​​Designing Off-Screen

Last month, the Brand Design team here at Segment needed a break from the on-screen grind and the autopilot mode we all slip into so easily when we’re focused on deadlines. So, to get ourselves out of that funk, we decided to challenge ourselves: how could we represent the Segment brand’s values — Progress, Simplicity, and Integrity in under 2 minutes? Gathering some plastic odds and ends (brightly colored plastic rods, acrylic boxes, clear orbs, and cubes) from a field trip to a local store, we started designing. Off-screen.

Over the next few days our design team took a few minutes of time out of their days to build and photograph their work. The photos were gathered and the results were compared to one another. I’ll be honest, my initial thought was that there would be a lot of overlap in the way we would all approach our representations of each word. Though there were some similar approaches, most of the following results were varied, but accurate representations.

Progress

Favoring or promoting change or innovation

This was the easiest word, in my opinion, to piece together. Most of the designers, including myself, conveyed our keyword through scale; the progression of small to large. But scale wasn’t the only approach. Several designers created their representation of Progress through implied movement, rather than growth. Acrylic boxes teetering on edge, plastic diamonds changing direction, these approaches were more conceptual, but just as beautiful and accurate.

Simplicity

Easily understood or done; presenting no difficulty, not complex.

Simplicity was the first exercise where the results shared many similar traits. Clear plastics, fewer objects, it seemed like the idea of Simplicity, and how to best represent it was widely agreed upon. Cubes were favored for Simplicity, isolating them in negative space or on the gridded background provided for these exercises. Overall, these representations could be best summarized as less is more.

Integrity

The quality of being honest and having strong moral principles; strong construction; the condition of being unified, unimpaired, or sound in construction

Finally, we arrived at Integrity, the most difficult keyword of the three to build. The common trait in these explorations was rigidity. Boundary lines, boxes, visible gridlines…all of the results emphasized the strength that Integrity should provide. Balance was also a common trait in the Integrity explorations; unlike Progress and Simplicity where objects were placed outside of boundary lines, for Integrity, all of the objects sat flat on surfaces or within containers. These traits lend themselves to displaying a sense of control, an important aspect of Integrity.

So What?

After viewing the work of our design team and comparing the results, it was interesting to see the similarities and differences in our approaches and interpretations. That aside, the true purpose of these exercises was to break the monotony of on-screen design. Though we love what we do, sometimes we need to seek inspiration from somewhere other than design forums, portfolios websites, and digital inspiration boards. We looked for a way to challenge ourselves and along the way found inspiration for our work, a better familiarity with our company’s values, and a refreshed creative state of mind.