Learnings from Poke and Paul Arden
On January 3rd 2005, I started my first design job after graduating University. I joined a digital agency called Poke in London. That’s us in the picture above. Our nickname was the Pokers, we were quite the rabble. It wasn’t all dick drawings though, we also made websites, apps and marketing campaigns for our clients.
Each day I was surrounded by a really diverse set of talented people. This included animators, developers, copywriters, illustrators, project managers, strategists and directors. We worked together on client briefs to conceive, develop and deliver solutions that met their business objectives.
The Bigger Picture
I started off as a Junior Designer. So to begin with, my role was focussed on supporting Senior Designers as we worked together to execute projects. Through this experience I got a good handle on the level of design craft needed to make great work, the ‘How’ if you please.
As I became comfortable, I started to pay more attention to the people around me, and the contribution they made in our effort to deliver outstanding work. Through these observations I started to learn how we got our clients excited about new ideas. Understanding the discipline of strategy grounded the ‘Why’ for me. ‘Why’ the solutions we recommended solved our clients problems.
My thinking around how to build people’s confidence in new ideas was further informed by a book I came across at this time entitled ‘It’s Not How Good You Are, It’s How Good You Want To Be’. It was written by a guy called Paul Arden. He was the Creative Director at Advertising Agency Saatchi & Saatchi. Meet Paul…
The book is an easy, 20 minute read. Lots of pictures and big quotes. It almost falls into the self-help-motivate-me section of the library. It’s full of bold statements and short stories that share Paul’s learnings around what it takes to make great work, and how to ‘succeed in life’. Here’s an example that makes me laugh (and also gives me comfort in my average intellect).
This one is a bit more grounded:
Living In The Future
What the book did was help me paint a picture of where I wanted to go. It helped me think about how to confidently communicate new ideas to friends, partners and collaborators. It encouraged me to project a future in my work that would attract others, and bring them along for the journey as we worked together to develop new services, products, brands and experiences.
The combination of my Poke experience and the words of Mr Paul Arden set me on my way to go beyond design, and start building things from scratch. They shaped the side projects I made with friends. They influenced how I went about my work as Art Director at the Barbarian Group. And ultimately, they set me on my path to meeting Noah and James, and the subsequent journey we’ve been on in building Percolate from scratch.
It takes more than luck, or being at the right place at the right time, to build something decent from scratch. I’ve applied invaluable learnings from the people I’ve met along the way in my pursuit to build brilliant things. I believe everyone can get started like this.
