrown in as filler in a rush, but it could haunt you after that.”

When I look at the mobile UI from Westworld, I see a lot of icons that are currently not being used. When you design an interface like this, do you imagine a purpose for every icon as you would for a product used in real life?

I try to make every button or icon have a purpose. There have been times when something is just thrown in as filler when in a rush on set before a take and they want a change, but it could haunt you after that. That might have just established a main part of the UI and has to be figured out from now on. In the particular shot you’re referencing, the icons do have general meaning. From left to right they could be:

  1. Device Settings
  2. Tools/Utilities
  3. Security
  4. Host Database/Logs
  5. Admin controls for Stubbs character

Now those have never been established as that, but they could be.

How important is it for you to think through the whole product instead of just designing key screens?

Depends on the project. Sometimes we may be making background screens to fill a set. They will never be shot up close and don't have to be completely thought through like a hero screen. Though they do have to be designed and created for the specific world of that project. So the UI would be consistent, but the little details or elements within the UI don’t have to tell a specific detail of the story. They set the tone. Like if it was a military base or command center, the graphics would all be created for that specific military base. The maps and other parts would be locations or events from the script, but not at the detailed, scripted hero level.

“Sometimes you only have a second or two to tell a story, so that people watching can instantly understand what they are seeing.”

When I look at some of the interfaces you design, they follow the actual dialog and story of the episode very closely. What’s the process for designing a screen like this? Do you get the script or some wireframes explaining what you need to do?

Yes, I have to go through the script and break down every shot or set that has graphics in it. Sometimes it’s vague and says something like, "She is looking through medical documents about a patient." The director will say it doesn't have to be a specific disease, just about the patient’s medical history. In this case the design is supporting the story versus telling a specific part of it. Then there are times when the script is very specific and says beat by beat what we see on the screen, so the design has to match exactly. In that case I would have to design around this while telling the story. Sometimes you only have a second or two to tell a story, so that people watching can instantly understand what they are seeing.

“I think the expectations of UI are climbing way past what we saw in a movie and thought we could never have. Now we see it at our fingertips.”

Where do you see real life UI design going in the future? Do you ever consider that the things you do might inspire other designers working on real, current products?

I’m not sure, to be honest. I can say that people are understanding the importance of a well-designed UI now more than ever. I think the expectations of UI are climbing way past what we saw in a movie and thought we could never have. Now we see it at our fingertips. I talk a lot with people who are making real world products or software who see things in a movie and want to make it in real life. They are inspired by what they see in a movie and want to make it a reality. On the other side, I am very inspired by real world tech. Sometimes I find that when I’m designing something I think would be cool to have in a film, it already exists in reality and it’s even better than I expected. That inspires me to make something completely new.

What would be one of your dream projects in the future? I know that's a hard one to answer right after you did Westworld.

Because I'm a big fan, I have always wanted to work on a Star Wars film. That’s one I would really like to be a part of.

What advice would you give to someone who might be interested in doing what you do? What are the key skills of a futuristic UI designer?

It depends on what part of this work they are interested in. There are programmers who develop the software we use to play back the graphics on set. There are designers or animators, sometimes people who do both. I wish I could do all three — design, animate and program. But I can't program on that level so I will leave it to the professionals. I focus mainly on design and animation, but understanding how it will be programmed really helps the workflow. As a designer or animator you can also work in post with VFX to create FUIs that are burned in or replaced.  

I think having a good sense of design and animation is key. Knowing how something will move in space and understanding how to use motion along with your designs is a great skill to have. I would also recommend what I did. If you see something that inspires you, try to remake it. Try to solve how something was made and find a new, or even better way to approach it. Even if you can’t recreate it, you have learned something new. Then start designing and making your own. Even if it’s not for a specific project, come up with one.

Also don’t be afraid to ask other designers questions. Some may not respond and some may help. I try to help anyone who is passionate about this kind of work as much as I can.

__

Chris, thank you so, so much for this interview! You might have guessed from my sometimes stupid questions how little I know about designing UI for the film industry, so I personally learned a ton.

For everyone who wants to learn more about Chris’s work you can find his portfolio right here, and make sure to follow him on Twitter as well.

June 10, 2017No Comments

Design in South Korea 🇰🇷 featuring Everyday Practice

Brand new to DESK, this interview series aims to shine light on different design communities across the world. In our third interview we look at design in South Korea, featuring Everyday Practice.

Everyday Practice can't easily be summed up. Their clean yet experimental work spans pretty much every category, from traditional graphic design identities, to web and even exhibitions. I most admire the studio's focus on working with non-profit organizations and cultural institutions. They'll tell you about all of it in this interview.

Let's get into it!

Tell us a little about yourself and your studio. How and when did you meet your Everyday Practice partners, and what made you decide to open your own studio together?

The three of us — Kwon Joonho, Kim Kyung-chul and Kim Eojin — went to Royal College of Art together and met in 2000. I (Kwon) was studying visual communication. Later I worked in the UK while Kim Kyung-chul and Kim Eojin worked in design agencies in Korea.

Ever since we were students we’d been talking about what design can do for society. We also wanted to design what we wanted. So we started our own studio in 2013. Now we have a new designer, Kim Rewon. We have different identities as individuals, but a common goal we want to achieve through our design practice.  

The Everyday Practice Studio in Seoul

I went to Seoul about two years ago and fell in love with the city. While talking with some friends there I tried to get a sense of the design community, and was told that competitiveness and a sense for conformity made it hard to work as a creative. Do you think this is still true today? Please tell us a little more about the life of a designer in South Korea.

Around ten years ago, it was difficult to find small design studios like us. There were mainly commercial agencies with a lot of hierarchy between designers. Recently, there’s been a shift. Larger cultural clients are starting to look outside agencies for something different and less commercial. 

Even better, those young designers have been working on not only traditional graphic design projects like posters and books, but have also tried to expand their boundaries. So they are taking part in organizing an art book fair, food market and goods shop. I think these movements are making Korean design much more diverse.

2016 Government Art Bank New Acquisitions by Everyday Practice

South Korea (with its 50 million people) went from being one of the poorest countries in the world to becoming a developed, high-income country in just one generation — it’s now the 4th largest economy in Asia and 11st largest worldwide.

Just looking at that I can only imagine the unique challenges of South Korean society and how you can help solve them as a designer. What are some of the design challenges you think are unique to South Korea right now?

Because of the fast economic growth, there is a huge gap between the design field and everyday life in Korea. It is hard to say that the quality of Korean design has reached a certain standard in general, but the mixture of highly developed design and poor design is commonly found.

Although this mixture shows very unique and interesting scenery to designers, many designers have trouble communicating with their clients because a large number of clients do not understand what modern design is.

Work by Everyday Practice

Describe the design community a bit more. For example, are there many design platforms or events that help you connect and meet up with other designers?

Nowadays there are more and more design platforms, but those platforms and communities are running only for designers. I think a designer is a maker who creates something through a relationship with other people, so I am not sure those communities could provide meaningful value.

“Of course we need to share information and collaborate each other, but I would hope that such a community does not serve some only to reject others.”

That’s a unique and interesting perspective. Why do you think those communities might not bring meaningful value? What do you think would be more valuable?

In Korea, the term “hipster” is a trendy word among designers. If you visit any design communities they talk about their favorite brand, fashion, club, etc. They may think they lead the trend of design, but if they only focus on the design community, they will lose their sense of communication.

I've engaged with some of these communities before and their main issue was their clients’ low intellectual level. I think this attitude will isolate designers from the public. Of course we need to share information and collaborate each other, but I would hope that such a community does not serve some only to reject others.

Work by Everyday Practice

Why do you think good design is important, and what does good design mean for you at Everyday Practice?

We think design is a way of movement. We have been working on not only client projects, but our own personal projects in an effort to share our voice with our society. In that way, collaboration with nonprofit organizations has meaning for us. We think our role as designers is making effective visual language that conveys their voices and ours. That makes a meaningful change for society. That is why many of our clients are nonprofit organizations and cultural institutes.

"X: Korean Art in The Nineties" catalogue by EP

"We think design is not simply a way to make beautiful objects, but a tool to deliver a meaningful voice to society."

As the world is getting smaller with the help of the internet, we see many designers working for clients overseas remotely, not bound to clients within their own country. How is it for you? Do you work mostly with South Korean clients or also internationally?

We generally work with Korean clients. That is because we think design is not simply a way to make beautiful objects, but a tool to deliver a meaningful voice to society. It would be hard to design something if you do not have cultural, historical, background knowledge of the society.

We enjoy collaborating with clients from over the world, but at the moment we are trying to focus on issues in Korea.

Work by Everyday Practice

What impact does your social media presence have on getting new clients and self-promotion in general? What works best for you?

We promote ourselves with Facebook. There are many online platforms from Korean IT companies, but they are not social and not easy to share. Although Facebook is also a closed system, it is still a powerful platform for small studios like us.   

After visiting Seoul I had the opportunity to work closely as an advisor with the local startup community. I noticed that over the last couple years, the South Korean government made substantial efforts to push the startup scene and increase opportunities for people seeking to work in tech. On top of that, South Korea is famous for having the world’s fastest average internet speed, which of course only helps build new tech startups.

How has the rise and fast growth of the tech community impacted you as a designer or as a design studio? Do most designers now seek to work in tech? Where do you see the best opportunities for upcoming designers?

Actually, as design studio, we are far from high tech. Personally, I think the output of graphic design is beginning to look more and more similar, because nowadays everyone can access design tools such as Illustrator and Photoshop. That’s why we prefer handmade and craft-based design methods. That gives us differentiated design color from others.

 

The Everyday Practice Studio in Seoul

“I think that the madness is becoming a unique aspect of Korean design.”

What is South Korean design? How does your culture and history influence the work you do today and what are perfect examples of typical South Korean design, in your opinion?

Similar to other countries, South Korea has a complicated history and the concept of design has been developed by Western culture. So it is not easy to define what typical Korean design is. I think there may not be a certain Korean design style — but then again, that complexity could be South Korean design style.   

South Korea, especially Seoul, is a mixed society with various attributes. This chaotic mixture cannot not be called character of design in traditional sense, but I think that the madness is becoming a unique aspect of Korean design. There is no simple definition, and that’s what defines it.

In your opinion, what are the top 10 design studios from South Korea that everyone should know?

And now to our last question: How can all designers and design communities from other countries do a better job of communicating with each other? How can we become more engaged with the South Korean design community? Are there any blogs or specific magazines we can follow?

Actually, the online design community is not very active in Korea. But if you visit Korea in November, please come to “Unlimited Edition,” which is an art book fair hundreds of young graphic designers participate in.

____

Guys! Thank you so much for this insight into your work and the South Korean design community. I personally hope to visit Seoul soon again and meet you all in person.

For everyone else here reading, please check out the work of Everyday Practice and have a look at the top 10 studios from South Korea above. If you aren't familiar with the South Korean design community yet, this is the perfect way to get started.

Thank you for reading,
Tobias

June 7, 2017No Comments

How to land a job at BBDO

I first met Bart, creative director at BBDO, in Amsterdam when we were both on the  jury team for the Art Directors Club. We immediately got along and have since stayed in touch. So when I started the How to Get a Job at X series, I just had to ask Bart and BBDO to be part of it. 

BBDO's perspective is a new one in this series, as we haven’t talked to a massive creative advertising agency yet. And besides being one of the largest, BBDO is also one of the oldest agencies in the world, founded in 1891.

I’m honored Bart and BBDO's head of design, Simon, took time out of their day to answer all our questions about landing a job at BBDO. Let’s do it!

 

Looking at your current design team, how many of them came through internal referrals or headhunting, and how many came through the traditional application process?

SIMON: I would say that around 70% came through referrals and headhunting. We have an amazing director of talent, Amy Starkman, here at BBDO who is a real asset in finding great people and talent.

Say we decide to reach out with a cold email. What kind of message gets a reply? Any secrets for us?

SIMON: If the email is short and to the point it will be read and replied to quickly.

BART: I’ve seen many people, especially juniors, approach me in elaborate ways, from personalized goodie bags to hand-drawn record sleeves. To me this is the equivalent to a well-practiced pick-up line: meaningless the moment you look one step further. Just show me the real person I should hire as concisely and convincing as possible, no bells needed.    

SIMON: Some things are better to save for an interview rather than putting your whole life story in the introduction email. Let your work speak for itself so you can speak about yourself in person. I heard it said once at IBM design, “Your talent will get you the interview. Your culture will get you the job.” I think that makes perfect sense. You need to be nice AND talented.

“You can be versatile while maintaining a clear identity; it’s what makes you stand out.”

The BBDO Labs office.

How important is a complete portfolio for you? Can I get away with not having a portfolio when interviewing at BBDO?

SIMON: In most cases design is visual. Even if it’s about experience design, design process and design thinking. The portfolio doesn’t need to be complete but there needs to be something that sparks a discussion. Your work should reflect your thinking and that’s what I want to know more about in the end.

Then you can decide to focus more or less on the portfolio during the interview. I usually view the portfolio thoroughly before the interview so we can spend the time talking about your ambitions and the work you really want to do in the future, preferably as a member of our team.

BART: As far as how “complete” a portfolio should be, I tend to prefer books that show a strong vision rather than a weak mix of things for the sake of making it complete. You can be versatile while maintaining a clear identity; it’s what makes you stand out.

The BBDO office designed by HLW via Architizer

“I would like to see more personal projects in portfolios. The work that you did in the best of conditions and with full artistic freedom.”

Tell us one thing you never want to see again on a portfolio. Anything you wish you saw more?

SIMON: I don’t want to see every piece of work that you have ever done. Pick your favorite pieces. It doesn’t need to be for the most famous or biggest clients as long as you are proud of it and want to talk about it.

I would like to see more personal projects in portfolios. The work that you did in the best of conditions and with full artistic freedom.

Besides having a portfolio, do you like the idea of designers being invested in other interests? For example being active bloggers or otherwise outspoken in their community?

SIMON: Yes, absolutely. I would be a bit suspicious of someone who doesn’t have any interests or hobbies outside work. It doesn’t need to be highly artistic or creative stuff, but it tells a lot about who you are as a person.

BART: Wherever you work, you’ll always have to stay within certain constraints. And one of the most dangerous traps is to stop thinking outside of those constraints. The best work is inspired by culture, not by a marketing bubble. And having your own interests — out there in the real world — is a great way to avoid getting trapped.

What are the biggest mistakes you see designers make when applying for a job at BBDO? Are there any specific things that keep bothering you? Please complain to us! (:

SIMON: Not asking enough questions. Ask, ask, ask. There are really no stupid questions and I will only be more interested in you if you show genuine interested in us.

The MSSNG Project by BBDO

Do you have a favorite story of an application that really stuck with you?

SIMON: The weird ones seems to stick the most. In one of my first application interviews I had as an junior AD, I met a copywriter who put all her work on notes hung on strings inside an umbrella and asked me to step inside where she whispered the notes to me. It was cozy and freaky.

BART: Another one might be my very first application. Still in school, I interviewed for an intern position. A day before the interview I lost the folder with all my hand-drawn work, my complete portfolio. All I had left was a CD-ROM with animation work. In the interview I handed it over, only to find out they were all .exe files which didn’t work on their mac computer. I had pretty much given up hope, but miraculously I started the next day because they were so slammed. I stayed there for many years after.

The BBDO office designed by HLW via Architizer

Say I make the first pass and get invited to an interview. Can you describe the interview process as briefly as possible?

SIMON: If your work is good enough for you to get an interview I would say you are halfway there. I don’t believe in having you do a bunch of interviews with a bunch of different people. You will most likely meet a small group of people from our team for 30-60 minutes and then have a short talk with our talent director. It will mostly be focused on cultural fit at this point.

“For junior people we need to trust our instincts more and be able to see the potential; for senior people the work should speak for itself.”

Would you hire someone who is a cultural fit over someone who has more industry experience and hard skills?

SIMON: Yes. But I’m looking for someone who has both.

BART: Yes, the cultural fit is a must. The experience and hard skills depend on the level we’re hiring. For junior people we need to trust our instincts more and be able to see the potential; for senior people the work should speak for itself.

What are the secondary skills you look for in a designer, besides common soft skills? For example, do you prefer business skills over coding skills? Video skills over coding?

SIMON: I love working with people who have hybrid talents. I would say everyone in our team now is doing multiple types of work: code, design, UX, 3D, editing, creative tech. And if you are currently not doing it there will be a lot of opportunities to learn and develop it here at BBDO.

BART: Many secondary skills are very obvious, but I love it when someone has a secondary skill that you would never put on a job form. For instance, we once hired a designer who turned out to have an in-depth understanding of musical theory, which largely defined the design of a music visualization project we did. It’s great when you run into surprises like that.

The BBDO office designed by HLW via Architizer

How do you think BBDO is different when hiring new talent compared to other tech companies or design studios?

SIMON: I love working at big agencies. Every day is different and there is so much variation and diversity. I believe we can offer a large palette of opportunities and chances to grow your skills and talents. We have a somewhat unique creative freedom and mandate, and we move fast despite our size. If you want to work at a modern agency with a plethora of projects and clients, I think BBDO is one of a handful of agencies that truly delivers.

Thanks so much, Bart and Simon! I loved getting a glimpse into how your agency works, and appreciate all the insightful takeaways.

For those looking to get a job at BBDO, keep these tips in mind:

Nr. 1 - Let your work speak for itself.

Don’t try to impress with gimmicks or long-winded emails during the application process. BBDO just wants a clear look at who you are and what you can do. Be genuine, be concise and focus on making your work shine. Keep in mind you're one of hundreds, so your first email has to make an impression.

Nr. 2 - Ask your burning questions.

Your work will get your foot in the door during the application process, but the interview process is your time to talk. BBDO wants you to be engaged and ask questions in your interview. Do your research and be prepared with smart questions that will show your interest in the agency. Don't just answer BBDO's questions, prepare your own.

Nr. 3 - Focus on quality over quantity in your portfolio.

BBDO doesn’t want to see everything you’ve ever worked on, so don’t fill your portfolio for the sake of filling it. Add a diverse mix of work that makes you proud. We published an article with some more portfolio advice right here.

Nr. 4 - Add personal projects to your portfolio.

This is great advice for everyone, but especially junior designers. Personal projects show how you work without constraints, and they’re a smart way to build your portfolio when you have less client work to show.

Thank you for reading,
Tobias

 

June 3, 2017No Comments

Design in Iran 🇮🇷 featuring Studio Melli

Brand new to DESK, this interview series aims to shine light on different design communities across the world. In our second interview we look at design in Iran, featuring Studio Melli.

There is something magical and captivating about Studio Melli's design. To me, it's uniquely satisfying to study it without even knowing the language — to appreciate the shapes and strong lines, the pure visual experience. I'm clearly a big fan of the studio's work. Their typographical and editorial designs feel contemporary yet traditional, with strong ties to Iranian culture.

I reached out to Omid and Mahsa, who founded Studio Melli in the heart of Tehran, and asked them to be part of this series. I'm happy they accepted.

Hey, Mahsa & Omid. Tell us more about yourselves and your work. When was Studio Melli founded and why did you decide to start your own design studio?

We started working as graphic designers more than 16 years ago while studying at university. For many years we worked as freelance graphic designers for various publishers, art institutes and small studios. We also worked on our own independent and experimental projects. Three years ago we decided to start our own studio and named it Studio Melli. 

In Farsi Language “melli” means “national” or something related to or maintained by a nation, something belonging to the nation, and that’s the philosophy behind our work.

"In Farsi Language 'melli' means something belonging to the nation, and that’s the philosophy behind our work."

Studio Melli is a Tehran-based, multi-disciplinary design studio with a bold focus on multilingual typography. We discover and create visual concepts with a contemporary approach to our visual culture and the aesthetics of our social life. We create visual identities for arts and cultural organizations, exhibitions, events, brands and people. We design posters, books, magazines, websites and many other things. But we have deep and strong passion in typography, so we try to focus on that feature.

Most of the time we are three to four people in the studio. Depending on our needs we invite some talented and interested young designer to join our team. Sometimes we have interns in our studio helping us with some parts of a project.

In my research I found quite a lot of traditional graphic designers and specifically poster designers who graduated from design universities in Tehran. But I didn’t find many designers or design studios that focus on branding, editorial or interactive design. Can you talk a little more about the local design community? What are the job opportunities as a designer in Iran?

That’s a very important thing you mentioned about designers graduating in Tehran. This is an educational issue and it’s part of the long story of our educational system. Interactive or media-based fields are very new in our graphic design courses in Iran. In our new generation of graphic designers, many are talented in interactive, editorial and digital.

One important thing is that most Iranian designers in the past were not very familiar or connected to international design networks. Most of the time they only shared their works at poster competitions, but these days they are presenting the new side of Iranian graphic design to the world.

With more than 80 million people living in Iran, it counts as the 18th biggest country in the world. Just looking at that and the country's fast-changing pace, I can only imagine how unique the challenges are and how you might be able to help solve them as a designer. What are some of the design challenges unique to Iran right now?

If we put aside the past history and culture of Iran, this country is in a very strong development way now. So it is expected that we have many challenges in design projects. Many art galleries and art-cultural institutes are opening in the heart of the country. International artistic exchanges and collaborations are happening in Tehran and many projects run as a startup. Then they need designers to show the subject in a strong, creative way.

That’s why we think strong “identity design” is one of the most challenging parts of new graphic design era in Iran. These identities are not only part of the project; context for Iranian identity is essential to the project.

Exir Magazine by Studio Melli

For those of us who are not too familiar with the Iranian design community, can you describe it a bit more? For example, are there many design platforms and events that help you connect and meet up with other designers?

We are member of the IGDS (Iranian Graphic Design Society). This community organizes some annual events and exhibitions to show the works of its members. In recent years we’ve seen many collaborations between independent designers and nonprofits, as well as design exhibitions and collaboration between teams in different cities of Iran.

Most of the time designers come together through an event, exhibition or some collaborative project. The relation between designers and studios is competitive yet friendly.

We are connected to some of our freelance friends or studios from past years in university through free courses or group exhibitions.

The AASSTTIINN branding by Studio Melli

You founded your own design studio, so of course you appreciate the value of design. But why do you think good design is important, and what does good design mean for you at Studio Melli?

It’s not easy to explain what “good design” is or what it means. As we mentioned, we at Studio Melli are looking for a contemporary approach to our visual culture and aesthetics of our social life. We hope to show the idea by our knowledge and experiments in graphic design; we use multiple disciplines to get the result. We believe in design that makes people move, makes them feel, makes them happy or sad and forces them to do something. We want to find connections between logical things and the deep feeling around us.

"We believe in design that makes people move, makes them feel, makes them happy or sad and forces them to do something."

Kurdistan Diaries Poster by Studio Melli

As the world is getting smaller with the help of the internet, we see many designers working for clients remotely, not bound to clients within their own country. How is it for you? Do you work mostly with Iranian clients or also internationally?

We’ve had various opportunities to work and collaborate with foreign design studios and clients. It's very important for us to understand and think not only of our local situation, but also work to people with different cultures and ideas. That kind of experience improves our relationships and connections with design platforms around the world.

BĀN by Studio Melli

What impact does your social media presence have on getting new clients and self-promotion in general? What works best for you?

Social media has a big potential to introduce designers or studios and their abilities, so people can find good options for collaborations. We share everything we like on our social media whenever we have time, and we do it sometimes for our clients. We’re not very focused on our personal strategy or the networks we use.

As you mentioned, the startup and tech community in Iran is growing rapidly. There are dozens if not hundreds of new startups popping up every year. How do you feel about this trend toward tech and do you see a lot of demand for digital product designers in Iran right now?

This is a battleground when you talk about the fields of digital markets that need designers. Yes, they are popping up quickly and for sure there is lots of demand for it. While it’s exciting, it’s very risky for designers because most of the time there is not enough time for startup projects. We're not against this tech-based trend but there are many critics and details around designing for startups. Few of these projects could afford an exciting design and even fewer have survived.

Meez Identity by Studio Melli

When I think of Iranian design I often picture Persian design or art. Rich, earthy colors in combination with delicate ornamental elements. But I'm sure it's more complex than that. How would you describe Iranian design, and how does your tradition and history influence your work?

Earlier in another way we explained that we visually show our culture and the aesthetics of our social life in our work. In that way it is connected to our history. We are not trying to use the ancient Iranian symbols directly; we are influenced by old and historical Iranian calligraphy, philosophy, literature, poems and architecture. Yet we use them with a contemporary touch.

Help us get a bit more familiar with Iranian designers. In your opinion, what are the top 10 design studios from Iran that everyone should know?

Studio Kargah, Studio Tehran, Studio Shizaru and Studio Chapchin are a few we know and have worked with.

We also have some old graphic design heroes in Iran. For example Morteza Momayez is one of the old and famous ones, and one of the designers who studied out of Iran and came back to start the graphic design courses in Iran's universities. And then of course Reza Abedini.

Another old one is Farshid Mesghali. The one we're really inspired by is Behzad Golpayegani.

We will always respect them. We actually respect all the old designers and heroes in our profession. But we don’t really look up to them and we're not following their style or mindset. We are inspired by them but we're inspired by many designers, many simple things and many situations around the world.

Siavashan Poster by Studio Melli

Last question: How can all designers and design communities from other countries do a better job of communicating with each other? How can we become more engaged with the Tehran design community? Are there any blogs or specific magazines we can follow?

One of the most important magazines you can refer to is Neshan Magazine. Unfortunately most of the Iranian design blogs are only in Farsi language. But you can Google and find designers by their name and their studios.

____

Mahsa & Omid, thank you so, so much for this interview. I appreciate these insights into the Iranian design community and your work at Studio Melli.

For everyone who is interested in learning more about Iranian design studios, be sure to check out the studios Studio Melli mentioned above, and of course, follow Studio Melli on Instagram. Trust me, it's worth it.

PS: And if you haven't already, read about Design in Nigeria, featuring Dá Design Studio.

Thank you for reading,
Tobias

June 2, 2017No Comments

Semplice Portfolio Inspiration of May 2017

Every week, we handpick two portfolios created with Semplice to feature on our Showcase. These are the best of the best, chosen by yours truly from hundreds of fantastic submissions.

Looking back each month, we're inspired by the creativity and hard work our Semplice family members put into their portfolios. We hope they inspire you too, whether you're working on your portfolio or simply need a little boost.

Take a look at our favorites below to get motivated and meet new designers  — and if you've created your own portfolio with Semplice, be sure to submit it to our Showcase here. You could be featured next!

__________

For more inspiration you can always visit the Semplice showcase, and I’m looking forward to sharing more hand-picked portfolios with you next month.

PS: Header article by Violeta Noy.

Have a fantastic new month,
Lu

May 28, 2017No Comments

The magical world of Liam Wong

Every time I visit Tokyo I fall in love with it all over again. Everywhere I turn there is beauty and inspiration. Liam Wong can back me up on this.

I came across Liam's photography  a while ago and have since become an avid follower. His photos of Tokyo and other cities feel like they're from some fantasy world. After digging a little deeper I found out that Liam is also a graphic design director at Ubisoft, which brings so many questions to mind. I'm thankful Liam took the time to answer them in this interview.

Hey Liam, can you tell us a bit more about what you do during the day as a graphic design director? What are some of the things you work on?

Liam Wong in the streets of Tokyo.

LIAM: At my day job I design, define and direct visual identities for AAA video games. I specialize in creating artwork that summarizes a "look and feel."

I took the position at Ubisoft at the age of 25, making me the youngest director. It's been four years and I haven’t been fired, yet. I think what people find most interesting about my career is that I went from graduate to director in the space of two and a half years. Because of this, everything I knew about anything was from video games and my time at university. My role at Ubisoft is my second job.

The most daunting thing when I joined Ubisoft was to set the style for a game. That game was Far Cry 4. The third game is one of my all-time favorites and so working alongside that team was a dream come true. I worked as one of six or so directors and my focus was visual identity. My role in production was to interpret the ideas of the game and translate them into meaningful and memorable images. I worked with a team of talented artists to help develop that.

LIAM: Since then I have been working on a bunch of unannounced projects that I can’t talk about yet, but I am really excited to see them go out there to the public eye.

I’d say most people probably know your work through Instagram, including your moody and colorful portraits of some of the largest cities in the world. How did this whole series start for you? When did you get your first DSLR camera and was there a turning point when you decided “this is going to be my style?” Or was it more like a natural process happening slowly?

LIAM: The series started when I purchased my first DSLR for a trip to Tokyo. Before that I was using my iPhone and a compact camera. I began sharing my vacation photographs on Facebook while I was in Tokyo and my friends really liked them. They encouraged me to share them on Instagram, so I made a public account and began to post them.

"It was when I posted one specific image that my following just blew up."

It was when I posted one specific image that my following just blew up. I was walking back to my hotel in the rain and outside my hotel in Kabukicho was a taxi driver waiting for a couple to exit one of the love hotels. This was that moment. I knew when I took the shot that it was one that I would be happy with.

LIAM: Interestingly enough, it's still one of the only images I have ever posted featuring a person. I never show my face on Instagram which has become part of my signature, I guess. When I go out in the cities alone after midnight, I usually wear a mask to avoid getting jumped since I look pretty young. It also adds some mystery.

You're very active on Twitter and it seems like you're always trying to provide as much value to your audience as possible, which often includes posting others' work. But you also seem well-versed with self-marketing. Is this something you've naturally embraced since the beginning?

LIAM: Twitter is an interesting one for me. I've been spending time working on it. When I first made my Twitter I used it infrequently, only ever surfacing to cross-post images from my Instagram — which in retrospect makes for very boring content. However in the last month I was able to grow my following from 2,000 to something like 15k now. I got really into the analytics of being an artist and learning how to best market my work. Once my following grew, instead of using my Twitter to post my own work, I began posting the work of other artists instead, as well as things that inspire me.

"Self-marketing is something I think I have always had a knack for, even more than being an artist."

Self-marketing is something I think I have always had a knack for, even more than being an artist. I think it's why I ended up in the position that I am in, doing the work that I do. It is all aimed toward first impressions, following trends and creating meaningful aesthetics which appeal to people. When I take a photo or create an image, I am very aware of the things I want to communicate, the feelings I want to evoke.

I saw you even give helpful lessons on Twitter on how artists can better promote their work. What would you say are the top tips & tricks for artists to promote and push their work, while still being able to create and stay creative?

LIAM: 1. Surround yourself with people more talented than yourself.

This is the most important one for me. I came to Ubisoft because there are 2,500 people around me who can teach me things.

2. Share the work of other artists

This is how I’ve grown my following to over 100k. Nobody wants to follow somebody who only cares about themselves and never engages with their audience.

3. Mix things up - learn a new skill.

I am a broad-range generalist with deep expertise in one area (graphic design).

Photography is still my weakest skill, but I use my primary skills to take my photography to another level. Reanimating photographs in After Effects, laying them out in InDesign for my photo book, creating GIFs/Cinemagraphs/Timelapses in Photoshop. I remember creating a GIF randomly one day with one of my photographs and it got half a million views from Reddit and Imgur — platforms I have no following on.

One of the things I like so much about your photographs is that they can easily be mistaken as illustrations or even CGI, making you question their reality. Is this something you are aiming for when shooting and editing these images?

LIAM: I get a lot of emails from people asking if they can buy my paintings.

With my background in video games and my love for super-saturated colors, my photographs often come across as illustrations. I think with this background I never cared for minimal edits like most photographers would.

I’m sure many readers are curious about some more technical behind-the-scenes stuff, so I’m going to fire a couple more simple questions at you:

What camera do you use and what’s your go-to lens?

LIAM: The majority of my images are taken with a Canon 5D III and a 24-105 lens. After my photos went viral and I started to gain a following, Canon reached out and hooked me up with a 5D Mark IV, which is what I use now.

Do you shoot mostly by hand or do you use a tripod?

LIAM: All by hand. I used a tripod for only one of the images I have posted. I have been using my tripod for time lapses (in the same style), which I will be posting soon.  

If you could choose between a rainy city or a sunny one, which would you pick?

LIAM: Rain every time. It goes without saying that I am a pluviophile — a lover of rain, someone who finds joy and peace of mind during rainy days. I travel a lot and whenever I see rain in the forecast it is a level excitement for me that I can never really describe. I also happen to be a night owl, so the two things go hand in hand perfectly.

How much post-production do you do? Do you strive for the most perfect result in camera or are you totally fine with fixing it up in post?

LIAM: I consider myself an artist first and foremost. When I first started shooting, I really did not know how to operate my camera. I then learned Lightroom and began experimenting. Initially I would do everything in post-production, using color theory and my sensibilities until I was happy with the image.

In the last year I have picked up new gear which has allowed me to get the visuals that I currently achieve, and I try to do as much as I can through the camera. Custom settings, lens filters, gels on flashes, that sort of thing.

My first set of Tokyo images were all edited on my 11” Macbook Air. I'm often asked how long I spend on each image. The time I spend on images depends greatly on the shot. Typically I don’t shoot pictures of people on the streets; it's mostly architectural, so they’re a lot easier. However I just did my first fashion shoot in Tokyo, which ended up in HYPEBEAST. It was a very different challenge but the self-portraits I took helped prepare me for that.

Some of my images are shot on my iPhone, others on my DSLR. I have been experimenting recently with Lightroom Mobile and my iPhone, and have been really happy with the results.

I'd love to hear more about your work at Ubisoft. What are some of the most recent games you’ve worked on and what was your role on them? Can you give us any sneak peeks?

LIAM: I often get asked which games I am currently working on but it isn’t something I can share yet. I have been working on a bunch of style guides, logos, trailers and motion graphics. My photography has helped me understand how to create a style and maintain consistency.

I did a talk at GDC where I went through a bunch of things from Far Cry 4 that I helped direct, which may be of interest to some people. You can check out the slides right here

Liam! Thank you so much for doing this interview and giving us an insight into your work. I can't wait to see more magic from you in the future.

If you have any questions for Liam, reach out to him on Twitter.

May 20, 2017No Comments

Design in Nigeria 🇳🇬 featuring Dá Design Studio

Brand new to DESK, this interview series aims to shine light on different design communities across the world. Up first is  Nigeria, featuring Dá Design Studio. 

A while ago I sent out a tweet to my Nigerian design friends asking for a list of design studios and designers they look up to. I got dozens of names back. Among them I found Dá Design Studio and I immediately fell in love with their work. It's clear that Damilola and Seyi, the perfect team that runs the studio, both care deeply about design and its potential for their community. You'll see what I mean when you read their answers. Let's get started already.

 

First, tell us a little more about yourselves. How did you meet and ultimately co-found Dá Design Studio? What made you decide to start your own studio together?

SEYI: Dá Design Studio was founded in September 2015. We observed that the power of good design was greatly underutilized locally. Everybody was simply imitating European design trends and, most of the time, these trends don’t communicate well enough within our immediate environment. Nobody was bold enough to harness our nuances for design.

We really want to change that. We want to show Nigerians that logos and identity systems are very crucial to brand experience and they should be treated with utmost importance and respect.

I am a graphic designer and an all-around visual creative. I really love intelligent design. You know, work that’s functional, meaningful, aesthetic and actually solves problems. I’m also a freelance photographer. I met Dami in design school; we both studied architecture for our first degree then completed our master’s in environmental design. Dami is a well-rounded and knowledgeable person. She is very sensitive to mood. She might not be so excellent with actual graphic work but she is a good judge of how things should feel and how well they communicate.

I did some freelance work during my master’s studies and to be honest I wasn’t so impressed with the current state of graphic design and brand identity locally. I don’t mean to brag but I had invested so much time, money and other resources into studying graphic design that wherever I worked, I quickly rose to the top. There weren’t any pure visual identity design studios in the country that impressed me at that time. So I talked to Dami about it and she got on board as art director, and together we founded Dá Design Studio.


DAMI: I believed there was so much more to be done than what was being done. I was far from impressed with what was available in Nigeria, and was annoyed by the mediocrity we seemed to be at peace with and even celebrate. I knew there was a
temptation that sort of trapped a truck load of Nigerian creatives into maintaining the status quo. Something in me was certain that the temptation had found home in a lot of established studios and agencies. I wanted to run as far away as I could from the temptation. Yeah! So I’m the super cliché “wanted to change the world so I started my own” type of story. Cliché, but absolutely honest.

“We were going to shit on them all, we were going to put Nigerian graphic design on the map.”

Seyi was another me on this, so when he proposed to me I was like “Yes! I will marry you.” It didn’t go that way exactly but you get the idea. I was in love with the partnership and the dream so I sailed on that boat. We were going to shit on them all, we were going to put Nigerian graphic design on the map, so we streamlined our focus to something we were sure we could be badass at: visual identity design. Nobody else was focusing on that; it appealed to our rebellious side. Juvenile dreams? Maybe, but that hasn't changed. What has changed in almost two years of practice is that I now have more respect for those before us because I now understand some of their limitations — but it still stops at understanding, nothing more. I am still very aware that I am not bound by these limitations.

Plus, I am super into the idea of being my own boss.

The Dá Studio space in the heart of Lagos.

Between architecture, environmental design and now graphic design, you both have pretty diverse backgrounds. Do you think this path is fairly common for graphic designers in your community?

SEYI: It’s quite common actually for architects to delve into other forms of visually driven professions. I have several friends who are into photography, strategic advertising, freelance illustration, fashion design and a whole lot of other creative stuff. It might be cliché to point out, but studying architecture actually does prepare you for anything. This is probably due to its critical thinking requirements.


DAMI: Yes it is. Why I think it’s common here is, like with many other forms of design in the country, mediocrity thrives. The difference is that the architectural industry in Nigeria has structure, a defined legal structure. So you can't just start out by rebelling. It sucks you into the mediocrity and as a young person, it’s for chicken change. So a great number of us seek solace and fulfillment elsewhere.

With more than 180 million people living in Nigeria, it's the 7th biggest country in the world. Just looking at that I can only imagine how unique the challenges are and how you can help solve them as a designer. What are some of the design challenges you think are unique to Nigeria?

SEYI: Trust. A lot of the big brands don’t trust our local designers to deliver the quality they seek. They are quick to engage South African companies and outsource work to people who don’t understand Nigerian perception and behavior. They also fail to realize the importance of context in design, especially when designing for Nigerians.

We usually find ourselves educating our clients about the benefits of good graphic design and what it can do for their brands. It can be quite tasking sometimes because some of these companies don’t have design intermediaries, so I could be discussing Pantone or process colors with someone who has no clue what I’m saying.

DAMI: Poverty is a big problem. It’s the excuse for everything. It’s the reason why the fields are clouded with mediocrity. It’s the reason why brands don’t truly respect their audience enough to put enough thought into their visual communication.

Nigeria is a hard country! Basic amenities aren’t basic so creativity appears to be a luxury. This is an illusion, but many brands are willing to buy and feed into this illusion. There are a lot of challenges but these challenges make Nigeria a difficult, yet beautiful and captivating, place to create in.

View from the studio balcony.

How can you convince companies and organizations that design and creativity might be part of the solution here? Have you noticed a change in the recent years?

DAMI: Articles like this help. A lot of value in Nigeria isn't really recognized by Nigerians until it gets international or foreign appreciation. When there’s international exposure on good design from Nigeria and its effects, there is a higher tendency for those Nigerians with the muscle and cash to be more interested, willing to pay for and fund good design.

“What I’m trying to say is Nigerian designers need to ignore the illusion, ignore the sponsors of the illusion and not give up on good design.”

The nature of design is problem-solving and there are problems unique to us that good design can solve. What I’m trying to say is Nigerian designers need to ignore the illusion, ignore the sponsors of the illusion and not give up on good design, because aside from its obvious and direct benefits, it may also eventually bring the right kind of international exposure which in turn can convince these big Nigerian companies and organizations.

Another thing that helps is competition. Attention on design has improved within the last 6 - 8 years. The internet has opened the market up. These people may be poor but they are not stupid. They can see clearly what is happening around the world and they are demanding for better. Nigerian brands are starting to compete for attention based on international standards.

A lot of Nigerian corporations play the price game, not the quality game. The more they become aware of the fact that the market isn’t settling for less, the more they are willing to up their game. Convincing them revolves around pushing the image of the new forward-thinking Nigerian market, the Nigerian market that thrives on genuine creativity. Because at the end of the day for a lot of these brands, it’s about money — which isn’t totally a bad thing, by the way! These people usually know the power of creativity and good design, but how much of a priority is it to them if it’s not reflecting directly and immediately in their pockets? They need to see that good design literally pays, ching ching!

Dami on her way to a client meeting.


SEYI: The truth is that the companies that recognize and understand the power of good design and effective visual identity, and are genuinely interested in bettering the current living condition of the average Nigerian, usually don’t need convincing. This is because these brands know what they have to offer to Nigerians, and their long term goals are very clear and well thought-out. Once they encounter design that aligns with their brand message, they buy into it quickly.

Fixing poverty requires long-term dedication. A lot of Nigerian brands use graphic design to achieve short-term goals. For instance, not too long ago, Nigerian banks started to rebrand because other Nigerian banks were rebranding. Some of these banks really messed up the legacy they had going for them, all in the name of following trends. In essence, what I’m saying is that you cannot convince brands that aren’t interested in genuinely fixing poverty about the benefits of creativity and good design in fixing poverty.

We also need to focus on design long-term, not just for when events need to be publicized or new products need to be marketed. Consistency breeds trust.

One way to potentially combat these challenges is to assemble the local design community. Describe the design community a bit more. Are there many design platforms and events that help you connect and meet up with other designers?

SEYI: Yes. They are quite few, like Blank White Sheet by Surkreo. Nobody seems to be concentrating on core design, however. We don’t have conferences like the AIGA conference for instance. As a studio, we are trying to help define that some more by recording podcasts that express our day-to-day experiences as designers in Lagos.

DAMI: I can't say much for other fields but for graphic design, we are all just trying to figure it out. So we hang out as friends sometimes, chill and gist and exchange ideas. Nothing grand or elaborate, just social media pages, Whatsapp groups and of course small but commendable seminars like Blank White Sheet by Surkreo. We hope our podcast really helps as well. I’m positive it will.

“Humanity is complex; good design helps us enjoy our complexities when we can and brings simplicity when we can’t.”

Seyi working hard or watching YouTube, no one knows.

I’m already a fan of the podcast and love that you are actively engaging the community to talk about good design. Why do you think good design is important and what does good design mean for you?

SEYI: I quickly lose interest in things that aren’t clear in intent/purpose or things that aren’t easy to use or understand. I think good design is important because it just works. It’s really that simple. Less headache in trying to figure out what things are about.

DAMI: Good design works. It just works! Humanity is complex; good design helps us enjoy our complexities when we can and brings simplicity when we can’t. In graphic design, good design is resolved thought made visual. Good design is clarity, purpose and appeal. Good design feels like a missing rib, it fits just right. Without good design, we’ll all need meds.

As you’ve mentioned, the world is getting smaller with the help of the internet. As a result, we see many designers working for clients overseas remotely, not bound to clients within their own country. Do you work mostly with Nigerian clients or are your clients from all over?

SEYI: Yes, we do. We have just recently worked with some Zimbabwean and South African clients and we hope to do some more work with clients outside Africa.

DAMI: Not to sound cocky, but our business fills a void here in Nigeria. So there is a Nigerian demand for the kind of work we do. I enjoy it! But I really wouldn't mind some more international collaborations. If Jason Little reaches out for a collaboration, WE’VE BLOWN!

Only some of the great work by Dami & Seyi at Dá Design

What impact does your social media presence have on getting new clients and self-promotion in general? What works best for you?

SEYI: Not much, really. We get the bulk of our jobs from referrals.

DAMI: Most of our work comes from referrals. We work with a lot of startups and most of them haven’t even launched yet, so for confidentiality sake, we can't put a lot of work up on social media. So they show their closest friends who call us for work or refer us to friends too. Plus we are a small studio and we get really busy and it’s a little hard to be consistent. We are working hard to make that part of our brand more consistent, because we understand it’s power.  

A design friend of mine from Nigeria told me that there aren’t that many traditional design studios anymore, because the tech startup industry is booming and hiring most of the design talent. Do you think this is true? And if so, how do you feel about it?

SEYI: The tech industry is booming, but we both know that there are a lot more design services than UI/UX design. They are hiring the best UI/UX designers. That’s it. Studios like ours are very few, not because of tech companies but because brand identity design is relatively young in Nigeria.

DAMI: Seyi took the words right out of my mouth.

When I think of Nigerian design I picture rich colors, beautiful illustrations and patterns, and a vibe that just feels good. But most of what I know about Nigerian design comes from your prominent and internationally recognized fashion scene. How would you describe Nigerian design and how does your tradition influence your work?

SEYI: Haha! Well, you’re right and wrong. I don’t really think that we have pronounced Nigerian design per se. I think what your description covers is our graphic art. Some designers have gradually started to adapt some of our day-to-day visuals and culture into design work, you know, to communicate more subconsciously. But I think it’s still too early to really categorize with clear and distinct qualities. It is getting more and more defined by the day though.

“I’m very inspired by how we live as a people, our food, how we express our emotions, our common stories as a country and the ones we have in common with the rest of the world.”

DAMI: I don’t think there is Nigerian design. Nigerian graphic art is more defined. But in the midst of the chaos and poorly designed church posters and clustered Nigerian movie posters, there are some recurrent visual devices and styles that can be harnessed into Nigerian design. Eventually that will happen. For now a lot of us designers get cues from the international design community — so much so that we even feed into the expectations they have from our design, like the beautiful patterns for instance. There is so much more that we can do with our visuals than these expectations. But you are right about the feel good part, we like enjoyment.

I’m very inspired by how we live as a people, our food, how we express our emotions, our common stories as a country and the ones we have in common with the rest of the world. We recently designed an identity for a coffee club that truly captures what I’m trying to say. I can’t wait to put it out. To get an understanding of what I mean by defining the Nigerian aesthetic, please check out The Fallacy of the African Aesthetic, Lagos Drawings and Lagos Patterns.

In your opinion, what are the top 10 design studios from Nigeria that everyone who might be not familiar with the Nigerian design community should know?

In no particular order:
Dá Design Studio (visual identity and identity systems) (duh)
Cregital (digital products)
Helloworld (digital products)
Niyi Okeowo Studio (brand identity and photography)
Kolapo Oni (game design)
Osione Itegboje, Light Studio (brand identity)
Karo Akpokiere (illustration)
Osaze Amadasun (illustration)
Nifemi Marcus-Bello, Coca Goods (industrial design)
Smiling Hat (brand identity, illustration and animation)

And now to our last question: How can all designers and design communities do a better job of communicating with each other? How can we become more engaged with the Lagos design community? Are there any blogs or specific magazines we can follow?

SEYI: We need to meet more to discuss core design issues. Our approach to poster design, signage, danfo typography — our own stuff, you know. (I know some people will roll their eyes because I am slightly antisocial.) There are a few platforms. Tune in to our Soundcloud to hear about the challenges young design studios and freelancers face daily. Check out Cregital's blog, they write some cool stuff.

DAMI: I think it will happen organically overtime. For now I think we need more stuff online. Digital journals, blogs, curated sites, etc. Those will definitely help. A lot of hook ups *wink* and friendships start in the comments section, you know?

___

Dami and Seyi, thank you so, so much for this interview. I've learned so much and feel like I have a deeper understanding of the Nigerian and Lagos design community now. I know there is so much more to it, so I look forward to listening more to your podcast and following you and your favorite studios.

For everyone reading this, be sure to follow Dá Design Studio on Instagram and check out their work.

Please stay as you are and keep spreading the good vibes.

Thank you,
Tobias

May 19, 2017No Comments

Introducing: Design Around the World

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while you may have noticed that we try to take a different angle on topics you may or may not have heard about.

Recently we introduced a new destination on this blog called “Series." With that we launched two series that we continue to fill up with new articles. One is about getting a job at some of the most admired companies in design, and the other speaks about life as a freelancer.

A series for us is something special. It’s an attempt to put more thought and work into an idea and publish multiple articles about it over the course of many months. The goal is to find different perspectives and angles on the subject, helping you broaden your horizon and hopefully learn something new.

Today we're happy to share a new series we’ve been working on called

? Design Around The World

I personally love to travel (I’m writing this article from Tokyo, btw) and have had the privilege to visit many countries in my years as a designer. During these travels I always try to immersive myself as much as possible in the local culture, especially the local design community. It's fascinating to me how design works around the globe and how different it may be than what I’m used to.

I'm personally a little tired & sick seeing the same designers and same studios from the United States (mostly SF and NYC) being featured and talked about on every blog or podcast. It's always the same people and the same perspective. But instead of complaining, I set out to change this and publish this series.

I simply have one goal: Shine light on design communities around the world we might not know much about. Some communities you might know better than the others. I hope to provide some perspective and introduce designers and studios in other countries who not only do great work, but also have unique design challenges very different from our own.

So far we've already published:

Design in ?? Pakistan with Shehzil Malik
Design in ?? Nigeria
 with Da Studio
Design in ?? South Korea with Everyday Practice
Design in ?? Iran with Studio Melli

Thank you for reading,
Tobias

 

May 4, 2017No Comments

Designers can write, too

Throughout the “How to Get a Job at X” interview series, we’ve talked to people from companies like Nike, Pentagram and Unsplash, asking how to get a design job where they work. It’s been fascinating to see the similarities and differences in their answers, but one takeaway stands out.

We've heard over and over again: “We want designers who know how to write.”

It makes sense. Designers are communicators, and writing is communication. Typically, though, design and writing are considered separate jobs. It’s much easier to say, “I’m a designer, not a writer” and continue copying + pasting Lorem Ipsum. But Lorem Ipsum does not sell your idea or a client’s product. Placeholder copy does not inspire or create an emotional response. Compelling copywriting along with good design can take your work so much further.

With that thought, here are a few writing fundamentals that may remind you of that English teacher you hated in middle school. You will not be graded on this article.

1. Be concise.

You can almost always find a more simple, clear way to say what you need to say.

2. Write for one person.

Especially when selling a product or idea, we tend to write as if some distant group of suited dudes is reading it skeptically in their boardroom. In an effort to impress, we speak in buzz words and business jargon. That's not the way real people talk. No matter what I’m writing  – an article, an ad, an email – I remind myself to write as if I’m speaking to one person, because I am. You are one person reading this article, not some faceless “consumer."

“Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.” - Kurt Vonnegut

3. Use proper grammar.

A glaring grammatical error is distracting and can make your client or readers question your legitimacy. Good news is, you can avoid mistakes by simply looking up the rule when you’re not sure, or asking a friend to proof your work. Here are mistakes I see often:

Your vs. You’re: These are not interchangeable words. Think of “you’re” as the words “you” and “are” smashed together (that’s exactly what it is – a contraction) and say it that way when deciding which to use in a sentence. Would it make sense to say “This is you are dog?” No. So your is correct here. It does make sense to say, “You are going to the store,” so you’re could be used in this sentence.

Its vs. It’s: Again, the word "it's" is a contraction of the words “it” and “is.” Only use this word when you would otherwise say "it is." Simple as that.

Too vs. to: The word “too” should be used to mean "more than enough," or in place of the word “also.” I remember this by thinking of that additional letter “o” as more than enough letters, or like this other "o" is also in the word. Get it? Or just find your own trick.

So, if you're telling someone they've poured you more than enough vodka, you'd say, "That's too much vodka." If you are also hungover, you'd say, "I'm hungover too."

4. Avoid passive voice.

This one can be confusing, but it will change your writing for the better if you learn to understand it.

Example of active voice: “She ate the pizza.”
Example of passive voice: “The pizza was eaten by her.”

Do you feel the difference? The second sentence is wordy and falls flat. The first is clear and strong.

Here’s what’s happening: Grammatically, “she” is the subject of the sentence. When the subject is doing an action (eating the pizza) it’s considered active voice. When the action is happening to the subject (eaten by her) it’s passive voice. Always try to make your subject (he, she, I, the girl, the dog, the wind, etc.) do the action, instead of the other way around.

If this is still confusing, read Grammar Girl’s explanation of active vs. passive voice. It may help to read about subjects first.

5. Use exclamation points sparingly.

Exclamation points only soften your message. People use them when they want to come across as friendly or excited, but they only end up sounding a little crazy. Nobody wants to read something that feels aggressively cheerful, or like someone is shouting at them. Be confident in your message and end it with a period.

6. Proofread and edit your writing.

This is a given. First write down everything you have to say without editing, so you can get it all out without getting in your own way. Then go back and read through it. Fix typos. Rework weird sentences. Cut an entire paragraph. You can almost always make your writing better if you step away for a moment then come back and read it again.

I could go on, but I did just say that thing about being concise. With all those rules on our hypothetical chalkboard, I will leave you with this: Don’t get so worried about writing well that you don’t write at all. As Tobias has said, doing it wrong can be better than doing nothing. The more you write, the better you will get at writing. So write, designers, write! And maybe avoid exclamation points.

May 3, 2017No Comments

Semplice Portfolio Inspiration of April 2017

As you might know, we launched Semplice in 2014 to build the perfect portfolio tool we always dreamed off. Since then many great designers started using Semplice and I'm always blown away to see what other designers create.

It's inspiring to see what others create and it pushes me further everyday.

With this blog post series I'd like to share the best portfolios every month, handpicked by yours truly. My hope is that these portfolios inspire you as much as they inspire me. And at the same time spreading the word about designers you might not have heard about yet.

__________

For more inspiration you can always visit the Semplice showcase, and I’m looking forward to sharing more hand-picked portfolios with you next month.

PS: Header article by Melissa Deckert.

Have a fantastic new month,
Lu

April 6, 2017No Comments

Semplice Portfolio Inspiration of March 2017

As you might know, we launched Semplice in 2014 to build the perfect portfolio tool we always dreamed off. Since then many great designers started using Semplice and I'm always blown away to see what other designers create.

It's inspiring to see what others create and it pushes me further everyday.

With this blog post series I'd like to share the best portfolios every month, handpicked by yours truly. My hope is that these portfolios inspire you as much as they inspire me. And at the same time spreading the word about designers you might not have heard about yet.

__________

For more inspiration you can always visit the Semplice showcase, and I’m looking forward to sharing more hand-picked portfolios with you next month.

PS: Header article by lascoleccionistas.com

Have a fantastic new month,
Lu

March 27, 2017No Comments

How to Get a Design Job at Pentagram

In this series I talk to people at some of the most admirable companies and studios out there, simply asking: How do I get a job at your company?

Our fifth feature is Pentagram.

I'm pretty sure many of you are familiar with Pentagram, especially if you're interested in traditional graphic design or branding. Regardless, you've most certainly seen their work. Pentagram is the studio behind some of the world's famous visual identities, including MasterCard, Windows, The MoMA, Verizon and so many more. Here I talk with the Michael Bierut, partner at Pentagram's New York office.

So, Michael. Before we begin, let’s put it all on the table: Getting a job at Pentagram isn’t easy. Your team is small and your reputation is huge. Is there any hope for us?

The first thing to know about Pentagram is that it isn’t one design team, but multiple design teams. There are eight partners in our New York office, and each runs a creative operation that is more or less autonomous. I am responsible for hiring and managing only the designers on my own team. They work only for me. So all of my answers have to be taken with a grain of salt. You might get a different one out of Paula Scher or Emily Oberman or Abbott Miller or Eddie Opara or Natasha Jen or Michael Gericke or Luke Hayman. This, along with the slow turnover and scarcity of openings, is the most frustrating thing about seeking a job at Pentagram.

Pentagram New York photographed by Ike Edeani

So what's our best chance of getting in? Does Pentagram pre-select and head hunt most designers on its team, or do you consider cold applications as well?

Like most of the design teams at Pentagram, we offer paid internships. Most of my full-time employees began as interns. Our interns are often people who have written emails with no other introduction; in other cases they are students in a class that I or one of my designers teach; in still other cases they’re recommended by other designers I respect. Every once in a while we seek someone out with more experience. These applicants are usually known to one or another designer on my team.

Pentagram New York photographed by Ike Edeani

Say we do decide to reach out with a cold email. What kind of message gets a reply? Any secrets for us?

I reply to every message I get, even the ones with misspellings.

How important is a visual and complete portfolio for you? Can I get away with not having a portfolio when interviewing at Pentagram?

A good portfolio is a given. I hire so rarely for my team that I never have to compromise about that. That said, while the work is important, I am just as interested by how curious and articulate the applicant is.

Tell us one thing you never want to see again on a portfolio website. Anything you wish you saw more?

I like to see people who present their work with care and intelligence. The best portfolios are ones that are comprehensive enough that you get a sense what’s going on, but sufficiently open-ended so you are intrigued by what you see.

Pentagram New York photographed by Ike Edeani

Besides having a portfolio, do you like the idea of designers being invested in other things? For example being active bloggers, or otherwise outspoken in their community?

I like designers who have a point of view, but they don’t have to have big social media profiles or anything like that.

What are the top mistakes you see designers make when applying for a job at Pentagram? Are there any specific things that keep bothering you? Please complain to us! (:

Most of the mistakes I see have to do with spelling or grammar. I know it’s not the most important thing in the world, but it drives me crazy.

Say I make the first pass and get invited to an interview. Can you describe the interview process as briefly as possible? 

If you’re interviewing to be an intern, you may be interviewed in person or on the phone by a few of my designers. If you’re coming in as a full-time person, you’d probably talk to me and, again, some of the designers. We don’t do design exercises or really have any formal interviewing process.

Pentagram New York photographed by Ike Edeani

Would you hire someone who is a cultural fit over someone who has more industry experience and hard skills?

I think everyone has the capacity to acquire craft skills, but curiosity and brains are difficult to pick up on the job. As a graphic designer, I work with words a lot, so I appreciate people who love to read and write.

Besides being a good writer and communicator, what secondary skills do you look for in a designer? For example, do you prefer business skills over coding skills?

Most designers on my team eventually manage their own projects and may serve as the main point of contact with clients and other collaborators. So I look for people who can talk about their work, who can listen when other people are talking, and who like to take as much responsibility as possible.

Pentagram New York photographed by Ike Edeani

Obviously you’re a branding studio, but would you hire someone who has no previous experience with branding? Say I work at a big tech company for a couple years, then decide to go to Pentagram. Could I?

Every team at Pentagram, including mine, does a really diverse range of work. So specific experience is less meaningful than someone’s ability to learn and capacity for growth.

__

Michael! Thanks for keeping it real, and keeping it short. For those looking to join the Pentagram team, these insights are worth noting:

Nr. 1 - Communication is key.

Michael made it clear that writing and general communication skills are important – in your initial intro email, in your portfolio, in your everyday work. Be brief, use proper grammar and spelling, articulate yourself well.

Nr. 2 - You will have to reach out; there are no job postings at Pentagram.

Good news is, Michael says he reads and replies to every email he receives. Make his time worth it with a well-written email (see Nr. 1 above – here are a few tips on writing a good email, btw). And don't forget to have an outstanding portfolio. If Michael says he answers every email, don't waste the chance by coming unprepared.

Nr. 3 - You will likely start as an intern.

An internship is the best way to get your foot in the door at Pentagram, so prepare to start there and work your way up. This is pretty great news, as it means Pentagram isn’t necessarily looking for someone with a lot of experience but someone who's willing to do good work and learn along the way. They’re looking for potential, and they’re willing to help you grow.

Until next time, friends! I’ll be sharing more “How to Get a Job at X” interviews soon, many featuring companies you specifically requested. If you haven’t read the others in the series, start with Airbnb, Nike, Electronic Arts and Refinery29. Or, if Pentagram is your dream job: Take some writing lessons, get your portfolio in shape and get the damn job! I wish you luck.

Also, thanks to Ike Edeani for providing your beautiful photographs of the Pentagram office.

Keep making & creating,
Tobias

March 12, 2017No Comments

Make Her See What She Can Be

After working in advertising for more than 12 years, Mara Lecocq left her job as a creative director to pursue a new dream: Creating an inclusive children's book that gets girls excited about tech.

Secret Code is the first book of its kind, a customizable experience that gives girls a chance to see themselves kicking ass in a white male- dominated industry. Mara’s kicking ass herself; she received the GirlBoss Foundation grant for her project and she’s now a contributing writer at Girlboss.com, on top of about a dozen other exciting opportunities we can’t even mention yet.

We asked Mara all about her book, her transition from full time to freelance, and her secret to taking an idea and bringing it to life so brilliantly.

Hey Mara, thanks for taking the time to talk to us. Explain Secret Code for those who aren’t familiar. What inspired the project?

Secret Code is a personalized children’s book that stars your girl as a tech hero. My goal is to make white male-dominated fields like technology aspirational for girls of all ethnicities, by providing them the role models they lack, at an age that matters.

The way it works is that you personalize the name, skin color and hairstyle online, and two weeks later you receive a beautiful picture book at home.

I was one of the rare female creative directors in digital advertising and I was tired of hearing about the lack of diversity in technology. The reality is that girls are not raised to aspire to these fields. Stereotypes sink in between ages 5 and 7 and condition girls to like certain things, so I wanted to provide options beyond pretty princesses and girls frolicking in forest — which project values that don’t lead to fulfilling, independent futures.

What an awesome idea. It sounds like you had a very specific vision for the book from the start. How did you find a team you could trust to bring it to life?

It’s essential to build good relationships with the people you work with, because they are the best future partners in your next life. It’s like marriage, man! You better love each other, because you’re gonna be nagging them to do the dishes someday.

I worked with two awesome guys, Rodolfo Dengo (tech partner) and Nathan Archambault (writer and co-author) on a project at AKQA two years earlier. They were totally on board for Secret Code because we had experience together, and trust. These two men have families and they’ve spent thousands of hours working on Secret Code in their personal time, which makes me feel so blessed. When you start a company, you either have funding, or you don’t. So people working for free (including yourself) is essential for the survival of the company at the beginning. You need to be smart with your money and spend it where you can’t already get support. I paid the illustrator, a couple of devs helping Rodo, a lawyer and an accountant. But favors can’t happen if there’s no trust and mutual respect.

The concept is interesting because you are personalizing each book you sell. Can you explain briefly how your team works together to make that happen? What does the production process look like?

Just like an advertising brief, we came up with a concept that stemmed from strategic insights. I then did some learning on how to do children’s books (yay Skillshare!). I wrote the first story dozens of times, asked Nathan to come on board, brainstorm further and write it way better, with style and punch. At the same time, I found an illustrator, Jessika Von Innerebner.

I sketched out all the pages really roughly (see below), and had her do the full book with four main characters and separate layers for the skin, features and eyes.

From the first concept sketches to the final book.

I then had another illustrator do all the other combinations (36 girl options x 4 eye colors x 36 pages = about 5,000 layers to export). THANK GOD for scripts on Photoshop! Rodolfo then did his magic in dev which still blows my mind.

I also designed everything, from book to logo to website experience, for Rodo and team to develop. I was basically the founder, project manager, creative director, accountant, designer, co-writer, strategist, intern and PR person at the same time.

Sounds absolutely insane to me. So you went from jobs at big agencies like AKQA New York, Tribal DDB Toronto and BETC Paris to working freelance and ultimately starting your own business. What made you take the leap and leave your full-time gig? What was the AHA moment?

I think it’s a series of events that push you off the cliff. I had 4 x ¼ AHA moments:

1/4. I had been working in advertising for 12 years and after the decade mark, I was starting to have an itch to figure out my next move. I was tired of working my ass off on things that end up being watered down, and that no one really cares about. Like, give me work-life balance if it’s not really going to matter anyway. Or make me work my ass off to save lives. But have no life for no real impact? That just makes no sense for me. I was burned out.

2/4. I needed to find a gift for a little girl and I went to a children’s book store. I was appalled by the lack of options, and had this idea.

3/4. Three months later, I read a book called The Crossroads of Should and Must, which changed my life. The book asked me to write my own eulogy. You should do it too. My eulogy was, “Mara moved up, became CCO at a giant holding company, made a lot of money, never saw her family, retired and died.” I read it on Saturday, resigned on Monday, and Wednesday was my last day. And that’s when I was like, why don’t I do this children’s book project now?

4/4. I ended up doing a sabbatical because I’m stupidly loyal and got convinced. So, back from my sabbatical two months later, I was working like crazy again. I had serious family issues and I wasn’t able to tend to them on time because I was obsessed with my agency work. When I realized I prioritized my work over my family, it made me want to reset my priorities and just cut the cord.

"I was tired of working my ass off on things that end up being watered down, and that no one really cares about."

When you started Secret Code, did you go full time on it immediately or did you do it on the side with other freelance gigs? What advice would you give someone who has similar plans to start their own project?

So I did that two-month sabbatical first. I definitely recommend this. Find out if your company does it; they usually do, but they don’t advertise it. This allows you to have a tight deadline and focus. I didn’t take the plunge — I went in the pool by taking the steps slowly.

After your sabbatical, go back to work. You’ll either a) realize you just needed a break and will be happy to come back with a fresh mind. Then you can continue your project on nights and weekends. Or b) you’ll realize the work you did the past two months was what you were meant to do. If that’s the case, leave your job and freelance. That way you still can pay the bills while slowly finding a balance between your side project and your freelance jobs.

The wonderful team behind Secret Code (all remote, btw).

Tell us one thing you miss and one thing you don’t miss about working in an agency. How has your life changed since taking on your own projects and challenges?

One thing I miss: the people. I love people who work in advertising. They’re sensitive, smart, hardworking, energetic, they’re fascinated by people. I think advertisers are among the most empathetic people on earth; our job is to think like a 50-year old farmer or a 12-year old Youtuber and not judge. I love how open-minded we are.

One thing I don’t miss: meetings all day.

"I learned to be more patient in the process."

How will you know if Secret Code is a success in the future? What are the metrics you set for yourself beyond building a hopefully profitable business?

For me it will be successful if/when Secret Code becomes popular and part of general culture. We’re currently working to get it published so it can go mainstream. We’re also excited about next phases to expand in other places, and doing a boy story to further embrace equality. But building a brand takes time. It takes years to be an overnight success, right 🙂 I learned to be more patient in the process. It’s not my strong suit so I’m proud to feel less of a sense of emergency and just trust that what’s meant to happen will happen.

Speaking of next phases, tell us about the exciting update you’re releasing for Secret Code this month. 

I’m releasing diverse families. In the story, parents play a role. We’re offering mixed-race, same-sex and single parent options, so they can finally be featured in children’s media, which tends to ignore them.

Now let’s change it up a bit: If your six-year-old self engineered a time machine and visited the current you, what would be the first thing you’d show her?

I would show her the iPhone and a VR headset. Sounds boring to us, but I’m just doing this for her — she would be SO excited, because she was crazy about technology in the 80s, and this would make her so happy. I would also ask her a million questions about memories. I’m very nostalgic of that time, and I’m afraid to forget the details of my childhood.

Before we close, are there any other little pieces of wisdom you’d like to share with someone who wants to make their dream become reality? What should we do tomorrow?

People on their death beds always regret what they haven’t done. They never regret what they have done. If you have something itching you, please just fucking do it. Try a class, learn about it online. A woman built a house from scratch by watching Youtube videos. No excuses today. Tell your friends about your project to hold yourself accountable. There’s nothing like the fear of public shame to motivate you to get shit done. Who cares about success. I surely don’t. Just give it a shot. I, for example, have always dreamt to be an electronic music producer. Does that sound random or what?! But it’s never left me, so I better do that before I die.

What’s your silly dream, Tobias?

My dream is to be more like you, Mara (: It’s inspiring to see how stepping out of your comfort zone can lead to all kinds of unexpected opportunities. I know a lot of others reading this blog aspire to do the same, and your story can empower them the same way Secret Code does for girls.

Next time you're looking for a children's book, check out "Secret Code." It's the best investment you can make for a child's (and our industry's) future.

Keep creating & stay awesome,
Tobias

 

March 3, 2017No Comments

How to Get a Design Job at Airbnb

In this article series I talk to people at some of the most admirable companies and studios out there, simply asking, how do I get a job there?

First up is one most of us know well: Airbnb.

Airbnb has changed the way people travel, allowing us to stay in someone’s home and live life like a local. Their appreciation of design and unique brand vibe draws the best of creatives from all over. Katie Dill is director of experience design at Airbnb and happens to be a friend of mine (lucky me). Katie kindly answered all my nosy questions about getting a job at Airbnb, and I think you’ll find her advice to be helpful for getting a job anywhere.

Katie Dill is Director of Experience Design at Airbnb

Hey Katie, let’s get right into it. Let's assume my dream job is joining the Airbnb design team, but I’m not sure where to start. I’m curious how those who work at Airbnb right now got their position, and if there are any secrets to applying for a job at Airbnb.

Looking at your current design team, how many of them came through internal referrals and how many came through the traditional application process?

Referrals are useful, but we  try not to rely on this because it’s a sure way of only getting more of the same type/backgrounds. Instead, the majority of our people come from those that reached out directly or we proactively sourced, which is when our recruiters search high and low for interesting people from a wide variety of places.

How important is a visual and complete portfolio for you? Can I get away with not having a portfolio when interviewing at Airbnb?

Super important! It gives us a quick and pretty clear signal about someone’s abilities and experiences. We require a portfolio review before we invite someone on site for a day of interviews. It helps us better understand their potential fit—making sure there is a role that would work well for them—before wasting their time (or ours) in a full day of interviews.

Besides having a portfolio, do you like the idea of designers being very invested in other things? For example being active bloggers, or otherwise outspoken in their respective community?

Absolutely! We look for folks with an entrepreneurial spirit, a passion for craft and a bias for making. We see this in their hobbies as well as their day jobs. It’s not required that someone has a side gig, but it absolutely interests us and generally points to strong characteristics.

"We look for folks with an entrepreneurial spirit, a passion for craft and a bias for making."

Would you say the majority of designers you hire have been pre-selected and head hunted by your team, or do you get a lot of cold applications as well?

We are fortunate to have lots of folks reaching out about joining our team. It’s great when people reach out directly and express their interest. It shows hustle and passion, and that goes a long way.

In addition, we do a ton of proactive sourcing to find folks who might have particular skills. Those we find ourselves we learn about through external and internal referrals, job sites like LinkedIn and media like Medium or FastCo. We rarely identify new potential candidates on sites like Dribbble, but these sites are good for understanding people’s skills and potential fit once we know about them.

The Airbnb design team loves their PostIT's

Knowing that we’d be one of many people reaching out directly, how should we go about it? What kind of message gets a reply?

The ones that really stick out are the ones from folks that have put a little effort into it and show a POV. For example, I am always impressed by those that took it upon themselves to redesign an aspect of Airbnb to show us their skills, ideas and interests. We’ve seen a lot of great work this way and we’re always happy to talk to someone with that kind of passion and hustle.

What are the top mistakes you see designers make when applying for a job at Airbnb? Are there specific things that keep bothering you? Please complain to us! (:

Folks love to talk about how they do “design strategy” and want to work on “new big things.” They’ll tell us that they can do the details, but they’re better with strategy and developing new concepts and their time is better spent elsewhere. What they’re forgetting is that almost everyone wants to work on new and exciting things, that’s a given. We are most interested in finding people who have an understanding of how big and little improvements drive a business forward, and know how to balance these things to create big impact. We want the folks who can come up with big ideas AND know how to get them done. We want people who are passionate about solving problems, and not just the sexy ones.

The Airbnb office in San Francisco

Any favorite story of an application that really stuck with you?

Two years ago, Jihad Kawas (a high schooler from Lebanon) sent us a project he called Airbnb Moments. He put together a whole site showing his thinking and ideas for a product. It was awesome. It was rapidly sent around the product team. Folks were impressed with the thoroughness, care and creativity. We brought him into the office, had him present to the team and meet the CEO. He was pumped and so were we. At the time we didn’t have a role for him but we’ve been keeping in touch ever since 🙂

Jihad Kawas with the Airbnb Design Team - Friends forver 😉

Tell us one thing you never want to see again on a portfolio. Anything you wish you saw more?

I have seen way too many design process diagrams. They’re all the same. I want to understand your process, so I can be sure you’re thinking about users and giving yourself room to develop creative ideas. But four bubbles, a few arrows and a bunch of words is just fluff. I’d prefer to see that process through the work. Show me how you’ve gone from insight, to concept, to solution, to impact with a real project example. That will help me understand how you work and think, and assure us you can do it again.

"Show me how you’ve gone from insight, to concept, to solution, to impact with a real project example."

Say I make the first pass and get invited to an interview. Can you briefly describe the interview process from there? How many interviews are there and how long would the average interview process last? What are the phases?

While we’re often evolving it, this is what it is today…

  1. You chat with the recruiter on the phone
  2. You submit your online portfolio, we review it
  3. You chat with a designer from the team on the phone
  4. Recruiter tells you about the Design Challenge
  5. You submit the Design Challenge, we review it
  6. You come in for a day…
  • Portfolio + Design Challenge presentation (45 mins)
  • Three interviews with designers (3x 30 mins)
  • One interview with a project manager (1x 30 mins)
  • Two interviews with cross functional / core value folks (2x 30 mins)
  • Lunch with a designer

You may have to do your in person interview here, not too bad isn't it?

Would you hire someone who is a culture fit over someone who has more industry experience and hard skills?

You need both to work at Airbnb. Great craft is essential, but it means nothing to us if you can’t collaborate and put our users first. We look for people who are self-aware and value the contributions of others. Whether they’re a leader or follower, an introvert or an extrovert, we seek people who know that problem-solving is a team sport, and that our community has diverse needs.

What are the secondary skills you look for in a designer? For example, do you prefer business skills over coding skills?

It’s important that all designers can communicate their ideas and rationale, collaborate with others, and navigate ambiguity proactively. Beyond that, it really depends on the role. We hire prototypers that can code, yet lack facilitation and presentation skills. And we also hire folks that are awesome at facilitation and presentations, but can’t code for the life of them.

Leaders are expected to work laterally with other teams and cross-disciplinary partners. Business acumen as well as technical understanding is very useful for these folks as it can make them a better collaborator.

How do I get your job one day? (;

Hard work 🙂

____________

Thanks to Katie for taking the time to provide these thoughtful answers. Of course every company looks for something different in a hire, and I found several of Katie’s points worth noting if you’re interested in applying at Airbnb. Here are my main takeaways:

Airbnb isn't specifically hiring off of Dribbble.

They don’t rely only on referrals and actually source talent from places like LinkedIn or Medium. That means the more present you are online, the more likely they will find you before you can even apply.

Do something that surprises.

Katie remembered the kid who submitted the Airbnb Moments design. She passed his name around and even linked to his work here. Airbnb gets hundreds of applications a week. Now the question is, which one surprises and stands out?

A portfolio seems to be crucial. 

Portfolios are one of the first things Airbnb checks to decide who moves on to the next step. You better have one.

Set aside some time for the interview process.

It seems like Airbnb’s interview process is fairly involved and requires you to be there in-person for at least parts of it. Plan accordingly if you’re traveling for interviews.

Bullshit will not get you far.

Airbnb wants to see your process in action, not a pretty infographic about it. Provide examples that show how you think from the strategy phase all the way through the details and dirty work. Go all out.

If you're now as pumped as I am, you can apply to Airbnb right here. (if your position isn't listed, try reaching out to a design recruiter on LinkedIn instead)

What did you find most helpful from Katie’s interview? Or do you have any questions that you feel didn't get answered? Tweet at me and let me know - I'm happy to help!

Have a fantastic week,
Tobias

March 1, 2017No Comments

Semplice portfolio inspiration of February 2017

As you might know, we launched Semplice in 2014 to build the perfect portfolio tool we always dreamed off. Since then many great designers started using Semplice and I'm always blown away to see what other designers create.

It's inspiring to see what others create and it pushes me further everyday.

With this blog post series I'd like to share the ten best portfolios every month, handpicked by yours truly. My hope is that these portfolios inspire you as much as they inspire me. And at the same time spreading the word about designers you might not have heard about yet.

__________

For more inspiration you can always visit the Semplice showcase, and I’m looking forward to sharing eight more hand-picked portfolios with you next month.

PS: Header article by Nikki Farquharson.

Have a fantastic new month,
Lu

 

February 3, 2017No Comments

What makes a good logo?

Can we judge a book by its cover?

Read more

February 1, 2017No Comments

Semplice Portfolio Inspiration of January 2017

As you might know, we launched Semplice in 2014 to build the perfect portfolio tool we always dreamed off. Since then many great designers started using Semplice and I'm always blown away to see what other designers create.

It's inspiring to see what others create and it pushes me further everyday.

With this new blog post series I'd like to share the ten best portfolios every month, handpicked by yours truly. My hope is that these portfolios inspire you as much as they inspire me. And at the same time spreading the word about designers you might not have heard about yet.

__________

For more inspiration you can always visit the Semplice showcase, and I’m looking forward to sharing eight more hand-picked portfolios with you next month.

PS: Header article by Daan van Dam.

Have a fantastic new month,
Lu

 

January 31, 2017No Comments

How to work with a recruiting agency

In case you just started as a freelance designer or you’re thinking about going freelance in the future, there are essentially two ways of getting work.

The first way is to just work directly with a client that reached out to you, or maybe a client you got through a friend. The second way is to work with a recruiter or a recruitment agency. In this article we talk about getting work through a recruitment agency. As you can imagine, there are a couple pros & cons about this, but first, let’s review the basics:

A Recruiter is like a match-maker between you, the Freelancer/Contractor and a Creative Agency. When an agency needs an extra pair of hands for a pitch or client presentation, they send a request out to one (or many) of the recruiting agencies they work with. The recruiter will then select a few freelancers from their database who are available and fit the job description and day rate.

As a freelancer you will always need to give permission before the recruiter can send over your portfolio to their client. This means, you won’t end up working on a project you don’t like, you are still in charge. When a match is made and the booking is confirmed, the recruiting agency will handle the contract, time sheets and payments. Within just a few hours you can be secured with a job for the following week or even month. At the end of every week, you send the Recruiting Agency a timesheet with your invoice and most of them pay you within 7 days. The Recruiter invoices the Creative Agency and charge their own fee on top.

You can see the recruiter in the middle between you and the creative agency. They’re not only the match-maker, but they also handle crucial details you might not be interested in dealing with yourself (for example contracts, payments etc.)

How to find a recruiter?

There are different ways to find a creative recruiter. The best way is to ask other freelance designers for their recommendations. In big cities such as London or New York, designers are usually happy to share their experiences with the different recruiting agencies and they will give you names of the agencies they like to work with.

To be honest, there is so much work with so many recruiters, there is usually very little competition between freelancers to get work, even if it sometimes feels like it. This especially is the case in bigger cities such as London or New York. Also, if you’re trying to get recruiter recommendations, ask designer friends that in your eyes do very well and always seem busy. Those are the ones who usually appreciate the extra help.

When it comes to smaller cities, things are a little more difficult mostly because there is less work and people are less likely to exchange information and contacts. However, some recruiters in London for example, would have good contacts to advertising agencies abroad. So whatever city you’re working in, contacting bigger recruiters in bigger cities could still give you projects in your local city.

Other ways to find recruiters is to search on LinkedIn. Yes, I said it, LinkedIn. People who work for recruiting agencies call themselves Consultants. Within the agency there are different consultants for different fields : IT, Technology, Creative, Freelance or Permanent consultants. Contact the person that you think can help you out. Also as a bonus tip, if you put Freelance in your LinkedIn title, it will help recruiters find you easier.

Most designers who have good work are constantly overbooked and even jokingly complain about how many recruiters bother them on a daily basis. Knowing this is important because it tells us how much work is really out there, and it’s a lot!

Pros & Cons of working with a recruiter

PROS

1. Access to the biggest creative agencies via their network. This will help build yours. LinkedIn is your friend! If you enjoyed working with someone at a Creative Agency, add them on LinkedIn, stay in touch! You never know what will come up in the future

2. The role of the recruiter is to have a good relationship with both sides and it's up to them to find the perfect match.  This means that big agencies trust them to only send over their best talent for the right job. So you have a higher chance to get in.

3. Most of them pay you within a week, even if the client takes forever to pay them. Probably one of the best benefits of working with a recruiter.

4. Recruiters get paid when you work, so they are eager to get you on a job. If you’re on their list, you can be sure that they will push many projects to you.

5. They will negotiate your day rate and overtime fees, so you don't have to deal with this. But always make sure you know what the terms are before you start.

6. You can work whenever you want, for as long as you want. Just let them know and they will contact you with the right jobs. A recruiter or recruitment agency is similar to working with an agent, but more flexible.

7. You can have multiple recruiters working for you, talking to multiple agencies at the same time. You the boss!

CONS

1. Lower day rate, as the recruiter will add their own fee on top of yours. However, you don’t have to deal with contracts, negotiations or late payments. But beware of recruiters who charge more than 15-25% on top.

2. Not allowed to work directly with the creative agency within 6 (sometimes 12) months of them introducing you.  This means that you can’t go behind the recruiters back, and cut them out of the deal. But at the same time, this might be bad for your future career not being able to work for a company, just because a recruiter introduced you first. Be careful.

3. Recruiters get paid when you work, so they can sometimes be a bit overeager. Don’t get pressured into a project. Just because they send you one, doesn’t mean you have to accept it. Of course, this is a good problem to have.

4. If you have Freelancer in your LinkedIn description, you will get bombarded with invites from recruiters. Be selective! Always meet (Skype) them first before you take on a booking through them. A good recruiter wants to get to know you and your skill set so they can place you somewhere you will fit in.

5. Communicate exactly what work you want to do, or they might book you for the wrong job. (No PowerPoint for me!)

6. You need to keep track of which recruiter introduced you to which agency, to prevent being put forward for the same job. This won’t look good on all involved.

___

So generally, my advice is to just be careful. Good recruiters are rare, but if you find one it can be a great relationship. Unfortunately, there are as many bad recruiters out there, so you really need to listen to your gut. Always ask recruiters for all the details, and even ask them how much their cut will be. An average is 15-25% of what the recruiter adds on top, but some of them add even more. Beware of those, and don't work with anyone who does shady business.

Different cities, different ways

These are my experiences of working in London as a freelancer for 3 years. I recently moved to Amsterdam, which is a different playing field.

But generally the rules from above apply to working with most individual recruiters or recruitment agencies. And of course, some recruiters can even find you a full-time position as well, if that’s what you are looking for.

Thank you for reading,
Nika

January 30, 2017No Comments

My Favorite Type Foundries to Find Typefaces

One of the questions I hear the most is “What are your favorite typefaces?”

The truth is, they change all the time and my answer would probably change every time you ask me. But what doesn’t change is the list of type foundries I follow, the source of all the goodness.

I probably spent tens of thousands of dollars on typefaces since I started designing. I love typefaces, they are the core of everything I’m doing and every cent spent is worth it. I guess what I'm hinting at is: If you like a Typeface and use it, pay your favorite type designer.

Below a list of some of my favorite type foundries I try to visit on a regular basis. It's important to mention that most of these type foundries create typefaces that just fit my personal taste. Further below at the end of the article I list a couple more resources and type foundries with more variety of typefaces. The ones I list at the top are specifically the ones I always loved the most.

Milieu Grotesque

Easily one of my favorites. I found their typeface Maison Neue a couple years ago, it was just released and no one was using it so I ended up applying it as my main typeface for everything related to my personal brand. You can see it in use on my business cards from early 2013.

Maison Neue has been my typeface I use for everything since years.

Since then the typeface became fairly popular. It’s funny, once you discover a new typeface you want to tell everyone, but at the same time you want to keep it for yourself. (which isn’t good for the type designer of course)

Lineto

Most of you probably know Lineto. We (when I used to work at Spotify) used Circular for the new Spotify re-branding and I personally love Akkurat, Brown and many more typefaces they published. As much as I love Lineto, you will have some difficulties getting the typefaces for your digital products since they only offer their fonts with a self-hosted license. (and Lineto is famous for being very expensive with those)

Colophon

Colophon is a London/New York based type foundry which I count to one of my favorites. Their most popular and latest typeface is probably Apercu.

Swiss Typefaces

I think I own pretty much all typefaces from this little type foundry. The last project I did was the branding for Ada Blackjack where we used their typeface Euclid & Romain. You can see an example below.

Branding project I helped design in 2012 using the Euclid typeface

 

Klim Type Foundry

Klim Type Foundry is a one man type foundry located in New Zealand with absolutely stunning typefaces. Definitely worth a follow. One of my favorite typefaces is probably Domaine Display.

Binnenland Type

I remember a couple years ago (actually, I think it was around 2005) I fell in love with their typeface T-Star and since then it has been one of my favorites which I used in many of my personal projects.

Filip Matejicek

Not so much a type foundry but I fell in love with his Pano typeface. He also runs a small type foundry called Heavyweight on the side as much as I could find out. I try to check back every now and then and see if there is something new.

Grilli Type

Grilli Type is a little independent swiss type foundry you should definitely follow. Probably the most well known typefaces (and my favorites) are GT Walsheim and GT Haptik.

Radim Pesko

Small type foundry based out of London founded by Radim Pesko. Really nice selection of typefaces, especially Agipo and Fugue.

Letters from Sweden

Another one of my highlights. Letters from Sweden, a small'ish type foundry based on Sweden and founded by Göran Söderström. Can't even decide which typeface is my favorite here, they're all wonderful and I'm about to buy pretty much all of them.

Editions 205

Another type foundry , but this time from France. Probably one of my little secrets so far, especially typefaces like Plaak and LeBeaune really made me fall in love with their work.

Dynamo

And because we haven't had yet enough of it, another swiss type foundry. Especially liking their Prophet and Favorit typeface.

More resources & type foundries

Optimo
Another swiss classic you should definitely bookmark. One of my favorites.

Commercial Type
Another great type foundry. My favorites are probably Austin and Graphik, both stunning typefaces.

Hoefler & Co
Lot's of classics in here, and a great resource for web typography.

URW++
A classic German type foundry you should bookmark.

Novellnoire
Another swiss foundry with a more experimental selection.

Hfdfonts 
You probably heard of the typeface Brandon. Lots of very solid typefaces in their selection I really like.

House Industries
Famous for their typeface Neutraface I and Neutraface II. Used it many times myself and I'm sure you've seen it as well.

Fontbureau
Another classic you probably already follow.

Dalton Maag
Another one of the big ones you probably already know. as recommended by @jms_bk on Twitter - Thank you! Also https://typesupply.com and https://www.productiontype.com/ and https://www.theleagueofmoveabletype.com

Also recommended from Twitter are Fort Foundry, thank you @mds

//EDIT: Another one that just came in via Twitter is Schick Toikka founded by German Designer Florian Schick and Helsinki based Designer Lauri Toikka. Especially loving the Noe Display typeface here. Thanks so much for the tip @ThibaudAllie

I hope you enjoy this list of type foundries and it helps you finding some of your new typefaces for your future projects. Also, I know it's sounds kinda unnecessary to say, but please support your favorite type designer. Don't share fonts illegally, especially if you do end up using them in commercial projects. Your type designers will thank you.

Have a great week,
Tobias

January 10, 2017No Comments

Best of Portfolios 2016 – Semplice Edition

Happy New Year everyone!

As a frequent reader you probably know that I work on a portfolio tool called Semplice. And with the year 2016 ending we looked at all the 104 handpicked portfolios in our showcase and picked the 13 best to share with you on a special year in review page.

And honestly, it was kind of impossible to pick these 13 because there are so many good ones and they're just so different from each other.

But we managed to finish our little page and today we like to share it with you. We made sure to pick portfolios that showcase work from different disciplines such as traditional graphic design, photography, web design and 3D design.

We hope these portfolios and designers inspire you as much as they inspire me, regardless if you're using Semplice or not, these portfolios and the work of these designers makes me want to try harder and better in 2017.

Let's rock the New Year,
Tobias

 

January 6, 2017No Comments

Constructed – A photo series by Pawel Nolbert

I've been following Pawel for quite some time now. I think I first heard of him around 10 years ago or even longer when I discovered his colorful artworks online. Back then, Pawel was mostly known under his web nickname "hellocolor". A name that suits him very well.

Pawel is originally from Poland, and while I didn't meet him in person for a long time, we eventually ended up meeting in New York a couple years ago.

If you've never seen Pawels work, go now and visit his portfolio! One of my favorite projects is still Sneakercubes from 2012, a good way to start browsing his work.

But for this article I like to focus on one of his recent projects called "Constructed" which blew me away the moment I saw the first sneak peeks on his Instagram account.

Let's go

Your "Constructed" photo series is transportive and beautiful. Explain the idea behind the project. What do you want me to feel or think when looking at these pictures?

First of all I got started with it, because I had some travel photography from my USA trips, that I wanted to use more creatively, and I simply wanted to work more with photography.

But then the real need to create this project came from my observation of social media, reality and the perception of it by humans. It’s about the inaccuracy of human memory and the way we create our reality, based on the fact that we remember things in our own personal way, not exactly as it happened, which we then tweak on our social channels. Other than that, as with my works in general, I would like it to be visually appealing and stimulate thoughts and I allow for a more free interpretation of that work.

Do you think it’s possible that our social media lives are closer to reality? What if we are our truest selves online, where there are no limits to expression?

I’m highly sceptic about that and it’s always been an important issue for me, truthfulness in media and in life. The recent wake of awareness about fake news and information (finally!), with Google trying to fight against it, Facebook not doing much about it, because it kinda of drives the platform these days, if we look at the usual content over there. We need a reliable way to validate the information on the Internet, it’s about time.

But if we look at the creation of tweaked reality on social media, it has always been done by people, in any given way. It’s just in the age of film cameras back in the days, few people had the tools to alter the reality, now it’s in everyone’s hands and you can easily edit your photos to an exaggerated extent, and we can see more of that than before, and getting that few more likes for a tweaked reality has never been more tempting.

People always wanted magic over realism, to but on the other hand, how do we encourage a better living, by showing the dull life? At the end of the day, to me it’s about being honest and not creating impression that fake is the real thing, but rather by using the imagined world to inspire the real world.

A big theme in this series is the distorted way we remember things. Tell us one memory you'd pay to remember in perfect detail.

We think we remember everything clear and that it is the ultimate truth. Then we find out that the other person saw and remembered the same thing differently.

I’m lucky to have a pretty good memory, I think... but I know that it’s not perfect and I tried to visualise those imperfections somehow.

I‘m bad at remembering names or numbers, but things I’d like to remember better is smell, like the smells of childhood, summer holidays, food, nature, things like that.

If you had to live permanently inside a reality you've constructed, which would it be?

It would be outside of the city, probably somewhere by the ocean, or in the mountains, or ideally both together. In a utopian and reimagined system, that we know from some sci-fi movies or futurist visions.

What’s your process for creating these images? What tools do you use? Have you run into any challenges?

The main component of this project is still photography so I have to actually get somewhere and photograph the locations. If you have to get out to do some work, it’s always a great thing and that’s what I always looked up to photographers, who do that a lot.

There are not many challenges in the process really, it’s a constant play and experiment. The only challenge was to get the right type of idea in the beginning, which does its job and that is original.

In a parallel universe, what is the other version of you doing with his life?

I could be living somewhere in the wilderness, spending less time in front of computer and internet, and still doing creative stuff, but more hand-made.

Check out the full series of Constructed on his portfolio.

Stay awesome,
Tobias

December 12, 2016No Comments

An Artist’s Rules to Live By

Malika Favre is one of the most genuinely cool people I know. You’ve probably seen her illustrations on the cover of The New Yorker, in Vogue or the New York Times, among many other places.

I admire Malika because she doesn’t let anyone tell her what to do or how to define herself. She has always trusted her instincts and taken her own path, and it worked out pretty well for her. Below are a few pieces of wisdom Malika recently shared with me on The NTMY Show podcast. Read them, remember them, live by them. Or don’t. Malika’s not about to tell you what to do.

 

1. You have to know the rules to break them well

“For me, it was always important to know how to do things right so then you can deconstruct them,” Malika says.

Look at Picasso, who broke all the rules with his art. He created an entire movement with his abstract, disjointed style. But before that, even as a kid, he could draw anything with perfect proportions. He knew how to draw human features exactly right. And from there he completely deconstructed it.

Malika says this is the greatest tool for artists pursuing any style. You need to understand how something works so you can turn it on its head. You have to know how to do things right to effectively do them wrong.

“I’ve always liked beautiful things and perfection,” says Malika. “I couldn’t do what I do now if I didn’t learn how to draw technically really well.”

This is even something I learned pretty early on in my own career. When I just started out as a designer I shamelessly copied other designers. I never published any of that work of course, but what happened is that I got really good from a technical perspective. I learned how to properly design within grids, which ultimately led me to break them. And this is where the magic started.

kamasutra_image12

2. You must constantly reinvent yourself

As an artist, you’re usually commissioned for work you’ve already done – not for work you’re going to do. So it’s easy to get stuck in a loop of creating the same old thing you always do, especially when people are throwing money at you.

“It’s already quite frustrating when you see people ripping you off, but the reality is that 90% of the time you’re ripping yourself off.”

Your reputation can suffer for it. Eventually, you and everyone else is bored with your work. You’ve become irrelevant.

“Sometimes I just say no based on the fact that I can feel in the email that the client wants exactly what I’ve done for their competitor or another client,” says Malika.

grid

 

It’s a struggle, she explains, especially when you make your living as an artist. Sometimes you can’t afford to say no. That’s why Malika reinvents herself through her personal work, self-initiated projects.

“That’s the only time when you can do anything you want,” she says. And if your personal work is strong enough, it becomes part of your portfolio, and then clients want that. “So you always have to reinvent yourself, and it can be quite exhausting.” But it’s worth it.

If you’re interested, you can dig deeper in this topic with one of my recent articles on “How to find your own style” as a designer and artist. It’s a blessing and a curse at the same time.

3. Don’t make money make you fail

“Money shouldn’t be what motivates you. Otherwise you’re destined to fail as an artist,” says Malika.

If money is what drives your art, you won’t get very far. You work needs to come from passion and curiosity and love and happiness or sometimes despair. Money doesn’t inspire, it’s just a perk.

Of course that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t understand what money can do for you. Money is still important to keep the lights on, but it is rarely or I’d say never the reason why great art exists. If you hate to deal with money, you may do it like Malika. Get an agent.

4. Do yourself a favor and ask for what you want

At the beginning of her career, Malika had an internship at a studio called Airside. They didn’t have a full-time job for her then, so she ended up getting one somewhere else. But she still had Airside on her mind.

A year later, she bumped into someone she previously worked with there during her internship, and he said he was leaving his job at the studio to go freelance.

ss13

“The first thing that came out of my mouth was, ‘Can I have your job?’” Malika says. “It just came out. And he looked at me and said, ‘Maybe?’ And the next day I had a call from the boss.”

Of course this was also a matter of being in the right place at the right time. But because Malika had already proven herself and felt confident she was qualified for the job, she forgot about being polite or professional and simply asked for what she wanted. It paid off.

Don’t assume or speculate. Don’t let other people guess. Always ask for what you want, it makes the world so much easier for you and those around you.

5. The way you start can ruin or make your first year of being an artist

“A couple of bad projects can kill you at the beginning,” explains Malika. “If you take on too much work, if you take on the wrong clients, if you produce the wrong kind of work, that’s what’s going to stay. That’s what people are going to perceive you as.”

When Malika decided she wanted to go freelance, she eased into it by taking on freelance projects and saving while she was still at her full-time job. Since she was at the beginning of her career at the time, she couldn’t necessarily afford to be picky with projects. But her savings created a cushion, meaning she didn’t have to freak out about the money side of things. She was free to turn down projects that didn’t align with where she wanted to go as an artist.

Malika is convinced that those decisions can make or break an artist’s future.

“If you work on a project and you’re already thinking about the next one and when that one is going to come in, it’s just not good. Nothing good is going to come out of it. You need to be focusing on what you’re doing right now.”

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And now, do yourself a favor and browse through Malika Favres portfolio. You will love it, trust me. If you enjoyed this article, please make sure to share it with your friends and/or let me know via Twitter.

Thank you for reading,
Tobias

December 2, 2016No Comments

Avoid these 5 things when building your design portfolio 

For some reason, when creating our design portfolio, everything we praise about good design seems to be forgotten as we work in perfect isolation.

Having reviewed many portfolios throughout years, I’d like to share the five most common mistakes designers make when creating their portfolios. Of course, it's all relative depending on what you want to achieve. But in most cases, we'd all be much better off without these five things in our portfolio.

1. The generic bullshit intro

As with everything you design, question every single element and ask yourself: Is this really needed? While reviewing hundreds of portfolios, one of the most common things I've noticed are headlines such as: “I craft meaningful experiences” or “I push perfect pixels” combined with a random stock photo of a Macbook sitting on a desk.

These intros not only take up a lot of space, but are also used by 90% of other designers and say nothing about what you can actually do. Yes, you work on a Macbook and so does everyone else. You drink coffee? Wow, awesome. You're hired!

Simply remove the intro, or replace it with simple facts like your title and what you offer, instead of wishy washy marketing speech. I’m not saying this to bash anyone, but simply because I want you to have the best portfolio possible.

If a client chooses you based on an empty intro, I might ask myself if I even want to work with that kind of client.

2. Showing too much work

There are many reasons for avoiding too much work in your portfolio, but here are a few:

  • a. Trying to show too much is the main reason why most designers never finish their portfolio in the first place. As you know, limiting yourself is a good design exercise. It makes you focus on the essentials.
  • b. No one has the time and patience to go through all of your work, I promise.
  • c. Showing too much work basically says, “I have no opinion about my work, here is all the shit I did since 1999, just sort it out for yourself.”

The process of editing yourself is the most important aspect of creating your portfolio. Analyzing your work and thoughtfully removing projects from your portfolio is painful but also the best way to grow as a designer. We're as much editors and curators as we're designers.

3. Too many unsolicited redesigns for Fortune500 companies

You know, I love unsolicited redesigns because they are not only a great tool for exercising your design sensibilities when just starting out, but also a good way to generate hype and attention within the design community. If the only reason you do them is to generate attention, keep doing them.

nike

However, as a designer we shine when solving hard problems, or at least attempting to solve them. Doing a quick visual redesign of nike.com, apple.com or any other Fortune500 company is not only easy but also lazy, because you’re doing it for a company that is already very successful and has fantastic assets/products to work with in the first place. You've chosen the lowest hanging fruit to show your skills.

That said, I do love to see unsolicited redesigns that are focused on real problems – companies that aren’t yet successful, products that are struggling and are neither hip or cool.

Being a good (product) designer means being a good problem solver. Choosing the easy route is of course totally up to you, but it also reveals a lot about you and your work ethics. Unsolicited redesigns are a fantastic source to practice your skills, but focus your motivation on the problem and not the shiny brand (unless your only goal is to work for  Nike).

Please keep doing unsolicited redesigns as an exercise because they are fun and quick to do, but in the context of building a strong portfolio I recommend keeping them to a minimum.

4. Don't hide your responsibilities

Let me give you a real life example: I remember reviewing a couple portfolios for a senior designer role. While reviewing some designers I found at least six portfolios that showcased exactly the same work for Nike.

Neither of them outlined what they actually did on the project, which of course caused trust issues immediately. Who did what? Did any one of them actually work on it? How many more designers worked on this and why is no one honest about their role?

When working for bigger clients this is a common issue, but it can be solved easily by adding a detailed description about your responsibilities on each project, plus the other collaborators. Handle it the way movies do, with a list of credits at the end.

Leaving out the details about a project usually makes the viewer suspicious – especially if they spot inconsistencies when comparing it to other projects in your portfolio, which seem to differ in quality.

5. Don't make your portfolio a piece of art

Often we use our own website as a creative outlet. We think of it as our own creative playground where we can finally express ourselves, after all these limiting client projects.

When we treat our portfolio as our personal experiment, we end up with a website that is slow and playful to an extent that it becomes unusable. If you'd like to get hired by certain companies, imagine the people who have to review your portfolio. Their time is usually limited and with the amount of portfolios they have to sort through, it's a draining task.

If I need to complete a puzzle first just to find the navigation, I’m very likely to dismiss a portfolio immediately, even if the work is outstanding.

Think of your portfolio as the space in a museum. Clean, easy to navigate and fully focused on the work itself.

Focusing on the usability of your portfolio is  as important as the work you're showcasing. While this sounds almost too obvious, it’s still one of the main reasons why so many portfolios get rejected during the review process. It's just too hard to get to the actual work.

The conclusion

Avoid these 5 common mistakes and you'll be well on your way to building a fantastic and effective portfolio.

Please reach out to me on Twitter if you have any questions or comments. I'm always happy to help.

Keep on rocking,
Tobias

PS: Header image portfolio by Cait Opperman

December 1, 2016No Comments

Semplice portfolio inspiration of November 2016

Your monthly design & portfolio inspiration.

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November 25, 2016No Comments

The Art of Being a Hypocrite Designer

Let's talk about ethics in design.

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November 14, 2016No Comments

Weekly Edition Nr.76

I think we can all agree this was a difficult week, especially for my friends living in the United States. But if you already know me, I usually try to stay away from talking about politics.

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November 11, 2016No Comments

Trading Design for Something Else Than Money?

Ana and Tiago, a young designer couple recently drove across Europe on a mission to share good design with the world.

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November 7, 2016No Comments

Staying Busy & the Post VR Sadness

AVERAGE READING TIME TESTED ON PANDAS: 3:00min

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November 2, 2016No Comments

Best Semplice portfolios of October 2016

Your monthly design & portfolio inspiration.

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October 31, 2016No Comments

The dilemma of form follows function

Stefan Sagmeister says we’ll look back on today’s idea of design and we can’t quite believe we did it.

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October 14, 2016No Comments

How to Find Your Perfect Color Pairings

Since many of you asked me about my color workflow, here is a quick and short article about it.

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October 7, 2016No Comments

Best Semplice portfolios of the month

The best Semplice portfolios from September 2016

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October 6, 2016No Comments

Setting up My VR Machine

Since many of you on Twitter have been asking me about my recent VR setup I wanted to write a quick and short blog post about my experience so far.

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September 7, 2016No Comments

The DESK Blog Is Finally Live!

We did it!

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September 1, 2016No Comments

Lessons from a self-taught creative director

Piera Gelardi is the co-founder and executive creative director of Refinery29, an online fashion and lifestyle magazine with 25 million readers.

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August 23, 2016No Comments

Semplice turned two!

Exactly two years ago we hit the launch button on Semplice.

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June 21, 2016No Comments

Secrets about freelancing, I lied about my career

At least once a day I get an email from someone reaching out to me asking for advice on how to become a designer. Or more specifically, how to become a freelance designer with your own clients.

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June 14, 2016No Comments

Best Must-have Apps to Edit Your Instagram Pictures

After so many people asked me this question, I wanted to take some time and walk you through my process of editing pictures for Instagram.

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June 7, 2016No Comments

The Product Midlife Crisis

Creating something out of nothing is hard. Creating something that people use is even harder.

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June 2, 2016No Comments

Does depression drive creativity?

The myth of the struggling artist & how Stefan Sagmeister stays creative.

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April 26, 2016No Comments

No Sugar, No Carbs

This post was written last year and started as an experiment.

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April 19, 2016No Comments

The Broken Window Theory In Product Design

I first got introduced to the Broken Window Theory by a co-worker at Spotify a few years ago.

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March 28, 2016No Comments

A Teacher Explains, a Mentor Inspires

I often get asked if I have had any mentors along the way in my life and career. I'm not sure if I'm right with this, but I feel like this is a very American question to ask.

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March 2, 2016No Comments

Designers, limit your tools

I remember when I started out being a designer in my little apartment back in Austria. At the time I wasn’t calling myself a designer just yet, because I was mostly coding websites.

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February 22, 2016No Comments

How to Find Your Own Design Style

I get a lot of emails from young designers often asking me on how they can find their own unique style.

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January 2, 2016No Comments

About DESK

DESK was founded in early 2016 to cover topics from design, psychology and productivity. Our goal is to create a resource for designers and makers to motivate, inspire and just have fun.

We don't like to take ourselves too seriously.

The DESK blog is for independent makers and those who want to broaden their horizons beyond the regular design-y topics, which is why we don't write about things like "the latest UX trends." We created DESK because we saw the need for a design blog that is actually written by designers in the field. No bullshit.

Currently the DESK blog runs mostly without any external funding or advertising and is mainly self-financed. We are supported and sponsored by the fine folks at Semplice and hosted by Flywheel (best hosting service, seriously). In addition, in 2018 we've started opening up our partnership program which helps us pay the bills and keep writing the articles for you. Thank you to all of our partners who've supported us financially by letting us write about their products.

Who's the "we" behind DESK? Let us introduce ourselves.

Lu is a designer and contributor to the DESK blog since its inception. Originally from China, she is now living and designing in Berlin, Germany. Lu loves snorkeling, karaoke and walking in the drizzling rain. Lu shares portfolio inspiration on DESK and makes little design tweaks that help you enjoy your stay here.

 

Lizzy is a writer and just all around creative person. Lizzy is from Nashville and agrees to cookies on most websites. She loves writing fiction but on DESK mostly writes about psychology and productivity, with some satire mixed in. Otherwise, Lizzy edits everything we write and fixes our typos to protect us from the internet grammar police.

 

Nika is also a freelance designer, writer and illustrator. Originally from Amsterdam you can find her freelancing all over the world. If Nika is not hunting the best snaps for her Instagram page, she is most likely designing or writing about freelance things. You can find most of her writing on the dedicated Freelance Life Series page.

 

 

Terri is a designer currently doing things a designer does in Austin, Texas. After she lived in Hawaii for a couple years, she turned into the biggest poi lover. Why she left that behind and moved to Texas, well you might ask that herself (that's your free conversation starter with Terri).

 

 

And then we have Jon. Jon is a designer from Nashville and is pretty much good at everything which makes it super easy to be friends with him. In addition he's a devoted "Instagram husband" which is something only the best can do. Look it up.

 

 

Say hello to Stefan! Stefan is a designer gone developer originally from Austria but currently lives in New York City. The best thing about Stefan is that he's always happy to use any chance he can get to use an Arnold Schwarzenegger reference, and he does so successfully every time.

 

 

Tobias is a designer, maker and sometimes writer. He is originally from Germany but grew up in Austria. After a fairly short stay in Stockholm he finally decided to live in New York City where he's remained for the past 7 years. Tobias loves pandas, skateboarding and hunting "grams" (is that how the young kids say?) on the streets.

September 22, 2015No Comments

University vs. Self Taught

Is traditional design education necessary as a practicing designer?

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June 1, 2015No Comments

How World of Warcraft Saved My Career

For years I felt uncomfortable to talk about this specific topic, as many of us would do.

I played World Of Warcraft for years and it played a key role in my career becoming a designer, opening my own design studio and landing a job as Product Design Lead at Spotify in New York.

World of Warcraft or any MMOPRG games are usually getting a bad rap. We love to talk about how people lose their jobs, lose all their friends or even die, but rarely talk about the other side.

But today, I would like to talk about just that.

I’ve always been drawn to competitive online games when I was a teenager, from Quake, Counterstrike to World of Warcraft. For me it was less casual playing, but more mastering the mechanics of the game to become a successful competitive online player. I loved everything about it.

I started playing World of Warcraft when it launched in 2004. I got hooked immediately and spend at least 6+ hours a day in game. At the time I worked at a tech company trying to finish my apprenticeship as a computer scientist which I started right after high-school. I wasn't too invested in the job and therefore spent most of my time playing computer games.

I was naturally looking for an escape because there was nothing else I was passionate about — It was a strange situation in my life and I didn’t really know where to go next, I was lost and working as a professional designer wasn't really an option at the time.

My main character was an Orc warrior (skilled as tank and optimized gear for raiding). Next to a healing class, the tank used to be the most difficult character you could play on a higher level and was usually the one who leads large groups (up 40 people) through dungeons during raids. I was immediately drawn to this challenge, finally something I can prove myself at.

This is my lvl70 orc warrior, back in “The Burning Crusade” add-on. Running around in Shattrath City.

World of Warcraft had a big impact on where I am today. The lessons I learned simply playing a game are still relevant for me today.

1. Design

World of Warcraft made me appreciate good interface design. Blizzard has always been one of my biggest inspirations and online gaming brought me into the web design community, where Blizzard has been on the forefront of creating stunning online experiences. It all started with the need of building the website for my own counterstrike clan in 1999 and continued even further when building websites for my WoW guild in 2004.

Without WoW or Counterstrike I would have never gotten into interface design or web design — I’ve been a self-taught designer since then and I largely have to credit the gaming community for introducing me to the craft of design and user experience.

Below you can see a website/game I designed years ago, inspired by game design, most of my early designs had a high amount of detail and took me weeks to complete while drawing each element in Photoshop.

 

Design I worked on many years ago

2. Leadership & Management

A guild in World of Warcraft usually consists of around 100–200 members with a raid core of 50 people that rotate depending on their schedule. Early WoW raid groups consisted of 40, 25 or 10 people. Managing a guild or a raid meant that you have to coordinate dozens of people remotely.

The big challenge being most of them I never met in person plus dealing with a wide range of different characters, from the 15 year old extrovert, to the 40 year old introvert — In gaming you have them all.

Planning of raids involved setting up communication tools such as online forums, IRC channels and Teamspeak. Even online calendars were setup to schedule our daily training sessions and raids. Making sure people show up on time, practice the raid tactics and stay focused on the goal was within my responsibilities.

World of Warcraft taught me organizing teams and work flows. I learned value able management lessons while playing a game for fun & risk free. Many of those lessons I instantly applied after founding my own small design studio later on.

1337. Discipline

Raids inside World of Warcraft in the early days required discipline and preparation from each player. This included not only regular training sessions but also mastering the game mechanics. It’s called Theorycraft, and requires a lot of research plus trial and error. (you might call it A/B testing)

On top of that, getting the tactics and team play right while optimizing your gear for certain challenges was a must. For me that meant about 6–8h in game each day doing my home work in preparation for our raids.

This was a valuable lesson and the success of a raid was directly impacted by these small little details. And the only reason I understood this was because I experienced very rewarding moments of success in game, based on the preparation & discipline we put in. It was a simulation of everything I put in practice in my “real life”.

4. Team play & Relationships

I have always been the person who thought I can do it myself. Most of my young life I was the one without many friends going my own way — I was certainly not a big team player.

Me as healer, trying to keep a group of 25 people while reading the raid.

World of Warcraft taught me otherwise. Playing high end content within the game is a team sport, there is no way you can succeed without a great team even if you are the best individual player around.

On top of that, World of Warcraft introduced me to a wide range of different humans far outside my average social circle — From the 40 year old mother with 3 kids, to the 12 year old boy. This is unique to the gaming community, you don’t find that anywhere else — Everyone is equal, it’s an amazing and unique experience.

The friendships I made in game last until today, they are in fact one my longest friendships.

5. Language

Since I dropped out high-school with the age of 15 I did not speak any language other than german. Maybe a few English vocabularies, but that was pretty much it.

In order to learn English I started playing on an English WoW server which automatically forced me to write, speak and understand the language in order to communicate with my team mates. World of Warcraft played an essential part of helping me to learn the English language, even though I have to admit that in the beginning my vocabulary was mostly limited to words & phrases we used in the medieval times.

“Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.” — John Lennon

I played World of Warcraft for many years and for most of the time people around me told me it’s a game for nerds, losers or anti-social idiots.
For me, World of Warcraft changed my life for the good, it played an essential part of where I am today and I could not be more thankful.

Thank you Blizzard — Thank you World of Warcraft
PS: You played too? 
Let me know!

Have a great week,
Tobias

January 18, 2015No Comments

The agency is dead. Long live the agency.

We’ve been watching it since a couple years now. Design studios or agencies such as 8020, Sofa, Smart Design, Adaptive Path, Hot Studio, Gecko Design and most recently Teehan+Lax joining the ranks of larger product organizations such as Facebook, Google or Microsoft. The same happens on an individual talent level everyday.

The traditional agency model is dead, that’s the message.
But nothing is dead and nothing is going away.

While I do like to agree with it, there is a difference between physically dead and mentally dead. The traditional agency model is physically more than alive on a small scale, but mentally has been stagnating.

There is always enough work

The problem is not that there is not enough work, nor is it about the short term business growth of most small agencies. (which is excellent, I don’t think anyone can complain, yet…)

Though, most agencies will struggle to scale and create a high-margin business over time in case it keeps on operating the way it did in the past. There will always be enough low-margin work, the question is just if this matches up with your ambitions.

The reason why great talent is moving into more product focused environments is because most designers or engineers want to work on meaningful projects. Solving meaningful challenges and work on something they believe in with greater impact. Of course this is relative to each individual.

Most big challenges are solved in-house and it is extremely hard for service design agencies to tap into all the data & history needed to do their work properly.

But what’s exciting is that exactly here the shift is happening. Agencies are now tasked to find their own voice, build their own brand and craft their own vision. There has been always a lack of vision in most digital agencies because all they offered was their craft and expertise of execution. It’s like painting a car, but not building it.

Even if they tried to own more of the process it is almost impossible without becoming an integral part of the product organization. As long as great talent gets attracted by more meaningful work, the current agency model will have difficulties keeping them inside their system in the long run.

As a result agencies will experience high turnover, there fore a lack of consistent culture and ultimately will struggle to answer the simple question of “Where are we actually going?”

And isn’t this what we all want to know? Where are we going? What is our purpose? Why are we doing this?

I have many friends in agencies that I respect and I honestly believe they’re the most talented people I know. I believe in the agency model but I do see a shift happening. This article is not about what is better, agency or product company. It’s about where do you see yourself in the future.

Some people like to fuck around, some like to get married once in a while and some might have an open relationship.

It is hard because service design simply just says “Our purpose is our clients purpose” while pitching and jumping from one client brief to another. Now you would say, what’s wrong with having exactly the same purpose as the client? Nothing, but why are you not working directly with the client then?

There is no shortage for work in the service design industry, the question is just what kind of work do you want to do everyday? The challenge for digital agencies will be somewhere between finding their own voice and a solution of providing more meaningful work to keep the extraordinary talent.

There is no right or wrong here, it’s all just a matter of where you personally want to go in the future and what will help you getting there.

In the end we’re all just humans and depending on your priorities it will either come down to money, or personal fulfillment. Both can be found in product companies (which also can be your own) as well as agencies. It’s just a matter of managing expectations.

Some opt to take the golden parachute into big existing product companies and some chose to adjust the sails to get ready for a shift, while others create their own products.

PS: And the reason I’m writing this is not only because I experienced both agency & product myself, but also because I do like & see the value in both of them.