C4E’s search for design partner!
SG talks about his hunt for a designer at C4E.
Hi!
I’ve been crying for like 200 years that I need a designer at C4E to partner up with us. Here is a blogpost to explain the reason.
Background.
I run C4 Events. We are a corporate live-entertainment and events agency by the day. And a pack of passionate adventurers, travellers, explorers, never-say-die-attitude-holders, curious-heads, trying-to-change-the-world-ers and so many more things by the night. Events is merely an excuse for us to do things that we really love! I mean it.
So, in the events business, large part of what we do is to create experiential spaces. And to make great experiences come to life, you need to have great design sensibilities.
And for some reason (which I’ll come to in a bit), great designers do NOT choose events as a place to find their calling. They rather freelance, goto advertising agencies, design agencies, even goto “client” offices but not to event agencies.
Why do they do that?
In one line, event agencies cant pay a lot of money.
Why cant we pay a lot of money? Because we are considered that distinct cousin of the communication industry that you can neither disown, nor be proud of!
Plus, we are often an afterthought in most communication plans at most places.
Thus, we are not paid well. Ergo, we cant pay well.
Unless as an entrepreneur, you own an IP that you want to pump money in (say IIFA, Sunburn, NH 7 etc).
Why is that? Because events is the most non-glamourous part of the marketing mix.
Why is it non-glamourous? Because you can’t calculate the Return on Investment. And because you can only reach so many people when you do a live-entertainment intervention. Club it with lack of visibility, awards, reputation and other things, no one cares about the events piece.
Get the drift?
So, how do you fix it? How do you solve all these problems?
I dont know. If I did, I would’ve moved the needle on it.
One way could be to do good, no, GREAT work. And to do great work, you need a great team. A team that has thinkers, tinkerers, writers. And well, designers. You.
P.S.: If you ask me, live events is the most exciting place to be in if adrenaline rush is what you chase. You get to see your plans, your ideas comes to life. Which is rarely a case with any other sort of design.
So, what’s on offer?
Wait. Before that, lemme answer why do we exist. In one line, we exist to create live experiences that make people think, celebrate, laugh, reflect, plan and achieve.
And what can we offer you? Here’s a list…
- A larger-than self reason to exist. Of course we want to make money. But we want to earn Karma Points in the process. We want to make the world a better place and we want to do so by showing that everyone can do more, achieve more. Each piece that we work on, we do so with so much passion, so much vigor and rigor that others must take note. And get inspired to push themselves. Yeah yea. Its kinda fuzzy but we will find our way.
- Superb and proven ability to execute. After all events IS about execution. Most pieces of things that we work on get to see the light of the day. Unlike work at advertising agencies (where the only work that sees the light of the day is routine). In fact, if you have an idea that you need help in executing, come to us! Promise we will not rest until we’ve found a way to make the impossible happen.
- Freedom. To choose your own adventure. As long as you are a, ambitious beyond dreams, b, here to make impact, c, keen on doing more in less time and d, respect time. These are non negotiable. Everything else is. Afterall, we are here because of some strange accident and now that we are here, shouldn’t we make the most of it?
So, what kind of designers do we need?
When we say we need designers, we aren't looking for just graphic designers, website designers, UI / UX ninjas or something. We don’t know what to do with people live in silos. We need people who live, eat, sleep, breathe design. We need you if you use design as a tool to solve problems. And you know who to call if you want a specific kind of design done.
In management speak, we need someone who is medium agnostic. Get the drift?
In fact, if I could make it even more simple, we need two kinds of people:
A. Thinkers.
The ones who’ve spent enough years in the business to be able to, like we said, use design as a tool to solve tough problems.
For example, if a client wants to engage their dealer network, you should be able to use design as a tool to find great answers. And then being that answer to life.
And you’ll help us on things like our website, our blog (I know this blogpost could be designed far far better), our newsletter, the birthday card that we send to our people, the postcards or any of those projects that we want to ship.
So essentially, you are the design thinker of the team. We need you to help us, guide us and take us to a point where we know that our design solves actual problems.
You could also be someone that has a few pet projects that needs someone like us (with strong execution capabilities) and huge appetite of risk. Come to us and lets ship it. Together.
P.S.: We are also hoping to do things that go beyond events. May be create a line of merchandise. Or create postcards. Or bookmarks. Or books. Or games. Puzzles. And so many more things. Need someone to tell us how to go about that!
B. Doers.
The ones who need mentoring. We dont claim to be the most evolved set of people around. But we’ve seen our share of the world and we continue to learn. And we love to share whatever little we know. We believe that we can at least nudge you in the direction that you ought to walk in. Sounds too good to be true? Ask any of those SPJIMR students that worked with C4E. Or Ask Sakhi. Or any one else that we’ve interacted with.
What is the engagement model?
Anything that works with you, works for us. Honestly.
You could ask for a fixed salary (we are NOT the best paymasters). You could ask for a percentage share in our revenues. Or profits. Or you could charge us in kind. Or you could be kind enough to not charge anything :)
We just need you to do great work.
Next steps?
Write to me at sg@c4e.in. Or at @saurabh. I read EVERY email and tweet.
Thats about it. Thanks for reading this. Please do pray that we find some great designers to partner up with us!
Thank you!
Saurabh Garg / The Real SG / @saurabh
P.S.: Somethings that we’d want to work on could look like this, this and this.
