Lecture with Simon Manchipp, Sarah Boris, Sam Winston, Tom Finn & Kristoffer Soelling, Julian House & Adrian Talbot
Q: What do you think are the essential logistical and practical requirements to set up a design studio/business?
Simon M.: 1. Have clients (at least one significant); 2. Agency can be virtual doesn’t need to be flashy physical space; 3. get an accountant; 4. Be careful what promise clients to deliver (danger of underdelivering) => repeated business is the best and easiest
Sarah B.: Space, equipment, accountant, financial cushion, have a great group of supporters (for local inspo, for help, coffee date etc.)
Julian H: be a good designer, be passionate, have a head of business, be a people person => listen to what people want => dialog => create common ground, stop designing for yourself
Julian: “Putting your idea through as if it was theirs all along”
Sam W.: Skills-swap; contact people/potential clients: Ask how he can help them instead of saying I can do this and that….
Sincerity and transparency with money: “It will cost this much because…”
Trust
Tom F. & Kristoffer S.: Keep costs low, lean and flexible in the beginning; work came through studying, friends
Q: How did you find your first studio?
Sam W.: Did his own thing, found clients who wanted to publish his books
Q: What is the one piece of advice you can offer about running a successful studio?
Simon M.: 90% of what you are doing when running a studio doesn’t have to do with Design (like finance..); Now is your change to design it your own way
Sarah B.: Don’t take no for an answer => reinvent yourself
Follow gut feeling; ask more questions if you should go into it => saying no to budgets, timing, don’t compromise (too much)
Adrian + Julian:
Handling criticism
Figure out what clients want quickly
Wearing different hats for each client
Video: Redesigning Leadership – John Maeda
- Moore’s Law => change is happening exponentially (up or down)
- Design is about Inclusion => Perspectives: change and try different for example men designing products for women (tampon)
- users are used to having great experiences => importance of design
- Trust: We need human element to be inspired as people (even machines can trick us, AI..)
- Leadership designed every 18 months
- Leadership learning through practice and failure
- Don’t be an introvert => go out and connect to people
- Scale concept of Empathy => 1. Acknowledge not knowing everything; 2. Accountable (understanding others) for that product?
John Maeda on Design Thinking and Creative Leadership
Designers make solutions – Artists make questions
Engineers solve problems – Scientists ask queestions
Diversity = inviting to party – Inclusion = asking you to dance
Leader has to balance creative (surprise) and safe
Instead of Top Management to be on top they are at the bottom=> “What do you need to motivate you?”
A question of trust: trust is on one hand a good thing but also bad (example: lack of trust can be good but also bad because than you can’t work together) =>
How can design serve this question of trust in an organisation?
machine <->organism
octopus: smartest organism => 9 tentacles all have the ability to act on their own & they cooperate between them/ trust each others
Video: How to launch and run a design studio?
“put the business structure in place enables you and your creative work to thrive more”
“autonomy and client skills we had allowed us to just jump in and figure out things on the fly”
Q: How do you go about building a team? -> “work with people we like”, “only take projects that we would want to show on the front of our website”
Q: What advice would you give someone starting a studio?
Be yourself
You should know yourself as a designer => if not it is difficult to understand people and clients
Questions I am asking myself: Who am I as designer? How to figure that out? -> I guess with experience and practice? in the real world..
https://uxdesign.cc/the-journey-of-defining-a-personal-design-philosophy-f46c4adb68a5
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Embrace failure as much as success
Like attracts alike, once you got a real project in that genre it attracts more of that => Example: you want to do more video art -> release own DVD
Even it’s not a real world project => do a mockup
The Futur (2017) How To Run A Creative Business: In-depth breakdown w/ Melinda Livsey
- Get some help: people that work for you
- Work longer > 40hrs/week; use tool like trello
- Focus sheets: write down what you supposed to get done that day (not important to finish all) and update it every day & end of the week review what to do for next week
- Clear deck: spend more time on the business of the business
- Responsiveness: towards clients
- Bring subject of money upfront and quickly -> show costs of clients you work with -> low range clients will disappear; make sure money has no power over you
- Courage is taking acting when you know all odds are agains you
Book: The Win Without Pitching Manifesto – Blair Enns
Webinar
USP = uniqueness, different from other businesses
My own experiences
Audience not too narrow or at least accessible
Look at yourself as a designer or what kind of projects and clients you want to have
Practice model: Sam Winston for ex. is non strategic
The Business plan is about you
First business idea
Platform that brings together all organisations (animal shelters, animal welfare) that offer cats (animals) for adoption. The main purpose is to simplify the search for cats for people who want to adopt them.
Other Resources
One of her design heroes László Moholy–Nagy, a designer who was a immigrant but believed in power of industry to build a better world; steered bauhaus towards modernism and encouraged women to study there; wherever he was and his circumstances he remained optimistic, subversively, curious… Reinvent the concept of design -> redefining it as an improvising medium rooted in instinct, engineering, resourcefulnesses and open to everyone
Design is an agent of change, … help to make sense of what’s happening and turn into our advantage – examples: AllStreams, Ocean Cleanup
Research task – week 1
- Reflect again on a range of studios, individual practitioners, businesses and brands that inspire you.
- Consider on your own positioning as a designer alongside these examples.
It’s not an easy task for me because I’m interested in different designs and media. I also haven’t really had the time to develop my own sense of what makes me a designer. That’s why it’s difficult for me to take a clear stance on this.
- I recently attended a Riso printing workshop and really enjoyed the atmosphere at https://www.instagram.com/herrundfraurio/ -> the owners are very personable and Riso printing is a printing technique not widely used in Munich/Germany. The technique is supposed to be more environmentally friendly. I like to learn more about graphic design techniques off screen/ non digital
- I don’t know if this should be on this list, but I really like the style of this tattoo artist https://www.instagram.com/howstarsdie/ -> feels more like art to me, less like the typical tattoos
- Letter type inspo: https://www.instagram.com/letterformarchive/
- Photography: https://www.instagram.com/raniamatar/ -> beautiful photos with a serious background
- Studio with a wide range of services – I especially like the typography designs https://hellome.studio/
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