In the wonderful intersection of business and design, one of the most energizing (and sometimes frustrating) aspects of our work is how it stacks up against those of other designers. Sure, we’re passionate about our own expressions and styles, and looking to others can be a great way to get inspired to grow in new and exciting ways. But what does it actually take to grow and sustain a successful design business? When it comes to this, we designers often don’t share our experiences of what it takes to get going and stay in the game.
Designers coming right out of college tend to want to start a firm right away, but before you can put yourself forward as an expert, you need to figure out the profession which you’re going to tell clients that you’re an expert in. I know, I’ve been there, and I’m here to help you get there too. …
In the summer of 2015, I began conversations with the producers at WNYC Studio 360 about our team working on their latest project in their redesign series — imagining a symbol to represent the modern South.
This invitation arrived in the wake of the terrorist attack in Charlottesville, Virginia, which reignited the debate about how the Confederacy is celebrated and memorialized.
In many ways, we were the right team at the right time to take on this challenge. A team led by two creative directors directly descended of civil war veterans from both sides of the conflict. Both genuinely driven to bridge the divide of rancor and try to start a conversation that might begin to have people to listen to each other and heal old — generationally old — wounds. …
A book that’s on our reading list here at the office is The Phoenix Project. It’s a novelization of the life of an IT director thrust into an enterprise-wide crisis in a company buckling under the weight of out-of-date tech and culture — from applications powering the factory floor to servers powering marketing efforts. This is the very situation plaguing companies everywhere in every sector. And it’s driving the rocketing demand for cloud computing, the infrastructure to power it, the cybersecurity to lock it down and the big data to gain advantages for their customers and stakeholders.
Push Button, Create Server. …
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